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

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Climate Change Killed Earth's Crocodilians And It Could Bring Them Back, Too

A diverse clan of fearsome crocodilians once roamed the entire planet. Today, only 23 species remain in a handful of locales worldwide. We’ve all heard tales of the giant asteroid that did in the dinosaurs, but the demise of the crocodilians was far less dramatic. The crocs were picked off quietly, as our planet cooled off and dried up over the course of millions of years.

Crocodilians — a group which includes crocodiles, alligators, caimans and the oft-neglected gharials — are the last surviving members of an ancient reptilian lineage known as the pseudosuchians. First appearing in the late Cretaceous period some 85 million years ago, crocs quickly spread all over the planet, diversifying into land-based giants like the eight-ton Sarcosuchus and real-world sea monsters like the shark-tailed thalattosuchians.

While crocs weren’t wiped out during the K/T extinction that ended the reign of the dinos, most of species of the age-old lineage vanished over time. According to an analysis published this week in Nature Communications, a series of climactic and sea level changes dispatched with these impressive predators one by one.

In the new study, researchers at several universities and the Smithsonian constructed the first comprehensive dataset containing the entire known fossil record of crocodilians, along with their extinct pseudosuchian relatives. The figure below, which depicts changes in the total number of pseudosuchian genera over the past 250 million years, shows just how dramatically this group has expanded and contracted over time as Earth’s thermostat has cycled up and down.

Crocodilians, the one extant group of pseudosuchians, used to be all over the place, but today’s remaining species are restricted to a handful of tropical habitats. To piece together what happened, the researchers compared their fossil dataset with information on Earth’s climate in the recent geologic past.

Crocs are ectotherms, meaning they can’t regulate their internal temperature. During the transition between the Eocene and Oligocene periods some 41 to 23 million years ago, climactic cooling killed off many land-based crocs in the Northern Hemisphere.

Ten million years ago crocs suffered another blow when the vast, lush wetlands of North Africa dried up and gave way to our planet’s largest desert. Five million years ago in South America, the rise of the Andes Mountains displaced a massive, proto-Amazonian wetland. Out went the crocs. Marine crocodilians don’t appear to have been affected by climate change per se, but by sea level changes and accompanying shifts in the ecological balance of ocean communities.

A gharial at the San Diego zoo, via Wikimedia

The slow demise of the crocs is a fascinating story about Earth’s geologic past, but it also raises questions about the future. If our fossil fuel emissions continue unchecked, we could find ourselves on course for a world similar to the hot, humid one once ruled by crocodilians. Will it be Rise of the Planet of the Crocs? That’s one potential side-effect of climate change which actually sounds pretty rad.

But there are no guarantees. Remember, the Earth is heating up today because of humans — humans who take up lots of space, resources, and habitat. If we want these ancient predators to survive, it isn’t enough for us to just crank up the temperature. We’re going to have to do everything we can to protect them.

[MIKA27]

The Pentagon's Research Arm Is Putting Money Into DNA Manufacturing

The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the governmnet division that tries to take cutting-edge technology and turn it into something the military can use. The agency’s latest target? Genetic engineering.

The Foundry is a facility which is part of the Broad Institute, a joint MIT-Harvard biomedical research institute. It started work on a project involving “assembling massive genetic systems involving many genes” two years ago, with $US7 million in seed funding from DARPA; now that the theory has been proved, DARPA is pouring in a lot more money, in the form of a $US32 million contract.

What kind of stuff are they trying to achieve at the Foundry? Well, no-one’s talking about genetically enhanced soldiers just yet. Rather, the focus is on things like agriculture and medicine: for example, reengineering genomes to change the baterial processes that convert nitrogen in the air to ammonia, reducing the need to fertizile crops.

It’s an exciting technology with virtually endless potential applications; funding from anywhere, even the creepy arm of military research, should help advance the project. Just keep an eye out for any of the Marvel comic villains in the meantime.

[MIKA27]

Enormous Time Capsule Opened, Sucks

Last Friday I told you about the John F. Kennedy Peace Capsule that was being dug up and opened in Michigan after 50 years of sitting in the ground. And just as I feared, everything inside was a wet mess.

MLive has raw video of the time capsule opening from Saturday afternoon. And it’s not a pretty sight. “Well, there’s some microclimates,” a man said after cracking open the top of an enormous crate. Two men in respirator masks dutifully dug through the gigantic time capsule, now filled with water.

