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1844, from berserk (n.) "Norse warrior," by 1835, an alternative
form of berserker (1822), a word which was introduced by Sir Walter Scott,
from O.N. berserkr (n.) "raging warrior of superhuman strength;"
probably from *ber- "bear" + serkr "shirt," thus lit.
"a warrior clothed in bearskin." Illustration: Adam R. Garcia
Designer Adam R. Garcia started this nifty project called Illustrated Etymology, where he invited artists to illustrate the history of words and their origins in graphical form.
Check it out: Link - via designworklife
In the play Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare, we see a stage direction that has caused mouths to drop open since the 17th century: “Exit, pursued by bear.” Those who wrote about it mostly assumed he meant an actor in a bear costume. But Tom Levenson found an intriguing footnote in the book Verdi’s Shakespeare, by Garry Wills that throws a different light on the subject.
It used to be thought that the “bear’ was a man in costume. But scholars have now focused on the fact that two polar bear cubs were brought back from the waters off Greenland in 1609, that they were turned over to Philip Henslowe’s bear collection (hard by the Globe theater), and that polar bears show up in three productions of the 1610-1611 theatrical season….Polar bears become fierce at pubescence and were relegated to bear baiting, but the cubs were apparently still trainable in their young state.”
Read more in the post In Praise of Footnotes. You might even start reading the fine print in your books! Link -via Improbable Research
(Image credit: Flickr user Rainer Hungershausen)
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Pink Bear Plush Earmuffs – $7.95
Are you having trouble expressing your inner cuteness while bundled up in bulky winter clothes? You need the super adorable Pink Bear Plush Earmuffs from the NeatoShop. Warning: The Pink Bear Plush Earmuffs may cause you to experience cute overload.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Winterwear!
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An abandoned way to frighten a frightening animal
by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff
These drawings tell the purpose and the workings of a machine called a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal such as a bear,” invented by Adam Warwick Bell of San Francisco and Anthony Victor Saunders of London. Mr. Bell is a patent attorney and a biochemist. Mr. Saunders is a mountain climber who walked atop Mount Everest (which, let us be clear, does not have bears at its summit) and other mountains, and often returned in reasonably good health.
The drawings are part of Bell and Saunders’s U.S. patent application (#10/634719), which they filed on August 5, 2003, and which, on June 7, 2005, the Patent Office declared to be “abandoned.”
The application includes this summary:
A device carried by the human hiker that comprises a pop-up (preferably inflatable) figure that is large and may be rapidly deployed by the user. The figure is meant to scare away an attacking or aggressive animal such as a bear. The activation of the pop-up figure may be accompanied by noises and/or smells and/or projectiles and/or smoke.The inventors say that their methods “may be applied to many different kinds of animal such as elk, moose, mountain lions, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhino, elephant, boar and other animals that are known to be dangerous to man.”
“The Invention,” they explain, “works on the principle of maximizing the apparent size and ferocity of the human, intimidating the bear (or other animal) and making it retreat from an encounter it fears losing.”
Bell and Saunders see quickness as being important:
The device increases rapidly in size, thereby scaring the animal and deterring the attack upon the user…. Inflation should be very rapid… the figure should be fully inflated within less than 1 minute, or within less than 30 seconds or preferably within less than 10 seconds or most preferably within less than 5 seconds.
Brian and Cece McCarthy of Pleasanton, California, were vacationing with their son Dylan at Lake Tahoe when thier car was stolen. They woke to suspicious sounds in the night, and saw from the window of their cabin that there was a bear in their car!
After the black bear climbed completely inside the car it apparently couldn’t get out. In its struggle, the bear hit the gear shift and the car rolled away for a wild, albeit short, ride down the McCarthy’s driveway, over several boulders, only stopping when it slammed into a neighbor’s front porch.
“All of the sudden we look out the window again and the car is gone, the bear is down the driveway – we have this steep driveway coming out of our cabin – he’s down the driveway across the street,” said Cece McCarthy.
The car was ripped open on impact, and the bear escaped. The Prius was a total loss, and a sheriff’s deputy wrote the incident down as “a bear burglary.” Link -via Arbroath
Jill
Greenberg, the photographer who became famous (or more famous) by taking
photos of crying kids, has turned her attention to something a bit
more meaty. Like bears, for instance.
This one to the left is a winking grizzly bear named "Koda," which she photographed in Frazier Park, Kern, California.
