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[MIKA27]

The Mysterious Living Mummies of Japan

There are a great many religions of all types throughout the world with just as many ways for the faithful to show their devotion.

These can be as simple as praying, or involve complex, intricate rituals and selfless sacrifice. Then there are the practices that to an outsider may seem truly bizarre, extreme, or even grotesque.

For members of the esoteric Shingon School of Buddhism, the true path to enlightenment involved gradually turning oneself into a mummy while still alive. The act of self-mummification was called sokushinbutsu, and was mainly practiced in Yamagata Prefecture in Northern Japan from the 11th century up to the late 19th century.

The Shingon School School of Buddhism is one of the few remaining esoteric branches of Buddhism, and is based on tantric teachings brought from China by the monk Kūkai, posthumously known as Kōbō-Daishi.

While the more well-known mummies of ancient Egypt were embalmed posthumously, sokushinbutsu was a long, arduous, and painful process, performed while the monk was still alive and fully conscious.

In order to attain the state of sokushinbutsu, monks went through a rite called nyūjō, which lasted one thousand days and involved several steps that were each more grueling than the last. If they were able to complete the rite successfully, they believed they would become a “Living Buddha,” and the resulting mummies were called “Living mummies.”

Prospective living mummies began with a demanding ascetic exercise program and lived solely on a meager diet of water, seeds and nuts that was specifically designed to rapidly and drastically burn away body fat. After that, the monks would endure a strict diet of roots and pine bark and start to drink a special tea called urushi for three years.

Urushi tea was made from the toxic sap of the Chinese lacquer tree, which was typically used to lacquer bowls and plates. The tea served two purposes. First, the toxins from the sap in the tea induced intense vomiting that expelled copious amounts of body fluids. This was a desired effect, and served to further dry out the body while keeping the subject alive. The second purpose was to repel maggots and other parasites upon the monk’s inevitable death, as well as to prevent decay of the body.

By the end of three years or this regimen, the prospective living mummy was more or less a walking skeleton, with practically no body fat. There was more to come, though. In the next stage of the rite, the monk would be entombed in a stone receptacle barely big enough to sit in, whereupon they were buried alive. The monk within the stone tomb would remain in the lotus position for the rest of his days and breathe through a tube. Each day, the buried monk would ring a bell once to signal that they were still alive. If a day passed when the monk failed to ring on schedule, it was seen to signify death, whereupon the tube was removed and the tomb subsequently sealed.

For another one thousand days, the tomb remained buried, after which it was exhumed and opened to see if the body had been successfully mummified. If it had, then the mummified monk was seen to have attained Buddhahood and their body was put on display and revered.

Though this may all seem like just a slow torturous suicide to outsiders, the monks of the sect did not see it as such. To them it was merely one way to reach enlightenment and show their resolve and devotion. The act of self-mummification signified to them the ultimate act of austerity and self-denial as it required an enormous amount of self-discipline and a total mastery of one’s self control and bodily sensations.

As a result, the lucky ones who successfully achieved the state of sokushinbutsu were highly admired and respected. A great many embarked on the painful road to self-mummification, but sadly most could not complete the rite. Some lacked the necessary self-control, willpower, and endurance to complete the process and gave up, while others simply did not properly mummify upon death.

In these cases, the tomb would be opened and the body would be found to have decomposed. When this was the case, the monk would remain buried in the ground but still highly respected for having had the fortitude to carry the rite out until death.

Out of the many monks who started the process, only 24 truly successful “Living Buddhas” have been documented and only 16 are available for viewing. The most famous of these is perhaps one called Shinnyokai Shonin, of the Dainichi-Bu Temple on Mount Yudono. This temple was once a popular place to undergo the self-mummification procedure since the high levels of arsenic in the local spring are thought to have perhaps aided the process. Most of the living mummies found come from here.

Shinnyokai Shonin

Currently, the act of self-mummification is not advocated or practiced by any sect in Japan. Indeed, the rite was banned by the Meiji government in 1879, although it is believed that some covertly carried out the process into the 20th century.

It is amazing to think of the monumental willpower and self control the living mummies had to display to achieve this state. It is certainly inspiration for those who cannot even follow a simple diet.

These living mummies are lingering reminders of a mysterious ancient era. Looking into the desiccated face of one, it is hard to fathom just what must have been going through the monk’s mind in those last hours sitting in their underground tomb before their breathing tube was pulled and they were left to the cold earth. Did they embrace their decision in the end? Did they find the enlightenment they were seeking? We can only look and imagine as their inscrutable mummified faces stare back.

There they will remain with their secrets long after we leave, timeless and never changing, as the world goes on around them oblivious to the forgotten trials of ultimate devotion of Japan’s living mummies.

[MIKA27]

PIAMO MICROWAVE ESPRESSO MACHINE

Expecting a product like the microwave, that’s best suited for Hot Pockets duty, to be able to make quality espresso, is kind of like hoping Arby’s will soon make sushi. But here comes Piamo, a compact, portable, single serving espresso maker that promises to bring a little jolt of Italian joy to your home or office, all via that versatile box of beeps and heat.

Just fill the chamber with water, put in an espresso pad or grounds, screw it onto the attached cup, and nuke it. The water and resulting steam work their magic in a brisk 30 seconds. That’s less time than it takes to fully chew and then fully regret one substantial bite of any variety of Hot Pocket. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

Nike's Epic Ad Will Totally Get You Pumped For The World Cup

It will be THE sport event of 2014 - the FIFA World Cup in Brazil, will see 32 of the world's greatest teams compete for the most coveted prize in international football, the World Cup.

With a global audience in the hundreds of millions (the 2006 final for example reached some 638 million viewers worldwide), brands and sponsors are all jostling for their moment in the limelight.

The main tournament sponsor this year is Adidas - Nike's biggest competitor. It explains why there's no direct reference as such to the FIFA World Cup in their latest clip, it does however, feature a combination of some of the biggest names in the modern game.

Nike's sponsored team of talent included Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Andres Iniesta and Andrea Pirlo who all make cameos and show off their unbelievable skills. All (bar Sweden's Zlatan Ibrahimović who's team didn't qualify) will be appearing at the finals in Brazil. And if that wasn't enough, the NBA's highest paid player Kobe Bryant pops up in the audience and even The Incredible Hulk makes an appearance or two.

In short it's got everything you need to get you excited and pumped up for the FIFA World Cup - without even having to mention it.

[MIKA27]

'Hitler skull' revealed as female

A bone fragment believed to be part of Adolf Hitler's skull has been revealed as being that of an unidentified woman, US scientists have said.

