Singularities, which are fascinating, have been peered into recently and new discoveries are made into how to retrieve information from black holes.

Through Ray Kurzweil’s website, comes This fascinating article:

Physicists at Penn State have provided a mechanism by which information can be recovered from black holes, those regions of space where gravity is so strong that, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, not even light can escape. The team’s findings pave the way toward ending a decades-long debate sparked by renowned physicist Steven Hawking.

“Once you consider quantum gravity, then space-time becomes much larger and there is room for information to reappear in the distant future on the other side of what was first thought to be the end of space-time.”

Are you serious? What does that mean? Information is being spit into the future and we have to wait for it? Is this a LOST theory?

Ray Kurzweil’s technological singularity borrows the principle to describe a point in the near future when technology begins to increase along Moore’s Law so rapidly that the outcome is impossible to predict, or something.

Zoinks. Being a locust is like being in a zombie horror flick:

Scientists say they may have discovered the reason why swarms of locusts are driven to devour such huge quantities of vegetation. They suggest that locusts combine into swarms because they are frightened of being eaten by each other.

A swarm can contain billions of insects and eat tens of thousands of tonnes of vegetation in a single day. Sounding like waves of rain, it darkens the desert sky and descends to destroy swathes of food crops.

No-one is sure exactly what makes locusts swarm in this way. They are usually herbivores but scientists have observed them eating each other. This is when they cannot get hold of enough food when normal supplies start to run short. Young locusts, which cannot fly, have been seen eating other members of their group. The new theory suggests that some other locusts start to panic. Increasing numbers of locusts band together to try to get away from the hungry cannibals chasing behind.

A volcano erupts in Chile.

via Andrew Sullivan/Wired. More pics here.

Sam Sanfillippo was wounded five times in W.W.II, and left for dead twice on Omaha Beach during the Normandy landing in 1944. Now he runs a roadside attraction in Madison, Wisconsin. Dead animal dioramas are his specialty and judging by this short profile/interview he’s a real character. DG field trip destination acquired.

Field review/interview @ roadsideamerica.com (photos are weak but worth the read)
Flickr Set of photos from Sam’s dead animal haven
Another Flickr Set of photos from Sam’s dead animal haven

Thanks Higa

From a series by Manon van de Zwaal & Monique Bergen Henegouwen for HP De Tijd magazine, with retouching by MissMO. Also, Sunny Bergman’s documentary Beperkt Houdbaar looks at the photoshopping, retouching, and image construction in the beauty industry.

Bonus: Labiaplasty discussion (with visual documentation) about halfway through.

via Next Nature

This toad from Suriname has babies through pods on its back. Ew^1000th. Via Andrew Sullivan.

So funny. We all know “the look.” Turns out that nature believes in truth-in-advertising:

Participants were asked to judge the attractiveness and attitudes to sex of the opposite sex from their facial photographs. These perceptual judgements were then compared with the actual attitudes and behaviours of the individuals in the photographs, which had been determined through a detailed questionnaire. The people in the photographs were all in their early 20s.

The experiments found that the men and women taking part could generally judge from photographs who would be more interested in a short-term sexual relationship. In the first study sample of 153 participants, 72 per cent of people correctly identified the attitudes from photographs more than half of the time. However, further questioning showed that the participants were not always confident in their judgements.

Image: Last Night’s Party.

So I was poking around on the internet, trying to find images of the world’s biggest sinkhole, when I found this instead: the world’s largest man-made hole. It’s a diamond mine in Siberia, and it’s almost 2/3’s of a mile wide, and about 1,800 feet deep. (Much deeper than the height of the tallest building.) BLDG Blog actually noted the mine a couple years ago. Apparently the down-drafts are so intense that helicopters aren’t allowed to fly over. And yes, that’s a fuggin’ city in the background. For your delectation, here are the best looking sinkholes I found:

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Gravity waves in the clouds are just like waves in the sea—something (such as a pressure differential) pushes the clouds up, the gravity pulls it back down, and the waves just keep on rollin’. Amazing video.

Via Dark Roasted Blend.