En Pointe ~ Custom Surgery & Prosthesis Too!

Very cool to see young Gabi Shull dance again, overcoming knee cancer with novel ankle-as-knee transplant and custom dancing prosthetic! Thanks to John Farrier from Neatorama for spotting this!

King of Random ~ Mini Arc Furnace Smeltorama!

Lisa Marcus at Neatorama spots King of Random awesomeness, specifically latest Mini Arc Furnace!

Dogs On the Inside ~ Transforming Prisoners...

Neatorama's Lisa Marcus shares about Dogs and Prisoners Learning Valuable Lessons from Each Other in a documentary film called Dogs On the Inside...

"Filmed in a Massachusetts prison, follows the story of stray dogs in the community who were rescued and placed with prisoners at a minimum security prison. Before their rescues, the dogs were likely on a path to be euthanized in shelters. The goal of the program is for the prisoners to develop empathy and loving feelings toward the dogs, who in turn learn to trust humans in spite of any troubled histories they may have suffered. It seems to be situation benefiting both the dogs and the inmates."

Blue Flaming Java Lava ~ Ijen's Sulfurous Spew!

Lisa Marcus at Neatorama spots Blue Flaming Java Lava!

Panama Canal Timelapse ~ Translogistics Marvel!

Neatorama spots Panama Canal Timelapse...

Identities ~ Ana Oliveira's Generational Portraits!

Neatorama's Zeon Santos spotlights lovely portraits by Ana Oliveira exploring self-generational Identities!

Edible Planets ~ Spherical Concentric Layer Cake!

LOL, Spherical Concentric Layer Cakes...

"This tutorial will show you the most basic and least equipment-heavy way of baking the concentric layer cake as seen in both the Earth cake and Jupiter cake. You can stop at half way and just make a hemisphere cake, or make two hemispheres and join them into one as in this video."

P.S. Neatorama's John Farrier spots Beth Klosterboer's Earth Cake with Rock Candy Core...

Upsee ~ Harness Enables Kids to Walk & Play!

Thanks to John Farrier at Neatorama for spotting the Upsee...

"Debby Elnatan's young son, Rotem, has cerebral palsy. He has very limited mobility. She wanted to find a way to help him experience upright movement, so she invented the Upsee. It's a harness that straps a child to the legs and waist of an adult. Both the child and the adult wear sandals that are joined together and slip over their shoes. With the adult's assistance, the child can step, walk, dance and even kick. Both can keep their hands free while doing so. Elnatan took the Upsee to Leckey, a child accessory manufacturer in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. On Monday, the company released Upsee for global distribution."

The DailyMail shares more parent+child experiences...

"Short-term, the Upsee improves special needs family participation and quality of life, while research suggests it has the potential to help with physical and emotional development in the longer term,' she said. 'It has been humbling to see the progress and happiness the Upsee is creating; watching children to do simple things for the first time such as kicking a ball or playing with a sibling is wonderful for everyone involved, but especially the families."

Ecosystem Engineers ~ Wolves Change Rivers?

MissC at Neatorama spots How Wolves Change Rivers by the folks at Sustainable Man...

"When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? George Monbiot explains in this movie remix."

Update: Whoops, stop the presses, in NYTimes OpEd piece Is the Wolf a Real American Hero?, Yale Forestry & Enviro Studies Post-Doc Arthur Middleton calls "BS" on this simplistic myth...

"This story -- that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone by killing and frightening elk -- is one of ecology’s most famous. It’s the classic example of what’s called a “trophic cascade,” and has appeared in textbooks, on National Geographic centerfolds and in this newspaper. Americans may know this story better than any other from ecology, and its grip on our imagination is one of the field’s proudest contributions to wildlife conservation. But there is a problem with the story: It’s not true. [...] When we tell the wolf story, we get the Yellowstone story wrong."

As DailyKos quotes, this is damning...

"Perhaps the greatest risk of this story is a loss of credibility for the scientists and environmental groups who tell it."

Earth ~ Beccario's Weather Interactographic...

Miss Cellania at Neatorama spots Earth, Cameron Beccario's interactive visualization of global weather conditions...

Flying Tiare ~ Carrying Passengers to Paradise!

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

Hand Tools ~ Family Tree of Enabling Tech!

MissC at Neatorama spots Chart of Hand Tools!

Adventure Is Calling ~ America's Great Spaces!

Thanks to Alex Santoso at Neatorama for spotting Adventure Is Calling timelapse vista by Shane Black & crew with view of a dozen of America's great National Parks!

Independence Arm ~ Dee Faught's Rice Roboapp

Neatorama spots Dee Faught's Rice robotarm...

Slime Watch ~ LED Tracking of Garden Snails...

Prof Dave Hodgson, an ecologist at the University of Exeter, and his team embarked on a Slime Watch to find that...

"...snails will travel distances of up to 25 metres in a 24-hour period, and seek out areas of shelter, such as long grass, trees or objects, including dogs' toys, left in the garden overnight. The four researchers from Exeter University also discovered that snails move in convoys, piggy-backing on the slime of other snails to conserve energy. It is thought that a snail could use up to 30 per cent of its energy in slime production alone. The study was commissioned by the Be Lungworm Aware campaign as a resource for dog owners, whose pets are at risk from a potentially fatal parasite spread by slugs and snails..."

(See also pieces in Neatorama and at DailyMail)

Silicon;BootDrive ~ Biomorphs & 'Roids SF Short!

Kuriositas spots Silicon;BootDrive SF shortfilm...

FingerLink ~ Fujitsu's Gestural I/O GUI System...

Alex Santoso at Neatorama spots Fujitsu FingerLink... Reminds me of MIT Media Lab work, especially John Underkoffler's 1999 I/O Bulb and Natan Linder's 2011 LuminAR.

Hyperpolyglot ~ 16yo Speaks 26 Lingos!

John Farrier at Neatorama spots ITN story on Timothy Donor 16-Year Old Can Speak 23 Languages...

Smarter Sandbox ~ AR-Enhanced Playspace

John Farrier at Neatorama spots Augmented Reality Sandbox...

Toa Mata Band ~ Giuseppe Acito's Lego Bionicles

MissC spots Giuseppe Acito's Lego Bionicle Toa Mata Band!