There’s a new trend going on right now on Easter Island: people make it look like they are picking the noses of the massive moai statues, to the dismay of many. This behavior “has spurred new conversations about how visitors to the island should behave.”

"Because of the ubiquitous nature of photography in our community, people take the same picture repeatedly. Once one person picks a nose of the moai, you can be sure there will be multiple thousands [of photos], because people are lemmings," [archaeologist] Van Tilburg tells CNN Travel.

Two other examples of these "overdone" photos are people who make it look like they're holding the Great Pyramid of Giza in the palm of their hand and travelers making it look as if they're pushing the Leaning Tower of Pisa up to keep it from falling.

"There's nothing creative or interesting or humorous about it. The herd instinct is real."

[...]

And bad behavior is sadly not a new invention. In 2008, a Finnish man who climbed one of the moai and chipped a piece of ear off was arrested, fined $17,000 and ordered to leave the island and never return.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: voltamax/ Pixabay)

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watage20181107 75×70×40(mm) 今まで作ってきた円形の中では大きめ。出来上がった時の柔らかいのにガラスのような質感が好きです。 #art #euglena #dandelionseeds #dandelion #綿毛 #たんぽぽ #アート #art_supernova

A post shared by (euglena) (@__euglena) on Nov 7, 2018 at 6:38am PST

What comes to mind when you hear the word: dandelion seed? I would think of it as a childhood experience where children blow its fluffy seeds. Who would have thought you can make sculptures out of it?

Tokyo-based artist Euglena sees the dandelion seed as an artistic tool.

She harvests them to create impossibly delicate sculptures that beg to be observed up close. Just don’t sneeze.

Euglena uses dandelion seeds to create abstract shapes and forms that somehow manage to balance and maintain their figure. It’s difficult to fully appreciate the artist’s work in photographs because the element of air and movement is so important in the work. 

Since the sculptures are so delicate and can only be seen up close, viewers are asked to be careful when viewing them. 

Video: Euglena

via Gfycat

Some people look at new technology like the Segway and say, "Well, that looks dumb." Others look at it and think, "How could I use that to improve my life?" This technique doesn't look like it would be any easier than just walking, but it sure looks fast and efficient. Still, you know this guy had a learning curve that required patience and persistence to get to this level. Hats off to you, weed whacker guy! -via Boing Boing

Before LOLcats, and even before Harry Whittier Frees, there was Harry Pointer. The British photographer had three cats, and enjoyed taking pictures of them. Then he turned his cat photos into a thriving business which became his legacy.

During the 1870s, the Brighton photographer Harry Pointer (1822-1889) became well known for a series of carte-de-visite photographs which featured his pet cats. Pointer began by taking conventional  photographs of cats resting, drinking milk or sleeping in a basket, but from around 1870 he specialised in photographing cats in a variety of poses, placing his cats in settings that would create a humorous or appealing picture. Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities - a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph with a camera. Harry Pointer soon realised that even a relatively straight-forward cat photograph could be turned into an amusing or appealing image by adding a written caption. Pointer increased the commercial potential of his cat pictures by  adding a written greeting such as "A Happy New Year" or "Very many happy returns of the day". Purchasers sent the small cartes-de-visite as tiny greetings cards, thereby publicizing Pointer's distinctive cat photographs. By 1872, Harry Pointer had created over one hundred different captioned images of cats. Harry Pointer's series of cat photographs were collectively known as "The Brighton Cats". The Photographic News reported that, by 1884, Pointer had published about two hundred pictures in "The Brighton Cats" series.

See more of Pointer's cat photographs at Sussex PhotoHistory, and even more here.

What can you see in this picture? I see a needle. What about you? Turns out this is Nike’s logo viewed from above.

How about this one? This is another company logo viewed from a bird’s eye perspective. Who would do this and why?

The branding, audio, and design agency Why Do Birds just released an interactive quiz, which renders some of the world’s most iconic logos, like IBM’s, from a view above. The project is a bit of self-promotion: a riff on the “bird’s-eye view” the agency brings to branding.

