Fashion designer Kobi Levi makes amusing shoes that look like other objects, such as heels that look like sneakers with gum stuck to the bottom. Others look like dogs, slingshots, or bananas.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo by the artist

Combination guns are (usually) long guns chambered for two different calibers. For example, one can purchase a gun chambered with a .410 gauge shotgun barrel on top and a .22 LR rifle barrel on the bottom. Such guns allow a hunter to shoot a variety of animals, or the same prey in different situations.

There are also hunting rifles called "drillings" which feature three barrels, each with a different caliber. James R. Rummel has a post about these unique firearms. He proposes getting one a .22 LR barrel for small game, a .357 magnum for deer hunting, and .375 magnum for large, dangerous game.

http://hellinahandbasket.net/?p=4981 | Photo: Centerline Firearms

Pictured above is an artist's conception of what the Bus Roots project will look like upon completion. The team behind this venture hopes to plant gardens on the roofs of buses in New York City:

A public transit bus has a surface of 340 ft2. The MTA fleet has around 4,500 buses.

If we grew a garden on the roof of every one of the 4,500 buses in the MTA bus fleet, we would have 35 acres of new rolling green space in the city.

Link via The Presurfer | Flickr Photostream | Photo: Shane Rankinsoon Photography

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This time-lapse video captured footage in Paris from January 2007 through September 2010. It shows the deconstruction of one building and the erection of another in its place. Videographer Ramon added pop-up graphics that reveal what's going on as time progresses.

via Gizmodo

Eric Robinson, a farmer in Crosby Garrett, UK, earned approximately $3.7 million when a helmet that was found in his field was auctioned:

The grandad, who works 70 hours a week on his farm at Crosby Garrett, Cumbria, said: "My legs went to jelly. When you've been farming for years and made no real money, it's a big amount.

"To think it has been in the ground all those years."

The sale was a disappointment to Cumbrian museum Tulie House, which hoped to land the helmet - described as "an extraordinary example of Roman metalwork at its zenith" - for £1million.

Link via The Agitator | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Rennett Stowe used under Creative Commons license

Phillip Warren's hobby for the past 62 years has been building models of warships out of matchsticks. So far, he's used 650,000 matches to build 400 ship models:

The master modeller, from Brandford, Dorset, has created every ship built in the Royal Navy since 1945, as well as 60 other ships from the US navy and other impressive floating fortresses from 18 other nations. One of the largest ships in his collection is the famous USS Nimitz, the largest aircraft carrier in the world.

Throghout his career as a ship model builder, Phillip Waren created over 400 individual ships, as well as 1,200 airplane models that make his aircraft carriers look more real. The average ship in his collection is made using around 1,500 matchsticks and takes about a month to complete, but for his larger creations he used over 5,000 matchsticks and 200 wooden boxes. These took him about a year to complete. All in all, Phillip Waren used around 650,000 matchsticks, to create his entire fleet.

Article Link and Gallery Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: ModelWarships.com

J.W. Rinzler, the author of the book The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, notes that George Lucas wasn't sure how the character Yoda could be portrayed on screen. One idea was to put a monkey in a Yoda costume:

At the time, animatronic technology wasn't thought to be advanced enough to pull off Yoda.

So, in a solution that would make Karl Pilkington proud, they decided to try putting a trained monkey in a Yoda costume, including a full Yoda face mask. Rinzler showed a picture of the monkey on set, but he explained this idea was quickly abandoned when one of the people who worked on the primate scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey pointed out "Look, the monkey's just going to pull off the mask over and over again. It's never going to work."

You would have thought one wouldn't need first-hand experience to know that, but the creative team decided to junk the idea and enlist Muppet mastermind Jim Henson to create the world's first animatronic muppet. To show the extent of the character's Muppet origins, Rinzler showed a photo of Yoda hanging out with Kermit and Miss Piggy in the swamps of Dagobah.

