Cool thing of the day

[cnoocy]

WETA Workshops (the LoTR folks) built a beautiful and functional mermaid tail for a swimmer, Nadya Vessey, who lost both legs below the knee as a child.
http://www.wetanz.com/a-mermaid-s-tale/
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4858855a11.html
The Stuff article talks about her "frolic[ing] in the harbour". A little posthuman, but definitely neat.

ETA: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4203291a6442.html has more from Ms. Vessey's point of view.

via jwz

Comments

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Wow. There's a scene in Transmetropolitan (Lonely City, page 35) of a person borrowing dolphin genes to frolick in the western lakes. This is a lot closer to that than I was expecting anytime soon.

[ambassadordave.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing, that's pretty darn cool. Don't think I would have read about that elsewhere!

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Stunning!

(Though they need to stop with the puns in the second article.)