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Barry Watson has been many things: teacher, bus driver, financial advisor ... but in a small village in India, he's royalty.

Here's what happened:

Among the Yanadi tribe of Andhra Pradesh, he is known as “King Bazza” and held in such awe that his “subjects” have been known to walk ten paces behind him, and children have feared to approach him.

However, at home in Chepstow, he is an ordinary father-of-four whose children constantly “take the mick”.

Mr Watson was given the title after helping villagers, who once lived on a rubbish tip and had a life expectancy of around 40, to make a new home for themselves – which has been named Barrypuram in his honour.

But he was regarded as special from the moment he arrived by the tribe – who are at the bottom of the caste system and are descended from ratcatchers to the local kings.
“They said there was an ancient prophecy one day a white man would come and build them a village,” he said.

John-Paul Ford Rojas of The Telegraph has the fascinating story: Link

What do you lay awake at night worrying about? Are your worries different than those far smarter than you? Perhaps.

John Brockman of Edge magazine asked what the world's most intelligent brainiacs - including Physics Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, technologist Tim O'Reilly, musician Brian Eno, The Black Swan author Nassim Nicholas Taleb - about their professional worries and got a lot of responses.

One hundred and fifty distinct worries, in fact. Thankfully, VICE's Motherboard blog has summarized it for us:

1. The proliferation of Chinese eugenics. – Geoffrey Miller, evolutionary psychologist.

2. Black swan events, and the fact that we continue to rely on models that have been proven fraudulent. – Nassem Nicholas Taleb

3. That we will be unable to defeat viruses by learning to push them beyond the error catastrophe threshold. – William McEwan, molecular biology researcher

4. That pseudoscience will gain ground. – Helena Cronin, author, philospher

5. That the age of accelerating technology will overwhelm us with opportunities to be worried. – Dan Sperber, social and cognitive scientist

6. Genuine apocalyptic events. The growing number of low-probability events that could lead to the total devastation of human society. – Martin Rees, former president of the Royal Society

7. The decline in science coverage in newspapers. – Barbara Strauch, New York Times science editor

8. Exploding stars, the eventual collapse of the Sun, and the problems with the human id that prevent us from dealing with them. -- John Tooby, founder of the field of evolutionary psychology

9. That the internet is ruining writing. – David Gelernter, Yale computer scientist

10. That smart people--like those who contribute to Edge--won’t do politics. –Brian Eno, musician

11. That there will be another supernova-like financial disaster. –Seth Lloyd, professor of Quantum Mechanical Engineering at MIT

12. That search engines will become arbiters of truth. --W. Daniel Hillis, physicist

13. The dearth of desirable mates is something we should worry about, for "it lies behind much human treachery and brutality.” –David M. Buss, professor of psychology at U of T

14. “I’m worried that our technology is helping to bring the long, postwar consensus against fascism to an end.” –David Bodanis, writer, futurist

15. That we will continue to uphold taboos on bad words. –Benhamin Bergen, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science, UCS

Humanity, start worrying! Or, you can just accept it all, like Terry Gilliam of Monty Python, who said:

I've given up asking questions. l merely float on a tsunami of acceptance of anything life throws at me... and marvel stupidly.

Read the original post over at Edge: Link | Summary at Motherboard blog

Bismuth (Image: fluor_doublet/R. Tanaka/Flickr)

We all know the periodic table of the elements from high school chemistry, but have you ever wondered what the actual chemical elements look like? Japanese chemist and photographer R. Tanaka is on a mission to photograph the world's most photogenic elements and we dare say he succeeded with flying colors.

Check out his website and Flickr page to see more wonderful images of the elements.

Osmium

Palladium

Monoclinic sulfur

Oxidized arsenic

Gold crystal

With a tagline of "Jest for a Wordy Cause," how could we resist the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championship, especially when Jerzy Gwiazdowski won it with this two-minute performance featuring the the U.S. states.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Laughing Squid

Christine Ngai of University of Nevada, Reno, held a gigantic goldfish found in the waters of Lake Tahoe. Photo: Heather Segale

Beneath the blue waters of Lake Tahoe, California, lurks a new kind of sea monster: gigantic goldfish! While looking for invasive fish species, researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, discovered a goldfish that is nearly 1.5 feet long and weighs 4.2 lb.

