The Incredible Mimic Octopus

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The Incredible Mimic Octopus

The Indonesian Mimic Octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) can impersonate sea snakes, lionfish, flatfish - and in normal form it looks pretty weird, too.

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"One reason why the researchers had not discovered the octopus previously is that it lives in a habitat that's not very appealing to scuba divers—a muddy and relatively barren landscape that lacks the variety and splendor of life found in coral reefs. "We also think that is why it has such a dramatic [mimicking ability]," said Tregenza. "It has nowhere to hide. It could burrow, or try and mimic one of the animals also found in their environment." - more info.

Photos by Ken Knezick, M. Norman, R. Steene - via

Today's pictures & links:

The Last Trip

An Emirates Airline A380 is seen flying over the Queen Elizabeth 2 as it sailed past The World island in Dubai.

(image credit: Emirates)

The ship arrived in Dubai to be refurbishment as a hotel and moored at Palm Jumeirah. See the fates of other old glamorous liners in this DRB article

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What Detroit's Cars Need

Here is an idea from "Motor Trend" magazine, August 1955 (get two tiny propellers and go jump into the lake) -

(image via)

See other wonderful amphibious vehicles in this DRB article.

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Roundnose Grenadier

OK, so this grenadier has an anime-like big sad eyes.... But nothing prepares you for the sight of marine-life version of "SAW" movies: a Blind Lobster -

(images credit: MAR-ECO and Tin Yum Chan)

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Economy seems to be entirely screwed up in Wellington, New Zealand

.... but some guys are fixing it now.

(photo courtesy Alexander Garside)

Another market casualty:

(image credit: Ji Lee, source)

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Snowboarding with a Robot, and more

Dan LuVisi is a concept artist living in LA, and dreaming up some cool and deliciously weird images.
Click to enlarge:

(art courtesy and copyright Dan LuVisi)

In case you're wondering, the creatures above are "Samurai Bunny" and "Banana Bot".

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Mixed fresh links for today:

Ships with Impossible Large Cargo - [massive]
10 Marketing Stunts and Failures - [interesting]
Intriguing Water Fountains - [architecture]
Amazing Beer Can Art Collection - [art]
Disintegrated Cartoon Particles - [cool quiz]
Creative Hedge Mazes and Labyrinths - [design]
Generate Kindness - [cool site]
Wii Accidents Montage - [fun video]
See to believe: Can Man - [weird video]
Vote for Top Women of 2008 - [news]

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Interesting Anti-Speeding Campaign

... is happening in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina: car wrecks combined with billboards -
"Reason for this crash / disregard of car signs"
"Reason for this crash / fast driving"
"Reason for this crash / driving trough red light"

Photos courtesy Zaharije Pasalic

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Walking down the street

...exploring the favelas of Brazil:

Photo by Dionisio Gonzalez, Roberto Marinho

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Smoking = Science = Hot... in Vintage Ads

These are relics from a begone era. Interesting...

See some more ads at BioEphemera

...here is also an interesting smoking device we noticed:

(original unknown)

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Steampunk Mecha Elephant

Andrew Chase made this gorgeous structure from various transmission details (it bears resemblance, on a smaller scale, to the famous Machine Animals of Nantes):

(images via)

More info and images are here

Some elephants have questionable temper:

Art by Nikolai Kopeikin

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Great Vintage Magazine Covers Collection

Over here - a Flickr set. Some SF pulp covers we've seen before, but there are some mainstream cover art gems, as well.

(images via)

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Effective Animal Rights Ad

(original unknown)

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Geek Humor

Q. How many general relativists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Two. One holds the bulb, while the other rotates the universe.

Q: How many LHC physicists are necessary to change a light bulb?
A: 252 : 136 to smash it up + 114 to analyze the tiny pieces + 2 to write a report that changing the light bulb will not destroy the earth.

Q: How many Heisenbergs does it take to change a light bulb?
A: If you know the number, you don’t know where the light bulb is.

"The Universe is a big place… perhaps the biggest"

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Batman with... ?

Long-anticipated marriage of franchises.

(image credit: Worth1000)

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Mystery Machine

We've seen similar Russian prototypes (by engineer Grachev, watch video)... but German-made?

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DRB Gifts to get that warm fuzzy feeling

We don't expect much from it, that with economic downturn and all, but still it's nice to offer some DRB-exclusive products (including cool coffee mugs and wall clocks), now with a huge discount: