Image: MBARI
Meet the Lyre Sponge, a large harp- (or lyre-) shaped carnivorous sponge in the deep waters of the northeast Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The vertical branches, capped with a balloon-like ball, maximize the surface area of the sponge for capturing planktons.
See that and 9 other neat new species discovered just last year over at LiveScience's Top 10 New Species of 2013 (don't miss the monkey with the blue butt!): Link | Image Gallery
Jason Marlin of ars technica was struck by a bolt of lightning. He was apparently okay enough to write about it right away.
Yesterday, I was sitting in my studio office—basically a converted garage—while a thunderstorm brewed outside. After wrapping up a conference call with some of Ars' finest, I was getting ready to dive back into work when the storm really picked up. "Ahhhh," I thought as I leaned back in my chair to stare out at the strange greenish light against a purple-clouded backdrop. "So beautiful!"
At that moment—and this part is a little foggy—a bright arc of electricity shot through the window and directly into my chest. I'm not sure whether the arc originated from the sky or the ground, but it knocked me out of my chair. I hit the concrete floor and bounced back up to my feet, which were shuffling at top speed into a bookshelf. I remember thinking, "OK, going to die now. Do not fall down. Do not pass out."
I've read that being struck by lightning is akin to a being hit by a huge defibrillator. I'm not sure about that—but it did feel magnitudes worse than the time I touched an electric fence as a kid.
The paramedics urged him to go to a hospital for tests, but he declined. Read the rest of his first-hand account and the aftermath. Link -via Digg
His hands are full, but this hero is ready for anything. Question: what happens if his Hulk legs get angry while his Tony Stark head wants to kick back and relax?
-via Fashionably Geek
(Photo: unknown)
When activated, this zoetrope at the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory in Melbourne, Australia shows ducks jumping in and out of the water. Note: for display purposes only; do not eat.
Father's Day is coming? Are you looking for the perfect gift for your golf loving Dad? Get him the BBQ Golf Tool Set from the NeatoShop. The tools in this fantastic 5 piece set feature golf club shaped handles. The set also comes with a golf club shaped carrying bag for keeping those tools neatly organized.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Kitchen Stuff.
Forget the Force! The world's coolest Star Wars creation uses LEGO bricks and lots of it. The LEGO X-Wing is built with over 5 million bricks. It's the largest LEGO model ever built:
The model of the classic Star Wars fighter being unveiled in Times Square has a wingspan of 44 feet and comes complete with R2-D2 and a full range of sound effects. It’s a super-duper-sized version ofStar Wars Lego starfighter set #9493 and was made with 5,335,200 Lego bricks. That, according to Lego, makes it the largest model ever built, eclipsing the Lego robot at the Mall of America by some 2 million bricks. This replica of the Rebel Alliance dogfighter is 42 times the size of the Lego version we’ve all built and a bit bigger than a real X-Wing. (Yes, yes, we know they’re not real. Just go with it.) The X-Wing Luke Skywalker and his fellow rebels flew was about 41 feet long, 2 feet shorter than this Lego masterpiece.
The X-Wing was built at the Lego Model Shop at the company’s facility in Kladno, Czech Republic. It took 32 “master builders” (Note: This is a real job, and we’re preparing our resumés.) 17,336 man-hours to construct the X-Wing.
Angela Watercutter of Wired has the story: Link
PS: CoolThings has an awesome gallery of the LEGO X-Wing: Link - Thanks Sunny!
A busy woman needs the tools of her work accessible. This was a challenge when fashions did not include many pockets. The chatelaine was a popular solution in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries:
Like a customized Swiss Army knife, a chatelaine provided its wearer with exactly the tools she needed closest at hand. For an avid seamstress, that might include a needle case, thimble, and tape measure, while for an active nurse it might mean a thermometer and safety pins. Inspired by the complex key rings carried by “la chatelaine,” the female head of a grand French estate, these beautiful little contraptions were as fashionable as they were practical. In fact, their design was sometimes so trendy that style trumped usefulness.
(Images: Genevieve Cummins)
This is what you get when a linguist's children reach middle school. Linguist James Harbeck gives us the phonetic analysis of the things teenagers say WAY too much, mainly to annoy parents, teachers, and even their best friends. A sample:
1. Breathy-voiced long low back unrounded vowel with advanced tongue root
This is usually spelled something like auuggghhh. It's the classic teenage sound of utter exasperation. The eyes are usually angled upwards, sometimes in contrast with a downward movement of the shoulders. "Breathy-voice" means that the vocal folds are wide apart, giving a very "chesty" sound. "Advanced tongue root" means that the back of the tongue is moved forward to make a larger resonating cavity behind it. "Low back" means the tongue doesn't rise anywhere in the mouth (compare this with "eee," which is high front). "Unrounded" means the lips aren't rounded.
If that makes no sense to you, it will when you hear him reproduce this and all the analyzed sounds in the accompanying video at The Week. Link -via Metafilter
This is the cover of Action Comics #1, the first comic book to feature Superman. Jalopnik author Jason Torchinsky asks a question I've never considered before: what kind of car is Superman lifting? Torchinsky and various Jalopnik commenters think that it's either a 1937 DeSoto, Plymouth or Ford. You can read their analyses at the link.
