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Men,
want to go swimming in Papua New Guinea? Pray you don't encounter this
lil' fella, lovingly named the "ball cutter" fish by the locals
for the obvious reason:
This is the ferocious 'Ball Cutter' fish which has killed two men by biting off their testicles. A British angler has told how he snared a predator known to feast on the testicles of men.
Jeremy Wade, 53, spent weeks fishing in remote Papua New Guinea after locals told him how a mysterious beast was castrating young men in the area's waters. He finally caught the perpetrator: the Pacu fish, known locally as The Ball Cutter. Jeremy wrestled the 40lb monster on the floor of his boat and opened its snapping jaws with his bare hands to discover a set of human-like teeth. The Ball Cutter boasts an impressive set of gnashers, which tear off the testicles of unwitting anglers and swimmers, leaving them to bleed to death.
If you’re not following @neatorama on Twitter, you don’t know what you’re missing!
There you’ll find all kinds of neato things we don’t always feature here on the blog, like special contests!
Oh, and if that wasn’t reason enough to, how about this: Pee Wee Herman follows us - don’t you want to be in such good company?
This week only: After following us, give us a shout with hashtag #neattweet2012. We’ll pick two people at random and send you any t-shirt from the neatoshop! Do it. Now. (Or at least by the weekend when we select the winners!)
Have you taken a look at your 401(k) recently? Did you find that you were plundered by the pin-striped pirates of the stock market?
Well, a bottle of wine would make you feel better, especially if you open it with this Screwed by Wall Street Corkscrew ($9.95) from the NeatoShop.
Link | More fun Barware & Cocktail supplies
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Marc
de Vinck's wife misses her new cat when she goes to work and always bug
him for updates. So what's a geek to do?
Chester is a spunky little stray who’s always looking for fun. Even if it means knocking a few things off my desk as I write this article. The only problem is, when my wife goes in to work, she misses her new cat and always wants to know his whereabouts.
She used to ask me for updates, but after a while I realized that I needed to make something that would take me out of the loop, and let the cat communicate with my wife directly via twitter.com. I needed a Twittering cat toy. And that’s how Kitty Twitty came to fruition, after some basic soldering and crafting with just a few parts.
Best of all, Marc posted the instruction on MAKE Projects so you can make your own Kitty Twitty Cat Toy: Link - via Techcrunch
Some
things may be obvious to you and me, but - surprise! - that's not good
enough for research scientists. After all, questioning assumptions and
testing hypotheses are what science is all about (except quantum physics
- that's just magic).
Scientific American has a list of 11 obvious science findings, which include these gems:
4. Pigs love mud
Turns out pigs aren't just putting on a show when they haul butt around their muddy quarters, diving into the muck. They actually like it. While mud baths keep pigs cool, a review of research reported in 2011 found wallowing may also be a swine sign of well-being. While the review found the strongest reason noted in the past studies for wallowing was to keep cool, the pigs kept it up through winter months.
5. Fashion magazines glorify youth
Surprise, surprise: Fashion mags portray women over 40 sparingly, if at all. Young celebrities and models dominate the pages of these publications, even ones targeted at older age groups. For example, researchers reported in April in the Journal of Aging Studies, that 22 percent of the reader base of Essence is older than 50, but only 9 percent of the women in its pages were even older than 40. Vogue featured only one woman over 40 on its covers in 2010: Halle Berry (then 43).
8. People aren't doing anything in particular on the Internet
Anyone who has ever gone down an Internet black hole, only to emerge hours (and dozens of Wikipedia articles) later, will be less than shocked at the revelation that online is the place to go for mindless entertainment. According to a Pew Research report released in December, 53 percent of people ages 18 to 29 get online at least once on any given day just to pass the time. Using the Internet to goof off isn't limited just to the young, either: Fifty-eight percent of all adults said they sometimes get on the Internet for no reason other than casual entertainment.
Could you imagine writing a grant proposal for these? Link
And they would know, wouldn’t they? In 2009, a man found a dead mouse in his can of Mountain Dew and sued the company. The company argued that the claim is impossible, as no mouse corpse could have survived the corrosive effects of that drink:
An Illinois man sued Pepsi in 2009 after he claims he “spat out the soda to reveal a dead mouse,” the Madison County Record reports. He claims he sent the mouse to Pepsi, which then “destroyed” the remains after he allowed them to test it, according to his complaint. Most shudder-worthy, however, is that Pepsi’s lawyers also found experts to testify, based on the state of the remains sent to them that, “the mouse would have dissolved in the soda had it been in the can from the time of its bottling until the day the plaintiff drank it,” according to the Record. (It would have become a “jelly-like substance,” according to Pepsi, adds LegalNewsline.) This seems like a winning-the-battle-while-surrendering-the-war kind of strategy that hinges on winning the argument that “our product is essentially a can of battery acid.”
