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This machine plays music using 2000 marbles
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After two years of work, Martin Molin of the Swedish band Wintergatan debuted a fully custom-made machine that plays music using 2,000 marbles. The marble machine features multiple instruments including a bass guitar, cymbals, and a vibraphone all played by falling marbles. Apart from the 11 mm steel ball bearing marbles, he made all the gears powering the machine by hand. ...
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3938 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
What looks like an octopus and stinks likes a skunk?
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The octopus stinkhorn mushroom ( Clathrus archeri) looks like an octopus and stinks like rotten flesh in order to attract the flies that spread its spores. This fungus is indigenous to Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand, and an introduced species in Europe, North America and Asia. As shown in the video, the young fungus erupts from a sub-erumpent egg by forming into four to seven elongated slender arms initially erect and attached at the top. The arms then unfold to reveal a pinkish-red interior covered with a dark-olive spore-containing gleba. In maturity it smells of putrid flesh. ...
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5491 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
Check out the footage of this tricky plant
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To tap into scarce water supplies, most desert plants have extensive root systems that burrow deep or spread wide. But one desert moss has a different trick up its sleeve: a thirst-quenching structure called an awn. Awns are tiny, hairlike structures that project from the end of each leaf to capture water (above). For the first time, scientists have examined in detail how this moss ( Syntrichia caninervis) pulls water right from the air using its awns. At the smallest scale, the awns are covered with grooves about 100 nanometers deep and 200 nanometers wide, the perfect size for dew to condense within them when conditions are right. Those nanogrooves lie within larger troughs that measure about 1.5 micrometers deep and 3 micrometers wide, a ...
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4101 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
Living without a heart
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Stan Larkin (pictured on the right), who's now 25, was diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy. This form of disease results in the heart having difficulty pumping enough blood through the body. Faced with a lack of compatible heart donors, Stan underwent an operation in 2014 to remove his failing heart and replace it with an external total artificial heart, dubbed the Freedom portable driver. This battery-powered device uses compressed air to pump blood around the body in the same way a heart does, and as the name suggests, it is portable and only weighs 6 kilograms (13 pounds). The device does an incredible job at keeping the patient in a healthy condition while a donor heart becomes available, but it isn’t considered a long-term option. ...
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6103 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
Watch this rare footage of a housewife on LSD
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Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is a recreational, psychedelic drug that alter awareness of the surroundings, perceptions, and feelings, as well as sensations and images that seem real though they are not. LSD works by binding primarily to the dopamine receptors and adrenal receptors in the brain. It also binds to most of the serotonin receptors. The binding process is believed to overstimulate the natural neurotransmission process, activating the receptors and altering thought and perceptions. Though medical researchers have not scientifically proven how this process alters consciousness, they are certain about the binding process which links hallucinogenic chemicals to receptors and disrupts neurotransmission between receptors and parts of ...
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3495 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
Why do hard liquors keep you warm?
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Anyone who has ever taken a shot of hard liquor (tequila, brandy) can tell you: it burns on the way down. But it's not the alcohol itself that's burning your throat. Instead, the ethanol in the liquid is making your throat's VR1 heat receptors (left) more sensitive, prompting them to perceive your own body temperature as hot. Normally, the VR1 receptors activate at 42° Celsius, but alcohol lowers this threshold to around 34° C, which is 4° C less than your bodies regulated temperature. ...
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4164 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
How to paint an island red with crabs
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Christmas Island is a unique natural habitat located in the Indian Ocean with many endemic species. The national park covers two-thirds of the island, which has been referred to as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean. Many people are aware of the red crabs whose mass migration to the sea has been described as one of the wonders of the natural world. Christmas Island has many other species of crabs, including the impressive robber crabs ( Gecarcoidea natalis). These may be the largest land-dwelling arthropod on Earth. Together these abundant land crabs clear the forests of leaf litter and maintain burrows that prevent soil becoming compacted, creating an open and diverse forest. This thriving natural system, however, was disrupted by an invasive ...
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7989 |
duddy |
7 years ago |
Hammers are no match for this glass
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The tough-yet-fragile physical properties of the tadpole-shaped pieces of glass known as Prince Rupert’s drops have puzzled physicists for as long as, well, there have been physicists. Bash the head with a hammer, and a drop gets barely a scratch. But break off its thin tail, and it shatters into fine powder. Researchers long ago realized that the strength of the drops - named for Prince Rupert of Bavaria, who presented five of them to Britain’s King Charles II in 1660 - has something to do with stresses in the glass created when a drop is made by letting a blob of molten glass fall into water, so that it cools rapidly. Twenty years ago, a pair of researchers took high-speed video of a drop disintegrating showing that, when the tail is brok ...
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3834 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
What causes the rattle in a rattlesnake's tail?
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Rattlesnakes are a group of venomous snakes native to the Americas known for their loud rattling tail. The tip of their tail, known as the rattle (middle), vibrates to deter predators or serves as a warning to passers-by. The rattle is composed of a series of hollow, interlocked segments made of keratin, which are created by modifying the scales that cover the tip of the tail. The contraction of special "shaker" muscles in the tail causes these segments to vibrate against one another, making the rattling noise (which is amplified because the segments are hollow) in a behavior known as tail vibration. The muscles that cause the rattle to shake are some of the fastest known, firing 50 times per second on average, sustained for up to three hour ...
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5983 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
Watch this 1940's Disney Cartoon Made to Fight Malaria
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In 1943, Walt Disney helped combat malaria by making an animated film called The Winged Scourge. This short film starred the seven dwarfs and taught children that mosquitoes transmit malaria, which is a very bad disease. While not specifically mentioned in the film, malaria is caused by several species of the protozoan Plasmodium, of which Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum are the most common. The most serious infections involve P. falciparum, which causes a higher incidence of complications and death. The short film advocated the killing of mosquitoes to stop the disease. Luckily, by 1951, malaria was finally eliminated in the United States ( eliminated means that no new cases arose in the country for 3 years). Today, oral chloroqui ...
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3756 |
bio_man |
4 years ago |
Fashion matters
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Although I'm a guy, I enjoyed watching this video. I also appreciate a modestly-dressed woman
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3859 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Go home nature. You are drunk!
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This is the Wilson's bird-of-paradise, found exclusively on the tiny islands of Waigeo and Batanta in the Raja Ampat archipelago of West Papua. That turquoise cap isn't made of feathers - it's actually a patch of very brightly coloured bald skin.
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3283 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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4683 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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10817 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
Finally, some good news related to tigers
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India’s tiger population has risen from 1,706 individuals to 2,226 in the past four years, officials have reported. With the global population teetering around 3,000 individuals, this kind of growth is incredible.
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30296 |
duddy |
9 years ago |
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