Now Your iPhone 6 Plus Will Fit Perfectly In Your Pocket

During the launch of the iPhone 6 in the Netherlands, Dutch telecom provider KPN made sure future iPhone 6 Plus owners don't have to worry about bending their brand new gadget. While waiting in line to get their new iPhone, a mobile tailor offered to supersize people's pockets.



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(thanks Cora)

Bring Me My Casserole!

(via Bad Newspaper)

Why Is Coffee Bitter

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Mention coffee, and caffeine is the chemical compound name that immediately springs to mind. However, whilst caffeine's effects on the brain are well documented, it has relatively little impact when it comes to the taste of coffee.

Coffee, as it turns out, is a cornucopia of chemical compounds that influence its taste; whilst some of these compounds are poorly characterised, one group of compounds about which plenty is known are the chlorogenic acids.

Drinking The Undrinkable: Asian Snake Wine

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Snake wine is a medicinal beverage usually produced and consumed in Southeast Asia and southern China. It's been drunk for nearly 3,000 years and, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, is believed to strengthen the body and improve health.

Most often made of rice wine, the drink gets its name from the snakes that are preserved in the alcohol with their venom glands cut open so that the toxins can mix with the alcohol. The more venomous the snake then the more powerful the medicine is, or at least that's what people seem to think.

Burning Moments

Video made by Ari Fararooy at this year's Burning Man festival. The sound you hear was made by a didgeridoo, a wind instrument used by indigenous Australians.



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The 10 Coolest Rooftops In The World

image credit: Jack Acecroft

Whether it's for dining, a strong drink or poolside lounging, a good rooftop almost always makes for a great time. Here are some of the best rooftops in the world.

Solar-Powered Car Set A New World Land Speed Record

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The Sunswift eVe solar-powered car broke a 26-year-old land speed record for electric vehicles last Wednesday at the Australian Automotive Research Center in Victoria. It would make eVe the fastest electric car to ever compete a 500 kilometers (310 miles) set distance course by a significant margin.

The previous record, set in 1988, was an average speed of 73 kilometers (45 miles) per hour; the Sunswift eVe reached 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour average over the 500 km course.

Very Curious Owls

An owl family finds a GoPro camera outside its burrow.



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(via Everlasting Blort)

Cowbells Make Cows Miserable

image credit: Gerald Davison

A field of cowbell-equipped-cows may create a soothing soundscape of wind and chimes, but the actual bovine after which the bells are named really hate the things. A study was performed for the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich where scientist Julia Johns and a colleague measured the decibel levels of cowbells.

The cowbells can reach decibel levels of 113 - far above the legal limit of 85. Cows exposed to the sound chew their food for significantly less time than the cows without the bells, and some cows have even proven to have their hearing severely impaired.

(thanks Mark)

27 Surreal Places To Visit Before You Die

image credit: Andrew Russell

Here are 27 surreal and beautiful places you have to visit before you die.

The Spiders That Decorate Their Own Webs

image credit: Charles Lam

Spider webs - possibly the most beautiful and intricate animal structures of the natural world. However, some spiders are not content with a simple web. They go one step further. Take a look at some of these arachnid designs and come to your own conclusions.

Vanapalooza: An Animated History Of The Van

The van's been America's boxy hero for generations. Building cities, hauling stuff to and fro, and even helping us relax after a hard day of doing those other two things. But, as you can see from this animated history of the, if it weren't for two competitive Germans and a lot of beer, the van wouldn't even exist.



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(thanks Cora)

18 Of The Most Beautiful Gardens In The World

image credit: Xerones

A beautiful garden is a feast for the eyes.
Here are pictures of 18 of the most beautiful gardens in the world.

Mysterious New Poison Dart Frog Found The Size Of A Fingernail

image credit: Brian Gratwicke

A new species of poison dart frog so teeny it can fit on a fingernail has been discovered in a rain forest in Panama. Scientists from the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, found the toxic, electric-orange amphibian in a single hilly area near the Caribbean coast.

