What goes up must eventually come down, but tall brick and mortar chimneys and cooling towers must come down carefully. During controlled demolitions, people come from all over to get photographs at a safe distance, like this awesome photo montage of the chimney demolition at Henninger Brewery in Frankfurt, Germany in 2006. See the rest of this collection of pictures with stories at Chimney Liner Pro. Link -Thanks, Johny!

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Heptagon)

I haven't found the original source of this image, but isn't it clever? For anyone who doesn't get the joke, check out the song by Lionel Richie. -via reddit

The official name for the geological epoch we are in now is the Holocene. But there is a movement among those who study such things to refer to the current stage of geologic time as the Anthropocene epoch, a term coined by Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen, which means "age of man." This would seem obvious to historians, but in the context of global geology, does the presence of man make that much difference?

Way back in the 1870s, an Italian geologist named Antonio Stoppani proposed that people had introduced a new era, which he labeled the anthropozoic. Stoppani's proposal was ignored; other scientists found it unscientific. The Anthropocene, by contrast, struck a chord. Human impacts on the world have become a lot more obvious since Stoppani's day, in part because the size of the population has roughly quadrupled, to nearly seven billion. "The pattern of human population growth in the twentieth century was more bacterial than primate," biologist E. O. Wilson has written. Wilson calculates that human biomass is already a hundred times larger than that of any other large animal species that has ever walked the Earth.

In 2002, when Crutzen wrote up the Anthropocene idea in the journal Nature, the concept was immediately picked up by researchers working in a wide range of disciplines. Soon it began to appear regularly in the scientific press. "Global Analysis of River Systems: From Earth System Controls to Anthropocene Syndromes" ran the title of one 2003 paper. "Soils and Sediments in the Anthropocene" was the headline of another, published in 2004.

More and more, geologists are coming around to the idea that humankind has such an effect on the earth that we are, indeed, living in the Anthropocene epoch. Read the entire story at National Geographic in a feature article that is part of the year-long 7 Billion project. Link

(Image credit: Mitch Epstein)

In a continuation of a series (see parts one, two, and three), photographer Annie Leibovitz has unveiled three more Disney Dream Portraits starring famous actors. Shown are Jeff Bridges and Penelope Cruz in a scene from Beauty and the Beast. Other pictures show Olivia Wilde as the Evil Queen from Snow White with Alec Baldwin as the Magic Mirror, and Queen Latifah as Ursula from The Little Mermaid. Link -via The Daily What

As advertising becomes an ever-bigger part of our television experience, advertising characters are becoming pop culture icons. Hero Builders is offering a limited edition line of action figures based on characters from commercials. From the left, the Allstate Insurance "Mayhem" Guy, Dos Equis' Most Interesting Man in the World, and the Old Spice Guy. There are two versions of the Old Spice Guy, one for all ages, and an anatomically-correct version for adults only. All of them talk, too! http://herobuilders.com/popculture.htm -via AOL News

The first ever Miami Comic-Con was last weekend, and Jen from CakeWrecks was there with her camera. See a lot more pictures of Ghostbusters, Bat people, zombies, and assorted super heroes at Epbot. Link

A family in Yuma, Arizona, called the Humane Society about a stray dog in their refrigerator. But they got a faster response from the local fire department. Yuma Fire Department spokesman Mike Erfert said the terrier-type dog was on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and wouldn't let anyone near.

Erfert said the apartment's residents told firefighters that the dog was a stray and that it rushed into their apartment when they opened their front door. They said they tried to catch the dog but, every time they tried, the dog would snap at them and attempt to bite them.

Unable to catch the dog, Erfert said they then planned to lure it outside using some food, but when they opened the refrigerator door, the dog jumped inside and they couldn't get the dog to come out.

Firefighters wore protective suits as they extracted the dog. An animal control officer took the dog, which was later reunited with its owner. http://www.yumasun.com/news/dog-68058-firefighters-erfert.html -via Arbroath

Not for a long time, anyway! Ben Warheit doodles on Post-it Notes. The results are strange and funny observations on life and how life might be with a bit of a twist. This prehistorical scene is one of many that made me giggle. Check them all out at Ben's newly relaunched site, I'm Ben Warheit. Link

Reddit member guantes ordered a signed copy of Ken Jennings' book and requested he draw a picture of his Jeopardy battle with the computer named Watson. The result was so cool that the autographed title page had to be shared with everyone. http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/fvzup/got_my_signed_copy_of_ken_jenningss_book_i_asked/

Pull up an armchair -you might be up in arms over this roundup of arm stories from mental_floss magazine!

NO ARM, NO FOWL




One afternoon in 1972, friends Jack Northrup and Jack Bishop were having lunch at their local drugstore in Olney, Texas, when they realized the strangers next to them were eavesdropping. The pair, both amputees, had a reputation for mischief. Rather than get upset, the "One-armed Jacks" decided to have some fun.

