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

[MIKA27]

SAINT PAUL APARTMENT

A successful merging of the old and the new, the Saint Paul Apartment takes full advantage of its interior contradictions. The one-bedroom space is housed in the attic of an 18th-century building in Paris' historic Le Marais district, and sports a neutral palette that lets the home's details shine. Those details include natural rafters that command attention thanks to the white walls and ceiling, a sleeping area separated by a steel and glass wall, and a wall of solid walnut panels that hides storage space, a dressing room, laundry, and bathroom. The result is an impressive space that feels much larger than you'd expect given its small size.

[MIKA27]

LINE 6 RELAY G10 WIRELESS GUITAR SYSTEM

Free yourself from the tangle of cables and play without limitations with the Line 6 Relay G10 Wireless Guitar System. Using 24-bit digital technology, it provides an interference-, compression-, and latency-free wireless connection between your guitar's 1/4" output and the 1/4" or XLR input on your amp or rig. Just plug it in, and the transmitter and receiver automatically find the optimum channel. The transmitter's rechargeable battery last for up to 8 hours, charges in a docking well on the receiver, and lights up to let you know when it's running low, and since it only activates when it's fully connected, you don't get an annoying pop when you're plugging it in.

[MIKA27]

Madrid Bans Cars, Plans Plants

Cities have been kicking out cars to curb pollution and boost the well-being of their residents. But Madrid has proposed something even smarter. It’s not only banning cars from its downtown, it’s adding more green space. This is an important part of the equation that many cities don’t get right.

In 2014, Madrid announced a progressive plan to ban all cars from many central neighbourhoods as well as a more comprehensive ban of diesel-powered vehicles (which is becoming standard in many large European cities). Now there’s the makeover the city needs to prepare for that future: The Madrid + Natural plan, announced this weekend by engineering firm Arup. In order to prepare the city for inevitable effects of climate change — hotter summers with less rainfall — Arup plans to counteract the root of those problems by cleaning, greening and cooling the city on a very grand scale.

That’s why a key part of the proposal is simply to plant more trees. Lots more trees, and pretty much everywhere possible. Green roofs, green walls, green infrastructure. These will not only give people more enjoyable places for residents, but in some cases, swapping hot asphalt with more permeable surfaces can help to cool the city at street-level.

It also means capturing and storing water when it does rain in the form of gardens and fields — not storm drains that flush the water away. Most of all, I love the idea of “greenery districts” which are essentially heavily vegetated streets that can provide an oasis for wildlife in the city and also give humans a respite from the heat.

Especially after the Paris climate talks, cities are trying to reduce their carbon footprints, but reducing or removing cars only solves half of the problem. You not only have to beef up transit options and build better infrastructure for walking and biking, you also have to re-green the city to reclaim that automobile real estate for people and nature. We’ve seen the same half-approaches in Milan, Delhi, and Beijing over the last few months when some or all of the cars have been removed from streets for a predetermined period — pollution is reduced, at least for the moment, but it always comes back.

This is exactly why temporary car bans don’t work. The city doesn’t propose enough bigger changes that will affect the long-term health of its residents. Madrid is taking a huge and very important step in that direction.

[MIKA27]

Stem Cell Breakthrough Could Put An End To Daily Insulin Injections For Diabetics

People with type 1 diabetes have to inject insulin daily, and it often results in pain, redness, swelling and itching at the injection site. But this could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a new breakthrough that takes us one step closer to a functional cure for type 1 diabetes.

Researchers at MIT and Harvard have used insulin-producing cells to restore insulin function in mice for an extended period. Back in 2014, the same group used stem cells to create insulin-producing beta cells in large quantities. Now, they have taken those mass-produced cells and transplanted them into mice, effectively switching off the disease for six months, without provoking an immune response. The detailscan now be found in the science journal Nature.

People with type 1 diabetes have a pancreas that’s unable to produce insulin, a critical hormone that helps the body control glucose levels in the blood. Without insulin, this sugar builds up in the bloodstream instead of being channelled for energy. The exact cause of type 1 diabetes isn’t known, but scientists think it has something to do with the body’s immune system and the way it attacks cells that make insulin. (Type 1 diabetes is not caused by eating too much sugar.)

