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"My name is Blinky, and I just want to be your friend!" A well-crafted short film by Ruairi Robinson (slightly gory CGI ending may be NSFW).
posted by killdevil at 10:50 PM PST - 25 comments

The first nuclear reactor was in Africa, 2 billion years ago. Two billion years ago, there was enough uranium 235 in a naturally occurring deposit in Africa to fuel a nuclear fission reaction. In 16 separate locations, spontaneously occurring fission reactions went on for some hundreds of thousands of years, cycling multiple times per day. A picture of Fossil Reactor 15. The American Nuclear Society info site.
posted by bq at 10:43 PM PST - 46 comments

Giang Dinh uses the wet folding origami technique to make faces, animals, figures, and even miniatures.
posted by heatherann at 8:36 PM PST - 12 comments

The Van Allen Belt is a pesky radioactive torus surrounding Earth. Spacecraft operating for extended periods within it must use heavy and expensive radiation hardening techniques just to survive. Tethers Unlimited has proposed a rather daring scheme for circumventing this nuisance: HiVOLT. [more inside]
posted by Casimir at 8:22 PM PST - 24 comments

John D. Olmsted, a naturalist who for over 40 years led efforts to preserve Northern California nature areas, open spaces and hiking trails, recently passed away at the age of 73. A distant relative of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, John D. Olmsted was inspired by John Muir to preserve wilderness, and his son recently completed a film about his life.
posted by The Emperor of Ice Cream at 7:57 PM PST - 9 comments

AT&T has announced plans to acquire T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom, creating the largest wireless provider in the United States. [more inside]
posted by ofthestrait at 7:43 PM PST - 159 comments

Types of Toast. Does what it says on the tin.
posted by Effigy2000 at 7:16 PM PST - 47 comments

One Dutch radio geek is monitoring the airwaves for information about Operation Odyssey Dawn—and tweeting the surprisingly-detailed results.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:46 PM PST - 37 comments

“To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” Craig Venter created synthetic life and inscribed this quote from James Joyce into its genome. Now he has been threatened with a suit for copyright infringement by the very litigious James Joyce estate.
posted by caddis at 6:43 PM PST - 32 comments

This listing for my urine-free wetsuit is getting a lot of unexpected attention which is nice but I'm feeling I should do something positive with all the 'f*cking energy man', so I've decided to give 90% of the money it makes to the Red Cross to aid their efforts in Japan. That sounds all 'oh look at me I'm so nice I'm giving to charity' doesn't it... yeah well p*ss off. Ebay stunt post goes badly right.
posted by Jakey at 4:53 PM PST - 40 comments

In Australia, about 250 detainees rioted last week at Christmas Island's infamous detention centre in protest of their harsh treatment and long incarceration. The Federal Opposition has called for the rioters to be charged amid controversy over police use of beanbag rounds and tear gas. A former detainee is also 'suing for the pain and suffering of being locked up more than four years'.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:34 PM PST - 119 comments

Today is the 8th Anniversary of the beginning of the War in Iraq. Protesters around the country are trying to bring attention to our nation's continued involvement.
posted by whimsicalnymph at 3:45 PM PST - 38 comments

Greg Mclanahan of Gamasutra talks how to design achievements right.
posted by flatluigi at 3:37 PM PST - 78 comments

Venturing into a cave more than a few steps can induce intense psychological pressure and strange sensory phenomenon. Werner Herzog's latest film, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (trailer) shot in 3D inside Chauvet Cave in southern France suggests that our compulsion for this experience is shared with many ancient cultures, such as those at Chavin de Huantar, that may have included exploitation of the acoustic properties of caves.  We continue to descend into inner spaces, increasingly with high-tech equipment. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 2:22 PM PST - 30 comments

Girls Making Gun Sounds
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:39 PM PST - 96 comments

Being Alone. A good discussion on the upside of solitude, including cites to some research experiments. It's even on a single page.
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 11:47 AM PST - 69 comments

Wijnanda Deroo: Inside New York Eateries "Continuing her long-term exploration of the architectural interior as a genre of photographic investigation, artist Wijnanda Deroo has scoured New York's five boroughs documenting the full spectrum of the city's culinary institutions. From Café des Artistes to Papaya Dog, the Russian Tea Room to Yonah Schimmel's Knishes, Deroo's viewfinder alights on diverse sites (and sights) where we New Yorkers sit (or stand) to consume our daily bread." More interiors at the artist's website -- Indonesia :: Curacao :: Mexico :: Berlin
posted by puny human at 10:44 AM PST - 5 comments

"On our island we loved to watch football. But no one had actually ever played it." The story of a football team on the floating village of Ko Panyi. [more inside]
posted by Taft at 10:24 AM PST - 16 comments

What would some famous (and infamous) comicbook classics look like as Penguins or Pelicans? [more inside]
posted by kipmanley at 10:16 AM PST - 12 comments

The xkcd Radiation Dose Chart. (More about it.) (via)
posted by Artw at 10:09 AM PST - 95 comments

I LIKE GOING ONTO MY FRIENDS FACEBOOK PAGE, TAKING PHOTOS OF HIM, CHANGING HIS FACE SLIGHTLY THEN PUTTING THEM BACK UP ON FACEBOOK. HE DOESN'T LIKE ME DOING THIS.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 9:50 AM PST - 162 comments

Harmony Korine's Ushimini Wam. A 16-minute short where Ninja and Yo Landi from South Africa's Die Antwoord, "play trigger-happy, gun-toting misfits who bond throughout the film by sharing cartoonishly huge joints, sticking-up business owners, and seeking refuge and shelter in the woods."
posted by geoff. at 9:34 AM PST - 18 comments

My Favorite Color. Another Youtube mix from Kutiman. Previously.
posted by zabuni at 8:18 AM PST - 17 comments

Paris in 2000 images. A time lapse of Paris at night. Interview with the creator. [more inside]
posted by Phire at 1:49 AM PST - 22 comments

Dogs with table manners. Slow, surreal and delightful.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 12:35 AM PST - 23 comments

Neal Adams is one of the greatest comic artists, best known for drawing the most reprinted comic sequence and revitalizing Batman after the campy Adam West show . Now, Neal Adams is returning to Batman with a 12 issue mini-series titled Odyssey and six issues in, some are already calling the story " without hyperbole... the most insane comic book we have ever read ." While some might be shocked that the famous Adams seems to have lost his way and is acting a little crazy, Metafilter readers probably should have seen this coming
posted by jaybeans at 12:26 AM PST - 80 comments