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

[MIKA27]

Kisai watches are pretty cool. I've got 2 of them, the RPM and the Seven (in blue), though I want to get it in red too.

You'll never be able to just tell the time by looking at a Kisai watch, though. You always have to figure out what the time is!

NICE!!

[MIKA27]

Cancer immunity of strange underground rat revealed

Researchers have discovered how one of the world’s oddest mammals developed resistance to cancer, and there is hope that their work could help fight the disease in humans.

Naked mole rats live underground, where environmental conditions are harsh but predators are few. They can live for more than 30 years, almost twenty-seven years longer than their close cousin the house mouse—which is particularly susceptible to cancer. They breathe slowly due to the limited supply of oxygen, survive on very little food, have poor sight, and are largely indifferent to pain.

Naked mole rats are also the only mammals that do not regulate their body temperature. Because they live in colonies where the queen rat does the job of producing progeny and only a few males father the litters, their sperms become lazy.

For cancer researchers, mice and naked mole rats fall on two extremes of the disease spectrum. Mice are used as animal models of disease because of their short lives and high incidence of cancer, which help researchers study the mechanism of cancer occurrence and test drugs that fight the disease.

Naked mole rats, on the other hand, have never developed cancer in the years that they have been studied. In labs, researchers often don’t wait for their animal models to develop cancer. Instead they induce cancer by blasting the animals with gamma radiation, transplanting tumors, or injecting cancer-causing agents. Do that to a naked mole rat, though, and nothing happens.

Now, Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov at the University of Rochester think they may have found one mechanism by which naked mole rats defend themselves against cancer. Their results, reported today in the journal Nature, make for a strange tale.

While studying cells taken from the armpits and lungs of naked mole rats, they found an unusually thick chemical surrounding the cells. This turned out to be hyaluronan, a substance that is present in all animals, where its main job is to hold cells together.

Beyond providing mechanical strength, it is also involved in controlling when cells grow in number.

Cancer relies on the unregulated growth of cells, so hyaluronan was thought to be involved in the progression of malignant tumors. According to Gorbunova, aspects of hyaluronan may regulate cell growth as well as hyaluronan's amount and thickness. As a polymer, the greater the number of hyaluronan molecules in a single chain, the thicker it becomes.

When the molecular mass is high, cells are “told” to stop increasing in number. When the molecular mass is low, they are “asked” to proliferate. In the case of the naked mole rat, Gorbunova found that the molecular mass was unusually high, as much as five times that of mice or humans.

To understand whether this unusual hyaluroanan was responsible for cancer resistance in naked mole rats, Gorbunova increased the amount of enzyme that degrades the chemical, reducing its molecular weight. Soon after, she observed that the rat’s cells readily started growing in thick clusters like cancerous mouse cells do.

In a separate experiment, she also tested this hypothesis by reducing the amount of hyaluronan by knocking out the genes that encode for its production. Then, on injecting cancer-causing virus, instead of resisting, the naked mole rat’s cells became cancerous.

Gorbunova thinks that having thick hyaluronan might have helped increase the elasticity of the rat’s skin, allowing it to live in small tunnels underground. This trait might then have accidentally developed a new role of preventing cancer.

Rochelle Buffenstein, a physiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center, has studied naked mole rats for years and was pleased to see that some light has been shed on this creature’s remarkable resistance to cancer. “As we learn more about these cancer-resistant mechanisms that are effective and can be directly pertinent to humans, we may find new cancer prevention strategies,” she said.

[MIKA27]

Unchartered Territory: Scientist Discover New and Incredible Species:

A portrait of a Tree frog (Leptopeles flavomaculatus), one of 33 species of frogs recorded on the Cheringoma Plateau (Piotr Naskrecki)

It’s every scientist’s dream to travel to a remote, unexplored place looking for as many new and interesting species as they can find.

This was a dream come true for the 15 Mozambican and international scientists, led by Piotr Naskrecki, who spent 3 weeks in the Cheringoma Plateau of Gorongosa National Parkin Mozambique. There couldn’t have been a more adventurous setting for this expedition than the sheer limestone cliffs, studded with deep caves, cascading down to the lush riverine forest and rushing streams of the gorges below. The scientists’ mission was to collect and record information on the species of this region to help park managers understand and protect Gorongosa’s biodiversity.

Scientist Jennifer Guyton releasing bats caught during the survey after having taken their body measurements. (Piotr Naskrecki)

In total, the team recorded over 1,200 species (and counting) including 182 bird species, 54 mammal species, 47 reptile species, 33 frog species, over 100 antspecies, and 320 plant species. Some of the notable finds on the survey were the “Chewbacca Bat”, named after the Star Wars character; a strange, cave-dwelling frog that is possibly new to science; an ant that is incapable of walking on flat surfaces; a bombardier beetle that defends itself by producing small explosions from its abdomen; and several katydids that are new to science.

A portrait of the “Chewbacca bat” (Triaenops persicus) recorded during the survey of the Cheringoma Plateau. (Piotr Naskrecki)

Tumbling ant (Melissotarsus emeryi) is the world’s only ant incapable of walking on flat surfaces. This species spends its live inside narrow passage deep in the wood of trees and can only move by pushing its short legs below and above the body at the same time. (Piotr Naskrecki)

Bombardier beetle (Cerapterus lacerates) produces small, audible explosions by expelling volatile, highly reactive chemicals from its abdomen (Piotr Naskrecki)

The scientists used a variety of methods on the survey including pitfall traps, mist nets, pheromone traps, remote cameras, and ultrasonic sound detectors. They explored uncharted territory in Gorongosa, descending into caves in deep limestone gorges, and ascending the tall canopies of trees using advanced tree climbing and rappelling techniques.

Nhagutua, an unexplored limestone gorge in the northern part of the Cheringoma plateau (Piotr Naskrecki)

This was the first comprehensive biodiversity survey in the history of this 4,000sqkm protected area, and its results will help guide the restoration effort to reverse biodiversity losses suffered by the park during the armed conflicts that devastated Mozambique from 1975 until 1992. By understanding what species exist in Gorongosa, park management can make better decisions about how to protect the park’s biodiversity and its rare and threatened species.