To create an effective therapy that doesn’t rely on a steady stream of insulin injections, researchers at MIT, Harvard, Boston Children’s Hospital and several other institutions, designed a material that encapsulated human pancreatic cells prior to transplant. Embryonic stem cells were used to generate the human insulin-producing cells, which were virtually identical to normal cells. After transplantation in mice, the cells began to produce insulin in response to blood glucose levels. This effectively cured the mice of their type 1 diabetes for a period of 174 days. In human terms, that’s equivalent to several years.

Study co-author Daniel Anderson was quoted in MIT News as saying this approach “has the potential to provide diabetics with a new pancreas that is protected from the immune system, which would allow them to control their blood sugar without taking drugs”. Human trials could start just a few years from now. If this process can be proven effective in humans, patients would need a transfusion every few years, rather than a daily insulin injection.

[MIKA27]

Apple Power Adapters Recalled Over Electric Shock Risk

Apple has issued a voluntary recall of Australian AC two-prong wall plug adapters for Mac and iOS devices from between 2003 and 2015. The adapters were also included in the Apple World Travel Adapter Kit. Apple has reported there have been 12 incidents globally of the adapters breaking, and creating a risk of electric shock.

The affected adapters are also used in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Continental Europe, New Zealand and South Korea.

The recall does not affect any other Apple AC wall plug adapters designed for Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, United Kingdom, United States or any Apple USB power adapters.

Affected Redesigned

An affected two-prong plug adapter has either four or five characters or no characters on the inside slot where it attaches to the main Apple power adapter. Apple advises to stop using these adapters immediately. Visit the website for information on how to identify and exchange affected adapters for the new, redesigned version.

[MIKA27]

Mitsubishi Has Made An Antenna Out Of Seawater

Who needs metal when you’re surrounded by water? Mitsubishi has announced a rather quirky new way to transmit and receive data, by creating what it claims is the first ever working antenna to be made out of seawater.

Seawater, being salty, is conductive: In fact it’s about 1000 times more conductive than the water that you drink. That means that, in theory at least, it can be used as a rudimentary antenna. They are, after all, just pieces of conducting metal whose shape and size are designed to reliably receive or transmit radio waves.

That’s in theory. In practice, seawater is much, much less conductive than most metals — by a factor of about one million. So when Mitsubishi decided to give the seawater aerial — or SeaAerial as it calls it — a stab, it embarked on some theoretical calculations first. Having established the optimal diameter of a water jet required, it gave it a try.

In practice, the device uses a pump and nozzle to create a finely tuned jet of seawater which is aimed into the sky. The result is an aerial with an efficiency of 70 per cent, which it claims is enough to transmit or receive signals. In a small scale model, the company’s shown that the SeaAerial can reliably pick up a TV signal.

But it has bigger hopes for the technology. It points out that very low frequency signals — the kinds used by war ships and submarines to communicate over huge distances at sea, say — require correspondingly large aerials which are tens of metres tall. In situations where it’s difficult or impractical to install such a device, Mitsubishi suggests a water jet could be used. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s just a pipe dream.

[MIKA27]

The Mushroom Death Suit is Ready to Consume Your Body

We have seen the future of funerals and it is fungus. The makers of the Mushroom Death Suit say their eco-friendly burial garment is ready to consume its first human body. Oh, and they’d prefer if you called it the Infinity Burial Suit.

The suit is the brainchild of Jae Rhim Lee and Mike Ma, who became friends at Stanford University and are the co-founders of Coeio, the company that will make and sell the product. They came up with the idea for the suit after Ma attended some family funerals and Lee began thinking about the 200 or more toxins in the human body – both when living and especially after embalming – that eventually end up in the earth.

Mushrooms and their death suit

Lee’s idea was to have the body be “eaten” or aided in decomposition by mushrooms that would also remove the toxins and render them harmless. She tested her idea by feeding her own hair, fingernails and dead skin to various mushrooms and chose the ones that seemed to enjoy this unusual buffet. Spores were taken from the best eaters and placed in threads that were then woven into a shroud that became the Mushroom Death Suit.

At a TED talk in 2011, Lee described how the recently-deceased would be placed in the Mushroom Death Suit, covered with an Alternative Embalming Fluid (slurry of spores) and some Decompiculture Makeup (dried spores) and buried within 24 hours of death. The spores would be activated by the decomposition and begin to dine, thus removing pesticides, heavy metals and other toxins from the body.

