Tiny Hamster's Tiny BBQ

Tiny Hamster has a tiny BBQ. Hamsters are working with trainers to keep the hamsters safe and happy. All food is strictly reviewed to ensure it's hamster-healthy.



YouTube link

(thanks Jake)

Streetview Player

This Google Maps Streetview Player will take in either a starting point and end point, or a provided file of a route and provide a playthrough of the Google streetview images that are available.

15 Terrifying 18th Century Remedies For What Ails You

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Could you imaging cutting, burning, and bleeding someone who is having a stroke? Or rubbing poisonous lead on someone to cure their rectal cancer? Welcome to just a couple of the remedies in The Book of Phisick, a remarkably legible, handwritten recipe book of natural remedies.

It was initially written by an unknown author in 1710 and subsequently added to by different anonymous hands for years. The recipes, for the most part, involve using plants and minerals to battle everything from bad breath to cancer.

Aerial Views Of Fort Carroll Baltimore, Maryland

Fort Carroll is a military garrison built on a small man-made island in the middle of the Patapsco River. The purpose of the hexagonal fort was to protect the city of Baltimore. The fort was abandoned after the end of World War I and is in extreme disrepair.

In this video the aerial footage is dated November 2014. If you look closely there appears to be some kind of animal moving in the upper window of the lighthouse, perhaps an owl.



YouTube link

(thanks Greg)

Insane Amusement Park Ride

The Tourbillon - a French word which translates to 'whirlwind' - has reportedly been in development for nearly three years, but according to amusement attraction news site Airtimers, abc rides is finally ready to show their creation to the world.

There's a chance that you'll emerge from the terrifying contraption one step closer to becoming an astronaut. Of course, there's a much greater chance you'll come out with your heart lodged somewhere in your throat.

(thanks Cora)

How Do Elephants And Other Animals Sneeze?

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Do elephants sneeze, and how? Elephant trunks are incredible multitaskers, used for smelling, touching, carrying, breathing - and yes, sneezing. Elephants sneeze through their trunks as it is still their nose.

Terrestrial animals aren't the only ones who get the urge to achoo sometimes. Whales and dolphins have to 'breathe out and blow the water out before they can breathe in' through their blowhole, fulfilling the same function as a sneeze. Even fish cough or sneeze to clear particulate matter in the water that 'clogs' the gills.

Con Sordino

A short film about a violin maker and his telephone.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

Comments Disabled

I'm not sure whether this is happening to everyone who has a blog on Blogspot, but I'm currently bombarded with spam comments. You wouldn't see them because comments are moderated. But I see them in my Content Management System and have to remove them manually.

Yesterday I had over 1,000 spam comments and the past hour I had to remove almost 200 of them. That's why I am disabling comments for the time being. At least until I know what's going on. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Mother Raccoon Teaches Her Kid How To Climb A Tree

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(thanks Cora)

Why Do The Players At Wimbledon Have To Wear All White

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Today is the start of the 2015 Wimbledon Championships. The tennis tournament has the strictest dress code of all the major Grand Slam tournaments. The players must wear white. All white.
Why is that?

Unusually-Shaped Fruits And Vegetables That Look Like Something Else

image credit imgur

Have you ever found a fruit or vegetable that looks like something else? Here's a list of the weirdest specimens that look like animals, body-parts, or even people.

The Bike Desk

Havas is one of the largest integrated marketing communications agencies in the world. Havas Chicago created the Bike Desk for Chicago's 2015 Bike to Work Week to remind people to get out there and ride, no matter how busy you are.



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(thanks Cora)

Feeling Anxious? Have A Pickle

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Social anxiety is an emotion characterized by a discomfort or a fear when a person is in a social interaction that involves a concern of being judged or evaluated by others. But now there may be a simple solution. And it's pickles.

Recent research from Virginia's College of William and Mary and the University of Maryland shows that eating fermented food - such as yogurt, sauerkraut, pickles, and kimchi - markedly reduces social anxiety.

