Neatorama

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• Satanic Gecko is First Animal Baby of 2011
• Attack of the Killer Hamster
• Rollerblading Amish
• Lice DNA Reveals Our Fashion History
• Cold As Ice
• Phone Thief Responded to Call from Police
• Gingerbread "The Burrow" from Harry Potter
• French Fries Skull
• Soap Flakes
• Star Wars Trench Run through Shoveled Snow
• Decomposing Human Head Cake
• 3 Minutes
• Stonehenge Model Made out of Rice Krispies
• Ghostbusters Wedding Cake
• Vintage New York
• Magma Rain During Moon Formation
• The Granddaddy of Amazon Customer-reviewed Products
• Top 10 Photojournalists
• The Nintendo Sequel Quiz
• Fordson Snow Devil
• Sculpted Celebrity Dolls
• The 10 Most Essential Nerd Foods
• Why Johnny Can't Name His Colors

Satanic Gecko is First Animal Baby of 2011 Posted: 11 Jan 2011 12:13 AM PST Photo: Ken Bohn / San Diego Zoo I'm a sucker for New Year baby - you know, like Timeo Goede, who had excellent timing to be born at 11:11 AM on 1/1/11 (Don't mom and baby look so heavenly?) Well, this one is nifty as well, though perhaps not quite so heavenly -the first animal baby born in 2011 at the San Diego Zoo is a satanic gecko. That's right, there's a gecko named after Beelzebub: The satanic leaf-tailed gecko (Uroplatus phantasticus) is native to the incredibly species-rich African island of Madagascar. The horns over the lizard's eyes are what earned the gecko its devilish name. "All of the leaf-tailed geckos are camouflage specialists," said John Kinkaid, an animal care manger at the zoo. "Some have beards, others have patterns that mimic tree bark or moss, while this one has a tail that looks like a dead leaf. The horns above its eyes break up the silhouette of its body and make it harder for predators to find." Link

Attack of the Killer Hamster Posted: 10 Jan 2011 11:58 PM PST This little feller, a European Hamster (yes, they also exist in Russia), turns out to be quite a feisty little rodent, as these two hapless Russians found out the hard way (they need the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!). In Soviet Russia, hamsters eat you! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via metafilter

Rollerblading Amish Posted: 10 Jan 2011 07:42 PM PST What? The Amish are into rollerblading? It’s news to me, but here’s a 1996 New York Times article attesting to this cultural quirk: ”It’s faster than a horse, and it’s fun,” said Mr. Herschberger, 20, who skates the 25 miles in two hours, almost twice as fast as an Amish buggy. ”You just feel free.” Mr. Herschberger has abundant company on the roads of southeastern Pennsylvania. In the last few years, hundreds of Amish, most of them young, have taken up in-line skating to run errands, play hockey or just zigzag for pleasure. Among the 150,000 or so Old Order Amish, who live in 230 settlements in 22 states and Canada, in-line skating is justified as an efficient, sensible means of locomotion, another example of how the modern can square with the traditional. Article Link and Pictures via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Visboo

Lice DNA Reveals Our Fashion History Posted: 10 Jan 2011 06:34 PM PST A study of lice genes is helping scientists to pinpoint the era in history when humans began to wear clothing. Really. The key to the study by David Reed and colleagues, which appears in Molecular Biology And Evolution, is that there are two kinds of lice that hang around humans: the head lice that live on our scalp, and the body lice that live in our clothes. At one point in the past these two shared a common ancestor, Reed reasoned, and the body lice would have split off and become a separate group once they had human clothing in which to live. The genomes of the two kinds of lice split somewhere between 83,000 and 170,000 years ago, which means that humans ran naked for hundreds of thousands of years without body hair or clothing. Clothing probably arose during an Ice Age, and eventually enabled humans to leave Africa to explore colder parts of the world. Link

Cold As Ice Posted: 10 Jan 2011 06:29 PM PST (YouTube link) Street art made possible by snow, with just a few seconds of eerie animation, inspired by a drain grate. The artist is Cem Ulucan. -via Laughing Squid