Despite pulling out some commemorative plates, an old pair of boots, a coffee grinder, and some large ice tongs, it’s hard to identify most of what was inside this unfortunate time travelling box. The vast majority of the time capsule’s treasures are now little more than pulpy bags of mud.

“This may be a long process,” Ron Bloomfield, historian at the Bay County Historical Society told MLive. “We have to deal with it like it’s a shipwreck because of all the water.”

Burying things in the ground is one of the worst ways to preserve them for future generations. And this crate, filled with dozens of items that the people of 1965 had hoped would survive into the future, shows just how badly a time capsule can fail.

This time capsule wasn’t even supposed to be opened yet. The people of Bay City, Michigan had originally intended it to be opened in the year 2065, but the local government recently decided that fifty years was enough. And it’s just as well that they did. Another fifty years in the ground would not have helped preserve these dripping bags of mush.

No one knew for sure what exactly was inside the time capsule before it was opened. And for the most part, many of the paper items will be lost forever, despite being wrapped in plastic.

“My dad wrote a letter and paid [the crew that built it] $US3 to put it in the capsule,” one local Bay City resident told MLive. “I asked him what he put in it, but he said, ‘You’ll find out in 100 years.’ Instead, it was 50. I know he left a message for us five kids.”

Buuuuttttt….. that message is probably gone now. And that’s kind of the way things go for us time capsule nerds.

Most time capsules are boring, others are ravaged by weather or time, but every now and then maybe, just maybe, you get a pristine capsule with something really cool inside. This, my fellow time capsule nerds, was not one of those times.

Good effort, folks of 1965. Maybe you’ll get ‘em next time.

Is that Ken?

[MIKA27]

This Hot Sauce Is Made With Giant Ants And Termites

Hot sauce is one of those universal truths that different cultures from all over the world have realised is so completely awesome. Everybody has their own preference and people use different peppers and make their hot sauce at varying levels of spice and heat but all hot sauce is good. Even this hot sauce made with giant ants and termites, I’m sure.

National Geographic shows how kumache, a hot sauce in Kumarakapay in Venezuela, is made. It’s a pretty involved process that requires boiling down yuca, throwing in peppers and mixing in red ants and termites (that you have to hunt down in the fields).

[Fuzz]

There's a bunch of brilliant tunes for Bond. Some of my recent favourites are these from Craigs Bond flicks;

Who? Never heard of these "Craig" Bond films. As far as I'm aware, the last Bond film was Die Another Day....

[MIKA27]

How One Of The Best Steaks In America Is Made From The Butcher To The Table

Peter Luger’s Steakhouse in Brooklyn, New York serves one of the most delicious and iconic slabs of meat that you can get anywhere on the planet. Their Porterhouse is what you dream of when you imagine steak at a steakhouse. Eater shows how that fantastic deliciousness gets to the restaurant starting with the butcher and going through the cooking process and then finally reaching the table. I want to eat this for the rest of my life.

[MIKA27]

Who? Never heard of these "Craig" Bond films. As far as I'm aware, the last Bond film was Die Another Day....

[MIKA27]

This Batshit Crazy Company Wants To Build Mobile Private Islands

Yachts are for chumps. People who really know how to spend their money get submersible yachts from Migaloo, a mysterious company that offers five different models of underwater palaces. But true evil villains just go for the Migaloo’s crown jewel: Kokomo Ailand.

Kokomo Aisland is a mobile private island that floats on two semi-submersible platforms. Just shy of 117 metres long, this massive habitat is a floating fun zone — especially when it’s in international waters.

The specific design is totally customisable, but Migaloo offers some pretty ludicrous amenities. Here’s a list from the Austrian company’s website that makes Kokomo Ailand sound like a personal cruise ship:

– Private owners penthouse 80 M above sea level

- jungle deck with palm trees and vertical gardens

- beach deck with entertainment pool & barbecue area

- garden deck with al-fresco outdoor dining

- spa deck with spa and beauty saloons

- large pool areas and waterfalls

- 2 beach clubs including beach gym

But then the place starts to sound like a Bond movie:

– underwater dining saloon, shark-feeding station

- outdoor cinema

- heli deck

- massive storage for tender & toys

You can interpret the phrase “massive storage for tender & toys” however you’d like. We can only imagine it’s a vault full of gold coins and platinum-plated vibrators.

But inevitably, Kokomo Ailand is a place for relaxation, a way to get away from it all (think: extradition laws), talk to exotic tropical birds, and enjoy fruit-flavored cocktails on the water.

Don’t forget, the glory of owning your own mobile island is the idea that you can flee to a new paradise anytime you want.