Why Time Will Stop For A Leap Second

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Tomorrow time will stop, but don't worry: It will only be for a second. Researchers will add a sliver of time - a leap second - to the world's clocks. Just as leap years keep our calendars lined up with Earth's revolution around the sun, leap seconds adjust for Earth's rotation.

Most of us won't notice the addition. Unless we deal in timescales shorter than a second, or if we use a computer program that crashes because it can't handle the leap second. It's happened before: The 2012 leap second brought down Reddit, Gawker Media, and Mozilla.

Wirelessly Charging RC Car Vs Formula E Driver

American semiconductor company Qualcomm invented a wirelessly charging remote control car to see if it could keep up with Formula E racer Lucas di Grassi.



YouTube link

(thanks Corey)

The New Art Of Coffee

A new machine called the Ripple promises to make lovely art atop your latte's foam. Using special cartridges filled with a natural coffee extract, the Ripple is able to reproduce incredibly detailed images on steamed foamy milk using techniques borrowed from both 3D and inkjet printers.

It takes less than 10 seconds to do its thing. Customers will be able to use a mobile app to place their orders, requesting anything from text messages with custom fonts, to cartoon images, even high-res photos they have stored on their smartphone already.

(thanks Cora)

If Jurassic Park Were In Different Geological Eras

Let's just be glad they chose the Jurassic period.



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Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head: A Mosquito's Lament

image credit: Armin Rodler

Raindrops aren't mosquito friendly. If you're a mosquito darting about on a rainy day, those drops zinging down at you can be, first of all, as big as you are, and, more dangerously, they're denser.

A study says a mosquito being hit by a raindrop is roughly the equivalent of a human being whacked by a school bus. So rain should be dangerous to a mosquito. And yet, when it's raining those little pains in the neck are happily darting about in the air, and they don’t seem to care. Raindrops, for some reason, don’t bother them.

Can A Human Singing Voice Shatter Glass?

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Every object has a resonant frequency - the natural frequency at which something vibrates. Wine glasses, because of their hollow shape, are particularly resonant. If you run a damp finger along the rim of a glass, you might hear a faint, ghostly hum - the resonant frequency of the glass.

Or you can simply tap the glass and hear the same frequency. To shatter the glass, a singer's voice has to match that frequency, or pitch, and the glass must have microscopic defects.

The Science Of Bacon

Yummy! Bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon, bacon! The science of bacon.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

7-Minute Miracle

American Dateline Tokyo journalist Charli James went behind the scenes with the Shinkansen bullet train cleaning crew to film their '7-Minute Miracle' turnaround.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

Restaurant Closing

(via Bad Menu)

10 Bridge Traditions From Around the World

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Bridges have often been subject to superstitions, perhaps because they are a literal passage between two places, and often symbolize movement from one stage of life to the next.

In many parts of the world it's considered unlucky to be the first person to cross a bridge. Workers sometimes leave money in the plaster of a new bridge to protect it and ensure good luck. Some people touch the roof of their car, or spit, when driving under a bridge while a train or other vehicle is passing, supposedly to make sure it doesn't collapse. Here are some other interesting bridge-related customs around the world.

Draw Our Amazing Life

To celebrate its position as a 'trusted partner' to its clients, Allianz decided to find a lifelong loving couple, and then illustrated their story in the style of popular 'Draw My Life' YouTube films. The challenge was to find a couple with an amazing story who the internet could fall in love with. Stephan and Helena fit both those bills perfectly.

As small children in Poland they were displaced during WWII to a camp in Siberia and then, when the families of the newly formed Anders Army soldiers were allowed to leave Siberia, were moved on to Persia and Africa. They've both been through hell to get to the safe haven of the UK where they met.



