If you like octopuses and squids, you'll love this collection of marine lithographs from the collection "I Cefalopodi!" at the the Biodiversity Heritage Library on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. See nine pieces of the collection at BibliOdyssey. Link

A bioluminescent mushroom was discovered in Brazil in 1840 and named Agaricus gardneri (in honor of botanist George Gardner, who discovered it). The species was not observed again until 2009! I read that and thought. "How could they not see it? It glows in the dark!" Then I realized that the Brazilian rainforest must be an intimidating place in the dark. That turned out to be the true story.

To catch the green glow of the bioluminescent mushroom, Desjardin and his long-time research partner in Brazil, Dr. Cassius Stevani, had to "go out on new moon nights and stumble around in the forest, running into trees," he recalled, wary of nearby poisonous snakes and prowling jaguars.

But he said advances such as digital cameras have made it easier to track down bioluminescent fungi. New cameras allow researchers to photograph mushrooms that they suspect might be bioluminescent in darkened rooms and analyze the photos for a glow (sometimes one that's not visible to the human eye) within a few minutes, compared to the 30 to 40 minutes required of regular film exposure.

The brave mycologists brought back photographs of the same mushroom, now renamed Neonothopanus gardneri. Read more about it at Science Daily. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Cassius V. Stevani/IQ-USP, Brazil)

Fossils of a 160-million-year-old mammal found in China show us a placental mammal that is 35 million years older than any found before. This tiny animal is named Juramaia sinensis, or "Jurassic mother from China."

With forepaws adapted to climbing trees, the newfound eutherian scurried about temperate Jurassic forests feasting on insects under the cover of darkness. This diet allowed J. sinensis to tip the scales at around half an ounce (15 grams), making the creature lighter than a chipmunk.

"The great evolutionary lineage that includes us had a very humble beginning, in terms of body mass," said Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, who led the team that discovered the fossil.

Although this discovery helps us fill in the blanks of mammals' evolutionary timeline, the reason for the split between placental mammals and marsupials is still a mystery. Link -via The Caudal Lure

(Image credit: Mark A. Klinger, Carnegie Museum of Natural History)

(YouTube link)

Wildlife photographers (and brothers) Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas created the BeetlCam. It's a remote-control 4-wheel-drive miniature vehicle (toy) with a remote-control camera mounted on top, designed to take pictures of dangerous wild animals. Here we see the gadget in action in Tanzania. It appears to work very well! -via Laughing Squid

Sometimes it takes me a long time to get around to introducing new authors here at Neatorama, but you know what they say, better late than never! You may have noticed some posts from Joanna Ong, who is interning here at Neatorama. Jo is a student from Southern California. In her free time she plays tennis, dances to Teaser and the Firecat alone in her room, and ponders about where people would be at their best. Theoretically, as time goes on, her "senses will rise." Welcome Joanna!

If you didn't catch all our exclusive feature articles this week, we'll make it easy for you to find them. Jill Harness continued her series on Disneyland attractions with Neatorama Facts: Splash Mountain.

And she also brought us 4 Famous Sets of Sisters Who Changed History.

Meet Omar Shamshoon was about the Arabic version of the TV show The Simpsons, from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

The Annals of Improbable Research gave us Hand Sanitizing: An Informal Look.

On Friday, we had some Flowery Bits from mental_floss magazine.

At NeatoBambino, we saw new videos this week that were astonishing (a pregnant mom doing pullups), funny (grandma reading Go the F*%k to Sleep), and relatable (a baby care time-lapse). You really should make a point to check it out every day!

In this week's What Is It? game, the picture indeed shows us the inside of a Red Box DVD vending machine. The What Is It? Blog posted the video that the image was taken from. Marty McGuire knew the answer right off, but didn't select a t-shirt. The funniest answer came from Muno, who said this is one of the droids we were looking for! He wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop.

When you're caught up on everything from this week, you can access past feature articles at The Best of Neatorama. And have a great weekend!

These classes were found in college catalog listings of courses that are offered this fall at a campus near you. Well, maybe not near you, but some you'd be willing to travel for! Here's a sample:

16. How to Watch Television
Montclair State
Has that big screen in your living room always perplexed you? Flummoxed by the little rectangle that seems to control its every image and sound? Sorry to say, this class isn’t going to help. Despite its title, “How to Watch Television” is really about analyzing the medium and evaluating TV’s impact on our lives.

