Glowing Specimen Panel Series by Steffen Dam
The glowing Specimen Panel series created by Danish toolmaker Steffen Dam. Steffen Dam is a disciplined master craftsman whose plants and invertebrates are beautifully executed and display an impressive material credibility. This is a notable technical achievement and merits admiration, but the greater question is once Steffen’s pseudo-specimens attract us, what do they have to tell us? Dam’s glass panels and jars contain alter-nature specimens of his imaginary universe. Through them he forges a path not necessarily to a new world but to a new perception of the one which surrounds us.
In Utero Images Glimpse Animals Inside the Womb
A joint project between the National Geographic Channel and Channel 4, the series used advanced high definition cameras to capture animals and embryos during pregnancy and birth. $Techniques included infrared and 4-D scanning techniques, as well as a host of realistic computer-generated models. Now you can see fetal dog, elephants, penguins, and dolphins still inside the womb.
National Geographic’s International Photo Contest 2009
The Big Picture blog is showcasing 25 entries in this year’s photography contest that National Geographic hosts, asking the world to send in their best. You can vote on each entry here.
Nazroo, a mahout (elephant driver), poses for a portrait while taking his elephant, Rajan, out for a swim in front of Radha Nagar Beach in Havelock, Andaman Islands. Rajan is one of the few elephants in Havelock that can swim, so when he is not dragging timber in the forest he is used as a tourist attraction. The relationship between the mahout and his elephant usually lasts for their entire lives, creating an extremely strong tie between the animal and the human being. (Photo and caption by Cesare Naldi)
Read More…
Woodpecker vs. Snake
On vacation in Peru Yarapa River Lodge we came across a woodpecker knocking on a tree, when we came closer we saw the fight between a female woodpecker and a snake.
After this video was taken, the female woodpecker was hurt (hard to see in the video), later the male woodpecker tried as well, but we had to leave.
Via [Amazon Ecosight]
Bee House by James Ennis
The project Bee House, created by the Irish designer James Ennis, is the winner of the European Design Award for a sustainable present, assigned by an international jury that examined over 100 works.
This project organised by the EESC is the first “green public procurement” project of a European institution.
“United in diversity, living with the bio diversity” was the winning design concept behind “Bee house”, which consisted of a box with windows that had flowers and was actually a room for bees. This highlighted the importance of the vital role of bees in food production and life in particular.
Read More…
“Savior Bud” by Kim Hyo Jin and Seol Ah Sun
Presented at the Seoul Design competition, the “Savior Bud” is inspired by the “Giving Tree,” latches on to trees and uses it’s natural recycling processes to obtain water. In a simple process which basically involves collecting the moisture from the leaves and emptying it out into containers, the Savior Bud takes one more step toward acceptable living conditions in Africa.
Thousand Ice Sculptures Melt in the Sun to Highlight Global Warming
Ice sculptures in the shape of humans are placed on the steps of the music hall in Gendarmenmarkt public square in Berlin. Hosted by the German World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), 1,000 ice sculptures were positioned on the steps in the German capital at noon, to highlight climate change in the Arctic region.
Read More…
D30 Rocks
Orange juice is a Newtonian liquid. Ketchup and cornstarch water mix are known as non-Newtonian fluids. They have the incredible quality of becoming solid when stressed. D30 (dee-three-oh) is an innovative material based on the same principle. I’m now thinking about filling my motorcycle jacket with ketchup…
Watch this!
Gardening Coral in Fiji, a Video by Jonathan Clay for BBC
This is a pilot project currently underway, that is being highlighted by BBC in the documentary series “South pacific”. The film was made under the guidance of Jonathan Clay who was grateful enough to share this clip to the world.
Coral Gardening from Jonathan Clay on Vimeo.
Via [Neatorama]
Sewer Creatures
This video has made its way to Video Sift and has been inspiring nausea all over the web. Speculations on the nature of this creature run from bryozoans, cnidarians, slime molds, and some mysterious alien creature here to suck out our brains Deep Sea News contacted experts to find out what kind of creature this could be.
They are clumps of annelid worms, almost certainly tubificids (Naididae, probably genus Tubifex). Normally these occur in soil and sediment, especially at the bottom and edges of polluted streams. In the photo they have apparently entered a pipeline somehow, and in the absence of soil they are coiling around each other.
Via [Neatorama]
Opabinia, Prehistoric Oddities
It might be a distant cousin of shrimp or it might be unrelated to anything alive today.This weird four-inch-long animal lived in the sea that covered what is now Canada about 530 million years ago.
Instead of legs, it had 14 pairs of oarlike gills used for swimming. But the real strangeness was saved for the head. It had five eyes – two pairs on stalks and another sitting in the middle of the top of the head. In front of all these eyes was a long flexible nozzle with a claw at the end. Scientists think the claw captured food and carried it to the mouth.
Link Via [Neatorama]
Naica, the World’s Largest Crystal Cave
The largest natural crystals on Earth have been discovered in two caves within a silver and zinc mine near Naica, in Chihuahua, Mexico. This horseshoe-shaped cavity deep inside Naica mountain, is about 30 feet (10 meters) wide and 90 feet (30 meters) long.
Birth of a Tornado
Watch this cool video of a tornado in its beginning stages! From seemingly nothing it becomes a gigantic, violent swirl of debris.
Via [Neatorama]
Corpus Clock Unveiled By Stephen Hawking
A £1m clock called the “time eater” has been unveiled at Cambridge University by Professor Stephen Hawking. Dr Taylor, 72, designed the timepiece as a tribute to English clockmaker John Harrison who solved the problem of longitude in the 18th century.
The Corpus clock features a time-devouring grasshopper at its top that moves around the face one second at a time. As it moves, the 60 slits cut into its face light up to show the time.
Making a visual pun on the grasshopper image, Taylor has designed a fantasy version of a grasshopper at the top of the clock face, and uses this beast — with its long needle teeth and barbed tail — as an integral part of the clockworks. Its jaws begin to open halfway through a minute, then snap shut at 59 seconds. The creature’s eyes, usually a dull green, occasionally flash bright yellow. The oversize grasshopper is called a chronophage, or ‘time eater.’
Solar Tree by Vivien Muller
Vivien Muller’s Photonsynthese is tree shaped charger that carry 54 tiny photovoltaic panels to store the energy accumulated during the day in a battery. Resembling a potted bonsai tree, the silvery solar charger rests atop an elegant tray.
Small devices like cell phones and cameras can then be charged up by plugging in underneath the electronic bonsai tree.
Time Lapse Video of Slime Mold and Mushrooms
Time lapse video of unusual looking molds and mushrooms erupting.
Via [boing Boing] & [Grow-A-Brain]
Druggie Lemurs of Madagascar
Drug use happens in the animal world. The lemurs of Madagascar are millipede junkies. Who knew?
Via [Neatorama]
Octopus Escaping through a 1 inch Hole
Octopuses are highly intelligent and probably more intelligent than any other invertebrates. They have an amazing ability to squeeze through tiny crevices, cracks and holes. Observe this octopus sneak its way out of a 1 inch hole.
Via [Google Video] & [Neatorama]