Researchers at automation technology company Festo have developed what just might be the Best Robot Ever. They’ve made a version that swims in the air using helium and lightweight tentacles, as well as one that swims underwater. Totally mesmerizing - check out the video!
Indonesian photographer Rarindra Prakarsa conjures magical vignettes of misty rainforests, with sunbeams peaking through to illuminate his characters from behind like scenes from a fairy tale. I suspect there’s more than a little photoshopping going on here, but the result is breathtaking.
Martin Amm specializes in nature macro photography. This photo of fly beaded in morning dew (a small section of which I’ve cropped below) is my favorite shot, but you should check out his whole gallery.
This is just too cool for words. One winter day in New York City, 207 people casually wandered into Grand Central Station. At exactly 2:30 pm, they all froze in place like statues, confusing the many bystanders and official-looking people around them. Exactly 5 minutes later, they all continued on with their business as if nothing had happened.
The performance was organized by a group called Improv Everywhere, which has pulled off many such stunts over the past several years. The photos, obviously, don’t do it justice - so be sure to watch the video to get the full effect.
Will Ashford takes pages from old books and creates new works of art, obscuring or emphasizing certain words or letters through the use of inks, pencils, and translucent colored vellums.
In Hungary during World War II, vinyl for making records was hard to come by. So some clever folks used discarded medical X-ray film instead. Jozsef Hajdu presents some fine examples.
David Maisel’s Library of Dust consists of photographs of copper canisters containing the cremated remains of patients at a state-run psychiatric hospital (the same one where One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed). These initially plain and utilitarian urns are now bursting with color and texture as the ashes have interacted with the metals over the decades, imparting uniqueness and personality in defiance of their anonymity.
In 1716, the King of Prussia gave Russian czar Peter the Great a gift of a 180-square foot room encrusted with six tons of amber panels backed with gold leaf, aptly known as The Amber Room. Invading Nazis looted the room in 1941, packing the amber into crates and hightailing it back to Germany. The missing panels have never been found.
Artist Kent Rogowski turns teddy bears inside-out and restuffs them. I love these plucky little freaks!
In addition to being the most awesome-looking piece of machinery I have ever seen, the Large Helical Device is billed as the “largest superconducting stellarator in the world”. This Japanese fusion research device consists of intertwined coils of superconducting material, and is designed to contain a 100-million-degree nuclear fusion plasma. The research aims to solve the many engineering challenges that must be overcome in order for fusion reactors to produce more energy than they consume.
