Click to embiggen.

And a few more pictures.

Here on earth, it’s possible to do nuclear fusion here on Earth.  Unfortunately, it takes a LOT of energy to start up fusion reactions.  So far thermonuclear weapons are the only type of fusion reaction that creates more energy than it takes to make it happen.  The first time we do it to generate electricity instead of flattening cities might be with the ITER reactor, which is under construction in France.

ITER is being built by the European Union and 6 other countries, but it doesn’t take a huge multinational effort and 10 billion dollars to make it happen.  A single person with a few thousand dollars and a lot of motivation can make their own miniature experimental fusion reactor.  17-year-old Thiago Olson even created one in his Michigan back yard.

It might take a couple years of effort, and all you get for your trouble is some bubbles, but you get to recreate what happens inside of a star and that’s gotta count for something.  We are all star stuff, after all.

Finger Keychain before.  Finger Keychain after.

The tiny lane.

Sacrifices may be somewhat less common in Uganda than previously believed, but it’s still prevalent enough to have its own task force.

St. Petersburg’s death from above.

Inca gods prefer their sacrifices young.

And while we’re on the subject of optical illusions…

How long did it take you to figure out the trick?  When he shows how it was done, did you guess right?  I had it after he dropped the first ball, but I see this sort of thing all the time now.

The first new owner was killed in 2003 while eating dinner with a date.   The second new owner was gunned down in 2005, while standing outside of a restaurant.  As a result of the last one, the number is left unused and will probably stay that way indefinitely.

Plenty of people are tempted to talk about a horrible curse.  It seems to me that the real lesson is much different.  If you’re going to be involved with organized crime, you probably shouldn’t eat in public.  Didn’t these guys ever watch the Godfather?

With the idea that none of us is as dumb as all of us, they decided to make their new album and touring costumes with the help of focus groups and an advertising agency.  People got to choose songs and stylistic elements of the band’s new album.

Check out how they talked to people about color:

Asking about color, part 2:

I got an e-mail recently from Tim Fort, the current Guinness record holder for the longest stick bomb.

He’s interested in the art of movement.  A few years back, he put stick bombs, dominoes, and other moving pieces together to create a 6 minute-long chain of falling, flying and unwinding objects.  Check it out if you’ve got the time.

His newest, and possibly his best, is a 4:30 piece called Frenetic Kinetics.

Wild pigs have tusks, but not like the Babirusa does.  Babirusas have two sets, one growing up from their lower jaw and one growing up from their upper jaw.  Rather than grow down with the rest of their teeth, the tusks in their upper jaw actually grow up through the roof of their mouth, through their nose and up across their face.

If a babirusa lives long enough and manages to not break his tusks, they can even grow around back into the skull.   Below is an example of that from the Museum of Natural History in Gothenburg, Sweden.

It’s not all that common for something like that to happen, but it’s still pretty crazy.

More at Tetrapod Zoology.