Cities that are planned before they are populated have a sense of order that can really be appreciated when seen from above. You'd expect that from modern cities, like Brasilia or Canberra, but the beauty of Palmanova, Italy, pictured here, is especially pleasing, as it was built in 1593. See the whole collection at Wired. Link -via Metafilter
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Data sent back to earth from the MESSENGER spacecraft shows that Mercury holds water ice and other frozen materials. We think of Mercury as a hot planet, but there are deep craters near the planet's poles are never touched by sunlight. Still, any water ice in the craters is buried under other materials.
MESSENGER uses neutron spectroscopy to measure average hydrogen concentrations within Mercury's radar-bright regions. Water-ice concentrations are derived from the hydrogen measurements. "The neutron data indicate that Mercury's radar-bright polar deposits contain, on average, a hydrogen-rich layer more than tens of centimeters thick beneath a surficial layer 10 to 20 centimeters thick that is less rich in hydrogen," writes David Lawrence, a MESSENGER Participating Scientist based at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the lead author of one of the papers. "The buried layer has a hydrogen content consistent with nearly pure water ice."
Data from MESSENGER's Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) — which has fired more than 10 million laser pulses at Mercury to make detailed maps of the planet's topography — corroborate the radar results and Neutron Spectrometer measurements of Mercury's polar region, writes Gregory Neumann of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. In a second paper, Neumann and his colleagues report that the first MLA measurements of the shadowed north polar regions reveal irregular dark and bright deposits at near-infrared wavelength near Mercury's north pole.
Read more about the discovery at NASA. Link -via reddit
(Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory)
Creative and creepy! Can you believe these baby heads are made of solid white chocolate? They are about the size of a real newborn's head. Admire all you want, but the thought of chomping your teeth into them is unnerving. Made by Annabel de Vetten of Conjurer's Kitchen, the heads are a part of the Eat Your Heart Out 2012 food art exhibition in London. Link -Thanks, Emmylou Cakehead!
Bangalore is the Silicon Valley of India -although much bigger, with eight million people and innumerable tech companies. Surprisingly, the city has never hosted a comics convention until this year. Comic Con Express was held in September, and hordes of cosplayers turned out, dressed as both Indian pop culture and comic book characters and those familiar in the west as well. See lots more photographs at Mithun On The Net. Link -via Boing Boing
Mr. Tiddles encounters the new, lockable cat door and decides he doesn't like being restricted in his coming-and-going. You might wonder why a camera was left on to capture this event; it turns out that this is the fourth cat flap that Mr. Tiddles has destroyed. The cat will not be denied. -via Arbroath
Why do we say something is "piping hot," and something else should be taken "with a grain of salt," and why do we have a "bone to pick"? We use food phrases all the time. We know what we mean when we say them, but how did such odd phrases come about? The answers to ten of the most common can be found at Foodbeast. Link -via Digg
Norwegian teenager Lars Andreas Bjercke downloaded an intriguing app that imitates the sounds of rabbits, in order to attract foxes. It worked very well. After several nights of circling the yard where the phone was left, a fox took the phone and ran off! The theft was captured on video. But the story gets even better.
Lars the later called the phone and, surprisingly, the fox answered.
"There was a crackling sound and some noise," Lars told Verdens Gang.
The next day, Lars's friend wondered why he had sent him the odd text message. The message was in strange letters and numbers. Lars knew that the sender was the fox.
"I FRY o a0ab 34348tu åaugjoi zølbmosdji jsøg ijio sjiw," it said in the message.
Link to Norwegian report. Link to English version. -via Arbroath
The Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. It's hard to grasp such a amount of time, so AsapSCIENCE took those billions of years and compressed it into a theoretical 24-hour day, so we can see how relatively little of it concerns us. -via Buzzfeed
Have you ever watched a symphony orchestra being led by a conductor and thought, "Hey, anyone could do that -he's just waving his arms to the beat of the music!"? I recall thinking that when I was very young. But now a study conducted by Yiannis Aloimonos of the University of Maryland and other researchers has put the question to a scientific test, involving musicians in Italy.
They installed a tiny infrared light at the tip of an (unnamed) conductor's baton. They also placed similar lights on the bows of the violinists in the orchestra. The scientists then surrounded the orchestra with infrared cameras.
When the conductor waved the baton, and the violinists moved their bows, the moving lights created patterns in space, which the cameras captured. Computers analyzed the infrared patterns as signals: Using mathematical techniques originally designed by Nobel Prize-winning economist Clive Granger, Aloimonos and his colleagues analyzed whether the movements of the conductor were linked to those of the violinists.
Not only did they analyze whether the conductor influenced the violinist's movements, but they also compared a veteran conductor with an amateur. You'll have to go to NPR to read what they found, but first, let's hear your opinion. What do you think the results of the study were? And when you make your prediction, please let us know if you are a musician. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user University of Denver)
Dutch artist Sam Van Doorn creates art with a pinball machine. Or rather, he documents the movements of a pinball doing its thing in a way that illustrates the physics of the game.
A poster is placed on top of the machine, which has a grid printed on it. Based on this grid you can structure your playing field to your desire. By playing the machine the balls create an unpredictable pattern, dependent on the interaction between the user and the machine. The better you are as a player, the better the poster that you create.
Get a better look at the various pinball games at his website. Link -via Colossal
Cool Things to Find is a parody of the earlier PSA called Dumb Ways to Die. And who does the finding? The Mars Curiosity rover, of course! -via a comment at Metafilter
No one should be surprised -after all, it is Yoko Ono behind the designs. The collection, called “Fashions For Men: 1969-2012,” is based on sketches she gave to John Lennon for their wedding. There are 52 pieces in all, but many share the same motifs, such as the crotch-hand. You can see Ono's illustrations in a video at Laughing Squid. Link
Here it is, our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog! Tell us what this object is, if you know. If you don't, make a wild guess!
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. We'll have two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Check out additional pictures at the What Is It? Blog. Have fun and good luck!
Update: the mystery object is an old depth gauge, "for sounding in depths of from one hundred fathoms." Read more about it at the What Is It? blog. No one guessed that! For a minute I thought Lord_Dissident was going to have the correct answer:
There is some sort of plastic can in the weathered remains of a wooden cabinet, a clock or something leaning on the side, and a large metal plunger on top of it all. Synopsis: it's a pile of rubbish sitting outside with a man (whose shadow can be seen in the grass) hovering over it.
Well, no, but that one was the funniest answer, so he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Here's a little hint for the rest of you: the What Is It blog often posts the answer before we do, in case you want to look there when no one has it right. Thanks to everyone who played this week!
Univision experiences the best kind of videobomb during the live weather forecast. The weather guy doesn't even break stride! According to the YouTube page, several cats have made their home in the studio's parking lot. -via Uproxx
This French ad for underwear may not have any facts, but it sure gets your attention! The description at YouTube, translated by Babelfish, says:
Discover finally what makes the Slipway French more extremely than all the other Slipways
Uh, don't try this at home. -via Everlasting Blort
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