| Aerial Battle of Eagles Posted: 28 Nov 2008 03:42 PM PST 
Photo: Jose Hernandez / National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic Magazine has just announced the winners of their 2008 International Photo Contest. Amongst the fantastic entries is this particularly amazing shot by Jose Fernandez: This is a shot of three eagles fighting over a fish in Homer, Alaska, from March 2008. You can see the fish at the top of the image flying by itself, but it was caught in its fall by another eagle.
See the gallery of winning photos here: Link - Thanks Marilyn! |
| Ju Duoqi’s Vegetable Art Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:45 PM PST 
Mona Tofu by Ju Duoqi
Chinese artist Ju Duoqi, 35, specializes in a unique art medium: vegetables! (well, technically digital veggies - but who cares?). Behold her masterpiece above, the veggie Mona Lisa ("Mona Tofu") made out of rice, sea kelp, and tofu. In The Vegetable Museum series, she revisits in a stunning way some masterpieces of the western painting. Making use of vegetables and food of China’s everyday life – tofu, cabbage, ginger, lotus roots, coriander, sweet potato… – and through digital manipulation, she presents a puzzling series of vegetable compositions representing world famous paintings like Mona Lisa, The Cene by Leonard Da Vinci, The Dream by Pablo Picasso or Marilyn Monroe by Warhol.
Here are a few more: 
Napoleon on Potatoes by Ju Duoqi
Van Gogh made of Leek by Ju Duoqi
See many more at Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery: Link - via Compass WebWorks Previously on Neatorama: |
| Blonde, Black Miniskirt and a Sticky Situation … Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:42 PM PST  When Anadel Carrizales pulled over to help a blonde in a black miniskirt whose car appeared to have broken down on a Mexican highway, he thought that he was his lucky day … but all he got was a super sticky situation:
Once he had stopped, the woman walked up and told him an accomplice was pointing a gun at him, said David Perales, a spokesman for state investigators. She then tied him up with packing tape, super-glued his hands to the steering wheel of his truck and demanded money. Carrizales didn’t have any cash, but the woman took his credit cards and fled. "He probably thought it was his lucky day when he saw the woman in the miniskirt, but was surprised when she tied him up," Perales said. With his motor still running and his hands still glued to the wheel, Carrizales managed to drive a few miles (kilometers) down the road until he found a police officer to help him.
Link |
| Titanic Expedition Was a Cover For Secret Navy Missions Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:41 PM PST  Robert Ballard, the explorer who found the wreckage of the Titanic, has just revealed that the expedition was actually a cover story for the US Navy about two lost nuclear submarines:
The Navy was not interested in the Titanic. … I mean, they funded the technology because it had so many military applications. And I was a naval intelligence officer for 30 years, and so I did a lot of missions for the Navy. Many remain classified, my best stuff. Rats … Yes, the Titanic was a cover for a series of military operations. The Titanic was here, and over here was the Scorpion and over here was the Thresher (as he says this, he arranges three objects on a tabletop, roughly in a line, the center one depicting the Titanic). And had that not occurred, I probably would not have found the Titanic because they wouldn’t have funded me. I mean, if the Titanic was in the Indian Ocean, it’d probably still be in the Indian Ocean. But … it was straddled by two very interesting subs that we had lost — and the Scorpion was lost on war patrol … and it was carrying nuclear weapons. So it was a very hot sub to the Navy …
Link |
| The Couch Doctor Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:40 PM PST  Meet Sal Giangrande, the self-styled "Couch Doctor" of New York. Sal has a pretty unique business niche: he saws and re-assembles couches for people who couldn’t fit their old couch into their new apartments but don’t want to give up either one:
‘I can’t watch," said Andrew Clarke, shutting his eyes. "You shouldn’t," the doctor said calmly. The doctor’s assistant pulled out an electric saw. He started slicing. The ground was already strewn with staples that had been yanked out. After one, two, three . . . seven incisions, Clarke’s $4,000, perfectly worn-in, brown leather couch lay in pieces with the 88-inch-long back surgically separated from the arms and bottom. Clarke’s cherished couch looked like a dissected moose. "Gosh," he mumbled, his eyes wide, "whatever it takes." Sal Giangrande calls himself the New York Couch Doctor, but in fact he’s New York’s Doctor Whatever It Takes for desperate people like Clarke, who couldn’t shimmy his old couch into his new apartment and wasn’t willing to give up either one. The young real estate executive was moving from one apartment to another in the same brick building in the heart of west Greenwich Village. The new place was bigger and had a spectacular view of the Hudson River but was situated in the middle of a narrow hallway. "The movers tried several times, several angles, but they couldn’t get the couch around the turn from the hallway into the new place," Clarke said. He was ready to dump it when his doorman told him about the Couch Doctor — aka Sal Giangrande.
Geraldine Baum of the Los Angeles Times has more on this fascinating story about New Yorkers and their sofabsessions: Link (Photo: Carolyn Cole/LA Times) |
| VideoSift Clips of the Week Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:39 PM PST 
(Links open in a new browser window/tab)  | Wouldn't It Be Cool if US CEOs Were Like This?
Here's a story of how the CEO of one of the world's top 10 airlines, Haruka Nishimatsu of Japan Airlines, deal with hard economic times. When JAL sliced jobs and asked older employees to retire early, Nishimatsu cut every single one of his corporate perks and for three years running slashed his own pay. In 2007, he made US$ 90,000, less than what his pilots earned. Kyung Lah of CNN reports: Link |  | This Reptile is Pimpin'
Mother Nature, it turns out, is the inventor of the swagger. Check out this chameleon's pimpin' walk Link |  | Don't Try to Rob Beauticians!
