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[MIKA27]

The Mysterious Cryptid Relics of Japan

Japan is home to thousands of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines too numerous to list. These shrines and temples are renowned by tourists from all over the world, who come to enjoy their serene beauty and cultural heritage. They can be found everywhere, from deep in the remote mountains, to craggy coastlines, to wedged between skyscrapers and crowded shopping streets, bizarrely melding the modern with the ancient. Practically every municipality in Japan has at least one temple or shrine, with historical cities such as Kyoto boasting several thousand.

Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan

More than just places of tranquil beauty or places of worship, the shrines and temples of Japan are also often places tasked with the housing of sacred relics. These can be important historical artifacts, irreplaceable national treasure, or priceless items of cultural heritage, yet on occasion there can be far stranger things locked away from the bustling tourists. Some temples and shrines in Japan have become known for harboring the remains of bizarre creatures, monsters, and supposedly long extinct animals, all of which potentially hold great crypozoological significance.

What mysteries can we find past the rock gardens, ornate gates, and within the lacquered wood halls of these ancient temples?

Here we will look at some of these cryptid relics that have found their way to Japan’s temples and shrines.

Many of the alleged remains of strange creatures are of cryptids that have strong folkloric ties. One such creature is the legendary Kappa of Japan’s waterways. One of the most well known cryptids of Japan, the Kappa is a mysterious, bipedal water dwelling creature said to inhabit Japan’s rivers and streams. They are typically described as being the size of a child of 6 to 10 years of age and resembling a cross between a turtle, monkey, and lizard. Kappa are often depicted as having a shell on their backs, similar to a turtle’s, and having a beak like mouth. Some reports have made mention of patchy, scraggly hair covering the body.

Several temples in Japan are purported to have the remains of Kappa. Zuiryūji temple in Osaka, Japan, is one such place, thought to have a full Kappa mummy which it reportedly came into its possession in 1682. The mummy is around 70 centimeters long and looks vaguely humanoid. It has thin arms, a mouth full of needle like teeth, and a crown of scraggly hair atop its head. The alleged Kappa is not on public display, and it is not uncommon to have requests to view it denied.

Zuiryūji temple Kappa mummy

Another temple somewhat well-known for its Kappa remains is Sogen-ji, located in the Asakusa area of Tokyo, a popular and crowded area known for its various temples and historical attractions that attract droves of tourists from all over the world. The area around Sogen-ji is steeped in Kappa lore, and is said to have once been infested by the creatures. Kappa were known to be mischievous and even downright hostile on occasion, so the temple is said to have been built to appease them. Sogen-ji is so entwined with Kappa folklore that it is often referred to as “Kappa Dera,” or “Kappa Temple.”

Within Sosenji’s grounds one can find statues, murals, and elaborate drawings of Kappa, as well as piles of cucumber, said to be the Kappa’s favorite food, left as offerings by guests. Of course the main attraction is the supposed Kappa hand, encased in glass within one of the temple’s halls. The hand is mummified and cut off at the wrist, with bone exposed. The hand has long, bony fingers that end in claws. It is not clear what the exact origins of the hand are, and it is often dismissed as a mere mummified monkey hand, yet since no one is allowed to handle the relic it is hard to say for sure.

Sosenji Kappa hand

Another area with strong Kappa lore is the city of Tono, located in Iwate Prefecture in northeastern Japan. Like the Sosen-ji temple area, Tono has long been said to be inhabited by Kappa and it is thought they still can be found in the area to this day. The city boasts a few temples purported to be in the possession of various mummified Kappa remains, some that are reportedly hundreds of years old.

Other creatures well known from Japanese folklore are the Tengu and Raijū. The Tengu are legendary winged, avian humanoids that were seen as protectors of the mountains. The creatures were often sighted in feudal Japan, where they were seen as almost godlike entities with magical powers such as telepathy and shape shifting. Many people of the time considered the Tengu to be very real, and shogun were even said to have the creatures moved out of areas before important areas due to their often mischievous or aggressive behavior.

In addition to such stories, there are various relics concerning Tengu contained within temples. There is a scroll at a temple in Shizuoka prefecture which allegedly contains a written apology penned by a Tengu. It is told that the creature was captured in the 17th century by the high priest of the temple and forced to write the apology after harassing travelers in the area.

The Hachinohe Museum in Aomori prefecture houses the alleged mummified remains of a Tengu. The skull of these remains is humanoid, while the body is covered with feathers and the feet are like that of a bird. Another temple in Saitama prefecture keeps what is said to be the talon of a Tengu, while still another supposedly has the beaked skull of one.

Another creature of legend with such remains is the Raijū, or literally “Thunder Beast,” who were said to be the mighty servants of the Shinto god of thunder. These creatures were most often described as looking something like a badger, weasel, cat, or fox, although they were sometimes said to look like a wolf or monkey as well, often with wings or multiple tails. They are quite often depicted as being wreathed in crackling lightning, and their voices were the boom of thunder. During storms, these creatures would become very agitated, frantically dashing about and leaping from tree to tree, tearing up the bark in the process with their formidable claws. In Japanese folklore, it was said that trees scored by lighting had been the work of Raijū claws. They were also known to swoop down and slash at passerby.

ūallegedly fell into a well in Izumo province, where it became hopelessly entangled in ropes and was captured alive. The creature was subsequently exhibited within a cage of brass in the court of the temple.

The animal was said to resemble a badger, yet with a longer tail and oversized claws. When the weather was clear, the Raijū was quite docile, sleeping quietly in its cage most of the time. However, during storms it would become a ferocious, hissing beast, and its eyes were said to flicker and flash as if filled with lightning. The creature refused to eat or drink during its captivity and eventually died. Its body is said to have been preserved and kept on the premises for some time before they were reportedly destroyed in a fire.

Besides this account of a living specimen, there are some other temples said to have the mummified remains of Raijū. One such mummy is kept at Yuzanji temple in Iwate prefecture. The mummy looks very much like a cat, only misshapen and with longer legs. It was allegedly received in the 1960s as a donation from a parishioner, although the exact origin of the mummy is not known. Another similar looking Raijū mummy is kept at Saishoji temple in Niigata prefecture.

Yuzanji Temple Raiju mummy

Another bizarre relic is the teeth of a supposed sea serpent kept at a temple along the rugged coast of Western Japan. Legend has it that a priest was strolling along the beach contemplated matters of faith when he came across a large, terrifying sea creature, described as a dragon, washed up on the beach. The priest took this as a sign of sorts, and wanted to acquire the beast for the temple, yet it was much too large to take back with him so he removed some of the teeth instead. The priest then took his prize back to the temple where the “dragon teeth” supposedly remain to this day, although apparently not available for viewing by the public.

Still other temples and shrines in Japan hold the remains of other very famous Japanese cryptids. One temple in Okayama prefecture has what is said to be a preserved specimen of a tsuchinoko, which is a type of cryptid snake believed to inhabit the remote mountains of Japan. The tsuchinoko resembles a viper, but with a bulging body thicker than the head. It is reported to make a wide range of vocalizations and is known for its unusual methods of locomotion, such as jumping or even rolling along like a wheel. It is such a popular cryptid in Japan that some rural areas hold regular tsuchinoko hunts and offer sizeable rewards for a specimen.

Tsuchinoko mummy

Another cryptid in Japan is a creature that actually is known to have existed. The supposedly extinct Honshu wolf was the world’s smallest species of wolf, standing just a little over a foot at the shoulder. They were once common throughout their former range of Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku Islands, and were often worshipped as forest protectors. Sadly, their numbers declined due to rabies and hunting brought upon by changing attitudes towards the wolves. The last Honshu wolf is widely believed to have died in 1905, although they are still reportedly sighted in many isolated regions to this day.

