This baby sea lion at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium isn’t too sure about taking the plunge, but finally gets the hang of it.   Getting out, on the other hand, is not so easy so mom has to come to the rescue …

- via itsanimals

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Now that the summer months are upon us, keeping cool and saving our energy is a top priority. An Australian research group is working towards producing new solar cell windows that will harness energy from the sun and reduce the need for air conditioning. The windows are completely see through but have a slight pinkish hue. Professor John Bell imagines entire houses being built out of varying shades of the glass. Could you stand waking up to a pink sky if it meant you were saving money and the environment?

“The solar cells contain titanium dioxide coated in a dye that increases light absorption… The glass captures solar energy which can be used to power the house but can also reduce overheating of the house, reducing the need for cooling.”

Link - via sciencedaily

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by coconutnut.

Massachusetts photographers have apparently found the only known image of Phineas Gage.  Phineas Gage is famous throughout medical literature and folklore because he survived a horrific accident.  He was a 25 year old railroad construction foreman, and on Sept. 13th, 1848, an iron rod he was using to stuff gunpowder exploded.  The rod entered his left cheek and exited out the top of his head.  Remarkably, Phineas survived this injury and lived for another 11 years, though he experienced a radical change in personality.

The picture was owned by Jack and Beverly Wilgus for 30 years, and they originally thought it was a whaler with a harpoon.  After posting the picture online, several readers suggested it was not a whaler, and one thought it might be Phineas Gage himself.

Intrigued, the Wilguses compared their image to that of a life mask at Harvard Medical School’s Warren Anatomical Museum and found it could be superimposed perfectly, with scars lining up correctly. Apparent writing on the metal rod in the image matches writing on Gage’s iron rod, which is also in the Warren Museum. The images can be viewed at http://brightbytes.com/ phineasgage.

Link - via latimes

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

The world’s cheapest car is set to go on sale in India as the first customer receives the key to the vehicle, handed to him personally by the chairman of the car company.

The Tata Nano, created by Tata Motors costs only 123,360 rupees ($2,531), with upgrades such as air conditioning and cup holders available for up to $3,536 more. The Nano is set to revolutionize the transport industry in India.

From the 203,000 people who pre-ordered the Nano, 100,000 of them were selected from a ballot to be the first to get their hands on the car.

With an engine of just 624 cubic centimeters, it is smaller than those found in motorcycles and has been compared to the European Smart Car and the Volkswagen Beetle.

The vehicle is set to come to the U.S. in two years…Just in time for us to be out of the recession?

Link - via pigjockey

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pigjockey.

The world’s oldest known dinosaur burrow, recently discovered on the southeast coast of Australia, suggests that some dinos went underground to escape extreme weather.

110 million years ago, when this burrow was dug, the southeastern coast of Australia was adjacent to Antarctica.

The burrow is strikingly similar to another one found in Montana in  2005, which held the remains of a 96-million-year-old dinosaur family.

Illustration by James Hays, Fernbank Museum, via National Geographic News

“Right now burrowing dinosaurs might look like an exception to the rule,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if more species [dug burrows]. Ten years from now it might be considered commonplace.”
–Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin

Link - via news

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Marilyn Terrell.

Still, the economists at the ECRI (Economic Cycles Research Institute) are darn smart and have a pretty good track record, so perhaps there’s truly something to their latest prediction: the economy is turning around and the recession will soon be over.

NPR’s All Things Considered has the scoop:

"The reason we’re so convinced — and we are quite convinced — that the recession is drawing to a close is because of leading indicators," Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the institute, tells NPR’s Guy Raz.

The ECRI categorizes indicators, like unemployment rates and productivity, as leading, lagging or coinciding with the business cycle. A lagging indicator would be the unemployment rate. Leading indicators include "drivers of the economy," such as housing activity, productivity, money growth and credit.

Different sequences of indicators point to different types of events. Achuthan says the ECRI sees a robust sequence of events that happen at the beginning and end of recessions, and indicators are showing it is likely that there will be a recovery soon.

"The key is that there is no one piece that we’re hanging our hat on. It is a pervasive upturn in these leading indicators, and that is the hallmark of something that is going to persist for a few quarters, a year at least," Achuthan says. "And it is going to be pronounced."

Achuthan says that when you add up all the indicators without bias into a leading index, the picture becomes clear: These indexes are shooting up. And that says a lot. In the time that these indicators have been in existence, they have not made a mistake on a recession or a recovery poll, he says.

Link

What do you think? Will the economy recover soon or are you pessimistic?

Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors, is upgrading an earlier sales gimmick in which he offered new truck buyers to choose between a $250 gas voucher or a gun voucher. The website says the dealer is giving away guns again "due to popular demand."

"Muller calls the initial deal an overwhelming success," Business Insider reports. "He also says it generates a lot of publicity and really angers ‘liberals.’"

Link | Max Motors’ website

How bad? Let’s put it this way: a third of 11-year-olds in the city have alcohol-related problems!