Here's what happened when an armed robber tried to rob a beauty school in Shreveport, Louisiana: The suspect was trying to get out of the business. And as he was trying to get out, they kept on pulling him [in] and beating him ... Link |  | Woman vs. Cow
Instead of "ayuda" maybe the woman should've screamed "occupado" instead! Here's a funny clip (well, funny to some anyhow) of a cow trying to get into an otherwise occupied bathroom. Link |  | How to Unflip and Lose Your Caterpillar in 30 Seconds
Bad: You flipped your $2 million caterpillar heavy machine
Good: Someone will right it for you ...
The Final Reversal: You forgot it's on a steep hill ... Here's a 30-second clip on how to make a bad situation worse (yes, ironically also set to a bad techno music) : Link | For more the web's most interesting videos, check out: VideoSift. |
| UK’s Oldest Newlyweds: Combined Age of 179! Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:39 PM PST  Congratulations to John Dawkins and Penny Cooper, who got married last week and therefore set a new UK record for oldest newlyweds!
Three months ago 90-year-old Penny Cooper made a leap-year proposal to 89-year-old John Dawkins, who she met at a charity event. The couple, who have a combined aged of 179, tied the knot at a register office in Devon on Tuesday.
Link |
| Papua New Guinea Village Women Killed All Male Babies to Avoid War Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:38 PM PST  Here’s one gruesome way of avoiding a tribal warfare adopted by two villages in Papua New Guinea: kill every male babies born!
By virtually wiping out the ‘male stock’, tribal women hope they can avoid deadly bow-and-arrow wars between the villages in the future. ‘Babies grow into men and men turn into warriors,’ said Rona Luke, a village wife who is attending a special ‘peace and reconciliation’ meeting in the mountain village of Goroka. ‘It’s because of the terrible fights that have brought death and destruction to our villages for the past 20 years that all the womenfolk have agreed to have all new-born male babies killed,’ said Mrs Luke. ‘The women have had enough of men engaging in tribal conflicts and bringing misery to them.’
Link |
| How NOT to Sign Your Graffiti Posted: 28 Nov 2008 12:36 PM PST  Here’s a tip for all you graffiti "artists": when tagging public buildings, do not - I repeat - do not sign it with your online identity!
Here’s a story of one Melanie Brockway, who used her MySpace profile in her graffiti: The 23-year old single mother was tracked down by police through stickers mentioning her online identity – Devient Art – which she left by the side of her pieces. Melanie Brockway’s page on the social networking website details her age, location and what school she attended, allowing officers to piece together her identity. [...] Since her arrest the unemployed mother-of-two’s MySpace page has been accessed, and now bears the banner heading: "Devient Art does not promote illegal graffiti in anyway. It is illegal you will get arrested, and its wrong… i again do do not promote illegal graffiti in anyway." Her mood has also been set to “p—– off”.
Link |
| Rickrolling Macy’s Parade Posted: 28 Nov 2008 08:12 AM PST  Rickrolling was taken to the largest audience yet Thursday at the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City.
Instead of a performance by the characters of "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends," onlookers were treated to a rendition of "Never Gonna Give You Up" by singer Rick Astley. The switch happened on Thursday morning, during the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The puppets on the float featuring the Cartoon Network show began to sing 1970s hit and TV theme song "Best Friend," but stopped abruptly, revealing Astley, himself, dancing and singing to his signature tune.
Link to story. Link to video. -Thanks, Billy Ting! |
| Of White Whales and Dark Energies Posted: 28 Nov 2008 08:10 AM PST  No one really knows what dark energy is, but it fills the universe. We wouldn’t even have the concept if it weren’t for the men who hunted sperm whales in the 19th century. If that’s not intriguing enough, the story also involves candles, Einstein, cannibalism, shrinking space men, ether, whale attacks, and exploding stars.
Whales live an exceedingly long time. Some, like the Bowhead Whale, can live for more than 200 years. A whale that could have been a baby swimming in the Artic Ocean in 1820 when the Essex was sunk and Owen Coffin drew the black dot, a teenager when Moby Dick was published, a young adult in 1887 when Michelson and Morley disproved ether and Einstein presented the theory of special relativity in 1905, and reaching old age when we humans discovered that the universe was flying to pieces in 1996— that whale, that aged and magnificent creature, may yet still live to see yet another revolution in physics.
I learned a lot about physics in this weird tale of science history. Link -Thanks, boaz sender! |
| Whack-A-Mouse Posted: 28 Nov 2008 08:09 AM PST |
| Polar Bears Won’t Mate -for good reason! Posted: 28 Nov 2008 07:57 AM PST  Zoo keepers at the Kushiro Municipal Zoo in Hokkaido, Japan were puzzled as to why their two polar bears didn’t show any interest in breeding. The two had been together since June, when the zoo brought in Tsuyoshi to mate with their resident female bear Kurumi.
Earlier this month, zookeepers put Tsuyoshi under anesthesia to get to the bottom of the matter. That’s when they made their discovery: Tsuyoshi is a female. Still, the Kushiro zoo plans to keep Tsuyoshi because he — or rather, she — has become immensely popular with visitors. “I have rather mixed feelings, given the need for breeding, but Tsuyoshi is an idol for Kushiro,” Yoshio Yamaguchi, head of the Kushiro zoo, told Japan’s Kyodo news agency.
Since the discovery was made, Tsuyoshi’s “brother” was also found to be female. Link (image credit: Kushiro Zoo) |
| Chicken Image Stabilizer Posted: 28 Nov 2008 07:56 AM PST  Photographers, you don’t need to spend a lot of money on an image stabilizer -just use a chicken’s head!
According to the video, motion processors use an inertial measurement unit, which senses motion (rate, type and direction) and compensates for it. Chickens have a pretty advanced version.
It’s funny, too! Link (embedded YouTube video) -Thanks, bactac! |
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