STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

From Neighbours To Wolf Of Wall Street To An Enduring Anime Classic

That’s quite the cinematic journey being taken by ex-Neighbours actress Margot Robbie. According to Deadine, Robbie is currently in talks to star in the upcoming live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, one of the most popular animes ever released in the west.

No idea which character she would be playing, but you’d have to assume she’s up for the role of Motoko Kusanagi, the main character in the original anime movie. That being said, the Ghost in the Shell universe has expanded since that release with the well received series Stand Alone Complex.

Steven Spielberg’s production company Dreamworks acquired the rights to produce a live action version of Ghost in the Shell back in 2008 and the movie has been in production limbo ever since. Jamie Moss was originally hired to write the script, but was reportedly replaced by Laeta Kalogridis, who wrote Shutter Island. More recently Rupert Sanders, who directed Snow White and the Huntsman, was reportedly helming the film with William Wheeler on script duties. Seems like no-one really knows what the hell is going on with the production. This is Hollywood, I guess this is how it all works.

Regardless, I’d be keen to watch a live action version of Ghost in the Shell. The anime classic had such a unique aesthetic and feel. Surely some visionary director can do it justice? I think of all the anime classics out there, Ghost in the Shell might have the best chance of working as live-action movie.

[MIKA27]

Dr. Mütter's Marvels: intrigue and innovation at the dawn of modern medicine

Specializing in performing reconstructive surgery on the severely deformed in a time before anesthesia, Thomas Dent Mütter was one of the first American pioneers of plastic surgery. In the new book, Dr Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz explores the life and times of this idiosyncratic doctor and American original.

Best known today for his namesake museum, Philadelphia's (in)famous Mütter Museum, 19th century doctor Thomas Dent Mütter first made a name for himself as a young surgical wunderkind. Specializing in performing reconstructive surgery on the severely deformed in a time before anesthesia, Mütter was one of the first American pioneers of plastic surgery.

In the new book, Dr Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine (Gotham Books, 2014), author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz explores the life and times of this idiosyncratic doctor and American original.

In a time when they wore constrictive clothing and cooked in front of open flames, it was not uncommon for women to become severely deformed due to burns that had occurred in the home. Shame often kept these women from seeking medical treatment. However, Mütter invented a new type of treatment, which he called the Mütter Flap Surgery, which revolutionized the treatment of burn deformities. Severely burned women (and men) came from all over the country to be treated by him, despite the fact the lengthy, painful surgeries would be performed while the patient was still awake. An early form of skin grafting, the Mütter Flap Surgery is still used today, over 150 years after Mütter's death.

During his career, Dr. Charles D. Meigs (1792-1869) was one of the most prominent and influential doctors in America, as well as a colleague and peer of Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter (1811-1859). The two men were both faculty members of Philadelphia's Jefferson Medical College, and clashed often because of their radically opposing philosophies towards medicine. For instance, while Mütter (a surgeon) taught his students to spend days slowly desensitizing the parts of a patient’s body through gentle touch and massage, Meigs (an obstetrician) did not believe in pain management for laboring women. Standing behind the bible verse which stated that "In sorrow thou shall bring forth children," Meigs instructed his students to absolutely avoid “fussing about” for example when their female patients were in labor. He encouraged students to follow his lead and simply “read and write in another room until the delivery was ready.”

Dr. Charles D. Meigs (1792-1869) was famously brutish with his female patients, but this came from his strong belief that the field of gynecology and obstetrics was handicapped by the prejudices and false modesties practiced by women. How were doctors like Meigs supposed to treat women effectively when, in many localities, an obstetrician could examine the abdomen of a pregnant woman only through blankets? Having little patience for women whose bodily shyness proved a barrier to him, Meigs believed and preached passionately that treatment others might view as curt and brutish was often the quickest route between a foolish patient and the treatment the doctor knew was needed.

Another colleague of Thomas Dent Mütter (1811-1859) and Charle D. Meigs (1792-1869) was Dr. Joseph Pancoast (1805-1882), who was a surgeon as well as the Chair of Anatomy of Jefferson Medical College, the school where all three taught. Like Mütter, much of Pancoast's early career as a surgeon took place in a time before anesthesia, so his patients were awake during the procedures. During one public surgery, Pancoast attempted a daring removal of a patient’s upper jaw, using "marvelous speed" to rip out the bones with a huge forceps. But the surgery was perhaps too much for a public display. A student who was present would later recall how the partially conscious patient spat out blood, bones, and teeth, while unnerved students in the audience vomited and fainted in their seats.

At Jefferson Medical College, where Dr Thomas Dent Mütter (1811-1859) served as the wildly popular Chair of Surgery, annual admission tickets were given to enrolled students. Medical students were required to attend two years of lectures and pass a test before given their medical degree. While the majority of the admission tickets were printed on light brown or gray paper, the flamboyant Mütter's admission tickets were often printed on hot pink paper.

The years that Mütter served as the Chair of Surgery were a transformative time in medicine, and a significant amount of students who learned from him would go on to help revolutionize American medicine. One such student was Edward R. Squibb, who was deeply impressed by the ether surgeries that Mütter performed (Mütter performed the first ever ether surgery in Philadelphia on December 23, 1846), but shared Mütter's frustrations about the lack consistency and quality of ether in a time before standardized medicine. Squibb's passion for creating standardized and pure forms of medication, including ether, helped him form the medical supply company which would eventually evolve into the modern pharmaceutical giant, Bristol Myers Squibb.

Mütter was forced to end his surgical career early because of constant, painful and crippling flare-ups of gout, a medical condition he inherited from his grandmother. As a surgeon, Mütter’s hands were one of his most valuable tools. Swift and nimble, quick and precise, Mütter was also ambidextrous, and was equally skilled with both hands. (“Few can boast of [being ambidextrous]... and often, many who can have in fact only two left hands,” a fellow doctor once quipped).

During his lifetime, Mütter amassed a large collection of pathological marvels, many extremely unusual. There were “the usual osseous, nervous, vascular, muscular, ligamentotaxis, and other preparations for anatomical demonstration,” but his collection also contained a large number of wet preparations (specimens in jars); diseased bones and calculi; an extensive series of paintings and engravings, representing healthy and morbid parts, fractures, dislocations, tumors… and the surgical operations that are necessary for their relief; as well as graphic models of medical conditions in wood, plaster and wax. When Mütter realized that his life was coming to a premature end because of his lifelong struggles with health, he became fixated on finding a proper home for his collection, which he considered "the chief object of my professional life.” He struck a deal with the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, who opened the Mütter Museum in 1862--three years after Mütter's death.

Philadelphia's Mütter Museum is one of the country's most popular science museums. There—for the modest price of admission—you can stand in front of a giant’s skeleton. Or marvel at a colon the size of cow, extracted from a man known only as the Human Balloon. Or, of course, peer into the face of Madame Dimanche, that French widow who one day began to grow a horn from her forehead, and whose wax model had so bewitched Mütter, he had carried it with him across an ocean. There, you will also find a woman dubbed the Soap Lady, her body having turned into a waxy soaplike substance after her death, freezing her small face in what looks like a perpetual scream. In the century and a half since Mütter's death, the museum’s collection has grown to include tumors cut from presidents, the jarred brains of madmen and geniuses, deformed skeletons displayed in delicate glass cases, Civil War surgical tools still caked in dried blood, and even the death cast of Chang and Eng Bunker, the famous sideshow act, a pair of conjoined brothers who inspired the term Siamese twins. All of this and more can be found under one roof, and all of it is watched over by the dashing portrait of one man: Thomas Dent Mütter. “Thus, in dying,” his old friend Dr. Joseph Pancoast (1805-1882) would say of the museum, “has he left a precious heritage to the profession.”

Excerpt from Dr. Mütter's Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine By Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

CHAPTER ONE: MONSTERS

Mütter knew that surgery was his calling, and raced through the streets of Paris to study the work of its greatest practitioners. He was aggressive in his pursuits, pushing through crowds to secure the best seats at the surgical lectures, or firmly staying as close as possible to the lecturing doctors as they made their rounds in hospital, no matter how much the other students pushed. Meals of spiced mutton and fresh bread went half-finished as he plotted the next week’s schedule. Bowls of café au lait were abandoned so he could make an early start every morning, eager to begin his day.

He had come to Paris assuming it would be the doctors themselves who would have the greatest influence on him, these men who were legends in their own time. Chief among them was Guillaume Dupuytren, who ruled over the Hôtel-Dieu, the city’s largest hospital, and single- handedly changed how surgery was done. An immensely brilliant operator, exhibiting marvelous dexterity, proceeding with almost inconceivable speed, his boorish arrogance became as famous as his accomplishments in the surgical room. Jacques Lisfranc de St. Martin was head of the Hôpital de la Pitié, the city’s second-largest hospital. He was Dupuytren’s greatest friend turned into his most bitter rival, and spent most of his life trying to escape Dupuytren’s shadow. Lisfranc was known to refer to Dupuytren as “the bandit of the river bank,” while Dupuytren frequently called Lisfranc “that man with the face of an ape and the heart of a crouching dog.” There was Philibert Joseph Roux — who so dazzled his classes with his graceful and brilliant work that it was said “his operations were the poetry of surgery,” but who had also earned Dupuytren’s scorn years earlier by winning the hand of the woman they both loved. And Alfred-Armand-Louis-Marie Velpeau, whose textbook on obstetrics was so influential, it had been translated into English by one of America’s most respected obstetricians: Philadelphia’s own Charles D. Meigs.