Moby **** sightings are not guaranteed, but they are encouraged!

Does all this seem ridiculous to be true? It probably is. The company lists Kokomo Island for sale — along with a fleet of five submersible yachts — on its spare website, though there are plenty of pretty renderings of what such a rich boy toy would look like. However, Migaloo hasn’t actually sold any mobile private islands.

[MIKA27]

1962 FORD MUSTANG I CONCEPT PROMOTIONAL FILM

The first Mustang was shown to the general public in 1962, it looked vastly different from the car that would actually go into production in 1964 but it gave Ford a solid testbed for potential new technologies.

The Ford Mustang I Concept had a spaceframe chassis with an aluminium skin riveted to it, it was powered by a 91 cubic inch (1.5 litre) V4 mid-mounted engine and sent power to the rear wheels via a 4-speed all-synchromesh transmission. This mid-mounted engine is the reason that the ’64 Mustang was released with faux-airscoops behind the doors – even though it was front engined.

This film is an official Ford promotional film from 1962, it shows the car in great detail and of course when the film was made, no one knew that the Mustang name would go on to become a major global icon. The film runs 23 minutes and 30 seconds in length and it’s essential viewing for anyone with an interest in automotive history.

[MIKA27]

FOUR ROSES LIMITED EDITION SMALL BATCH BOURBON

Every year, Four Roses release their Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon in the fall, and every year it's one of the best whiskies made. This year is no exception, and you could argue that it might be the best one yet, especially since it's the last one Master Distiller Jim Rutledge will have his fingerprints on before his retirement. It's a barrel strength blend of 16-year-old OBSK, 14- and 15-year-old OESK and 11-year OBSV recipes and won't be on store shelves long if it makes it there at all.

[MIKA27]

What Sorts Of Life Forms Could Actually Live On Mars?

Yesterday, NASA reignited our hopes of finding alien life when it announced the first direct evidence of liquid water on Mars. But before we start indulging in fantasies of space crabs and reptilian beings, we ought to remember that Mars is a frigid world with a thin atmosphere. And that raises an obvious question: What sorts of life forms could actually live there?

Any life on Mars today is almost certainly microbial, but beyond that, we can’t be sure of anything until we actually dig it up and study it. Still, we can make some educated guesses about the nature of Martian life, by taking a deep dive into some of the weirdest biology on planet Earth.

Some Like it Cold, and Salty

Per NASA, the “strongest evidence yet” that liquid water flows intermittently on the Martian surface comes from a new spectroscopic analysis, which found hydrated perchlorate salts in flow streaks on the walls of Martian craters. Dissolving salt in water is one of the best ways of keeping it from freezing at subzero temperatures, and perchlorate salts, which consist of chlorine and oxygen bound to various other atoms, do the job better than most. Certain perchlorates are known to keep liquids from freezing at temperatures as low as -94 degrees Fahrenheit (-70 degrees Celsius).

Dark narrow streaks, called “recurring slope lineae,” emanate from the walls of Garni Crater on Mars. These streaks are considered strong evidence of liquid water on modern day Mars. Image Credit: NASA

So the thinking goes that on Mars, briny liquid water occasionally flows down crater walls, depositing salt streaks as it evaporates into the thin atmosphere. Whether that water originates in subsurface reservoirs, or if perchlorate salts are literally pulling water vapour from the air remains to be seen.

Now, before we get too deep into our biological speculation here, it’s important to bear in mind that these brines may be too extreme for any life, period. “There are brines on Earth that are too salty for life,” NASA astrobiologist and noted Martian terraforming enthusiast Chris McKay told Gizmodo in an email. “The most famous is Don Juan Pond in Antarctica. This [Martian] brine is even saltier than the calcium chloride brine in Don Juan Pond.”

Be that as it may, these brines are still a good place for us to begin imagining the types of habitats that could exist on Mars, and the adaptations life would need to survive. So, what sorts of life forms can live in very cold, very salty water?

Over the years, scientists have identified a wide range of halophilic (salt-loving) and psychrophilic (cold-loving) microbes here on Earth. Recently, we’ve even found a few psychrohalophiles — you guessed it, cold-salt lovers — that thrive in briny, Antarctic lakes or veins of liquid sandwiched within glacial ice sheets. The temperature and salinity limits for these organisms aren’t well-established, although a rough limit of of 10º F (-12ºC) for cell division and -4ºF (-20ºC) for basic metabolic functions has been proposed. One psychrohalophile, Psychromonas ingrahamii, grows at temperatures as low as 10ºF and salt concentrations of up to 20%.