Under this argument, if there had been a mouse corpse in the can of Mountain Dew that you’re holding right now, you’d never know.
Link -via Say Uncle | Photo: Flickr user Like the Grand Canyon
Yesterday, after 22 years, Universal officially closed down the Jaws ride at Universal Orlando for good. Inside the Magic produced a tribute video to the now-bygone ride. For those who never got to experience the Jaws ride, this may be your best chance to experience the freaky, fast-talking tour guide, the splashing murky water, and Bruce the sometimes-functioning mechanical shark. Link -via Movieline
The tech world is talking about the new Steve Jobs action figure from Inicons that is eerily realistic. It comes with a ton of accessories, but no iPhone or iPad. The figure should be available in late February for $99. See a lot more pictures at Gizmodo. Link
Four years ago, we published an article called Life Imitates The Simpsons, containing six plots from the TV show The Simpsons which later happened in the real world. In the years since, many more Simpsons plots were prescient of, or else inspired, real-life incidents. Ranker now has a list of 13 Simpsons Jokes That Actually Came True, and I was amazed to find no overlap in the two lists! Check this out: the picture on the left shows a promotional billboard for Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie, which was featured on The Simpsons in 1992. On the right is a billboard for Kill Bill, which came out in 2003. Read all the details at Ranker. Link
There are 15, or possibly more, TV show themes in this medley by the Koren Ensemble. So far, I haven’t found a cheat list, and there’s no way I could name them all. See, I didn’t even know the Paula Cole song was a TV theme! How many can you name? Go to the YouTube page and find out how to get a free download of this song. -Thanks, Daniel!
E. Robert Schulman and C. Virginia Cox
Charlottesville, Virginia
Abstract
In this paper we demonstrate that writing a Ph.D. dissertation can have many benefits. Not only do you obtain extensive typesetting experience, but afterwards you can have your frequent-flyer literature addressed to “Dr. Your Name.”
Chapter I: Introduction
Ph.D. dissertations (e.g., Schulman 1995a; Cox 1995) are commonly believed to be comprehensive compendiums of the original research done by a graduate student in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.² In reality, the Ph.D. thesis is usually a number of disparate chapters whose most important feature is not the thoroughness of the experimental description but rather the width of the margins. In this paper, the second article in a series on scientific writing that began with Schulman (1996a), we will discuss the phenomenon of the Ph.D. thesis.
Chapter II: Preparing to Write
There comes a time in the life of every graduate student when she or he realizes that another two years of graduate school cannot be endured. Even though a year spent writing your thesis will be filled with frustration and angst, it will end up being worth it in order to escape school forever.
Remember the following phrase: “No one will ever read your thesis.” You’ll hear this phrase a number of times as you finish up, and it’s vitally important that you believe it to be true. The phrase is important because without it you would be tempted to work on your thesis until everything is perfect, and you would never finish.
(Image credit: Flickr user lunita lu)
Say “It’s good enough for the thesis” to yourself several times a day. Tell yourself that you’ll correct all the mistakes when you turn the various chapters into independent scientific papers, even though this won’t happen (see Schulman 1996aand references therein).
Chapter III: Your Thesis Committee
Your thesis committee should consist of between four and nine researchers in and outside of your field. Each committee member has a specific duty.
Your thesis advisor has the most important job: to reassure you that you don’t have to do many of the things you’re positive you should do. She or he will likely say, “It’s good enough for the thesis” fairly often.
You also need one committee member who will insist on more mathematical rigor, one who will demand that the thesis be made more concise by getting rid of all that irrelevant math, and two or three to say that you should do all the things your thesis advisor told you didn’t need to be done.
more …
Land artists take naturally occurring materials in the wild and rearrange them into works of art. That’s what Richard Shilling does, using no glue, string, or any other materials. You can see some prime examples of his ingenuity at the link. Shilling makes excellent use of translucent leaves, flexible stems, and stones to make effective sculptures. The wind often sweeps away his works within minutes of completion, but that’s okay with Shilling because it is an affirmation of the transient nature of life.
Bob Anderson of West Sussex, UK, died on Sunday at the age of 89. He was a master fencer who taught lessons while serving in the Royal Marines, then represented his country at the 1952 Olympics. Anderson went on to develop a reputation as champion, both as a fencer and as a choreographer of on-screen sword fights. Most famously, he donned the mask of Darth Vader and wielded a lightsaber in all three original Star Wars movies:
Vader, “Star Wars’” intergalactic arch-villain, was voiced by James Earl Jones and played by six foot six (1.98 meter) former weightlifter David Prowse, but Anderson stepped in during the key fight scenes.
“David Prowse wasn’t very good with a sword and Bob couldn’t get him to do the moves,” said Anderson’s former assistant, Leon Hill. “Fortunately Bob could just don the costume and do it himself.”
