Artist Alexandria Neonakis created Valentines inspired by the TV show Lost. At the link, you'll find her deviantART gallery, which also contains valentines for The Office, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2.

Link via Popped Culture

Revolvers that fire shotgun shells are not a new idea. In fact, Taurus sells one called "The Judge" that fires .410 bore shells. What makes this handmade revolver from Taiwan unique is that it fires the much larger 12-gauge round:

Police said 19-year-old gang brother Zhuangren dimension, usually in the mountains more than 10 hotels Wai things put in charge possession of force, at any time ordered to carry weapons to parts of the scenes; within the lake precinct office yesterday morning to Linsen North Road, Suite A search in 7th floor “gun room” seized wheel and 6 rounds of canister-type shotgun, as well as four pistols, one a standard for the Beretta, and the other three for the transformation of the gun, and 15 bullets, blanks 19 made. The initial inventory, guns from the nickname “God pig” man.

This is the very large wheel shotguns, can be filled with 6 rounds of shotgun, the gun body are all constructed of steel, a short gun, weighing more than 3 kilograms, there is no rifling, can also be fitted sight, external trigger is not Buckle have no insurance, fill out bombs loaded on the mean, believe it or mistakenly pulled the trigger will fire, very dangerous.

Link via Hell in a Handbasket | Photo: Liberty Times

This photograph of a Hello Kitty tattoo inspired by the character Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs was discovered by the man behind Kitty Hell. That blogger writes:

Despite the terrible combo, I can understand why someone might think it is a good idea to place these two characters together. They both possess true evil that is unimaginable to most of us, and obviously the world would be a better place if Hello Kitty was restrained in this fashion. However, trying to equate Hello Kitty to Hannibal Lecter is just plain wrong because, quite frankly, the evil feline is so much worse.

Link via Albotas

Barbie's been everything: a supermodel, a teacher, a nurse, and other careers that often fit a sexist stereotype about what work a woman can do. Departing from this trend, Mattel invited people to vote on Barbie's next career from a number of choices, some of which are very academically challenging. The result is that the newest Barbie doll will be a computer engineer:

The choice of computer engineer — a field in which men far outnumber women and in which women’s participation has been declining — was announced Friday at the New York Toy Fair.

Lynn Langit, a developer evangelist at Microsoft who teaches programming to girls and works on a Microsoft program called DigiGirlz that teaches girls about technology careers, said she was thrilled about Barbie’s next career.

“We can use any sort of positive influence that we have, because the number of girls studying programming is abysmal,” she said.

Link via Wired | Image: Mattel

A Japanese spider crab named Crabzilla, thought to be the biggest ever in the UK, has claws more than five feet long:

The Sea Life Centre will be his home until the end of March when he will be taken to his permanent home in Belgium.

The crabs are commonly found in the Pacific in 1,000 ft (300m) deep waters but have been known to live deeper.

Curator Graham Burrows said: "It is rumoured these crabs can grow as big as four metres, big enough to straddle a car.

Link via reddit | Photo: BBC

Coldcast assembled pictures and information about twenty of the strangest apartment buildings around the world. These include the above "Cube Houses" of Rotterdam. Designed by Piet Blom and built in 1984, they use the space over a pedestrian walkway and are angled to create the impression of a forest:

The cubes are tilted and sit on hexagon-shaped pole structures. The cubes contain the living areas, which are split into three levels. The triangle-shaped lower level contains the living area. The windows on this level open onto the environment below due to the slope of the tilted cube. The middle level contains the sleeping area and a bathroom, while the top level, also in a triangular shape, is used as either an extra bedroom or a living space. The top level provides a great view since the apex of the room is a three sided pyramid with windows all around.

http://blog.koldcast.tv/2010/koldcast-news/20-weirdest-apartments-of-the-world/ via Digg | Information about the Cubic Houses | Photo: Wayfaring.info

(YouTube Link)

Art student Jamie Bell created this impressive flipbook animation depicting the history of the universe from the Big Bang to the present:

This is the final piece for my AS art course, a flipbook made entirely out of biro pens. It's something like 2100 pages long, and about 50 jotter books. I'd say I worked on and off it for roughly 3 weeks.

