Neatorama

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• The Panyee Football Club
• Supermodel Meal in a Box Gum
• Two Dogs Dining
• XKCD Radiation Dose Chart
• Stars in "Downtown" Milky Way
• "Slow" Evolution is Better
• Pop-Up Books Aren't Just For Kids
• Giant Shoe Car
• Creepiest Kinect-Hack Eye Follows You
• 3D Fog Holograph
• The Immigrant Paradox
• Using a CO2-Powered Pinewood Derby Car Is Probaby Cheating
• Shotgun Guitar
• Lurking Title
• Domo Nerd Plush
• Golden Thumb
• Albrecht Dürer Stag Beetle in LEGO
• Han Solo's Favorite Drink
• Popeye Butt
• Who Uses the Phone Anymore?
• Prejudice: Evolution Made Me Do It
• The Sock Helper
• World's First Synthetic Microbe Accused of Copyright Infringement by James Joyce's Estate
• The Zoopreme Court
• Cheshire Cat Watch Concept
• This Week at Neatorama

The Panyee Football Club Posted: 20 Mar 2011 03:29 AM PDT (YouTube link) This video is like a Hollywood sports film (The Mighty Ducks, Hoosiers, A League of Their Own) condensed into five minutes. It’s a true story that took place in the village of Koh Panyee, Thailand in 1986, dramatized by the ad agency Leo Burnett & Arc Worldwide for Thai Military Bank. -via reddit

Supermodel Meal in a Box Gum Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:25 AM PDT Supermodel Meal in a Box Gum – $1.25 Spring is here and up next is bathing suit season.  Don’t worry the Supermodel Meal in a Box Gum from the NeatoShop is here to help!  It won’t make you thin, but it will give you a good laugh. A good sense of humor is way sexier than a rocking bod.  That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more hilarious Mints and Candies!

Two Dogs Dining Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:24 AM PDT Two dogs went into a restaurant may sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but this video clip of Two Dogs Dining is actually quite wonderful (they seem to be having a lot of fun! Nom nom nom …). Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Metafilter

XKCD Radiation Dose Chart Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:23 AM PDT With all the bad news of the nuclear reactor incident in Fukushima, Japan, it’s hard to get a handle of exactly how much radiation is bad. Randall Munroe of XKCD created what is probably the most informative chart about the different doses of radiation you get from various activities of life, from sleeping next to someone to flying over the USA to getting a chest X-ray and more. Link – via Boing Boing

Stars in "Downtown" Milky Way Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:22 AM PDT Where do stars go to have fun? Why, they go downtown in the Milky Way, of course. Take a look at this beautiful image taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope: In this Spitzer image, the myriad of stars crowding the center of our galaxy creates the blue haze that brightens towards the center of the image. The green features are from carbon-rich dust molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are illuminated by the surrounding starlight as they swirl around the galaxy’s core. The yellow-red patches are the thermal glow from warm dust. The polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dust are associated with bustling hubs of young stars. These materials, mixed with gas, are required for making new stars. The brightest white feature at the center of the image is the central star cluster in our galaxy. At a distance of 26,000 light years away from Earth, it is so distant that, to Spitzer’s view, most of the light from the thousands of individual stars is blurred into a single glowing blotch. Astronomers have determined that these stars are orbiting a massive black hole that lies at the very center of the galaxy. The region pictured here is immense, with a horizontal span of 2,400 light-years (5.3 degrees) and a vertical span of 1,360 light-years (3 degrees). Though most of the objects seen in this image are located near the galactic center, the features above and below the galactic plane tend to lie closer to Earth. Embiggen here: Link

"Slow" Evolution is Better Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:21 AM PDT Slow and steady wins the race, right? Well, at least in Aesop’s fable and now, it seems, also in evolution – at least if you’re a bacterium: Research carried out in Richard Lenski’s lab at Michigan State University in East Lansing, and published today in Science 1, shows that rapidly evolving ‘hare’ bacteria were eventually wiped out by their more sluggish rivals. The reason was that the ‘tortoise’ bacteria had a higher ‘evolvability’, or a greater potential to take advantage of future beneficial mutations, than their speedier competitors, despite a tendency to accumulate such mutations at a slower rate. [...] Cooper and his colleagues looked at two Escherichia coli clone lineages, sampled after 500, 1,000 and 1,500 generations of evolution. They came from a long-term bacterial evolution experiment running in the lab. By looking for the presence of five beneficial mutations, the researchers found that ‘hare’ bacteria had more advantageous genetic changes than ‘tortoises’ after 500 generations, suggesting they were more likely to go on to successfully survive and reproduce, and to eventually wipe out their competitors altogether. But looking at the later generations, the team found that ‘tortoises’ had overtaken ‘hares’ and gone on to dominate the population. Link