Measuring just 12.7 millimeters (0.47 inches) in length, the newly described Andinobates geminisae remains something of a mystery, according to the study team. For one, the mini-amphibian 'looks nothing like' its closest genetic relatives in the region, mainly because of its orange color.

Ultra-Realistic Dental Training Robot

This robot from Showa University in Japan has a silicone mouth that looks and feels almost like the real thing. It can autonomously turn its head, eyes, sneeze, cough, blink, and simulate choking. The robot has speech recognition capability and can hold conversations with dental students.



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(via Neatorama)

Aliens Of London

image credit: TaylorHerring

Most Londoners are accustomed to strange sights - part of the daily rhythm of the English capital is the odd and the unusual. Yet even the most novelty-weary citizens were forced to look twice recently when a mysterious alien race - the Indogenes - made a sudden appearance on the streets of the city.

The aliens were, in fact, promoting the return of the series Defiance, now in its season two, to the Syfy channel. A team of professional makeup artists spent three hours producing the jaw-dropping look.

Is It Hemingway Or A Children's Book?

The old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him. Most of you will recognize this sentence from Hemingway's novel 'The Old Man and the Sea. But can you really tell the difference between Hemingway and a children's book?

Where Do Genes Come From?

When life emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago, the earliest microbes had a set of basic genes that succeeded in keeping them alive. In the age of humans and other large organisms, there are a lot more genes to go around. Where did all of those new genes come from?



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The Bacon Scarf

The Bacon Scarf is here and boy does it look delicious... I mean crispy, I mean warm, I mean just give me some Bacon! The Bacon Scarf is approximately 53" long, made of acrylic knit with the unmistakeable essence of Bacon.

(thanks Cora)

Earth's Water Is Older Than The Sun

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Since water is one of the vital ingredients for life on Earth, scientists want to know how it got here. One theory is that the water in our solar system was created in the chemical afterbirth of the Sun.

If that were the case, it would suggest that water might only be common around certain stars that form in certain ways. But a new study by scientists from the University of Michigan suggests that at least some of Earth's water actually existed before the Sun was born - and that it came from interstellar space.

IKEA 'BookBook'

Swedish furniture store Ikea trumps Apple with a gadget that surpasses the iPad and iPhone in functionality, ease of use and capabilities. Meet the 'BookBook', presented by Jörgen Eghammer, Ikea's Chief Designer Güru.



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Vacation Home

Sounds great!

(via Bad Newspaper)

18 Beautiful Photos Of Animals Looking Through Windows

image credit: Val D'Aquila

Most photos of animals feature them in their natural element, but there are other ways to create gripping photo compositions with animals. Whether it's a domestic animal quietly awaiting the return of its owner or a wild animal investigating an abandoned home, windows can beautifully frame your animal photo and take it from good to great.

Have You Ever Seen 150 Turtles Being Born?

New-born turtles crawl out of the sand under the moonlight and head towards the first light they see. But many turles never see the ocean due to light pollution because of the rise of beachfront.
That's why these turtles are carried to the beach in baskets and set free. Filmed on Lankayan Island, a small strip of sand off the coast of Malaysian Borneo.



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(thanks Cora)

Google Is 16 Years Old Today

Today Google is celebrating their 16th birthday. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University. The birthday is celebrated with a special doodle. The capital letter 'G' is wearing a party hat and marking the height of the smaller letters 'o' and 'l'.

10 Mysterious Swords From Legend And History

image credit: Fabio Gismondi

Swords of renown are the seeds of legend. Fueled by tales of bloodshed and conquest, there have been swords throughout history that have grown to mythical proportions, blending fact and fiction until the two are all but inseparable.

Here are some swords that might in fact be legends brought to life; others have tales so bizarre one has to question their truth. There will never be another weapon that has left a greater impact on history as the sword.

CGI Animals Doing Stunts In France 3 TV Ads

This French television station France 3 commercial made by Nicolas Deveaux shows CGI animals doing stunts.



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15 Of The Most Magnificent Comb Overs You Will Ever See

A comb over is a hairstyle worn by bald or balding men in which the hair is grown long and combed over the bald area to minimize the evidence of baldness. Sometimes the part is lowered so that more hair can be used to cover the balding area.

Here are 15 of the most magnificent comb overs you will ever see.

eBay Spelling Mistakes And Typos

Every day thousands of eBay items go unsold for one simple reason: buyers can't find them because they are misspelled. These items often end with no bids. Now you can find these items with FatFingers. Select your country, type in a search word and click to view on eBay.

The Story Of High Heels - Women's Sexiest Wardrobe Accessory

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High heels have been worn by practically every woman in western civilization. Almost every woman stores and stocks several pairs in her closet. They may not be the most comfortable fashion statement, but women love them anyway.

Why? After all, high heels are clumsy and terribly uncomfortable, they're hard and unhealthy on the ankles, and they often cause the wearer to shake, stumble, wobble, and sometimes fall, often with accompanying injuries. So, why?

Volvo Trucks - The Casino

Newest advertisement for Volvo Trucks. First day on the job and he thought he was there to park sports cars, but director Henry-Alex Rubin had other ideas for San Remo Casino's newest valet. Filmed with hidden cameras.



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Nissan's Built An Electric Pickup That It'll Never Sell

image credit YouTube

There are probably lots of justifiable reasons why carmakers haven't got around to making an electric pickup that anyone can buy, but that doesn't mean such vehicles don't exist.

Engineers at Nissan, with a little too much time on their hands, wanted to create a neat way of ferrying people and parts around their Test Center in Stanfield, Arizona. They took a Leaf EV, cut off its roof, replaced it with the top of a Titan pickup and added a shortened rear bed from a Frontier. The end result is 'Sparky,' a stylish little electric pickup that won't ever leave Nissan's test facility.

10 Things You May Not Know About Sigmund Freud

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Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. Freud died in London from a lethal dose of morphine on September 23, 1939, at the age of 83. His radical ideas on the workings of the human mind transformed psychology and remain controversial to this day.

On the 75th anniversary of his death, learn 10 surprising facts about Sigmund Freud.

(via Neatorama)

KLM Lost And Found Service

The Lost and Found team from Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is on a mission to reunite lost items as soon as possible with their legitimate owner. From a teddy bear found by the cabin crew to a laptop left in the lounge. Locating the owners can sometimes be a challenge, so special forces have been hired.

A beagle named Sherlock sniffs out the owners of lost property such as phones and passports before they leave Schiphol Airport.



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(thanks Cora)

Things?

(via Bad Newspaper)

Spreadable Beer

Spreadable Beer? Yes, Spreadable Beer! Or Birra Spalmabile. Branston Pickle, Nutella, Mango Chutney, even Marmite. All undeniably distinguished spreads, but they're missing one crucial ingredient: Beer.

An ingenious collaboration between an Italian chocolate maker and an Italian beer brewer has resulted in this life-changing jar of Spreadable Beer. The perfect boozy accompaniment for cheeses and hors d'oeuvres, you can smother it liberally on toast or just chug it down like an excitable student.

(via Everlasting Blort)

The Reclusive, Doll-Collecting Copper Queen Of Fifth Avenue

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Huguette Clark (the girl on the right in the photo above) was the daughter of Montana Senator William Andrews Clark, a man Mark Twain called 'as rotten a human being as can be found anywhere under the flag.' The Senator left behind a copper fortune, as well as the Berkeley Pit in Butte, one of the largest Superfund sites in the United States.

