Dancers Among Us is a project by photographer Jordan Matter. He placed professional dancers in motion in the middle of scenes of ordinary life in New York City in order to explore how people identify themselves.

I wondered about the impact of the recession on people’s identities. If a woman loses her job, does she lose a part of her identity as well? Who is the journalist, if he is no longer employed to write? Who is the chef without a kitchen? Is our identity formed by our passion, or our employment?

I believe in the strength of a life’s mission. If you dedicate yourself to a career that inspires and excites you, this commitment will be your foundation. As these dancers ride the subway, go to a baseball game or cross the street, they remain dancers; it is their lifeblood.

Gallery via Urlesque

A Duke University engineer proposes that it's possible to use custom-made DNA to generate self-assembling nanostructures that could be used as a cheap replacement for silicon microchips:

In his latest set of experiments, Chris Dwyer, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School of Engineering, demonstrated that by simply mixing customized snippets of DNA and other molecules, he could create literally billions of identical, tiny, waffle-looking structures.

Dwyer has shown that these nanostructures will efficiently self-assemble, and when different light-sensitive molecules are added to the mixture, the waffles exhibit unique and "programmable" properties that can be readily tapped. Using light to excite these molecules, known as chromophores, he can create simple logic gates, or switches.

Link via Popular Science | Image: Chris Dwyer/Duke University

Design student Elaine McLuskey noticed that it's hard to talk to someone in a noisy bar without shouting -- which just makes the noise problem even worse. So she invented the "social sphere" a plastic ball that you can wear on your head. It allows to talk in public to someone similarly equipped:

Miss McLuskey said: "My research found that in some cases a person's environment can be more disabling than a hearing impairment and so, in some respects, we are all hearing impaired on a daily basis.

"The obvious example is that frustrating situation of trying to catch up with a friend in a busy bar. You want to hear their news and have a proper chat, but you have to shout over the din of music, chatter and clinking glasses.

Link via GearFuse | Photo: BBC

Alexei Lyapunov and Lena Ehrlich of Novosibirsk, Russia, are papercraft artists. They focus on the creation of elaborate paper dioramas, such as the Beatles display pictured above. At their portfolio, you can also view Queen and Elvis papercrafts.

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Beatles/493796 and Portfolio via Nerdcore

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Is that tinfoil hat that you wear on your head actually effective at keeping out subversive messages? Rick Crammond of British Columbia decided to find out. He tested a foil-lined cap to find out if it would block the electromagnetic pulse from a wireless modem. Good news! It works, and people may still laugh at you, but at least your brain is safe.

via Make

Guinness Rishi of India has covered his body with tattoos of 220 flags. It took him three years and cost him about £12,500:

Rishi already has six of the tattoos done, on his face - the flags of India, the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada, Cyprus, and the Indian Congress Party. He says that his face is being reserved for the most important flags - he thinks he can fit around 60 1-inch flags on his head..

As well as the flags of the 201 recognised states in the world, he'll also have flags of nations like Scotland and Wales, and various others (hence the Indian Congress Party flag, and the shout out to oddity-collectors Ripley's Believe It Or Not.)

Story Link and Images via reddit | Photo: Oddity Central

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A man named Kenny Strasser or Kenny Strassburg has, in recent weeks, convinced five television stations in the Wisconsin area to put him on the air as a yo-yo master promoting charitable causes. But before they put him on the air, they didn't bother to verify that these charities existed or that he knew to use a yo-yo:

His latest appearance occurred Thursday morning on KQTV's "Hometown This Morning," in St. Joseph, Mo.

"He got us," said Bridget Blevins, the station's news director. "I hate that we got duped."

And how good was he with the yo-yo, a skill Strasser has said made him a champion? "He did some really lame things. He hit himself in the face and the groin with his yo-yo," Blevins said. [...]

Guehrke wrote in one e-mail to a TV station that Strasser was a dynamic talk-show guest who comes "equipped with a roster of amazing yo-yo tricks, juggling and fun tips about how kids and adults alike can take small steps to make the world a greener place."

The e-mail solicitation stated that Strasser was a runner-up for Rookie of the Year in 1995, grand champion at the Pensacola Regional and was nominated for the Walt Greenberg Award in 2000.

There is no Walt Greenberg Award in yo-yo, and there is no evidence Pensacola ever hosted a yo-yo tournament or that Strasser won a rookie of the year award.

But the solicitation was good enough for the bookers on the TV stations.

Link via Geekosystem

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Sky Arts, a British television channel, recreated the iconic logo from the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon in real life last October. The piece of art used lights, lasers, and smoke and was set up on Primrose Hill in London.

via Gizmodo | Previously: I'll Never Join the Dark Side of the Moon

(YouTube Link)

Blair Neal turned an overhead projector into a musical instrument. As he scrolls the transparency, a camera reads the placement and color of marks as musical notes. The project is called "Color a Sound."

via Make

Indie filmmakers on Long Island were filming a scene consisting of a convenience store robbery. Someone passing by the store spotted an actor pointing a gun at anther actor, and called the police:

"The first officer arrives, looks in the window and he sees a gentleman with a gun pointed at the counter," Garcia said.

"So he enters the store and confronts the individual, and says, 'Police, drop the gun,'" Garcia said. "The individual puts his hands up in the air and says, 'It's a movie! It's a movie!'"

He said the officer repeated his order to drop the gun several times before using force to disarm the actor of his fake pistol.

Link via Say Uncle | Photo: Gothamist

Previously: Marketing Stunt: Have Bloody Man Wave Gun around in Public

Oddity Central reports that the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo, Japan, has held an annual festival for the past four hundred years that encourages babies to cry in order to improve their health:

Amateur sumo wrestlers hold the babies high in the air, and try to scare them into crying, while a sumo referee judges the match. The toddler who cries longest and loudest is considered the winner.

Japanese parents bring the babies to the contest, of their own free will, and truly believe the sumo induced crying keeps their children in good health, and wards off evil spirits. This year, 80 babies, all under one year old, participated in Naki Sumo. As you might have guessed, the whiniest contender won.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: Zing.vn | Video

(YouTube Link)

YouTube user 43287633 made a tiny functional cannon. It fires a little steel ball. The cannon is pretty effective, demolishing light bulbs, glasses, and punching holes through soda cans.

via Geekosystem

The Donner Party...the Shackleton expedition...those soccer players in the Andes -- We've all heard stories of people who have survived hardship under impossible odds, but brace yourself for the tale of Alexa von Tobel. She pushed herself to the limits to find out if she could go one entire day without spending any money in the untamed wilderness of New York City:

On Tuesday night I had just returned home after a long day of work and I decided to order in from my favorite restaurant. Forty minutes later, the deliveryman arrived with my pasta primavera and a Greek salad and I handed him $32.50, including tip. Pretty steep for a dinner for one, I thought. I returned to my kitchen counter, brown bag in hand, and it was then that I had a moment: I reviewed my spending for the day and I realized that I had spent well over $80 over the course of the day on menial expenses. I hadn't gone shopping, I hadn't dined out at Cafeteria for lunch, and I hadn't joined my friends for drinks. It dawned on me that the taxicab rides, stops at CVS, the Starbucks lattes, the mid-morning or mid-afternoon snacks, my take-out from the fabulous Italian restaurant, and other trivial expenses really added up; realizing the total cost of it all was a painful but eye-opening experience.

That night, I decided to go on a mission to live a full 24-hour day without spending a penny.

Content warning from this point on. Sometimes the things that a person does to survive aren't pretty.

Link via J-Walk Blog | Photo: Business Insider

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Jason Dietz makes what he calls UFO Abduction Lamps. They look like flying saucers projecting eerie lights onto the ground below. Here's how they're made:

They stand 5-feet 5-inches tall and are made out of recycled glass tubes, light diffusers, and acrylic rings. They hold approximately 10 gallons of water each. They use a series of different lights that include CFLs, LEDs, and halogens. They each have a 110-volt 20-gallon air pump that produces the bubbles from the bottom. The theme is a cow being abducted out of a grassy pasture -- look carefully to see the cow in the giant plasma tube.

Link via Technabob

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Phil Lord and Chris Miller are best known for directing the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. In 1998, they made this fake commercial for action figures modeled after the Brontë sisters -- a trio of 19th Century English authors.

via Centered Librarian