The Coldest Place in the World

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Scroll down for today's pictures & links.

The Coldest Place in the World

It's hard for us to imagine being in the minus fifty degrees Celsius chilled air outside, but this location on Earth routinely chills down to minus eighty degrees, and sometimes all the way to minus 93 degrees Celsius - colder than any previously recorded low temperatures! This area is located on a high ridge in Antarctica on the East Antarctic Plateau; watch this video to better understand how remote and hostile this spot is:

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Today's pictures & links:

Cold, Cold, Glowing Beauty

This great-looking research station is the British Antarctic Survey’s "Halley VI" that became operational in February 2013 - designed by Hugh Broughton Architects and AECOM Company:

(image via)

Spectacular northern lights dance above an igloo in the Canadian Northwest Territories, near Yellowknife, in this great photograph by Virgile Lafreniere:

(image credit: Virgile Lafreniere)

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All-You-Can-Eat Shuttle Dashboards

We've showcased some fantastically complex dashboards on DRB before (see also this series) - but this site is simply addictive and hard to leave, without exploring all the nooks and crannies of "Discovery" shuttle space craft.

This is a virtual tour of Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) - these panoramas were taken at the Kennedy Space Center during its last mission, STS-133 (photography by Jook Leung):

(image credit: Jook Leung)

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Depressing Urban Jungles

This intense photograph of Zhujiang New Town, Guangzhou, China, shows "the last remaining thousand year old village to be demolished being replaced by a shopping mall". It also looks like a shot from some depressingly dystopian near-future, but it is however what's happening in China today:

(image credit: Steve Bromberg, National Geographic)

Apartment buildings in Moscow, built sometime in the 1980s, also make up a dystopian skyline - and the bottom image shows how in the 1970s Soviet citizens navigated these freshly-built apartment jungles:

(originals unknown)

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Mixed fresh links for today:

Creepy! Amphibious Snake Robot - [wow video]
Huge Ancient Roman Empire Villa: Reconstructed - [cool site]
Unreleased Beatles Record May Come Out Soon! - [music, awesome]
Most Bizarre and Hilarious Bike Safety Ideas - [weird]
Incredible Scotch Tape Art by Mark Khaisman - [wow art]
Mystery of Bizarre Mounds: Solved? - [DRB article, new info]
The Internet Transistor Radio... from 1968 - [crazy vintage find]
Weirdest, Bizarre Kindergarten Buildings - [architecture]
Rare Video of Souyz Russian Spacecraft ISS Mission - [cool video]
This Raven Loves Skating down the Roofs! - [wow video]
Russian Way to Load Logs on a Truck - [wow video]
Jet-Powered Skateboard Test Run - [wow video]
Speedy Rendition of Beethoven's 5th Shocking New Info - [wow video, info]
This went viral recently... Pretty Awesome Stuff - [wow video]
Biggest Christmas Celebrations and Events - [weird, info]

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Godzilla Size Comparison

New Godzilla 2014 movie trailer is out, and it promises to be quite a show, on par with this year's "Pacific Rim"... so here's the handy size comparison between various movie Godzillas (lacking the 1998 American movie version). The New Updated Godzilla is Bigger and Better (?) - it stands 150 meters tall!

(image via)

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Smooth Shapes: 1966 Vauxhall XVR Concept Car

Only three cars have been built of this sensuous design (shown at the 1966 Geneva Salon), complete with gullwing doors and wraparound front window:

(image credit: Gordon Calder)

(image credit: Matt Evans)

See more of this beauty here.

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Deep Space Photography - Miniaturized!

Tilt-Shift effect has been applied to all sorts of photographic images, but not to deep space images so far, to my knowledge. See more of the examples on this page, but this shot of the Horsehead Nebula is probably the most effective:

(image via)

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Do you want your smartphone to stand out from others? Here is a cool case idea:

We've received a case for review from the Snugg company, and we quite like it. It is a bamboo WOOD CASE, which feels good to touch, looks great, and can be a great conversation starter (we had a few people asking us about this wooden high-tech / low tech design combination):

(image via)

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Would You Trust This Robot?

This mechanical guy may be smiling on the outside, but inside... let's hope it comes with Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" built-in!

(image credit: Hugo Bermudez)

This great robotic model was created by Hugo Bermudez for the "Dodge, The Future of Driving" commercial. Check out his back view also on this page

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Bus Dinosaur Found

This lovely abandoned oversized monster was seen somewhere in Russia, rusting away... Not sure what exactly the make and the model?

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Robot Vending Machine - "Zigaretten"

Some great examples of vending machines can be seen in our popular article "Vending Machines Craze in Japan"

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Pancake Art Extravaganza

Who needs to have the boring round, or square ones anymore?