Little Elisabetta sang an Italian children's song in hard rock style. Then musician Christian Ice (who may or may not be her father -he didn't say) wrote an original song to accompany her. You can see the original video before the music was added. She may grow up to be a star! -via Daily of the Day
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These mysterious hooded creatures are the Guardians of Time, a sculpture by Austrian artist Manfred Kielnhofer. The illuminated Guardians appear every night at a new place - currently, they are located in Dubai for Art Dubai Week 2013. The life-size sculptures look great during the day, but at night ... that's when they're truly stunning.
Sarah and Shauna Dodds, the Grammy-nominated creative duo forming Backstage Designs, found a new purpose for a worn-out piano. Sarah Dodds writes:
2. This lady had outlived her singing career and was on her way to the dump when I rescued her. I would never destroy a piano with a career left in her.
3. There was no way to keep the keys functional and still use it as a desk. We tried. So, the only thing left to play is to flick the strings in the back. I've been warned that I should loosen them a bit to ensure I don't get face/Mac damage, but I have yet to do that. I'm sure the Mac haters love that possibility. ;)
4. The keys are, in fact, the original keys, but they've been set as flush as possible so I could still use the desk without a wobbly keyboard. And we added pull-out drawing boards on each side for when I need a more flush area to sketch.
Let's see, how many dangerous modern electrical toys can we combine into one stunt? These guys at the 2012 Western Winter Teslathon enclosed a quadrotor (or quadrocopter) in a Faraday cage and flew it between two Tesla coils for a electrifying light show. See another video from the same night at Laughing Squid. Link
Canadian artist Bradley Hart fills syringes with acrylic paint, which he then injects into bubble wrap. The results appear as low-resolution photographs. His work is currently on display at Gallery Nine5 in New York City. If you visit, resist the temptation to pop the bubbles.
You can view more works at the link.
Link -via Junkculture
If TV host Fred Rogers hadn't died ten years ago, he would have been 85 today. In honor of the occasion, mental_floss presents 35 Facts About Mr. Fred Rogers. I honestly did not think I could sit through so many facts, because a) I never watched the show and b) I've read lists of facts about him many times. However, this is full of stories about Mr. Rogers that you probably haven't heard before. Even if you have, they are worth remembering.
Just who decided that we should slap our hands together to indicate that we like something?
Scholars aren't quite sure about the origins of applause. What they do know is that clapping is very old, and very common, and very tenacious -- "a remarkably stable facet of human culture." Babies do it, seemingly instinctually. The Bible makes many mentions of applause - as acclamation, and as celebration. ("And they proclaimed him king and anointed him, and they clapped their hands and said, 'Long live the king!'")
But clapping was formalized -- in Western culture, at least -- in the theater. "Plaudits" (the word comes from the Latin "to strike," and also "to explode") were the common way of ending a play. At the close of the performance, the chief actor would yell, "Valete et plaudite!" ("Goodbye and applause!") -- thus signaling to the audience, in the subtle manner preferred by centuries of thespians, that it was time to give praise. And thus turning himself into, ostensibly, one of the world's first human applause signs.
But applause itself went through many changes, as it was used for different purposes. And today we are experimenting with digital methods of approval, so we can applaud even where no one can hear the sound of two hands clapping. Read the entire story at the Atlantic. Link -via mental_floss
Jillian Pavlica is a news anchor at Fox 54 in Huntsville, Alabama. Her boyfriend Vincent Ramos enlisted the help of her co-workers to make his proposal a "breaking news story" on her teleprompter. -via Hypervocal
Last week, we posted a picture from Harribel & Terribel of a group of teenage girls taken in Estonia in 1930. I expressed some curiosity as to what happened to them later, considering the history of that country. Kaisa was kind enough to send an update and tell us about her grandmother.
My grandmother's name was Aino and she was 15 when this picture was taken. They were just goofing around. She never smoked, by the way. She married my grandfather, a pharmacist, in 1939 and gave birth to my uncle in 1941. Toward the end of the war, when the Russians were advancing, a German officer billeted at their pharmacy wanted to get them out of harm's way. As far as I know, he was an aristocrat and had an estate near Frankfurt, so he told them to go to his family who would look after them. I don't know if he actually meant it or just made a nice gesture, and anyway, they refused and wanted to stay in Estonia. After the war, my father was born. My grandfather was sent to Siberia in the 1949 mass deportations on some trumped up charges (in reality, to fill a quota). He was sentenced to 25 imprisonment plus 5 years of exile (the standard sentence in those days). He was released with the amnesty given to political prisoners by Khrushchev but sadly his health had deteriorated and he died soon afterwards, so I never met him. I only know him by his art - playing cards and a set of Mahjong, which he made from start to finish, painting all the tiles by hand (!!!). We always used to play it whenever we visited her.
She was no delinquent, more like the opposite - porcelain skin, tiny, always perfectly groomed. My grandmother never remarried and passed away in 2009.
Here is the mahjong set her grandfather handcrafted.
Thanks, Kaisa!
In this incredible play at an Australian rules football game, Carlton player Andrew Walker jumped on the back of Adelaide player Sam Shaw to catch a high-flying ball. One US sports site explained the event for American readers who are not familiar with the sport:
"It's like an outfielder climbing a wall to rob a home run, but the wall is a person who is also trying to catch the baseball and the wall is trying to tackle you and dump you on your head," was how Walker's efforts were described.
In case you don't get outside away from light pollution at the right time of the evening between now and Easter, enjoy this time-lapse video of the comet called Pan-STARRS.
Pan-STARRS first peeked over the horizon in the Northern Hemisphere on Mar. 7 but shortly thereafter it disappeared when it went too close to the sun. Since Mar. 11, though, it has reappeared each night in the west a bit after sunset for a short time. Particularly stunning views came on the evening of Mar. 12, when the comet flew near the thin crescent moon. The object will continue to shine, getting fainter and fainter, through the end of the month.
There's another video of the comet at Wired. Link -via mental_floss
The first full video of the new mental_floss YouTube channel has John Green quickly dispelling many things you've heard over the years. Green will be hosting a weekly series on the channel. Link
We've all been guilty of dog-earing a book to mark the page, but Ann Arbor-based artist Math Monahan has elevated folding pages from a book into an art form.
Hong Kong-based artist Johnson Tsang's stainless steel sculptures look like splashes of molten metal being poured out of cups and glasses. They are frozen moments of time that reveal human faces, like spirits taking fluid forms.
Artist's Website -via Colossal
This healthy (i.e. pork-based) meal is perfect for Pi Day or any other. Emily Fleischaker made the bottom crust out of flour and butter and the filling out of macaroni, cheese and bacon bits. The top crust is a carefully woven layer of bacon strips. Yummy! You can find her recipe at the link.
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