Scanning electron micrograph of bacterial cells inhabiting icy brine channels in Antarctica’s Lake Vida. Image Credit: Christian H. Fritsen, Desert Research Institute

How do microbes on Earth manage in this kind of environment? To keep from shriveling up like a slug in salt pile, halophiles actively pull salt inside their cells. Being salty puts the osmosis gradient on your side (i.e., water flows into your cell, not out of it), but it also has the added perk of ensuring you don’t freeze solid — which would make metabolism rather impossible.

Physiological adaptations in a psychrophile. Image Credit: Maayer et al. 2014

Salt balance aside, a number of other adaptations help psychrophiles from clamming up in the cold. Psychrophile cell membranes tend to be rich in unsaturated fatty acids compared with saturated fats (think olive oil versus butter), and contain additional transport proteins for moving materials in and out of the cell. Their enzymes are more structurally flexible than their fair-weather counterparts. Some of these critters even produce antifreeze proteins, which help limit the growth of ice crystals within their cells.

Finally, genetic analyses show that psychrophiles tend to harbour a large number of “mobile DNA elements” — genes encoding cold-adaptive traits that can be swapped from microbe to microbe. If you’re a psychrophile in an Antarctic brine, and you’re missing a certain protein that’s critical for survival, you might just be able to acquire the genetic blueprints from a neighbour.

A Toxic, Radiation-Blasted Wasteland

The adaptations of psychrohalophiles on Earth hint at the possible life strategies of Martian microbes. But there are a few other big, big challenges that any life forms on Mars would have to overcome. First, there’s the fact that Mars, lacking an ozone layer, is blasted all day long with sterilizing UV radiation. Then there’s the actual nature of the salts in the Martian brines we’ve found so far. Perchlorates are highly corrosive compounds, toxic to most organisms on Earth.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Basically, our Martian microbes would have to get over the fact that Mars is a a toxic, radiation-filled wasteland.

One way to avoid the radiation would be to live underground. Maybe the perchlorate streaks we’re seeing are indicative of subsurface aquifers, and maybe those aquifers offer a radiation-free refuge. But we’re not at all sure that this is the case. In fact, in a press conference yesterday NASA made it clear that it favours another hypothesis for the formation of perchlorate brines — a process known as deliquesence, wherein salts literally pull water out of the atmosphere.

It’s hard to imagine life as we know it making a living in salty water that condenses from the atmosphere, only to re-evaporate soon after. But maybe not impossible — again, we can find analogous situations here on Earth. In the Atacama desert, one of the driest and most radiation-ridden environments on the planet, scientists find microbes living in thin films of liquid water on the surface of salt crystals. According to a paper published in 2011 in the journal Astrobiology, these thin films are probably formed by deliquesence.

Microbes grow in salt crystals below the Atacama Desert. Credit: Parro et al./CAB/SINC

Perhaps the biggest reason astrobiologists are taking the discovery of liquid water on Mars with a grain of salt (heh) has to do with the perchlorate itself. As lead study author Lujendra Ojha told Space.com, perchlorates have a very low “water activity,” meaning the water within them is not easy for life to use. “If [these brines] are perchlorate-saturated brines, then life as we know [it] on Earth could not survive in such low water activity,” Ojha said. Oh, and in addition to low water activity, perchlorate is straight-up toxic to most life on Earth.

But we should keep an open mind, because if there’s one thing microbial life on Earth has demonstrated time and again, it’s an astounding ability to adapt to toxic environments. There are bugs that thrive in highly corrosive acid mine drainage sites and arsenic lakes. We’ve documented arctic microbes adapting to rising levels of mercury pollution. Microbiologists have even found evidence of bacterial enzymes — here on Earth — that might degrade perchlorate.

Berkeley Pitt, a former open-pit copper mine loaded with toxic waste, harboring a unique microbial ecosystem. Image Credit: Kris Taeleman/Getty Images

Setting aside the perchlorate brines, there could be other environments on Mars that are more hospitable to life. As science writer Emily Lakdawalla pointed out in a blog post yesterday, another promising environment is the thin films of water the Mars Phoenix lander observed in the soil at its circumpolar landing site. “A less-accessible, but also less-radiation-fried and more-continuously-habitable place would be deep underground, where Mars’ internal heat could keep groundwater liquid for very long periods of time,” Lakdawalla writes.