Jae Rhim Lee giving her TED talk in full Mushroom Death Suit (mushrooms not included)

Even those advanced thinkers and eco-friendly people who attend TED talks were completely grossed out, so Coeio waited until 2016 when it seems the public is more ready for a fungus-assisted eco-burial. Changing the name to Infinity Burial Suit didn’t hurt either.

Coeio (from the Latin word coeo, which means “come together” – the body comes together with the earth) has its first customer. Dennis White is 63 and suffers from a neurodegenerative disease called Primary Progressive Aphasia. The company says it has a waiting list in the hundreds and offers assistance on its web site to help deal with local laws and long-held customs involving funerals and burials. For those who are interested, there’s also a pod for pets.

[MIKA27]

LUMIR C CANDLE-POWERED LED LAMP

Yes, we know — technically, the candle is going to put off light on its own. But there's a big difference between the luminance of a votive and the light sources inside the Lumir C Candle-Powered LED Lamp. This highly-portable light uses the heat energy from small candles to power an LED light, giving you a reliable source of light no matter where you are. It's available in two varieties: Mood, which uses an array of four LEDs and a diffuser for ambient light, and Spot, which has a single, aimable LED for tasks like reading or working.

[MIKA27]

2017 PORSCHE 718 BOXSTER

Continuing a legacy that dates back to the race-winning 718's of the '50s and '60s, the 2017 Porsche 718 Boxster earns its title by adopting flat four-cylinder engines, just like its namesake. The standard model has a 2.0L powerplant making 300hp, good for a 0-60 time of 4.5 seconds and a top speed of 170, while the S variant relies on a 350hp turbocharged 2.5L unit to move from 0-60 in 4 seconds flat on its way to 177 mph. The engines aren't all that's new — the suspension has been retuned, the brakes improved, and every bodel panel inside and out replaced, save for the luggage lid, windshield, and convertible top. Other options include the Sport Chrono Package from the 911, Porsche Active Suspension Management, and LED headlights.

[MIKA27]

Mission: Impossible's Rebecca Ferguson Is Heading to Mars, But She's Not Coming Back Alone

Without a doubt Rebecca Ferguson was one of 2015's breakout stars. Now, she’s breaking out of the atmosphere. The star of Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation has been cast in a scifi movie called Life, written by the guys who did Deadpool.

Life, which will be directed by Daniel Espinosa (Safe House), follows a group of astronauts on the International Space Station who bring back a sample from Mars. They then realize it’s much more dangerous than they originally thought. It sounds a little like Alien, but closer to home.

Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, who wrote Zombieland and the upcoming Deadpool, came up with the story and wrote the script.

After her star-making performance in Mission: Impossible, Ferguson has been a very sought-after actor. Along with Life, rumor has it she’ll be the rare female lead returning to the M:I franchise when filming starts later this year.

[MIKA27]

An Energetic, Colorful New Popeye Poster Definitely Ate Its Spinach

Popeye is a character that has been interpreted in almost every possible way. The most popular though, is the lovable, animated version and that goofy, fun tone comes across in this brand new poster by artist Tom Whalen.

It’s a poster for the 1936 long-form Popeye cartoon Popeye The Sailor Meets Sindbad The Sailor, and it’s a collaboration between Dark Hall Mansion, Warner Bros., King Features Syndicate and Fleischer Studios. The true star here though is Whalen, whose recognizable, geometric, cartoonish style blends perfectly with Popeye’s world. Just look at all the detail in this.

The poster will be available Friday January 29 at Dark Hall Mansion and is available in multiple formats. There’s a standard edition (top) of 280 which costs $65, a variant edition (bottom) of 50 which costs $100, and then foil versions of 10 based on each, costing $150.

[MIKA27]

The WHO Held An Emergency Session Due To The Zika Virus

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has announced an emergency session to address the “explosive spread” of the disease, which has been linked to birth defects.

The Zika virus is spreading rapidly through South America and the Caribbean, prompting global-wide concern, particularly in temperate areas where the mosquito responsible for transmitting the virus, A. aegypti, is found.

