CultCase

Averted Imagination: 3 Spectacular Bright Sun Photographs

2013-02-21T18:27:00.001+02:00

By day he makes greeting cards. At night, photographer Alan Friedman pursue his passion for astronomy. Using a telescope with special filters he creates the most spectacular high-res photos of the sun and other bright objects in space. His observatory, just in case you ask yourself, is located in a downtown backyard "amidst street lights and the turbulent winds of the jet stream" but, as you can see below, he makes the most out of it.

Solar Nirvana

The sun's disk is "alive with activity" in this amazing shot described by Friedman as the "most dynamic show in many years". More version of this photograph which was also published on the Discovery Channel and on Discover magazine's Bad Astronomy blog, right here.

Giant Color Prominence

A fine art print of this image which was featured on Spaceweather.com and as NASA's APOD is available for sale. 24 hours after that giant prominence color shot was taken that filament was still hanging on there. Source and more versions here.

High five on the fifth of May

"High five on the fifth of May... a grand new active region rotating into view, a massive prominence unleashed and blown away by the solar wind, handsome sunspot 1471, some wonderful filaments arching across the chromosphere... and clear skies to enjoy all of the above...". Source and moon colored version here.

For more amazing Alan Friedman photography visit avertedimagination.com

26 feet Giant Squid Filmed in Pacific Depths

2013-02-10T23:21:00.001+02:00

We always knew that deep-sea monsters are for real but now we have a real live one captured on film. After around 100 missions, during which they spent 400 hours in a cramped submarine working with Japanese public broadcast network NHK and the US Discovery Channel, scientists from Japan's National Science Museum have managed to capture footage of an elusive 8 meters (26 feet) long giant squid that roams the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

According to Discovery Channel the three-man crew tracked the creature, thought to be "the genesis of the Nordic legend of Kraken, a sea monster believed to have attacked ships in waters off Scandinavia over the last millennium" around 15 km (9 miles) east of Chichi island in the north Pacific Ocean. Here are some snapshots from the video:

Giant Squid 1

Giant Squid 2

Giant Squid 3

Giant Squid 4

Giant Squid 5 (Close-Up)

Living Sculptures: 3 Bottle Ecosystem Projects

2013-02-04T21:08:00.000+02:00

They're very easy to make, hyper-creative and fascinating and like many other cool things they used to be very popular in the 70's: Bottle Ecosystems, also known as 'terrarium's and 'vivariums', are simple bottles which include the basic ingredients for life to survive: light, dirt, moisture and of course a DNA based organism, or a few of them. The following are 3 bottle ecosystem projects we find particularly inspiring. Think Bottle Ecosystems are cool and want to give it a try? Check out Jenna Consolo's project (below) or just watch this 5:20 min video from Memorial University of Newfoundland Botanical Garden that demonstrate how to create a simple terrarium out of a 2L pop bottle and some other easy to find items.

[1] Summer Fun: Ecosystem Edition

It was never her idea for a summer with the kids but some other kids did something similar for a science project and then her friend Michelle posted about how to build an Ecosystem that is "perfectly contained and functions without any outside work or maintenance" describing what she did and show she did it with her children in Alaska. So, Jenna Consolo decided it's time for her and the kids to build their own terrarium.

Here is what you'll need to follow-up on such project with your own terrarium. The process and results (shown above) are described in this blog post on the Cranberry Corner blog:

3 clear 2-liter (empty) soda bottles
Clear packing tape
Aquarium gravel
Water
Dechlorinator
Rubber band
4" piece of netting (or just cut up pantyhose)
Soil
Fish, snails or other aquatic life
Elodea, duck weed, anachris or other aquatic plants
Crickets, pill bugs and earthworms
A few dead leaves and small sticks

[2] Clea Cregan's Miniscapes

Started 6 years ago as as a hobby, Clea Cregan's Miniscapes now merges desktop gardening and design to produce beautiful terrariums they call "miniature gardens" and "living sculptures".

Cregan's creations are usually made for for office receptions, board room tables and studios but also for home environments. Interested? Check out Miniscapes's site or read this interview with Cregan on TheDesignFiles.

[3] Wet Environment Terrarium

Nicole Cammorata, a Boston-based journalist, writer, and editor and a talented photographer published this story in the Boston Globe detailing how to make your own plant terrariums. Sadly, the full story which takes you through the process step-by-step, is behind the Globe's paywall but we still loved the this sequence she posted on Cammorata's blog how to create a terrarium that "favors more of a wet environment". Know any more cool bottle ecosystem projects? Be sure to contact us or post them in the comments thread.

From Smallpox to HIV: 6 Glass Sculptures of Colorless Deadly Viruses

2013-01-17T17:14:00.002+02:00

Deadly viruses such as Smallpox, E.coli and HIV have claimed the lives of hundreds of millions of people but they always seem to have these fantastically vivid colors, right? Well, not exactly. As opposed to what we're used to see on TV and in the movies, viruses are actually colorless as they are simply smaller than the wavelength of light. British artist Luke Jerram thought that's just isn't right, so, since around 2004 he has been making his own representations of viruses, alternative to the artificially colored imagery we are used to receive through the media.

Jerram's sculptures are made in collaboration with glassblowers Kim George, Brian Jones and Norman Veitch and are designed in consultation with virologists from the University of Bristol, using scientific photographs and models. The following are 6 scientifically accurate glass representations of deadly viruses created by Luke Jerram. For more about Jerram and his amazing artwork check out the above BBC video or visit lukejerram.com.

[1] Smallpox

[2] T4 Bacteriophage Virus

[3] HIV

[4] E.coli

[5] Swine Flu

[6] Untitled Future Mutation

CultHats to IFeakingLoveScience

Our New Normal: 9 Reasons to Get Up About Global Warming

2013-01-10T18:37:00.002+02:00

GetUp, an independent community advocacy organisation aiming to "build a more progressive Australia by giving everyday Australians the opportunity to get involved and hold politicians accountable on important issues" has published this Infographics titled 'Our New Normal' with some alarming facts about the status of global warming. Here are 9 reasons why it's actually all of us, not just Australians, who need to get up:

1. The hottest average maximum temperature ever recorded across Australia – 40.33 degrees, was set on Monday surpassing the old record of 40.17 °C set in 1976. (Bureau of Meteorology)
2. The number of consecutive days where the national average maximum daily temperature exceeded 39°C has also been broken this week—seven (7) days (between 2–8 January 2013), almost doubling the previous record of four (4) consecutive days in 1973, (BOM)
3. According to the National Climate Data Centre, nine of the 10 hottest years on record have been since 2000 (the other is 1998).
4. While temperatures vary on a local and regional scale, globally it has now been 27 years since the world experienced a month that was colder than average. "If you’re 27 or younger, you’ve never experienced a colder-than-average month" - Philip Bump, Grist, November 16, 2012.
5. The CSIRO has found Australian annual average daily maximum temperatures have steadily increased in the last hundred years, with most of the warming trend occurring since 1970.
6. The Bushfire CRC (Cooperative Research Centre) says large areas of southern Australia, from the east coast to the west coast, face “above average fire potential” in the summer of 2012-13. According to the Climate Institute extreme fire danger days are expected to rise more than 15 per cent in south-eastern Australia.
7. The last four months of 2012 - globally - were the hottest on record. (British Met Office) and 2012 was the hottest year the continental United States of America has ever recorded.("2012 Was the Hottest Year in U.S. History. And Yes - It's Climate Change", Bryan Walsh, TIME 8 January, 2013).
8. The hot-dry trend is expected to continue, with the Climate Commission predicting large increases in the number of days over 35°C this century.
9. Around the world, 2013 could be the hottest ever recorded by modern instrumentation, according to a recent study by Britain’s Met Office. If that turns out to be accurate, 2013 would surpass the previous record, held jointly by 2005 and 2010.

Not convinced yet? Check out the GetUp site.

Lunar Calendar 2013: Never Miss a Full Moon

2013-01-04T09:04:00.004+02:00

Want to keep tabs on the moon this year? Check out the spectacular lunar calendar for the year of 2013 and never miss a full moon. Designed by Evans & Sutherland, a provider of fulldome digital theater systems and producer of fulldome shows, Lunar Calendar 2013 is available for free download as a PDF. You can also purchase a printed version on the company's Cafepress store. Image credit: Evans & Sutherland.

David Lynch's Favorites in 59 Seconds

2012-12-31T09:23:00.001+02:00

David Lynch lists some of his favorite films and filmmakers in 59 seconds. | src: OpenCulture

Annual Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend

2012-11-17T13:37:00.002+02:00

The annual Leonid meteor shower will peak this weekend, according to Space.com. Named after the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo, The Leonids occur every year around November 18, resulting from the comet Tempel-Tuttle. Leonid is considered to be among the most spectacular of all meteor showers. A great Leonids storm in 1833 have had a major effect on the development of the scientific meteor study which had previously been mistakenly thought to be an "atmospheric phenomena". This year is also the 45th anniversary of the Great Leonid Meteor Storm of 1966 which took place over central and western North America.

Above is a composition of 33 Leonids captured by Koen Miskotte during the night of Nov. 18 to 19, 2001. For more annual meteor showers check out this list of 7 Major Meteor Showers You Can Expect Each Year. Image via Space.com

Color Pic-a-Pix Light Vol 1: Solve the Puzzle and Discover a Beautiful Pixel-Art Picture

2012-01-31T14:44:00.001+02:00

The object in this new game from Conceptis is to reveal a hidden picture by painting blocks according to the rules. There is only one unique solution for each puzzle.

Rules are pretty simple: Each row and column should be painted so their length, color and sequence corresponds to the clues, and there is at least one empty square between adjacent same-color blocks. It is allowed to have no empty square between adjacent different-color blocks.

How to play

Select the color you wish to use and click the desired square in the grid. First mouse click fills a square, second mouse click displays a dot to indicate the square is blank and third click brings the square back to its original state. Multiple squares may be filled or blanked by dragging the mouse.

Play Color Pic-a-Pix Light Vol 1

More Weird Skulls?

2012-01-02T17:55:00.003+02:00

The above pictures came in via email from a guy who lives in Northeast Ohio, claims to have found while 'out hunting in concord' and asks if we at CultCase think we're able to 'tell what it is'. We're guessing our opinion on the subject is appreciated mainly due to this article which was published on CultCase a few years ago. We always welcome questions from our readers, especially when they're about our favorite subject (Paleontological mythology). Therefore, we examined the artifact and came to a conclusion it has to be either a dinosaur goat or one of these.

March of the Million: 14 Spectacular Photos from Israel's Biggest Ever Demonstration

2011-09-04T19:15:00.000+03:00

Some say 400K, others count 430K and - as a matter of fact - the official title was actually 'March of the Million' but the exact figures are obviously minor by now. This way or another Israel saw its biggest ever cross-country demonstration yesterday night, demanding social justice and a lower cost of living. The largest demonstration took place in Tel Aviv, where approx. 300K took part. Additional 50,000 protested in Jerusalem, 40,000 marched in Haifa and many others in smaller protests in dozens of other towns and cities. The following are 14 of the most spectacular moments from yesterday's events.

Bird-Eye Views

The following bird-eye views were taken above Kikar Hamedina square in Tel Aviv from a police helicopter. More in the official Facebook album of the Israeli police.

And here are a couple above Iben Gavirol St. nearby the Kikar Rabin square:

.

Ground Views

The following faceshots were all published on Haaretz newspaper's Facebook page. More in this Facebook album.

Nearby Building Views

And here are 3 more of Kikar Hamedina, taken by Oren Ziv of ActiveStills.

Sunrise View of Tycho Crater's Peak

2011-09-02T12:37:00.001+03:00

Tycho is a 110 million years old lunar crater about 51 miles (82 km) in diameter. Earlier this summer, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft "angled its orbit 65° to the west", allowing its camera to capture this dramatic sunrise view of Tycho (Click image for high-res version).

More about Tycho:

The summit of the central peak is 1.24 miles (2 km) above the crater floor.
The distance from Tycho's floor to its rim is about 2.92 miles (4.7 km).
Tycho crater's central peak complex, shown above, is about 9.3 miles (15 km) wide, left to right (southeast to northwest in this view).

Via NASA | Photo credit: NASA Goddard/Arizona State University

Passionate about Passion Fruit

2011-08-19T16:40:00.021+03:00

Passionate about Passion fruit.

me @Instagr.am

Creek Face

2011-08-04T15:58:00.005+03:00

Creek Face by Stumbleforfree / freepostia.com

Twitter: From 0 to 200 Million Tweets a Day in 5 Years [Infographic]

2011-07-18T15:55:00.043+03:00

Love Infographics? Here is a new one we think you should check out: created by visual.ly, a start-up company specializing in machine generated data visualizations, the neat infographic below plots out "key milestones" on Twitter's path to 200 million tweets a day. Cheers, Twitter!

Source: Following Twitter by visual.ly

Robber Beaten by Hair Salon Owner and Sex-Slaved for 3 Days Fed Only Viagra

2011-07-17T12:21:00.050+03:00

Planning to rob any Russian hair salons in the near future? Better make sure the owners are not Pulp Fiction fans with a black belt in Karate, first. Viktor Jasinski (32) who tried doing just that ended up as a sex victim after the female shop owner Olga Zajac (28, shown above at the top) overpowered him with a single kick and decided to 'teach him a lesson'.

Then, in a nearly perfect remake of the famous 'gimp scene' in Tarantino's 1994 Pulp Fiction (starring Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis, need a reminder? check the video below) the lady dragged the semi-conscious kicked 'robber' to a back room of her salon and stripped him naked. She then tied him up 'to a radiator' using a 'hair dryer cable' and used him as a sex slave while force feeding him Viagra to 'keep the lesson going'.

According to the local police the above procedure went on for 3 consecutive days, until the would-be robber was eventually released with Zajak saying 'he had learned his lesson'. We're pretty sure that he did. Anyways, both Jasinski and Zajac have now been arrested. More details? Read the full story here

Collage images

Top: Olga Zajac (via DailyMail) | Bottom left: Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction | Bottom right: Official Pulp Fiction poster

Sad View from Hashalom Interchange [pic]

2011-07-10T16:04:00.035+03:00

Just a random shot taken from Hashalom interchange, right above the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv. Take a closer look below.

Drive carefully, folks.

(Photo by CultCase)

It's Not About Who You Know, It's About Where You Are.

2011-06-30T12:45:00.017+03:00

It's not about who you know, It's about where you are.

7 Contemporary High-Speed Photographers

2011-06-20T16:47:00.006+03:00

If you ever tried taking a photograph of a running dog or a fast moving car you must have noticed it is quite a difficult task. Even with the most generous lighting conditions and very good lenses normal photography equipment is unable to capture sharp images of extremely fast motion due to the familiar effect of motion-blur. That's where special High Speed Photography equipment and a lot of experience and knowhow get into the picture... High Speed Photography is the art and science of taking of motion picture film, video or still photos of extremely fast phenomena such as explosions and detonations; water splashes; gunshots and other extreme high-speed actions.

* Note: This article was originally published on January 25, 2008. It got lost during a major CultCase crash and was republished on June, 2011.

The first practical application of high-speed photography is attributed to Eadweard Muybridge for his famous horse feet research. Later innovators such as of Eastman Kodak's, Bell Labs', Wollensak Optical's, Redlake Laboratories' and others further developed the equipment allowing up to 10,000 frames in a single second, even though most modern equipment is usually a bit slower that that. The Photron APX camera, for example, is capable of high resolution capturing of 1024 x 1024 images at 2000FPS or 1024 x 512 ones in 4000FPS.

