Neatorama

---

• Gene May Determine How Much You Coffee You Drink
• Construction Plate and Utensil Set
• Secret of Longevity: Conscientiousness
• Epic Tilt-Shift Ski Video by Tristan Greszko
• True Color 3-D Hologram
• Tiger Giving Birth
• Cat and Dolphins Playing Together
• Hungry
• Baby Hummingbirds in a Nest
• Musical Albums Re-imagined as Book Covers
• Bench for Teens
• Inflatable Crowd
• Dream Lights
• Lynx Family
• Baby Polar Bear Plays With Bucket
• Bed Desk Combo
• Members of Congress Spent 27% of Their Time Taunting Each Other
• Charcuteroulette
• Breakfast Beer
• Thnx For Ur Money: Thief Sent Victim Flowers Using Her Own Credit Card
• Did Scientists Find a Gay Caveman?
• Conservatives and Liberals Have Different Brain Anatomy
• Twin Babies Talking, As Acted By Adult Men in Diapers
• This Week at Neatorama

Gene May Determine How Much You Coffee You Drink Posted: 10 Apr 2011 12:12 AM PDT Love coffee? No, I mean, do you love coffee? If you’re a coffee addict, then take heart – it’s not your fault: A new research shows that how much you crave caffeine largely depends on your genes. New research suggests that individuals who carry a so-called "high-consumption" variation of either gene appear to drink more coffee, relative to those who carry a "low-consumption" variant. "It’s really an incredible story," said study co-author Dr. Neil Caporaso, branch chief of genetic epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute. "People don’t really suspect it, but genetics plays a big role in a lot of behaviors, such as smoking and alcohol consumption. And now it turns out that it has a part in how much caffeine we drink." Link

Construction Plate and Utensil Set Posted: 10 Apr 2011 12:11 AM PDT Construction Plate – $14.95 and Construction Utensil Set – $19.95 Got a fussy eater? Make mealtime fun with the Construction Plate and Utensil Set from the NeatoShop. The plate, which comes complete with ramps and breaks to separate food into groupings, looks like a construction zone. It is specially designed to work with a set of Front Loader Spoon, Fork Lift Fork, and Bulldozer Pusher (to make it easy to gather food and load it onto the fork and spoon). Your tot will love dinnertime now! Links: Construction Plate and Construction Utensil Set (sold separately) | More Mealtime Fun

Secret of Longevity: Conscientiousness Posted: 10 Apr 2011 12:10 AM PDT Want to live a long life? A study of 1,500 children born in 1910 revealed the secret of a long life: conscientious habits. "Most people who live to an old age do so not because they have beaten cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or lung disease; rather, the long-lived have mostly avoided serious ailments altogether," according to Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin, in their recent book, "The Longevity Project." "The best childhood personality predictor of longevity was conscientiousness–the qualities of a prudent, persistent, well organized person," according to the two professors (he at the University of California–Riverside, and she at La Sierra University). "Conscientiousness . . . also turned out to be the best personality predictor of long life when measured in adulthood." Link | The Longevity Project at Amazon

Epic Tilt-Shift Ski Video by Tristan Greszko Posted: 10 Apr 2011 12:08 AM PDT Wyoming-based photographer Tristan Greszko created this epic tilt-shift video of a Jackson Hole ski resort. As you watch the clip, keep in mind that those Lilliputian specks are actually real skiers … Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] – via Wired

True Color 3-D Hologram Posted: 10 Apr 2011 12:06 AM PDT Holograms are pretty cool, but they’re lacking in the color department. Well, not for long, perhaps. Photonics physicists from Osaka University in Japan have managed to capture the original colors of an object in 3-D holograms: The team at Osaka took another approach, they use both lasers and white light. They first fire a laser at an object, say an apple, to create an interference pattern, but instead of just one laser color, they actually use three; red, green and blue. The interference pattern is then captured on a light sensitive material which is coated with silver (because it contains electrons that are easily excited by white light) and silicon dioxide (to help steer the waves). They then shine a steady white light on the metal sheathed material exciting the free electrons, causing the creation of surface plasmons, which results in the regeneration of the captured image as a true-color 3-D hologram; one that can be viewed from almost any angle and is the same colors as the original object. Link

Tiger Giving Birth Posted: 09 Apr 2011 07:55 PM PDT (YouTube link) John Varty founded Tiger Canyons reserve in South Africa. His goal is to start a population of wild, free-range tigers outside their natural habitat. He began with two zoo-born tigers, and now has 15 cats running loose in the reserve. This clip is from Tiger Man of Africa: The Mating Game, which aired last night as part of Expedition Week on the National Geographic channel. Link -via Buzzfeed

Cat and Dolphins Playing Together Posted: 09 Apr 2011 06:50 PM PDT (Video Link) This is astoundingly adorable! The cat and the dolphins seem to genuinely enjoy each others’ company. via Super Punch

Hungry Posted: 09 Apr 2011 05:25 PM PDT Crafter Moxie does a lot of great work, but this felted critter grabbed my attention and made me laugh. It’s part of an ongoing series called “Hungry”, featuring odd monsters finishing off human meals. Link via Craftzine

Baby Hummingbirds in a Nest Posted: 09 Apr 2011 04:48 PM PDT Alek Komarnitsky learned that hummingbirds had nested at a local golf course and took several high-resolution photographs. Here are the two babies, almost ready to leave the nest. The housefly on the branch gives you a sense of the scale. Link via American Digest

Musical Albums Re-imagined as Book Covers Posted: 09 Apr 2011 03:35 PM PDT Purple Rain as a science fiction thriller? Sure! London-based Graphic designer Christophe Gowans took twenty-six musical albums and depicted them as novels, aging them to indicate use. You can view the rest at the link. Link via Boing Boing | Screenshot: Mother Jones

Bench for Teens Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:47 AM PDT Photo: PS Geschwill If you can’t beat ‘em … sit with ‘em! That’s what Mayor Dieter Moerlein of Eppelheim, a small town in Germany did by installing a park bench for teens who refuse to sit properly: The mayor of 17 years calls them "no-interest" benches because teens have "no interest in following etiquette. They all sit on the new benches like sparrows on a branch," he said. [...] "Kids are happy because there are no rules against sitting on the back of benches," the mayor said. "Others are happy because they now have a clean place to sit." Link | Photo from Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung – via J-Walk Blog

Inflatable Crowd Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:46 AM PDT Angel & Demonds – Prep 550 inflatables Forget computer and humans! If you want crowds in your next film, forgo the expensive CGI and rowdy extras … inflate them instead! Joe Biggins of Inflatable Crowd Co., has supplied plastic people to some of Hollywood’s biggest hits: Link – via Metafilter

Dream Lights Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:45 AM PDT Dream Lights – $29.95 No fireflies in your backyard? You can still get a jar of magical lights to brighten your (or your children’s) nights with this clever solar-powered LED Dream Lights from the NeatoShop. The jar contains 6 LED lights that gently shimmer and shine, just like glowing fireflies. Best of all, it’s easy to recharge: all you have to do is leave the jar on a sunny window ledge and it’s ready to go again that night. As it gently winks and blinks, you’ll fall asleep like a child to happy memories of glowing fireflies, warm summer nights, and lazy vacation days. Ah, remember those? Link | More Fun Lighting | Neat Stuff for Your Home from the NeatoShop

Lynx Family Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:39 AM PDT This photograph by Alana Schmidt comes with a story. While on general patrol on Highway 527, 45 kilometers south of Armstrong, Ontario, my partner and I came across what we thought was only one lynx. Once we pulled over to the side of the road, three others came out of the bush. I was able to get out and take photos from the road without the family being spooked. I took 62 pictures in total. If you aren’t checking out the “Your Shot” section of National Geographic, you are missing some awesome images. Many are available as wall papers. Link -via reddit (Image credit: Alana Schmidt)

Baby Polar Bear Plays With Bucket Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:38 AM PDT Remember the walrus and his stolen bucket? Well, Lolrus (actually, not a walrus but a really fat seal) may have kicked the bucket, but we’re glad to report that a baby Polar bear at Aalborg Zoo in Denmark has now picked up the meme. Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Have You Seen This?

