Photo: Roberto Sozzani
Expeditions to the coral reefs of the Red Sea and Indonesia revealed a flurry of 5 new (and cute!) pygmy seahorses. This one above is the Walea pygmy seahorse, found off the waters of the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia.
National Geographic has the photo gallery: Link
We got a heavy influx from Yahoo! visitors (hi guys!) - and while I was busy trying to keep the servers alive, Queuebot got a little too excited and posted 48 posts from the Upcoming Queue. That's a lot of posts!
Obviously some of the posts are of dubious quality - I'm going to go through them and fix what I can. We'll tighten the algo to improve the quality of posts that get promoted.
We're still working on the issues of search (the folks at Lijit are working hard to improve indexing and relevance) and duplicates (now admins can stop votings on things that are obviously dupes, I think we should enable flagging for duplicates). Like any good project, this one has its hiccups. We'll get them all straightened out soon. I thank you for your patience!
Daniel Bennett had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day: One day, after spending 7 years collecting Komodo dragon excrement, he found out that his University had incinerated his prized bag of poo!
But two years into his PhD he returned from fieldwork to find his collection had been "accidentally" thrown away by technicians clearing space in a laboratory.
"The Butaan is so reclusive that all attempts to study it using methods that have proved suitable for the Komodo dragon and other large lizards have ended in total failure," he told Times Higher Education magazine.
"My team and I studied the animals by searching the forest floor for their distinctive faeces and using clues to estimate dietary patterns, population size and structure, and activity areas. By the beginning of the third year of my PhD, I knew more about lizard faeces than I had ever thought possible.
"Returning to Leeds from fieldwork, I was surprised to find my desk space occupied by another student and to see that photographs of my daughter, my girlfriend and my favourite lizards had been removed from the wall.
"My personal effects had been carefully stowed in boxes, but there was no sign of my 35kg bag of lizard ****."
(Photo: Heathcliff O'malley)
I challenge all of you to come up with a better title!Just in time for Valentine's Day - traffic officials in Chengdu, China, came up with this idea of making crossing a road more romantic:
A spokesman said the local traffic bureau wanted to give the crossing a romantic atmosphere because it was close to the Hejiang Pavilion, a popular dating venue for young couples.
"We want to make everybody who walks on it feel warmth and love from others," said the spokesman, adding that it was believed to be the first crossing of its kind in the whole country.
"We have two wishes - one, that all who walk on it experience long-lasting love and, two, that they obey traffic rules and cross safely."
It's bound to happen, folks! Here is ... the world's first divorce by Facebook:
Millions of people use it every day to pass on harmless snippets of gossip to friends and family. But the message Emma Brady's husband posted on Facebook could not have been more devastating.
It read: 'Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady.'
Mrs Brady, a 35-year-old conference organiser, claims she had no idea he even wanted a divorce, and only found out when a friend, who read the post on the social networking website, rang to console her.
To make matters worse, she discovered someone else had commented on the site that her husband was 'better off out of it'.
Link (Photo: Manchester Evening News Syndication)
Previously on Neatorama:
Here's the interview everyone's been waiting for: Nadya Suleman, the Octuplets' mom went straight from the hospital to an interview with NBC's Ann Curry:
The mother of octuplets born last week in Bellflower told NBC News she wanted to have a "huge family" because she longed for personal connections she felt she lacked in her childhood.
"I just longed for certain connections and attachments with another person that I -- I really lacked, I believe, growing up," Nadya Suleman said in an interview today with NBC's Ann Curry. "Reflecting back on my childhood, I know it wasn't functional. It was pretty -- pretty dysfunctional, and whose isn't?"
Link (Photo: NBC Universal)
Previously on Neatorama:
After he was fired from his executive job, Michael Gates Gill was devastated. Soon after he was laid off and got divorced - and when he thought things couldn't get any worse, he got diagnosed with a brain tumor.
At the lowest point in his life, Michael walked into a Starbucks store while it was holding a jobs fair. On a whim he applied for a position.
