You may have caught these crazy Brits chasing cheese wheels down steep hills on SportsCenter this week, but this particular video compiles some of the best tumbles from the 2009 competition.

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30,000 feet above Greenland, on an international flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt, I look out the window and my jaw dropped. Luminous green ribbons of aurora borealis, rippling and flashing against the dark starry sky, right outside the airplane window. For three hours I stared out the window in utter awe of the natural world.

In simple terms, the Aurora Borealis (in the North) and the Aurora Australis (in the South) happen when charged particles (electrons, protons, and what-have-you) released by the Sun collide with the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The glowing green and red light comes from these particles exciting oxygen in the upper atmosphere (other colors = other gasses). These particles are guided by Earth’s magnetic field lines and pulled toward an area around 65º North or South latitude (Alaska, northern Canada, Siberia, Iceland, southern Greenland, northern Scandinavia and Finland, and the coast of Antarctica).

Two weeks ago, at the Bay Area Maker Faire, I bought an “Aurorarium” – although it doesn’t actually create an aurora, it makes aurora-looking light patterns on the walls and ceiling. It is a Japanese Gekkan science kit and comes with a cool glossy color magazine about Aurorae: available online at the Maker Shed for $29.95.
It’s pretty damn pretty.

BBC’s Chris Lintott shows us Aurora Borealis over Norway:



Snap, Crackle, and Glow Bonus Round:
Listening to the radio discharges of Aurora Borealis:

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A bit too heavy handed with the cheese, but bizarre enough to post:

Update: This might qualify as the strangest inter-species couple, come to think of it:

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View from the Portsmouth Beach Hotel – Picard, Dominica – 11.10.08

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Though the term “spork” usually refers to a spoon with fork tines, the LightMyFire “Spork” involves a different orientation of spoon and fork, with a serrated knife edge.

I recently had the chance to use one on a camping trip (photo above) – it’s a nice, easy to clean, simple design.

Better name suggestions for this design:
• The Hermaphro-spoon
• The Hermaphro-fork
• The Spknork (the first “k” is silent)
• The Fknoon
• Utensli
• The Untens-all

(also found on Notcot)

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Every year around the 4th of July, hundreds of eyewitness sightings of the elusive “Paul Revere” are reported. Also known as the “New England Sasquatch” and the “Colonial Skunk-Ape” – recent photographic evidence may offer the first substantial proof that this elusive creature is not the figment of the wild imaginations of shut-ins and hillbillies.

Our Blogadilla research team has acquired recent exclusive footage of this creature in its native habitat. The Paul Revere walks upright like a human being and has coloration which allows it to easily blend-in with its environment [Can you see it? Photos on the right enhanced for better viewing]. Our Blogadilla Heavy Industries research team suspects that this example is a female.

Bonus Round: The Benjamin Franklin Instant Disguise Kit (just like Scooby-Doo!)

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Can’t think of a Father’s Day gift this year?  Well think no more: for just $49.95 you can get dad his very own Uroclub– a cleverly designed, hollowed-out 7-iron, allowing him to pee on the golf course, while no one is the wiser.

Yes, this is for real.  Check out the Uroclub TV commercial, or Keith Olbermann’s coverage of the portable golf-shaped urinal.

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