Definitive evidence of liquid water on Mars doesn’t mean that there’s life on Mars. But it does offer some tangible hope. As planetary director Jim Green said of the news yesterday, “Everywhere we go where there is liquid water, we find life.” The exact nature of that life is something we can’t be certain of until we get our hands on some samples. And the mission to do that is coming. In 2020, NASA has scheduled the next Mars rover or bring back samples to hunt for “chemical fossils” or other evidence of life.

But given what we know and what we’re now learning about the Martian environment, it seems fair to say that any life we do find will be truly astounding.

[MIKA27]

Watch This Magical Concrete Slurp Up 3,785 Litres Of Water In A Minute

A new kind of concrete from the UK building materials company Tarmac instantly soaks up litres and litres of H20 — simultaneously preventing flood conditions while also conserving water by cycling it directly back into the ground.

It’s called Tarmac Topmix Permeable, and it’s a super-porous concrete pavement designed to remove storm and floodwater from parking lots, driveways, footpaths, and other surfaces. It was designed by Britain’s LaFarge Tarmac, who call the idea part of a “sustainable urban drainage system.” Water enters the permeable concrete top layer, and then passes through pebbles beneath to become groundwater in the soil.

The company says that the concrete could be installed anywhere to mitigate flood risk, but anyone who uses it should carry out a survey first to scope out any sinkholes or other possible pitfalls, literal and figurative, in the area.

The one big caveat? If the concrete is installed someplace cold, the water could freeze, which would ruin the whole system. So the company’s next challenge is figuring out a way to build a version of the porous concrete that can adapt to cold climates.

Even if it’s relegated to warmer climates for now, a footpath that slurps up puddles before soaking our shoes (or worse, our cars or buildings) is a great idea.

[MIKA27]

Article From 1975: The World Will Be Out Of Oil By 2015

The idea of peak oil has haunted us for decades. I say haunt because the concept that sooner or later we’d run out of the stuff has contributed to some terrible public policy in the United States.

Environmentalists of the 20th century took solace in the fact that if we wouldn’t convert to renewable energy through political action, then at least nature and a dwindling supply would sort these things out.

But it didn’t. The oil companies simply found new oil reserves, and new technologies to get it out of the ground.

As a society, we need to get off of fossil fuels. Not because our planet is going to run out of them, but because it’s destroying us. This is the 21st century. We have the technology. We can’t wait for the oil to run out. Because it’s not going to anytime soon. Just look at this prediction from 1975:

The United States may be totally independent of Arab oil by the year 2015.

Unfortunately, so will everyone else because statistically that will be the year the last barrel of oil is pumped from the last well on earth.

Of course, there will be no “last barrel” as such in 2015 because the world’s oil fields cannot continue to produce at current levels much longer.

The 1975 International Petroleum Encyclopedia, updated and published annually by the Petroleum Publishing Co., sets proven world reserves — the oil known for a fact to be present and recoverable by current technology — at about 103 billion metric tons. The current world annual consumption rate is approximately 2.8 billion.

These were not the predictions of some crackpot. It’s from a September 28, 1975 article in the Brownsville Herald, syndicated by the UPI and printed in newspapers around the United States.

Peak oil is a myth. The terrible dogma of peak oil is not why we should be embracing alternative energy. Global climate change is the reason. Clear and simple. Everyone needs to stop wearing peak oil like a security blanket. It’s not going to save you. And it’s not going to save us.

[MIKA27]

The Trailer For The New X-Files Mini-Series Is Here

The new X-Files TV series is less than a fortnight away from its world-first debut at New York Comic Con, but we’re still a few months from its January 2016 broadcast premiere. Until then, we’ll have to make do with illegal bootlegs, or official trailers — titled The Truth Is Still Out There, this is a new, 45-second teaser for the upcoming six-part miniseries that continues the X-Files story.

In the miniseries, set to broadcast in the US on January 24th, 2016, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are back, along with their nemesis, the mysterious ex-governmental Smoking Man whose job is to conceal the existence of aliens on our planet.

[MIKA27]

The Longest Glass Bridge On Earth Caters To Tourists Who Like Being Scared Silly

Tourists of the 19th century had Ferris Wheels to freak themselves out. The 20th century had bungee jumping and skydiving. Today, cities in the US, China, and Canada are building permanent glass “skywalks,” the longest of which — a 300 metre monster — just opened in Hunan province, China.

Hunan is home to some of the country’s most amazing geology and plenty of adventure tourism, thanks to its UNESCO-protected warrens of massive sandstone pillars, complex caves, and forests. It’s been a big tourism magnet for a long time, but over the past two years it’s become a hotspot for a new form of “adventure:” The glass skywalk.

