Photo: Provenance unknown

... and don't go extinct!

Game companies put a lot of thought into how their consoles will look, ensuring they look slick and futuristic enough to impress gamers while still taking up minimal entertainment cabinet space. But not everyone is ok with having a console that looks just like everyone else's. 

One Extra Pixel has a great collection of console mods, including this amazing PS3 laptop by Ben Heck.

Link

Coffee with Maddie, Atlanta, GA

Yawn! I felt the same way this morning, Maddie.

We've featured Theron Humphrey and his rescue dog Maddie the Coonhound on Neatorama a while ago, but there are tons of new and very neat photographs (they've even got a new book Maddie on Things: A Super Serious Project About Dogs and Physics and a book tour to boot!)

So go forth and check out Maddie's Tumblr, Maddie on Things ... after the coffee kicks in.

Disney princesses might be cute, but few of them are really bad ass. But when Aegiskitty combines them with female DC and Marvel characters, they suddenly look a whole lot tougher. In fact, even the formidable Mulan looks more intimidating as Psylocke.

Link Via The Mary Sue

My Little Pony Rainbow Tote Bag

Are you looking for a magical bag that is perfect for hanging out with friends? You need the My Little Pony Rainbow Tote Bag from the NeatoShop. This stylish canvas tote features a colorful My little Pony design. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Bags & Totes. 

Link

The Hungering by Wirdou

Heeeere's Pac-y! Famous T-shirt artist Wirdou re-invisioned your favorite 8-bit video game as a horror movie.

Check out Wirdou's official website and Facebook page, then go to his NeatoShop page for more neat T-shirts: Link. Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog.

Up in Time	Chemical Avengers	Chemical Romance	Night's Watch The Wall

View more designs by Wirdou | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

This monkey bread is Chris-Rachael Oseland's "edible tribute to Ben Grimm." She made it with mango nectar and mango juice to give it a flavor as sweet as Grimm's personality. You can find her full recipe at the link.

Link

(Images: Chris-Rachael Oseland, Jack Kirby Museum)

Artist Heropain created this image of Boba Fett carrying Grumpy Cat and managed to work in about a dozen other geek references from sources as varied as Iron Man, The Wizard of Oz, The Jetsons and Mortal Kombat. How many can you recognize?

Link Via Geeks Are Sexy

Craig of Victims of Circumsolar webcomic explains the unfair judgments we heap onto people simply by their choice of breakfast: Link

It might not be alive, but the Walking Ched burger from Zombie Burger is certainly dangerous. It's also incredibly alluring, featuring not only two beef patties topped with cheddar cheese slices, bacon and macaroni and cheese, but also a bun that is made out of deep-fried bundles of macaroni and cheese. 

Link Via Food Beast

Carlos Dattoli illustrated what happens when super heroes depend on fast food. And donuts. And beer. You know, I've always been suspicious of pants that are wider than they are long; Robin is taking this way too far. Get a closer look at Dattoli's Behance page. Link  -via Daily of the Day

Just kidding. It's actually the chrysalis of the Orange-spotted tiger clearwing (Mechanitis polymnia), as spotted by rubens.luciano on Project Noah: Link

(YouTube link)

It took 12 people eight days to set up 277,275 dominoes. Last Friday, 272,297 of them were toppled at Wilhelm-Lückert Gym in Büdingen, Germany at the Sinners Domino Entertainment event. Anytime you think the show is over, you're wrong, because it goes on the entire ten minutes, with some tense moments (like the aquarium bit). The part at the beginning broke a world record for the most dominoes toppled in a spiral: 55,555 of them! -via Laughing Squid  

Peter Jacobs of Business Insider rounded up some of the strangest essay questions that colleges have asked applicants to write about. Here are a couple of oddies from the list:

University of Chicago:
Have you ever walked through the aisles of a warehouse store like Costco or Sam's Club and wondered who would buy a jar of mustard a foot and a half tall? We've bought it, but it didn't stop us from wondering about other things, like absurd eating contests, impulse buys, excess, unimagined uses for mustard, storage, preservatives, notions of bigness…and dozens of other ideas both silly and serious. Write an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard.

Tufts University:
Kermit the Frog famously lamented, 'It's not easy being green.' Do you agree?

I don't think that all of the questions are necessarily "ridiculous." Some of them could be excellent prompts for tests of creative thinking and writing. Here are two examples from the same list:

University of Pennsylvania:
You have just finished your three hundred page autobiography. Please submit page 217.

University of Notre Dame:
You have 150 words. Take a risk.

Link -via College Insurrection

(Photo: Graduation Pen now on sale at the NeatoShop!)

(Video Link)

It's Dexter's first pool party and he hasn't yet learned something the rest of us all know -water may be evil, but there's no way to kill it.

Via Cute Overload

Tink Lunch Bag

Make your lunch really pop with the help of your favorite fairy friend. This fantastic bag is designed by artist Romero Britto and features Disney's Tinkerbell. The lunch bag is made of neoprene and has a zippered main compartment. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Lunch Bags. 

Link

It's never too early for your child to start learning. To help her son learn the sigils of the major houses of Westeros, Tumblr user Some Pointless painted this mural showing adorable versions of them. You can see close-up photos at the link.

Link -via Nerd Approved

(YouTube link)

Todrick Hall produced an an all-singing version of The Wizard of Oz using songs you know and love, featuring the awesome a cappella group Pentatonix. -via Tastefully Offensive

Previously: Cinderfella

If you have a refined and discerning palette, then Châteaux de Bourdeaux, a vintner in France, may have the perfect wine for you. It tastes like cola:

In France, sad to say wine drinking has plummeted in recent years, particularly among the young, who are more attracted to beer and spirits. A BBC story by Hugh Schofield from Paris explains: “Recent figures merely confirm what has been observed for years, that the number of regular drinkers of wine in France is in freefall.” He wrote that in 1980, “more than half of adults were consuming wine on a near-daily basis. Today that figure has fallen to 17%. Meanwhile, the proportion of French people who never drink wine at all has doubled to 38%.”

But will a starter wine flavored with cola and playing to a younger generation’s sweet tooth lead to an interest in learning about — and appreciating — their wine heritage?

Rouge Sucette — “Red Lollipop” — is cheaper than wine. A bottle will cost just under $4 in France and will be sold primarily in hypermarchés (huge supermarkets). How many Red Lollipop drinkers will graduate to something more sophisticated is not yet known.

Link -via Ace of Spades HQ

(Photo: Handlebar Wine Corkscrew and Bottle Opener now on sale at the NeatoShop!)

The submissions are in, and now it's time for you to vote on your favorite entry in the Message to Mars contest! There are 12,000 entries, which you can sort by current ranking, by search term, or randomly, and vote on the good ones. The top entries will be sent to Mars with the MAVEN Mission later this year. A few examples:

It's funny, they named
Mars after the God of War
Have a look at Earth

Hi, from the Blue One,
your long time solar neighbor.
We're harmless, mostly.

ABCDE FGHIJK LMNOP QRSTU VWXYZ
IS OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET
USE IT TO WRITE BACK

Let us know which ones you particularly like in the comments. Voting will be open until July 29. Link -Thanks, Skot Armstrong!

There's art, there's word art, and then there's word art by Anatol Knotek. The Austrian visual artist has created unique handmade visual poetry (or concrete poetry) book called "Anachronism," with clever compositions:

usually a book is just a copy - but not this one. every poem is individually written with my typewriter, so each single page is unique. out of about 50 poems i chose 16 for each book, therefore also the contents varies and is never the same.

And finally, some cleverly fantastic animated GIFs:

Check out Knotek's web page for info on how to purchase one: Link | Official website | Tumblr  

(YouTube link)

The Quaker Oats guy has a name? The cop on the Monopoly board? The Twitter bird? You already knew the names of some of these characters, but I bet you don't know all of them -until John Green tells you in the latest mental_floss video!  

Today, I woke up with some burning questions that need answers. Rather than Google, I thought: Why not put them to the neatoramanaut community, who've got to be smarter than Google's algorithms, right?

So here goes:

1. The other week, I saw a small plane crash into the 405 Freeway near Long Beach. When I went to take a photo of it, a CHiPs on foot pulled me over and gave me a ticket for using my phone while driving. I said, "Well, I'm using the camera, so it's not a phone at this point. Is there a law against pulling out my DSLR and taking a picture while traffic is basically stopped?" He said no, but there is a law about operating a motor vehicle without a hands-free device. QUESTION: If I dispute this ticket, will I win? Or is just my word against his?

2. When you cut a 12-hour Sudafed in half, do you only get 6 hours of sinus relief, or do you still get the full 12 hours, but only at half the strength? Anyone? Anyone?

3. Anyone own a BMW 3-series wagon? Thinking of buying a used one for my wife. Like a 2006 or 2007. Any advice? Good/bad? Pitfalls? Thanks all!

