Lee Hardcastle is back with an ultra-violent claymation encounter between a friendly suburban father and a horde of extraterrestrials. Contains NSFW language. -via b3ta
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Illustrator Chay Hawes created these images of sixteen well-known scientists from history. How many can you name? See a larger version at his website. Chay will post the answers later, so you can guess without the temptation to peek. Link
A team of biologists led by Professor Anna Nekaris of Oxford Brookes University in the UK, and Rachel Munds from the University of Missouri in Columbia, studied slow lorises in Borneo and the Philippines and discovered what they thought was one species are actually four different ones, all with different facial markings.
Originally there was thought to be just a single species, called N. menagensis.
Two of these new species, N. bancanus and N. borneanus, were previously considered subspecies of N. menagensis.
While, N. kayan, is new to science.
"In Borneo in particular, from where three of the new species hail, this will mean that three new lorises will be added as threatened to some degree on the IUCN Red List of threatened species," says Prof Nekaris.
"With more than 40% of the world's primates already threatened with extinction, this brings the toll even higher."
Outside of Borneo and the Philippines, four other slow loris species are known, living across south and southeast Asia.
Read more about lorises at the BBC. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Shamma Esoof/Oxford Brookes University)
Some people come by a pop culture costume honestly. Redditor MissAshley214 posted a photo of her husband's grandmother, who doesn't need a lot of special effects to portray the cartoon character Maxine. Link
We've been given the green light to tell you about the origin of traffic signals. Go ahead and cruise through the text, and we'll let you know when to stop.
SIGN O' THE TIMES
We're still stumped on that whole chicken versus egg question, but there's one thing we do know for sure -traffic congestion predates the automobile. Long before the invention of the internal combustion engine, horses and people were already having enough trouble yielding to each other at intersections that, in 1868, a British railroad engineer designed the first traffic signal to help them out. Oddly, the contraption only featured two settings: "stop" and "caution," indicated by a bar held horizontally or lowered to a 45-degree angle.
At night, red and green lights were used to make the bar visible, meaning that, in this case, "green" meant "slow down." A proclamation issued by London's police commissioner in 1868 explained the system as well as the then-novel concept of pedestrian right-of-way, and for the first time, cities had a way of keeping people from constantly running into each other.
CONTROL TWEAKS
The concept of a box with bar sticking out each side like arms was modeled on the naval semaphore system, a way of communicating between ships where a sailor would hold certain flags at certain angles to create messages. As overly complicated on the street as it was at sea, it soon fell out of favor, replaced by an electrical upgrade. The first light-based traffic signals were probably those installed in Salt Lake City, Utah, by police officer Lester Wire in 1912. Featuring a slanted roof to shed rain and snow, Wire's signal boxes contained dye-colored lights that shone through coverless circular openings and were powered by the same wires that ran electric trolleys. Like the earlier signals, Wire's lights only had two settings, in this case "stop" and "go," and were manually operated on-site by a police officer.
A similar system was installed (and patented) in Cleveland in 1914, but with a significant safety improvement. Unlike their western counterparts, the Cleveland lights were all connected back to the same control station and wired so that it was impossible to accidentally tell both directions to "go" at once (an important development, no doubt).
Amazingly, the first three-setting lights didn't come along until the 1920s. Based on railroad signs being used since 1899, the three-light signal first appeared in Detroit and New York City between 1920 and 1922. Not surprisingly, those heavily-trafficked cities were also on the forefront of an effort to streamline signal controls (and thus improve the flow of traffic in general) by wiring several different intersections back into a single control tower -innovations that were quickly mimicked the world over.
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The article above was reprinted with permission from mental_floss' book In the Beginning. From Big Hair to the Big Bang, here's a Mouthwatering Guide to the Origins of Everything by our friends at mental_floss. Did you know that paper clips started out as Nazi-fighting warriors? Or that cruise control was invented by a blind genius? Read it all in the book!
Sorry there's no critique or breakdown of the supercut from Slackstory, but you see, there's just no time. -via The Daily What
If you are planning a holiday party or just want to add a little extra decoration to a room, then these wreath chandeliers are a great way to add to the festivities of the season. They are simple to make and would look great with some flameless candles added at night.
Four 19th-century warships have been found off the coast of Israel, which may point us to a lost Greek harbor from antiquity as well. The researchers, from the University of Rhode Island, found the warships by using sound waves to probe the ocean.
The researchers believe the ships, once part of an Egyptian fleet, sank during the Egyptian Ottoman war when Admiral Osman Nurredin Bey attempted to retake the city of Akko in 1831.
In the process of excavating in the area, the team also found the remains of a ship shed that was possibly used to bring in warships during the Hellenistic period. At the site, they found remnants of Hellenistic stonework, ancient pottery, mooring materials and a stone quay. These fragments suggest a much older, ancient Greek port may lie beneath the seafloor — along with even more ancient shipwrecks.
Read more about the discovery at LiveScience. Link
(Image credit: Jacob Sharvit, Israel Antiquities Authority)
One of my favorite videos from the past year features a German family working together in the kitchen. In case you need it, here's a handy translation from a YouTube commenter:
- Daddy, how do you get along with the iPad we gave you at your birthday?
- Very well
- And you can handle all those apps?
- What apps? Step aside, please. What's the matter?
It is just one from the list of the 23 Best Food Videos The Internet Gave Us In 2012. You'll enjoy the others as well! Link
Poor wet cat! This song is by The Brunswick Project, a group that aims to produce a new song every week for 52 weeks. They are 18 weeks into the project. Link -via Metafilter
The Honest Trailer featured earlier today mentioned the Hobbits as a boy band, and here they are! You have to wonder how much overlap there actually is between Tolkien fans and One Direction fans, but this parody from The Warp Zone is doing well on YouTube. It's quite catchy! -via Viral Viral Videos
Anthony Sherin documented what happened when a piano was left out on the street in Manhattan.
Making this film was pure serendipity. After a January snowstorm in New York City, I decided to do some work on another film, in my home in Washington Heights. But as I approached my desk, I thought I heard a piano plinking. I looked out the window and saw a piano on the curb below. I was mesmerized by the pattern that emerged.
Sherin snapped pictures over the next 24 hours, which resulted in a complete story, set to music by Art Labriola. Read more about it at The New York Times. Link -via Viral Viral Videos
Maymo received his favorite toy for Christmas -210 of them! Don't you love to see a dog having so much fun? -Thanks, J!
Richard Carey (DeviantART member braindeadmystuff) is in the process of building this intricate Prometheus-style xenomorph. Check out more pictures of the sculpture at Unreality. Link
Get a hankie ready. This video with Dr. Alex Levy from the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children was posted at reddit, just as a bunch of medical students on the forum needed some encouragement. Link
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