Honshu wolf

However, in 1994, one shrine in Tottori prefecture was found to possess a specimen of the Honshu wolf that is thought to have possibly died as recently as the 1950s. If these remains are the real deal, then it would significantly push back the accepted extinction date and give more fuel to the idea that the wolves could still survive somewhere in the mountains of Japan. Unfortunately, the remains are considered sacred by the shrine, and as such requests to test them have been denied.

Even more remains can be found throughout the temples and shrines of Japan. Mermaids, demons, and two-headed monsters also count among some of the more fantastical and bizarre examples of these.

3 faced demon mummy at Zengyoji Temple

What all of these cases have in common is that they offer the tantalizing possibility of something all cryptozoologists strive for, which is concrete physical evidence. What would we find if we were to be allowed access to these remains with our modern DNA testing techniques? Would we find the proof we are looking for, or the creative taxidermy many claim these remains really are? Would we not learn something either way?

Unfortunately, these remains are considered sacred relics and not available for our attempts at answers. Many of them are locked away and not even available for viewing, let alone proper scientific analysis. As much as we would like to crack open these mysteries and pull away the curtains of uncertainty, it seems that some mysteries will forever be out of our grasp. In the case of these mysterious temples of Japan, it seems that we must resign ourselves to being satisfied with their architectural magnificence and historical value, while only allowing our curiosity to approach further as we wonder at and ponder what mysteries may lie beyond their doors.

[MIKA27]

See This Tank? Poland Hopes You Don’t

We have stealth technology that can hide aircraft and ships from radar, sonar and other means of detection. We have David Copperfield who can make the Statue of Liberty disappear. But can anyone make a tank invisible? Poland claims it can.

In September, 2013, Poland’s OBRUM (Polish acronym for Research and Development Centre for Mechanical Appliances) defense group, working with Britain’s BAE Systems, unveiled a concept demonstrator model of the PL-01, a stealth battlefield tank which will use an angular design and low profile to deflect and avoid radar.

New innovations include reactive panels made of temperature controlling wafers that will match the surrounding conditions to mask its heat signature from nighttime thermal imaging scans. That’s just the beginning. Each wafer can be controlled individually to create a heat image of a completely different vehicle or object. Cover the tank with state-of-the-art camouflage paint and it sounds on paper like the PL-01 is one sneaky Sherman. So when can we not see this invisible tank?

Recent military reports say OBRUM and BAE have begun work on a full prototype of the PL-01 that is scheduled to be completed in 2016 and, if successful, used for mass production in 2018.

Should Poland’s enemies be afraid? While its visibility will be low, the PL-01’s firepower will be high. It will be armed with an unmanned turret, smoke grenade launchers, a 105mm or 120mm smoothbore cannon, a 7.62mm coaxial internal gun and a detachable remotely controlled 7.62 or 50 caliber independent gun turret system.

With delivery not until 2018, Poland’s adversaries have plenty of time to learn how to say in Polish, “Tank? What tank?”

Nothing to see here … move along.

[MIKA27]

How Did the Black Death Spread?

The Black Death of the 1340s and 1350s was, in terms of the percentage of the population lost, the worst recorded plague in human history. It wiped out as much as a quarter of the world’s population, probably including more than half the population of Europe, and records suggest that it sometimes did so in a spectacularly gruesome way—routinely covering its victims in exploding cysts and rotting their extremities with gangrene. It was the pneumonia and not these more visible symptoms that killed most victims, but all told, it was a terrible way to die. The grief and horror that survivors must have felt would have been enough to break anyone’s heart, and that’s essentially where Europe was in these years leading up to the Renaissance—a grieving, terrified, brokenhearted continent.

This 2011 report from Nature magazine provides a good overview of everything we knew, until very recently, about the Black Death:

You’ll notice the rats. By way of their fleas, rats—it has long been reasoned—carried the bubonic plague (yersinia pestis), and the theory was that if you got rid of the rats, you wouldn’t have another plague outbreak. But that theory has never fully explained how quickly and universally the plague spread, and now scientists at Public Heath England have an alternative explanation: based on an examination of plague victims from 14th-century London, they say that the plague was airborne and that rats had very little to do with its spread.

Whether this new theory holds water or not, industrialized nations have little to fear from yersinia pestis today—contemporaneous evidence suggests that almost the entire population of Europe was effectively immunocompromised due to poor diet, malnutrition, and existing infections, rendering them more vulnerable to the disease than the vast majority of people reading this would be. But people in rural areas of developing nations who do not have immediate access to antibiotics and other effective forms of medical treatment are still vulnerable, and a variant of the original Black Plague is still taking lives in Madagascar’s villages to this day. For the residents of these villages, and for the millions of 14th-century victims who preceded them, our relative safety is of no help.

[MIKA27]

This Is Probably The Best Sounding Video Game You'll Ever Play

Project CARS continues to be one of the more ambitious video game projects ever made, with a commitment to bringing reality onto the virtual track with more lifelike cars, physics and of course, sounds. Having a supercar drive by is an experience for the senses, and Project CARS has gone all out to make the sound as authentic as possible. This concept video shows that it sounds freaking amazing.

A member of the Project CARS community took sound samples of cars from Porsche, McLaren, Zonda and even the gorgeous BAC MONO and put them in this awesome technical demo.

Sound completes the experience of any movie or game, and having this obsession to detail is really going to make it a great game to play.

[MIKA27]

This Paleo Beer Is Made With Yeast From A 35-Million-Year-Old Fossil

As microbrewers continue their quest to brew beer with ever stranger ingredients , here is one possible winner: Yeast living on the 35 million year-old fossil of an extinct whale. Bone Dusters Paleo Brew is the alcoholic brainchild of a paleontology lover and a brew brewer, and it may soon be coming to a tap near you.

Jason Osborne, who heads up the nonprofit Paleo Quest, first dreamed up the idea to interest people in paleontology with beer because, well, beer! He got Jasper Akerboom of Lost Rhino Brewing Company on board to brainstorm possibilities for the paleo beer. Akerboom initially suggested a Jurassic Park-style beer made from yeast preserved in amber, but that proved, hmm, a bit ambitious.

Instead, they headed down in to the fossil archives of the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland to swab old bones (top photo). They eventually found one yeast that could ferment beer. This yeast turned out to be a variant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the workhorse yeast of breweries everywhere. In honour of the protocetid whale fossil that it lived on, they plan to name the variant Saccharomyces cerevisiae var protocetus.

But, most importantly, what does the Paleo Brew taste like? “The beer, its style undetermined, tasted fairly sweet, and hovered around 4-to-5-per cent alcohol by volume,” according to Northern Virginia Magazine.

If you want to imbibe for yourself, Scientific American‘s Symbiartic blog reports Lost Rhino will soon be serving Bone Dusters Paleo Brew at its Virginia taproom. They may also offer it to their distributors soon, and may even supply it to “relevant professional meetings,” which sounds like yet another good reason to sneak into your local paleontology conference.

[MIKA27]

Testing Is About To Begin On These Futuristic Robot Space Surgeons

If you’re an astronaut on your way to Mars, there aren’t too many options if your appendix bursts. That’s why a technology company has developed mini robot space surgeons that can actually climb inside of astronauts’ bodies. The first zero-gravity tests on the machine are about to begin.

It sounds creepy, but this thing could save lives in the not-too-distant future. While astronauts who go to the International Space Station are only ever a few hours away from home thanks to an emergency escape pod, the men and women on the planned missions to an asteroid and Mars simply won’t have that option. This robot, made by Virtual Incision, is designed to do it all with a satellite link back to Earth, where a doctor controls the surgical arms, as they enter the astronaut through his belly button, and navigates the abdomen with the help of a small camera.

Now, space surgery is very difficult. Or at least we think it is, because we haven’t tried it. The weightless environment makes any type of bleeding a terrible mess, and the surgeon — robot or not — can’t just place tools down on a table. To cope with these challenges, the robotic surgeon will start zero-gravity tests in an aeroplane in the next few months. From there on out, we can only assume that space medicine will work like that scene in Prometheus. Except, you know, without the killer alien.

[MIKA27]

To Be Richard or Not To Be Richard

When it comes to determining if you’re British royalty, it pays to not let your DNA get left stranded. That’s the problem facing Richard III, or more precisely, the experts questioning whether the remains found under a parking lot in Leicester, England, are from the heroic king or some brave but lesser-known relative.

The University of Leicester’s 2013 declared DNA match between the remains and a descendant on the king’s maternal side is being contested by Michael Hicks, head of the history department at Winchester University and archaeologist Martin Biddle, emeritus fellow of medieval archaeology at the University of Oxford. Hicks says the radiocarbon dating of the remains only narrows them down to a time period that could span as many as 80 years. He points out that the king’s maternal grandmother, Joan Beaufort, had 16 children and many of them and their descendents fought and died like Richard III during the War of the Roses or the previous Hundred Years War.

Professor Biddle says the Franciscan friary where the remains were found was open for three centuries and little is known about who else was buried there. He’s calling for a coroner’s court to be established to analyze all of the evidence.

While the University of Leicester team agrees that the radiocarbon dating is imprecise, the closeness of the DNA to a known descendant coupled with the spinal curvature of the remains – Richard II known to have a hunch – makes them confident that the evidence is more than coincidental.

What kind of proof would convince Professor Hicks?

You would need to compare the DNA with Richard’s brother King Edward IV at Windsor. At present there is no chance of that.

Someone should tell Queen Elizabeth II to never go anywhere without a coin in her pocket.

[MIKA27]

How the secret police tracked my childhood

Fighting the system used to be dangerous anywhere in Eastern Europe. For one protester from a small Romanian village it was disastrous - and also for his family, whose every word was recorded by the secret police. Carmen Bugan, who found the transcript of her childhood, tells their story.

Soon after my brother's birth in February 1983 my father, Ion Bugan, was faced with the biggest decision he ever had to make.

Should he and my mother continue secretly typing anti-communist manifestos on an illegally-owned typewriter and distributing them around Romania? Or should he go to Bucharest to take on Ceausescu all by himself, without telling anyone a word about it?

Thirty years on we still live with the legacy of my father's choice. And with the discovery of an intimate, horrifying story of our lives written by the secret police, the Securitate.

This was a Romania of food shortages, frequent power cuts, and ferocious reprisals for any form of dissent. The sounds of forbidden US radio stations - Voice of America and Radio Free Europe - woke us up and put us to bed every day, sending shivers up our spines as they merged with the noise from the kitchen. They gave my father hope that life could be better if only people stood up for themselves.

The Securitate was well acquainted with my parents. In early 1961 my father was in a bar with his best friend Petrica and a few others complaining about high tax rates and the collectivisation of farms. They came up with a plan to hijack an internal flight from Arad, in the west of Romania, and to fly it out of the country.

Petrica was a retired air force officer who in civilian life repaired radios like my dad. They had no idea that one of their friends was a Securitate informer.

All were captured before they had a chance to take control of the airplane and condemned to eight years of hard labour "for preparatory actions leading to fraudulent crossing of the border" (leaving the country without permission was illegal) and "plotting against public order".

My father, in his 20s, found himself in terrible prisons at Jilava and Deva and at the Great Island of Braila labour camp, where he met some of the political dissidents who were systematically tortured there.

Ion wore 45kg of chains in Jilava prison

In July 1964, my father and his friends were liberated in a general amnesty but the Securitate followed his every move, looking for any reason to discredit him and throw him back in prison. Suffocated and intimidated, in February 1965 dad bought a compass, binoculars, antibiotics, a few vials of caffeine, some cans of sardines, and a roll of salami. He and Petrica made a heart-stopping escape from Romania in a blizzard. Dodging police and hiding in haystacks, they made it all the way to the Iron Curtain at the Bulgarian-Turkish border.

On 2 March 1965 at 07:30 in the morning, starved, weak and frozen, they rolled down a hill, jumped a 2m-high barbed-wire fence and nearly crossed into Turkey. The patrol squad showered them with bullets in no-man's land, just 400m from freedom, and sent them back to Romania. My father was sentenced to 11 years at the harshest prison of all, Aiud, for "fraudulent crossing of the border, punishable with art. 267 of the penal code".

Part of the sentence was a five-month period of torture by solitary confinement and starvation while wearing 45kg of chains day and night, in the "special" wing of the prison at Alba Iulia. The prison records say he was transferred to Alba Iulia "for judicial affairs" which is true in a sense: my father was tortured there in order to "admit" his supposed role as an "accomplice" in the theft of money that had "disappeared" from his radio repair shop after he ran away to Bulgaria. My father's own account of this period is hair-raising: he was fed once every two days, and allowed to wash three times in the entire period he was held there.

But, as dad puts it, there was an angel looking after him - he was transferred back to Aiud and freed in January 1969 as a result of changes to the penal code.

Dad now attempted to live a normal life. He married and had children. Things didn't seem so bad on the surface. We had summer holidays on the Black Sea and built a lovely house in our village, Draganesti, near Galati, in eastern Romania.

Loredana with father Ion

But behind the scenes the Securitate pushed him to breaking point, following and spying on him. My mother, Mioara, was denied a career in teaching because she married a "political agitator" and was therefore likely to "pollute the minds of the younger generation". Told to choose between job and husband, she opted for the marriage, and they both began working in a grocer's shop. Before long, mum was running the shop, and as dad had been banned from keeping the books at his TV/radio repair workshop, she did that too. Dad worked on repairs when he wasn't stacking shelves. My parents put up with their lot, and worked hard.

By 1981, however, there were not many groceries to sell. Hungry factory workers yelled at them: "What am I going to put in my bag for lunch?" Evening bread queues often ended in fist fights. When the doors closed for the day, my father's angry outbursts at the back of the shop mingled with blasts of Radio Free Europe. One day he told my mother: "I don't want to spend my life just breathing air, and doing nothing."

They bought two typewriters, one of which they did not register with the police, and began making anti-communist flyers protesting against shortages and human rights abuses. They spent the nights typing and driving all over the country to put them in people's letterboxes, while my sister and I slept. The police kept coming to the house to check the prints of the legal typewriter, and to see whether they matched with the letters.

On 10 March 1983, about a month after my father and I visited the hospital with a bouquet of carnations to see my new-born brother, Catalin, my father took to the streets of Bucharest. On top of our red Dacia car, he mounted placards demanding human rights, and denouncing Ceausescu as a torturer who should be put on trial. Then he drove through the city centre, throwing leaflets from the window and blowing a whistle to attract attention.

The spies drew a map of Bugan's protest drive through Bucharest

Catalin was born a few weeks before Ion's protest

Dad's protest landed him back in Aiud, condemned to 10 years of hard labour for "propaganda against the socialist regime", punishable under art. 166 line 2 of the penal code. My mother, my sister, my brother and I were placed under close surveillance.

We became accustomed to travelling across the country for a yearly prison visit, letters sent but not always received, food packages returned to us because "the prisoner did not behave appropriately". Rotten fried chicken, softened apples and ulcer medication were sent back in the battered cardboard boxes in which we had placed them months before, hoping he'd receive them.

The Securitate had their own keys to our house and ordered us not to pull the curtains in the kitchen to make it easier for them to observe us. We later learned that my father had accumulated the codenames Andronic, Butnaru, Cazul Cocor, and Barbu, while Mum was codenamed Bela and Barbu. A school friend codenamed Cornelia was in charge of keeping a record of my feelings about dad for the Securitate.