YouTube link

(thanks Lee)

Expanding The Panama Canal

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In 2006, Panamanians approved a referendum to expand the Panama Canal, doubling its capacity and allowing far larger ships to transit the 100-year-old waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific. Work began in 2007 to raise the capacity of Gatun Lake and build two new sets of locks.

Sixteen massive steel gates, weighing an average of 3,100 tons each, were built in Italy and shipped to Panama to be installed in the new locks. Eight years and $5.2 billion later, the expansion project is nearing completion. The initial stages of flooding the canals have begun and the projected opening date has been set for April of 2016.

The Elaborate Case For Where The Best Birds In The World Live

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Ornithologists are helping the public understand birds. These scientists have taught us how they behave, what they eat, how they think, how they communicate, how they've evolved, and what needs to be done to save them from such scourges as the domestic cat.

But one major flaw in the thinking of ornithologists is that they typically do not engage in debate about which bird is best or where to find the best birds. Well, species for species, the French territory of New Caledonia, in the South Pacific, has the world's best birds.

Real Hot Dog Precision

To celebrate the fact that oil and gas company Statoil are upgrading their hot dogs at their gas stations, they called on one of their skilled, hard-working customers, Juha-Pekka Perämäki, to assemble a hot dog with his 8,5 ton excavator.



YouTube link

Take A Look Inside Mexico City's Massive, Gorgeous Library

image credit: Eneas de Troya

Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City is gigantic. The gorgeous structure holds more than 470,000 books. Designed by Alberto Kalach, the library features transparent walls, hive-like bookshelves, and mismatched floors.

The giant library, which took three years to build, is actually five libraries melded into one, with each section dedicated to some of Mexico's greatest thinkers. It's hard not to feel miniscule when walking through this unusual, massive structure.

Nasa Spots 'Intriguing' Pyramid On Dwarf Planet Ceres

image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. New images taken by Nasa's Dawn spacecraft have captured an odd, pyramid-shaped peak protruding from the flat surface of Ceres.

Although there are yet to be any explanations for the pyramid's origins, previous studies of the planet have revealed a whole host of active phenomena on its surface, from landslides and rock flows to remnants of crumbled (natural) structures.

How A Makeup Mogul Liberated Women By Putting Them In A Pretty New Cage

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In the Victorian era, women would be slut-shamed for wearing makeup. But when suffragists turned lipstick into a badge of liberty, a woman entrepreneur by the name of Helena Rubinstein decided to capitalize on the movement. At her beauty parlors, she offered women the liberty to reinvent their image, but it came at a cost, the slavish devotion to unattainable beauty ideals.

Collectors Weekly has the story of how the modern-day cosmetics industry became such a behemoth.

(thanks Lisa)

What We Can Learn From A Massive Meteor Crater

50,000 Years ago, a dense chunk of nickel and iron, over 100 feet across, entered the Earth's atmosphere. It slammed into the lush woodlands of North America. The impact left a giant hole - 590 feet deep and three-quarters of a mile wide - in the landscape of what is now northern Arizona.

Today, we know the site as Meteor Crater. It has fascinated generations of people, but we are still only just beginning to understand asteroids, the phenomenon that excavated this remarkable location. To really get the scope of this natural wonder, Popular Science sent extreme science correspondent Jake Roper to take us on a video tour.

Revealed: The Secret To How Parrots Talk

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Scientists have discovered how parrots talk, as they believe it's down to the wiring in their brains. And the same brain region controls movement which may explain why some parrots 'dance' to music.

Scientists of Duke University found key structural differences in the brains of parrots that may explain the birds' unparalleled ability to imitate sounds and human speech. The findings could lend insight into the neural mechanisms of human speech too.

The Enchanted Highway, North Dakota, USA

image credit: J24L

The Enchanted Highway is a 32-mile stretch of highway starting at Exit 72 on Interstate 94, about 20 miles east of Dickinson, in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of North Dakota. The paved county highway, which begins near the town of Gladstone and terminates at Regent, features a collection of large scrap metal sculptures depicting geese, deer, pheasants, grasshoppers, Teddy Roosevelt, and even a complete Tin Family.

