Shane Martin, a scrap metal artist from the UK, made this awesome four-foot long snake sculpture. The delicate scrap metal hummingbirds in his gallery are also gorgeous.

Link | Gallery

Well, it’s Thursday, so it’s time to clean out the cobra pit. Come’on, punch the timeclock and get to work. I’m not paying you to stand around all day.

via Nerdcore

Last week, a venomous Egyptian cobra escaped from its cage at the Bronx Zoo … and wasted no time in opening its own Twitter account. He now tweets from @BronxZoosCobra (and in one day, got more followers than @BronxZoo):

While keepers at the Bronx Zoo’s reptile house searched on Monday afternoon for an Egyptian cobra that disappeared over the weekend, tens of thousands of people around the world had already found the snake. It was on Twitter, of course. [...]

In an exclusive (for now) e-mail interview, the cobra said its main goal on Twitter was a lot like anyone else’s: “I just want Justin Bieber to follow me,” it said. The snake also expressed a desire to experiment with a vegan lifestyle while on the loose. “This adventure is all about trying new things,” it explained. “And Zagat doesn’t have a single restaurant featuring ‘rodent cuisine.’ ”

While the cobra’s Twitter account answered, moment to moment, everyone’s questions about where it was hiding, it raised new ones about how a snake can manage to type. “Thanks to touch screen technology, it just takes a flick of the tail,” it said. And, on its iPhone, “There’s an asp for that.”

Alexis Mainland of The New York Times’ City Room Blog follows the story: Link

By taunting cobras from behind his visor, Young discovered their secret. The snake waits for a particularly jerky movement to trigger its attack and synchronise the movements of its heads in the same way. It shakes its head rapidly from side to side to achieve a wide spray of venom. And it even predicts the position of its target 200 milliseconds later and shoots its venom at where its eyes are going to be.

The finer details of how the cobra does this is explained at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link

deviantART user orscobrusco specializes in origami. He’s put pictures of impressive pieces in his gallery, such as this cobra. It was made from a single sheet of paper with no cuts or glue. Here’s his description run through Google Translator:

Original model of the undersigned, created in ’98.
This in particular is made of paper “elephant skin” patterned wet-folding, sheet starting about two meters long. The paper has been applied to the wounded colored with a dark wood stain and ink.

Link | Gallery

In their efforts to locate the snake, authorities stripped the owner’s flat bare, ripping out walls and floorboards and evacuating the building.

The 30cm (12in) monocled cobra was eventually caught on double-sided sticky tape laid by the fire brigade.

The 19-year-old owner now reportedly faces 100,000 euros (£88,000) in costs. [...] "Everything has had a happy end," a spokesman for the town of Muelheim in western Germany said. "Not for the snake but for us."

Link

Several days after purchasing a highly venomous cobra, a German teenager discovered that it was no longer in its terrarium.

What followed was one of the lengthiest and most expensive pet-hunts Germany has seen in recent years. The walls, floor and ceiling of O’s attic apartment were dismantled and the two units on the ground floor below were also carefully searched. Flour was strewn on the floor in the hopes of collecting tracks. Strong, double-sided tape was installed to perhaps trap the cobra baby. The fire department even brought in mini-cameras to search the tightest and most inaccessible corners.

After the fire department removed and examined all the furniture, a construction company was called in to demolish the apartment.  The house has now been sealed, and other renters in the building have been told they will need to live elsewhere for two months while the cobra (hopefully) starves.  The cost of these interventions is well above €40,000; German authorities will apparently send the bills to the young snake enthusiast.

Link.  Credit for photo of the redecorated apartment to ddp.

This touching song by Daniel Strange and Kevin Umbricht describes the private lives of G.I. Joe characters when they’re not busy fighting.  Featuring Cobra Commander dancing and starring Sgt. Slaughter as himself.

Via Topless Robot

Divided between the sexes, the act of snake charming with traditional flute is the role of the men, while the Vadi women care for the snakes and handle them when their husbands or brothers are not around.

‘The training begins at two, the children then are then taught the ancient ways of snake charming until they are ready to take up their roles in our community,’ said chief snake charmer Babanath Mithunath Madari, 60.

‘At twelve the children will know everything that they can know about snakes.

‘They are then ready to continue the traditions of the Vadi tribe which can be stretched back over one thousands years to India’s great Raja’s (kings).’

Link

Psst, parents: are you sick and tired of your whiny baby? Want to raise a tough kid that will take on real life and beat it so bad that it screams uncle? Here's the Neatorama guide on how to toughen up your child:

First of all, you've got to start right. Remember, whatever doesn't kill your offspring makes him or her tougher.

Melissa Williamson, 35, of Roanoke, Virginia, got the right idea - and from the looks of it, the noise is the last thing the baby has to fear: Link

Forget a cozy and cute playpen - be sure to awaken your baby's animal instinct by raising him in a cage. Better yet, an electrified one, like this piece titled Mama Tried by Jack Daws.

Next, surround your baby with weapons of all kinds. Like these stainless steel baby crib and stroller worthy of a lil' Klingon, created by Chinese artist Shi Jinsong - via Invizible Red.

Next, your kid needs street cred, and nothing spells bad ass like knuckle tattoos:

This one is done by Italian photography company LSD s.l.r (Previously on Neatorama), but you can get your own Baby Tattoos over at Amazon.

Daily ablutions is a necessity, even for tough kids. But don't coddle them with that no-tears shampoo. After decades of coddling young kids, even Johnson & Johnson got the message with their new shampoo: Nothing But Tears! (Previously on Neatorama)

[YouTube clip]

All parents with tough kids know that pets are a must. But dogs and cats are for sissy kids. Tough kids play with ... cobra!

And all that is for naught if you don't keep a meticulous record ... but who needs a cutesy memory book if you can have this one: Baby's First Tattoo: A Memory Book for Modern Parents by Jim Mullen, who described his book as such:

For years parents have been buying baby books to document all the precious moments in their new baby's life -- Baby's First Tooth, Baby's First Haircut, Baby's First Step. What have been ignored for too long are those "alternative" precious moments that really should be written down, celebrated, and remembered -- Baby's First Projectile Vomit, Baby's First Tantrum in a Crowded Grocery Store, Baby's 10,000th Dirty Diaper. Otherwise you might forget them and think of becoming parents once again.

How about you? Got any suggestions on how to raise a tough kid? Let's see 'em in the comments ... or my kid will go to your house and beat you up!