Skywalks, where a series of strong glass panels are suspended or cantilevered out over a tall cliff or building, are popular everywhere right now: One opened in Canada some 300 metres above a glacier in Jasper National Park in 2011. Chicago installed a glass deck over the edge of the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower in 2009. The Grand Canyon has one too, a curving steel-rimmed U-shape that juts out over the main canyon, which opened in 2007. But China is definitely the leader in this category, and many of its skywalks are being built in Hunan, where tourists visiting its geological wonders are rife.

The Grand Canyon skywalk

The latest of these opened last week in Shiniuzhai, a geology park about an hour outside of Changsha. There, an almost 300 metre long wood and steel footbridge has spanned a valley there for years. But last year, perhaps in order to compete with high-profile glass skywalks elsewhere in Hunan, several of its wooden slats were replaced with inch-thick structural glass.

Over the past few months, the park has replaced all of the wood panels with glass, opening the full glass version of the footbridge on Thursday, according to the Independent. Visitors took selfies and scrambling across the glass in press photos.

Its length makes it the longest such bridge in existence, though it’s got plenty of competition amongst skywalks. In April, a glass cantilever structure, jutting out above 700 metre high cliffs, opened in Longgang, in Shenzhen. And in May, another Hunan geological site, Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, opened a 2oo-foot-long glass skywalk that’s cantilevered off of the edge of a mountain almost 1.5km above the ground.

It’s easy to see the allure of these structures, both in Hunan and other regions of the world where tourists are looking for “adventure” experiences — and parks are looking for low impact ways to sell them. This iswell-studied phenomenon: A group of researchers at Bond University in Australia summed up a recent study of fear and tourism thusly:

The results confirm that facing fear or challenge, leading to being intrinsically rewarded, is a main motivator. However, the aspect of fun is still fundamentally important to each activity. The youth traveller market is generally extremely responsive to viral marketing, which (through wording and visuals) creates an image of a “life‐changing experience”, “thrilling adventure”, and similar.

Skywalks provide the “fear” as well as the Instagram bragging rights, but in bite-sized and relatively low-time-investment way. The technology has quickly progressed to a point where it’s feasible to build a skywalk for relatively low costs.

In fact, the biggest liability is usually the shoes of visitors — which leave scuffs, smears, and scratches in the glass. In 2011, the Grand Canyon’s 46 panels had to be replaced completely. There are other ways to fight scratching, though they’re not perfect either.

At Chicago’s Skydeck, engineers spec’d a thin layer of scratch-proof glass atop the structural panels, designed to be replaced every few months. But last year, the thin cosmetic glass cracked while visitors stood on it, scaring the bejesus out of a group posing for a photo.

In Shiniuzhai, the park is taking precautions against scratching, too: Visitors have to wear blue surgical booties. They might not look great in selfies, but it’s better than the sensation one visitor in Chicago described last year: “I had my palms on the floor and I could feel it cracking.”

[MIKA27]

110-Year-Old Electric Car Sells For $135,000

Teslas might be ‘practical’ and ‘fast’ and other useful things, but they’re also a little nouveau riche. If you want real electric-car class, you’ve got to hark back to 1905, and this very expensive vintage golf cart.

The 1905 Woods Electric Queen Victoria Brougham — described by Bonhams as still functional and recently driven — was one of the early electric car pioneers. Equipped with an open-air cab and a curb weight of 2,600 pounds, it was the height of style for anyone with $4300, or $114,000 in today’s money.

The car, which was just sold by Bonhams for $135,000, is the only surviving model. It was last sold in 2010for $110,000, so if you’re looking for a stylish investment you can also drive, it’s a pretty safe bet.

[MIKA27]

This Ridiculous Gun Was Made To Shoot 100 Birds At Once

If you happen to think killing two birds with one stone is a bit inefficient, or you have found your way into a zombie apocalypse, you might be interested in a special type of gun known as a “punt gun,” that used to be somewhat common among commercial waterfowl hunters. What’s so special about this gun? It is capable of killing upwards of 50-100 birds in a single shot.

Market hunters first made their appearance in what would become the United States around the time of the Pilgrims and continued plying their trade en masse until around the beginning of the twentieth century. Some earned their living by bringing as many ducks or other waterfowl to market as possible. While various methods were used for bringing down the maximum number of birds per hunting trip, the most effective was ambushing a large flock with a punt gun.

