Classic Gamer T-shirt by Donnie

I have a soft spot for classic video games, so I love this new Classic Gamer T-shirt from Donnie, over at the NeatoShop. If you prefer 8-bit over the fancy shmancy graphics of today's video games, this T-shirt is for you!

Check out Donnie's Behance profile for more neat designs, then head on over to his NeatoShop page: Link - Your purchase helps support indie artists like him, as well as this blog.

More recently listed T-shirts:

Dog Hunt	Chibi Heroes	Coffee Addict	Triforce Art

View more Tees by Donnie | Funny T-shirts

After photographer Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze arrived in Hong Kong in 2009, he became fascinated by the character of the city's urban spaces, with gleaming, modern buildings standing side-by-side with traditional tong lau tenements. As he continued his exploration of the city, Romain realized that his fascination stemmed from the sense of awe that one feels when gazing up from the foot of skyscrapers. In his photography series and art book Vertical Horizon, Romain captured the architectural majesty of gigantic skyscrapers from below.

While the rest of us were busy talking about the potential of quantum networks, which would allow for perfectly secure communication based on the laws of quantum mechanics, the gub'ment has been running one for at least two years:

Today, Richard Hughes and pals at Los Alamos National Labs in New Mexico reveal an alternative quantum internet, which they say they’ve been running for two and half years. Their approach is to create a quantum network based around a hub and spoke-type network. All messages get routed from any point in the network to another via this central hub. [...]

Hughes and co say they’ve solved this with their unique approach which equips each node in the network with quantum transmitters–ie lasers–but not with photon detectors which are expensive and bulky. Only the hub is capable of receiving a quantum message (although all nodes can send and receiving conventional messages in the normal way).

Link - via digg

There are many things in life we can celebrate with a drink, but getting one's driver's license back after having it suspended for a DUI shouldn't be one of them. For an obvious reason:

While being processed on the DUI charge, James told the officer the reason she was drinking was to celebrate the fact that was would be getting her license back from a DUI arrest in 2012, according to police.

“Ms. James purposely drove a car that she did not own to avoid the ignition lock device and was driving back from a Forest Park bar where she was celebrating that fact that she would finally have her driving privileges back after her 2012 conviction for DUI,” Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel said in a statement. “Ms. James is exactly the type of motorist I want kept off the road permanently under a new proposed habitual DUI law that I will be proposing in the very near future.”

From NBC4: Link - via Holykaw

Image: Hello My Name is Drunk Flask

Merrydale Elementary School in Baton Rouge, Louisana, has a problem: its test scores were abysmal. That in and of itself isn't a unique problem - many schools have low tests scores - but Merrydale's solution on how to raise its test scores is.

See, most failing schools try to improve its teaching staff to raise test scores, but the enterprising Louisiana school decided to do something else: import smarter students!

The proposal to move 100 gifted and talented students this fall from Glen Oaks Park Elementary, a C-rated school, to nearby Merrydale Elementary, an F-rated school, generated some heat Thursday. [...]

The higher-scoring gifted students would likely increase the school performance score of Merrydale from 71.2 to an estimated 77.5 under the shift, high enough to avert a state takeover.

Charles Lussier of The Advocate has the scoop: Link

Funny Baby Pacifiers over the NeatoShop

Parents, here's a quick way to clean your baby's pacifier and help it become healthier in one fell swoop. Or, make that in one big lick:

The researchers found that the 65 babies whose mother or father sucked on their pacifiers to cleanse them were significantly less likely to get eczema and asthma, two conditions caused by allergic reactions, than babies whose parents did not use the cleaning technique. [...]

To investigate the role of pacifier cleaning, Bill Hesselmar of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and his colleagues analyzed data they had collected for a broader study about babies' allergies. Among the questions the parents had answered was what they did when their child's pacifier fell out of his or her mouth.

"We asked them how they cleaned the pacifier — if they rinsed them in water — and of course most of them did," Hesselmar says. But a lot of the parents did something else.

"They put it in their mouth, sucked on it and then gave it back to the children," Hesselmar says. "It's a quite common way to clean pacifier."

Rob Stein of NPR's Shots has the story: Link

Gross? It's better than eating boogers to boost your immune system!

Grey hair may soon be a thing of the past. Scientists have found the cause of greying hair and a clue on how it can be reversed:

Scientists found people who are going grey build up hydrogen peroxide in the hair follicle, which causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out.

However this could be reversed by "an antioxidant" cocktail that allows "re-pigmentation" of the hair.

The discovery of what makes hair grey, published in the FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) journal, was actually made whilst investigating the skin disease vitiligo. [...]

