Could this be the next big game-to-movie adaptation?

If you’ve played too much Plants vs. Zombies on your computer, games console, iOS or Android device, then maybe your dreams nightmares look something like this.

Whales can live for 50 to 75 years. But did you know that after they die, their decomposing bodies can support a whole community of organisms and other sea life for an additional 50 to 75 years?

Whale Fall is a short documentary on what happens to the largest mammal on the planet after it dies and sinks to Davy Jones’ locker. Created by Sweet Fern Productions for Radiolab, it’s not only fascinating on an educational level, but it’s also a feast for the eyes through the use of animation, paper cutouts and puppetry. I loved science growing up, but had the educational videos in biology class looked like this, I may have actually paid attention.

SOURCE via Radiolab

Ever wonder why you may look prettier in some photos and uglier in others, even with the same smile and the same lighting? It’s all about the camera lens. These portraits—taken by Stephen Eastwood—show how this works.

If you have ever used a dating site and thought——”damn, he/she looked so hot in those pictures! What happened?” or “wow! He/she looks a lot better in person!”—you know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s all about the lens distortion (which is also affected by the subject’s distance to the camera). Lenses make the world look different than it does through your eyes. They bend light rays, capturing the scene within a certain field of view into a limited bi-dimensional frame: the photograph. Depending on the lens’ focal length, the image will deform more or less, affecting how faces and objects look in photos. You can see how the deformation works in this Eastwood’s series, who took the same photo with a wide range of optics, going from a 350mm to 19mm. Eastwood moved the camera to frame the subject in exactly the same position so you could clearly see the effect.

The shorter the focal length, the more field of you view you can capture. With something like a 15mm fish eye lens or the 19mm that Eastwood used, the effect is really obvious. Your face would be extremely deformed, like the rest of the environment. But as you go up, the distortion gets more subtle. Sometimes this distortion can make a face prettier than it actually is. Sometimes the effect makes a face uglier. Since this subtler distortion is not obvious, your mind just buys the image thinking that this is what the person looks like.

The same happens with larger focal lengths. At 350mm there’s also a distortion of reality: the face of the model becomes flatter and wider.

In theory, shooting with something like a 135mm would produce the best, most accurate results, but there’s no right or wrong here. It depends on your subject’s anatomy. That’s why some people are “photogenic” with certain cameras and at certain angles, and look horrible with others.

If you pay attention, you can really observe this effect in everyday photos taken with cellphones and compact cameras. You can even see it without even changing the lens focal length. While taking photos with my iPhone on a recent trip, placing some people on the center of the frame made them look better, especially from a distance. Then, as I moved them to the sides of the frame, they looked sightly different. The distortion is more obvious near the sides, and it was enough to make them less attractive. The funny thing is that the contrary happened with me: I looked better on the sides than on the center. Or maybe it was just that I had a horrible hangover the whole trip.

Marc Cameron and Paul “Moose” Curtis, are an artistic twosome that are exceedingly skilled at turning dirt, grime and muck into art. In fact, the pair have teamed up to create our favorite kind of art – the sort that features automobiles as the subject. Starting with a spot on a dirt-covered wall in Munich, Moose and Cameron remove the buildup of gunk in various layers leaving behind their desired image.

It’s called “reverse graffiti” or “grime writing,” and rather than covering a wall in paint, Cameron and Moose actually clean a portion of the area they’re working on. Some stencils, a few helping hands and a high-pressure power washer are the tools at work, and the resulting image not only illustrates how polluted public surfaces can be, it’s also wonderful spin on a form of art that’s typically frowned up.

Click past the jump to watch a reverse graffiti Tesla Roadster come to life, a project Cameron and Curtis coordinated with German’s SZ-Magazin. If you are interested in learning more about Marc’s unique work, feel free to email him – Cameron @ Cameron2210.com or check out his website using the link below.

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Winter is right around the corner, and if you own a motorcycle and live in a part of the country that endures freezing temperatures, rain and snow this time of year, you’re likely also staring at a long, painful stint out of the saddle. The good news is that time keeps on slipping into the future, and spring is but a skip down the calendar. Fortunately, we have the power of the internet to help scratch the riding itch during the dark months. Scott Toepfer has finally released his short film, “It’s Better in the Wind,” and the 15-minute clip spends time following three riders as they explore the world on a trio of vintage customs.