Huguette left behind hundreds of porcelain dolls, which she collected obsessively. A recluse as an adult, Huguette barely set foot outside her Fifth Avenue apartment for almost two decades. Then, when she was diagnosed with and treated for skin cancer, she remained in her hospital room for the next 20 years, using it as a base of operations for her doll-collecting enterprises.

(thanks Ben)

Unfolding An 18th-Century Game Table

This finely crafted piece of furniture has a secret. Swing out a leg, adjust an arm, and voilà! Leaves unfold to reveal multiple configurations: a felt surface for card games, a game board for chess or checkers, a desk with a leather writing surface and book rest. Tug at a hidden latch, and a spring-driven backgammon board pops up.



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(via TYWKIWDBI)

Help! There's A Shark In My Soup!

You can add a bit of scary fun to any meal of the day with this totally cool Shark Bowl. Just imagine a creature from the deep coming after you through your corn chowder or Cheerios.

The bowl is made from molded white porcelain and that snarky shark snout pokes up out of whatever you put in it, from candy to guacamole. There is nothing that this Great White isn't willing to take on.

The Longest Continuously Inhabited Cities In The Americas

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When North America and South America are combined, you'll have a massive landmass called 'The Americas.' Whether made by the old natives or immigrants, the old but continuously inhabited cities in the Americas surely contributed greatly to what the world is in the past and the present.

Here's a list of the longest continuously inhabited cities in the Americas together with some fun facts about them.

The Presurfer Is 14 Years Old Today

The Presurfer is 14 years old today. And you made this possible. Without you, The Presurfer would be nowhere. So, thank you for your loyalty.

Please pay a visit to one of my favorite blogs, Everlasting Blort. They are 14 years old today too.

Twit Twit

An animation film from Foxcrom about a poor but cheerful robot Banjo player and a greedy robot toll-keeper in the middle of the desert.



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(thanks Cora)

Glass Beach - Nature Corrects Another Of Our Mistakes

image credit: mlhradio

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that a rubbish dump being created would, in the space of a century, become a protected area. Yet that is exactly what happened to what has come to be known as Glass Beach, just outside Fort Bragg in California.

Glass Beach is abundant in sea glass created from years of dumping garbage into an area of coastline near the northern part of the town. The beach is now frequently visited by tourists. Collecting is not permitted on the beach, although sea glass can be found on other local beaches outside the park boundary.

The Caffeine Test

Caffeine gives you powers. Take in enough of it and your twitching, vibrating body is capable of amazing feats. This highly scientific test determines your level of caffeine intake by measuring how fast you can click your mouse. The test will last for 30 seconds, during which you must click the button as many times as possible.

I took the Caffeine Test and my caffeine level for today is 'Moderate - Chipper and Perky.'

(thanks Cora)

Top 15 Car Crashes From The Simpsons

Car crashes can be very serious. That being said, the television show The Simpsons has always managed to find a silver lining and a sense of humor in all of life's circumstances, even when there is an unexpected bump in the road. Here are the Top 15 Car Crashes From the Simpsons.

(thanks Casey)

The Roentgens' Berlin Secretary Cabinet

One of the finest achievements of European furniture making, this cabinet is the most important product from Abraham and David Roentgen's workshop. A writing cabinet crowned with a chiming clock, it features finely designed marquetry panels and elaborate mechanisms that allow for doors and drawers to be opened automatically at the touch of a button.

Owned by King Frederick William II, the Berlin cabinet is uniquely remarkable for its ornate decoration, mechanical complexity, and sheer size.



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A Comprehensive Look At The Ebola Virus

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2014 has seen the worst outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in history, with the World Health Organization reporting more than 1,700 cases worldwide (as of August this year). In this infographic from BuddyLoans we take an in-depth look at the Ebola virus and its history, origin, genus, transmission, symptoms, fatality rate, and treatment.

All information is correct as of mid-August 2014. Data sources include the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, Doctors Without Borders, the BBC, The Guardian, and other high profile news outlets.

