Norsk Aurora ~ NASA spots Sørgjerd's Timelapse

NASA APOD spots Terje Sørgjerd timelapse of aurora over Norway...

Flying Tiare ~ Carrying Passengers to Paradise!

Neatorama spots Flying Tiare, a fan-vid about Air Tahiti Nui!

Extreme Railways ~ Congo-Braz's Jungle Tracks!

Chris Tarrant visits the Republic of the Congo on Extreme Railways!

Boston Venturemap ~ Kirsner Spots Startups...

The Globe's Innovation Economist Scott Kirsner shares how Boston's startup boom will continue into 2014 where he especially emphasizes venture hubs...

"When you put together the complete list, in 2014 there will be more places in Boston than Cambridge where you'll have a coterie of entrepreneurs working in the same office. [...] Here's an annotated Google Map I created of all these new incubators, accelerators, and shared office spaces in downtown Boston and the Innovation District."

Building Turbofans ~ Rolls-Royce's Trent Engine!

Epic engineering masterpiece, the Rolls-Royce Trent turbofan engine!

Malthus Miffed ~ Cohen on Human Demography

NYTimes DotEarthling Andrew Revkin writes in his Tutorial on Humanity’s Path to and Beyond 7 Billion about "meshing human development and planetary limits" and spotlights Prof Joel Cohen's Malthus Miffed: Are People the Problem, the Solution, or Both?

Futureplanes ~ Emerging Flight Concepts...

Nexpected spots E-Thrust from EADS and Rolls-Royce... NextBigFuture spots Spike Aerospace... The QSST... Boeing unleashed... Airbus future cabin... And here's a bit of history-as-future, a 2003 flight in the BA Concorde, the iconic supersonic airliner which, alas, has since been discontinued but which demonstrated design beauty, speed, and modernity in vivo...

Black Dolls ~ Modeling Beauty, Self-Esteem...

Lisa Hix in CollectorsWeekly shares Black Is Beautiful: Why Black Dolls Matter which points at the award-winning documentary Why Do You Have Black Dolls? by Samantha Knowles...

"Black dolls are more than just playthings -- they are powerful cultural artifacts that represent the history of the people they depict."

This reminds me of the still-shocking experiment on race by Drs Kenneth and Mamie Clark where in young African American kids were shown black and white dolls and asked their opinions, here replicated by Good Morning America... Filmmaker Kiri Davis earlier recreated the doll study in her A Girl Like Me documentary...

Into The Atmosphere ~ Shainblum's Timelapse...

The Creators Project spotlights Into The Atmosphere timelapse by Michael Shainblum... And here's The Art Of The Timelapse where we meet Shainblum and see how he does it! Thanks to UniqueDaily for spotting these!

Star Wars Downunder ~ Homebrew Aussie SF;-)

MissC spots homebrew Oz SF, Star Wars Downunder;-)

Star Bubble ~ NASA APOD Spots Sharpless 308!

NASA APOD spots Jeff Husted's beautiful image of Sharpless 308, the Star Bubble!

Future of Humanity ~ Speculation & Forecasts

A few documentaries on Future of Humanity...

Coordinated Migration ~ FB on Human Relocation

Thanks to the DM's Ellie Zolfagharifard for spotting How Facebook reveals human migration...

"Facebook data scientists recently compared users’ hometowns with their current residences to uncover the top 10 cities that had coordinated migrations -- or the movement of large numbers of people from one place to another. The top destinations were found throughout the world in countries that are rapidly urbanising. In these areas at least 20 per cent of the population of one city had moved to another city. [...] ‘We believe that these migrations have cultural and political motives, on top of economical ones,’ said Facebook. [...] According to this data, countries such as India, Nigeria, and Turkey are becoming increasingly urban, with many people moving from rural areas into large cities such as Hyderabad and Chennai in India and Lagos in Nigeria. For most of the cities on the top 10 list, the megacity migrations are coming from within the same countries."

Kung Fury ~ 1980's Action-Comedy is Kickstarting!

Check out Kung Fury which is Kickstarting now! Epic 1980's action-comedy-adventure done by homebrew team in Sweden!

Tech's Next Feats ~ On Singularity & Abundance

Seb at Lifeboat spots PBS's Tech's Next Feats...

English ~ Birthing of our Global Common Lingo!

Beautiful historical reflection on emergence of English language!

1. Birth of a Language
2. English Goes Underground
3. The Battle for the Language of the Bible
4. This Earth, This Realm, This England
5. English in America
6. Speaking Proper
7. The Language of Empire
8. Many Tongues Called English, One World Language

I'm particularly amused by the influence of America on English... And here's one final bonus nugget -- a compare and contrast of Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation versus contemporary English!

Food Machine ~ PBS's America Revealed #1

PBS's America Revealed first episode, Food Machine...

Cargo Bikes ~ Urban Logistics History & Races!

Mikael Colville-Andersen over at Copenhagenize spotlights a great, often underappreciated element of urban logistics -- Cargo Bikes! First, a steady stream of photographic examples now gathered together as the Cargo Bike Nation book!

Second, an Episode of their Top 10 Design Elements in Copenhagen's Bicycle Culture. Third, a spotlight on the Cyclelogistics initiative. Fourth, a pointer to a Spectacular Cargo Bike Collection in Italy with a free e-book by Felino Tassi about Nello Sandrinelli's passion for vintage cargo bikes! And finally, they're crowdfunding a cargo bike race in Rio de Janeiro -- Campeonato Carioca de Cargueiras...

Titanic Disaster ~ CGI Simulation of Sinking...

NatGeo shares Titanic: The Final Word With James Cameron who with his team craft CGI of how Titanic hit berg, took on water, and ultimately sank and hit the ocean floor... And here's NatGeo's Seconds from Disaster story...

Slingers ~ Prospective SF Show Promo Trailer

Check out Slingers by Sizemore, et al...

Behind Gravity ~ Making Cuarón's Space Thriller

io9's Meredith Woerner spots A Gorgeous Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Alfonso Cuarón Made Gravity!

Spike ~ 3D Measuring & Modeling via Mobiles

NBF spots Spike, laser accurate 3D object and building measurement & modeling via mobile with clip-on. See Kickstarter campaign vid... Especially check out this quick'n'dirty 3D building modeling element! This reminds me of Mok3 crossed with Viztu with a touch of C3 Technologies;-)

Earthrise ~ Story of NASA Astronauts Epic Photo!

Thanks to Scott Kirsner for pointing to Rebecca Rosen's Atlantic piece, How Astronauts Nearly Missed Taking the Iconic Earthrise Photo on Christmas Eve, 1968 forty-five years ago today! Check out the NASA retrospective video reconstructing the photography as-it-happened! And here we see the three astronauts reflect on that great flight during troubled times...

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Cubli ~ Jumping, Balancing, Walking Robobox!

Check out ETHZ researchers work on the Cubli...

"...a 15 × 15 × 15 cm cube that can jump up and balance on its corner. Reaction wheels mounted on three faces of the cube rotate at high angular velocities and then brake suddenly, causing the Cubli to jump up. Once the Cubli has almost reached the corner stand up position, controlled motor torques are applied to make it balance on its corner. In addition to balancing, the motor torques can also be used to achieve a controlled fall such that the Cubli can be commanded to fall in any arbitrary direction. Combining these three abilities -- jumping up, balancing, and controlled falling -- the Cubli is able to 'walk'."

Jewel Box Sun ~ NASA's SDO Sees Waves!

Thanks to Lauren Davis at io9 for spotting NASA SDO video Jewel Box Sun which...

"... shows the wide range of wavelengths -- invisible to the naked eye -- that the telescope can view. SDO converts the wavelengths into an image humans can see, and the light is colorized into a rainbow of colors. [...] Yellow light of 5800 Angstroms, for example, generally emanates from material of about 10,000 degrees F (5700 degrees C), which represents the surface of the sun. Extreme ultraviolet light of 94 Angstroms, which is typically colorized in green in SDO images, comes from atoms that are about 11 million degrees F (6,300,000 degrees C) and is a good wavelength for looking at solar flares, which can reach such high temperatures."

Urban Vision ~ Cities, Scaling and Sustainability

The complexity science-oriented Santa Fe Institute spotlights their urban vision of Cities, Scaling and Sustainability...

Bubble Nebula ~ NASA spots Cosmic Globule!

NASA APOD spots Bubble Nebula image by J-P Metsävainio!

Seeding Labs ~ Nina Dudnik @ IDEAS Boston

Seeding Labs founder Nina Dudnik @ IDEAS Boston 2013!

This I Believe ~ Heinlein's Broadcast Creed...

Thanks to the Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities for posting the audio and transcript of science fiction grandmaster Robert A Heinlein's broadcast of This I Believe on the Edward R Murrow radio show in 1952...

Religiosity vs Prosperity ~ Economic Correlations

While trawling through references about faith, irrationality, and other mental illnesses, I came across this interesting chart correlating Religiosity vs Prosperity -- measured as percentage of the population who self-describe themselves as a "religious person" plotted versus per capita annual income...

Hack This Book ~ Art of Tinkering's e-Cover!

Check out the Art of Tinkering's conductive ink cover...

"Its cover is printed with a special ink that conducts electricity, allowing readers to make their own circuits right on the book and get in on all the tinkering fun."

Smarty Ring ~ Finger Control of Mobile Apps!

Thanks to DM's Victoria Woolaston for spotting the Smarty Ring, a...

"...stainless steel gadget [which] connects to smartphones via Bluetooth using a dedicated app. Its LED screen lights up each time the wearer gets an email, text message, Facebook and Twitter notifications and phone calls, and the ring can also be used as a remote control."

(Seems too good to be true. I hope this is not merely "design & visualization" exercise and they've actually figured out power management, etc.)

Megacity Logistics ~ Emerging Research @ MIT

MIT colleague Willow Brugh took Prezi notes on CityScience luncheon talk by MIT's Edgar Blanco of the Megacity Logistics Lab about his research on understanding...

