This cool and colorful video depicting the evolution of Nintendo gaming from its inception is the work of motion designer Anthony Veloso. From the beloved NES to the Wii U, the dizzying pace of this video is a great representation of the swift progress in gaming technology over the years.
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Freelance illustrator and designer Charlie Layton began using the refrigerator/freezer in his Philadelphia apartment as a dry-erase board several months ago. He drew on the surface of the appliance while having his morning coffee. Layton started photographing the drawings and posting them to his Facebook page each Friday, calling the feature "Freezer Fridays." Then Charlie's friend, Redditor unsavory77, uploaded his work to Reddit. The photos instantly became so popular that Layton's website crashed from being overwhelmed with traffic. Layton said of his newfound popularity:
"It's pretty crazy. It's hard to grasp that thousands of people have seen something so quickly."
See more of Layton's work at his website. Link -via Twisted Sifter
(Image credit: Charlie Layton)
Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait reminded readers that the "Red Planet" Mars gets its color from iron oxide (rust). Yet on ancient Mars, water was abundant and white cloud cover was present, likely giving it a more Earthly appearance. This fact prompted software engineer Kevin Gill to create images of what Mars may have looked like, using information collected by NASA with their Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Gill's rendering is indeed reminiscent of Earth. One side of the planet is a vast ocean. The peaks of massive volcanoes rise above the planet's atmosphere, which was far more dense than in its current state. Gills says of his images:
"I am a software engineer by trade and certainly not a planetary scientist, so most of my assumptions were based on simply comparing the Mars terrain to similar features here on Earth (e.g. elevation, proximity to bodies of water, physical features, geographical position, etc) and then using the corresponding textures from the Blue Marble images."
Learn more on this story at Discovery News. Link
(Image credit: Kevin Gill)
Breast implants, a python, a winning lottery ticket, a bucket of live crabs and a set of four Power Rangers costumes — all are bizarre items left behind in rooms at British locations of the Travelodge hotel chain. Apparently, working in housekeeping at a hotel is not only drudgery. It could be life threatening.
Read about other unusual objects that hotel guests forgot to take with them at the Telegraph. Link
(Image credit: TimVickers)
- It would take almost nine years to walk to the Moon. If there were a road 400,000 km long.
- On the surface of a neutron star, the gravity is so strong you’d weigh several billion tons.
- Mars is red due to the presence of large amounts of iron oxide: rust!
- Astronomers have seen a star eaten by a black hole.
- All the iron in your blood and all the calcium in your bones were created in exploding stars.
- Jupiter's moon Io is more geologically active than Earth. Volcanoes constantly erupt there.
- The Earth is hit by about 100 tons of meteoric dust per day.
These factoids are from Phil Plait's archived 2012 Bad Astronomy Facts. He started the feature, consisting of daily astronomy facts in fewer than 140 characters, on January 4, 2012.
See the entire archive at Bad Astronomy. Link
(Image credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/J.Fritz)
Self-described "brick artist" Nathan Sawaya is known for his incredible art pieces constructed with LEGO. Sawaya was a New York City lawyer until 2004, when he made the courageous decision to make art his profession, even while saddled with $100,000 in debt from student loans. Now that his intricate pieces have garnered attention from clients worldwide, including Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, Sawaya spends six figures on LEGO pieces annually. Some of his large-scale works — such as a six-foot-tall Han Solo frozen in carbonite (shown in the gallery above) and a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton twenty feet in length — require as many as 80,000 LEGO pieces.
Sawaya's success is a testament to people following their passions, regardless of whether the idea seems likely to bear fruit. He said of his career:
“I had creative periods now and again, but it wasn’t until I was practicing law that I really needed a creative outlet. I’d come home from long days at the office and draw, paint, and sculpt from clay, wire--even candy. I liked the concept of something additive in nature--where small pieces lead to a larger form. That’s when I thought, 'What about this toy from my childhood?'"
The rest, as they say, was history.
See more of Sawaya's work at his website. Link -via Co.CREATE
British "light artist" Bruce Munro has announced his second ever exhibition in North America. Munro will present 10 outdoor lighting installations at Cheekwood Botanical Garden in Nashville, Tennessee. The exposition begins May 24, 2013 and runs through November 10. The artist designed his installations to complement the hills, views and gardens of the facility. A highlight will be the "Field of Light," comprised of 20,000 illuminated glass spheres, each supported by a thin stalk rising from the ground.
Learn more about Munro and his work at his website. Link -via Contemporist
These infrared photographs by Amiens, France-based photographer David Keochkerian have a mesmerizing, dreamlike quality. The dark skies and electric-colored landscapes seem as if they were shot in another world.
Keochkerian's impressive body of work can be viewed at his 500px photostream, Facebook page or his portfolio. Link
Professor Carl Agee at the University of New Mexico is conducting research on what is believed to be the first meteorite from the surface of Mars. The specimen is 2.1 billion years old and roughly the size of a baseball. It differs from each of the approximately 110 other Martian meteorites found on Earth. Not only is it believed to be from the surface of the planet, but it is much older than the majority and its water content is ten times that of the others.
An American collector purchased the find, originally discovered in the Sahara desert, in 2011 from a Moroccan meteorite dealer. Scientists hope it will enable them to learn unprecedented information about the Martian crust. Munir Humayun, cosmo-chemist at Florida State University, said of the space rock:
"This opens a whole new window on Mars."
Read more on this story at the Los Angeles Times. Link
(Image credit: Carl Agee/University of New Mexico)
Xiao Liwu, the giant panda cub at the San Diego Zoo, is now 22 weeks old. He's close to being mature enough to be put on display at the zoo. In the lively cub's 20th medical exam, shown in the video above, Xiao Liwu's coordination and range of motion have increased. It seems as if he's ready to kick that medical checkup jazz to the curb and get on with full-time frolic.
Trevor Alyn has recently updated his Slit-Scan Movie Maker app for Mac OS. As in the video above, the slit-scan photography process creates distortions and lends a bizarre quality to every movement recorded. The resulting videos are disorienting and reminiscent of Salvador Dali's iconic melting clock painting "The Persistence of Memory," albeit an animated version in which objects melt horizontally as well as vertically.
Stanford University researchers are working with NASA to design a spiked space apparatus capable of maneuvering efficiently across asteroid and moon surfaces, on which low gravity and rough terrain would bog down a regular rover.
Scientists nicknamed the robots "hedgehogs" due to their round, spiky appearance. Those working on the project hope to eventually land the 'hogs on Phobos, a Martian moon.
Read more about space hedgehogs at Stanford University News. Link -via CNET
(Image credit: Stanford University Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
Quirky, an industrial design company based in New York City, is developing a product that enables consumers to take surprisingly good photos from space, utilizing a weather balloon with a mounted camera inside. The product is called the Kepler Space Kit, which is an upgrade of their previous product called the Kepler Kit. The company says of the upgrade:
"The base Kepler kit transforms with minimal waste: the kite turns into a parachute, the rods into landing legs, and the custom mount supports a capsule for high-flying travel. Add a weather balloon and a GPS transmitter, and your iPhone or Go Pro camera will be ready to blast off and return with footage of the great beyond."
Read more on the product specs and development at Quirky. Link -via PetaPixel
(Image credit: Quirky, inc.)
This lioness reacts to the motions of a toddler on the other side of her glass zoo enclosure. She bats her paw at the window repeatedly as the child giggles and pounds back, joyfully oblivious of her power.
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