Mütter was deeply impressed with the audacity of each of these surgeons’ talents and their seemingly inexhaustible work ethic. However, it was not any single man who ended up changing the course of Mütter life but, rather, a new field of surgery freshly emerging in Paris, which even the French referred to as la chirurgie radicale.

Who sought out this radical surgery?

Monsters. This is how the patients would have been categorized in America. Mütter was used to seeing them replicated in wax for classroom display, or hidden in back rooms away from the public eye. He had seen them in jars, fetuses expelled from their mothers, irreparably damaged. monster, the label would read.

Some of these monsters were born that way: a cleft palate so severe the face looked to have been split in two with an ax. Hardly able to eat or drink, spit collected in pools on the child’s clothing as his tongue lolled around the open hole of his mouth, awkward and exposed.

Others were born “normal,” but their bodies would slowly turn them into monsters, as tumors laid siege to their torsos or limbs, swelling their legs like soaked wood, their eyes strained and nearly popping.

Other times, the monsters were man-made: men whose noses were cut off in battle, or as punishment, or for revenge, the centers of their faces evolving into a large weeping sore; women whose dresses caught fire, becoming houses of flames from which their owners couldn’t escape, the skin on their faces turned into melted wax, their mouths permanently frozen in screams.

Monsters. This is what they were called, and this was how they were treated. For such tortured people, death was often seen as a blessing.

In Paris, however, the surgeons had a solution. They called it les operations plastiques.

Was it quackery? Mütter wondered when he first heard about it. Was it a trick? Would these unfortunates be presented like a sideshow? Were the doctors in the audience there to learn or to gape? What could surgeons possibly do to help such hopeless cases?

At the very first lecture, Mütter began to understand the difference between regular surgery and les opérations plastiques.

The patient, often greeted with gasps of horror and pity, stood stock-still and unafraid as the surgeon made his examination. These regrettables didn’t show the unease normal patients did; their eyes didn’t wander back to the door from which they entered and through which they could also escape. Gradually, Mütter grew to understand why.

In regular surgical lectures, patients rarely understood the trouble they were in. When the knife first pierced the skin, they could come to the sudden realization that a life without this surgery might still be a happy one. Thus, escape was the best possible solution and a choice they wanted to exercise right away.

Patients of les opérations plastiques, however, were often too aware of their lot in life: that of a monster. It was inescapable. They hid their faces when walking down the street. They took cover in back rooms, excused themselves when there were knocks at the door. They saw how children howled at the sight of them. They understood the half a life they were condemned to live and the envy they couldn’t help but feel toward others — whole people who didn’t realize how lucky they were to wear the label human.

It was not uncommon for these patients to enter the surgical room fully prepared to die. Death was a risk they happily took for the chance to bring some level of peace and normality to their mangled faces or agonized bodies. The surgeries weren’t physically necessary to save their lives; rather, they were done so the patient might have the gift of living a better, normal life. That is what les opérations plastiques promised.

Plastique was a French adjective that translated to “easily shaped or molded.” That was the hope with this surgery: to reconstruct or repair parts of the body by primarily using materials from the patient’s own body, such as tissue, skin, or bone.

The surgeries, of course, were not always successful — if a patient’s problem had been so easy to fix, it would have been corrected by lesser doctors years ago. But other times — and these were the times the audience waited for, the ones that made Mütter’s hair stand on edge — the end result was nothing short of miraculous.

[MIKA27]

How A Country That Has No New Bike Parts Fixes Its Bicycles

What happens if you live in Cuba and your bike breaks down? It’s not like you can hop on the Internet and get two day shipping for a new bike. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible to score new bike parts. What you have to do is find a guy who knows another guy who might have some parts of the part you need.

It’s fascinating to see how the people of Cuba has dealt with and adapted to the limitations of their country. Diego Vivanco captured the reality of Cuba in a short for Kauri Multimedia called Havana Bikes. He writes:

Cuba underwent a bicycle revolution in the 1990s during its five year ‘Special Period’. Oil was scarce as a result of tough economic constraints, and throughout those years of austerity, bicycles where introduced as an alternative mode of transport. Thousands of Cubans used bicycles on a regular basis, as pedalling became the norm on the island.

Years later, the transportation crisis subsided and motorised vehicles returned, and the country’s bicycle culture took a hit. Now, new bikes are difficult to come by and parts are not readily available, yet many Cubans still use bicycles daily and, despite the limited resources, a handful of mechanics provide a service to those who rely on their bikes in their everyday lives.

It’s a good reminder to use everything we can.

[MIKA27]

Australian Court Decides That Breast Cancer Mutation Gene Can Be Patented

The Full Bench of the Federal Court of Australia has today decided that a private company is within its rights to hold a patent on a specific mutation in a breast cancer gene, which experts say could lead to a derailment of research and an eventual cure.

The case began way back in 2010 and saw Cancer Voices Australia challenge genetic research companies which sought to hold exclusive licenses for doing tests on the gene in Australia. The Federal Court had previously ruled that the gene could be patented, leading to an appeal by Cancer Voices Australia.

The Federal Court today ruled against the appeal, saying that isolated genetic material, namely the BRCA1 gene mutation, can indeed be patented after it’s removed from the body.

Experts have panned the Federal Court’s ruling, warning that it may seriously hamper cancer research in this country.

Patent lawyer and Adjunct Professor in the School of Law at Murdoch University, Dr Luigi Palombi, is baffled by the Australian court’s decision, when courts in the US went the opposite way. He has said today that Australia needs to change its patent law so that medical breakthroughs like the BRCA1 gene cannot be patented and kept from other research projects:

The decision ignores the bedrock principle of 400 years of patent law. Only an invention can be the subject of a patent. The decision ignores the scientific facts. It ignores good policy. And it ignores common sense. Australian ingenuity in the biological sciences is now handcuffed by this decision.

How is it possible that the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously came to the exact opposite result in only three months? Despite the attempt by the Full Federal Court to try and differentiate the precise claims between the Australian and U.S. patents that Myriad has over the BRCA 1 genetic mutations, the so-called invention is the same.

At the end of the day, the Australian patent claims pieces of genetic material (BRCA 1 gene mutations) extracted from the human body are an ‘invention’. How is that something anyone invented? American scientists, universities and companies now have the freedom to ignore patents over isolated biological materials that are not ‘markedly different to any found in nature’, but Australian scientists, universities and companies cannot.

Paul Grogan is the Director of Advocacy at the Cancer Council Australia, and said that the ruling risks creating “gene monopolies” that could end up hurting those in need of treatment in Australia:

Given the unanimous Federal Court ruling is an interpretation of Australian law, the law itself needs to change to protect healthcare consumers from gene monopolies.

Australian women were only protected from an attempted commercial monopoly over the BRCA1 and BRCA2 tests in 2008 because the company that threatened to take those tests away from public laboratories withdrew its patent claims voluntarily.

There was nothing in the law to protect healthcare consumers from the monopolisation of those diagnostic tests – and there still isn’t.

The ruling puts Australia out of step with the US, where the Supreme Court invalidated the Myriad patents.

If the difference is in the way Australian patent law is interpreted, then there is a strong case to change the law. The patents system should reward innovation and help deliver affordable healthcare, not stymie research and increase costs by allowing commercial entities to control the use of human genetic materials.

Law firm Maurice Blackburn hasn’t ruled out a challenge in the High Court. [SMH]

[Maplepie]

And this is how science is inhibited by the economic system that was set forth to further it.

Sent by the Enigma on BlackBerry.

[MIKA27]

The Mystery of the Ancient Roman Tunnel to Hell

There is a place on the northern shore of the Bay of Naples that has long been steeped in history, mystery, myth, and magic. Known as the Phlegræan Fields, it is a desolate place; a barren wasteland strewn with rubble and intersected by deep underground vents that belch out choking fumes and fire. Legends and strange phenomena cling to this hellish, smoke-wreathed landscape, so it is perhaps no wonder that these fields are a location believed since ancient times to hold a tunnel that leads to Hell itself.

The Phlegræan Fields is a plateau that is part of an ancient volcanic caldera not far from Mt. Vesuvius, the volcano known for laying waste to the once great city of Pompeii. The heavily volcanic area, which is pitted with steaming vents, sulphur spewing crevasses, and even flaming holes in the ground, was well-known in Greek and Roman myth and is heavily associated with stories of magic and prophecy.