Caffeine isn't just in coffees, teas, and sodas anymore - it's in energy drinks, food, and even chewing gums. But what's the cumulative impact of all that stimulant?
Caffeine is, according to New Scientist, the planet's most popular "psychoactive drug." In the United States alone, more than 90% of adults are estimated to use it every day.
But now even the US - home of Coca-Cola, Starbucks and the 5-Hour Energy shot - is questioning the wisdom of adding it to everyday foodstuffs like waffles, sunflower seeds, trail mix and jelly beans.
In a statement, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) highlighted the "unfortunate example" of Wrigley chewing gum producing packs of eight sticks which each contained as much caffeine as half a cup of coffee. Subsequently, Wrigley said it would "pause" production of the product.
The agency is also looking at highly-caffeinated energy drinks, and said it was concerned about the "cumulative impact" of adding stimulants to products.
According to the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the number of people seeking emergency treatment after ingesting energy drinks doubled to more than 20,000 in 2011.
Jon Kelly of BBC News Magazine has the post that'll go perfect with that cup of coffee: Link
Image: Powered by Caffeine from the NeatoShop
Some quotes are attributed to the wrong person. Some get their words garbled a little. And others were just made up and we don't know where they really came from. However, many of these misquotes are versions that I've never heard. Does anyone really think it's "Bubble, Bubble, toil and trouble"? After all, the next line uses "bubble" as the rhyme. Who are all these people getting quotes so very wrong? John Green sets the record straight for mental_floss.
Photo: Nthach/Wikimedia
Remember the brouhaha over the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch public dissin' of fat women? Well, it seems that they don't like disabled people, either. A judge in Colorado is considering forcing Hollister, a clothing company owned by Abercrombie, to make their stores more accessible to the disabled:
Lawyer Amy Robertson, who represents the disabled in the lawsuit, compared the case with the fight against racial segregation in the 1960s.
She said that in one case, Julie Farrar, who is confined to a wheelchair, had trouble when she tried to go with her daughter through a side door of one the Colorado stores because there was no access to the front door. She and several other disabled patrons filed a lawsuit in 2009. [...]
The stores put signs on the sides of the doors, one for "Dudes" and the other for "Bettys," and argued that they were complying with federal regulations because the side doors were accessible to the able-bodied and disabled alike, Robertson said.
"In the Jim Crow era, you had a white entrance and a colored entrance off to the side. These stores put up signs for Dudes and Bettys and called it integrated," she said Wednesday.
Abercrombie's lawyers argue that changing the elevated entrance to the stores would cause "immense ... loss in sales and revenue" and "permanent damage to the Hollister brand."
Sunday afternoon, four American tourists in Iceland decided to picnic on an ice floe in the Fjallsárlón glacial lagoon. But that was not a great idea, as they discovered when the ice they were sitting on started floating away!
According to Páll Sigurður Vignisson, member of the Hornafjörður rescue team and employee at Jökulsárlón, the tourists, who were from the United States, had set up a table and chairs on an ice floe with the plan of eating dinner when a gust of wind suddenly pushed the ice away from land, leaving them stranded about 10 meters from the shore.
One of the tourists managed to jump to shore before the ice drifted too far and called 112 for help. "When we arrived it was quite comical to see them sitting on chairs and with a table on an iceberg ... Yes the dinner was over," Páll told Iceland Review, adding that he had not noticed what they had been eating as he was too busy getting life vests to them.
When you need a geeky T-shirt this summer, who you gonna call? How about T-shirt designer Donnie over at the NeatoShop? Check out his Behance page, then visit the NeatoShop for more: Link
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Are you a professional artist or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn a king's ransom for every shirt sold and get your website featured on the blog to boot!
Image: Shmuel Marco
Archaeologists are baffled with the discovery of a large, mysterious structure under the waters of the Sea of Galilee:
The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of "unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders," and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.
Rising nearly 32 feet (10 meters) high, it has a diameter of about 230 feet (70 meters). To put that in perspective, the outer stone circle of Stonehenge has a diameter just half that with its tallest stones not reaching that height. [...]
Researcher Yitzhak Paz, of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Ben-Gurion University, believes it could date back more than 4,000 years. "The more logical possibility is that it belongs to the third millennium B.C., because there are other megalithic phenomena [from that time] that are found close by," Paz told LiveScience in an interview, noting that those sites are associated with fortified settlements.
Owen Jarus of LiveScience has more: Link
This lovely fountain is called Fuente del Barco de Agua, which means "water boat fountain." You can see it at Playa de la Malvarrosa in Valencia, Spain, or you can see plenty of photos at My Modern Met. Link -via Laughing Squid
(Image credit: Flickr user Jesus Solana)
For two days, Korean pop sensation Psy was the toast of Cannes as he partied with stars, guzzled champagne, appeared on French media and even signed deals. Celebs like Naomie Harris even tweeted a photo of them posing together. Problem was, the real Psy wasn't anywhere near the event.
The New York Post, who dubbed the impostor Psych!, wrote:
The next day, Psych! was interviewed by France’s Radio Prestige (and even taught a clueless host how to do the “Gangnam” dance) and then headed to hot Torch Beach Club. “He was playing it up full scale,” said a spy. “He had three security guards with him at all times, in suits and earpieces. He was scamming free drinks and bottle service . . . three bottles of Cristal Rosé with lunch.” Psych! also had a French “manager” with him who negotiated an upcoming appearance at the starry Better World Awards in Monaco.
But an organizer finally e-mailed at 2 a.m. yesterday, “We’ve been duped. I had a conversation with his label . . . it [wasn’t] him, just a look-alike.” Real Psy tweeted from Singapore, “Seems like there’s another ME at cannes . . . say Hi to him.”
We hail you, chubby Asian guy with Psy sunglasses, whoever you are!
When you see the many jokes about graduation, remember they are just jokes. Finishing your education is clearly an accomplishment to be proud of, when you consider the many folks who do not get the opportunity. As his daughter graduates this year, Dr. Harley A. Rotbart thinks back to his own medical school graduation in 1979 and what it meant to his father.
He was the most brilliant fruit peddler in the history of fruit peddling, the smartest man I ever knew. Deprived of a high school education when the Nazis raided his town of Klodowa, he came to America years later as an apprehensive, thickly accented refugee from the unspeakable horrors of Europe. Despite many years in America, the emotional scars were still there. He had a sense of inferiority and was intimidated by those around him who had an education. He was always socially self-conscious, acutely afraid of standing out for his lack of accomplishments. Within his circle of family and friends, dad was proud of who he was and what he had overcome. We knew he was proud of us, too.
It was only after his graduation ceremony that Rotbart realized how proud his father was. When you read about it, you'll need to have a hanky ready. Link -via Metafilter
Matt Clarke has started a YouTube series called Convos With My 2 Year Old. In it, he recreates conversations with his daughter Coco. I'm sure the words were exactly the same, but common sense tells me that the original wasn't nearly as creepy as it seems when Matt plays the part. Look at that adorable little girl -who wouldn't want to play the princess for her? -via Viral Viral Videos
Psycho Donuts calls it "Psycho Psushi"--a complete meal served in a bento box with edible chopsticks. I don't care if it's served raw!
It's once again time for our collaboration with the wonderfully entertaining What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Can you guess? Or can you make up something totally wacky?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, see? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
See another picture of this item at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
These sculptures are amazing! Tom Eckert, a professor of art at Arizona State University, carved these incredibly realistic sculptures of everyday objects. At the link, you can view more photos of his work as well as watch an interview of him.
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
In 1960, ABC brought something new to the young medium of television: A full-length (30 minute) animated cartoon TV series. Sure, cartoons had been broadcast since TV's inception, but never an actual primetime cartoon series. The show was "made for adults," but the millions of kids who routinely tuned in didn't know or didn't care about that.
The Flintstones ran for six very successful years (1960-1966). The original pilot for the series was called The Flagstones. This name was changed because of the popular comic strip Hi and Lois, whose last name was Flagstone. Their creators threatened legal action if that surname was appropriated by ABC. (Daws Butler voiced both leads, Fred and Barney, in this original pilot.)
And obvious and openly admitted rip-off of The Honeymooners, the show's cast included four lead characters. Fred Flintstone (the earliest animated precursor to Homer Simpson) was the show's central character. Interestingly, although Seth MacFarlane, the brilliant creator of Family Guy, is often accused of "ripping off" Homer Simpson for his lead character Peter Griffin, Seth always denies this theory and says Fred Flintstone was his "favorite cartoon character as a kid" and was the actual inspiration for Peter.
Much like Jackie Gleason's legendary Honeymooners character Ralph Kramden, Fred was loud, overbearing, blustery, and obnoxious. But underneath, he was a good guy, just an average Stone Age "John Doe" trying to earn a living, get by, and have a few laughs on the side. Fred shared one other quality with Ralph: his unequivocal and undying love of this wife, Wilma.
Never skimp on quality marketing. You may think that you can just do it yourself, but as John McNamee explains, terrible things go wrong when you don't think through product nomenclature.
Doctor Who TARDIS Hooded Bathrobe (front and back shown)
Father's Day is right around the corner. This Father's Day get your Doctor Who crazy Dad the Doctor Who TARDIS Hooded Bathrobe from the NeatoShop. This beautiful soft cotton terrycloth bathrobe comes with a hood and cinch belt. The robe features amazing embroidered details.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Doctor Who items.
Mount Pavlof, a volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, is currently erupting. Astronauts on the International Space Station were in a great position to photograph it in action. Do you see that streak across the sky in the lower photograph? That's the cloud of volcanic ash.
Link -via Alexis C. Madrigal
Cracked goes where no one else has time for to find clues hidden in the backgrounds of movies that tell you what's going to happen or what twist will eventually be revealed. Since I now have the endings to three movies I have never seen, I won't give an excerpt here. But your mind will be blown by the tiny details in Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, The Avengers, Reservoir Dogs, and Fight Club. All contain spoilers, so you decide whether to jump into the wormhole. Link -via mental_floss
