This is a recently-declassified US government photo of a hydrogen bomb detonating in space. The test, called Starfish Prime, set off the nuke 250 miles above the Earth's surface. NPR explains that the US did so see if the Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth had military uses:

The plan was to send rockets hundreds of miles up, higher than the Earth's atmosphere, and then detonate nuclear weapons to see: a) If a bomb's radiation would make it harder to see what was up there (like incoming Russian missiles!); b) If an explosion would do any damage to objects nearby; c) If the Van Allen belts would move a blast down the bands to an earthly target (Moscow! for example); and — most peculiar — d) if a man-made explosion might "alter" the natural shape of the belts.

Video at the link.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128170775 via DVICE

It might seem odd that nations with no access to the ocean would maintain naval forces, but many do. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, for example, keep many naval vessels on the enormous Caspian Sea. Switzerland and Burundi have armed patrol boats on their border lakes. These forces, however, are not separate military entities, but integrated into the other armed forces. What makes the following nations unique is that they maintain separate military organizations identified as navies, but these forces have access only to inland rivers and lakes.

Boliva once had a substantial coastline, but lost it after a defeat by Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879-1884). Bolivia has never forgotten this blow and did not disband its navy, though it lacked anywhere on the sea to base it. Instead, it rebuilt its flotilla of ships on Lake Titicaca, a large lake that it shares with its wartime ally Peru. Every year, on March 23, the nation commemorates "Bolivia Sea Day" and its representatives at the United Nations call upon Chile to return the territory. The Chilean government is not adverse to the notion of retuning a narrow corridor of territory along its northern border, but Peruvian objections and other issues have so far prevented a resolution of this border dispute. In the meantime, the Bolivian Naval Academy trains navy and marine corps officers to lead the 4,500-man force. The sailors experience actual sea duty serving in the navies of friendly Latin Amercian neighbors. And the fleet of fourteen patrol boats, six transports, two hospital ships, and two research vessels patrols Lake Titicaca and several tributary rivers of the Amazon -- all in preparation for the day when Bolivian territory again reaches to the Pacific Ocean.

Paraguay, to the east, never had access to the sea. But its economy is tied to the Rio Paraná and the Rio Paraguay, so it has longed maintained a substantial brown water navy. This would prove essential to preserving its independence during the War of The Triple Alliance (1864-1870) against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. It fought gallantly but unsuccessfully at the Battle of Riachuelo (1865), one of the largest riverine engagements in modern naval history. Today, its 2,500 sailors, including 500 marines, protect the nation's rivers on sixteen patrol boats, three amphibious assault ships, and seven support vessels. After basic training in-country, Paraguyan sailors gain experience in the navy of Argentina before assuming their duties at home.

London-based design firm Kiwi & Pom made the "Disco Chair." It has 200 meters of electroluminescent wire in different colors that can be flashed on and off. You can view more pictures at the link.

http://www.kiwiandpom.com/projectView.php?id=12&pic=4 via Technabob | Photo: Kiwi Pom

A man wearing a fake horse's head -- or, alternatively, a man who has the head of a horse -- was spotted on Google Street View's presentation of Aberdeen, UK. This mysterious creature has reappeared on a different image:

While no-one knows who Horse Boy is or what the point of him is, there are theories. Some bloggers think he will turn out to have been part of a corporate publicity stunt. Others point out that buying a plastic horse mask is not beyond the wit of man. A commenter on the BBC website said: "Horse boy isn't a person, it's a cheap mask - for example I saw at least three people wearing similar heads at this year's Download Festival in Donington."

Nonetheless he has become an international phenomenon. Stefan Kleen from Germany said he met horse-boy at a festival: "He only spoke English so we didn't really talk a lot to him." He has also apparently been spotted in Norwich and Cardiff.

In the comments, express your hypothesis on the nature of Horse Boy. The weirder, the better.

Link | Photo: Google

The information that I have on this picture is a little sketchy because the original site is in Japanese. But rumor has it that Japanese scientists photographed the skeletons of small animals through their flesh and then dyed the results with vibrant colors. The result is a set of quite lovely pictures. More at the link.

Link via Nerdcore | Image: Albatro.jp

Paleontologists recently found fossils in Africa that indicate that multicellular life evolved on Earth 1.5 billion years before previously thought:

"The cursor on the origin of complex multicellular life is no longer 600 million years ago, as has long been maintained, but more like 2.1 billion years," said Abderrazak El Albani, a researcher at the University of Poitiers and lead author of the study.

