(YouTube Link)

This computer-generated animation by Roy Prol imagines the Earth as a ringed planet, such as Saturn or Uranus. First, it addresses the orientation of the rings, and then shows what they would look like from various places around the world, day and night. In Scientific American, John Matson writes that Earth may have once had a ring system:

But such a ring, if it were to suddenly appear, might not be all good news. Decades ago, John O'Keefe of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ventured that Earth may have had a ring system similar to Saturn's for a brief period. In a 1980 paper in Nature, O'Keefe pointed to climatic data indicating colder winters at the end of the Eocene epoch some 34 million years ago along with showers of tektites, glassy rocks of mysterious origin, at around the same time. O'Keefe's theory held that tektites that missed the Earth in this bombardment were captured into a ring system that may have persisted for millions of years, casting a winter shadow across Earth's surface and contributing to a late Eocene die-off of many marine organisms such as plankton and mollusks.

Link via Geekologie

The French design firm 5.5 designed a few infographics for the Spanish chocolatier ChocolatFactory. Each is made out of actual chocolate. Pictured above is a set of domes that represent different cocoa contents, with the largest dome representing the least cocoa (60%) and the smallest representing the most (99%). The other graphics are chocolate bars that tell consumers how many calories they're eating and a pie chart demonstrating a distribution system.

Link | 5.5 | ChocolatFactory | Photo: 5.5

Artist Michael Johansson makes full-sized objects that look like plastic click-out models. The dingy pictured above, entitled "Toys 'R' Us", is a 1:1 scale model made from functional boating equipment and a welded metal frame. Gallery at the link.

http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/under-the-influence/just-add-johansson/ via DudeCraft | Artist Website | Dingy Project | Photo: Michael Johansson

When Emma Smith of Leytonstone, UK, went into labor, her husband Leroy realized that they wouldn't be able to get to the hospital in time. He then used his BlackBerry to find instructions online on how to deliver a child:

So the 29-year-old grabbed hold of his BlackBerry, accessed the internet and sought help from search engine Google for step-by-step instructions.

And after following the detailed guide on the internet's wikiHow Emma safely gave birth to daughter 6lb 11oz Mahalia Merita Angela Smith.

Five minutes after the delivery the midwife arrived to cut the umbilical cord of their fourth child.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo: US Department of Health and Human Services

This mysterious Batmobile-styled limousine was recently spotted in New York City. The carblog Autogespot suspects that it's built from a Corvette C4, but that's all the information that I can find.

Link via Topless Robot | YouTube Link | Photo: CarScoop

I guess that in scientific publishing, there's no such thing as bad publicity. The textbook Get a Grip on Physics by John Gribbin, featured in Tiger Woods' recent SUV crash, has shot up the bestseller list. Its Amazon ranking has moved from 396,224 to 2,268:

Speaking in a break between lectures this morning, the author, John Gribbin, said he was "delighted that anyboy's reading my books. I just wish it was one that's still in print."

Part of a planned series on subject areas which was cancelled after poor sales, Get a Grip on Physics is an illustrated introduction to modern physics first published in 1999 which tells the story of developments in physics since the 1950s, charting the discovery of the four forces of nature, the search for grand unified theories and the beginnings of string theory.

"It's not a book you sit down and read from cover to cover," said Gribbin, "you can dip in and out of it. Tiger Woods is absolutely my target audience. He's busy, hasn't got a lot of time, but wants to catch up on what's happening in physics."

We need to arrange for a celebrity to become embroiled in a major scandal while reading Neatorama.

Link via Radley Balko | Photo: Handout/Getty Images

I'm not sure how it works, but this 8-ft by 8-ft clock by artist Miss Moun displays the time by selectively lighting up words in a poem. Three words are always lit, and each word represents either the hour, minute, or second. The piece is entitled "6 Is for Blossom", and you can view more pictures at the link.

http://www.missmoun.com/index.php?/project/6-is-for-blossom/ via Gizmodo | Photo: Miss Moun

The Japanese woodworking firm Sada-Kenbi has built a wooden, functional, street-legal sports car. It can reach speeds of up to 80 kph and costs $44,000 USD. The car has stylish gull wing doors and a stereo. More pictures and a video at the link.