A volcanic vent on the Phlegræan Fields

One of the greatest legends originating from here is that of the Cumæan sibyl, or prophetess, that was featured in Virgil’s epic the Aeneid, which tells of the hero Aeneas’ journey through the Land of the Dead, guided by the Sibyl. This prophetess took her name from the nearby town of Cumae, itself having the legendary distinction of being one of the landing places for Daedalus, the mythical father of Icarus of lore. The Sibyl was depicted as a woman bestowed with immortality by the sun god Apollo and gifted with powers of prophecy, who was said to dwell in a cave somewhere in the Fields that also served as an entrance to the underworld. Her powers were described as vast, and Virgil liked to depict her sitting in her cave feverishly scrawling the future onto leaves. An interesting story concerning the Sybil is that she once possessed nine magical scrolls that allegedly outlined the entire future of Rome in detail, which she offered for an exorbitant sum to a Roman king by the name of Tarquinius Superbus, also known as Tarquin the Proud. When the king refused her offer, the Sybil proceeded to methodically destroy the scrolls until the king finally coughed up the vast amount of money she had demanded, and had the last remaining three sequestered away in a hidden place.

Although this may all seem like pure fantasy, this story is significant in that there really was a king by the name of Tarquinius and there were indeed three scrolls kept by the Greeks that came to be known as the Sibylline Books, which were thought to be the actual texts acquired by Tarquin from the Sybil. These scrolls were typically securely locked in a stone vault deep beneath a place called The Temple of Jupiter and although it is unknown if they had any real prophetic powers, the Greeks certainly thought they did, as the scrolls were said to occasionally be used to divine the future in times of imminent crisis or disaster so that such hardships could be avoided. The scrolls were considered to be of extreme importance at the time and were protected at all costs. So desperate were the Greeks to keep these scrolls that when the temple was burned down in 83 BC, envoys were allegedly sent to the far flung corners of the earth searching for any pieces or fragments that might have survived so that they could be reassembled.

The Cumæan sibyl with her prophetic scrolls

It is these intriguing grains of truth inherent to this legend that have beckoned adventurous souls for centuries, who believed that there could possibly be a real cave where the Sybil resided and that it could really descend literally into the depths of Hell itself. The historically accurate features of the tale have also been cause for historians, archaeologists, folklorists, and scholars to wonder if there actually was, if perhaps not a literal opening to the underworld, then a previously unknown and unexplored cave or tunnel system that lies at the heart of the legends of the Sybil’s cave. Various searches and expeditions of the Phlegræan Fields were undertaken over the years to discern the location of this mythical cave yet turned up nothing. In the face of the lack of any further physical evidence to point to a real cave or tunnel at the root of the legend, the possibility of one existing seemed more and more doubtful, and the Sybil’s entrance to the underworld faded once again into mere myth.

The legend of the Cumæan sibyl’s mysterious cave may well have remained shrouded in myth and legend forever if it weren’t for a curious discovery made in the 1950s in the ancient Roman luxury resort town of Baiae, a place located in the western portion of the Fields that was once renowned throughout the Empire for its spas with reputed healing powers. Here, among the 2,000 year old ruins of this once flourishing and decadent resort, an Italian archaeologist by the name of Amedeo Maiuri stumbled across the entrance to a previously unknown tunnel complex, or antrum, painstakingly carved into the volcanic rock and leading down into a hill and beneath the city. The entrance itself was a plain, nondescript and narrow opening found concealed beneath 15 feet of rubble and vines behind a vineyard near the ruins of an ancient temple. This opening was unknown and obviously man made, so the excited team attempted to explore it. They did not get far. After delving only a few feet into the blackness of the narrow passage, it quickly became apparent that the place was thickly choked with potentially dangerous fumes and the heat emanating from the darkness soon became unbearable. The archaeologists abandoned their exploration of the tunnel and in the ensuing years the entrance became sort of a mysterious, forgotten curiosity.

The ancient Roman resort of Baiae

Some years later, in the early 1960s, a British armchair archaeologist by the name of Robert Paget came across the story of this enigmatic tunnel entrance and was immediately fascinated by it. Paget just happened to be one of the few remaining people who actually entertained the idea that the Sybil’s cave of legend was a real place, and so he theorized that perhaps this fume wreathed tunnel of infernal heat at Baiae was it. He quickly became obsessed with the notion, and determined to penetrate into the tunnel’s mysterious depths at any cost. Gathering a colleague of his by the name of Keith Jones and a small contingent of volunteers, Paget made preparations to dare the harsh conditions of the tunnel in order to unravel its mysteries and find out just where it led to. It was to be a daunting feat that would ultimately pose more questions than answers.

From the outset it was apparent that it would not be easy going. The group was immediately greeted by pungent volcanic fumes belching from the darkness of the tunnel and they found that it was difficult to squeeze through the opening, which while measuring 8 feet high was only 21 inches wide. Once inside, the temperature proved to be uncomfortably warm, yet lured by the promise of amazing discoveries the expedition doggedly pressed ahead nevertheless. Although the passage became wider as they went, the team were able to penetrate only 400 feet into the tunnel until they came to an area made impassable due to a pile of rubble. Besides marveling at the effort and ingenuity that it must have taken ancient people to carve out such an impressive tunnel, Paget came to the conclusion that it was likely used for some sort of ritualistic purpose due to its position in relation to the entrance and its orientation with the sunrise line and therefore the solstice.

The Baiae tunnel entrance

The wall of rubble prevented any further progress, but for Paget the promise of more to find was irresistible. Driven by his obsession to uncover the tunnel’s secrets, Paget embarked on an ambitious project to clear the tunnel and press on. As they proceeded, it became evident to Paget and his team that the tunnel was actually only a small part of a larger, highly intricate tunnel system that would come to be known as the Antrum of Initiation, or the Great Antrum, and had been painstakingly designed for some as yet unknown purpose. All Paget could discern was that the system likely had a ritualistic nature, an idea further bolstered by clues along the way, such as numerous candle holes placed too close together to be explained by a mere need for illumination down in the stygian depths. There were also other unique design features such as evidence of double doors leading to secret passageways, jogs in the tunnels to prevent visitors from seeing the next section of the tunnel until the bend is passed, pivoting doors for closing off passages, and complicated ventilation systems, all of which added to the mystery of the tunnels. It was obvious that although the tunnel system’s makers and the true purpose of this place were unknown, whoever had constructed it had undoubtedly put great effort and thought into designing it.

Perhaps the greatest mystery of the tunnels was to be found deep in the lower levels, where temperatures reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit and the air was so choked with noxious, sulfurous fumes as to be nearly un-breathable. It was here in these hellish conditions that Paget and company found a sharp bend at the end of a particularly steep passage that seemed somehow designed to prevent anyone who approached from seeing what was to be found at the end until they turned the corner. When Paget and Jones rounded that sharp bend, they were confronted with an underground stream of boiling water that they would later call The River Styx.

Projecting into this super heated stream was a landing, the purpose of which could not be discerned. On the other side of the stream, another passage ascended up into an antechamber that Paget called “The Hidden Sanctuary,” and continued on until a hidden staircase led up to the surface and exited at the ruins of water tanks that had once fed the Roman spas.

In the end, Paget and his team would spend nearly a decade clearing and exploring this vast tunnel system. During this time, Paget and Jones studied the mysteries they had uncovered and became convinced that the tunnel system and its boiling river were meant to be a representation of the entrance to the Greek underworld of Hades itself. After years of searching and obsessing, Paget had finally found his legendary cave of the Sybil, or at least the cave he believed the legend was based on.

To support his theory, Paget pointed to the Aeniad, and argued that Aeneas’ and the Sybil’s trip to the underworld bore a striking resemblance to the layout of the Great Antrum. Paget believed the course that the tunnel system took closely followed Aeneas’ journey and indeed faithfully mimicked similar trips to Hades throughout Greek legend. The estimated date of the complex, around 550 B.C., is also consistent with the time the Sybil was said to have existed. Paget and Jones surmised that the intricate tunnels of the complex were meant to recreate a similar journey through the underworld and that the boiling river represented the River Styx, at which it was speculated a boatman would have once waited at the landing to take visitors across, just as in Greek legend. It was theorized that this impressively realistic depiction of Hell would be enough for the priests of the temple to convince anyone foolhardy enough to venture through its tunnels that the underworld was very real. In short, this vast, elaborate tunnel system was thought to be more or less very convincing deception to convert followers, and may have even showcased a person playing the role of the Cumæan sibyl. Paget even went so far as to suggest that Virgil himself may have been an initiate of the temple.

Paget’s theories were met with a good amount of skepticism from the scientific community, which made efforts to distance itself from his wild ideas, in part because he was not a professional archeologist and also because his far out claims that he had more or less found the entrance to the underworld did not sit well with academics at the time. As a result, Paget and Jones’ findings from their exploration for the better part of a decade were not even published in book form until much later, and even then with a clear disclaimer that the team’s elaborate theories were not necessarily those of the academics publishing it. Regardless of the detractors and debate that raged over their ideas, Paget and Jones’ work remains the most complete attempt to uncover and explore the mysteries of the complex to date.

Very little is known about the Great Antrum, and we are no closer to really understanding it than we were when its humble entrance was discovered in the 50s. There are so many perplexing questions posed by it. Who built it and why? What are the purposes of its various odd features? Why is it that visitors were not allowed to see ahead to the next section until they turned the bend? Why did the complex’s activities cease and why had the passageways been blocked with rubble? How did the entrance go unnoticed for thousands of years? Did the Romans know it was there? Was it intentionally buried by the Romans and if so why? No one really knows the answers to any of these. The only mystery that does seem to have been solved was the source of the underground river’s hot water, when friends of Paget’s used scuba gear to explore it and found that it was fed by two vents that spewed superheated water from the volcanic Phlegræan Fields.

The Baiae tunnel complex remains and is mostly off limits to casual tourists due to the perilous nature of trying to navigate it, although it is possible to hire a guide to explore certain sections. Since Paget and Jones’ excursion, surprisingly little effort has been made to truly find the answers to the many archaic mysteries that lie buried here. Until the site is more deeply studied by archaeologists willing to brave its perils, it seems that the mysterious and long hidden Great Antrum of Baiae and its menacing tunnel to Hell will remain one of ancient Rome’s most perplexing enigmas.

[MIKA27]

The Jetsons Amusement Park Ride That Never Was

Bruce Bushman was a designer whose name you may not know, but whose work you’ve almost certainly seen. He worked on everything from the design of the Disneyland castle to episodes of The Flintstones TV show. But there’s one project that Bushman worked on that sadly never became a reality: a Jetsons theme park ride.

Bushman started at Disney as a layout and design artist in the late 1930s, working on films that spanned from Fantasia (1940) to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). He also worked on projects like the sets and logos for the Mickey Mouse Club TV show and some of the original rides for Disneyland. But by the late 1950s Bushman left Disney and eventually worked as an art director for Hanna-Barbera, influencing designs for everything from Johnny Quest to The Jetsons.

In the late 1960s, Bushman worked on concept drawings for a theme park that was never built. It was to be based on Hanna-Barbera characters, and his designs even include one ride that will leave retro-future nerds drooling. That ride was going to transport visitors into the futuristic, Googie-drenched world of The Jetsons. Just one concept drawing of the ride is known to exist and was auctioned off as part of a larger series of theme park drawings by Bushman a few years back.

Sadly, the great artwork Bushman did for this hypothetical Jetsons ride (along with so many others) would never be transformed into real world attractions. Something called Hanna-Barbera Land was indeed built in Texas during the early 80s, but it was nothing as elaborate as the Bushman sketches. The real world Hanna-Barbera themed park also, most tragically, didn’t include a Jetsons ride.

Below, a 1984 commercial for the ill-fated amusement park, which would be stripped of its Hanna-Barbera branding after just a few short years. The closest thing to a Jetsons ride that the world ever saw was a simulator ride in Orlando that included Jetsons characters in a minor way as part of the storyline — far from the immersive experience Bushman would have wanted, it’s safe to say.

Bushman died in 1972 at the age of 60. We’re thankful for all of the fantastic projects he contributed to but we’ll always wonder what that Jetsons ride might have looked like in real life. Perhaps the closest we’ll ever get is by watching the second episode of the classic TV show, the one where the Jetson family themselves went to an amusement park.

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You Wouldn't Believe These Trick Golf Shots Without Slow-Mo Video Proof

George and Wesley Bryan turn the stodgy old game of golf into an extreme sport with their wacky trick shots. They’re so well-timed and precisely coordinated, you’d probably lose track of that little white ball with your naked eye. Thank goodness for GoPro and slow-mo footage.

Well, that proves it: Slow-mo makes just about everything awesome.

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The Stubborn 'Nail Houses' That Refuse To Get Demolished

In 1914, the government of New York City took ownership of a Manhattan apartment building belonging to one David Hess. The city used a legal power called eminent domain, allowing governments to seize private property for public use — in this case they wanted to expand the subway system. Hess fought them and lost, and when all was said and done, his building was torn down, and he was left with a triangle shaped piece of property. It was about the size of a large slice of pizza.

Hess’s triangle is still there, at corner of Christopher St and 7th avenue in the west village.

Later, the city tried to get him to donate his pizza-shaped property so that they could build a sidewalk. He refused again. They built the sidewalk anyway, and in the middle of the sidewalk is Hess’s triangle, with a tile mosaic that reads: “Property of the Hess Estate Which Has Never Been Dedicated For Public Purposes.”

People such as David Hess, who refuse to sell their properties, are called holdouts. Eminent domain generally only comes into play when the government wants private property for public use (though there have been some exceptions). If it’s a private development that wants your place and you refuse to sell, there’s often not much they can do. In China, where there’s been development boom in recent years, they call their holdout houses “nail houses.”

"Nail house" in China

Around 2005, a Seattle neighbourhood called Ballard started to see unprecedented growth. Condominiums and apartment buildings were sprouting up all over the community which had once been mostly single family homes and small businesses. Around this time, developers offered a woman named Edith Macefield $US750,000 dollars for her small house, which was appraised at around $US120,000. They wanted to build a shopping mall on the block where Macefield had lived for the last 50 years.

Macefield turned down the money. Developers went forward with the shopping mall anyway. The mall enveloped her house on three sides.

The architects designed the building in such a way that if Mrs. Macefield ever decided to move, they could easily incorporate the space where her had been into the building. The developers eventually increased their offer to one million dollars, plus they offered to find her a similar home somewhere else, and pay for a home health-care work for Macefield who was elderly and in poor health.

Again, Edit Macefield turned them down.

Aerial view of Edith Macefield’s house (left of the green crane).

The press loved Edith Macefield’s “David and Goliath” story of an old woman versus the big, bad developers. But even though the press was clamoring to talk to Macefield, she wanted nothing to do with talking to them (as evidenced in this CBS segment).

Slowly, Macefield warmed to some of the construction workers on the project, especially Barry Martin, the project superintendent who would check in on her occasionally and drop off business cards, telling her to call if she needed anything.

She eventually asked Martin to take her to a hair appointment.

Edith Macefield and Barry Martin on their way to get her hair done.

Soon thereafter, Barry Martin began taking Edith Macefield to all of her appointments — and then, because it was easier to coordinate with his schedule, he started making them.

Spending all of this time together, Martin got to know Macefield well. He learned that she wasn’t mad about the way her community was changing. She wasn’t even mad about the mall they were building more or less on top of her house. On the contrary, she seemed happy to have the company.

Edith Macefield. Credit: Barry Martin

Macefield was an avid reader and loved to talk about books, listen to old music (a lot of opera and big-band music, according to Martin) and watch old movies. She was also a writer. Her longest work was a 1,138 page work of fiction entitled, Where Yesterday Began. She paid to have the book published in 1994 under the pen name “Domilini.”

Domilini was Edith Macefield’s nome de plume

As Martin got to know Macefield, she told him stories about her past that were so incredible that he found them hard to believe. For example, she said that she’d been a spy for the U.S. during World War II, and that she’d been captured spying and spent time in the German concentration camp of Dachau. She also said she’d taken care of a number of war orphans in England after the war with her then-husband, James Macefield. And on top of all of that, she claimed that Benny Goodman was her cousin and that she had played music with Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey.

Macefield played both saxophone and clarinet.

Macefield as a young woman with her saxophone

Barry Martin eventually became Edith Macefield’s main caregiver — making most of her meals, visiting with her on weekends and even attending to her in the middle of the night if she called and said she needed him. She finally agreed to live-in nurse when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, but even then, Martin became her power of attorney — the person whom she put in charge of her final decisions.

Edith Macefield died in her house on June 15, 2008, at age 86.

She left her house to Barry Martin — the construction superintendent who became her friend while simultaneously sandwiching her house between a Trader Joes and an LA Fitness.

After she died, Martin began packing up Macefield’s house and looking for things that would confirm the crazy stories she told about her past. He never found anything about her escaping Dachau or caring for any war orphans. But he did find a Benny Goodman record with a written inscription that said “To my cousin Edith, with love, Benny.” He also found the below correspondence:

Correspondence from Benny Goodman to Edith.

After people found out that Edith Macefield had left her house to Barry Martin, there were some who called him an opportunist. Ultimately it’s hard for anyone other than Martin to know what his motivations were, but we did talk to a couple of the healthcare workers who took care of Mrs. Macefield before she died and they both had a very high opinion of him — said that he was there every day when no one else was and that he seemed to care deeply for Macefield.

Martin eventually sold Edith Macefield’s house to an investor who had various plans for it, none of which have materialised, and recently that same investor asked Martin if he’d be interested in buying it back.

The house is all boarded up now, and no one’s sure what will happen to it, which is sad to some people but Martin says that Macefield didn’t care what happened to the house after she died — that she never really cared about the bigger story that the outside world had created about her. She had her own personal reasons for staying in her house and they had nothing to do with that narrative.

Macefield’s house in 2014.

Whatever her reasons were for doing it, she stood her ground. And she became a symbol, whether she wanted to or not. There’s even a tattoo shop in Seattle that does a special tattoo to honour the legacy of Edith Macefield. It’s a picture of her little house, and underneath it — the word “Steadfast.”

Barry Martin wrote a book about his experience with Edith Macefield called Under One Roof.

[MIKA27]

Watch The Clouds Run Away From The Papua New Guinea Volcano Eruption

Here’s a spectacular eruption of Mount Tavurvur in Papua New Guinea. What’s cool about it is following the shockwave of the blast, the clouds immediately scatter away and the booming shockwave eventually reaches the people on the boat. Boom, for real.