Pop-Up Books Aren't Just For Kids Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:20 AM PDT I admit it. I love pop-up books – the intricate things that – well, pop up – are often mind-boggling. So, I was tickled pink to see that Bowdoin College has a large collection of more than 1,800 pop-up books ever published. Don’t miss the wonderful video clip: Link – via Linkfilter

Giant Shoe Car Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:19 AM PDT You can walk many miles in good shoes, but this is taking the concept a little bit too far: A footwear manufacturer in China has made an electric car out of a giant shoe. It can carry two people up to 250 miles at speeds of up to 20mph on a single charge of the battery underneath the driver’s seat. The leather ‘bodywork’ is made in the same way as a normal shoe but on a bigger scale, using the hide of five bulls. A Kang Shoe company spokesman said it took six months to design and build the car at a cost of around £4,000. Link – via J-Walk Blog

Creepiest Kinect-Hack Eye Follows You Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:18 AM PDT What do you get when you add Kinect to a Pufferfish spherical display (yes, that giant orb you see above)? Behold the creepy eye that follows you everywhere: The orb-shaped display has a big iris and retina on it and makes the rough display look like a giant eyeball sitting there on the podium. The Kinect sees when a person walks up and the eye pops up on the sphere and then follows the person as they walk around the room. Technabob has the video clip: Link

3D Fog Holograph Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:17 AM PDT Remember the holographic projection of Princess Leia in Star Wars? Well, that may be coming to reality soon, thanks to … fog: Researchers at Osaka University in Japan have made a 3D and 360-degree display that projects from a variety of different angles onto a cylindrical fog display. This combination of multiple-point of view projectors and the cylinder allows for a display that is 3D no matter what side you view it from, though in order to get a holodeck style of projection a much larger set of projectors, and a lot more fog, would need to be on hand. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – more info at Physorg

The Immigrant Paradox Posted: 20 Mar 2011 01:16 AM PDT NY Times columnist David Brooks asks: Are new immigrants wrecking the social fabric of the United States? Or is it the other way around? Is America corrupting them instead? Back in 2010, researchers from Brown University have noticed that first generation immigrant children generally outperform second and third generation immigrant children, despite having the largest linguistic and cultural barriers. They call this "Immigrant Paradox": “These are very unusual findings,” said Garcia Coll, the Robinson and Barstow Professor of Education, Psychology and Pediatrics at Brown. “In a time where immigrants are seen as detriments to our society and not making contributions, what this research is telling us is that the first generations come in with amazing energy and amazing capabilities of surmounting lack of education in parents, poverty, and language differences. The tragedy is that as some kids acculturate and become American, they start doing worse.” Now, a new research from the University of Florida found further support for the Immigrant Paradox: the second and third generations also tend to get into more trouble. Mildred Maldonado-Molina, et al. looked at the pattern of DUI arrests and found that first-generation immigrants have the lowest rate of DUI arrests, as well as marijuana and alcohol use. Second generation US-born Hispanic youth has higher rates of those three things, and third generation even worse. Interesting, huh? What do you think the reason for immigrants’ children and grandchildren doing progressively "worse" in those metrics?

Using a CO2-Powered Pinewood Derby Car Is Probaby Cheating Posted: 19 Mar 2011 04:04 PM PDT The Pinewood Derby is a traditional crafting event among Cub Scouts in the United States. Boys are given a block of wood and some plastic wheels. Their job is to carve and paint the block into a car that, when released at the top of a long ramp, will beat the other similarly made cars to the finish line. When I was a Cub Scout, my Dad showed me how to add weights to the body. Doing so was completely within the rules. Adding CO2 canisters to the car, however, probably isn’t. It’s actually a fairly sophisticated modification because the tubes have to open at the right time. A video at the link shows how it’s done. Link via Hack A Day via MArooned | Photo: The Hell Ya Better

Shotgun Guitar Posted: 19 Mar 2011 02:42 PM PDT A man in Luleå, Sweden, was found to have a guitar that had been converted into a double-barreled shotgun: Aside from the six more conventional weapons found in the apartment and a quantity of ammunition, police discovered that a wall-mounted guitar was not quite as it first appeared. The neck of the guitar has been hollowed out and equipped with two shotgun barrels, while the body of the string instrument contained the beginnings of trigger mechanism. Link via reddit | Photos: The Local