The section of bone - marked with a bullet hole - was used to support the theory that Hitler shot himself.

Russian scientists said the skull piece was found alongside Hitler's jawbone and had put it on display in Moscow.

But US scientists said DNA tests revealed it actually belonged to a woman aged between 20 and 40.

An archaeologist from the University of Connecticut travelled to Moscow, where the fragment has been on show in the city's federal archive since 2000, to take a sample.

Cyanide pill

Nick Bellantoni said he had suspected even before the bone was tested that the fragment did not come from an adult male.

"The bone was very small and thin, and normally male bones are much more robust in our species," he said.

"I thought it probably came from a woman or a younger man."

DNA tests confirmed that the bone fragment came from a female.

Doubts about exactly how Hitler died have persisted for decades.

Russian officials said that the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun - who reportedly committed suicide in a Berlin bunker in 1945 - were removed from a shell crater shortly after they died.

The piece of skull forms part of a collection that also includes a section of a bloodstained sofa where Hitler is believed to have shot himself after swallowing a cyanide pill.

[MIKA27]

Germany: Oldest message in a bottle shown to relative

Perhaps the world's oldest message in a bottle, cast into the sea near Germany 101 years ago, has been presented to the sender's granddaughter, it's been reported.

Last month, fishermen in the Baltic Sea pulled an old beer bottle out of the water, along with their catch. Inside they found a postcard, dated 17 May 1913, from a man called Richard Platz asking for his message to be forwarded to his address in Berlin, the Local website reports. The letter might be the oldest message in a bottle ever found.

Researchers at the International Maritime Museum in Hamburg were eventually able to track down Angela Erdmann, 62, who lives in Berlin. Platz was her grandfather. She visited the museum last week and was able to hold the bottle.

"That was a pretty moving moment," she tells German news agency dpa. "Tears rolled down my cheeks." Erdmann says she never knew her mother's father, who reportedly died in 1946 when he was 54 years old. But she says the discovery of his message has inspired her to find out more about him.

[MIKA27]

Watch Dogs Preview: Grand Theft Data

I’m sick of AK-47s. I’m sick of dragon punches. I’m sick of red shells, chainsaw-equipped Lancer rifles and Master Swords. Gaming has relied upon the same tried and tested weaponry for too long now, which is what makes Ubisoft Montreal’s forthcoming Watch Dogs so intriguing. In it, your most powerful weapon is a smartphone.

I was let loose for four hours on the game’s at a recent press event. While it’s still a little rough around the edges as it approaches its release, with some ideas executed better than others, Watch Dogs’s mixture of high-tech concepts and open world staples looks set to make for a unique, sometimes excellent experience.

Watch Dogs puts you in the shoes of hacker Aiden Pearce. Following a data heist gone wrong, Aiden becomes the target of a hitman. The hit goes bad, and rather than kill Aiden, the assassins cause a car crash that leads to the death of Aiden’s niece, Lena. Fuelled by revenge, Aiden goes on the hunt for the attackers, and becomes embroiled even further in the data-fuelled underworld.

Being a skilled hacker doesn’t necessarily sound like the best defence against armed murderers out for your blood, but Aiden lives in a city unlike any other currently in existence. Watch Dogs is set in a very-near future version of Chicago, one that has its entire infrastructure and city-wide surveillance system controlled by a central operating system, the ctOS. It’s the The Internet of Things on crack — with his smartphone, Aiden is able to hack traffic lights to cause car-crash pile ups, spy on enemies through security cameras, blow up underground pipe lines and hack into the bank accounts of passersby, among many, many other tricks. Handy with a pistol and his fists too, Aiden is a one-man tech-savvy army.

In practice, Watch Dogs pulls together many elements from Ubisoft’s other franchises in an attempt to make something new, with a healthy dose of Grand Theft Auto free-roaming chaos thrown in. There’s Splinter Cell: Blacklist’s cover system; there’s a stripped-back climbing mechanic reminiscent of the Assassin’s Creed games; there’s an open world map like that of Far Cry 3 that empowers the player as they explore its landmarks and take on its challenges. Then there’s the car-jacking of GTA, and even a The Last of Us-like crafting system at play.

It’s the smartphone that sets Watch Dogs apart then, something that’s made instantly clear in the tutorial mission — though Aiden gains access to guns, the phone affords the more more imaginative and satisfying approaches to scenarios. An opening stealthy escape from police in a baseball stadium is made all the easier when you can peek at patrol routes through hacked security cameras, or trigger electronic distractions from alarms to shutters. And though it may prove to be a one-off set piece for the opening tutorial mission, Aiden’s even able to trigger a stadium-wide power cut, letting him sneak past his pursuers from the shadows.

With its menu screens overlaying onto the world as you play, and its ephemeral wireless connections branching out like a silvery web towards anything it can interact with, the smartphone is as valuable a tool with which to take on your enemies as magic would be in some other games. And, fittingly, it has its own magic meter of sorts — high-powered hacks will deplete the phone’s battery, reducing its capabilities. Its capacity can be upgraded through Aiden’s skill tree, as can his other skills and stats, such as his health.

But the smartphone isn’t just an offensive tool — it’s also a window into the lives of the game’s NPCs, letting you play the voyeur, spying on the private details of Watch Dogs’s citizens. As well as being able to tap phone calls and read text messages, Aiden’s smartphone also has a “Profiler” ability that lets you find out all kinds of information on the NPCs walking Chicago’s streets. With it, you may find that a character is a “recent newlywed”, or a “social network stalker” or a “volunteer lifeguard”, or that it spends its time conducting “frequent online searches for rape.” It’s a masterstroke by Ubisoft Montreal — though these NPCs are no more alive than those in any other open world game, access to these snippets of information has a great humanising effect on them. Will you rob that citizen, knowing that it has just overcome cancer, for instance? It inspires moral questions that often go unanswered in games where bystanders are little more than notches for the bodycount.

The game’s disparate elements work well in Ubisoft’s tightly crafted story missions, but it’s hard yet to judge how well it all comes together when you’re let loose to roam Chicago freely. For every incredible moment when you perfectly time a gas main to explode under a cop car, there are the struggles with disappointing getaway vehicles, complete with dodgy handling that sees them slip and slide horribly around the roads. And while there are plenty of side missions to dip into, the quality varies — the best see you, naturally, using the smartphone to tap into the private lives of city citizens in order to prevent crimes, while the worst (such as a coin-chasing on-foot checkpoint race) are too keen to break the illusion of a living world with on-theme-but-jarring augmented reality elements. The “Spider Tank” digital trip (a mini game that lets Aiden enter a virtual version of Chicago and cause havoc as a giant armoured arachnid) was great fun, but totally at odds with the rest of the game.

