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

[MIKA27]

Moon Seismometers From Apollo Are Still Helping Solve Physics Mysteries

When Apollo astronauts landed on the moon, they left flags and footprints, yes, but also dozens of scientific instruments. Among them was a network of seismometers originally meant to study moonquakes. Forty years later, data from these seismometers are still helping physicists understand how to detect elusive gravitational waves — a challenge even with our fancy modern technology.

What are gravitational waves and why do we care about finding them in the first place? Well, it goes back to a guy you may have heard of called Albert Einstein. Einstein’s theory of general relativity says that gravity is caused by warps in the space-time continuum, and the warping also creates vibrations we call gravitational waves. These gravitational waves are tiny amounts of energy rippling through the universe.

Primordial gravitational waves that originated from the Big Bang may or may not have been detected earlier this year, but gravitational waves can also come from things like black holes merging or two stars orbiting around each other. There’s evidence for these waves, but we’ve never directly detected gravitational waves of any sort.

But there are indirect ways, and that’s where the moon comes in. As gravitational waves ripple through a celestial object, its energy causes the object to vibrate. The Earth is rife with seismometers that could theoretically detect this vibration, but the Earth’s crust is constantly moving, drowning out the gravitational wave signal. The moon is seismically quieter. And conveniently, between 1969 and 1972, four Apollo missions left a network of seismometers that operated until 1977.

A couple of physicists had the bright idea to sift through this decades-old data. (Their paper was uploaded to the preprint repository ArXiv, and the Physics ArXiv Blog has a wonderful write-up about it.) The seismometers couldn’t actually detect any gravitational waves, but this lack of data was scientifically illuminating. We know the sensitivity of the moon seismometers; that they couldn’t pick up gravitational waves means the activity of the waves must be below a certain threshold — a threshold that turns out to be 1000 times lower than previously limits for waves of a certain frequency.

To detect gravitational waves directly, we still need to build modern detectors — on Earth or in space. But it’s a pleasant surprise that data from Apollo missions long ago can still tell us something about a 21st century cosmological mystery.

[MIKA27]

Badass Hong Kong Protester Catches And Throws Back Tear Gas Grenade

Hong Kong police often uses tear gas, among other things, to disperse the thousands of citizens that participate on the Occupy Central demonstrations. The video above shows a badass protester catching one of those tear gas grenades midair and throwing it back at them.

[MIKA27]

Why No One Used Camouflage Until WWI

The general idea behind visual camouflage, which is to make distinctive, recognisable shapes difficult to pick out against a background, was nothing new in 1914. The point of camouflage isn’t necessarily to make oneself totally invisible, which isn’t practical for a large army.

Instead, a substantial advantage can be conferred simply by reducing the time that an adversary has to react once he has discovered you. As combat veterans will attest, the time between acquiring a target and being able to engage him could be very quick. Even the split-second it takes to focus your eyes on a target can mean the difference between successfully engaging the enemy, and missing him or getting shot first.

During colonial campaigns in the late 19th c., Britain adopted the khaki worn by its Indian regiments as the standard across the entire British Army because the brownish-yellow colour blended more closely with local terrains where its soldiers found themselves in combat. (Khaki itself is a Hindi word) France and America, which fought plenty of their own colonial campaigns, also adopted versions of khaki for some units around the same time (although metropolitan French regiments still marched to battle in 1914 with the famous pantalon rouge, which cost them dearly against the feldgrau-clad Germans).

Before that, in the 18th-early 19th c., military units from British rifle units to American Revolution-era patriot militias to Native American warriors had all used various techniques to camouflage themselves from enemies in the field.

But before the First World War, camouflage mostly consisted of wearing drab colours difficult clearly to see at a distance. The distinctive blotches of colour that are so familiar to us today didn’t come about before then. So the question contains a very interesting sub-question: Why did camouflage as we know it todaysuddenly start to develop very quickly around World War I? I think you’d need to mention something very relevant in any discussion about World War I weapons technology: OPTICS.

The late 19th-early 20th c. brought about two critical innovations:

• The optical or “coincidence range-finder”
• Cubism

In 1890, US Navy Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske was granted a patent for an optical device that was to have enormous implications for both naval and land-based warfare in the next several decades: the range-finder.

Range-finder aboard HMS Revenge, a World War I-era battleship

Prior to the advent of the coincidence range-finder, deciding how high or low to elevate your guns in order to hit a distant target usually meant having to guess how far away it was. But thanks to Fiske’s range-finder device, you could now determine precisely how far away an enemy ship was before wasting your first salvo. The principles behind it are probably simple for anyone who remembers high school physics, but since I don’t, here’s an idiot’s description of how the optical range-finder works:

The range finder is basically a pair of binoculars, with the eyepieces normal distance apart, but the objective lenses spaced very far apart (on some battleships, several yards apart). Such that when you look through the device at, say, a Boche dreadnought, you see an image that looks like this:

Note that the very top of the mast is off by just a tad — the images from the two objective lenses do not quite match up. The range-finder operator then adjusts the knobs on the range-finder until the mast lines up exactly. See sub-figure B, below.

By some very basic trigonometric principles [which, like physics, I've completely forgotten] you can then calculate the distance to the target to a very high degree of precision. Note that in order to use the device properly, the operator needs to have a good idea of what, exactly, he is looking at so he can match up the images properly — this part will matter later on in the answer. Needless to say, once the Americans came up with this, every major power at the turn of the 20th c. invested in it even further, and all the major powers used range-finders to guide their naval guns and field artillery.

Coincidentally, in the early 20th century, there was also an artistic revolution going on in France: a new movement called Cubism.

Albert Gleizes, L’Homme au Balcon, 1912.

The idea behind cubism in painting is to take a shape that exists in the world as we perceive it naturally, break it up into different constituent pieces, and then reconstruct it in a way that appears almost alien to the human eye, by painting those pieces from several different points of view simultaneously.

Cubist painters sought to paint the world as it really was, not as we mere humans see it. The Cubists also developed new modes of visual fragmentation, rendering form through spatially confusing planes. They broke these planes up further with lines that fragment form rather than delineate the contours of shapes.Ironically, the Parisian artists’ quest for intellectual realism was quickly seen by the French military to have high potential in military deception.