I like to think of the clouds running away as even Mother Nature gets scared of Mother Nature sometimes.

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The US Army's Laser War Truck Can Now See (and Shoot) Through Fog

The problem with the current iterations of combat laser prototypes is they can easily be foiled by suspended condensation, smoke, fog and other obscurants that deflect and diffract the beam as its en-route to its target. The HEL MD, however, proved earlier this year that the solution is simple: Just increase the power of the laser enough to burn through everything — including incoming mortar rounds.

The current 10kW version of the truck-mounted prototype relies on a battery of li-ion batteries continually replenished by a 60kW diesel generator, allowing it to operate as long as the truck remains fuelled.

“As proven at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in 2013 and at Eglin Air Force Base this spring, HEL MD is reliable and capable of consistently acquiring, tracking and engaging a variety of targets in different environments, demonstrating the potential military utility of directed energy systems,” Boeing Directed Energy Systems director Dave DeYoung said in a press statement. “With only the cost of diesel fuel, the laser system can fire repeatedly without expending valuable munitions or additional manpower.”

Interestingly, the power output necessary to accomplish this feat is quite low. The 10kW beam used in recent tests at Eglin AFB in Florida — where it successfully burned incoming mortar and drone threats out of the sky despite a think layer of low-lying fog — is the same solid-state laser that the army showed off back in 2013. I would have expected the task to require at least the 50kW turret that the Army unveiled earlier this year.

Still, the success of these tests demonstrate that the technology can (and now likely will) be adapted for maritime combat as well. Just imagine, the next generation of US warships equipped with laser cannons and railguns. Scary stuff.

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Normal Guy Catches A Super Fun Ride On A Spaceship Back To Earth

The sad truth is that most of us will never be astronauts who can ride spaceships back to Earth. Here’s one hilarious way we can pretend though: be like this genius prankster who brought a blow up spaceship with him on a skydiving jump from a hot air balloon. Yup, he rode a spaceship back to Earth.

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The Plan To Make The Moon An Enormous Detector Of Cosmic Rays

About once a century on any given square kilometre of Earth, a cosmic ray hits with mind-boggling intensity. The teeny tiny subatomic particle from space comes careening in with more than 10 million times the energy of particles shot out by the Large Hadron Collider. Where do these ultrahigh energy cosmic rays come from? Astronomers have a plan to find out, using the moon and a massive new radio telescope array.

The $US1.5 billion array, which is in development now, is so massive that doesn’t fit on one continent. Spread out over thousands of kilometres across Australia, New Zealand and South Africa will be thousands of radio telescopes that, together, add up to the Square Kilometre Array. The total collecting area of the array is one million square metres, or one square kilometre — hence its name. When it’s completed in 2015, it will be the world’s biggest and most sensitive radio telescope.

But what about the moon? Here’s where things get interesting. In a paper recently posted to ArXiv, a group of astronomers detail how the entire moon can be turned into an instrument for studying the mysterious cosmic rays. That’s because upon impact, cosmic rays generate a cascade of secondary particles, which can be seen as nanosecond burst of radio waves. By analysing these radio waves, we might figure out where the rays are coming from.

There is a catch, of course, which explains why the moon isn’t already a cosmic ray detector. The Physics ArXiv blog explains:

This effect is complicated by the fact that radio pulses are projected forward in a cone and cannot travel far through the lunar surface before being absorbed. That means that astronomers will only be able to see the radio pulses from ultrahigh energy cosmic rays that graze the edge of the Moon coming our way. So the gear they need to detect the signal is a highly sensitive radio telescope on Earth.

That is where the Square Kilometre Array comes in. If all goes according to plan in the next decade, we could see these small perturbations on the moon — and begin to solve some of the mysteries of space.

[MIKA27]

In 1966, The Angels Landed In Anaheim's Futuristic Baseball Stadium

How could the Angels call any place but Los Angeles their home? After all, the club’s name directly referred to the city, and there had been a team named the Los Angeles Angels since the first decade of the 20th Century, when the minor-league Los Angeles Looloos wisely opted for a more dignified nickname. So it’s easy to understand why, when the Angels began to voice their displeasure over their second-class citizenship at Dodger Stadium, L.A.’s political leadership scrambled to keep the team within the city limits.

A city council member proposed a new stadium at the site of Pacoima’s Hansen Dam. Mayor Sam Yorty offered up the empty bowl of the damaged Baldwin Hills Reservoir. But some forty miles to the south in rapidly suburbanizing Orange County, the city of Anaheim and its mayor, Rex Coons, lured the team with an offer too sweet to refuse: a publicly financed ballpark, a 35-year lease, and the chance to build a new fan base among Orange County’s growing population.

No one would have described the site of the Angels’ new stadium as heavenly on August 30, 1964, when team owner Gene Autry and other dignitaries thrust their golden shovels into the ground and turned the tired soil of a bulldozed cornfield. A row of eucalyptus trees — the remnants of a windbreak — towered above the three wooden stakes marking the future location of home plate. Tumbleweeds rolled nearby, while in the distance, beyond parallel rows of alfalfa and an orange grove, State College Boulevard hummed with traffic. Still, the mood was festive. A couple of Anaheim’s most distinguished citizens — Goofy and Mickey Mouse — were on hand to participate, as were a Marine Corps band and several Hollywood stars. Even Mayor Yorty of Los Angeles dropped in to wish the team well.

Work began almost as soon as the groundbreaking ceremony adjourned. Contractor Del E. Webb, who happened to own part of the New York Yankees, had little time to spare: he had pledged to complete the $US15.8 million stadium by the opening day of the 1966 season. Over the next 20 months, Webb’s construction workers poured 42,000 cubic yards of concrete, laid 7 million pounds of reinforcing steel and 8 million pounds of structure steel, and installed 1,900 light bulbs. City leaders, meanwhile, announced that the park would bear the city’s name, since they had agreed to let the ballclub rebrand itself generically as the California Angels. (Also considered: “Southern California Angels” and “Orange County Angels.”)

When Anaheim Stadium opened on April 19, 1966 (Chicago White Sox 3, California Angels 1), it was a monument to its time. Designed by Noble W. Herzberg, the stadium — since renamed Edison International Field and then Angel Stadium of Anaheim — looked almost futuristic from the expansive parking lot, like a massive, squat spaceship on its launch pad. Four sets of cantilevered ramps protruded from the hull, and a sleek command center (or office pavilion) stood behind home plate. Instead of paint, a material containing quartz crystals coated the exterior walls, which made the concrete glisten under the night lights. Inside, a symmetrical, three-tiered grandstand afforded close views of the field from its 43,204 plastic seats, while the open outfield allowed glimpses of the Chino Hills and the San Gabriel Mountains. But nothing caught the eye as much as the Big A: a 230-foot-tall A-shaped scoreboard that stood just behind the outfield fence. Naturally, a halo topped the structure, which helped the Angels feel a little more at home despite the long freeway drive that now separated them from their eponymous city.

Anaheim Mayor Odra Chandler and contractor Del Webb look on as Angels owner Gene Autry and actress Pat Wymore break ground on Anaheim Stadium on August 30, 1964.

Visitors from Disneyland present a sort of pennant to Angels manager Bill Rigney at the Anaheim Stadium groundbreaking.

Anaheim Stadium and the surrounding parking rose from formerly agricultural land once devoted to growing corn, alfalfa, and oranges. Here, bulldozers clear the site for construction.

An aerial view of the Anaheim Stadium construction site from February 1965 with landmarks labelled.

Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi with a model of the Big A scoreboard. The team’s players supported the move since they found Dodger Stadium’s quick infield and pitcher-friendly dimensions ill-suited to the team’s style.

Aerial view of Anaheim Stadium under construction on January 23, 1966.

Workers erect a light tower in Anaheim Stadium’s outfield in early 1966.

Aerial view of Anaheim Stadium under construction in 1966.

Circa 1966 view of an Anaheim Stadium concession stand.

As this 1967 photo of a rain-delayed game shows, the stadium originally featured no bleachers or grandstands beyond the outfield.

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Fisherman Catches Monstrous Giant Prawn In Florida

A fisherman caught this monstrous 18-inch-long creature while fishing from a dock in Fort Pierce, Florida. Scientists say it could be a rare kind of prawn killer but further analysis needs to be conducted in order to determinate what the hell is this mutant monster is.

Mantis shrimp or stomatopods are marine crustaceans, the members of the order Stomatopoda. They may reach 30 centimetres (12 in) in length, though in exceptional cases have been recorded at up to 38 cm (15 in).

Around 400 species of mantis shrimp have currently been described worldwide.

I found this one — Odontodactylus scyllarus – particularly beautiful:

So this specimen is 7.6cm bigger than the usual individual. No more details have been disclosed.

And yes, obviously the perspective in the photo makes it look impossibly gigantic, but 18 inches is still amazingly huge. I just want to grill it and eat it.

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China's Newest Knockoff Predator Drone Takes To The Skies

China’s getting into the UAV game in a big way. Well, really, the only way it knows how: by closely mimicking the existing technology of a foreign power and slapping a new name on it. Say hello to the MQ-1 Preda — I mean, Cai Hong-4 “Rainbow”.