Out in the open world the lure of the Profiler and phone hacking proves a double-edged sword too. While all NPCs are fleshed out to a degree with some background information accessed through the tool, it seems there’s actually only a small percentage that can be spied upon to any revelatory depth (be that an enlightening hacked phone call or text conversation) and fewer still that lead to an interactive mission. Playing the role of a hacker, you’re naturally going to want to push these systems as far as they can go, and the magic of the Profiler can fade if you expect too much of it.

Each of these elements are never what you’d call bad — they’re often very fun in fact. It’s just that (so far at least) they pale in comparison to the structured missions, and the way the smartphone can be used to great effect within them. It was a feeling that was reinforced when the devs thrust me further into the game to try out an excellent later mission. Here, Aiden was to stake out a deal going down between two rival gangs at a warehouse. Arriving early, you’re able to hack in to the security system for the location, discovering that it’s a regular meeting point for the gangs. Armed with this information (and each gang’s meeting habits), you’ve a few minutes to prime the site full of phone-triggerable traps and cover points, as well finding the best vantage point from which to snipe the criminals. It wasn’t far off a scene from Dishonored, and it was great.

My brief time with the game’s multiplayer component was positive too. I only had time to play the “Decryption” match type, but it was a blast. A cross between a capture the flag and domination match, it had two teams of hackers vying for control of a single data package. The team holding the package the longest at the end of the round would win, and teammates could earn more points and strengthen their team’s connection to a held data package by keeping in close proximity to each other — a clever mechanic seeing how easy it could be to become remote from one another when spread out across the large map. The whole matchmaking process, on Ubisoft’s demo server at least, was seamless — once I’d told the game I was open to playing multiplayer bouts, I was free to continue with the single player campaign until a suitable match became available, after which I’d seamlessly transition into it. There was no need to quit my solo game and load a separate instance of the the game world, as happens with GTA Online.

I was also given a brief glimpse of the game’s second screen tablet companion app. It will allow sofa-bound pals to hound players by dropping police squads onto the map, or activate computer-controlled roadblocks, like some sort of Orwellian ctOS overseer. Connectivity issues at the demo venue prevented me from trying it personally, but it looks a reasonable distraction for those left without a controller in their hands.

Visually, Watch Dogs has so far left me wanting. Regardless of the furore surrounding the recent trailer’s “visual downgrade”, Watch Dogs’s world didn’t “wow” in even the same way that last year’s next-gen versions of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag did. While night time scenes (with their atmospheric lighting) fare better, a day in Watch Dogs looks very bland. Perhaps it’s a case of over familiarity — there are only so many ways you can build a modern, urban, realistic open world — but even with all of its hacking and AR visualisations, it was hard to see where the next-gen graphical grunt was being put to use.

As is becoming customary with Ubisoft’s next-gen releases, Watch Dogs will launch on the PlayStation 4 with a bunch of exclusive content. This includes an hour of exclusive missions that sees Aiden team up with in-game hacking collective DedSec, as well as a “White Hat” outfit and Superior Capacity perk, giving the player a valuable extra battery power slot for pulling off perk moves. The same content will also be available to PS3 gamers too.

There’s a lot to see in Watch Dogs, a game its developers claim could easily extend beyond the 100-hour mark for the most dedicated of players, and four hours with it barely scratches the surface of what’s on offer. My relatively short time with the game was filled with jaw-dropping moments, and also enjoyable quieter stretches too that I simply spent people-watching. But while it’s jam packed with side quests, play styles and content, it’s hard to say at this point how well it all gels together. The tighter-focussed missions were an early highlight for me. How liberally those aforementioned jaw-dropping moments punctuate the full, lengthy game remains to be seen. Regardless, Watch Dogs looks set to deliver an open world with a killer USP you won’t find anywhere else.

Watch Dogs hits stores on May 27th, headed to the Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3 and PC, with a Wii U edition (tentatively) expected to follow in the autumn.

[MIKA27]

Australia Calls Off Air Search For Malaysia Flight 370

Australia has been leading the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 for 41 of the days the plane has been missing. In a press conference today, Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, has said that the search will now enter a new phase, as our nation begins to call off the aerial hunt for the missing jet to move into what’s being described as a “new phase”.

PM Abbott said in a press conference today that private and military aircraft from Australia have been working extensively with other nations to search for MH370 off the coast of Western Australia.

How extensively? Well, various aircraft have now searched 4.5 million square kilometres of ocean, flying eight flights per day for a total of 3000 hours searching now under the belt.

Sadly, even after all this looking, Abbott said that “it is unlikely we’ll find debris on the surface”.

The aerial search for MH370 is now becoming dangerous, according to the PM, saying that the jets are now “operating at the limit of sensible and safe operation”.

So what happens now?

Well, Australia has vowed to enter a new phase in the hunt for the world’s most baffling plane crash, with the hunt set to be based around a sea-level search rather than scouring from the air.

The Bluefin-21 submarine will continue searching the ocean floor for MH370, as more ships join the hunt with new, specialised equipment.

Sidescan sonar equipment will be towed behind ships in the search. That gear will be used to scan the ocean floor for wreckage, as well as the rest of the search area that right now, makes up an area of 700×80 kilometres.

A RAAF 3C Orion aircraft will be on stand-by for short-notice deployment into the search zone in case wreckage is found.

It won’t be the Australian or Malaysian Navy leading the search from now on, however. PM Abbott has said that a $60 million contract will now be up for grabs to find specialist deep-ocean search companies to privately search for the craft. It’s going to take a few weeks to get that contract into place, according to the Prime Minister.

[MIKA27]

No One Knows Why Deep, Dangerous Holes Are Appearing In This Sand Dune

One day last July, a six-year-old boy was walking across a dune when he disappeared, falling into a deep, narrow hole in the sand. This and two other holes that have since appeared at Indiana’s Mount Baldy are unlike anything scientists have seen before — it could be an entirely new geological phenomenon.

After being buried for three horrifying hours in the eleven-foot-deep hole, the boy was fortunately rescued. But the incident left an impression on geologist Erin Argyilan, who happened to be doing research at Mount Baldy that day and heard his parents’ terrified screams. “I couldn’t help in the moment,” she told theChicago Tribune, “So now I have to do what I can to learn why this is happening.”