In 1985 mum and dad were forced to divorce. By 1987 I had become accustomed to children at school, and one of the teachers, referring to me and my sister as "the criminal's daughters".

On his birthday in 1988, Ceausescu proclaimed a general amnesty. My mother quipped that history would remember him for his compassion - having no idea that we would find her words transcribed 30 years later in government archives.

When my father walked home in the night on 5 February 1988, secret microphones in the house "registered an atmosphere of joy coming from the children". My father "visited each room", "asked for his shaver" and looked "for his radio". He cradled Catalin in his arms, they noted. The transcripts of that first night say that "the family went to sleep at 03:45 in the morning. The Obj. [my father] complained of a pain in his heart."

The Securitate kept thousands of files on the Bugans

None of us remember all of these details, they are a gift from the record-keeping Securitate, but I recall the smell of prison on dad's clothes.

A couple of months after dad's return from prison, the secret police files note:

"At 01:32 in the morning, we could hear someone trying the door to the room equipped with listening devices. The door doesn't open. We hear the footsteps of someone walking away and the insistent barking of the dog as to a person who is a stranger to the house."

It is a transcript of the Securitate registering itself in the act of trying to come into the house to change the microphones. I read this file last August for the first time. It made me understand that when we heard noises in those years in Romania we weren't really crazy as we thought.

After receiving a series of invitations from mysterious men to meet them in town, death threats on the phone in the middle of the night, and even a call from a woman offering sex to dad, we decided to seek political asylum in the US. It was my turn to make a heart-stopping journey to the American Embassy with my father's prison papers to give testimony on behalf of the family.

I managed to get into the Consulate but I was promptly arrested on the way out and interrogated for 45 minutes. I kept repeating what I was told to say: "We are under American protection, you can't do anything to me." They let me go and told me to never go back there again.

The Securitate records show how "concerned" they were about us and what might happen, as immigrants, to our sense of Romanian identity. They tried to dissuade my mother from going to the US - they told her that life in the West was a form of slavery to rich, lazy capitalists.

We waited 11 months for our passports, under house arrest. One record says that "after we have used every method to discourage the obj. [this time Mum] from leaving, we decided to expel her from the Communist Party". It was, even according to the Securitate's own file, a humiliation ceremony, where her friends were forced to hurl insults at her.

"Your girls will become prostitutes," the passport clerk yelled at my parents. "Our hand is long," they said, turning to my father, threatening us with death if we spoke about what had been done to us once in America. I now read my mother's declaration in the files "not to damage the image of our socialist regime by actions or words", and wonder how she must have felt to leave the country in her 40s with three children, a husband who had returned from the heart of evil, and no idea where we were going.

As we made our way to Michigan at the end of 1989, each carrying one suitcase in which we packed a lifetime, the Berlin Wall tumbled down behind us. The bloody Romanian Revolution followed at Christmas time.

We arrived as political refugees in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on 17 November 1989, travelling via Rome, and landing at night, in a snowstorm, not speaking a word of English.

The Bugan family arrived in the US with no English

In a refugee centre in Rome we had been taught that Americans, when they ask "How are you?" don't really expect an answer; that they all have chequebooks; that they value democracy and free speech; and that all immigrants gain 8kg in the first year in the West because, well, there is just a lot of food to eat and most of it is rather different from our homemade soups. We couldn't have been more thrilled with all of that.

We became eager to "assimilate" into Western life.

My sister and I would often ask the people in Grand Rapids we knew best: "Do I look American yet?"

At the same time we saw on a donated television how the Ceausescus were executed. My father said: "This is all wrong, now the world will never find out from him about his abuses." My mother cried: "They are just two old people, they should not have been killed." And all of us danced in the living room with joy that a revolution was happening in Romania.

The uprising brought turmoil to the streets of Bucharest

I wondered if my father's protest might have played some role in bringing it about. My father wanted to return. We said firmly: "We are staying here, and you are not abandoning us yet again."

Twenty years have passed. We cleaned nursing homes, churches, worked at Burger King, made golf clubs, Mum worked in a children's clothing factory, and we went to school. My father collected all of the discarded televisions we found, fixed them, and we had a TV in each room: "Such a waste," he'd say.

We became American citizens. My sister and I married. She and her husband bought a house in the suburbs. We became "Romanians by birth".

In 1999 Romania opened the archives of the secret police to people who had been subjected to surveillance during the communist years.

My father said: "I know who I am. I don't need to know what the Securitate said about me." But I disagreed and managed to find our records in 2010.

Now, it was one thing to experience the Securitate following and threatening us. But it is another thing to read the complete record of our daily lives, including the traps neatly laid out for us, to lure us into committing an offence, which we escaped simply by instinct or luck.

Carmen reading the files made about her family's life

So, when my mother was in the hospital with my brother, the Securitate placed next to her a "patient" who also had a "sick child". Nurses and doctors helped to stage it all. The woman who became Mum's "friend" had a question scripted for her to help her spark the conversation. She produced reports on what mum said about my father and his dissidence.

Another example is a "legend" (a technical term used by the Securitate) by which an "Amnesty International employee" came to ask mum about my father and whether we were persecuted because of him. The officer was trained to have a German accent, and to look nervous. He invited her to a hotel in town to talk "out of the reach of the microphones".

This was a trap to throw my mother in prison for speaking with foreigners about my father. Again, we now have the official record against which we can test our own memory of that day when the man came to the house. After he left, my mother said: "No-one is this worried about us, I don't trust this stranger." It was a lack of trust that saved her.

There are records of dreams we recounted to each other in the mornings. The transcriber knew us so well, he or she was able to read and duly note our moods. Some even took sides in family arguments, noting on the margins of the transcripts who they thought was right. It's like having had a one-sided relationship with these invisible broadcasters of our tormented souls.

The family made a new life in the US

Needless to say, the documents have been sifted through, parts have been blotted out in black ink, pages are missing. What I have is what was given to me as publishable.

But we now have every letter that my father wrote to us from prison and we wrote to him. Half of the letters are direct transcripts—they were copied out by the censors - while half are paraphrases of what we wrote. There are not always quotation marks to indicate which of the words are ours, which are theirs. It is nearly impossible to detangle the self from the words of the Securitate. Some of the letters were not forwarded to us, so I read them for the first time last summer.

The question of what my father was thinking of when he drove away to Bucharest on 10 March 1983 has lost its painful intensity for us over the years. Yet in the files I see our daily recitation of blame and anger at the time.

That question would have remained unanswered if it hadn't been for a trip to Romania that we took as a family in October 2013. My father was by then 78, my mother 67, so it was a good time to make the journey back.

Walking into my father's prisons, Jilava and Aiud, the cells completely submerged in darkness and bone-chilling dampness, reading the records of his admission to the prison infirmary with fractured ribs and "bruises from hammer applied to fingers", I understood what I could not have understood before.

When he left home, the car stuffed with placards and leaflets, my father knew what he was returning to. Yet he had no choice. For him the family was his country and the country was his family. If he did not fight for everyone else, he could not have hoped to put food on our own table. Or a shred of dignity in our lives. He left us out of desperation and moral conviction.

He protected us by saying nothing to us. But you can only understand this by going into the prison rooms where he suffered. And by standing next to him while he shouts that he has no memory of receiving beatings that fractured his ribs, even though you face him, with the radiography record trembling in your hands. This is the side of heroism no-one likes to talk about, not even him. But it is the face of heroism that now makes me proud.

[MIKA27]

FERRARI 458 ITALIA PROJECT F CONCEPT

As if the Ferrari 458 Italia wasn’t menacing enough in its current form, Dutch design firm Ugur Sahin Design (USD) has created an even more aggressive supercar dubbed the Project F concept.

