Neatorama

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• EuroLapse
• Early Human Relatives Ate Bark
• Is This The Geekiest Wedding Ever?
• Delightful Spider-Man Fan Art
• Oh Man Am I Thirsty. Let’s All Share A Drink!
• Visualizing Space Based on Place Names
• A Toyota Lamborghini?
• Optical Illusion Art by Oleg Shuplyak
• Darth Vader’s Helmet Lunch Kit With Sound
• Taco Bell to the Rescue of Alaska Town
• The Actual Girl From Ipanema
• Happy Canada Day!
• Bend It Like Newton
• Candies of America
• The Puppy Lemon Law
• French Horn Urinals
• Spheres of Nostoc
• The Busy Trap
• Guitar Built out of an Ammunition Box
• Fat And Happy The Simpsons Mug
• Toilet Paper Wedding Dress is Quite Charmin’
• Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare
• Millennium Falcon Wedding Cake
• Laptop Mirror
• Polar Play
• Unemployment Explained
• Deep-Fried Pineapple Upside Down Cake on a Stick

EuroLapse Posted: 02 Jul 2012 04:35 AM PDT (vimeo link) EuroLapse takes you on a three-month tour of Europe in less than five minutes. And you can’t beat the ticket price! Filmmaker David Smith says: The images used in this time lapse were taken in 2011 over the course of three summer months in Europe. My wife’s mother lives in Lithuania, just outside of the capital city Vilnius, so we decided to make it our homebase from the end of May through August while we traveled to various countries. You’ll find a list of the countries at the vimeo page. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Early Human Relatives Ate Bark Posted: 02 Jul 2012 04:07 AM PDT A fossil species of the human family called Australopithecus sediba is a fairly recent discovery. Some of the two-million-year-old individuals unearthed in Africa have tartar on their teeth, which is rare among primate fossils, but it gives scientists a chance to reconstruct what they ate. That diet was a surprise. The team conducted their studies on the two most complete A. sediba individuals recovered thus far, an adult female and a subadult male found at a site just outside Johannesburg. Analyses of the wear on their molars showed that the two hominins ate hard foods shortly before they died. And their tooth chemistry—specifically the carbon ratios—revealed that, over their lifetime, they dined mostly on so-called C3 foods, which include trees, shrubs, some herbs and the animals that eat those kinds of plants. This is surprising, because other hominins of similar antiquity relied more heavily on C4 foods—most tropical grasses and sedges and the animals that eat those plants. Furthermore, paleoenvironmental evidence from the site that yielded the fossils attests to a setting dominated by C4 plants, not C3 ones. Among early hominins only the much older Ardipithecus ramidus from Ethiopia comes close to A. sediba's carbon isotope composition; compared to the tooth chemistry of modern creatures, A. sediba's looks like a savanna chimpanzee's or a giraffe's. Even more startling, when the researchers examined the tartar, they found traces of plant foods no one thought our ancient kin ate, such as bark. The tartar contained silica crystals called phytoliths that plants make as a means of self-defense, some of which the investigators could attribute to particular kinds of plants on the basis of their distinctive shapes. Scientists speculate that bark-eating may not have been their first choice. The diet and the fact that they lived in a cave may mean that they lived during a drought or stressful environmental change. Link -via Ed Yong (Image credit: Lee Berger)

Is This The Geekiest Wedding Ever? Posted: 02 Jul 2012 02:00 AM PDT What do you get when you combine Star Wars, zombies, Reservoir Dogs and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia? You get the awesome photos from Deyanna and Dustin’s geektastically amazing wedding. If the pictures aren’t enough to sell you on this wedding, consider this: the maid of honor and best man did a reading from Calvin and Hobbes during the ceremony. Link Via The Mary Sue

Delightful Spider-Man Fan Art Posted: 02 Jul 2012 12:54 AM PDT From Rapunzel swinging with Spider-Man to Spider-Kitty to Spider-Gir there are some seriously adorable Spider-Man fan artworks over on this great io9 page. There are also a few utterly weird ones like the Spider-Man Tron crossover above. Weird or cute though, they’re all fantastic. Link

Oh Man Am I Thirsty. Let’s All Share A Drink! Posted: 01 Jul 2012 11:46 PM PDT (Video Link) On a hot day, sometimes you just have to take a sip of water wherever you can -even if it’s out of a hose, and even if there are a few others trying to get a drink at the same time. Via I Has A Hot Dog

Visualizing Space Based on Place Names Posted: 01 Jul 2012 10:38 PM PDT It’s hard to imagine the crab nebula and lagoon nebula in your head, but with the cool artworks that make up the Zoological Universe make the names seem more sensible and make the beauty of these photos of space even easier to appreciate. Link Via Etsy

A Toyota Lamborghini? Posted: 01 Jul 2012 09:38 PM PDT Want a Lamborghini but only have about $66,000? Well, you can always settle for all the style and none of the substance with this sweet Toyota MR2 disguised as the famous speedster. Personally, I’d rather buy a decent used car and put a down payment on a house. Link