For the past year, Argyilan and other researchers have been pouring over sediment samples, terrain maps, and wind patterns at Mount Baldy. The EPA has brought in ground-penetrating radar, which has identified underground anomalies but no straight answers. In the meantime, two other deep, narrow holes have suddenly appeared, and the dune in Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is now closed to visitors. Researchers, however, will continue to closely scrutinise the ground for clues to the holes’ origins.

The holes are geologically distinct from common sinkholes, which cave in after water eats away at underground rock. It’s possible that they are appearing because of structures rotting underneath the sand. Mount Baldy has been slowly shifting south over the decades, burying trees and man-made structures in its sandy path. Perhaps the long buried past is rearing its head once again.

[MIKA27]

This Bastard Kills More Humans Than All The Deadliest Animals Combined

This little bastard is the deadliest animal in the world, with an estimated 750,000 human deaths every year. According to this great visualisation posted by Bill Gates, mosquitoes kill 163,780 more humans than all the other “dangerous” animals combined, including sharks, snakes and humans — the second deadliest animal.

In fact, sharks and wolves’ kills — so feared by humans — are absolutely ridiculous. Humans come in at #2 with about 475,000 kills. The rest seem pretty harmless compared to our own species and mosquitoes.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Reconnect Severed Nerves With Liquid Metal

Get your T-1000 jokes ready, because we’re one step closer to liquid metal-powered people. As a team of Chinese biomedical engineers recently used an alloy to close the gap between severed sciatic nerves in frogs. In effect, it made electronic circuits out of nerves — and it worked.

Shockingly, this sci-fi solution is as simple as it sounds. Looking for a way to keep muscles active while nerves healed, the Tsinghua University researchers identified liquid metal as a highly conductive but also safe material to bridge the gap. They decided on the liquid metal alloy gallium-indium-selenium, a benign material that’s liquid at body temperature. (This liquid metal is not to be confused with the brand-name wonder material Liquidmetal, which is not actually a liquid.) The liquid metal alloy is also highly conductive.

To test the alloy, the engineers applied an electric pulse to nerves in a frog leg so that the calf muscle would contract. They then severed the sciatic nerve and connected the two ends with either the liquid metal alloy or Ringer’s solution, a mix of electrolytes that mimic body fluids. Sure enough, the Ringer’s solution only carried the charge so far, while the liquid metal alloy transmitted the electrical signals about as well as the nerve before it had been severed. This means it could be used to protect muscles and nerves after an injury, and since it’s metal, it can be easily removed with the help of an x-ray.

This is obviously the early stages of what could be an exciting new treatment for nerve injuries. It’s also, arguably, the first step towards truly wired creature. Of course, we’re probably closer to building a cyborg than you might think.

[MIKA27]

The Still-Frozen Great Lakes Could Mean Cold Temperatures For The US All Summer

Last time we checked in with the Great Lakes in the US, it was in the bone-chilling depths of the Polar Vortex, and a record-breaking 88 per cent of the lakes were frozen. Now, at the end of April, and the lakes are still 30 per cent frozen, which could mean a colder summer for the country.

The icy lakes have already created all sorts of economical and environmental headaches for the region. Most obviously, shipping has been affected, with boats still needing to use ice breakers to access some ports. Certain birds and fish are still not able to get to the food or spawning grounds they have usually reached by this time in the season. Now here’s a new development that will almost certainly not be welcome by the Midwesterners shivering in their sandals: The Washington Post analysed historical data from NOAA and noticed that the years with greater ice coverage on the lakes also saw lower summer temperatures.

The iced-over lakes don’t act like a natural air conditioner, per se, rather the weather patterns that created the Polar Vortex in the first place are more likely to stick around in the years of heavy ice. Now remember the fact that this is the most ice researchers have seen on the lakes in late April after 30 years of record-keeping.

[MIKA27]

Thousands Of Tons Of Nazi Chemical Weapons Are Hiding In The Baltic Sea

When the Nazis surrendered their weapons at the end of World War II, the Allies got rid of them in a way that made sense in the 1940s: they dumped it all into the water. Mustard gas and other chemical weapons — estimates ranging from 13,000 to 300,000 tons — are now slowly leaking into the Baltic Sea.

The toxic consequences seem obvious in hindsight, but it was a different time back then — a time when the seas seemed big enough that our trash could lie in it forever undisturbed. “The Baltic Sea is known as the chamber pot of Europe,” as Yevgeny Usov of Russia’s Green Party put it in more colourful terms for the LA Times back in 1992.

After the war, British and American soldiers dumped much of Germany’s stockpiles of bombs and chemicals into the English Channel and near Denmark and Sweden. Meanwhile, the Soviets took to the Baltic Sea, which is especially problematic because of its shallow waters and densely populated coast.

Having never left tons of mustard gas in the sea for decades before, we’re not really sure what will happen. The cold temperatures of the water turns the mustard gas into a sticky solid, but it remains toxic. It goes without saying that there’s pretty much no way it is a good idea.

What makes it worse is that no one knows exactly where the weapons were thrown overboard. It seems that the Soviets did not always follow designated dumping grounds and so fisherman have caught mustard-gas shells far from the designated zones. Researchers at Poland’s Military University of Technology has also found traces of mustard gas off the Polish coast, again nowhere near the dumping grounds. Meanwhile, in areas where the chemicals were supposed to be stashed, scientists claim to have found more fish with diseases and genetic defects.

More than 3,000 pounds of mustard gas have been snagged up in fishing nets, and fishermen have had to be hospitalized for exposure. The “iron harvest” refers to the remnants of World War I — shells, barbed wire, bullets, shrapnel — that farmers in Belgium and France dig up every year on the old Western Front. To that we can add the toxic catch from the Baltic Sea.

[MIKA27]

Watch Autocar Test Drive The Brand New LaFerrari Hybrid Hypercar

It’s been a long time coming, but the embargo on LaFerrari press test drives has finally lifted. It’s now clear just how good it is to drive the 708kW, 1250kg, $3 million hypercar — and apparently, it’s not quite as insane as you’d think.

Reading the Autocar ‘first drive’ review of the LaFerrari, you get the impression that all the technological wizardry that Ferrari has put into its latest road car hasn’t softened it, but has made it a little friendlier than the simple, raw power of previous top Ferraris like the F50.

As well as a 6.3L V12 outputting a full 588kW to the rear wheels, Ferrari has adapted its F1-derived kinetic energy recovery system for the LaFerrari. Hy-KERS, as it’s called on this particular carbon fibre tub chassis, includes regenerative braking that fills up a 60kg lithium-ion battery and powers a 120kW electric motor that mates to the gearbox’s final drive, filling in the low-end torque gap of the petrol engine.