The Wilson Biodiversity Laboratory, in honor of E.O. Wilson’s support, is a modern science laboratory scheduled to open in Gorongosa soon. Specimens collected during the survey will form the foundation of a biological research collection that will be housed in the lab. And information collected by the survey’s scientists will contribute to the park’s biodiversity database, a tool that helps manage and protect its natural resources.

Sylvan katydid (Acauloplax exigua), a species found for the first time in over 100 years since it was originally described (Piotr Naskrecki)

Flap-necked chameleon (Chamaeleo dilepis) from the Cheringoma Plateau (Piotr Naskrecki)

A portrait of a slender praying mantis (Idolomorpha dentifrons) from the Cheringoma Plateau. (Piotr Naskrecki)

[MIKA27]

Atlantic Ocean to Disappear in 200 Million Years?

Europe and North America could be joined, creating new mountain chains.

A newly discovered crack in the Earth's crust could pull North America and Europe together and cause the Atlantic Ocean to vanish in about 220 million years, scientists say.

A new map of the seafloor off the coast of Iberia—the region of Europe that includes Portugal and Spain—has revealed what could be the birth of a new subduction zone.

Subduction zones happen when tectonic plates—the large rock slabs that make up the Earth's crust—crash into one another. The edge of the heavier plate slides, or subducts, below the lighter plate. It then melts back into the Earth's mantle—the layer just below the crust.

The discovery of this new subduction zone, published on June 6 in the journal Geology, could signal the start of an extended cycle that fuses continents together into a single landmass—or "supercontinent"—and closes our oceans.

This breakup and reformation of supercontinents has happened at least three times during Earth's approximately four-billion-year history.

In the far future, Earth's continents could "look very much like the Pangea," said study first author João Duarte, referring to a supercontinent that existed about 200 million years ago.

So what's new? The newly discovered subduction zone is located in the Atlantic Ocean about 120 miles (200 kilometers) off the southwest coast of Portugal. It is made up of six distinct segments that together span a distance of about 186 miles (300 kilometers).

The subduction zone is actually a newly formed crack in the Eurasian plate—one of about a dozen tectonic plates that make up the Earth's crust. The Eurasian plate contains all of Europe and most of Asia.

"In this case, the Eurasia plate is breaking in two," Duarte said.

Why is it important? Scientists have long suspected that a new subduction zone was forming near the western margin of the Eurasian plate, off the coast of Portugal.

Part of the reason is that the region has been the site of significant earthquake activity, including an 8.7-magnitude quake in 1755 that devastated Lisbon.

Over the past 20 years, several scientific teams from different countries have launched research cruises to map the seafloor around the region to look for proof that a new subduction zone was forming.

As part of his research project while at the University of Lisbon, Duarte gathered together the data from all of the different mapping projects and combined them to create a new tectonic map of the seafloor off the coast of Portugal.

The updated map provided the first conclusive proof that the ocean floor off the coast of Iberia is indeed beginning to fracture, and that a new subduction zone is starting to form.

"It is not a fully developed subduction, but an embryonic one," Duarte said.

What does this mean? The evidence collected by Duarte's team indicate that the Eurasia plate could eventually split into separate oceanic and continental sections.

If this happens, the oceanic section—which is made of denser rock—will dive beneath the continental section. This will cause the Atlantic Ocean to shrink and pull North America and Iberia closer together.

Other studies have indicated that geologic activity in the region could also pull Africa and Iberia together, causing the Mediterranean Sea to vanish.

"Eventually North America and Iberia will be together again, and the collision will give origin to new mountain chains like the Himalaya," Duarte said.

What's next? Scientists will continue to study the nascent subduction zone because it could help answer a long-lasting mystery: How do oceans—especially ones like the Atlantic that have "passive" margins that are free of fractures—start to close?

"For the first time we are seeing a [passive] Atlantic margin turn into a Pacific one," for which subduction zones are common, Duarte said.

His team plans to continue collecting data about the crust and seafloor in the region to further investigate the subduction zone.

They are also developing computer and physical models of the subduction process and plate motions.

"Understanding these processes will certainly provide new insights on how subduction zones may have initiated in the past and how oceans start to close," Duarte said in a statement.

[MIKA27]

Explore Mars for Yourself with this Billion Pixel Image from The Curiosity Rover

During Barack Obama’s first inauguration as president in 2009, photographer David Bergman snapped hundreds of photos to build a stunning mosaic of the event, comprising more than one billion pixels in total. Users of the clickable, zoomable Gigapan platform (where the inauguration mosaic has attracted more than 15 million views) dove into the image to pull out any number of embedded details, from celebrities in the crowd to an apparently dozing Clarence Thomas.

Now a new 1.3-billion-pixel image of the surface of Mars should keep curious clickers occupied for a while, even though the chances of spotting Beyoncé or a sleepy Supreme Court justice are nil. NASA released the ultradetailed Gigapan mosaic, built up from roughly 900 individual images, on June 19.

The images in the mosaic come from the space agency’s Curiosity Rover, currently scouring Gale Crater on the Red Planet in search of evidence of past habitable environments. The rover’s telephoto camera acquired most of the snapshots,according to a NASA statement, with supplemental images from a wide-angle camera on the rover’s mast and a few robot selfies from Curiosity’s navigation camera.

The mosaic shows Curiosity’s environs in late 2012, when the rover was parked at a sandy location called Rocknest. That is where Curiosity first deployed the scoop at the end of its robotic arm to sample the fine-grained Martian soil and fired up its suite of onboard instruments to chemically analyze the material.

In this presentation of the Mars mosaic, NASA has helpfully supplied some annotations of significant sites, such as the rover’s landing area and its ultimate destination, Mount Sharp. But once you familiarize yourself with the image, I recommend exploring it in full-screen panorama mode to fully appreciate the astonishing detail.

