(Photo: Cuddle Mattress)

Oh, you have someone to love but you can't slip your arms around him/her without losing circulation to an arm? Poor you. Well, bless your heart, there is now a solution to your crisis:

Essentially the Cuddle Mattress divides the upper and lower portions of the bed into a series of slats. Side sleepers can wedge their arm — or stomach sleepers can wedge their feet — in between these slats. Each slat has a firm and a soft side, which you can flip depending on your sleeping preference. The slats come in three different materials: latex, polyurethane or polyurethane memory foam. The mattress also comes with its own stretchable, fitted sheets.

Link -via Marginal Revolution

Want to take a photo of the gorgeous city skyline but not the pesky smog? Don't let reality ruin your vacation photo! Take one in front of this backdrop, instead.

Chinese website Netease published a gallery of mainland Chinese tourists posing in front of a backdrop of panoramic images of Hong Kong with clear blue skies whilst the real city sits in the background, shrouded in a thick soupy haze.

Hooray for human ingenuity! Now, if we can only put all that energy into actually figuring out how to combat air pollution ...

British biologist/comedian Simon Watt is teaming up with the National Science + Engineering Competition to bring attention to endangered species that are not magnificent, cute, or even plain. In fact, they are downright ugly. The Ugly Animal Preservation Society is a campaign to aid conservation efforts for these creatures. Watt has recruited other scientists, comedians, and science comedians for a series of live shows and videos to promote the conservation of the proboscis monkey, the blowfish, the Titicaca 'scrotum' water frog, the greater short-horned lizard, the dromedary jumping slug, the flightless dung beetle, and other ugly animals. Vote for your favorite ugly animal to become the campaign's mascot at the shows or at YouTube.

The Ugly Animal Preservation Society is dedicated to raising the profile of some of Mother Nature’s more aesthetically challenged children.  The panda gets too much attention.

Our society needs a mascot, one to rival the cute and cuddly emblems of many charities and organisations. And so I have gathered a terrific line up of comedians who will each champion a different ugly endangered species and at the end of the evening the audience shall vote for what will become our society’s symbol.

Link -via Treehugger

(Image credit: Simon Watt)

In our recent "If You Want The American Dream, Go To Finland" post about different school systems of the world, we told you about the Finnish school system, which is widely considered as one of the best in the world.*

(*Technically, South Korean students score the highest in test scores, but their education system relies heavily on after-hour academic academies called hagwons where students study all the time.)

That post drew some enlightening comments from Neatoramanaut CreamK, who live in Finland, about lifelong, continuing adult education and the role of education in advancement of one's career:

For higher degrees in "blue collar" job titles it's combined seamlessly with work. You can get any degree on your field while working and it's subsidiced so that government will pay part of your salary when you have to be away from work (about 1-2 months per year). Employers are very eager to participate as they get better educated, motivated old known workers for pennies.. [...]

I'm doing a similar degree right now, i have very few courses since i managed to work in various jobs in av industry before. I got VERY tailored curriculum to fit my needs and every single one gets the same treatment. Basically i need to prove that i'm able to do things in a professional manner. I will be "judged" in work or work simulated situations by three professionals with an academic degree in my field

CreamK summarizes:

So most workers that want to have a career, are constantly on school part time getting higher and higher degrees [...] The level of commitment on those adult schools from both teachers and pupils is really really high and the percentage that get a job from that route is staggering: in my field we are expecting 80% employment before the school ends.

I'm glad to find out that there is a sane education system in the world (one that includes lifelong, continuing adult education as well). It's sad that it seems only to exist in Finland.

Image: Walking Graduation Cap from the NeatoShop

Maja Szczypek, a designer in Warsaw, made these eco-friendly egg cartons out of hay. She used a heated press to mold them into the correct shape. They have a quaint, rustic appeal, don't you think? 

Link -via Fubiz

Raw honey doesn't spoil. As long as its sealed away from moisture, you can eat honey that is years, or even thousands of years old in its raw state. Why is this? It has to do with sugar, water content, and bee bellies. Amina Harris of UC Davis explains.

“Bees are magical,” Harris jokes. But there is certainly a special alchemy that goes into honey. Nectar, the first material collected by bees to make honey, is naturally very high in water–anywhere from 60-80 percent, by Harris’ estimate. But through the process of making honey, the bees play a large part in removing much of this moisture by flapping their wings to literally dry out the nectar. On top of behavior, the chemical makeup of a bees stomach also plays a large part in honey’s resilience. Bees have an enzyme in their stomachs called glucose oxidase (PDF). When the bees regurgitate the nectar from their mouths into the combs to make honey, this enzyme mixes with the nectar, breaking it down into two by-products: gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. “Then,” Harris explains, “hydrogen peroxide is the next thing that goes into work against all these other bad things that could possibly grow.”

It's the hydrogen peroxide that makes honey last longer than molasses or corn syrup, and also what gives honey its medicinal properties. Read more about the magic of honey at Smithsonian. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Flood G.)

Treadmill desks may make you healthier, but you have to possess the self-discipline to keep them turned on. Brian Peiris modified his treadmill desk to do exactly that. The slower he moves, the slower his internet connection becomes:

After removing the treadmill’s original time/distance display, [Peiris] reverse engineered the speed sensor to send data to an Arduino and his PC.  We’ve seen a number of projects that interface treadmills with virtual worlds, but what really makes this project stand out is a simple script using the Throxy Python library which allows the treadmill to throttle his machine’s internet connection.

