Dragging their LEDs behind them!  My husband grew up in the UK and fondly remembers the family pet Border Collie that herded the children around ‘though it had never seen a sheep in its life.’  These  mates have gone the extra mile and done away with the dogs, attaching LED ‘blankets’ over their herds to make formations in extreme sheepherding! This is pretty cool and kind of creepy at the same time– via Heavy.

I don’t even pretend to know the mechanics of making humanoid robots or the process of designing them. Over the last few years we’ve seen a ton of ‘learning’ robots, which is amazing and wondrous in the capabilities their human creators have bestowed in them. Asimo wowed and amazed when it could keep its balance, Qrio charmed and delighted doing a fan dance for school children and plenty of “less-pretty” models have paved the way for the new ‘feeling’ robots.

Scientists like to spout that robots will be as commonplace in our homes at the family pet and even emotionally connected us and us to them (a la A.I.) but Japan has come out with possibly the creepiest ever robot to grace the planet. It’s a baby- a learning, crying, kicking baby about 3 feet long and though it resembles a human with silicon skin and does have asian features, there’s something completely frightening about the way it suddenly STARES at you as if calculating how to dismantle your brain and eat it (think the little girl in the Ring). Again, I know nothing about design of robotics but I should think after all that work on its internals you’d pay a little more attention to the creep factor on the outside…

Via Darkroastedblend: Darkroasted blend brings us delicious, wide-screen shots of that BladeRunner-like city of Tokyo by Thomas Birke, who traveled to Tokyo for 3 weeks last year to take photos of the ‘future.’ An interview with the photographer can be found here. Anyone who has been to Toyko or seen good photos of it know that it gives the feeling of the dark yet bright cityscapes found in the famous Bladerunner movie of the 1980s. Maximize your screen and enjoy!

2001: a space odyssey that is. Greenmagoos has kindly posted original concept sketches from the ’stargate’ ending sequence in Kubrick’s classic. Personally I love looking at concept art as I myself do hundreds of preliminary ideas before I get to the final stage, so enjoy!

BBCNews’s website is featuring a stunning photo project by Abbie Trayler-Smith showcasing some of the 300,000 asylum seekers in the UK called Still Human, Still Here. These immigrants’ claims to asylum have been rejected by the government but they are stranded between both their country of origin and the country they seek. I was very interested personally in these beautiful photos which capture  perfectly the feeling of belonging nowhere and being completely invisible as one of my family members had a similar experience in America. Whatever your position on immigration, check out this wonderful piece.

Ms. Trayler-Smith has also done projects on the UN Convention of Children’s Rights (Childscapes), The asia Tsunami (After the Wave), and Oxfam at the G8 (The World Can’t Wait). She former worked for the Daily Telegraph and hails from South Wales.

I worked for Pittsburgh’s library system for 7 years and in that time I probably could have written several books on all the completely bizarre stuff that went on there. I did, in fact, make little cartoon books based on the follies of everyday operations in bookland for my fellow employees to have a laugh over but the folks at Unshelved have taken it up several notches. The blog for library workers features a daily comic strip on in the ins and outs of library service life, a book club and blog and also features Pimp my Bookcart in which employees can trick out their carts and submit them to the blog to compete for a prize. I particularly love this as I recall doing so with some of our old trucks to mark my ‘favs’ before going out to the shelves.

Let’s face it, as human beings we love to be scared. How else do you explain our love of horror films, roller coasters and eating cockroaches (well, for some…)?  I stumbled across the blog KinderTrauma via Ephemera and have spent way too much time now reading over the stuff that scared the pants off of other readers in their childhood. If you remember a film, tv advert  or book that made you want to hide under the bed, submit it. If not, looking through these creepy old baddies is just plain fun. My own kindertrauma stems from Children of the Corn (the first one of course!) and the film Watership Down when the bad rabbits tear the ears of the ones who tried to run away from the warren. CREEPY!!

You’ve heard about mad scientists and you’ve seen evil mad scientists in film (I’m thinking Dr. Evil…) but did you know there’s a site specifically for mad science-ry (ok, I made that word up)?  The Evil Mad Scientist Laboratory showcases some absolutely stunning evil inventions as well as instructions for some of their projects so you can be evil at home. Okay, not so evil but we’re not telling anyone. Particularly lovely are the Koch Snowflake cupcakes (awesome if you like fractals) and Bulbdial clock. Happy evil science-ing everyone!

Chris Christoffels and Jose Roland have brought the latest in bizarre public art to Brussels in the form of a huge, blue brain called InstruMENTAL which represents creativity. Or you know, depression. Either way, it’s pretty cool and sits just atop the Musical Instrument Museum to inspire. Composer and multimedia artist, Chrisoffels and Roland are part of Thinkntalk, Artonaut and Talkieo and put out a variety of media.