The sculptures were created by retired school teacher Gary Greff, from the town of Regent, who did it in the hopes of putting his hometown prominently on the map and thus prevent it from fading away into obscurity.

The Magical Porta Potty

Improv Everywhere staged a series of surprises at the porta potty area of the Governors Ball music festival in New York. When random concertgoers opened the 'magical' porta potty, they were surprised by a ridiculous number of performers streaming out of the door.



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20 First Photos From The History Of Photography

Photography has been a medium of limitless possibilities since it was originally invented in the early 1800s. The use of cameras has allowed us to capture historical moments and reshape the way we see ourselves and the world around us.

To celebrate the history of photography, here are twenty photographic 'firsts' from over the past two centuries.

The Antarctic Snow Cruiser

image credit: Boston Public Library

The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was a vehicle designed from 1937 to 1939 under the direction of Thomas Poulter, intended to facilitate transport in Antarctica. The Snow Cruiser was also known as 'The Penguin' in some published material.

While having several innovative features, it generally failed to operate as hoped under the difficult conditions, and was eventually abandoned in Antarctica. The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was rediscovered under a deep layer of snow in 1958, it later disappeared again due to shifting ice conditions.

The Ten Weirdest Car Safety Features That Never Caught On

Automakers are constantly pushing forward with different new safety technologies that are supposed to save our lives. Sometimes, they don't catch on.

Little Darling

Set inside an automaton clock, Little Darling tells the story of the enduring love between the clock's two characters and their frustrations with being unable to embrace after the clock becomes old and broken. When the boy stumbles upon a method to free himself from the clock's mechanism, he must go on a dangerous adventure to save the one he loves.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

14 Creatively Concave And Sliced-Out Structures

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Cutting curves or slices into the facades of buildings doesn't just make them more visually dynamic, it can create terraces, divert prevailing winds, concentrate sunlight and direct the eye to particular views.

These seemingly random depressions and voids completely transform the shapes of each structure, often leading to an alien appearance.

IJsseloog: A Sludge Storage Tank In The Middle Of A Lake

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IJsseloog, or the 'Eye of IJssel,' is an enormous circular pit in the middle of Ketelmeer lake in the mouth of the river IJssel, in the province of Flevoland, the Netherlands. The pit functions as a storage tank for heavily contaminated slit that is still being dredged from the bottom of the lake.

Between 1950 and 1990, lake Ketelmeer became heavily polluted from toxic industrial run-offs carried by Rhine and IJssel river from industries and factories located upstream. These pollutants were released into the river by industries not only in Holland but in Germany, Switzerland and France as well.

Don't Harass The Queen's Guard

The Queen's Guard are contingents of infantry and cavalry soldiers charged with guarding the official royal residences in the United Kingdom. Contrary to popular belief, they are not purely ceremonial and are fully operational soldiers. Here's what happens when you mess with the Queen's Guard.



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Pig Chum - A Cute Piggy USB Hub

Pig Chum is a USB Hub with 3 USB TF Card Readers. The product lights up when in use and also comes with a lanyard so you can wear your Chum out on your travels on your keychain. The USB nose is retractable for safety and of course cuteness.

Silverware

Finally! We now have silverware!

(via Bad Menu)

Comparing Pitstops Across Motorsports

A comparison of pitstops from Formula 1, Indycar, Formula E, Nascar, and World Endurance Championship.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

Simple Relativity: Understanding Einstein's Special Theory Of Relativity

Simple Relativity is an attempt to explain Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity with a simpler visual representation and animation. Simple Relativity is an attempt to excite the viewer about this complex phenomenon of Relativity so that they can approach this, and science in general, with a lot more curiosity rather than inhibition.



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10 Places That Are Off-Limits For Most Tourists

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There are some places in this world that simply don't want to be seen. Here's a Top 10 list of places that you can forget about visiting... but mad props if you do.

