Do you remember shopping at K-Mart between the years of 1988 and 1992?
If so then you were gathering your goods and living that K-Mart life while soothing elevator music played through the store's PA system to announce specials and keep you shopping calmly.
This is the dance crew called The Company performing at the Vibe XIX 2014 dance contest in January. The routine may be different from what you’re used to, but you gotta hand it to them, the precision and timing these dancers show is impressive! They came in second to this performance by Academy of Villains. However, the internet has embraced the more relatable second-place routine. -via Viral Viral Videos
This dog does not want any kisses from his man, and he goes to great lengths to make that perfectly clear. Maybe he has bad breath! The same guy, YouTube member inosemarine, has a great collection of videos showing this amazing dog doing extraordinary things, like calligraphy, wrestling, and even saving his master's life. -via Hypervocal
IBM researchers have created the world's smallest movie: it's literally
made with atoms!
The ability to move single atoms — the smallest particles of
any element in the universe — is crucial to IBM's research in
the field of atomic memory. But even nanophysicists need to have a little
fun. In that spirit, IBM researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope
to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules (two atoms stacked on
top of each other), all in pursuit of making a movie so small it can
be seen only when you magnify it 100 million times. A movie made with
atoms.
This graduation announcement was posted by redditor alyak72 in anticipation of the rest of her life. Sadly, school can't last forever. Link -via Happy Place
Chris Beardshaw, an award-winning gardener and television show host, says that playing heavy metal music to plants helps them grow. Specifically, he suggests playing a lot of Black Sabbath:
Beardshaw, a familiar face on BBC2's Gardener's World over the years, said using rock music as a nutrient appeared to create larger flowers. Although the plants themselves were shorter, they were more disease-resistant.
The test came about because one of his horticultural students wanted to write a dissertation on the effects of music on plants.
"We set up four glasshouses with different sorts of music in to see what happened to the plants," Beardshaw said.
"We had one that was silent - that was a control house - and we had one that was played classical music, we had one that was played Cliff Richard and we had one that was played Black Sabbath.
"And the ones with Black Sabbath - great big, thumping noise, rowdy music - they were the shortest, but they had the best flowers and the best resistance to pest and disease.
Violinist Wallace Hartley was the leader of the band that performed on the RMS Titanic on its tragic voyage in 1912. The band famously played music to sooth the passengers as the ship went down. After years of research, a violin found in 2006 has now been authenticated as the instrument Hartley played aboard ship. Hartley's personal effects that were salvaged from the site were returned to his father, who gave them to Hartley's fiancee, Maria Robinson. Robinson had given Hartley the violin, inscribed for their engagement in 1910.
She kept the jewellery and violin in the leather case as a shrine to her late fiance. She died from stomach cancer in 1939 aged 59 at her home in Bridlington, East Yorkshire.
In dealing with her estate, her sister, Margaret, found Hartley's leather valise that had his initials of 'WHH' on and the violin inside.
She gave the bag to the Bridlington Salvation Army and told its leader, a Major Renwick, about the instrument's association with Titanic.
The research shows Maj Renwick in turn gave the valise to one of his members, a local music and violin teacher.
In the early 1940s, the current owner's mother was a member of the Womens' Auxiliary Air Force stationed at Bridlington.
She met the music teacher who later dispatched the valise and violin to her.
A covering letter that has been found states: 'Major Renwick thought I would be best placed to make use of the violin but I found it virtually unplayable, doubtless due to its eventful life.'
The unnamed owner inherited the valise and its contents, including the violin and jewellery, years later and contacted Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes, Wilts.
The violin will go on display at the Titanic museum in Belfast, and is expected to be auctioned later. Link -via the Presurfer
This video is of a marching band drum and bugle corps performance, but that's not what it's really about. It's a look into the job of camera calling featuring producer Tim Blair, taken at the 2004 DCI (Drum Corps International) World Championship. I briefly worked as a TV switcher many years ago, and marveled at how the news director managed to herd cats get a live newscast on air every day. How much more difficult is it to direct cameras for a live event in which you're not controlling the action? Listen and see! -via Viral Viral Videos
Surely you've seen fossils in museums, but what about this: opalized
dinosaur tooth. Opalized fossils occur when silica settled into cracks
in the dinosaur bone and then hardened into opal. This one above is a
particularly fantastic specimen: an opalized
theropod dinosaur tooth from the Australian Museum.
Anna and Richard Wagner married in 1900. From that year until 1942, the German couple had their picture taken in front of their Christmas tree every Christmas Eve. Retronaut has eight of those pictures, with commentary about how the photos show the effect of history on the couple. Link -via Everlasting Blort
It's always nice to catch a glimpse of VIPs doing things everyday normal people do. This image of Tsar Nicholas II playing airplane made me wonder whether the guy supporting him was really a "friend" or a subject forced to carry him -but the source gallery at Retronaut labels him as a fellow royal. Other celebrities in the list at Flavorwire include Albert Einstein, Joe Stalin, Richard Nixon, Franklin Roosevelt, and more. Link
What happens when Madame de Pompadour and the TARDIS become one? The Doctor must start shaking with excitement... and the result would probably look something like this.
Just in time for Halloween, here comes the "headless" ladybug:
Ross Winton, a former entomology grad student at Montana State University
(MSU), found the bug in a trap he set up in a sand dune in southwest
Montana. He initially thought the tiny tan insect was just part of an
ant or a bug with its head missing.
But upon further examination, Winton identified the one-millimeter-long
insect as a male ladybird beetle, or ladybug, and found that it wasn't
actually headless — its head was just hidden inside a tube in
its thorax, much like a turtle that has its head tucked back into its
shell.
Ever heard of the whale that speaks human? Meet NOC, a white beluga whale
that "talks" just like you and me:
For years, NOC was part of the U.S. Navy's Marine Mammal Program in
San Diego, which was aimed at studying whether whales, dolphins, seals
and other marine mammals could do underwater reconnaissance or perhaps
even disable mines. NOC was captured in 1977 in Canada's Hudson Bay
and brought down to California to work with researchers and divers.
(He was the smallest of the pack, and Ridgway says that led to the nickname
"no-see-um," or NO-C for short.)
Seven years later, the researchers noticed that NOC spontaneously
started making unusual sounds — "as if two people were conversing
in the distance just out of range for our understanding," they
reported in the journal Current Biology. One time, a diver came to the
surface outside NOC's enclosure and asked his colleagues, "Who
told me to get out?" They soon concluded it was the whale, which
must have been saying "Out, out, out."
Halfway through this performance, Mister Babache picks up a second ball. But that's only after wowing you with just one. Is this really just CGI? If this performer didn't already have a top reputation for his work, I'd think so.