Most known for his 2012 Rolls-Royce concept, Sahin has made quite a name for himself mocking up next level concept cars. In his latest effort, Sahin has revamped a Ferrari 458 Italia. For the concept, he’s taken design inspiration from several other supercars, which can be seen in the Koenigsegg-like cockpit roof along with the McLaren P1 inspired rounded rear panel. All of these elements create something that is truly head turning. While we’re not quite sure what’s planned for under the hood, we’re convinced that the 464 horsepower 4.5 liter V8 that powers the current 458 Italia is more than adequate for the job. Of course this is a concept car, so don’t get too excited about seeing one of these rolling down your street anytime soon.

[MIKA27]

RYPLE | FISHING LOCATIONS FINDER

Ryple was developed for fisherman with a busy lifestyle looking to maximize their fishing trips.

The app($2.99) makes it easy to identify places when fish are most likely to be active in the coming week. Just locate your favorite stream and view future conditions by date as well as hour. The app´s magic comes from a combination of factors including fish feeding time and place, water depth, local barometric pressure, and tidal influence. There is also a Ryple Community, for sharing videos, images and stories with other users.

[MIKA27]

AMAZON FIRE TV

We love our Apple TVs. But we keep wondering why it doesn't play games. Apparently Amazon has been too, because its new Amazon Fire TV is a like a better Apple TV combined with a gaming machine. Powered by a beefy quad-core processor with a dedicated GPU and 2GB of memory, the Fire TV gives you access to your favorite media streaming services — including Netflix, Hulu, Watch ESPN, Pandora, and, of course, Prime Instant Video — as well as the ability to play games with a dedicated gaming controller. Oh, and it also offers voice search that keeps you from dealing with on-screen keyboards and Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 surround sound support.

[MIKA27]

Will Living on Mars Drive Us Crazy?

Six humans are in Hawaii, testing the psychological effects of life on another planet.

When human space travel made its transition from pipe dream to reality, one of the unknowns humans contended with concerned not just the physics of space, but the psychology of it. How would the human mind react to the final frontier? Would microgravity, combined with the isolation of a spaceship, cause a kind of claustrophobia? Would propulsion outside of Earth's bounds, in the end, cause astronauts to experience a psychic break? Was there such thing, as science fiction writers had long feared, as "space madness"?

Space, fortunately, does not drive us crazy. But that doesn't mean we've stopped caring about the effects its new environments will have on our psychology. The new version of the old "space madness" question is how time away from our home planet will affect us—in the long term. What could life on Mars do to that that other cosmic mystery: the human emotional state?

NASA is hoping to find out. This week, in partnership with the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the agency launched the latest version of its Mars simulation experiment, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation mission. On Hawaii's Big Island, 8,200 feet above sea level, conditions are as Martian as they can be on Earth: Mauna Loa's volcanic soil is quite similar to the volcanic regolith that can be found on Mars. HI-SEAS in general aims to replicate, as closely as is possible on Earth, what life would be like on Mars—and its latest iteration will put human emotions to the test.

There are three men and three women participating in this second HI-SEAS mission—a purposely tiny group selected out of a group of 700 applicants—and they include, among others, a neuropsychologist, an aerospace engineer, and an Air Force veteran who is studying human factors in aviation. The team will share a 1,000-square-foot habitat that is shaped like a dome. They will do so ... for four months. (Consider that for a second: living with five other people—strangers. For four months. In what amounts to a high-tech yurt.)

The layout of the yurt

“We’re going to stress them,” Kim Binsted, the project’s principal investigator,told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. “That’s the nature of the study.”

Indeed. That test involves isolating the crew in the same way they'd be isolated on Mars. The only communication they'll be allowed with the outside world—that is to say, with their family and friends—will be conducted through email. (And that will be given an artificial delay of 20 minutes to simulate the lag involved in Mars-to-Earth communications.) If that doesn't seem too stressful, here's another source of stress: Each mission member will get only eight minutes of shower time ... per week. The stressfulness of which will be compounded by the fact that the only time the crew will be able to leave their habitat-yurt is when they're wearing puffy, insulated uniforms that simulate space suits. In the Hawaiian heat.

Throughout the mission, researchers will be testing the subjects' moods and the changes they exhibit in their relationships with each other. They'll also be examining the crew members' cognitive skills, seeing whether—and how—they change as the experiment wears on.

The crew, at the same time, will be executing other projects that are relevant to life on Mars—including the testing of 3D-printed surgical tools, the growing of plants in Martian-like conditions, and, perhaps least stressfully, the repurposing of trash into tools that can be put to use in the Martian habitat. They'll also be doing projects outside of the habitat, in their "space suits"—like mapping nearby lava flows—to test their ability to work together under Martian conditions. (All this work, by the way, is a follow-up to HISEAS' previous experiment, from 2013, whose participants tried to make Martian meals that would be palatable to future colonists.)

So why does NASA care how these six humans react to an experience that amounts to pretty much the worst Hawaiian vacation ever? Because a manned mission to Mars is a priority for NASA; though funding for such a project remains in question post-sequestration, the agency still hopes to establish a Martian mission that would launch in the 2030s. And it needs to make sure that the humans it sends on that mission are equipped for the many challenges it will present—not just technologically, but emotionally.

[MIKA27]

3,300-Year-Old Tomb with Pyramid Entrance Discovered in Egypt

Dating back around 3,300 years this tomb was discovered recently at an ancient cemetery at Abydos in Egypt. At left the rectangular entrance shaft with massive walls served as a base for a small pyramid that was an estimated 23 feet (7 meters) high.

A tomb newly excavated at an ancient cemetery in Egypt would have boasted a pyramid 7 meters (23 feet) high at its entrance, archaeologists say.

The tomb, found at the site of Abydos, dates back around 3,300 years. Within one of its vaulted burial chambers, a team of archaeologists found a finely crafted sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a scribe named Horemheb. The sarcophagus has images of several Egyptian gods on it and hieroglyphic inscriptions recording spells from the Book of the Dead that helped one enter the afterlife.

There is no mummy in the sarcophagus, and the tomb was ransacked at least twice in antiquity. Human remains survived the ransacking, however. Archaeologists found disarticulated skeletal remains from three to four men, 10 to 12 women and at least two children in the tomb.

Newly discovered pyramid

The chambers that the archaeologists uncovered would have originally resided beneath the surface, leaving only the steep-sided pyramid visible.

In one of the burial chambers the archaeologists found a sandstone sarcophagus, painted red, which was created for a "scribe" named Horemheb.

"Originally, all you probably would have seen would have been the pyramid and maybe a little wall around the structure just to enclose everything," said Kevin Cahail, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, who led excavations at the tomb.

The pyramid itself "probably would have had a small mortuary chapel inside of it that may have held a statue or a stela giving the names and titles of the individuals buried underneath," Cahail told Live Science. Today, all that remains of the pyramid are the thick walls of the tomb entranceway that would have formed the base of the pyramid. The other parts of the pyramid either haven't survived or have not yet been found.

Military ties

It was not uncommon, at this time, for tombs of elite individuals to contain small pyramids, Cahail said. The tomb was excavated in the summer and winter field seasons of 2013 and Cahail will be presenting results at the annual meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt, to be held in Portland, Ore., from April 4-6.

Cahail believes that Horemheb's family had military ties that allowed them to afford such an elaborate tomb. Another burial chamber, this one missing a sarcophagus, contains shabti figurines that were crafted to do the work of the deceased in the afterlife. Writing on the figurines say that they are for the "Overseer of the Stable, Ramesu (also spelled Ramesses)." This appears to be a military title and it’s possible that Ramesu was the father or older brother of Horemheb, Cahail said.

He noted it's interesting that both Horemheb and Ramesu share names with two military leaders, who lived at the same time they did. Both of these leaders would become pharaohs.

"They could actually be emulating their names on these very powerful individuals that eventually became pharaoh, or they could have just been names that were common at the time," Cahail said.