Anderson later added to his vast body of work by directing fencing scenes in The Princess Bride and The Fellowship of the Ring.
Link -via The Mary Sue | Photo: Johnathan Player
Rotta Huttlet Star Wars Backpack Buddy – $59.95
Are you feeling lonely and unloved? Maybe cuddling up with your very own Rotta Huttlet Star Wars Backpack Buddy from the NeatoShop will make you feel better. The huggably soft and super cute little “Stinky” is easily removed from his backpack carrying case. Who knew a Hutt could be so darn adorable.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Star Wars items.
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Meet the world's fastest stretch limo: a Ferrari Modena 360 limousine by Dan Cawley of Style Limousines and Prestige Limousine in Birmingham, England. They did cut a regular 360 Modena in two to create the behemoth. And of course, there's disco lighting. Can't have a party limo without disco lighting.
Metalachi performs rock and metal songs using instruments and styles from the mariachi tradition. Their covers include selections from Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and Faith No More. Here’s their rendition of a Guns N’ Roses classic. The brass instruments are really effective with this song, and the lead singer does a good impersonation of Axl Rose at the end.
-via Brian J. Noggle | Band Website (warning: auto-sound)
Previously: Indian “Sweet Child O’ Mine”
This one is fantastic: Flickr user Yatkuu re-created the Winchester Pub from the 2004 zombie flick Shaun of the Dead in LEGO: Link - via Nerdsraging
If you like zombies and LEGO, check out this fun intersection of the two over at Bricks of the Dead (gallery at Flickr)
More neat zombie stuff at NeatoShop’s Zombie Shop
The greatest problem with using a puncture-based weapon against zombies is that it may become lodged in the skull of your undead foe. That’s a problem that Jörge Sprave, maker of the sawblade-firing slingshot, the pump-action slingshot, and the Gatling-gun slingshot has now solved. His weapon includes a standard slingshot on one end, and a mace on the other that’s paired with a heavy spike. If your spike gets stuck in a skull, pull the lever to push it out.
-via Make
How would an architect design houses from fairy tales? Let's find out: Fairy tale author and editor Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer collaborated to take a look at houses and structures from fairy tales, as seen through the lens of architecture.
Take Rapunzel's tower, for instance, as it's designed by Guy Norden and Associates:
What are the key elements of your architectural design and how is it sited?
As structural engineers we were instantly drawn to the “tower that stood in a forest and had neither a door nor a stairway, but only a tiny little window at the very top” featured in the Brothers Grimm version of “Rapunzel,” and we looked to our previous design for the Seven Stems Broadcast Tower for inspiration. We were able to meet the Grimms’ strict design requirements by employing a slender tower design of vertical cylindrical stems that are joined by intermittent outrigger beams with a reinforced space at the very top for Rapunzel’s long captivity.
View more at Design Observer: Link | More in the series: Baba Yaga and Jack and the Beanstalk
The Tridge (triple bridge) is a cute three-way foot bridge that provides access to all sides of the confluence of the Tittabawassee and Chippewa Rivers in Midland, Michigan. According to Kuriositas, it’s one of only twelve in the world.
Link | Photo: Fenton Low Altitude | The Tridge on Google Maps
The life of an Internet meme is hard and fast. Sometimes memes find lasting success, but others get drunk on their own fame and crash. View more at the link. Hey, has anyone heard from Baby Godfather?
Link -via Nag on the Lake
Artist and photographer Carrie M. Becker re-imagined Barbie (the doll) as a pathological hoarder, and arranged Barbie’s dream house as such. She explains some of the thought behind the project in her artist’s statement. Somebody call a maid! No, a sanitation crew! You can see many different rooms in her Flickr set. Link -via Laughing Squid
(Image credit: Flickr user Carrie M. Becker)
Adam Koford (Ape Lad) made me smile with this edition of his Laugh Out Loud Cats. I’m a sucker for simple math humor. Link
Conventional wisdom holds that seeing someone naked makes you think of them as more of a sex object than seeing them clothed. According to a recent study, that is an oversimplification of what really happens. The human mind thinks of other people in two different dimensions: agency, or what the person observed can or will do, and experience, or what that person perceives and feels. And the amount of clothing worn changes what dimension the observer focuses on, as seen from an experiment in which people looked at pictures of faces or pictures of faces with some body skin also showing (as shown by the hunky “Aaron” shown here, or the female “Erin”).
It turns out that a glimpse of flesh strongly influences our perception of Erin/Aaron. When the pictures only showed a face, they had lots of agency. But when we saw their torso, we suddenly imagined them as obsessed with experience. Instead of being good at self-control, they were suddenly extremely sensitive to hunger and desire. Same person, same facial expression, same brief description – but a hint of body changed everything.
