Dutch sculptors Adrie and Alfons Kennis are the artists behind many of the recreations of early man you've already seen, like Otzi the Iceman and the recent Cheddar Man. They are also twin brothers. The Kennises are most renowned for their sculptures of even older people -Neanderthals and other hominins. Their third display in the UK will open in October at St Fagans National Museum of History in Wales. To do the work they do, the Kennis brothers have studied human anatomy, evolution, DNA, and anthropology. The results are sculptures that appear startlingly lifelike while still being different from what we know.   

This alien-ness is tempered, however, by their particular skill for facial expressions, giving life and personality to the clay. Each full-sized reconstruction takes half a year, but a face alone can take a whole month, and although the brothers refuse to refer to themselves as artists, this is obviously the area that gives them the greatest artistic freedom and satisfaction. “There are some things the skull can’t tell you,” admits Adrie. “You never know how much fat someone had around their eyes, or the thickness of the lips, or the exact position and shape of the nostrils.”

This personal quality is what makes Kennis models so captivating, and so desirable to museums: they don’t simply depict a generalised early man, but a specific man or woman, an effect that allows onlookers to glimpse human prehistory with immediacy, even familiarity. But while curators and museum-goers are sometimes surprised by the vivid, emotive features of the Kennis models, there is only one person Adrie needs to impress: “If Alfons doesn’t like the face, I am disappointed. But if he likes it, if we are both satisfied, then we can handle the whole world.”

Read about the sculptors' process, and get a preview of their Neanderthal recreations at The Guardian. Article contains some Neanderthal nudity. -via Metafilter

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Gravity wins again! The Apollo moon landings were the first time humans walked on a celestial body besides Earth, and the astronauts found that it was quite different. While there is less gravity, it still works. But the other forces of physics were no different, so just moving around was a learning experience. And those cumbersome spacesuits didn't help. YouTuber Martian Archaeology put together a blooper reel of sorts from NASA footage. It's okay, since 50 years on, we know they made it back home in one piece. -via Tastefully Offensive 

Nappone at the upholstery shop.

Italian photographer Marianna Zampieri presents a series called C-AT Work that features cats who go to work with their humans. Librarians, hair stylists, musicians, craftspeople, office workers, and store owners go about their day as their cat presides over their domain.

Fulvio in his theater.

The goal of this project is always to try to capture the beauty of the relationship that is created between cats and people with whom they share most of the time, demonstrating the great dignity and incredible adaptability of these animals in any situation. All seasoned by the setting that the most diverse work environments can give, creating the astonishment that can be born seeing the cats placed in environments where we are not used to see them.

Nando at the newsstand.

You can see the series in slideshow format at Facebook and more of Zampieri's cat photography at Instagram. -via Laughing Squid

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Ze Frank suddenly has another True Facts video. This one isn't about some weird animal, but the weird plants that eat animals. He talks about plants eating bugs as payback for us eating plants, but that only works if you feel closely related to insects. And if that's the way you feeel, the video might strike you as a bit gruesome. Contains NSFW language. 

In 1958, America's new space agency called NASA launched an extensive search for men who would become astronauts. Of 508 candidates, the Mercury 7 were selected via a battery of physical, psychological, and intellectual tests.

Hopefuls sat in extreme heat and cold, did math in 145-decibel rooms (normal conversation is 60 dB), and spent hours in isolation chambers. On top of all that, candidates took 12 intelligence tests. These exams sought to predict a wealth of unknowns: how the men would maneuver spacecraft, if they could problem-solve midflight, and whether they grasped the science that would keep them aloft.

While the physical tests can't be taken online, Popular Science is offering us the chance to try a small portion of the intelligence tests those men took 60 years ago. I tried it; all I can say it I'm glad the questions aren't timed. Good luck! -via Mental Floss

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We know crows are intelligent and good with tools. We know they learn from watching others do things. And in case you didn't know, they hang around train stations in Japan. This crow is using an automated kiosk to buy a ticket. When the machine says "insert credit card," the crow realizes he doesn't have one, but the women at the next machine does -so he takes it! The video stops before we find out if he got a ticket; let's assume the woman took her credit card back. Sure, he could have flown to his destination, but why flap your own wings when you can use someone else's money to ride? -via Digg

Wisteria sinensis, or Chinese wisteria, is blooming all over London. It's been a favorite in the city for a couple of centuries now.

Wisteria Sinensis was unknown in Europe before 1816, when several agents of the East India Company working in China sent cuttings back to England.[3] A 200 year-old vine, growing at Griffin's Brewery in Chiswick, London, planted that same year, is often cited as England's oldest living wisteria plant.[4][5] Over the next several decades the plant became, and remains, one of the quintessential ornamental vines in English gardens. The white-flowering form, Wisteria Sinensis Alba, was discovered in a garden by Botanist Robert Fortune in 1844, from whence he took cuttings for the Royal Horticultural Society.[6] It is most commonly trained along garden walls, along the exterior of buildings, or over a pergola to create avenues of overhanging blossoms during bloom.

The Londonist has a roundup of Instagram pictures of London's lovely wisteria in bloom from just the past week or so. If you want to see more, unrestricted by date or location, check out #wisteria at Instagram.  -via Nag on the Lake

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One thing we don't have enough of is Western movies with giant monsters. There's Valley of the Gwangi (1969), and uh, that's about it. But now Fabrice Mathieu (previously at Neatorama) brings us a mashup with gunslingers defending the Alamo from a swarm of giant mutant insects! Far Alamo stars John Wayne, Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner, Richard Widmark, James Coburn, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, Lee Van Cleef, and a host other actors you'd expect in a classic Western. This shoot-em-up was pieced together from a dozen different films, listed at the vimeo page. -Thanks, Fabrice!