It’s interesting that unlike the McLaren P1 and the BMW i8, Ferarri has gone for a full-power, no-frills hybrid implementation — there’s no messing around with electric drive to the front wheels, and no low-power electric-only mode for creeping around town. When you hit the LaFerrari’s start button, you get the full business 100 per cent of the time.

The entire package is pretty insane — it certainly gets around Fiorano quickly enough — but according to Steve Sutcliffe at Autocar, it’s manageable enough to actually be driven on the road, every day, as a regular vehicle. None of the horrible low-speed flappy-paddle clunkiness of a regular supercar, apparently — it’s basically a Prius on steroids, then.

You can watch Autocar putting Maranello’s finest through its paces on YouTube, or just click on the video below.

Bonus: here’s what Chris Harris (you’ll know him from /DRIVE) thinks about the LaFerrari, and here’s what Top Gear has to say. The consensus view is that Ferrari’s latest hyper-hypercar is incredibly fast and supremely technologically advanced, but is still (relatively) tame and easy to drive on both road and track.

[MIKA27]

How One US State Botched An Execution With Untested Drugs

Tuesday night was horrific. After weeks of controversy, the US state of Oklahoma had planned to execute two convicted murders with untested lethal injection drugs. As many had feared, the drugs didn’t work like they were supposed to, and one lethal injection drugsof the prisoners suffered in front of an audience.

That prisoner, Clayton Lockett, died of a heart attack after a vein “blew”, presumably due to the questionable cocktail the state of Oklahoma injected into his arm. Instead of the instant, supposedly human death that lethal injection is supposed to cause, he writhed on the table and even spoke. A lawyer later said that Lockett was “tortured to death”. The Guardian Katie Fretland reported from the chamber:

For three minutes after the first drugs were delivered, [Lockett] struggled violently, groaned and writhed, lifting his shoulders and head from the gurney.

Some 16 minutes after the execution began, and without Lockett being declared dead, the blinds separating the chamber from the viewing room were lowered. The process was called off shortly afterward.

So what went wrong?

Well, it’s a long complicated story, one that cuts at the very core of the capital punishment debate. In short, Oklahoma attempted to use unproven drugs for the execution, and it didn’t work. This is after many of the proven lethal injection drugshave been been taken off the market, putting states that have capital punishment in a tough spot. Improvising, however, is not a good way to go. Motherboard explained the specific cocktail and its issues before the botched execution:

If the executions take place as planned, it will be the first time that the state uses a new, three-drug protocol: midazolam as the pain relief agent, vecuronium bromide as the paralytic, and potassium chloride to stop the heart. The only known use of this combination has been in Florida, whose protocol called for five times more midazolam.

While the drugs themselves have been disclosed, the source, purity, testing and efficacy of the drugs hasn’t been…

But again, the debate over how — and especially if — we kill prisoners has been going on a long time. Lethal injection often works, but as Oklahoma’s made clear, it’s not fail proof. Then again, what is? (Spoiler: the guillotine )

[MIKA27]

Scientists Discovered Egyptian Secret To Moving Huge Pyramid Stones

The question of just how an ancient civilisation — without the help of modern technology — moved the two-tonne stones that made up their famed pyramids has long plagued Egyptologists and mechanical engineers alike. But now, a team from the University of Amsterdam believes they have figured it out, even though the solution was staring them in the face all along.

It all comes down to friction. See, the ancient Egyptians would transport their rocky cargo across the desert sands, from quarry to monument site with large sleds. Pretty basic sleds, basically just large slabs with upturned edges. Now, when you try to pull a large slab with upturned edges carrying a two-tonne load, it tends to dig into the sand ahead of it, building up a sand berm that must then be regularly cleared before it can become an even bigger obstacle.

Wet sand, however, doesn’t do this. In sand with just the right amount of dampness, capillary bridges — essentially microdroplets of water that bind grains of sand to one another through capillary action — form across the grains, which doubles the material’s relative stiffness. This prevents the sand from berming in front of the sled and cuts the force required to drag the sled in half. In half.

As a UvA press release explains,

The physicists placed a laboratory version of the Egyptian sledge in a tray of sand. They determined both the required pulling force and the stiffness of the sand as a function of the quantity of water in the sand. To determine the stiffness they used a rheometer, which shows how much force is needed to deform a certain volume of sand.

Experiments revealed that the required pulling force decreased proportional to the stiffness of the sand…A sledge glides far more easily over firm desert sand simply because the sand does not pile up in front of the sledge as it does in the case of dry sand.

These experiments served to confirm what the Egyptians clearly already knew, and what we probably already should have. Artwork within the tomb of Djehutihotep, which was discovered in the Victorian Era, depicts a scene of slaves hauling a colossal statue of the Middle Kingdom ruler and in it, a guy at the front of the sled is shown pouring liquid into the sand. You can see it in the image above, just to the right of the statue’s foot.

We can now finally put this scientific snipe hunt to rest and focus on how the hell Stonehenge got that way.

MIKA: Now I'd like to know how they "Lifted"those blocks to build the Phyramids....

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: King Of The Wild Cold War Frontier

There was a time when the US Army foresaw the need to launch more than 400 nuclear weapons in a single day should Soviet Russia attempt to invade Western Europe at the height of the Cold War. It was with this doomsday scenario in mind that army researchers developed a recoilless, truck-mounted rifle capable of lobbing nuclear-tipped munitions at the incoming Red Wave. Because, clearly, the end of humanity was a small price to pay for winning an ideological conflict.

In all, the US anticipated the need for more than 150,000 nuclear weapons should a protracted war break out — 106,000 for tactical battlefield use, another 25,000 for air defence, and another 20,000 for miscellaneous Allied uses. Dubbed the Davy Crockett Atomic Battle Group Delivery System, this weapon would have been on the front lines defending against the Soviet invasion.

The 120mm M28 and 155mm M29 Davy Crockett launchers were recoilless rifles that could be tripod mounted on an APC or directly mounted to a Jeep, utilised by a three-man firing team, and launch two varieties of M388 279mm tactical nuclear projectiles.

These M388 projectiles weighed about 30kg, measured 80cm long, nearly 30cm in diameter, and basically looked like an RPG swallowed a watermelon. They were armed with either a conventional high explosive charge or a variable-yield W-54 atomic fission warhead (a precursor to the warhead employed by the W61 tac nuke) capable of delivering between 10 to 250 kiloton yields, as selected by the user.

