This past week we purchased the bottle on the right above - French's "Classic" Worcestershire sauce, in the 15 oz. size - to replace the old one on the left with the "New and Improved!" label.

The label of the new bottle indicates that it has 50% MORE* (with the asterisk). I can't reproduce the letter size here, but it's approximately a 48 point font.

On the right below that in bold italics is Excellent Value! in a ~14-point font.

And beneath that the clarification *Compared to 10 FL. OZ. products. in ~12-point italics.

One can't argue with the mathematics.  The question is whether this is deceptive advertising.  Does this labelling cynically take advantage of inattentive shoppers, or is it a truthful, clever marketing ploy?

Entrepreneurs in Tokyo have developed "capsule" hotels with coffin-like cubicles for those needing shelter.  They aren't free:

The rent is surprisingly high for such a small space: 59,000 yen a month, or about $640, for an upper bunk. But with no upfront deposit or extra utility charges, and basic amenities like fresh linens and free use of a communal bath and sauna, the cost is far less than renting an apartment in Tokyo, Mr. Nakanishi says.

The concept was originally developed to accommodate travelers in airports or those stranded without transportation, but now they are being rented by the month, and long-term users are registering the sites as their official "home."

Link.  Photo credit Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

People in Yosemite: A TimeLapse Study from Steven M. Bumgardner on Vimeo.

Steven Bumgardner's video clearly shows the impact of people on Yosemite, but it also shows how the magnificence of the setting reduces people to the scale of insects.  The time-lapse element is reminiscent of Koyaanisqatsi.

I chose busy places during busy days to show the effects of this mass of humanity. I could have just as easily pointed my camera in another direction and shown nothing but plants, animals and wilderness. Yosemite is popular, but it's also still a relatively wild place.

Music by Peter Gabriel.  Videos like this one are the reason HD was created; use the "expand" button in the lower right corner to best appreciate the video.

Via The Daily Dish.

YouTube link.

Sadie is a Pomeranian who ran away from her home in Iowa after being frightened by fireworks.

"Sadie was swooped up by an owl in the woods," the AP reports. The dog was discovered when she fell out of the sky, landing in the middle of the road in front of a surprised driver, Jamie Padden. Padden had gotten out of the car to help the dog when she saw the owl returning.

The rest of the story is in the video, or you can read the text at Pawnation.

A group of British scientists suggest that you will soon be able to replace missing teeth by growing replacements.

The procedure is fairly simple. Doctors take stem cells from the patient. These are unique in their ability to form any of the tissues that make up the body. By carefully nurturing the stem cells in a laboratory, scientists can nudge the cells down a path that will make them grow into a tooth. After a couple of weeks, the ball of cells, known as a bud, is ready to be implanted. Tests reveal what type of tooth - for example, a molar or an incisor - the bud will form.

The procedure holds great promise in the U.K., where "the average Briton over 50 has lost 12 teeth from a set of 32."

Link.  Image credit to Coverbrowser, which has a collection of 470 Mad covers.

A Japanese man has set a new world record for "maximum time aloft" for a paper airplane.

With a bend of the knees and an arch of the back, a Japanese engineer today set a world flight record for a paper plane, keeping his hand-folded construction in the air for 26.1 seconds.  Using a plane specially designed for "long haul" flights, Takuo Toda narrowly failed to match his lifetime best of 27.9 seconds, a Guinness world record set in Hiroshima earlier, but achieved with a plane that was held together with cellophane tape.

There is a YouTube video of the record-setting throw, although it is not particularly exciting.

Mr.Toda has also announced plans to launch 100 paper planes from the orbiting International Space Station.  The planes would be made with heat-resistant paper capable of withstanding temperatures of 250C and wind speeds of mach 7; he has not solve the problem of how to track the planes during their descent to earth.

Link.  Photograph: Koji Sasahara/AP

"95% to 98% of people choose kiki for the angular shape and bouba for the rounded one... Even 2.5 year-old children (too young to read) show this effect."

"Ramachandran and Hubbard suggest the kiki/bouba effect has implications for the evolution of language, because the naming of objects is not completely arbitrary. The rounded shape may intuitively be named bouba because the mouth makes a more rounded shape to produce that sound, while a more taut, angular mouth shape is needed to articulate kiki. The sound of K is also harder and more forceful than that of B. Such "synesthesia-like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and actions in the world."

Link.

Those Mayan priests were way off base.  The correct date for the end of the world is May 21, 2011.

Harold Camping has announced that this new date corrects his previous incorrect prediction that the world would end in 1994.  He acknowledges that the previous prediction was based on a "mathematical error."  The new prediction has, however, a much more fundamental theological basis:

The number 5, Camping concluded, equals "atonement." Ten is "completeness." Seventeen means "heaven."

"Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.," he began. "Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that's 1,978 years."  Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days - the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.  Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.

Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.  Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.

"Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story," Camping said. "It's the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you're completely saved.  "I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that," Camping said.

Squared, mind you.  How can you argue with such mathematical precision?  And please ignore the shape of his head in the shadow...

Link.

YouTube link.

Similar in principle to the "tile illusion" previously posted at Neatorama, this one was named after a pattern noticed on the wall of a café on St Michael's Hill in Bristol, England.  This illusion would make a nice tabletop conversation piece if it were commercially available.

Via Unique Daily.

In December of 1888, Vincent Van Gogh cut off the lobe of his left ear with a razor.  Many explanations have been offered for this bizarre behavior.  Now a scholar claims to have found an explanation in the portrayal of a letter in Van Gogh's Still Life: Drawing Board, Pipe, Onions and Sealing-Wax, painted the following month.

Bailey concludes that this letter was written by [Van Gogh's brother] Theo from Paris in December 1888 and contained news of his engagement. This, he believes, tipped Vincent, who was already psychologically disturbed, into self-harm.  “Vincent was fearful that he might lose his brother’s emotional and financial support,"writes Bailey in the January edition of The Art Newspaper.

The postmark depicted on the letter corresponds to that which would have been used by Van Gogh's brother, and the date would agree with the transmital of the engagement news.

Link.  Image credit.

Preparation time:  12-20 billion years.

Link.

Two Germans have been apprehended in Austria after bringing $500 million in counterfeit million-dollar bills to a bank.

The Austrian National Analysis Center (NAC) examined the 493 banknotes Hölzen and B. had in their possession. Of those notes, 295 were originally $1 bills. Counterfeiters increased the face value of the bills to $1 million, simply by adding six zeros. The counterfeiting was done "very expensively and professionally," say the specialists.

The men - one of whom is an attorney - claim that they were not trying to pass counterfeit money because they thought the bills were genuine.  They now suspect that they may have been victims of a scam.

Link.

Regret the Error is a blog that takes note of errors, corrections, and apologies in print and electronic media; each December the most notable incidents are compiled.  Here are some selections from 2009:

In my column on August 22 I suggested that Sharon Osbourne was an unemployed, drugaddled, unfit mum with a litter of feral kids. This was not intended to be taken literally. I fully accept she is none of these things and sincerely apologise to Sharon and her family for my unacceptable comments. Sorry Sharon…

In printed copies of Monday’s Daily Universe, due to a spelling error in a photo caption, the word “apostles” was replaced with a different word [apostates]. The Daily Universe apologizes to the Quorum of the Twelve and our readers for the error.

This article was amended on Tuesday 20 January 2009. In our entry on Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon Days, we referred to a Prairie Ho Companion; we meant a Prairie Home Companion. This has been corrected.

The original article provided the incorrect location of New York University’s new institution. It is in Abu Dhabi, not Abu Ghraib.

Many more examples at the Link, where there are sublinks to additional compilations from the past five years.

A study published this month in the British Medical Journal reports that the survival of 1826 twins correlated with the "perceived age" of the subjects.

...perceived age was significantly associated with survival, even after adjustment for chronological age, sex, and rearing environment. Perceived age was still significantly associated with survival after further adjustment for physical and cognitive functioning. The likelihood that the older looking twin of the pair died first increased with increasing discordance in perceived age within the twin pair—that is, the bigger the difference in perceived age within the pair, the more likely that the older looking twin died first.

The photo embedded above is a computer-generated composite of 10 pairs of twins.  "Left hand image represents twins who looked younger for their age (average perceived age 64, range 57-69) than those represented by right hand image (average perceived age 74, range 70-78)."

There are a variety of factors which may be instrumental in this relationship, including smoking status, body mass index, and sun exposure.  These and other relevant factors are discussed at the link.  The study was conducted in twins to minimize variables, but the conclusions may extend beyond twins to the general population.

Link to fulltext BMJ article, via the BBC.

English Russia has assembled a collection of about 50 photos from a Russian medicinal leech farm, documenting the technology used to raise them by the millions.  The reproductive process of hermaphroditic creatures is a bit complex:

As hermaphrodites, leeches have both male and female sex organs... Mating involves the intertwining of bodies where each deposits sperm in the others' clitellar area... The clitellum secretes a tough gelatinous cocoon which contains nutrients, and it is in this that the eggs are deposited... The cocoon is either buried or attached to a rock, log or leaf and dries to a foamy crust. After several weeks or months, the young emerge as miniature adults. Studies show that the cocoons are capable of surviving the digestive system of a duck.

The photo above shows the cute little newborns emerging from a cocoon.  Cootchie-cootcie-coo!  The leeches are fed slaughterhouse blood until their distribution to medical clinics, where they may be stored in pretty pink jars.

Links for the photo album and the biology.