(YouTube link)Who can negotiate a maze faster, a human or a rat? Another round of lunacy from Tom Scott. -via b3ta rat, maze, rat race, Tom Scott...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/human-vs-rat-the-maze-challenge/Created in Germany ~1500-1525, this ivory carving is the terminal on a rosary. Each bead of the rosary represents the bust of a well-fed burgher or maiden on one side, and a skeleton on the other. The terminals, eve...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/sixteenth-century-rosary-terminal/I haven't seen it yet, but apparently last night's episode of Futurama required a mathematical formula to explain a plot element. Producer David X. Cohen is noted for leaving real mathematical statements on scr...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/futurama-writer-created-and-proved-a-mathematical-theorem-just-for-one-episode/In 1821, French astronomer Alexis Bouvard reasoned that the eccentricities in the orbit of Uranus might be caused by the gravitational pull of a nearby planet. 45 years later, that planet, Neptune, was directly observed...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/neptune-to-complete-its-first-orbit-since-discovery-in-1846/Etsy seller zeebree specializes in molding crayons into unique shapes. Here's a picture of a set that she made in the shape of LEGO minifigs. Each is about an inch tall. Link via Makeetsy, minifig, crayons, lego...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/lego-minifig-crayons/In this Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss, you'll be confronted by quotes from Arnold Schwarzeneggar. He didn't come up with all of them himself -some are movie lines, and some are things he said as governor of Califo...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/where-did-arnold-say-it-on-screen-or-in-office/We fear piranhas and make jokes about them, but they have their place in the ecosystem. National Geographic sets us straight with some facts about the fish. They’re good parents—at least initially. A mom may lay 600...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/a-little-love-for-piranhas/Remember the mysterious Horse Boy that appeared in Google Street View? Here's your chance to join in on the fun. Get thee a Horse Head Mask ($24.95) from the NeatoShop and wait around the street corner for the Google Str...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/horse-head-mask/The examples of ancient Greco-Roman statuary that survive to this day may be bare stone and earthenware, but archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann argues that they were originally brightly painted: Armed with high-inten...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/the-vibrant-colors-of-ancient-statuary/Just as we have suspected, Neatoramanauts! Cats are taking over the world. Here's proof: a giant cat's claw building rising up in Oviedo, Spain.Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the building defies description —...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/calatravas-new-gigantic-building-in-oviedo-spain/Dimensions is a neat feature from the BBC that overlays historical or ecological events over modern maps centered on the postal code of your choice. The above map that I created shows the Great Wall of China shieldi...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/how-big-was-it/Burger King has just released a new food item that will surely have purists (and perhaps normal people) seething in rage: the bastard child of the unholy mating of burger and pizza:The New York Pizza Burger ($12.99)...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/burger-kings-new-pizza-burger/There's a cunning new marketing strategy in which some fashion firms are engaging. They find a celebrity that they think that people dislike and send their competitor's products to that person. This is, allegedly, how...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/negative-product-placement/Graphic designer Alex Charchar over at Retinart has taken a look at how the design of the National Geographic magazine has changed throughout the years. The eponymous yellow rectangle has seen virtually no change,...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/the-timeless-beauty-national-geographic/(YouTube link) What are these people in Moscow lined up for? Jobs? Cash? No, about 30,000 people lined up for the opportunity to eat at the first McDonalds to open in the city, in 1990. -via Buzzfeedrussia, mcdonald...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/what-a-line/The Journal of Irreproducible Results held a contest to find the funniest graph ever. The winner is All Theories Proven with One Graph by Don Grace of Florence, Alabama. See a larger version at the magazine site. Lin...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/all-theories-proven-with-one-graph/A song lyric says: "When all you've got is nothing, there's a lot to go around." Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley conducted experiments that show poor people tend to be more generous than rich pe...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/poor-people-are-more-generous/(YouTube link) Police raided a farm in Christina Lake, British Columbia to find that black bears had been enlisted to scare intruders away from the premises. Two people were arrested for running a marijuana plantati...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/bears-guard-canadian-pot-farm/Day after day the passionflower vine and the handsome heliconius butterfly engage each other in a dramatic fight for survival in the tropical forests of Central and South America. The outcome is still uncertain, but the...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/a-jungle-battle-butterfly-vs-vine/[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y][YouTube - Link]This kid's sure going to have a leg up on everyone else in his college English class! The text of the poem is at the YouTube link.From the Upcoming ueue...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/3-year-old-recites-litany-a-30-line-poem-by-billy-collins/People get a little crazy when an item they want goes on sale, or becomes available during a shortage. Some have been injured, or even killed over a simple act of shopping.Mass shopping can be like mass religion… w...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/16-unbelievable-shopping-disasters/Imagine a tree, 3500 years old, and the history and knowledge it must possess. The Senator is a species of Bald Cypress situated at Big Tree Park in Longwood, Florida. For year, travelers flocked to the tree, jumping log...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/3500-year-old-tree-the-senator/Cool Material has a roundup of historical events depicted with Facebook status updates. These include the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Galileo arguing for a heliocentric cosmology, and the si...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/facebook-throughout-history/During the short seven months (August 2, 1990–February 28, 1991) that the Gulf War raged in the Middle East, I was at work on a book, Public Therapy Buses, Information Specialty Bums, Solar Cook-A-Mats and Other...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/looking-beyond-the-suv-literally/More Awesome Than A Double Rainbow by Chris Murphy - $14.95Ever since Paul "Yosemite Bear" Vasquez launched the viral Internet meme, Double Rainbow has become the web's gold standard for awesomeness. So OMG, wh...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/more-awesome-than-a-double-rainbow/Philosophy, besides being a good major of choice for fast food workers (kidding! No hate mails please - those fries will get cold if you don't bag them right away), makes for a pretty good blog reading.You'd think that a...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/sorites-paradox-when-does-a-heap-of-sand-stop-being-a-heap-of-sand/In 1935, Science and Mechanics magazine noted that Congress appropriated the "stupendous sum" of $4.88 billion for an economic stimulus (the National Industrial Recovery Act, which is largely considered to be a...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/quaint-economic-stimulus-of-yore-when-4-billion-used-to-be-real-money/Etsy seller apjam made this clever albeit unauthorized Homer Simpsons sticker for your Apple iPhone. The next time your iPhone G4 drops a call, don't blame Antennagate - it's probably Homer nom nom nomming the connection...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/homer-takes-a-bite-out-of-the-iphone-apple/45-year-old Hungarian Roman Catholic priest Reverend Zoltan Lendvai has a unique way to connect with young people: he teaches scripture on a skateboard!Lendvai says he follows the ways of Saint John Bosco, an Italian...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/the-skateboarding-priest/Photo: Nomeus / FlurbexBefore he became one of FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives, Osama bin Laden was actually a frequent tourist to the United States, visiting family in Florida. Now, Osama's family mansion lies empty as you...
https://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/20/osama-bin-ladens-abandoned-florida-mansion/
