Stannous Flouride's Book of Truthiness

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken have developed software that even non-specialists can use to create such 3D figures in just a few minutes – to do this, they need nothing more than a video that shows the animal moving. Users only need to indicate the lines of the head, body and limbs, the software does everything else. The program could be of interest to the film and computer game industry but also to non-specialists, who can use it to easily produce animated animal films.

To do this, the researchers developed a user interface that resembles a simple paint program. Using this program, a few mouse clicks are all that are needed to paint the leopard’s tail with an orange line and highlight the spine, head, front and back legs with additional coloured lines. The software transfers these markings to all the frames in the video sequence so that the lines are always on the limbs, even if their position changes in the following frames. The user checks that the program has captured the limbs correctly by controlling the five frames and, if necessary, correcting them manually.

A leopard sprints through a savannah grassland. The video sequence that shows the animal doing this lasts only a few seconds. But it is enough to calculate a three-dimensional, digital, moving image of the animal.

This will be great for game and other immersive VR systems, they can doctor the image to create entirely new species, like this cheebra and zeetah:

In the last step, the leopard’s coat is copied from the image on which the limbs and skeleton were marked and is then dragged over the 3D lattice model as the “texture” – and the three-dimensional leopard model is now complete.

In this way, users receive a good 3D model in just a few minutes that can be used directly for animations or a 3D print. “You can refine the model even further if you need an even higher quality”, explains Tobias Ritschel, Senior Lecturer at University College London. However, the unedited 3D model is already so good that it could be sent to a 3D printer straightaway in order to print a corresponding sculpture on the basis of the digital model.

Source: 3-D animation made incredibly easy

“Although galaxy collisions of this type are not uncommon, only a few galaxies with eye-like, or ocular, structures are known to exist,” said astronomer Michele Kaufman. “Galactic eyelids last only a few tens of millions of years, which is incredibly brief in the lifespan of a galaxy. Finding one in such a newly formed state gives us an exceptional opportunity to study what happens when one galaxy grazes another.”

Kaufman notes that the paucity of similar features in the observable universe is likely due to their ephemeral nature.

The interacting pair of galaxies resides approximately 114 million light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Canis Major. These galaxies brushed past each other — scraping the edges of their outer spiral arms — in what is likely the first encounter of an eventual merger.

Source: Tsunami of stars and gas produces dazzling eye-shaped feature in galaxy — ScienceDaily

The ancient coastal waters of the Pacific, roughly 11 to 5 million years ago, were home to a bizarre and fascinating species of giant salmon with large spike-like teeth. This spike-toothed salmon reached sizes of 1-3m (3′-9′) in length, much larger than the typical salmon found in the Pacific today. These hefty spike-toothed fish would have made for a difficult catch at nearly 177kg. (400 pounds).

You can picture them getting scooped out of the Proto-Tuolumne River [near Modesto, California] by large bears 5 million years ago.” said Dr. Julia Sankey “Scientifically, our research on the giant salmon is filling in a gap in our knowledge about how these salmon lived, and specifically, if they developmentally changed prior to migration upriver like modern salmon do today. This research is also helping paint the picture of this area 5 million years ago for the general public and my college students, and it excites them to think of this giant salmon swimming up our local rivers 5 million years ago!”

The spike-like teeth of the salmon could be over 3cm long (1-1.5″), much longer than modern Pacific salmon teeth, even after compensating for their larger size.

Source: Giant extinct salmon fought with spike teeth during upriver spawning events

The 4.5 foot long, 85 lb. carcass of a giant Chinook Salmon turned up in Battle Creek near Red Bluff, California in 2008. Perhaps ghosts of Sabertooth Salmon past still haunt our waters!

Need me? Will you still feed me? Today I’m 64…

I was 14 and hitchhiking to Alaska when this song came out. I first heard it being sung by Boy Scouts on the Yukon River and thought I’d never be THAT OLD.

In 2001 BMW picked Clive Owens to star in a series of ultra-short 5 minute action movies called The Hire. Directed by some of the world’s greatest action directors  (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, John Frankenheimer, Joe Carnahan, Guy Ritchie, John Woo, Ang Lee, and Tony Scott) and with an amazing variety of A-List stars that includes the likes of Madonna, Ray Liotta, and Mickey Rourke.

Last month they revived the series with this slightly longer one:

The Escape

Here are the original 8 in order-

Powder Keg

Ambush

Ticker

The Star (Madonna directed by her husband Guy Ritchie)

Hostage

Chosen

Follow

Beat the Devil

And if you’re up for a couple more from this cinematic rabbit hole, here’s 2 ‘behind the scenes’ videos of The Escape: