The Yoshida Brothers make the Japanese shamisen sound like a rock and roll instrument! Push play or go to YouTube. Link to band's website. -via Ursi’s Blog

A dill pickle, marinated in double-strength Kool-Aid for a week. That’s a Kool-Aid pickle, and children of the Mississippi Delta love the sweet and sour taste. Link -via Metafilter

Artist and teacher Hisaharu Motoda created haunting visions of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, complete with ruined buildings and plants growing through the cracked streets. http://hisaharu-motoda.petit.cc/muscat2/ -via Cynical-C

Gupi the Guinea Pig is a robotic pet that will make few demands on your time. You’ll need to pet him (or he will become skittish) and plug him into his carrot recharger. He makes 30 sounds (more than a regular guinea pig, I suppose), and will learn to interact with other robotic guinea pigs. Link -via Mental Floss

A two-part video featuring the compositions "Terra Aria" and "Concerto Rotondo,” performed by Giovanni Sollima. Directed by Lasse Gjertsen, who worked on this for the past five months. He has commentary at YouTube about how the video was made. Push play or go to YouTube. If you liked this one, see part two. -via J-Walk Blog

John Dobson of East Sussex trims his hedge to resemble the Loch Ness Monster. He’s been working to perfect the living sculpture for 17 years! Link -via Arbroath

Headless Historicals â„¢ are reworked dolls that were inspired by characters throughout history who died in rather horrible ways. Each doll is dressed according to how they might have appeared during the peak of their success, while their bodies display the manner in which they died.

Link -via J-Walk Blog

Ten hotels in places ranging from undersea to outer space. Most are in the design and planning stage, but what design! One thing they have in common is that they will all have a very high nightly rate. Link -via the Presurfer

The Encyclopedia of Life is a proposed website that will catalog all of earth’s 1.8 million known species. The project is expected to take about ten years to complete.

The MacArthur and Sloan foundations have given a total $12.5 million to pay for the first 2 1/2 years of the massive effort, but it will be free and accessible to everyone.

The pages can be adjusted so that they provide useful information for both a schoolchild and a research biologist alike, with an emphasis on encouraging "citizen-scientists" to add their sightings. While amateurs can contribute in clearly marked side pages, the key detail and science parts of the encyclopedia will be compiled and reviewed by experts.

This video shows how it will work. Push play or go to YouTube. Link to website. http://news.wired.com/dynamic/stories/E/ENCYCLOPEDIA_OF_LIFE?SITE=WIRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT to news article.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has combined two of their favorite things, geeky gadgets and sweets, in the Candyfab 4000. It’s a solid freeform fabrication machine that prints three-dimensional objects made of sugar!

The printing process begins with a bed of a granular printing media that has a fairly low melting point. Using a narrow, directed, low-velocity beam of hot air, we selectively fuse together the print media, forming a two-dimensional image out of the fused grains. We then lower the bed by a small amount, add a thin flat layer of media to the top of the bed, and selectively fuse the media in the new layer, forming a two dimensional image that is also fused to any overlapping fused areas in the layer below. By repeating this process, a three-dimensional object is slowly built up. At the end of the build, the bed is raised to its original position, disinterring the fabricated model, while unused media is reclaimed for use in building the next object.

The Candyfab 4000 will make its public debut next week at the 2007 Bay Area Maker Faire. Link

NASA released this CGI trailer to promote awareness of their Constellation program, designed to carry humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond. Push play or go to YouTube. Link to NASA mission site. -via Boing Boing

Placed on each measured mile around the District of Columbia in 1791 and 1792, the Boundary Stones of Washington are our oldest federal monuments. This site has the history of the stones, the location of each, and a map. Click on the map markers to see a photograph of each stone. This one is at 901 Southern Avenue, and is in better shape than most. Link -via Metafilter

Kids, don’t try this at home! Click on the image or go to College Humor. -via Gorilla Mask

I didn't want to title this "What Is It?" because it's not a contest. I didn't know what category to file it under, either -gadgets? optical illusion? car and vehicle? So I settled for the pictures category. Chad sent several pictures of a UFO to Coast the Coast, but declined to give his location. There is some writing on the underside of this object. Neatorama readers have all the answers; maybe you can explain this. Link -via the Presurfer

You don't normally think of a tortoise as an aggresive animal. The copy with this video says the tortoise is defending his garden territory from invading cats. Or is it possible he just wants to play, like this little fellow? Push play or go to YouTube. -via Cynical-C