Isabell Kiefhaber, an artist in Germany, makes tiny miniature scenes of animals and people at play inside rings. You can see more on Etsy or her own website. She takes custom orders for any ring size if you give her about 2 to 3 weeks to work.
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(Photo: David Shankbone)
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Someday, it may be possible to own a handbag made from Kim Kardashian's own skin--all without harming Kardashian herself.
It's feasible to grow human skin in laboratory settings. In fact, the cosmetics brand L'Oreal already produces 54 square feet of human skin every year. So it's within the realm of possibility to produce on a large scale skin from a specific person's genetic sample. If you'd like a very personal memento of your favorite celebrity, you could have one. Designer Tina Gorjanc considered this possibility for a master's degree project. Ecouterre quotes her:
“Major fashion and cosmetic companies have already signed research collaboration agreement with bioengineering institutes,” Gorjanc said. “Those collaborations are enabling the development of existing skin technologies that were firstly designed for specific medical problems and applying them to commercial products targeting the enhancement of normal human functions.”
Her work is entirely speculative, of course. Yet it also raises the issue that bioengineering technologies are advancing faster than legislation can govern. […]
By envisioning a range of commercial products cultivated from an individual’s skin cells, Gorjanc wanted to show how deficiencies concerning the protection of genetic information can “shape a whole new luxury market.”
Pure Human, as she’s dubbed the work, is a critique of corporations and the terrible ease one person can gain ownership of another’s DNA.
-via Inhabitat
About 100,000 people in the USA are currently waiting for kidney transplants. The right donor kidney has to come along for a transplant to work. About 50% of patients have a great deal of difficulty receiving a transplant and about 20% have such sensitive immune systems that finding a matching kidney is almost impossible.
But that may change. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers have found a way to change the immune system of a transplant patient so that it can accept any donor kidney.
This treatment filters a patient's own antibodies out of his blood, then replaces it with different antibodies. Gina Kolata explains at the New York Times:
Desensitization involves first filtering the antibodies out of a patient’s blood. The patient is then given an infusion of other antibodies to provide some protection while the immune system regenerates its own antibodies. For some reason — exactly why is not known — the person’s regenerated antibodies are less likely to attack the new organ, Dr. Segev said. But if the person’s regenerated natural antibodies are still a concern, the patient is treated with drugs that destroy any white blood cells that might make antibodies that would attack the new kidney.
-via Debby Witt | Image: Holly Fischer
Didga the cat, who is a superstar in the skateboarding world, now takes up another ride in this GoPro video. She climbs on the back of Ice, the dog in her family, and goes for a ride. Ice ferries her across the pool.
Ice, don't be surprised if she scratches you while halfway across the pool. After all, it's her nature.
-via Gifsboom
When your descendants relatives visit your final resting place for generations, they will find it among the other graves by the mark of your waifu. In this case, it's a veritable harem of waifu forming the cast of Love Live!, an enormously popular anime series about high school girls who form an idol singing group in order to save their school from being closed.
Twitter user @t_hide is a stone engraver. He has recently turned his craft to inscribing Love Live! characters on stone and glass. He does incredibly precise work that will make an anime fan the envy of every other resident of a cemetery. You can see more photos of his work at Rocket News 24.
When George Lucas began working on Star Wars, he approached Ben Burtt, a former classmate at the University of Southern California, for help. Burtt, a professional sound designer, knew how sound effects could subtly shape a story and make a fantasy universe seem real.
Burtt developed the sounds of Star Wars that are now instantly recognizable, including that of the lightsaber, the TIE fighter engine, Darth Vader's breathing, blasters, and R2-D2's beeps and chirps. This task involved a surprising amount of work. For example, to prepare Chewbacca's voice, Burtt recorded several different animals at optimal times and then combined their intonations:
"Mostly bears, with a dash of walrus, dog, and lion thrown in," Burtt once said simply when asked how he found the sounds to create the character of Chewbacca's voice. But it took some doing: Burtt would travel to oceanariums on the off chance that their walruses would give him just the right sound. As he would later recall about visiting Long Beach's Marineland of the Pacific, which closed down in 1987, "Its pool had been drained for cleaning—the walrus was stranded at the bottom, moaning—and that was the sound!"
You can learn more about 6 iconic Star Wars sound effects at Popular Mechanics.
-via Jonah Goldberg
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Canada leaped to defend the freedom of Europe and declared war. Its citizens raced to enlist in the armed forces to contribute to the effort.
Many of them were rejected because they had medical problems that prevented them from serving effectively. This was a source of disappointment to many and embarrassment to some as they faced public shaming by ignorant fellow citizens who thought that they should be in uniform.
So the Canadian government created a badge that these men could wear to deter their critics. It was a silver or rhodium plated badge that said in either English or French "Applicant for Enlistment - Canada." It affirmed that the person had tried to enlist, but was rejected through no fault of his own. Veterans Affairs Canada quotes the Order in Council that created it:
Persons who have voluntarily declared their unqualified willingness to serve in and beyond Canada in the Military Forces of Canada, and who are refused enlistment by reason of their not possessing, due to no faults of their own, the necessary qualifications then required for enlistment in the Naval, Army and Air Forces of Canada.
