A dog owned by Japanese medical researchers has a remarkable gift for detecting colon cancer victims by sniffing their excrement. The black Labrador Retriever has a 95% accuracy rate:

In the study, the retriever performed as well as a colonoscopy, a technique in which a fibre-optic tube with a camera on the end is inserted into the rectum to look for suspect areas of the intestine.

It correctly spotted which samples were cancerous and which were not in 33 out of 36 breath tests, equal to 95 per cent accuracy, and in 37 out of 38 stool tests (98 per cent accuracy).

Link via Popular Science | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user DrStarbuck used under Creative Commons license

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Once upon a time, TLC was an educational channel. Now it shows increasingly eccentric reality and remodeling programs. If you haven't watched it in a while, yes, this is a parody. But only by a little bit.

Video by Mostly Water Theatre via Geekosystem

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Alexander Chen took Massimo Vignelli's iconic 1972 map of the New York City subway system and turned it into a musical instrument. The routes are treated like strings, and whenever a train intersects a string, that string is plucked:

Length determines pitch, with longer strings playing lower notes. When a string is in the middle of being drawn by a subway car, its pitch is continually shifting. The sounds are cello pizzicato from the wonderful freesound.org, a set recorded by corsica_s. A complete chromatic scale was too dissonant. Ultimately I settled on a simple major C scale but with the lowest note as a raised third E, which keeps it from ever feeling fully resolved.

Link via Kottke

Japanese artist Motohiko Odani makes gloriously fluid sculptures. I can't quite figure out what material he uses.

This unicorn sculpture lies at the center of an exhibit of his work called "Phantom Limb" at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. This Is Colossal has other photos from the show.

Link via Dude Craft | Artist's Website | Photo: Mori Art Museum

P. Wesley Tyler, Jr. captured this spooky image. What you're looking at a hole-punch cloud:

Hole-punch clouds are miniature snowstorms that can occur in thin, subfreezing cloud layers.

The lack of fine particles, such as dust, in the clouds means water droplets have little to condense around, so they don't turn to ice until the cloud hits about minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 36 degrees Celsius).

"Basically, the water molecules become sluggish enough at this temperature to form their own cluster of ice that produces an ice crystal spontaneously," according to ice microphysicist Andrew Heymsfield.

Link via Super Punch

Previously: Butterfly Hole-Punch Clouds

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An octopus seen off the coast of Blairgowrie, Australia, was able to enter and exit the narrow opening of a beer bottle. I can respect an octopus that can handle his beer.

via Geekologie

A company called Sonitus Medical recently acquired FDA approval for its new hearing aid system. It's called SoundBite, and involves two machines: one that slips behind the user's ear, and another that fits on the molars. Sound picked up by the earpiece is transmitted wirelessly to the mouthpiece, which vibrates the teeth. The vibrations can be understood by the inner ear as sound.

Link | Product Page | Photo: Sonitus Medical

The Buster Sword is a special weapon that appears in Final Fantasy VII. Flickr user Michaelcthulhu either made or commissioned a realistic version of one. In the linked video, he does his best to swing it like a functional weapon. The sword is for sale, so you'd better grab it before someone else does.

Video via Geekosystem

Literary theorist and columnist Stanley Fish has listed and described what he regards as the five greatest sentences ever composed in the English language. Among them is this selection from John Bunyan's 1678 work The Pilgrim's Progress. In my limited experience, I cannot think of any craftsman of the English language greater than Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote as though he was sculpting words from marble. And a selection from Nabokov is properly included in Fish's follow-up post in which the professor judged from reader-submitted suggestions.

What do you think is the greatest sentence in the history of the English language?

Link (and a Follow-Up) | Screenshot: edited image from the first edition

Lee Thomson has a copy of Gene Roddenberry's March 1964 pitch for Star Trek. There were many changes made before the first and second pilot episodes were filmed. The ship's doctor, for example, went by a different name, but was still known as "Bones". Sex kitten Yeoman Rand was called "Colt", and Roddenberry clearly had a larger role in mind for that character.

Link via Geekosystem

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Are you a sea captain in need of close companionship? Are you a landlubber who craves the crustiness of a grizzled old sailor? Well, there's a website now devoted to your needs.

The search form is interesting. It distinguishes between three genders: male, female, and sea captain.

Link via Marginal Revolution

At the Highland Resort Hotel and Spa near Mount Fuji in Japan, you can rent a room decorated to reflect the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. Before you balk at the $450 per night price, keep in mind that it apparently comes with a girl dressed as Rei encased in plastic.

Link via CrunchGear | Photo: Highland Resort

A miswak is a tooth cleaning stick made from the Salvadora persica tree. It's traditionally used in Pakistan, India, and the Middle East in place of a modern plastic toothbrush. The bristles inside the plant, once exposed by cutting across the stem, are effective as a cleaning instrument. Leen Sadder, a design student, decided to make a modern version:

THIS aims to repackage and promote the miswak as an organic, biodegradable, portable, more beneficial substitute for toothpaste and a toothbrush. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to package and market the twig to a contemporary American audience, who would not be entertained with the idea of biting off the top of the stick in order to use it. The solution for this is a cigar-cutter-like cap that peels off the outer layer to reveal the natural bristles, and slices them off after use. It also protects the stick from germs and microbes.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/THIS-toothbrush/939513 via Gizmodo

A mountain climber in Scotland fell a thousand feet down a nearly vertical slope on a mountain called Sgurr Choinnich Mor. When a Royal Navy rescue helicopter arrived on the scene, its crew found him alive and well:

Lieutenant Tim Barker, the crew's observer, said: ''We began to hover-taxi down the slope and spotted a man at the bottom, standing up.

''We honestly thought it couldn't have been him, as he was on his feet, reading a map. Above him was a series of three high craggy outcrops.

''It seemed impossible. So we retraced our path back up the mountain and, sure enough, there were bits of his kit in a vertical line all the way up where he had obviously lost them during the fall.

''It was quite incredible. He must have literally glanced off the outcrops as he fell, almost flying.''

Link | Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Mark Riccobono, who has been blind since the age of five, was scheduled to drive a specially-equipped car before today's NASCAR race at Daytona International Speedway:

Riccobono's Ford Escape Hybrid is outfitted with laser range-finding sensors which passed information to his hands and seat. He made the trip around the mile-and-a-half road course with the support of hundreds of vision-impaired fans sitting in the bleachers.

"You can't imagine how, what a step forward this is for the blind and innovation and really gaining independence and new vision from the rest of the sighted community," said Sabrina Deaton with the National Federation of the Blind in Daytona Beach.

Link via DVICE | Photo: Gear Log

Previously: Students Build Car the Blind Can Drive