Archaeologists examining an undersea site in Britain have discovered something wonderful: an 8,000-year-old piece of string!

Our ancestors made it by twisting together what seem to be fibres of honeysuckle, nettles, or wild clematis, and used it in their struggle for survival as the last ice age ended.

This early piece of technology, measuring about 41/2in must have been a revolutionary advance at the time, useful for binding together weapons or tools.

But in case you don't believe me that it's a wonderful find, here's what British Archaeology mangazine editor Mike Pitts said about the discovery:

'It is a fantastic find. I don't think the average person realises what an important piece of technology string has been over the ages.'

Indeed. Link - via Scribal Terror

If your loved ones don't like nerdy gifts, maybe they'll like these instead. Here's an InventorSpot article on the 15 strange and bizarre gifts for the weirdos in your life.

Includes gems like this one, the Decapitated Teddy Bear Lamp: Link

Space tourism is still horribly expensive (a flight to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft goes for about $20 million). But if you want, you can now step into the boots of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin by donning the replica of the iconic Apollo 11 spacesuits. It'll set you back $9.5K (Tang not included): Link

Misfortune Cookie is about how three jerks who angered the waitress of a Chinese restaurant and got cursed fortune cookies as punishment.

This fantastic short film is an Atom original and directed by Duncan Skiles, written by Brett Gelman/Waverly Films.

You'll never guess the ending! Link [embedded Flash vidoe]

J.Tithonus Pednaud of The Human Marvels blog has an intriguing post about Sam Alexander, the Man with Two Faces:

Although the details are a little sketchy, Sam was ultimately involved in a huge gasoline explosion that was the result of his own carelessness. While he was able to instinctively save his eyes by raising his arm, he received deed burns around his lips and lower face. Even more unfortunately his wounds festered and became severely infected. Doctors were forced to remove much of his lover face and lips, practically to the bone. As a result, Same Alexander was left with a permanent and disturbing teeth-gnashing grimace and a gruesome visage. [...]

Billed as ‘The Man with Two Faces’, Sam’s exhibition consisted primarily of a stage monologue detailing his story. Sam was a soft-spoken man with a gentle manner and soothing voice. He so lulled the crowd with his tale of heartbreak that when he revealed his face in a surprising flourish, people screamed and women cried. His showcase was so disturbing that Kortes made Sam the Blow Off attraction, an extra attraction patrons had to pay a premium to see and he was sincerely billed as ‘not for the weak of heart’. At more than one venue, Sam Alexander was paid not to perform.

Link (Once you're at The Human Marvels blog, you can click on the photo to get a larger view)

Our very own Stacy wrote a really neat article titled 12 Things You Might Not Know About A Christmas Story (even though you've seen it 90 times). Here's a couple of examples:

7. Next time you’re in Cleveland, you can visit the original
house from the movie for only $7.50. It was sold on eBay in 2004 for $150,000. Collector Brian Jones bought the house and restored it to its movie glory and stocked it up with some of the original props from the film, including Randy’s snowsuit.

8. Director Bob Clark got the idea for the movie when he was driving in the car with a date. He heard Jean Shepherd on the radio doing a reading of his short story collection, “In God We Trust… All Others Pay Cash,” which included some bits that eventually ended up in A Christmas Story. Clark said he drove around the block for an hour until the program ended, which his date was not too happy about.

My favorite bit from the movie is when the family ended up at a Chinese restaurant (fra ra ra ra ra) on Christmas day because that's where we always end up as well!

Link - via i met a possum

Silverware by Herb Williams

It's not unusual for artists to use crayons to create their artwork, but Herb Williams use them in a different way: he creates whimsical sculptures out of crayon sticks! Link

Previously on Neatorama: Jennifer Maestre's Pencil Sculptures

Demon's Howl by Shawn Cheng

On the Road of Knives is a collaboration website of Zak Smith, Shawn Cheng, and Nicholas Di Genova. The guys took turns drawing successive illustrations of fantastic and gory creatures - the storyline that emerges may be a little difficult to follow, but the art sure is marvelous.