I have nothing against Aquaman. Really, he has some pretty awesome powers. Even so, he's been the butt of everyone's joke for years now and there doesn't seem to be any sign of that stopping soon.

In fact, McAfee recently ran a search to discover the superhero that links to the most sites filled with malware, and it turns out that Aquaman is the most toxic superhero to search for on your computer. Mr. Fantastic is a close second, followed by The Hulk, Wonder Woman and Daredevil.

Does your favorite superhero rank high in the virus list? Find out at the link.

Link Image Via Loren Javier

This table contains spoilers! The HBO series Game of Thrones has so many characters, you need a chart to keep up with them -so Christian Petersen made one, in the form of a periodic table. Characters are divided into clans (by color), and whether they are living or dead (in the fine print). That's the spoilers. And the chart is available to buy at Etsy. Link -via Laughing Squid

(Video Link)

The Glove and Boots puppet show is always good, but they've topped themselves with this grand production. See Logan's tale in song, using musical themes from Beauty and the Beast (I think) and Phantom of the Opera, among others.

-via The Mary Sue

Captain America vs. Red Skull Salt & Pepper Shakers

Attention Captain America fans. Add a little patriotic flavor to your kitchen with the Captain America vs. Red Skull Salt & Pepper Shakers from the NeatoShop. This fantastic set features Captain America battling Red Skull. The set is made of ceramic and held together by magnets. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Salt & Pepper Shakers. 

Link

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

(Image credit: Flickr user Flavia)

by Paul Mackin, MB BS PhD MRCPsych
Peter Gallagher, BSc (Hons) MPhil
Lucy Robinson, BSc (Hons)
School of Neurology Neurobiology and Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.

A recently published hypothesis proposes that, in country after country, the prevalence of schizophrenia increased following the introduction of heeled footwear. That hypothesis does not account for differing footwear styles. In this report, we attempt to remedy that lack.

We examine the risk of schizophrenia in individuals wearing stiletto heels.

Flensmark’s High Hypothesis

Is there an association between the use of heeled footwear and schizophrenia? This is the question posed in a recent paper by Jarl Flensmark, published in the journal Medical Hypotheses.¹ Flensmark’s article highlights that the increase use and availability of heeled footwear has been paralleled by an increase in the prevalence of schizophrenia.

Flensmark presents a cogent argument supported by historical and epidemiological data together with a possible pathophysiological mechanism to account for the phenomenon.

The mechanism underlying this phenomenon, Flensmark suggests, is obvious. Heeled footwear, he explains, reduces stimulation of mechanoreceptors in the lower extremities which would normally increase activity in cerebello-thalamo-cortico-cerebellar loops through their action on NMDA receptors, and that this reduction in cortical activity changes dopaminergic function which involves the basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical-nigro-basal ganglia loops.

If Flensmark is correct, there are far-reaching consequences for the prevention and treatment of mental illnesses. The role of drugs in the management of these disorders is controversial, and the Flensmark hypothesis casts a dark shadow over the future of psychopharmacology.

This argument would have been further strengthened, however, by considering the relationship between the prevalence of schizophrenia and individual footwear styles. We offer some thoughts about the deleterious effects upon mental health of stiletto shoes, and conclude with a simple intervention which, based on Flensmark’s observations, may offer therapeutic benefit to both the mental and physical health of those suffering from schizophrenia.

If this pathophysiological mechanism is correct one would expect to observe a higher prevalence of schizophrenia in individuals who wear stiletto heels as high heels increase mechanical loading on the medial forefoot at the expense of other plantar regions,² and cause changes in postural muscle tone,³ and therefore altered mechanoreceptor stimulation. We undertook a systematic literature search to identify epidemiological and demographic data regarding the risk of schizophrenia in individuals who wear stiletto heels.

Figure 1. Measuring a stiletto heel (metric). (Image credit: A.S. Kaswell, AIR)

Stilettos and Schizophrenia: Method

We did a systematic walkthrough of the medical literature, looking for reports that involve the two words “stiletto” and “schizophrenia.” We found nothing. We then searched for medical papers that report the average heel size as a function of age. We found some. We then correlated this data with age of hospitalization for schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia and Stilettos: Results

The relationship between hospitalizations for schizophrenia and average heel height is represented graphically in figure 3. [Ed. note: which is unavailable.]

