Pollock’s Toy Museum in London has a room full of vintage and antique dolls that creep people out. Museum employee Ken Hoyt says the doll room is near the end of the museum tour, and some folks will backtrack through the museum to avoid going in there, because the dolls creep them out. Psychologist Frank McAndrew did some research on “creepiness,” and explains what it means.  

“We shouldn’t be afraid of a little piece of plastic, but it’s sending out social signals,” says McAndrew, noting too that depending on the doll, these signals could just as easily trigger a positive response, such as protectiveness. “They look like people but aren’t people, so we don’t know how to respond to it, just like we don’t know how to respond when we don’t know whether there is a danger or not... the world in which we evolved how we process information, there weren’t things like dolls.”

Some researchers also believe that a level of mimicry of nonverbal cues, such as hand movements or body language, is fundamental to smooth human interaction. The key is that it has to be the right level of mimicry – too much or too little and we get creeped out. In a study published in Psychological Science in 2012, researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands found that inappropriate nonverbal mimicry produced a physical response in the creeped out subject: They felt chills. Dolls don’t have the ability to mimic (although they do seem to have the ability to make eye contact), but because at least part some part of our brain is suspicious about whether this is a human or not, we may expect them to, further confusing things.

An article on creepy dolls and how they affect us at Smithsonian talks about the uncanny valley, pareidolia, and pediophobia, which is the fear of dolls. And if you think grandma’s antique doll collection is creepy, try having some around that look like you.

Check out this amazing shot taken by friend's parents at their vineyard in Orange NSW #colmarestatevineyard #orange #snow #nsw #australia #kangaroo #wine #wildlife #luvaustralia

A photo posted by @docholidayescape on Jul 16, 2015 at 5:59pm PDT

Instagram member docholidayescape took this picture in Orange, New South Wales today. Yes, that’s a kangaroo in the snow, something you don’t see very often, even though it’s winter Down Under. Up to 20cm (almost 8 inches) of snow fell in New South Wales, the most snow in half a century. Parts of Queensland were affected, too. Many roads are closed, thousands are without power, and quite a few schools cancelled classes today. See more pictures from the Australian snowfall at Buzzfeed.

Kevin Libertowski is a basketball trick shot artist, but even he was astounded that this one worked.

I made this shot from a trampoline over 60 feet away from the hoop I was shooting on. The shot starts off with a ball in my hands and another in between my legs. I then back flip releasing the ball in my hands towards the hoop, then go immediately into a front flip while exchanging the ball from my legs to my hands, then wait to rotate around a bit and shoot the second shot at the hoop while still in my front flip. Each shot reaches the hoop at the exact same time colliding inside the net for a double swish.

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It would have been tragic if any of the cameras had failed on this one shot. Yes, he made many attempts before getting it just right. -via Uproxx

The Oregon Zoo is undergoing some improvements. While the construction is going on, the zoo put a fence around it and posted exhibition signs to explain what zoo visitors were looking at. It’s good that they designed the enclosure to be as close as possible to these creatures’ natural habitat. You can enlarge the pictures enough to read the information at imgur. -via reddit

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Lilo the Husky lives with two other huskies and a few cats (and some humans). The family took in a weak and lethargic three-week-old foster kitten, and Lilo became her surrogate mother! Rosie the kitten thrived under Lilo’s affection and regained her health. The dog and cat are bonded now, and Rosie has been made a permanent member of the family.

Rosie has taken on some canine habits, and considers herself a member of the husky pack. Read the story of Lilo and Rosie at HuffPo, and see plenty of pictures and video of their adorable lives at lilothehusky on Instagram.

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What? you missed your chance to hobnob with the fictional characters of San Diego Comic Con?

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Sneaky Zebra made a music video featuring the cosplayers of San Diego Comic Con, many of them re-enacting scenes as their characters. You’ll feel like you were right there with them! The accompanying song is "Mug Shot" by MAX. -Thanks, Yan!