8 Ruined Cities That Remain A Mystery To This Day

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The world is full of ruined cities, but some have such mysterious rises and falls that they haunt our imaginations. Even if we know who built them, certain aspects of the city may simply defy comprehension in the modern age. Here are 8 ancient cities that we may never fully understand.

Frog TV

An army of frogs gathering around a smartphone playing a video of worms.



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(via Laughing Squid)

Top 10 Cruel, Bizarre Curses

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Ötzi the Iceman was found in the Alps between Austria and Italy in 1991. Since his discovery, seven people who found him died in the most unusual circumstances. One was killed in a car crash, one died in an avalanche, one died of brain cancer and one went missing for 8 days and was eventually found laying face down in a stream after jumping off a 300 foot cliff.

Here are ten cruel, bizarre curses that have rocked this world and make superstitious people even more superstitious than they were before.

Eyes Wide Shut

In 1947 Life Magazine asked some famous comic strip artists to draw their famous characters while wearing a blindfold. The results are interesting.

Face Mites Live On All Adults, Study Suggests

The faces of all adults are home to microscopic eight-legged creatures, a new study suggests. Face mites are just half a millimetre long, have eight legs, and look a bit like a 'see-through caterpillar,' says CBC's Torah Kachur.

Face mites are not visible to the human eye. They're semi-transparent, they have eight legs, they kind of look like a tiny see-through caterpillar.

The Longest Usable Golf Club

If you ever wondered what the longest usable golf club looks like, now is your chance to catch a glimpse of it in action. Karsten Maas from Denmark has made a super-sized 4.37 meters long (14 foot 5 inch) club and has used it to achieve drives of over 165 metres (541 feet).



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5 Amazing Countries You Know Nothing About

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What do you know about Mozambique, Curacao, Canada, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Vanuatu.
Here are 5 amazing countries you know nothing about. Well, maybe you do!

13 Of The Best Cities In The World To Eat Street Food

image credit: Oleg Sidorenko

Street food is still something of a novelty in some cities. For all their recent ubiquity in major urban areas, they are still the exception not the norm. It's a bit different elsewhere in the world, especially in Asia where street food is often an integral part of the local cuisine.

This is where you get to eat with the locals, like a local, sans all pretensions. That street food is also cheap and conveniently available is what makes it all the more popular among travelers. So from Bangkok to New Delhi to Paris, here's a look at some of the best cities in the world to sample local cuisines without even leaving the road.

A Woman's Life

South Korean illustrator Seok Jeong Hyeon captures a woman's aging process from babyhood to old age, in a single digital 'live' drawing.



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(via 22 Words)

A Very Special Department

(via Bad Newspaper)

10 Most Expensive Cars in the World

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Some cars are designed just to get you from point A to point B. Some cars are designed to get you from point A to point B really fast. And then there are cars designed with such lavish style and breath-taking performance that point B doesn't even matter anymore - just driving it is the point.

They are built with a level of luxury that most of us will never even see in person, let alone get the chance to own. Here are the 10 most expensive cars in the world.

(via Dark Roasted Blend)

Karlu Karlu - The Devil's Marbles

image credit: Hannah

The Devil's Marbles or Karlu Karlu, as they are known by the local Warumungu Aboriginals, are a collection of massive granite boulders strewn across a shallow valley, south of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, Australia. They are one of the most widely recognized symbols of Australia's outback.

Formed by erosion over millions of years, the Devil's Marbles are made of granite. Some of the boulders are naturally but precariously balanced atop one another or on larger rock formations, while others have been split cleanly down the middle. Although they appear to have been carefully placed, these boulders actually formed on the ground they stand by erosion of rock that reached the surface from below.

Alkmaar Then And Now

A 'then and now' comparison showing the Dutch city of Alkmaar in 1914 and in 2014. It was created by Dutch photographer Frits de Beer and Tara Rikkers and Michael de Vreugd. Finding many of the locations in the original movie turned out to be a challenge. Some locations were gone, while others have had drastic changes that made them hard to identify.