Tanya Lewis of LiveScience has more: Link

At first glance, you see a beautiful landscape in the style of a traditional Chinese painting, but look closer. You'll see that artist Yao Lu used bits and pieces of trash heaps and landfills covered with green nettings to simulate verdant mountains.

There's probably an environmental message there somewhere, but first, let's marvel at Yao Lu's landfill landscapes art, on display at the Bruce Silverstein gallery:

We've seen plenty of yarn bombing here on Neatorama, but this one takes the cake. Or shall we say, bus. Magda Sayeg, who created the Smart Car cozy we featured on Neatorama a few years ago, decided to up her game by knitting a cozy for an entire bus! Link

When artist Jimmy Kuehnle decided to invent an invisible bicycle, man, does he go (almost) all the way. Notice the invisible clothing and invisible helmet. Just be thankful he didn't invent invisible underpants!

Yes, the cycle is completely transparent, except for the chain and bearings. Constructed of Lexan or "bullet proof glass," the bike exists in a dual reality as sculpture and transportation. Once again the outfit compliments the bicycle sculpture this time as a clear vinyl suit. Citizens of Austin and San Antonio saw all or nothing since the bike and the suit were "invisible."

After 20 years of drilling (20 years! Now that's dedication!), a team of Russian researchers have reached Antarctica's Lake Vostok, which has been trapped beneath more than 2 miles of ice for the last 14 million years. And they've found something:

A preliminary examination of water samples from the ancient subglacial Lake Vostok near the South Pole indicated that its inhabitants are not to be found anywhere else on Earth, a member of the research team told RIA Novosti.

The species of bacteria, whose traces were found in probes of water from Lake Vostok, do not belong to any of the 40-plus known subkingdoms of bacteria, said Sergei Bulat, a researcher at the Laboratory of Eukaryote Genetics at the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute.

“After excluding all known contaminants…we discovered bacterial DNA that does not match any known species listed in global databanks. We call it unidentified and 'unclassified' life,” Bulat said.

Link

In Chris Nolan's movie Memento, the protagonist Leonard suffered from memory loss and had to tattoo reminders on himself. Thankfully, when redditor JoDiegoJo suffered from amnesia, she didn't have to resort to tattooing herself. Instead, her friend wrote her this nifty note: Link - via Boing Boing

How do you catch a rabbit in the wild? Australia shows you the way! Outdoors adventurer Andrew Ucles gives us the step by step: First, take off your shirt. Then, catch yourself a few venomous snakes ...

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via 22 words

Via Accordion Guy

A hot tub, home gym, pool, roller skating area, arcade, race track, McDonald's and hot girls' room. What not to like about this dream home as drawn by a fifth grader?

The giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) doesn't just eat its prey ... it sucks it whole down its mouth in amazing speed:

A new study shows the animal, which can reach 50 kilograms and 1.6 meters, has an outsized talent: It's a supersucker. Researchers found that the mammoth creature, which lives in rivers in China, can vacuum up a whole fish in 0.05 seconds, engulfing the tidbit and more than a liter of water in its gaping maw ... So powerful is its suck that prey enters its mouth at accelerations comparable to those of rocket-powered cars.

Science magazine has the video clip: Link

Photographer Mark Brodie spent 10 years traveling 50,000 miles in 46 states by hopping on more than 170 freight trains ... and lived to tell the tale. His photo series, A Period of Juvenile Prosperity, is on display at the Yossi Milo gallery:

Brodie began traveling the railways in 2002 at the age of 17. Unannounced, he left his house with only a few personal belongings. Brodie returned home days later, infatuated with train-hopping culture. “Two weeks later I was gone...this was it, I was riding my very first freight train. And soon, what would begin as mere natural curiosity and self-discovery would evolve into a casting call of sorts.”

