Wild Billy's Circus

one of the best movies ever. undeadcritic: “I don’t know what...

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:54:34 +0200

one of the best movies ever.

“I don’t know what the hell’s in there, but it’s weird and pissed off, whatever it is.”
The Thing | 1982 | Dir John Carpenter

neuholm: Dwarf elephant awww

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 23:02:03 +0200

neuholm:

Dwarf elephant

awww

scientificillustration: Primate Faces - Plate 38 From ‘Die...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:30:24 +0200

scientificillustration:

Primate Faces - Plate 38

From ‘Die Vollstandigste Naturgeschichte der Affen’ (The Complete Natural History of the Apes) by H.G. Ludwig Reichenbac

Lode mining claim regulations in the US in 1954 (there’s...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:58:30 +0100

Lode mining claim regulations in the US in 1954 (there’s another page but you get the idea). I found this in a little book that was supposed to be a guide to uranium prospecting which apparently was going to be the new gold rush for someone. There are some nice ads for instruments too, I’ll post them. From Proctor, Hyatt, Bullock, Uranium, where it is and how to find it.

The “wearable exoskeletal structure” that was under...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:37:00 +0100

The “wearable exoskeletal structure” that was under development at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in 1964, probably one of the first attempts on building such devices. From Chris Hables Gray, The Cyborg Handbook, 1995.

turnofthecentury: Found this and thought of your great blog....

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:37:18 +0100

turnofthecentury:

Found this and thought of your great blog. We’re all big fans here at the museum.

TEN WAYS TO COMMIT SUICIDE

Wearing thin shoes and stockings and insufficient clothing in cold and rainy weather ; leading a lazy, excited theater-going, dancing life ; sleeping on feathers in a 7 by 9 room ; eating hot, stimulating food, too fast and a great deal too much of it at improper times ; beginning with tea and coffee in childhood and adding tobacco and spirits in due time ; marrying in haste and living in continual ferment thereafter ; following unhealthy occupations to make money ; taking bitters and confections and gormandizing between meals ; giving way to fits of passion, or keeping in perpetual worry ; going to bed at midnight and getting up at noon, and eating when you catch it. To which may be added a recipe for killing children ; paregorics, cordials, candy and rich cake ; and when they are made sick thereby, mercury, tartar-emetic, castor oil and sulphur.

found in the collection of the Dufferin County Museum & Archives. Source: Orangeville Sun, 1876.

Awwww, this is so FANTASTIC, I think they’re right now more than ever;]

thank You so much!!!

love t.o.t.c.

Some signs in ASL (I like the one for “save” in...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:57:17 +0100

Some signs in ASL (I like the one for “save” in particular), notice that they are on page 33, a coincidence? I don’t think so. From Rice, Sign Language for Everyone

British political cartoon of 1910 in which (according to the...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:49:19 +0100

British political cartoon of 1910 in which (according to the author of this book) an ape, symbolising socialism, is attacking Britain, it sure looks apelike. From Vernon Reynolds, The Apes

archiemcphee: Here’s an awesome little piece of...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:06:16 +0100

archiemcphee:

Here’s an awesome little piece of history:

Archaeologists in the Burnt City have discovered what appears to be an ancient prosthetic eye. What makes this discovery exceptionally awesome is the striking description of how the owner and her false eye would have appeared while she was still alive and blinking:

[The eye] has a hemispherical form and a diameter of just over 2.5 cm (1 inch). It consists of very light material, probably bitumen paste. The surface of the artificial eye is covered with a thin layer of gold, engraved with a central circle (representing the iris) and gold lines patterned like sun rays. The female remains found with the artificial eye was 1.82 m tall (6 feet), much taller than ordinary women of her time. On both sides of the eye are drilled tiny holes, through which a golden thread could hold the eyeball in place. Since microscopic research has shown that the eye socket showed clear imprints of the golden thread, the eyeball must have been worn during her lifetime. The woman’s skeleton has been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BCE.

So she was an extraordinarily tall woman walking around wearing an engraved golden eye patterned with rays like a tiny sun. What an awesome sight that must have been.

[via TYWKIWDBI]

Try to imagine her. Done? ok, don’t you want a golden prostetic eye too now? I do

trust me I’ve found THE BEST TUMBLR EVER

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:26:33 +0100

trust me I’ve found THE BEST TUMBLR EVER

Looks like they updated the old arrangement, I found these two...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:10:09 +0100

Looks like they updated the old arrangement, I found these two in a nightstand’s drawer in a hotel in San Francisco

Found in a barber shop in Davis, good ol’ times...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 07:07:00 +0100

Found in a barber shop in Davis, good ol’ times ain’t forgotten here in the West! (hippies go to SF)

That’s right MJ, if you wanna play in town you gotta ask...

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:30:05 +0200

That’s right MJ, if you wanna play in town you gotta ask the Boss’s permission first

awesomepeoplehangingouttogether:

Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson

Near the end of 18th century there was an increasing number of...

