(YouTube Link)

Courtesy of YouTube user mountain462, you can watch a kitten riding a tortoise. I advise you to turn the volume on your speakers all the way down -- the background music is really grating.

via Geekologie

He was unable to persuade the gas station attendant to hand over the contents of the cash register:

Just after he walked out to a red pickup truck at a gas pump, another man — who police later identified as Jose Alejandro Romero, 17 — walked into the store with a caulk gun partially visible under a white t-shirt, the affidavit said.

The man pointed the caulk gun at Limuel and demanded money, the affidavit said.

Limuel told police he thought it was a joke when he saw the caulk gun, but the assailant continued to demand money, the affidavit said.

The man struck Limuel with the caulk gun after he could not open the cash drawer, the affidavit said, then Limuel struck back, hitting the man with a plastic trash can.

Romero then fled the scene with a transgendered prostitute who was driving the getaway vehicle.

Link via Say Uncle | Photo: US Department of Energy

I didn't even know that this was actual job. Apparently some people pick up other people's dogs' poop for a living. One lucky soul in this profession recently found $58 in a fresh pile:

In this photo provided by DoodyCalls Pet Waste Removal, Steve Wilson, a worker with DoodyCalls Pet Waste Removal holds a plastic bag of money May 30, 2010, in St. Louis. On a recent call, he noticed money sticking out from doggie doo and after cleaning the bills, placed them in a plastic zip-locked bag and returned what turned out to be $58 to the customer. The money was torn, but the serial numbers were identifiable, which means the bills could be returned to a bank and replaced with new money.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: AP

Aubrey Longley-Cook made an animated video of a running dog by embroidering fifteen individual frames. Pictured above is one of them. At the link, you can view the animated .gif file that is the final product. You can also view the category of posts which show each frame of the .gif.

Link via DudeCraft | Individual Frames

Three years ago, Alex blogged about the largest gold coin in the world. This one million dollar Canadian gold coin weighs 220 lb and is worth about four times its face value. And now it's up for sale:

The 100-kilogram Gold Maple Leaf was, in fact, recognized by Guinness World Records in October 2007 as the planet's largest gold coin.

The four sold that year cost the buyers more than $2.3 million each based on the coin's intrinsic value at the time. The $1-million coin contains 3,215 troy ounces of gold.

But the price of gold has nearly doubled since then. Earlier this week, it reached a record high of $1,254.50 U.S. per ounce. Some analysts have predicted the price could hit $1,500 U.S. within a year.

At Friday's price of about $1,230 U.S. per ounce, the metal value of the coin to be sold in Austria was just over $4 million Cdn.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/small+change+colossal+Canuck+coin+worth/3143307/story.html via The Presurfer | Photo: Dorotheum

Paleontologists have discovered what they believe to be the largest known bed of dinosaur bones. It's in Hilda, Alberta, and covers about 2.3 square km. Their findings suggest that a precursor of the triceratops, found in large numbers at the site, may have traveled in herds numbering in hundreds to thousands of members. Why did so many die at this location? Senior researcher David Eberth thinks that the dinosaurs may have been trapped by rising floodwaters:

Rather than picturing the animals as drowning while crossing a river, a classic scenario that has been used to explain bonebed occurrences at many sites in Alberta, the research team interpreted the vast coastal landscape as being submerged during tropical storms or hurricanes.

With no high ground to escape to, most of the members of the herd drowned in the rising coastal waters. Carcasses were deposited in clumps across kilometres of ancient landscape as floodwaters receded.

“It's unlikely that these animals could tread water for very long, so the scale of the carnage must have been breathtaking,” said Mr. Eberth. “The evidence suggests that after the flood, dinosaur scavengers trampled and smashed bones in their attempt to feast on the rotting remains.”

Link via Geekosystem | Image: West Virginia University at Parkersburg

This clever bit of graffiti was spotted in Ottawa, Ontario. It's patterned after Charlie Brown's iconic shirt and inverts Charlie's expression "Good grief" with the inscription "Grief ain't Good."

Link via Albotas

UPDATE: In the comments, Nick gives detailed information about this site. Thanks, Nick!

The (apparently anonymous) artist responsible for the webcomic Abstruse Goose expresses the ordinary mysteries revealed to the scientifically literate mind. At the bottom of the comic, he quotes Carl Sagan saying "Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge."

In the links, you can find an interview with the cartoonist.

Link via reddit | Interview | Previously: Symphony of Science

(YouTube Link)

Artist and engineer Joan Vallvé made robots that can play the violin and the glockenspiel. They're on exhibit this weekend at Sónar, a music festival in Barcelona:

The "Violí MIDI" and "Metal·lòfon MIDI" are part of the project to design and construct an automated musical environment. This environment must be able to play live, and that is why it has been designed to be easy to handle, reliable, stable and completely portable. The roots of the project lie in a reflection on the use of robotics as a tool for musical composition and performance. The media and surroundings influence and determine the artist's creative process. A new environment, a new language and a new interface will produce new creations and new musical styles. This is therefore a new format which calls into question the limits of the concepts of singer-songwriter or musical group.

Robotic instruments have so far been polyphonic percussion instruments and melodic instruments using plucked strings. Other musical timbres, registers and functions have still to be explored. On the horizon of the project is the creation of an interface adapted to the characteristics of each instrument, making the automated musical ensemble into an automated musical environment. The project is also based on constructive simplicity, the recycling of components and free hardware (Arduino), as well as the MIDI protocol due to its flexibility.

Link via Make | Vallvé's Website

(YouTube Link)

Roger Menees of Anna, Illinois has set a new world record for the lowest sound ever sung by a human:

Mr Menees, a coach driver for gospel and rock musicians, managed the feat on Feb 11 at his Carbondale recording studio. He hit 0.393 hertz - a very low F-sharp. The previous record was 0.797 hertz.

But Mr Menees says he could have done better and will probably make another attempt if his new record is bested anytime soon.

Link | Image: Alamy

Well, of course. What else would one put in a Hello Kitty Ferrari? This product is allegedly on sale in Japan for ¥2980. I hear that it improves cutepower by 12%.

Link via CrunchGear | Photo: New Launches

In 1972, the Pioneer 10 space probe began its journey across and ultimately out of our solar system. On board was a golden plaque designed to communicate to aliens what humans looked like, that we were intelligent, and where we lived. One of the symbols on that plaque conveyed specific information about hydrogen. Anderson Fernandez of Brazil decided to tattoo this symbol on his arm.

Link | Images: Geeky Tattoos | Previously: We Sent Aliens the Wrong Star Map!

(YouTube Link)

Medical researchers in Seattle knew that, on very rare occasions, people had been frozen so long that their hearts stopped. But when warmed up, they revived. The researchers hypothesized that oxygen deprivation immediately before freezing may have made this resuscitation possible:

Roth and his colleagues wondered how it is that some people can enter a state of frozen suspended animation and then recover from it safely, whereas in general such a change of body temperature is deadly.

The scientists now think they may be on the track of an answer, having learned how to perform the same trick reliably with other lifeforms; in this case yeasts and nematode worms.

Yeasts and worms, like humans, will normally simply die if they are chilled down past a certain point. But Roth and his colleagues have found that if the little creatures are starved of oxygen before turning on the cold, they will go into suspended animation from which they recover on warming and go on to live normal yeasty or wormy lives.

The video above is a time-lapse recording of a roundworm successfully frozen and then reanimated.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/11/suspended_animation_in_lab/ via Nerd Bastards

(YouTube Link)

"The Flight of the Bumblebee" from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Tale of the Tsar Saltan has a tempo so fast that it challenges all but the greatest musicians. We've previously featured accordion, banjo, and trumpet arrangements of this piece. Here's a vocal performance by Swedish opera singer Malena Ernman. It's as much a demonstration of physical comedy as it is an extraordinary musical act.

via Geekosystem

Austin-based artist Shawn Smith creates 3D sculptures that look like pixelated images. He slices sheets of plywood into 3/4 inch cubes, dyes them, and then glues them together. Smith writes:

For the past few years, I have been creating a series of "Re-things." These whimsical sculptures represent pixilated animals and objects of nature. I find images of my subjects online and then create three-dimensional sculptural representations of these two-dimensional images. I build my "Re-things" pixel by pixel to understand how each pixel plays a crucial role in the identity of an object. Through the process of pixilation, color is distilled, some bits of information are lost, and the form is abstracted. Making the intangible tangible, I view my building process as an experiment in alchemy, using man-made composite and recycled materials to represent natural forms.

Link via Technabob | Video about the Creation Process | Image: Shawn Smith