The round would be loaded into the barrel (well, its “spigot” was) while a propellant charge would be loaded into the rear breach. The 120mm “light” iteration had a maximum range of 2km, the 155mm heavy version flew 4km. Both versions offered a minimum downfield range of just 1000 yards — not nearly far enough to offer even modest protection from the ensuing nuclear holocaust.

It produced lethal levels of radiation up to 500m away, but would have proven viciously efficient at laying waste to Soviet troop formations and empowering infantry platoons to decimate entire heavy mechanised divisions with a single strike. The system was reportedly assigned to a number of USAREUR (United States Army Europe) armour and mechanised and non-mechanised infantry battalions stationed along the Inner German border in the Fulda Gap.

More than 2100 M388 projectiles were produced beginning in 1956. However, the Davy Crockett wasn’t nearly as good a shot as its namesake. Its first warhead test, conducted on July 7, 1962, only flew 2.8km and constituted the final atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site. Subsequent firings between 1962 and 1968 at the Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island used 714 M101 spotter rounds (not live warheads).

Still, the weapon was deployed to the European theatre for more than a decade between 1961 and 1971. It was excused from service in Western Europe amid nuclear rollback agreements that took effect in 1968. But if things had gone differently, it would have been the weapon that defined the Cold War.

[MIKA27]

Apple Updates Macbook Air With Faster Processors And $50 Price Drop

Apple has refreshed its MacBook Air lineup today, with the super-slim laptops now sporting Intel’s latest Haswell silicon to boost their speeds. All but the entry-level 11-inch MacBook Air also get $50 price drops in Australia.

Both the 11-inch and 13-inch entry-level MacBook Airs now feature a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, compared to the previous 1.3GHz chip. They still both come with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of flash storage as a baseline. The laptops are configurable with specs reaching up to a 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 with 8GB of RAM.

According to the spec sheet, nothing else has changed with this latest refresh of the MacBook Air has — no retina display, no fan removal, not even a Thunderbolt 2 connection. You’ll have to wait for a bigger milestone before the MacBook Air changes more dramatically.

In Australia, Apple has dropped the price by $50 on all MacBook Air models except for the entry-level 11-inch version (which remains the same at $1099). All MacBook Air models have dropped by 100 bucks in the US, but Americans are no better off than Australians once you factor in sales tax on the US prices.

[MIKA27]

This Table Slides Together Without Screws, Dowels Or Glue

Shigeru Ban has had a big season, what with winning architecture’s highest prize, building disaster housing in the Philippines, and unveiling a huge luxury penthouse. The Japanese architect has many fans, including the designer of this wooden table, who says it was inspired by his low-tech cardboard buildings.

Ania Wolowska named this piece the Ban table, a nod to the architect’s ingenious designs for paper and wood structures that notch together with very little hardware.

The table’s eight pieces are carved by master woodworkers from Bacalar, Quintana Roo, in Mexico — the design is based on traditional joinery techniques found all over the world. Thanks to those notches, the whole thing slides into place in a matter of minutes — all you have to do is affix the glass table top.

There’s no price listed for the table, which is a sure fire sign that you can’t afford it — but since there’s no hardware required, it wouldn’t be too hard to make a version of this yourself. Think of it as adult-sized Lincoln Logs. [ITZ Furniture; Design Milk]

[MIKA27]

Darwin Considered the Existence of ETs, and Alien Origins of Life on Earth

It has long been supposed that the origins of life on planet Earth may have been far more alien at the outset than many have considered. Recent studies even suggest that certain proteins that could have served as the building blocks for life on our planet may have been first introduced via an extraterrestrial carrier, of sorts.

But rather than spaceships, the likely culprit would have been more likely to be space rocks. That’s right, the long-held belief that meteorites carrying certain proteins, or even very simple life forms, may have arrived in ancient times still begs the question, “are we really the aliens, after all?”

Among those who have questioned whether Earth life may really be extraterrestrial, add to the list Charles Darwin, who during a correspondence published in the summer of 1881 with a colleague, supposed that an extraterrestrial origin of Earth species may have been able to account for the seeming appearance of life, and its evolution over time, despite the then wrongly-calculated age of our planet.

David Bressan discussed Darwin’s letters on extraterrestrial speculation in a recent blog post for Scientific American, where he noted the following:

In August 1881 the journal “Science” published an article with a letter exchange by two amateur geologist – British Charles R. Darwin and the German Otto Hahn- discussing the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Just some years earlier Darwin had published a book “On Origin of Species” proposing that complex life forms descended slowly over time from simple ones, however as earth seemed to be too young (based on the erroneous calculations of a physicist Lord Kelvin) to explain the observed modern complexity, the origin of microorganisms in space (which existence would predate the formation of earth) could solve this apparent contradiction.

Something of a novel idea for 1881, the concept that life on Earth may have been seeded by interactions with matter from other terrestrial bodies is a common theme today, both in the realms of scientific thought, as well as that of alternative thinking. Ever since the 1960s, the popularization of “paleocontact” theories posit the notion that early life on Earth–or perhaps even early humans–were contactees amidst intelligent beings from space who, arriving here and seeking to spread the seeds of complex thought and knowledge, either shared complex principles of architecture, mathematics, science, agriculture, and the like with more primitive peoples, or literally engaged in some far-out science experiment that gave Darwin’s ideas of evolution a jump-start.

Bressan goes on to note that the ensuing article in Science, regarding Darwin’s communications with amateur geologist and naturalist Otto Hahn, note behavior that seems quite uncharacteristic of Darwin, specifically in relation to what Hahn had, at the time, mistaken in a meteorite fragment for being fossilized plant matter:

Strangely also in the Science article of 1881 other very Darwin-unlike behavior appears. Supposedly Darwin, observing under the microscope the rock fragments, jumped from his seat exclaiming ”Almighty God! What a wonderful discovery! Wonderful!” and stating that indeed “life [came] down!” from space.

Nonetheless, the supposition here is that Darwin held a very high regard for the possibility that maybe life on Earth had indeed been influenced, or even instigated entirely, by the appearance of stuff from the stars. Thus, in a sense, Darwin, Hahn, and perhaps a handful of others had become some of the earliest examples of “ancient alien theorists,” though perhaps not quite in the same context as the term is meant to be used today.

[MIKA27]

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams held over Jean McConville murder

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has been arrested by Northern Ireland police in connection with the 1972 murder of Jean McConville.

He presented himself to police on Wednesday evening and was arrested.

Speaking before his arrest, Mr Adams said he was "innocent of any part" in the murder.

Mrs McConville, a 37-year-old widow and mother-of-10, was abducted from her flat in the Divis area of west Belfast and shot by the IRA.

