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The Nerdfighter/Neatoramanaut Facebook Fan Page Contest - 03/10/2010 06:25 PM

We’re going to be running a FUN contest over on our Facebook page this coming Friday! You won’t find it here on the blog, just on the Facebook page. So if you haven’t yet, please become a Neatoramanaut Fan now: www.Facebook.com/neatoramanauts. The contest will have something to do with our pals, nerdfighters John and Hank [...]

Mountain Lion Invades Home - 03/10/2010 05:51 PM

Michelle Bese of Salida, Colorado was sitting at the table with her five-year-old while her other child slept in another room. One her five dogs came in through the dog door and was followed by a cougar! Bese grabbed her son and hid in the bedroom where the two-year-old was and called 911. Sheriff’s deputies [...]

How Bomb-proof Suits Work - 03/10/2010 05:45 PM

In the opening sequence of the Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker, a soldier wears an explosive ordnance disposal (OED) suit pretty close to the spot where a bomb goes off. Can a soldier survive such an incident? Dvice contacted the manufacturer of the suit to get the lowdown on how it protects a soldier [...]

The Original Fly Girls - 03/10/2010 05:38 PM

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) were volunteers who learned to fly during World War II to supplement the US military, which was suffering from a shortage of pilots. A few more than 1,100 young women, all civilian volunteers, flew almost every type of military aircraft — including the B-26 and B-29 bombers — as part [...]

Cycles - 03/10/2010 03:58 PM

(YouTube link) Teddy bears attempt to cross a busy street. Another gem from the incomprehensible but fertile mind of Cyriak. Link to artist’s website. -via Arbroath

Battlestar Sabotage - 03/10/2010 03:45 PM

Someone has taken scenes from the Battlestar Galactica science fiction series and used these to recreate the music video for the song Sabotage by Beastie Boys. You can also watch both videos side by side at YouTube Doubler. Link [YouTube] – via Nerdcore

The Two Faces of Martin Guerre - 03/10/2010 12:32 PM

In 1556, a man calling himself ‘Martin Guerre’ had returned to his home village after disappearing without a trace for several years. He lived with Guerre’s wife and son for three years. But he was not Guerre. On September 16, 1560, in the small French village of Artigat in the foothills of the Pyrenees, an unusually large [...]

5 financial scandals long before Enron - 03/10/2010 12:32 PM

There has been a rash of corporate scandals and greed over the past decade, but it is hardly new. Here are a few financial scandals that made news long before Enron and Worldcom. Back in 1864, Credit Mobilier was a construction company started by executives of Union Pacific Railroad. They then had Union Pacific make [...]

Water Consumption and Olympic Hockey - 03/10/2010 04:01 AM

This chart from the utility company EPCOR contrasts water consumption in Edmonton, Alberta on two different days. February 27th is charted to show a normal day. February 28th was the day Canada won the Olympic gold medal hockey game. As you can see, a huge percentage of their customers waited for breaks in the game [...]

Facebook Fans Want Baby Named Megatron - 03/10/2010 02:55 AM

On February 27th, someone created a Facebook group that’s called “MY SISTER SAID IF I GET ONE MILLION FANS SHE WILL NAME HER BABY MEGATRON.” Already there almost 750,000 fans, and the due date isn’t until August. And over at the discussion boards, one thread asks what the middle name will be. Easy: Destroyer of Worlds. Link [...]

Cancelled Art - 03/10/2010 12:06 AM

Two artists have been playing pretty games with the UK Royal Mail’s automated sorting offices. It seems the machines simply read the colour of stamps to check whether the correct postage has been used, so it doesn’t matter what shape they are. Kim Rugg and John Spurgeon each use proper stamps, only they are cut [...]

Orion Nebula Teeming with Life's Ingredients - 03/09/2010 11:11 PM

This spectrograph of the Orion Nebula (biggified here) was made by the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI), which is integrated into the Herschel Telescope, and measures molecular characteristics to identify them. Throughout the enormous span of the nebula, scientists have identified every chemical, compound and ingredient needed for life to cook. Since this is [...]

7 (Thankfully) Extinct Giant Versions of Modern Animals - 03/09/2010 08:34 PM

Giants once roamed the earth, meaning many species of animals that are familiar to us have enormous extinct ancestors. Cracked looks at seven of them, some of which have been previously featured individually at Neatorama. Take a look at Argentavis magnificens. As if answering the dare to make us feel more inadequate, the world gave us [...]

Two Continents Named for One Man - 03/09/2010 07:46 PM

If explorer Amerigo Vespucci were alive, he’d be 556 years old today. Born on March 9th, 1454, Vespucci was neither the first European to reach the New World nor the first to take back news of it, but he was the first to realize that the western hemisphere was not part of Asia or any [...]

How to Design a Book Cover in 2 minutes - 03/09/2010 07:38 PM

[YouTube - Link] Cover designer Lauren Panepinto took a screecast while designing the jacket for an upcoming book by Gail Carriger. If you’ve ever wondered what goes into designing a book jacket, this video will give you a pretty good idea of the time and skill it takes! – via orbitbooks From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by [...]