Northrup and Bishop began talking loudly about their hunting adventures with pump-action shotguns and bolt-action rifles -firearms that would be nearly impossible to operate without two arms. They cracked each other up with the stunt, but they also decided, heck, why not turn the joke into reality? That year, they sponsored the first ever One-Arm Dove Hunt, which drew six amputees to the field.



The Jacks have sponsored an annual shoot ever since, and the One-Arm Dove Hunt now brings in close to 100amputees each year. Participants shoot skeet, golf, play pool, and, of course, hunt doves (although they usually miss). The two Jacks also spice up the proceedings with their unique brand of humor. During the cow chip-throwing competition, they sit on toilets and act as targets. For breakfast, they charge diners "10 cents a finger." They may be missing arms, but their funny bones are still intact.

A SEGUE FROM THE SEGWAY




In 2001, Dean Kamen invented the Segway, forever changing the way people get around while standing on two wheels. More recently, though, he's partnered with the U.S. Department of Defense to expand the range of human motion once more. His new invention is a high-tech prosthetic arm with fingers, which has been nicknamed "the Luke arm," in honor of Luke Skywalker's cybernetic hand in the original Star Wars trilogy. Unlike most prosthetic limbs, which are built around a series of hooks, the lightweight Luke arm actually works like a human arm, converting nerve impulses into motion. Amazingly, test subjects have been able to use it to drink from wine glasses, pick up raisins, and peel bananas -tasks that require enormous dexterity. The Force is strong with this one.

FAREWELL TO ARMS, HELLO OBSCENITY!

When Scribners published Ernest Hemingway's novel A Farewell to Arms in 1929, the publishing house eliminated all potentially offensive words, replacing them with a series of dashes. Hemingway was peeved that he couldn't use even mild obscenities such as "balls" in a novel about war and sex, but he went along with the censorship to get the book published.

After the novel came out, however, the writer got his mitts on a few copies and reinserted the vulgarities by hand. At least two of the corrected texts survive today. Hemingway gave one copy to French literary translator Maurice Coindreau; the other copy he gave to James Joyce. Want to know what curse words go where? Joyce's copy is held at SUNY-Buffalo's library in upstate New York.

A HELPING HAND

Back in 2006, two dolphins at an aquarium in Fushun, China, became gravely ill after ingesting some plastic from the liner of their tank. When traditional techniques of extracting the the material failed, the vets called in an unlikely hero: Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun. At 7'9", Bao isn't just one of the tallest men in the world, he also has incredibly long arms. Using his spindly limbs, Bao reached into the sick mammal's tummies and pulled out the plastic. Let's see Stretch Armstrong top that!

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The article by Ethan Trex is reprinted from Scatterbrained section of the January-February 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Subscribe today to get it delivered to you!

Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!

If he were alive, Theodor Geisel would have been 107 years old today. You know him better as Dr. Seuss, the author of those books that taught you to read. In commemoration of the anniversary of his birth, Buzzfeed posted a list of Dr. Seuss trivia, some of which is even new to me! Link

(YouTube link)

Remember the cat who gave us thumbs up? What if all cats were to develop opposable thumbs? They'd be after us ...for our breakfast cereal milk, according to this ad from a milk company. -via Laughing Squid

Brain scanning technology is teaching us how very versatile or brains are. For example, what is happening in the visual cortices of people who have been blind since birth? A series of experiments in which blind subjects were monitored while performing different linguistic exercises show that those parts of our brains are put to work for other tasks!

In the brains of people blind from birth, structures used in sight are still put to work — but for a very different purpose. Rather than processing visual information, they appear to handle language.

Linguistic processing is a task utterly unrelated to sight, yet the visual cortex performs it well.

“It suggests a kind of plasticity that’s even broader than the kinds observed before,” said Marina Bedny, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s a really drastic change. It suggests there isn’t a predetermined function an area can serve. It can take a wide range of possible functions.”

Brains: use 'em if you got 'em! Link

Rob Cockerham constructed a chart of TV shows that were set in a time period other than the one they were produced in. This may be especially useful for young people who weren't watching at the time, like my children, who thought the series Happy Days was produced in the 1950s. Still, there are some surprises for all of us. Really, who knew that Lost in Space was set in 1997! Shown here is a small part of a much larger chart. Link

(YouTube link)

The tungsten filament of a common incandescent light bulb is way more interesting than you thought. Bill Hammock, "The Engineer Guy," explains how it is made and how it works -or sometimes doesn't. -Thanks, Bill!

Also: If you enjoy the Engineer Guy, you'll love the video in which he posts and responds to criticism from reddit members. Link