We can probably all agree that cosplayers attending events like SDCC, NYCC or Even MTLCC look really great, but until you’ve seen the costumes from people at Blizzcon, you’ve seen nothing. Many thanks to professional photographer Onigun for giving us permission to post some of his pictures here on [GaS].
I genuinely tried to find more pictures from male costumers on Onigun’s flickr set dedicated to the event, but there aren’t many (as is always the case for these kind of events). I’ve included the best here, but as always, female cosplayers outnumber the guys. Sorry, Geeks!
Since we originally unveiled Heart of the Swarm back in May, we’ve continued working in secret, laboring in the dark recesses of Blizzard’s sheetrock-lined offices on the dank and gloomy coast of Southern California. We’re proud to present additional fruits of that labor in this new teaser cinematic of footage rendered entirely within the StarCraft II game engine.
Geekery via cross stitch is one thing, but a transforming plastic canvas Optimus Prime is a completely other (more awesome?) thing altogether.
Lord Libidan whipped this Autobot up using yarn on plastic canvas with some clever magnet placement to create a fully functional Transformer. Here’s Optimus ready to take on some Decipticons:
And here’s the roll-out version:
We’re impressed. If you want to make one for yourself, the pattern is available on Etsy in LordLibidan’s shop, along with Starscream, Jetfire, Skywarp and Thundercracker.
What would happen if we could generate power from our windowpanes? In this moving talk, entrepreneur Justin Hall-Tipping shows the materials that could make that possible, and how questioning our notion of ‘normal’ can lead to extraordinary breakthroughs.
The largest single cell in the human body is the egg, which is roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. That’s not unusual–in even the most basic biology class, students learn that individual cells are tiny little things, viewable only under high magnification. But xenophyophores break the rules a bit. The single-celled organisms live exclusively in deep-sea habitats and reach sizes as large as 4-inches across.
First discovered in 1889, the marine protozoans were thought to be sponges. Further study and several reclassifications later, we know that the organism is a fragile single cell, of which we’ve identified around 40 species. Their extreme fragility makes studying them in laboratory conditions impossible–they’re invariably damaged during collection and transport–but what we do know suggests that the giant amoebas are integral to marine biodiversity, playing roles as both food and stirrers of sediment, which gives other deep-sea creatures habitable locations on the ocean floors.
This week, researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego working with National Geographic revealed that xenophyophores have been discovered in the Mariana Trench. The team used dropcams to record activity in the trench–more than 6 miles below sea level. Footage shows xenophyophores live abundantly in the deepest areas, much lower than the Abyssal Plains where they’re most frequently observed. As a bonus, the video also shows the deepest ever spotting of a jellyfish.
As we study the ocean depths further, it becomes clear that we know very little about how diverse and complex the life is there. And worse, we understand even less about our impact on the ecology in areas we almost never see but undoubtedly affect. “As one of very few taxa found exclusively in the deep sea, the xenophyophores are emblematic of what the deep sea offers. They are fascinating giants that are highly adapted to extreme conditions but at the same time are very fragile and poorly studied,” explains Lisa Levin, director of the Scripps Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. “These and many other structurally important organisms in the deep sea need our stewardship as human activities move to deeper waters.”