18 Fun Facts About 'The Blues Brothers'

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It has been 35 years since John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd brought their Saturday Night Live characters Jake and Elwood Blues to the big screen with The Blues Brothers, a loud, money-making, car-smashing love letter to both Chicago and rhythm and blues.

It made more than $115 million in theaters worldwide in 1980, even though director John Landis and its crew couldn't identify whether the movie was a comedy, a musical, a classic, or an expensive disaster.

Adventures Of The League Of S.T.E.A.M.: The White Wolf

A new adventure of The League of S.T.E.A.M. In this epic Western adventure, the League's werewolf hunter Jasper Mooney tells tales of his lifelong hunt for an elusive white werewolf.



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(thanks Trip)

Top 10 Life Lessons From Books Of The Past

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Worried about how to leave parties, need to get rid of bedbugs or simply want to know the best chat-up lines? Book historian Elizabeth Archibald - author of a book called Ask the Past - comes to the rescue with some pearls from the library of wisdom.

Google Sheep View

Michael Karabinos and Ding Ren, currently residing in the Netherlands, were big fans of viewing sheep while riding trains. So they started collecting screenshots of Google Street View that featured the wooly creatures and put them on their Tumblr site 'Google Sheep View.'

(thanks Cora)

Crinolinemania

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A strange name and an even stranger object, the crinoline appeared on the fashion scene in the mid 1800s. The name is a combination word of 'crin' - a stiff material made using horse hair - and 'linen.' But it wasn't the stiff fabric that gave the crinoline its remarkable silhouette; it was the under-hoops, made of bone or even steel, which formed a cage.

Such was its popularity that some steel factories catered exclusively to the crinoline market. Crinoline-only shops offered them for sale to an eager public. Yet it was, as is obvious, a very difficult object to wear. It was also a deadly fire hazard. From the late 1850s to the late 1860s, around 3,000 women died in crinoline fires in England.

PSC TVC

Everyone likes a love story especially one that blooms over a recycling bin. A new TVC for Port Stephens Council.



Vimeo link

(thanks Stefan)

Will A Surgical Mask Keep You Safe In A Viral Outbreak?

image credit: Matthew Kenwrick

An outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in South Korea has sent sales of surgical masks soaring. When the deadly virus first appeared in the country in May, people started wearing masks just about everywhere - on the metro, at crowded malls and even at weddings - despite the fact that the virus doesn't spread easily outside of hospitals and clinics.

The masks come in a range of colors, patterns and styles. Some are stiff with elastic ear bands. Some are soft and pleated, made of synthetic or natural fibers. And some masks even have built-in respirators. But do these masks work?

9 Of The World's Largest Dog Breeds

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The range of size, shape, color, personality and purpose for which dogs are bred is jaw-dropping. Over centuries, different dogs in different geographic locations have been honed by humans to play certain roles, from hunter to guardian, from herder to companion.

For some of these breeds, size has been a significant player in the search for perfection, whether that was to hunt bigger or faster game or guard a home with more intimidation, or even just to have the mass to survive in freezing locations. Here are 9 of the world's largest dog breeds.

(via Look At This...)

Car Park

A simple shopping trip goes horribly wrong.



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8 Iconic Paintings Of The Battle Of Waterloo

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The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by the armies of the Seventh Coalition, comprising an Anglo-allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher.

The Battle of Waterloo is perhaps the most famous battle of the 19th century and as such has been commemorated in hundreds of paintings. Here are some of the most dynamic and eye catching artistic impressions of pivotal moments during the battle.

Help! Help!

(via Bad Newspaper)

Noorderlicht: The Ice-bound Ship Hotel

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The Noorderlicht (Northern Lights) is a Dutch two-masted schooner that spends the summer taking tourists around the Arctic region, particularly the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, and other remote places in the archipelago searching for wildlife.

