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The F-35, the next generation of vertical takeoff and landing jet fighter, developed by Lockheed-Martin, performed its first vertical landing yesterday:

Yesterday at 1 P.M., after descending from a 150-foot-high hover, the test plane touched down on the tarmac at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station. This is a significant step forward for the F-35, as its vertical takeoff and landing capability are crucial to the fighter's role as a replacement for the aging Harrier jet.

The test began with a short runway takeoff at 93 miles per hour, after which the pilot swung around, positioned the plane over the runway, and lowered it down. The test pilot, a former Royal Air Force aviator with experience piloting VSTOL planes, said he found landing the F-35 vertically far easier than landing older planes, like the Harrier, the same way.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/f-35-completes-first-success-fully-vertical-landing

Yesterday, Miss Cellania posted a picture of cookies decorated to look like each of Lady Gaga's outrageous outfits. Photographer Jessie Freidin's Doggie Gaga project is similar, except that it involves humiliating dogs by dressing them up as Lady Gaga. Pictured above is Booker dressed in Gaga's Kermit the Frog costume.

Link via Urlesque | Photo: Jessie Freidin

Thomas Feely of Leeds, UK, has committed 110 driving violations and has, at various times, been banned from driving 59 times over the past 28 years. He usually ignores these bans, and will now spend 5 months in jail as a consequence:

Feely, from Leeds regularly flouted driving bans, despite living just yards from a police station.

He was stopped by police for driving whilst disqualified and without a licence just three days before he was due to be sentenced for an earlier similar offence.[...]

Magistrates heard this week that he had been banned from driving 59 times in the past 28 years.

Link | Photo: (unrelated) by flickr user tompagenet, used under Creative Commons license

It really bothered Philip Levine when he started losing his hair while still in his early twenties. But with the help of bodypaint artist Kat Sinclair, he found a creative solution. Together, the pair have created hundreds of elaborate head paintings and adornments:

"I thought why not use it as a canvas, paint and attach things to my head using the border of where my hair would be," said the 28-year-old Londoner.[...]

Since then he has penned dozens of designs which Kat has recreated on his head. These have ranged from a giant wave splashing over his ears, to his head becoming shrubbery dotted with model butterflies.

On average the designs take two hours to create, but some of the more elaborate have taken up to five hours and are therefore reserved for parties. His favourite so far is a time consuming one where Kat covered his head with 1,000 Swarovski crystals, each individually glued on.

Link via Digg | Philip Levine | Kat Sinclair | Photo: Asylum.co.uk

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In the 1960s, Yale psychology researcher Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments in which participants were instructed to deliver dangerous electrical shocks to people. This was staged, and no one was in actual danger, but the experiment suggested that normal people will do horrible things if told to do so by authority figures. Perhaps inspired by that experiment, a French TV production company created a game show with that theme:

The aim of the experiment is to show how the manipulative power of television can push people to ever more outrageous limits.

A team of psychologists recruited 80 volunteers, telling them they were taking part in a pilot for a new television show.

They were instructed to pose questions to another "player", and punish him with up to 460 volts of electricity when he got answers wrong.

Not knowing that the screaming victim was really an actor, the apparently reluctant contestants yielded to the orders of the presenter and audience, who also believed the game was real.

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Seahorses and a few related fish are the only species where the males can get pregnant. These males take eggs from females and nurture them in their brood pouches. Researchers have discovered that male pipefish, one of those related species, may selectively abort young resulting from mating with less attractive females. The above video, which is preceded by a commercial, describes the results of this study. From Scientific American:

"It's almost as if he is saying, 'Are these babies worth my effort?' If he is not overly fond of the mother, the answer appears to be 'No,' and he invests fewer resources," Paczolt said.[...]

The brood pouch can deliver nutrients to the developing embryos, but it can also take them away. If a male deems his mate to be unworthy of any of his efforts, noted Berglund, "he may even want to use the low-quality eggs as food for himself, to gain resources for future offspring with better prospects," actually consuming the developing young by absorbing them.

