Astronomical Clocks – Literally and Metaphorically
Astronomical clocks – amazing works of engineering that are sometimes six hundred years old – can be found throughout the world. Europe, however, has the lion’s share. Here are some of the more remarkable examples of the form.
To say that this clock is astronomical is, perhaps, stating the obvious. Another word that might describe the Prague Orloj is exquisite. The first and perhaps most astonishing fact about this astronomical clock is that it was finished and in place in 1410, over eighty years before Columbus made his voyage of discovery to the Americas. The first thing that draws the eye is the dial at the center of the clock which shows the positions of the moon and the sun. What makes the Orloj a magnet for visitors to the Czech city is the clockwork show of the figures of the apostles, which on the hour parade themselves. There are other moving sculptures too – plus a dial which pitted with medallions which represent the months of the years.
From the Upcoming 
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Virtual Cow Butt
Veterinarians have no choice when they need to check a cow for pregnancy or infection. The standard procedure is to stick your arm up the cow’s rectum. The technique is difficult to teach to veterinary students because, well, it’s dark in there.
That’s why veterinarian and computer scientist Sarah Baillie has created the “Haptic Cow,” a virtual, touch-feedback device that mimics the feeling of real bovine anatomy, placed inside a fiberglass model of a cow’s rear end.
“With this technology, students can feel something that feels like the inside of a real cow, but I or another instructor can be following their movements on a monitor,” said Baillie, who teaches at the Royal Veterinary College in London. “This means we can say, ‘Come back a bit or go left a bit.’ It actually means you can direct them.”
Not only can professors follow a student’s exact movements and critique the technique, but they can also keep track of how much force is being applied. If a fledgling vet gets too rough and exceeds the number of Newtons considered safe by experienced vets, virtual Bessie will belt out a cautionary “Moo-oo!”
(image credit: Sarah Baillie/Royal Veterinary College)
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6 People Who Faked Their Own Death (For Ridiculous Reasons)
Faking your death is not simple or to be taken lightly. A few people thought it was the easy way out of a difficult situation, or just a cool stunt to pull off. Read about the woman who faked her death because she found it too hard to break up with her boyfriend, or the guy who wanted to see how many people would come to the funeral, or the one who disappeared for years because of a mistaken idea. Link -via Gorilla Mask
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Anthropomorphic Foods
Which is better, a fresh apricot or a dried apricot? The way they argue, nothing will be settled. This is just one example of a series of talking food ads to promote the Supercooks program from the British Food Standards Agency. See sausages, potatoes, nuts, and more discuss their virtues at Eat Me Daily. Link -via Everlasting Blort
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Explore the Victoria and Albert Museum Online
The V&A is, of course, one of the world’s premier museums of design and decorative arts. They have recently announced that over a million items from their collections are now accessible online.
People using Search the Collections… will find images of more than 100,000 objects… The online records vary from detailed studies written by curators to more basic inventory information which might include the maker, provenance, production technique and style… Users explore the site by clicking on images that scroll across the screen or by accessing the powerful search engine that identifies objects by type, maker, date, material or location in the V&A. Google maps show places of origin. Text mining technologies also allow searching of all the text associated with an object so for the first time researchers are able to move from one theme to another.
The example shown above is a board game from 1804 – “The New Game of Emulation Designed for The Amusement of Youth of both Sexes and calculated to inspire their Minds with an abhorrence of vice and a love of virtue.” It was marketed as a morality game designed to lead children “to admire and adopt the virtues of Obedience, Truth, Honesty, Gentleness, Industry, Frugality, Forgiveness, Carefulness, Mercy, and Humility; and to view in their real colours the opposite vices of Obstinacy, Falsehood, Robbery, Passion, Sloth, Intemperance, Malice, Neglect, Cruelty and Pride.” It is one of hundreds of games in the “games” category of the online collection.
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The Secret of Eating Chicken Wings
After all these years of eating chicken wings, it turns out that I’ve been doing it all wrong! Chef John of Food Wishes reveals the secret of eating a flat wing: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube clip]
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Martian Landscape
Photo: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Alan Taylor’s excellent photoblog The Big Picture over at Boston.com has a really nifty collection of images of the Martian landscape:
Since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been orbiting Mars, currently circling approximately 300 km (187 mi) above the Martian surface. On board the MRO is HiRISE, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera, which has been photographing the planet for several years now at resolutions as fine as mere inches per pixel. Collected here is a group of images from HiRISE over the past few years, in either false color or grayscale, showing intricate details of landscapes both familiar and alien, from the surface of our neighboring planet, Mars. I invite you to take your time looking through these, imagining the settings – very cold, dry and distant, yet real.
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Scheming Homeless, Parking Mafia, and Meter Fairy: Just Another Day in Miami's Parking Hell
One thing I like about living (and working) in the ‘burbs is that not having to fight for cheap parking or pay through the nose for expensive spots. Not so for people in Miami. Apparently, the scarcity of parking there has created much violence, a cottage industry involving the homeless, parking mafia and even a "magical meter fairy."
Gus Garcia-Roberts from the Miami New Times explains:
In 2004, Kendall native Xavier Cortes was a 37-year-old out-of-work actor in desperate need of a gig. Opportunity came in the classified pages of this newspaper, where an advertisement sought "an extroverted, fun individual, male or female, who knows how to ride rollerblades and isn’t afraid to wear a tutu."
Cortes immediately answered the ad. He was hired by the Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce. He donned a hot-pink wig and matching tutu, carried a wand, and began each shift with $40 in dimes. For his wage of ten dollars an hour, paid each day by a different Grove business, Cortes skated through the neighborhood putting coins in meters that were about to expire. He left a calling card tucked under windshield wipers. "You’ve just been saved by the Coconut Grove parking-meter fairy," it read, and included a coupon to the business that had donated the dimes.
Cortes’s new occupation was the counterattack strategy employed by Grove business owners who felt under siege by MPA enforcement officers scaring away customers. [...]
Cortes was catcalled by construction workers and berated by teenagers, but to the Grovites who understood his purpose, he was a hero worthy of tips, cigarettes, and free meals. Soon though, he says, a cold war developed between him and MPA officers. "They would try to intimidate me, telling me it was illegal to feed another person’s meter," he recalls. "They’d try to figure out my routes and shifts. I’d see them hiding behind walls spying on me. It got ugly, and it went all the way to the top of the MPA."
Link (Photo: C. Stiles)
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Paranormal Goat
How do you improve the runaway sleeper hit Paranormal Activity, which was made on a budget of $15,000 and has grossed nearly $90 million so far?
Add goats.
Yahoo’s Buzz Log has the clever mash-up of the movie’s ads with a few ungulates, which is a spoof trailer for The Men Who Stare At Goats: Link [embedded YouTube clip]
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The Golden Age of Video
[YouTube Video Clip]
- via reddit
If you only saw one YouTube clip today, make it this one. Here's The Golden Age of Video by Ricardo Autobahn, made from movie clips (which ones? David Glover got them all figured out). We Came, We Saw, We Kicked Its Ass. Indeed.
Lyrics, from YouTube submitter slipknotskate1:
1,2,1,2,3,4
We accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us!
Gooble gobble gooble gobble!
We accept her, we accept her!
We accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us!
Gooble gobble gooble gobble!
We accept her, we accept her!(We-we) we came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
I was testing you - and you passed,
Dental plan! Lisa needs braces,
Be required to fart on a regular basis,
I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse,
Channel 13 - Eyewitness news!
Robocop, who is he?
Dead or alive you're coming with me.In a hurry to be fed, beady eyes and big blue head.
I'm telling the truth Doc, you gotta believe me,
Why does everything I whip leave me?
My beautiful chocolate! Candy is dandy,
Fava beans and a nice Chianti,
You can count on Slippery Pete,
Suicide will be nice and neat!
I didn't build the Panama canal,
Open the pod bay doors please, HAL,These aren't the droids you're looking for,
These aren't the droids we're looking for,
I am not a number I am a free man!
Rosebud.
To The Idiotmobile!