Link | Start at the beginning

Previously on Neatorama: The Superest by Kevin Cornell and Matt Sutter (still going on, though at a slower pace than before)

PS Nicholas Di Genova is featured in blogTO's gallery of emerging Toronto-based artists. So far they've got 50+ artists with their profiles and examples of their work - Thanks Tim!

Photo: cages [ViewBug]

A while ago, we announced a collaboration with View Bug: a challenge to upload the neatest or weirdest thing about your hometown. Well, the winner has just been selected. Congratulations to cages, who won $300 in prize (now wasn't that easy?)

Link - Thanks Ori!

It's always "sewing time" for Claire Payne at Folksy. She made this cute clock pincushion for your wrist: Link - via Cuteable

Holland's coffee shop chain CoffeeCompany installed free WiFi to attract university students. Problem is, they come into the store to use the WiFi but never even looked at the menu. So the company and THEY Amsterdam ad agency got creative:

THEY periodically changed the wireless network name from the normal "CoffeeCompany" to hardselling headlines. So when students connected to the network, they were greeted with headlines in their WiFi menu like "HaveYouTriedTheCarrotCake?" or "Mmm...YummyMuffinsOnly1,99".

The best part came when people yelled across the room to ask the barista what the name of the WiFi network was and the barista answered one of the WiFi lines like "OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready."

Link

During a news conference at his surprise visit to Iraq, President Bush showed great reflexes by dodging a shoe thrown by an angry Iraqi journalist:

In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, a reporter stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," before hurtling his shoes at Mr Bush, narrowly missing him.

"All I can report is a size 10," Mr Bush said according to the Associated Press news agency.

The shoe thrower was taken away by security guards and the news conference continued.

Correspondents called it a symbolic incident. Iraqis threw shoes and used them to beat Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad after his overthrow.

Link - Thanks Mark Storen!

One day, Fendy Sutandio of Orimath blog looked at his garden and found this strange "Zombie Hand" fungus. It does look like a zombie's hand digging itself out of its grave!

Link - via Cliff Pickover's Reality Carnival

Photo: our_bangladesh [Flickr]

It took almost 20 years for the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan to build the Taj Mahal in the 1600s, but it took only 5 years for wealthy movie director Ahsanullah Moni to build his replica near Dhaka, Bangladesh:

He has imported marble and granite from Italy, diamonds from Belgium and used 160kg of bronze for the dome.

In support of his project, he said: "Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them."

The Indians, however aren't amused and are thinking of suing Moni for copyright infringement: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Fake-Taj-Mahal-India-Angry-Over-Bangladeshi-Plans-To-Build-Replica-Taj-Mahal/Article/200812215178174?lpos=World_News_News_Your_Way_Region_5&lid=NewsYourWay_ARTICLE_15178174_Fake_Taj_Mahal%3A_India_Angry_Over_Bangladeshi_Plans_To_Build_Replica_Taj_Mahal | Reuter has the video - via Oddly Enough, Thanks Robert Basler !

Could you survive if you only have $1 a day for food? That's what Christopher Greenslate, 28, and Kerri Leonard, 29, wanted to find out. So the couple, both high school social studies teachers, did a month-long dollar-a-day diet experiment:

When we first started talking about doing this, we didn’t really have an agenda, or any developed sense of why we wanted to do it. It just seemed like an interesting challenge; one that would force us to see things differently.

We are interested in many of the strands related to this experiment; food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty, social psychology, etc., and this experience may provide insights that could help us better understand and teach about a variety of concerns (we both teach Social Justice in a public high school).

Here are the rules:

1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us.

2. We cannot accept free food or “donated” food unless it is available for everyone in our area. (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving)

3. Any food we plant, we pay for.

4. We will do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles can only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We have six packages and will buy no more)

5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don’t get to eat their own dollar’s worth of food.

The couple recorded their experience in their blog: Link | Their first day - Thanks Geekazoid!