Louise Low Seok Loo, a Malaysian artist, uses thousands of bra cups to form sculptures and cover other objects. Her shark called Fatal Attraction was the centerpiece of an exhibit last year in George Town, Malaysia. These bra works form her attempt to combat a superstition about women's underwear. The New Straits Times explains:
She said the artwork which took about one month to complete would also educate society particularly the younger generation among the Chinese community, against superstition.
In Chinese culture, the women’s undergarment was believed to bring bad luck when displayed indiscriminately.
Russell Fredrick is a barber and the owner of A-1 Kutz Barber Shop & Salon in Snellville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. If your child is misbehaving, you can threaten to take him to Fredrick's shop for a "Benjamin Button Special." That's a haircut that will make him look like a balding man. Fredrick offers this service free of charge.
The haircut is named for the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a story about a man who ages in reverse. Fredrick says that giving his own son a Benjamin Button was highly effective, so he kindly offers it to other parents. The Washington Post reports:
Fredrick, the A-1 Kutz co-owner and a 34-year-old father of three, said he decided to advertise the cut after he used the unique disciplinary measure on his 12-year-old son, Rushawn, last fall — and saw immediate results. Rushawn’s grades, which had fallen, “dramatically skyrocketed” after he got his old-man haircut, Frederick said.
The boss barber said he has already had one parent take him up on the offer. And there has been a surge of interest from other parents, especially after Fredrick posted before, during and after photos of his second “Benjamin Button” subject on social media last week.
It is the dream of every writer to compose a listicle that will stand the test of time as a seminal work of literature. Not every person to pick up a pen has the intuition, skill, and perseverance to master this subtle literary form. Mere inspiration and a familiarity with poetics is not sufficient for the task. What precise philological alchemy results in a masterpiece remains a mystery.
But, occasionally, a listicle of true genius appears. Today, that accomplishment comes from BuzzFeed author David Rattigan. His 20 Things Only Heirs to the Martian Throne Will Understand masterfully parodies the genre by perfectly matching pithy summations of the human experience and reaction .gifs.
Jemma McKenzie's collies adopted Pet, an orphaned lamb. Like Tarzan, she's taken up the ways of her new family. She wags her tail and plays like a dog. You can watch another video of them playing here.
You can’t buy anything outside of the game with Monopoly money, but that may change in the near future. For the 80th anniversary of that game in France, Hasbro is selling a special set that will contain real money: €20,580 ($23,513 USD). A few other sets will contain smaller amounts of legal tender in addition to the fake money that players use during gameplay. They will be placed at random in ordinary boxed sets of the game. The Guardian describes how carefully Hasbro is working to ensure that no one can find the money sets intentionally:
The operation to switch the notes was carried out in deadly secret, in the small eastern town of Creutzwald, where the games are packed up before being shipped throughout France.
“First of all, it wasn’t easy to get the notes. They had to be escorted discreetly,” explained Gaillard.
Appropriately for a game where players try to cruelly bankrupt their opponents, Monopoly even roped in a bailiff to count and re-count the real notes.
“When they asked me, I was giddy as a child,” said the bailiff in question, Patrice Wimmer, an aficionado of the game.
However, they discovered a problem: the sets with the real notes expanded the box ever so slightly, making the packaging out of kilter - a tell-tale sign.
As for the weight, there was no discernable difference between the real notes and the fake money.
“The difference is marginal, unless you turn up at the shop with precision scales,” said Wimmer.
“Whoever holds this purse, if she be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”
Thor is now, by the way, a woman. So it’s appropriate that she equip herself for battle. Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor, takes the form of a practical purse in this creation by Meryle Idzerda. It’s made around a cigar box and covered with lambskin leather that has a gunmetal finish.
A warm ear of corn smothered in butter just feels good, right? So slip one under your head as you go to bed. Designer Weng Jie made that fantasy a reality with this pillow design called the Sweetcorn Pillow. Each kernel is attached with the core with Velcro, which is a mat that can be unrolled. This pillow won a Red Dot Design Award in 2010.
U-Ram Choe, a Korean artist, is noted for his moving mechanical sculptures that are inspired by living creatures. His latest two works, Silver Insecta Lamp and Gold Insecta Lamp, take the form of insects. When activated, gears flap the wings gently and warm lights glow.
Sophia Sandoval says of chemotherapy “It was tough, but I was tougher.” She’s made it through treatments for a brain tumor. Lynda Carter, the actress who played Wonder Woman on the 1970s television series, calls Sophia “A real-life WW!!”
Photographer Eric J. Smith snapped this shot near Redondo Beach, California. A man on a sailboat was texting while a humpback whale surfaced. He never noticed. ABC News (warning: auto-start video) quotes him:
"A small private sailboat maneuvered really close to the whales, and this guy on it was literally sitting in that position and never moved," Smith said. "He could have been texting his mom in the hospital for all I know, but I thought it sucked that he missed such a wonderful moment happening just two feet in front of him."
Theo Fennell, a master jeweler from the UK, has designed a wide array of rings that contain tiny dioramas. Little gold doors flip open on hinges, showing inner landscapes and characters. He often takes his inspiration from classic stories, such as The Wizard of Oz and The Secret Garden. Pictured above is the Yellow Brick Road, which leads to the Emerald City.
Every time Pinocchio from the Disney movie of that same name lies, his wooden nose grows. What impact does this effect have on his body? According to physicist Steffan Llewellyn, if Pinocchio tells more than 13 lies, his head will snap off of his body because of the weight of his nose:
According to Steffan Llewellyn’s calculations in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics (JIST), Pinocchio would only be able to tell 13 lies before his nose reaches around 682 feet and he is decapitated by the force exerted by his head on his neck.
Sometime around the year 1,000 A.D., the people of Iceland converted to Christianity. The old Norse religion was eventually stamped out—although some syncretic elements endure to this day. Now the tide is shifting. A modern revival of the worship of traditional Norse gods, including Thor and Odin, has prompted some believers to begin building the first major Norse temple that Iceland has seen in a millennium. The Guardian reports on the growing movement:
“I don’t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who is riding about on a horse with eight feet,” said Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, an association that promotes faith in the Norse gods.
“We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a manifestation of the forces of nature and human psychology.”
Membership in Ásatrúarfélagið has tripled in Iceland in the last decade to 2,400 members last year, out of a total population of 330,000, data from Statistics Iceland showed.
The new temple just outside of the capital city of Reykjavik will host weddings, funerals, initiation rites, naming ceremonies, and other neo-pagan ceremonies:
Iceland’s neo-pagans still celebrate the ancient sacrificial ritual of Blot with music, reading, eating and drinking, but nowadays leave out the slaughter of animals.
Is it a cute mother and baby photo or a scene from Alien? When people get too creative with a camera, you may not be able to tell. How to Be a Dad culled through the archives of Awkward Family Photos for the most ridiculous maternity photos ever shot. Some expecting couples take their prompts from Harry Potter, burlesque, and from dark parts of the human soul that should be best left unexplored. You can find more here.
I apologize if this is a repost, but I think that it’s worth seeing again. Biologist and science educator Joe Hanson presents scientific explanations for why we sometimes think that we’re doing the same thing over and over again.
One hypothesis goes like this: our brains continuously scan inputs from our senses. When the brain determines that something is familiar, it notes that familiarity. The hippocampus responds by recalling the memory attached to that sensory input. Sometimes the steps in this process may get out of order. When that happens, the brain may determine that something is familiar, but the hippocampus can’t find an associated memory. This induces déjà vu.