Apparently, a few physical and chemical phenomena are way too fast to be captured even via a 10,000 FPS camera. Some stages in nuclear explosions occur in the speed of light or in other words exactly 299,792,458 meters per second. That was just too fast for any device to be able to capture until the 1940s when Harold E. Edgerton, AKA the "Doc" introduced us with a new ultra high-speed technique titled Stroboscopic Photography.

The amazing images shown above taken by Edgerton in the early 50s show the growing hit and shock fireballs about one millisecond after nuclear detonation. Using his Rapatronic cameras Edgerton managed to take such nuclear detonation photographs with the amazing exposure time of up to 10 billionths of a second. For making Stroboscopy and High Speed photography what they are today Edgerton (below) won many awards including the SMPTE Progress Medal in 1959 and the Eastman Kodak Gold Medal Award in 1983.

Lucky for us and right from the start, Edgerton's work was in no way limited to the physics of nuclear detonations. In 1937 Edgerton's "Coronet" milk drop photo was featured in the first photography exhibit of New York Museum of Modern Art's. According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Edgerton was also of the first photographers to take high-speed shots of subjects commonly experimented by contemporary photographers. He took the pictures of athletes (1938), hummingbirds hovering (1953), bullets bursting balloons (1959) and blood coursing through capillaries (1964), and set up the path for countless of enthusiastic followers. "Self-Portrait with Balloon and Bullet" for example (below), was taken in 1959 but still looks fresh and stylish.

Today, following the path-breaking achievements of Edgerton and other High Speed Photography innovators and as technology become cheaper and more affordable, high-speed photographers became more common. What was once a technical scientific occupation is today a popular form of art attracting countless of enthusiasts across the world. Thus, fueled by the power of Internet, countless of High Speed Photo fans are able to freeze time and share fractions of their reality with you and me.

The following is a selection of seven outstanding contemporary High Speed photographers and some of their work. While some of them are already famous and others don't even have a name, each one of them has his own unique visual language. Enjoy.

1. fotofrog
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotofrog/

Based in Hagen, Germany fotofrog has been photographing for over 20 years with his main interests being High speed photography, infrared and macro. Gunshot and impact photos are pretty common nowadays but fotofrog spices them up with a with some thrill and danger, combining his model hands in the shot, very close to the action. A word of advice from fotofrog: don't try this at home.

2. Kai Kuusisto
http://www.flickr.com/people/kaintero/

The photos Kai Kuusisto, AKA kaintero, takes with bicycle rider Antti Koljonen particularly interesting as they always combine some drama or a good sense of humor with their high speed subject. Other than a great High Speed photographer this 27 years old great looking dude from Helsinki, Finland is also a bmx rider and a civil engineer. Stylish. You can also meet him on MySpace or read this recent article from delarge.co.uk.

3. Andrew Davidhazy
http://www.rit.edu/~andpph/

Professor Andrew Davidhazy of the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology is one of the most outstanding experts for High Speed Photography worldwide. His photos include everything from Gunshots, Splashes and Dripping water to Schlieren and Photoinstrumentation Photographs.

4. Greg Scott
http://www.gregscott.com

Hummingbirds are living helicopters made by nature. They can fly forward, backward, up, down, and even upside-down. Their wings' motion changes its angle with each flap. Unlike other birds, hummingbirds flap their wings horizontally in the shape of a figure 8 and do that on an average rate of 50 times per second. During courtship Hummingbirds' wings can speed up to 200 times a second. The above photos were all taken at 1/33000 sec, using an Olsen custom flash. Click them and have a look at the high-res versions. In my humble opinion, considering the way these birds were moving while being photographed, the level of details and focus here is simply amazing.

5. breic
http://www.flickr.com/people/breic/

Water and milk splash photos are amongst the most popular High Speed Photography subjects and it's not easy to make a difference. There is not much publicly known about breic except for being a north American and having a unique visual language for a spectacular set of milk color splash photos. The above milk splashing onto black plastic photos include food coloring. Lighting: Vivitar 283 (without diffusion) at camera right, aluminum foil reflector at left. ISO100, f/38.

6. Pulse Photonics
http://www.pulsephotonics.com

There are many great companies out there doing fabulous High Speed work. Yet Pulse Photonics has been in business for more than 25 years during which time it has supplied lighting and cameras for many scientific research disciplines. The wealth of experience gained during this period is clearly shown in their work and has gained them the only slot on this article devoted to a company rather than an artist. Some of the bullet photos taken by Pulse Photonics, such as the above "Bullet through metal" for example, are within the level of art. At least I would gladly have one in my living room for what it counts.

7. bowie22
http://www.flickr.com/people/13281157@N05/

Other than being a "taken" young man bowie22 from Kingsport, Tennessee has a special talent for drop and reflection photos. For me drop and reflection photos are of the most interesting High Speeds due to the clean look of the water surface, the shape of the drop serving as a mirror and the additional requirement of macro techniques.

A view of Israel's northern shoreline from Rosh HaNikra

2011-06-12T18:48:00.025+03:00

We had the pleasure of taking this photo of Israel's shoreline from the top of the Rosh HaNikra cliff, a few meters from the Israel-Lebanon border. Now it's a nominee for June's best Travel photo in Panoramio. Wish us luck!

High-Res version | View in Google Earth

Chernobyl Journal: HDR Photo Journey to the Zone of Exclusion

2009-07-25T18:29:00.020+03:00

It was exactly 01:23:45 AM (UTC+3) on 26 April 1986 when reactor #4 at the Chernobyl plant, near Pripyat in the former U.S.S.R., exploded and sparked a chain reaction ending up with what we know today as the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history. A huge plume of highly radioactive fallout, 400 times more than during the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Wikipedia), was exploded into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. But 23 years later, for Swiss decay photographer Timm Suess the Chernobyl ground-zero is also the stuff dreams are made of. At least his dreams.

Like Stalker in Tarkovsky's sci-fi masterpiece, filmed 7 years before the Chernobyl disaster, Suess takes us to a stunning photo-journey into one of the most horrific, abandoned and destructed areas on the surface of earth. While the "Zone" parts in Tarkovsky's fiction film where shot at a deserted hydro power plant on the Jägala river near Tallinn, Estonia, Suess' Chernobyl Journal is an overwhelming HDR photo documentary project chronicling a two-day trip taken in March 2009 through the real thing – the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Packaged into an online presentation on Suess' website, the must see collection includes approx. 450 photographs as well as a few short videos. Below are a few samples we find particularly interesting.

The Road to Chernobyl

Road towards Chernobyl town, still outside the zone (Source). More from this set, including pictures taken in the town of Chernobyl nearby Suess base camp, here.

Red Forest

Panorama of the Chernobyl power plant, view from the railway bridge (Source). More from this set, taken around the Red Forest area near Pripyat, Chernobyl, here.

Pripyat Center

The Pripyat city administration building. The radioactivity sign was probably placed there after the accident (Source). More from this set, taken in the city square of the ghost town of Pripyat west of Chernobyl, here.

Apartment Building

Another corridor in an apartment block in the ghost city of Pripyat near Chernobyl (Source). More from this set, taken around an apartment block in the ghost town of Pripyat near Chernobyl, here.

Amusement Park

The Ferris wheel in the ghost town of Pripyat near Chernobyl (Source). More from this set, taken around the amusement park in the ghost city of Pripyat near Chernobyl, here.

Swimming pool

The public swimming pool in the ghost town of Priypat near Chernobyl (Source). More from this set, taken in a public swimming pool in the ghost town of Pripyat near Chernobyl, here.

School Greenhouse

Greenhouse of a school in the ghost town of Pripyat near Chernobyl (Source). More from this set, taken in and around the greenhouse of school #1 in the ghost town of Pripyat near Chernobyl, here.