Want to test yourself and see if you can answer all of them correctly?

Check out more over at Fast Company.

(Image Credit: Why Do Birds)

Vietnam War. 1961-1971. The United States commenced Operation Ranch Hand, and they released one of the “tactical use” Rainbow Herbicides in the agricultural lands of Vietnam — Agent Orange. Over four decades after the US tried to rat out Viet Cong fighters, this Agent Orange has a hand on many Vietnamese lives, especially on the children.

Although the war ended in 1975, there have been numerous cases of children born in Quang Tri with disabilities and deformities said to be linked to Agent Orange. Worryingly, they include infants born to healthy parents.

“We were confused because we do not have a family history of Agent Orange, and our parents were not veterans,” said the boys’ mother, Nguyen Thi Quynh, 33.

She and her husband, Mai Cong Tun, 35, eke out a living as scrap metal collectors, searching forested areas for fragments of unexploded military ammunition left over from the war.

Of their four children, only one was born healthy – their daughter Mai Kim Chi, seven.

This only shows us that the wars that we have today would greatly affect the lives of future generations.

More details of this heart-wrenching story over at South China Morning Post.

(Image Credit: Khairul Anwar)

Post-apocalyptic fiction have been popular for quite some time now. However, most apocalyptic films or series that we know of are usually set in America, such as The Walking Dead, or the Dawn of the Dead.

What would Tokyo look like in a post-apocalyptic world? This is what CG artist Tokyo Genso (that’s really his name!) imagined as he illustrated the notable landmarks of the city..

He creates lush CG illustrations of notable Tokyo landmarks that are in ruins and, in many cases, have been reclaimed by nature.

Check out his re-creations over at Spoon & Tamago.

(Image Credit: Tokyo Genso/ Spoon & Tamago)

Living in the city would limit the chances for us to see a great view of the night sky brimming with the stars, constellations, planets, and even galaxies. But that doesn't hinder us from seeing some neat stuff despite being in the brightest urban areas.

Sarah Barker, an astrophysicist and science communicator, stargazes in New York, too. She cuts through an urban park to get home every night, and says that “more often than not, you can see a few things—a bright planet, Orion—really clearly.” “Even in the biggest, brightest city in the world,” Barker says, “there’s always something to see.”

Here are a few tips to navigate your way through the night sky and find something cool every now and then.

(Image credit: Sam McJunkin/Unsplash)

Mummy mania hit the western world in the 18th century. The carefully preserved bodies of Egyptians fascinated people, by their very existence, by their exoticism, and by the chemicals found in them. What?   

Ever wondered why we call them “mummies” in the first place? Early archeologists found that Egyptian mummies produced a semi-solid form of petroleum called bitumen that’s used in asphalt, thought to contain healing medical properties (dabs of it were applied in ancient burial rituals to the mummies’ cloths). In Arabic, the word for the mineral is mūmiyā, hence the evolution into “mummy”, and the birth of the newest capitalist craze for those on the continent: breaking off a piece of that sweet, sticky bitumen and taking it to the bank…

Mummies were sold to people all over, and this eventually led to a paint made from mummies called "mummy brown." Artists used it in paintings you can still see today, but many of them assumed the name was for the color, and weren't aware that it actually contained ground-up dead people. Read about mummy mania and the paint called mummy brown at Messy Nessy Chic.    

They say that you can’t compare apples from oranges. I guess this also applies to other types of fruits. But they did not say anything about fusing them, and that is exactly what art director Yuni Yoshida just did in these photographs.

… Yoshida fuses various combinations of kiwis, oranges, apples, and bananas, playing with the recognizable colors and textures of each fruit’s skin as she splices them together.

In an interview with Amazon Fashion Week, Yoshida described her approach to design: “I love taking something real and letting my imagination run wild with it. When I produce something, I am not trying to do something particularly intricate, so that others take notice. I want people to think, ‘Wait, something is different’ and become inspired.”

