The booze death calculator. // Bomb shelters of note. // Pig candy, bacon buttercrunch and maple bacon lollipops. (h/t. Mr Eugenides) // Carnivorous vegetation. // Sex and magnetic resonance. // Moscow’s sewage system. // Splashes and sound waves. // The evils of pan and scan. (h/t, Coudal) // Make your own Green Lantern power ring. // How Scientology looks to people who aren’t unhinged. (h/t, Dan) // The amazing Spider-Camel. It could happen, people. // A chart of time travel in film and TV. // Flying machines. // When flying machines stop flying. // And, via The Thin man, it’s the return of Ms Liz Brady. 

Make way for Raquel Welch. She brings disco from the future.

From the 1970 TV special, Raquel!, in which Ms Welch displayed her various talents, including duets with Tom Jones and Bob Hope and a recitation of Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott. Via Coudal.

And here’s Miss Brigitte Bardot performing Serge Gainsbourg’s Contact, circa 1968. The dress is by Paco Rabanne, who designed the costumes for Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, released the same year, and the sculptures are the handiwork of the late Nicolas Schöffer. Note this was filmed before Miss Bardot’s more recent excursions into space.

Beautiful tornado. (h/t, Steynian) // Even monsters need a tea-break. // Gentlemen’s magazines of the 50s and 60s. // Tilt-shift sports coverage. // Light painting. // Calculating pi. // Prefabricated housing. // Rooftop gardens. // Whiskey stones. When ice just won’t do. // Mosque bling. // The mysteries of condom testing. // Dishwasher of note. // The DJ pedestal. // Reduce your odds of dying in a plane crash. // Toilet signage. // Wim Delvoye’s Anal Kisses. // The Antarctic Film Festival. // And, via The Thin Man, it’s Scala and the Kolacny Brothers.

The Aurora Australis above the South Pole Telescope at Amundsen-Scott Station, Antarctica.

Much to my embarrassment, I hadn’t considered some of the mortal dangers faced by giraffes. 

“If there’s a lightning leader already approaching the ground, it will certainly look for something tall to hit in its immediate vicinity,” says Professor David Smith of the University of California’s physics department. “Since water is pretty conductive (particularly salty water), your giraffe is a pretty good conductor and probably does attract lightning pretty well.”

Oh, it gets sadder and a little bizarre:  

Lightning strikes may be a significant danger to giraffes in environments that have few tall trees and are topographically or geologically predisposed to attract lightning. One eyewitness report suggests that, during lightning storms, giraffes lower their heads and may even compete with one another to become lower in height… Between 1996 and 1999 the Rhino and Lion Reserve near Krugersdorp, South Africa, had two of its three giraffes killed by lightning – the third animal, a juvenile, was also struck but survived. Betsy the giraffe was killed by lightning at Walt Disney World in Florida in 2003 in front of lots of witnesses.

I’m guessing the combination of giraffes and lightning isn’t something readers had given much thought either. See? We’re learning together.