[MIKA27]

US Navy publication blasts Xbox One

Independent US-based military magazine Navy Times has published a new report blasting the Xbox One and its various policies that the publication describes as problematic for those on active duty.

The Xbox One will require users to connect to the internet once every 24 hours, something that Navy Lt Scott Metcalf believes will be a "showstopper" for those serving downrange, in the field or at sea.

A past report claimed that Microsoft was working on a solution for those in internet-free scenarios, though the company now says no such plan is in place.

In addition, the Xbox One will be supported in only 21 countries. Those stationed in major military regions like Germany, Italy or Great Britain will not have a problem. However, service members in Japan, Kuwait, Afghanistan or other areas are in a bind.

On top of this, since Xbox One games are region locked, service members who import games won't be able to play them on their local machines. And, as Navy Times pointed out, those who buy games locally will be out of luck, as Xbox Live accounts are tied to regions.

The publication also called out potential "serious" security concerns for the Xbox One, involving the system's Kinect camera and/or microphone recording conversations not meant to be heard outside of the military. Microsoft has said that the Xbox One does not record idle living room chatter.

"Microsoft has single-handedly alienated the entire military," naval aviator Jay Johnson wrote in a Gamasutra piece. "And not just the US military — the militaries of the entire world."

Johnson added that the Xbox One's internet requirement is "the single greatest sin Microsoft has committed against all service members".

Xbox executive Don Mattrick last week offered an alternative for those without an internet connection, such as military members and students.

"Fortunately, we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity; it's called Xbox 360," Mattrick said. "If you have zero access to the internet, that is an offline device."

[orangedog]

US Navy publication blasts Xbox One

Independent US-based military magazine Navy Times has published a new report blasting the Xbox One and its various policies that the publication describes as problematic for those on active duty.

"Fortunately, we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity; it's called Xbox 360," Mattrick said. "If you have zero access to the internet, that is an offline device."

Mattrick should be fired immediately. Whether it is his opinion or whether he was trying to rope in the public to support a cause within MSFT, taking a resolvable issue of a not-yet-released-product outside the company is an immature move.

I'd be curious to see what % of XBOX users are military.

Fortunately it doesn't look like Microsoft backs his position:

"Microsoft just announced that the company has reversed two major Xbox One policies. The Xbox One will not require a 24-hour check-in and it will work with used games just as the Xbox 360 does. This is a complete about-face for the company and a huge policy shift for the console. Basically, this changes everything. This will impact other features, such as the disc-in-tray policy, so it’s not all good news, but most people’s complaints have been addressed."

I'd be curious to see how this continues.

...as always MIKA - thanks for posting these! I check this thread daily.

[MIKA27]

The 10 Most Badass British Military Machines:

Once upon a time, the British armed forces ruled land, air and sea. That time might have been and gone, but British manufacturers big and small are still designing some of the most epic bits of kit for armies round the world. This is a collection of the top ten Made in Britain killing machines.

1. BAE Taranis UAV

What it is: Put simply, it’s the future of combat planes, and it’s made in Britain. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles currently in service are all propellor-powered and easy to shoot down, but that’s not gonna happen with Taranis. It’s a supersonic stealth UAV, designed to sneak through radars and then bomb the crap out of whoever the government doesn’t like at the moment. Although it’s not in service yet.

This is awesome: A little spookily, Taranis also has an artificial intelligence system that should allow it to fly large parts of its missions without human control. Although this is deeply cool, I’m not really sure I want machine-controlled stealth fighters roaming the sky all by their lonesomes, thank you very much.

2. Accuracy International L115A3

What it is: Sometimes simple is best, which is why this comes in at No.2. The new sniper rifle of the British Army, it fires a 8.59mm cartridge out to 1,100+ with incredible accuracy.

This is awesome: This rifle holds the world record for the longest-distance sniper kill, at 2,475m. And, in case you were in any doubt as to how good this rifle is, that wasn’t a one-off shot — the sniper in question hit two targets, and then managed to shoot the machine gun they were using – that’s a tiny target, shot three times in a row from well over a mile away, and just shows how undescribably epic this rifle is.

3. UK Apache

What it is: Ok, so I’m cheating a bit here – this isn’t entirely a British design. The Apache is a US helicopter that British geeks at AugustaWestland took, and made just a little bit better (and it’s built in the UK). It’s a fully digital attack helicopter, with a terrifying array of sensors and weaponry.

Starting with the cameras, it’s got a turret with daytime and infrared cameras built in, that can snoop from miles away, before you even realise you’re being spied on. The pilot’s also got a night vision system that lets him avoid annoying things like trees and mountains at night. The big dome on the top is a radar which can identify enemy people or vehicles, or even map the ground to find cubbyholes or weapon caches.

The weapons, though, are what makes this heli truly badass. The 30mm cannon has a range of around 3km, but the really cool thing is that it will fire where the pilot looks, giving a whole new meaning to the idea of a death stare. There are also 70mm rockets, which can destroy a whole wood, and Hellfire missiles, which are laser-guided and will blow up anything up to a small ship…and cost the same as an Aston Martin DB9!

This is awesome: It can be fully-automated, combining the computer, radar and missiles to identify, prioritise and then blow up 16 targets in under 30 seconds, all with no human intervention — that’s kinda scary.

4. Challenger II Tank

What it is: The Challenger II’s been around for a while now, but I reckon it still keeps its title as the best and meanest tank around, thanks to the combination of clever armour; big engines and ridiculously accurate weapons. The armour is the most impressive part of the package — on one occasion in Iraq, a Challenger was hit by 70 rocket-propelled grenades without sustaining serious damage, and none of them have ever been destroyed by enemy fire. So, if you’re thinking about a roadtrip through a warzone, this is your vehicle of choice. If you managed to get your hands on one, you’d also be able to settle any disputes with the locals, courtesy of the big scary gun on top. A 120mm cannon, it can fire shedloads of different ammunition, including depleted uranium rounds that will go through a couple of feet of plate steel.

This is awesome: The Chally holds the record for the world’s longest-distance tank kill, at five freaking kilometres! Think about it — that’s hitting a target a couple of metres across, at a range where you can barely see a bus! That’s just insane.

5. F35B Strike Fighter

What it is: A joint UK-US venture, the F35B is a stealthy new fighter, with one very special change: it can hover stationary in midair. It has a full arsenal of guided bombs and missiles, which can be carried internally, and it’s also a stealth plane, which makes it damn near impossible to shoot down with missiles. The hover capability means it can operate from small aircraft carriers — like the ones the UK is building — or from improvised airfields on land.

This is awesome: F35s are fully digital, doing away with all the dials in the cockpit. It also means they can share targets across a data link, which I imagine makes shooting down a big swarm of MiGs a bit easier.

6. Type 45 Destroyer

What it is: An air-defence destroyer, mainly designed to find planes, and then blow them up very quickly and painfully. Thanks to being crammed full of sensors and weapons, it’s rather good at its job. The radar and missile combo means that it can shoot down a Mach 3 cricket ball 120km away, so jets and missiles aren’t much of a problem. For close-in stuff, it’s also got a “point-defence” system of 20mm Phalanx guns. These use a radar to lock onto something, then unleashes 4,500 massive 20mm shells per minute — each — to shoot it down. Basically, this ship is the boss of whichever bit of water it happens to be in — even an American admiral labelled it “badass”.

This is awesome: To deal with any of those pesky surface threats like ships, it’s also got a 113mm cannon and two 30mm Gatling guns — both of which can either use radar to lock onto stuff themselves, or be remote-controlled from the ship’s control room — nice if you like blowing bad guys up without getting your hands dirty.

7. Jackal Recce Vehicle

What it is: A small, light (by armoured vehicles standards, anyway!) offroad vehicle for reconnaissance or fire support — basically having a peek or really, really ruining someone’s day. Its armour can withstand massive 0.50 cal bullets, but despite all the armour it can still go 80mph. Its killer feature, though, is the weaponary stuck on the back. The primary weapon is either a Browning 0.50 cal machine gun, pretty much identical to the ones used in Spitfires in WWII, or a 40mm grenade machine gun than can fire high explosive grenades out to 2km. There’s also a 7.62mm machine gun for when you don’t feel like blowing up the whole world.

This is awesome: Thanks to super-clever armour on the bottom of the car, if it hits a mine designed to blow up tanks, it’s so well protected that the occupants will be able to stand up and walk away. Which is handy.

8. BAE Adaptive Tank

What it is: Vehicles make a lot of heat, which can be picked up by infrared cameras, where they’ll show up as big glowing targets — anyone who’s played Call of Duty knows what I’m on about here. This is generally regarded as a bad thing by soldiers, so BAE Systems has designed something that lets vehicles disappear on IR cameras (go to 0.38 to see the magic happen). It uses a matrix of hexagonal panels to act as pixels, which can quickly change temperature to match the background scenery, kinda like an infrared version of Bond’s car in Die Another Day. This doesn’t just mean that the vehicles can’t be found, though — most anti-tank missiles rely on IR seekers, so even if the tanks can be seen with the naked eye, the enemy anti-tank team will be left with a very expensive and totally useless heat-seeking missile, which would be more than a little bit frustrating…

This is awesome: Although it’s only been tried on land vehicles so far, BAE plans on putting it on helicopters and ships next — so true stealth ships maybe aren’t so far away.

9. Trojan Armoured Vehicle

What it is: The Trojan is, simply, massive. It’s basically the world’s most badass piece of construction machinery, but designed for the battlefield. With the armoured plough on the front, it can drive straight through minefields; the excavator arm on the back lets it push pesky things like cars out of the way, and in a hurry it can just drive straight through any brick walls that are foolish enough to get in its way. Oh, and it costs £4,500,000.

This is awesome: It can tow a trailer with a minefield clearing system that uses rockets and explosives to clear a 10m path through a 230m minefield in under 10 minutes.

10. Astute hunter/killer submarine

What it is: The most modern and deadly attack submarine in the world. Almost 100m long and with 98 crew, it’s the world’s first digital submarine, with computers controlling pretty much everything — no optical periscopes on this baby, but a suite of HD and infrared cameras. It carries torpedoes and the notorious Tomahawk cruise missile, so she can hit targets 1,000 miles away to within 30 feet. A nuclear reactor for unlimited power and a 4 different sonar arrays round out an all-round scary bit of kit — with all the black low-drag panels on her, she looks more like the scary supervillian’s ride than something used by the Royal Navy.

This is awesome: Stealth features mean that the Astute-class makes less noise than a baby dolphin, making her impossible to find underwater. So, she can vanish without a trace before blowing something up from 1000 miles away!

[MIKA27]

Mattrick should be fired immediately. Whether it is his opinion or whether he was trying to rope in the public to support a cause within MSFT, taking a resolvable issue of a not-yet-released-product outside the company is an immature move.

I'd be curious to see what % of XBOX users are military.

Fortunately it doesn't look like Microsoft backs his position:

"Microsoft just announced that the company has reversed two major Xbox One policies. The Xbox One will not require a 24-hour check-in and it will work with used games just as the Xbox 360 does. This is a complete about-face for the company and a huge policy shift for the console. Basically, this changes everything. This will impact other features, such as the disc-in-tray policy, so it’s not all good news, but most people’s complaints have been addressed."

I'd be curious to see how this continues.

...as always MIKA - thanks for posting these! I check this thread daily.

You are welcome and always great to read your posts likewise.

I think like anything, there will always be pros and cons for any product and it's good in most cases to post or voice opinions so that the designers, manufactures 'Pre-release' can perhaps make tweaks and changes to suit any 'majority' vs a 'minority'.

I do believe the XBOX One and PS4 should allow backward compatability and also to play 'Off-line' however for myself who is online this poses no issue to me other than if one should be disconnected from the net which can happen from time to time. Also, I myself do not buy a next gen console for backward compatability otherwise I may as well have kept my Atari 2600 back in the day and stick with that!?