Her body was recovered from a beach in County Louth in 2003.

Police said a 65-year-old man presented himself to Antrim police station on Wednesday evening and was arrested.

'Malicious allegations'

In a statement, Sinn Féin said: "Last month Gerry Adams said he was available to meet the PSNI about the Jean McConville case. That meeting is taking place this evening."

Mr Adams added: "I believe that the killing of Jean McConville and the secret burial of her body was wrong and a grievous injustice to her and her family.

"Well publicised, malicious allegations have been made against me. I reject these.

Jean McConville, a widowed mother-of-10, was abducted and murdered by the IRA in December 1972

"While I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will, I am innocent of any part in the abduction, killing or burial of Mrs McConville."

His party colleague Alex Maskey condemned the timing of the arrest, just over three weeks from the European and local government elections.

Gerry Adams - shown here (on the right) at the funeral of an IRA commander in Belfast in 1971 - denies any involvement in Jean McConville's murder

However, Mrs McConville's son Michael, who was 11 when his mother was murdered, welcomed the arrest.

"We're just happy to see everything moving as it is moving at the minute," Mr McConville said.

"Me and the rest of my brothers and sisters are just glad to see the PSNI doing their job. We didn't think it would ever take place [Mr Adams' arrest], but we are quite glad that it is taking place.

"All we're looking for is justice for our mother. Our mother, on the seventh of next month, would have been 80 years of age.

"Although we didn't spend much time with our mother, we'd have like to have spent a lot of time with her. If the IRA hadn't have killed our mother, God knows, she still might have been alive today."

Mrs McConville, one of Northern Ireland's Disappeared, was kidnapped in front of her children after being wrongly accused of being an informer.

Last month, Ivor Bell, 77, a leader in the Provisional IRA in the 1970s, was charged with aiding and abetting the murder.

There have also been a number of other arrests over the murder recently.

Mrs McConville's son Michael welcomed the arrest

The case against Bell is based on an interview he allegedly gave to researchers at Boston College in the US.

The Boston College tapes are a series of candid, confessional interviews with former loyalist and republican paramilitaries, designed to be an oral history of the Troubles.

The paramilitaries were told the tapes would only be made public after their deaths.

However, after a series of court cases in the United States, some of the content has been handed over to the authorities.

Informer claim dismissed

The claim that Mrs McConville was an informer was dismissed after an official investigation by the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman.

She was held at one or more houses before being shot and buried in secret.

The Disappeared are those who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Troubles.

Jean McConville's children interviewed after her disappearance in 1972

The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried at secret locations nine of the Disappeared.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains was established in 1999 by a treaty between the British and Irish governments.

It lists 16 people as "disappeared". Despite extensive searches, the remains of seven of them have not been found.

[MIKA27]

FROM Q WITH LOVE: THE 10 BEST BOND CARS

Picking the greatest Bond cars is far from easy. Since 1962 — through 23 movies and seven actors — 007 has been behind the wheel of some of the finest and most exotic cars the world had to offer. And you just know that at some point in the movie, some bad guy is going to try to chase him down. Of course, pitted against James Bond’s superior driving skills and add-ons from gadgetmaster Q, they don’t stand a chance, and usually wind up dead. So the 10 Best Bond Cars might not be the most desirable ones, but the most dramatic and memorable ones.

10. CITROEN 2CV

Movie: For Your Eyes Only

Year: 1981

We’re used to seeing Bond drive some slick European exotic or rip-snortin’ American muscle car, but one of his most memorable chases occurred in just about the most mundane car ever made. There’s a scene in For Your Eyes Only in which the only car Bond (Roger Moore) can get his hands on is a yellow Citroën 2CV. If you’re not familiar with the classic Gallic econobox, all you need to know is that its name is derived from the French words for “two horsepower” (I’m not kidding). Still, Bond manages to elude several equally unspecial Peugeot 504s before his snail-shaped car rolls down a small hill, allowing him to reverse away. The bad guys are finally foiled when Bond’s fancy driving causes them both to crash their horrible, worthless French sedans.

9. AMC HORNET

Movie: The Man With the Golden Gun

Year: 1974

At a time when the auto industry was putting out some of its worst products, so were the people who made James Bond movies. With a cartoonish plot, a somewhat effete leading man in Moore and lame dialogue, this martial arts-heavy rendition is not a great film, but there is a redeeming scene with an unlikely star — a 1974 AMC Hornet hatchback. For some reason, buffoonish Southern Sheriff J.W. Pepper was in Bangkok looking to buy the car. Bond steals into the scene, takes the car, crashes through the showroom window and, in one of the great stunts in pre-CGI Hollywood — takes it over a 52-foot jump while making a 360-degree corkscrew spin in midair. The stunt was done in one take and would have been a truly great film moment had it not been for the fact that Oscar-winning composer John Barry added a slide whistle sound effect. Instead, it was just another silly scene played for laughs in a forgettable film.

8. SUNBEAM ALPINE

Movie: Dr. No

Year: 1962

It might surprise some that the James Bond film series did not start out big. In fact, for the first installation in the series — Dr. No — the producers could not find a single car company to provide them with a vehicle and instead had to borrow one from a local businessman in Jamaica, where the film was shot. Luckily, they got a good one. Bond’s first car was a Sunbeam Alpine, a sporty little roadster that was later made popular in the U.S. when Carroll Shelby convinced the company to give it an American V8 and sell it as the Sunbeam Tiger. The Alpine distinguished itself in Dr. No when Bond (Sean Connery) is being chased by some villains in a hearse. He drives the low-slung Alpine under a crane, the villains can’t follow and instead crash to their deaths.

7. BMW 750IL

Movie: Tomorrow Never Dies

Year: 1997

Bond (Pierce Brosnan) uses this bullet-proof remote control car to escape some machine gun-armed villains in a parking garage. After jumping into the speeding Bimmer’s back window, he guides it from the backseat with a fancy flip phone with a very low-density display and an all-too-chummy GPS guide. He outdrives a Mercedes (take that, Daimler-Benz!), and several lesser cars on his way to freedom. The scene ends with Bond sending the BMW off the garage’s roof. It ends up crashing through the front window of an Avis rent-a-car outlet. There’s a joke there, but I don’t get it.

6. ASTON MARTIN V12 VANQUISH

Movie: Die Another Day

Year: 2002

Nice enough car as Astons usually are, but a bit overloaded with the gadgets if you ask me. Along with the usual tack spreaders, rocket launchers and machine guns, this Ford-era Vanquish also has a self-flipping device and adaptive camouflage that renders it almost invisible. Interestingly, in the main chase scene, Bond (Brosnan) is chased by villain Zao in a mechanically similar Jaguar XKR — at a time when Jaguar was also part of the Ford family. Call it sibling rivalry.

5. FORD MUSTANG MACH 1

Movie: Diamonds Are Forever

Year: 1971

This one isn’t strictly Bond’s car. Instead, he takes it from love interest Tiffany Case, but since he drives it in the film’s signature stunt, let’s just say it’s his. The producers knew they would be wrecking a lot of cars for the film, so they approached volume manufacturers instead of exotics. Ford agreed to supply the vehicles under the condition that the “star” car be a Mustang Mach 1. The big stunt features Bond (Connery), chased by cops, entering a Las Vegas alley on two wheels and somehow (the director, Guy Hamilton, cheated and only showed an inside-the-car reaction shot) came out on the opposite two wheels.

4. ASTON MARTIN DBS V12/DB9

Movie: Casino Royale

Year: 2006

Production values improved dramatically with this, the first of the series starring Daniel Craig, and the movies became more realistic. That extended to his car as well. In the Casino Royale reboot, his Aston appeared stock except for a hidden gun compartment and an onboard defibrillator. Still, it was a great car. Last of the Ford-era Astons, the DBS was fast, steady and very close to beautiful. But it presented some problems for the filmmakers. It was expensive, so they used a nearly identical-looking but cheaper DB9 for the end of the chase scene in which the car crashes when Bond swerves to avoid killing his love interest in the middle of the road. It was also too safe. In order to get the car to crash and spin, after several unsuccessful attempts, the effects crew hid an 18-inch ramp on the road and augmented it with an air cannon under the car. It then set a feature film record of seven complete rolls after that, though.

3. ASTON MARTIN V8

Movie: The Living Daylights

Year: 1987

Of all of Bond’s cars, this is the one I’d like to take home. One of the last traditional Aston Martins before the wild Lagonda experiment and the Ford takeover, the thunderous DOHC V8 and gorgeous styling make the Vantage Volante very desirable in a refined way. Still, the directors got a little silly with it. In a scene in which Bond (Timothy Dalton) is chased by police Ladas, he lasers one in half and cuts a hole in some ice to sink another, instead of just stepping on the accelerator and making them dots in the rearview mirror. Using headlight-mounted rockets to blow up the truck they used to block his way made sense, though.

2. LOTUS ESPRIT S1

Movie: The Spy Who Loved Me

Year: 1977

One of the most popular Bond films, the star of The Spy Who Loved Me might not be Moore as Bond, but rather his car, a Lotus Esprit S1. The Giugiaro-designed mid-engine coupe was probably the best looking car of the entire squared-off pop-up lights era. And it was quick. But it proved to be a problem for the stunt drivers, who were used to driving muscle cars. So Lotus engineer Roger Becker stepped in and showed them how it was done. Of course, the car is best known for the scene in which 007 escapes a helicopter by driving the Lotus straight into the Mediterranean. Once under water, it transforms into a fully functioning submarine, complete with surface-to-air missile. Tesla owner and billionaire Elon Musk — who was six years old when the film came out and has a great Bond-villain name — bought one of the cars from the film in 2013 and says he plans to make it submersible.

1. ASTON MARTIN DB5

Movie: Goldfinger, GoldenEye, Casino Royale and Skyfall

Year: 1964, 1995, 2006 and 2012

A rolling work of art, the silver DB5 is synonymous with Bond, and has been a featured player in four of the series’ films (although we all know it’s really Connery’s). It was the first car that was recognized as being made specifically for Bond by Q. And he put in all the stops. Bond confounded meter maids with revolving license plates, while the bad guys were foiled with a bunch of tacks dropped from the trunk to puncture their tires, an oil dispenser to make them slide, a set of Ben-Hur-style rotating spikes in case they came even with him, an ejector seat in case one of them managed to get in with him — and one did — and even headlight-mounted machine guns in case they got in front of him. Easily the quintessential Bond car, it’s also the best.

[MIKA27]

MANLEY ORV EXPLORE TRAILER

There’s nothing like exploring the great outdoors, and there’s no better companion for your outdoor excursions than a well built trailer. Inspired by the iconic Military M416 trailer, the MORV Explore trailer is one of our favorite options on today’s market.

While there are 3 different trailers available (Original, Utility and Explore), we prefer the Explore as it comes with all of the same features as the Utility, but with a handful of additional options available. This lightweight trailer comes equipped with a locking aluminum lid, premium LED lighting system, rooftop tent for overnight expeditions, and even a hitch mounted recovery hook among other things. Each MORV has also been outfitted with a set of fully capable all-terrain tires to ensure your trailer will be able to tackle anything you can throw at it. “Rugged. Reliable. Ready.” That’s a company motto we can get behind. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

GILLETTE FUSION PROGLIDE RAZOR WITH FLEXBALL TECHNOLOGY

Rather than adding yet another blade to their razor, the folks at Gillette have decided to bring some real innovation to the world of shaving. Say hello to the Gillette Fusion ProGlide Razor with Flexball Technology.

Based on the brand’s already popular Fusion ProGlide, this razor has been outfitted with a new technology that lets the razor easily and comfortably follow the contours of a man’s face. Think of it like a Dyson vacuum cleaner for your face. Rather then turning your head in several directions, the new ProGlide does all the work for you, providing a close shave to the hard-to-reach areas with ease. Sure, it might not revolutionize the world of shaving, but anything that makes it feel less like a chore is a plus in my book.

[MIKA27]

WATCH FOLD WATCH CARRIER

For the man who invests a tidy sum in his watch, caring for that accessory when it’s not on your wrist becomes a pretty big deal. The Watch Fold by Worn & Wound is all about protecting your prized timekeeper, and looking good while doing it. With 18 oz. waxed filter twill canvas, ultra suede lining, Italian leather for the binding and strap, and a layer of padding for protection, your watch will be sitting pretty and protected. Each Watch Fold can hold up to two watches, one watch with extra straps, or maybe a pair of sunglasses. The Watch Fold measures 12″ long when open or 6″ long when folded by 2.6″ wide, and it’s going for $79 right now. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

TO GO GRILL | BY EVA SOLO

Eva Solo´s new sleek To Go Grill is perfect for picnics in the woods, on the beach or using on the balcony. The stylish and portable grill is made from enameled steel and features silicone handles that stay cool, even when the grill is hot. The grill is supplied with a practical nylon strap for holding the various parts together when it is being transported or stored.