Starbucks may be $4 cup of coffee to you and me, but to Michael, it was a lifesaver:
After 26 years at J. Walter Thompson, a leading advertising agency, the then 63-year-old Gill was invited to an early breakfast and was told that he was getting the boot. He made too much money. Someone younger would work for less, he was told.
"Never go out to breakfast," he warns before bursting into laughter. "It's like the Mafia. You will never return."
He can joke about it now, but Gill says he was devastated by his firing. "I remember walking outside and bursting into tears," he says over a steaming cup of coffee at his current place of employment, a Starbucks in Bronxville, New York. "I was stunned. I knew that that part of my life was over."
That was just the start of a terrible reversal of fortune. In a few short years, Gill, the Yale-educated son of the famed New Yorker writer Brendan Gill, closed the consulting business he started after he was laid off, got divorced and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He had hit both the rock and the bottom and was continuing to fall.
A trip to Starbucks would irrevocably change his life, he says. Unbeknownst to him, the coffee shop was holding a hiring fair the morning he walked in for his daily dose of caffeine. A manager approached him and asked if he would like to apply for a job. Without thinking, he said yes.
Geeks Are Sexy Blog has a neat round-up of some of the geekiest T-shirts on the Net. They're mostly oldies but goodies, and I think you can get them over at ThinkGeek or maybe do a search on Teenormous (I wish they were linked to the sellers): Link - Thanks Yan!
Attention car lovers! We've just added a line of Road Mice wireless optical mouse to the Neatorama Online Store. Now you can "cruise" the web in style with officially licensed replica of your favorite car.
These Road Mice have 800 dpi resolution for enhanced accuracy and precision, functioning headlights (with on/off switch to save battery life), and even individual VIN serial numbers so you can get personalized registration and title, just like a real car!
We have 40 make and color combo available, including Dodge Viper, Ford GT and Mustang, Chevy Camaro and Corvette. Starting at $43.95, they make a neat gift for the car lover in your family (or even yourself!)
Links: All Road Mice | By carmaker: Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, Ford and Police Cars
Caroline Petrie is a nurse who carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients. One day, she offered to pray for the recovery of a sick woman ... and now she may lose her job because of it!
Mrs Petrie, 45, is a community nurse employed by North Somerset Primary Care Trust to carry out home visits to sick and elderly patients.
The incident which led to her suspension took place at the home of a woman patient in Winscombe, North Somerset. "It was around lunchtime and I had spent about 20 to 25 minutes with her. I had applied dressings to her legs and shortly before I left I said to her: 'Would you like me to pray for you?'.
"She said 'No, thank you.' And I said: 'OK.' I only offered to pray for her because I was concerned about her welfare and wanted her to get better."
However, after the incident on December 15, she was contacted by the trust and asked to explain her actions.
Andrew Alderson of The Daily Telegraph has the story: Link
It's always a good idea to give your kids vitamins, right?
Well, according to a new study by pediatrician Dr. Ulfat Shaikh at UC Davis School of Medicine, health doesn't have much to do with why kids take vitamins ... but poverty does:
LinkResearchers derived the information from an analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey results from 1999 to 2004. They found that about one-third of American children ages 2 to 17 had used a vitamin or mineral supplement within the previous month, but that most of them did not need to supplement their diet.
On the other hand, children who used vitamins the least tended to be at greatest risk for nutritional deficits. They did not eat as well as the children who were taking supplements, lived in low-income families that were short of food and had less access to health care, the study found.
“Poverty seems to be the overriding factor,” Dr. Shaikh said. Although supplements may not seem expensive to a middle-class family, the cost may be onerous for a low-income family, she said. “Parents who were poor were perhaps unable to afford supplements.”
Think that those urban graffiti are all left by poor, underprivipeged taggers or teenagers led astray by gangs? Think again: the Los Angeles County sheriff just arrested tagging crews who are surprisingly rich:
Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies today arrested at least eight alleged members of the notorious Metro Transit Assassins tagging crew, some of whom are believed to be responsible for a several-blocks-long “MTA” tag in the concrete Los Angeles River bed that authorities say will cost millions of dollars to remove.
