An elderly resident of Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia died and left behind around 1500 cement garden gnomes. Not knowing what to do with them, the executor of the will contacted the Australian Gnome Convention for advice on disposing of them.

Convention organiser and "Gnome Master'' David Cook said he did not hesitate in organising the rescue party when contacted about the homeless little folk.

"We didn't want to see them put in a skip and taken to the tip and all smashed up,'' Mr Cook said.

I believe that means they didn't want to see the gnomes thrown away. A four-member team traveled 800 kilometers to pack up the gnomes of all sizes.They will be painted and refurbished, and will appear at the 2010 Australian Gnome Convention on January 26th. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Australian Gnome Convention)

It took three months of planning, a crane, and nine gardeners to transfer a palm tree called a cycad to a new pot. The operation at Kew Gardens in London was difficult and delicate because the tree is considered to be the oldest potted plant in the world.

The ancient cycad was collected in the early 1770s from the Eastern Cape in South Africa by Kew's first plant hunter, Frances Masson.

It was one of 500 species gathered for the botanical gardens during Captain Cook's second voyage around the globe.

For the last 160 years, the tree has been housed in Kew's Palm House, where its nobbly trunk has grown outwards and upwards at an inch a year.

It now stretches to 14ft 5 inches and because it is growing at an angle, is propped up by stilts.

The repotting procedure was successful. Link -via Unique Daily

(imafe credit: Jenny Goodall)

The standard theories of why Neandertals disappeared 28,000 years ago don't hold up, so scientists are looking in new directions. The assimilation/interbreeding theory should've yielded some DNA evidence, but there is none. The replacement/war theory isn't as cut and dried as it could be, since modern humans lived in the same territories as Neandertals for 15,000 years. Climate change? Sure, the earth was cooling at the time, but Neandertals had lived through ice ages before.

But the isotope data reveal that far from progressing steadily from mild to frigid, the climate became increasingly unstable heading into the last glacial maximum, swinging severely and abruptly. With that flux came profound ecological change: forests gave way to treeless grassland; reindeer replaced certain kinds of rhinoceroses. So rapid were these oscillations that over the course of an individual’s lifetime, all the plants and animals that a person had grown up with could vanish and be replaced with unfamiliar flora and fauna. And then, just as quickly, the environment could change back again.

Scientists are looking into the idea that Neandertals just weren't as adaptable as modern humans, and over time lost out in the competition for resources in a changing world. Link -via Metafilter

Crows can recognize individual people, but can you recognize a particular crow in a photo lineup? I couldn't! Even people who raise crows as pets have a hard time telling crows apart. NPR presents the quiz and an accompanying video about crow research. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111040421 -via the Presurfer

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What if the movie Ghost Busters was made a few decades earlier? YouTube member whoiseyevan used 17 sources to create a trailer for a 1954 version, starring Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, and Fred MacMurray. Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! -via YesButNoBuutYes

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has figured out how to recreate the "Crunchy Frog" confection made famous in the classic Monty Python sketch ("If we took the bones out it wouldn't be crunchy would it?") using Gummi frogs, Pop Rocks, and chocolate.

There are two remarkable things about this recipe. First, Pop Rocks survive being immersed in melted chocolate surprisingly well-- they still pop after the chocolate solidifies. Second, the artificial fruit flavor of the Pop Rocks is completely overwhelmed and masked by the bittersweet chocolate. We anticipated a bit of flavor conflict, but the chocolate won out completely, leaving only the pop-whiz-bang of the Pop Rocks.

Link

The diving bell spider breathes air, but spends its life underwater! To achieve this feat, this spider spins a cocoon that works as an aqualung. The spider traps tiny bubbles of air in the hairs of her legs and brings them underwater to store in the cocoon. The air bubble is also a nest for its young. See more pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via Unique Daily

Marvin Heemeyer spent a year and a half modifying a Komatsu D335A bulldozer into an "armored vehicle of vengeance". On June 4th, 2004, he rampaged through the town of Granby, Colorado, smashing vehicles and buildings, including the homes of those he felt had plotted against him.

The overencumbered vehicle was obviously difficult to control, and swerved widely through the streets, but Heemeyer was still able to seek out and and hit his specific targets. The bulldozer effortlessly demolished cars and buildings, including the home of a former mayor, the office of a newspaper that had sided against him in an editorial, the businesses of a former city councilman, and the city hall. Despite the destruction of property, no people had been injured or killed. killdozer_city_hallThe remains of Granby city hallThe Granby Police requisitioned an industrial scraper to pit heavy equipment against heavy equipment, but the Killdozer merely shoved the lighter adversary aside.

Over $7 million in damage was done that day. Read the entire story at Damn Interesting. Link

Jake Bronstein of Zoomdoggle (featured previously on Neatorama) set a record for longest whisper chain, passing a message successfully through 59 people. The message was a marriage proposal to his girlfriend! Link (embedded video) -via Metafilter

Cheeming Boey creates small pieces of art by sketching on foam coffee cups! His friends told him they would never sell, but that was before Marion Meyer saw them.

“I personally liked them,” says the former president of the Laguna Beach Art Walk. “And that's how I select artists. When I connect to the energy and passion someone creates in their art, that's when I like it.”

Meyer invited Boey to display his cups at her gallery during the monthly Art Walk. They sell for $120 to $220.

Link to story. Link to Flickr set. -via Buzzfeed

Also see Boey's website.

Robots that served in Afghanistan by remotely detonating explosives are now repurposed as "firebots" in London. These machines can safely get much closer to the source of the fire than human firefighters, which is particularly useful for gas fires.

The three robots are the Talon, a small, manoeuvrable machine with thermal-image cameras; the Black Max, which is similar to a quad bike and has a high-pressure hose, and the Brokk 90, which is a heavy-duty digger that removes debris.

The robots, manufactured by QinetiQ, went into service in London yesterday. Link -via Unique Daily

The Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey has a permanent display called "Musical Machines & Living Dolls", featuring over 700 antique automata, including quite a few fancily-dressed mechanical monkeys from France.

Though largely lost on passing schoolchildren and tourists at the Morris Museum, these monkeys were once a scathing critique on French aristocracy. There is a monkey on a early sort of bicycle called a velocipede, a monkey harpist, a monkey violinist, two small monkey musicians, and an incredible monkey dandy under a large glass dome. All are dressed in fine silks with hair done up in the style of French Royalty. These automata were a post-French-revolution joke on the former rulers and current dandies of France. So popular was the theme of foolish aristocratic monkeys that it was common in French homes, and whole rooms were decorated around the theme.

Read more about the mechanical monkey fad at Curious Expeditions. Link

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Warning: adorableness alert. 5-year-old Wesley performs Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" at the 2009 Spring Coffee Shop Jam in Seattle. Link -via Videogum

Researchers weren't looking for the effects of blue dye on spinal cord injuries, but there it is. What researcher were looking for was any chemical that was similar to the P2X7 receptor that blocks ATP, which causes inflammation of spinal cord injuries. FD&C blue dye No. 1 just happened to fit the description.

By lucky accident, researchers discovered that the commonly used food additive FD&C blue dye No. 1 is remarkably similar to a lab compound that blocks a key step in nerve inflammation. When rats with spinal cord injury were given an infusion of blue dye, they recovered much faster than rats that didn’t get the treatment. And researchers reported only one adverse effect: The rats turned blue.

“One of the reasons no one had done this before is that food science is very separate from neuroscience,” said neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center, who co-authored the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. “Those two fields don’t interact at all.”

The only problem with further research is the funding. The blue dye is so common that no underwriting company is likely to reap a profit from any medical breakthroughs. Link

22-year-old Tyler Bradt plunged over Palouse Falls in eastern Washington and set a world record for a kayak descent. The fall was 186 feet, which he covered in less than four seconds.

As rescue teams waited at the base of the falls Bradt calmly steered his fiberglass kayak into the raging water.

After disappearing under the water he emerged within six seconds with his broken paddle and sprained wrist.

'Considering the waterfall, the injuries were pretty minor,' he said.

The previous record for a kayak descent was 127 feet. Link -via Unique Daily