Check out the entire series here: Link (Photo: Jill Greenberg)
In 1880, German seamstress Margarete Steiff began making stuffed animals for children. The first stuffed bear she made is called model 55 PB, and may be the earliest teddy bear in existence. Her nephew Richard Steiff registered the design in 1903. A New York toy vendor ordered 3,000 of the bears, and the Steiffs built a factory to fulfill the order, but the bears disappeared! Toy bear expert Leyla Maniera explains:
“The order was definitely made,” says Maniera, “We have samples of the boxes so we know they were boxed up and shipped.
“The archives have copies of orders right from the beginning. We do know the orders were made, they were packed and shipped, but sadly to this day we don’t know what happened to the 3,000 bears.”
So how about that theory about the bears being lost at sea? Gunther Pfieffer, author of four books about Steiff bears, does not believe it.
“The mystery first appeared in 1953 with the 50th anniversary of the teddy bear. A clever employee of the marketing department was writing a little festival book and that’s the first time this story came up.
“So I guess it was just a good marketing idea, nothing else.”
But if they were shipped, why have none ever appeared in attics or auction houses?
Read the whole story at BBC News, then look in your attic to see if you might have a 55 PB. They are worth a ton of money! Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: The Steiff Museum)
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This photograph was taken by Rick Sheremeta, who tells us about the shot.
On a recent photo trip to Alaska’s McNeil River, I spent four days observing and photographing Brown Bears. The bears routine became pretty obvious – they’d fish for a while until their bellies were full, then they’d wander off into the grass for a little nap. This ole gal never quite got that far – after snaring this salmon, she wandered into a shallow pool at the side of the river, cradled the fish under her arm, and promptly nodded off. It was really comical to see her just sitting there sound asleep.
It’s an entry in the 2011 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest, which is still open for entries, but only through July 11th! Find out all about the contest at National Geographic Traveler. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
The NeatoShop’s Inflatable Bear Head we saw a couple of days ago may have more than one use. Sure, it’s a nice decoration, but also…
When a big bear approaches, some people choose to quietly stroll away. To give them an extra measure of safety, Anthony Victor Saunders and Adam Warwick Bell invented what they call a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal”.
Saunders, a London-based mountain climber, and Bell, a California patent attorney, applied for a patent in 2002, but later abandoned it. They would equip hikers with, essentially, an inflatable doll “meant to scare away an attacking or aggressive animal such as a bear”. The frightful balloon could also be used against “elk, moose, mountain lions, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhino, elephant, boar”. They explain that it “works on the principle of maximising the apparent size and ferocity of the human, intimidating the bear”.
However, for obvious reasons the device must be inflated very fast -the faster, the better. The NeatoShop bear head might not be adequate for such a purpose. Read more about Saunder’s and Bell’s device at The Guardian. Link -via Improbable Research
Comments Off Inflatable Bear Head – $24.95
Are you looking for the perfect home accessory to go with your favorite Bear Hat? Well, look no further! You need the Inflatable Bear Head from the NeatoShop. Nothing proves you are not outdoorsy like an Inflatable Bear Head.
Other Inflatable Animal Heads also available.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous things for your Home & Garden!
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Here’s a tale of an eBay sale that grew and grew. British diver D.H. Morgan posted a wetsuit for sale. In his colorful description, he emphasized that the suit had never been peed in -and posted a picture of a bear at a urinal to somehow drive that point home. The bear picture made the auction go viral, so he changed it to a charity auction (language warning).
This listing for my urine-free wetsuit is getting a lot of unexpected attention which is nice but I’m feeling I should do something positive with all the ‘f*cking energy man’, so I’ve decided to give 90% of the money it makes to the Red Cross to aid their efforts in Japan. That sounds all ‘oh look at me I’m so nice I’m giving to charity’ doesn’t it… yeah well p*ss off.
But what! There’s more!
Just got off the phone to XCEL wetsuits in Hawaii, who are very kindly donating a BRAND NEW 2011 Drylock wetsuit to the auction, it will remain a 3/2 (summer) but will be available in a range of sizes to suit the winning bidder. So now, in addition to the original p*ss free suit, you’ll also get a brand spanker, but still no bears or doors, just TWO wetsuits free of urine, one old and knackered (m) and one lovely and new (any size).
After that, the auction snowballed. Different companies have added a lot more merchandise, like a watch, boots, surfboard, books, and concert tickets. Morgan created a separate website called bears don’t wear wetsuits to handle questions and correspondence about the auction. As of this writing, the bidding stands at £9,300.00, which is $15K US. Link -via Metafilter
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Bear Hat – $16.95
Nothing screams I’m not outdoorsy like the Bear Hat from the NeatoShop. It’s perfect for whatever electronic adventure you plan to take. Hey, we know how tough it is finding products that are as macho as you are.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop’s crazy collection of hats.