-via reddit | Image: Veterans Affairs Canada
The computer programmer has a beard. This is obvious. Programmers need beards to succeed.
But data gathered and analyzed by Trestle Technology indicates that the picture is more complex than that. Different types of facial hair correlate with particular programming languages. You can see more charts here, including displays on mustaches, age, gender, and how likely programmers of particular languages are smiling.
-via Nerdcore
This is not an automatic pancake maker, you can sometimes see in high-end hotels. When the inventors say "endless," that's exactly what they mean. Hypothetically, this machine could make a single elongated pancake indefinitely.
This South African invention consists of a hopper that pours pancake batter over two wheel-shaped pans that are heated from the inside with a gas-fed fire. The wheels spin continously, frying the batter, then pouring the cooked pancake out the front.
The above video shows a special version of the machine that was constructed for a world record attempt. It made a pancake 482 feet long!
-via Hack A Day
The Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina stretches over a lake. Every few years, the icy connection over the water narrows, forming a distinct bridge. Then it collapses in spectacular fashion. This time the event was caught on camera. You can watch the complete video on YouTube.
Phys.org explains why this event happens:
The phenomenon, which is not linked to climate change, is due to Archimedes's principle, which holds that the buoyant force exerted on a body immersed in fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced, explained Glaciarium, a research center and glacier museum in the Argentine Patagonia region.
"When that force causes the ice to detach from the shore, water begins filtering through and the process of breakdown begins, which is irreversible," said Glaciarium.
-via Gizmodo
Are you hungry? You sure will be after watching the preparation and consumption of this filling meal! The BBC program Wonders of the Monsoon showed a Giant Red Leech swallowing a blue worm longer than itself.
That's right: the filmmakers estimate that the leech was 50 cm and the worm 70 cm long. The leech started at one end and started sucking down the worm like it was a thick strand of spaghetti.
This incident took place at Mount Kinabalu on the island of Borneo. The filmmakers had to wait for weeks for the rains to get heavy enough to draw the reclusive leeches out into the open. But as you can see, the wait was worth the reward. Yummy!
-via TYWKWIDBI
(Photo: Guinness World Records)
Israel Kristal, age 112, is alive. That is an enormous accomplishment, considering what he's been through.
He now lives comfortably in Haifa, Israel. But he started out his life in Poland, then was separated from his family during World War I. Afterward, he worked as a confectioner in Lodz.
Then the Nazis came. In 1944, they imprisoned Kristal and his wife in Auschwitz, where he became a slave laborer. Kristal's wife did not survive.
When liberated by the Allies a year later, Kristal weighed only 82 pounds. He was the only survivor of the Holocaust from his entire family. Even his children were killed.
Kristal immigrated to Israel, married again, and had a son. Now at 112, Guinness World Records has certified him as the oldest living man.
-via Kevin D. Williamson, who says:
I like to think this is God's way of saying "F--k you" to the Nazis. https://t.co/cISDDXvhpc
— Kevin D. Williamson (@KevinNR) March 11, 2016
Jacqueline Poirier is an artist in Toronto. She paints with porcelain paint on porcelain plates. She often then photographs her plates against their original subjects. On Instagram she calls herself The Crazy Plate Lady.
Poirier is now the artist-in-residence at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Toronto, where her work is on permanent display. That's an impressive promotion because she originally started as a server. In an interview with The Chic Canuck, Poirier explained:
I was hired at The Ritz-Carlton in Toronto as a server approximately 3.5 years ago. My manager at the time had come to see me paint at Art Battle and was impressed with my work. He came up with the concept of painting on a couple of the beautiful white charger plates we had in the restaurant. The painted plates ended up looking really nice on the tables so I just went with it! I received really great feedback from guests at the restaurant, realizing that I could potentially sell my custom designs. I ended up painting over 120 plates in about 2 months (all unique and completely different images). They're now a signature part of TOCA restaurant. From TOCA I have been able to start up my own “Plart” business, creating custom designed plates for all sorts of occasions.
We've seen foxes steal golf balls before. It's good sport, but foxes can't use golf balls to pay rent and gambling debts. So this fox at the County Louth Golf Club in Baltray, Ireland sneaked up to a golfer's bag, grabbed his wallet, and took off running.
The owner gave chase and the fox had to drop the wallet to escape. Of course, it would be a good idea to check the contents. A skilled pickpocket may pocket the cash while dropping the actual wallet in order to convince a victim to stop chasing him.
Swiper, no swiping!
Content warning for the video: foul language.
Rocket News 24 reports that Twitter user @pyonpyon_chang's cat likes to sit atop her hamster's cage and watch the rodent spin around in his exercise wheel. The cat was envious of this toy.
So he found one used by the humans for less productive purposes and got right to work:
What a smart cat!
-via Pleated Jeans
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