As you might imagine from this, they were too heavy and the recoil too strong for a hunter to fire them by hand. Instead, they were (usually) mounted to small, often flat bottomed, boats known as “punts.” Hunters aimed the gun by manoeuvring the boat into position one or two dozen meters from their targets, and then fired.First put in use in the 1800s, the punt guns were never manufactured on a large scale, with each being custom made by a gunsmith to fit a buyer’s specifications. But in general, the barrels had openings upwards of 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter and weighed over 100-pounds (45 kg). They generally could fire more than a pound of shot at a time and usually measured over 10 feet (3 m) long.

That said, not all punt guns were always mounted to boats. One of the smallest examples of a punt gun is the Herfurth’s Cannon. Crafted by German gunsmith August Herfurth in Wisconsin, it measures 63-inches (160 cm) long and includes a 46-inch (116 cm) long Remington octagonal barrel with a one-inch diameter. As for the weight, it’s approximately 26-pounds or just under 12 kilograms, making it a featherweight compared to most punt guns. However, it is still much too big and has too much kick to be fired like a normal shotgun. But its relatively small size did allow the owner to hunt from the shore with proper bracing before pulling the trigger.

On the other end of the spectrum, the world’s largest punt gun, “Irish Tom,” was reported to have taken down a little over 100 birds with a single shot, according to its original owner. (However, a more usual haul per shot was in the typical range of 50 birds, give or take a dozen or two.) Irish Tom’s barrel measures more than 14-feet long (4.2 m), and the whole gun weighs more than 300 pounds (136 kg)! More akin to a cannon than a shotgun, it could fire over three pounds of shot with the help of about 10 ounces of black powder. The size of Irish Tom meant its first owner was forced to build a specially reinforced punt boat 7 metres long.

As an example of how effective this was, a market hunter in the eastern United States, Ray Todd, claimed he and three other hunters with punt guns managed to kill 419 ducks one night in a single volley after encountering a huge flock “over a half-mile long and nearly as wide.”Market hunters used punt guns from the nineteenth through the early twentieth century. The hunters often worked in groups of eight to ten and fired their combined punt guns at the same time to maximise the number of waterfowl they could hit.

After the first volley, he stated, “The birds flew off a short distance and began to feed again. We made three more shots that night. By morning we had killed over 1,000 ducks. They brought $3.50 a pair in Baltimore, and it was the best night’s work we had ever done.”

Not surprisingly, in the years after market hunters began using punt guns, the population of wild waterfowl began to decline in the United States dramatically. Punt guns most certainly played a role in the decline along with the decrease in available habitat.

Sportsmen who hunted for personal use of the killed waterfowl, rather than for profit like the market hunters, began advocating for hunting regulations and limits. In response, many states in the U.S. outlawed the use of punt guns by the 1860s, while the Lacey Act of 1900 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 effectively ended their use in the country. That said, punt guns are still legal in the United Kingdom, though their barrels are restricted to a diameter less than 1.75-inches. Hunters must also have a permit from the government for the gun and black powder, and they must adhere to strict hunting seasons. All this hasn’t proved much of a problem as there are only a few dozen currently used punt guns left in the U.K. today.

[MIKA27]

EPIC STREET ART THAT WILL SLAM YOUR JAW FIRMLY ON THE FLOOR

It's not an exaggeration to say that Portuguese street artist Odeith is one of the most gifted 3D graffiti artists of his generation. He's been perfecting his craft for over 30 years, constantly refining his technique on various walls all around Europe.

His astounding anamorphic compositions (a mixture of illusion and forced perspective) are ideally exhibited on corner walls, this helps to generate a even greater sense of depth and an added dimension.

Here's a few examples of his eye-catching work, the perfect blend of imagination, skill, patience and remarkable technique.

[MIKA27]

STORMTROOPER HELMET

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens just around the corner, ANOVOS has begun taking discounted pre-orders of their latest creation, a life-size helmet of the First Order Stormtrooper’s helmet.

This helmet replica is based on the new design from the upcoming movie. It’s a 1:1 model that is made with lightweight injection-molded plastic, with the iconic white and black colorway that let’s everyone know that you’re on the dark side of things. Of course, wearing it automatically renders your laser gun inaccurate, but at least you’ll look cool. It’s available now for pre-order for $200, and after the pre-order period, the price will jump to $250. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

SKARP LASER RAZOR

The shaver isn’t typically something that sees a lot of mind-blowing innovation. While most razor companies try to make the smallest and manliest-looking shaver on the market, Skarp Technologies is looking to change the market entirely with a laser-powered razor.