Optical Illusion Art by Oleg Shuplyak Posted: 01 Jul 2012 09:34 PM PDT What do you see? A shepherd sleeping by the tree, with two nearby houses? Or do you see something else? Check out more of Ukrainian artist Oleg Shuplyak's optical illusion paintings over at Mighty Optical Illusions: Link Previously on Neatoama: Illusion art by Octavio Ocampo

Darth Vader’s Helmet Lunch Kit With Sound Posted: 01 Jul 2012 06:51 PM PDT   Darth Vader’s Helmet Lunch Kit  - $14.95 Does your delicious dark side treat need an extra level of protection? Encase your precious lunch in this sinister Darth Vader’s Helmet Lunch Kit from the NeatoShop.  This fearsome lunch bag comes with sound. Press a button and prepare to be captivated by Darth Vader sound effects. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Lunch Boxes and amazing Star Wars items! Link

Taco Bell to the Rescue of Alaska Town Posted: 01 Jul 2012 06:00 PM PDT When residents of the remote town of Bethel, Alaska, learned that the news of a Taco Bell opening was a hoax, their hearts were crushed. But when Taco Bell learned of the story, it came to the rescue: Taco Bell executives learned of the mix-up and arranged an enormous feast for Sunday. They plan to fly enough ingredients in from Anchorage to make 10,000 tacos. "It'll be a big event for our community," Mayor Joe Klejka said. Taco Bell will offer its fare for free. There will be 950 pounds of seasoned beef, 300 pounds of lettuce, 150 pounds of cheddar cheese, 500 pounds of reduced fat sour cream and 300 pounds of tomatoes. The chain is accustomed to feeding large groups of people in far-flung places. "If we can feed people in Afghanistan and Iraq, we can feed people in Bethel," company CEO Greg Creed said, declining to discuss the cost of the feast. Link

The Actual Girl From Ipanema Posted: 01 Jul 2012 05:00 PM PDT Everyone knows that, tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking. But did you know the actual Girl from Ipanema that inspired the Bossa Nova hit? "It's the oldest story in the world," says Norman Gimbel, who wrote the English lyrics. "The beautiful girl goes by, and men pop out of manholes and fall out of trees and are whistling and going nuts, and she just keeps going by. That's universal." So reasoned composer Antônio Carlos Jobim and poet Vinícius de Moraes five decades ago. Stalled on a number for a musical called "Blimp," they sought inspiration at the Veloso, a seaside cafe in the Ipanema neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. There they remembered a local teenager, the 5-foot-8-inch, dark-haired, green-eyed Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, whom they often saw walking to the beach or entering the bar to buy cigarettes for her mother. And so they penned a paean to a vision. Thomas Vinciguerra of The Wall Street Journal has the story, in honor of the song's 50th year anniversary: Link At 66 years old today, Heloísa is still stunningly beautiful.

Happy Canada Day! Posted: 01 Jul 2012 04:30 PM PDT (YouTube link) Domino artist FlippyCat (who brought us Vincent van Dominogh) uses his dominoes for an animated Canada Day greeting. -via The Daily What

Bend It Like Newton Posted: 01 Jul 2012 04:00 PM PDT Scientists have worked out the physics formula for the perfect soccer kick. Forget Beckham, Bend it like Newton: University of Leicester physics students have published a paper which sets out the optimum way of kicking a football (soccer ball) in order to make it bend into the goal. The ex-England captain's curling free-kicks became legendary, and even inspired the title of the 2002 film Bend It Like Beckham. Now, four master's students at the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy believe they have discovered a formula to explain how the football curves when a player puts spin on it. Link

Candies of America Posted: 01 Jul 2012 03:00 PM PDT Photo: Melisa Goh/NPR Nuts for Nut Goodie? Rockin' for an Almond Roca? Your heart melting for some Melty Bar? From sea to shining sea, Americans love their hometown's candies and NPR's Linton Weeks takes us on an armchair tour of specialty regional sweets that will make your mouth water: ... why do we go on reaching for regional candies? What is it about Washington state's Chukar Cherries, Kentucky's Modjeskas and New York's Sponge Candy that keeps us coming back for more? Maybe it's because of our nation's fascination with youth and childhood. Or maybe it's because in a globalized world of mass-marketed tastes, particular sweets still trigger particular memories of particular places. "If one grew up in the Midwest eating Valomilks," says Sifers, the candy-maker, "then to taste them again after many years, it indeed would take you back to the Midwest. I hear that all the time." Link What's your favorite hometown candy?

