Entries from February 2008 ↓

Residents of Bethel Maine have constructed the worlds largest SnowWoman. At over 122 feet, it towers over the surrounding area. It over a month to build and has skis for eyelashes and trees for arms.

Check out the official blog for more pictures and details. SnowWoman WebLog

Starts off a little slow, but chaeck out the end where the goat stands on a little pole and the monkey does handstands.

English Russia has a great post about a ship graveyard in Kamchatka, Russia. The ships are frozen in place and have been abandoned to rust away. Really spooky looking seeing all those ships just stuck there. Click through to see all the pictures. English Russia: Abandoned Frozen Ships

Edit: Here is a link to a google maps satellite view of the ship graveyard.

Talk about a unique gift. I loved the story of Peter Rabbit when I was little. I remember my Mom giving me an illustrated copy that I read in one afternoon.
Well, now courtesy of the British museum you can get the entire story published in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. So if you ever wanted to learn how to read hieroglyphs, this may be the book for you. You can buy it for just £7 here.

Via Cool Hunting: The Tale of Peter Rabbit: Hieroglyph Edition

The above is a picture of Fomalhaut, a star that offers the best evidence of a star system with a complex planetary group orbiting it. The picture was taken using the Hubble telescope.

What makes it interesting, is the strong resemblance to the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I’m a huge Lord of the Rings fan, so this is pretty cool.

Via New Scientist: Hubble spies lord of the stellar rings

I’ve been reading Fogonazos a lot lately, and this post really caught my eye. The Waitomo Glowworm Cave in New Zealand is home to an amazing population of Glowworms.

The glowworms, Arachnocampa luminosa, are found exclusively in New Zealand and Australia. The worms spin nests out of silk on the ceiling of the cave and then hang down as many as 70 threads of silk from around each nest. Each thread is up to 30 or 40 cm long and holds tiny droplets of mucus. The worm glows to attract prey into its threads, trapping them much as a spider traps it’s prey.

Check out the original article for more pictures: A Glowworm Heaven

With winter almost over, at least around my house, I thought I would post a final winter themed video for your enjoyment.

An inventor working at the Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution (ESPCI) in Paris, France, has come up with a new type of synthetic rubber. The rubber can be cut, torn, or ripped, and then pressed back together to form a bond as strong as if it had never been torn in the first place.
The potential uses of this new material are numerous. Self healing bicycle tires, bags that reseal, and gloves that repair tears.
Check out the article at New Scientist: Smart rubber promises self-mending products