Right away Michael,
I-I-I-I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
You don't understand I coulda had class,
Round and tasty on a bun,
Ooh Zippy look what you've done!
Finally! Cast off those lines!
No, I've been nervous lots of times,
Red Rum! What's the matter honey?
Just robbed Boss Hogg all of his money!We came, saw, we kicked it's ass,
Writing checks your body can't cash,
I was elected to lead, not read,
I feel the need - the need for speed,
Watch out for snakes, a good man's loafer,
HQ - my hat looks like a muffin - over,
My god it's full of stars,
There was no driver in the car..In the car (repeat)
Well you see I'm in hot pursuit!
There are only two things I love in this world - everybody and television!
#The Simpsons
#Run With Us!
Ugh - you must be shrooming,
Wait for me Moomin!
Cross live to meet the host of that show, Meat Boy,
I want to go to there.We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
An oil tycoon - like a.. moustache,
Nice beaver! I just had it stuffed,
I don't give a shit, close enough,
Where's me washboard? I'll get me coat,
Y-y-y-you're gonna need a bigger boat,
What'd she say? I think she bought it,
Suck it monkeys! I'm goin' corporate!
C'mon let's take a drive! A drive?
Number 5 is alive!
It's only a laugh, no harm done,
Pickles, french fries, yum yum yum,
Bueller, Bueller, Bueller,
It's 2 degrees cooler,
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long,
Six words in the whole song.We-we-we accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us!
Gooble gobble gooble gobble!
We accept her, we accept her!
You are number 6 5 4 3 2
I am not a number, I am a free manWe came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
Give me my 20,000 in cash,
We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
I think you woke up the dead with that blast
We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
I think fast, I talk fast,
We came, we saw, we kicked it's ass,
Lois, this is not my Batman glass.
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Invisible Lion Cages
It looks like a lioins has jumped up on the hood of an open vehicle! Look closely, though -it’s an illusion, as the front of the car and the passenger area are separated by a sheet of glass. Invisible lion cages are the mane attraction Werribee Open Range Zoo, in Melbourne, Australia. VERY strong glass is used in place of other enclosure types more familiar in zoos – the result is stunning shots of the lions and a unique visitor experience.
This incredible Lions on the Edge exhibit, which puts you just inches from a lion’s jaws, is one of the biggest attractions at the zoo.
Kings of the jungle Tombo and Tonyi are joined by two lionesses in the exhibit. Though it has been open since 2006, the male lions were added just last month – leading to some startling photo opportunities.
Link – via cakeheadlovesevil
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
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Masterpieces in Coffee
You’ve probably heard all about the art of drinking coffee, but Karen Eland took that to a higher level and made an art of painting with coffee. Have a look at some of the world’s greatest masterpieces, such as Mona Lisa, or the scene from the Sistine Chapel expressed in espresso! Eland also talks about her technique and how it came about.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
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Optical Illusion - Impossible Object With a Twist
[YouTube - Link]
If one looks closely at the construction of this figure, it quickly becomes apparent that something is just, well…wrong with it.
This initially-baffling video exhibits how the human visual system can subconsciously interpret and thoroughly "see" a three-dimensional object even though it is impossible for such an object to exist. Thankfully, the creator reveals how it was constructed.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
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Having Fun with "Google Suggest"
The “autofill” feature of the Google search box was designed as a timesaver, but the suggested searches can also be entertaining. Writing in Slate, Michael Agger compared the autofill of “less intelligent” and “more intelligent” queries, an exercise that has previously been conducted at Digg.
The image above is a screencap of two Google searches conducted tonight using less- and more sophisticated search terms.
A corollary question would be “What searches are most commonly conducted at Neatorama?” The Lijit search engine doesn’t have an autofill feature, but it does offer a list of the most popular recent searches at Neatorama, in descending order of frequency:
“world’s smallest,” mystery sale, halloween, what is it, disney, halloween costume, pumpkin, shop, stories, tattoo, cat, facebook, halloween costumes, pear, game, costume, movie trivia, photography, new species, zombie, bacon, lego, elena desserich, google, anvil cake, costumes, national day, notes left behind, origami, national geographic, videosift, wedding, what is it? game, 6 year old, albert einstein, brain, christmas, chum, hitler, logo, one take, pig, sex, animals, art, batman, brain shot, comic, einstein, shark.
