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Jumping Stick Insect Looks Like A Sci-Fi Character

Alex Wild took this photo of an Apioscelis jumping stick insect in the Jatun Sacha reserve, Napo, Ecuador, that looks straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Barack Obama sings Call Me Maybe

Fadi Saleh, a 19-year-old biochemistry major, started Barack’s Dubs, a popular YouTube music video series that slices clips from Obama’s speeches together to forcefully recreate pop songs like “Born This Way” and “Call Me Maybe.” Backed by Maker Studies, his channel has over 127,000 subscribers and an online store, featuring T-shirts featuring Obama dressed as Lady Gaga and Redfoo from LMFAO with phrases like “Tea Party” and  “Sorry for party rocking.” Saleh uses videos from the White House public domain and his video-editing skills to produce this quality entertainment. Bravo!

Frankenstein's Monster Variations

This funky Frankenstein's monster sculpture looks good enough to eat! Created as part of the It’s Alive Project, this is one of 80 busts created by different artists striving to show the monster in a different light. Look out for the FrankenBieber, and the hilarious Mt. Frankenmore!

Gull Attack!

Wildlife photographer Markus Varesvuo snapped this amazing picture of a herring gull attacking an eagle. Gulls often join together to drive predators away from breeding grounds, but sometimes solitary gulls do the dirty work, too. For the greatest impact, they swoop in from above and behind a bird of prey.

Ketchup Fountain

Chocolate fountains…psshh, those are so 2008. These days, it’s all about the ketchup fountain when you want to make a classy statement at your next party.

Making of a 3D LEGO Chalk Drawing

After a picture of the LEGO street painting was posted on Reddit, the Internet took over, making it a sensation online. Created for the Sarasota Chalk Festival in Florida, this amazing mashup of Legos and Terracotta warriors is magnificent in every sense of the word.

What exactly went into creating it? "There were some challenges, starting with translating our first design to a gridded blueprint with the exact right distortions," said Peter Westerink of Planet Streetpainting. "Our next challenge was to copy the blueprint to the pavement, again in the exact right proportions, only 100 times bigger (30 x 40 feet)! Last, but not least, we had to make sure we would finish in time, while answering the questions of the thousands of people that came by daily to see our piece."

The Easter Island “Heads” Have Bodies

Maybe this isn’t a newsflash to anyone but me, but, um, the Moai “heads” on Easter Island have bodies. Because some of the statues are set deep into the ground, and because the heads on the statues are disproportionately large, many people (myself included) tend to think of them as just big heads. But the bodies (generally not including legs, though there is at least one kneeling statue) are there — in many cases, underground. What’s even more interesting — there are petroglyphs (rock markings) that have been preserved below the soil level, where they have been protected from erosion. This research report has been making the rounds; it discusses recent progress by The Easter Island Statue Project to uncover, study, and catalogue two statues.

Smiling Faces

What you are looking at here is a cross-section of a blade of marram grass, which is used to stabilize coastal dunes. Fluorescent dye has been added to highlight the internal structures. Those internal structures look happy to see us! Read more about it at Beyond the Human Eye.

Famous Capsules

This artwork by Grégoire Guillemin contains lots of pop culture icons. How many do you recognize? I didn’t count, but most of them are familiar enough. You can see larger images at Guillemin’s gallery (which contains just a couple of spoilers).

16 Years Later...

Nyan Cat as an NES Game

If Nyan Cat were around in 1988, he would the star of an NES game. And it would be in the bargain bin now. J. R. Baker took this idea and ran with it, designing both the front and back of the game case in the style of Konami games from the ’80s. I love how he included Tacnayn as well. See the expanded art and work in progress at his site.

Alien Planet Made of Diamond

The super-high pressure of the planet, which orbits a rapidly pulsing neutron star, has likely caused the carbon within it to crystallize into an actual diamond, a new study suggests. Also worth noting, the planet is larger than its sun. With a diameter of about 37,300 miles (60,000 km), the planet is five times the size of Earth, but 3,000 times larger than the millisecond pulsar it orbits. The entire system (PSR J1719-1438) would fit within the diameter of our sun, and is located about 4,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Serpens (The Snake).

Liu Bolin's Camouflage Art

Chinese artist Lui Bolin has a unique approach to his art–instead of standing out, he tries his best not to be seen and to blend in. This photo is from his newest installation - it’s called “Plasticizer.”  Hard not to admire his ingenuity.

The "Thuggie" is So Gangster

What happens when you combine a Snuggie with a hoodie? You get the Thuggie. It might sound like a joke, but the site is very real and you can absolutely buy your own embarrassingly long sweatshirt if you so please.

Faux Pizza

It looks like a pizza and is made from a bunch of pizza-flavored ingredients, but it certainly isn’t a pizza and almost definitely tastes nothing like a pizza. This “meta-pizza”is made from Pizza Supreme Doritos, Pizza Pringles, Flavor Blasted Xplosive Pizza Goldfish Crackers, Pepperoni Pizza flavored Combos and Pizza-flavored Tribe hummus. Yummy? I’m not so sure.

Photographic Proof of Leia's Affair With Chewie

Sure Leia was always flirting with Han, but it was easy to see her eyes shooting longing looks of love over to Chewbacca, so it’s not all that surprising to see photographic evidence of their affair being made public all these years later.

Fairy Tales Retold With Balloons

I love these fairy tale recreations by artists Larry Moss and Kelly Cheatle of Airigami.com. Larry did the actual bending and twisting of the balloons, and Kelly uses Photoshop to alter the images to look more 2D.

Johan's Ark

Twenty years ago, Dutch native Johan Huibers had a dream about devastating floods...so he did what any sensible person would do and set out to build a seaworthy ark. It’s 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high - half the size of the Titanic. After three years of work it is near completion and he is stocking it with faux animals. He is hoping to turn the vessel into a tourist attraction and to bring the ark down the Thames River for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Trash Can Games

This is a picture of a trash can in Lucerne, Switzerland. The city government wants to discourage littering by drawing attention to public trash cans. So it put down little games, including mazes and hopscotch, around the cans.