You’re welcome in advance for the nightmares.

Joshua Heineman has animated some stereoscopic images from the New York Public library such as this 1883 Central Park hippo to excellent effect.  Instead of old-timey metal glasses with the image on a track that moves closer and farther from the eyes for focus, the quick flipping between images in these animated GIFs lets you sense depth on a monitor.

Collection

Savini, an artist from Rome, has created these playful sculptures from bubble gum.  The human subjects are  more dark alley than uncanny valley; the animals, particularly the bear and crocodile, hit the mark.  The gallery says:

“Also for those born in the sixties as Maurizio Savini and I, chewing-gum reaches in the mind‘s meanders at a tie with childhood and adolescence, and a light pressure of a future still to be built and dreamt and the slaughterhouse of personal and collective memories of the past which is gone, no one knows where when and with whom.“

I wasn’t around for the evidently LSD-laced chewing gum they had 60’s, but I still like these.

A few more of his pieces follow. (more…)

Interesting study: apparently stubble=good mate and beards=masculine, older….

The explanation for the preference is not clear, but experts in human evolution say that that facial hair may be a signal of aggression because it boosts the apparent size of the lower jaw, emphasising the teeth as weapons.

However, it seems to be only be in certain cultures, which seems to me to negate the more primal interpretations. I’d also like to how this changes over generations…

Dr Nick Neave, who carried out the study with Kerry Shields, said: “There are large cultural differences in perceptions of facial hair, and we are hoping to expand on this research by conducting a large-scale study assessing female perceptions of male facial hair in different in as many countries as possible.

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