Brodie began to photograph his travels in 2004 when he acquired an old Polaroid camera. “A friend gave me a Polaroid camera I found on the back seat of her car. I took a photo of the handlebars of my BMX bike and it looked incredible, so I kept taking pictures, it was that simple.” From 2004-2006, Brodie shot exclusively on Polaroid film, earning him the moniker the Polaroid Kidd; a name he would tag on box cars and walls. From 2006 - 2009, Brodie switched to 35mm film. During this five-year span, Brodie rode over 50,000 miles through 46 states documenting the people and places he encountered along the way. “I know almost everyone I shoot,” Brodie states, “three of the women in the book are ex-girlfriends and a couple of the guys...are best friends.” Brodie captures his companions through intimate portraits set against ever-changing landscapes. His photographs capture the raw reality of his travels: the dirt, the blood, the struggles and, ultimately, a community of travelers who share the challenges and triumphs of life on the road.

When a snake tried to eat its buddy, this mouse didn't run for cover. Instead, it bravely attacked the snake to save its friend:

A mouse at Hangzhou Zoo in China has been give its freedom after zookeepers witnessed it attack a venomous snake to save its friend. "We always give the snakes live food, and we put the two mice into the snake enclosure. But instead of trying to hide like they usually do, one of the mice attacked the snake when it saw it trying to eat the other mouse. I have never seen anything like that before," keeper Wen Shao said.

Sadly, the other mouse didn't make it. MSN Now has the larger pic: Link

The immune system usually fights the virus, but sometimes, a sneaky virus turn the tables against the host and uses its immune system against itself:

Bacteria often carry repetitive genetic sequences called CRISPRs, which protect them against viruses.

When a bacterium is attacked by a virus, it copies a small piece of the virus's DNA and stores it among the CRISPRs. The bacterium will then be better at fighting off the virus: the bacterium can acquire resistance, just like a human acquiring resistance to a disease.

The CRISPRs are a library of diseases, storing samples of past infections. If the same kind of virus attacks again, the bacterium is ready. Any viral genes that enter the cell are quickly marked for destruction. [...]

But the war isn't over. Viruses are notoriously adaptable. According to Andrew Camilli of Tufts University in Boston and colleagues, ICP1 has managed to turn the CRISPR system to its own advantage.

Camilli discovered ICP1 in 2011, and found it to be common in cholera bacteria in Bangladesh. The surprise came when his team found ICP1 had its own CRISPRs, and genes for the Cas proteins, probably stolen from a bacterium.

Camilli looked at the genetic samples stored in the virus's CRISPRs, and found that two of them were identical to a section of the V. cholerae genome. Better still, these bits of DNA are involved in other aspects of the bacterium's immune response.

The implication is that at some point, the virus must have stolen part of the bacterium's arsenal and re-programmed it to target what was left.

Michael Marshall of NewScientist's Zoologger has the post: Link

This sounds like a winner! A lot of people can sing a capella with friends, but Korean Yeo Inhyeok invited a few versions of himself to sing Stevie Wonder's I Wish. The result is surprisingly good!

Watch and weep: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Blame It On The Voices

You've probably seen a lot of popped water balloon photography before, but have you seen one so cool that it's got to wear sunglasses? Photographer Scott Dickson explained how he took the photo above over at PetaPixel (it involves a surprising amount of engineering!): Link - via Photography Blogger

Legend has it that the Vikings used a navigation device called the sunstone to tell the direction of the sun, even on a cloudy day. The device was dismissed as myth ... until today:

... experiments have shown that a crystal, called an Iceland spar, could detect the sun with an accuracy within a degree – allowing the legendary seafarers to navigate thousands of miles on cloudy days and during short Nordic nights.

Dr Guy Ropars, of the University of Rennes, and colleagues said "a precision of a few degrees could be reached" even when the sun was below the horizon.

An Iceland spar, which is transparent and made of calcite, was found in the wreck of an Elizabethan ship discovered thirty years ago off the coast of Alderney in the Channel Islands after it sank in 1592 just four years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Link (Image: Treasure Mtn Mining/YouTube)

This is why I seldom Facebook, avoid Twitter, and quit reddit. Can't get anything done otherwise! (But don't you dare stop reading Neatorama, you hear?) From Brian G.'s excellent Chuck & Beans.

