No surprise to anyone, but Africa is a huge huge piece of land! A bit old but really awesome nonetheless. Coming from the Times Atlas we have an amazing graphical comparison of the African continent in comparison to other landmasses we all are much more familiar with.

The graphic shows how Africa (30.3 million km²!) is larger than the combination of China, The USA, Western Europe, India, Argentina and the British Isles. Very cool!

Brilliant! Internet wonder-man Dustin McLean has put together a series of literal music videos, including the brilliant debut video, a literal take on A-ha’s “Take On Me”, which is one of the most popular videos on YouTube and was featured as a top hit on Funny or Die. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a contract coming McLean’s way from Funny or Die in the future, as these are just too good to keep as mere YouTube releases.

McLean as since followed up with Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge” and Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels”.

For the past few days word has been flying around the internet that a German physician, treating a 42 year old American in Berlin for leukemia, ‘accidentally’ cured him of HIV, of which the patient was also suffering. Come to find out that Dr. Gero Hütter didn’t necessarily cure him accidentally, it was more a theory he was putting to the test.

In need of a bone marrow transplant, Dr. Hütter chose specific marrow from a donor who carries the naturally occuring genetic mutation that renders cells immune to almost all strains of HIV, the virus that causes Aids. After a successful transplant, the patient appear to be recovering well and more importantly, appears to be free of HIV as well, even after over 600 days without antiretroviral medication.

More tests using this method will be conducted on HIV+ patients, but if they prove to be successful, this type of gene therapy will become much more accepted as a treatment for the HIV virus.

Revealed in a recent Army request to the Department of Defense, a search appears to be underway for a good team to create a next-generation sensor package to enable a robot, or teams of robots, to detect unruly humans. Or as the Army puts it:

Develop a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment.

As robotics engineers get more and more worried that their creations will become tomorrow’s oppressive machines, objections are popping up from robo-ethicists and robotics engineers around the net.

I for one am interested to see how much closer our lives will be like living in an episode of Half-Life 2.

Happy National Beard Month everybody! November is a great time of the year, getting closer to Christmas, leaves are turning, snow is beginning to fall. As the weather begins to cool (well, at least in places with ozone coverage), it becomes necessary for men to begin covering their face, and I mean covering them well. And what better way than with a full face of hair!? We’re not talking about a wimpy middle-management, corporate sales goatee or anything, we’re talking a full-on, Grizzly Adams bush of facial hair, with ample room for bird nests and sandwich crumbs.

If you need a little guidance, Matt Evans took a look at a bunch of beard options over at The Morning News, making it a bit easier for you to decide how you and your face will be celebrating this glorious month of facial hair worship.

My new favorite OS X application has landed and it’s beautiful! A French project, with English and French versions, Poladroid lets you take normal digital photos and turn them into virtual Polaroids via an elegant drag and drop and intuitive “developing” feature (shake them to develop faster!). You can also export the finished photos for print or sharing on the Poladroid Flickr group. You might not be able to find the film as easily anymore, but at least you can relive the good ole days with a little bit of grainy Polaroid visuals on your desktop.

We’re lovers, not fighters, but we’re always prepared to throw down with whatever aggressors may come our way. So watch out World, the editors of Bunch of Nerds don’t play.

You may not be as physically or mentally prepared as we are, but now you can begin your training thanks to the incredible learning guide How To Beat Up Anything.

Very handy in case you need to beat up Tom Hanks, beat up an alligator or even beat up the apple-throwing tree from the Wizard of Oz.

Do you have an animal hunger for everything bacon, so much so that when faced with the decision of Smoked bacon, Double-Smoked bacon, Lardons, Canadian Bacon or even Pancetta, you freeze up and just end up asking for all of them stuffed in between two pieces of bread? Then you need to keep up to date on what’s going on in the world of pork! Thankfully there’s Bacon Today, the premiere source for all things pork, streaky, smoked, un-smoked or anything other types of greasy, pig-based goodness.

Hello! Announced months ago and a few weeks ago starting to trickle through the market, Kidrobot hits a huge home run with their brilliant mini-figure series of The Simpsons. Together with Simpsons creator Matt Groening, Kidrobot created 24 characters, from Homer to Itchy & Scratchy to Sideshow Bob, measuring 3-inches tall and retailing for $7.95.

Created by Josh Rubin, the New York City-based founder of CoolHunting, Freehands are a brilliant and stylish accessory for everyone wanting to use their iPhone on icy days, without freezing your digits off. Together with his father, who oddly enough manufactures and sells gloves, the two realized the ‘glove-or-phone’ conundrum over dinner, quickly sketching out and brainstorming affordable, stylish and functional gloves for the mobile worker.

Available in fleece or leather, Freehands are the perfect gift for your iLove this Christmas, even if they use a Blackberry or other mobile device.

Go Shop: Freehands