In 1914, France was on the brink of yet another crushing defeat by the Germans, who enjoyed many advantages including marvelously accurate modern artillery. The French, art-loving, clever folks that they are, called in the Cubist painters,bien sur! One cubist, Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scevola, was put in charge of a whole new department of the French Army devoted to camouflaging buildings, planes, cannons, trucks and installations. He described his task very succinctly:

In order to deform totally the aspect of an object, I had to employ the means that cubists use to represent it.

This notion of using lines, plains and colour to break down shapes, rather than to define them, was a very important innovation of early 20th c. artists — simply put, it had never occurred to anyone before. If you aren’t sure what Scevola was talking about, look at this person playing an accordion:

And then look at a painting of a person playing an accordion done by Picasso in 1911:

Obviously, the first image isn’t the person who modelled for Picasso in this painting, but the point is the French (and soon afterward the Germans and British) realised that some of the same aesthetic principles behind cubism could be put to use breaking up the otherwise easily distinguishable shapes of distant objects. Painting potential targets in ways designed to break down their form makes it difficult for adversaries to line those images up properly, particularly at longer distances, where atmospheric effects, battlefield smoke, surrounding terrain and other factors can make even an undisguised target difficult enough to fixate accurately.

In other words, the very first types of camouflage were intended so that you can never be quite sure just what you’re looking at, particularly when you view them through an optical range-finder. These principles were used at sea (a warship painted with “dazzle” camouflage):

On land (a camouflaged ambulance):

On land again (British heavy artillery painted in disruptive patterns):

In the air (German fighter plane):

Even by individual infantrymen, as on this painted German war helmet:

What made World War I different from previous conflicts was the reach of the weapons being used. In the American Civil War, American soldiers with slow-firing muzzle-loaded rifled muskets had a reach of a few hundred yards, and their even slower-firing artillery could only hit line-of-sight targets within about a mile. Just 50 years later, the standard military rifles, such as the German 1898 Mauser or the American M1903 Springfield, could send deadly aimed fire out to a mile if needed, and artillerymen didn’t need to be able to see what they were shooting at, as long as they had someone up front who could relay accurate range and bearing information.

It was with the aim of defeating these newer, longer-reaching types of weapon that camouflage first came into common usage. And to think that none of it would have been possible if not for a bunch of painters who had been denounced by the establishment art world as renegades!

[MIKA27]

Cerro Rico: Devil worship on the man-eating mountain

The 500-year-old mines of Bolivia's Cerro Rico mountain produced the silver that once made the Spanish empire rich. Now riddled with tunnels, the mountain is a death trap for the men and boys who work there - and who pray to the devil to keep them safe.

In a dingy tunnel, Marco shovels rocks into a wheelbarrow, covered in dust and sweat. He's expected to carry 35 to 40 loads to the surface during a five-hour shift, often working at night so he can go to school during the day.

Marco's mother and her four children moved to Cerro Rico, the Rich Hill, after their father abandoned them. They live at the entrance of a tunnel, without any running water, using an abandoned mine as a bathroom.

"I want to be something better, not work in the mine… I'd like to get a degree, to be a lawyer," he says. But for now the family would not survive without his earnings.

During the Spanish Colonial era, two billion ounces of silver was extracted from the mountain. Over the same period about eight million people are estimated to have died, earning Cerro Rico the nickname, the Mountain that Eats Men.

Today about 15,000 miners work on the mountain, and the local widows' association says 14 women are widowed each month. Average life expectancy is 40.

Like everyone who works there, Marco worries about accidents, and about silicosis, a disease caused by breathing dust. His brother-in-law was only in his mid-20s when he died of it, Marco says.

"You eat the dust, it goes into your lungs and attacks you," says Olga, a single mother whose job is to guard equipment for the men running the mine by her house.

Her sons, Luis, aged 14, and Carlos, 15, work underground, pushing wheelbarrows like Marco, sometimes starting at 02:00 in order to fit in an eight-hour shift before school.

They have experienced another of the mountain's hazards - toxic gas released by the rocks.

"Your feet get weaker and you get a headache," explains Carlos. "The gas is what is left behind after the dynamite explodes."

Luis chews coca before work

One woman told me her husband had died after breathing in the gas - he began feeling dizzy and fell down a mine shaft.

The high death toll on the mountain fuels superstition.

The men and boys all chew coca leaves, saying it helps filter the dust. They also make offerings of these coca leaves along with alcohol and cigarettes to El Tio - the devil god of the mines.

Each of the 38 businesses running mines on the mountain has a statue of El Tio in their tunnels.

"He has horns because he is the god of the depths," says Grover, Marco's boss.

"Usually we gather here on Fridays to make offerings, in gratitude because he gave us lots of minerals, and so that he will protect us from accidents.

"Outside the mine we are Catholics, and when we enter the mine, we worship the devil."

Shockingly, Marco and Luis are far from the youngest children working in the mines.

"There are 10 children who I see when they come here, they have blisters on their hands, so I think they've been inside the mines. Children from eight, nine, 10... " says Nicolas Marin Martinez, headmaster of the only school on the mountain, run by the Swiss charity, Voix Libres.

A recent change in the law means children as young as 10 can now legally work in Bolivia, but not in the mines, which are considered too dangerous. So it was and remains illegal, it's just that the law is rarely enforced.

A report by Bolivia's ombudsman estimates that 145 children are working as miners, of whom 13 are 14 or younger. Another estimate puts the number of children employed on the mountain - including those sorting mineral ores outside the mines and helping guard machinery - at 400.

Marco has been working in the mine for a year

Bolivian President Evo Morales is seeking a historic third term in elections on 12 October.

He's promised to give the wealth of the land back to the people - and the IMF says Bolivia has reduced poverty and nearly tripled income per capita since Morales has been in power.

But for the poorest of the poor living on Bolivia's richest mountain, it seems they have yet to benefit.

View of the city of Potosi from the Cerro Rico

[MIKA27]

Why Was The Mt. Ontake Volcano Eruption Such a Big Surprise?

The death toll mounts as rescue workers continue to find bodies on the slopes of Japan’s Mt. Ontake, which erupted on September 27th with no apparent warning. In a country like Japan with a sophisticated network of seismic activity detectors, some at Mt. Ontake, how could this eruption come as such a big surprise?

http://youtu.be/v528Yg8SLg4

According to volcano expert Loÿc Vanderkluysen from Drexel University, it has to do with the type of eruption that occurred on Mt. Ontake, the second-highest volcano in Japan and one that was thought to be inactive until 1979.

Modern volcano monitoring tools are designed to detect the presence and motion of magma inside volcanoes. However, on occasion, volcanoes can have eruptions where no magma is involved. Many volcanoes have active hydrothermal systems, which is simply heated groundwater. A number of factors can lead to hydrothermal reservoir pressures increasing, to the point where they can explode. This is termed a “phreatic” eruption.

The Mt. Ontake phraetic eruption was caused by a shallow steam explosion which experts say is difficult to detect and nearly impossible to predict. By contrast, the eruption in late August in the Holuhraun lava field of Bardarbunga volcano in Iceland was a magma eruption that was predicted and closely monitored both locally and around the world.

While a steam explosion doesn’t sound as dangerous as a lava eruption, it is. The famous 1883 Krakatau eruption in Indonesia was from a phraetic eruption. Besides the element of surprise, the damage caused by a phreatic eruption comes from huge blocks of solid rock being launched into the air, which can travel for more than a mile before crashing to the ground; from the steam plume which can contain hazardous gases; and from heavy volcanic ash, which can cause suffocation when inhaled. This is what caused most of the casualties on Mt. Ontake.

Ash from Mt. Ontake clogging a nearby river.

Mt. Ontake had 12 seismometers, five GPS instruments and a tiltmeter which measures ground movement. Only the seismometers showed any activity and that was only 11 minutes before the eruption. Experts say it and other phraetic volcanoes should have devices for measuring gas release, especially sulphur dioxide, and for measuring underground electrical conductivity which can signal rising water.

Even with all that monitoring, volcanoes will continue to surprise us.

[MIKA27]

STAKELIGHTS: LED TENT STAKES

The folks at UCO know that staying safe in the backcountry is of the utmost importance. To help make navigation of your campsite both safe and easy, they’ve introduced the StakeLight.

Seeing that every tent needs tent stakes, they figured why not throw some LED lights into the mix? Constructed from durable 5000 series aluminum, each tent stake has been outfitted with a LED light. There 2 different modes programmed into each one, including Area Mode and Strobe Mode. Area is perfect for campsite navigation, and provides 17 lumens of light for up to 10 hours. Strobe Mode is perfect for finding your tent in the dark backcountry, and will burn for up to 24 hours. The lights are powered by 1 AAA battery, and an integrated on/off switch helps you manage the battery life much more efficiently. The LEDs have also been enclosed in a water-resistant TPE case, so rain water is nothing to worry about. [Purchase]

http://youtu.be/5hklVS4EkrA

[MIKA27]

2015 HONDA CIVIC TYPE R CONCEPT

With the 2014 Paris Motor Show right around the corner, the Japanese auto makers at Honda have given us a sneak peek at the highly anticipated 2015 Honda Civic Type R Concept.

The latest iteration of the Civic sees the brand going all in. While the Type R lineup has always been synonymous with performance, this bad boy takes things to the next level. Powered by a high-revving, turbocharged 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine, the 5-door hatchback will put down an impressive 280-horsepower. While 0-60 mph times are unknown at this time, we do know that power will be delivered through a 6-speed manual gearbox. It will also be equipped with a new four-point Adaptive Damper System that automatically adjusts the front and rear suspension to the current road conditions, and the all new +R button. This steering wheel mounted button improves engine responsiveness, torque curve, and steering response. Since powerful front wheel drive vehicles have always posed the issue of torque steer, Honda has also outfitted this thing with a mechanical steer axis to limit this problem while also improving traction. While the 2015 Honda Civic Type R is set to hit the scene next year, don’t count on it coming to the states.

[MIKA27]

MINIPRESSO PORTABLE HAND-POWERED ESPRESSO MAKER

Espresso is a luxury usually enjoyed at home or at a coffee shop, but just because you’re out camping or taking in the great outdoors, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a fresh espresso to deliciously infuse you with caffeine. With Minipresso, you can make espresso anywhere. That’s because, unlike other portable units, Minipresso is hand-powered. There’s no need to plug anything in or purchase N2O cartridges, simply load it with grounds and water and use the hand pump to prepare your shot. Whether you’re sitting by a campfire or just staying overnight at a hotel, you can get your espresso fix thanks to Minipresso.

[MIKA27]

OLD FORESTER BIRTHDAY BOURBON

Old Forester is the only bourbon brand still in existence that was produced before, during and after Prohibition. Old Forester Birthday Bourbon pays homage to the brand's founder, George Garvin Brown, and in the past dozen years has been a special, annual release every fall. This year's expression was bottled at 97 proof, with plenty of sweet vanilla and maple syrup flavors, making it another great tribute to a pioneer in the bourbon industry.

[MIKA27]

ARC Emergency Raft : A Safe and Dry Emergency Shelter During Marine Disaster

During marine disaster, ARC Emergency Raft can provide safe, dry, and comfortable shelter for survivors. It features solid and large structure as an emergency backup system, the main goal is to accommodate as many people as possible and keep them safe, each unit can hold approximately 100 to 150 people. ARC is aerated and designed as an emergency boat completed with survival equipment and life supplies.

This raft is sealed in a capsule when not in use, when marine disaster happens, user can use gas launching device to cast these capsules on the ocean. The air pumps start to fill ARC with air until a full shelter is formed.The triangle shape makes it highly stable, the central pillar acts as a signal light, air pump, hydroelectricgenerator, water purification system, and breathing air supply.

[Habana Mike]

ARC Emergency Raft : A Safe and Dry Emergency Shelter During Marine Disaster

During marine disaster, ARC Emergency Raft can provide safe, dry, and comfortable shelter for survivors. It features solid and large structure as an emergency backup system, the main goal is to accommodate as many people as possible and keep them safe, each unit can hold approximately 100 to 150 people. ARC is aerated and designed as an emergency boat completed with survival equipment and life supplies.

This raft is sealed in a capsule when not in use, when marine disaster happens, user can use gas launching device to cast these capsules on the ocean. The air pumps start to fill ARC with air until a full shelter is formed.The triangle shape makes it highly stable, the central pillar acts as a signal light, air pump, hydroelectricgenerator, water purification system, and breathing air supply.

Now that's pretty frigging awesome. Lack of drinkable water is probably the worst thing for anyone in a lifeboat for any length of time.....

So long as the 'life supplies' last long enough to avoid cannibalism

[MIKA27]

A GoPro Died To Bring Us This Insane Drone Footage Of A Volcano Erupting

Though Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano isn’t the media sensation it was a month ago, it’s still steadily erupting — as shown by this incredible video shot with a DJI Phantom 2 drone and a GoPro Hero 3, which did not survive the trip (though the memory card did!).

Brian Lam brings us news of the project over at Wired, which was carried out by DJI’s Eric Cheng and an Icelandic photographer named Ragnar Th. Sigurdsson. The duo drove as close as they could to the eruption — and when authorities stopped their car. Because DJI’s Phantom 2 has a failsafe mechanism that directs the drone to return to the user once it’s beyond range, Cheng describes the process of walking even closer to the mouth of the eruption (clad in a gas mask, according to Lam) to get an even better shot.

Finally, after a particularly close pass, Cheng realised the GoPro had actually begun to melt; the plastic bubbling and the circular button sliding to one side. We recently learned that a GoPro could withstand the temperature of boiling water, but this — this was too much:

Inside, the memory card was fully functional — hence the remarkable footage we see above.

[MIKA27]

NASA Reveals Details Of Mission To Capture And Bring Asteroid Near Earth

By the end of the decade, NASA will send a robotic spaceship to grab a 12-metre asteroid and bring it close to Earth, placing it in an orbit around the Moon, and then send astronauts in an Orion spaceship to study it. The space agency just published six papers detailing this historic mission, crucial for humanity’s future.

NASA plans to launch an ARM robotic spacecraft to rendezvous with, capture and redirect an asteroid mass near the end of this decade. The spacecraft will redirect it to a stable orbit around the moon called a “Distant Retrograde Orbit.” Astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft, launched from a Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, will explore the asteroid in the mid-2020s.

One of the initial concepts for the robotic vehicle that can capture the asteroid and bring it back to Earth orbit.

Another concept for an asteroid robotic vehicle. This one would pick a boulder from a larger body.

NASA is calling it the Asteroid Redirect Mission and they say it will be an important test bed for new technologies “to support future human missions to Mars.” These papers talk about them.

An Orion spaceship docking with the asteroid redirect vehicle.

Advanced Solar Electric Propulsion

Solar Electric Propulsion is one of these new critical technologies. With it, we will be able to send large payloads — food, equipment, fuel, oxygen — to Mars and deep space missions without having to create giant rockets. While SEP already exists and it’s in operation, more work is needed to take it to the level needed to move a big mass to faraway distances.

SEP creates thrust powered by solar arrays, which transforms sunlight into electromagnetic fields that accelerate and expel charged atoms (ions). This is a very efficient way to power a spacecraft and significantly cuts down on the amount of propellant a spacecraft needs to carry, which can be heavy and expensive to launch from Earth. Current studies at NASA detailed in the papers are examining ways SEP will be used to power the ARM robotic mission.

Astronaut working on a captured asteroid after docking with the Asteroid Redirect Vehicle.

In addition to the work on advanced SEP, the mission will also need new systems to “enhance detection, tracking, and characterization of near-Earth asteroids, enabling an overall strategy to defend our home planet.” Which sounds awesome to me. One of the new systems could the Near Earth Asteroid Scouts, small automated probes that will be send to the asteroid to map its surface.

Another positive side effect of this mission will be to “demonstrate basic planetary defence techniques that will inform impact threat mitigation strategies required to defend our home planet.” Since we are going to be using a robot to slowly push an asteroid off its current orbit and move it to where we want it, we will be able to use this knowhow to deflect any asteroids that are coming our way on their own.

SEP-based excursion vehicle concept for a human NEA mission.

NASA is also looking for this mission to be a business opportunity for private companies by developing ad demonstrating mining techniques on asteroids after moving them near the Earth.

[b4z00k4]

Self-Destructing SSDs Will Nuke Themselves If You Text Them A Code Word

Losing a laptop full of personal files like family photos is upsetting, but losing a laptop full of private corporate info and trade secrets is instead downright terrifying. So when you absolutely can’t risk misplaced data falling into the wrong hands, a GSM-equipped SSD drive that can remotely physically self-destruct guarantees the utmost of security and privacy.

As soon as you realise a laptop or other hardware with the SecureDrives SSD installed has gone missing, all you need to do is send a pre-defined text message to its unique cellular number and the drive will be immediately destroyed. And we’re not talking a quick format to erase its contents either. The SSD’s enclosure features built-in mechanisms that will physically destroy the flash memory chips inside, making the data completely unrecoverable.

But the drives include other failsafes for protecting your data if you’re not able to send the self-destruct text, or you don’t realise the drive has gone missing. The SecureDrives SSDs can also be programmed to automatically self-destruct when disconnected from a SATAII connector, when the battery is low and someone is trying to circumvent the fail-safe mechanisms, when it’s been shielded from a GSM signal for a set period of time, and even after a pre-determined series of finger taps detected through a motion sensor. And all of that works on top of 256-bit AES CBC hardware encryption protecting the actual data.

It goes without saying these drives will certainly cost far more than your standard SSD, including having to pay for the monthly worldwide GSM service. But if security is your number one priority, it sounds like they all but guarantee your precious data will be protected at all costs.

Hey! That'll come in handy when OFAC comes knocking!

[MIKA27]

UK Sending Fleet Of Supersonic Tornadoes To Take On ISIS

The US has already conducted more 150 airstrikes against ISIS since September 10th and governments from around the world are gearing up to join in. The UK’s Royal Air Force is just brought their contribution to the table with a fleet of low-flying penetrators.

The RAF’s Tornado GR4 is a multi-role two-seater combat jet designed and built by Pranavia GmbH specifically to penetrate enemy air defences and deliver precision strikes against high-value targets. It first entered service with the RAF in 1991 during the first Gulf War and has seen combat in every fight since.

The GR4 utilises a number of advanced features during its intrusions into enemy airspace including variable-sweep wings, which tuck back against the fuselage during fast low-level flight, much like a falcon’s wings hug its body during high speed dives; state-of-the-art avionics and fly-by-wire controls including the Tornado Advanced Radar Display Information System (TARDIS!!!), terrain-hugging autopilot, and the long-range Foxhound doppler system that can track up to 20 targets at a range of 160km.

It also carries the RAPTOR reconnaissance pod, one of the most advanced systems of its kind. As the RAF website explains:

The RAPTOR pod is one of the most advanced reconnaissance sensors in the world and greatly increases the effectiveness of the aircraft in the reconnaissance role. Its introduction into service gave the GR4 the ability to transmit real-time, Long Range Oblique Photography (LOROP) to commanders or to view this in cockpit during a mission. The stand-off range of the sensors also allows the aircraft to remain outside heavily defended areas, thus minimising the aircraft’s exposure to enemy air-defence systems. Additional capability in the Non-Traditional Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (NTISR) role is provided by the Litening III RD and the use of theROVER data link for providing tactical operators with real time Full Motion Video (FMV) in the battle space.

Powered by a pair of 21,700Nm Rolls Royce RB199 Mk103 turbofans, the GR4 is capable of hitting mach 1.3 at 9000m before diving low to avoid enemy radar and streaking along the deck for up 1400km. Once it acquires its target, there isn’t much the GR4 can’t hit it with — the jet can carry most every weapon in the NATO arsenal. It’s outfitted with a pair of Mauser 27mm auto-cannons and can carry up to 9000kg of bombs, guided munitions and air-to-air missiles.

During this first foray into Iraq, the GR4 is carrying 900kg Paveways and Brimstone missiles, although it can carry everything from sidewinders to nuclear-tipped B61′s. Which, hopefully, won’t ever be required.

[MIKA27]

This Is Why You Should Never Tease Dogs Trapped Inside Parked Cars

I’ve been spooked by dogs in parked cars plenty of times, but I never teased them. Unlike the guy in this short created by London-based animation house Birdbox Studios. At the end, he learns his lesson the hard way. Karma, people. It’s a *****.

The short was shown at the Encounters Film festival in Bristol last week.

[MIKA27]

Contact Lenses Used To Be Made Out Of Glass

Did you know that before the age of plastic, contact lenses were made of glass? It’s true! And slightly horrifying!

Inventors were experimenting with glass-based contacts throughout the 19th century and Leonardo Da Vinci is often credited as having been one of the first to imagine some of the ideas behind the contact lens in 1508.

But when a German doctor at the University of Kiel developed his own glass-based contact lens in the late 1920s, the American tech press was intrigued. One of the biggest problems of contacts developed in the 19th century was that you couldn’t really close your eyes. Since humans like to blink, this posed a problem.

Dr L. Heine was said to have improved the contact lens to sit on the eye more comfortably. The future of eyeglasses was promised to be a future without the need for eyeglasses at all — provided you didn’t mind putting glass in your eyes.

From the June 1930 issue of Science and Invention magazine:

Contact eye-glasses that are worn directly on the eye-ball, and that do not interfere with the closing of the eye-lids, have been invented by Privy Councillor Professor Dr. L. Heine, of the University of Kiel. By this invention, the scientist expects to revolutionise opthalmology. He believes that spectacles and eye-glasses will become superfluous.

The thin curved glass is inserted by the patient himself and is practically invisible. Only when viewed from an angle, can the glass be seen. The photograph shows the inventor wearing these eye-glasses, and at the lower left some of the contact glasses for near- and far-sightedness are shown.

When the glass is moistened with a lubricating solution, no pain or discomfort is felt by the wearer. The inventor has not yet informed us what would happen should the wearer of this type of glass be accidentally struck a blow in the eye.

As someone who has found even modern soft plastic contact lenses annoying at the end of a long day, the idea of putting two pieces of glass “moistened with a lubricating solution” on my eyes is truly horrifying.

[MIKA27]

Amazing Aerial Photo Of Hong Kong Streets Flooded With People

The good fight for freedom and democracy against Beijing’s dictatorial regime continues in Hong Kong, where protesters keep flooding the streets in massive demonstrations. This photo published by Hong Kong Democracy Now is an impressive look into one. Here are some more from the ground.

[MIKA27]

Would You Swallow A Pill Covered In Needles Instead Of Getting A Shot?

After the first shudder, it sounds even more terrifying: a pill coated with tiny needles that injects you from the inside of your intestine. But the scientists at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital who developed the capsule say that these swallowable microneedles could be a new (and painless!) way to deliver drugs. No more shots!

In a paper published in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the team describes their 2cm-long acrylic capsule, filled with insulin and studded with hollow 5mm-long stainless steel needles. The microneedles are too small to cause damage in the intestines. An initial version of the capsule has already been tested in pigs, and the pigs got their insulin without any obvious ill effects.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of swallowing and then pooping out a spiky pill still freaks me out. Fortunately the researchers have some ideas on how make their prototype safer and less terrifying. The needles, for example, could hidden behind a pH-responsive shield, which dissolves only after it has passed through the stomach and reached the intestines. Instead of hollow steel needles, they could use also sugar-based solid microneedles with the drug built right in. Hopefully, they can make the capsule smaller, too.

Aside from delivering insulin, the capsule could also be used to deliver other drugs such as antibodies, which are large proteins often used to treat autoimmune conditions. These drugs have to be injected into the blood because they disintegrate inside the digestive system, but someday, we might be able to smuggle them right into the digestive tract and inject them from there.

