Aaron Foster creates maps of the USA from old liscence plates, with all 50 states represented. You can buy one, but yours may have slightly different plates, as each map is hand-crafted. Link -via the Presurfer
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Aaron Foster creates maps of the USA from old liscence plates, with all 50 states represented. You can buy one, but yours may have slightly different plates, as each map is hand-crafted. Link -via the Presurfer
How fun could this be? Dave England and Matt Beach blew up 8,000 balloons and filled a skating bowl, just to see what it would be like to ride through them. Push play or go to YouTube. -via Cynical-C
The World Rubik’s Cube Champioinship was held this past weekend in Budapest, the puzzle’s birthplace. Yu Nakajima of Japan won by solving his cube in 12.46 seconds! However, the world record is still held by Frenchman Thibaut Jacquinot who solved one in 9.86 seconds last May. 14-year-old Hungarian Matyas Kuti set a record for the larger 5x5 cube competition with an average time of one minute and 45 seconds. There were other categories of competition, like solving a cube with your feet! Link -via Geek Like Me
October 8th is (unofficially) International Cephalopod Awareness Day!
Ceph·a·lo·pods are marine mollusks like squid, octopus and cuttlefish, characterized by well-developed eyes and sucker-bearing tentacles. The word is from the combination of the Greek kefale and pous, roughly meaning head feet. Some folks pronouce it sefalopod, others say kefalopod.
Take this opportunity to hug an octopus. If there are no octopi or squid near you, may I suggest perusing Pink Tentacle or Ectoplasmosis? Both blogs are very cephalopod-friendly. There are links to many other cephalopod sites at Cephalopodcast. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Dam Sen Cultural Park in Vietnam has a collection of sculptures made from ceramic dishes and flatware! Link -via Dump Trumpet
I couldn’t help but laugh at this remix of an Arby’s ad! Push play or go to YouTube. -via the Presurfer
The Ig Nobel Prizes for 2007 were awarded at a ceremony at Harvard University on October 4th. Pictured is winner Dan Meyer demonstrating his research on sword-swallowing at the award ceremony. The Ig Nobel prizes are awarded each year for unusual and imaginative research that makes people laugh, but also makes people think. Here are the winners.
MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects."
PHYSICS: L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled.
BIOLOGY: Prof. Dr. Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, for doing a census of all the mites, insects, spiders, pseudoscorpions, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi with whom we share our beds each night.
CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin -- vanilla fragrance and flavoring -- from cow dung.
LINGUISTICS: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.
LITERATURE: Glenda Browne of Blaxland, Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the" -- and of the many ways it causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order.
PEACE: The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA, for instigating research & development on a chemical weapon -- the so-called "gay bomb" -- that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.
NUTRITION: Brian Wansink of Cornell University, for exploring the seemingly boundless appetites of human beings, by feeding them with a self-refilling, bottomless bowl of soup.
ECONOMICS: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device, in the year 2001, that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.
AVIATION: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters.
Links for each winner and/or their winning research can be found at Improbable Research. Link -via J-Walk Blog
Jason Lewis completed his round-the-world trip yesterday. It took 13 years, two months, and 23 days. Lewis is the first person to ever travel around the world using only his own power. He walked, bicycled, paddled, skated, and pedaled his way across 46,000 miles of land and sea. He has been injured, chased by a crocodile, menaced by pirates, and questioned as a suspected spy. What’s next for Lewis? He hasn’t said, but he should write a book. Push play or go to Live Leak. Link to story. Link to Lewis’ website. -via Arbroath
Threadbanger has posted a tutorial at Instructables on how to make your own fairy wings (or butterfly wings or whatever) for your Halloween costume. The main ingredients are old pantyhose or tights and some coat hangers. Link
The Flickr pool Bad Signage displays signs found all over. Some are merely misspelled, and some are downright Freudian. Link -via J-Walk Blog
There are over a million described species of insects, and even more that haven’t been studied. A little research indicates they are all strange in different ways. It was not easy to pick a dozen for this list, but these are all pretty weird.
The Longest Insect.
The Borneo walking stick (Phobaeticus kirbyi) can grow to up to 32 centimeters long, with another 14 centimeters if you measure the legs stretched out! But you might not see one, even if you are in Borneo and looking for them, since they closely resemble the slender tree branches they live on.
The Biggest.
(image source: KVUE)
Goliath beetles (Goliathus) are the largest insects in terms of bulk and weight. They can reach over 4 inches long, which doesn’t sound like much, til you look at the picture. The beetles are native to the African tropics, where they subsist on tree sap and fruit. Goliath beetles can be kept as pets, just feed them dog food (but don’t expect them to come when called).
Strongest animal on earth.
The Hercules beetle (Dynastes hercules) is a species of rhinoceros beetle that lives in South America. It can grow to over 6 inches in length (counting its horns), but its claim to fame is its strength. The Hercules beetle can support 850 times its own weight on its shell! This beetles eats only vegetation and is not aggressive, except to other Hercules beetles, when males fight each other over females.
Weird Lifecycle.
(Image credit: Hans Pohl)
The twisted-wing parasite (Strepsiptera) is an order of insects who display a gruesome lifestyle. The larval stage parasite will climb a flower and wait for an insect pollinator (bee or wasp) to come along. They climb aboard the bee, burrow into its body, and change into a second-stage larva. They feed off the blood and organs of the host. An adult male parasite will emerge from the host and search for a mate -a process that takes such little time that he never develops a mouth. The adult female remains in the host’s body for the rest of her life, never growing legs or wings. She mates by pushing only her reproductive organs outside of the bee’s body! Her offspring will emerge and look for new hosts.
Violent Sex.
The gruesome behavior or the male African bat bug (Afrocimex constrictus) is directed at other bat bugs. Instead of copulating via the female’s sex organs, he will stab her abdomen to release sperm directly into her bloodstream. So the females have evolved paragenitals, a “spongy reservoir of immune cells” as a defense against these tactics. But since male bat bugs are not particular when it comes to mating, some male bat bugs have also developed paragenitals to defend themselves against sexual attack!
Bizarre Body Parts.
Seed Beetles have rough sex, too, but in the conventional manner. What is very unconventional is the male seed beetle’s penis (shown in above picture). He can do some damage with that thing. So female seed beetles have developed thicker, more padded reproductive canals over time as self-defense against their paramour.
Trap and Torture.
Tree ants (Allomerus decemarticulatus) in the Amazon contruct elaborate traps for other insects they feed upon. They build these traps from tree fibers reinforced with fungus. When an unsuspecting insect encounters the trap, the ants emerge from hiding underneath and pull the prey’s legs to immobilize them, almost like a torture rack. Then they dismember the victim and carry the parts off to the colony. This method of “drawing and quartering” allows the ants to dine on insects much larger than themselves.
Unstoppable Swarmers.
(image credit: Mehmet Karatay)
Driver ants (Dorylus) or siafu are the masters of the swarm. Dorylus includes several species of army ants, primarily found in Africa. Colonies can contain 20 million ants! When the column is on the march looking for food, people can avoid them just by stepping aside. But there have been cases where invalids have been killed (by asphyxiation) when a column of ants marches through the house. They have been known to kill and eat animals up to the size of small zebras. The soldiers of the colony flank the column. Their bite is so strong and persistant that they are sometimes used to suture wounds; just apply an ant while you hold the wound together and let it bite, then rip the body off. It should hold for a few days. Male driver ants are so much larger than the rest of the colony that they appear to be a different species. Males lead a solitary life until sexual maturity, when they approach the colony for mating. When a male is detected, the workers of the colony tear off his wings and take him to be mated with their queen. You can watch this process on video.
Gruesome Bloodsuckers.
Assassin bugs use a mouth tube to inject toxin into their prey. This toxin acts as an anaesthetic and also liquifies tissues, the easier to suck you dry with. There are thousands of assassin bug species; some eat only other insects and some attack reptiles, birds, and mammals. This assassin bug is turning the tables on a vampire bat. Notice how you can see the blood entering the young insect.
Deadliest of all.
The mosquito (Culicidae) causes the deaths of millions of people every year. They spread yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, West Nile Virus, and malaria from person to person, without being affected by the diseases themselves. They also transmit the debilitating filariasis worm, which can lead to elephantiasis in humans. Mosquitos are nasty business.
The Prettiest (discounting butterflies).
The Orchid mantis (Hymenopus coronatus) is a variety of flower mantis usually found in Malaysia and Indonesia. Doesn’t the mantis pictured look just like an orchid? They hide in the flowers they resemble, waiting for other delicious insects to alight. See a beautiful picture of a pink flower mantis here.
The strangest of all.
The weirdest insect of all is the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera). That may surprise you, but the only reason they don’t seem strange is because we are familiar with them. But think... how many insects produce a delicious food product enjoyed by bees, bears, and people? In addition to honey, bees produce beeswax, honeycombs, royal jelly, and venom. Bees communicate with each other, coordinate colony activities, determine the fate of the next generation, and are master architects, chemists, and engineers. Bees are crucial to food production as they pollinate billions of dollars worth of crops each year. Just don’t step on one barefoot!
The Longest Insect.
The Borneo walking stick (Phobaeticus kirbyi) can grow to up to 32 centimeters long, with another 14 centimeters if you measure the legs stretched out! But you might not see one, even if you are in Borneo and looking for them, since they closely resemble the slender tree branches they live on.
The Biggest.
(image source: KVUE)
Goliath beetles (Goliathus) are the largest insects in terms of bulk and weight. They can reach over 4 inches long, which doesn’t sound like much, til you look at the picture. The beetles are native to the African tropics, where they subsist on tree sap and fruit. Goliath beetles can be kept as pets, just feed them dog food (but don’t expect them to come when called).
Strongest animal on earth.
