The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century will move across part of the earth tomorrow. You'll be able to see it if you are certain parts of India, China, or Japan.
The first who will be able to see it are the inhabitants of the Gulf of Khambhat, India. Instead of the sunrise, people will see a black hole rising in the sky and birds will be unsure if the day is beginning or not.
The eclipse will last exactly 6 minutes and 39 minutes, being the longest of the 21st century and will only be surpassed on June 13, 2132. After those from the Gulf of Khambhat, also Chinese and Japanese will be able to see the solar eclipse.
New signs for a public loo in Winchcombe, England have people scratching their heads. The infographic resembles a skier with poles, or a man on an escalator. The words "ambulant urinal" convey the idea of a urinal that walks.
Barbara Heard, from Gretton Road, Winchcombe, said she failed to understand how the signs could have been sanctioned by Tewkesbury Borough Council.
She said: "Does anyone have any idea what these signs mean?
"My husband and I regard ourselves as fairly intelligent but we have no idea.
"What will our overseas visitors will make of these signs?
Chris Pike of the Tewkesbury Borough Council says "ambulant" restrooms are larger than standard, and are "intended for people who may be partially disabled but cannot access the full disabled unit." Link -via Arbroath
After winning a horse race, the glory usually goes to the horse instead of the jockey. But the jockey makes a world of difference. A new study from the Royal Veterinary College in London says that how a jockey positions himself on a horse has a lot to do with how fast the horse runs. Bioengineer Thilo Pfau explains the physics.
Any "jockey-plus-horse system," as the researchers call the racehorse-and-rider team, will start off essentially the same as any other: a combined mass of roughly 1,100 lb. (500 kg) of living flesh, with the horse representing about 87% of the total weight and the jockey making up the rest. One key to speed will be how lightly the horse can carry that 13% load. The investigators found that the horse's back oscillates up and down about 6 in. (150 mm) throughout its stride, and fore and aft about 4 in. (100 mm). The jockey moves too — up and down through a cycle of 2.3 in. (60 mm), and fore and aft just 0.8 in. (20 mm). That small motion makes a very big difference.
"Whether the jockey is sitting in the saddle or not, the horse still has to carry his weight," Spence says. "But by absorbing the jiggles of the horse, the jockey prevents the animal from having to make him go up and down with each stride. It's the difference between the horse carrying a moving rider or simply a quantity of lead that weighs the same." The crouched position the jockey assumes throughout pays an additional dividend by minimizing wind resistance.
In physics, however, nothing comes for free, and as the horse's workload goes down, the jockey's goes up. "The jockey's legs oscillate in length while transmitting a vertical force," the researchers wrote, "resulting in substantial mechanical work."
That in itself should qualify a winning jockey as a champion athlete as well as the horse he rode in on. Link -Thanks, Alyson!
The post is titled "9 reasons why there wasn’t stress in the good old days". Now, you better believe there was plenty of stress in the 19th and 20th centuries, but people were happy to try everything nature and medical science could provide to relieve it. That included cocaine, heroine, opium, amphetamines, and of course, plenty of alcohol for all ages. No prescription needed! The Benzadrine inhaler shown was handed out to airline passengers to treat discomfort. Link -via the Presurfer
The site Not Fooling Anybody is a gallery of business conversions that retain the ghosts of past architecture. For example, this chiropractic office used to be a ...you know. The big bucket still on the sign post should be a dead giveaway. You're invited to submit your own photographs. Link -via mental_floss
Photographer Burk Uzzle took plenty of photographs of the Woodstock music festival in August of 1969, but none are remembered better than the young couple wrapped in a blanket that became the cover art for the record album, and later the poster for the movie.
Forty years later, the couple in the photo - Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, both 60 - remain together. They married two summers after the fabled weekend, and they still live less than an hour's drive from the original concert site of Bethel, N.Y., and within spitting distance of where they both grew up.
Nick Ercoline works for the Orange County, N.Y., Department of Housing. Bobbi is a resident nurse at the elementary school in their hometown of Pine Bush.