Link | Image: Lucasfilm

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Airplane! -- the 1980 Zucker brothers comedy about a midair jetliner disaster -- is a remake of the 1957 thriller Zero Hour! Simon Hollington and Kypros Kyprianou ripped all of the jokes and gags out of Airplane! and turned it back into a drama.

via Ace of Spades HQ | Editors' Website

In 1936, Ria van Dijk of Tilburg, the Netherlands, visited a shooting gallery. She was sixteen years old. When she hit a target, the impact tripped a camera which snapped her picture. Ria thoroughly enjoyed the experience and went back every year, except during World War II. She's collected the pictures and published them in a book. At the link, you can view them in chronological order and see the progression of her life from the perspective of the shooting gallery camera.

Link via J-Walk Blog | Photo: KesselsKramer Publishing

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Joe Romano, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, modified a robot to sense objects and pick them up without either crushing or dropping them:

This information has already been used to allow the robot to quickly stop after contact before damaging itself or the environment, naturally pass objects to a person, or detect when an object has been set down on a tabletop.

The goal of this work was to allow the robot to understand the sensory information that arises from contact with the environment, intelligently reason about what is happening in the world, and decide what the appropriate robot response should be. Using this tactile approach, the PR2 can delicately grasp a wide range of unknown objects, such as raw fruit, eggs, and heavy liquid-filled containers, all without crushing or dropping them. The PR2 can also quickly detect contacts between its arms and objects in the world, as well as contact between hand-held objects and the world.

Link via GearFuse

Although historical records describe the 14th Century pestilence known as the Black Death in a way that indicates that it was the bubonic plague, only recently has science confirmed this hypothesis:

“Our data … ends the debate about the etiology of the Black Death, and unambiguously demonstrates that Y. pestis was the causative agent of the epidemic plague that devastated Europe during the Middle Ages,” the authors wrote in the Oct. 7 issue of PLoS Pathogens.[...]

To build their case, the study’s authors extracted DNA from more than 75 skeletons in mass graves or plague pits across Europe. As an added measure, the scientists compared the samples to bones in nearby regions unaffected by the disease. All of this data, according to the study, points to bubonic plague as the cause of the 400-year-long pandemic and not other diseases.

Link via Geekosystem | Photo: Virginia Commonwealth University

Previously: Eyam: The Village That Died to Save Its Neighbors

For a mere $3 million, you can have your very own supersonic car. It's called The Spirit of America Sonic Arrow. This 1996 custom vehicle was built to reach up to 900 MPH and comes with spare parts, design schematics, tractor trailer rig, and more. Basically, the project is shutting down and the owners want to liquidate the entire operation.

Link via DVICE | Photo: Project 100

This burglar alarm was patented by George Pratt in 1883. A wire is attached to the trigger, which fires blank cartridges when pulled. It looks like a user might be able to load it with real cartridges.

Link via Hell in a Handbasket | Photo: Antique Arms

A crack is forming across the peninsula that is Upper Michigan, close to the Wisconsin border. It's about 200 yards long, 5 feet deep, and growing:

Heider and neighbors heard an explosion-like sound Monday morning. Heider found the nearly 200-yard-long crevice, which measures five-feet deep in parts, Tuesday.

"I was sitting in my recliner and the recliner started to vibrate," said Heider. "And it's not electric."

Trooper Paul Anderson with Michigan State Police was the first to check it out. He said he ruled out a gas line leak, but could not determine much more.

"This would be a first," he said. "You don't learn that at the academy."

Anderson said he called some geological experts. So far none have come to look at the crevice.

There have not been any reported earthquakes in the area.

In the comments, offer scientifically unsound explanations about how this crack formed.

Link via reddit | Image: Encyclopedia Britannica

The blogger behind English Russia compiled high-resolution photos of displays inside the Moscow Aviation Institute. These include images of a proposed manned lunar lander.

Link via Fanboy | Photo: JRussus

Previously: Russians Tried to Beat Apollo 11 in the Race to the Moon by Crash Landing a Spacecraft