How do you hide from government drones with infrared surveillance cameras? With haute couture, as this stylish burqa with metalized fabric by Adam Harvey shows:

“Fighting drones is not my full-time job, but it could be,” says Harvey, an instructor of physical computing at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts and the creator of the CV Dazzle project, which seeks to develop makeup and hairstyles that camouflage people from face-recognition cameras and software.

Harvey’s newest medium, metalized fabric, has been around for more than 20 years. It holds in body heat that would burn bright for infrared cameras—a characteristic that could prove attractive to those who do not want unmanned aerial vehicles spying on them.

Scientific America has more: Link

Nutella, the hazelnut chocolate spread, is quite yummy so no wonder that people love it. But the students at Columbia University may love it a little bit too much.

How much is too much? You know you've got a Nutella nut when a hundred pound of the stuff disappear from undergraduate dining halls EVERY DAY!

James Barron of The New York Times reports on The Great Nutella Heist of 2013:

“People take silverware, cups and plates, and that adds up over the course of a year to a lot of money,” he said. “With Nutella, it added up much more quickly. Where Dining might have to spend $50,000 to replace silverware and cups, they were spending thousands of dollars on Nutella in one week.”

Ms. Dunn “told me it was close to $5,000 in that first week,” he said. As for the amount of Nutella that Columbia students were consuming, or at least loading up on and walking away with, he said, “I was told it was more than 100 pounds per day.”

Link

Jason Welborn mashed up 90's toon Ren & Stimpy with Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi classic Rendezvous with Rama in this nifty illustration. If you don't like it, we've only got one thing to say to you: YOU SICK LITTLE MONKEY!

See more Nickelodeon/Sci-Fi mash up series over at Draw2D2: Link

Glee writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa asked what would happen if you mash up Archie with the undead. Well, you won't have to wonder for long. Zombies will invade Riverdale soon in Afterlife with Archie.

"AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE combines two of my great passions: Archie comics and horror comics,” said Aguirre-Sacasa. “This series came out of conversations with Jon [Goldwater], asking questions like, ‘what if the Archie characters found themselves in a Stephen King novel like The Stand or a Sam Raimi movie like The Evil Dead?’ Could we pull that off, tonally? We’re really going for it. The first arc is called ‘Escape from Riverdale.’ The second arc is called, brace yourself, ‘Betty RIP.’ Of course, all the horror stuff will be balanced by elements that are quintessentially Archie.”

Link

For sale, one castle at the center of Eternian culture. Previous meeting place of the Council of Elders. A storehouse of all knowledge of the universe. Gorgeous ancient gothic fortress-style castle has been expertly renovated for Eternian living. Gracious living area with 30' ceilings with lovely architectural details. Includes a Hall of Wisdom. Perfect accomodation for Masters of the Universe. Listed by He/Max Realty, "where YOU have the power!"

Anthony Petrie made this fantastic poster Eternian Equity for Gallery 1988 show: Link

News reporter has to stay stoic and professional at all cost. AT ALL COST! Because if they don't this happens:

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

It's dangerous to go hungry! Take this Hylian shield cake from Zelda made by redditor Riorus' mom for his 18th birthday: Link - via Geekologie

via Weird Vintage and Miss Cellania

I found this vintage photo of Chicken man in Miss Cellania's always awesome blog (you guys should visit), and I demand explanation! Who's first?

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by Nick Perks

The folks over at Comics Should Be Good blog reimagined iconic album covers with superheroes. The results are fantastic! Here are a few of our favorites:

Michael Jackson's Bad by Marco D'Alfonso

Wham!'s Make it Big by Steve Howard

The Beatles' Rubber Soul by Paul Hostetler

Ramones by Josh Gowdy

Abbey Road by Cynthia "Thea" Rodgers and Amanda Rodgers

View the rest over at CSBG: Link - via Pleated Jeans