Artist Ron Pippin creates sculptures of animals with mechanical augmentations, such as the above work entitled "Solar Deer". In an interview, Pippin said:

My work is often related to ideas about the relationship of Science, Art, and Nature. My scientific aesthetic is primarily drawn from the 19th Century, when, I feel, science still had a relationship to beautiful forms.

Content warning: Pippin uses actual animal parts in many of his works.

Link via Make | Official Website | Interview | Photo: Ron Pippin

Now That's Nifty has a gallery of thirty unusual motorcycles, including those converted into campers, limos, and tracked vehicles. Among them is the massive Leonhardt Gunbus, which is powered by a massive 410 cubic inch engine:

When it comes to custom motorcycle builders, there's crazy and there's really crazy. Falling into the latter category is one Mr. Clemens F. Leonhardt, who has just finished building what he refers to as "the world's biggest motorcycle." Excluding some other crazy creations, such as the Monster Bike, the guy's got a point. Unlike other two-wheeled behemoths, the Leonhardt Gunbus is actually ready to ride on normal roads and will soon go into series production. That's right... you'll actually be able to buy one of these. Next on the agenda is an equally massive sidecar, which somehow seems just right for this bike.

Link via The Presurfer | Information on the Leonhardt Gunbus | Photo: Niot

"The Art of Chess" is an upcoming exhibition of chess-themed art on April 14 at the Milan Furniture Fair at the Project B Gallery in Milan, Italy. At the link, you can find pictures of several works that will be featured, including the above "Modern Chess Set" by Rachel Whiteread. We've previously posted about Whiteread's work with solid blocks of sugar.

Link via DudeCraft | Photo: Design Boom | Gallery Website

A hen in Shrewsbury, UK has been nesting on a litter of puppies born on the farm of Edward and Ros Tate. This is to the chicken's advantage, as the Tates have since decided to not eat her:

Mr Tate said: 'Mabel was hatched here about a year ago. She would have gone onto someone's dinner plate but we saved her.[...]

'We have a dog, Nettle, which has just given birth to a litter of pups. Within a few days of giving birth, Nettle was up and about, prowling in the yard.

'Mabel observed Nettle's behaviour and, as soon as there was a chance, she hoped into the dog basket to roost on the pups.

'She keeps them and herself warm, while Nettle is outside on the yard.'

More and larger photos at the link.

Link via Urlesque | Photo: Anita Marik/Newsteam.co.uk

(Video Link)

Descendants is an animated short film by Heiko van der Scherm about two flowers, and the curiosity and treachery between them. In a manner that reminds me of the rabbits of Watership Down, the flowers are anthropomorphized, but still motivated primarily by the plant life cycle.

Starring Whoopi Goldberg. Run time: 14 minutes, 32 seconds.

via Nerdcore

Instructables user kirkfrog made YaHookah! -- the computer that you can smoke. It's an old CPU box turned into a functional hookah. The tank is acrylic, and the bubbles are provided by an aquarium air pump. DIY instructions at the link.

Link via Gizmodo

(YouTube Link)

If not, then you're just not as talented as this teenager. Sophia Heesch claimed to be able to identify eighty Star Wars minifigs is this manner, and this German language video demonstrates a test of that claim. Would any German speaking Neatoramanaut care to translate?

via Geekologie

The Carpuccino, built by the team at the BBC science show Bang Goes the Theory, runs on coffee grounds. These are burned and the resulting carbon monoxide powers the car:

The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee - the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile.

The journey will use about 70 kilos of ground coffee which, at supermarket prices of between £13 and £26 a kilo depending on brand and quality, will cost between £910 and £1,820, or between 25 and 50 times the £36 cost of petrol for the journey.

Link via Fast Company | Photo: The Daily Mail

Underfull is a prototype tablecloth design by Kristine Bjaadal. It has a hidden butterfly pattern that is revealed only when it is stained. Bjaadal writes:

This creates stories and can contribute in giving the tablecloth sentimental value – important in a society where we seem to have an increasingly superficial relation to the objects we surround ourselves with.

Link via OhGizmo! | Video | Photo: Kristine Bjaadal

(YouTube Link)

This video, entitled "Annihilation", shows stop-motion animation using Doritos chips. Its provenance is a mystery to me, but I suspect that it's viral advertising.

via Urlesque

(YouTube Link)

Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in all of his movies. YouTube user royvanderzwaan, a collector of Hitchcock films, assembled (almost) all of these cameos into one video.

via Nerdcore

This glass chandelier -- which looks to me like a big ball of fur -- was made by glass artist Robert Kaindl. At the link, you can see some simply amazing glasswork.

Link via Gizmodo

The blog Not So Humble Pie has a roundup of science-themed cookies. Among them is a picture of the cellular mitosis cookies (above) made by the blogger behind Reflections of a Science Teacher. Others were inspired by centrifugal governors, genome sequences, and a Sierpinski carpet.

Link and Link via Make

reddit user Grimmlock started a clever comment thread. It's filled with nerdy variations of the classic 'yo mama' joke theme. A few samples:

Your momma's so fat that the probability that she is in an arbitrary point in a room is 1.

The woman who carried you in her womb for your gestation period and later expelled you from her vagina has such an excess of adipose tissue that one could reap cardiovascular benefits simply from taking a brisk walk around her person.

Yo momma is so fat, the recursive function int yourMom{ (return yourMom();} causes a stack overflow

Yo momma's so fat that when I used multiple integration to find the volume under her curves, it turned out she was a hypervolume and could not be graphed.

Link | Photo by flickr user Tobyotter used under Creative Commons license

deviantART user Martin Beyer imagined what Mr. Burns from The Simpsons would look like if he was depicted more literally. It looks like a sculpture, but Beyer actually used Zbrush to create a digital 3D image.

Link via GearFuse