The Salem (Illinois) Police Department posted a courtesy alert for its citizens at Facebook.  

This message was written on one of our city sidewalks today with sidewalk chalk. As a courtesy, we want to keep our citizens informed. Please, if you have satin sheets or pillowcases, keep them under lock and key as someone apparently wants to worship them!

This is your periodic reminder that if you want to strike fear into the hearts of your fellow men, it helps if you know how to spell. (via reddit)

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Cats who have human servants know they can dillydally as much as they want. They flaunt their superior position by taking their own sweet time. Why should they be in any hurry for a mere human? And so it is with Simon's Cat. My big tomcat will interrupt work and demand to be let outside, but then after I get up, it takes him forever to actually make it to the back door. He's just asserting his dominion over me, I am sure. -via Tastefully Offensive

Archaeological discoveries of ancient humans keep pushing our knowledge about our species further back in time. The Americas haven't been populated by people as long as other parts of the world, but exactly how long they've been here and how they got here are open subjects we still have a lot to learn about. Occasionally, a skeleton or a skull is found that dates back to the beginnings of their settlement. Real Clear Science give us a list of some of the biggest such discoveries.   

Kennewick Man, perhaps the best known and most controversial ancient human remains in the United States, was found jutting from a patch of eroded dirt along the Columbia River near Kennewick Washington just 22 years ago. In life, roughly 9,000 years in the past, he spent much of his time moving around by water, hunting and eating marine animals and drinking glacial meltwater. In death, his remains were constantly the focus of lawsuits between indigenous peoples who sought to bury the remains and archaeologists who sought to learn from them. After DNA tests confirmed that Kennewick Man was closely related to modern day Native Americans, his remains were returned and reburied at an undisclosed location.

Read the stories of five other people who lived thousands of years ago in what is now the United States at Real Clear Science.

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Turn the sound on before you watch this. Tasha is playing hide-and-seek because she doesn't want to go inside, and she's found the perfect hiding place! Tasha is pretty smart for a dog. She understands that her man's viewpoint is different from her own. She's a little fuzzy on the concept of glass doors, though. -via Bits and Pieces

Burros, or donkeys, are descended from the African wild ass. They are not indigenous to North America, but were imported by the Spanish. Burros proved to be the most useful beast of burden for the Grand Canyon area, where unsuccessful prospectors would sometimes abandon their animals, which led to a feral population of burros. That's how the burro named Brighty found himself living in the Grand Canyon.

Brighty himself, who lived from about 1882 to 1922, was first seen in the Canyon near an abandoned miner’s tent, sitting vigil as if expecting the tent’s occupant to return. The burro appreciated occasional human companionship, especially when pancakes were involved. He spent summers on the cooler North Rim, hanging out with the game warden Jim Owens or the McKee family, who managed the first tourist facility on the North Rim, which opened in 1917. Brighty came and went as he pleased, toting water for the McKees’ young son, but scraping off any loads he deemed unworthy of his efforts. For instance, if a hunter caught Brighty and tried to make him pack his gear, Brighty would sneak away, rubbing the pack against trees until the lashing loosened and the load fell off.

It was along the North Rim that early Canyon tourists first met Brighty, probably between 1917 and 1922. Wills writes, “Vacationers struggling to interpret, or connect with, the immense scale of the Canyon (John Muir called it an ‘unearthly’ place), appreciated the presence of a familiar creature.”

But Brighty’s hybrid existence—not exactly wild, but not domesticated enough to be consistently useful—would count against him and his kind when the park service decided in the early 20th century that it should restore the Canyon to a pre-Columbian state of virgin splendor. Having arrived with the Spaniards, the burro was not native to Arizona.

The National Park Service's plan for ridding the canyon of invasive species meant shooting the feral burros. Brightly had already passed on, but his story made him the face of the effort to save the burros. Animal lovers did not want them shot, and others wanted to maintain the feral burros for their part in US history. Others believed the canyon should be returned to its pre-settlement ecosystem. The controversy went on for decades. Read about Brighty and his legacy at Atlas Obscura.

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Yes, it would be nice to have a machine that makes breakfast, but then you remember that making bacon and eggs is about the easiest thing there is to do in the kitchen. But this machine is impressive! There are two LEGO contraptions here. One is a huge scaffolding that delivers bacon and eggs to the frying pan, and even cracks the eggs open. The other is a vehicle which can move things around as needed and flip and serve the food with a spatula. YouTuber The Brick Wall (previously at Neatorama) built this set up for his father, who makes breakfast every weekend. He worked an entire week just to get the egg cracking unit right.  -via Digg  

We love cats, and we love monster movies. What's even better? Cats starring in monster movies! Thrill to the spectacle of a 50-foot cat stomping through Tokyo or some other urban area, blocking traffic and knocking things over (as they do). Indonesian digital artist Fransdita Muafidin imagines these scenarios in photo mashups, with fluffy kittens threatening society with their incredible mutant mass and their adorableness. See 17 of his photo collages in a roundup at at Sad and Useless, and more at Muafidin's Instagram gallery. -via Everlasting Blort