The two weren't even aware of the photograph until they saw the album cover. Link -via Boing Boing
Lithuanian composer Mindaugas Piecaitis was inspired by Nora the Piano Playing Cat (featured previously at Neatorama) and composed a concerto for her to perform with an orchestra. Nora appears via videotape. The rest of the music was performed by the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra. This performance, condicted by Piecaitis, was recorded on June 5th in Klaipeda, Lithuania. Link -via Arbroath
Cracked has the stories of seven horrific injuries that should have killed the victim, but they recovered anyway. Some you may never have heard before, like the story of Channing Moss, who served with the US military in Afghanistan and was shot in the side by a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).
When the doctors at the field hospital found out he had a whole, working rocket inside him, there was the usual panic and screaming until someone finally calmed down enough to try and save his life. This was despite the fact that the army manual called for him to be dumped far away from everyone and treated last. Seriously, nothing makes you more unpopular to a group than having a live bomb inside you.
But the rocket was removed and doctors found it had somehow missed all of Moss' vital organs. Link -via Gorilla Mask
The first Lit Slits quiz turned out to be quite popular. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss is volume two. In this quiz, you'll be shown a vertical stripe xeroxed from one page of a book, and you figure out what the book is. I scored 40%, which is better than I expected to. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/29287
A Russian hobbyist put together a diorama of World War II action figures assembling a terminator to fight the Germans. Oh, this isn't just one scene, but a series of photographs that tell the story. I particularly liked the part where the commanding officer selected a face for their creation. The title of the post is "Laughter is Stalin's Secret Weapon". Link -via Metafilter
You are cordially invited to the wedding of Kelly Hildebrandt and Kelly Hildebrandt? You may not be personally invited, but it's true that the two Kelly Hildebrandts are getting married. The female Hildebrandt is from Florida, and she fell in love with a guy in Texas with the same name!
"I was like, 'I wonder if there's any other Kelly Hildebrandts on Facebook'," she explained. "So, I searched my own name and he's the only one that came up. And actually, in the picture, he didn't have his shirt on, and I'm like, 'oh, he's cute!'"
And the Kelly in Texas was also intrigued.
"She started off, 'hey, I see we have the same name, and I thought it was kinda cool, so I wanted to say hi, I guess'. Lots of laughs," he said.
Three weeks after their first online encounter, Kelly, the boy from Texas, decided to fly to south Florida, and see Kelly, the girl, in person.
Some of the most notorious discoveries and inventions arose by accident, or more commonly, were developed for uses other than what they ended up doing. Listverse looks at ten such products, including trinitrotoluene, a chemical discovered by Joseph Wilbrand in 1863 and meant for use as a yellow dye. With the name shortened to TNT, the explosive was used to wage both world wars. Link -via the Presurfer
In August of 1985, Ebony magazine printed an article called Portraits of the Stars: What They May Look Like In The Year 2000. The magazine commissioned Chicago artist Nathan Wright to create the pictures. One of the celebrities is a handsome man that looks vaguely familiar.
Michael Jackson: At 40, he will have aged gracefully and will have a handsome, more mature look. In number, his fans will have grown tenfold by the year 2000.
There's something to be said for aging gracefully. Link -via J-Walk Blog
A century and a half ago, 20 people died and many other became ill because their local candy distributor knew a bargain when he saw one.
On October 23, 1858, William “Humbug Billy” Hardaker, sold peppermint lozenges to the good people of Bradford, England, as he usually did. This particular Saturday he had the good luck to buy his batch of mints at discount because of their substandard appearance. By the time he fell sick that afternoon, he had sold enough lozenges to satisfy some 200 peoples’ sweet tooth. The next day, still ill, Hardaker had to explain to the police why everyone who ate his candy was either getting sick or dying.
The answer makes you glad we have laws about food ingredients these days. This story is part of 5 Disasters That Could Have Been Avoided. Link-Thanks, Sami!
Darth Vader and his Storm Troopers break it down at the dance-off show at Disney's annual Star Wars Weekends. See the entire show at YouTube. -via Buzzfeed