17. Invented Languages: Klingon and Beyond
University of Texas at Austin
The class explores the Star Trek language and Esperanto, among others. I’m willing to bet there’s a bit of Elvish thrown in there, too.

18. The Phallus
Occidental College
I feel like this one speaks for itself, but just in case you need it spelled out for you, here’s an excerpt from the syllabus: Topics include the signification of the phallus, the relation of the phallus to masculinity, femininity, genital organs and the fetish, the whiteness of the phallus, and the lesbian phallus.

Find all 22 of them at mental_floss. Link

This whole-earth image was taken Friday morning by the NASA/NOAA GOES-13 satellite. It shows Hurricane Irene to be about 510 miles wide. NASA has more information and images at the website. Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Flickr user NASA Goddard Photo and Video)

(YouTube link)

Watch out for this angry bird! He's got an AXE and he knows how to use it! Will nothing stop him? -via Buzzfeed

A series of thefts has been solved at the Toledo Police Memorial Garden. Officers had noticed small flags went missing over several days, but found no clue as to the identity of the perpetrator. On Wednesday, two policemen saw who was doing it. One of them snapped a picture of a squirrel in the act of grabbing a flag and a pink flower from the garden! The squirrel fled the scene and took the loot to his nest, which was discovered to be already festooned with stolen flags. No arrest were made, and the suspect is still at large. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Toledo Police Lieutenant James Brown)

(YouTube link)

Even zombies need some carefree down time! A short film by Travis Betz. -via The Daily What

Members of the Army's 84th Infantry Division who served together in World War II have been meeting annually for 66 consecutive years. Every year there are fewer survivors among the veterans, who are mostly in their late 80s. Marie McDonald, who attends each year with 85-year-old veteran Brownlee Bush, says traveling has become difficult for many, and the final reunion comes as a relief.

The 84th Division's 16,000 men began basic training in January 1943. They entered combat on Nov. 18, 1944, with an attack on Geilenkirchen, Germany, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and crossed the Rhine River on April 1, 1945. Within two weeks, the unit had reached the Elbe River, where it halted its advance and patrolled the banks until the war's end. The men spent 170 days in combat and earned seven distinguished unit citations.

"These guys fought a war," McDonald said. "We won a war in four years, when now the area they're fighting in is no bigger than Texas, and they've been there 10 years, and it's sad. We had a reason to fight. We wanted to be free."

The group held its first stateside reunion in Cincinnati in July 1946, just months after returning home. About 700 showed up.

Last year, only about 100 veterans attended, quite a few of them in wheelchairs. That's when they decided that this year's reunion will be the last one. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_db888e27-5b8b-5e63-9d8c-4f7b5150159e.html -via Fark

(Image credit: David Carson)

(YouTube link)

Take a museum tour like none you've ever seen! Astonish Me is a short film about newly-discovered species created by writer Stephen Poliakoff and director Charles Sturridge to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/50th_anniversary/astonish_me/ -Thanks, Danny Smits!

Each letter of the alphabet is represented by a character from the Star Wars universe here. Can you name them all? You might notice some of the main characters are missing in action, because a puzzle should never be too easy. The answers are at Gamma Squad. Link -via Buzzfeed

Environmental Graffiti has a gallery of images from an underground crypt in Belgium. It was used for burials for decades, but maintenance was discontinued because of the expense. After years of decay, access to the crypt was closed for safety reasons. But you can see it still. Photographer and urban explorer Sven Fennema takes you on an underground tour with fascinating pictures from his book Anderswelten (Other Worlds).

"The air was very cold and wet, and you could see your every breath – also an experience I will never forget. It was as if death was close beside you somehow. The crypt was full of those strange plastic flowers – still with their bright colors – but it was also full of spiders' webs and other kinds of decay.”

Link

(Image credit: Sven Fennema)

Advertising company Ogilvy & Mather put together a campaign for the plastic model company Tamiya featuring kits that you can use to illustrate your favorite conspiracy theory. This one is for the faked moon landing; others have to do with Roswell, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and the Kennedy assassination. Link