The use of the Can-Can as the theme music makes it extra cute.

via Geekologie

(YouTube Link)

This mashup by YouTube user Cody Richeson takes Disney's 1995 flick A Goofy Movie and re-imagines it as a spooky and surreal David Lynch film. Goofy's relationship with his son Max is even more disturbing than in the original movie.

via Matthew Caverhill

Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher, aged 104 and 102 respectively, have been married for 86 years -- longer than any other living couple in the US. They are now using Twitter to dispense relationship advice to other couples:

That’s right, while some of the older set just can’t wrap their heads around Twitter (Twitter) (unless it’s connected to a fax machine), the Fishers will be all up on the microblogging site this V-Day, dispensing pearls of wisdom to the younger set (for whom the sanctity of marriage has already been destroyed by Facebook). The whole project was dreamed up by blinkbox, which is an on-demand movie and TV website in the UK.

http://www.examiner.com/x-18286-Charlotte-Womens-Relationship-Advice-Examiner~y2010m2d10-Hes-104-and-shes-102-Herbert-and-Zelmyra-Fisher-have-been-married-85-years and Link via Urlesque | Twitter Page | Photo: Mashable

The modeler Static Painting made these figurines that imagine The Wizard of Oz as a story of the post-apocalyptic genre.

If you missed it, be sure to check out Stacy's roundup of trivia related to the movie.

Link via GearFuse

Scientists -- with their flesh-eating robots and whatnot -- are always out to get us. Popular Science turns up the fear factor by telling us about five experiments and projects currently underway that (if exaggerated and misunderstood) could destroy human civilization. One example is a "love drug" that could strongly influence the way someone feels about another:

In 2005, researchers in Switzerland gave 29 test subjects a sniff of the neuropeptide oxytocin, a.k.a. the “love drug,” known to play a role in developing trust and social attachment in mammals, before having them play a financial investment game. The result? Almost half of the trust-primed oxy sniffers handed all their francs to an anonymous partner. Now insiders say the military may be in the process of weaponizing oxytocin and similar compounds.

WHY, GOD, WHY? Lead researcher Michael Kosfeld, who conducted the study at the University of Zurich, says the true value of oxytocin may be in treating people with social-anxiety disorder or to help relieve some symptoms of autism and Asperger’s syndrome. But Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense, believes such a drug could find a place in facilitating interrogations and negotiations, or in ending armed conflicts.

Now let's go burn down the observatory so this will never happen again!

http://www.popsci.com/node/42746 | Image: NASA

(YouTube Link)

This Russian-language video shows people jumping off a five-story building into a snow drift in the town of Magadan in Far Eastern Russia. Would any Russian-speaking Neatoramanaut care to translate for us?

via Urlesque

iPhone styluses (stylusi?) can be difficult to operate while wearing gloves, which can make winter use challenging. In South Korea, some inventive users have begun inserting the stylus into sausages and then holding the more manageable sausages. The link is to a Korean-language news source run through Google Translate.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: News 24

Professor John I.Q. Nerdelbaum Frink, Jr. is a character on The Simpsons. He's a socially inept scientist and inventor known to proclaiming nonsensical words when he's nervous. On the show, he often produces inventions of questionable utility and scientific rigor. Dan at McLOL has compiled a list of some of Frink's more absurd inventions, along with sound files from the show demonstrating their use. A few samples:

Hamburger Earmuffs

If you think inventing the Hamburger Earmuffs was easy you’d be GLAYVENLY wrong. The dear professor had problems like “the pickle matrix” to contend with, something Homer didn’t think of when he tried to steal Frink’s invention.[...]

Debigulator

Uses this invention to shrink Lisa so she can mingle with the tiny people who worship her as their God. (Eedle-blay!)
But when Lisa needs to return to normal size…(Hoyvin Mayvin!)

Link via Digg | Image: FOX

In The New York Times, Henry Fountain has an article exploring how the ancient technology of sailing gets very cutting edge in high-value competitions, such as America's Cup:

“You have to understand the aerodynamic principles well and how to apply them,” Mr. Drummond said. “If you have the skills to design an airplane, you have the skills to design a yacht. Now we could have a good crack at a windmill.”

Load-shifting can be done with more traditional sails, too, by changing their shape, which is accomplished in part by having a flexible mast. But even with technology — one system uses image-recognition equipment to “read” lines on the sails to see if they match prescribed curvatures — shape-changing is difficult. It is easier with a solid wing.

Alinghi 5 uses traditional sails, but that is not to say it is any less innovative than BMW Oracle’s boat. It has a flexible mast, one that is nearly 200 feet tall, and some of the biggest sails anywhere. Like most advanced racing sails, they are a sandwich of polyester film sheets with a filling of carbon fibers providing strength. The fibers are laid out in radial lines calculated to match the loads, and where the fibers come together in areas of maximum stress the sail has a distinct look, as if it has been dusted with ashes.

Link via CrunchGear | Photo: flickr user ramonbaile, used under Creative Commons license