Someone else may want to tackle the sociological implications of that list; I’m not going to touch it.
Link.
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New York City Spaghetti Packaging
Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. Alex Creamer, a student at the University of Central Lancashire, UK, came up with this brilliant idea of a New-York centric packaging for spaghetti:
"I created this spaghetti packaging for a university project last year. The brief was to package one of 5 difficult items i.e. eggs, a rose, custard powder, spaghetti or marbles. I chose spaghetti. The spaghetti sits on a 3d model of the chrysler building that was modelled on CAD by my friend Ben Thorpe. And then modelled out of high density foam at uni. Creating a spaghetti model of the Chrysler building!"
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Volunteers Work to Save Ash Trees
7.5 billion ash trees are endangered in the United States. (Photo credit Elizabeth Flores, Star Tribune)
The culprit is the well-known emerald ash borer, an invasive Asian beetle that first arrived in Michigan seven years ago. The infestation has spread to Ohio, Canada, and now Minnesota, threatening to do a log power more damage than the famous Dutch Elm Disease. Federal and state authorities have responded to the emerald ash borer by limiting transportation of timber and wood products, but have been unable to quarantine the disease.
Now volunteers in are spreading out across Minnesota and several other states, collecting seeds which may be needed to restore the white, green, and black ash species if the current epidemic destroys the currently standing trees. Some of the seeds will be stored in the National Plant Germplasm System, a depository maintained by the Agriculture Department and at the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation. Others will be retained by Native American tribal authorities.
A map showing states and Canadian provinces at risk, with links to sources of local assistance, is available at the Emerald Ash Borer website.
Further details on seed preservation are available in a story written by Bill McAuliffe for the Star Tribune.
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Hail to the Thieves: Famous Heists We Love
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A REAL LIFE "OCEAN'S ELEVEN": The 2003 ANTWERP DIAMOND HEIST
HOW THEY DID IT: Not ones to rush into something this big, the Turin boys began laying the groundwork for the project three years prior. Posing as a company owner, Notarbartolo rented an office in the Center in 2000 and proceeded to obtain copies of master keys and learn how the alarm system worked. Then, the group waited for the perfect distraction - the Diamond Games tennis tournament on February 15-16, 2003. As Venus Williams wowed throngs of spectators (many of them Diamond Center employees and security guards), Nortarbartolo's crew used their duplicate keys to sneak into 123 of the building's underground vaults. Simply riding the elevator down to the basement, they deactivated a motion sensor and taped over light detectors. Then, instead of just covering the lenses of the CCTV (closed circuit television) security cameras, they avoided suspicion by replacing the tapes with previously recorded footage. Of course, the biggest hurdle was getting past the vault's 12-inch thick doors. Knowing the doors were equipped with internal magnets that would set off alarms if they detached, the robbers drilled through the bolts, carefully taped the magnets together, and moved them out of the way so that they wouldn't separate. After that, all they had to do was break the locks to the safety deposit boxes, rake in the diamonds, and then quietly flee the scene. To escape undetected, they memorized the surveillance patterns of the 24-hour police patrols outside the building. (Hey, they didn't have nicknames like “The King of Thieves” and “The Magician with the Keys” for nothing.) Amazingly, even though the heist took place early Sunday morning, authorities didn't discover anything suspicious until Monday. HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: Here's a tip for would-be thieves: If you leave the crime scene with a bag full of diamonds and then dispose of the bags on the road leading out of the city, make sure you don't leave your half-eaten sandwich in one of them. Inspectors used DNA evidence found on the food to nab Notarbartolo, and further DNA traces in the vault to arrest two other gang members. In 2005, he was convicted, sentenced to 10 years in prison, and fined $1.3 million. Meanwhile, none of the diamonds have been recovered. Some have microscopic inscriptions on them that would reveal their identity, but only if the thieves ever decide to sell them legally. (Photo and a very interesting in-depth story by Joshua Davis at Wired Magazine) BRUTE STRENGTH AND NUMBERS: THE SECURITAS DEPOT ROBBERY
