Egyptian officials have announced that the mummy of King Tut will be removed from its sarcophagus and displayed to the public in a climate-controlled glass case starting next month in Luxor. The move is partially to preserve the damaged mummy, which now lies in his tomb with no protection from the humidity generated by tourists. King Tut will be partially rewrapped in new linen, but the face will be left bare when the exhibition begins. Link
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
In times of stress, some single-celled organisms band together to create an entity that resembles a multicellular animal. And some of members of the colony will sacrifice their lives to ensure the survival of others. In Carol Otte’s first article for Damn Interesting, the altruism of amoebas becomes fascinating. Link
Beautiful underwater photography by Kawika Chetron.
On Saturday, March 17, 2007 Kawika launched his boat in Eureka, California. When he did not return that evening, the Coast Guard launched a search, finding his boat Sunday morning. Kawika's camera was on board; Kawika and his dive gear were not. The Coast Guard continued the search until Monday evening. He has not been found.
Link -via the Presurfer
The modern version of the classic cat wall clock, made of recycled computer parts, including a hard drive disc and a floppy disc. He even has memory ears! Link -via Everlasting Blort
R&D Magazine recently published their picks of the 100 best inventions of 2007. American Inventor Spot picked their ten favorites of the list. These include Functionalized Nanoporous Thin Film that attracted heavy metals in water, the Lego Mindstorms NXT, fabric that protects against injury, and an air conditioning system that controls humidity. Link -via Dump Trumpet
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
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