[MIKA27]

That $1,200 Machine for Making Untraceable Guns Just Sold Out in 36 Hours

Americans want guns without serial numbers. And apparently, they want to make them at home.

On Wednesday, Cody Wilson’s libertarian non-profit Defense Distributed revealed the Ghost Gunner, a $1,200 computer-controlled (CNC) milling machine designed to let anyone make the aluminum body of an AR-15 rifle at home, with no expertise, no regulation, and no serial numbers. Since then, he’s sold more than 200 of the foot-cubed CNC mills—175 in the first 24 hours. That’s well beyond his expectations; Wilson had planned to sell only 110 of the machines total before cutting off orders.

To keep up, Wilson says he’s now raising the price for the next round of Ghost Gunners by $100. He has even hired another employee to add to Defense Distributed’s tiny operation. That makes four staffers on the group’s CNC milling project, an offshoot of its larger mission to foil gun control with digital DIY tools.

“People want this machine,” Wilson tells WIRED. “People want the battle rifle and the comfort of replicability, and the privacy component. They want it, and they’re buying it.”

While the Ghost Gunner is a general-purpose CNC mill, capable of automatically carving polymer, wood, and metal in three dimensions, Defense Distributed has marketed its machine specifically as a tool for milling the so-called lower receiver of an AR-15, which is the regulated body of that semi-automatic rifle. The gun community has already made that task far easier by selling so-called “80-percent lowers,” blocks of aluminum that need only a few holes and cavities milled out to become working lower receivers. Wilson says he’s now in talks with San Diego-based Ares Armor, one of the top sellers of those 80-percent lowers, to enter into some sort of sales partnership.

An AR-15 lower receiver created with Defense Distributed’s CNC mill, the Ghost Gunner.

For now, milling your own AR-15 lower receiver at home is legal. A California bill to outlaw the homemade firearms without serial numbers—what the bill’s creator, state senator Kevin De Leon, calls “ghost guns”—was vetoed by governor Jerry Brown Tuesday.

The last time one of Defense Distributed’s inventions led to such a popular frenzy was the release of blueprints for its “Liberator” 3-D printed pistol, the world’s first fully 3-D printable gun. That free file was downloaded 100,000 times in two days.

A milled AR-15 lower receiver with the stock, barrel and other components attached. The finished weapon has no serial number.

The sales numbers for the Ghost Gunner may be far smaller. But at $1,200, every sale helps fund the activities of Defense Distributed. “I’ve never felt more optimistic about the ability of Defense Distributed to become an installed part of the future, and to help create an expansion of the second amendment,” he says. “There’s hope that Defense Distributed can become a significant civil liberties organization…That’s the ambition, the wildest dream of this entity, to have a marked material effect like that.”

[MIKA27]

The Mysterious Valley of the Headless Corpses

Canada is a land full of vast natural beauty and thriving, unspoiled wilderness. Much of the wild landscape here is a world full of natural wonders that have managed to remain pristine and nearly untouched by human beings, with mountains, valleys, forests, whole swaths of land that have remained for the most part unexplored. It is from these unconquered northern lands that have long sprung various stories of mystery and strange phenomena. Surely one of the more bizarre mysteries from the Canadian wilderness comes from Nahanni National Park, a place also known ominously as “The Valley of Headless Men.” The name is not merely a spooky nickname for a remote, mysterious land, for the area is long known for having people disappear only to turn up without their heads.

Nahanni National Park is part of the Mackenzie Mountain region located in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, approximately 500 km (311 mi) west of Yellowknife. Nahanni is from the language of the indigenous Dene people that have inhabited the region for millennia, and means “The People Over There,” in reference to tribe of mountain dwelling people known as the Naha, who were once known to raid lowland settlements before mysteriously vanishing. The roughly 11,000 square mile park is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is undeniably full of breathtaking natural wonder and beauty. The park is surrounded by majestic peaks and dotted with geysers, sinkholes, deep canyons, caves, gorges, and pristine forests. Within these stunning vistas lies Virginia Falls, a magnificent giant of a waterfall that crashes down 96 meters (315 feet) into the roiling water below, twice as high as the more well-known Niagara Falls.

Virginia Falls

Meandering through the center of the valley is the South Nahanni River, which carves a scenic path through the park and has formed four dizzyingly high canyons that line its turbulent waters. The South Nahanni River’s course takes it over waterfalls, through deep gorges, and across natural hot springs, including an area of boiling whirlpools known as Hell’s Gate, before ending its journey in a thunderous crescendo down Virginia Falls. The South Nahanni River is a very rare example of what is called an antecedent river, meaning that it was powerful enough to maintain the same course it had before the mountains around it formed, which it carved as they slowly sprung up across the landscape. This results in the rather remarkable sight of mountains that seem to follow the flow of the river rather than the other way around.

Along the river’s path through hot spring areas are places permeated with warm air that never freeze and are home to lush topical worlds full of atypical plants for the region such as ferns, wild cherries, and roses, which form oases of green surrounded by frigid snow and ice in the winter. The river is the centerpiece of the valley, and is the destination of most tourists who come to Nahanni National Park, where they canoe or do white water rafting along its challenging, treacherous rapids while surrounded by awe inspiring scenery and rugged wilderness. The Nahanni National Park has managed to remain relatively pristine, untouched, and unexplored due to a lack of any tourist accommodations, and no roads leading in. The remote park is only accessible by boat or plane.

The Nahanni Valley has been steeped in folklore and mystery since it was first inhabited around 9 to 10 thousand years ago. Many tribes were afraid to settle within the region as they believed it to be an evil, haunted place inhabited by various spirits, specters, and devils. Those who did come here, such as the native Dene people, told of mysterious creatures lurking in the vast forests, and were plagued by the enigmatic, aggressive, and violent Naha tribe of the mountains. This tribe was said to consist of fierce warriors who wore masks and armor adorned with frightening imagery and were known to brutally decapitate their victims. Warriors of the Naha tribe were said to be larger than normal men and to wield strange and powerful weapons that no one had ever seen before. The fearsome Naha tribe itself has become one of the area’s many mysteries, as the whole tribe is said to have suddenly and inexplicably disappeared from the face of the earth, and it has never been ascertained just what happened to them. They have seemingly just vanished without a trace.