Multiple wives?

The bones the team discovered in the tomb indicate that considerably more women than men were buried in the tomb. This brings up the question of whether Horemheb and Ramesu had multiple wives at the same time. Cahail said that polygamy was a common practice among the pharaohs, but it's uncertain if it was practiced among non-royalty.

Another possibility is that the tomb was used for multiple generations by the same family and contains the remains of daughters, mothers and other female relatives. Yet another possibility is that the tomb was re-used, without permission, at a later date.

Radiocarbon tests, which can provide a date range for the bones, may be done in the future to help solve the mystery.

"You’re left with the question, who are all these people?" Cahail said.

A Jasper treasure

One of the most interesting artifacts the team found was a heart amulet, made of red and green jasper. The hard stone amulet was broken into three pieces.

"It's a beautiful object and possibly one of the best carved examples of these very rare type of amulets," Cahail said. "It was probably on the chest of one of the deceased individuals and there probably would have been some sort of necklaces and gold and things like that."

The purpose of this heart-shaped amulet was probably related to spells from the Book of the Dead that tell the heart of the deceased not to lie. The ancient Egyptians believed that, after death, their hearts would be put on a scale and weighed against a feather representing ma'at, an Egyptian concept that includes truth and justice. If their heart weighed the same or less they could obtain eternal life, but if it weighed more they were destroyed.

"Essentially, your heart and your good deeds and everything that you've done in your life is weighed against the measure of truth," Cahail said.

[MIKA27]

TomTom Squeezes A Heart Rate Monitor Into Its GPS Watches

Running watches are great for tracking distance and elevation you’ve travelled on your workout, but not for pushing your body to its limit while you’re exercising. For athletes looking to seriously train their bodies, simple metrics on how fast or far they’ve run, swam, or biked aren’t enough. So TomTom has updated its sportswatch family with a new Cardio version that now includes an integrated heart-rate monitor.

The TomTom Runner Cardio and Multi-Sport Cardio GPS watches both include a heart rate monitor built into the strap that uses an optical sensor which shines light through the skin to detect changes in blood flow. It means athletes monitoring their physical condition during training no longer need to wear a chest strap that’s wirelessly synced to their watch.

The Runner Cardio and its Multi-Sport variant are both coming to Australia, with a May 2014 release date but no confirmed stockists or pricing just yet. We’ve asked TomTom for more info as soon as they have it, so we’ll keep you updated.

Like the original TomTom Runner and Multi-Sport, the Cardio watches use QuickGPSFix to track a wearer’s distance and speeds, but from our previous testing it can be finicky and slow to lock onto your location. However, as far as GPS-equipped watches go, the waterproof Cardios manage to keep a slim lightweight profile, thanks mostly to the use of a four-way controller on the strap that keeps the display free of buttons.

The updated Cardio versions of the TomTom Runner and Multi-Sport are available today in the US for $US270 and $US300 respectively, which is about a $US100 more than their predecessors. But it means there’s less hardware to wrangle while out on a run, which make it very much worth the extra cash.

[MIKA27]

Windows 8.1 Update Hands-On: Terrific Tweaks For The Mouse Faithful

Windows 8.1 did a whole bunch to make Windows 8 feel more homey by tweaking tiny fit and finish issues. And it worked great. The next Windows 8.1 update (creatively called “Windows 8.1 Update”) is pretty much the same thing all over again, but this time with mouse-users specifically in mind. And after trying it out we can say that once again, little tweaks really add up.

What’s new?

When you boot up an updated Windows 8.1 machine, you’re not going to be assaulted by the new changes. In fact, depending on what kind of device you’re using you might not see any changes by default. That’s because the biggest trick up the new Windows 8.1 update’s sleeve is figuring out what kind of device you’re using and adjusting accordingly. On a tablet? Not much has changed.

On a laptop? A lot more.

Take Modern-style apps for instance. To the average multitasking desktop user, full-screen apps can feel a little out of place. Mono-tasking is more at home on a tiny phone screen than a giant monitor. Microsoft isn’t backing down on its full-screen push, but updated Windows 8.1 does squeeze apps into a shape that resembles something more comfortably and familiarly window-ish.

Open up a Modern-style app on a machine with a traditional pointing device attached, and you’ll be greeted by a friendly little title bar with options to close or minimize (but not resize). It autohides after a second, but slide your cursor all the way up to the top of the screen and it will pop back out again. A minor detail, but one that reminds you Oh right, this is basically just a full-screen window. And that’s not just a crutch for new or unfamiliar users; I’ve been using Windows 8.1 off and on for months and still found it almost strangely comforting.

Likewise, if you throw your cursor down to the bottom of the screen, you’ll be see your friendly little desktop taskbar, just as though it was set to autohide and you were looking at a regular program in a fullscreen window. Because, again, you pretty much are.

The taskbar has a few new tricks as well. Apps from the Windows app store can now be pinned there, where you can launch them without a detour to the start screen, and recently used Modern apps that are still open show up there as well. Just like you’d expect a normal, windowed desktop application to. The lines between the two are thinner than ever.

Elsewhere are tweaks that are even more subtle. Cursor gestures now have a merciful little delay. Throwing your pointer to the upper left corner of the screen no longer immediately brings up a preview of the previous app, instantly covering up whatever is you might actually be reaching for. Instead there’s a now tiny delay before the image appears, but no delay before you can click to get down to business; Windows is taking the time to make sure you really want to see the preview before it shows.

The change is slight, but the effect is big. Folks who are up there by accident aren’t instantly accosted with something they don’t understand, and users who know what they’re doing don’t get slowed down. I never use the hot-corners, and with the delay, I don’t get startled by the random pop-up the way I used to.

And the most subtle — and probably best — improvements are on the Start screen.

You’ll notice there’s now a power and search button on the Start screen up in the top right, to help ease the nerves of people who never got the hang of just typing to initiate search, or swiping open the charms bar to find power options, two of Windows 8′s lingering weirdnesses.

But maybe best of all is that when you right click a Live Tile with your mouse, it no longer opens a touch-centric menu of options. Instead, you get the good old, mouse friendly right-click menu. You know, because you’re using a mouse. And like Windows 8.1′s most under-rated feature , this tiny tiny little change does the same. It’s OK; it’s really just another part of the desktop. It looks a little strange but the same rules apply. At least, they do now. The touch and non-touch sides of Windows are more cohesive than ever.

And the cherry on top? It is (almost) all customisable. The title bars for Modern apps, the constantly accessible task bar, the hot-corner preview delays, all of these are toggle-able if you are really, really specific about how your machine works. But each setting will come switched on (or off) depending on the type of machine you’re running, so laptop users who don’t want to dive into settings will get these new tweaks automatically. Meanwhile, (crazy?) people using full Windows tablets won’t be hampered by mouse-centric changes, because they will be off by default or just won’t ever trigger because there’s no cursor poking around.

Oh, and the Start Menu is coming back ! It’s coming in an update in the future, though Microsoft hasn’t said when it will be, and it wasn’t in the build of 8.1 Update we got to look at.

More polished than ever

With the Windows 8.1 Update, Microsoft balances the needs of its old-school desktop devotees, tablet users, and folks who already learned Windows 8′s now antiquated quirks more deftly than ever. With top bars and free access to the task bar, Modern-style apps are more friendly than ever to people who don’t know the (bizarrely esoteric) difference between an app and an application. But at the same time, none of the touch-friendliness of Windows 8 is gone or even diminished. In a way, it’s almost the perfect update; it offers you some comfortable familiarity but in a completely non-intrusive way, all while changing nothing for the worse.

The bummer is that it took so long to get here, and that “Windows 8″ has become practically a dirty word in the process. It’s a reputation it doesn’t deserve (anymore). First with Windows 8.1 and further with this update, virtually all of Windows 8′s initial weirdness — like the hazard of getting lost/trapped in Metro — is gone, replaced by the tiny but intuitive tricks it should have had from the start. Better late than never.