[MIKA27]

Watch your step: Londons pavements are literally exploding beneath your feet!

It seems Londons streets are no longer safe. But it’s not the muggers and murderers you have to worry about, it’s the pavements themselves.

According to figures obtained by the BBC, the number of underground blasts has increased dramatically over the last few years, with 12 explosions already to date this year, just like the one in Pimlico above from back in April. It seems the massive electrical cables running under London streets are often to blame, either sparking because of degradation and water damage or igniting leaking gas trapped underground. That in turn propels all sorts of debris into the air, along with anyone who’s unlucky enough to be standing on top at the time.

So far no one has been killed, but people have, unfortunately, been maimed with what are described as “life-changing injuries”, which sound pretty horrific. It’s gotten so bad that the HSE is actually worried someone’s going to be blown to bits soon.

It seems simply absurd that something like this can happen, but the HSE believes it’s all to do with the wet weather, which is a little worrying, considering, you know, it's happening in rainy Britain we’re talking about here. Maybe you should all be driving around in Jackals? (See post above)

[MIKA27]

Homemade Submarines are being made by a man in China:

Would you trust a homemade submarine made by some guy who was laid off of his factory job in China? Maybe not. But don’t you think a $30,000 U.S functional mini submarine is totally worth it? Yes! Screw a new car, buy a submarine!

It’s truly impressive. I mean, what logic points a man who was laid off towards a new career in submarine making? How did this man, a worker in Wuhan, China, manage to cull together $390,000 to start a 10-man workshop to make $30,000 submarines? It’s a freaking submarine, for god’s sake! You can’t just make them. Who does this? What’s amazing is that his first few models sank yet he still kept working at it and people kept supporting him.

Now the actual working mini submarine has room for two people, can dive up to 30 metres and propel as fast as 13 mph for 10 hours. There’s also emergency oxygen reserves and an underwater video camera. Sounds fancy! So who would buy this?

Apparently, fishermen, who use the mini submarine to scout areas rather than hiring professional divers. The submarine maker is on deck to make 3 of these puppies (though his small shop operation limits him to only producing one a month) with hopes of turning this into a fulltime business.

Here’s to you, bold submarine maker, for picking the weirdest post-layoff gig ever.

[Fuzz]

After stealing many PS3 owners with the 360, Microsoft are going to lose a whole bunch of loyal Xbox owners with these new restrictions. Telling prospective customers that if you are unable to work with these restrictions, go and buy the outdated model, is the single most stupid thing Microsoft could possibly say. Way to alienate your followers and prospective new customers.

Edit: After reading OD's post re Microsoft pulling the plug on the 24 check-in, I'm stilled miffed that they even bothered with these stupid restrictions. MS will still lose plenty of customers to Sony.

[Fuzz]

The 10 Most Badass British Military Machines:

3. UK Apache

What it is: Ok, so I’m cheating a bit here – this isn’t entirely a British design. The Apache is a US helicopter that British geeks at AugustaWestland took, and made just a little bit better (and it’s built in the UK). It’s a fully digital attack helicopter, with a terrifying array of sensors and weaponry.

Starting with the cameras, it’s got a turret with daytime and infrared cameras built in, that can snoop from miles away, before you even realise you’re being spied on. The pilot’s also got a night vision system that lets him avoid annoying things like trees and mountains at night. The big dome on the top is a radar which can identify enemy people or vehicles, or even map the ground to find cubbyholes or weapon caches.

The weapons, though, are what makes this heli truly badass. The 30mm cannon has a range of around 3km, but the really cool thing is that it will fire where the pilot looks, giving a whole new meaning to the idea of a death stare. There are also 70mm rockets, which can destroy a whole wood, and Hellfire missiles, which are laser-guided and will blow up anything up to a small ship…and cost the same as an Aston Martin DB9!

This is awesome: It can be fully-automated, combining the computer, radar and missiles to identify, prioritise and then blow up 16 targets in under 30 seconds, all with no human intervention — that’s kinda scary.

Actually, that's not cheating a bit, that's cheating a lot! I don't know who the author is, but nothing stated there is any different to the US Apache Longbow. And that last comment about "no human intervention" is a load of BS. You still need a human to authorise the fire command... unless the UN doesn't follow through with their moratorium on non-human interaction killer drones.

[MIKA27]

After stealing many PS3 owners with the 360, Microsoft are going to lose a whole bunch of loyal Xbox owners with these new restrictions. Telling prospective customers that if you are unable to work with these restrictions, go and buy the outdated model, is the single most stupid thing Microsoft could possibly say. Way to alienate your followers and prospective new customers.

Edit: After reading OD's post re Microsoft pulling the plug on the 24 check-in, I'm stilled miffed that they even bothered with these stupid restrictions. MS will still lose plenty of customers to Sony.

I agree however... That also depends on any restrictions Sony may or may not have on their new console as I heard the PS4 was not backwards compatible.

[MIKA27]

9 Completely Disturbing Scientific Facts

You know how science can be brain-oozingly amazing? Like curing Autism, inventing Star Trek warp drive, lifespan doubling amazing. Yeah, this is the opposite of that.

This short video shows you nine horrifically disturbing scientific facts that will make you realise how many hairs you have on the back of your neck.

[MIKA27]

Samsung ATIV Q: Meet This Freakily Beautiful Frankendevice

At Samsung’s event in London today, they took the lid off two new Windows 8 tablets. One is very normal. The other is very weird. We’re pretty excited about the weird one.

Samsung’s most interesting tablet-type thing is a double-hybrid freak of a device. It has a keyboard that is connected by a rather versatile hinge. It can fold all the way flat against the back so you can use it as a straight up tablet, you can use it as a normal laptop, you can type with having the screen magically floating above your fingers, or you can use it as a stand.

