I don’t know if this is an intended pun or not, but this sure is clever and cute. It makes me wonder where the bee’s wings went, however.
What do you think?
Image via Engrish.com
Is it a glimpse into the future? Hyundai’s lowkey scary four-legged robot car concept called Elevate is something straight out of a sci-fi movie. The company has announced a new studio that will work on “ultimate mobility vehicles,” including the Elevate. New Atlas has more details:
New Horizons Studio will bring together Hyundai's expertise in vehicles, robotics and intelligent mobility in order to push the boundaries of vehicular engineering to "reimagine how vehicles might traverse the world." And that world definitely isn't limited to mere road, track and level trail, but also applies to "unconventional and off-road terrain, including places where vehicles have never roamed before."
Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Hyundai calls the Elevate concept the first UMV on which New Horizons will work. As imagined during initial concept phase, the Elevate has four electric-driven wheels attached to robotic legs. It can travel as a pod-like electric car, but its real magic happens when terrain becomes impassable ... or so it seems. The Elevate extends its legs to walk, climb and stretch over obstacles. The legs have five degrees of motion, including wheels that rotate 360 degrees in relation to the "ankle" for precise micro-movement. Hyundai said the Elevate could climb up to 5 feet (1.5 m) of vertical wall and step over 5-foot gaps.
Image via the New Atlas
This McGillMedia post gives a glimpse of the old Japanese lumber growing technique of Daisugi. It's like a giant bonsaï.
Maybe a better solution for modern and responsible forest management ?
Master pie artist Jessica Clark-Bojin (previously at Neatorama) is challenging members of the Instagram piecrafting community to devise a #MonsterPie for Halloween. One of her own contributions is this frightening Jack-o-lantern pie that offers more than a hollow interior. Her whole Instagram page is worth exploring, as she has already become internet famous for such works as Dark Crystal and baby Yoda pies.
-via Design You Trust
Alright, say you have the funds, resources, and the opportunity to go on a vacation amidst the pandemic. Of course, you’d rather have a safe getaway, right? The Diamanten Cabin in Oppdal, Norway might be a good option. Also called as “the diamond,” the visually enigmatic cabin was designed and constructed by A38 Arkitekter:
Nestled nearby traditionally vibrant timber cabins, the Diamanten Cabin is unassuming in size, with a total of only a single, open room.
However, The Diamanten’s artistry is found not in its size, but in the way it appeals to the landscape and vernacular structures that cradle it. The frame of the cabin is structured so that the roof cascades gracefully in the direction of the massive mountain that frames its larger community. The cabin’s transparent pitched roof provides a vista point for the expansive valley’s horizon that rests just ahead of it. The minimal, yet sturdy cylindrical foundation emphasizes the designer’s devotion to environmental harmony as the single-room home borrows minimal physical space in its conception, maintaining the natural state of the surrounding land.
Image via Yanko Design
A few years ago, the National Aquarium of New Zealand instituted a Naughty Penguin of the Month award, in which we all got to know the aquarium's penguins as the individuals they are. If you have a favorite penguin, you'll want to vote in the third annual Penguin of the Year competition! Even if you don't have a favorite penguin already, you will soon. Click on a picture at the contest page to read about each of the 14 contenders, and then place your vote. Follow the progress of the competition at Twitter or Facebook. -via Metafilter
Underneath the city of London are tunnels that serve as storage basements, subway trains, utility lines, and sewers, like most cities. Then there are the tunnels built for more secretive reasons. This underground system has grown and shrunk, with passageways connected and then separated, and no definitive map exists of them. Still, data from the 2017 Land Registry tells us there are four million kilometers of tunnels under London, most of them built for communications purposes during the Cold War. Bits and pieces of this network are revealed when old government buildings are sold.
The most intriguing revelation was of the Postmaster General’s secret tunnel beneath the heart of the government at 57 Whitehall. It was built to protect machinery and communications from the threat of atom bombs in the Cold War, and the bunker emerges into the basement of the Old War Office, once used by Winston Churchill. In 2014, the Raffles hotel chain bought the 54,000 sq m Grade II-listed building from the Ministry of Defence for £350 million. Named “The OWO”, the London landmark is set to open as one of the world’s highest-profile hotels in 2022.
More than 30 gears and a dozen lifts – stretching from the working-class East End to the heart of Whitehall – connect the Postmaster General’s tunnel to a secret underground network, which mostly emerges unobtrusively into government buildings and telephone exchanges.
That doesn't mean that you, or the hotel staff, or anyone can follow the tunnels from the now-private properties. But quite a few people are dedicated to exploring the underground system, and even mapping them. Read what we know of these underground tunnels and what we may learn in the future at BBC Travel. -via Damn Interesting
Hannah Grace, an artist in the UK, transforms herself into amazing creatures with paint and makeup. Parts of her body disappear, then reappear elsewhere. She seemingly melts, breaks apart, and comes together again.
At first glance, this four-piece furniture collection by Niko Koronis looks like big blocks of soap carved into something new, but they’re actually made of resin. Koronis was inspired by the work Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, whose work featured sharp lines and graphic shapes. The artist designed each furniture item to look like “small scale architectural entities,” as Dezeen details:
"One has to love Scarpa, for many different reasons," Koronis told Dezeen.
"Apart from his charismatic personality, his unique formal and material aesthetic that stood in contrast to his contemporaries' loud and artificial early postmodernism is something that has been a constant inspiration for many architects and designers alike."
Koronis made each of the translucent furniture pieces from resin in hues of blue and green, granting them a frosty, soap-like appearance.
According to the designer, resin is "a somewhat misunderstood material that is experiencing a revival these days".
The resin used for the collection was industrially produced via a chemical process, as resin usually is, but Koronis wanted to make the material seem as organic as possible.
He carried out multiple tests with the material to test its properties, as well as its limitations and advantages.
Image via Dezeen
Oh, you're going to love this, whether you are into the history of animation or just like to watch. A list of the animation sequences that advanced the art or brought something new to it is dangerously close to being a list of the best cartoons ever. The 100 sequences are not ranked, but instead are arranged in chronological order so you can follow the history of animation, beginning in 1892. There follows not one decade that didn't have an entry.
All animation, whether it depicts a whistling mouse, a walking dinosaur, or a leaping superhero, is a kind of magic trick. It’s right there in the name of one of the earliest devices used to project slides: the magic lantern. If you take an image of an open hand and an image of a fist and project the two in sequence, you’ll convey the illusion of a clench. “What happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame,” the prominent experimental animator Norman McLaren (who makes the list with his short Neighbours, below) once explained. “Therefore, animation is the art of manipulating the invisible interstices between frames.”
The best part is that the entries have videos, relevant clips if not the entire cartoon. You can read about each and how it contributed to the advancement of animation, or you can just watch them at Vulture. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Giacomo Gambineri)
You might recall the recent post about Helene Adelaide Shelby's ridiculous invention for scaring criminal suspects into confessing. Tom Scott saw it, too, and had to try it out. He actually built the device and invited some "suspects" to face it and see how they would react. Honestly, you can skip the first two minutes of this video and just get to the reactions. Can he pinpoint which suspect stole the cookie? -via Digg
The Tasmanian devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world since the thylacine went extinct in 1936. While Tasmanian devil fossils have been found in Australia, for the past 3,000 years the animal has only existed in the wild on the island of Tasmania. Until now. A group of devils has been relocated to the mainland in hopes they will thrive again.
The cause of Tasmanian devil’s disappearance from continental Australia is murky, with some evidence tying it overhunting by Indigenous Australians. Other signs point to the introduction of the dingo. Whatever the case, Monday’s news is part of an effort to bring the Tasmanian devil back to its former range. Aussie Ark, the group leading the reintroduction, has released 26 devils into a sanctuary in New South Wales near Barrington Tops National Park.
The sanctuary is enclosed and covers nearly 1,000 acres, giving the devils space to roam without impacting native wildlife outside the area. Each marsupial has been outfitted with a radio collar, and camera traps dot the sanctuary. That will allow scientists to study them in a somewhat controlled setting to see how they fare and interact with other wildlife.
Tasmanian devils are endangered, and disease has ravaged the population in Tasmania. It is hoped that the imported animals will be able to avoid the devil facial tumor disease on the island. Aussie Ark also hopes that the re-introduced devils may help to control the feral cat population. Read about the Tasmanian devils and their new home at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: Aussie Ark)
(Image credit: Lotus496)
Something is wrong with your car, so you take it to a mechanic because they will understand what is going on under the hood. Then the pro opens that hood and laughs. Then takes a picture. It happens more often than you'd think, because there's an entire universe of weird things that can cause automotive trouble.
(Image credit: m4rkz0r)
This list also contains pictures that don't explain your engine trouble, but are odd enough that they felt the need to take a picture for proof. See 50 such pictures at Bored Panda.
If you’re the type of person who drinks coffee first thing in the morning, then you better change that habit and instead drink coffee after eating breakfast. Through this study, researchers from the University of Bath found out that “a strong coffee first thing in the morning can impair the body’s glucose response.” Thus, the researchers recommend that coffee should be drunk after eating breakfast, not before.
“We know that nearly half of us will wake in the morning and, before doing anything else, drink coffee – intuitively the more tired we feel, the stronger the coffee,” says James Betts, corresponding author on the new study. “This study is important and has far-reaching health implications as up until now we have had limited knowledge about what this is doing to our bodies, in particular for our metabolic and blood sugar control.”
Head over at New Atlas to know more about this study.
(Image Credit: freephotocc/ Pixabay)
December 1924. Dr. Curtis Welch thought that a number of children, in the small Alaskan town of Nome, were suffering from tonsillitis. But as the number of cases began to grow, and as children began to drop dead, Dr. Welch knew that it wasn’t tonsillitis. It was something worse.
Diphtheria is a highly contagious disease caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. The bacteria attacks the respiratory system, destroying healthy tissues there. The dead tissues build up in the throat and nose to form a thick leathery coating that makes breathing difficult. If not treated, a patient can die of asphyxiation. Diphtheria is usually fatal among children. During the 1920s, between one hundred to two hundred thousand people were infected each year in the United States, with fifteen thousand deaths, most of which were children.
By mid-January 1925, Nome, a town home to some 1,400 people, found itself amidst an imminent epidemic. Dr. Welch, the only physician in that town, knew that not only his town was in danger, but also the other communities. If the disease spread, it could potentially affect some 10,000 people. He had to do something. The race against time was on.
After this would be the chain of events which would be known as the 1925 Serum Run to Nome. Know more about this historic event over at Amusing Planet.
(Image Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management/ Wikimedia Commons)
