It’s been a great week for images–this week’s roundup includes an 8-foot-tall Lego man washing up on a Florida beach, a pair of rare mice who both live in and subsist on a pumpkin, a bendable phone, and this shot, taken from a paper seeking to prove hypnosis is real.
Click to see the week in photos.
Lego Flotsam
Over at Boing Boing, photographer Jeff Hindman took this picture of a giant (like, eight feet tall) Lego man in Siesta Key Village, Florida.
Northern Lights in the South
A crazy sun flare led to auroras visible as far south as New Mexico. This one, captured by Randy Halverson, is from Cross Plains, Wisconsin. Check out more of them here.
Edible, Seasonal Homes
These adorable dormice are actually increasingly rare in England, and these two were rescued from the jaws of a ferocious housecat. To quote the BBC, because they say it more straight-faced than I ever could: “The endangered siblings currently live in a small pumpkin which acts as both a secure nest and a tasty snack.” The mice are named Hansel and Gretel, obviously.
We Want This Thermostat
When was the last time you were browsing the aisles at Thermostats ‘R Us or ThermoMart and thought, “man, that thermostat looks so great I just want it in my home, regulating its temperature”? Probably never. But the Nest, designed by the minds behind the iPod, actually invokes that reaction–it predicts which temperature you’ll want based on past behavior, and looks pretty sweet, too. Read more here.
Hypnosis, Proved (?)
A study published in the journal PLoS ONE suggests that hypnosis is real, and can be identified by a glazed expression. Read more over at ScienceDaily.
The Future, by Microsoft
Microsoft released a concept video showing their idea of the high-tech future. Oddly, a lot of this stuff looks…not very far off. And also everything basically looks like the next version of Windows Phone. Still, fun. Although Associate Editor Paul prefers the Bounty Bear.
Occupy Jupiter
We are not downplaying the importance of the Occupy Wall Street protests, nor are we taking sides. But we will take sides in the interplanetary struggle for dominance of the solar system. Screw Jupiter, you guys.
Dancing With the Stars
I’ll let our own Clay Dillow describe this one: This is “a whirling image of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and the stars above it circling the southern celestial pole. It’s less a space pic than an Earth pic depicting really cool space searching technology.” Read more about this photo and how it was taken here.
Bendable Phone
At Nokia World, all the attention was on Nokia’s new Windows Phones, which are slightly underwhelming but still look like some of the best phones on what’s rapidly becoming one of the best smartphone platforms out there. But CNET managed to find an actually exciting item on the floor of the convention: this odd kinetic display, which allows navigation when it’s bent and twisted. Weird!
SpaceRain
All through the late summer and early fall, destructively heavy rains have wreaked havoc on southeast Asia. This photo, taken October 23rd from NASA’s TERRA spacecraft, shows Thailand mid-flood. Vegetation is shown in red, while flooded areas are in black and dark blue.