But why is it a double-hybrid? Because it runs Windows 8 AND Android. I guess that’s one way to solve the lack of good tablet apps in the Windows 8 ecosystem. The tablet can switch back and forth between modes, and while it won’t share settings or apps, at least you can share files and folders back and forth. It will be running a full version of Windows 8 (not RT) and Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) with the Google Play Store and all.

Switching back and forth between operating systems looks lighting fast. Just the press of a single button. No booting or anything. It looked extremely seamless. You can also add Android apps to the Windows 8 homescreen for quick access, which is handy.

The other highlight on the ATIV Q is the touchscreen. It’s at 13.3 inch gHD+ display, which comes in at 3200 x 1800 pixels. At 275 pixels per inch that bests even the screen on the Google Pixel (239 PPI). Samsung claims that it’s “the world’s highest resolution display,” has a 170-degree viewing angle, and is clearly viewable in bright sunlight. Very impressive looking.

The ATIV Q comes running Intel’s latest and greatest Haswell processor, which means it should be mighty fast, and it also comes with an S Pen, so the graphic design crowd should be able to really take advantage of all those pixels.

The ATIV Q comes in at 1.37cm thick and weighs 1.2kg. That’s pretty fat and heavy for a tablet. But for a laptop-hybrid thing? Well, maybe that’s not so bad.

It bears mentioning that this entirely dissimilar from Acer’s R7 hybrid, though the ATIV 8 certainly wins in on the resolution and processor front.

No word yet on Australian availability, although we have been told to expect it around Q3.

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The Kite-Borne Camera That Captured Post-Quake San Francisco In 1906

Drone photography is in the news this week, with protesters in Istanbul using unmanned cameras to document the events from above. Interestingly, the very first instance of remote aerial photography was devised to document an urban crisis too: the 1906 earthquake that levelled San Francisco.

George R. Lawrence was an eccentric, brilliant aviator and photographer, whose many claims to fame included building the largest camera ever made for his time. He was also interested in aerial photography — although, after he fell 60m from a balloon, he decided to go another route: kites. Using a 23kg camera strung from a boom-stabilised kite, Lawrence produced some of the first aerial photos of the era, including suburbs, coastlines and cities. He called his device “the Captive Airship”.

Lawrence’s setup.

Lawrence’s most famous image — and the one that made him buckets of money — was shot 300m above San Francisco in 1906. Six weeks after the 7.9-magnitude quake (and resulting fires) that killed 3000 San Franciscans, Lawrence sent his silk-string kite skyward from a ship off the coast of the city. Then he triggered the camera by shooting a battery current up to the device, capturing an iconic image of the still-smouldering city. The resulting photo became iconic — in fact, in 2006, an artist went to great lengths to shoot a modern-day equivalent.

2006 equivalent

Because bird’s-eye-view images were so rare at that time, Lawrence’s photos became a sensation — and they made him incredibly rich. He sold prints of his San Francisco shot for $125 a piece (more than $3000 today), and he eventually made almost half a million dollars, in today’s money, from the image. Check out some of Lawrence’s other shots below — from a turn-of-the-century football game to an aerial view of Park Slope.

A shot taken from the ground in San Francisco in 1906.

A close-up of San Francisco in 1906.

A shot of early Park Slope, Brooklyn.

A Michigan vs Chicago football game in Ann Arbor.

The “International Ballooning Contest”, in Chicago.

The inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt.

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A Watch Inspired By — And Made From — The Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Romain Jerome has become known as the watchmaker that incorporates exotic materials into its timepieces, from moon dust, to metal from the Statue of Liberty, to volcanic ash. And while it’s still embracing that role with the new Moon Orbiter, the watch actually puts more focus on the highly engineered flying tourbillon exposed at the 9 o’clock position than it does its little slice of history.

As with Romain Jerome’s past creations, the Moon Orbiter still incorporates a sprinkling of moon dust and metal harvested from the Apollo 11 spacecraft, but its $115,000 price tag and namesake can be more attributed to the mechanical tourbillon that appears to be suspended in a stationary orbit on the left side of the watch.

It’s left exposed like the rest of the watch’s mechanics so horological aficionados can stare in awe, but even amateur watch enthusiasts can study its complexity and understand why only 25 of these are being created and sold.

Romain Jerome

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Ben Franklin Wanted To See What Our 21st-Century Lives Are Like

Do you ever lie awake at night wondering what the world will look like in 200 or 300 years? Ben Franklin did. He thought that by the 21st century not only would humanity have some absurdly cool gadgets men might live to be over 900 years old.

In a May 31, 1788 letter to Reverend John Lothrop of Boston, Franklin wrote:

I have sometimes wished it had been my destiny to be born two or three centuries hence. For invention and improvement are prolific, and beget more of their kind. The present progress is rapid. Many of great importance, now unthought of, will before that period be procur’d; and then I might not only enjoy their advantages, but have my curiosity satisfy’d in knowing what they are to be.

Franklin acknowledged that he might sound foolish, wishing that he’d get to see 300 years into the future. But he saw great hope for the people of tomorrow in being able to ward off disease. By avoiding sickness, Franklin explains, humans might be able to live as long as biblical figures. Men like Adam (the original dude), Noah (the big flood dude), and Methuselah (the oldest dude) were said to have reached over 900 years of age.

I see a little absurdity in what I have just written, but it is to a friend who will wink and let it pass, while I mention one reason more for such a wish, which is that if the art of physic shall be improv’d in proportion with other arts, we may then be able to avoid diseases, and live as long as the patriarchs in Genesis, to which I suppose we should make little objection.

While medical advances have certainly extended lifespans beyond those in Franklin’s time, one wonders if he’d be thrilled or disappointed with our technological advancements. Sure, we have amazing technologies like the internet. But when we’re using it for things like Outbox (literally the dumbest thing ever invented) he may think we’ve got a collective screw loose.

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Mars Had An Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere Four Billion Years Ago

Although chances are Curiosity is going to come up empty-handed as far as living, maybe-breathing Martians are concerned, four billion years ago might have told a very different tale. After recently examining meteorites and rocks found on Mars, scientists have discovered that Mars developed an oxygen-rich atmosphere over a billion years before Earth.

