What's more fun than playing Jenga? Why, playing Jenga with a Jenga Pistol, of course!
Here's Matthias Wandel showing us his invention, a wooden pistol powered by a rubber band:
The game of Jenga was possibly designed to be a more contemplative and strategic game. But sliding those blocks out carefully without knocking over the stack is just entirely too fiddly a task to perform. I figured it would be much more fun to just be able to shoot the blocks out with some sort of pistol. [...] It takes ... about one twentieth of a second, from the point that the trigger is released to the Jenga block clearing the stack.
Look closely: that's a wonderful OWLS sweater, made by Kate Davies of needled blog (who's offering the pattern for free). The buttons really made the design pop! Link - via NotCot
Joe Dziemianowicz of the Daily News wrote that even though President Obama doesn't like to reduce America into a collection of red states and blue states, he wore only red and blue neckties in his first 11 days in office. Is that just a coincidence?
Not according to science - Robert Roy Britt of LiveScience explains why in high-stakes politics and business, there are only two color of ties, red and blue:
Red and blue are also thought by psychologists to improve brain performance and receptivity to advertising. The new study in Science supports this idea. It also suggests nuances the president might want to know about, assuming one buys into the notion that presidential messages — delivered on television or on Capitol Hill — are essentially a form of advertising.
The study found that red is the most effective at enhancing our attention to detail, while blue is best at boosting our ability to think creatively.
"Previous research linked blue and red to enhanced cognitive performance, but disagreed on which provides the greatest boost," said study leader Juliet Zhu of the University of British Columbia. "It really depends on the nature of the task."
Zhu and colleagues tracked the performance of more than 600 people on cognitive tasks that required either creativity or attention to detail. Most experiments were conducted on computers with a screen that was red, blue or white.
Red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks such as memory retrieval and proofreading up to 31 percent more than blue. For brainstorming and other creative tasks, blue cues prompted participants to produce twice as many creative outputs compare to red cues.
Gender equality and political correctness aside, Mother Nature has decided the answer: female neurons are more valuable.
Writing in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, a group of researchers found that nutrient deprivation of neurons produced sex-dependent effects. Male neurons more readily withered up and died, while female neurons did their best to conserve energy and stay alive. [...]
Robert Clark and colleagues at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center examined whether this sex-dependent response in starvation could manifest in brain cells. They grew neurons taken separately from male and female rats or mice in lab dishes and subjected them to starvation over 72 hours.
After 24 hours, the male neurons experienced significantly more cell dysfunction (measured by analyzing cell respiration, which decreased by over 70% in male cells compared to 50% in female cells) and death. Visually, male neurons also displayed more abundant signs of autophagy, whereby a cell breaks down its components as a fuel source, while female neurons created more lipid droplets to store fat reserves.
If you think that getting $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money would embarass the AIG from giving millions in bonuses, think again: the beleagured financial company is going forward with plans for $165 million of bonuses and employee retention pays ... with the government's grudging approval:
A.I.G. had set up a special bonus pool for the financial products unit early in 2008, before the company’s near collapse, when problems stemming from the mortgage crisis were becoming clear and there were concerns that some of the best-informed derivatives specialists might leave. It locked in a total amount, $450 million, for the financial products unit and prepared to pay it in a series of installments, to encourage people to stay.
Only part of the payments had been made by last fall, when A.I.G. nearly collapsed. In documents provided to the Treasury, A.I.G. said it was required to pay about $165 million in bonuses on or before Sunday. That is in addition to $55 million in December.
Ever wonder why some people can eat anything they want and never gain weight? UCSF (my alma mater!) researcher Robert Farese and colleagues have found that it may just be the absence of a "fat enzyme":
The enzyme, MGAT2, determines whether dietary fat is used to generate energy or stored under the skin around the waist. The discovery of its role could be the key to preventing obesity, diabetes and heart disease
Scientists found that mice missing the gene for MGAT2 were able to feast on a high fat diet without becoming flabby or overweight.