Toepfer himself rides an old Yamaha XS650, and the machine consumed a number of mechanical pieces during the months that it took to shoot the film. While Toepfer relied on plenty of digital equipment to capture his scenes, he also turned to a classic Super-8 as well. The finished product is perfectly cool, and makes us pine for another road trip. Hit the jump to check it out.

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Taken with a beer can that has been converted into a pinhole camera, this image compresses three months into one instant.

The glowing paths show how, from our point of view, our closest star’s travels across the sky change with the seasons. Variations in cloud cover cause the gaps in the silvery trails that form each day.

Justin Quinnell left the “can cam” near Antony Gormley’s The Angel of the North, the iconic 200-tonne, 20-metre-tall steel structure near the A1 road just outside Gateshead in the north of England.

After three months, Quinnell removed the photographic paper the can contained, which now held a negative latent image of the apparent movements of the sun, which are caused by the Earth spinning on its axis. “The image forms with time, like a suntan,” he explains.

The paper was then scanned into a computer and the image inverted using software to create the positive version shown here. This type of photography is known as solargraphy.

The highest path represents the sun’s “peak”, when it appears highest in the sky, which takes place on 21 June in the northern hemisphere. After this day the trails grow shorter and climb lower in the sky, revealing the approach of winter.

Together, the 23.5-degree tilt in the Earth’s axis and its revolution around the sun are what give us our seasons. This striking image illustrates these changes and reveals the passage of time.

Music, motorsports and well-executed videography are an irresistible cocktail. Just ask The Piano Guys. The group has made a name for itself by composing beautiful classical arrangements and pairing them with well-shot videos, and their latest effort took the group to the Spring Mountain Motorsports track just outside of Las Vegas. With three percussion tracks, six piano tracks, a staggering 43 acoustic cello tracks and 48 vocal tracks, The Piano Guys created a flawless arrangement of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna,” the first movement of “Carmina Burana” that plays well against the raucous noise of a couple of Radical SR3 racers screaming their way around the desert track.

According to the YouTube description, The Piano Guys created the arrangement in just three days. Orin Harker and Simon Shepherd were kind enough to lend their behind-the wheel talent for the on-track shots, and the finished product will make your hair stand on end. Hit the jump to enjoy the video for yourself.

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Lego are less a toy and more a medium for inspiration. The plastic masons behind Legoland Florida’s Miniland were inspired enough by the shape and power of the Bugatti Veyron über-car, that they snuck a brick version into their miniature world for little gearheads and their parents to find.

A main attraction of Legoland is its tiny version of our big old world, complete with a minifig-sized White House, Eiffel Tower, and even a miniature golf course for “mini mini golf.” The Lego maniacs who built it call it “Miniland.”

We’re guessing it isn’t worth the $1.6 million a regular Veyron costs, but the tiny Lego supercar looks right at home at a golf course and is an impressive facsimile given the size limitation, and, of course, the bricks available at such a “Mini” level.

It’s time to get the kids to Legoland Florida and start the indoctrination now.

Water and electronics are not good bedfellows, but a new silicon-based sprayable coating that makes gadgets completely waterproof has me even more excited for its other applications. Like making clothing impervious to food stains, as demonstrated in this video.

The miracle product that makes this possible is called NeverWet, developed by Ross Nanotechnology to allow liquids and heavy oils to slide off machinery and electronics. Upon application, the superhydrophobic silicon-based coating creates a 160 to 175 degree contact angle, making it nearly impervious for liquids to gain a foothold. Chocolate syrup, the mortal enemy of white fabrics, basically slides off a pair of Keds without leaving a mark. And an even more dramatic video on the company’s website shows a working iPhone submerged under water for half an hour. A test that usually results in failure after just a minute.

Ross Nanotechnology is hoping to break into the coatings market with their new product, but admits it’s not easy given how long other products have already been on the market. So worse comes to worse, they can always set up a booth at county fairs, carnivals and other local exhibitions where products like this seem to always start their life.