Check out these photos of Yuni Yoshida over at Colossal.

(Image Credit: Yuni Yoshida/ Colossal)

Baby Snapsuit With Hood and Ears

Twinkle, twinkle little star. Do you know how excited we are! 

The NeatoShop is proud to announce the newest additions to our apparel selection. Say hello to the Baby Snapsuits With Hood and Ears.

Yes, they are finally here! We are overjoyed to welcome Baby Snapsuits With Hood and Ears to our store. Meet deep royal, red, navy, white, and charcoal.  

They are delightful, customizable, and personalizable. Find them under Kids. The Style is Baby Snapsuit With Hood and Ears. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great items. New items arriving weekly. We specialize in curvy and hard find sizes. We carry 6 months old baby to Big and Tall 10XL shirts. We know that fun and fablous people come in every size.  

Before he made improvements on the light bulb, Thomas Edison was into cement since he felt that concrete houses would pave the way for the future. And he invested big on these projects.

Edison’s foray into the cement making business, however, was accidental. For ten years, Edison was milling iron ore unsuccessfully selling off the waste sand the mills produced to cement manufacturers. Struggling against steep competition from ore mills in the Midwest, Edison tried to keep his business afloat using stocks from his immensely successful General Electric Company.

But once Edison realized that he was flogging a dead horse, he decided to switch to cement making instead using the same waste that he had been selling to his now competitors.

However, Edison's cement business venture didn't go as planned and he soon realized that the method he was using to build concrete houses wasn't at all feasible. He even applied a patent for his idea to mass produce cheap concrete houses by pouring in a single continuous cast instead of doing it one floor at a time.

Despite this massive failure, they were able to build a few decent houses which still stand today in Union and Montclair, New Jersey.

(Image credit: Eric Allix Rogers/Flickr)

The ESA have conducted tests on various materials being used to build spacecraft, satellites, and other space parts by burning them. The insights they gain from these tests would allow them to design future space equipment which could easily burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

The ESA has begun testing its sturdiest parts, in hopes of finding their breaking points. That's why the tough magnetotorquer had to burn. Ditto the optical instruments, propellant and pressure tanks, drive mechanisms operating solar arrays, and several other parts that wouldn't go down without a fight.

Currently, there are thousands of debris just floating in space which poses great hazards for collision. At the moment it's a bit difficult to clean up all the trash hanging around in low Earth orbit but ESA hopes that their D4D process would change that for the future.

(Image credit: ESA/DLR)

My mother-in-law wore a wedding dress to my wedding. So, yeah, top that one, Twitter. #weddingfail @jimmyfallon pic.twitter.com/IjqvnXT6Ps

— Amy Pennza (@AmyPennza) June 19, 2019

Weddings are the bride's moment as we all know but just as much, there's no perfect wedding. In response to Jimmy Fallon's challenge to share wedding woes, Amy Pennza tweeted a photo of her mother-in-law wearing a wedding dress at her wedding. That must have been an awkward moment but there's a reason why.

According to Pennza, she had no idea what her MIL was planning to wear that day, and hadn't thought to ask (why would she?) But then, it happened. She reportedly doesn't remember much about the wedding day, as, like most people say, it was a blur. However she does remember telling her MIL, "You... You could be the bride..." Yikes.

Thankfully, the wedding unfolded "without bloodshed, or anyone being shoved into the Champagne fountain." Now that's what I call keeping it classy.

(Image credit: Amy Pennza/Twitter)

When you look at our world from a different perspective, it truly would take our breath away in ways we have never experienced before. In this collection of drone photos of various places in the natural world, you will have a whole new appreciation of the Earth's beauty.

In the space of a few short years, drone photography has become hugely popular, meaning there are more eyes in the sky than ever before. These flying cameras can be positioned out over waterfalls, above forests and in the midst of wildlife to show us perspectives on the world that simply haven't been seen before.

(Image credit: postandfly/Dronestagram)