It's not easy getting trees to build a tunnel -they have to grow that way! But after many years, you end up with something spectacular. Check out a list of lovely tree tunnels from around the world, blossoming, growing, dormant, and even photographed in glorious autumn color. This photo shows a tunnel in Portugal. Link -Thanks, David!

(Image credit: Flickr user Raul Lieberwirth)

The following is an article from Uncle John’s Great Big Bathroom Reader.

Ask any film buff to name the worst directors of all-time, and you can be sure Ed Wood's name will come up. He's become a legend for films like Plan 9 From Outer Space -a movie so bad it needs to be seen just to be believed. This piece was written by someone who knew him -in fact, the reluctant star of Plan 9, Gregory Walcott.

The Connection

Early in our marriage, Barbara and I lived in a cottage just across the street from the First Baptist Church of Beverly Hills. Ed Reynolds, a chubby little man who attended the church, had come out to Hollywood from Alabama to make Biblical films. He talked to me occasionally, knowing I was in the movie industry, about his "calling" to produce religious movies with life-embracing themes. I tried not to encourage him, knowing he had no background in film production. Naive individuals like Reynolds are easy bait for Hollywood hucksters.

Reynolds' Big Break

About a year later, Reynolds came to me and said he was going to finance a film starring Bela Lugosi. He wanted me to play the young romantic lead. I said to him, "But Ed, Bela Lugosi is DEAD!"

Reynolds said, "Well, that's not a problem. There's a very ingenious director, Ed Wood, who has some excellent footage of Lugosi, and he has written a very clever screenplay around that film."

"But Ed, I thought you wanted to make religious pictures!"



"Yes! That's the ultimate plan. But Biblical pictures with big sets, large casts and costumes are very expensive. This fellow, Wood, has convinced me that by making a few exploitation films, I can build up my bankroll to where I can then make big budget Biblical films."

I had never heard of Ed Wood, so I asked to see the script. It was the most atrocious piece of writing I had ever seen. A child could have written better dialog. I said, "Ed, this is a terrible script, and I hate to see you get involved in this project and lose your money."

"No, no! I want you to meet the director," he insisted. "I'll arrange a luncheon."

Reynolds was dazzled by Hollywood and couldn't be dissuaded.

Before the meeting, I looked into Wood's background, and discovered he had done a few cheesy low-budget pictures. It was incongruous that sweet, sincere Reynolds, who wanted to produce inspirational Biblical motion pictures, would be connected with Wood, whose movies could only be booked in fleabag theaters on back streets.

Meeting the Auteur

At the luncheon, I found Wood to be a charmingly handsome man, who gushed about how perfect I would be working with a top-notch Hollywood crew and a good cast.

by Gregory J. Gage†, Hirak Parikh†, Timothy C. Marzullo††
† University of Michigan, Department of Biomedical Engineering
†† University of Michigan, Neuroscience Program

Here we explain most of the mysteries concerning the brain.

We report the “Cingular Theory of Uni?cation,” which postulates that one brain region— the “cingulate cortex”—is the alpha and omega, responsible for all of humankind’s functions. We believe that this theory not only explains the available data, but also prophesizes exponential growth in cingulate research that will dominate all neuroscience research. We provide humble advice on how to avoid such an apocalyptic future.

The History and Mystery of the Cingulate Cortex

Since the discovery of the small strip of brain called the cingulate cortex in the early 19th century, research has progressed from a trickle of studies to a torrent of investigations threatening to flood the field of neuroscience completely. In these ensuing years the cingulate has been found to play a vital role in almost all human emotions and behaviors, from error prediction to pain perception, and from political persuasion to one’s feeling of optimism. But with so many functions, it has been difficult to answer this simple question: what exactly is the role of the cingulate?

The Mystery and History of the Cingulate Cortex

The cingulate cortex resides in a ring-like strip of brain tissue in the center fold of the neocortex surrounding the lateral ventricles. The shape of this brain region presumably inspired the German physiologists1 who discovered it to name it the “cingulate,” derived from the Latin cingulum, meaning a belt worn by Roman soldiers to protect their groin. But like many great discoveries, it took much time for the cingulate to grab hold of the conservative scientific community. Since the early 1900s, sporadic reports have described the neural correlates of the cingulate cortex. However, compared to flood of motor, visual and auditory papers, the cingulate reports were a mere trickle. The fault was not of the carpenters, but of the tools that they were using.

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If you've ever wondered where all those cat videos came from, now you know. Here's a look behind the scenes at the magic of Kittywood Studios. -via Metafilter

It was 50 years ago today, August 13th, 1961, that East German soldiers began cordoning off the western part of the city. This was the beginning of the Berlin Wall. Germany marked the occasion with a ceremony earlier today. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Christian Wulff, and Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit were all present to remember those who died attempting to cross the barrier from East Berlin to West Berlin.

Addressing the ceremony on Bernauer, a street famously divided by the Wall and now site of a memorial, Mayor Wowereit said the capital was remembering the "saddest day in its recent history".

"It is our common responsibility to keep alive the memories and pass them on to the next generation, to maintain freedom and democracy and to do everything so that such injustices may never happen again," he said.

Earlier, Mr Wulff told Die Welt newspaper that the modern Germany could take pride in "East Germans' irrepressible desire for freedom and West Germans' solidarity with them".

The wall was finally opened in 1989. Link -via Fark

Previously: Read more about the history of the Berlin Wall in The Fall of the Wall.