Phone Thief Responded to Call from Police Posted: 10 Jan 2011 06:27 PM PST Brian Westerfield approached a man in a Nampa, Idaho Walmart store who had just bought a smartphone. He grabbed the phone and fled. He got away the first time but when the victim and police got together they came up with a plan to call the stolen phone and talk to the man who took it. “The suspect didn’t know that he was talking with the police,” Sgt. Mike Wagoner said. “(They) dickered over the price for the phone and so when the suspect did show up the police obviously where there to meet him.” They arrested him after he tried to run he tripped and fell face first onto the ground. It apparently didn’t occur to Westerfield to wonder how the “buyer” got the phone number when he didn’t yet know it himself. Link -via Gizmodo

Gingerbread "The Burrow" from Harry Potter Posted: 10 Jan 2011 05:58 PM PST “The Burrow” is the name of the Weasley family home from Harry Potter. CraftSter user mezcraft made this impressive gingerbread house that looks quite like the one shown in the movies. She writes: I made the shingles out of shreddies than sprayed them with colourmist icing colouring, then I did some undershading with brown icing. My favourite part of the whole thing was these little sweaters on a laundry line that I added. I wanted to make something to reflect how much of an awesome D-I-Y-er Molly Weasley was by making all her kids monogrammed sweaters for Christmas. So each one of them is a like a wee tiny Gingerbread cookie. Link via Geek Crafts

French Fries Skull Posted: 10 Jan 2011 05:51 PM PST This image of mysterious origin is going around the ‘Tubes today. Which brilliant artist will step forward and claim responsibility? via Geekologie

Soap Flakes Posted: 10 Jan 2011 05:21 PM PST Nathalie Stämpfli designed this soap dispenser. It takes a solid bar and grates shavings into your hand. It’s like a gourmet Parmesan cheese grater, but with soap! Stämpfli writes: Today, most of the soap we use is liquid soap, which contains a lot of water. Block soap instead is more concentrated and therefore has some ecological benefits: You don't transport unnecessary water around. In place of plastic bottles you can simply use paper for packaging. The solid blocks can easily be piled and allow a greater space efficiency in a truck. But what about the usage of soap bars? I don't like the weird slippery feeling when I use them. It gives me goose bumps. And under the shower, it always slides out of your fingers. Hand soap also often gets dirty and accumulates bacteria when more than one person is using it. Link via DVICE

Star Wars Trench Run through Shoveled Snow Posted: 10 Jan 2011 04:55 PM PST (Video Link) Aaron Dabelow and Mike Nelson noticed that a freshly-shoveled walkway looked like the trench on the surface of the Death Star depicted at the end of Episode IV of Star Wars. So Dabelow added a digital X-Wing fighter to recreate the scene. via Great White Snark

Decomposing Human Head Cake Posted: 10 Jan 2011 04:45 PM PST Would you like to eat a cake that looks like a severed human head? Moreover, one that slowly decomposes as the frozen icing melts to reveal a skull inside? Well, then, good news! Barbara Jo of Do It Myself! knows how to make one. She provides step-by-step instructions at the link. Link via Nerdcore

3 Minutes Posted: 10 Jan 2011 04:37 PM PST (Video Link) Do you have three minutes? Watch 3 Minutes. It’s Ross Ching’s adaptation of the classic Richard Connell short story “The Most Dangerous Game.” The film a good demonstration of the proverbial wisdom that lightsabers make everything better. Link via Gizmodo Previously by Ross Ching: Electric 2.0

Stonehenge Model Made out of Rice Krispies Posted: 10 Jan 2011 04:29 PM PST Suddenly, the challenge of moving enormous stone slabs using Neolithic technology doesn’t look so daunting, as artist Brock Davis illustrates in this piece entitled “Rice Krispyhenge”. Presumably the stones were held in place with marshmallow. Link via Geekosystem Previously by Brock Davis: Expressionist Versions of Classic Arcade Games Boba Fett’s Invoice for Jabba the Hut

