In January 2000 an oil spill near Phillip Island, Australia, threatened the tiny penguins who live there....
Rescue workers at the Phillip Island Nature Park tried different ways to keep the penguins warm and to stop them from swallowing the deadly oil. Dressing the penguins in doll sweaters proved to be the most successful technique.
Soon, news of the penguins' need for sweaters spread via the Internet. Knitters in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States downloaded penguin sweater patterns and set to work. Some got very excited, adding special touches, like little bows. Others knitted sweaters in the colors of their favorite sports teams.
Link | See also: http://buffoonery.org/blog/2005/12/awwwww.html
In an unusual alliance, the makers of Wonder Bread and the Conservative Conservation Coalition (CCC) unveiled plans for a project the two groups claim will one day revolutionize energy production in the United States.
The novel approach is based on two common but previously unexploited natural laws. One is a well-known form of Murphy’s Law which states that when toast is dropped, it always lands buttered side down. The other law states that when a cat falls, it always lands on its feet. These two laws are set in opposition to each other by attaching a buttered piece of toast to a cat’s back, buttered side up. If the cat is then suspended in the air, the two laws cause the cat to perpetually rotate. By building a device to hold the cat and capture this rotating energy, enough force is harnessed to drive an electric generator.
Scientists from Convervation International and Disney's Animal Kingdom recently launched an expedition into the six regions of the Tibetan "Sacred Lands" in the mountains of Southwest China and Nepal, and discovered many fantastic and some new animal species:
"The fact that we found so many new species in such a harsh environment, as well as documented several rare and endangered species is good news for these two regions," said Leeanne Alonso, the expedition's lead scientist and vice president of the CI's Rapid Assessment Program.
Here's a sampling of the outlandish critters:
* Giant hornets so deadly locals call them "Yak Killers" * Jumping "Yeti" mice * A new grasshopper species in which the males hitch piggy-back rides on the females * Baby blue-faced golden monkeys, the region's largest primates * Hamster-like pikas that eat their own feces * A couple of new frog species, eight new insect species, and ten new species of ants to add the more than 11,000 already known.
"We had the beer, we had a mineral spring nearby and we came up with the idea of beer baths," explained Mojmir Prokes, the young manager of the hotel and adjoining beer spa, who enthused over their "reinvigorating effects," especially for the skin.
A doctor from Marianske Lazne was drafted in to test the concoction -- a fifty-fifty mix of beer and water. Permission was obtained from local authorities, six large tailor made metal baths ordered and a qualified local nurse recruited.
Klara Kovacsova, who previously worked in balneotherapy, says the idea is "brilliant."
Update 4/10/06: Bibi told me that she had blogged about it before. Turns out Grow-a-brain did, too (Hope Hanan's not mad at me!). http://soutosco.zip.net/arch2004-10-10_2004-10-16.html
Antony Gormley built this 208 ton, 20 meters or five-story tall steel structure with a wingspan of 54 meters called the Angel of the North in Gateshead, United Kingdom.
About the sculpture, from the website:
It is made of weather resistant steel, containing copper, which forms a patina on the surface that mellows with age
Below the structure are massive concrete piles 22 metres deep anchoring it to the solid rock beneath
The body is hollow to allow for internal inspections with an access door high up on a shoulder blade
It is built to last for more than 100 years and withstand winds of more than 100 miles per hour
Steve Sun of TechEBlog has put together the Top 20 Strangest Gadgets and Accessories - this one is the "Rat Race Clock" with a mechanical rat running on a treadmill. Link (Thanks, Steve!)
