Vancouver Aquarium's Qila the beluga gave birth yesterday, and the aquarium captured the birth on beluga-cam. The adorable baby is a girl, about 1.5 m long and weighs more than 50 kg ( lb) at birth. It's skin is wrinkly and slate grey in color, but will gradually becomes more smooth and lighter in color as it matures.
No name yet, they're going to hold a public contest on what to name it later. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Vancouver Aquarium webpage about the birth - Thanks Meighan!
Unicorn does exists, after all! A deer with a single horn in the center of its head has just been spotted in a nature preserve in Italy:
"This is fantasy becoming reality," Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Sciences in Prato, told The Associated Press. "The unicorn has always been a mythological animal."
The 1-year-old Roe Deer — nicknamed "Unicorn" — was born in captivity in the research center's park in the Tuscan town of Prato, near Florence, Tozzi said.
He is believed to have been born with a genetic flaw; his twin has two horns.
Link - Thanks Pam!
With the new BMW GINA Light Visionary Model, you won't have to worry about door dings anymore ... the concept car's skin is made of cloth instead of metal!
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Wired's Autopia has the story - Thanks The Monk!
Creative Review blog commissioned photographer Jason Tozer to take these amazing photos of all-too-common soap bubbles. The result is anything but ordinary: indeed, they look so out of this world that the series is called "Planet Tozer"!
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/planet-tozer/ | More at the blog's Flickr Photoset - Thanks Patrick Burgoyne!
Update 6/16/08 - here's how he did it: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/planet-tozer-how-he-did-it/I've always wondered why wine and champagne makers create those magnum bottles, now I know:to fill the world's largest champagne flute (16.5 liters or 4.4 gallons), of course!
The glass was 203 cm tall and with a diameter of 46 cm (80 x 18 inches)! It took 11 magnum bottles (16,5 litres) to fill this huge cup; filled with spumante Asti DOGG of course.
11 magnum bottles ... they should've used just one Melchior bottle!
Link - Thanks Gianluca!
L: Those aren't matchbox cars, they're real trucks caught in a sluice channel of the Tangjiashan quake lake in China (Photo: Li Gang/Xinhua/Reuters) M: The uncontacted Amazon tribe, shooting arrows at the helicopter (Photo: Gleison Miranda-FUNAI/Reuters) R: A wedding in Sichuan, China, interrupted by the earthquake that destroyed a church the couple were taking photos in (Photo: AP)
Alan Taylor's The Big Picture photoblog is currently one of my favorite new blogs. Inspired by the old Life Magazine, Alan is compiling "highlight high-quality, amazing imagery - with a focus on current events, lesser-known stories and, well, just about anything that comes across the wire that looks really interesting."
Check it out: Link - Thanks Jon Jason!
I see Adam Stanhope's post about the dancing Clintons and raise him this: dancing Jean-Claude Van Damme in the 1989 movie Kickboxer. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] to see the Muscles from Brussels kickin' it!
Or if you prefer, here's a clip from Breakin', where Van Damme was an extra: Link [fast forward to 2:20], remixed clip
Gary "Master Caster" Hain has amazing casting skill: take a look at what he can do with a fishing rod and reel. In this clip, he goes Skeet Fishing (now who needs a shotgun when you have a fishing rod?)
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] | Gary's website - Thanks Joel Stacy!
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped the ball ... literally! They dumped over 400,000 small plastic balls into the Ivanhoe Reservoir in order to protect the drinking water supply:
The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe's water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP's director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix. [...]
A tarp would have been too expensive and a metal cover would take too long to install, especially in a year of drought. So one of the DWP's biologists, Brian White, suggested "bird balls," commonly used by airports to prevent birds from congregating in wet areas alongside runways.
Francisco Vara-Orta of the Los Angeles Times has the story: Link (with video)
(Photo: Irfan Khan / LA Times)
With the help of its readers, Jalopnik blog has a neat post about the top 10 craziest concept cars of all time. This one is the "Book of
Songs" electric car by Chinese car maker Tang Hua, and from the photo, the name isn't the only thing weird about it!
Good: Bacon
Better: Bacon you can eat any time
Neatorama-worthy: Bacon with 10-year shelf life ... introducing: Canned Bacon!
You can get it from MREdepot.com:
Each can is 9 ounces of fully cooked and drained bacon. Between 2-3/4 and 3-1/4 pounds of raw bacon go into each can. Each can is the highest quality fresh #1 bacon slices. Cured to our specifications, cooked and then hand wrapped, rolled and packed in the U.S.
We cook this bacon down for you prior to canning, so you won’t pay for all of the natural shrinkage that occurs whenever you cook bacon. Then we carefully drain all of the fat and liquid off and can it fresh so it will taste as good out of the can as it would right out of the refrigerator.
http://www.mredepot.com/servlet/the-364/Yoder%E2%80%99s-Celebrity-Canned-Bacon/Detail - via about:blank
Sometimes you kick the wall, and sometimes the wall gets you back - here's a perfect example of the latter. See how this concrete fence exacts a revenge on this poor guy: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via Boing Boing
Miss C recently posted the floppy disk drive that plays Imperial March - turns out, that's not the only computer peripheral that can play music. Here's a HP scanner that plays Beethoven's Ode to Joy: hit play or go to Link [YouTube]- Thanks Greg Bulmash!
Previously on Neatorama: Take a Stroll Down Computing Memory Lane
Do you see the sign in the upper right-hand corner? Photo: lonecellotheory [Flickr]
My brother sent me this little gem, which apparently has been making its round on the web for the past few months:
BARACK OBAMA: The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!
JOHN MC CAIN: My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.
HILLARY CLINTON: When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.......
DR. PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.
OPRAH: Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.
GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.
COLIN POWELL: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...
ANDERSON COOPER - CNN: We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.
JOHN KERRY: Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.
NANCY GRACE: That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.
PAT BUCHANAN: To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.
MARTHA STEWART: No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.
DR SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road?
Did he cross it with a toad?
Yes, the chicken crossed the road,
But why it crossed I've not been told.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die in the rain. Alone.
JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth?' That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.
GRANDPA: In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.
BARBARA WALTERS: Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.
ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.
JOHN LENNON: Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.
BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken2008, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken.. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^(C% ........reboot.
ALBERT EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?
BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken! What is your definition of chicken?
AL GORE: I invented the chicken!
COLONEL SANDERS: Did I miss one? Where did that sucker go?
DICK CHENEY: Where's my gun?
AL SHARPTON: Why are all the chickens a colorless white? We need some black chickens.
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If you know the author(s), please let us know - Thanks Steve!
Now, what would you add to that?
