Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro. But I know something you don't know....

I am not left handed.

Sure, this sword from Danelli Armouries lacks reach, but in the hand of a skilled fencer, it is sufficient.

Link

(YouTube link)

Honestly, March Madness tournament brackets are simple, but only if you've used them a time or two. Star Wars is complicated, but so many people already understand it thoroughly, because it's so much fun getting there. (via Laughing Squid)

Every year, the Explorers Club hosts a formal dinner in New York City featuring exotic foods. NBC's Matthew Moll talked to Gene Rurka, the organizer of the event:

Goat eyes were among this year’s nearly 40 items featured. Many of the items were displayed with the heads of the animals and bodies fully intact, which gave explorers the opportunity to see the source of the food. [...]

Rurka added that the insect dishes are a hit every year and “go like hot cakes.” Earthworms, crickets, larvae, cockroaches and tarantulas were some of the crawlers on the menu, and yes, I took tastes.

The earthworms were plump and rubbery. It felt as if I was chewing on handful of hair ties. The consistency was challenging, but the flavor was mild.

You can see photos of more tantalizing dishes at the link.

Link | Photo: Matthew Moll/NBC Today

Yes, yes it is futile. We humbly bow to tattoo artist Tara Quinn for inking this Star Trek/Star Wars mash up tattoo of Borg Yoda. Via Obvious Winner

The new gays rights center in Topeka, Kansas, got a paint job and a sign on Tuesday to let everyone know what they're about. The house is directly across the street from Fred Phelps' infamous Westboro Baptist Church.

The center is the work of a roving do-gooder named Aaron Jackson, a 31-year-old community-college dropout whose other projects have included opening orphanages in India and Haiti and buying a thousand acres of endangered rain forest in Peru. This year, his charity, Planting Peace, also intends to de-worm every child in Guatemala.

Jackson was drawn to Topeka after reading about Josef Miles, the local boy who last year, at the age of nine, photobombed one of the Westboro protests with a handmade sign that read "God Hates No One." Jackson had been looking for a way to support equality, anti-bullying programs, and some sort of pro-LGBT initiative, he said.

"I've been accused in the past of being all over the place, and they're probably right on some level," Jackson told me last night by phone. "Right now we are standing up to bigotry and promoting equality."

The house was purchased six months ago, but the rainbow paint job is the first indication to the Westboro congregation, with several members living in the neighborhood, of what the new neighbors are up to. Link

Update: The facility is called Equality House. Link

I've been trying to match ponies to all 16 personality types in the Myers-Briggs typology, but I'm stuck as to which pony, if any, is an ENFJ (extroversion, intuition, feeling, judgment).* In the meantime, I'll munch on these adorable cupcakes made by Zoey Cakes.

Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

*Yes, I know that some people describe Applejack this way. I don't buy it. She's really more of an ESTJ.

Following up on the success of last year's hilarious parody, College Humor has filmed a three-part action movie parodying the children's TV show Dora the Explorer. Behold the first part of Dora the Explorer and the Destiny Medallion.

Content warning: some foul language and violence. My four-year old is mad that I won't let her watch it.

Video Link

Grant Snider at Incidental Comics shows us the many blocks that block our lives. The last one is a welcome distraction from the others! Link -via Laughing Squid

This is celebrity model Kim Kardashian. She's not getting a medical treatment, but a beauty treatment. The "blood facial" or "vampire facial" injects a person with his or her own blood. CBS News Miami explains how it works:

First, Angela gets numbing cream to her face. Then, 2 vials of blood are taken from her arm. That blood is sent to a centrifuge where it’s spun for 9 minutes. The spinning separates the red blood from the yellow platelets. Dr. Gallo then uses his derma pen,  an actual machine with 9 small needles, to puncture the skin while the platelet’s are placed on skins surface.

“The needles open the skin so the platelets go in. The growth factors within are released through the tissue to form collagen and elastic tissue, that heals the area,” said Dr. Gallo

Link -via Popular Science | Image: E!

Parking Citation Nifty Note

Does the way people park endlessly annoy you? Do you wish you could quietly and anonymously berate people for their bad parking behavior? Now you can with the Parking Citation Nifty Note was from the NeatoShop.  This fantastic little pad provides you with 50 sheets for your chastising pleasure. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Stationery. 

