Typographic Birdhouse-Alphabet
Nishant Jethi hat einen ganzen Zeichensatz inklusive Ziffern aus Nistkästen gebaut, die man sich als Namensschild oder Nummer ans Haus hängen kann. Super!
Study proves that there is a sharp decline in the number of house sparrows. The driving force is the lack of nesting and breeding spaces. With high-rises and malls coming up everywhere, the birds have been displaced. So, an idea called ‘Living Typography’ was developed. Hollow wooden 3D alphabets that could also act as a bird’s nest were created. Appropriate alphabets were sent to a friends and family. They could keep it outside their house as their nameplate or house number. This nameplate/House number also acted as nests for birds amidst concrete jungle of the city.
Living with Typeface und Living Typography (via Quipsologies)
Collective Soul Cat doin’ her thing
Youtube Direktmeow, via Ronny
Christenrock für Katzen, where it belongs. [update] It’s Gregg „Girl Talk“ Gillis’ Cat, hier das Original Facebook-Posting.
Russian Subway Dogs: The Game
Es gibt ein Game über die superschlauen russischen Hunde, die dort mit der U-Bahn nach Moskau Downtown fahren, weil’s dort das beste Futter gibt. Und abends nach Feierabend fahren sie selbstverständlich wieder nach Hause. Echt:
Moscow ecologists think that dogs started acquiring this habits in 1990s, when the Soviet union collapsed and Moscow has fell into the hands of new class of Russian capitalists. They understood the true value of the downtown realty underestimated by previous Communist owners and became removing all the industrial complexes Moscow had in its centre to its outskirts. Those places were used by homeless dogs as a shelter often, so the dogs had to move together with their houses, so they had to learn how to travel Moscow subway – first to get to the centre in the morning then back home in the evening, just as us people.
Und jetzt hat jemand ein Game dazu gecoded, ein Russian Subway Dog-Simulator:
Experience the life of a stray Russian subway dog scavenging for food in this realistic simulator. Doggies! Ruskies! Proprietary vodka physics system!
Instructions:
Move and jump with the arrow keys.
CTRL to bark (costs Stamina).
Bark behind people to surprise them.
Scavange for food to stay alive.In Soviet Russia there is no 10 second rule. Grab food before it hits the ground for more stamina.
Russian Subway Dog (via Killscreen)
Tarantula Exoskeleton Shed-Timelapse
Youtube Direkttarantula, via io9
Yay! Eine Tarantula-Häutung in Timelapse! Yummy! Also: CHRIST FUCKING SPIDERS! Nach dem Klick.
Colored Pigeons
Julius von Bismarck und Julian Charriere haben während der Biennale in Venedig Tauben gefärbt. Schicke Arbeit!
To coincide with this year’s Venice Biennale, Berlin-based artists Julius von Bismarck and Julian Charriere decided to dye 35 of the local pigeons to give them a new life as beautiful tropical birds. To do this, a special (animal friendly) “Pigeon Apparatus” was assembled which featured a conveyor belt mechanism to take the bird inside where they were automatically sprayed with non-harmful dyes. Once dyed a randomly selected assortment of bright colours, the bird was released once again to mingle with the other (now rather dull looking) pigeons in the wild.
SOME PIGEONS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Videoportrait: Julius von Bismarks Image Fulgurator
Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus – Online-Texte als Bildergeschichten aus Patent-Datenbanken
Image Fulgurator: Obama als Priester, Wowereit O2-gebrandet
Midway: Documentary about dying Albatrosses filled with Plastic
Vor drei Jahren postete ich Chris Jordans Fotoserie über tote Albatrosse auf den Midwayinseln, die von ihren Eltern mit im Meer treibenden Plastikmüll gefüttert werden, den diese nicht von ihrer natürlichen Nahrung unterscheiden können. Seit dem hat er weiterfotografiert und eine kickstarterfinanzierte Dokumentation namens „Midway“ auf die Beine gestellt. Und der Trailer dazu ist mehr als ungemütlich. Fieses, großartiges, unbequemes, wichtiges Projekt!
Von Wired:
For three years, Seattle photographer Chris Jordan and a small crew of cinematographers have been filming the albatross living and breeding on the island for an upcoming documentary called Midway. Jordan says the albatross has been around for millions of years and for the majority of that time they didn’t have to distinguish what they could and could not ingest. “Today, instead of coming home with a stomach full of squid these birds are coming home with a stomach full of lighters and other plastic objects,” he says.
John Klavitter, a wildlife biologist and the deputy refuge manager at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, says adult albatrosses have the ability to regurgitate objects in their stomachs but chicks don’t develop that reflex until they are about four and a half months old. As a result the chicks’ stomachs are filling up with more plastic than food. Often times, he says, the plastic punctures the bird’s stomachs, creating life-threatening injuries. Other times they die of dehydration, starvation or poisonous toxicity.
“The plastic often acts like a magnet for toxins and contaminants floating out in the ocean,” he says. To put it into perspective Klavitter says that in total, 20 tons of manmade debris ends up on Midway each year and five tons of that is the plastic fed to the chicks.
Plastic-Filled Albatrosses Are Pollution Canaries in New Doc
Zombies’n'Dogs: Play Dead
Toller Kurzfilm von The Meza Brothers, der die ausgelutschte Zombie-Outbreak-Story aus der Perspektive einer Hunde-Gang erzählt und das reicht tatsächlich vollkommen aus, um aus dem Genre tatsächlich was neues zu machen. Der Film macht Spaß und macht die kleineren Schwächen (Schauspieler, Kamera) mit einem schönen Rythmus und gutem Schnitt mehr als wett.
