Neatorama

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• Star Wars Alphabet
• Fast Food of South and Central America
• Contact Lens Enables Transplant
• Bullet Removed After 42 Years
• School Lunch From Around the World
• Reznor Helps Transplant Patient
• Spray Paint Can Lamp
• Did Crazy Cavemen Make Those Cave Drawings?
• The Jewish Origin of the Vulcan Salute
• LOL Fat Cats
• God’s Debt Cancellation Plan

Star Wars Alphabet Posted: 28 May 2009 09:24 PM PDT Set your kids on the path to Star Wars fandom early by teaching them the ABCs using Star Wars characters! This Flickr set by illustrator Michael Fleming made me smile. Link -Thanks, Bairman!

Fast Food of South and Central America Posted: 28 May 2009 06:03 PM PDT You read about fast foods of Europe and Asia and Australia, now in the third part of the series, HealthAssist takes a look at fast food from South and Central America. For example, in Panama: Fondas are one of the most popular places to grab a meal on the go. These small kiosk-type restaurants serve their food from glass boxes heated by a light bulb. Most, if not all of the food served in fondas are fried - rice, hojaldres, pork chunks, empanadas. Fondas also serve a soup called sancocho. Sancocho is a type of chicken soup flavoured with onion and cilantro. Link -Thanks, Karen!

Contact Lens Enables Transplant Posted: 28 May 2009 02:54 PM PDT A new procedure to help people with damaged corneas is showing promise in three patients so far. A team from the University of New South Wales in Sydney takes stem cells from the patient’s good eye and cultures them in a contact lens. When the cells have multiplied, they place the lens over the patient’s affected eye and leave it for around three weeks. During that time, the cells begin to grow into the damaged cornea and help regenerate it. In effect, it’s a stem cell transplant from one eye to the other. Researcher Dr Nick Di Girolamo said: ‘The procedure is totally simple and cheap. ‘Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient's own serum, and is completely non-invasive. ‘There’s no suturing, there is no major operation. You don't need any fancy equipment.’ The contact lenses used in the operation are already widely used after eye surgery. The researchers hope the technique can be adapted for other parts of the eye, such as the retina, and even elsewhere in the body. Link -via Digg

Bullet Removed After 42 Years Posted: 28 May 2009 08:26 AM PDT 65-year-old Hou Guoying recently had a bullet removed that had been lodged in her face for 42 years! She was shot accidently during the Cultural Revolution in China in 1967. The bullet apparently hit her when it ricocheted through a wall during a fight in between rival factions of Red Guards. But doctors initially told her that her wound was only superficial, the Chongqing News reported. Constant headaches and difficulty eating eventually led to an x-ray in 1978 that revealed the bullet. She had refused an operation because of poor medical facilities in Chongqing at the time - resulting in three more decades of discomfort. This year, the pain began to spread to the rest of her body, so the bullet finally came out. Hou is recovering from the surgery. Link -via Arbroath

School Lunch From Around the World Posted: 28 May 2009 07:44 AM PDT I personally liked school lunch. But looking at these pictures, it seems like my school may have been the exception to the rule. This collection has 26 different school lunches from six countries. Korea: Kimchi, a fish, some seaweed looking thing, and some colorful mystery items. Link From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by notoriousnicholas.

Reznor Helps Transplant Patient Posted: 28 May 2009 07:15 AM PDT Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is doing something special during the band’s final tour. By offering special concert packages and encouraging donations, they have raised over $850,000 to help Eric De La Cruz get heart transplant. De La Cruz was turned down from transplant lists because of the lack of transplant centers in Nevada. Reznor became aware of his situation after De La Cruz’s sister, former CNN.com news anchor Veronica De La Cruz, began a fundraising campaign on her website. The campaign is as much to raise money for Eric as it is to raise awareness of Nevada’s limited transplant opportunities, and to petition Senator Harry Reid and other Congress members for improved legislation. Link to story. Link to donation information. -via reddit

Spray Paint Can Lamp Posted: 28 May 2009 05:49 AM PDT Your spray can empty after a hard night graffitying? Don’t toss the can! Remember the environment, and recycle it into something cool. That’s what artist Jake Rankin of Portland, Oregon, does: he takes spent Krylon cans and turn it into a lamp. Best yet, the on/off switch is the paint nozzle. (No words on whether you get the faint smell of fumes whenever you turn it on). Breeze Block Gallery has ‘em for $60: Link - via Coolbuzz