Yesterday, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials held a press briefing to address concerns around Zika moving into the US. The CDC says outbreaks of the Zika virus are all but inevitable in the US, but that these outbreaks will be limited in scope. The US has reported 31 individual Zika cases, but in each instance, the virus was brought back by tourists. Of those, 11 were confirmed in the continental US, while the remaining 20 were confirmed in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The CDC didn’t disclose if or how many of the afflicted Americans were pregnant women. The CDC’s principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, said that more travel-related cases are very likely.

“It’s understandable that people are nervous,” said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the CDC, “but there is currently no risk for Americans because we don’t have locally transmitted Zika virus in the United States.” Local transmissions happen when a person infected with a virus is bitten by a mosquito, and that mosquito goes on to infect another person.

Americans should “expect Zika to come to the United States,” Fauci said, while cautioning journalists not to make spurious assumptions about it’s potential spread. Other viruses, like Dengue and Chikungunya, are also spread by A. aegypti and are present on the US mainland, but they haven’t spread widely.

An NRDC map showing “Dengue vulnerability.” The CDC says it’s a mistake to look at maps like this and simply assume that the Zika virus will spread in the same way that mosquitoes do.

As Schuchat explained, environmental and social conditions in the US are different than those in areas where Zika is endemic. The southern US doesn’t feature high-density urban centres, plus the US has better mosquito control and access to air conditioning (which allows Americans to stay indoors more often). What’s more, mosquito density isn’t as intense as it is in South America or the Caribbean.

The NIH is accelerating research to get ahead of the virus. An immediate challenge is to develop better diagnostic tools to help scientists distinguish Zika from similar flaviviruses, namely Dengue and Chikungunya. “We will not have a Zika vaccine this year and probably not in the next few years,” Fauci said, adding that researchers hope to “start phase one clinical trials this calendar year.”

Little is known about Zika and its potential link to microcephaly, a rare disorder that causes abnormally small heads in newborns. Zika itself produces mild symptoms, like a fever and rash, but goes away in about a week. The disease disappears from the bloodstream once symptoms stop, and an infection likely confers immunity, though researchers aren’t sure how long that immunity will last.

Symptoms only appear in about 20 per cent of people who are affected by Zika, leading some to wonder if women who don’t show symptoms are somehow not at risk of having babies with brain damage. Schuchat said it’s “a possibility, but we don’t have the evidence”. Scientists currently suspect that injury to the foetus happens in the first trimester, but they’re not ruling out potential effects later on. Because Zika clears out of a person’s system relatively quickly, scientists don’t believe that women previously infected by the virus are at risk of having a baby born with the brain disorder. What’s more, a definitive link between microcephaly and Zika hasn’t even been established, but it’s certainly looking that way.

On a global level, the WHO held a special meeting on Zika earlier today and will convene an emergency session on Monday to find ways to stop the virus. WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan said the “level of alarm is extremely high, as is the level of uncertainty,” adding that Zika is “spreading explosively” across the Americas. Potential links to microcephaly and and Guillain-Barre syndrome (which can cause temporary paralysis) have “rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions.”

Brazil’s health minister said his country is investigating a dozen confirmed deaths of babies born with microcephaly. In response, several countries, including El Salvador, are asking women to wait six months to two years before trying to become pregnant. A WHO official said that women who are pregnant in regions where Zika is running rampant should engage in “an abundance of caution” to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

[MIKA27]

Now Japan Has A Stealth Fighter Too

This is the X-2, Japan’s first domestically produced stealth fighter. Despite its not-so-stealthy paint job, it’s said to effectively avoid the gaze of enemy radar systems.

The X-2 — previously known as ATD-X, for Advanced Technology Demonstrator X — was manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the the Japan Air Self-Defence Force. The primary goal is to replace the country’s ageing fleet of fighter aircraft, and because Japan (or anybody else) cannot purchase Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors, they developed their own aircraft with similar characteristics, spending $US440 ($621) million so far.

The Japanese Ministry of Defence showed off the aeroplane at Nagoya Airport in Toyoyama this week. X-2 is expected to make its maiden flight sometime after mid-February. If all goes to plan, Japan will be the fourth nation to fly its own stealth fighter jet — joining a club currently made up of the US, Russia and China.