Stiletto heels are rarely worn before the age of fifteen, and schizophrenic illnesses are rarely diagnosed before this age. Heel height increases sharply, however, over the subsequent three years, closely mirroring the sharp increase in the incidence of schizophrenia. The mean age for the first wearing of heels 1, 2 and 3 inches high is 15.1, 16.7 and 18.5 years, respectively.⁴ The wearing of stiletto heels decreases throughout adulthood as does the heel height. It is of particular interest to note that the maximum heel height corresponds to the peak hospitalization rate, and as heel height decreases so too does hospitalization.

Stilettos and Schizophrenia: Discussion

High heels are worn most frequently, but not exclusively, by females. We are not aware of any data regarding the average height of the heel size of men’s footwear, or how this may change over time. This is clearly an area worthy of further research.

Preliminary data do suggest, however, that male cross-dressers may have a higher rate of schizophrenia,⁵ although we are careful to emphasize that it is not clear that all male cross-dressers wear stiletto heels, some perhaps preferring a simple flat shoe or an open-toe sandal.

The possible relationship between plantar mechanoreceptor stimulation and schizophrenia raises interesting questions regarding therapeutic intervention. Should Flensmark’s hypothesis be true, increasing plantar mechanoreceptor stimulation should offer protection from developing a psychotic illness to vulnerable individuals (e.g. those with high genetic loading), as well as improving the illness course of those with an established schizophrenic illness.

Figure 2. Measuring a stiletto heel (non-metric). By tradition, this method of measurement is the preferred one. (Image credit: A.S. Kaswell, AIR)

Steps for Treatment

We propose a simple and highly cost-effective intervention which simply involves repetitive forceful stepping on the spot, twice daily (Step-b.d). This program of activity could be easily incorporated into the daily routine and would obviate the need for regular contact with physicians to monitor compliance or side effects, although we would advocate a six-monthly check-up with a state registered chiropodist.

[We would not wish this to be confused with the highly successful Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEPBD), which is currently running in the USA, and, accordingly, we propose the Schizophrenia Kinetic Intervention for Prophylaxis (SKIP-BD)].

Apart from the potential therapeutic benefit on schizophrenic symptoms, there are also other clear benefits associated with this intervention. Patients with schizophrenia are at a higher risk of developing osteoporosis,⁶ and there is clear data to suggest that jumping up and down on the spot prevents bone loss and osteoporosis.⁷ Furthermore, the increased aerobic exercise would offer protection against cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, which are more prevalent in patients with schizophrenia.⁸

Controlled trials of the SKIP-BD program are urgently needed, as a positive outcome would have dramatic resource implications for all developed healthcare systems, as well as for the pharmaceutical industry. The need for costly Early Intervention in Psychosis programs would be abolished, and the costs associated with antipsychotic drug prescriptions would be decimated. Pending the results of these trials, we strongly recommend that patients continue to take prescribed medication. Patients and doctors, of either sex, should wear the stiletto heel at their peril.

Conflict of Interests

PM and PG have no personal experience of wearing footwear with heel heights exceeding one inch. There are no other conflicts of interest that will be mentioned here.

References

1. “Is There an Association Between the Use of Heeled Footwear and Schizophrenia?” J. Flensmark, Medical Hypotheses, vol. 63, 2004, pp. 740-47

2. “The Effects of Wearing High Heeled Shoes on Pedal Pressure in Women,” R.E. Snow and K.R. Williams, Foot and Ankle, vol. 13, 1992, pp. 85-92.

3. “Postural Alignment in Barefoot and High-Heeled Stance,” K.A. Opila, et al.,
Spine, vol. 13, 1988, pp. 542-47.

4. The Prevalence of Foot Problems in Older Women: A Cause for Concern,” J. Dawson, et al., Journal of Public Health Medicine, vol. 24, 2002, pp. 77-84.

5. “A Comparison of Treated and Untreated Male Cross-Dressers,” J.L. Croughan, et al., Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 10, 1981, pp. 515-28.

6. “Schizophrenia and Osteoporosis,” M. Lean and G. De Smedt, International Clinical Psychopharmacology, vol. 19, 2004;, pp. 31-35.

7. “Long-Term Exercise Using Weighted Vests Prevents Hip Bone Loss in Postmenopausal Women,” C.M. Snow, et al., Journals of Gerontology. Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, vol. 55, 2000, pp. M489-91.

8. “Diet, Diabetes and Schizophrenia; Review and Hypothesis,” M. Peet, British Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 184, suppl. 47, 2004, pp. S102-105.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: For a detailed look at the Flensmark hypothesis, see “Trouble Underfoot” in AIR, vol. 11, no. 1, January-February 2005.]

_____________________

This article is republished with permission from the March-April 2005 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.