Friday, June 19, 2009

Friday Links!

Leading off this week, from David Gloier (who has more links later), a link to The Longest Way, a video made by Christoph Rehage as he walked 5,000km across China. He took a picture of himself each day (from the same angle), and made a video of the photos. It's fascinating.

From the New York Times, a truly fascinating series on the art forgeries of Han van Meegeren , described as the most successful art forger of all time.

From Lummox JR, a link to the fantastic website Item Not As Described. It's a compendium for the crap offered for free on Craig's List.

From David Gloier, a story about the discovery of 6,000 year old tombs--in Britain. Also, a story about animals that improve our health, including (and this is pretty astonishing) transgenic goats that produce spider silk. Next, have you ever heard of a salmon shark? Me, neither, but here's one that weighs almost 600 pounds.

From Sirius, a story about about the amazing aerodynamic properties of maple seeds, which generate their own vortexes as they spin, then ride those vortexes for miles. Also, it's seven things that don't make sense about gravity. Then there's a curious discovery about how raindrops fall (hint: smaller ones can fall faster than larger ones, upsetting conventional wisdom). One more, and it's about dinosaur fingers. Wait, there's one more: the size of Africa (this is definitely worth seeing).

From me, an article in the Wall Street Journal about the education level of major league baseball players and managers, and whatever your expectations are, lower them.

From Daniel James, a fascinating story about the history of anesthesia.

From John D'Angelo, a link to an image of Saturn's rings that proves the rings (under certain circumstances), incredibly, have ripples:
When the elliptical motion of the moon is combined with the tilt, the gravitational interaction on the ring particles produces vertical ripples in the ring.

From Scott Sudz, and I guess it was inevitable, it's a USB-powered microwave oven. Next week: a USB-powerer rotisserie chicken cooker.

From Geoff Engelstein, a story about the classification of a new cloud.

From Jonathan Arnold, a link to DIGMAP, "a service for resource discovery and access to old maps and related resources, with a focus on their geographic information."

Here's a story about an artist who got arrested for allegedly stealing materials, but just take a look at the art: highway barrel monster.

From Andrew B, a story about the first man in space, and it's not who you expect.

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