Lurking Title Posted: 19 Mar 2011 12:27 PM PDT American movies are often re-titled for foreign audiences. In this quiz, you’ll be given a foreign title of a US movie, translated into English. Can you guess what movie it was in the US? It’s a multiple-choice question, so it shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I haven’t even seen the vast majority of these movies, yet I scored 27 out of 30 by taking time to think about each question. Bonus: if you take the quiz again, the questions will be different. Link -via mental_floss

Domo Nerd Plush Posted: 19 Mar 2011 12:22 PM PDT Attention Domo fans! Behold the Domo Nerd Plush from the NeatoShop.  You know you want him! What’s cuter than a farting, saw toothed creature who hates apples? A farting, saw toothed creature, who hates apples, and is dressed like a nerd! Oh, he is just too adorable. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Plush Toys.

Golden Thumb Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:56 AM PDT Forget wearing rings – that’s too normie. Hipsters nowadays wear … uh, golden thumb sock? Whatever you want to call it, Mahtab Hanna’s definitely has the Midas Touch. Via The Carrotbox and Super Punch

Albrecht Dürer Stag Beetle in LEGO Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:55 AM PDT (L) Stag Beetle by Albrecht Dürer (R) Legohaulic [Flickr] In 1505, German polymath Albrecht Dürer drew this painting called Stag Beetle. Fast forward 500+ years later, Flickr user Legohaulic recreated it in LEGO. Via Make.

Han Solo's Favorite Drink Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:55 AM PDT Photo: The Blager – via DBSW What did Han drink in the cantina before he shot Greedo first? Asked and answered.

Popeye Butt Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:54 AM PDT Pain in the butt after being rear ended? No double entendre intended (ya pervs) – I mean if you’ve literally got pain in the butt after a traffic accident, then perhaps you’ve got a case of Popeye Butt: … while having a butt like Popeye’s bicep sounds even worse, it’s actually a medical first, according to some scientists who, after diagnosing the first medically-described butt-muscle rupture, gave the condition the official name of “popeye gluteus.” [...] “Popeye gluteus” was agreed upon not because the bruising resembled a popeye-like black eye, but because the muscle deformity “was like a prominence that ‘bunched up’ when he tensed his buttock muscle,” Wood said in an email. The photographs in their study didn’t adequately capture the injury’s protruding shape, and the name so supposed to tip off that the muscle actually popped up from its usual position. The name also refers to Popeye biceps, a known injury in which shoulders rupture and bicep muscles bunch up, and Wood’s group just applied the same term to a ruptured buttock.”We thought that describing the deformity as a ‘popeye gluteus’ would make people think of the ‘popeye biceps‘ deformity in biceps rupture,” adds Wood. Link | What does it look like? Improbable Research has the photo (Note: we’re talking about a man’s buttocks here … You’ve been warned!)

Who Uses the Phone Anymore? Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:53 AM PDT We all have cell phones (oops, sorry, "smart" phones) but did you ever notice that no one ever calls anymore? Pamela Paul of The New York Times noticed how modern day communications is now shying away from the telephone: It’s at the point where when the phone does ring — and it’s not my mom, dad, husband or baby sitter — my first thought is: “What’s happened? What’s wrong?” My second thought is: “Isn’t it weird to just call like that? Out of the blue? With no e-mailed warning?” I don’t think it’s just me. Sure, teenagers gave up the phone call eons ago. But I’m a long way away from my teenage years, back when the key rite of passage was getting a phone in your bedroom or (cue Molly Ringwald gasp) a line of your own. In the last five years, full-fledged adults have seemingly given up the telephone — land line, mobile, voice mail and all. According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years. “I literally never use the phone,” Jonathan Adler, the interior designer, told me. (Alas, by phone, but it had to be.) “Sometimes I call my mother on the way to work because she’ll be happy to chitty chat. But I just can’t think of anyone else who’d want to talk to me.” Then again, he doesn’t want to be called, either. “I’ve learned not to press ‘ignore’ on my cellphone because then people know that you’re there.” “I remember when I was growing up, the rule was, ‘Don’t call anyone after 10 p.m.,’ ” Mr. Adler said. “Now the rule is, ‘Don’t call anyone. Ever.’ ” Link