The findings were published in the British journal Nature.

Up to now, conventional scientific wisdom held that the planet was populated only by single-celled microbes until the so-called Cambrian explosion, a major surge of biodiversity that began some 600 million years ago.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: CNRS

(YouTube Link)

Harry Hanrahan edited this video packed with 100 vicious insults from movies. At the link, you can view a list of the featured films (warning: self-starting sound).

Content warning: foul language.

Link via Nerd Bastards

Cavities in teeth are normally drilled clean and then filled with an artificial material. This procedure could become obsolete if a new hormone treatment proves successful:

The gel or thin film contains a peptide known as MSH, or melanocyte-stimulating hormone. Previous experiments, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that MSH encourages bone regeneration.

Bone and teeth are fairly similar, so the French scientists reasoned that if the MSH were applied to teeth, it should help healing as well.

To test their theory, the French scientists applied either a film or gel, both of which contained MSH, to cavity-filled mice teeth. After about one month, the cavities had disappeared, said Benkirane-Jessel.

Link via Popular Science | Image: NIH

San Jose State University's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is for the worst possible opening line for a novel. Entrants don't have to actually write the novel -- just the first line. Here's this year's winning sentence by Molly Ringle of Seattle:

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

You can read the runners-up at the link. http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ via Marginal Revolution | Image: National Science Foundation Previously: The 2007, 2008, and 2009 competitions.

Bad calls by referees have caused substantial controversy at this year's World Cup soccer matches. Chuck Salter of Fast Company talked to Hank Adams, an expert on the subject. Adams proposes three technological solutions to the problem. One is to install tracking devices in all players and balls so that their precise location can be known at every point in a game:

There’s a new wave of instrumentation coming, with tiny RFID sensors embedded in balls, uniforms, and cleats, to track each athlete’s position on the field. Other leagues are experimenting. So should FIFA. “They have an under-17 series,” says Adams. “They should try things out there before introducing it at the World Cup level.”

Eventually, he says, the sensors will help referees identify off-sides violations, an incredibly hard call to make in real time with lightning fast athletes. A monitoring system could alert officials as soon as a ball is kicked that an offensive player is out of position. After a quick whistle, the game would resume, and any delay could be made up for in overage.

Link | Photo: US Department of Defense

The US Air Force has developed a gadget that will give troops operating in the field access to electricity. Just hook it onto a power line:

An engineer at an Air Force research lab in Dayton, Ohio, has figured out how to harness electricity from power lines via a system called RAPS. RAPS is a connecting device that’s attached to the end of a long cable. When the device is thrown over a power line, a blade at the end pierces the power line and completes the circuit that brings electricity down to the soldier. And that can mean a lot in the desert or jungle.

http://science.dodlive.mil/2010/06/29/the-bat-hook-harvesting-energy-from-power-lines-labtv/ via OhGizmo! | Photo: US Department of Defense

Art student Danielle Pecora from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn designed this ball to help children learn how to read Braille:

Looking a bit like a stiff Koosh ball, it has 26 magnetic pegs, each depicting a letter of the alphabet in Latin on one side and Braille on the other. The object's to fit the pegs into 26 circular indents in the ball that are themselves embossed in Braille letters. "A" in Braille, for instance, is a single dot, so you'd find the peg with one dot, then match it to the spot on the ball with one dot. An electronic device in the ball chimes when you get a letter right. It'll also verbalize what letter you're touching when you run your fingers over the indents.

Link | Photo: Pratt Institute

Tim Vinke made this portable office, which he calls "Kruikantoor". It's carved out of EPS foam and has two chairs, a light, a desk, storage space, and an electrical hook-up. It has wheels so workers can move it wherever it's needed. At the link, you can see photos of how it disassembles.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: Design Boom | Previously: Pop-Up Cardboard Office

(YouTube Link)

Why was Lassie made with a dog rather than a cat? Because Timmy would have died in the first episode otherwise.

This is allegedly a sketch from a short-lived comedy show called The Downer Channel.

via Nerdcore

(YouTube Link)

Air-Hair, developed by the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is a virtual reality haircut simulator. The user trims hair that s/he can only see on a screen. A motor in the pair of scissors creates resistance when the barber slices into hair and the screen shows hair falling away as the barber progresses. You can view another video at the link.

via CrunchGear