Nahanni National Park

When European fur traders first came to the valley in the 18th century, they were impressed by the legends and beauty of the valley, and word quickly spread about this far flung wilderness. As more European settlers found their way to the valley, it was soon seen to be a potential path to riches, as many explorers believed it to possess vast reserves of untapped gold. Subsequently, the region saw an influx of miners looking to either find gold in the South Nahanni River basin or attempting to pass through on the way to the gold fields of the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush. Although Nahanni Valley actually produced little actual gold, legends nevertheless quickly formed of the valley holding large stores of lost gold waiting to be found. Some stories told of miners spotting large nuggets of gold as big as grapes, and huge veins of untapped gold were said to be hidden away in the wilderness here. The stories fueled gold fever, and miners, undeterred at the lack of success up to that point, continued to clamor to this remote and rugged land to try their hand at finding it.

It was during this era of miners seeking their fortunes among the rugged terrain of Nahanni that the valley’s more insidious and macabre legend began to emerge, particularly in a part of the park called the 200 Mile Gorge. In 1908, brothers Willie and Frank McLeod came prospecting in the valley just as many others had done before them. The two packed up their gear, headed out into the wilderness, and never returned. After a year had passed, it was presumed that the brothers must have succumbed to the elements or any of the countless perils the area had to offer, such as sinkholes, jagged gorges, and wild animals. Some rumors suggested that the two had succeeded in finding one of the mythical veins of gold thought to dot the valley and had made off with their fortune without telling anyone. Then, as suddenly as they had vanished, the two men were found dead along the river. Their bodies had been decapitated and the heads were nowhere to be found.

Willie and Frank McLeod

A spooky story to be sure, but it would not be an isolated case, nor the last victims the valley would claim. In 1917, a Swiss prospector by the name of Martin Jorgenson made his way to Nahanni to try his hand at finding gold. At first, Jorgenson seemed to have settled well in the valley. He built a cabin, ran a small mining operation, and was generally well-known by settlers in the area. When Jorgenson’s cabin mysteriously burned down to the ground, the prospector’s skeleton was found among the ashes without its head, and a search of the charred remains of the cabin found no trace of the skull. In 1945, a miner from Ontario was found dead in his sleeping bag without his head. Around the same time, a trapper named John O’Brien was found frozen to death in the nearby wilderness with his hands clutching a pack of matches in a death grip right next to a campfire pit that showed evidence of having had a fire going. Those who had stumbled across the corpse described having the feeling that the unfortunate trapper had been flash frozen within seconds.

These mysterious deaths are not the only oddities the valley holds. In addition to the mysterious beheadings, a good many others simply went missing without a trace. It is thought that around 44 people had vanished under mysterious circumstances in the valley by 1969. Other phenomena have been reported from here as well. Mysterious lights and UFOs have long been sighted in the valley, as well as other unusual aerial phenomena. The area is also known for its cryptids, as it is a hotspot for Bigfoot activity and is believed by some to hold a remnant population of a type of bear-like carnivore called the bear dog, or Amphicyonidae, which was thought to have gone extinct in the Pleistocene epoch. In addition to this strangeness, a bizarre find was made in an ice cave called Grotte Valerie, where the ancient skeletons of over 100 sheep were found, apparently having starved to death in around 2,500 BC. The grim find has earned the cave the nickname of “The Gallery of Lost Sheep.”

To this day, it is not known who or what is responsible for the beheadings and disappearances in the Nahanni Valley, but their legacy certainly remains in the menacing place names throughout the valley, such as Deadmen Valley, Headless Creek, Headless Range and the Funeral Range. Theories abound on what could be the culprit behind the killings, encompassing everything from the rational to the outlandish. Some say that the valley is cursed, just as the native people of the region had always believed, and that some evil, supernatural force is to be blamed. Others think that the deaths were the result of the ghosts of the mountain Naha warriors, risen from the dead to drive away the white man and with their penchant for beheadings firmly intact. Some of these fringe theories include mention of a secret entrance to the Hollow Earth somewhere in the valley or the idea that the area lies along a “thin spot” in the veil that separates different dimensions. More rational theories point to the attacks being carried out by hostile native tribes or rivalries between miners scrambling to find the mythical stores of unfound gold. The disappearances could be the result of any number of perils to be found in the wilderness here. After all, this is an inhospitable place of extreme cold, filled with unexplored caves, gullies, jagged rocks, and ravenous beasts such as grizzly bears. For all of the ideas offered, in the end no one really knows what decapitated these bodies or why, and it is still unknown as to what happened to the people who disappeared.

It is hard to say what lies behind these mysteries. The area is so forbidding and remote that very few people other than adventurous rafters ever set foot here. Despite its status as a National Park, Nahanni Valley remains for the most part unexplored, and there are very large portions that have never been properly surveyed. The only geological surveys ever done here were done from the air, and the vast majority of the wilderness here remains an enigma. The few efforts to explore the area in any kind of depth have turned up vast, unknown cavern systems, caves, and huge warrens of underground hot springs and vents previously not known to exist. Some believe that a lost world full of new species lies here. What other mysteries and oddities does the Nahanni Valley hold? Is there something malevolent hiding out there in this rugged wilderness that could have something to do with its violent and sinister past?

Until more investigation is done, it will continue to remain a perplexing and very creepy mystery.

[MIKA27]

Orbital Warfare: The Soyuz Space Fighter

Since the retirement of the Space Shuttle, anyone wanting to travel to the International Space Station has to do so in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. This is an old design, dating back to the 1960s, and many people will be aware that it was a product of the Soviet-American Space Race of the Cold War era. What is less well known, however, is that several military variants of the Soyuz were proposed – including a full-blown space fighter, complete with a nose-mounted 23 mm cannon.