The update will start rolling out automatically to Windows 8.1 users on April 8th. Vanilla Windows 8 users can find it in the Windows Store as part of their 8.1 update.

[MIKA27]

A First-Person Ride In The McLaren P1 Is Exhilarating

The McLaren P1 is the supercar of the moment, and possibly the first truly excellent hybrid the world has ever seen. Only a few hundred of the cars were made, so driving one is out of reach for most humans. No matter. Thanks to a head-mounted camera on one lucky driver, you too can now experience what it’s like to do 300km/h in a McLaren P1.

A group called Supercar Driver held a secret driver meetup of luxury supercars at an airfield in the UK, and everything showed up, from Ford GTs, McLarens, Ferraris, Audis and Porsches. This group photo from Jalopnik gives you a great look at the class of 2014.

The P1 from the looks of things drove straight out of the line-up for an amazing belt around the track, and a head-mounted camera means you know exactly what it looks like to drive that beautiful car.

Sadly, we’ll probably never get to experience what it feels like…

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: Amphibious Tank Killer Gets New Pop-Up Missile Launcher

The US Marine Corps is a fast-moving, flexible, forward-operating force geared to take and hold territory quickly and efficiently. This flexibility is exemplified in the US Marine Corps’ favourite armoured troop carrier: the eight-wheeled, tank-hunting LAV-AT. The only thing it can’t do is fly.

Built by General Dynamics, the LAV (Light Armoured Vehicle) has been a workhorse for the USMC since its introduction in 1983. Very similar to the US Army’s Stryker ICV and based on Canada’s non amphibious LAV III, the all-terrain, all-weather amphibious vehicle is designed to provide mobile anti-armour support to infantry and recon forces as well as defeat armoured targets — both tanks and fortified enemy positions — at long range.

To do so, the LAV-AT (anti-tank variant) is currently equipped with a pop-up M901 Emerson turret featuring FLIR and night vision capabilities. It fires two BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire guided) anti-armour missiles, then drops back down into the vehicle’s body for reloading. Another 14 rounds are stored onboard as are 800 rounds for the roof-mounted 7.62 machine gun and eight extra smoke grenades. The $US1.25 million LAV-AT runs on a 275hp Detroit Diesel engine, offers all-time 4WD with selectable 8WD, and can be converted for amphibious use in just under three minutes.

“The LAV-AT modernization program is designed to improve mission effectiveness and supportability for Marines,” Col. Mark Brinkman, LAV program manager, told Defence Talk. “They can operate on land and in water, carry communications equipment and provide a weapons platform. The LAV isn’t just part of a combined arms force — it is one.”

But after nearly three decades of service, these armoured platforms are getting a bit long in the tooth, specifically their ageing Emerson Turrets. That’s why the USMC is currently testing a number of prototype upgrades for the much-lauded fighting vehicles including the new anti-tank weapon system (ATWS) which fires both a new generation of M41 Saber missiles using the upgraded Modified Improved Target Acquisition System (MITAS). This new acquisition system offers better FLIR capabilities, improved far target identification, and the ability to spot and track moving targets.

“The LAV has proved its worth since initial fielding in 1983,” Brinkman said. “The Marine Corps is committed to ensuring this platform remains viable until at least 2035.”

To that end, the USMC is currently testing the proposed upgrades at Camp Pendleton’s testing facility. Barring any development issues, the platform will undergo operational assessment in late 2014 and hopefully go into production on the Marine Corp’s 114 LAV-ATs by September 2015.

[MIKA27]

Scarlett Johansson Will Destroy You With Her Mind In New Luc Besson Film

Video: Director Luc Besson (of The Transporter and The Fifth Element fame) is back in the action game with his new film Lucy. It’s a sci-fi flick about a girl who unlocks the power of her brain after being used as a drug mule against her will. She gets crazy super-powers thanks to her brainsmarts and goes on a crusade against those who wronged her. It’s freaking intense. Check it out.

Lucy hits cinemas in August.

MIKA: I love this woman!

[MIKA27]

NASA Playing Politics, Cuts Ties with Russia – Quite Unscientific

With everything that’s going on in the world today, it’s become exceedingly difficult to really grasp the truth behind many issues.

Take, for example, the ongoing and apparently dangerous issues happening in Ukraine right now. The country has essentially been invaded by Russia in a display of military might that hasn’t been seen on this planet in many years. In spite of, or perhaps because of that military might, not a single shot has yet been fired in that effort, even though the people of the Ukraine have witnessed much violence in recent months.

The news outlets in the west are, of course, fulfilling their role as disseminators of disinformation and questionable theory, mixed in with ample pop-culture distraction. It’s become so very difficult to judge what’s really happening. And governmental posturing, or as it’s often called, sabre rattling, gives us even more cause for confusion, it not concern. Up until now though, their various political sanctions and talking points have had little impact on us as a people (whatever country you’re in). Recalling diplomats from foreign offices, imposing travel restrictions and even economic incentives to avoid certain trade channels amounts to little more than a nuisance to most people, if they have any effect at all on the population as a whole.

However…one so-called political sanction has been carried out that serves to be a set-back to all humanity. That might be a smidge overstated, but bear with me.

An internal memo from NASA leadership was leaked yesterday, that memo went out to all of their internal department heads and officials, and it outlined NASA’s withdrawal from any and all scientific or logistic endeavours with the Russian Space Agency or Russian contractors.

Of course, that doesn’t include joint efforts related to the International Space Station, nor does it relate to any projects based anywhere else in the world that might include the Russians. You’re probably aware that NASA, in conjunction with several other space agencies from other nations, is in the habit of catching rides into near-Earth orbit, to visit, resupply, and support the ISS, aboard the vessels of the very people they are now overtly attempting to alienate. Russia happens to be the only nation currently able to facilitate such logistical efforts, which became even more essential with the decommissioning of the entire Space Shuttle program.

So, what do we have here?

This appears to be NASA’s very first political statement (even if it is only through action) on any subject. It’s a statement that says: ‘we – whoever we is actually supposed to be – do not agree with the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory; we do not recognise the rights of the Russian government, however they might apply to their claim to or responsibility to assist Russian citizens living in Crimea or elsewhere. We do not agree with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions or policies and we impose these sanctions by proxy for the will of the people we represent.

Whether we, or you, agree with what’s happening in Ukraine is secondary to this issue (perhaps even tertiary, in some ways). Don’t fall for the political sleight of hand taking place here, please don’t fall for it. In any event, please realise that it’s ultimately an impotent attempt to express misguided political manipulation.

NASA is not a political agency.

NASA is not even remotely involved in the electorate process.

NASA is not and has never been authorised to speak for the American people, nor the people of any other country.

Here’s the simple truth of it; NASA is a scientific entity, a research entity, a mechanism and vehicle for the exploration of our world, our planet, and the cosmos. That effort, though undertaken in the name of the United States of America, is supposed to be for the benefit of everyone on the planet. Not just for those who comply with the American government’s political ideals.

Science and politics are unfortunately intertwined through the complex maze of funding and public outreach, but scientific institutions must remain politically neutral in order to remain effective. That doesn’t mean they should be free from morals or ethics, but those ethics must be fed by a responsibility to humanity, and to the planet, and deliberately, expressly…must not be beholden to any one nation. And certainly not to any one political party.

You may have an opinion on what’s happening in the region of Ukraine, and that opinion may be based on impartial, well researched sources of information, or it might be the product of headlines you’ve seen on social media feeds, but whatever you believe is happening, or should be happening on these issues, it is not and should never be related to the pursuit of scientific truth, and the purveyors of that truth should not be given to flights of political fancy.

I foresee the point of this post being missed, whether willfully or not, but in your inevitable commentary, I ask only that you retain your maturity.

[MIKA27]

Terrifying Animation Shows How Chile’s Tsunami Took Over the Entire Pacific Ocean

This time-lapse animation simulates how waves caused by the magnitude 8.2 earthquake in Chile on April 1 spread across the Pacific Ocean over 30 hours. The animation really highlights the reach of a dangerous tsunami. Though this earthquake wasn’t large enough to send destructive waves across the entire ocean, a quake closer to magnitude 9 certainly could.

Here’s the really scary part: The largest earthquake ever recorded was a magnitude 9.5 in 1960 that occurred in nearly the same spot on Chile’s coast as the quake this week. The resulting tsunami killed 61 people in Hawaii and 138 in Japan. The quake and tsunami combined caused 1,655 deaths.

Both of these quakes occurred in what is called a subduction zone, where an oceanic plate is being pushed beneath a continental plate and back into the Earth’s mantle. A continuous subduction zone runs along South America’s Pacific border. Subduction zones are capable of bigger quakes than any other type of plate boundary, and are also responsible for the active volcanoes that ring the Pacific Ocean.

The second largest earthquake ever recorded was a magnitude 9.2 in a subduction zone near Anchorage Alaska in 1964, which resulted in a tsunami that killed 11 people nearly 2,000 miles away in Crescent City, California and 128 people total with waves that reached up to 220 feet high in places. A tsunami caused by another subduction zone event in the Pacific Northwest in 1700 damaged boats, fields and houses in Japan. And of course, the tragic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami caused by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake in a subduction zone by Sumatra killed more than 200,000 people.

Video: NOAA/NWS/Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

[MIKA27]

Former Yugoslavian Army Jet Fighter Pilot Recalls UFO Encounters

Suad Hamzić has been sharing his memoirs as a former Yugoslavian Army jet fighter on Tango Six, a website that reports on the Serbian Air Force. In his latest installment he writes about his belief in UFOs, and he shares the personal encounters that have convinced him of their existence.

Hamzić has a unique background. Before becoming a jet fighter Hamzić attended the Yugoslavian Air Force Academy and the RAF staff college in Great Britain. In 1980, he came to the United States where he worked evaluating the F-5 fighter jet. From 1986 to 1990 he served as a military attaché of the armed forces of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Turkey. He then retired as a colonel in 1993.

Hamzić starts of his latest memoir entry by commenting on how unpopular the UFO topic can be, and how reluctant people can be to write about it. He says that the approach by authorities is to be "generally restrained, incomplete, vague and mysterious, which further complicates any rational debate on UFOs."

However, he says authorities in the army, and in particular the air force, cannot ignore that "something" exists because many of their most advanced fighter jets have not been able to "cope" with the unidentified objects. He says when he was a jet fighter these encounters happened repeatedly over the southern Adriatic Sea.

He also says there have been many accounts by highly credible people. Along with his own personal experiences, these are the reason Hamzić says he is convinced "they are no optical phenomena, fiction, hallucinations, and the like."

Hamzić's first UFO encounter was in the spring of 1972 in the early afternoon. He was flying a Mig-21 on a routine reconnaissance flight in the region on Delcina. The jet was a two-seater and in the back was Captain First Class Stipić Dušan. On takeoff they were asked to check something out. When they flew to the coordinates they saw a bright luminous object.

Hamzić could not determine the altitude of the object, but he knows it was much higher than he was. Because it was a routine reconnaissance flight, they were not equipped with the proper equipment to fly at high altitude or at a speed greater than Mach 1.6.

Hamzić began to climb to get a closer look and the object got bigger and bigger as he got closer. He climbed at Mach 1.4, and reached 13,000 meters, but could still not be sure how much higher the UFO was.

Just then the object zipped out to the west, decreasing in size and luminosity, and then it was gone. Hamzić says what impressed him was that the craft must have been moving between 4 to 6,000 km/h (the equivalent of around 2,500-4,000 mph).

Hamzić said he and Stipić talked about the sighting for a little while, but they didn't discuss it with anyone else. Not even their colleagues. They made no official report, and they figured the event was just part of their job.

A couple of months later, on a beautiful summer day, Hamzić had his second sighting. He was enjoying the day, lying on a park bench and looking up in the sky. He was in a square filled with pilots, technicians and other members of the 352 reconnaissance squadron.

Hamzić then noticed a round silvery object above one of the runways. He thought it was early for weather balloons to be launched, but he still assumed that was what it was. Then he realized it was not floating upwards like it should be. Suddenly he realized it was a UFO, and in his excitement he said so out loud.

Everyone looked up, and some people made jokes about aliens. He says most people didn't pay much attention, but a few continued to watch the object. It remained hovering in place. Then, similar to what he had witnessed a few months earlier, the object began moving to the west and zipped off out of sight.

The few people watching the object looked at each other puzzled, but there was very little said. Hamzić says, soon after, exactly on time, a weather balloon was released and it rose into the sky as routinely as usual.

His third encounter was in late 1973 or early 1974; he could not remember the exact date. It was a night training flight. After the training he was asked if he had enough fuel to check something out. He said he did and when he got the coordinates he saw a glowing light. He thought at first it might be a commercial plane, but after examining the object he changed his mind. He says the light changed between light green, yellow, and "slightly" purple. He then lost sight of it in the clouds. He says, again, no one wanted to talk about what he had seen.

Hamzić says since he left the Army, he has had other sightings. He says he even recorded strange lights on two occasions, once in 2008 and once in 2011. Each time he watched the news reports to find out if other people had seen the lights, but the sightings were never mentioned. He says it was as if they never happened.

You can read more on this story and other UFO news at OpenMinds.tv.

[MIKA27]

CLIFF-TOP BEACH HOUSE IN CHILE

If you asked us to describe the perfect beach house, this cliff-top cottage located in the beach city of Buchupureo would certainly be a top contender.

To create such an awesome dwelling, architects Alvaro Ramirez and Clarisa Elton had to put their heads together, and the end result shows that the 2 heads is definitely better than 1. The tiny cabin may not have much space, but it has everything one needs, and that that view is absolutely priceless. The home is divided into two structures, and includes a one bedroom with en-suite bathroom, living room, a kitchen for preparing meals, and a large terrace to enjoy those breathtaking views of the ocean. What we wouldn’t give to trade places with that dog right about now. [Via]

[MIKA27]

TAG HEUER CARRERA CH 80 CHRONOGRAPH WATCH

Your phone is thin. Your laptop or tablet is thin. So why not your watch?

The Tag Heuer Carrera CH 80 Chronograph Watch fits the bill, boasting a high-tech Calibre CH 80 movement that offers an 80-hour power reserve yet measures only 6.5mm thick. On the outside, you'll find a traditional chronograph face with a minutes counter at 3 o'clock, an hours counter at 9, and a small seconds at 6, a polished steel case with faceted lugs, a racing-inspired perforated calfskin strap with red lining, and, of course, a sapphire crystal case back so you can admire the engineering.

[MIKA27]

CROWN ROYAL XO WHISKEY

If you're a bourbon drinker there is a chance you think Canadian Whiskey is a lesser spirit. If that's true, the latest offering from Crown Royal might change your mind. XO is a premium offering from Crown, and is a unique blend of more than 50 of the best from the CR family. It's finished in cognac casks from the French Limousin Forest, adding some complex sweetness. If you normally overlook Canadian whiskey, don't pass up this excellent blend.

[Fuzz]

Terrifying Animation Shows How Chile’s Tsunami Took Over the Entire Pacific Ocean

Nice that New Zealand creates a buffer for any incoming tsunami from Sth America.

CLIFF-TOP BEACH HOUSE IN CHILE

Considering the aforementioned earthquake in Chile, one wonders if this place is still there...