"Megacities -- cities with a population of at least 10 million people -- are increasing in both number and size, and their share of world GDP is expected to grow from about 15% to over 20% in a decade. Most of the 31 megacities that currently exist are located in emerging markets. Up until now research on the megacity phenomenon has centered on the urban landscape, people mobility and managing traffic congestion. Based within the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, the Megacity Logistics Lab focuses on understanding and transforming the supply chains that interface with these sprawling urban centers."

Miracle Rising ~ South Africa’s Political Reboot...

The History Channel's Miracle Rising documentary shares how...

"South Africa, against all odds, avoided a civil war, ended apartheid enabling the country to have its first free and fair democratic election. The word ‘Rising’ comes from a comment that Oprah Winfrey made during her interview which was to “rise and transcend to something higher” which is what happened to make this miracle possible. [...] “Also the idea of a “Miracle Rising” is something that is never finished or complete -- but always in process -- is a more accurate way of describing most political situations in that they are always evolving."

The 16th Man ~ Mandela and the Springboks

ESPN's 16th Man documentary... Plus, here's the actual 1995 match...

Generations ~ Germain's Portraits of Families!

Thanks to John Farrier at Neatorama for spotting Julian Germain's Generations series of photographs showing recursive {child + parent} family portraits!

DataViva ~ Visualizing Economic Activity!

MIT Media Lab Professor César Hidalgo and his Macro Connections group colleagues working with the state of Minas Gerais have created DataViva to visualize and help people understand the full richness of Brazilian economic activity.

Remember Pearl ~ Surprise, Failure, & Lessons

Imperial Japan's infamous attack on US forces in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii 72 years ago today killed thousands and expanded WWII greatly. But it was such a surprise and so devastating largely because of unconcerned, inattentive, and incompetent intelligence, military, and government authorities, much like 9/11 sixty years later. Let that be the ultimate lesson:  visionary leadership, eternal vigilance, and creative ability are all three together paramount for civilization to survive the forces of malice and perfidy and indeed thrive towards human greatness, overcoming the evil irrationalities of colonial imperialism, religious fanaticism, and political collectivism.

Freezing Time ~ DIY 360 Matrix Video Effect!

UD spots Freezing Time!

R.I.P. Madiba ~ Alas Nelson Mandela is Gone...

Sad to hear South Africa's Nelson Mandela has passed away.

World Outside ~ ISS Views Timelapse!

io9's Robert Gonzalez spots The World Outside My Window - Time Lapse of Earth from the ISS by David Peterson & colleagues...

Perfect Mannequins ~ Pro Infirmis Body Doubles!

Thanks to Anna Hodgekiss at the DailyMail for spotting the Pro Infirmis perfect mannequins project!

"A Swiss charity has created mannequins based on the bodies of disabled people in a bid to raise awareness that no one has a perfect body. Pro Infirmis, an organisation for people with disabilities, worked with people suffering from scoliosis (a curved spine), shortened limbs and a woman in a wheelchair. Each had a mannequin made to perfectly reflect their body shape -- which, to their delight, was then displayed in a high street store in Zurich's main shopping street. [...] The aim of the project is to raise awareness of people with disabilities, specifically in the image-obsessed worlds of fashion and retail. [...] Because who is perfect?"

Curing Aging ~ de Grey on Healthy Longevity!

Thanks to Johnny Boston at H+ for spotlighting Galactic Public Archives interview with a genial modern-day Merlin, Dr Aubrey de Grey, on addressing the world's most important problem -- the diseases and ravages of aging -- via Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence or SENS... This is especially important in light of the neo-luddite anti-gerontechnology movement festering in our society, for instance Daniel Callahan's screed in the NYTimes On Dying After Your Time.

More Namba Parks ~ Urban Oasis in Osaka!

Namba Parks is an urban oasis in Osaka, Japan. Built on the old Osaka baseball stadium site and designed by Jon Jerde, NP is an eight level rooftop garden with waterfalls, terraces, etc!

Mobile is Eating the World ~ Ben Evans Vision...

Benedict Evans shares how Mobile is Eating the World...

Surprise Rescue ~ Saved from Sunken Jascon 4!

Thanks to gCaptain's Mike Schuler for spotting the stunning surprise rescue of Nigerian cook Harrison Okene from the sunken tug Jascon 4, which had settled 30m down on the ocean floor after capsizing... And here's the simply amazing experience from the DCN Global diver Nico van Heerden's perspective... Note Nico's squeeky voice probably comes from breathing a helium-oxygen blend and not from getting a "huge fright" from a hand reaching out of the briny gloom! The long recovery period was to avoid the bends decompression sickness. Cook Okene stayed cool despite traumatic circumstances and speed with which things went wrong. This is great illustration of why should never quit and also of need for better imaging and mapping and robo-automation tools to help navigate and understand extreme conditions, including deepwater, sharp edges, etc.

ISON Lives ~ NASA Spots Sungrazing Comet

NASA APOD spots sungrazing Comet ISON!