In 1914, Austrian watchmaker Georg Grabner created the Kolibri -- the "Hummingbird" pistol. The smallest autoloading pistol ever made, it fires a .11 caliber bullet. He marketed it as a self-defense firearm for women to carry in their purses. More pictures and history at the link.

http://www.hellinahandbasket.net/2007/01/float-like-a-hummingbird-sting.htm

In 1988, artist James Sanborn was commissioned to create an outdoor sculpture to adorn the CIA's facility in Langley, Virginia. So he created Kryptos, a 10-foot high scroll of copper filled with letters. Its 865 characters contain, the artist asserts, a coded message. But even the best CIA cryptologists have been unable to crack all of it. One of the four sections remains a complete mystery. At the link, you can read about Sanborn's extensive study of cryptology while planning the sculpture and the passion that it has inspired among devoted codebreakers.

Link via Instapundit

From Bloomberg News:

Half a glass of wine a day may add five years to your life, a new study suggests. Drink beer, and you’ll live only 2 1/2 years longer.

Dutch researchers followed 1,373 men for more than four decades, noting their eating and drinking habits. Men who had about 20 grams of alcohol daily — equivalent to a half a glass of wine — had 2 1/2 years added to their life expectancy at age 50, compared with men who didn’t drink at all, according to the research published today in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Men who consumed only wine had twice as much added longevity.

Link via Alphecca

Your assignment: in the comments, devise rules for a Neatorama-themed drinking game.

Image via flickr user rpeschetz

This is excellent news for my wife. Psychological researchers have discovered that women gain a health benefit by living with neurotic men:

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Conscientiousness is a good thing in a mate, researchers report, not just because it's easier to live with someone who washes the dishes without being asked, but also because having a conscientious partner may actually be good for one's health. Their study, of adults over age 50, also found that women, but not men, get an added health benefit when paired with someone who is conscientious and neurotic.

This is the first large-scale analysis of what the authors call the "compensatory conscientiousness effect," the boost in health reported by those with conscientious spouses or romantic partners. The study appears this month in Psychological Science.

Link via Instapundit

Image via flickr user Mr. Greenjeans

Way back in the day when I was in library school in Ohio, there was a slowly dying tradition in rural libraries of hosting "library cats." These were cats that lived full-time in libraries, most public. Well, Gary Roma of Iron Frog Productions has created a worldwide historical archive of library cats and organized them around an interactive map, giving the names, locations, and dates of residents for individual cats. It's a work in progress, so if you know of a cat that isn't mentioned, be sure to let him know.

Link

Image via flickr user TVLshac

Shatnerquake is a novel by Jeff Burk. Here's the premise:

It's the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.

This is so Shatnerific that I'm having a screaming Shatnergasm right now.

http://bizarrocentral.com/book_detail.asp?bookID=97 via Topless Robot

In 1979, an anonymous group erected a massive stone structure in Elbert County, Georgia. This modern-day stonehenge is more than twenty feet tall and arranged to serve as a calendar and a clock. Its slabs have instructions in eight languages for reconstructing society after the collapse of civilization. The instructions are more philosophical than technological, but perhaps nonetheless prudent:

PROTECT PEOPLE AND NATIONS WITH FAIR LAWS AND JUST COURTS. LET ALL NATIONS RULE INTERNALLY RESOLVING EXTERNAL DISPUTES IN A WORLD COURT. AVOID PETTY LAWS AND USELESS OFFICIALS. BALANCE PERSONAL RIGHTS WITH SOCIAL DUTIES. PRIZE TRUTH—BEAUTY—LOVE—SEEKING HARMONY WITH THE INFINITE. BE NOT A CANCER ON THE EARTH—LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE—LEAVE ROOM FOR NATURE.

If you were composing brief instructions for survivors of the collapse of civilization, what would you write?

Link via Instapundit

Leaving aside the Neatorama Civil War, I thought that I'd turn our attention to a controversial article by Mark Penn.

In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers or firefighters [...] For now, bloggers say they are overwhelmingly happy in their work, reporting high job satisfaction. But what happens if they, too, lose work; are they covered by unemployment insurance if tastes change and their sites go under? Are they considered journalists under shield laws? Are they subject to libel suits? Are there any limits to the opinions they churn out, or any standards to rein them in? Is there someone to complain to about false blogs or hidden conflicts? At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Panasonic outfitted bloggers with free Panasonic equipment; did that affect their opinions about the companies they wrote about? There are more questions than answers about America's Newest Profession.

