Someone who knows Yo-Yo Ma saw dancer Lil Buck on YouTube and put them together to create a most unlikely yet very compelling collaboration. Spike Jonze was there to film the result:
[YouTube Clip] - via Opening Ceremony
Dedication ... Perserverance ... Tenacity... Pulitzer Prize.
Those are few words that came to my mind when I read this news story from The Palm Beach Post:
That, my friends, is determination: http://www.tcoasttalk.com/2011/04/15/biker-says-man-in-electric-wheelchair-chased-her-around-parking-lot-for-three-days/ -via BuzzFeed
Etsy seller Donna Terraza doesn't specialize in Star Wars scenes, and that's a real shame because it's a medium that, like everything else, can only benefit by more Star Wars content. Terraza has, however, produced two fine works showing Yoda and a stormtrooper, respectively, at the links.
Link and Link via Walyou
(Video Link)
Extreme ironing is a sport in which people take an iron, an ironing board, and clothing to extreme locations, such as mountaintops or erupting volcanoes. Participants then proceed to neatly iron the items of clothing. Security camera footage in the UK caught one man ironing in the middle of a freeway. That section had been temporarily closed, so there wasn't much risk. Still, it's a good start, and the bathrobe was certainly an appropriate costume.
Link via Geekosystem
Narwhal Mini Squishable - $19.00
Have you always wanted your very own Narwhal? Of course you have! Who doesn't want their own adorable arctic sea creature?
Now with the Narwhal Mini Squishable from the NeatoShop your dream of cuddling up with this amazing unicorn of the sea can finally come true!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more lovable Plush Toys!
(Video Link)
Last year, Teddie Films produced an excellent Star Wars parody of Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" which got a lot of attention on the Internet. That crew is back, now lampooning Rebecca Black's song "Friday". "Prime Day" is narrated by Princess Leia, and she's taking the rebellion a little less seriously. Here's a selection from the lyrics, available in full at the video link:
7am, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta do my hair
Gotta roll my buns, gotta have blue milk
Force in everything, light saber's glowin'
Attack is goin on, everybody's fightin'
Meeting at bay nine-ty-four
Gotta find Kenobi, I see my friends
Solo in the front seat
Luke is in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which one is my mate?
via Nerd Bastards | Previously: Rebecca Black's "Friday" as Radical Text
We often post about inventive cakes and cupcakes, especially those made with other delicious foods inside, such as Oreos and Cadbury Creme Eggs. Now it's no longer necessary to scrounge around for such confections. Thanks to the specializing tendency of the Internet, there's a blog devoted entirely to baking foods inside cakes and cupcakes. Pictured above is on example from Bake It in a Cake -- a banana cupcake with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup inside and topped with chocolate buttercream and chocolate chips.
Link via The Breda Fallacy
I just learned a lot about sunspots from Dr. Phil Plait. He's quite excited about NASA footage that shows the formation of a cluster of sunspots earlier this year.
Now I'm excited, too! Watch the video at Bad Astronomy. Link
(Image credit: NASA/SDO)
Sunspots are actually regions of slightly cooler material at the Sun’s surface. Hot plasma (ionized gas, stripped of one electron or more) rises from the solar interior, reaches the surface, cools off, and sinks back down. This is called convection, and is the same process you see in a pot of boiling water. But at the surface, the tortured and twisted magnetic field of the Sun can suppress convection, preventing the cooler material from sinking. Since the brightness of the plasma depends on the temperature, this cooler stuff is darker. Boom! Sunspot.
Or, in this case, sunspots. You can see five of the suckers here, changing and mutating as the plasma interacts with the magnetic field. I recognize these spots, too: they were responsible for the first X-class flare of the season on March 15th. There’s dramatic footage of that as well which I posted on my blog at the time. They’re busy spots; they blew out a lower energy flare a few days earlier, too.
And here I am calling them cute and little when they’re actually comfortably bigger than the Earth and exploded with the energy equivalent of millions — millions! — of nuclear bombs.
Now I'm excited, too! Watch the video at Bad Astronomy. Link
(Image credit: NASA/SDO)
(YouTube link)
Q: How hard is it to get a cat into a bowl?
A: That sounds like a skit for a Japanese variety show!
-via Metafilter
David Neivandt, a professor at the University of Maine, and Alex Caddell, an undergraduate student there, have developed a golf ball made from the shells of lobsters.
Though biodegradable golf balls already exist, this is the first to be made with crushed lobster shells with a biodegradable binder and coating, creating value from waste material. “We’re using a byproduct of the lobster canning industry which is currently miserably underutilized — it ends up in a landfill,” Neivandt says. “We’re employing it in a value-added consumer product which hopefully has some cachet in the market.”
And that cachet doesn’t come with a higher price tag. Biodegradable golf balls that are now on the market retail for a little under $1 per ball. The raw materials for the lobster shell balls cost as little as 19 cents per ball.
So, will golf balls made of lobster shells be more likely to... end up in a trap? Not in the envisioned scenario. The balls were created specifically for use on cruise ships. Thus the emphasis on biodegradability.
Link, via.
To commemorate the royal wedding next week, UK outlet Brewdog is selling a limited edition run of 1,000 bottles of Royal Virility Performance, a specially brewed beer that contains Viagra!
One bottle will cost you £10 plus delivery charges; may not be available in your area. Link -via Boing Boing
According to the specially commissioned label, the Royal Virility Performance contains Viagra, chocolate, Horny Goat Weed and ‘a healthy dose of sarcasm’. The beer is a 7.5% ABV India Pale Ale and has been brewed at BrewDog’s brewery in Fraserburgh.
With this beer we want to take the wheels off the royal wedding bandwagon being jumped on by dozens of breweries; The Royal Virility Performance is the perfect antidote to all the hype. A beer should be brewed with a purpose, not just because some toffs are getting married, so we created something at our brewery that will undermine those special edition beers and other assorted seaside tat, whilst at the same time actually give the happy couple something extra on their big day.
One bottle will cost you £10 plus delivery charges; may not be available in your area. Link -via Boing Boing
An Associated Press photographer had snapped a picture of a group of Shelties wandering the streets in Minami Soma city, an area that has been evacuated because of proximity to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex in Japan. A team called Sheltie Rescue went into action after the picture was published, determined to bring the dogs out of the danger zone.
The group found the dogs waiting for their owner. A few ran off, but the group was able to remove twenty dogs from the area. Some of the dogs are being boarded at a veterinary clinic; others at the homes of volunteers. See more pictures at the MSNBC Photoblog. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Tamiko Nakamura/Sheltie Rescue)
Through emails and Internet research it was established that the owner of the dogs was a breeder in Minami Soma. The group contacted the Fukushima city branch of the Japan Collie Club, tracked the owner down by phone at a shelter and got her go-ahead to rescue the dogs.
In the wee hours of Sunday morning, seven volunteers left Tokyo and drove over broken roads and past demolished houses to meet three other volunteers in the ghost town that Minami Soma has become. Some had prepared radiation suits and others wore simple vinyl raincoats.
The group found the dogs waiting for their owner. A few ran off, but the group was able to remove twenty dogs from the area. Some of the dogs are being boarded at a veterinary clinic; others at the homes of volunteers. See more pictures at the MSNBC Photoblog. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Tamiko Nakamura/Sheltie Rescue)
Many science fiction scenarios have planets with two or even more stars. How would life evolve differently under such a system?
If a life form evolved to use two different colors of light for energy, the vegetation would appear black to our eyes. They might even develop the ability to use infrared or ultraviolet light that we can't see at all to power photosynthesis. Link -via reddit
In a new study, researchers have assessed the potential for photosynthetic life in multi-star systems with different combinations of sunlike stars and red dwarfs to figure out what plants might be like. The team has speculated that on an Earth-like planet with two or three suns, the vegetation may appear black or grey.
"If a planet were found in a system with two or more stars, there would potentially be multiple sources of energy available to drive photosynthesis," said PhD student Jack O'Malley-James from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
"The temperature of a star determines its colour and, hence, the colour of light used for photosynthesis. Depending on the colours of their star-light, plants would evolve very differently."
If a life form evolved to use two different colors of light for energy, the vegetation would appear black to our eyes. They might even develop the ability to use infrared or ultraviolet light that we can't see at all to power photosynthesis. Link -via reddit