HOW THEY DID IT: Picture this: You're driving along a road in Stockbury, England, when the whirring sirens of an unmarked police car startle you from your evening commute. You roll down your window and chipper police officer tells you he needs to speak with you - in his vehicle. Oops, you've just been kidnapped. That's how Colin Dixon was unwittingly reeled into one of the biggest heists of the century. The crooks handcuffed Dixon - a manager at the Securitas cash collection and money transport company - and told him his family would be killed if he didn't comply. Meanwhile, fellow gang members abducted Dixon's wife and son, posing once again as police offices with a fake story about “an accident involving your husband”. The manager led the thieves to the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, where the criminals- wielding guns and cloaked in knit caps - accosted another 14 employees and made off with a giant trick full of loot. While the event was certainly traumatic for all the victims, fortunately, no one was injured. HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: Good old-fashioned police work. Apparently, it takes a lot of accomplices to stage multiple kidnappings. In total, investigators have arrested about 30 people in connection with the crime, including drivers, face police, a car dealer, a salesman, a roofer, and a hairdresser named Kim Shackleton. Guess where she's headed? BRAZIL'S BIG DIG: THE TUNNEL RATS BANK ROBBERY
HOW THE DID IT: For the 23 or so suspected gang members involved in this operation, the first step was posing as a company that was renting an office building- which just happened to be located near a bank. Cleverly enough, the crooks set up an artificial business as an artificial turf com - called Grama Sintetica, complete with artificial employees and fancy logo. For weeks, a group of men worked around the clock digging a tunnel leading two city blocks over to the Central Bank building Somehow, the process was so shrewdly executed that Grama Sintetica's neighbors failed to notice that a van was transporting several loads of dirt away from the building each day. And if their stealthy moves don‘t seem impressive enough, consider the tunnel itself: In it, the gang installed electric lighting, air conditioning, and wood-paneled walls (to make sure the tunnel didn't collapse). To pull off the heist, the gang managed to break through the bank's three-and-a-half-foot-wide vault floor, using (as police later discovered) a bolt cutter, a drill, an electric saw, and a blow torch. Over the course of the weekend, they eventually removed five containers full of bank notes, weighing nearly 7,700 lbs. Unbelievably, nobody discovered the theft until that Monday. All told, the heist required experts in electrical engineering, global positioning systems, excavation, and, of course, theft. The most brilliant idea, though? Picking a crowded, noisy area in Brazil for the heist, reasoning that no one would notice the sound of tools and digging in the daily commotion. HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: The thieves did a good job of covering their tracks (they used a white powder at the crime scene to hide fingerprints), but apparently, tunneling underneath nations is a little trickier. Attempts to transport the money out of the country using truck transports and chartered planes failed, and the assumed mastermind behind the theft, Luis Ribeiro, eventually turned up murdered. So far, the police have arrested a few dozen suspected members of the gang. NOT-SO-GOOD FELLAS: THE LUFTHANSA AIRPORT HEIST
HOW THEY DID IT: The wrong way - with brute force. Even
though it became source material for the 1990 film “GoodFellas HOW THEY GOT CAUGHT: Unlike the other heists, in which some gang members fled the country to hide, the Lufthansa Airlines gangsters stuck around. Not only that, but they made the mistake of displaying their newfound wealth a bit too obviously. The police had a pretty good idea who was behind the crime, and it wasn't long before snitches implicated Werner and a few others. Many of the participants were murdered before they could squeal, while still others became informants and joined the Witness Protection Program. Werner, who organized but didn't participate in the actual theft, was the only one convicted for a role in the heist. |
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The article above, written by John Brandon, appeared in the Jan - Feb 2007 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission. Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!
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If
you thought George Clooney's Ocean's Eleven character was smooth, check
out the velvet finish on criminal mastermind 
February
must be a good month for crime. In February 2006, three years after the
Antwerp diamond heist, a Securitas money depot in England was robbed by
a band of thieves who coordinated simultaneous kidnappings. They made
off with a jaw-dropping $92.5 Million (US) in cash - most of it unmarked.
