Everybody loves the beach, including horses! Here are some wild ponies of Assateague Island in Maryland and Virginia sunning themselves on the beach. According to The Dispatch, Pony patrol member Barbara Gallagher took this photo on a busy Saturday afternoon.
There are over 300 wild ponies on Assateague Island. According to local legend, they are descendants of a Spanish galleon that shipwrecked along the coast (others claimed that they were descendants of local colonial horses that got loose).
Photo: Christopher Evanson/US Coast Guard/Wikimedia
On the Virginia side of the island, the horse population is kept in check through the Annual Pony Swim, in which volunteers called the Salt Water Cowboys round up feral ponies, drive them across the channel during slack tide and auction some of them off, before driving the rest back to the island.
You know what's the best thing about black holes, apart from them not being too close to us that they'd suck all of us up into oblivion? Two words: space slinky.
Eileen Meyer from the Space Telescope Science Institute and colleagues used images from the Hubble Space telescope to analyze the central black hole of nearby M87 galaxy and discovered that when it is busy feeding, the black hole can also fire jets of plasma into space, in the form of a giant helical slinky:
Meyer found evidence that suggests the jet's spiral motion is created by a helix-shaped magnetic field surrounding the black hole. In the outer part of the M87 jet, for example, one bright gas clump, called knot B, appears to zigzag, as if it were moving along a spiral path. Several other gas clumps along the jet also appear to loop around an invisible structure. [...]
"The jet structure is very clumpy. Is this a ballistic effect, like cannonballs fired sequentially from a cannon?" Meyer asked, "or, are there some particularly interesting physics going on, such as a shock that is magnetically driven?"
Meyer's team found evidence for both scenarios. "We found things that move quickly," Meyer said. "We found things that move slowly. And, we found things that are stationary. This study shows us that the clumps are very dynamic sources."
When I was doing a bit of web research for our "8 Bafflingly Strange Plastic Surgeries" post on Neatorama, I googled "Klingon Forehead" on Google Images.
Sure enough, tons of images of Klingons and their ridged foreheads popped up, but I was perplexed at why Tracy Spiridakos showed up on Google Images' search results. There was no such association over at Bing Images.
As far as I know, Spiridakos, the Greek-Canadian actress has never starred in any Star Trek movies, and that there's no real connection between her, her sci-fi TV show Revolution with Klingons (well, until this post gets picked up by Google anyhow).
What gives, Google?
Neatoramanauts, have you noticed any other strange things over at Google?
(Note: After 8 years of writing for Neatorama, I've recently noticed strange things about our Google referrals - that's a topic for another time - but that's what got me interested in learning more about Google's search results)
Complaining about the country's education system is a favorite pastime of many American parents, but why don't - or can't - we change the way we educate our children?
Author Amanda Ripley decided to investigate by enlisting "field agents" of American students who studied abroad at Finnish, South Korean, and Polish schools.
Here's what she found out:
“If you want the American dream, go to Finland.” These blunt words from a British politician, quoted by Amanda Ripley in “The Smartest Kids in the World” [...]
[American student named Kim, who went to a typical Finnish school] soon notices something else that’s different about her school in Pietarsaari, and one day she works up the courage to ask her classmates about it. “Why do you guys care so much?” Kim inquires of two Finnish girls. “I mean, what makes you work hard in school?” The students look baffled by her question. “It’s school,” one of them says. “How else will I graduate and go to university and get a good job?”
It’s the only sensible answer, of course, but its irrefutable logic still eludes many American students, a quarter of whom fail to graduate from high school. Ripley explains why: Historically, Americans “hadn’t needed a very rigorous education, and they hadn’t gotten it. Wealth had made rigor optional.” But now, she points out, “everything had changed. In an automated, global economy, kids needed to be driven; they need to know how to adapt, since they would be doing it all their lives. They needed a culture of rigor.”
Move over, Adele! Here comes the Russian Army choir singing a cover of Skyfall that will make you forget that the Russians have been portrayed as villains in many James Bond movies.