Prejudice: Evolution Made Me Do It Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:52 AM PDT Prejudice is terrible, but is it uniquely human? No, according to a new research on rhesus macaques by Yale psychologist Laurie Santos. Blame evolution: "One of the more troubling aspects of human nature is that we evaluate people differently depending on whether they’re a member of our ‘ingroup’ or ‘outgroup,’" Santos said. "Pretty much every conflict in human history has involved people making distinctions on the basis of who is a member of their own race, religion, social class, and so on. The question we were interested in is: Where do these types of group distinctions come from?" The answer, she adds, is that such biases have apparently been shaped by 25 million years of evolution and not just by human culture. Link

The Sock Helper Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:50 AM PDT As I grow older, the refrain from my life’s theme song seems to be "bendin’ down is hard to do" (sung, of course, to the tune of "Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do," by Neil Sedaka). So, I suspect whether your reaction to this sock helper to the left is "stupid" or "genius" largely depends on your age. Random Good Stuff has the larger pic: Link

World's First Synthetic Microbe Accused of Copyright Infringement by James Joyce's Estate Posted: 19 Mar 2011 11:50 AM PDT When Craig Venter created a synthetic microbe, he inserted a passage from James Joyce. Guess who’s upset? Joyce’s estate, claiming copyright infringement: In order to distinguish their synthetic DNA from that naturally present in the bacterium, Venter’s team coded several famous quotes into their DNA, including one from James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man: “To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” After announcing their work, Venter explained, his team received a cease and desist letter from Joyce’s estate, saying that he’d used the Irish writer’s work without permission. ”We thought it fell under fair use,” said Venter. Link – via The Loom

The Zoopreme Court Posted: 19 Mar 2011 10:51 AM PDT The Zoopreme Court is a collection of animal caricatures of U.S. Supreme Court justices. Dan Schofield and Alice DuBois, the site’s creators, select animals with puns based on the names of each justice. Pictured above is Ruth Bearder Ginsbearg (Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Schofield and DuBois plan to compose caricatures of all 112 justices as well as landmark decisions. Link via The Agitator

Cheshire Cat Watch Concept Posted: 19 Mar 2011 07:58 AM PDT You can put this Cheshire Cat in your pocket and tell what time it is as its body parts appear or disappear, like the Alice In Wonderland character. It’s still in the design stage but I would love to have one. The hours are affixed around the outside of the case in normal clockwise fashion. The cat himself is segmented into 5 minute intervals, the grin, appearing first, is 5 minutes, his head is the 10 minute mark, and each stripe is five minutes. The singular minutes are four dots affixed just below and between the 12 and 1 hour markers. Link – Via BoingBoing

This Week at Neatorama Posted: 19 Mar 2011 06:00 AM PDT The vernal equinox is tomorrow evening (7:21PM EDT), which means our long snowy winter will officially be over! There was a lot of stuff going on this week at Neatorama- we don’t want you to miss a bit of it, so here are the highlights: In spring, a young geek’s fancy turns to thoughts of love, so Jill Harness rounded up some inspiration with 10 More Geeky Love Songs. Phil Haney sorted out the many different lineups of our favorite bands over the years in The Replacement Musicians. We had a guest post from author Stephen Rebello called Five Things You Didn't Know About Alfred Hitchcock in honor of Alfred Hitchcock Day last Saturday. Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader filled us in on The Science of Moving Pictures. From the Annals of Improbable Research came the classic battle of Coke vs. Pepsi: The Pioneers. We also got A Brief and Incomplete Timeline of T-Shirt History, courtesy of our friends at mental_floss magazine. By the way, mental_floss is experiencing some website issues (cough*hackers*cough), but a team of very expensive geeks are working to have that cleared up soon! At NeatoBambino, Tiffany marveled at the surprising things young children say in Out Of The Mouth Of Babes: Part 1. Oh yeah, there’s a giveaway involved for your participation! Look for part two coming this week. In the Name That Weird Invention! contest, Scott-O had a winning entry with the name First Eye'd Kit, and nik said he'd call it the Emergen-See Kit. Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop! We had an extra contest on Saturday, in the post Say What, Batman? Your mission: to provide a funny explanation leading up to the posted Batman and Robin comic panel. Larry won a t-shirt for his scenario, and Clippy pasted together an entire comic for his entry, but didn’t select a t-shirt. The What Is It? game came up on Thursday. Once again, the very first comment had the correct answer! Berhard wins a t-shirt because he knew the device is a stanchion, to hold cattle still for milking or veterinary procedures. The funniest answer was from Stephen Bishop, who said it was an early prototype for a mammogram! However, he didn't select a t-shirt. Looking for more once you’ve caught up on this week’s Neatorama posts? Check out the links at the NeatoHub or the articles at The Best of Neatorama!

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