I'm not sure how it works, but this 8-ft by 8-ft clock by artist Miss Moun displays the time by selectively lighting up words in a poem. Three words are always lit, and each word represents either the hour, minute, or second. The piece is entitled "6 Is for Blossom", and you can view more pictures at the link.
http://www.missmoun.com/index.php?/project/6-is-for-blossom/ via Gizmodo | Photo: Miss Moun
The Japanese woodworking firm Sada-Kenbi has built a wooden, functional, street-legal sports car. It can reach speeds of up to 80 kph and costs $44,000 USD. The car has stylish gull wing doors and a stereo. More pictures and a video at the link.
http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/23/view/8388/wooden-sports-car.html via The Presurfer | Company Site (in Japanese) | Photo: SPGRA
Biologist Mark Norman found octopuses (octopi?) off the coast of Indonesia that use split open coconut shells as hiding places. This is the first known tool use by an invertebrate animal:
An octopus would dig up the two halves of a coconut shell, then use them as protective shielding when stopping in exposed areas or when resting in sediment.
This, on its own, astonished the team. Then they noticed that the octopuses, after using the coconut shells, would arrange them neatly below the centers of their bodies and "walk" around with the shells—awkwardly.
It's uncertain whether these were African or European coconuts. Video at the link.
Rather than a formal taxonomy, this diagram by Ibrahim Evsan divides geek culture into activities, obsessions, social communities, terms, idols, and types. Its primary flaw is that it does not take cross-breeding into account. Larger version at the link.
Trying to ignore the alarm isn't going to work with the Princess in a Pea Alarm Clock (PPAC). Jeff Saltzman rigged an air compressor to lift up one side of a mattress when it's time to wake up. If the sleeper doesn't get up, s/he'll get thrown to the floor.
This camera, made by the Nagoya Institute of Technology, has 158 lenses -- more than any other camera in the world, according to Guinness World Records. It was made by associate professor Yojiro Ishino and his students in order to take 3D pictures of a flame. The lenses are arranged in four rows, and the entire rig is 47 centimeters across.
After a football injury at the age of sixteen, Jamie Cap became paralyzed from the neck down. Now, thirty years later, he controls a shotgun attached to his wheelchair with a breathing tube. Getting legal permission was a substantial struggle, but now he's been cleared by a court to start shooting:
Cap, 46, recently won a 2 1/2-year legal battle to allow him to use, with the help of a partner, a 12-gauge shotgun fitted with a battery-powered machine that is operated by a breathing tube.
He described firing that first shot last week with a combination of wistfulness and enthusiasm another person might use to describe rekindling a decades-old romance.
"I don't know if there are words," he said. "I'm so happy. When you find you can do something again after 30 years, you can't put a price on that. Some people think it's nothing, but try being paralyzed for 30 years and then come talk to me."[...]
Cap might not have embarked on his bureaucratic odyssey had he not found Indiana-based Be Adaptive Equipment during a random Internet search. The company, which has made wheelchair mounts for shotguns since 2002, sells about 20 per year, according to owners Brian and Renee Kyler. Cap's model cost about $1,600; a new 12-gauge shotgun starts at about $250.
For a quadriplegic, firing a shotgun requires help from a companion. In Cap's case, a friend sets up the contraption, safety on, on Cap's wheelchair and Cap aims the shotgun by moving the toggle switch with his mouth. Once his partner releases the safety, Cap fires by sipping on the breathing tube.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iwNIXAzcY0_6A_w2WsbGZZav-2rAD9CFNQ1O0 via Geekologie | Photo: AP
The Daily Nail chronicles Melissa Osburn's efforts to invent creative fingernail designs everyday for an entire year. Each post tells readers precisely which colors are necessary to duplicate each project. Pictured above is her depiction of the classic arcade game Space Invaders.
Six men in Germany built their own functional electric locomotive out of garden furniture and train parts and took it out on a nearby rail line at night. They've since been arrested:
The six-seater train - made out of garden furniture and salvaged train parts - was powered by an electric motor and even had its own refreshments car in the shape of a crate of beer.[...]
Police however had to call in a helicopter to find and follow the makeshift train as the police cars could not follow it along the tracks.
The helicopter pilot was able to radio ahead to other officers who set up a makeshift barrier at a station to stop it.
British artist Paul Hazelton makes sculptures from household dust. Pictured above is one example entitled "Moth-er", measuring about 4 by 5 centimeters. Hazelton writes:
As I work the dirt towards the immaculate and the immaculate towards the dirt, creation moves towards non-existence. It is here, where material almost becomes immaterial, that the immaculate and degenerate become one and the same. For in time, the dust settles and cleanliness gives way to degeneration - The muddle of youth slowly turns to the mud of old age and the soul returns to the soil.
For Picasso, who in later life suffered a morbid fear of degeneration and death, Art was to wash away from the soul, the dust of everyday life. Perhaps I have a morbid fascination, but I seem unable to separate the innocence of youth with the corruption that comes with age. The result is something quite fragile that dissolves from life.
Corbin Dunn, a computer programmer and mountain unicyclist, built this two-person unicycle. Alas, he lost a blog post about the construction of it, but his site filled with interesting pictures of his many unusual hobbies.
Birmingham, Alabama-based artist Walt Creel creates illustrations by firing guns at aluminum sheets. He calls his collection "Deweaponizing the Gun", and sees it as an exploration of guns in U.S., and in particular, Southern culture:
The terms gun and weapon are practically interchangeable. From hunting to war, self defense to target practice, the gun has been a symbol of power and destruction. Art and entertainment have both taken the same approach to he gun. Traveling Wild West shows had gunslingers that shot crude silhouettes and names, but this was done to illustrate the shooters prowess. Some artists have used high speed film to capture a bullet slicing through its target, while other artists have melted guns into sculptures.
Baseball, football, bodybuilding -- so many sports have been impacted by athletes secretly using performance-enhancing drugs. Sadly, even competitors in pie-eating competitions have resorted to such nefarious cheating. But officials at the upcoming World Pie Eating Championships in Wigan, UK have taken steps to keep athletes honest:
Championships Executive President Tony Callaghan, owner of Harry's Bar, said: "Gravy has traditionally been the performance-enhancing drug of choice amongst pie eaters at this level, but since we banned it after a series of questionable concoctions were created by contenders, they've been trying to find other ways of generating lubricative advantage - and we're hearing rumours that cough mixture is the new Bisto.
"In tests we've found this can take around two seconds off the time taken to eat a regulation Championship pie.
"We'll be putting a couple of big blokes on the door to search pockets randomly for cough mixture."
Link via J-Walk Blog | Photo: US Department of Homeland Security
Medical researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, altered a single gene in female mice. The mice did not change anatomically, but their ovaries began producing testosterone:
The study was carried out on mice but the implications are relevant to humans, the scientists said. By switching off a gene called FoxL2, which exists in all mammals, the ovary cells of adult female mice developed spontaneously into the fully developed, testosterone-producing cells found in male testes, although they could not produce sperm.
"We take it for granted that we maintain the sex we are born with, including whether we have testes or ovaries," said Robin Lovell-Badge, from the Medical Research Council's National Institute of Medical Research in north London, who was part of the international team led by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg.
The scientists noted that their research contradicts the claim that female is the default gender among embryos without a male sex-determining gene.
Link via Popular Science | Photo: US Department of Energy
This map by James Richards overlays a map of the United States with the flags of countries with populations equal to the respective states. You can view a much larger image at the link.