Ted Ingram of Dorset, UK, may be the oldest paperboy in the world at the age of 90. He's been on the job for 68 years and is estimated to have delivered half a million copies of the newspaper over the length of his career:
He said he has only twice cancelled his deliveries - both times when snow prevented the papers getting to him.[...]
The 90-year-old moved to the village in 1938 and worked as a tractor driver on a farm.
But he decide to boost his income by taking up a paper round aged 22.
On Feb. 5th, 1,200 students, staff, and faculty at the University of Alberta played the world's largest game of dodgeball:
Although it will be several months before officials from the Guinness World Records verify the accomplishment, organizers say the noon-hour dodgeball game in the Butterdome was the largest the world has ever seen.
The group shattered the former record of a 450-person game and easily reached its goal of attracting more than 1,000 players.
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/edmonton/2010/02/05/12763776.html via Urlesque
Animator Rob Carter made this short film which shows the development of Charlotte, North Carolina over two and a half centuries, compressed into nine minutes of papercraft. Buildings appear and move around in a style reminiscent of a pop-up book.
Photographer and scientist Miloslav Druckmüller and his team specialize in capturing images of solar eclipses. Pictured above is one photograph that compiles nine images, taken on July 22, 2009 from the Marshall Islands. Of this craft, Druckmüller writes:
Solar eclipse photography if one of the most difficult tasks of astronomical photography. There are at least three reasons for that. The first and main one is the extreme contrast which makes impossible to record the phenomenon on a single image. Neither classical nor digital photography have the ability to master the brightness ratio which is necessary for successful eclipse photography. The second reason is little chance for making experiments. If anything gets wrong it may take years to get an opportunity for a new experiment. The last but not the least reason is the fact that processing of images taken during total eclipse is very complicated and time consuming work with needs of one purpose software being developed specially for this aim.
In 1867, the United States bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. At the time, the acquisition was popularly dismissed as "Seward's Folly" (Seward was Secretary of State at the time), as the frozen land was considered worthless. Since that time, the conventional wisdom has been that, given Alaska's natural resources, the Alaska Purchase was a great deal (example). Economist David Barker, however, argues that the US experienced a net loss as a result of the purchase and would be better off economically if Alaska had been absorbed into Canada:
Cash flow from Alaska to the federal government since 1867 has certainly exceeded the initial purchase price, but this fact is not sufficient to demonstrate that the purchase was a sound financial investment. Using a variety of assumptions and techniques for valuing the net cash flows from Alaska, it is clear that the financial returns have not been positive. The economic benefits that have been received from Alaska over the years could have been obtained without purchasing the territory. In financial terms, Alaska has clearly been a negative net present value project for the United States.
Barker also ran similar calculations for the profitability of the US acquisition of Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, and the Gadsden Purchase.
For a class project, nine mechanical engineering majors at Yale built a bicycle with a spokeless back wheel. One of them, redditor zhoalander, described the design in a thread at reddit:
It's a single speed setup. We used two cranks and two bottom brackets in the front to gear up the ratio. It goes from (IIRC) 53 to a 13, which is connected to the second crank and another 53 which connects to the rear hub. The rear hub is just a normal ratcheting rear hub that we mated to our belt pulley. Not sure if all these bike terms are right, but that's the general idea.
The front wheel would be almost exactly the same as the rear wheel except that it could be a little lighter. Some of the aluminum can be shaved off since there's no powertrain to connect to.
At the top of the thread, there are imgur links to more pictures of the bike.
A new cleaning technology could replace or supplement the soap, water, and disinfectants used at hospitals to wash hands. Plasma gas sprayed on hands through machines developed by researchers in Germany can kill bacteria and other biological contaminants:
The technology is being developed in several laboratories. Gregor Morfill, who created several prototypes using the technology at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, says the plasma quickly inactivates not only bacteria but also viruses and fungi.
Dr. Morfill and his colleagues have tested their devices on hands and feet. “It works on athlete’s foot,” he said. “And the nice thing is, you don’t have to take your socks off. They are disinfected, too.”[...]
The first products to reach hospitals, after surface cleaners and instrument disinfectants, will probably be hand sanitizers, said Alexander Fridman, a professor and director of the Drexel Plasma Institute at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Does the photo remind anyone else of the pain box from Dune?
Chris Scott is training to be a 911 operator. His wife, at home with their infant son, found the child choking. She called 911, Scott answered the phone, and calmly talked her through the problem. The boy, Jacob, is again healthy and safe.
Becky Stern makes scarves that match the emission spectra of different elements. The term "emission spectrum" is defined by The Larousse Dictionary of Science and Technology as "wavelength distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a self-luminous source." Pictured above is that distribution for silicon.
This Russian-language (?) video shows a handy car accessory. Drive up on the treads, remove your wheels, attach the axle to the treads, and you have a functional tracked vehicle.
Jeff Ondash of Cranfield, Ohio set a world record by giving 7,777 hugs in a 24-hour period on Valentine's Day in front of a casino in Las Vegas:
The previous record of 5000 hugs in one day was set last year by Siobhan O'Connor in Dublin, Ireland, Guinness spokesman Philip Robertson said.
To break O'Connor's mark, Ondash needed more than 208 hugs per hour - or about 3 1/2 hugs per minute. Ondash logged just over 700 hugs during his first hour of embraces on Friday night. [...]
Ondash says he, as McHuggin, is now eyeing both the world's longest single hug - currently 24 hours and 1 second - and breaking his current two records consecutively, which he said was "unheard of."
"I don't even know if I can do that but I'm going to attempt it," Ondash said. "It's like climbing Mount Everest twice - same thing."
Logorama is an Oscar-nominated short film by François Alaux and Herve de Crecy about a world populated entirely by corporate logos. The peace of daily life in this world is shattered when a deranged, murderous corporate mascot is spotted by the police. Warning: adult language
This valentine, made out of palladium atoms, is eight nanometers across. It formed spontaneously this week while researchers Zhiwei Wang and David Pearmain of the University of Birmingham’s Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory were working:
Although the palladium Valentine was a nice surprise for the scientists, they actually have other reasons for studying the palladium atoms. Professor Richard Palmer, head of the Laboratory explained:
"Size-selected atomic clusters, of the kind which fused together to assemble the atomic heart, are of practical relevance as model catalysts; the palladium/carbon system is employed as a real industrial catalyst in the fine chemicals sector. Precise control of the atomic architecture of the clusters may lead to enhanced yield and especially selectivity in complex catalytic reactions, as well as reducing the number of metal atoms needed to catalyze the reaction."
Link via Gizmodo | Image: Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory
Hi! We're Neatorama, and we're in the adorable cat video business. Currently at bat is Guitar Kitteh, who used a guitar as a scratching post while one of his servants (YouTube user FlashDams) was playing it.
"If I Didn't Have You (I'd Have Somebody Else)" is an amusing song by Tim Minchin. It points out that, contrary to the wisdom that there's one perfect romantic parnter out there, if he wasn't with the woman to whom he is presently attached, he would probably be with another woman and having an equally (or possibly more) fulfilling relationship. And moreover, it's unlikely that he's found his soulmate at the age of seventeen.