Mice lacking MGAT2 were also protected against glucose intolerance - a precursor to diabetes - high cholesterol and a build up of fat in liver cells.
Quick - who knows the US government's current national threat level? (It's been elevated or yellow for quite a while, with domestic and international flights being with high or orange).
Dan Piraro pointed out that Japan has a much more meaningful security advisory system, but apparently he forgot that we also have this: the Elmo Terror Alert Level
For more Bizarro, check out Dan's website and blog.
Remember the memory game "concentration" that you play with cards?
Well, Philipp Lenssen of Games for the Brain (Philipp is also the man behind the awesome Google Blogoscoped blog) and Nikolai Kordulla created a version that will challenge your aural memory as opposed to your visual one. Check out Soundory, which uses snippets Amazon MP3 widget - it's quite a lot of fun!
Like Miss Cellania posted earlier, today is Pi Day. But did you know that someone really famous was also born on this day? It's only fitting that today is also the birthday of Albert Einstein (born March 14, 1879).
The economy is tough out there for artists but we have good news for you: we are hiring freelance graphic designers to design nifty T-shirts for the Neatorama Online Store as well as a couple of models (male and female, a couple preferred) to showcase the T-shirts.
Both of these positions are part-time/freelance - you can work from your home (though we prefer that you be in the USA and 18-years-of age or older). Oh, and models get to keep the shirts after they're done modeling 'em :)
Please email Alex for more details - be sure to include this as the subject line "Neatorama T-Shirt Designer Application" or "Neatorama T-Shirt Model Application."
Thank you!
Update 3/18/09: Thank you to everybody who applied! We're sifting through hundreds of qualified applicants now and will make our decision shortly.
Hello, everyone! A few weeks ago, we had our third Mystery Sale, and the response had been overwhelming (thank you to everybody who participated!)
I know many of you are wondering where your Mystery box shipment is at. For those of you who haven't received the shipment, don't worry! We're not done shipping 'em out yet!
In fact, we've been burning the midnight oil trying to get this done (it's Friday 11:30 PM @ the warehouse when I wrote this post and scheduled it for Monday). There are only two of us here in Neato HQ, working on the store side of Neatorama, and we've been shipping packages like mad! I do, however, acknowledge that we have to improve the turnaround time for the next Mystery Sale.
Even though this sale is over, you can still get Funny Science T-shirts, fun kitchen stuff and more on Neatorama's Online Store.
Ever wonder how a fish sees its environment? It's probably pretty close to this panorama by Richard Chesher over at 360 Cities. Be sure to right click and select "stereographic projection" (it's nearly 360 degree field of view all at the same time).
The photo really doesn't do it justice - definitely check out the larger version here: Link - Thanks Jeffrey Martin!
Who ever said that crime doesn't pay? It certainly did for this guy: Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, who made the rank in Forbes' annual list of The World's Billionaires.
Mexico's most wanted man, "El Chapo", or Shorty, heads the Sinaloa cartel, one of the biggest suppliers of Cocaine to the U.S. In 1993 was arrested in Mexico on homicide and drug charges. Escaped from federal prison in 2001, reportedly through the laundry, and quickly regained control of his drug trafficking organization, which he still controls today. In 2008 Mexican and Colombian traffickers laundered between $18 billion and $39 billion in proceeds from wholesale shipments to the U.S. Shorty, an alleged tunnels expert, is believed to have directed anywhere from a third to half of that during the past 8 years. Apparently started out working with Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, "El Padrino", or the Godfather, head of the most powerful drug trafficking group in Mexico at that time. U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for his capture.
Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora expressed outrage at the publication and described Forbes' calculations on Guzman Loera's fortune as mere "speculation."
"I will never accept that a criminal could be recognized as someone distinguished, even if it is by a magazine like Forbes," Medina Mora said to local media during a drug traffic summit Thursday in Vienna, Austria.
Forbes is "comparing the deplorable activity of a criminal wanted in Mexico and abroad with that of honest businessmen," he said.