Ghostbusters Wedding Cake Posted: 10 Jan 2011 04:11 PM PST Charm City Cakes was commissioned to create a wedding cake for two Ghostbusters fans. Really avid fans. Obsessed on a level that we can understand (though with us it’s Star Wars and/or Jaws). They wanted to incorporate their shared love of the movie into their wedding cake. Their idea? To replicate the final scene of the movie, when the guys are battling the Stay Puft Marshmallow man from atop an NYC skyscraper, only with the bride and groom doing the proton pack zapping.Can we do that? Um, YES? YES WE CAN. Read how this awesome cake came together at the bakery’s blog. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy Here are more pictures from the wedding. Link

Vintage New York Posted: 10 Jan 2011 03:25 PM PST Do you remember what stood at the site in New York City before the World Trade Center was built? It was the Hudson Terminal Building, a massive office building covering two city blocks. This century-old picture of the Hudson Terminal Building is part of a wonderful collection of pictures called Vintage New York at Dark Roasted Blend. Link

Magma Rain During Moon Formation Posted: 10 Jan 2011 10:32 AM PST A collision eons ago between the earth and another celestial body throw vaporized rock into the atmosphere, some of which eventually became the moon. If this is true, you’d think that the earth and the moon would share the same basic materials, but there is more iron on the moon and more magnesium on earth. Now researchers have an answer, and it’s completely awesome. Magma rain would resolve the mystery, as rising rock vapor would see its magnesium oxide start to condense into droplets and fall back onto the planet’s surface. The iron oxide inside the rock vapor wouldn’t have condensed as easily, meaning far more of it got mixed into the disc that became the Moon. Which evokes some interesting mental pictures resembling heavy metal album covers. Link -via Geekosystem (Image credit: Fahad Sulehria)

The Granddaddy of Amazon Customer-reviewed Products Posted: 10 Jan 2011 10:28 AM PST We’ve had fun with facetious Amazon customer reviews for a number of odd products, like the TSA Security Checkpoint toy, the Three Wolf Moon Shirt, and the Table That Attaches to Your Steering Wheel (which has the world’s greatest customer images). But the granddaddy of all customer-reviewed Amazon products is Tuscan Whole Milk, which we featured back in 2006. One should not be intimidated by Tuscan Whole Milk. Nor should one prejudge, despite the fact that Tuscan is non-vintage and comes in such large containers. Do not be fooled: this is not a jug milk. I always find it important to taste milk using high-quality stemware — this is milk deserving of something better than a Flintstones plastic tumbler. One should pour just a small dollop and swirl it in the glass — note the coating and look for clots or discoloration. And the color — it should be opaque, and very, very white. Now, immerse your nose in the glass and take a whiff. Tuscan transports you instantly to scenic hill towns in central Italy (is that Montepulciano I detect?) — there is the loamy clay, the green grass of summer days, the towering cypress. Of course, the attraction was the novelty of a mail-order vendor selling fresh milk -which they don’t do anymore, but the product is available from “other sellers”, starting at $48.09. And now there are 1,240 reviews! Don’t miss the eight-stanza poem one reviewer left, along with five stars. Link -Thanks, Joe Kooman!

Top 10 Photojournalists Posted: 10 Jan 2011 10:20 AM PST TopTenz has a list of ten (of course) photojournalists whose names you might not know, but they brought us pictures you will always remember. Many of them risked their lives for those photographs -David Seymour, for example. In 1933 he landed his first job as a freelance journalist and from there his career took off. He was able to capture moments during the Spanish Civil War as well as during unrest in Czechoslovakia. In 1939 he took photographs of Loyalist Spanish refugees who journeyed to Mexico. When WWII began, Seymour was in New York but enlisted in the army in 1940 where he worked as a photo interpreter in Europe. In 1942 his parents were killed by Nazis, which lead him to help UNICEF document the plight of refugees, especially children. Even though he was well known for his war photographs of orphans, he later got into photographing celebrities. While covering the 1956 Suez War, Seymour and fellow photographer Jean Roy were killed by machine-gun fire. Link