Some of the rocks in question actually came from NASA’s Spirit Mars rover, which scientists compared to Martian meteorites that had crash landed on Earth. Spirit’s rocks, which came from a 3.7 billion-year-old section of the planet, show signs of early oxygen exposure before sinking back into the terrain. The Martian meteorites, however, came from deep within the surface, which is why they appear virtually unaffected by any sort of oxygen-containing atmosphere.

Most exciting about this discovery is the fact that an oxygen-rich environment is a very strong indicator for life. On Earth, we know that oxygen levels slowly increased thanks to photosynthesizing microbes, which just as well may have been the case on Mars.

According to Professor Bernard Wood of Oxford University:

As oxidation is what gives Mars its distinctive colour, it is likely that the ‘red planet’ was wet, warm, and rusty billions of years before Earth’s atmosphere became oxygen-rich.

Though it may still be mostly speculative at this point, there’s a decent chance that all those wonderful pictures Curiosity beams down could actually be a peak into our planet’s red, dusty future.

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Investigators Hint Real Cause Of The TWA 800 Air Disaster Covered Up

Easily one of the most notorious disasters of the 1990s was the crash of TWA Flight 800 in July 1996, which killed 230 people on their way from New York’s JFK Airport to Paris. The probable cause of the crash was determined to be an accidental fuel tank explosion, but a new documentary is challenging that theory.

But what makes this film more intriguing than your average conspiracy theory documentary are the people involved with it: former members of the official investigation into the crash who are stepping up to refute the National Transportation Safety Board’s explanation of things.

They’re saying that new evidence indicates the plane was taken down by an outside source, a theory that has been discounted several times over the years. Critics have theorized a missile either came from a US Navy vessel or terrorists in a small boat.

Here’s an ABC News report on the new film, called simply TWA 800:

“We didn’t find any part of the aeroplane that indicated a mechanical failure,” one of the whistleblowers says in a trailer for the film. The former officials allege the explosion came from outside the plane, though they don’t speculate any further on the original source.

Another of the whistleblowers, former senior accident investigator with the NTSB Hank Hughes, said in a preview of the documentary that FBI agents were spotted on surveillance cameras going through the hanger where the crash evidence was kept “in the wee hours of the morning… for purposes unknown.”

The AP reports that several of these investigators are now seeking a new probe into the crash, and have filed a petition with the NTSB asking for one. From their story:

The former investigators calling for a new probe say new evidence that a missile may have taken down the jet includes analysis of radar of the jetliner.

Speculation of a missile strike began almost immediately after the crash. Theories that an errant missile may have been fired from a US military vessel were widely refuted, but conjecture about a shoulder-fired missile launched by terrorists in a small boat has never completely gone away.

The petitioners contend that the testimony of more than 200 witnesses who reported seeing streaks of light headed toward the plane should be reconsidered. The NTSB said after the first investigation that it found no evidence of a missile strike. It explained that what witnesses likely saw was the jetliner pitching upward in the first few moments after the explosion, but some witnesses still maintain that the streak of light they saw emanated from the waterline and zoomed upward toward the plane.

NTSB officials today stood by the facts of their investigation, saying it remains one of the most thorough ever conducted. The “missile theory” surfaced early on in the investigation, and law enforcement officials initially believed a criminal act took the plane down, but they later backed away from that possibility.

The documentary airs on the EPIX premium television channel in July.

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This Jacket Lets You Control Your Body Temperature

As you get older, you just want to simplify your life, have less clutter and maybe have a few jack of all trade go-to items for the outdoors. For instance, take this new jacket from Helly Hansen called the H2 Flow that allegedly keeps you cool and warm when you need it. And it’s super lightweight.

HH’s Hollow Heat Flow (H2) system combines insulation (200g fleece in this case) with both positive and negative spaces (aka holes) and the ability to make the right kinds of adjustments to the garment to better regulate your body temperature. Put another way, heat gets trapped in air pockets in certain areas around the body and the holes in the fleece not only trap that hot air, believe it or not, but also help circulate cool air when you unzip the vents.

It sounds like bulls**t marketing jargon, but I can say from personal experience that it’s not. I have an HH jacket with one of the first Flow systems, and, as someone who tends to overheat pretty easily, it was the first jacket that really let me control the temperature around my body. The H2 Flow is an alternative version of the original that’s been built for lightweight applications.

Here are some vids that better demonstrate the heating and cooling effects of the H2 Flow, which is available in Australia for $249.95.

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Mexico's national Pyrotechnics Festival Looks Absolutely Insane (ly Fun)

Who doesn’t love a good fireworks show? People the world over — from Beijing to London — set off pyrotechnics to celebrate everything from New Year to Royal Weddings. Mexico has a similar celebratory tradition, they just don’t even bother launching the pyros —

, that is.

Photographer Thomas Prior recently traveled to Tultepec, Mexico for the celebration of the country’s long-standing fireworks industry. The nine-day National Pyrotechnics Festival has been held annually since the mid-19th century, and often draws over 100,000 participants. Seriously though, how is everybody not on fire?

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The Feds Say That Two Guys Made an X-Ray Weapon to Sicken people

In an attempt to “secretly sicken opponents of Israel” and presumably star as the bad guys in a barely believable action movie, two guys from New York have been accused by the FBI of assembling a portable X-Ray weapon that would shoot lethal doses of radiation. Seriously. They were going to sell it to Israel or the KKK.

The two guys — 49 year old Glendon Scott Crawford, a GE industrial mechanic, and 54 year old Eric J. Feight, a GE contractor — had actually managed to assemble the damn thing. Crawford’s goal was to build “a truck-borne, industrial-grade X-ray system, thus weaponising that system and allowing it to be turned on and off from a distance and without detection.” Basically, beam radiation at people who wouldn’t realise it actually hit until days later. Crawford called the weapon, “Hiroshima on a light switch”.

