I just found The Life of Riley, a fairly new blog written by Olive Riley and Mike Rubbo. Olive is 107 years old, which may make her the oldest blogger ever. The stories from her life are fascinating. From her first post:

Good Morning everyone. My name is Olive Riley. I live in Australia near Sydney. I was born in Broken Hill on Oct. 20th 1899.Broken Hill is a mining town, far away in the centre of Australia. My Friend, Mike, has arranged this blog for me. He is doing the typing and I am telling the stories. He thinks it’s a good idea to tell what’s going on. He already made a film about me a few years back and people liked that, so they might like this blog too, he says. We’ll see.

Link

From Pink Tentacle:

This type of Tremoctopus, or blanket octopus, has a unique way of escaping from predators. When threatened, the octopus unfurls a giant sheet of webbing that trails behind like a cape. The webbing breaks apart rather easily when attacked -- much like a lizard's tail -- and it gets wrapped around the predator's face, giving the octopus a chance to flee.

Push play or go to YouTube. Link to Pink Tentacle article. Link to previous post on the Tremoctopus' sex life. -via All Night Surfing

The largest telescope ever is up at the South Pole, funded by the National Science Foundation. The South Pole Telescope is designed to measure the properties of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) light that was originally created billions of years ago in the infant universe. It will search for galaxy clusters in order to try to confirm the existence of Dark Energy and find out something about its properties. Scientists hope this may lead to new understanding of the age, nature, and future of the universe.

Why put a telescope at the South Pole? Because 1. the dry conditions make the atmosphere extremely clear, 2. the altitude is two miles high, putting the South Pole above the sea's vapor level, and 3. the lack of sunlight in the polar winter makes it easier to search the sky. Link -via Metafilter

Makeup By Julie can supply your next party with Living Tables. The tables will chat with your guests (in character) and serve food and drinks. You can order tables with a variety of themes. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Verdi’s la Traviata, musically interpreted by Coro dell' Accademia di Santa Cecilia of Rome, and portrayed in this video by... I don’t know what they are besides amusing! Push play or go to YouTube. -via Grow-A-Brain

You had a lot of fun naming the fifty nifty Unites States in ten minutes. Now for the real challenge: how many of the 192 countries who are members of the United Nations can you name in ten minutes? I got nearly half of them. The nerve-rattling clock and my typing skills betrayed me. Link -via the Presurfer

25-year-old drummer Nargiz started the Burka Band, Afghanistan’s first all-girl band ever two years ago. Their song “Burka Blue” was released in Germany in 2002 and became a club hit. The band has never performed in Afghanistan and is now inactive.

Of course it was a joke to sing in the burkas, but it was also necessary to wear them. If people in Afghanistan knew who the members of the Burka Band were, we could be attacked or killed because there are still a lot of religious fanatics here, says Nargiz, who hasn't told any of her friends that she has played in the Burka Band.

Push play or go to YouTube. Link to article. -via Arbroath

Can you name all 50 states without consulting a map? I admit I consulted the map in my head as I did this quiz from Ironic Sans. You have ten minutes from page load to type in all 50 states. Yes, spelling counts. I did it in just over four minutes. It would have been much faster except I skipped Nevada and had to search my mental map for it. Link -via Metafilter

The Original Human POLE POSITION
Uploaded by NOTsoNOISY

From Not So Noisy, the folks who brought you Human Space Invaders, watch the stop motion art project Human Pole Position. This video will join a proud but recent tradition of bringing video games to the real world. Push play or go to Daily Motion. -via Dump Trumpet

Precious Images is an Oscar-winning short film by Chuck Workman, featuring 500 movie clips in seven minutes. I was surprised to realize that I have seen and enjoyed just about all of these movies! Push play or go to YouTube. -via Grow-A-Brain

After Boston police blew up a traffic counting machine on the heels of the ATHF fiasco, Massachusetts Flickr user rodbegbie labeled some other items to help the police avoid making mistakes. Link -via Cynical-C

One of the drawbacks to the widespread use of electric cars has been that they’re usually pretty ugly. The Tesla Roadster will change that perception. It runs on 100% electricity, for 250 miles per charge at about a penny per mile. Plus it goes from zero to 60mph in about 4 seconds. These cars are sold out now, but reservations are being taken for the 2008 models. Link -via Dump Trumpet

Taman Safari animal hospital in Java, Indonesia have four babies in their care who normally wouldn’t get along. A pair of baby orangutans and a pair of Sumatran tiger cubs (both endangered species) were rejected by their mothers, and are being raised in the hospital’s nursery, where they became inseparable friends. In the wild, tigers eat orangutans. Link

The European Space Agency launched the Rosetta space probe {wiki} in 2004 to study the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It should reach the comet by 2014. Rosetta has just passed Mars, and sent back some beautiful photographs.

In the lead image above, an orange (red), green and near-UV colour filter composite image of Mars is shown; the UV channel (the blue color) has been enhanced. The enhanced UV signal clearly shows the presence of the cloud system covering most of the Martian disk.

Link

There’s the newfangled thing that people do with computers, and it’s amazing! It’s called “Internet”. This CBC report from 1993 makes me want to try it! From the comments:

1993 "Sorry I'm late, I was on Internet."
2000 "Sorry I'm late, I was on the Internet"
2007 "sry im L8, i was on Teh Internets"

Push play or go to YouTube. -via the Presurfer