Prepare for a new level of weird, people.

A while back we reported on a kind of pillow ‘roboty’ thing that would cuddle with you and that your siginificant other could be channeled through. Creepy and a little awkward, right?

That’s like a mild ‘2’ on a scale of 1-10.

THIS? This just pegged that scale into oblivion.

Unveiled in the UK at the annual Designing Interactive Systems conference, the egg-like device has been dubbed Kissenger. Hidden inside Kissenger’s eyeless, Humpty-Dumpty-like body is a pair of pressure-sensitive soft plastic lips that peek through a smooth plastic casing about the size of an Easter egg.

The lips contain pressure sensors and actuators. When you kiss them, the shape changes you create are transmitted in real time over the net to a receiving Kissenger. There, the actuators reproduce the mirror image of the pressure patterns you created– magically transmitting your smacker to your partner.

“People have found it a very positive way to improve intimacy in communications with their partners when they are apart,” claims Hooman Samani of Singapore-based Lovotics, which developed the device.

The device is a prototype and Samani says it will not be commercialised until “all the ethical and technical considerations are covered”. He adds: “I am not interested in sexual uses for it.”

Remember that part where he stated, “I am not interested in sexual uses for it”? He’s obviously been locked away in his lab for far too long and has forgotten what people are like.

While this isn’t the first weird thing used to kiss across a distance (that award goes to a device that’s more like tonguing a slurpee straw attached to a speaker box with someone equally lonely as yourself on the other end), it IS the first to accurately record your partners kiss onto a pair of lips so it can be played back like a sad reminder of what your relationship’s come to.

Best part of the story from the New Scientist article? THIS little excerpt:

“I think that approach is too much and I find it kind of creepy,” says Samani. “You don’t need to transmit all the parameters of a kiss. The main aim is to improve long-distance relationships. We’ve taken several steps to minimise the creepiness.”

Two things: We’d hate to see this dude’s idea of what he considers creepy and what did this thing look like BEFORE he minimized the creepiness?

We all just collectively shuddered together.

Here’s Lovotic’s actual company video for an earlier version of the device (in case you were wondering about that ‘before’ design mentioned above)…which makes us wonder how going from a cute rabbit-like design to the disembodied mouth of a Cenobite is ‘minimizing the creepiness’. Again…can someone get a search warrant for this dude’s basement? Or are we just not ready for that?

[New Scientist]

During a 10 hour surgery, doctors at Mexico City’s La Raza Medical Center removed a 33 pound tumor from 26 pound two-year-old Jesus Gabriel.

Gabriel was born with a small, benign lump on his right side that grew faster than he did and extended from his armpit to his hip. Doctors say that this is the first time in Mexican history that the tumor has been larger than its host was successfully removed.

Little Jesus is doing fine and making a very strong recovery.

[Washington Post]

Cats. They power the internet. They’re always chasing birds and most of the time they fail at it.

Birds. They make a lot of noise and mimic/mock everybody including cats that chase them. They have the advantage of flight.

That’s all about to change…behold Orville! The CopterCat!

[YouTube]

Over the last year or so we’ve seen a lot of news about people “planking”, “owling”, “horsemanning” and the less than stellar introduction of “snailing”. What most people aren’t aware is that things like the above mentioned fads have been around for a long time.

Which brings us to “castelling”.

The word “castell’ is actually Catalan for “castle”. The concept of “castelling” began sometime in the late 1800s in Valls, Spain.

So what is “castelling”? Much like “planking” and “owling” it’s pretty self-explanatory….castles…made with people.

From Wikipedia:

A castell is considered a success when stages of its assembling and disassembling, can be done in complete succession. The assembly is complete once all castellers have climbed into their designated places, and the enxaneta climbs into place at the top and raises one hand with four fingers erect, in a gesture said to symbolize the stripes of the Catalan flag. The enxaneta then climbs down the other side of the castell, after which the remaining levels of castellers descend in highest-to-lowest order until all have reached safety.

After watching some of these tenuous “castles” collapse in on themselves?

We’re pretty sure we’re going to try to make “snailing” happen.

[Wikipedia]

Weird Things reader Robin sends us this picture from a mall in Bangkok. It looks like an art installation. But is also attached to a t-shirt shop. Which conveniently sells shirts of Hitler Ronald McDonald.

Pretty bizarre.

Spotted at a Kroger.

[@ITJanitor]

[The Occultist]

Ladies and gentleman, the Tailless Whip Scorpion otherwise known as the Whip Spider which is actually neither a scorpion nor spider. Discuss…

[Nat Geo]

Is it Music Monday up in this piece or what? This little ditty comes from Weird Things reader Joatmon who worked with band The Indoorfins to sing about the Tiktaalik, a fish that walked on its fins.

Read all about this awesome creature here.

It’s a mellow groove to an evolutionary link. Tik tik tik Tiktallik!

[Wikipedia]

The random opening could be related to an oil well abandoned in 1950 that’s close to the home. The only silver lining now is if the opening leads to a Goonies-style adventure.

But it probably won’t.

Unless it does.

[KTLA]

How did folks describe UFO phenomenon before we had the science fiction constructs to fill in the blanks of interstellar travelers from deep space? Probably a lot like 12-year-old George Campbell of Sherman, Texas in 1898.

“Last night papa and I were riding along the ‘Eighty-foot Road’, about two and a half miles [4km] north of town, when all at once everything got very bright. We saw a great ball of fire coming down toward the ground. It got within about three feet [90cm] of the ground and seemed to rest for a while and then it went back up until it got clear out of sight. There was a buzzing sound all the time.”

George described the ball as 10 feet wide and not emitting any heat.

[Fortean Times]

Marvel at the various life cycle of the fantastical Turritopsis nutricula, a jellyfish that is, for all practical purposes, immortal. This strange creature reaches adulthood, transforms itself back into a child, then lives through it’s life again. Think of it as Groundhog Day with a jellyfish.

While old age can’t kill it, the creature is still susceptible to disease and fatal injuries.  Read more about this fascinating forever-fish here.

Maybe it’s the summer time, but weird beach stories are just dominating the news lately. Yesterday we had a couple of Russian jackasses strapping a mule to a parachute for publicity and today we get news that 500 penguins washed ashore in Brazil, dead as Dillinger.

About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the last 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.

Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.

Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty — indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.

Don’t you hate it when you leave the house to get something to eat and nothing you like is open? Thanks to Mike Beam for sending this in.

[MSNBC]

Real picture. Thanks to Weird Things reader Mike Beam.

[Telegraph]

Boom. How’s that for a Monday morning? That thing looks like the Yeti of cats.

As described by Gadopoder:

These little (big) guys are the oldest living relative of modern day cats. The Pallas’s Cat is the oldest living species of a clade of felids that includes the modern genus Felis. This feline, along with the extinct Martelli’s Cat, was probably one of the first two modern cats to evolve from Pseudaelurus approximately 12 million years ago.

Hit up their site for more pics.

[Gadopoder]