A zombie apocalypse unites a ragtag pack of dogs in the ruined streets of Miami. Immune to the epidemic, they must stick together to survive in the midst of ferocious undead and human survivors. Sit. Stay. Play dead…
Cypress Hill played through colorchanging Squid-Skin
Dailymotion Direkt, via Boing Boing
Die Backyard Brains haben ihren iPod an die Flosse eines Kalmars angeschlossen und Cypress Hills „Insane in the Membrane“ durchgejagt, das Ergebnis ist ein Tintenfisch-Graphic-Equalizer, im Video oben sieht man die Pigment-Zellen des Squids unter einem Mikroskop. Insane!
During experiments on the giant axons of the Longfin Inshore Squid (loligo pealei) at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA; we were fascinated by the fast color-changing nature of the squid’s skin. Squids (like many other cephalopods) can quickly control pigmented cells called chromatophores to reflect light. The Longfin Inshore has 3 different chromatophore colors: Brown, Red, and Yellow. Each chromatophore has tiny muscles along the circumference of the cell that can contract to reveal the pigment underneath.
We tested our cockroach leg stimulus protocol on the squid’s chromatophores. We used a suction electrode to attach to the squid’s fin nerve, then connected the electrode to an iPod nano as our stimulator. The results were both interesting and beautiful.
Venus, the heterochromatic Chimera-Cat
Das hier ist Venus, eine heterochromatische Chimera-Katze. Die Dame hat ihre eigene Facebook-Seite und geht seit gestern dort steil, aus offentsichtlichen Gründen.
Chimera cat is one individual organism, but genetically its own fraternal twin. A chimera is typically formed from four parent cells (either two fertilized eggs, or two early embryos that have fused together). When the organism forms, the cells that had already begun to develop in the separate embryos keep their original phenotypes and appearances. This means that the resulting animal is a mixture of tissues and can look like this gorgeous (but bizarre) kitty. She also has complete heterochromia, a condition when the eyes are different colours.
Meet chimera cat (via Geekologie)
Bro-Cat Hi-Five
Youtube Direktcat, via Buzzfeed
Grade zwar erst auf Facebook gefived, aber die Hi-Five-Katze will ich auch hier haben. Weil, Katzen und Menschen können eben doch zusammenleben. Charly, the Hi-Five-Cat steht Teddy, the Asshole-Cat quasi diametral gegenüber. Gibt’s hier als GIF.
How To Catch a Fish with your Hands
Wired erklärt, wie man einen Fisch mit der Hand fängt. Es gibt Bilder von mir, auf denen ich am Flußufer des Rheins einen Fisch in der Hand halte und soweit ich mich erinnere, habe ich den damals tatsächlich mit der Hand gefangen, was selbstverständlich nicht reiner Zufall war, sondern pures Talent und Begabung. (Das mit dem Fisch stimmt, der Rest… naja…)
Remember this simple rule of thumb: if you can see the trout, he can see you, as physics dictates that light flows both ways. So keep a super low profile. Also, you’ll have to approach from downstream. Because they’re fighting a current to stay in one spot, trout spend 95 percent of their time facing upstream. Their side mounted eyes means that they can see behind themselves a bit, but for the most part, they’re going to be focusing on the insects being swept downstream at them.
Once inside 30 feet, any motions in the fish’s field of vision will likely send it scurrying to a deeper part of the river. So get low — crawl if you can — and step quietly.
Auch schön: Wie man den Fisch auf möglichst nette und zuvorkommende Art wieder frei lässt:
The fish will have gone through a bit of trauma and will need help getting oxygen (imagine if a fish just yanked you under water while you were eating a sandwich). So gently rock them forward and backward in the current to get the water moving through the gills. It shouldn’t take too long but after a few massages in the current, that fish should zip out of your hands and back to the river bottom to think things over. He probably won’t hang on that bank again for a while.
Honeypot Ants
Wieder was gelernt: Manche Ameisenarten halten sich lebende Futterspender, eine Ameisenkaste innerhalb ihres Baus, die mit Zuckerextrakten gefüttert werden, so dass sich ihr Hinterleib aufbläht und in schlechten Zeiten als Nahrungsreserve dient. Oh Nature you so scary! Von Wikipedia:
Honigtopfameisen oder Honigameisen werden so genannt, weil die entsprechenden Arten eine Kaste haben, die das Futter, das ihnen von Arbeiterinnen gebracht und verfüttert wird, in ihrer Gaster speichert. Diese Ameisen sitzen bewegungslos an der Decke des Ameisenbaus und ihr anschwellender Kropf bläht den Hinterleib tonnenförmig auf, sodass sie wie Honigtöpfe aussehen. Auf diese Weise werden bis zu 250 Gramm Honig je Bau in 500 lebenden Honigtöpfen gesammelt. Bei Bedarf, z. B. Futterknappheit in der Trockenzeit, wird die gespeicherte Nahrung wieder abgegeben und die Ameisen bewegungsfähig.
(Bild via National Geographic via Neatorama)
Swimming with Dolphins
Vimeo Direktdolphins, via Jason Kottke
Ein paar Fischer haben vor Santa Cruz Tunfisch geangelt und mit einer GoPro-Unterwasser-Kamera rumgespielt, als ein Schwarm Delphine auftauchte. Also haben sie die Kamera an die Angel gebunden und ins Wasser geschmissen. Sweet!
Also: Dog swims with dolphins.