Look at this car. It’s a nice-looking car, isn’t it? This is a 1954 Ferrari 375 Plus with a 330 hp V12 engine. There were only five made that year, and only four exist now. Quite a rare and valuable vehicle, indeed. The last time it was sold, it went for $16.5 million dollars. And this car is now at the center of a multi-party fight. Karl Kleve purchased it in 1958 for a mere $2,500 because it was in awful shape at the time.

Karl purchased the broken vehicle from Jim Kimberly back then, but made no effort to restore the vehicle. It would then sit on a trailer outside Karl’s home in Ohio for 30-years in complete disarray. This is where things start to get confusing. According to official documents, the Ferrari was then stolen sometime between the years of 1985 and 1989, and the crime was never solved. It would then show up later in Antwerp, Belgium as a Belgian trader imported the vehicle from Atlanta, Georgia. The police would quickly impound the vehicle, as Karl did report it as stolen. Unfortunately, for unknown reasons, the police sided with the Belgian import company and gave them the vehicle.

Things went downhill from there. The car was sold and restored, then Kleve made another claim, and this back and forth went on past Kleve’s death, as well as that of the buyer. Read the claims of the many people who still want the rare Ferrari at Worthly.

It's Thursday, so you know what it means, Neatoramanauts: it's time for the What Is It? Game, brought to you by the always amusing What Is It? Blog. What is the object in the picture above? Your guess can win you a free T-shirt of your choice from the NeatoShop. Here's how to play:

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, but you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments.

You might know the correct answer, but if you want to win a t-shirt, you'll have to use your imagination, because we are going to select two winners who give us the funniest incorrect guesses. If you guess right, then good for ya - but you don't win anything, see? So, it's up to you, funny people: you have twice the chance of winning that T-shirt now.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize. We highly suggest you take a look at the NeatoShop's new selection of Funny T-shirts and Science T-Shirts.

Ready? Go for it! Courtesy of the What Is It? blog.

Update: This is truly a mystery item, obviously a tool, but we still don’t know what it’s for. We had some good suggestions, though. A T-shirt from the NeatoShop goes to Edward for this answer:

It was left behind at Comic-Con by someone coplaying a mashup of Thor and Cupid (Thtupid?)

The name “Thtupid” clinched that one for him. Another shirt goes to Berhard, who went into detail about the tool’s alternative versions:

This is without doubt Thor's fisching hammer, "Troutnir" ... a very light version for nordic god trout fisching...

It throws like a hammer, hits like a harpoon and returns like a boomerang...

slightly less romantic than trout fisching in "A river runs through it" but way more effective..

Thor also has a "sharknir", a "tunir" and a "merlinir" for offshore-fisching...

The only reason it only has a limited success at market resides in that you have to be a nordic god to be able to properly operate this supreme fisching gear...

Congratulations to both! This just goes to show that you guys are pun factories when you have the slightest bit of inspiration. We’ll do it again next week, with another What Is It? game from the What Is It? blog and Neatorama.

Research into how we keep track of time in our heads is quite complex, considering the many ways timing enables us to negotiate everyday life. And those things appear to be controlled by different parts of the brain, all somehow working together.  

New findings hint that the brain has legions of assorted clocks, all tick-tocking at different rates. Some parts of the brain handle milliseconds and others keep track of decades. Some neural timers handle body movements; others monitor information streaming in from the senses. Some brain departments make timing predictions for the future, while timing of memories is handled elsewhere.

This diversity has led some scientists to focus on figuring out how the brain stitches together the results from its many clocks to reflect the outside world accurately. A deeper understanding of how the brain’s timekeepers work might also shed light on something much more profound: how the brain constructs its own reality. The brain sometimes squishes, expands or warps time, some studies suggest. Subtle timing slips have been linked to emotions, attention, drugs and disorders such as schizophrenia. Those tweaks hint at how the brain normally counts seconds and milliseconds.