… the authorities are deeply concerned about the increase in consumption of alcohol by children as young as 11 in the country’s industrial and financial capital.

So as an experiment, supplying alcohol - either wine or spirits - to youths under the age of 16 in bars, restaurants, pizza shops and liquor stores will be banned. [...]

Some people are pessimistic that the city-wide ban will ever work:

A national law banning the sale of alcohol to under-16s is only loosely enforced, as Italian families are used to sometimes giving young children a teaspoon of wine as a family party treat.

In past centuries, Italian children would sometimes even be given wine to drink in preference to water which was often polluted.

Link

It was a four-year "war" witnessed by Dr Jane Goodall, and Dr Muller’s PhD supervisor, Richard Wrangham, a professor of primatology from Harvard University, Boston, that put an end to our cosy ideas.

In the Seventies, Prof Wrangham and Dr Goodall watched a group of chimpanzees split into two factions. One group killed every male and some of the females in the other group. The victims had recently been their companions.

Although Dr Goodall was the first to suggest it, Prof Wrangham went on to develop a theory that would explain human violence based on the aggression he had witnessed. As he points out, we are hardly a peaceful species. In Britain, men are 24 times more likely to kill or assault another person, and 263 times more likely to commit a sexual offence than a woman.

Prof Wrangham’s theory is called the Demonic Male Hypothesis. He argues that human males and chimps share a tendency to be aggressive with our closest common ancestor. Chimpanzees and humans have many attributes in common: we share approximately 98.5 per cent of our DNA, we both hunt and males show a strong desire to form alliances against other males while jockeying for status. Male chimpanzees are hostile towards other groups of chimps; you don’t even have to go to Arsenal to know that men are not dissimilar.

Link

Polish artist EPOS257 created this street art exhibition in Prague featuring the Orghoi khorkhoi, or the Mongolian Death Worm.

For those of you who are blessedly unaware, the Mongolian death worm is the fiercest creature ever to come out of the Gobi Desert. And just how fierce is the worm? Well, let’s put it like this: it kills by spewing forth sulfuric acid and discharging electricity. (Graboids, anyone?)

Link - via Wooster Collective

Ukrainian artist Yurko Gutsulyak has created what is probably the perfect calendar for pyromaniacs: the "days" made of individual matches that you can tear off and set alight.

Link - via Typography Served

In this art installation aptly titled Bedroom, Israeli artist Nelly Agassi turned the entire room into a giant bed! Perfect for your next slumber party where you can invite oh, your 100 closest friends or so: Link

There’s not much information at Kwanghun Hyun’s webpage for his DIY cameras. Ttechnically, they aren’t camera obscuras as he titled them, but who cares? They are mechanically gorgeous! Link

Folder Type is a typography created by Emilio Gomariz out of 22,655 color-coded Mac file folders. And here’s the kicker: no script was used - he did it all by hand, which proves that his folder-fu is much, much stronger than mine and that he’s got a lot of time on his hands.

Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo clip] - via happy mundane

Check out the complete showcase of entries here: Link - via MoCo loco

Dr. Yuri Labvin, president of the Tunguska Spatial Phenomenon Foundation, insists that an alien spacecraft sacrificed itself to prevent a gigantic meteor from slamming into the planet above Siberia on June 30, 1908.

Most scientists think the blast was caused by a meteorite exploding several miles above the surface. But Labvin thinks quartz slabs with strange markings found at the site are remnants of an alien control panel, which fell to the ground after the UFO slammed into the giant rock.

"We don’t have any technologies that can print such kind of drawings on crystals," Labvin told the Macedonian International News Agency. "We also found ferrum silicate that can not be produced anywhere, except in space."

Link

On October 23, 1858, William “Humbug Billy” Hardaker, sold peppermint lozenges to the good people of Bradford, England, as he usually did. This particular Saturday he had the good luck to buy his batch of mints at discount because of their substandard appearance. By the time he fell sick that afternoon, he had sold enough lozenges to satisfy some 200 peoples’ sweet tooth. The next day, still ill, Hardaker had to explain to the police why everyone who ate his candy was either getting sick or dying.

The answer makes you glad we have laws about food ingredients these days. This story is part of 5 Disasters That Could Have Been Avoided. Link -Thanks, Sami!

When I was six, my mother sewed a piece of velcro on an old blue towel. That was my Batman outfit. This is better: a functional set of motorcycle leathers modeled after the Batsuit in the movie The Dark Knight. Put one on, hop on your Vespa, and relish the attention. Because nothing impresses people better than wearing a superhero costume.

Link via Geekologie

Fun Tuna has a photogallery of people who have passed out while in yoga positions. Presumably by accident.

Link via Bits & Pieces

iQ font - When driving becomes writing / Full making of from wireless on Vimeo.

Two typographers ( Pierre & Damien / plmd.me ) and a pro race pilot (Stef van Campenhoudt) collaborated to design a font with a car.
The car movements were tracked using a custom software, designed by interactive artist Zachary Lieberman. ( openframeworks.cc )

RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI.

Link -via Digg