Neatorama

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• The Ride of the Valkyries
• Average Person Thinks They Can Survive for Two Weeks in the Wilderness
• Sea Snot Invasion
• Old Musical Instruments Transformed into Lamps
• Painted Horseshoe Crabs
• Evil Roommate Pranks
• The Collector With 1,236 Game Boy Titles
• Florida Panther Comeback!
• Body Of Missing Man Found In A Statue
• Couple Spends 20 Years Rebuilding A Rainforest

The Ride of the Valkyries Posted: 26 May 2021 11:30 AM PDT Enjoy this amazing lip-sync performance by The Divas In Drag Italian Opera Company. The company is only two guys, who were bored during lockdown and created this video. From their "about" page: ARE YOU A REAL OPERA COMPANY? We're as much a real opera company as Maria Callas was a nuclear physicist... not at all. -via Boing Boing

Average Person Thinks They Can Survive for Two Weeks in the Wilderness Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT A survey of 2000 Americans finds that the "average person" thinks they can survive 16 days in the wilderness. The study does not give the percentage of people who make such a claim, but we might assume that a majority of respondents claim a survival time of at least that long. We also don't know if the survey defined wilderness at all, which is important. "Wilderness" can be the Appalachian Trail, the Yukon, or Death Valley. However, the same survey found that only 17% of respondents felt "very confident" in their ability to start a fire with flint. There seems to be a disconnect here. Other results show that people don't know as much about nature as they think they do. While over half the poll (52%) are confident in their ability to identify different types of plants and trees, researchers put that to the test and discovered many weren't quite as knowledgeable as they claimed. Only a quarter of respondents could identify a black oak leaf, while just 35 percent correctly spotted poison ivy when seeing it in a photo. As a lifelong enemy of the poison ivy vine, I find that appalling. I hope the 65% never find themselves answering the call of nature in the woods and looking for something to use for toilet paper. Read more results from the survey at StudyFinds. -via Fark

Sea Snot Invasion Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT The slimy, smelly, gelatinous goop called "sea snot" comes and goes in normal times, but now it is seriously gumming up the works in the ocean waters around Turkey, affecting swimming, fishing, and more importantly, killing the plants and animals of the delicate ecosystem.   The stuff, unofficially and disgustingly known as "sea snot," was first recorded on the Sea of Marmara in 2007. But there's more of it now than there has ever been before. For the past six months, it's spread in a thick, beige layer across the normally deep blue waters. "I have been traveling here for 15 years and there used to be (snot) at some times," Burak Yenilmez, who works on a ship, told the Daily Sabah. "But it is worse this year. It is such a dirty sight, and it stinks." The strange goo, made of dead overgrown phytoplankton, forms when nutrient-rich water remains still and calm during prolonged periods of heat. Experts think the nutrients came from wastewater, such as untreated sewage, getting dumped into the sea. The invasion is attributed to climate change and pollution. Read more about sea snot and its effects at Earther. (Image credit: Annaleida)

Old Musical Instruments Transformed into Lamps Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT Slava Korolev in Palisades Park, New Jersey operates the unique studio named Light Dents. He takes discarded musical instruments and turns them into lovely and eye-catching lamps, candelabras, and wine bottle holders. In an interview (Russian audio, English subtitles), Korolev explains that, in childhood, he did not enjoy playing an enormous baritone horn, but he did appreciate the complex mechanical workings of its valves. The connections of brass instruments are especially appealing to him, inspiring him to rescue them from the scrapheap. -via The Fabulous Weird Trotters

Painted Horseshoe Crabs Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT Twitter user Melinda in Naples, Florida, has access to many bodies of horseshoe crabs. Their hard shells are perfect for painting. So far, she has made about 85 of these paintings, which are reinforced with plaster inside. Despite this reinforcement, she's unsure about how to package them for shipping, so she hasn't sold them yet. They're beautiful! I hope that Melinda is able to find a way to ship them and make them available on Etsy or eBay. -via Rosemary Marco

Evil Roommate Pranks Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT Here's 17 reasons why you should live alone, if you can afford it. It's funny to read about now, because we're not the people involved in these pranks. Alternatively, if you do have a roommate, here are reasons why you shouldn't piss them off, unless you want to come home to 3,000 fake ladybugs on your bed, or any of the other pranks listed by Buzzfeed. Check the full list of pranks here.  Image via Buzzfeed