The end result is a browsing experience that reacts to how fast the user runs.  In the demonstration video, you can see Peiris tiptoe through images or jog through YouTube videos.  A minimum bandwidth setting keeps the connection live, so if you can’t make it all the way through that HD Netflix movie, taking a breather won’t time out the connection.

Link

You can show affection and commitment with someone you love using this necklace made by Etsy seller Amy. All you have to do is figure out who is the Artoo and who is the Threepio in the relationship.

Link -via The Mary Sue

Children of the 80's know that the Hoff is hot, but they might not know that thieves are also hot for him.

As part of their ad campaign for iced coffee, Cumberland Farms created a life-sized cutout sign featuring Baywatch star David Hasselhoff in a tank top holding a cup of iced coffee (dubbed "Iced Hoffee"). According to NBC Bay Area, the company installed the signs in about 570 of their convenience stores in New England and Florida. But in recent weeks, about 550 of the cutouts have been stolen.

Cumberland Farm's brand strategist Kate Ngo said, "We want everyone to enjoy the Hoff. We're flattered by the attention." But she added, "We certainly don't encourage theft at our stores." Theft is common at retail stores, but Ngo acknowledged that the rate of theft of the Hoff campaign is higher than anything they've seen.

Hasselhoff himself was amused by the theft, "The first thing I thought of was that I was in trouble and then I thought, 'Oh good they’re not accusing me of stealing, they’re accusing people of stealing me,'" he said to WHDH-TV in Boston.

Fun and games, however, turned serious when a 36-year-old store clerk in Shelton, Connecticut, was critically injured when he struck by an SUV while trying to prevent theft of the signs. That, we're sure the Hoff would say, is not cool.

(Photo: Washington Map Society)

This globe, which dates back to 1504, may be the oldest in the world to show both the New World and the Old. Meeri Kim writes in The Washington Post:

The globe, about the size of a grapefruit, is labeled in Latin and includes what were considered exotic territories such as Japan, Brazil and Arabia. North America is depicted as a group of scattered islands. The globe’s lone sentence, above the coast of Southeast Asia, is “Hic Sunt Dracones.”

“ ‘Here be dragons,’ a very interesting sentence,” said Thomas Sander, editor of the Portolan, the journal of the Washington Map Society. The journal published a comprehensive analysis of the globeMonday by collector Stefaan Missinne. “In early maps, you would see images of sea monsters; it was a way to say there’s bad stuff out there.”

The globe is made of the conjoined halves of two ostrich eggs.

Link -via Nag on the Lake

Here at Neatorama, we love the amazing optical illusions of Julian Beever. This chalk work, which he calls "Wheel of Fortune", is unfortunate for anyone who sits down on the bench.

Artist's Website -via 22 Words

(YouTube link)

Mary Ann Johnstone's goats know how to have fun! You probably won't see this much glee in a yoga class. -via Arbroath

When the Corporate States of America map came out, I was disappointed not to see KFC as the brand associated with Kentucky. That is corrected in this Restaurant Map of the U.S. from Thrillist. Now, the definition of restaurant here covers chains, fast food, single food brands, and even coffee shops if they are most appropriate for a state. See the full-size version and the reasoning behind each state decision as well. Link -via Geekologie

How to educate the public about the new laws governing marijuana use in Washington state? The Seattle Police Department has a great idea. They will be at the Hempfest pot rally this weekend -giving out bags of Doritos, each bag with a sticker outlining the new laws.

Because while stoners have no problem ignoring a leaflet, police recognize that it's nearly impossible to turn down a bag of Doritos.

"Distributing salty snacks at a festival celebrating hemp, I think, is deliberately ironic enough that people will accept them in good humor," says police department spokesman Sergeant Sean Whitcomb. "We want to make sure people learn the rules and that they respect the vote."

The labels on the snack-sized bags will direct festival attendees to the SPD's post-legalization FAQ titled "Marijwhatnow?" which went viral last November, reminding citizens that possessing up to an ounce of pot is allowed, but selling and growing the stuff remains illegal (until licenses are issued later this year by the state).

With funding for the project coming entirely from the privately run Seattle Police Foundation, police say they plan to distribute about 1,000 bags of Doritos over the weekend.

Link  -via Slate

Add this to the long list of the strangest things ever faked in China. A chinese zoo in People's Park of Luohe, Henan province, got into trouble recently when its supposed "African lion" started barking like a dog:

The beast was in fact a Tibetan mastiff – a large and long-haired breed of dog.

“The zoo is absolutely cheating us,” the [Beijing Youth Daily] quoted Liu, who was charged 15 yuan ($2.45) for the ticket, as saying. “They are trying to disguise the dogs as lions.”

Not so, the zoo defended itself:

The chief of the park’s animal department, Liu Suya, told the paper that while it does have a lion, it had been taken to a breeding facility and the dog – which belonged to an employee – had been temporarily housed in the zoo over safety concerns.

Link - Thanks Steve!

Update 8/15/13: Neatoramanaut Marcos pointed out the real photos of the fake animals from Beijing Youth site (fake lion photo updated above) - Thanks Marcos!

Fake golden jaguar:

Fake wolf: