Amsterdam-based painter Femke Hiemstra has a new show of paintings at Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery. Seen above, "Death Of A Ghost." The show, titled "Bonjour, Dachshund!," is hanging alongside work by Junko Mizuno. From Roq La Rue:

Femke Hiemstra’s meticulously tight, jewel like mixed media paintings and exquisitely rendered black and white drawings are homes to a dark fairytale land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal neighbors. Lollipops become ship captains, strawberries become giant wrestlers, and vegetables become Halloween gods with lantern eyes. Femke occasionally uses typography in her work, using words from various languages and letters in her paintings to further enhance the narrative while still retaining a playful sense of mystery, or as a visual device to frame in the scenery, as if you were looking at her world through a secret window. She also uses found objects to paint on, such as boxes and wrappers, to create imaginary products with magical properties.

Femke Hiemstra and Junko Mizuno at Roq La Rue

We've posted previously about new drugs on the horizon that could enable bad memories to be selectively "erased." Now, researchers at New York University have developed a non-invasive method to take the pain out of fearful memories. The scientists determined that fear memories can be reactivated and updated with "safe" information. Later, those memories can be recalled without a fear response. The team reported their results in the new issue of the journal Nature. From NYU:

The experiment was conducted over three days: the memory was formed in the first day, rewritten on the second day, and tested for fear on the third day. However, to examine how enduring this effect is, a portion of the participants was tested again about a year later. Even after this period of time, the fear memory did not return in those subjects who had extinction during the reconsolidation window. These results suggest that the old fear memory was changed from its original form and that this change persists over time...

"Our research suggests that during the lifetime of a memory there are windows of opportunity where it becomes susceptible to be permanently changed," said (post-doctoral fellow Daniela) Schiller. "By understanding the dynamics of memory we might, in the long run, open new avenues of treatment for disorders that involve abnormal emotional memories."

"NYU Researchers Develop Non-Invasive Technique to Rewrite Fear Memories"

(photo by Randy Son Of Robert)

For almost twenty years, mathematicians Rick Mabry and Paul Deiermann have attempted to figure out the perfect way to slice a pizza for sharing. Turns out, mathematicians have been pondering pizza slicing problems since at least the 1960s. Mabry and Diermann have recently proved their pizza theorem and are now considering other related problems, like what happens if the pizza is square or, say, a 3D pizza, aka a calzone? From New Scientist:

Suppose the harried waiter cuts the pizza off-centre, but with all the edge-to-edge cuts crossing at a single point, and with the same angle between adjacent cuts. The off-centre cuts mean the slices will not all be the same size, so if two people take turns to take neighbouring slices, will they get equal shares by the time they have gone right round the pizza - and if not, who will get more?

Of course you could estimate the area of each slice, tot them all up and work out each person's total from that. But these guys are mathematicians, and so that wouldn't quite do. They wanted to be able to distil the problem down to a few general, provable rules that avoid exact calculations, and that work every time for any circular pizza.

"The perfect way to slice a pizza"

T Campbell sez, "The last word in Marvel/Disney satirical mashups. 50+ characters attempt corporate synergy, with hilarious results."

"Epic Misney" by T Campbell and John Waltrip (Thanks, T!)

Warning: This video contains footage of an octopus hiding under a coconut shell that it has carried around just in case it needed to hide from something. Watching this footage may contradict your previous assumptions about animal tool use, and may be too adorable for some viewers.

National Geographic: Octopuses Carry Coconut Shells as Instant Shelters

Dinotopia artist James Gurney posted this video about a "change blindness" experiment. 75% of the participants didn't notice that the experimenter who bent under a counter was replaced by a different person. Says Gurney: "Here's proof that most of the time we look but don't see." I think Matisse said something to the effect that he didn't really see things unless he was painting them.

Michael Gruber's The Forgery of Venus combines art history, criminal mischief, and the sleaziness of the contemporary art gallery business to deliver a terrifically fun thriller-esque novel.

The main character, Chaz Wilmot, is an extremely talented but frustrated and depressed magazine illustrator. For no special reason, he volunteers as a human guinea pig in a medical research study to test the effects of Salvia divinorum, a powerful, short-duration psychedelic drug that causes him to imagine he's living the life of Velásquez, the famous 17th century Spanish painter. These episodes cause all sorts of problems in his real life, and when he wakes up one morning in a strange apartment and discovers that he is actually a successful gallery artist, he flips out and lands in a mental ward.