In another experiment, the researchers varied the volunteers’ mindsets, sometimes asking them to look at photos as if they were on an online-dating website, focusing on attractiveness, and sometimes asking them to look at the photos as if they were hiring for a professional job, focusing on the mind. Once again, thinking about how “sexy and cute” someone is – those are bodily attributes – led students to endow them with more experience and less agency. The opposite held when people were asked to evaluate intelligence and efficiency.
Read more about it at Frontal Cortex, but be warned there is no full nudity in the article. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science
Here’s a simple physics game in which you release a little red block by rotating the fence holding it. Or multiple fences. And please avoid the force field! Oh yes, it starts out easy, but gets more challenging. The level you see here gave me fits, but I breezed through the next couple easily -go figure. Link
In 1954, Coya Knutson won a seat the the US House of representatives by championing the rights of farmers in Minnesota (and by raising her own campaign funds). Over two terms she became quite popular among voters and her Washington colleagues, although she alienated her own party. But Knutson’s real trouble came from her alcoholic husband, Andy. When she was in Minnesota, she sometimes had to wear sunglasses in public to hide the bruises he gave her.
In May, 1958, Coya Knutson was gearing up for her third term. Because of her unwillingness to fall in line with traditional Minnesota politics, the Democratic Party of in her home state would not formally endorse her, so she was forced into a primary—and it was then that a bombshell was released to the press in the form of a letter signed by Andy Knutson.
“Coya, I want you to tell the people of the 9th District this Sunday that you are through in politics. That you want to go home and make a home for your husband and son,” it read. ”As your husband I compel you to do this. I’m tired of being torn apart from my family. I’m sick and tired of having you run around with other men all the time and not your husband.” Andy pleaded with her to return to “the happy home we once enjoyed” and signed off, “I love you, honey.”
Soon, the front pages of newspapers, first in Minnesota, then across the country, bannered headlines of “Coya, Come Home.” Andy Knutson claimed that he was broke and that she “wouldn’t send me any money.” He sued Kjeldahl for $200,000 in damages, alleging that the young aide had “ruthlessly snatched” Coya’s “love and consortium” from a simple middle-aged farmer from Minnesota. Andy further alleged that Kjeldahl had referred to him as an “impotent old alcoholic whose departure from the farm to the nation’s capital would shock society.”
Knutson lost her third congressional campaign, but the story does not end there. The real truth behind what happened came out later, and you can read it all at the Smithsonian’s Past Imperfect blog. Link
This lonely Twaggie was illustrated from a Tweet by @Paxochka. In case you didn’t know, you can get any Twaggie you like made into a t-shirt through the NeatoShop! A t-shirt with this one on it will at least let others know you are available. Link
How long can you wear the same pair of jeans without washing them? The most common answer you hear is “one semester.” An Australian researcher (and college student) put the question to the test by asking volunteers to wear a pair of jeans five days a week for three months straight.
Melbourne researcher Tullia Jack recruited 30 volunteers to do just that – and will soon exhibit the grimy garments at the National Gallery of Victoria so the public can put them to the pong test.
She hopes the unusual experiment for her Master of Philosophy thesis will challenge our culture of “extreme clean”.
Despite stains and spills ranging from tuna and avocado to motor oil and chocolate, Ms Jack says the expectation dirty denim will be whiffy is much worse than the reality.
“Not washing your jeans isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds,” the Melbourne University student and RMIT fashion lecturer says.
“You really don’t need to wash clothes as often as you think. Stains come and go, they just wear off.”
Thirty people of all ages took part in the experiment. Several of them decided to stop washing their shirts as well. Half the participants ended the three months saying they still didn’t plan to wash the jeans. Link -via Fark
(Image credit: Mike Keating)
Following in the Broadway tradition using the most unlikely subjects for musicals, Ana Serrano, Romeo Candido, and Carmen De Jesus are turning the story of the dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines into a web-only musical production. It will debut on the prisondancer YouTube channel in 12 episodes beginning in March. -via Buzzfeed
It happens all the time in the movies: someone sinks into a pool of lava and burns to death. Would a real-life incident turn out like that? Only sort of …because it would certainly burn. Erik Klemetti explains what the movies get wrong.
However, the death of Gollum at the end of Return of the King got me thinking. Gollum, if you remember, dove into the lava of Mount Doom after his precious ring was thrown in — he proceeds to sink into the lava (see below) and leaves the ring floating on the lava until it melts away. Guess what? Sinking into lava just will not happen if you’re a human (or remotely human). You’d need to be a Terminator to sink into molten rock/metal … and here’s why.
Molten lava is nothing like water. Sure, everyone thinks that liquid rock (magma) is going to behave like any other liquid (e.g., water), but there are some key physical properties that tell us it just isn’t the case.
Then there’s the math and an experiment that explains why one doesn’t sink in lava. Still, you don’t want to try it at home. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science
