Popping bubble wrap and other diversions

Nine more days until Christmas! For us, it's only six; we're having the big family get-together this next Saturday. And the rush is on! I just realized this morning that I'm not half ready. Clothes, gifts, food, wrapping stuff ... it's all got to be collected and put together. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

I'm sure you're all as busy as I am, but we do need a tiny bit of down time, even with deadlines looming. So here are a few time wasters stress busters.

- From the Cincinatti Zoo and National Geographic, a video of cheetas running. Astounding work, and mesmerizing action; I must have watched it half a dozen times already. 7 minutes short. Panning cameras at cheetah speed, over 60 mph; how did they manage that? Mano Singham, on FTB, has a second video, also well worth watching, at The run of the cheetah, showing the work behind the cameras.

- From Deep Sea News:

Many corals (and sometimes other reef organisms, as you’ll see) fluoresce under UV light, and that lends to the reef a surreal and psychedelic feel if you SCUBA at night and bring a blacklight with you.

I had to watch this video on the full screen. "Psychedelic" was the right word for it. And there's an astonishing hermit crab at 2 minutes in. Check it out! The spectacular fluorescent colours of coral reefs.

 - What to do when the bus doesn't come. From NPR.
Try it out yourself: virtual bubblewrap. Self-replenishing, and no plastic waste!

- And someone seems to have too much time on their hands; they're teaching dogs to drive cars. Real dogs, real cars. See for yourself: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks, from Science Blogs.

Somebody beat them to it, though: I took this photo on the ferry in 2009:

I wonder if he's got a license?