Imagine how productive you could be if you had eight arms for knitting. Max of Max’s World created this jolly knitting knit octopus and shares some sketches and process pictures of how it came together — via CRAFT
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Canadian designer Keith Baker has sent us images of the Armada House he designed in Victoria, BC, Canada — via CONTEMPORIST
Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Catholic nun from Britain who has spent 29 years caring for leprosy patients in Bengaluru, India, is being forced to give up her work and leave the country after Delhi refused to renew her residency permit.
London-born Jacqueline Jean McEwan, now known as Sister Jean, or the Mother Teresa of Sumanahalli, runs a mobile clinic for leprosy patients. She has been ordered to leave without explanation by the union home ministry and if her appeal for permission to stay goes unanswered by 2pm on Monday she will have to board an evening flight bound for London — via redwolf.newsvine.com
— via National Geographic
Created by: Forensic Nursing
Vicky of Stasty created this amazing Rubik’s Cube battenburg cake in honour of the puzzle cube’s inventor, Ern? Rubik’s, birthday. What I love most about the cake is that it was constructed in such a way that each slice reveals a different colour block pattern. Brilliant. See how it was constructed over on Stasty — via CRAFT
A striking number of Google+ accounts have been deleted in the last 24 hours as the new social network struggles with its community standards policy around real names — alienating and frightening the people it aims to serve — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Just like ordinary concrete surfaces, it looks a tad dull and drag when dry … but put it in a place with condensation-producing heat, running water or natural rain and it reveals hidden decorative designs (that disappear again as it dries).
Conceived by Frederik Molenschot and Susanne Happle, it is a bit like the old bathroom mirror trick — the writing, picture or pattern appears and disappears with moisture content. On a humid day you might get partial glimpses of what would be fully visible during a torrential downpour — via Dornob
When seesaws and tall slides and other perils were disappearing from New York’s playgrounds, Henry Stern drew a line in the sandbox. As the city’s parks commissioner in the 1990s, he issued an edict concerning the 10-foot-high jungle gym near his childhood home in northern Manhattan.
I grew up on the monkey bars in Fort Tryon Park, and I never forgot how good it felt to get to the top of them,
Mr Stern said. I didn’t want to see that playground bowdlerized. I said that as long as I was parks commissioner, those monkey bars were going to stay.
His philosophy seemed reactionary at the time, but today it’s shared by some researchers who question the value of safety-first playgrounds. Even if children do suffer fewer physical injuries — and the evidence for that is debatable — the critics say that these playgrounds may stunt emotional development, leaving children with anxieties and fears that are ultimately worse than a broken bone — via redwolf.newsvine.com
New guidelines to target families that take young girls abroad to undergo female genital mutilation are being sent to prosecutors by the government.
Ministers want to encourage more action against those who inflict the brutal procedure on their children and relatives amid concerns that the current approach serves as little deterrent.
Female genital mutilation is an illegal procedure in the UK with those convicted risking 14 years’ imprisonment. The Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2003 also allows for the prosecution of British citizens who breach the provisions of the act and perform the procedure abroad.
But while the law seems strict on paper, it seems to have limited effect in practice. Campaigners say 22,000 girls are at risk each year. However, MPs were this week told that there has yet to be a single conviction, despite 100 investigations being carried out over two years by the Met. By contrast the French authorities have successfully prosecuted in 100 cases — via redwolf.newsvine.com
An endangered Indian Rhinoceros (also known as the greater one-horned Rhinoceros) was born Wednesday evening, 13 July, at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo to second-time mother Jamie
, in the rhino barn within the Zoo’s Asian Gardens exhibit area. The Indian Rhino birth is the second for the Zoo in two years, and a significant conservation milestone for the species with fewer than 60 animals in the managed population — via ZooBorns
Using a nanosensor tattoo
and a modified iPhone, cyclists could closely monitor sodium levels to prevent dehydration, and anemic patients could track their blood oxygen levels.
Heather Clark, a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Northeastern University, is leading a team working to make this possible. The team begins by injecting a solution containing carefully chosen nanoparticles into the skin. This leaves no visible mark, but the nanoparticles will fluoresce when exposed to a target molecule, such as sodium or glucose. A modified iPhone then tracks changes in the level of fluorescence, which indicates the amount of sodium or glucose present. Clark presented this work at the BioMethods Boston conference at Harvard Medical School last week — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The Opposition Leader’s discomfiture in the face of certain large repositories of expertise is a matter of record.
He disapproves of climate scientists, of Australian economists on the whole, and he has no time at all for the work of Treasury officials, which should make things fairly interesting should the public distaste for Julia Gillard bear its probable fruit two years hence, and install Mr Abbott as their lord and master. Awkward — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This unique archaeological site is one of the best examples — along with Machu Picchu — of what might be called extreme Inca landscaping. Three enormous pits, each with beautifully curved sides that staircase down like the interiors of titanic flowerpots, have been carved out of the earth to depths of up to 100 feet and more. Air temperatures between the top and bottom layers can differ by more than 20 degrees, which has led some researchers to theorize that Moray was an Inca agricultural site where experiments on crops were conducted — via National Geographic
New Australian research has found a link between glandular fever and multiple sclerosis (MS).
MS affects 20,000 people in Australia and is a condition where the immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord.
Many of those diagnosed are young, healthy women.
Now a new study from the Australian National University (ANU) has found those who have glandular fever antibodies have a much greater risk of developing multiple sclerosis.
The research, published in the journal Neurology, could lead to new treatments for the condition — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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