Hack Apart a Highlighter to Create UV-Reactive Flowers [Science] - How-To Geek ETC College students have long been hacking apart highlighters to create glowing bottles of booze to line their dorm room walls. Far more interesting, however, is the application of the hack to flowers. Many of you may remember a science class experiment from years gone by where in you put food coloring in a beaker and then some freshly cut white flowers; returning to the experiment a day later yielded flowers colored to match the dye you added. This little experiment relies on the same technique, only instead of blue food coloring the flowers suck up UV-reactive highlighter dye. Check out the video below to see the experiment in action: Have a fun science experiment to share? Make Flowers Glow in the Dark (with Highlighter Fluid and UV Light) [YouTube via Make] Jason Fitzpatrick is warranty-voiding DIYer and all around geek.
More Stupid Cat So there's this cat food commercial. Maybe you've seen it. A cat wanders into an empty kitchen and ambles toward a can of Friskies cat food. The lid suddenly pops off, sending magic glowing swirls all over the room. The cat watches them, mesmerized, because she's clearly stoned out of her mind. Then a mysterious portal opens up. The cat leaps through the portal, and finds herself in a brightly colored fantasy land. And even though it's only a 60-second commercial, this stoned cat manages to have a complete adventure, by land and by sea. Her journey eventually comes full circle, and a new portal leads the cat home, where she scarfs down some brown mush in a bowl. Seeing pet food commercials always makes me miss my cat Lola, this commercial in particular. Last time I was home, I brought her a little mouse toy full of catnip. After that she picked up the mouse in her teeth, carried over to the couch, and rolled around for several minutes in a hazy delirium. "Oh my god, Lola," I said.
5 Artists You Should Know In 2011 : NPR - StumbleUpon The hits just keep on coming — so much excellent music rolls out each week that it can be hard just to keep up. In 2011, Bon Iver, Wilco, Raphael Saadiq, The Decemberists, Gillian Welch, Tinariwen, Elbow, Tom Waits and Fleet Foxes all met high expectations. Shabazz Palaces, James Blake and Wild Flag dropped highly anticipated debuts that lived up to the advance buzz. Charles Bradley came out of nowhere, stripping his heart and soul bare on his debut album (No Time for Dreaming) at age 61. And legendary funk guitarist Dennis Coffey descended from cloud nine and a 20-year hiatus to lay down some wicked new original tracks. In 2011, even with more outlets than ever for discovering and sharing new music, it's nearly impossible for even the most dedicated music lover to keep up.
Beaver | Omegle Conversations Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on. You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi! A word of advice: “asl” is boring. You: You see a beaver in the distance lumbering towards you, a menacing glare on its face. Stranger: Give me a moment, Sir or Ma’am. Stranger: This is a pondersom question! You: The beaver is getting closer with each passing second, but luckily it appears to have a broken foot You: This slows it down somewhat Stranger: First! Stranger: Then I proceed to throw the lace-less shoes at the beaver, one by one, to distract it Stranger: Next, I use the laces and duct tape to attach the balloon to my head. You: The beavier is angrier and more determined to attack Stranger: As it is a good sized balloon with helium, the loss of weight of the extra shoes lifts me off of the ground. You: The beaver jump at your rising figure, snapping at your toes, but luckily you are high enough to avoid its rabid attack Stranger: I use the nail clippers to snip the balloon string.
Logorama - Pulp Fiction for Brands (by @baekdal) #design Here is something for all you brand freaks out there. The Logorama short film. It's not for kids, it's nasty, it's cruel - but it is incredibly well made. The film was directed by the French animation collective H5, Franois Alaux, Herv de Crcy and Ludovic Houplain. It was presented at the Cannes Film Festival 2009. (tip by Joseph R. Follow: 42Concepts Snowflakes Up Close: A Small, Fragile World If you’re one of those people who likes to ponder things while looking out a frosty window on a cold winter day, these pictures will clear up one of those long standing wonders: each snowflake really IS unique. Some look like roman columns, others circuit boards or spaceships. Taken under high magnification using a microscope, these images bring a fragile and beautiful world into view. See Also HARMFUL VIRUSES MADE OF BEAUTIFUL GLASS They say that every snowflake is different. Source: akirathedon.com Known in some circles as the most amazing man in the universe, he once saved an entire family of muskrats from a sinking, fire engulfed steamboat while recovering from two broken arms relating to a botched no-chute wingsuit landing in North Korea.
Mozilla Firefox Muscles are funny things. They respond to just about any type of training, as long as it's hard and as long as it's not the same damn thing you've always done. That's the beauty of density training: It's a whole lot of stuff you haven't tried yet. Unsure what exercises you should focus on? THE PLAN: Do three density workouts a week, with at least 1 day off in between. Pushup Assume a pushup position, with your hands slightly beyond shoulder-width apart, feet together, and body in a straight line from head to ankles. Reverse Lunge and 1-Arm Press Stand holding a pair of dumbbells next to your shoulders. Inverted Row Lie underneath a secured bar. Prisoner Squat Place your fingers on the back of your head, pull your elbows and shoulders back, and stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Explosive Pushup Perform a basic pushup. Reverse Lunge with 1-Arm Press Perform a reverse lunge with your right leg as you simultaneously press the dumbbell in your right hand straight above your shoulder.
Rolling Bridge ? Heatherwick Studio London, UK The studio was commissioned to design a pedestrian bridge to span an inlet of the Grand Union Canal at Paddington Basin, London, and provide an access route for workers and residents. Crucially, the bridge needed to open to allow access for the boat moored in the inlet. The aim was to make the movement the extraordinary aspect of the bridge. The structure opens using a series of hydraulic rams integrated into the balustrade. The whole structure was constructed at Littlehampton Welding on the Sussex coast and then floated up the Grand Union Canal, before being lifted into position and attached to the hydraulic system which powers its movement. The Rolling Bridge won a number of awards including a Structural Steel Award, and an Emerging Architecture Award. Go to images
Firefox 4 Download Stats – June 14, 2011Posted in: Archived, Retired We launched the first version of glow.mozilla.org with the Firefox 4 release in March 2011 as a way to visualize Firefox downloads and community involvement around the world. Thanks to the development skill of Matthew Claypotch and Jeff Balogh, and the design talents of Sean Martell, it was a great success, with more than 1.2 million unique visitors and frequent press mentions. (It was also a pretty nifty demo of some of the best open technology the modern web has to offer.) The first version of Glow used several technologies including SQLStream and HBase to process download request logs in real time and make them available for the site to display. As we move toward a new rapid release cycle, we are finding new ways of measuring Firefox success across the globe. The source code for the original site is at (frontend) and (backend).