The Collector With 1,236 Game Boy Titles Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT Japanese collector @marumi_1985 has managed to amass an impressive collection of Game Boy games. His goal is to get every game released for that console in Japan! According to him, he has collected 99.3% of the games he needs:  He's still missing R-Type DX, Wizardry II, Wizardry III, Esparks, The Black Onyx, Deja Vu 1 & 2, Little Magic, and Earth Liberation Army Zas. "There are a lot of Game Boy games that are surprisingly cheap," he reported, which might explain how he's been able to get so many. Even if he's still missing some, his collection has helped him go viral in Japan. He's still missing eight games, by the way. Image via Otaku USA Magazine

Florida Panther Comeback! Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT Florida panthers are now coming back to reclaim territory north of the Everglades National Park. The once nearly extinct and rarely seen cats are now showing up in Florida. Panther biologist Brian Kelly and photographer Carlton Ward Jr. show the life of the Florida panther in a feature article by National Geographic magazine. Kelly and Ward discussed the process in trying to find panthers they could take photos of:  "First things first is identifying the track and knowing if it's a panther or not. And then the real trick is following it," he said. "So because they go so far, like in any given night, a panther might walk oh, a couple of miles. Maybe more. To actually follow panther tracks to find the panther itself — it's way harder than it is for any of those African animals. Way harder." Following their routes is the best way to figure out how to find them. "The first thing you learn are which tracks are fresh enough to follow and find the animal, and which are not. Because if you start following tracks that are not fresh enough, you're not going to catch up to the animal. You're not going to find it," he said. "So, the key is identifying the difference between a couple of hours-old track and a couple of days-old track." On this day, Kelly is visiting public land, but most of the range of the Florida panther is on private land. Huge ranches bracket the preserve, and the cooperation of ranchers is considered essential to their survival. "It varies," Kelly said of the attitude of most ranchers. "Some are very amenable and work with us quite a bit, some not so much. At the moment anyway, we can get the information that we need from public lands, from state land. It's not a huge priority to push the envelope with private landowners." Panthers "need a lot of room," he said. "That's the big challenge." Image via NPR

Body Of Missing Man Found In A Statue Posted: 26 May 2021 11:01 AM PDT Yikes. The body of a 39-year-old man was found inside a dinosaur statue in Spain. The body was found by a father and son who noticed a smell coming from  the papier-mâché figure in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona. The corpse was in the dinosaur's hollow leg. The police are now investigating the circumstances behind the tragic incident:  Three fire brigade teams were called to scene after the body was discovered, and firefighters cut open the dinosaur leg to retrieve it. Local media report the man - who has not been named - was trying to retrieve a mobile phone he dropped inside the statue. He then fell inside the decorative figure and was left trapped upside down, unable to call for help. Police have not confirmed how the man ended up inside the dinosaur, and are awaiting the results of his autopsy to find out how he died. The decorative statue has been removed from its place outside the city's Cubic Building, where it had been used to advertise an old cinema. Image via BBC

Couple Spends 20 Years Rebuilding A Rainforest Posted: 26 May 2021 10:52 AM PDT Now that's dedication! Sebastião Salgado and his wife decided to bring life back to Minas Gerais, a rainforest that was completely dried out when he returned home to Brazil in 1994. After acquiring the land, the couple spent the next 20 years replanting the forest that died due to deforestation and uncontrolled exploitation of its natural resources, as IFLScience details:  "The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed," Salgado told the Guardian. "Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees. Then my wife had a fabulous idea to replant this forest. And when we began to do that, then all the insects and birds and fish returned and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn – this was the most important moment." The couple set up Instituto Terra with the noble goal of restoring the 17,000-acre property to its natural state. The organization they set up and ran recruited partners and volunteers, and together they set about planting 4 million saplings.  Taking care of the plants – all carefully sourced and native to the area – they were able to restore the forest, which flourished over the next 20 years. It wasn't easy. The land was dry, and the rains didn't return until 1999. They first had to restore nitrogen to the soil, planting legumes, before they could plant seedlings. Even then, after the first planting, most of the plants died in the ground. "We made the holes too tight," Salgado told the Smithsonian. "For weeks I was sick – sick to see this disaster."  Image via IFLScience

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