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/23/view/8388/wooden-sports-car.html via The Presurfer | Company Site (in Japanese) | Photo: SPGRA

Biologist Mark Norman found octopuses (octopi?) off the coast of Indonesia that use split open coconut shells as hiding places. This is the first known tool use by an invertebrate animal:

An octopus would dig up the two halves of a coconut shell, then use them as protective shielding when stopping in exposed areas or when resting in sediment.

This, on its own, astonished the team. Then they noticed that the octopuses, after using the coconut shells, would arrange them neatly below the centers of their bodies and "walk" around with the shells—awkwardly.

It's uncertain whether these were African or European coconuts. Video at the link.

Link | Photo: Roger Steene

Rather than a formal taxonomy, this diagram by Ibrahim Evsan divides geek culture into activities, obsessions, social communities, terms, idols, and types. Its primary flaw is that it does not take cross-breeding into account. Larger version at the link.

Link via Fast Company

(YouTube Link)

Trying to ignore the alarm isn't going to work with the Princess in a Pea Alarm Clock (PPAC). Jeff Saltzman rigged an air compressor to lift up one side of a mattress when it's time to wake up. If the sleeper doesn't get up, s/he'll get thrown to the floor.

Link via Make

UPDATE 12/14/09: I've swapped out the video. Thanks, GlitchEnzo!

This camera, made by the Nagoya Institute of Technology, has 158 lenses -- more than any other camera in the world, according to Guinness World Records. It was made by associate professor Yojiro Ishino and his students in order to take 3D pictures of a flame. The lenses are arranged in four rows, and the entire rig is 47 centimeters across.

Link | Image: Sankei News

After a football injury at the age of sixteen, Jamie Cap became paralyzed from the neck down. Now, thirty years later, he controls a shotgun attached to his wheelchair with a breathing tube. Getting legal permission was a substantial struggle, but now he's been cleared by a court to start shooting:

Cap, 46, recently won a 2 1/2-year legal battle to allow him to use, with the help of a partner, a 12-gauge shotgun fitted with a battery-powered machine that is operated by a breathing tube.

He described firing that first shot last week with a combination of wistfulness and enthusiasm another person might use to describe rekindling a decades-old romance.

"I don't know if there are words," he said. "I'm so happy. When you find you can do something again after 30 years, you can't put a price on that. Some people think it's nothing, but try being paralyzed for 30 years and then come talk to me."[...]

Cap might not have embarked on his bureaucratic odyssey had he not found Indiana-based Be Adaptive Equipment during a random Internet search. The company, which has made wheelchair mounts for shotguns since 2002, sells about 20 per year, according to owners Brian and Renee Kyler. Cap's model cost about $1,600; a new 12-gauge shotgun starts at about $250.

For a quadriplegic, firing a shotgun requires help from a companion. In Cap's case, a friend sets up the contraption, safety on, on Cap's wheelchair and Cap aims the shotgun by moving the toggle switch with his mouth. Once his partner releases the safety, Cap fires by sipping on the breathing tube.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iwNIXAzcY0_6A_w2WsbGZZav-2rAD9CFNQ1O0 via Geekologie | Photo: AP

The Daily Nail chronicles Melissa Osburn's efforts to invent creative fingernail designs everyday for an entire year. Each post tells readers precisely which colors are necessary to duplicate each project. Pictured above is her depiction of the classic arcade game Space Invaders.

Link via Kotaku

Six men in Germany built their own functional electric locomotive out of garden furniture and train parts and took it out on a nearby rail line at night. They've since been arrested:

The six-seater train - made out of garden furniture and salvaged train parts - was powered by an electric motor and even had its own refreshments car in the shape of a crate of beer.[...]

Police however had to call in a helicopter to find and follow the makeshift train as the police cars could not follow it along the tracks.

The helicopter pilot was able to radio ahead to other officers who set up a makeshift barrier at a station to stop it.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Police News