The arrests occurred during a series of early-morning raids centered in the Hollywood area. Among those detained for a parole violations is a famous tagger whose work “SMEAR” has has won acclaim in the art community. [...]
Most those detained are in their 20s; one of them drives a $60,000 BMW, and another member possesses a diamond-and-ruby-encrusted Metro logo pendant with paperwork suggesting it's worth $29,000, Finkelstein said.
Link - Thanks Tiffany!
Photo: Al Seib/LA Times
This. Is. Awesome. I ran into the Audio Bone headphones people at 2009 CES, and was so impressed with their ear-free, bone conductance headphones that I had to carry them in the Neatorama Online Store.
The Audio Bone Headphones deliver superb sound through your bones, directly to your inner ear. It lets you listen to music and, because the headphones do not cover your ears at all, still hear everything around you. This lets me listen to music at home at night while working on the computer but still be able to hear the kids if they happen to wake up.
The headphones are stylish and lightweight - in fact, it's more comfortable than regular headphones and earbuds. And because they don't involve the ear drums, it's also safer for your hearing.
We have 4 different colors of the Audio Bone Headphones, at $179 each. It's a the perfect Valentine's Day gift for a gadget lover. And best of all, you can try Audio Bone risk-free for 30 days. If you don't like 'em, you can return the headphones for a full refund: http://shop.neatorama.com/product-info.php?audio-bone-headphones-pid160.html
Yippee! We're now carrying wonderful products from indie artists Ashley and Hannah of Hoopla in the Neatorama Online Store.
This particular one above, My Punny Valentine, is a set of 5 revamped 1950's style Valentine cards that feature really bad - and therefore really awesome - puns. They are perfect for Valentine's Day!
Also, check out the Forever Bouquet, a dozen colorful "freshly cut" paper flowers that will never need sun or water. It lasts forever, and in this economy, that counts for a lot!
http://shop.neatorama.com/product-info.php?my-punny-valentine-card-hoopla-pid161.html
Hello everyone! It's been a week since we've launched the Neatorama Upcoming Queue and I'd like to give you all a little update.
Since we launched on January 26, we've had about 400 blog posts submitted, of which about 125 were promoted to the front page. Obviously some submissions are of low quality (spam and copy&paste jobs) and many don't have the appropriate format, but a success rate of 30% is darn good! Furthermore, what we're asking you to do isn't easy: the Upcoming Queue isn't a simple link submission - we're asking you to write a whole blog post! But I'm not suprised, really, because Neatoramanauts are smarter than the average bear!
If you own a blog, and have unique and original posts, I highly encourage you to submit a post on the Upcoming Queue. As Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips wrote earlier this week, a front page link from Neatorama is worth thousands and thousands of visitors.
The throughput from the Upcoming Queue is actually more than the output of all of Neatorama's authors on a daily basis. We actually had to throttle the Queue back a little, lest the front page is totally overwhelmed with posts. I'm sure that we'll find a good number of new posts published daily that will keep you coming back regularly to find new stuff, without being overwhelmed by new posts.
As with any new (and beta) projects, there are bound to be hiccups. Early last week, our database server tripped over itself - the first outage of its sort since we upgraded our hardware. I hope that the fix we did will prevent this sort of things from happening again.
There are also two general areas that we need to improve:
Finally, I'd like to reiterate our intention of rewarding, rather than punishing, the top submitters. While we obviously like diversity in the submitter pool, the Pareto Principle (or the 80-20 rule) predicts that only a small minority will put in more time and effort into the Upcoming Queue than the majority of readers - and that's perfectly fine.
So, to repeat the promise: The Top Submitter of February 2009 will win a Free iPod Touch, and the rest of the Top 10 Submitters (also listed on the sidebar of the Upcoming Queue) will get a free Neatorama T-Shirt. Want yours? Start by submitting your posts. It's easy and fun!
Links: Neatorama Upcoming Queue | Frequently Asked Questions about the Queue