The AP reports how the two bozos with big bad dreams got caught:

Last June, the undercover investigator brought Crawford X-ray tubes to examine for possible use in the weapon, followed by their technical specifications a month later. At a November meeting in an Albany coffee shop with undercover investigators, Crawford brought Feight, both said they were committed to building the device and named the group “the guild,” the indictment said.

Undercover informants who pretended to be the KKK met with Crawford and Feight (who used codenames Dimitri and Yoda, respectively) to learn about the weapon system and act as potential buyers of the X-ray gun. Luckily, the FBI was able to break up any real transaction of the weapon.

But the most ridiculous thing is — especially for those fearing X-Ray wielding terrorists in the future — that though the weapon was assembled, the feds found it inoperable. In fact, doctors aren’t even sure if such a radiation gun would actually work as detailed even if the weapon itself worked. The two dimwits probably thought they were going to be fleecing the KKK with complicated words and industrial design.

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When Buddhists Go bad: The Growing Movement Of Militant Monks:

The following photographs were taken in May and June 2013.

Wirathu, the spiritual leader of the 969 Buddhist Nationalist movement, and his entourage leave after giving a sermon at a monastery in Mandalay, Burma.

The spectacle of faith makes for luminous photography. Buddhism, in particular, lends itself to the lens: those shaven heads and richly hued monastic robes; the swirls of incense; the pure expressions of devotees to a religion whose first precept is “do not kill.”

But as photographer Adam Dean (Of the Times) discovered when traveling through Burma and Thailand from May to June, Buddhism’s pacifist image is being challenged by a radical strain that marries spirituality with ethnic chauvinism. In Buddhist-majority Burma, where communal clashes have proliferated over the past year, scores of Muslims have been killed by Buddhist mobs, while in Thailand and Sri Lanka the fabric binding temple and state is being stitched ever tighter.

The godfather of radical Buddhism is a monk named Wirathu, a slight presence with an outsized message of hate. Adam followed Wirathu, who has taken the title of “Burmese bin Laden,” around Mandalay in central Burma, as he preached his loathing of the country’s Muslim minority to schoolchildren and housewives alike. In March, tensions detonated in the town of Meikhtila, where communal violence ended dozens of lives, mostly Muslim. Entire Muslim quarters were razed by Buddhists hordes. Even today, anxiety churns. One late afternoon as Adam walked near Wirathu’s monastic compound, a monk hurled a brick at him. Burgundy robes cannot camouflage inborn hostility.

In Southern Thailand, which was once united as a Muslim Malay sultanate, monks count on soldiers to shield them from harm. A separatist insurgency has claimed around 5,000 lives since 2004, and while more Muslims have died, it is Buddhists who feel particularly vulnerable as targets of shadowy militants. The Thai military now stations its troops in Buddhist temple compounds, further cleaving a pair of religions whose followers once shared each other’s feast days. One morning in mid-June, a bomb exploded in Kradoh, Pattani province, as Thai rangers patrolled a street where a peace and reconciliation meeting was taking place.

Chanchote Phetpong, 28, who was clutching a bag of rose apples as he strolled, endured the brunt of the explosion; his orphaned fruit lay scattered in a pool of his blood.

At the nearby Yarang hospital, Adam photographed as teachers, mostly Buddhist, came to pay their respects to the dead ranger, who normally protected them as they walked to school each day. A Muslim nurse with a head covering quietly plucked shrapnel out of Chanchote’s face, cleaning him up for his funeral, while another tended to one of his wounded comrades. A clutch of Buddhist rangers looked on. The nurses’ veils felt like a reproach, a symbol of the divide between faiths in this nervous land. “They are scared of all of us,” whispered one Muslim hospital worker. “We used to have trust but that’s gone.”

A Wirathu supporter bows at his feet outside his quarters at the New Maesoeyin Monastery in Mandalay.

People drive past a burnt-out vehicle and damaged buildings, including a mosque, in the Mingalar Zayyone Muslim quarter, which was razed by Buddhists in ethnic violence in March, in Meikhtila, Burma.

Students of Wirathu study at the New Maesoeyin Monastery in Mandalay.

Villagers from Kyaw Min drive ahead of Wirathu's vehicle as he arrives to give a sermon at the Shwe Areleain Monastery in Kyaw Min Village, Myiamu Township, Burma.

Villagers from Kyaw Min chant and pray as they wait for Wirathu's sermon at the Shwe Areleain Monastery.

Burned trees and damaged buildings are seen through the window of a destroyed house in the Mingalar Zayyone Muslim quarter, which was razed by Buddhists in ethnic violence in March, in Meikhtila, Burma.

A skull on the ground near a Buddhist graveyard, which appears to have been recently desecrated in Meikhtila, Burma.

The Imam of Talanburee Mosque, which was attacked by Buddhist nationalists in 1997, prays in Mandalay, Burma.

A soldier from the 23rd Pattani Battalion of the Thai Army closes the door of an armored troop carrier during a patrol in Pattani, Southern Thailand.

A Thai Army soldier provides security as monks from the Nopawong Saram Temple collect alms on their morning rounds in Pattani, Southern Thailand.

Lieutenant Sawai Kongsit (center) talks to military trainers from the 23rd Battalion of the Thai Army (left) and Buddhist volunteer defense militia (right) during a training session at the Lak Muang Temple in Pattani.

Thai Army Rangers look at the body of recently deceased Chanchote Phetpong, 28, in the Mass Casualty Zone of Yarang Hospital, in Southern Thailand. He was killed by a bomb while on patrol for a peace meeting in Kradoh Village near Pattani. Two other Rangers were also wounded.

A teacher (second from left) who used to be protected by Chanchote Phetpong looks at his body in the Mass Casualty Zone of Yarang Hospital.

Sumoh Makeh, 51, the mother of Subri Dotaeset, 24, weeps during an interview in her home in Talok Hala Village near Yala, Southern Thailand. Subri, a suspected insurgent, was shot and killed in an ambush while attacking a Marine base.