This blog is on hiatus
Posted: January 6, 2016 Filed under: Uncategorized Comments Off on This blog is on hiatusI’m a little busy right now so I’m taking a break. I’m posting this notice so that, should you stumble upon here, you don’t think I left it hanging and just forgot about it. Thanks for stopping by and see you eventually.
Microbiologists compete to make the best petri dish bacteria art
Posted: October 28, 2015 Filed under: Art, Neat things, Weird Comments Off on Microbiologists compete to make the best petri dish bacteria art
I might not have thought that the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) was made up of super artistic types but there I go, being all judgy and stereotyping people.
Apparently they have an art competition that challenges scientists to get creative with agar, a gelatinous substance used to make biological cultures. Which makes them both weird and cool, and kind of gross, because bacteria.
“The petri dish paintings are created much the same way that stencil drawings or silk-screens are made. Bacteria and yeasts were laid into the agar, which serves as a soil-like surface for the microbes, which then begin to grow. Because many microbes synthesize molecules of pigment, we see them in a brilliant array of colors, from Spirillum rubrum purple to Pseudomonas fluoresces yellow.” So, like silk screens but with bacteria and yeast. EXACTLY THE SAME.
(via Nerdist and Incredible Things)
Awesome Halloween house light display set to Ghostbusters theme song
Posted: October 26, 2015 Filed under: Art, Good Times, music, Neat things, pop culture Comments Off on Awesome Halloween house light display set to Ghostbusters theme song
Here is a house decked out with lights that do some groovy stuff to the Ghostbusters theme song by Creative Lighting Displays, which is famous for their holiday display videos. It involves “4 singing pumpkin faces, tombstones, hand carved pumpkins, strobes, floods, 2 Matrix boards and thousands of lights.”
Every time I hear this song I try to remember who sued who, did Huey Lewis and the News sue Ray Parker Jr. or the other way around? Or did I imagine the whole thing? I could probably just Google it but by the time I get around to it I will have lost interest in the question.
(via Geekologie)
Lenin statue is now Darth Vader statue
Posted: October 26, 2015 Filed under: Art, Random Stuff Comments Off on Lenin statue is now Darth Vader statue
As part of the “decommunization” of the Ukraine by president Petro Poroshenko, a statue of Lenin in Odessa has been turned into a statue of Darth Vader by sculptor Alexander Milov. The statue also serves as a wifi hotspot.
“The Bronze Lenin was left inside, so that the grateful or not so grateful descendants could exhume him, if needed,” Milov said.
Man, this is so great because I’ve got this old statue of Lenin lying around and I’ve been totally wondering what to do with it.
(via Bored Panda)
Here is a tiny hamster going trick or treating
Posted: October 23, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized Comments Off on Here is a tiny hamster going trick or treating
Here is a tiny hamster going trick or treating. It’s cute. I have nothing else to say.
Instagram of the most depressingly named places on Earth
Posted: October 7, 2015 Filed under: Sad Comments Off on Instagram of the most depressingly named places on Earth
Someone made an Instagram featuring the most depressingly named places on Earth. @sadtopographies features places like Killer Lake and Unfortunate Cove, with no explanations of why they’re called these things.
Google tells me that Unfortunate Cove is in Newfoundland, but not much else. Wikipedia tells me that Disappointment Island in New Zealand “not to be confused with Disappointments Island in French Polynesia” – for real – is where, in 1866, the General Grant, a full-rigged ship of 1,103 tons, crashed into the towering cliffs. Sixty-eight passengers died and 15 survivors made their way to the island, where they waited 18 months for rescue. Then, in 1907, the Dundonald, a steel, four-masted barque, sank after running ashore on the west side of the island. “Twelve men drowned and sixteen survivors waited seven months for rescue.”
So, really, disappointment is a bit of an understatement.
(Via The Atlantic)
Phases of the moon cups
Posted: October 7, 2015 Filed under: Art, Food Comments Off on Phases of the moon cups
This neat little cup shows you the phases of the moon as you drink your traditional rice wine. I think this would make a neat gift. For me! Someone get on that. OK. Neat, right?
(Via Foodiggity)
Nice man drives dogs around in dog train
Posted: September 29, 2015 Filed under: Animals, Cute Comments Off on Nice man drives dogs around in dog train
The sad part about this story is that this 80-year-old retiree lives on a street where evil horrible people regularly abandon dogs (WTF, AMERICA???).
The happy part is that adopts them and drives them around on a train.
“We live down on a dead-end street, where me and my brother have a horse barn,” Eugene Bostick of Fort Worth told The Dodo. “People sometimes come by and dump dogs out here, leaving them to starve. So, we started feeding them, letting them in, taking them to the vet to get them spayed and neutered. We made a place for them to live.”
Over the years, Bostick has apparently taken in “countless” abandoned dogs. But wait! There’s MOAR!
“One day I was out and I seen this guy with a tractor who attached these carts to pull rocks. I thought, ‘Dang, that would do for a dog train,'” said Bostick. “I’m a pretty good welder, so I took these plastic barrels with holes cut in them, and put wheels under them and tied them together.”
And that’s how the dog train came to be.
What a great guy. Someone should buy him a nice present.
Man walks using his mind power after years of paralysis
Posted: September 28, 2015 Filed under: Neat things Comments Off on Man walks using his mind power after years of paralysis
Here is an inspiring and incredible video of a paraplegic walking for the first time since his spinal cord injury, using his own brain waves. I’m not sure what the mechanism is but it involves “brain-computer interface functional electrical stimulation.“
HOLY CRAP WOULD YOU EVER? I MEAN NO JUST HELL NO
Posted: September 28, 2015 Filed under: Scary Comments Off on HOLY CRAP WOULD YOU EVER? I MEAN NO JUST HELL NO
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Oh, look, it’s the world’s longest glass-bottomed walkway. It span 984 feet and is a cool 590 feet above the ground. No biggie. The walkway replaced an old wooden bridge, apparently, and is located in Shiniuzhai Geopark in Hunan. The floor is made of double-layered glass that is less than an inch thick but is supposedly 25 times stronger than regular window glass.
The bridge links the two peaks of Stone Buddha Mountain. Eleven engineers working 12 hours a day converted it from wood to glass. It’s being called “hero bridge.”
I say heroes are every day people who do brave things like save dogs from burning buildings and railroad people out of perilous situations. While you might be brave to cross this bridge, there’s nothing heroic about it unless there’s, like, a kitten that needs rescuing on the other side. SO THERE. SCREW YOU AND YOUR BRIDGE.
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(Via Bored Panda/Shanghaist)