The team, which included experts from Bradford University's School of Life Sciences, blamed "massive epidermal oxidative stress" that leads to the build up of hydrogen peroxide.

Link

Asians, do you see yourself doing these photography poses? JinnyboyTV documented all Asian photography stereotypes that may be familiar to you in this clip: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Picture Correct

Wait, before you condemn the picture above, you should know that Mr. Balls is a mascot for the Associação de Assistência às Pessoas com Câncer, a Brazilian non-profit that helps people with cancer. They're raising awareness about testicular cancer.

Consider our awareness, ah, um, raised, Mr. Balls! *thumbs up*

Check out more pics of Mr. Balls over at AAPC's website: Link - via Gawker

If you think that Early Earth, without industrial pollutants from humankind whatsoever, smelled fresh and natural, you'd be in for a rude and stinky surprise.

Scientists have determined that billions of years ago, Earth smelled of rotten eggs (irony: no chicken then, either):

Their work has revealed spherical and rod-shaped bacteria dining on the cylindrical outer shells of another, larger bacterium known as Gunflintia. To digest those Gunflintia sheaths, the feeding bacteria would have had to use oxygen atoms taken from salts, or "sulfates," in seawater. In the process, the microbes formed gaseous carbon dioxide, which would have been released into the atmosphere.

Another byproduct of this biochemical process is hydrogen sulfide, which produces a stench commonly known as "the rotten egg smell," explained Martin Brasier, a paleobiologist at Oxford University in London.

"The whole world didn't smell of rotten eggs," said Brasier, "but if you had a sensitive nose, it would have been very widespread indeed."

Link

James Wallace and the Naked Light's song "To the River" is beautiful, but the reason it's here on Neatorama is because its music video is quite unusual: it's shot entirely through the reflection of an eyeball.

The video was shot and directed by Paul Greenhouse of Casaverde Pictures in a single take.

Watch: Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] - via PetaPixel

Photo: Zhang et al./Science

Some strains of the flu virus, like the H5N1 bird flu virus, are highly lethal but aren't easily transmitted from humans to humans, whereas others are very contagious but mild. What would happen if the two are mixed to create a new, hybrid virus that is both highly lethal and contagious?

Apparently, a team of Chinese scientists haven't seen the Hollywood movies about such dangerous experimentations and went ahead to create such a new virus:

They combined H5N1 avian influenza, which is highly lethal but doesn’t transmit easily between people, with the highly contagious H1N1 swine flu strain responsible for infecting tens of millions of people in 2009.

The new hybrid virus passed easily between guinea pigs, which are used to study how flu infects mammals. Molecular changes in the virus may provide clues of what to look for in circulating H5N1 strains, perhaps allowing scientists to anticipate when viruses will more easily infect humans.

“Mammalian-transmissible H5N1 viruses can be generated in nature,” said virologist Chen Hualan at China’s Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, who led the research team. “High attention should be paid during routine influenza surveillance to monitor such high risk H5N1 hybrid viruses in nature.”

What could possible go wrong? Brandon Keim of Wired has the story: Link

Can you hear me now? Princeton University researchers have used off-the-shelf 3D printing tools to create a functional ears that can "hear" radio frequencies that humans cannot normally hear:

The finished ear consists of a coiled antenna inside a cartilage structure. Two wires lead from the base of the ear and wind around a helical "cochlea" – the part of the ear that senses sound – which can connect to electrodes. Although McAlpine cautions that further work and extensive testing would need to be done before the technology could be used on a patient, he said the ear in principle could be used to restore or enhance human hearing. He said electrical signals produced by the ear could be connected to a patient's nerve endings, similar to a hearing aid. The current system receives radio waves, but he said the research team plans to incorporate other materials, such as pressure-sensitive electronic sensors, to enable the ear to register acoustic sounds.

Link - via The Verge

If you can't wake up in the morning, perhaps this is the alarm that will get you up and out of bed ... by threatening to hit you where it hurts if you snooze back asleep: in the pocketbook.

Behold, the Money Shredding Alarm Clock, made by Rich Olson of Nothing Labs. He combined Sparkfun Clockit kit with a USB Paper Shredder:

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Technabob

Los Angeles Times writer Hector Becerra picking strawberries. Photo: Al Seib

That clamshell of filled with sweet, ripe strawberries you just picked up at your local supermarket? That was picked by hand by migrant Mexican fieldworkers, who spent the daylight hours hunched over the strawberry fields in California.

It's hard work, but how hard exactly? Is it something that Americans can do? Los Angeles Times writer Hector Becerra found out by working a day in the strawberry fields: Link - Thanks Tiffany!