The origins of the Space Race were inextricably linked to military applications from the start. Earth orbit is the perfect place from which to spy on an enemy. As everyone today knows, you can’t hide from a spy satellite. As soon as there were satellites in orbit, both sides – American and Soviet – started to look for ways they could destroy orbiting hardware.

The first successful test of an anti-satellite system took place on October 13, 1959, when a U.S. Air Force Bold Orion missile was launched from a Boeing B-47 Stratojet bomber flying at an altitude of 35,000 feet. The missile successfully intercepted NASA’s Explorer 6 satellite, passing close enough that the satellite would have been destroyed if the missile had been carrying a live warhead.

If an orbiting satellite could be destroyed by an air-launched missile, what about developing space-based weapons as well? This may seem an obvious step, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Contrary to the impression given by sci-fi movies, maneuvering a vehicle in orbit is completely different from maneuvering inside the Earth’s atmosphere. Intercepting one spacecraft with another is a complex problem in applied physics – and a profoundly counter-intuitive one. During the 1960s, the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union were dominated by the need to solve this problem – although it was usually framed as “rendezvous” between two friendly spacecraft, rather than interception of a hostile target.

Early American experiments with space rendezvous used the Gemini spacecraft. This was a civilian program run by NASA, but in December 1963 the USAF announced plans for a military variant code named Gemini B. Based on the same two-man re-entry capsule as the NASA spacecraft, the Air Force variant would also include a cylindrical habitation module accessed through a hatch in the capsule’s heat shield. The project was euphemistically known as the “Manned Orbiting Laboratory” – but of course its real purpose would have been to spy on the Soviet Union.

The Russians responded by announcing a number of military variants of the Soyuz spacecraft, which was then in the early stages of development. The Soyuz R would have been an orbiting reconnaissance platform similar to America’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

The Soyuz P (P for Perekhvatchik, meaning “interceptor”) had a more proactive role. After rendezvousing with its target – typically an American spy satellite – a cosmonaut would perform a spacewalk to inspect the target, and neutralize it if necessary.

Most dramatic of all, however, was the Soyuz 7K-VI variant. This was designed from the start to carry a gun. Although it never flew, a prototype was constructed – the only publicly acknowledged “space fighter” ever built.

The prototype Soyuz 7K-VI under construction.

The 7K-VI was given the name Zvezda, meaning “star”. Although it was developed from the basic Soyuz design, it differed significantly in appearance. The usual Soyuz configuration has the rounded cone of the re-entry module in the center, and the roughly spherical orbital module at the front. With Zvezda, the two modules were switched over, and the orbital module had a cylindrical shape. This gave it a “cylinder plus nose cone” appearance more reminiscent of the American Apollo design.

The distinctive solar wings of the Soyuz were dispensed with, too. Instead, the Zvezda obtained its power from a plutonium battery – allowing extended duration missions of up to 30 days in orbit. In order to access the orbital module, a hatch was required in the heat shield of the re-entry module, as in the U.S. Air Force’s Gemini B spacecraft. The presence of the hatch reduced the seating capacity of the spacecraft from three to two.

The 23 mm cannon fitted to the nose of the re-entry module was designed by Aleksandr Nudelman, one of the Soviet Union’s most eminent weapon designers. His space cannon was adapted from one of his aircraft guns. It had to be a strictly recoilless weapon, because any recoil would have altered the orbit of the spacecraft every time the gun was fired.

Plans for the Zvezda space fighter advanced to the point where a crew – Pavel Popovich and Gennadi Kolesnikov – was selected for the first mission. They had already begun training when the program was cancelled in 1967. The Soviets decided to concentrate on an unmanned anti-satellite system, Istrebitel Sputnik, instead (“istrebitel” means fighter and “sputnik” means satellite).

Although Nudelman’s space gun never made it into orbit, the associated firing sight did – it underwent a number of tests on some of the early “civilian” Soyuz flights.

The familiar sight of the Soyuz spacecraft belies its Cold War origins.

[MIKA27]

LAMBORGHINI ASTERION LP910-4 HYBRID

When you think of Lamborghini, there are probably a lot of words that come to mind. We’d be willing to bet that “comfortable daily driver” is not a phrase that ever pops up. But Lambo is looking to change all that with their innovative Lamborghini Asterion LP910-4 Hybrid.

Sure the new Asterion (which means a hybrid man-bull or “minotaur”) is packed full of performance (it pumps out nearly 1,000 horsepower for crying out loud), but the Italian auto maker has put an emphasis on making this a car that people would be comfortable driving on a daily basis, to and from the office perhaps. That’s why the brand has developed their first ever gasoline-electric hybrid. At the heart of this all-wheel drive beast is a mid-engine, 5.2-liter V10 engine producing 610-horsepower through a seven-speed transmission. Paired with the two propulsion systems (300-horsepower electric motors), this bad boy makes 910 ponies, and can get from zero to sixty in just 3 seconds flat, with a top speed just shy of 200 mph. This hybrid hypercar could eventually hit the showroom floor, but we wouldn’t count on it for the near term future.

[MIKA27]

THE KAWASAKI NINJA H2R IS THE MOST POWERFUL MOTORCYCLE EVER PRODUCED

Sometimes things are made just to look nice. A little spit-shine here, some bright colors there, and you’ve got something to wow the eyeballs. But when you get up close, you realize there’s nothing else to it. It would be easy to think that of the recently announced Kawasaki Ninja H2R. It looks like a stunning motorcycle museum piece, but look closer and you’ll realize the bike has some serious, serious chops. The supercharged engine produces 300 horsepower and helps make the Ninja H2R the most powerful motorcycle ever produced. It’s not street-legal, but there is a street version rumored to be coming soon.

[MIKA27]

GOSUN SOLAR STOVE

Forget dragging fuel into the wilderness — with the GoSun Solar Stove, you can use the power of the sun to cook your food.

The clever design uses a borosilicate, evacuated glass tube cooking chamber to hold the stainless steel cooking tray and two foldable parabolic reflectors to convert nearly 80% of all sunlight entering the grill unto usable heat, resulting in temperatures of over 550°F and cooking times as brief as 20 minutes. Plus it weighs only 7 pounds, so it's easy to transport back and forth from the campsite.