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(thanks Cora)

Meet Lonesome George, The Face Of Extinction

image credit: putneymark

More than 20,000 species of plants and animals around the world are currently under threat of extinction, and hundreds vanish each year. We don't always know the exact time of extinction, but for the Pinta Island giant tortoise, the date was June 24, 2012.

On that day, Lonesome George - the Galapagos Island tortoise now on display at the American Museum of Natural History, and the last known member of his species - died of natural causes. With him, his species, Chelonoidis abingdoni, vanished.

35 Food Markets From Around The World

image credit: Steve Cyr

Here are 35 food markets from around the world to put on your travel bucket list.

(via Everlasting Blort)

Panama Canal Ship Accident

Panama Canal tow train (called a mule) being crushed as it was pulling a container ship on April 03, 2014. No one was harmed.



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(thanks Cora)

Live Earthquake Mashup

The Live Earthquake Mashup enables you to view live earthquake data from several sources. The events are shown simultaneously on a timeline and a map, provided by Google Maps.

The selected data feed is reloaded every five minutes. You may move the timeline and the map as you like. If you click on a marker in either of the two, an info window will open with detailed information on the event, and a link to more information on the website of the feed provider.

Why Is Mars Red?

Mars is known as the 'Red Planet,' but is it really red? This 60-second video answers one of the most frequently asked questions about our planetary neighbor.



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New York City's 11 Most Accessible Ruins

image credit: Terry Ballard

With space at a premium and construction at a fever pitch, ruins in New York City usually don't last long. But sometimes an abandoned property falls through the cracks - maybe it's a historic structure, or it's in a remote location, or its ownership is unclear.

The developer's loss, though, is the urban explorer's gain, and some are surprisingly easy to get access. Here are eleven of New York City's most explorer-friendly ruins.

Naqsh-i Rustam - Incredible Reliefs Of Persian Empires

image credit: Erwin Bolwidt

Most people have heard of the ancient city of Persepolis in Iran. Yet just north of the metropolis of antiquity is a sheer cliff, known as Naqsh-i Rustam. Here, in the second millennium BCE, work began on a quite staggering series of rock reliefs which - even today - have the ability to awe in terms of their size and the staggering amount of work which must have been involved in their creation.

20 Things You Might Not Know About 'The Cosby Show'

The Cosby Show was an American television sitcom which aired for eight seasons on NBC from September 20, 1984 until April 30, 1992. Did you know that in Bill Cosby's original pitch, he played a limousine driver, and Clair was a union plumber. Or that Cosby's iconic sweaters were the work of Dutch fashion designer Koos Van Den Akker.

Here are 20 Things You Might Not Know About 'The Cosby Show'.

'O, Excellent Air Bag': Humphry Davy And Nitrous Oxide

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The summer of 1799 saw a new fad take hold in one remarkable circle of British society: the inhalation of 'Laughing Gas.' The overseer and pioneer of these experiments was a young Humphry Davy, future President of the Royal Society.

Davy's extreme and near-fatal regime of self-experimentation with the gas not only marked a new era in the history of science but a turn toward the philosophical and literary romanticism of the century to come.

Hey, Hey, We're The Monkees

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The Monkees are an American pop/rock band that released music in their original incarnation between 1966 and 1970, with subsequent reunion albums and tours in the decades that followed.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by Robert Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966–1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork, and Englishman Davy Jones.

Ham Yard Hotel Clock

One of the walls of the Ham Yard Hotel in London has an awesome digital wall clock made from 135 of small analogy clocks. The clock not only displays the time but also beautiful geometric shapes.



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(thanks Cora)

What Should I Do With My Old Phone?

Got a new iPhone 6? Congratulations! But what to do with your old phone?
Photojojo has some suggestions.

(via Nag on the Lake)