This brief video gives viewers a fleeting look at the underwater laboratory of Fabien Cousteau, the grandson of Jaques Cousteau. The lab was stationed near Key Largo, Florida recently, as Cousteau conducted a study on the impact of climate change on coral reefs. The video includes some interesting (unrelated) footage that Cousteau captured during the mission. Via Gizmodo.
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The Asian elephant herd at the Oregon Zoo consists of three adult males, three adult females and two juveniles, one-and-a-half-year-old Lily and her brother Samudra. Little Lily, pictured above, had fun swimming with the herd this past week.
As is typical of elephant behavior, the group drank, bathed and played in the cool waters of their enclosure. Elephants are naturally excellent swimmers, using their legs to paddle and their trunks to snorkel. Elephants live their lives in close proximity to fresh water and may drink upwards of 50 gallons of water per day. Via Zooborns.
Images Credit: Shervin Hess
This tortoise apparently really wants to play with this ball. So much so that he's willing to get aggressive with the howling dog who seems to think he has possession of it. Upon hearing a description of the situation, one might think the dog would be the easy winner of this one-upmanship. Not so fast. This is one tough little tortoise who takes his ball games seriously. Via Tastefully Offensive.
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Company's comedy television show Haft Sang is almost a scene-by-scene ripoff of ABC's Modern Family. Yet there is one glaring omission: the gay characters. Haft Sang, an unauthorized remake, has changed sexual preferences, genders and other traits of characters that don't fit in with their ultraconservative religious rules concerning sexuality, dating and interaction between males and females.
Iranian fans of Modern Family (which they illegally download, because such American television shows are outlawed) compiled a video comparison illustrating how directly the Iranian show imitated Modern Family. Via Dangerous Minds.
Between 2005 and 2014, Mitch Dobrowner, a photographer from Studio City, California, traveled the United States photographing storms. The resulting photographs range from relatively harmless weather patterns to destructive tornadoes. His series is making the rounds of galleries across the United States. See more of Dobrowner's work at his website, the front page of which features this quote by writer and environmentalist Edward Abbey,
"Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today."
Via Juxtapoz.
Jaipur, India
Image: payal.jhaveri
Doors obviously have a utilitarian purpose, but additionally they often hint at the aesthetic that lies within. Or they impress the observer with an air of mystery about what could be beyond such an exotic barrier. Featured here are examples from "30 Beautiful Doors that Seem to Lead to Other Worlds." Check them out and see which portals capture your imagination.
Garden Door, Japan
Image: Anya Langmead
Valloria, Italy
Image: Socket974
This video presents ten tips for summer living, from how to best drink with a straw from an aluminum can, to a special way to eat your hamburger, to keeping insects away from your treats. Viva summer!
The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) in Front Royal, Virginia successfully bred all four of their red panda pairs, who bore ten cubs in 2014. Of those 10 cubs, seven have survived. More than 100 Red Pandas have been born at SCBI, including this year's births, and 60 of the newborns survived. The survival rate for red panda cubs living in facilities (such as the SCBI) that are accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums is about 50 percent.
A female red panda generally bears one to four cubs after a gestation period of approximately 134 days. Cubs remain close to their mothers until the next mating season, and reach adult size at about 12 months.
Red pandas are classified as vulnerable, mostly due to habitat loss. The species is native to the bamboo forests of China, Nepal and northern Myanmar. Experts estimate that there are fewer than 10,000 adult red pandas left in the wild. Via Zooborns.
Images Credit: Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Fireworks may shimmer, sparkle and delight by night, but during the day they are over in a puff of smoke. Case in point is this elaborate, microchip-controlled fireworks show put on by Chinese artist Cai Qiang at the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar. The explosives were carefully designed to form intricate patterns and pictures when the charges were detonated. Via Twisted Sifter.
If you happen to find yourself somewhere with a canned drink in your hand and a jones for barbeque over the holiday weekend, let this video be your guide. The King of Random illustrates for BBQ desperadoes how to pull a MacGyver that nets them a tiny barbeque just big enough to grill a jumbo hot dog, slider or brat. This bittyQ is made with an aluminum can. Now there's a good excuse to have a 40 oz!
Videographer Craig Shimala was working on another video project on June 30th, 2014 when he saw and captured a triple lightning strike on three of Chicago’s tallest buildings: Willis Tower, Trump Tower and the John Hancock Building. Lightning struck in the same place twice for Shimala, when he captured another triple strike on the same buildings four years ago. See this link for that footage. Via Colossal.
Lila Jang, featured previously on Neatorama for her delightful wall-climbing sofa, is a South Korean sculptor who bases her designs on 18th-century French furniture and adds fanciful touches to the traditional lines.
Jang has received accolades internationally through gallery shows and art fairs showcasing her unique design perspective. According to Jang, her pieces are a statement about humanity being stuck in the middle of "that constant struggle between reality and the ideal.”
Jang also drew inspiration from living in her cramped Parisian apartment, in which she noticed that tables and chairs only seemed to fit if they were bent out of shape first. Learn more about Lila Jang and see more of her work at this website and in this post on Beautiful Decay.
Images Credit: Lux Art Institute/Lila Jang.
Grant Thompson, a/k/a The King of Random, made a top ten list of party tricks from some of the "biggest life hackers on YouTube" and compiled a video presenting them all. The result is ten amusing, science-based diversions that would be fun to recreate, even if you're at a party of one. From turning a garbage can into a "rocket" to making ice cubes that glow in the dark, King Random serves up enough ideas to ensure your gatherings won't be uneventful.
GoPro filmed this trainer at Nature Trails in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany as he keeps these 17 Siberian Huskies at the ready for their wintertime sled-dog duties. But it's not all work for these beautiful canines. The video shows them having a happy howl as well as inhaling their dog chow. From the Nature Trails website,
"Our passion is nature and the rustic life. Thus, a particular lifestyle was it. We have a pack of Siberian Huskies, which form the basis of our daily work. It's all about the Huskies and is also necessary, because only then you get a special bond between human and animal existence, which in turn is enormously important for the team work."
Via Unique Daily.
This video captures (albeit with an unintended "shaky cam") an optical illusion effect called "Reverspectives." This artwork by Brian Weavers is on display at the Gallery at Ice in the UK. Their show "3D Art: An Exhibition of Reverse Perspective by Brian Weavers" runs until July 24th.
British artist Patrick Hughes is the "father" of this illusory art form, in which parts of the picture that seem to be furthest away are actually physically the nearest. Via Viral Viral Videos.
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