A woman in São Paulo, Brazil was trying to catch a train, but the train almost caught her. She went out on the tracks at the Corinthians-Itaquera station to retrieve her fallen cell phone. Two men yanked her out of the way with less than a second to spare.
Link (Translation) -via Daily of the Day
If the Easter Bunny didn't make it on time to San Diego earlier today, you can blame the California Highway Patrol. They pulled him over for traffic violation:
The man, who was riding a motorcycle with a side car, was getting plenty of attention from other drivers as he sped down the Interstate on his way to a charity event.
Unfortunately for him, CHP officer Adam Griffiths spotted him and pulled him over for not wearing a helmet and being a distraction to other drivers.
``Griffiths told him it was a serious situation and that it wasn't a joke,'' CHP spokesman Brian Pennings said. ``He explained to him the safety ramifications of not having a helmet."
Pennings said Griffiths radioed in "I'm stopping the Easter Bunny."But the CHP wasn't heartless: the Easter Bunny was released with a warning.
Link - Thanks Tiffany!
The quest to get published is an exercise in durability, persistence and at least a touch of madness. Keep at it!
Cmdr. Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station tweeted, "Don't tell my crew, but I brought them Easter Eggs." The Easter Bunny delivers, no matter how far he needs to travel.
Link -via Geekosystem | Photo: Chris Hadfield/Canadian Space Agency
Found: the retro-equivalent of Neatorama. Behold, The House of Nonsense, which graced the shores of the resort town of Blackpool, England, back in 1911. "Here joy reigns supreme" and "Forget dull care all ye who enter here." Via Retronaut
When Elizabeth Blackwell applied to medical colleges in 1847, they rejected her left and right because she was a woman, and no woman had ever earned a medical degree from an American institution of higher learning. It was a ridiculous idea to even think about accepting her. So ridiculous that it happened! One school wanted to make a point, which backfired.
The Geneva Medical College, however, did not give Elizabeth an upfront yes or no. They put the issue up for vote under the stipulation that if but one student voted against her, she would not be admitted. This reads a little like an attempt to show her how very unwelcome she was, and possibly to humiliate her even further. What student in his right mind would vote for a woman to have access to a medical school?
The students, however, believed it to be a ludicrous joke and decided to have some fun: all one-hundred fifty men voted for Elizabeth.
It was as if the world had been tipped - a female student was to be allowed into the all-male medical domain!
Still, actually attending school in such an atmosphere was not easy. Blackwell graduated with a medical degree in 1849 and changed the course of medical history. Read more at ScienceZest. Link -via Ed Yong
Chance Miller recorded this incident of an octopus -a fairly big octopus- making its way back to sea by squeezing through a tiny hole. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Manhattan jeweler William Barthman and employee Frank Homm embedded a clock in the sidewalk in front of the jewelry store in 1899. The original clock was a proto-digital clock that displayed the hour and minutes without a dial -and when Homm died, it didn't want to work correctly anymore. It's been replaced with a dial clock, and has changed over time, but there is still a clock in the sidewalk at the corner of Broadway And Maiden Lane. Read about the history of the famous clock and see a video at Hodinkee. Link -via the Presurfer
Having a bad day? That's impossible after seeing these awesome photos of Boom of Super Pitbulls frolicking with bunnies and a chick: Link - via Buzzfeed
A lump of magnetic putty totally engulfs a rare-earth magnet in slow motion. The actual sequence is eight times longer than this video shows. The putty will not rest until the magnet is at the center of the glob. What is this "magnetic putty"? From the YouTube link:
The putty looks and feels like regular silly putty, but the difference lies in the fact that it has been infused with millions of micron-sized ferrous particles (most often iron oxide powder). The magnetic putty is not actually magnetic by itself, since the infused particles are made of iron powder.
The presence of the strong neodymium iron boron magnet (the silver cube in the video) magnetizes the ferromagnetic particles in the putty. When this happens, the ferrous particles align with each other and this alignment generates north and south magnetic poles, making the putty into a temporary magnet. Once magnetized, the putty will remain magnetized even after the rare-earth magnet has been removed from the putty. This effect persists for a few hours until thermal agitation shakes the particles and they lose their alignment.
Scott Lawson has other videos about magnetic putty at his YouTube channel. -via Digg
What's better than going on a walk with a St Bernard dog? A whole ARMY of them! Tikki Smith of Lasquite's Saint Bernard went for a walk with her son and 42 St. Bernards for a day in the woods.
Oh, imagine the slobber! Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - via The Dish
Eric Idle, a member of the comedy troupe Monty Python, and John Major, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, both turn 70 years old today. On the occasions of their mutual birthday 20 years ago, Idle wrote to Major to convey his compliments. Say no more, say no more.
If only Idle's speculation was true, then at last the Ministry of Silly Walks would get the funding it deserves.
-via Letters of Note
A mother panda plays with her child exactly the way most human parents do at some time or another. This is Rauhin and her cub Yuhin, who live at the Shirahama Adventure World Zoo in Japan. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
As a grandmother who works online, I am happy to find the blog Grandma Got STEM. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. The blog is a response to the idea that grannies don't understand those fields, evidenced in the phrases "Explain that to me like you'd explain it your your grandma," and "Even my grandma could understand that." That attitude does a great disservice to women through the ages who are quite intelligent and have contributed magnificently to the world's body of knowledge -and also managed to live long enough to have grandchildren. That's a lot of them. Jans Wagner submitted information about her grandmother, Dorothy Gillett (both pictured):
My grandmother (no longer with us) got her BS in Astronomy from Wellesley in 1919, and had a long distinguished career first working on a family business which set up the first radio networks across the country, and ended up working for Lockheed for many years doing orbital calculations on the Mercury and Apollo projects. One of her titles when she worked for Lockheed was “Head Computer” so I always tell people I came by mathematical talent (such as it is, but I do have a PhD in OR from MIT) because “my grandmother was a computer”.
If you ever travel on the NJ Turnpike, and see all those radio towers in the Meadowlands (salt flats outside Newark) it’s because MY grandparents discovered that radio waves travel much better/farther in waterlogged sands then they do when broadcast off high buildings.
GGSTEM is full of such stories, from history, from relatives, and from the grandmas themselves. You can submit a story, too! Link -via Boing Boing