Did Crazy Cavemen Make Those Cave Drawings? Posted: 28 May 2009 05:48 AM PDT Photos: otisarchives2 (left), modcult (right) Are cave paintings signs of intelligence of ancient cave dwellers or are they just scribbles of crazy cavemen? Take a look at the two photos above. The one to the left is a painting made by a patient at St. Elizabeth’s hospital. The patient had a case of dementia praecox (eventually classified as schizophrenia) and used a pin or fingernail to scratch paint from the wall, creating pictures symbolizing past events in the patient’s life and represent a mild state of mental regression. Jeb of Modcult made this intriguing observation: You know, everyone assumes cave paintings were made for some sort of vaunted religious or technical purpose, but maybe in olden times they just sent their crazy people into a cave. I mean, that’s basically what we do now. Link - via Cliff Pickover’s Reality Carnival

The Jewish Origin of the Vulcan Salute Posted: 28 May 2009 05:47 AM PDT Here’s a trivia for all you Trekkers to talk about during the previews of the new Star Trek movie. Did you know that the Vulcan salute - you know, the "live long and prosper" hand signal invented by Leonard Nimoy: Nimoy felt that there should be some kind of distinctive greeting among Vulcans, analogous to a handshake or a bow. Alan Dean Foster’s novelization, based on an early script, has Spock kneeling before the Vulcan matriarch, T’Pau, who places her hands on his shoulders, like royalty dubbing a knight. But Nimoy didn’t care for this. Previous episodes had already established that Vulcans are touch telepaths. Therefore, a touch on the shoulders would be an invasion of privacy. Instead, Nimoy drew upon his own Jewish background to suggest the now-familiar salute. Back in the 1960s, hippies who watched "Amok Time" thought the salute was a variation of the two-fingered peace sign. But we Jews knew better. The Vulcan salute came not from protest marches, but from the pulpit of Nimoy’s childhood synagogue. The Vulcan greeting is based upon a blessing gesture used by the kohanim (koe-hah-NEEM) during the worship service. The kohanim are the genealogical descendants of the Jewish priests who served in the Jerusalem Temple. Modern Jews no longer have priests leading services as in ancient times, nor do we have animal sacrifices anymore. (Yes, people really do ask about that!) The sacrificial system ended with the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70. C.E. However, a remnant of the Temple service lives on in the "kohane blessing" ritual (duchenen in Yiddish) that is performed on certain holy days. Link - via grow-a-brain

LOL Fat Cats Posted: 28 May 2009 05:46 AM PDT by Rande Daykin Move over, LOLcats! There’s a new meme in town. Here’s LOL Fat Cats: Link (Now, why didn’t I think of this?) - via Nag on the Lake Previously on Neatorama: Top 15 Amazingly Fat Cats

God’s Debt Cancellation Plan Posted: 28 May 2009 05:45 AM PDT Morris Cerullo in a poster advertising for his "Mission to London" (Photo: LoopZilla) Loan modification and debt cancellation are hot businesses right now. So hot that God himself apparently decided to get in on the action. Here’s a story of how one man built himself a surging evangelistic ministry, complete with "God’s debt cancellation" program - yours for the unbelievably low payment of a mere few hundred bucks: Emotional on-air pitches generate much of the money used to pay network salaries. In March, Morris Cerullo appeared on Inspiration’s “camp meeting” with a message to fire up prospective donors. “Is anybody ready for the greatest financial breakthrough you’ve ever experienced in your life?” he asked. The elder Cerullo, a Pentecostal minister, at times appeared to speak in tongues. His gravelly voice periodically rising to a shout, he urged members of the audience to fill envelopes with $900 donations. “When you sow for your financial anointing, the windows of heaven are going to open for you,” he said. “ … In the next nine months, you are going to experience more financial blessings than you’ve ever experienced in your life! 100 fold! Debt cancellation!” Soon, these words appeared on the screen: “Call now with your $900 offering and receive God’s debt cancellation.” Ames Alexander and Tim Funk of Charlotte Observer have the investigative report: Link - via Raw Story

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