The Hercules beetle (Dynastes hercules) is a species of rhinoceros beetle that lives in South America. It can grow to over 6 inches in length (counting its horns), but its claim to fame is its strength. The Hercules beetle can support 850 times its own weight on its shell! This beetles eats only vegetation and is not aggressive, except to other Hercules beetles, when males fight each other over females.
Weird Lifecycle.
(Image credit: Hans Pohl)
The twisted-wing parasite (Strepsiptera) is an order of insects who display a gruesome lifestyle. The larval stage parasite will climb a flower and wait for an insect pollinator (bee or wasp) to come along. They climb aboard the bee, burrow into its body, and change into a second-stage larva. They feed off the blood and organs of the host. An adult male parasite will emerge from the host and search for a mate -a process that takes such little time that he never develops a mouth. The adult female remains in the host’s body for the rest of her life, never growing legs or wings. She mates by pushing only her reproductive organs outside of the bee’s body! Her offspring will emerge and look for new hosts.
Violent Sex.
The gruesome behavior or the male African bat bug (Afrocimex constrictus) is directed at other bat bugs. Instead of copulating via the female’s sex organs, he will stab her abdomen to release sperm directly into her bloodstream. So the females have evolved paragenitals, a “spongy reservoir of immune cells” as a defense against these tactics. But since male bat bugs are not particular when it comes to mating, some male bat bugs have also developed paragenitals to defend themselves against sexual attack!
Bizarre Body Parts.
Seed Beetles have rough sex, too, but in the conventional manner. What is very unconventional is the male seed beetle’s penis (shown in above picture). He can do some damage with that thing. So female seed beetles have developed thicker, more padded reproductive canals over time as self-defense against their paramour.
Trap and Torture.
Tree ants (Allomerus decemarticulatus) in the Amazon contruct elaborate traps for other insects they feed upon. They build these traps from tree fibers reinforced with fungus. When an unsuspecting insect encounters the trap, the ants emerge from hiding underneath and pull the prey’s legs to immobilize them, almost like a torture rack. Then they dismember the victim and carry the parts off to the colony. This method of “drawing and quartering” allows the ants to dine on insects much larger than themselves.
Unstoppable Swarmers.
(image credit: Mehmet Karatay)
Driver ants (Dorylus) or siafu are the masters of the swarm. Dorylus includes several species of army ants, primarily found in Africa. Colonies can contain 20 million ants! When the column is on the march looking for food, people can avoid them just by stepping aside. But there have been cases where invalids have been killed (by asphyxiation) when a column of ants marches through the house. They have been known to kill and eat animals up to the size of small zebras. The soldiers of the colony flank the column. Their bite is so strong and persistant that they are sometimes used to suture wounds; just apply an ant while you hold the wound together and let it bite, then rip the body off. It should hold for a few days. Male driver ants are so much larger than the rest of the colony that they appear to be a different species. Males lead a solitary life until sexual maturity, when they approach the colony for mating. When a male is detected, the workers of the colony tear off his wings and take him to be mated with their queen. You can watch this process on video.
Gruesome Bloodsuckers.
Assassin bugs use a mouth tube to inject toxin into their prey. This toxin acts as an anaesthetic and also liquifies tissues, the easier to suck you dry with. There are thousands of assassin bug species; some eat only other insects and some attack reptiles, birds, and mammals. This assassin bug is turning the tables on a vampire bat. Notice how you can see the blood entering the young insect.
Deadliest of all.
The mosquito (Culicidae) causes the deaths of millions of people every year. They spread yellow fever, dengue fever, encephalitis, West Nile Virus, and malaria from person to person, without being affected by the diseases themselves. They also transmit the debilitating filariasis worm, which can lead to elephantiasis in humans. Mosquitos are nasty business.
The Prettiest (discounting butterflies).
The Orchid mantis (Hymenopus coronatus) is a variety of flower mantis usually found in Malaysia and Indonesia. Doesn’t the mantis pictured look just like an orchid? They hide in the flowers they resemble, waiting for other delicious insects to alight. See a beautiful picture of a pink flower mantis here.
The strangest of all.
The weirdest insect of all is the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera). That may surprise you, but the only reason they don’t seem strange is because we are familiar with them. But think... how many insects produce a delicious food product enjoyed by bees, bears, and people? In addition to honey, bees produce beeswax, honeycombs, royal jelly, and venom. Bees communicate with each other, coordinate colony activities, determine the fate of the next generation, and are master architects, chemists, and engineers. Bees are crucial to food production as they pollinate billions of dollars worth of crops each year. Just don’t step on one barefoot!
Nissan unveiled its new Pivo 2 concept car last week in Japan. It has no axles; the four wheels operate independently. Both the wheels and the cab can rotate, eliminating the need for reverse gear. Sure makes parking a breeze! The car also features an onboard robot who can help with navigation and will check to see if you are too sleepy to drive. Push play or go to Live Leak. Link to story. -via Arboath
The world is a very dangerous place. Here’s a collection of safety posters warning you about the dangers of various animals. http://www.unc.edu/~landy/Public_Safety/becareful.htm -via the Presurfer
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