Ship Graveyard

Liquidator boats at the ship graveyard north of Chernobyl (Source). More from this set, taken in the North of Chernobyl, where the old liquidator ships went to die, here.

Around Reactor Island

Cooling tower of the unfinished Chernobyl reactors 5 and 6 (Source). More from this horrifying and thrilling set of pictures from and around the Chernobyl Reactor Island, including reactors 1-4 and unfinished reactors 5 and 6, here.

For more see Chernobyl Journal:
http://timmsuess.com/chernobyl-journal/

Scramateurs: Distorted Para-Sexual Images

2009-07-17T10:08:00.053+03:00

Delving into the female form and erotica yet claiming to avoid sexual context, Scramateurs by Laurence Taylor is a set of 6 digitally retouched images based on women photographs that had either been taken by themselves or by someone they knew. Taylor then focuses on the sexiest part of his subject's personal image, cutting off all excess parts. Then, through the use of distortion techniques, a theme that is used extensively throughout his work, Taylor takes the sexiness away, or in his own words to CultCase:

"denying the viewer of what was at one point a very enjoyable, erotic image."

So, even though we are not 100 percent sure about how really "not erotic" the set really is, but we do feel Scramateurs is a powerful para-sexual and enjoyable creation. The photo set below is curtsy of Laurence Taylor and published with permission of the artist. You may enjoy it the way you see right / your religion allows (...) but please be nice and check with Laurence before copying it.

The Couch

The Belt

The Pants

The Pit

The Teeth

The Grope

More from Laurence Taylor on Flickr

Spiderweb

2009-07-15T19:03:00.013+03:00

Did you know that not all spiders build webs to catch their prey, and some do not build webs at all? Designed to be used as traps, spiderwebs are of nature's most sophisticated devices and are built by spiders out of a special silk extruded from their spinnerets. Insects get trapped in spiderwebs and then eaten, providing nutrition to the spider. The tensile strength of spider silk is greater than the same weight of steel and has much greater elasticity. Spiderweb structure is constantly being researched for potential industrial applications. Two examples are bullet-proof vests and artificial tendons (Wikipedia).

Above: A spiderweb in our garden.
Photo by CultCase. High-res here.

Man Comes Back From The Dead in Israel

2009-07-03T14:11:00.042+03:00

An ambulance crew dispatched to the apartment of an 84 year old man in the city of Ramat Gan in Israel, found him lying on his stomach amid filth in his living room. Maggots and blue death marks were all over the body that was already cold. There was also no pulse or breathing or other life signs and there could be no mistake about the strong putrid smell in the apartment. In other words, the man was dead. So, after a doctor arrived to the scene and examined the body he signed the death certificate shown in the above photo.

But as the saying goes, it ain't over till it's over. A few minutes later, when the body evacuation crew was waiting for the CSIs to complete their documentation process, a policeman came near to the "corpse" and could see it is, well... moving his hand. The paramedics were called back, and the man was taken, conscious, to Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer. Naturally, until the recommendations of the special investigation team that had been set up following the incident are issued, the team that declared the man dead was suspended from all medical activity.

We're relived.

Via JPost and Ynet
Photo by paramedic team member Berale Yaakobovitch, via Ynet

Worst Parking Fail Ever

2009-06-29T20:43:00.029+03:00

Gladly, most of us know that "the art of parking" go hand in hand with "the art of driving". Some of us, unfortunately, tend to focus on "driving" and forget about the "parking" part. Take that 23 years old woman, for example, was - sadly - severely injured today after falling 3 stories with her Mazda due to a failed parking attempt at the Malha shopping mall in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, according to the Israeli news portal Ynet, her husband who was standing outside the car was also injured after getting hit by the running car on its way down.

Please don't get us wrong here, this is not about female drivers! Women are often more careful than men and known to account for fewer car accidents. It's just that this one is not a very good example to all that. Photographs by Gil Yochanan, Ynet.