Stuart Hind, Identification and Advisory Service Manager at the Natural History Museum in London, spends his days identifying the bugs that people bring in to the museum. Jars, match boxes, shoe boxes, and even jewelry boxes have transported creatures to his desk. Often Stuart doesn’t know what kind of insect or arachnid to expect until he peeks inside. 

In this video, he introduces a Stag Beetle, a Long-horned Beetle and a Tube Web Spider. You can read more about all three of them at the Natural History Museum’s site.

A father who lost his arm in an accident six years ago has been given a new lease of life by a hi-tech bionic hand which is so precise he can type again. Nigel Ackland, 53, has been fitted with the Terminator-like carbon fibre mechanical hand which he can control with movements in his upper arm. The new bebionic3 myoelectric hand, which is also made from aluminium and alloy knuckles, moves like a real human limb by responding to Nigel’s muscle twitches. Incredibly, the robotic arm is so sensitive it means the father-of-one can touch type on a computer keyboard, peel vegetables, and even dress himself for the first time in six years.

Related videos: prosthetics.

Thanks, @MarbleSpark.

Just three weeks old, Primrose is already being worked like a donkey - but her challenges are tougher than most…she needs to learn how to walk with plaster casts on her legs. The foal was born prematurely without properly developed bones. But now thanks to the custom-made plaster, her legs can support her while she grows. The casts may cause frustration for the little donkey, but vets in Shropshire (pron: shrop-shuhr), England say she’s one lucky lady, because she wouldn’t have survived in the wild. Now Primrose can look forward to growing tall…and all while being pretty in pink.

via Cute Overload.

What’s better than watching an orchestra and its conductor — and all of those instruments! — up close? From the BBC Proms 2012:  

Hervé Niquet leads Le Concert Spirituel in the Prélude from Handel’s Water Music Suite No 2 in D Major… with eighty players, including no less than 18 oboes, all playing specially made instruments that reproduce those used in Georgian England.

One more with recorders and drums: Water Music Suite No 3 in G Major.

From the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Measuring the Universe! So how exactly do we measure things that are incredibly far away? Positioning over time, light, and math, math, math! This video contains a lot of information — even about sound waves and color shifts in light — but it’s such a great start to understanding how we see and measure what’s out beyond our Earth and our galaxy. And it demonstrates how important math and patience are in science!

via The Awesomer.