Although the researchers are not exactly sure how or why the male fish decides to care for broods differently, they did discover a strong preference for bigger females. "The one trait in the pipefish that seems to stand out is the size of the female," Paczolt said. "Males tend to seek out larger females to be their mates," she noted, and broods from these large females were bigger and more likely to be carried to term.

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The French graphic design duo Zim & Zou made a papercraft version of a Nintendo Game Boy. It even has an insertable game cartridge. At the link, you can view more pictures, as well as a papercraft Tetris game.

http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Paper-Game/455813 via Albotas | Photo: Zim & Zou

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YouTube user FuggedaboutitNL created this time lapse video of his creation of a picture of a Bushmaster ACR (a type of rifle) using nothing but MS Paint. His channel is filled with similarly precise renditions of guns made with that program.

via CrunchGear

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After seeing Australians teach kangaroos how to surf, Peruvian surfer Domingo Pianezzi decided to teach an animal native to his homeland how to surf:

But the 44-year-old fancied a bigger challenge and has managed to coax his pet alpaca Pisco, to join him hanging ten in the Pacific.

Pisco — wearing a life jacket — managed to catch three waves with his owner and cruise for a few seconds before falling into the water.

Pianezzi said he came up with the idea while riding waves in Australia.

Link via Glenn Reynolds

Alexander Kobulnicky paints pictures of molecules. Pictured above is heme, which is one ingredient in hemoglobin.  The artist writes:

We know that molecules form the basis of matter, of the human body and of the natural world,  but as neurology increasingly teaches us, they underlie feeling, thought and behavior as well. The boundary between sanity and madness is the subject of countless books, movies and artworks, but in a practical sense, the boundary between sanity and madness is often. . . just Thorazine (C₁₇H₁₉ClN₂S).

Content warning: painting of a Viagra molecule.

Link via Make

There's a classic logic puzzle in which a person must take a fork in the road, one of which is safe, but the other is a deadly trap. Two men guard the fork, one of which always lies, but the other always tells the truth. The person gets to ask one question in order to determine which path is the safe one.

Mathematician Raymond Smullyan has added another dimension to this puzzle. See if you can figure it out:

There are three guardians, A, B and C. Their names are Knight, Knave and Chaos. Knight always speaks truly, Knave always lies. Chaos tossed a coin this morning to decide whether today he would behave like Knight or like Knave.

Your task is simple: ask three yes-no questions, each of a single guardian, and determine which is Knight, which is Knave, and which is Chaos. There is, alas, a complication: the guardians understand English but will answer in the local language, in which “Da” means yes and “Ja” means no. Or possibly “Ja” means yes and “Da” means no – you cannot remember.

Link via Marginal Revolution | Raymond Smullyan

UPDATE 3/18/10: Here's the solution.

This image matches typefaces with dogs that match their physical characteristics. It was created by the design firm of Günter Eder, Roman Breier, and Marcel Neundörfer in Vienna. What typefaces and dogs would you pair up?

Link via Nerdcore | Company Website

Artist Lise Lefebvre created "Bear Hunter" -- a Persian rug that looks like a bear skin rug. It's made from wool, wood, glass, and plastic.

We've previously featured Lefebvre's felted covers for household appliances.

Link via OhGizmo! | Artist Website | Photo: 360SEE

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Swisscopter's Dragonfly is a small helicopter that has rocket engines on the ends of its rotors blades to propel them:

The copter makes use of tiny hydrogen-peroxide-powered rocket motors on the tips of the blades, which replaces the traditional engine-powered rotor. Large fuel tanks surrounding the pilot allow the Dragonfly to travel at up to 40 mph for 50 minutes.

via Popular Science | Company Website

An unaccompanied and injured dog limped into a hospital in Farmington, New Mexico:

When the automatic doors at San Juan Regional Medical Centre's emergency room slid open Saturday night, the pooch walked in, blood on his nose and paw, and a puncture hole in one leg, according to The Daily Times newspaper.

Animal control officer Robin Loev responded to a call from the hospital and suspects the puncture wound was from the bite of another dog.

Loev says the German shepherd mix appeared to be intelligent and calm - and knew enough to go to the right place.

Link | Photo: CDC