The Nintendo Sequel Quiz Posted: 10 Jan 2011 08:25 AM PST If you played a good amount (some may say bad amount) of video games in the 1980s and ’90s, you know classic Nintendo games. Of course, if something sells well, any company will capitalize on that by offering a sequel -some of those Nintendo sequels became hits; others did not. If you remember the sequels, you’ll probably do well on this Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss. You have to do better than my dismal 20%! Link

Fordson Snow Devil Posted: 10 Jan 2011 08:23 AM PST (YouTube link) This snow vehicle is an example of a screw-propelled vehicle. In the 1920s the Armstead Snow Motor was developed. When this was used to convert a Fordson tractor into a screw-propelled vehicle with a single pair of cylinders, the combination became known as the Fordson Snow Devil. A film was made to show the capabilities of the vehicle as well as a Chevrolet car fitted with an Armstead Snow Motor.[6] The film clearly shows that the vehicle copes well in snow. Steering was effected by having each cylinder receive power from a separate clutch which, depending on the position of the steering gear, engages and disengages; this results in a vehicle that is relatively maneuverable. The promotional film shows the Armstead snow motor hauling 20 tons of logs. Link -via Everlasting Blort

Sculpted Celebrity Dolls Posted: 10 Jan 2011 07:22 AM PST Alesia Newman-Breen sculpts dolls as characters from movies, TV, and literature. Each doll is one-of-a-kind and captures the look of the subject in a way no mass-produced doll can.She also does custom dolls that look like people you know! Link -via Nag on the Lake

The 10 Most Essential Nerd Foods Posted: 10 Jan 2011 07:14 AM PST Topless Robot uses the terms nerd and geek interchangeably in this list of foods that easily allow someone to stay at their work desk all day and night without having to cook or wash dishes. Now, this is not to suggest that we nerds don’t enjoy a night at a gourmet restaurant or a nice home-cooked meal as much as the next person. But so much time, money, and effort goes toward nerdy fandoms and hobbies that we’ve become notorious for our reliance on cheap, quick, easily prepared, and convenient meals. Essentially, anything that takes us away from our computers, TVs, novels, comics, and games for the least amount of time — and leaves us with the most money in our pockets to fuel our obsessions is highly regarded. Note that although this list contains one Japanese product, it is aimed toward the US audience. I know a lot of geeks who would argue all day that the ultimate nerd food is poutine. Link -via mental_floss

Why Johnny Can't Name His Colors Posted: 10 Jan 2011 07:07 AM PST Stanford University has an ongoing study of how children learn language. Part of that study is how they learn color names. They found it to be difficult for a lot of children -in fact, their parents worried that they might be colorblind! As it happens, English color words may be especially difficult to learn, because in English we throw in a curve ball: we like to use color words "prenominally," meaning before nouns. So, we'll often say things like "the red balloon," instead of using the postnominal construction, "the balloon is red." Why does this matter? It has to do with how attention works. In conversation, people have to track what's being talked about, and they often do this visually. This is particularly so if they're trying to make sense of whatever it is someone is going on about. Indeed, should I start blathering about "the old mumpsimus in the corner" you're apt to begin discretely looking around for the mystery person or object. Kids do the exact same thing, only more avidly, because they have much, much more to learn about. That means that when you stick the noun before the color word, you can successfully narrow their focus to whatever it is you're talking about before you hit them with the color. Say "the balloon is red," for example, and you will have helped to narrow "red-ness" to being an attribute of the balloon, and not some general property of the world at large. This helps kids discern what about the balloon makes it red. When the researchers switched the color and noun, they found a significant improvement in performance over the children’s baseline performances, compared to the children who received prenominal training. Link -via TYWKIWBI (Image credit: Flickr user wine me up)

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