Next month, the Russian made Dnepr rocket will carry a European satellite into orbit. It's a very unique space vehicle. The rocket is an intercontinental ballistic missile launched from an underground silo. The first stage is a gunpowder charge:

Essentially, the rocket is packed inside a canister which is loaded into a silo.

At launch, a black powder charge underneath the vehicle produces rapidly expanding gases that pop the Dnepr up out of the ground like a champagne cork.

There is then this heart-stopping moment when the vehicle just hangs 20m above the ground before the first-stage motors kick in and the former war machine climbs skyward.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/jonathanamos/2010/03/riding-the-strangest-rocket-in.shtml via Knirirr's Wafflings | YouTube Video of a Dnepr Launch | Image: BBC

Vetutius Placidus' thermopolium (snack bar) in the ruins of Pompeii will reopen nearly 2,000 years after a volcanic eruption destroyed the city and Placidus' clientele:

The thermopolium, one of the best preserved sites in Pompeii, has been closed to the public for years in order to protect it from further damage. But following months of detailed excavation and preservation work, all visitors will soon be able to go inside and get an idea of a typical ancient Roman lunch establishment.

Inside, as in many modern cafés and bars, visitors are greeted with a large, L-shaped, decorated counter where customers stood to enjoy a quick lunch. Cylindrical holes in the bar contained glass dolia, or jars, displaying food.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: flickr user lyng883, used under Creative Commons license

Double Falsehood or Distressed Lovers as it is also known is a play that Shakespeare scholar Lewis Theobald claimed to have discovered in 1727. He mounted a production of this allegedly lost script, though many of his contemporaries dismissed the play as a fraud. Now a modern Shakespeare scholar thinks that Theobald may have been correct:

The publication of the play, in fully annotated form, comes after a 10-year mission to crack a literary mystery by Professor Brean Hammond, of the University of Nottingham.

He is now convinced that the play originates from a collaboration between Britain's best-known playwright and Jacobean dramatist John Fletcher.

Fletcher went on to become of the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day. By the time of the early Restoration period in the late 1600s, his fame rivaled Shakespeare's.

Hammond argues that the language used in this play is highly indicative of Shakespeare's authorship. At the link you can read samples of the text.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Carol Highsmith, Library of Congress.

A negative pressure pump is a wound therapy device common to nations with advanced medical care. They normally cost $100 a day to rent, which is far too expensive for many patients and hospitals in developing nations. MIT student Danielle Zurovcik invented one that costs a total $3 and can be powered with only 14 microwatts:

But Zurovcik, inspired by a burn surgeon's plea, went a step further, designing a human-powered device that applies pressure via a simple bellows pump weighing less than half a pound. By improving the seal around the wound dressing to reduce air leaks, Zurovcik cut the pump's power requirements from about 14 watts to 80 microwatts, which comes from a hand pump.

"To basically take a toilet plunger and produce negative pressure over a prolonged period of time, that is really great," says Kristian Olson, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, who was not involved in the project. "Not only do I see it answering this need in developing countries, I think it could really enhance home therapy for chronic wounds in the U.S."

The device is now in use in Haiti.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: Danielle Zurovcik

The Vancouver-based sound studio Griffiths, Gibson and Ramsay Productions is using a clever advertising gimmick. The company's ad firm, Grey Canada, is mailing out cardboard boxes that can be used as record players. Just place the record on the peg, lower the needle, and spin the record with a pencil. The gadget then plays a recording of the children's story "A Town That Found Its Sound."

via Fast Company | Company Website | Photo: Ads of the World

(YouTube Link)

The F-35, the next generation of vertical takeoff and landing jet fighter, developed by Lockheed-Martin, performed its first vertical landing yesterday:

Yesterday at 1 P.M., after descending from a 150-foot-high hover, the test plane touched down on the tarmac at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. This is a significant step forward for the F-35, as its vertical takeoff and landing capability are crucial to the fighter's role as a replacement for the aging Harrier jet.

The test began with a short runway takeoff at 93 miles per hour, after which the pilot swung around, positioned the plane over the runway, and lowered it down. The test pilot, a former Royal Air Force aviator with experience piloting VSTOL planes, said he found landing the F-35 vertically far easier than landing older planes, like the Harrier, the same way.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/f-35-completes-first-success-fully-vertical-landing

Yesterday, Miss Cellania posted a picture of cookies decorated to look like each of Lady Gaga's outrageous outfits. Photographer Jessie Freidin's Doggie Gaga project is similar, except that it involves humiliating dogs by dressing them up as Lady Gaga. Pictured above is Booker dressed in Gaga's Kermit the Frog costume.

Link via Urlesque | Photo: Jessie Freidin

Thomas Feely of Leeds, UK, has committed 110 driving violations and has, at various times, been banned from driving 59 times over the past 28 years. He usually ignores these bans, and will now spend 5 months in jail as a consequence:

Feely, from Leeds regularly flouted driving bans, despite living just yards from a police station.

He was stopped by police for driving whilst disqualified and without a licence just three days before he was due to be sentenced for an earlier similar offence.[...]

Magistrates heard this week that he had been banned from driving 59 times in the past 28 years.

Link | Photo: (unrelated) by flickr user tompagenet, used under Creative Commons license

It really bothered Philip Levine when he started losing his hair while still in his early twenties. But with the help of bodypaint artist Kat Sinclair, he found a creative solution. Together, the pair have created hundreds of elaborate head paintings and adornments:

"I thought why not use it as a canvas, paint and attach things to my head using the border of where my hair would be," said the 28-year-old Londoner.[...]

Since then he has penned dozens of designs which Kat has recreated on his head. These have ranged from a giant wave splashing over his ears, to his head becoming shrubbery dotted with model butterflies.

On average the designs take two hours to create, but some of the more elaborate have taken up to five hours and are therefore reserved for parties. His favourite so far is a time consuming one where Kat covered his head with 1,000 Swarovski crystals, each individually glued on.

Link via Digg | Philip Levine | Kat Sinclair | Photo: Asylum.co.uk

(YouTube Link)

In the 1960s, Yale psychology researcher Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments in which participants were instructed to deliver dangerous electrical shocks to people. This was staged, and no one was in actual danger, but the experiment suggested that normal people will do horrible things if told to do so by authority figures. Perhaps inspired by that experiment, a French TV production company created a game show with that theme:

The aim of the experiment is to show how the manipulative power of television can push people to ever more outrageous limits.

A team of psychologists recruited 80 volunteers, telling them they were taking part in a pilot for a new television show.

They were instructed to pose questions to another "player", and punish him with up to 460 volts of electricity when he got answers wrong.

Not knowing that the screaming victim was really an actor, the apparently reluctant contestants yielded to the orders of the presenter and audience, who also believed the game was real.

Link

(Video Link)

Seahorses and a few related fish are the only species where the males can get pregnant. These males take eggs from females and nurture them in their brood pouches. Researchers have discovered that male pipefish, one of those related species, may selectively abort young resulting from mating with less attractive females. The above video, which is preceded by a commercial, describes the results of this study. From Scientific American:

"It's almost as if he is saying, 'Are these babies worth my effort?' If he is not overly fond of the mother, the answer appears to be 'No,' and he invests fewer resources," Paczolt said.[...]

The brood pouch can deliver nutrients to the developing embryos, but it can also take them away. If a male deems his mate to be unworthy of any of his efforts, noted Berglund, "he may even want to use the low-quality eggs as food for himself, to gain resources for future offspring with better prospects," actually consuming the developing young by absorbing them.

Although the researchers are not exactly sure how or why the male fish decides to care for broods differently, they did discover a strong preference for bigger females. "The one trait in the pipefish that seems to stand out is the size of the female," Paczolt said. "Males tend to seek out larger females to be their mates," she noted, and broods from these large females were bigger and more likely to be carried to term.

Link

The French graphic design duo Zim & Zou made a papercraft version of a Nintendo Game Boy. It even has an insertable game cartridge. At the link, you can view more pictures, as well as a papercraft Tetris game.

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Paper-Game/455813 via Albotas | Photo: Zim & Zou

(YouTube Link)

YouTube user FuggedaboutitNL created this time lapse video of his creation of a picture of a Bushmaster ACR (a type of rifle) using nothing but MS Paint. His channel is filled with similarly precise renditions of guns made with that program.

via CrunchGear

(YouTube Link)

After seeing Australians teach kangaroos how to surf, Peruvian surfer Domingo Pianezzi decided to teach an animal native to his homeland how to surf:

But the 44-year-old fancied a bigger challenge and has managed to coax his pet alpaca Pisco, to join him hanging ten in the Pacific.

Pisco — wearing a life jacket — managed to catch three waves with his owner and cruise for a few seconds before falling into the water.

Pianezzi said he came up with the idea while riding waves in Australia.

Link via Glenn Reynolds

Alexander Kobulnicky paints pictures of molecules. Pictured above is heme, which is one ingredient in hemoglobin.  The artist writes:

We know that molecules form the basis of matter, of the human body and of the natural world,  but as neurology increasingly teaches us, they underlie feeling, thought and behavior as well. The boundary between sanity and madness is the subject of countless books, movies and artworks, but in a practical sense, the boundary between sanity and madness is often. . . just Thorazine (C₁₇H₁₉ClN₂S).

Content warning: painting of a Viagra molecule.

Link via Make