In 2014, US Geological Survey biologists put camera-equipped radio collars on four female polar bears near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. This is what they see.

The video, which is the first ever from a free-ranging polar bear on Arctic sea ice, shows an interaction with a potential mate, playing with food, and swimming at the water's surface and under the sea ice. These videos will be used by the US Geological Survey in research to understand polar bear behavior and energetics in an Arctic with declining sea ice.

Video: Paul Laustsen/USGS Office of Communications and Publishing)

Eric Rieger wanted to be a graffiti artist, but after being tasered and sent to jail, he decided to forgo spray paint and pick up yarn instead.

Smart move! Now, Rieger, who goes by the street name HOT TEA is making a name for himself for creating unique geometric yarn art on chain link fences around the world.

Hungry? Better eat that food fast if you work at the Concordia Research Station, Antarctica.

As you can see from the pics taken by researchers Carmen Possnig and Cyprien Verseux, the cold weather (-25 degrees celcius in the summer and - 80 degrees celcius in the winter) tends to mess with your food a bit.

No, it's not the end of times. Rather, the 40-foot long tentacles are an art installation by Luke Egan and Pete Hamilton (aka Filthy Luker and Pedro Estrellas), two UK-based artists known for their inflatable art.

This is wonderful. Museum of the Moon, a mobile art installation by artist Luke Jerram (previously on Neatorama), is basically a giant model of the Moon that - similar to its namesake - goes around the world.

Follow the Moon over at Jerram's Instagram - via Web Urbanist

(Photo above: Carl Milner)

Think that you can maintain your genetic privacy even if you've never given your DNA to be sequenced? Think again.

Columbia University computer scientist Yaniv Erlich wanted to know if they could identify a person if they only had a piece of DNA and geographical location:

They started with a full DNA sequence from a Utah woman whose genetic information was published anonymously as part of an unrelated scientific study ...

Erlich and his collaborators uploaded her genetic code to GEDmatch and ran a search to see if she had any relations on the site.They found two: one in North Dakota and one in Wyoming.

By comparing the DNA of all three relatives, Erlich’s team was able to find a common ancestral couple that were the Utah woman’s great-grandparents.

Next, the researchers scoured genealogical websites and other sources for additional descendants of that long-ago couple. They found 10 children and hundreds of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

After a long day of painstaking work, they researchers were able to correctly name the owner of the DNA sample.

Read the rest of the story over at the Los Angeles Times.

Photo: Al Seib/Los Angeles Times

Danilo Codilego Jr. of Quezon City, the Philippines, adopted a dog that everyone else had left for dead. The dog was born without hind legs, and Codilego Jr. called her "Putol", which means "chopped" in the Tagalog language:

"I was the only one who had the courage to take care of her ... At first she couldn't walk. After two years, she began to balance herself. After six years, she can balance perfectly and walk with total control."

What an inspiration!

via Laughing Squid

You know that it's a good idea to back up your computer ... but what about species of animals? Like the koalas, for instance, as they live only in Australia.

Even though koalas are not currently endangered, zookeepers at the Longleat Safari Park decided to create a small population of koalas in the UK.

From the BBC:

It is hoped that the koalas will breed and create a 'back up' population in Europe away from the threat of bushfires and disease.

Graeme Dick, curator at Longleat Safari Park: "So things like chlamydia, retrovirus ... when that gets into a population of koalas, it's devastating. We don't have retrovirus and chlamydia, in the wild in the UK so by bringing them over here, you have a nice, almost bio-secure population."

Just call it a remote backup then!

Most cats hate water, but not the ones that live in this floating sanctuary in Amsterdam! "The Catboat" (De Poezenboot) is a houseboat full of stray and abandoned cats - and best of all, you can come in and pet the cats!

From Mental Floss:

The shelter was founded in 1968, when a cat lover named Henriette van Weelde purchased a Dutch sailing barge to house the growing number of rescue cats she had taken in. The barge was eventually replaced with the Dutch houseboat that's docked in the canal today. The vessel provides heating in the winter and beds, boxes, and scratching posts to keep cats happy and comfortable. They have access to the outside deck any time of year, and there's even a fence to keep them from swiping at duck chicks in the water.

Photo: Oxyman/Wikipedia

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— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 14, 2018

Iowa State's marching band T-rex-ed the competition when they brought in the dancing inflatable dinos during halftime. Well, granted that "dancing" is subjective here.

I feel that we should say that the Iowa State marching band was so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

Tired of delivery drivers not finding his house, a resident of Rancho Santa Margarita in California named "Bob" decided to take matters into his own hands: he put up a traffic sign, telling them where to find "Bob's House."

Unfortunately, the city of Rancho Santa Margarita had to take it down, though they did have a good sense of humor about it. They even offered to give it back, should "Bob" decide to claim it.

The city posted this on its Facebook page:

Dear Bob,

We regret the inconvenience that motorists will no longer be able to find your house by way of a directional sign, and it is most unfortunate if they unknowingly travel the entire City in search of your home. Gone are the days of the Thomas Guide, and let’s face it, every GPS system has its glitches. We completely understand your efforts and money to order and buy a sign that meets all of the Department of Transportation standards and guidelines so that those Amazon delivery trucks, party guests, and curious motorists find “Bob’s House”. It could have been a new destination to rival In-N-Out, and for that, we are very sorry to so abruptly remove the sign that, well, is just not legally permitted. We do hope you took a photo of it. If not, we have one we can share with you. In any event, your sign may be retrieved at City Hall during normal business hours – no questions asked. It may make a nice wall hanging in your office or rec room and certainly a good story for your guests and Amazon deliveries that get lost or don’t quite make it on time.

Sincerely,

City Hall

via Patch

I'm a sucker for exploded-view drawings, so I'm utterly delighted to come across John Peralta's art series "Mechanations." Here, Peralta takes apart 20th-century objects - a Singer sewing machine, a Blickensderfer typewriter, a vintage Polaroid camera, and a silent film projector - and assemble them components by components into a suspended sculpture.

This one above is "Singer is Sewing Made Easy II, 2018": Singer Sewing Machine (c. 1910), wood, steel, latex, steel & fluorocarbon mono-filament, LED lighting

via Colossal

When archivists at the Museum of English Rural Life opened a box full of old books from the 18th century, they ran across a gem: a mathematics book that belonged to a 13-year-old teenager named "Richard Beale," and dated May 18th, 1784.

Richard used the book to write mathematical equations and problems, but like any teenager, math just couldn't keep his full attention. So he did what came naturally ... he doodled!

But not just any doodle ... Richard doodled 18th century chicken wearing pants.

When planets have orbiting bodies, we call them moons. But what do we call things that orbit those moons?

Astronomers Sean Raymond and Juna Kollmeier thinks that they should be called "moonmoons." And hey, theoretically, that can happen:

Their analysis suggests that moonmoons are possible, under the right circumstances—if, for instance, the large moon is quite large, the small moon is quite small, and both are sufficiently far away from the host planet. Moons that are too close to their planet risk losing their submoons to tidal forces from that planet, resulting in the submoon being shredded up, shot out into space, or sent careening off course and potentially crashing into their moon and its planet.

Image: Moon! by Nathan Davis

Tattoo artist and sculptor Jason Stieva spent 13 months creating this amazingly intricate gothic sculpture titled "Leviathan, Ark of the Apocalypse." The 7-1/2 feet long, 2-1/2 feet deep and 7-1/2 feet tall sculpture looks straight out of a pirate's nightmare. Fantastic!