Grover Schrayer snapped this shot of tiny particles of wax floating away from a snuffed candle. At just the right angle, they displayed the visible spectrum. This was one of a set of close-up photos of extinguished candles.

Link and Flickr Set -via My Modern Met

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The Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa made this amazing life-size puppet. Three puppeteers control the beast in such a way that it looks, acts, and sounds just like a horse. It's a wonder of both design and choreography.

-via The Presurfer | Troupe Website

redditor nem8 made the USS Xmas, affectionately known as the Gingerprise. There is an argument in the comment thread about whether the registry number is correct. This is why we Trekkies are awesome.

N.B. The joke "Bake it so!" is better used for a different ship, namely the Xmas-D.

Link

Tyree Callahan modified a classic 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter by removing the letters with paint-soaked pads. When he types the right combinations, he can compose paintings. You can see a few landscapes that he's made with it at the link.

Link -via Nag on the Lake

Snow globes capture slices of fantasy and protect them under glass from harsh, outside realities. They've become popular kitschy souvenirs, but once they were high-end, luxury items for wealthy homes. Swati Pandey wrote a history of these quaint decorations. It all started in Vienna:

Around the turn of the century, Erwin Perzy, a Viennese medical instrument maker, was trying to make a brighter operating room bulb by filling a globe with water and white grit and shining light through it. It didn’t work, except to remind Perzy of snow. At the request of a souvenir-maker friend, he put the Basilica of the Birth of the Virgin Mary below a glass globe, which, when shaken, resembled a snowstorm. Perzy patented the “Glass Globe with Snow Effect” in 1900, launched a business and, by 1908, won an award from the Austrian emperor, Franz Josef I. His company still churns out domes today.

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/12/01/120111-opinions-history-snowglobe-pandey-1-4/ -via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Flickr user Keith Williamson

Oh, iPad! Is there anything you can't do? Photographer Norah Abdulaziz made this clever shot.

Link -via Colossal

Lori Turnbull's crocheted Mario and Luigi caps come with elastic bands to help them stay on your cat's head. As though that would even be necessary! Cats love to wear hats.

Link -via Fashionably Geek

Tony Stark's life spun out of the control in the classic nine-issue Iron Man series "Demon in a Bottle." It's all the more striking with this cover image animated by cartoonist Kerry Callen. You can see three other animated covers at the link featuring the JLA, Batman, and Spider-Man. Link -via The Uniblog

Zander Olsen walked through the countryside of Wales, Surrey, and Hampshire and wrapped fabric around trees. He arranged the heights just right so that when they were photographed from a certain angle, they traced the horizon or blocked out distant mountains. The results look like holes in reality.

Link -via Flavorwire

From what I've been able to piece together from a commenter at 9GAG and a few travel books, there's a bar called The Real McCoy in the Barrikadnaya neighborhood of Moscow that sells vodka bottle loaves like this. It has all of the components of a complete and nutritious breakfast.

Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

If they can take and hold North Dakota, Twilight fans will split the country in two. The booklovers' website Good Reads crunched some numbers and discovered this trend. Oh, Twilight fans have been discreet about it, but now we can see their plan.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

Why? Because life is short. Live it to the fullest. Also, that's all that's in the pantry. While hunkered down in his home in New York City during Hurricane Irene, Adam Kuban made do with his available resources to create this culinary masterpiece. Bravo, sir.

Link -via That's Nerdalicious! | Photo: Adam Kuban

I didn't know that these came in easy-to-carry sizes. But artist Neil Wax has made your life a little bit easier by packing negative emotions, like self-pity, angst, anxiety, and more. You want to give someone blame? Now you can hand it over by the gallon.

http://skidmorecontemporaryart.com/neil-wax.htm -via Booooooom! | Photo: Skidmore Contemporary Art

In 1995, the now-defunct pop culture, music, and fashion magazine The Face asked physicist Stephen Hawking for a formula for time travel. Letters of Note has a photo of the fax that he sent in response. He probably just doesn't want to share his secrets.

Link

Akanksha Jain would like to make a zoo in Ahmedabad, India accessible to visually impaired visitors. One cool feature that she's designed is a handrail with Braille descriptions of animals and their environments, as well as button-activated sound recordings. She's also devised relief maps and animal models that visitors can use to navigate the zoo and learn about its residents.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Zoo-Experiences-for-the-Visually-Impaired/2438189 -via NotCot