I'm incredibly skeptical of the 2 million number, but Penn has provided a follow-up explaining his methodology.  Here at the Neatorama corporate HQ compound, we certainly don't anything approaching that number of pro bloggers.  We do have a ridiculously high number of Blackwater contractors, but Alex insists that such security is necessary for "Stage 3", whatever that is.

Link via Instapundit

Image via flickr user alexanderljung

Writing for Popular Mechanics, Claire Martin has a list of jobs that she thinks can only face increased demand in future decades, including undersea welder, digital detective, and battery engineer. Here's the rationale for the latter:

Today, Gardner leads a team that designs, builds and tests batteries for hybrid electric cars at A123 Systems, a fast-growing firm based in Watertown, Mass. A123’s clients include Chrysler, GM and automotive upstarts Think and Better Place, and the company’s staff has jumped from 150 to 2000 in the past three years. Ann Marie Sastry, who directs the University of Michigan’s master’s program in energy systems engineering, says, “The DNA of the automobile is changing, which means the composition of the workforce has to change.” Sastry also runs her own battery company, called Sakti3. “We’re hiring,” she says. “It’s a great time to be a battery guy.”

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4314253.html via Instapundit

The Apache was a combination dagger, pepperbox, and knuckle duster manufactured and sold in the United States from 1870 through 1900. More pictures and history of this unique pocket weapon at the link.

http://www.hellinahandbasket.net/2009/04/is-that-an-apache-in-your-pock-1.htm

Bypass clogged pipes with the Abisko Washbasin from Eumar. I remember seeing something similar to it at the newly-renovated terminal of the Jacksonville International Airport, where you could also get a Brazilian waxing for $65 while waiting for your plane to depart. Which is a good idea, because I can't tell you how many times I've thought to myself "Hey, l should go down to the airport and get a Brazilian waxing." But I digress: waterslide sink, coming to a floor drain near you. Nifty, eh?

Link via Geekologie

Life imitated art on an Australian passenger plane when four snakes being transported on board escaped from captivity. No one was hurt, and the snakes were never found.

You know what would have made this story funnier? If Snakes on a Plane had been the in-flight movie.

Link

Do you remember when President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit while fishing in 1979? Carter became the butt of many jokes about this incident. Here's a puzzle from John Tierney based on the incident:

Suppose, the day after attacking President Carter, the rabbit finds itself alone in the middle of the pond, which is perfectly circular. Suppose there is a single Secret Service agent on the edge of the pond, armed with a small net to ensnare the swimming rabbit as it approaches the edge. This net is effective only if the rabbit is still in the water. If the rabbit reaches any point on the edge before the agent does, it can hop away to freedom; if the agent gets there first, the rabbit will be captured.

If the agent runs four times as fast as the rabbit swims, can the rabbit escape? If so, how?

For extra credit: What’s the fastest the agent can run (as a multiple of the rabbit’s speed) such that the rabbit can still escape?

What is your answer? The first correct answer wins a kiss from Alex.

Link via Instapundit

After experiencing a stroke, a Swiss woman at Geneva University Hospital began experiencing phantom limb for an arm that didn't exist -- and never had. Doctors subjected her to a MRI:

Researchers instructed the woman to move her right hand. As expected, the motor cortex and visual processing areas in the left side of her brain became mobilized.

The same effects were observed to a lesser extent when the woman simply imagined moving her right hand. Imaginary movements of the woman's paralyzed left hand prompted the same activity in the brain, but on the right side.

But when doctors asked her to move her phantom arm, her brain reacted as though the arm really existed and could be moved. In addition, the patient's visual cortex was also activated, indicating the she actually saw the imaginary limb.

And when she was instructed to scratch her cheek, regions of the brain relating to touch were activated.

Link via Instapundit

Dr. Steven Schlozman, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, will present a public lecture on the neuropsychology of zombies, as well as that of zombie attack survivors:

And that's the crux of one of Schlozman's arguments: The story changes as the situation grows grimmer. Here, the professor draws on "mirror neuron" theory, which holds that humans are hard-wired to reflect the psychological states of the people around them. (Show a test subject a short film of a face displaying disgust, or pleasure, and regions of the brain associated with those feelings activate in the subject.)

Unable to relate to the hordes of undead, the survivors in zombie films enter a spiral of despair, feeding off the panic and hopelessness of the uninfected people around them.

If you're in Boston on Monday night, check it out.

Link -- Thanks, Tom Jackson!