When he's released (and learns that he's back to being the hack illustrator he started out as) Wilmot is eager to clear his head by taking on a lucrative commission to restore the fresco on the ceiling of an Italian mobster's palazzo. Here, he meets a sleazy German art dealer who specializes in paintings plundered by the Nazis in World War II. The dealer gives him an offer he can't refuse: to forge an "undiscovered" Velásquez painting. When he accepts, the strange events that have been happening to him intensify, and he finds himself wonder whether he's completely crazy or if powerful characters behind the curtain are pulling strings.

This is the kind of book that could easily become ludicrous and boring if it had been written by an author less talented than Gruber. His richly developed characters and engaging prose keep the story crisp and believable. The ending is satisfying, too, which is important to me. As soon as I finished the The Forgery of Venus I got started on another one of his novels, The Book of Air and Shadows, which is great so far, as well.

The Forgery of Venus, by Michael Gruber

William Gurstelle, a contributing editor at MAKE, has produced a series of project posters, measuring 36" x 24". The first two in the series are available on his web site, Ballisticom.

Potato Cannon: This device fires a potato at speeds approaching 100 mph. The poster includes information on a variety of ignition options including taser, piezo, and flint/steel systems. Clear and concise directions; outstanding performance!

Flamethrower: Technically, this is a propane cannon, as it uses commonly available propane as opposed to the much more dangerous type using gasoline or kerosene. Complete information including key parts and supplies, dimensions, safe operating instructions, and more.

Flame thrower and potato cannon project posters

Here's NajMeTender playing ukulele version of "Pokerface." She says, "In my head I'm constantly thinking that the song is called Pokéface and honestly it'd be much better if it was." (Thanks, Gever!)

This short BBC video explains how Ukichiro Nakaya, a mid-20th century scientist in Hokkaido, Japan, created the first artificial snowflake in his lab. It was 1933, and he did it by building a chamber with adjustable temperature, air pressure, and humidity that could mimic the weather condition in clouds that produce snow.

[via Neatorama]

Laura Lundquist, 98, was indicted on a murder charge for allegedly suffocating and killing her nursing home roommate, Elizabeth Barrow, age 100. Lundquist, who apparently has dementia, was angry because Barrow was "taking over the room." From The Telegraph:

She is believed to be the oldest murder defendant in the history of Massachusetts but might never go to trial because of her mental health issues...

Miss Barrow's son, Scott Barrow, has said Lundquist complained to nursing home officials about the number of visitors his mother received. He also has said Lundquist had made "threatening" and "harassing" remarks to her.

The two women had been room-mates for about a year. Scott Barrow has said he asked nursing home officials to separate the women, but they assured him the two were getting along.

In a statement, the nursing home said the room-mates acted like sisters, walked and ate lunch together daily and said, "Goodnight, I love you," to each other every night.

"Woman, 98, accused of killing 100-year-old room-mate" (via Fortean Times)

Some people in Verona, Italy are up in arms about a nativity scene at their local courthouse in which Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are depicted as dark-skinned people. Interestingly, it was chief public prosecutor Mario Giulio Schinaia's idea to do this based on historical evidence that baby Jesus was in fact likely to have had darker skin.

Verona has strong links to the Northern League party, a political entity allied with PM Silvio Burlusconi that is strongly anti-immigration — the League is in the midst of a two-month initiative, called White Christmas, in which they hope to "ferret out foreigners without proper permits in Coccaglio, a small League-led town east of Milan". They've also advocated for separate buses and trains for immigrants, banning new mosques, and getting rid of all Chinese and kebab restaurants in the towns where they have the most influence.

Image via howieluvzus' Flickr

Another crazy cut-up video creation from Joe Sabia. "Featuring over 100 countries in 100 Movies with YouTube subtitles." Tip: you have to click the little "CC" (closed captioned) button in the embedded player to see the subtitles.

Michael Bay himself would have been proud of this customized boy racer I spotted last night, here in Guatemala. I counted a dozen Transformers logos pasted all over this cheesy masterpiece! The piece de resistance has gotta be that additional tiny Decepticon decal on the fake intake. Truly a thing of lowbrow beauty, que no? More iPhone snaps after the jump.