Everyone's beautiful on the inside, but that's probably just what ugly people say. To truly let the beauty out, sometimes you have to go under the knife. So forget boob jobs, liposuction, and tummy tucks - to make yourself *truly* unique, consider these 8 extremely unusual plastic surgeries:
No, we're not talking about implanting a piece of cheese on your face. Take a look at her lips - notice the perma-smile?
The first entry in this list is inspired by the viral spread of the photo of this lovely young woman who wanted to have a Joker-worthy smile turn her perma-frown upside down into a perma-smile. The surgical procedure is called the "Smile Lipt" mouth corner surgery by AOne plastic surgery clinic in South Korea.
"When mouth corners are lifted up, a bright and gentle image is created, and the uplifted mouth corners create a bright and jolly appearance. When corners lift up during a conversation, the person appears sincere and confident.” [...]
"People who come to receive this procedure are people with sagging mouth corners, asymmetrical mouth corners, and people who have no confidence in their smiles. This costs them $2000."
2. Forehead Augmentation
(Yes, this one above is photoshopped, but you can see a real before/after photos here)
Forget breast augmentation - here comes forehead augmentation! If you've got bony protrusion near the eybrows, tilted forehead, flat forehead, hollow forehead or - God forbid - wide forehead, you can get that fixed.
Ain't nothing wrong with her forehead
- Liutenant Worf
3. Eyelash Transplant
"Eyelash transplantation does for the eyes what breast augmentation does for the figure," said Doctor Alan J. Bauman as we told you in this 2006 Neatorama post. There is, however, one side effect that to be aware of: transplanted eyelashes continue to grow, so you'd need to routinely trim or curl them.
Thankfully, Hermès has just released this: bright blue calfskin basketball priced at a whopping $12,900. From Hollywood Reporter:
The fashion brand, which has turned out footballs and soccer balls in the past, eschewed its signature orange in favor of a California-chic, cool blue for the bull calfskin ball that's made using the same hand-stitched technique as Hermes' coveted Birkin bags.
"It represents the sky, the ocean and all the beautiful pools that are a way of life in L.A. and Southern California," says Robert Chavez, Hermes U.S. CEO, who says that the exceptional quality of the leather as well as the artisanal craftsmanship account for the ball's price.
This plumber has been saving the Princess before it was cool. Jason Etta
reimagined our favorite Plumber as a hipster, and the result ain't bad
at all. Not bad at all!
Visit Jason's new NeatoShop page to view more of his neat designs: Link
- Your purchase helps support this blog as well as indie artists.
Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!
So, here's a small confession: if I'm lucky enough to have twins, I will
name them Fred and George. I'm sure that members of The Hunger
Games army of fans will name their daughters Katniss and their
sons Peeta or Haymitch.
It's a strange phenomenon, when super fans immortalize their favorite
fictional characters by naming their children after them. The recent popular
TV show and book series Game of Thrones is no different,
and their names are a bit more exotic than Fred or George.
1. Arya
This is a girl's name that's gaining popularity because of the show.
It's pronounced "Arh-ee-aa", which has inspired some new parents
to spell it "Aria" to avoid confusing people.
In case you live under a rock and don't know the premise of the show,
essentially it's a medieval-style tale in which seven noble families are
vying for control of their mythical land (think "The
Tudors" meets "Lord of the Rings.")
Arya is part of the Stark family. Cute and endearing, she is an archetypal
female character who is tomboyish and rejects the idea of marrying for
political reasons and not love. She sword fights and is close to her father,
who takes her with him when he goes to serve the king.
She's smart and quick-witted, although sometimes not quite as smart as
she thinks she is. But she's definitely a better role model for our daughters
than Barbie or Disney Princesses.
2. Khaleesi
The fact that this name is also gaining popularity for new American babies
has been cause for a little controversy. True fans will argue that "Khaleesi"
is actually a title, not a name.
The character, played by Emilia Clarke, is actually named Daenerys Targaryen.
Now, the name "Daenerys" might be a little much for a young
girl in kindergarten trying to figure out how to spell her name. I'm not
sure whether "Khaleesi" is any better, but, who knows?
