Todd Pappas at the Universe of Texas and colleagues discovered that carbon nanotubes can transmit electrical signals to neurons and therefore serve as a replacement for damaged neurons in the eye, brain, and spinal cord:
The Texas researchers grew rat neurons on thick mats of carbon nanotubes seeded on flexible plastic sheets. Instead of treating the mats like a foreign surface, neurons take well to the nanotubes, says Todd Pappas, director of sensory and molecular neuroengineering at the University of Texas Medical Branch, who led the research. The nanotubes absorb an important neural protein and form a roughly textured carpet on which nerves grow readily. When Pappas and colleagues at Rice University sent an electrical charge across the sheet, the neurons responded with an electrical signal of their own, called an action potential, indicating that they got the message.
Kickboxer Ernesto "Mr. Perfect" Hoost appears on this Japanese stunt gameshow Gaki No Tsukai. The best is "Old Man Bites Tenderly" - wait for it towards the end.
The Flat-D Chair Pad is an activated charcoal cloth pad that is placed on your favorite chair. The user is virtually unaware of its presence because it is thin and comfortable. It is also inconspicuous to others viewing it. The black activated charcoal cloth pad is washable and reusable. When gas is expelled the pad absorbs the odor normally associated with the gassy discharge or fart. This flatulence filter thin cloth pad has high absorption of flatulance odor or flatus. It utilizes the highest grade of activated charcoal available to guard or protect you for your bloating or digestion needs.
Nathan Klaus of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources discovered a stand of American chestnut trees that somehow escaped a blight that killed off nearly all of the species in the early 1900s:
"There's something about this place that has allowed them to endure the blight," said Nathan Klaus, a biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources who spotted the trees. "It's either that these trees are able to resist the blight, which is unlikely, or Pine Mountain has something unique that is giving these trees resistance."
More recently Justine Smith has developed this theme and has begun producing a series of sculptures covered in (real) money. These have included "A Euro's for Life Not Just for Christmas", a series of twelve dog sculptures pouncing around a single pound coin. Each dog is covered with a different one of the currencies of the twelve countries that have joined the Euro. She has also produced the "E.U. Ewe", a sculpture of a sheep given a woollen coat made from a thousand pounds worth of Euro notes, and "Sacred Calf" a life sized calf sculpture covered with U.S. Dollars.
This one above is called "Washington", a dog sculpture covered in dollar bills (get it?).
Tahi the kiwi, who lost one of his leg below the knee to a gin trap, got a new prosthetic leg!
To create a mould of the bird's stump, Gino Acevedo, prosthetic and visual creature effects art director at Weta Workshop, used the same techniques on the kiwi as he would on a film star. ...
So with the bird anesthetised to prevent any distress, Mr Acevedo coated the kiwi's stump in alginate, the same material orthodontists use for taking casts of teeth. ...
Armed with the Weta moulds, which replicated everything exactly, right down to the kiwi's rough, scaly skin, Peter Allen from the Wellington Artificial Limb Centre set about making an artificial leg for the kiwi.
Without the usual communication he would have with a human customer, Allen resorted to videos to figure out just how to mimic the kiwi's gait.
City Glow, installed near the N-R subway lines, is a multi-panel graphic work in which futuristic skyscrapers--transformed into demure, humanlike creatures--stand amidst lush tropical vegetation.
This particular one is on the 14th Street/Union Square station.
See more: Link | Previously on Neatorama: Chiho Aoshima's Graveheads and the Gushing Zombies.
Doug Kessler took this photo in Bakersfield, California:
After a fierce rain and hail storm in Bakersfield, California, this past March, the clouds briefly departed just long enough to sport this resplendent double rainbow. It was visible for only about 15-20 seconds before the clouds greedily stole the show. The dark band between the bows is called Alexander's Dark Band. Not all of the sunlight passing through raindrops is reflected back toward our eyes. This includes light between the angles from about 46 to 51 degrees. Note also the faint supernumerary bows just inside the primary rainbow.
Japan Acoustic Lab has analyzed the skeletal structures of Mona Lisa and Leonardo da Vinci, in order to replicate the sound of their voices:
We believe we were able to create the voices that are very close to the real voices. Perhaps it was really how they really sounded," the lab's chief Matsumi Suzuki says on the website. ...
Suzuki says he gave Mona Lisa a slightly nasal tone because of her relatively large nose.
For Leonardo, Suzuki made his voice around the time when he was 60 years old to match his bearded face in the famous sketched portrait.
"Because the beard covers his jaws in his portrait, we could not tell his exact skeletal features. We assumed that he had a heavy-jowled face, giving him a nice, bass tone," Suzuki says.
The whole thing, of course, is part of the promotion of Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code movie.
Maggie, the lone elephant at Anchorage's Alaska Zoo, is too fat. Her trainers have been trying to get her on the world's first treadmill for pachyderm, using her favorite treats as enticement. So far, Maggie has said "Exercise? Thanks, but no thanks!"
For two months, Maggie's trainers have used her favorite treats -- watermelon, apples, carrots, peanuts in the shell, banana slices and sweet potatoes -- to entice the 8,000-pound elephant into exercising on the $100,000 piece of equipment.
"She has two feet on the treadmill and has touched a third one on it," zoo director Pat Lampi said Tuesday. "Every six inches forward is a new goal. There are a lot of steps to go."