Then just before the winter sets in, the Noorderlicht is sailed to Tempelfjorden, a fjord at Spitsbergen, and allowed to freeze in the sea ice where it becomes a unique ice-bound hotel. The ship has 10 cabins that provide accommodation for up to 20 passengers. Two inflatable boats are carried aboard that enables landing and wildlife viewing opportunities in otherwise inaccessible areas.

Remove Cat Before Flight

When you take off in a plane, remove the cat first.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

10 Enormous Foods That Have Shattered World Records

Enormous foods are fun to engineer - often requiring the special help of friends and, in many instances, an industrial-size oven. Each project often has a celebratory unveiling event that garners quite a bit of media attention.

Plus, who could resist the idea of being a Guinness World Record holder? Check out some of the larger-than-life creations that have helped spur businesses, promote movies and, most important of all, fulfill a life-size lifelong dream.

Inheritance Is A Question Of Probability, Not Destiny

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Most human traits, behaviours and diseases are complex, with dozens or hundreds of genes playing a small part in concert with the inscrutable milieu in which they operate.

We must get over the idea that genes determine – in all but a handful of cases, they simply create minuscule changes in the odds.

Rew Day

A day of a man's life is seen as on a videotape which is being rewound. When he wakes up in the morning he has no idea what lays ahead.



Vimeo link

The Strange Phenomenon Of The Bowling Ball Beach

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On the Californian coast is a town called Mendocino. Nearby is a coastal feature called Schooner Gulch, and this is where you can feast your eyes on what has become known as the 'Bowling Ball Beach.'

Thousands of rocks appear to have gathered together to defy the tides like an army of small boulders. The weird thing is that these boulders are uniform in size and shape, as well as in their spacing, though man has nothing to do with it.

Florida's LEGOLAND Hotel Is An Amazing Colour-Block Space For Play And Creation

image credit: behindthethrills

The LEGOLAND Hotel in Winter Haven, Florida, is a child-friendly building that was designed specifically for 2-to-12-year-olds, with special themed rooms and suits, access to Master Builder Model workshops, and of course tons and tons of LEGO bricks.

Wild Sweden

Beautiful nature scenes and wild animals of Sweden.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

L'Oceanogràfic - Europe's Biggest Aquarium

L'Oceanogràfic is an oceanarium situated in the city of Valencia, Spain, where different marine habitats are represented. L'Oceanogràfic opened its doors in 2003, and was an immediate hit.

This is the largest oceanarium in Europe, with sections dedicated to the Red Sea, the Arctic, the Mediterranean, the coral reefs, mangrove forests, tropical waters and the oceans. There's an auditorium, a dolphinarium, a spherical bird sanctuary and multiple restaurants.

(thanks Juergen)

Drone Captures The Moment An Iceberg Collapses

The footage captured in South East Labrador in a small community named Saint Lewis by a 17 year old student called Kelan Poole shows a giant iceberg naturally breaking up and submerging under water.

Icebergs are common off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada as it sits aside the Arctic southwards drift. It is a rarity to be able to captured the death of an iceberg on such high-definition camera.

(thanks Cora)

Snow Blind Illusion

This was a finalist of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest 2015. The Snow Blind Illusion is very simple, but once you know this phenomenon, you can not wait for winter. The speed of falling snowflakes appears to be accelerated by blinds.



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Top 10 Terrifying Prehistoric Sea Monsters

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The modern ocean is a scary place, filled with barracuda, sharks, super-squids, and possibly Cthulhu. However, no matter what we find in the depths these days, none of them seem to come close to the giant terrors that roamed the seas in Earth's past; giant sea-lizards, monster sharks and even 'hypercarnivorous' whales.

Here are 10 of the scariest prehistoric sea monsters to ever call the ocean home in prehistory.

(via Neatorama)

Miss Todd

It's 1909, and the whole world is waking to the possibilities of flight. Miss Todd dreams of flying, but she's got more than gravity holding her down. This is the story of her determination, her perseverance, and her passion - inspired by E. Lilian Todd - the first woman in the world to build and design an airplane.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

Do Computers Die Of Old Age?