Anyway, Khaleesi Daenerys is the last in the Targaryen line, and she
lives in exile. She spends the series working to reclaim "her"
throne, while adhering to a strict moral and ethical code. She's a warrior
and, like Arya, sets a pretty good example for our daughters.
So, did you watch Ashton Kutcher's new movie Jobs? Just how accurate was it? The website History vs Hollywood specializes in fact checking Tinseltown's version of history.
For example:
Was Steve Jobs a fruitarian?
Yes, at one point he was. He always followed strict diets, which varied at different times in his life. He went through phases of being a fruitarian, a vegan, a vegetarian and he often dabbled in fasting. He believed his diets would prevent body odor so he rarely showered. His assumption was incorrect and was a problem for various companies he worked for, including Atari and Apple.
Was he forced to work at night for Atari due to complaints from co-workers about hygiene and attitude?
Yes. After landing the job by simply walking into Atari and refusing to leave until he was hired, a number of complaints came in from his colleagues. In an effort to appease everyone, his boss, Nolan Bushnell, allowed him to work at night instead.
Did Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs build the video game Breakout for Atari?
Yes. In 1975 Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, Inc., envisioned a single player Pong game and he asked Steve Jobs to design it. That game became known as Breakout. Unlike what is shown in the Jobsmovie, Bushnell counted on the fact that Steve Jobs would recruit Steve Wozniak to help him design the game, knowing full well that Wozniak was the better engineer. "I looked at it as a two-for-one thing," recalls Bushnell. -Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
The website's "Reel Face" versus "Real Face" is a neat feature:
Jenny Parks, whose Doctor Mew artwork has featured here before on Neatorama, is back with the best cat painting you'll see today. Catvengers, assemble! (which is probably harder to say than do, because, as Nick Fury can attest, if herding cat is hard, try assembling them)
Parks also created individual portraits of feline superheroes:
Bob Ross doesn't make mistakes, only happy accidents. But once someone told him that his painting is blasphemy. It is a mistake. To which he replied, "Mistake?" THIS IS PAINTING!!!!
Fast forward to today and we're quite surprised to find that the trend of anti-cheating hats is still going on strong.
The Telegraph reported that students at the Bangkok Kasetart University were made to wear "anti-deceit paper helmet" for their mid-term exam. The photo, first posted to the university alumni's Facebook page (and has since been removed), went viral.
University officials were immediately put on the defensive - Nattadon Rungruangkitkrai, the teacher of the class, said that he and the students had discussed ways to prevent cheating. The paper hat was suggested by the anti-cheating paper hats.
"It was an agreement between us. No student was forced to wear a hat. Instead, all were happy to do so and thought it was fun. They felt more relaxed during the test," he told Bangkok Post.
Oddity Central reported that the university's student council confirmed the teacher's statement. One student remarked "It is quite normal that people try to cheat in an exam, so the hat helps avoid distractions while doing the test. I feel very bad, and angry, that this has been seen as bad by outsiders."
Anti-cheating paper hat, however, doesn't seems to be effective enough for the students at Thailand's Civil Aviation Centre (allegedly). To combat cheating, they opted for the deluxe anti-cheating cardboard box helmet:
Recognizing that cheating today may be more than just peeking at a neighboring student's answers, a teacher made students surrender their smartphones during the exam, as this viral photo shows:
Image: Dustin Cable/Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service/University of Virginia
Where are you in the map above? Demographic researcher Dustin Cable of University of Virginia plotted every person in the United States of America - all 308,745,538 of us as single dots in the map of the country - to create the Racial Dot Map.
Cable used the 2010 census data and color coded each dot according to racial breakdown. Caucasians are blue, blacks are green, Asians are red, Hispanics are orange and other races/Native Americans/Multi-racial as brown.
The location of the dots do not represent actual addresses - the smallest geographical unit in the data used by Cable is the census block, which is roughly a city block in large cities (but may cover greater dimensions in sparsely populated rural areas).
At first glance, there seems to be quite a bit of racial integration in the United States as shown by large swaths of purplish area. But in many cases, zooming in reveals racial segregation at the city or neighborhood level. Cable pointed out to the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area:
