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Hugh Atkin edited this video which makes the theme of the US presidential election clear to everyone. Music by David Bowie. -via Sadly, No!

The Library of Congress recently found four photographs of the crowd at President Abraham Lincoln’s second inauguration on March 4, 1865. The negatives of the photos had been mislabeled! In this picture, Lincoln is at the podium, almost in the middle, not wearing his stovepipe hat. Link -Thanks, Mr. Lonka!

Two British men on vacation, Nick Calleya from Cubert in Cornwall and George Carstairs from Scotland caught a 100-year-old fish in the Fraser River in British Columbia in Canada. The 500 pound white sturgeon was 10 feet long! After taking pictures and video of the catch, the fishing guide who had piloted the boat tagged the huge fish with a microchip ID as part of a conservation research project and released it back into the river. Link -via A Welsh View

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This past week, we’ve featured music played on office equipment, vegetables, and an octopus toy. Now it’s the professionals' turn! Here’s the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing the Victoria Bitters theme on beer bottles. -via Dark Roasted Blend

Who needs a shower stall when you’ve got Pluviae? A great design for a minimalist bathroom, or a very small space for one, from Matteo Thun & Partners. http://www.matteothun.com/content/pluviae.htm -via Ursi’s Blog

A collection of surreal animations about the misadventures of a couple of incarcerated bunnies. Scroll down on the site and click on a video image. The site is in Japanese, but the videos have no dialogue. Link -via Militant Playtpus

Engineers at the University of Washington are developing techniques to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. The lenses incorporate circuits made from layers of metal only a few nanometers thick and light-emitting diodes one third of a millimeter across. The possible uses for such technology range from drivers and pilots reading meters while watching out the window, to video games and internet usage.

"People may find all sorts of applications for it that we have not thought about. Our goal is to demonstrate the basic technology and make sure it works and that it's safe," said [Babak] Parviz, who heads a multi-disciplinary UW group that is developing electronics for contact lenses.

The lenses were tested on rabbits, who showed no adverse effect. Link -via J-Walk Blog

(image credit: University of Washington)

Just what you’ve always wanted -your very own tentacle arm!

While we've been using our primitive, apelike arms like a bunch of jerks, the squids of the world have been clutching their prey with their superior tentacles and laughing at us. Until now! For the first time, you can have tentacles of your very own. Equipped with suction cups and plenty of creepy greenness.

http://www.gaiastore.com/servlet/Detail?no=221 -via the Presurfer

A tourist who visited the Frank Aston Underground Museum at Mount Isa in Queensland, Australia in 1983 lifted an artifact and took it home to the US -a boomerang. Twenty-five years later, he mailed the boomerang back with apologies. The package was sent to the old museum address, which is now a paper manufacturing plant. The mayor of Mount Isa said that no one ever realized the boomerang was missing, but they hoped to return it to its original owner.

This case tends to prove what Australians have always told us -a boomerang will always come back! http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/boomerang_comes_back__after_25_years_538257 -via Arbroath

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories taught us how to build a fast-moving “bristlebot” out of a toothbrush last month. The sequel is another robot that moves using the same principle of vibrating fibers, but this “snailbot” runs very slowly, on the oriented nap of velvet! Link

In this video, Google’s parents are out of town and she throws a party, and many popular sites show up. Wikipedia takes notes, eBay wants to make a deal, Something Awful and eBaum’s World get into a fight, Facebook annoys everyone, Cracked tries to impress Digg, and YouTube gets it all on video. I LOLed! Warning: some adult language. Link -via Metafilter

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From the documentary series on endangered species called Before It's Too Late. -via Arbroath

Photographer Lewis Hine {wiki} spent a decade documenting child workers for the National Child Labor Committee in the early 20th century. His famous photos helped to outlaw child labor in America. Joe Manning has spent considerable time on a project to find out what happened to the children in the photographs, and is posting his findings. Among others is the story of how he uncovered the fate of Addie Card, described in a Hine photo as “an anemic little spinner”. Manning began his search inspired by the work of author Elizabeth Winthrop.

How long did she work at the mill? Did she finish school? Did she have children? How long did she live? Could she have living descendants? Had she been aware of Hine's famous photo? That's what Elizabeth wanted to know - and at that moment, so did I. As a historian, author and genealogist, I had experienced the excitement of the hunt and the elation of turning over the right rock at the right time.

Manning found what he was looking for in the case of Annie Card, and it’s a fascinating story. He’s had varying levels of success for the other photo subjects in this ongoing project. Link -via Metafilter

The MESSENGER mission took this picture on January 14th just after its closest approach to Mercury -about 17,000 miles away. This is the previously unmapped part of the planet that was missed by the Mariner 10 probe, which flew by Mercury three times in 1974 and 1975. NASA says that enhanced and color pictures will follow. http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/news_room/status_report_01_15_08_2.html -via Wired Science

Koalas, like some other animals, often have blue eyes as infants. But at nine months old, Frankie’s eyes never turned brown. He is therefore the world’s only known blue-eyed koala. His caretakers were so worried that they had his vision tested, and found that he sees just fine. Frankie, named for Frank Sinatra, is a resident at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast of Australia.
Link (with video) -via Unique Daily