Homemade Roller Coaster

The "Blue Flash" was created by an individual in his own back yard. Reportedly once the coaster is started, it gains enough speed to grab on to the lift mechanism, so one never has to get off (!)

Insects - the original white meat

"These are the largest species of Ant to be found anywhere in the world. Hormigas Culonas are harvested in the Colombian Amazon by the Guane Indians, during the short rainy season between March and June. They are then toasted in a mud pot over an open fire by the Indians.

The Guane Indians believe that these Ants have youth giving and Aphrodisiac properties and they are often served as fertility giving marriage food during nuptial ceremonies. Hormigas Culonas taste similar to crisply fried bacon with an earthy taste, and make the perfect alternative party snack instead of nuts or olives!"

Credit to Edible.com, via Uncertain Times.

While we're on the subject, Science News just published an article on the nutritional value of insects. It offers the thought-provoking observation that crab, lobster, and shrimp are the oceanic equivalent of terrestrial insects. Furthermore:

"...despite lobster’s prized status, crustaceans tend to “eat trash and dead things” whereas most insects dine at nature’s salad bars..."

"Gram for gram, crickets or grasshoppers can be more nutritious than an equal quantity of beef or pork... One reason: Water constitutes a high percentage of meat, he says, whereas insects tend to be drier. Many insects also are richer in minerals than many meats, such as hamburger, his data show. And most lipids in bugs tend to be long-chain, unsaturated fats—healthier types than those predominant in conventional livestock."

I suspect we'll be hearing more about entomophagy in the future.

Court rules against father grounding daughter

“A father plans to appeal after a Quebec court ruled that he didn't have the right to punish his 12-year-old daughter by banning her from a school trip…

The father first forbade his daughter from going online after the Grade 6 student posted photos on a dating site… The girl's parents are divorced, and after she had an alleged row with her stepmother, the dad barred her from going on a school trip to mark the class's graduation from elementary school…

…the justice ruled that the punishment was too severe since the girl had already been sufficiently disciplined…"

The Films of Stanley Kubrick

More disjointed, less cohesive that the Tim Burton mashup below, but this will still interest film buffs who enjoyed Spartacus, 2001, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, etc.

Further explanation in the blog entry below this one.

Sixth human foot washes ashore

It was only two days ago that I blogged about the discovery of the fifth foot. This one reverts to the original pattern of being a right foot, and is a man's foot encased in a size 10 black Adidas running shoe. This one was found several hundred kilometers further north, on Vancouver Island. This Canadian News link is probably the best one for summarizing the data, and indicates that the RCMP has a caseload of 2,300 missing persons to sort through.

I don't plan to post any further items on this subject, even if dozens more feet are discovered. It has already reached the mainstream media and certainly is no longer "TYWKIWDBI" in character.

update June 25: "The sixth "foot", which was discovered June 18, 2008 on Tyee Spit near Campbell River on Vancouver Island, was a hoax. The hoax was a "skeletonized animal paw" was put in a sock and shoe and then stuffed with dried seaweed. The hoax has been called "senseless and thoughtless", "despicable", and "reprehensible". Police have begun an investigation into the hoax, and an arrest could result in charges of public mischief." From the new Wiki entry now devoted to this subject.

June 18 is Autistic Pride Day

"Autistic Pride Day is a celebration of the neurodiversity of people on the autism spectrum on June 18 each year. Autistic pride is pride in autism, about shifting views of autism from "disease" to "difference". Autistic pride emphasises the innate potential in all human phenotypic expressions and celebrates the diversity various neurological types express."

In honor of which, I've embedded two videos. The top one is a three-minute report on an autistic high school basketball manager who got an opportunity to play in his team's last game - with amazing results. This report aired on the national evening news about two years ago; it's a truly heartwarming video, not because of the young man's athletic performance, but because of the response of the crowd (and the other team).

The bottom video is a five-minute report on a British savant who draws a 5.5 yard panoramic picture of the city of Rome after seeing it for the first time on a helicopter ride, with precision down to the detail of the number of windows or columns in each building. An awesome skill.

The World's first telephone book

"Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent on his telephone in 1876... In early 1878, he installed the first telephone exchange, in New Haven, Connecticut. The first telephone "book" - actually just a single 14 cm. x 21 cm. sheet - was issued in New Haven in 1878." Above is a 1978 facsimile of that sheet.

Image and text found at a website devoted to collecting telephone books (!) - with descriptions of different types of phone books and how to collect them. The authors have thousands of them, but have decided to follow a directive from Jesus and sell them on eBay because of the nuisance of silverfish and the inordinate cost of moving them around.

Walkway celebrates Kew's Year of the Tree

One of my fondest memories is that of spending six months working in London, during which time I explored the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew almost every week. They apparently have added a new feature - a walkway elevated eighteen metres above the groud which allows visitors to walk through the forest canopy. Accompanying the elevated walkway is a ‘Rhizotron’, an underground viewing area illustrating tree root biology. Further details and more photos at the link.

The Solstice Moon occurs tonight

"On Wednesday night, June 18th, step outside at sunset and look around. You'll see a giant form rising in the east... It's huge! You've just experienced the Moon Illusion.