Nothing lasts forever, not even electronics. Without moving parts, electronics seem unlikely to wear out. Yet even a standard memory module comprising little more than a capacitor and a transistor can begin to dodder.

Still, system-reliability experts know relatively little about components' life spans in the wild. People usually don't run their computers long enough to find out if they die. Not to mention, manufacturers don't like to publish failure rates from their in-house product tests.

Endless Gravity

Endless Gravity is a short film by Alex Soloviev. It shows us the beauty of the creatures living on the ocean floor.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

10 Facts You (Probably) Didn't Know About The Beatles

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The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the greatest and most influential act of the rock era.

Here are 10 Facts You (Probably) Didn't Know About The Beatles.

Brush Wack

A passionate painter tries desperately to paint a portrait of a beautiful lady, but the lady is being a slightly uncooperative throughout the entire time.



YouTube link

(thanks Cora)

Larger Population

Really?

(via Bad Newspaper)

How Long It Takes Kids To Read Popular Books

Reading with your kids is proven to build healthier relationships, improve basic reading skills and entrench them in imaginary experiences. But when your child comes home with a reading assignment or grabs a new favorite book at the library, have you ever wondered how long it'll take for them to finish?

Taking the average reading speed based on the grade level appropriate for each book, Personal Creations calculated how long it would take kids to tackle more than 50 popular children's books.

(thanks Julissa)

Shine A Light

International humanitarian aid charity Human Appeal has partnered with content agency Don't Panic London to produce an arresting new film. Shine A Light raises awareness of the variety of human rights abuses and humanitarian issues that Human Appeal seeks to redress.

Shine A Light explores the causes of child mortality around the world. It shows a child's shadow frozen in time and seamlessly replaced with the identical shadow of a genuine arrangement of rotting food, damaged medical equipment, dirty water, weapons and ammunition.



YouTube link

(thanks Lee)

New Horizons Investigator Still Considers Pluto A Planet

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New Horizons is a NASA space probe, launched in 2006, to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons and one or two other Kuiper belt objects, depending on which are in position to be explored.

On July 14, New Horizons will make its closest approach to Pluto. The spacecraft will take the first ever close-range photos and scientific readings of the former planet, possibly revealing rings, subterranean oceans, or even more moons. And it could provide the evidence needed to redefine what we consider a planet.

Speed Riding Mont Blanc

Speed Riding is a snow sport practised in off-piste ski areas bordering the normal ski areas. It combines Freeride with paragliding, using a paraglider mini-sail that is easy to steer. Wearing skis, speed riding entails playing with relief, making jumps and then landing gently on snow.



Vimeo link

(thanks Cora)

Kangaroos Are Left-Handed

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By and large, kangaroos are left-handed. This might seem like really weird news, but the study that backs this up may help scientists get a better handle on the evolution of mammals - in addition to dispelling the notion that true 'handedness,' the tendency to favor one limb over another, is uniquely a human trait.

A study published in Current Biology says they found a pronounced degree of handedness in an animal group only distantly related to humans. And the degree of handedness was 'comparable to that in our species.'

Samsung: The Safety Truck

Samsung and advertising company Leo Burnett Argentina have developed a campaign to improve road safety. A camera is built on the front of a truck. At the rear there are four screens that show the view from the front camera.



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(thanks Cora)

6 Amazing Bikes That Fly, Float Or Go Faster Than Cars

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People often opt for bikes instead of cars for the exercise, the maneuverability, the low environmental impact and the camaraderie among riders. It's the ever-changing design of bikes that grabs the world's attention, including those of us who aren't so steady on two wheels.

Whether you're a diehard cyclist or you're skeptical of human-powered transportation, here are six incredible cycles that will leave you thinking bikes are a superior class of vehicle.