Idle Nutt

A selection of ice sculptures I saw at the 2009 World Ice Art Championships when I was in Alaska.  I was actually lucky to see this.  Normally the exhibit would’ve been over before I arrived, but it was so cold at the time that they extended the showing. :)

I didn’t get a chance to see the ice sculptures at night, but if you ever get a chance to go, it’s nice to see them during the day and night.  At night the sculptures are lit up with colored lights, so they look really cool.  H.E. Pherson took photos of them during both times, so check it out.

More info about the sculptures:

1. Spring by Aaron Costic and Martin King
2. Wild Ride by Chan Kitburi and Dean Murray
3. Guardian Angel of Mischief by Heather Brice, Kevin Gregory, Jeffery Stahl, and Steve Cox (The photo only shows one part of the sculpture. There was also an angel and a child in the piece.)
4. White Fang by Junichi Nakamura, Shinichi Sawamura, Fukumi Furukawa, and Takao Waki (The photo is a close-up of one of the wolves. The entire sculpture depicted a showdown between 3 wolves and a moose. It was very dynamic and really impressive.)
5. Invitation by Qi Feng An and Di An
6. Swimming Lessons by Dorjsuren Lkhagvadorj, Tsagaan Munkh-erdene, Mark Davis, and Ed Winslow
7. Preserved by Ronald Daanen and Ina Timling

There was another DNA sculpture I really liked called Beautiful Chemistry by Dawson List and David Fong.  They made a DNA molecule look like a dancer.  Super cool!  But it was partially broken/melted by the time I saw it.

When I was in Alaska last March, I ended up being stuck in the airport for more than 2 days (slept there for 2 nights - all the hotels were full because everyone’s flights were canceled) because a nearby volcano kept erupting and spewing ash into the air.  So the planes couldn’t come into or go out of the airport because visibility was so poor.  It was the first time in like decades that it had erupted that badly.  Not like lava pouring down the streets or anything like that.  But big enough to cause a big mess.  When you went outside, you could see everything covered in a layer of gray ash.

Anyway, I took the photos above when I was in the airport because what else are you gonna when you’re stuck?  You can see how quickly the visibility changed.  It wasn’t even an hour between the times I took those pics.  Nature is crazy.

According to the Energizer site, the Hot “Hare” Balloon is the tallest hot air balloon in the world - 15 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.  Who knew?

Photo sources:

1. Photo 1
2. Photo 2 by Bob Jagendorf
3. Photo 3 by Carl Neufelder
4. Photo 4 and 5 by Stephen Johnson

A group of 4 artists called Gelitin made this gigantic pink rabbit in the Italian Alps.

(via Inhabitat)

New Scientist:

Blind spots occur because of design quirk in the architecture of our eyes. Cells at the back of the eye, in a layer called the retina, gather light focused through our lens from everything that’s in front of us.

However, where a bundle of nerves connects our eyes to our brain these light-sensitive cells cannot grow. Hence, light that hits this bundle is not sensed and a blind spot is the result.

The famous “rubber hand illusion” - in which a fake hand and a real hand are stroked simultaneously and in the same way. After a couple minutes, the subject will feel as though both of his/her real hands are being touched even though in reality only one of the stroked hands is real.

And even more fascinating…when the subject closes his/her eyes and is asked to use the real hand that was stroked to touch the other real hand, he/she ends up touching the fake hand, not the real one.

Wow.

The article.

AND…there is a related illusion in which people feel like they have three hands. It’s called the Beeblebrox illusion.

AND…there’s another illusion in which people think a virtual arm is their real arm - to the point that when the virtual arm is rotated 90 degrees, they experience shoulder spasms because their brain thinks their real arm is being twisted.