Designed and constructed by state-owned aircraft manufacturer China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), this multipurpose drone, officially known as the Cai Hong-4 (CH-4), is a jack-of-all-trades for China’s fledgling UAV efforts.

It measures 29 feet long with a wingspan twice that, which allows the CH-4 to remain aloft for up to 38 hours at heights up over 26,000 feet. This makes it ideal for a variety of surveillance and patrol operations. It can also carry up to 760 pounds of bombs and missiles — capable of attacking both land and sea targets with a 5-foot accuracy radius — which enables the platform to switch from ISR to strike missions without landing and re-equipping.

“During acceleration and deceleration, the drone kept taxing on a central line on the runway,” CASC Rainbow No.4 Project head Li Pingkun told ChinaNews. “It’s well-positioned to carry out the subsequent missions. The test flight was very successful today.”

The slightly smaller MQ-1 Predator’s 15m wings can only help it muster a height of 25,000 with 24 hour endurance, but the CH-4 also boasts a reputed range of 2,100 miles compared to the MQ-1′s relatively paltry 460. Of course, the MQ-1 is also a battle-hardened war machine with more than 2 million hours of flight time under its belt. The CH-4, on the other hand, just completed its first flight ever last weekend so who knows if it will actually hold up to its spec sheet.

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New Prosethics That Connect Right To The Bone Let Amputees 'Feel' Again

Despite the many exciting advance in prosthetics, the vast majority of people missing a leg are walking around with what is basically a peg leg, a stick attached to the residual limb. But there’s a new way, a more cyborg-like solution. Researchers in London have created a prosthetic leg that attaches directly to the bone.

The so-called Itap (intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthesis) involves attaching a metal implant directly to the bone at the end of the residual limb. The metal implant then pokes through the skin and attaches to the prosthetic leg, giving them a direct connection between their body and the prosthesis. That means that the person with the missing limb not only can avoid the irritation caused by the traditional peg leg prosthetics. But they can also feel what that leg is doing, since the new set up provides much better tactile feedback. At the cost of never being able to take it off, of course.

“Just knowing where my foot is, my ability to know where it is improved dramatically because you can feel it through the bone,” says Mark O’Leary, one of 20 patients who is participating in a clinical trial of the new technology. A textured road crossing, I can feel that. You essentially had no sensation with a socket and with Itap you can feel everything.” He added, “It’s like they have given me my leg back.”

As Popular Science points out, one of the coolest aspects of the technology is how it was inspired by deer antlers. To avoid the body rejecting the metal implant, scientists designed it to be porous the way a deer’s antlers are where they connect to the skull. These pores allow the soft tissue to blend in with harder material in a more natural fashion.

Now, just because it works, doesn’t mean that Itap will take over. More research needs to be done, and there could be some regulatory hurdles for implementation in the United States. But for now, walking just got a lot easier for a lucky few.

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There's A Massive 26,000MAh Battery Hidden Inside This Briefcase

The bigger a portable charger you carry, the longer your gadgets can run while away from a power outlet. But backup batteries are heavy, so it’s a tradeoff between capacity and what’s comfortable to stash in your pocket. Unless you throw a bag like the Phorce over your shoulder, which makes it easy to haul around your toys, a laptop and 26,000mAh of extra power

Waterproof zippers, microfibre-lined pockets and strategic padding will ensure your devices stay safe and dry while inside the Phorce bag, but that’s not the reason consumers will consider spending $US700 on a briefcase without a stitch of leather. Hidden deep inside the Phorce is a massive 26,000mAh battery with three USB ports that can charge multiple gadgets at once, including a laptop. And, for comparison, the iPhone 5′s battery measures in at a mere 1440mAh.

Sweetening the pot is extra app-enabled functionality you won’t find with smaller portable chargers. The Phorce has a free accompanying app that connects to its battery via Bluetooth and reports back the remaining charge on whatever devices are currently plugged in and being topped off. The app also serves as an alarm in case you forget your Phorce somewhere, alerting you when the Bluetooth connection is lost because your smartphone is no longer in range — an important feature when your bag costs more than the phone its reviving.

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What It's Like To See Cities From The ISS Like An Astronaut

You know how when you look outside the aeroplane window and you’re in awe of all the lights and the outlines of the city and how you’re in the freaking air? Yeah, that’s nothing compared to the fun that is spotting cities from the ISS. Watch as astronauts show us what cities look like from space.

I don’t think there’s anything more fun than watching astronauts geek out.

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Mexico City's New Mega-Airport Will Collect Its Own Energy And Water

Cities all over the world have been scrambling to build mega-airports in an effort to lure tourism dollars and modernize their image. The latest to step into the fray: Mexico City, with a gigantic new airport proposal announced today that it’s calling the “most sustainable” in the world.

Through a competition, Mexico City has chosen a plan by Foster + Partners, Fernando Romero Enterprise and Netherlands Airport Consultants. Norman Foster is, of course, the architect behind Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport in the New Mexico desert, a sinewy, hyper-sustainable orb that seems to rise out of the landscape. And he’s bringing a few of the same tricks to Mexico City.

The new Mexico City airport will be almost 600,000 square metres, making it one of the biggest in the world. And instead of divvying up the terminals into various far-flung outposts, the entire structure will be under a single shell that spans over 107m in some places. That’s a seriously huge building.

Although building this single superstructure sounds counterintuitive to sustainability, having a massive central hub with everything in one place is actually more energy efficient, as gates won’t require ancillary transportation, and money doesn’t need to be spent powering trams or building tunnels. Everything here in Mexico City will be walkable, which is quite a feat for an airport this large. In addition, the structure itself will function like a giant solar farm and rainwater collection system, with a natural ventilation pattern the designers claim will not need heating or air conditioning for most of the year.

Foster has been behind several airport redesigns, including a famous one for Stansted Airport, outside London, which was completed in 1991. For Stansted, Foster has said he tried to bring the design back to a more glamorous age of air travel where passengers strolled casually from their cars to their planes. Stansted is a very small airport, but you do see a similar parking lot-to-gate layout in many airports today. However, most airports have become rambling messes as they deviated from this model, tacking on extra terminals which required buses or trains to transfer between them. Foster says the singular entrance enables the airport to expand more efficiently:

It pioneers a new concept for a large-span, single airport enclosure, which will achieve new levels of efficiency and flexibility — and it will be beautiful. The experience for passengers will be unique. Its design provides the most flexible enclosure possible to accommodate internal change and an increase in capacity. Mexico has really seized the initiative in investing in its national airport, understanding its social and economic importance and planning for the future. There will be nothing else like it in the world.

OK, but is Foster’s design really a completely new model for an airport? Truth be told, the basic form looks a lot like a redesign by Moshe Safdie planned for Singapore’s Changi airport, with a similar “under the dome” structure that will connect all three terminals via glass walkways. You can see similar large undulating roofs and all-in-one terminals in places like Doha, Dubai and Seoul.

While Mexico City’s airport will definitely be one of the world’s biggest and might be one of the most sustainable (only performance will tell), it’s part of a larger, global trend to push all of an airport’s functions into one unified hub. It does make more sense to have all services together, like one centralized nervous system. And it makes airports look and feel a lot more like the small cities that they already are.

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EA's New Hockey Game Missing Crucial Features, Fans Upset

NHL 15 is supposed to be a sequel to last year’s entry in EA’s long-running hockey series, but it takes some serious steps backward. Dedicated fans aren’t happy.

People have gained access to the game of graceful ice dancing (and also HITTING EVERYTHING) via EA’s new, er, EA Access program, which lets people try full games slightly ahead of release. According to Operation Sports (among many others), the following features from previous instalments of the series are stuck on the bench this season:

Modes/Features

• No GM Connected
• No Online Team Play (when this is patched into the game later this year, it will use real NHL players and teams)
• No EA Sports Hockey League
• No EA Sports Arena
• No Online Shootouts
• No Live the Life
• No Be A Legend
• No Winter Classic
• No tournaments or Battle for the Cup
• No season mode (you can only play seasons in Be A GM, which is limited to NHL teams)
• No NHL 94 Anniversary mode
• No custom music support
• No create-a-play designer
• Cannot customise each team’s AI
• No create-a-team
• No way to edit individual players
• Practice mode is now limited to one skater vs. an AI goalie

Gameplay

• No custom camera option
• No Action Tracker replay highlights
• No Top 3 Stars at the end of games.

Be A GM

• Yearly draft is fully automated by the CPU
• Cannot play the AHL games for your chosen franchise
• Players sent down to the minors do not accumulate any season stats
• No fantasy draft option
• No preseason games

Be A Pro

• No option to sim ahead to the next shift
• You only play in the NHL; you cannot play for minor league teams
• The Memorial Cup tryout period is gone. You now begin by picking an NHL team, or by letting a random CPU team draft you.
• No All-Star game

Ultimate Team

• Cannot play against your friends
• No tournaments
• No mobile app

So yeah. There’s kind of a lot missing.

It’s important to note that NHL 15 was primarily made with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in mind, whereas NHL 14 was an Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game first and foremost. The new consoles allow for all sorts of snazzy new physics tricks and Dynamic Cloth “Spanielization” (or something), but the foundation built on those older platforms appears to have been lost.

