No doubt you knew that already, but since so many of us do sit for eight+ hours a day (I do, and I have no excuse... I have a stand-up desk at work), I thought these cool infographics were a good reminder. A few more of the stats you'll find on the full graphic: Obese people sit for 2.5 hours a day more than thin people, walking burns 3-5 times the calories sitting does and people with sitting jobs have twice the rate of cardiovascular disease as people with standing jobs.

I think it's awesome that these retro-cool graphics were created by Medical Billing and Coding - it's nice to see people being innovative with design and typeface even in industries that don't necessarily require it. Now quit reading this and go do a lap around your office building.

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Doctor and naturalist René Primevère Lesson collected zoological specimens while he served in the French Navy in the 1820s. He is particularly remembered for his books on hummingbirds, featuring beautiful engraved illustrations that you can see at BibliOdyssey. Link

This robotic vacuum concept is so much cuter than the Roomba. This concept is a mother dog that lies around while the pups scurry around the house sucking up dirt and other stuff from your floors. When the puppies are full up on dust and debris, they come back to the mommy dog and nuzzle up to their own power nipples for a charge and to offload the dirt the collected to mom. The quartet of little vacuums has smiling faces, will follow a remote around, and will occasionally sing. This really needs to be picked up and made into a real product. link

One of the best shooter-style video games I have played in a long time is Dead Space 2. The game was lots of fun, and it has one of the more interesting weapons to be in a video game called the plasma cutter. If you purchased the collector's edition of Dead Space 2, you would have received a little plastic replica of that plasma cutter to play with. One gamer took that plastic toy and grafted blue laser pointers onto it that are powerful enough to light matches and pop balloons. link

Robots are cool and all around the country and world lots of students, engineers and researchers are hard at work perfecting the human machine interface, and robots are the focus of much of that study. A new bot has been unveiled called POLYRO - short for oPen sOurce friendLY RObot. The designer of the bot is Tim Payne and POLYRO is surprisingly inexpensive to build. The bot has webcam eyes, appears to ride on a Roomba base, and its brain is a Linux netbook. It uses 11 Robotis Dynamixel servos and has a total price of under $2,000. link

A spaghetti Western version of Star Wars would be awesome. All that would be necessary is a few modifications to the script of A Fistful of Dollars.

via Look at This Frakking Geekster | Photo: Bonnie Burton

Jewelry designer Heidi Abrahamson has turned her kitties’ hair into earrings, a necklace, and a cocktail ring to celebrate National Hairball Awareness Day. Who knew there was such a thing? If you like she'll spin your cat's hair into jewels as well.

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Bush pilots in Alaska need to be able to land and take off in short distances. Many of them recently attended a competition focusing on this skill in the town of Knik River. Bobby Breeden, a student pilot, can do it in ten feet using a modified Piper Super Cub. Here's how:

The massive 35-inch tires are inflated to less than 3 psi to absorb the impact of landing on rocks and other debris. They also give the wing a high angle of attack to aid in decreasing the takeoff and landing distances. The engine has been stroked out an additional 15 cubic inches (375 total) and puts out around 210 horsepower. To help balance the heavier engine, the composite propeller weighs just 14 pounds. The result is helicopter-like performance.

“It’s just full power with the brakes locked and you get the tail up,” Breeden says, “you just rotate immediately as you release the brakes and it just lifts off the ground.”

Link | Photo: Jason Paur/Wired.com

Previously: Fighter Lands, Turns Around, and Takes Off in Under a Minute

Stormtrooper Talking Dashboard Driver - $9.95

Don't let bad drivers get you down. Get the Stormtrooper Talking Dashboard Driver from the NeatoShop.  He will tell all those people to, "Move along."

The Stormtrooper Talking Dashboard Driver also makes a perfect desk accessory.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Star Wars fun!

redditor chr15to is a man (woman?) of true vision. His mind has given birth to this idea: the chainsaw katana. If we can put a man on the moon -- or built a chainsaw bayonet -- then surely this ambitious goal lies within humanity's grasp.

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/h6i1y/ via Boing Boing

Artist Olly Moss, whose awesome work we've previously featured on Neatorama, showed an exhibition of silhouette images from pop culture. If you live in Los Angeles, you can view them at Gallery 1988 through May 20. How many at the link can you identify without consulting outside sources?

Link via NotCot | Photo: Bobby Solomon | Gallery Website

Engineering students at Harvard University have developed a cell phone app that, when paired with an ordinary metal detector, can be used effectively to detect land mines. Instead of just beeping when it passes over a metal object, these enhanced metal detectors present the shape of the object found below ground:

Land mines, with their circular construction and trigger pin, have an ovoid signature. The system designed by Jayatilaka and Gajos shows one red dot for every beep of the metal detector. With passes over a buried object, the picture shows an increasingly complete outline of the object’s shape, giving the de-miner an evermore detailed picture of what may be buried there.

“Using only audio signals is a huge source of inefficiency. The operator has to figure out whether it is harmful or not harmful. If they are not completely sure, they have to go down on their hands and knees and excavate every piece of metal as if it were a land mine,” explained Jayatilaka.

The students hope that their invention can be used by cash-strapped de-mining operations around the world.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: Justin Ide/Harvard University

Those damn dirty bees! A new study shows that bees have move advanced learning capabilities than other animals.

In a new study, researchers report that bumblebees were able to figure out the most efficient routes among several computer-controlled "flowers," quickly solving a complex problem that even stumps supercomputers.

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A couple of these home computer setups look like the set up for the evil mastermind in every high tech action movie. However, for all of us who slave away all day at a discount laptop PC, you will understand the jealousy felt toward these personal computing behemoths. Link

If you’re like me you constantly have trouble coming up with words for things like… I’d give you an example but I can’t think of the word. Luckily there is now a Reverse Dictionary. You type in the definition of what you are thinking of and it gives you a word. Link