The Seven Noses Of Soho

image credit: John O'Shea

Attached to the walls of various buildings around the Soho neighborhood, in one of the inner boroughs of London, are several plaster casts of human noses of various sizes. The noses were set up by artist Rick Buckley in 1997 as a form of protest against the rising use of surveillance cameras across the streets of London.

Rick Buckley decided to install plaster of Paris and polymer casts of his own nose at various structures across London, right under the noses of 'the liberty threatening CCTV Cameras.'

A Literary Guide To Whiskey

Writers and booze have mixed in profusion since man achieved those twin pinnacles of culture: written language and distillation. Sometimes they go together well, like bourbon and bitters in a finely wrought Old Fashioned. Other times? Well, it doesn't take more than a skim through a few writers' biographies to see how destructive the bottle can be.

(via Nag on the Lake)

8 Strange Animal Sleeping Habits

Sleep is important, but not all animals need the same kind of deep rest as humans. From sleeping standing up to sleeping inside snot bubbles, here are 8 especially strange ways some animals catch their ZZZs.



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Good Deal

(via Bad Menu)

One Of The Earliest Science Fiction Books Was Written In The 1600s By A Duchess

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Lady Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was born in 1623. Cavendish was an outspoken aristocrat who traveled in circles of scientific thinkers, and broke ground on proto-feminism, natural philosophy and social politics.

In her lifetime, she published 20 books. But amid her poetry and essays, she also published one of the earliest examples of science fiction in 1666. She named it The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing World.

The World's Top Space Agencies

Gone are the days of the bilateral Space Race - now just about every country worth its salt has set its sights on the exploration of space. The result has been a true Golden Age of scientific discovery and research. Let's take a look at the leading space agencies of today.

Six Technologies That Produce Clean, Safe Drinking Water

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One in 10 people worldwide lack regular access to safe drinking water. In an effort to tackle this most basic humanitarian problem, engineers around the globe have developed a wide array of devices that generate clean water.

Solutions range from using condensation methods to pull water from thin air, turning salty seawater into fresh water, or distributing UV light purification chips affordable enough for people to use at home.

The Village Of Monsanto

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Monsanto is a beautiful village built in the Portuguese countryside. Featuring narrow streets carved from rock and granite houses squeezed between giant boulders, it looks like a real life Bedrock.

At the top of the 400 feet high hill stands a very old square built castle. The castle played an important role in Medieval times when the Templars Grand Master built a castle which withstood several battles including the Napoleonic invasions.

The Ultimate Photobomb

The demolition of the Norfolk Court flats in the Gorbals area of Glasgow seriously photobombed by First Bus.



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15 Quirky World Championships

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Every four years, athletes from around the world compete in more than 50 sports at the Winter and Summer Olympics. But not every sport is fit for the Olympic stage. Here are a few non-traditional international matchups.

Unusual Suspects: Finding The Humanity In Vintage Mugshots

Despite the oft-repeated mantra - that one is innocent until proven guilty - mugshots suggest otherwise. Mark Michaelson, who's been collecting vintage mugshots since the 1990s, refers to these photos as the 'least wanted.'

The subjects captured in vintage mugshots may have been brought in under bogus charges by corrupt officers, or arrested for crimes no longer considered criminal, like adultery, begging, or expressing communist beliefs. But mugshots often outlive the truth. Collectors Weekly spoke with Michaelson about his mugshot collection and the stories unearthed by his photographic obsession.

(thanks Hunter)

The Most Powerful Wind Turbine In The World

The Enercon E-126 is a wind turbine model manufactured by the German company Enercon. This large model can generate up to 7.58 megawatts of power per turbine.



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(thanks Cora)

Is The Sea Really Blue?

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James Joyce described it as snot-green. Lord Byron went for plain old dark blue. Our own experiences suggest the colour of the sea and oceans can change markedly according to both time and place, from brilliant turquoises and whitish greens, through ultramarine, navy blues, to dishwater greys and mucky browns.

So why is that so, when we all grow up thinking the sea is blue? The variation in sea colour, it turns out, is due to both physics and biology.

Google Street View Blurs Bullocks's Face

A bullock that had its face blurred by Google Street View has proved a hit on social media. The animal was snapped by Google's cameras at Coe Fen, Cambridge, and seemingly given the same treatment humans receive for privacy reasons. Google admitted its face-blurring technology had been 'a little overzealous.'

The Loneliest Tree In The World

Tucked away in a corner of London's Royal Botanic Gardens, there is a very peculiar plant. At first glance, it resembles a stumpy palm tree, but this ancient specimen is incredibly rare. It is, in fact, the very last of its kind on Earth. Encephalartos Woodii is a cycad. Over the millennia, the age of the cycad came to an end. This tree is the loneliest bachelor on Earth.



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Preventive Care

(via Bad Newspaper)

The Hail Cannon

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A hail cannon is a pseudoscientific device and purported shock wave generator claimed to disrupt the formation of hailstones in the atmosphere. A mixture of hailstones by creating shock waves. A mixture of acetylene and oxygen is ignited in the lower chamber of the machine and as the resulting blast passes through the neck and into the cone, it develops into a shock wave.

This shock wave then travels at the speed of sound through the cloud formations above, a disturbance which manufacturers claim disrupts the growth phase of hailstones.

15 Curious Quack Remedies From The Age Of Patent Medicine

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Traveling salesmen and pharmacies packed with colorful bottles claimed to have all the medical cures for what ailed you in the 19th century, although the contents of their remedies were more likely to be opiates or snake oil than any scientifically sound healing.

The era of patent medicine was a response to the shortcomings of medicine at the time, which often relied on questionable treatments like bloodletting and purging.

The Plane Highway In The Sky

Over the North Atlantic, where there is no radar coverage, planes don't fly like they normally fly. They follow a set of daily tracks that act like highways in the sky.



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(thanks Cora)

Pobiti Kamani: The Stone Forest, Bulgaria

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In Bulgaria, on the road to the capital of Sofia, is a remarkable natural area called Pobiti Kamani or the Stone Forest. At first glance, it looks like the ruins of an ancient temple, but these broken stone pillars are all natural.

The most curious thing about these pillars is that they are mostly hollow and filled with sand. They don't have a solid foundation or attached to the bedrock. Instead, the pillars are loosely stuck into the surrounding sand as if some one had hammered them into the earth.