Elisabetta Comini of the University of Brescia in Italy created this Pac-Man image. It's a copper oxide cluster measuring 3.5 microns across. This piece was unveiled at an art competition at the 2010 convention of the Materials Research Society in San Francisco.

Link via Kotaku

An apartment in Rome that measures 55 square feet may be the smallest in the world. And it could be yours for about $68,000.

The flat consists of a ground floor bathroom with a shower, sink and lavatory and a ladder leading to a sleeping platform just big enough for a single bed. There is a single window, but to open it you have to climb over the bed.

Link via Althouse | Photo: CEN

Previously: The Smallest Apartment in New York City

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken, Germany have created computer modeling software that can adjust the shape of a person in a video recording from one frame and adapt the physical appearance of that person in the remaining frames. So an actor can appear thinner or fatter than s/he is in real life without changing physically:

Turning to the video sequence containing the actor whose shape they wish to manipulate, the team uses a mix of off-the-shelf and bespoke software to track the actor's silhouette through the scene. The software then maps the silhouette onto the morphable model, and tweaks it to generate the required height, weight, leg length or muscularity.

The technology has obvious applications in films like Raging Bull, for which Robert de Niro put on 27 kilograms in two months to portray his character. "The actor wouldn't need to go to all that trouble," says Theobalt.

At the link, you can watch a video demonstrating the process.

Link via Popular Science | Image: Max Planck Institute for Informatics

Younghwa Lee, a graduate student in design at Kingston University, designed this door. In the event of an earthquake, it folds in half to create a crude shelter from falling objects. The doorframe contains a wind-up flashlight, drinking water, and medical supplies.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: Gizmag

Two years ago, writer Mark Rayner held a contest in which he invited people to create vintage ads from the 1940s-1960s. Except that these ads would be from future environments depicted in science fiction. Rayner has now held a new contest with the same theme. You can view the winners at the link.

Link via Nerdcore

"The Watchman" is the moniker of a masked man who patrols the streets of Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood at night:

"I'm what people refer to as a real-life superhero," he says.

By night, on weekends, he patrols Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood, looking for injustice and evildoers. By day? That's a mystery.

"While most reactions to what I do are positive, there are a few negative responses," he explains, adding that the disguise protects his family - a wife and two young sons - from any of that. "I'm the one who decided to do this, not them," he says. "They should not have to suffer for it."[...]

So the 6-foot, 200-pound, 30-something crime fighter patrols Riverwest in costume, with a flashlight and pepper spray on hand - and a black Motorola cell phone as his weapon of choice.

Link via Comics Alliance | Photo: Mike De Sisti

Previously: Real-Life Superhero Claims to Take Inspiration from Kick-Ass

Industrial designers Elan Leor and Eran Lederman made this noodle that can be used as a whistle:

This innovative pasta functions as a whistle, capable of generating two different tones from one piece – a tone from each respective end. The design is based on the extrusion technology such as the well-known Penne type, with the introduction of two supplementry operations of squashing and a cut for channeling the airflow.

Link via The Presurfer

Cyril Howarth spent £50,000 converting a canal boat into something that looks like a U-boat. He's placed it out on the narrow canal between Leeds and Liverpool (UK), much to the displeasure of local boaters:

But the vessel has so alarmed fellow canal users that British waterways has been called on to investigate whether it breaches any rules.

"You should have seen the faces of the locals when they woke up with a U-boat in their midst," said Mr Howarth, 78.

Link | Photo: Warren Smith

There's a store in Japan that is now selling shoes with sole imprints inspired by Ukiyo-e woodblock printing. Three other patterns are available. The creators built their design around Merrell-style American shoes.

Link via OhGizmo!

The architects at Nemo Workshop designed this new espresso bar in New York City called D'espresso. The interior looks like the room has been tilted on its side:

The "books" are actually tiles printed with sepia-toned photos of bookshelves at a local travel bookstore that ring the room, including the floor, walls and ceiling. In addition to painting unusual surfaces with intriguing patterns -- whoa, you're standing on books! -- it gives an Alice in Wonderland-esque sense that the room has been suddenly upended.

Link via Super Punch | Photo: FastCo.Design | Nemo Workshop's Website | Bar's Website

Chris Allen, a professional yo-yoist, made an enormous yo-yo out of two dog pools. It's 35 inches across, 18 inches wide, and weighs 5.4 pounds. Allen tested it while standing on the roof of parking garage of the National Yo-Yo Museum in Chico, California. At the link, you can watch a video of Allen building and using the yo-yo.

Link via Make | Chris Allen's Website | Screenshot: Make

(Video Link)

Jeremy Messersmith composed and performed a love song entitled "Tatooine". It begins like this:

Twin suns of Tatooine
Taught me everything I know
Twin suns of Tatooine
Taught me everything I know

There's room up there for second chances
Singles are fine but doubles are fantastic
I'd like to think that there's a star for me and you
Spinning round, falling for one another

Papercraft animator Eric Power made this music video for it. It tells pretty much the entire original trilogy in two minutes and a half minutes.

via Nerd Bastards | Jeremy Messersmith's Website | Eric Power's Website

Previously by Eric Power: Zelda on Paper

(Video Link)

Robert Lamb spent a day and a half building an elaborate Rube Goldberg device in order to propose to his girlfriend. The video includes his initial, failed test runs. The actual proposal comes at 7:05.

Took me 9.5 years to ask my fiancee to Marry me, now she knows why!

She said 'yes'.

via Gizmodo

Providence, Rhode Island-based artist Dave Cole specializes in large-scale knitting. Recently, he created an enormous knitted piece covering an old bridge in Melbourne, Australia:

All around there it’s very dust-colored, so I chose the brightest, most fluorescent colors - orange and pink - and with 40 people we knitted one kilometer of two-foot-wide surveyors’ tape along the bridge. I used the Fibonacci sequence as a basis for the design so it looked like it was curving in and out and up and down.

Link via DudeCraft | Photo: Frockfaire | Artist's Website

Previously: Dave Cole's Knitting Machine

Neiman Marcus is selling a candy-covered gingerbread house that stands over six feet tall:

This unique edible playhouse is handcrafted of 381 lbs. of gourmet gingerbread and 517 lbs. of royal icing by the expert confectioners at Dylan's Candy Bar®. The munchable manor, which stands 6.6 feet high by 5.25 feet wide by 4.1 feet deep, incorporates the best confections from the world's largest candy store in New York City.

Link via OhGizmo!

Previously: Incredible Gingerbread Houses