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Isn’t he sweet? You may have seen this picture around the web the last few days. No, It’s not a tiny polar bear -it’s plush! And you can make one yourself, with a pattern from Etsy seller Tatiana Scalozub. Link -via Arbroath
A playful bear cub roughhouses with a very patient cat. But even the most imperturbable feline has his limits.
Click play or go to Link [YouTube] -via The Daily What.
Police in Larkspur, Colorado investigated a complaint of a car with the horn blaring for 45 minutes in the middle of the night. They found the car, with a bear inside it. What’s more, the bear had taken the car where the police found it! Ben Story had parked his car the night before and did not lock it. What’s more, there was a sandwich inside, which bears find hard to resist.
Ben’s father, Ralph, said the bear hit the shifter and the car rolled backward about 125 feet, off the driveway, down an embankment and into some trees on Eagle Road near Tenderfoot Drive.
“So this bear opened the door on his own. Somehow the door closed behind him. He panicked and started thrashing around, hit the shifter and put the car, took it out of park,” Ralph said. “It rolled back, down over the hill, and down into here, and stopped. The four way flashers were on. It’s like he knew what was going on, and kept hitting the horn.”
Police declined to open the car door, and finally freed the bear by tying a rope to the door handle so they could open it from further away. The bear wandered off, leaving the vehicle’s interior shredded. Link
It was a scene reminiscent of Winnie the Pooh and the honey pot. A young bear was spotted in Reading, Vermont wandering about with his head stuck in an old-fashioned milk can.
State biologist Forrest Hammond, along with some help from firefighters and police, spent about 45 minutes Sunday afternoon getting the old fashioned milk jug off the 120-pound bear’s head, according to Vermont Fish and Wildlife spokesman John Hall.
The bear was found meandering through the woods along Route 106 in Reading, bumping into boulders and trees with the milk jug stuck on its head.
Hammond had to tranquilize the bear and first tried to soap up his head and pull the milk jug off, but that didn’t work and he eventually had to use metal shears to get it loose. “He just did an excellent job of getting out there,” Hall said. “It’s important, too, that nobody got hurt,” he said, adding that the bear was released into the wild.
Officials think the can had been used as a bird feeder because there was birdseed in the bottom, which may have attracted the young bear. Link -via Arbroath
Hello Neatoramanauts!
Just wanted to let you all know that we’ve recently moved our servers. If you had trouble accessing the blog over the weekend, that was the cause (I’ve noticed that some DNS servers around the world are still pointing to our old servers, so hopefully this will resolve itself soon.)
Things should be working – but if you notice a bug, please let me know!
We’ve also been busy cookin’ up more neat stuff your you, so in the meantime, please enjoy this new T-shirt design by Nathan Mazur of Scared of Bees (he’s the super-awesome artist who designed the Neatokraken in the Neatorama Shop and the Neatoturtle below)
Polar Bears Are Soluble in Water – $14.95
Don’t forget to check out more fun Science T-Shirts over at the Neatorama Shop!
This video shows a wild bear with three legs. Presumably it was born without a front leg or lost it later in life. The bear gets up on his hind legs and walks like a human. Is it real or fake?
via Urlesque
Authorities responded to reports of a bear seen near the village of Chorzow in Poland. A ranger shot the animal with a tranquilizer gun, but it either didn’t work or the bear was immune.
Unfortunately for the rangers tasked with capturing the animal, it woke up from its apparent slumber as they came near and gave chase to the man who had shot it.
Thanks to the efforts of both men, the bear was eventually brought under control. Reports said authorities plan to take it to a local zoo.
Did a bear tear your airplane to bits in a remote part of Alaska? No problem – we can fix that with a little duct tape. Army Paratrooper forum user Iz_NorthPole explains:
During a private "fly-in" fishing excursion in the Alaskan wilderness, the chartered pilot and fishermen left a cooler and bait in the plane. And a bear smelled it. This is what he did to the plane.
The pilot used his radio and had another pilot bring him 2 new tires, 3 cases of duct tape, and a supply of sheet plastic. He patched the plane together, and FLEW IT HOME!
Charles Hedgecoth Sr. and Diane Smith of Locust Grove, Georgia run a charity called Noah’s Ark. Nine years ago, they took in a baby lion, tiger and bear, and the three are inseparable now. Smith says, “They love each other.” Video at the HuffPo, more photos at The Chive.