The Skarp Laser Razor sounds like something straight out of Star Trek the Next Generation, but this razor really cuts your hair entirely without the use of a blade. That means there are no scratches, no razor burn, no itchiness and no accidental cutting. Most importantly, it will reduce the amount of disposable plastic razors that are thrown away (two billion razors are thrown away in the US alone). The laser has a life of 50,000 hours, and is powered by a single AAA that lasts about a month with normal use. It doesn’t require the use of water (although it can be used with water just fine). They’re built out of aluminum, with a thin hair-cutting laser where a blade would typically be. It’s available on Kickstarter now for $159 to early backers. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

‘The Revenant’ Official Trailer

There are some actors who you trust to select elite projects. Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy are two of them. The two meet up again in The Revenant, a visually stunning take on a true story about an expedition into the uncharted American wilderness. From a vicious bear attack to frozen-on snot, it looks harrowing and mesmerizingly brutal. In theaters December 25.

[MIKA27]

HORNET ULTRALIGHT BACKPACKING TENT

The Hornet Tent by Nemo Equipment is the ultimate ultralight backpacking tent, offering great livability and comfort. The Hornet 2P features a single pole frame keeping the weight of your pack down, while two doors and two vestibules, offer ample gear storage and easy access in and out of the tent. An inner tent has a built-in privacy panel for extended coverage and security, and the large mesh upper keeps bugs out but lets you watch the stars above. An easy on rain-fly and small pack are also included.

[MIKA27]

Wonderful Animation Explains Why The ISS Is So Amazing

You don’t even have to think that hard to know that the International Space Station is a truly incredible thing that humans have done. Good job us (or people much smarter than us). It’s an amazing feat of engineering, it’s an example of what can be done when different countries work together with one goal, and it taps into our innate dreams of the cosmos and being in awe with what’s out there.

Not to mention, it’s just really freaking cool to see humans do stuff in space and to see what the view is like up there and to just imagine in zipping around our Earth. Tien Nguyen explains for Ted-Ed how the ISS came together and how its an example of a huge collaboration effort for Team Earth:

The International Space Station is roughly the size of a six-bedroom house and weighs more than 320 cars — it’s so large that no single rocket could have lifted it into orbit. Instead, it was assembled piece by piece while hurtling through space at 28,000 kilometers per hour, lapping the Earth once every 90 minutes. Tien Nguyen explains how.

[Habana Mike]

1962 FORD MUSTANG I CONCEPT PROMOTIONAL FILM

Looks to me Chevrolet stole the plans......<cough> Corvette <cough>......

[MIKA27]

A Simple Flaw Is Causing A Huge Recall Of 1.3 Million Bikes

Recalls aren’t uncommon, but this is a big one: A group of thirteen bike brands are recalling more than 1.3 million disc brake-equipped bikes.

It’s one of the biggest recalls of bicycles in recent memory, involving big names like Giant, Specialised, Cannondale, Diamondback, Fuji, Novara, Ridly, and Felt, and it stretches from bikes sold this year to bike sold, in one case, as early as 1998. Luckily, the fix is fairly simple: Owners just need to stop by their shop and get a new quick release lever.

What exactly is being recalled? The part in question is a front wheel lever that connects the tire to your frame’s fork. This particular lever, which is made by a separate company and bought by the brands in question, has a design flaw: When it’s open, the lever extends far back enough that in the right position it can get caught in the holes of your disk brake — preventing it from, you know, braking:

Of course, this will only happen if your lever comes open while you’re riding, but if you tighten it incorrectly or not enough, it’s possible that it could open up while you’re in motion and you could crash out. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says only one injury has been reported so far, by someone who broke a finger when the lever came open.

Disc brakes use a metal disc attached to the hub to brake rather than calipers attached to the wheel’s rim. While they have long been used on mountain bikes, the past few years have seen a huge increase in disc brakes on other types of bike, beginning with cyclocross and now extending even to road bikes. Back in 2011, Bicycling said it could be “the biggest revolution in ride technology since integrated shifting.” In April, another massive bike recall dealt with a similar problem on Trek-specific disc brake bikes, recalling almost a million models because of a lever issue, as Outside concisely explained.

This seemingly simple problem — where a standard-issue lever interacts with a newer brake design — illustrates how sticky it can be to integrate old and new technology into a single product. Obviously, this is a problem that should have been caught sooner — it’s unclear why it took this long for this group of brands to act after Trek issued its recall in April — but it’s good they have now. Anyways, go get yourself to your local bike shop and pick up a replace lever.