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:52:00 +0200

Near the end of 18th century there was an increasing number of information about apes but with still few specimen brought to Europe and kept alive, and just a handful of anatomycal studies (not to mention the complete lack of reliable observations) the attempts at describing the various species of apes had often odd results. A beatiful example of that is the Ridinger’s description and drawing of an ape (the one on the right) in which he mixed some human and gibbon features and the gorilla’s behaviour:

“tra queste [osservate personalmente] creature merita il primo posto il Gibbone o uomo selvaggio. Queste bestie assomigliano molto agli uomini, e in particolare ai Negri. Abitano per lo più nelle foreste più fitte e dormono sugli alberi, dove allestiscono una specie di tetto con foglie e rami, per difendersi dal sole e dalla pioggia. Si nutrono di frutti e noci. Hanno tanta forza che sfuggono spesso a dieci uomini che le vogliano prendere e uccidono frequentemente i Negri nelle foreste, dove si muovono in branchi. Del fatto che esse catturino e trattengano uomini rendendo loro, poi, molti onori e fornendo loro il necessario nutrimenti, non siamo certi. La loro altezza va dai cinque ai sei piedi e la loro patria è L’Africa. Quando camminano stanno più spesso dritte sui piedi posteriori, sebbene corrano anche sui quattro. Le braccia hanno quasi la lunghezza del corpo intero e toccano terra. Poiché i Negri stentano a catturarne di grandi, prima uccidono le madri, al cui corpo si tengono avvinghiati i piccoli, e poi catturano questi ultimi, che prendono al loro servizio.”

immagine e citazione prese da G. Barsanti, “L’uomo dei boschi, piccola storia delle grandi scimmie da Aristotele a Darwin”

lulz what a terrific tumblr! (on a side note: I’ll...

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:54:34 +0200

lulz what a terrific tumblr! (on a side note: I’ll probably start writing my post in english from now on)

awesomepeoplehangingouttogether:

Jamie Oliver & Henry Winkler

blackandwtf: 1880s With his studio located in the Bowery, New...

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:42:55 +0200

blackandwtf:

1880s

With his studio located in the Bowery, New York City, photographer Charles Eisenmann began photographing portraits of show people from dime museums in the 1870s. Eisenmann worked on his archive of “freaks” throughout the 1870s and 80s, which he sold in the cabinet style as collectables.

Born with a beautiful face and giant feet, Fanny Mills came with a dowry of $5000 cash and a “well stocked farm” in Ohio from her desperate father, to any single men willing to take her as bride.

(via N A R U Y A M A and turnofthecentury)

due foto da Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, L’albero d’oro...

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:11:09 +0200

due foto da Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, L’albero d’oro della vita: nella prima un rito di endocannibalismo tra gli Yanomami, nella seconda una scena di vita comune nella stessa tribù.

Rappresentazione schematica dell’attività...

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:31:05 +0200

Rappresentazione schematica dell’attività dell’estinto Turnspit Dog, una razza di cani selezionata appositamente per correre su una ruota che faceva girare lo spiedo, da Mitchinson, Lloyd, Il libro dell’ignoranza sugli animali. Da Wikipedia:

“The Turnspit Dog was a short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel, called a turnspit or dog wheel, to turn meat. The type is now extinct. It is mentioned in Of English Dogs in 1576 under the name Turnespete. Rev. W. Bingley’s Memoirs of British Quadrupeds (1809) also talks of a dog employed to help chefs and cooks. It is also known as the Kitchen Dog, the Cooking Dog, the Underdog and the Vernepator. In Linnaeus’s 18th century classification of dogs it is listed as Canis vertigus. The breed was lost since it was considered to be such a lowly and common dog that no record was effectively kept of it. They are related, it is believed, to the Glen of Imaal Terrier.

The Vernepator Cur was bred to run on a wheel in order to turn meat so it would cook evenly. This took both courage (to stand near the fire) and loyalty (not to eat the roast). Due to the strenuous nature of the work, a pair of dogs would often be worked in shifts. This may have led to the proverb ‘every dog has his day.’ The dogs were also taken to church to serve as foot warmers.”

Rete nervosa di un idra (genere Hydra) in posizione contratta,...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 16:30:05 +0200

Rete nervosa di un idra (genere Hydra) in posizione contratta, da J. T. Bonner, La cultura degli animali. In un certo modo si può vedere il sistema nervoso di questi animali come il più semplice e “primitivo” tra quelli presenti in natura*, sempre dallo stesso libro:

“Ci si può fare un’idea dell’evoluzione subita dal sistema nervoso paragonando un cervello a una rete diffusa di neuroni, quale per esempio si trova nelle meduse o nelle idre (fig. 4). Questi organismi reagiscono a uno stimolo esercitato in un punto qualunque con una contrazione che si diffonde in modo indiscriminato, propagandosi come un’onda in tutte le direzioni: il controllo è distribuito in modo uniforme sull’intera superficie del corpo.”

*non sono così esperto nella materia da non rischiare che arrivi qualcuno a farmi esempi di sistemi nervosi ancora meno complessi, nel caso sarò felice di editare il post

sciencecenter: 123 years ago, Thomas Edison produced the very...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:18:53 +0200

sciencecenter:

123 years ago, Thomas Edison produced the very first commercially-available recording - a woman reciting “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”

And today, thanks to the work of a few scientists at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, we can hear the recording again. Using a confocal microscope, the researchers were able to map the topology of a badly damaged cylinder on which the recording was made. They then converted the grooves into sound, and - voila! - a century-old woman’s voice came back to life. The recording was sold with a doll, which could be cranked to recite the nursery rhyme.

You can listen to the rather haunting recording here.