Update 1/14/09 – by Alex: Story at Telegraph, stolen images at The Chive is delinked.
Goldilocks
and the Three Bears: The True Story - $14.95
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Howdy everyone! We've just added Mike Jacobsen's excellent T-shirts to the Neatorama Shop's Christmas Special. Every purchase will get you a free Mystery Bonus, and it's not too late to order for Christmas (it's almost time - you've got till Dec 17, 2009 to order with regular shipping for the United States): Link
I was actually going to post an informative piece about how bears hibernate during the winter, but a quick Wiki reveals that bears aren’t true hibernators.
In true hibernators, body temperatures drop to near ambient and heart rate slows drastically, but the animals periodically rouse themselves to urinate or defecate and to eat from stored food. The body temperature of bears, on the other hand, drops only a few degrees from normal and heart rate slows only slightly. They normally do not wake during this “hibernation”, and therefore do not eat, drink, urinate or defecate the entire period. Higher body heat and being easily roused may be adaptations, because females give birth to their cubs during this winter sleep.
Of all mammals, North American bears continue to fascinate my adult mind, as much of what I remember being taught about them as a child isn’t nearly what they’re capable of.
This immediately reminds me of the Animal Planet piece this year chronicling Charlie Vandergaw’s story of feeding black and grizzly bears on his property (Stranger Among Bears). This show was made possible mostly due to the work of photographer/filmmaker Richard Terry. Check out this audio commentary by Richard while browsing amazing photos of his time with the beautiful animals, and realize he had already seen Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man.
Always let them know where you are, what you are doing.
Photo: Juliet Mills
Wiki (Top photo: Ursus americanus, Wikimedia)
An unnamed Alaskan bush pilot went on a fishing trip and neglected to wash down his plane afterward. The 1958 Piper Cub was just too much temptation for a bear to bear.
The fishy aroma attracted a passing grizzly bear who, clearly frustrated at not being able to see the lovely “noms” it could smell, took the plane apart in an effort to find it. Aircraft fabric is no match for bear claws. The bear also chomped both tyres for good measure, then departed the scene.
Alaskans are a hardy bunch, however – as tough as the aircraft they fly. The pilot radioed for two new tyres, three cases of duct tape and a couple of rolls of cellophane to be flown in so he could repair his craft and get home.
Duct tape: is there anything it can’t do? The story includes a picture of the plane after repair. Link -via Fark
Brainier Than The Average Bear – $11.95
Psst! Got a smart friend? Is he brainier than the average ursine? If so, here’s the perfect T-shirt: Brainier Than the Average Bear, only from the Neatorama Shop: Link
Vets are baffled at this strange sight: Dolores, a spectacled bear at the Leipzig Zoo in Germany has gone bald!
It could be due to a genetic defect but the animals don’t seem to be suffering any other afflictions.
The normally fluffy dark brown bears should be now growing a thick fur coat to keep them warm during the winter.
One thing the lack of hair shows up in their huge, lethal claws.
But instead the bears, which once originated from South America, have begun developing nasty rashes and inflammations on their skin where their glossy coats should be.
Link (Photo: EPA)
Photo: Bettyboop4 [Flickr]
National Geographic Traveler’s Intelligent Travel (and now Neatorama) blogger Marilyn Terrell just came back from a trip to the Yukon Territory in Canada. Naturally, she’s got lots of stories about her adventure, the fascinating ecology of the Yukon and so on and so forth.
But since I’m stuck here in the ‘burbs, my jealous brain wouldn’t allow me to properly process all her stories save this tiny but golden nugget of trivia that will forever be with me till the day I die: Bear poop can be pink.
This bear knows how to “Get Down On It.” I hope he at least finally gets that scratch taken care of for all the embarrassment he’s sure to get out of it.
Am I the only one that sees this being used in some kind of commercial soon?
Claude is a 6-year-old orphan Asiatic black bear, a resident of the Asa Zoo in Hiroshima. His ability to twirl sticks like a ninja is jaw-dropping – so good that it looks fake, but there are other videos at Japanator (with a baseball bat) and here.
– via video
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Minnesotastan.
(Links open in a new browser window/tab)
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Black Hole Destroying a Star Watch this amazing simulation: Link |
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Serenity Bar Fight Rehearsal |
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Peeing While Walking A comment on VideoSift by Pprt: "When urine a rush ..." Link (SFW, don't worry - you can't see nothin') |
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Star, the Smart Dog Here's a 5 min-long clip of the smartest puppy on the planet: Link |
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Ice Skating Polar Bear |
For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift.