MIKA: Very outdated design IMO - UGLY as hell

[MIKA27]

Seeing A First Person View Of Hockey Tricks Is So Damn Cool

I don’t really realise the skill of professional athletes until I see them up close. The speed in which they do things, the control they have over their bodies, the hand eye coordination. It’s all ridiculously superhuman. Just check out this video of hockey players running through exercises and tricks. You get to see some of them in the first person view and it’s incredible.

[MIKA27]

WTF!? San Francisco's First Outdoor Urinal Opens, Public Urinators Rejoice

San Francisco residents can now piss publicly with the city’s first open-air urinal, where you can pee freely starting today.

San Francisco has been battling its public urination problem for years, recently resorting to using hydrophobic paint on some walls frequented by local pee streams. It’s so bad that corrosion from urine caused a streetlamp to fall over last year, launching full safety inspection of all city infrastructure.

But people just keep on peeing everywhere. So now, a better solution seems to be encouraging all that urine to be splashed in special receptacles. An open-air urinal has been installed in the city’s Dolores Park, where San Francisco residents are welcomed to drop trou and relieving themselves right there, with a lovely view of passing MUNI trains.

Public urinals are not unusual sight in some cities; you’ll spot them in many European cities where residents like to drink beer. But I’m curious why San Francisco didn’t use a very thoughtful and well-designed local proposal that turns urine into fertiliser for street trees. I guess this was probably cheaper.

Design aside, residents are pretty excited about the pee hole and the fact that they won’t have to hold it until they get indoors anymore, according to the AP’s report:

“Honestly, we were ready to go pee anywhere,” San Francisco resident Aaron Cutler told news station KNTV. “So any facility is better than none.”

Frisco: Ready to Go Pee Anywhere™.

MIKA: I know why they pee everywhere - It's one of the top Craft beer capitals in the world!

[MIKA27]

The Walking Dead Is Getting Another Board Game

The world already has quite a few (and very good) zombie board games: Last Night on Earth, Dead of Winter, Zombicide… the list goes on. But if you officially slap “The Walking Dead” on a new miniatures game, the competition doesn’t matter, because it’s going to sell like hot, fleshy blood cakes.

The folks over at Mantic Games have just announced that its Walking Dead board game is heading to Kickstarter on 1 February (well, 2 February in Australia). The base price for the game will be $US50, with “boosters” retailing for $US20.

There’s no detailed breakdown of stretch goals or backer rewards, but it does have a rough plan if the thing goes bananas:

If the campaign goes really big (and that means we think it will finish right up there with our biggest ever campaigns) then we will look at 2 or 3 simple expansions which you will be able to add-on to your pledge. These will allow us to move into the later aspects of the storyline, introduce lots more heroes – and baddies – and offer interesting new variant play, such as a Prison setting.

The post goes on to stress that such rewards will not come at the expense of the base product; they “cannot interfere with the accuracy of shipping wave 1”, which is currently set for August this year.

If you want to be involved, you’ll have to keep an eye on the Mantic website, because the Kickstarter isn’t up just yet. Call me psychic, but I’m quietly confident the company will let you know when it’s live.

[MIKA27]

Here's A Lightning Bolt Striking And Destroying A Tree

Alternative headline: Tree takes a lightning strike and is somehow still standing? I don’t know who the actual winner is here. The lightning bolt that struck the tree and ripped half of the trunk away while flooring all of its branches, or the tree that takes the bolt’s best shot and hangs in there quite admirably?

Whatever it is, I’m just glad the security cam caught the footage and not my actual eyeballs because the flying shards would have owned me.

[MIKA27]

Piaggio Wi-Bike

Piaggio Wi-Bike is a beautiful contribution from the well known Italian scooter brand to the boiling segment of e-bikes. It brings some cool features to the table along with the mandatory ones nowadays. You get the regular app that enables you to control and manage some key functions such as choosing different power settings, the level of assistance you get from the electric motor, the battery status, monitor its location or even choose a training method, so you get loads of smart features with the app. One thing that´s a sure plus is the build-quality, the attention to detail and the exquisite Italian taste put into this sleek item. Piaggio Wi-Bike will get a top speed of up to 25 mph, which is more than enough to go around on your town commutes. Light and eco-friendly it´s the XXI st century vehicle that looks good, is well made and rides beautifully.