Today, it's considered the largest cash robbery in British history. (Photo:
PA, via 
Sometimes
there's a light at the end of the tunnel, other times, there's $72 million
(US). Such was the case in August 2005, when a group of criminals in Fortaleza,
Brazil, used their 260-ft. long secret passageway to make off with some
serious loot. The trick: Spending three months excavating the thing and
tediously sneaking vanloads of dirt past the thousands of workers in the
busy urban area above. (Photo: AP, via 
In
1978, Lufthansa Airlines employee Louis Werner knew two important things:
First, that a Lufthansa airplane occasionally transported unmarked bills
from West Germany to New York's Kennedy Airport, where they were temporarily
held in nothing more than cardboard boxes locked inside a vault. Second,
that he owed about $20,000 in gambling debts to his bookie.
”
(plus several books and even a few copycat crimes), the Lufthansa Airport
Heist was a brutal affair. Using a few helpful tips from Werner, infamous
crime lord Jimmy Burke put together an operation that involved several
phases - breaking into the airport's cargo terminal, handcuffing employees,
and subduing guards. Once inside the vault, they found 72 boxes of cash
and jewelry totaling about $6 million (instead of the $2 million they'd
expected). As for the getaway, the gang used bloody force to make sure
no employees reported the crime until long after they'd left the airport.
The entire robbery took only 64 minutes, but it became one of the most
complex and lucrative heists in U.S. history.
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A Good Clean Fight
How about we celebrate Friday with a good old fashioned cat fight? Now I wanna see a good clean fight, no hitting below the tail, shake paws and good luck!
via AcidCow.
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Which Browser Would You Marry?
With the advent of competing browsers came some fierce loyalty to one brand or another. Some people would go as far to say they “love” their browser of choice. That got Grace Smith thinking. If you had to marry a web browser, which one would it be, and why? She put the question to her Twitter followers, and got many responses. Some examples:
I’d marry Firefox, but I’d like her to lose some weight and stop complaining when I accidentally call her Google Chrome.
I imagine I would start by dating Firefox, but come to realize she is high maintenance and run off with Safari.
It would have to be Opera, still barely touched and very innocent but with some great hidden features.
Netscape is my MILF!
I would marry FireFox, but every once in a while have a fling with Safari (For the looks) & Chrome (For the performance).
Can’t say which one i’d marry but I’d divorce IE6 in a second.
IE makes promises it doesn’t keep.Safari is unpredictable and incompatible. Firefox hogs the resources. I think I’d be single.
Firefox, though I have to admit, I’ve had several affairs with Safari. *shamefaced* But I’ll always come back to you, Firefox!
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Drench
You may have to lose once to figure out how the game Drench works, but then it’s a lot of fun! Select your next color to make your paint splotch bigger, and try to cover the entire floor in paint. You only have a certain number of moves for each level. Link -via Metafilter
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Vintage Japanese Stereoviews
Photo: T. Enami
Pink Tentacle has an awesome collection of gifs culled from Okinawa Soba’s Flickr set- called the mother lode of online photos by enigmatic photographer T. Enami (1859-1929). These particular photos were taken for a stereoscope (kinda like a View-Master) that made them look like 3-D. Coincidentally, the geishas in the photo above are enjoying some stereoviews.
A stereoview consists of a pair of nearly identical images that appear three-dimensional when viewed through a stereoscope, because each eye sees a slightly different image. This illusion of depth can also be recreated with animated GIFs like the ones here… Follow the links under each animation for the original stereoviews and background information.
These animated images are worth the click. Check them out! Link.
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Holocaust Hero Chiune Sugihara
Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Thousands of Jewish refugees came to the consulate seeking travel documents in order to escape the Nazis. Sugihara’s superiors in Tokyo ordered him not to issue any travel visas.
Sugihara discussed the plan with his wife Yukiko and decided to risk his career and his entire future by defying his superiors. The couple then spent 29 days issuing travel visas, up to 300 a day, as thousands of refugees stood in line at his office. Yukiko would prepare and register the visas while Chiune Sugihara would sign and stamp them, hour after hour, without breaking for meals. They would work late into the night until Yukiko would massage her husband’s weary hands in preparation for the next day. Sugihara was under orders to leave, which he could no longer delay. The family departed on September 1st, but he kept signing visas even as he boarded the train. Sugihara then tossed his official stamp out to the crowd, as he hadn’t time to stamp them all.
Sugihara’s actions enabled around 6,000 Jewish refugees to escape the Holocaust. For his efforts, Sugihara was imprisoned by the Soviets and fired from his job by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Read the entire story at mental_floss. Link
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Big Ben on Twitter
Big Ben, the London clock tower, has a Twitter account. Online, it says the same thing it has always said in real life. The account was opened as a statement on the banality of Twitter, but Big Ben now has over six thousand followers! Come to think of it, this IS handy if you want to know what time it is in London. Link -via Blame It On The Voices
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Motorcycle Club Colors and Patches
Arnie has a collection of around 350 patches and colors signifying motorcycle clubs from all over. Browse through and you might recognize your local club! Or just take a look at the many different designs. Link -via Gorilla Mask
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Glottal Opera
Thread tiny cameras through the singers’ noses and focus on the larynx. Then have them sing sweetly and see what it looks like deep inside. The singers are Juleiaah Boehm, Emma Deans, Alexi Kaye, and Sally Stevens. -via b3ta
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Vinyl Records Purse
Do you still have piles of vinyl records you store for no reason? Here’s a cool and stylish way to re-use them: a vinyl record purse. Such things always look fashionable, I guess. Tasket Basket posted quite a few pictures of how she made this one.
Link – via diygadgets
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Should we let some endangered species die?
Marine biologist and blogger WhySharksMatter presents the latest in his award-winning "ethical debate" series, showcasing a "hot topic" from the environmental movement, presenting both sides, and asking readers to argue it out in the comments. Since his readership includes scientists, politicians, and leaders from the environmental movement, these discussions are always interesting, and this one is sure to generate some strong opinions.
WhySharksMatter is claiming in this ethical debate that North Atlantic Right Whales, one of the most endangered animals on Earth, are going to go extinct whether or not we help them, and therefore we should stop wasting so much of the environmental movement’s limited resources on protecting them.
“For the sake of this debate, I will concede the following points (i.e. there is no need to debate them any further).
* Right whales are a unique and interesting animal. They, like us, are mammals.
* Without our protection, they will certainly go extinct
* It is undeniably, 100% our fault that they are so endangered in the first place”
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Bird Drops Bread, LHC Shuts Down
You can’t make stuff like this up. A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.
The LHC is scheduled to be reactivated later this month. The bread incident won’t affect those plans. Link -via Boing Boing
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We Learn Our Language in the Womb
No wonder learning a new language can be more difficult the older you get. We were learning our individual languages before we were even born! That’s what researchers revealed in a release today by Current Biology.
It seems that fetuses not only warm to the sound of mother’s voice as they gestate, they also are being programmed in the direct patterns inherent in certain languages. By the time we are born, our dialect is determined.
Wermke’s team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. That analysis revealed clear differences in the shape of the newborns’ cry melodies, based on their mother tongue.
Specifically, French newborns tend to cry with a rising melody contour, whereas German newborns seem to prefer a falling melody contour in their crying. Those patterns are consistent with characteristic differences between the two languages, Wermke said.
ScienceDaily has a brief story about this new knowledge: Link
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Bald Hedgehog
Remember the bald bear we featured on Neatorama yesterday? Well here’s another case of unusual baldness – this time it’s a bald … hedgehog?
A bald hedgehog abandoned by his mother in a garden in Norfolk is being treated at a wildlife rescue centre in a bid to encourage his spikes to grow.
Baldrick, named after the character from the television programme Blackadder, was brought to Foxy Lodge wildlife rescue centre, Great Yarmouth.
He is now being cared for by Tonia and John Garner in the hope he can be eventually released into the wild. Treatment includes antiseptic scrubs and baby oil massages.
I’d suggest a laser comb to stimulate those spike follicles, but what do I know?: Link
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