Link

Ghostbusters Italia forum member Guusc72 has built an exact replica of the Ghostbusters set -in his basement! The details are all there, including Guusc72 and his friends hanging out in costume. He's the one behind the desk in the lower photo. See more pictures and a video at Ghostbusters Italia. Link -via Gamma Squad

Baby Pears, found at a supermarket in Beijing, China, is undoubtedly delicious. Problem is, you have to eat it before it wakes up and devour all of your family at night ... Link - via Nerdcore

Peter Parker went on to become the famous hero Spider-Man. Teen-Spider developed an impressive comic book collection. Alas, fame eluded him, as this comic by Jim Benton illustrates.

Artist's Website -via Blame It on the Voices

Google announced recently that its RSS aggregator Google Reader will be retired later this year. It's just the latest in a long line of Google products offered and then pulled, some living longer than others. They didn't all die of unpopularity. Some were replaced, like Google Video when the company acquired YouTube, some were combined into other existing products, and some were popular but not profitable.  Some of the products in the graveyard you've never even heard of because they were doomed from birth. There are 39 graves in the "cemetery" at Slate, and you're invited to leave a virtual flower for the ones you actually miss. Link -via the Presurfer

Mustaches always get the ladies. Just ask the newly found Australian pygmy moth. It didn't just get named by researchers the "Casanova" moth for nothing:

Researchers say they named the newly designated subgenus "Casanovula" (within the genus Pectinivalva) because these metallic-colored species sport mustache-like patches that seem to helpthem lure females by spreading their scent.

These patches — which look like overlapping shells up close — can be found on their front legs, wings or abdomen and they are thought to help disperse scent from a close range during courtship of the female.

Romantic bouquet: The male Pectinivalva minotaurus has two kinds of shell-like scent scales on the abdomen to woo the female. Image: Landcare Research and Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

One of the group's more remarkable species is Pectinivalva (Casanovula) minotaurus­, named for the bull-headed Minotaur of Greek myths. The male of this species has two different kinds of the scent-spreading tufts on its abdomen and huge, bizarrely flattened antennae, researchers say.

LiveScience has more: Link

The United States launched the Iraq War on March 19, 2003, ten years ago today. To mark the anniversary, Reuters has posted a collection of 45 news photographs of the war and its aftermath. Warning: some of the pictures are graphic, and all are disturbing. Link

(Image credit: Eliana Aponte/Reuters)

Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Meet Tintina, a piece of broken rock that the Curiosity Mars rover ran over (I've been waiting to be able to say that) on the Red Planet. The rock broke up and revealed an unusual white color that indicates the presence of hydrated minerals that formed when water flowed in that area:

The description of hydrated minerals at Gale Crater follows an announcement last week that Curiosity had found clay minerals in a rock it had drilled. These clays indicate formation in, or substantial alteration by, neutral water.

That is significant for showing that conditions on the Red Planet could have supported life in the distant past, because many rocks studied previously were probably deposited in acidic water.

Speaking here in The Woodlands, near Houston, chief scientist John Grotzinger described Curiosity's landing site as the first truly habitable environment found on Mars.

"What we're really excited about is that this is the first time we've been able to follow through with a whole suite of different measurements that really demonstrate the place we found at Gale Crater was a very viable, habitable environment," he told BBC News.

Paul Rincon of the BBC has more: Link

(YouTube link)

Forward is a strange name for a video that runs backwards. Israeli artist Messe Kopp walked down a city street doing this and that and made a weird spectacle of himself. The kicker is that he was walking backwards the entire time. -via Viral Viral Videos

Working parents rely on daycare facilities to take care of their children when they work during the day, but what happens if your job is at night?

Not a problem in Sweden, where they have night nurseries:

"At first it was very hard to take my kids to sleep somewhere else and my heart was aching," says mother Maria Klytseroff, 39, a part-time care assistant for people with learning difficulties.

Her children spend about two or three nights a week at one of the preschools, which is more like a homely apartment than an education centre.

"I am a single mum and I wanted to go back to my job, which is at night," explains Maria.

"The children soon got used to it, they have friends and they adore the workers who look after them." [...]

The toddlers arrive in time to eat dinner, clean their teeth and then enjoy a bedtime story with a member of staff.

But not everyone is sold on the idea. Read more over at the BBC: Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Angela Vincent)

One day Kerry celebrates her birthday. Two days later, her older twin Terry celebrates his birthday. How could that be, when they were born a half-hour apart?