ScienceNews give us an overview of brain timing research that varies from playing visual music to rat brain cells to comparing the way people with schizophrenia and those without judge the passage of time. The research itself is like a brain: how do you combine the legion of asorted findings together to create an understanding of our brains? -via Digg

(Image credit: Tang Yau Hoong)

We’ve all been taught that there are two sides to every story. It’s true, and judges and parents know this better than anyone. Yet somehow that adage has been corrupted by many to mean that the two sides are equivalent, or that opposing opinions have equal validity. That was never part of the conventional wisdom, as sometimes one side is clearly insane. This is the latest from Pie Comic by John McNamee.

Between 1943 and 1945, captured German soldiers were often sent to POW camps in the U.S. because, well, Britain and most of Europe was pretty torn up and not equipped to feed or house them. Many ended up in Texas, where they were offered the chance to work outside the camps and generally lived better than they would have elsewhere.  

Camp Huntsville was the first to be set up in Texas. Construction across 837 acres took place for nearly a year, and its 400 buildings were ready for occupancy by the spring of 1943. Texas would eventually see twice as many camps (with a total of 78,000 occupants) as any other state, and for a simple reason: the Geneva Convention of 1929 specified that POWs must be placed in a similar climate as the one they were captured in. Because so many Germans surrendered in North Africa and lacked clothing or supplies for colder weather, many were sent to Texas.

The curiosity of locals quickly gave way to resentment. Even though these men had orders to kill brothers, fathers, and friends, accommodations in Huntsville and other camps were surprisingly comfortable. Prisoners were allowed to sunbathe, play soccer, and stretch out in 40 square feet of personal space with sheets and blankets. (Officers got 120 square feet.) Food was fresh and showers were warm. College credits earned would count at universities back in Germany. They even got bottles of beer.

It certainly beat getting killed in battle or being captured by the Soviets. Some of those prisoners worked hard to become American citizens after the war. Read about the World War II POW camps in Texas at mental_floss.

(Image credit: Arkansas History Commission)

Henn-na Hotel in Sasebo, Japan, will open to the public on Friday. Henn-na Hotel translates to English as “Strange Hotel,” which is apt because it is staffed with robots! The management insists that the robots are there for maximum efficiency and to cut labor costs, but we know publicity from the novel idea won’t hurt business a bit.   

Upon check-in, guests will be greeted by multi-lingual humanoid and dinosaur receptionists. Other robots in the lobby greet visitors, serve coffee and act as concierge. Robots bring the guests' luggage to their rooms, which, by the way, are opened by face-recognition technology.

See quite a few pictures of the hotel and its many diverse robots at Mashable.

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John Green says he’s a huge map nerd. He’s not alone; many highly intelligent people are fascinated by maps. In this episode of the mental_floss List Show, we learn about map history, the link between Amerigo Vespucci and Botticelli, map projections, disappearing islands, and what the title of his book  Paper Towns means.

Juno is one of three Beluga whales who live at Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut. He learned a long time ago that it’s a real hoot to scare the kids who come up to the glass to look at him. But then again, he probably goes up to the glass to get a good look at those strange creatures on the other side. Juno can be friendly at times, and doesn’t mind to have a picture taken with you. -via reddit

Rhik Samadder has a column in The Guardian called Inspect a Gadget. Today he looks at an appliance called the Egg Master. It’s a vertical grill that extrudes cooked egg from the top. If you think that’s horrifying, wait until you read the review.

“Spray non-stick agent into container”, the box advises, which definitely gets the tummy rumbling. As instructed, I crack two whole eggs into the hot tunnel, trying to ignore the gurgling sound from within. It’s impossible to see what’s going on – but it smells bad. I squint into the dark opening. A bulging yellow sac peers back at me. Minutes pass; the smell does not. Then, without warning, a flaccid, spongy log half jumps from the machine, writhing like an alien parasite in search of a host body. It’s horrifying, like a scene from The Lair of the White Worm.

Samadder has plenty more to say about the Egg Master, with pictures and video to prove he really used it. Do not read while eating or drinking. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Sarah Lee for the Guardian)