Elgin Park – Remarkable American Town Frozen in Time

Imagine a town as time capsule, where nothing has changed since the 1960s. Certainly, there are examples the world over but for the most part these towns have been abandoned, left to their own devices due to the ravages of war, nuclear pollution or simply changing demographics.  However, there is one town in America that still looks just as it would have in the decade that gave birth to rock and roll.  Welcome to Elgin Park.

The minutia of everyday American life is there to be seen. The Top Toys store is there on the corner, pristine and just how it was all those decades ago.

If You Have Never Wanted to Visit Cinque Terre, You Will After You Watch This

It means Five Lands but Cinque Terre, on the coastline of the Italian Riviera has been a work in progress far longer than five centuries.  An exquisite terracing of multi-colored houses, Cinque Terre is not accessible by car: rather it is boats, trains and pathways that connect it to the outside world. Michael Shainblum shot this timelapse in the areas villages of Manarola, Riomaggiore and Vernazza.

Canuck Black

A man is murdered and the police pick up a suspect – a talking bear called Canuck Black.  As the interrogation takes place the police try all they can to pin the murder on the bear but can they get the evidence they need?  Canuck Black is a very entertaining if enigmatic animated short directed by Rebecca Archer.  The short is made up of intertwined segments of stop-motion and paint on glass. You might not think that would work but the result is just wonderful.

The Fratellis - I’ve Been Blind

This is the new music video for The Fratellis. Co-written and directed by Theo Gee, the concept for the video is based around an old Philosophical thought experiment called 'Mary's Room' which is all about the nature of knowledge.  Three scientists, locked in a black and white existence, bicker and experiment, experiment and bicker as they attempt to understand the one thing that not one of them can imagine – color.

Rainbow Lightning: Nature’s Astonishing Bow and Arrow

Most people have experienced lightning. Likewise, ask people if they have ever seen a rainbow and most will answer in the positive.  Yet something which few have seen is the moment that a rainbow and lightning occur at the same time. 

Image Credit Ryan Judd

Stone Angels

We have featured the Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa, Italy previously on Kuriositas and it remains a place of fascination and meditation.  It is filled with an incredible variety of outstanding sculptures that leave us with questions about our own mortality, our relationship with death and in what possibly lies ahead.  This wonderful black and white short by Nicola Bozzo captures this unfathomable place marvelously.

The Sand Cat – Desert Cat Extraordinaire

Image Credit Flickr User Joachim S Muller

Don’t be fooled by the off the scale cuteness quotient. This is the Sand Cat – or Felis margarita, a little known species of desert cat featured today on our sibling site, Ark in Space. In the wild it lives in areas that are too hot and dry for any other cat- the deserts of Africa and Asia, including the Sahara. It is the only desert species of cat known to us. As such, this cat is one tough cookie.

Glass Beach – Nature Corrects Another of Our Mistakes

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that a rubbish dump being created would, in the space of a century, become a protected area.  Yet that is exactly what happened to what has come to be known as Glass Beach, just outside Fort Bragg in California.

Image Credit Flickr User mlhradio

The residents there had no refuse collection so, with the sea so close by the solution seemed obvious – throw the garbage over the edge of the cliffs above their local beach.  The burgeoning population of the town proceeded, with abandon reckless if not gleeful (after all, it must have been more fun than the usual taking out of the garbage) to do just that.

The World Inside a Spanish Globe

New research at the University of Cambridge has lifted the lid on an unusual Spanish globe. Until now, the globe in the University of Cambridge's Whipple Museum of the History of Science has been shrouded in mystery: where, when and why was it made? Who would have used it?

Most fundamentally, what is it -- some kind of scientific instrument or a child's toy?

Two Snails Set Off

Jacques Prévert’s poems are particularly popular in French schools so its great to see his Song of the Snails on their Way to a Funeral given the full animation treatment.  Yes, it’s in French, English speakers, but it would be criminal to dub this, such is the Gallic vocal talent included herein.  Artistic and directorial talents for Two Snails Set Off come from Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Romain Segaud.  This is an absolute joy to watch.

Barcelona Archi’llusion

If this doesn’t make you do a double-take then very little will.  Maxime Menilmonde is well known for seeing the world with slightly different eyes than the rest of us – and this is made even clearer in their new video which takes the gorgeous Catalan city of Barcelona and, well, does things with it.  If you have been to this city before it will immensely please you and if you haven’t then I expect you know how to book tickets!

Mount Nemrut – Home to Gods Beheaded

The Adiyaman Province of Turkey in the south east of the country is not wealthy – it is still classified as a developing rural region. Yet 25 miles from the small town of Kâhta the visitor discovers the remnants of once fabulous wealth.  High on the summit of Mount Nemrut is a huge but little visited necropolis, home to the beheaded gods of the past.

Image Credit Flickr User birasuegi

Boring Exam Phrases and Their Replacements

GCSE English Language is not an easy exam and as such it is easy to make mistakes!  One in particular is when exam candidates fail to follow through on a PEE paragraph, despite making a good start.  It’s almost as if they run out of steam but unfortunately it is the last part of a PEE paragraph (Point, Evidence, Explain) that reaps the most rewards.  Of course, some of it is simply down to exam technique - something else that has to be acquired by candidates hoping to do well!

This video is made to encourage students (my own in particular: in the real world I am a teacher) to avoid some of the more common (and boring) mistakes in their English exams and to be a little more ambitious when it comes to explaining the use of language in a text!