When you've given up and want to see the answer, continue reading.


Highlight the following for the answer: The twins were born while their mother was on an ocean cruise. The older twin, Terry, was born first -on March 1. The ship, traveling west, then crossed a time zone and Kerry, the younger twin, was born on February 28th. In a leap year, the younger twin celebrates her birthday two days before her older brother.

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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader. The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of topics. Highly recommended!

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

Dr. Seuss Graduation Cap

Congratulations! Soon it will be your graduation day. You'll be off to great places. You'll be off and away.

But, before you head off on your next great adventure you will need to walk across a stage and shake hands at the center. You will probably also have to wear a graduation cap or two.  So make sure that cap really speaks to you.

The Doctor Suess Graduation Cap from the NeatoShop is a genuine size graduation cap. It is decorated with bright colors and features the iconic phrase "Oh, the places you'll go."

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Dr. Suess items and Great Gifts for Graduates. 

Link

The custom of dressing up as wild animals and monsters dates back to pagan rites surrounding the winter solstice in Europe. These traditions continue today, centered around festivals from midwinter to Easter, evoking the hope of spring renewal.

Photographer Charles Fréger set out to capture what he calls “tribal Europe” over two winters of travel through 19 countries. The forms of the costumes that he chronicled vary between regions and even between villages. In Corlata, Romania, men dress as stags reenacting a hunt with dancers. In Sardinia, Italy, goats, deer, boars, or bears may play the sacrificial role. Throughout Austria, Krampus, the beastly counterpart to St. Nicholas, frightens naughty children.

But everywhere there is the wild man. In France, he is l’Homme Sauvage; in Germany, Wilder Mann; in Poland, Macidula is the clownish version. He dresses in animal skins or lichen or straw or tree branches. Half man and half beast, the wild man stands in for the complicated relationship that human communities, especially rural ones, have with nature.    

Read more about these traditions and see a photo gallery of Fréger's photographs at National Geographic magazine. Link  -via Metafilter

(Images credit: Charles Fréger)

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

(YouTube link)

Ukrainian conductor and music professor Sergey Neverov plays the Russian folk song "A Thin Rowan Tree" while his cat naps nearby. Despite being asleep (or faking it), the cat sings along. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

All she wants is to be swept off her feet by the man in the blue box. MamonaGirl's aunt made this Doctor Who plaque for a relative's wedding.

Link

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

(Image: University of Edinburgh)

A new way to compare the branches of science

by Kevin Krajick, New York City, New York

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This paper describes a major scientific advance. We invite you to follow the author’s clear instructions, and calculate the Name Number for your own profession, and then to submit your results (and you must name names!) here. We hope to compile a comprehensive list, and so make it possible to compare each profession against all others.]

We don’t get to choose our name, but we do get to choose our calling. Or do we? Some people’s names are spookily related to their professions. The phenomenon is called “Nominative Determinism,” a term coined by John Hoyland of New Scientist magazine. How common is Nominative Determinism within any particular profession? No one knows. But now that I have raised the question, we must find out.

I have come up with a simple measurement that we can apply to any profession. It’s called the “Name Number.” The Name Number for a particular profession is the percentage of people in that profession who have names that are related their work. I could have called it the “Name Percentage” or the “Name Ratio,” but “Name Number” is easier to remember.

This paper describes how I developed the concept, how it applies to one profession -- geology -- and how you can calculate the Name Number for any particular profession.

(Image: University of Birmingham)

A Warm-Up: Names Without Number
To prepare for the rigors of collecting names, I read scientific literature, attended meetings, perused magazines and newspapers, and talked to people at cocktail parties. In so doing, I randomly discovered many scientists whose names closely matched their fields of study.

Here are some of the fields that yielded results.

Forest sciences: Jerry Forest Franklin (University of Washington forest ecologist); Forrest Hall (retired, US Forest Service); Robert D. Forrest (Vancouver forestry-sciences journalist); Simon Grove (Rainforest Cooperative Research Center, James Cook University).

Ornithology: Vernon Byrd (U.S. Dept. of Fish & Wildlife); Scott Hatch (U.S. Geological Survey Seabird Monitoring Project); John Wingfield (University of Washington);Jason Duxbury (University of Alberta).

Meteorology, climate: Kathleen Weathers, acid-rain specialist, Institute for Ecological Studies, Millbrook, N.Y.; John W. Weatherly, climate-change researcher, U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory.

