Paper quilling involves "the coiling and shaping of narrow paper strips to create a design." Susan Myers has been developing this skill for a while and decided to recreate Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. It's a good choice, as the medium seems to lend itself well to curves of the original. Link -via Dude Craft

If you'd like to go out with a bang, Holy Smoke LLC offers to pack your cremated ashes (or those of your loved ones) into ammunition cartridges. You tell them the caliber or gauge, ship the remains to them, and they'll load the cartridges:

Once the caliber, gauge and other ammunition parameters have been selected, we will ask you (by way of your funeral service provider) to send approximately one pound of the decedant's ash to us. Upon receiving the ashes our professional and reverant staff will place a measured portion of ash into each shotshell or cartridge.[...]

Our return shipment to the sender will be the finished ammunition, boxed in available labeled ammunition boxes. We also offer mantle-worthy wooden carriers with engraved name plates. Your return shipment will also include any unused ash in a separate, labeled container.

http://www.myholysmoke.com/Home_Page.html -via Sharp as a Marble | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user kcdsTM used under Creative Commons license

deviantART member ddi7i4d made this marvelous hand-cranked paper machine simulating that great apparition in the sky, Nyan Cat. At the link, you can find a template. Just print it on card stock, paste it together, and turn. Link -via Blame It on the Voices

Austrian Jasmine Schuller, a photographer, made delicious-looking (and probably tasty!) desserts out of meat products. Dig in! http://www.splitpersonality.at/2011/07/sweet-meat-von-jasmin-schuller/ (Google Translate) -via Nerdcore | Artist's Website

Artist Jae Rhim Lee wants people to rethink the way they approach death:

I am interested in cultural death denial, and why we are so distanced from our bodies, and especially how death denial leads to funeral practices that harm the environment - using formaldehyde and pink make-up and all that to make your loved one look vibrant and alive, so that you can imagine they're just sleeping rather than actually dead. The US government recently upgraded formaldehyde from a probable carcinogen to a known carcinogen, so by trying to preserve the body we poison the living.

So I was thinking, what is the antidote to that?

Like most people who contemplate such issues, Lee inevitably arrived at the conclusion that she should train mushrooms to consume her body. And wear a specially-designed suit (pictured above) for that purpose:

I thought I could train a toxin-cleaning edible mushroom to eat my body. These mushrooms, which usually grow on wood and decaying material in the forest, can be trained to grow on pretty much any organic material and break it down. So I started collecting my hair, nails and skin so I could pick the best mushrooms to become Infinity Mushrooms, to recognise and eat my body after I die.

Project Website and Interview -via Boing Boing | Artist's Website | Photo: Jae Rhim Lee

This unique firearm recently sold at auction. It looks like a Zippo lighter, but actually fires 6mm cartridges which are kept in a flint dispenser. The bullets come out of where the wick normally is, and the trigger is the striking wheel. There are more pictures at the link. Link -via Technabob | Photo: Gregg Martin Auctions

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Adhama, a five-month old hippo at the San Diego Zoo, probably can't dance on land. But she sure can swim with finesse! -via Uniblog

DNA testing on a mountain lion killed on a road in Connecticut revealed that it had traveled 1,800 miles from South Dakota:

According to scientists with the US Department of Agriculture, DNA taken from the mountain lion showed its genetic structure matched a population of cats native to the sparsely populated Black Hills region of South Dakota.

The DNA also matched samples taken from hair and blood in Minnesota, directly east of South Dakota, and Wisconsin, which neighbours that state to the east, in late 2009 to early 2010.

Link -via Geekosystem | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user jurveston used under Creative Commons license

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The band OK Go, noted for its innovative music videos, has paired up the the dance troupe Pilobolus for the video for their new single "All Is Not Lost". Pilobolus does amazing storytelling using dancers' bodies to create shadows. In this video, the dancers move to show the lyrics as they are sung.

The official website for the video includes a feature that, when loaded with Google Chrome, is supposed to let you write your own message with the bodies of dancers. At least, that's what I think it is supposed it to do. The site opened fourteen pop-ups on my computer and then didn't run. Maybe the site is currently overloaded.

Link -via The Hairpin | Pilobolus

Canadian artist Maskull Lasserre carves human skeletal features into ordinary wooden implements. He can make an axe handle look like a human spine or give teeth to a picture frame. This rather haunting human skull is carved directly into a display cabinet. Link -via Colossal

These abandoned kilns in Nevada were made in the 1870s to turn wood into charcoal. Tom McEwan snapped this amazing picture of the night sky over them:

Visible above the unusual kilns is a colorful star field, highlighted by the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy appearing along a diagonal toward the lower right. Many famous sites in our Galaxy are visible, including the Pipe Nebula and the Dark River to Antares, seen to the right of the Milky Way. The origin of the green mist on the lower left, however, is currently unexplained.

Click on the link to see a much larger version. Link -via Marginal Revolution

It's not easy being green, and even Yoda is occasionally gripped with a bit of self-pity. Peter de Sève figures that the Jedi master and Kermit have a lot in common: they're both puppets, green-skinned, and live in swamps. Link and Artist's Website via reddit

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The Philips Parallel Lines: Tell It Your Way film contest invited people to make a short film, no longer than three minutes, that contained these lines as its dialogue:

What’s That?
It’s a Unicorn
Never seen one up close before
Beautiful
Get away, get away
I’m sorry.

The winner, as judged by acclaimed directory Ridley Scott, was Porcelain Unicorn. Watch this tale of innocence found and shattered during World War II.

Contest Website and Film Website (warning: auto-sound) -via The Mary Sue

Stacey Lee Weber does some amazing work with coins. She hammers them into a multitude of objects, including flags, bells, ladders, plumb bobs, hammers, and screwdrivers. This tape measure was made from nickels, silver, silver dimes, and silver quarters. http://staceyleewebber.com/STACEY_LEE_WEBBER/HOME.html -via Dude Craft | Photo: Larry Sanders

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Sure, a light trial bike can be turned sharply and quickly, but how about an 800-pound Harley-Davidson Road King? Here's a video of Donnie Williams of Grand Prairie, Texas, taking his patrol motorcycle through a series of precise, tight turns. He doesn't knock over a single cone. -via MArooned