This amazing picture was the sharpest picture of the sun, taken using Swedish Solar Telescope at Canary Island, Spain. Remember, don't look directly at the sun. For more cool astronomy pictures, see: Astronomy Picture Of the Day.
During the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC, Archimedes (yes, the one who shouted Eureka) supposedly created a set of mirrors that focused the sun's rays to burn Roman ship anchored nearby.
MIT professor David Wallace's engineering class successfully reconstructed this idea, after the Mythbusters on TV "busted" it as a myth. Link (via BoingBoing)
In April 2005, the image of the Virgin Mary, made from yellow and white stain on the concrete wall of Chicago's Kennedy Expressway underpass has attracted a lot of people.
According to the Illinois Department of Transportation, the stain is caused by salt run-off. But obviously the faithfuls believe otherwise.
Karen and Phil Swift's bulldog Tiberius crowned "Most Beautiful Bulldog" at Iowa's Drake Relay sporting event. He beat 50 other dogs for the "droopy eyes, protruding teeth, and slobbering" that characterize this (cute) breed. Link
Bobby Martin, a legless Ohio teen, was told at halftime that he couldn't play in his highschool football game because of a rule requiring players to wear shoes and knee pads.
Martin said that for the first time he felt disabled.
A week later, the Ohio High School Athletic Association reversed itself. (Stupid bureaucrats! You Go, Bobby!) Link
The Unquiet Tomb website is dedicated to finding (and exploring) abandoned houses, historical sites, and other strange places.
The building on the left is Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, with its shady past of patient cruelty and electroshock therapy. Link | Link to Greystone Park's entry
Samuel Dinsmoor, a retired school teacher and Civil War vet, began building his Garden of Eden and Cabin Home in Kansas in 1907 from cement and limestone.
He ultimately everything from concrete, including an American flag and a stone mausoleum with a glass-topped concrete coffin. http://www.garden-of-eden-lucas-kansas.com/index.html (via Metafilter)
Thai fishermen caught this grizzly bear-sized, 656-pound, 9-feet long Mekong Giant Catfish. They had hoped to sell it to environmentalists to be bred, but it died too soon. So, they chopped it up and ate it instead. Link
