Photos: Sichuan Online

Who needs dynamite to demolish an earthquake-damaged building when you have this: monster hydraulic scissors that cut buildings to shred!

This giant 59-ton cutter has a 28-m (92 feet) long arm that turns a damaged 8-story building into a pile of rubble in just days. The clamp can exert a 300-ton pressure to cut a 85-cm (33 in) thick beam in just 10 seconds.

Link [in Chinese] - via YeinJee's Asian Journal

Discover Magazine has a pretty neat run down of zombie animals and the parasites that control them. Did you know that parasitic protozoa Toxoplasma gondii, which normally lives in cat, can also infect humans?

The rate of infection can vary wildly from country to country - only three percent of South Koreans are infected by toxoplasma, while as many as 80 percent of French people are carriers ...

Toxoplasmosis, researchers have found, might make people more likely to be schizophrenic, and can change personality in subtle ways. One researcher found that infected men were more aggressive and jealous, women were more outgoing, and perhaps more seriously, both had slower reaction times and were in more traffic accidents.

Link [Flash gallery] - Thanks Andrew Moseman!

(Photo: Blue Diego)

Alex Rushmer of Just Cook It! Blog wrote an eye-popping account on eating the Asian delicacy (read: gross!) thousand year egg or century egg for breakfast:

What we know as the white is not white at all. It is a translucent brown colour reminiscent of recycled glass. The yolk, far from being an appetising yellow, is grey. And hard. Depending on how old the egg in question is, the smell can be no more than a tickle of ammonia to an eye-wateringly sulphurous tang. Century eggs tend to be milder whereas the millennial counterparts really are a force to be reckoned with. Governments in need of an alternative fuel source need look no further than these potent little ova.

They are made by wrapping regular eggs (that taste so very good fried or poached or boiled or scrambled) in a mixture of salt, lime, mud, clay and straw and then leaving them. For ages. Occasionally they are even buried in the ground for several months before they are deemed edible. And here they were staring me plainly in the face, at breakfast.

Now, even though I'm Chinese and have eaten my share of weird food, I have to say that I've never had century egg and after reading Alex's account, probably never will: Link

Neatorama reader Miguel Artime sent in this one: a special coin found in the cash register of a Spanish candy shop. It seems that someone decided
to, um, modify the 1 Euro coin featuring the face of King Juan Carlos I de Borbon y Borbon, King of Spain, into the less regal mug of Homer Simpson! The owner does not want to sell it because "it brings good luck."

Link [in Spanish] - Thanks Miguel!

With over 20 million people in its extended metropolitan area, Shanghai is China's most populated city. With an area of nearly 5,300 km² (2,046 sq mi), it is also one of the world's largest urban areas - and it's growing fast.

On the third floor of the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, there is what probably is the world's largest scale model of a city. The room-sized model of central Shanghai in 2020, as envisioned by the urban planners, fills an area larger than 100 square meters (1,000 square feet) - via media pigs, Thanks Mark Dearman!

Photo: brandon [Flickr]

Photo: +tajc [Flickr]

Photo: pete&brook [Flickr]

Photo: pete&brook [Flickr]

Photo: larryncelia [Flickr]

During Victorian era, leaving your calling card when visiting a friend or attending a party is the proper etiquette.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years, this quaint practice is coming back into fashion, but instead of "calling" cards, people are handing out their "calling-and-emailing-and-AIMing-andTwittering cards."

For a flagging stationery industry, calling cards--essentially nonbusiness business cards--have brought a welcome dose of energy. Some are teenier than standard business cards, others much bigger, and many come in bright colors that seem anything but stodgy. Among the buyers: playdate-seeking parents eager for a sane way to exchange contact info, retirees who miss having business cards to hand out (Memphis stationer Baylor Stovall calls them "cruise-ship customers") and itinerant young professionals whose cell phones and e-mail addresses are their most reliable locators.

Link - Thanks Michelle Shildkret!