Bed Desk Combo Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:36 AM PDT When Naoto Mitsumoto and Naoko Hamana of the architectural studio MihaDesign were asked to renovate an old apartment to give the owners more room for their kids in a very limited space, the duo came up with an ingenious solution: bed desk combo. The result is surprisingly nifty. Spoon-Tamago has the pictures: Link – via BB-Blog

Members of Congress Spent 27% of Their Time Taunting Each Other Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:35 AM PDT Debates are part of a healthy democracy but why does it seem like Congress has so much trouble working out a deal over the budget? (Or anything else for that matter) Harvard professor Gary King decided to take a look at how members of Congress communicate with each other and found something surprising: they spent 27% of their time taunting one another! A Washington Post reporter sent King and his students a sampling of 48 recent news releases, a week’s worth, from three top congressional Democrats and three top Republicans. Of those, King’s folks said, 20 percent were mainly about taunting the other side. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sent one out on proposed Social Security changes that said, “Republicans have shown they couldn’t care less about those who have the least.” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) sent out one on the anniversary of the federal health-care law saying, “Democrats have not displayed the same interest in listening to the American people.” King said this tendency to taunt seems to show Congress distracting itself from its most basic mission: to find common ground to solve national problems. “I think most people,” he said, “would say that this is not a good thing.” Link

Charcuteroulette Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:33 AM PDT You may find a lot of flesh on Chattoulette, but you’re guaranteed to find them on Charcuteroulette. It’s a website dedicated to showing you random Charcuterie: Link – via Accordion Guy

Breakfast Beer Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:32 AM PDT Martini may be the Breakfast of Champions, but most of us don’t associate breakfast with alcoholic drinks. Well, New Zealand’s Moa Brewery is set to change all that by launching the world’s first "breakfast beer" called Moa Breakfast: Moa co-owner Geoff Ross said his company wasn’t targeting alcoholics, nor was it trying to create irresponsible behaviour. "Look at cultures like Germany where a lager in the right circumstances is part of the culture, or Italy where the grappa is used as a morning pick-me-up. Cultures around the world consume alcohol in the right way, and that includes breakfast." Link Previously on Neatorama: Neatolicious Fun Facts: Beer

Thnx For Ur Money: Thief Sent Victim Flowers Using Her Own Credit Card Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:31 AM PDT Talk about adding insult to injury: after a thief stole $2,500 from a victim, he or she sent flowers to her home! Oh, how brazen! NBC News has the video clip: Link (self-playing video clip)

Did Scientists Find a Gay Caveman? Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:28 AM PDT That’s what archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova claimed. Her team has found evidence of a male skeleton buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age: The skeleton was found in a Prague suburb in the Czech Republic with its head pointing eastwards and surrounded by domestic jugs, rituals only previously seen in female graves. "From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake," said lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova. "Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual," she added. Link

Conservatives and Liberals Have Different Brain Anatomy Posted: 09 Apr 2011 11:28 AM PDT Lefty or righty? A new study links a larger anterior cingulate cortex (left) to politically liberal views and a larger right amygdala to conservatism. Image: R. Kanai et al., Current Biology, 21 (26 April 2011) What makes someone a conservative or a liberal? According to this new (and undoubtedly controversial) study, it’s their brain anatomy: Cognitive neuroscientist Ryota Kanai and colleagues at University College London recruited 90 student volunteers and had them rate their political philosophy on a five-point scale ranging from very liberal to very conservative. Then the researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to get a look inside their brains. In a paper published online today in Current Biology, the team reports two main findings: political conservatives tend to have a larger right amygdala, a region involved in detecting threats and responding to fearful stimuli, whereas liberals tend to have a larger anterior cingulate cortex, an area that becomes active in situations involving conflict or uncertainty. There was considerable overlap though. When the researchers looked only at the brain scans, Kanai says they could predict who was liberal and who was conservative with about 75% accuracy—much better than a coin toss but probably not good enough for any high-tech campaign tactics. Kanai is at pains to make clear that the findings don’t mean political views are "hard-wired" into the brain. He acknowledges that the data don’t prove that these neuroanatomical differences actually cause political differences, but he suspects that they might play a role. Link

