Furniture made by pouring molten aluminum over wood:

Hilla Shamia creates beautiful, weird furniture by placing logs inside molds and filling them with molten aluminum: “The negative factor of burnt wood is transformed into aesthetic and emotional value by preservation of the natural form of the tree trunk, within explicit boundaries. The general, squared form intensifies the artificial feeling, and at the same time keeps the memory of the material.” [via Design Milk]

A Softer World:

buy this print
Or share on:
facebook
reddit

Can Anything Take Down the Facebook Juggernaut?: After just eight years in existence, Facebook has more than 750 million users and is on the cusp to becoming a medium unto itself. Can anything take down the social networking giant?

When Thomas Edison forced the cats to box:

These delightful boxing felines were equipped with miniature boxing gloves and set to brawling by none other than legendary douchebag Thomas Edison, as a means of promoting his newfangled moving picture device in 1894.

Thomas Edison – 1894 Boxing cats

(Thanks, Isaak!)

Exquisite Papercraft Stop Motion Video for Ödland:







I was absolutely floored watching this enchanting stop motion video directed by Vincent Pianina and Lorenzo Papace for a song called Østersøen that was also written, composed, and recorded by Papace for his band Ödland off the album Sankta Lucia. What strikes me most about the video is the transitions between scenes, as objects change scale or as the camera zooms in to reveal alternate dimensions embedded in the smallest of areas. You’ll watch it two or three times before you see everything. See many more making-of photos over on Le Petit Écho Malade. Can somebody please give this Papace guy lots of money so he can make a short film? I would pay lots of money to see it.

The Land Art of Sylvain Meyer:

New to me, these wonderful land art installations by French artist Sylvain Meyer who modifies wooded areas and landscapes to create various impermanent patterns, sculptures, and textures. Everything seen here was constructed without the use of Photoshop, even the mossy spider. Whoa! See much more over on Flickr. I’ve also finally crated a land art tag for Colossal. (via ruines humaines)

Elmo and Ricky Gervais blooper reel:

Here’s a blooper reel of Ricky Gervais and Sesame Street’s Elmo cracking wise and crossing the line.

Gervais + Elmo = Hilarity on ‘Sesame Street’

(via Metafilter)

Using viruses to harvest energy for mobile devices:

For years, researchers have worked on fascinating methods to scavenge power from kinetic energy — humming air conditioning ducts, roads that vibrate as cars pass over, etc. Now, engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are integrating viruses into small devices that convert mechanical energy into electricity. The harmless viruses exhibit natural piezoelectric properties — when stress is applied to them, they accumulate charge. In this prototype viral-electric generator, tapping a finger on the virus-coated electrode cranks out enough current to drive a tiny LCD display.

The milestone could lead to tiny devices that harvest electrical energy from the vibrations of everyday tasks such as shutting a door or climbing stairs.

It also points to a simpler way to make microelectronic devices. That’s because the viruses arrange themselves into an orderly film that enables the generator to work. Self-assembly is a much sought after goal in the finicky world of nanotechnology.

“More research is needed, but our work is a promising first step toward the development of personal power generators, actuators for use in nano-devices, and other devices based on viral electronics,” says Seung-Wuk Lee, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and a UC Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering.

“Berkeley Lab Scientists Generate Electricity From Viruses“