Human castles may make UNESCO World Heritage list

by Sean McLachlan on

You gotta love Spain. Not only do they like having giant tomato fights and getting chased through the streets by bulls, but they build giant castles out of people.

That’s right. Not content with having some of the best castles in Europe, the Spaniards like constructing living towers up to ten people high. Called a castell, the tradition originated in the region of Catalonia in the 18th century.

A bunch of strong, big castellars make up the pinya (base) and support their teammates as they create level upon level with progressively fewer (and lighter) people. Once a level is complete, the people who make up the next one climb up the backs of the others and take their place. Then the top person, called an enxaneta (rider) climbs all the way to the very top and, supported by only two people, raises a hand with four fingers up to symbolize the Catalan flag. The enxaneta and the very top levels are often made up of children to lighten the load on the bottom levels. Then the castell disassembles itself from the top down by each level climbing back to the ground. Only when everyone is safely back on the ground is the castell considered a success.

It’s an unusual tradition and now the castellars are applying to get their art on UNESCO’s list of “intangible world heritage”. The list includes examples of rare cultural practices that are relatively unknown and unpracticed outside a certain region. Check out the website for more bizarre and amazing practices around the world.

American arrested for stealing 299 stuffed birds

by Sean McLachlan on

Here’s a new low in the annals of crime. An American man has been arrested in England for stealing 299 stuffed birds from the Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertfordshire, England.

The unnamed 22 year-old has been arrested in connection with a break in at the museum back in June. The birds that were stolen were all rare and would have fetched a fair amount on the black market, showing that the unnamed suspect knew what he was doing. Most of the stuffed birds have now been recovered.

The Natural History Museum at Tring is famous for its collection of more than 750,000 preserved birds, 95% of all the world’s species. If you’re not in the neighborhood, you can still check out their species of the day, a feature running throughout 2010 in celebration of the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity. Today’s species is the Welwitschia mirabilis, a plant that can live for up to 1,500 years despite living in the harsh Namib Desert.

This seems to be a mixed year for museums. Hundreds of historic treasures have gone missing in Pennsylvania and the Met had to fork over some stolen Egyptian artifacts.

On the bright side, museum attendance is up as people try to save money by visiting sights close to home. Hopefully none of these folks are stuffing dead critters into their coats.

[Photo courtesy Sarah Hartwell]

Using slime mould to improve transportation

by Sean McLachlan on

“What idiot designed this highway?”

I’ve asked myself this question on more than one road trip. Sometimes the most straightforward journey can be slowed down thanks to bad highway planning. Now it turns out that slime mould may be an efficient designer of transportation routes. Slime mould resembles a giant amoeba that sends out networks of tubes to grab food from distant locations. Scientists have long known that slime moulds always pick the best route, so they wondered if this fact could be applied to human transportation.

In a recent experiment, Andy Adamatsky of the University of the West of England put a map of Mexico in a Petrie dish. He put a bit of slime mould where Mexico City is, and marked out Mexico’s other cities with oat flakes, a tasty treat loved by slime moulds everywhere. In this amazing timelapse video you can see how the slime mould grows its tubes and basically recreates Mexico’s transport network. He’s also done this with England’s road network and a different team tried it out on Tokyo’s subway system. Adamatsky hopes that in the future, transportation officials will use slime mould to help them in their planning. Feel free to make jokes about politicians and slime mould in the comments section.

[Photo courtesy Dr. Jonatha Gott and the Center for RNA Molecular Biology, Case Western Reserve University]

Help Wanted: one mermaid

by Sean McLachlan on

With the economy the way it is, it’s hard to get a job, so if you can’t find a position in your own field perhaps you should try a career change and become a mermaid.

That’s what the SeaQuarium in Rhyl, Wales, is offering. It wants one mermaid (or merman) to swim around with its fish during visitor hours. The applicant needs to wear a half-fish costume, have good hygiene, be a licensed scuba diver, and (here’s the downside) be willing to swim with the sharks.

Oh, and you have to clean the tanks too, so basically you’re a janitor with danger pay.

BBC reports that the company has been “flooded” with applicants, which says something about the state of the economy and the BBC’s sense of humor.

Hopeful merpeople must have their applications in by November 5. If the folks at SeaQuarium read Gadling, they wouldn’t be bothering with trying to hire humans; they’d go to Israel and get one of the real mermaids sighted there.

[Image of A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse, 1901, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

Best ESL video ever: Japanese diarrhea aerobics

by Sean McLachlan on

Teaching English as a Second Language can be a great way to see the world. You actually get paid to be immersed in a foreign culture and spend all your time speaking with the locals!

Here in Madrid most of the Anglos I know are English teachers, but they all complain that it can sometimes be hard to engage students. That may be because they’re teaching in a traditional classroom environment, like this room full of bored Chinese students submitted by user Strudelmonkey to Gadling’s flickr pool. What not try something different to liven up the lesson?

Back in the Nineties, Fuji TV in Japan decided to break the mold, and came up with Zuiikin’ English, a combination of catchy tunes, scantily clad female exercise goddesses, and important phrases such as “I was robbed by two men” and “It’s your fault that this happened.”

By far the best is the one below, which shows you how to tell someone you’ve eaten some bad sushi and are now paying the price. Note the biologically appropriate pelvic movement.

The Internet being what it is, many of these aerobic sequences have made it onto YouTube, including ones on how to avoid sexual harassment and important phrases for surviving a mugging. It’s all very educational, but don’t expect to scare off your attackers by singing “spare me my life” while hopping up and down and smiling.

If you can read Japanese, check out Zuiikin’ English’s official website and start getting into shape!