On the
6th of December 2011, as has been traditional for the past 9 decades since Finland's Independence, the President, Tarja Halonen and her spouse, Dr Pentti Arajarvi
host what is known as the
Linnan juhlat or Castle Ball, an
extremely popular televised reception for the notables of the nation. Along with the usual dignitaries, the President is also permitted to select invitees based on merit - entertainers, athletes, individuals - whom she feels have been in the news in the past year.
This year Peter and Teija Vesterbacka also were invited due to Peter Vesterbacka's work as the CMO of Rovio. Teija Vesterbacka wore a red dress for the evening that had design concepts from one of the birds in the mobile game Angry Birds.
Highlighted
in the Finnish news by the very select group of photographers permitted entry to this exclusive event, it was when the photograph of this dress went viral among global MSM that
the angry birds began to fly.
posted by infini
on Dec 8, 2011 -
29 comments
Ghost of Gone Birds. Over 100 artists were invited to choose an extinct bird and produce a piece of art inspired by that particular bird and celebrating its glory days. Birds celebrated in the show include the Dodo, the Matinique Amazon Parrot, the Black Mamo and the Great Auk.
posted by sweetkid
on Nov 4, 2011 -
5 comments
How to hatch a dinosaur: 'So making a chicken egg hatch a baby dinosaur should really just be an issue of erasing what evolution has done to make a chicken. Every cell of a turkey carries the blueprints for making a tyrannosaurus, but the way the plans get read changes over time as the species evolves.' [
via]
posted by dhruva
on Oct 7, 2011 -
54 comments
Who invented the cloacascope? Who could pinpoint minute structural characteristics of charred bird feathers and identify the bird species or family based on the feathers? Who was the oldest of 15 children and worked for more than 50 years at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History?
Roxie (large image).
Roxie C. Laybourne, feather
detective,
pioneer of
forensic ornithology.
[more inside]
posted by cashman
on Mar 14, 2011 -
13 comments
Since the very beginning, PRI's This American Life has (every few years) commemorated Thanksgiving in the US with episodes about the exotic mysteries of turkeys, chicken and other fowl. They call it
Poultry Slam and episodes from
1995,
1996,
1997,
1998,
1999,
2003,
2007 and
2008 are all available for your turkey day and I-refuse-to-even-look-at-a-Walmart day enjoyment.
posted by l33tpolicywonk
on Nov 24, 2010 -
6 comments
Things stuffed inside other things: You've heard of
turducken, but what if that isn't enough for you? The largest stuffed dish in terms of sheer bulk may be this
recipe for stuffed camel, a dish so decadently large that Snopes had to
verify its existence. But if the stuffed camel isn't enough layers for you, the most nested dish of all time may be the
Roti Sans Pareil ("Roast without Equal"), a 19th century French dish requiring 17 birds that are now mostly endangered. Thanks to Google Books, we can now peruse some 19th century recipes of the dish (
1,
2,
3) or, if you prefer, you can read the
original French.
posted by jonp72
on Nov 26, 2009 -
28 comments
Murmur. Photographs of flocking birds by Richard Barnes.
Boids. A program by Craig Reynolds modeling emergent behavior.
Swarm. A platform and wiki for agent-based modelers.
posted by OmieWise
on Sep 17, 2009 -
14 comments
Dinosaur coloration has always been a source of wild speculation. Artistic renders have ranged from the conservative (battleship grey, lizard green) to the
flamboyant, but all guesses appeared
equally valid. While there are some wonderfully preserved examples of
dinosaur skin texture, fossils have remained stubbornly monochromatic… until now.
[more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Aug 11, 2009 -
62 comments