It's yellow and transports students to schools. A school bus? No - a
school tricycle! Only in New Delhi - via Mandelrot

Times are tough - and if you're looking for a new job, Look at This blog has a nice tip for you: the 10 questions you should NOT ask in a job interview.

Here are a few:

10. What's your company's policy on severance pay?

9. How long does it take your company's bureaucracy to get around to firing somebody for poor performance?

8. Do you have a random drug testing policy?

7. Does your company's life insurance cover suicide?

Link - via Land-O-Links

Artist Andy Saunders teamed up with VW parts and accessory company Just Kampers to create the "Vancake" the world's lowest Volkswagen Bus!

The 3-foot (1 meter) tall VW Bus entitled "Vancake" that’s fully road legal was created by Saunders and his team in just three days during this past weekend’s (July 18 to 20) Bug Jam festival at the UK’s Santa Pod Raceway. Apart from lowering the roof the team also applied a custom paint job and an electric sunroof.

Link - via Craziest Gadgets

After the success of Zombie Harmony and 9 Reason NOT to Date a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Matthew Inman launched another funny microsite: 10 Reasons It Would Rule to Date a Unicorn.

Reason I: They Fart Glitter. Good enough for me! Link - Thanks Matthew!

The sales of the insanely popular video game Grand Theft Auto IV have been halted in Thailand because of a copycat murder:

One of the largest video game distributors in Asia has halted sales of the Grand Theft Auto IV in Thailand after a teenager confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver while trying to recreate a scene from the game.

New Era Interactive said it had sent a note to all of its Thai stores telling them to pull the game off the shelves after a 19-year old high-school student confessed to killing a taxi driver with a knife he bought at a local branch of Tesco.

Police in Bangkok said that the youth "had wanted to find out if it was as easy in real life to rob a taxi as it was in the game."

Link - Thanks Geekazoid!

Artist Deborah Grumet of the ABCs of Art took the Ten Commandments and illustrated them in the style of road sign pictograms!

This one to the left is the Sixth Commandment: "You shall not murder." Can you guess the inspiration for this particular sign?

Link | The YouTube slideshow - Thanks Deborah!

A few days ago, Craig Covault wrote an article for Aviation Week claiming that the Mars Phoenix lander didn't just find ice - it had discovered "potential for life" on Mars and that the White House was briefed about it:

"They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water ice announcement.

The other data not discussed openly yet are far more "provocative," Phoenix officials say.

In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made the findings was kept out of a July 31 news conference at the University of Arizona Phoenix control center. The goal was to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal information before NASA is ready to make an announcement, sources say.

The Bush Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's office, however, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as early as mid August. It is possible an announcement would not come until September, to allow for additional analysis. That will depend upon the latest results still being analyzed from the spacecraft's organic oven and soil chemistry laboratories. (Source - Thanks Geekazoid!)

The news was picked up by Slashdot and the blogosphere was propelled into a tizzy, despite NASA and the White House's quick denial of the rumor.

So, let's play a fun guessing game. What do you think the "provocative" news is all about?

Using records from the Microsoft Messenger Instant Messaging database, researchers have just proven (again) the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon theory:

With records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people from around the world, researchers have concluded that any two people on average are distanced by just 6.6 degrees of separation, meaning that they could be linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances.

The database covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said.

"To me, it was pretty shocking. What we're seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity," said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who conducted the study with colleague Jure Leskovec. "People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore."

Link - Thanks Geekazoid!

I declare you Mon Calamari and wife! Photo: jwinokur [Flickr]

The awesomest wedding cake EVAR! Photo: jwinokur [Flickr]

All of the guests are in costume! Photo: jwinokur [Flickr]

There are Star Wars fan wedding, then there are hardcore Star Wars fan wedding! Photographer Justin Winokur has a very neat Flickr photoset of what is undoubtedly one of the BEST Star Wars wedding ever! Congrats to the couple!

Link - via Super Punch

(And let me be the first to say it: "Wedding? It's a trap!" - Mon Calamari Rebel leader Admiral Ackbar)