Longtime fans are pissed, despite the fact that the trade-off is — in some ways — understandable and the new physics/engine upgrades are apparently pretty cool. Though EA never explicitly promised any of these features, it’s kinda hard to justify buying a skin-and-bones sequel in an annual series when previous entries threw in everything except zamboni-mounted kitchen sinks.

On the upside, producer Sean Ramjagsingh has promised on Twitter that some features will be coming in future content updates. Basic things like online team play and a new draft in Be a GM mode are a lock, though EA has yet to set any release dates in stone.

EA’s being significantly less communicative on its own forums, where many threads raising concerns about these issues are being locked down rather than addressed.

The long and short of it? NHL 15 on Xbox One/PS4 might not be quite as complete as you were hoping when it speeds into the rink next week. Buyer beware. If features you really care about are out for now, you might want to consider waiting for a price drop or a (hopefully free) update that includes them.

I’ve reached out to EA for comment on the whole issue. As soon as I hear back, I’ll update this post.

[MIKA27]

Intimate Portraits Of Outcasts Who Live Alone In The Forest

Here's a real group of rebels. The subjects of this series by Danila Tkachenko have all violated social standards in some way. They live alone, isolated from modern society in the forests of Russia and the Ukraine. They've broken with social dependence and started over.

By a complete withdrawal from society they go live alone in the wild nature, gradually dissolving in it and losing their social identity.

These people are considered outcasts and lunatics, yet they just might be more free than the rest of us. They've escaped the endless cycles of work, family, school, the daily commute etc.

In essence, they've remained true to themselves.

You can find Tkachenko's photo book right here, but be quick copies are selling fast.

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Scientists Program Diseased Cells to Produce Their Own Destruction!

One of the major problems with developing treatments for medicine is the inability for certain compounds to pass through the blood/brain barrier. Larger, more effective compounds are known to exist, but infeasible to utilize due to their inability to get to the infected cells.

However, a study from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) offers an intriguing new way to work around this problem. Primarily, by convincing the diseased cell to commit acts of sabotage on itself.

An image emphasizing the difficulty for compounds to pass through the blood/brain barrier

“We’re using a cell as a reaction vessel and a disease-causing defect as a catalyst to synthesize a treatment in a diseased cell,” said TSRI Professor Matthew Disney. The smaller compounds which were previously ineffective against disease have been found to take on new life when they become bound to targeted cells expressing an RNA defect.

The study focused on cells affected with myotonic dystrophy type 2, a mild form of muscular degeneration that effects roughly 1 in 8000 people worldwide (this number refers to type 1 and 2 together, exact proportions are unknown). The cause of this disease is a defect within RNA cells, where a series of four nucleotides are repeated more times than normal in an individual’s genetic coding. In this case, a cytosine-cytosine-uracil-guanine (CCUG) repeatedly binds to the protein MBNL1, rendering it inactive and causes the RNA division abnormalities that, in turn, lead to the disease.

During this study, a pair of small molecules, developed by the scientists, bind to adjacent poles of the defective RNA. Think of it like two hydrogen atoms in an H2O molecule. But unlike a water molecule that would have natural attraction between smaller and larger molecules, the two smaller molecules reach out to each other, to do what Disney describes as “holding hands”.

The effect this has is to create a new, larger, compound within the infected area, utilizing the infected cells as to create their own destruction. The two small molecules bind so tightly to the defective cell, that they reverse disease defects on the molecular level. Effectively, destroying the disease from within.

Such an application opens the door to developing countless amounts of treatments that would otherwise not be able to pass through the blood/brain barrier. Bypassing the need for injections of drugs, and instead creating the drug within the human body itself. The original notion behind this application was first developed by Nobel laureate K Barry Sharpless, a chemist at TSRI, who dubbed it “click chemistry”.

“In my opinion, this is one unique and a nearly ideal application of the process Sharpless and his colleagues first developed,” Disney said.

Further research continues with the hope of uncovering new treatments for similar RNA defective diseases such as ALS, Huntington’s disease and more than 20 others where there is no known cure.

[MIKA27]

Jack the Ripper unmasked: How amateur sleuth used DNA breakthrough to identify Britain's most notorious criminal 126 years after string of terrible murders

It is the greatest murder mystery of all time, a puzzle that has perplexed criminologists for more than a century and spawned books, films and myriad theories ranging from the plausible to the utterly bizarre.

But now, thanks to modern forensic science, The Mail on Sunday can exclusively reveal the true identity of Jack the Ripper, the serial killer responsible for at least five grisly murders in Whitechapel in East London during the autumn of 1888.

DNA evidence has now shown beyond reasonable doubt which one of six key suspects commonly cited in connection with the Ripper’s reign of terror was the actual killer – and we reveal his identity.

A shawl found by the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of the Ripper’s victims, has been analysed and found to contain DNA from her blood as well as DNA from the killer.

The landmark discovery was made after businessman Russell Edwards, 48, bought the shawl at auction and enlisted the help of Dr Jari Louhelainen, a world-renowned expert in analysing genetic evidence from historical crime scenes.

Using cutting-edge techniques, Dr Louhelainen was able to extract 126-year-old DNA from the material and compare it to DNA from descendants of Eddowes and the suspect, with both proving a perfect match.

The revelation puts an end to the fevered speculation over the Ripper’s identity which has lasted since his murderous rampage in the most impoverished and dangerous streets of London.

In the intervening century, a Jack the Ripper industry has grown up, prompting a dizzying array of more than 100 suspects, including Queen Victoria’s grandson – Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence – the post-Impressionist painter Walter Sickert, and the former Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone.

It was March 2007, in an auction house in Bury St Edmunds, that I first saw the blood-soaked shawl. It was in two surprisingly large sections – the first measuring 73.5in by 25.5in, the second 24in by 19in – and, despite its stains, far prettier than any artefact connected to Jack the Ripper might be expected to be. It was mostly blue and dark brown, with a delicate pattern of Michaelmas daisies – red, ochre and gold – at either end.

It was said to have been found next to the body of one of the Ripper’s victims, Catherine Eddowes, and soaked in her blood. There was no evidence for its provenance, although after the auction I obtained a letter from its previous owner who claimed his ancestor had been a police officer present at the murder scene and had taken it from there.

Yet I knew I wanted to buy the shawl and was prepared to pay a great deal of money for it. I hoped somehow to prove that it was genuine. Beyond that, I hadn’t considered the possibilities. I certainly had no idea that this flimsy, badly stained, and incomplete piece of material would lead to the solution to the most famous murder mystery of all time: the identification of Jack the Ripper.

Gruesome: A contemporary engraving of a Jack the Ripper crime scene in London's Whitechapel

When my involvement in the 126-year-old case began, I was just another armchair detective, interested enough to conduct my own extensive research after watching the Johnny Depp film From Hell in 2001. It piqued my curiosity about the 1888 killings when five – possibly more – prostitutes were butchered in London’s East End.

Despite massive efforts by the police, the perpetrator evaded capture, spawning the mystery which has fuelled countless books, films, TV programmes and tours of Whitechapel. Theories about his identity have been virtually limitless, with everyone from Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence, to Lewis Carroll being named as possible suspects. As time has passed, the name Jack the Ripper has become synonymous with the devil himself; his crimes setting the gruesome standard against which other horrific murders are judged.

I joined the armies of those fascinated by the mystery and researching the Ripper became a hobby. I visited the National Archives in Kew to view as much of the original paperwork as still exists, noting how many of the authors of books speculating about the Ripper had not bothered to do this. I was convinced that there must be something, somewhere that had been missed.

By 2007, I felt I had exhausted all avenues until I read a newspaper article about the sale of a shawl connected to the Ripper case. Its owner, David Melville-Hayes, believed it had been in his family’s possession since the murder of Catherine Eddowes, when his ancestor, Acting Sergeant Amos Simpson, asked his superiors if he could take it home to give to his wife, a dressmaker.

Incredibly, it was stowed without ever being washed, and was handed down from David’s great-grandmother, Mary Simpson, to his grandmother, Eliza Smith, and then his mother, Eliza Mills, later Hayes.

In 1991, David gave it to Scotland Yard’s Crime Museum, where it was placed in storage rather than on display because of the lack of proof of its provenance. In 2001, David reclaimed it, and it was exhibited at the annual Jack the Ripper conference. One forensic test was carried out on it for a Channel 5 documentary in 2006, using a simple cotton swab from a randomly chosen part of the shawl, but it was inconclusive.

Most Ripper experts dismissed it when it came up for auction, but I believed I had hit on something no one else had noticed which linked it to the Ripper. The shawl is patterned with Michaelmas daisies. Today the Christian feast of Michaelmas is archaic, but in Victorian times it was familiar as a quarter day, when rents and debts were due.

I discovered there were two dates for it: one, September 29, in the Western Christian church and the other, November 8, in the Eastern Orthodox church. With a jolt, I realised the two dates coincided precisely with the nights of the last two murder dates. September 29 was the night on which Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were killed, and November 8 was the night of the final, most horrific of the murders, that of Mary Jane Kelly.