Oceanography/hydrology: Ken Drinkwater (Bedford Institute of Oceanography); glacial hydrologist Andrew Fountain (Portland State University); ocean-current specialist Eddy Carmack (Canadian Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans); and most particularly, Brian F. Atwater of the University of Washington, author of the recent paper “The 1700 Cascadia Tsunami Initiated a Fatal Shipwreck in Japan”; and Kathleen Flood, USA Engineer Research and Development Center, coauthor of “Historical Development of Engineered Waterways in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, Iraq.”

I also discovered entomologist Wayne K. Gall of the Buffalo Museum of Science -- a gall is a scar that forms on a plant after an insect burrows in. And a sex therapist/researcher interviewed in 1989 for an article in the scientific journal Mademoiselle: Wendy T. Fullilove.

(Image: Smithsonian Institution)

The Name Number for Geologists
Here is how I calculated the Name Number for the field of geology.

The procedure is simple. I examined the abstracts of all the papers presented at the 2003 meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA).

All together, there were 8,639 authorial surnames, including names that appeared more than once. Analysis revealed the following -- names that provided full, or very close, matches to the profession of geology:

Algeo--1 Bonal--1 Brick--1
Berg (mountain), Bergantz, Bergbauer, Berger, Bergeron, Berglund, Bergstrom: 12 Brook, Brooks, Brookfield, Brookshire--9
Claypool or Clayton--2
Copper--1
Gemery or Gemmell--2
Goldberg, Goldfarb, Goldhaber, Goldsmith or Goldstein--9
Coale, Cole, Coleman or Coles--13
Diamond--1 Dugmore --1 Flint--2 Gaswirth--1
Geonyoung--1
Highland--1
Koppers -- 2
Orr--1
Sanders, Sanderson, Sandru, Sandstrom, Sandvol or Sandy--8 Silver--1
Hill or Hiller--11 Mason--3 Rockhold--2
Horst --1 Jade --1 MacQuarrie or McQuarrie--3 Rockwell--1
Stein (stone), Steinberg (probably should count twice), Steiner, Steinle, Steinmetz--8
Stone or Stoner--9. (This sample included, significantly, George T. Stone of Milwaukee Area Technical College, who pointed out that his first name is abbreviated Geo. He volunteered that this combination made his choice of profession a “no-brainer.”)
Till--1 Tipple--1 Valley--4 Van Dijk, van Bergen--2

117of the 8639 authors appear to have names that qualify. To calculate the Name Number, I simply divide the geology- related names by the total number of names to come up with a percentage -- the Name Number.

Thus, the Name Number for the field of geology is .0135432. (Future research could show that this figure subject to upward revision, as there could be many non-English names that -- carry geologic meanings of which I am not aware.)

(Image: Center for Conservation Biiology)

The Triumph of Geology
Geology now leads all other branches of science -- it is the very first branch of science for which we have calculated the Name Number. It remains to be seen whether other specialties will rise to challenge its supremacy.

Discussion
It is still too early to tell whether a certain proportion of geologists might be influenced to take up their profession simply because of the names they carry. To investigate this hypothesis, we would have to control for names among geologists that could be geologic, but seem to point to other professions. For instance, there were 14 people by the name of “Fisher,” whose talks bore no apparent relation to fish, or even fossilized fish. There were 5 by the name of “Fox,” whose talks had nothing to do with foxes, or fossil foxes. One presenter was named Amoroso and another Breeding, but neither spoke of loves past nor present. An astounding 53 bore the name “Johnson,” but none discussed the male member in either its fossil or nonfossil form. And I certainly have no idea what Reinhardt A. Fuck (Departamento de Geologia Geral y Aplicada, Universidade de Brasilia), presenter of “Search for Rodinia in South America: Geological Records and Problems’ was talking about, but I suspect it was not related to his name. Further analysis of the names of geologists could be called for.

(Image: University of North Carolina)

Note
The late Alexander Kohn, who co-founded this magazine, was a connoisseur of this kind of name. One of his best essays on the subject is called “Peculiar Relationships Between Authors and the Subject of Their Studies.” A copy is on the Improbable Research web site.

New Scientist magazine frequently publishes small collections of nominatively determined names, in their “Feedback” column, which is edited by the aforementioned John Hoyland.

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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.