Attention, ladies. An end to the nightmare of camel-toe slacks. // Instant, fleeting inebriation. // Touchscreen with no touching. // “Stroud had discovered that magnets repel sharks.” (h/t, Dr Westerhaus) // Body armour made of meat. // The mysteries of yawning. (h/t, MeFi) // Trundling into the future. // Slinky on a treadmill. (h/t, Simen) // Elephant prosthetics. // Israeli panoramas. (h/t, Liam) // Duophonic whistling. It’s practically a superpower. // How to optimise your class war rhetoric. // A little maths. // Measuring the Universe. // Chocolate sausages. // The Chork. It’s chopsticks, it’s a fork. // Japanese beatniks, 1964. // Bubble.

Because the world has been waiting for a low-friction ketchup bottle. 

MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith and a team of engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group have devised a “super slippery” coating ideal for clogged condiments. The coating does have potential in other, non-ketchup-related areas, including windscreens and fuel lines, but the team is currently in talks to market a sauce bottle lubricant. “The market for bottles – just the sauces alone – is a $17 billion market,” says Smith. “And if all those bottles had our coating, we estimate that we could save about one million tons of food from being thrown out every year.” Imagine. No more futile shaking or caveman-style thumping. No more mayonnaise mishaps or inadequately spiced sandwiches.

Watch that goop glide, baby.

Via Brain Terminal. And for the latest in spilled condiment relocation, see this. 

Tadao Cern’s photographs of people being blown by a whole heap of wind. 

Hey, it could happen. // Hands up if your garage contains a Boeing 737 nose cone and flight simulator. // Bees that drink human tears. // Harvesting bees in the Himalayas. // Elephant chair. // Elephants have big innards. // Tiny tarantula. // Cocktail shaker of note. // Coffee maker of note. // Now this is a shopping trolley. // How a Bicycle is Made, 1945. // Watch lithium burn. // Skydiving in a kayak. // The radio time machine. // Retro synth sofa. (h/t, Robert) // The power of wearing spectacles. // The physics of a jumping Hulk. // Can your pet mouse do this? // And finally, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf narrated by Boris Karloff. 

Or, further to this, more damning evidence of a misspent childhood. From Avengers #2, November 1963. 

Ah, back when the Hulk used furniture and rumbled in his underpants. And Janet van Dyne was permanently in heat.

Seriously. Even supervillains were ogled. 

Oh, and yes. The film is great fun.  

Caught with the cameras of Voyager and Cassini. // Czech citizens, as seen by the secret police. // Painting with light in 3D bullet time. // Bubbles inside bubbles inside bubbles (in space). // “Zambia’s forgotten Cold War space programme.” // Childhood time-lapsed. // Cardboard sculptures. // Bear meets teddy. // Alan Whicker meets San Francisco’s hippies, 1967. // Little hippo. // House malfunction. More. // Helium-filled object with inversion drive. // Sea monkeys and x-ray specs. I used to own a pair of those. // Assorted mountaintop monasteries. // Fishy swan. // Door knocker of note. // And remember, ladies. Cooking is fun.  

“F-15 Eagle fighters intercept two Soviet MiG-29 fighters.” Photographed over the Bering Sea by Kevin L. Bishop, August 1, 1989.

Larger version. Found via this collection of contrails, booms and vortices.  

I must have one, and so must you. // Lakes, oceans and depth. (h/t, Peter Risdon) // The dilemmas of victimhood poker. // The androids are coming. // Kangaroos have three vaginas. // Cat wakes owner with repeated boings. // Africa is big. // A rather pretty sea slug. // Through the clouds. // Jellyfishcam. // Jetman in the Alps. // Tiny food sculptures. (h/t, MeFi) // Assorted intersections. // What happens inside the Large Hadron Collider? // Hey, it’s that guy. // “A victim treats his mugger right.” (Opinions of “right” may vary.) // iPad docking station. // Explosives may be used to dislodge frozen cows. (h/t, Simen) // Dementia and music.

As the holidays near – and this rickety barge approaches the end of its fifth year afloat – posting will for a while be more intermittent than usual. Subscribing to the blog feed is therefore recommended. As always, thanks for taking the time to comment and for all the donations made towards the upkeep of the barge. Newcomers may wish to rummage through the archives and updated greatest hits, where things like this and this and this are not at all uncommon.

Before heading off to indulge in the traditional festive pastimes, I’ll leave you with some immensely practical wisdom.

Don’t torment the frog:

“The Little Rooster will wake her up with increasing vibration intensities.” // Your kitchen needs robots. // Art with salt. // What exactly happens when you fall into lava? // Scribbled line people. // Do you pogo? // When octopuses mate, it’s quite confusing. // Ugly Renaissance babies. // Baby echidna. // Brains made of food. // Build your own gingerbread geodesic house. // Devastating explosions. // “Sapphire and Steel have been assigned…” (h/t, MeFi) // Seven-inch insect eats carrots. // Terrarium Christmas tree ornaments. // A mountain walkway that’s made of glass. // And (subtle hint) your host has been known to lift a glass of this.