Found at the scene: Russell Edwards holds the shawl he bought in 2007, allegedly handed down from a policeman who took it from the scene, which had the incriminating DNA on it

I reasoned that it made no sense for Eddowes to have owned the expensive shawl herself; this was a woman so poor she had pawned her shoes the day before her murder. But could the Ripper have brought the shawl with him and left it as an obscure clue about when he was planning to strike next? It was just a hunch, and far from proof of anything, but it set me off on my journey.

Before buying it, I spoke to Alan McCormack, the officer in charge of the Crime Museum, also known as the Black Museum. He told me the police had always believed they knew the identity of the Ripper. Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, the officer in charge of the investigation, had named him in his notes: Aaron Kosminski, a Polish Jew who had fled to London with his family, escaping the Russian pogroms, in the early 1880s.

Kosminski has always been one of the three most credible suspects. He is often described as having been a hairdresser in Whitechapel, the occupation written on his admission papers to the workhouse in 1890. What is certain is he was seriously mentally ill, probably a paranoid schizophrenic who suffered auditory hallucinations and described as a misogynist prone to ‘self-abuse’ – a euphemism for masturbation.

McCormack said police did not have enough evidence to convict Kosminski, despite identification by a witness, but kept him under 24-hour surveillance until he was committed to mental asylums for the rest of his life. I became convinced Kosminski was our man, and I was excited at the prospect of proving it. I felt sure that modern science would be able to produce real evidence from the stains on the shawl. After a few false starts, I found a scientist I hoped could help.

Dr Jari Louhelainen is a leading expert in genetic evidence from historical crime scenes, combining his day job as senior lecturer in molecular biology at Liverpool John Moores University with working on cold cases for Interpol and other projects. He agreed to conduct tests on the shawl in his spare time.

The tests began in 2011, when Jari used special photographic analysis to establish what the stains were.

Using an infrared camera, he was able to tell me the dark stains were not just blood, but consistent with arterial blood spatter caused by slashing – exactly the grim death Catherine Eddowes had met.

But the next revelation was the most heart-stopping. Under UV photography, a set of fluorescent stains showed up which Jari said had the characteristics of semen. I’d never expected to find evidence of the Ripper himself, so this was thrilling, although Jari cautioned me that more testing was required before any conclusions could be drawn.

Obsession: Russell Edwards points to Hambury Street where one of the murders took place

He also found evidence of split body parts during the frenzied attack. One of Eddowes’ kidneys was removed by her murderer, and later in his research Jari managed to identify the presence of what he believed to be a kidney cell.

It was impossible to extract DNA from the stains on the shawl using the method employed in current cases, in which swabs are taken. The samples were just too old.

Instead, he used a method he called ‘vacuuming’, using a pipette filled with a special ‘buffering’ liquid that removed the genetic material in the cloth without damaging it.

As a non-scientist, I found myself in a new world as Jari warned that it would also be impossible to use genomic DNA, which is used in fresh cases and contains a human’s entire genetic data, because over time it would have become fragmented.

But he explained it would be possible to use mitochondrial DNA instead. It is passed down exclusively through the female line, is much more abundant than genomic DNA, and survives far better.

This meant that in order to give us something to test against, I had to trace a direct descendant through the female line of Catherine Eddowes. Luckily, a woman named Karen Miller, the three-times great-granddaughter of Eddowes, had featured in a documentary about the Ripper’s victims, and agreed to provide a sample of her DNA.

Jari managed to get six complete DNA profiles from the shawl, and when he tested them against Karen’s they were a perfect match.

It was an amazing breakthrough. We now knew that the shawl was authentic, and was at the scene of the crime in September 1888, and had the victim’s blood on it. On its own, this made it the single most important artefact in Ripper history: nothing else has ever been linked scientifically to the scene of any of the crimes.

Months of research on the shawl, including analysing the dyes used, had proved that it was made in Eastern Europe in the early 19th Century. Now it was time to attempt to prove that it contained the killer’s DNA.

The suspects: The long line of men believed to be Jack the Ripper include, from top left to right, Prince Albert Victor, Edward VII’s son, allegedly driven by syphilis-induced madness, Sir William Gull, Queen Victoria’s doctor, painter Walter Sickert, a Jewish shoemaker, a polish barber who later poisoned three women - and Kosminski

Jari used the same extraction method on the semen traces on the shawl, warning that the likelihood of sperm lasting all that time was very slim. He enlisted the help of Dr David Miller, a world expert on the subject, and in 2012 they made another incredible breakthrough when they found surviving cells. They were from the epithelium, a type of tissue which coats organs. In this case, it was likely to have come from the urethra during ejaculation.

Kosminski was 23 when the murders took place, and living with his two brothers and a sister in Greenfield Street, just 200 yards from where the third victim, Elizabeth Stride, was killed. As a key suspect, his life story has long been known, but I also researched his family. Eventually, we tracked down a young woman whose identity I am protecting – a British descendant of Kosminski’s sister, Matilda, who would share his mitochondrial DNA. She provided me with swabs from the inside of her mouth.

Amplifying and sequencing the DNA from the cells found on the shawl took months of painstaking, innovative work. By that point, my excitement had reached fever-pitch. And when the email finally arrived telling me Jari had found a perfect match, I was overwhelmed. Seven years after I bought the shawl, we had nailed Aaron Kosminski.

As a scientist, Jari is naturally cautious, unwilling to let his imagination run away without testing every minute element, but even he declared the finding ‘one hell of a masterpiece’. I celebrated by visiting the East End, wandering the streets where Kosminski lived, worked and committed his despicable crimes, feeling a sense of euphoria but also disbelief that we had unmasked the Ripper.

Kosminski was not a member of the Royal Family, or an eminent surgeon or politician. Serial killers rarely are. Instead, he was a pathetic creature, a lunatic who achieved sexual satisfaction from slashing women to death in the most brutal manner. He died in Leavesden Asylum from gangrene at the age of 53, weighing just 7st.

No doubt a slew of books and films will now emerge to speculate on his personality and motivation. I have no wish to do so. I wanted to provide real answers using scientific evidence, and I’m overwhelmed that 126 years on, I have solved the mystery.

Shawl that nailed Polish lunatic Aaron Kosminski and the forensic expert that made the critical match

Evidence: Russell points to the part of the shawl where DNA was found

When Russell Edwards first approached me in 2011, I wasn’t aware of the massive levels of interest in the Ripper case, as I’m a scientist originally from Finland.

But by early this year, when I realised we were on the verge of making a big discovery, working on the shawl had taken over my life, occupying me from early in the morning until late at night.

It has taken a great deal of hard work, using cutting-edge scientific techniques which would not have been possible five years ago.

To extract DNA samples from the stains on the shawl, I used a technique I developed myself, which I call ‘vacuuming’ – to pull the original genetic material from the depths of the cloth.

I filled a sterile pipette with a liquid ‘buffer’, a solution known to stabilise the cells and DNA, and injected it into the cloth to dissolve the material trapped in the weave of the fabric without damaging the cells, then sucked it out.

I needed to sequence the DNA found in the stains on the shawl, which means mapping the DNA by determining the exact order of the bases in a strand. I used polymerase chain reaction, a technique which allows millions of exact copies of the DNA to be made, enough for sequencing.

When I tested the resulting DNA profiles against the DNA taken from swabs from Catherine Eddowes’s descendant, they were a match.

I used the same extraction method on the stains which had characteristics of seminal fluid.

Dr David Miller found epithelial cells – which line cavities and organs – much to our surprise, as we were not expecting to find anything usable after 126 years.

Then I used a new process called whole genome amplification to copy the DNA 500 million-fold and allow it to be profiled.

Once I had the profile, I could compare it to that of the female descendant of Kosminski’s sister, who had given us a sample of her DNA swabbed from inside her mouth.

The first strand of DNA showed a 99.2 per cent match, as the analysis instrument could not determine the sequence of the missing 0.8 per cent fragment of DNA. On testing the second strand, we achieved a perfect 100 per cent match.

Because of the genome amplification technique, I was also able to ascertain the ethnic and geographical background of the DNA I extracted. It was of a type known as the haplogroup T1a1, common in people of Russian Jewish ethnicity. I was even able to establish that he had dark hair.

Now that it’s over, I’m excited and proud of what we’ve achieved, and satisfied that we have established, as far as we possibly can, that Aaron Kosminski is the culprit.

[MIKA27]

R2-D2 VIRTUAL KEYBOARD

So you simply commented on a Facebook post, and now some internet tough guy is picking a fight with you. Sometimes it takes a little courage to fight back, just as it took courage for Luke Skywalker to fly to Dagobah and look for Yoda. R2-D2 helped him then, and he can help you now with the R2-D2 Virtual Keyboard.

Everyone’s favorite robot projects a virtual keyboard onto your desk or table, letting you text or type via Bluetooth to your iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android smartphone or tablet, and Windows. It’s no Carrie Fisher in her prime, but the red hologram has a range of around 10 meters (over 32 feet) and emits R2-esque noises with every button press. Will your internet bully bow down before you once you tell him off via R2’s keypad? That’s for you to find out. [Purchase]