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In The Fall is not about autumn. This animation is a slightly frightening look at how we spend our lives. And it may induce vertigo. -via The Sparrow

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Yes, this is another public marriage proposal video, taken at Comic-Con. Yes, the audio is difficult to hear, and for some reason the person recording it held the phone upright. But it's short and the last few seconds make it all worthwhile. -via reddit

Here we are in the Dog Days of Summer. It's a good time to stay inside in the air conditioning and surf the 'net. And the best place to do that is right here! Just in case you were busy working or something during this past week, here's a simple way to catch up on all the exclusive features you may have missed: just follow these links.

Tuesday was the 81st anniversary of the very first Betty Boop cartoon. Stacy Conradt posted that 'toon and the history of the character in Happy Birthday, Betty Boop!

Alex brought us some excerpts from the book Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture. It proved to be the most popular post of the week.

Eddie Deezen told us about The First Cross-dressing Comic Book Superhero. It was certainly news to me.

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader told us about The Newspaper Hoax that Shook the World.

Scientists sometimes name their research papers after hit films, as we found out in PubMed Goes to the Movies! from the Annals of Improbable Research.

From mental_floss magazine, we had The 10 Most Important Kisses in the Universe.

The most commented-on item of the week was Should Bert and Ernie Get Married? The discussion continues, and the number of opinions should soon eclipse the number of entries in our contest this week. Speaking of,

In the What Is It? game, the thing in the picture this week is a portable hand pump fog horn for use on a boat. Berhard guessed it correctly in the very first comment. Then iago guessed it to be the ultimate size pepper grinder for an Italian restaurant! That was good enough to win the funniest answer prize. Both win t-shirts from the Neatoshop,

At NeatoBambino. you can see videos of children who are athletic, imaginative, and kind. Watch for back-to-school tips, too!

New items at the NeatoShop include Magnetic Poetry Kits, the Dracula Postertext Poster, and the Emergency Reboot Button. You can see more new items at the NeatoShop.

When you're caught up on everything from this week, you can check out past feature articles at The Best of Neatorama. Thanks for being here with us!

Environmental Graffiti found ten oases in the middle of cities that provide a good dose of nature for urban dwellers. Some are big enough to have hiking trails, lakes, zoos, forests, gardens, and even observatories. These 26 pictures are a refreshing treat for the eyes! Pictured is the gorgeous Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island in Victoria, B.C. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user WisDoc)

When people get together and cause trouble, it's very easy to blame the medium of communication instead of looking deeper. That's why social networking sites get cited as the cause of so many evils. Why, don't you know that MySpace is "worse than crack"?

Back in 2006, Ron Vietti, Senior Pastor of Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, CA, made headlines for being a vocal critic of then-popular social networking site MySpace. He argued the site — which he called both “worse than crack, cocaine or meth” and “My Waste of Space Dot Com” — was luring boys into pornography and making young girls targets of sexual predators. As David Burger reported in The Bakersfield Californian, Vietti said the site fostered bisexuality and called the Internet “the devil’s biggest scheme he has ever inserted into our lives.” He urged his congregation to go to places young people hang out (“like bars”) to convince them to delete their MySpace profiles.

I wonder what the telephone was blamed for in the 19th century. Read other stories of social-media-blaming at mental_floss. Link

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Static electricity can be fun, when you have a long-haired puppy! -via Rue the Day!

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A guy in Johannesburg hired 100 singers to stage a flashmob at a mall, all to propose to his girlfriend. I cannot understand how some shoppers are in such a hurry that they can't stop and enjoy the moment with them. Or do singing flash mobs happen every day at the mall? -via Buzzfeed

Four months ago, the SETI Institute announced the end of its search for extraterrestrial signals from space due to lack of funds (previously). But thanks to an infusion of funds from fans, including actress Jodie Foster.

The SETI Institute has been around for decades: It stepped in to help keep the search for alien radio signals active after NASA cut off funding for the quest in 1993. It's not the only organization doing SETI, but it's the leader in the field. The Allen Telescope Array, or ATA, was launched with $50 million in contributions from software billionaire Paul Allen and others — and if the array ever takes in 350 linked antennas, as it's designed to do, it would rank among the world's premier radio-telescope facilities.

But in light of the financial challenges, that's a huge "if" right now. In fact, until last week it wasn't certain if or when the ATA would come back online.

After the antenna array was mothballed, the institute and its fans in Silicon Valley set up a Web-based campaign for donations, known as SETIstars. The campaign kicked off in June, and about 45 days later, on Aug. 3, contributions hit the $200,000 mark. That was how much money the SETI Institute said would be needed to bring the antenna array back into operation. (Since then more than $4,000 in additional contributions have come in.)

Among the contributors are Jodie Foster, the actress who played a SETI researcher in the movie "Contact"; science-fiction writer Larry Niven, creator of the "Ringworld" series of novels; and Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders, who flew around the moon in 1968. "It is absolutely irresponsible of the human race not to be searching for evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence," Anders wrote in a note accompanying his contribution.

Donations are still needed, as well as volunteers to crunch the data. Link -via Engadget

I read about a study that found people are less likely to steal things if they feel they are being watched -even if it's just a photograph of someone looking at them. If that's the case, no one would dare open a box that sports an eye stalk! Artist Angela Rose made this box and many more with an eye in each, which will discourage anyone from pilfering the contents. See the entire selection at Necropolis Studios. Link -Thanks, Stuart!

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Some folks have pool toys that are more involved than those of other folks. What could possibly go wrong? -via Cynical-C