Twin Babies Talking, As Acted By Adult Men in Diapers Posted: 09 Apr 2011 07:33 AM PDT (Video Link) The video of twin baby boys having a long conversation in gibberish captivated the people of the Internet about two weeks ago. Here, actors Michael Chiklis and Patton Oswalt duplicate the scene, sound for sound and motion for motion. Warning: some foul language once the act starts breaking down. via Gizmodo

This Week at Neatorama Posted: 09 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT I hope you’ve had a great week! Here’s a reminder: when you enter a contest at Neatorama, be sure to use a valid email address for your entry, and check your email. What if you win? We can’t send a prize if we can’t get hold of you! And to keep you up-to-date, here’s what happened this week at Neatorama: Jill Harness introduced us to 17 Great Pieces of Geek Clothing, many of which you can either buy or recreate yourself. On Friday she gave us 13 Hilarious Peeps Candy Easter Dioramas. Aren’t you glad so many clever and creative people have extra time on their hands? From the Annals of Improbable Research, we took a look at The Dead Grandmother/Exam Syndrome. We learned some important art history in the story of The Painted Lady, from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. Mental_floss magazine gave us 4 Eco-Fabulous Places to Live in 2020. Neatorama collaborated with National Geographic to bring you up close and personal with the active volcano Mt. Nyiragongo in the post Man vs. Volcano over at the Spotlight Blog. At NeatoBambino, we saw the return of the Decipher The Doodle Contest. Congratulations to smurfie, who had the closest-to-correct answer, and Bt, who had the funniest answer, which you can read in the winner’s post. Don’t miss out on all the other funny and/or informative posts at NeatoBambino! We saw Mal and Chad’s Fill in the Bubble Frenzy on Wednesday. This week’s winner is Todd McCoy, who gave us, “WHO LET THE DOG DRUM?! Who..who..who..who!” Todd wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! In this week’s What Is It? game this week, Stephen was the first to peg the item as a show business prop but also a real weight from a old-fashioned strongman show. It belonged to Warren Lincoln Travis, who indeed lifted this with his hips by a chain running through the hole in the middle. It weighed between 1650 and 3750 pounds, depending on how much sand he filled it with. There's even more information about it at the What Is It? blog. The funniest answer was from samuel, who gave us a Super Mario answer: Conjoined Bomb-omb twins. They're waiting anxiously out outside of Dr. Goomba's office to see if a surgery is possible. It's been over a year now since the castle guards pulled them out of that koopley's famous freak show on a case of child abuse. They look so happy in this picture, even though they're nervous. Good luck Bomb-ombs, I hope the answer will come soon! Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop! The Name That Weird Invention! contest featured a strangely versatile automobile. First prize for naming it and a t-shirt goes to Scott-O, who calls it Asscender. Second prize is awarded to ed4linda for calling it the SUC: Sport Utility Compact-o-van. However, ed4linda did not select a t-shirt. During April and May, Steven Johnson of the Museum of Possibilities will be off writing a book describing his techniques for thinking up whimsical product concepts, and will not be submitting images to Neatorama. The Name That Weird Invention contest will resume on Monday, May 30. Neatorama teams up with mental_floss to bring you the How Did You Know? contest that runs at mental_floss. Congratulation to the latest round of winners: Shawn Doyle, Justin Salisbury, Maxim Lowe, and Mark Dziak! There are more ways to get your Neatorama fix: If you aren’t checking our Facebook page every day, you’re missing out on extra content, contests, discussions, and links you won’t find here. Also, our Twitter feed will keep you updated on what’s going around the web in real time.

You are subscribed to email updates from Neatorama To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610