The Puppy Lemon Law Posted: 01 Jul 2012 02:00 PM PDT If you bought a car that turned out to be a lemon, you can return it to the dealership for a refund. But what about a dog? Turns out, you can if you buy a sick dog from a California seller: The law, officially known as the Pet Breeder Warranty Act, applies to cases in which the purchased dog gets sick due to an illness or disease that existed within 15 days of purchase. It also applies if problems arise in the first year after the sale because of a congenital or hereditary condition. If you want to keep the dog, the law entitles you get your money back from the seller plus up to an additional 50% of the purchase price for veterinary costs. The law also allows you to return the dog, like a piece of merchandise, and get a refund or a different dog of equivalent value. Still, you'd be entitled to reimbursement of "reasonable" veterinary costs. Link (Photo: Shutterstock)

French Horn Urinals Posted: 01 Jul 2012 01:30 PM PDT The men’s room in the new Jazzissimo Lounge in Timisoara, Romania will remind you of the Jazz Age in every detail, right down to the brass plumbing fixtures. The French horns are non-functional as musical instruments. Please do not attempt to play them. Link -via Nerdcore | Photo: Jazzissimo Lounge

Spheres of Nostoc Posted: 01 Jul 2012 01:00 PM PDT Photo: Gerd Guenther/Duesseldorf, NRW, Germany They look like they came straight out of a science fiction movie, but those are real. Gerd Guenther took that micrograph of spherical colonies of bluegreen algae Nostoc commune, and won 10th place at the 2011's Olympus BioScapes competition. Take a look at more winning entries over at the Olympus BioScapes' website: Link - via The Big Picture

The Busy Trap Posted: 01 Jul 2012 12:00 PM PDT Hello, Neatoramanauts! Howyadoin'? If you answer "busy" or better yet, "craaazy busy" then welcome to modern life. You're not alone. Most of Americans in the 21st century live in the perpetual state of "busy"-ness. And that, argues, Tim Kreider, author of We Learn Nothing, is actually trap. I know, I know. You're busy, but trust me. Take a moment from your busy schedule and read the Busy Trap: It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence. Link

Guitar Built out of an Ammunition Box Posted: 01 Jul 2012 11:30 AM PDT After Tate Chmielewski first encountered cigar box guitars at a folk music festival, he started building musical instruments from unconventional source materials. This is an electric guitar with one EMG active pickup based around an old ammunition box. Link

Fat And Happy The Simpsons Mug Posted: 01 Jul 2012 11:04 AM PDT Fat And Happy The Simpsons Mug – $11.95 You don’t win friends with salad. You win them with wonderful gifts from the NeatoShop and donuts.  This inspirational Fat And Happy The Simpsons Mug features both. Now go forth and make friends. Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more deliciously fun Mugs. Link

Toilet Paper Wedding Dress is Quite Charmin’ Posted: 01 Jul 2012 11:00 AM PDT Photo: Business Wire Susan Brennan won the 8th Annual Cheap Chic Weddings Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest with this beaut. Ain't that Charmin'? Via Fark

Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare Posted: 01 Jul 2012 10:02 AM PDT Photo: My Life at Speed/Facebook It's life imitating toys: Rally car driver Tanner Foust and Hollywood stuntman Greg Tracy successfully completed the Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare at X Games LA. Foust and Tracy hit 52 mph in the track and experienced approximately 7Gs going through the loop. "That was pretty hardcore: the 7 Gs … I almost felt my chin hit my lap, I think, in the loop," Foust said after finishing the stunt in the Team Yellow car. "I felt like I was in a toy." To avoid passing out from the force of seven times gravity, Foust's strategy was to "grunt, tighten your core and try to make your eyeballs and veins pop out." Check out the amazing video over at ESPN: Link

Millennium Falcon Wedding Cake Posted: 01 Jul 2012 09:01 AM PDT Check out this excellent wedding cake made in the shape of Han Solo’s spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, complete with little fondant figures. It was made by the Blue Note Bakery in Austin, Texas. See other pictures of the cake in a previous gallery by redditor mrsbawb, who works at the bakery. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy Previously: another cake.

Laptop Mirror Posted: 01 Jul 2012 08:30 AM PDT Brian J. Noggle writes, “I am the only person in the entire planet who owns a mirror that says PROPERTY OF ENVISION on the back.” He gutted an old laptop computer and added a mirror to make this cute wall hanging. Link

Polar Play Posted: 01 Jul 2012 08:00 AM PDT (YouTube link) Here’s something that might make you feel cooler! Nature photographer Thomas D. Mangelsen observed and recorded polar bears in their natural habitat in northern Manitoba. Watch these adorable cubs wrestle with each other in the snow! -via the Presurfer

Unemployment Explained Posted: 01 Jul 2012 07:00 AM PDT Goats took all the jobs. Link

Deep-Fried Pineapple Upside Down Cake on a Stick Posted: 01 Jul 2012 06:00 AM PDT Just from the sound of it, this fair food has to be better than deep-fried watermelon (although prepared by the same vendor). After all, butter is one of the main ingredients in a normal pineapple upside-down cake! This one was eaten at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, California. Link (Image credit: Ken Dashner, uploaded by Flickr user Rusty Blazenhoff)

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