There's no better time to see it. The full Moon of June 18th is a "solstice moon", coming only two days before the beginning of northern summer. This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging Moon and a strong Moon Illusion...

The best time to look is around moonrise, when the Moon is peeking through trees and houses or over mountain ridges."

Text above (and table of moonrise times in various cities) credit to NASA website. Image credit to this UW website, where the pathogenesis is discussed. [I don't know if this is applicable for Aussies]

The Lowell House bells go back to Russia

"For the past 78 years, the 18 bells have hung high above Harvard's buildings, chiming on Sunday afternoons and every year at commencement. This summer, the bells will return home to ring at the Danilov Monastery in Moscow from which they were rescued in 1930 at the height of the Stalinist era, at a time when antireligion campaigns sought to destroy monasteries and melt down their ironwork… the Soviet government "was apparently desperate for money and was selling off everything of value – imperial Bokhara rugs, artwork, and church property…”

Weighing in at 25 tons, the bells were installed in Harvard University's Lowell House residence hall and atop the Baker Library. Students embraced the art of bell ringing with the formation of the Lowell House Society of Russian Bell Ringers, later taking trips to Russia to experience the art firsthand.

"They really are the only four existing bell sets from the prerevolutionary times that weren't destroyed during the Stalinist era…”

For the Danilov Monastery, now the home of the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, the homecoming of the bells is a matter of spiritual significance. "[The bells] are described as singing icons – that they have voices and tongues that are singing to God as they are ringing," says Professor Campos. "There is no way to replace these bells. They are an organic set and they have their own history from the place they were hung. They were very much a part of the religious community."

Addendum from Wikipedia: "The Bells had been rung for generations of students following the Harvard-Yale football game, with Harvard's score rung on the "Mother Earth Bell" and Yale's rung on the "Bell of Pestilence, Famine, and Despair."

I fondly remember ringing these bells with friends on Sundays 40 years ago. If you would like to try your hand, you can do so at this virtual bell-tower.

Federal ownership of U.S. land

"The United States government has direct ownership of… nearly 30% of its total territory. These federal lands are used as military bases or testing grounds, nature parks and reserves and indian reservations, or are leased to the private sector for commercial exploitation (e.g. forestry, mining, agriculture). They are managed by different administrations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the US Department of Defense, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the US Bureau of Reclamation or the Tennessee Valley Authority. This map details the percentage of state territory owned by the federal government." (Click image to superdupersize.)

Offered without editorial commentary on my part, just for its interesting content. Found at the Strange Maps blog, which has many other interesting maps. One needn't have an interest in cartography to enjoy that website - indeed, cartography per se is almost irrelevant, since the focus is on unique presentations of data using the "map" format.

"Blackening the bride"

"In the Scottish pre-wedding tradition of “Blackening the Bride,” The bride is taken by surprise and covered with foul substances, such as eggs, various sauces, feathers, and well you name it… The bride to be, officially blackened, is the then paraded around town, and of course a few pubs, for all to see..."

This seems more like a modern collegiate "hazing" than an ancient wedding tradition, but it is included among an interesting group of "weird wedding customs." Link found at the Presurfer.

Balloon on a string

If you've been around computers for any length of time, you must be familiar with those annoyingly fascinating "flash" sites that are absolutely juvenile in their humor, but no matter how sophisticated you are will grab your attention so that you can't resist playing with them.

Such sites have absolutely no redemptive educational value, but they are so clever that you can't resist emailing them to all your friends so that they will also waste a few minutes of their lives.

This is one of those sites.

"Das Rad" ("The Wheel")

An German animated (stop motion, puppetry, and computer graphics) film which presents a view of life as seen from the viewpoint (and timeframe) of rocks. Nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film in 1973, and winner of many other awards. Auf Deutsch, with English subtitles. To quote one commenatator at IMDB -"I lichen it."

Synthetic diamonds now match mined ones

Some years ago at a meeting of a gem and mineral club I heard a lecture about synthetic gems and was awed by the state of the technology and the quality of the product. At that time the industry was concentrating on colored gems (rubies and sapphires), and production of diamonds was limited to the industrial rather than consumer trade because they tended to have a yellow coloration.

Now, Smithsonian is reporting that laboratory-grown diamonds are becoming indistinguishable from natural ones. The diamonds are created by crystallization, as carbon gas (!!) is passed over a seed diamond in a vacuum chamber. At the present time the synthetic colorless ones cost about the same as natural stones, while "pink, blue, champagne, mocha and brown diamonds retail for about 15 percent less than natural stones with such colors, which are very rare."

While we're on the subject, the Smithsonian report notes that "natural diamonds aren't particularly rare. In 2006, more than 75,000 pounds were produced worldwide. A diamond is a precious commodity because everyone thinks it's a precious commodity, the geological equivalent of a bouquet of red roses, elegant and alluring, a symbol of romance, but ultimately pretty ordinary."

And finally: "The largest diamond so far found in the universe is the size of a small planet and located 50 light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. Astronomers with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics discovered the gigantic stone a few years ago, and they believe the 2,500-mile-wide diamond once served as the heart of a star. It's ten billion trillion trillion carats. The astronomers named it Lucy in honor of the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."