Ricky Gervais + Elmo = Hilarity!
It doesn't get much better than this comedy gold Elmo interviews
comedian Ricky Gervais (G to E: "do you know what necrophilia
is?")
Rube Golberg Corkscrew Machine
British designer Rob Higgs was commissioned by Marcus Wilkinson
of ONEOFONEHUNDRED
to build this fantastic Rube Goldbergian contraption: an amazing
mechanical device, made from almost 300 found objects, to uncork
a bottle and pour a glass of wine.
Bunny vs. Snake
Which is more vicious a cute little bunny rabbit or a big snake?
Find out here - the ending may just surprise you: Link
My Legs Give Me Superpowers
Athlete, actress and fashion model Aimee
Mullins gave a talk at TED about a dozen or so of her prosthetic
legs, and the superpowers they gave her: speed, beauty ... and an
extra 6 inches of height!
You know you've got it if: You're suffering from green
skin, menstrual cessation, and lethargy.
Victims: In 1554, doctors determined the green monster
was targeting virgin girls with the disease they labeled "chlorosis."
Later, various physicians reported that the condition was a direct result
of women either being undersexed, or in the case of university girls,
over-educated.
Treatment: Many believed the cure to ending virgin's
disease was as simple as ending virginity. In a letter to a worried father,
one physician suggested that he arranged for his daughter to get pregnant
as soon as possible. His rationale? "If they conceive, they recover."
Amazingly, chlorosis didn't disappear from medical textbooks until the
1930s. These days, doctors recognize the symptoms as part of anemia and
prescribe iron supplements instead of sex.
Visceroptosis, or "Organ Drooping"
You know you've got it if: You think you're sick. If
you suffer from occasional headaches, poor sleep, or even if you don't
have any real symptoms, organ drooping is probably to blame.
Victims: People with poor posture, women who had multiple
pregnancies, and - above all - girls who wore excessively tight corsets.
Visceroptosis was defined as the downward displacement of inner organs
within the abdominal cavity. Testing was simple: if a doctor placed light
pressure on patients' abdomens and if it made them feel better, organ
drooping was taking place.
Treatment: Although organs can cause problems if they
get repositioned in the body, the diagnosis was basically a way for surgeons
to make money. Organ drooping was such a common diagnosis at the end of
the 19th century that specialized surgery clinics popped up across the
country to "treat" it. But the popularity of visceroptosis ended
with World War I, when surgeons had real problems to fix.
The English Sweat
You know if you've got it if: You're experiencing fever,
aches, exhaustion, and of, course, sweating through your shirt. Worse
still, people were said to die within 24 hours of contracting the symptoms.
Victims: Strangely, only people living in England. Outbreaks
of the sweating sickness broke out in the summer months of 1485, 1508,
1517, 1528, and 1551. Only once did an outbreak make it beyond England's
borders.
The real cause: Poor hygiene. Although scientists still
aren't sure exactly what caused "the sweating sickness," they
believe it might have been a flu-type virus spread by filth or rodents.
One monarch had a unique prevention technique: King Henry VIII was so
scared of contracting the sweat that he moved around the country from
manor to manor trying to outrun it.
... And One Real Disease You Might Have: Love Sickness
You know if you've got it: You're listening to a lot
of country music. In addition to some unrequited love, you also may experience
loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, and an
irregular pulse, among other things.
What it isn't: One ancient medieval writer claimed the
illness could cause the body of a jilted lover to fill with black bile.
Also, an Islamic philosopher said lovesick men could turn into werewolves.
What it could be: Roman Emperor Commodus' personal physician,
Claudius Galenus or Galen, first officially diagnosed lovesickness as
a medical disease in the 2nd century C.E. Although that classification
eventually fell out of favor, recent brain-imaging studies have shown
that people who are madly in love exhibit neurological patterns similar
to OCD sufferers.
The article above, written by Josie Swindler,
is reprinted with permission from Scatterbrained section of the Nov/Dec
2008 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss'
website and blog for more fun stuff!