The Mechanical Taxidermy of Ron Pippin - 03/09/2010 07:04 PM

Artist Ron Pippin creates sculptures of animals with mechanical augmentations, such as the above work entitled “Solar Deer”. In an interview, Pippin said: My work is often related to ideas about the relationship of Science, Art, and Nature. My scientific aesthetic is primarily drawn from the 19th Century, when, I feel, science still had a [...]

30 Marvelous Motorcycles - 03/09/2010 06:56 PM

Now That’s Nifty has a gallery of thirty unusual motorcycles, including those converted into campers, limos, and tracked vehicles. Among them is the massive Leonhardt Gunbus, which is powered by a massive 410 cubic inch engine: When it comes to custom motorcycle builders, there’s crazy and there’s really crazy. Falling into the latter category is [...]

The Art of Chess - 03/09/2010 06:48 PM

“The Art of Chess” is an upcoming exhibition of chess-themed art on April 14 at the Milan Furniture Fair at the Project B Gallery in Milan, Italy. At the link, you can find pictures of several works that will be featured, including the above “Modern Chess Set” by Rachel Whiteread. We’ve previously posted [...]

Chicken Adopts Litter of Puppies - 03/09/2010 06:37 PM

A hen in Shrewsbury, UK has been nesting on a litter of puppies born on the farm of Edward and Ros Tate. This is to the chicken’s advantage, as the Tates have since decided to not eat her: Mr Tate said: ‘Mabel was hatched here about a year ago. She would have gone onto someone’s [...]

Descendants - 03/09/2010 06:18 PM

(Video Link) Descendants is an animated short film by Heiko van der Scherm about two flowers, and the curiosity and treachery between them. In a manner that reminds me of the rabbits of Watership Down, the flowers are anthropomorphized, but still motivated primarily by the plant life cycle. Starring Whoopi Goldberg. Run time: [...]

Read The Toilet Paper and Get Free Neatorama T-Shirts! - 03/09/2010 09:15 AM

Howdy Neatoramanauts! I’m happy to say that we’ve made some new friends at The Toilet Paper, a daily email magazine filled with neat facts and a lot of humor. TTP, as they like to be called, is a lot like Neatorama – but in an email form. They’re also much more organized and generous (as [...]

Mario and Luigi in Manchester - 03/09/2010 06:09 AM

Aha! I knew these guys would eventually open a restaurant, but I always imagined it would be a joint venture, not next-door competing eateries. Found at Google Street View, ever the source for coincidence, not irony. This is in Manchester, United Kingdom, where reports of plumbing failures have peppered the news there. Link

Hookah Case Mod - 03/09/2010 05:14 AM

Instructables user kirkfrog made YaHookah! — the computer that you can smoke. It’s an old CPU box turned into a functional hookah. The tank is acrylic, and the bubbles are provided by an aquarium air pump. DIY instructions at the link. Link via Gizmodo

Can You Identify LEGO Minifigs By How They Feel In Your Mouth? - 03/09/2010 01:39 AM

(YouTube Link) If not, then you’re just not as talented as this teenager. Sophia Heesch claimed to be able to identify eighty Star Wars minifigs is this manner, and this German language video demonstrates a test of that claim. Would any German speaking Neatoramanaut care to translate? via Geekologie

Awesome DIY Mario Furniture - 03/08/2010 11:55 PM

Neatoramanaut Dennis wrote to us about the set of furniture that his girlfriend (who is studying mechanical engineering in Germany and is apparently very, very handy) made for their apartment: [Everything was] created by my girlfriend Judith for her apartment. We both love video games, especially Super Mario. She’s currently studying Mechanical Engineering in Germany and [...]

Coffee-Fueled Car - 03/08/2010 09:31 PM

The Carpuccino, built by the team at the BBC science show Bang Goes the Theory, runs on coffee grounds. These are burned and the resulting carbon monoxide powers the car: The team calculates the Carpuccino will do three miles per kilo of ground coffee – the equivalent of about 56 espressos per mile. The journey will [...]

The Lost Cure for Scurvy - 03/08/2010 08:11 PM

We know that scurvy is a disease caused by lack of vitamin C. In the Middle Ages, ship captains knew that fresh fruit, particularly citrus, would fend off scurvy, which had been the scourge of long sea voyages. Scottish physician James Lind uncovered the citrus cure scientifically in 1747, but vitamin C was still unknown. [...]

A Tablecloth That Reveals Images When You Spill Liquids On It - 03/08/2010 08:04 PM

Underfull is a prototype tablecloth design by Kristine Bjaadal. It has a hidden butterfly pattern that is revealed only when it is stained. Bjaadal writes: This creates stories and can contribute in giving the tablecloth sentimental value – important in a society where we seem to have an increasingly superficial relation to the [...]

Stop-Motion Animation with Doritos - 03/08/2010 07:55 PM

(YouTube Link) This video, entitled “Annihilation”, shows stop-motion animation using Doritos chips. Its provenance is a mystery to me, but I suspect that it’s viral advertising. via Urlesque

The Pop Culture Spelling Bee - 03/08/2010 05:52 PM

The spelling challenges in today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will not be found in your local school bee! However, if you are really familiar with American TV and movies, you should do well. Luckily, it’s a multiple-choice quiz. I scored 75% -try to beat that! Link