More about the remarkable launch of the sifaka.

I wanted to not like this, but then I watched the video, and I liked it.

More

Infrastructure from Doyle Partners.

Also, it’s UK Pole-Dance Day, organized by the Equity Pole Dancers’ Working Party! Be careful out there.

Marita Davison, who studies flamingos at Cornell University, says she regularly sees Bolivian flamingos up in the Andes Mountains. And at that high up — 16,000 feet — the lakes freeze around their feet. She sent us this video of flamingos stuck in ice. There are two on the right trying to get free.

“It’s really an amazing sight to see,” she told us. “They’ll just wait for it to thaw and then go on [with] their business.”

This is just a small detour from Krulwich’s exploration of the mystery.

Some people ask to ride me, which … depending on which saddle they have, the English or the Western…. I don’t like the Western. If they have the English, I usually agree.

RIDICULOUS.

Blah blah Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, whatever. I still don’t care about Old Spice, but I love this campaign and this actor. What a trouper!

It stars Willem Dafoe in about a dozen roles. It is directed by Dante Ariola, whose “First Taste” (for Coke) also touches on branching out, while his “Idle Thumbs” (for Virgin Mobile) tackles a series of characters. He also made one of my favorite ads: “Snowball” for Travelers. He does a nice job with these stream-of-situations stories. Maybe because of all his videogame work!

We would like to present you, a relaxing video of an adorable little kitten playing in the garden. It’s filmed entirely on the Phantom HD with framerates ranging from 400 to 800 frames per second.

E! broadcast a mockumentary about the “history” of the show around the time the movie was released, and a kind soul has uploaded it to YouTube. This is segment one of three:

I’m going to go ahead and put it out there: don’t watch this little confection expecting to see a lot of Tony Shalhoub. Alan Rickman, however, is as perfect as you expect (as are Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver).

Parts two and three are linked from the YouTube page for Part 1.

Mac Stone created this fabulous time-lapse of burrowing owls by their nest. Don’t miss the wonderful cameo by a humble orange cone. (Link to video)

Bird displays – especially the mating kind. Need I say more? Well, Ed Yong discusses the special effects of these feathers at length.

Bonus link: Ian Frazier’s piece, Coyote v Acme [modified], which originally ran in The New Yorker in 1990.

I think my cat’s going to get bed envy when he sees some of the great snoozing places these kitties get.

Rated PG for hunter violence.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Newton Meffage Paq (with handwriting recognition!), but I never realized how absolutely essential it could have turned out to be.

Got a question for the Old Spice man? Want to comment on his amazing abs? Do it. Reach out on Twitter, facebook, or your personal blog. He will find it and respond. You can follow the action on Twitter or on the Old Spice brand channel.

They have made a ton of these already, and Mustafa continues to be utterly charming. The man is a complete professional. Which of course is why I am so interested. Because after 15 years in the advertising industry, I deeply appreciate this kind of dedication and excellent creative. Yep.

UPDATE: Making the Old Spice response videos. They have made over 150 so far (June 14)!

Oh and he sent real flowers in real life to Alyssa Milano! I love this campaign.

I am in love with it.

I want to marry it.

UPDATE, June 15: Throwing in the towel. Don’t get excited, though – towel not actually thrown.

…Richard Feynman argued that, in reality, the bouncing beads would not be capable of doing meaningful work. Feynman showed that, since the entire system operates at the same temperature, a pawl would occasionally slip off the wheel. As a result, the system would generate zero net movement.

Now, physicist Devaraj van der Meer from the University of Twente and his colleagues have demonstrated that such a machine can in fact spin the paddles forward only, generating a positive net movement … The key challenge was getting the vanes to move in the forward direction only, which the scientists achieved with – somewhat surprisingly – duct tape….

Is there anything duct tape can’t do? Besides break the second law of thermodynamics, I mean.

Newly created machine on Vimeo. Write-up at PhysOrg.com: Experiment finally proves 100-year-old thought experiment is possible .

Basically a rodent, with a different tail. Flying rodents, that’s all they are. Good for nothing—apart from shooting.

Well, and paté.

Some people may find this equally true of red squirrels, but red squirrels have acquired a groundswell of support in the wake of their endangerment from aggression and squirrelpox thanks to the gray squirrel, a Victorian import from North America. Britain has adopted a policy of working to stem the tide of gray squirrels—which dramatically outnumber red squirrels, and have completely displaced the reds in most of England—hoping that control will enable the reds to bounce back as they slowly develop resistance to squirrelpox.

Watch Nutkin’s Last Stand, a POV documentary.

This wonderful skit followed the the Kirki oil spill, off the coast of Australia, in 1991. You can see more Clarke and Dawe (including the last 20 seconds of this skit) at the Mr John Clarke website.

But let’s get back to the story. The ship, operated by a Greek crew of 37, was on charter to BP Australia Ltd and was carrying a full cargo of 82,650 tonnes of Murban light crude from Jebel Dhanna to BP’s refinery at Kwinana, Western Australia.

Heckuva glob, BP.