[MIKA27]

FEW BREAKFAST GIN

Made with the classic French 75 cocktail in mind, Few Breakfast Gin proves that gin should have a spot at your next brunch. Few considered adding coffee to make this gin stand out, but instead went with Earl Grey tea, as it compliments the juniper and citrus flavors of the gin. While the idea for a Breakfast Gin started off as a bit of a joke around the distillery, no one is laughing now at this perfect cocktail companion.

[MIKA27]

PIONEER AIRBOW

The power of a bow. The precision and convenience of a rifle. Whether you're hunting for food, taking aim at some paper targets, or ridding your property of pests, the Pioneer Airbow is ready. It's based on Benjamin's PCP platform, and uses 3,000 psi of compressed air to fire off as many as eight full-length arrows at a speedy 450 feet per second. It can be refilled via a hand pump or charging system, is paired with a CenterPoint 6x40 mm scope, can fire all eight shots in the time a crossbow takes to fire three, and uses an ambidextrous top cocking bolt for added safety. Arrows, sling, and quiver included.

[MIKA27]

TAG HEUER CARRERA HEUER-02T WATCH

It's priced like many of its contemporaries. But most of them don't have tourbillions. The Tag Heuer Carrera Heuer-02T Watch combines a COSC-certified automatic chronograph with a titanium and carbon fiber tourbillion, creating a complex, reliable, and desirable timepiece. Built on the back of Tag's short-lived CH-80 chronograph, it offers a 65 hour power reserve and has a skeleton dial with chrono sub-dials at 9 and 3 o'clock, the movement at 6, and the tourbillion at 6, all housed in a sporty 45mm case of grade 5 titanium offering 100 meters of water resistance. It comes with a black rubber strap and is available in two versions: a standard model with silver accents, and a murdered out Black Phantom model that's limited to just 250 pieces.

[MIKA27]

Microsoft Wants To Build Data Centres Underwater

Building huge data centres underwater might sound bizarrely Jules Vernesian, but it’s exactly what Microsoft’s testing. The plan’s called Project Natick, and its website states its purpose: “to understand the benefits and difficulties in deploying subsea data centres worldwide.”

Why build data centres underwater? Customer proximity, for one. Since so many large cities are coastal, building cloud computing data centres in the nearby bodies of water (as opposed to in the middle of nowhere, as is usually the case) could improve the performance of services like Netflix for millions of urbanites. Plus, putting servers underwater basically eliminates the possibility that they will crash due to overheating. And finally, Microsoft suggests it can pair the underwater data centres with tide-powered electrical generators or turbines, which could help address increasing energy demands.

The first prototype is called Leona Philpot (after the Halo character who appears on Microsoft’s Xboxes) was tested last spring about a kilometre off the California coast, 9m under water. The test enclosed a single data centre computing rack in an 2.5m-wide steel capsule, which was covered in sensors that monitored pressure, humidity and other factors that helped the engineers learn more about possible challenges they will face in the future.

In December, after a series of successful tests, it was shipped back to Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington for analysis. Microsoft thinks it can install underwater data centres faster than it can build ones on land — 90 days versus two years.

I can’t imagine that there won’t be any environmentalist concern on this one. The reasoning behind the project is pretty logical, though, assuming the “subsea data centres” work like they’re supposed to — and it sounds like the prototype did just fine. The next trial will use a capsule three times larger than the Leona and is scheduled to take the plunge next year.

[MIKA27]

Australia Should Buy F-22s, Not F-35s, Says Retired RAAF Wing Commander

A submission to a Senate inquiry into the feasibility of Government’s planned purchase of at least 72 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets says that the multirole planes will be instantly outmatched in air superiority by the airborne wings of competing countries in the region like China and Indonesia, and will fare even worse against future threats. It suggests — hypothetically — that Australia instead push for the F-22 Raptor, a jet that the United States has never sold to even its closest military allies.

In the submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade’s Joint Strike Fighter inquiry, Royal Australian Air Force Wing Commander Chris Mills AM, MSc, BSc (Retd) says that lessons from history and statistical modelling suggest that the F-35 is a poor choice for the future of warfare in the region, which centres around air superiority versus countries like Indonesia and China.

A simulation showing six F-35s versus six Sukhoi SU-35S, Indonesia’s intended future air superiority fighter choice for its air force, suggests that 2.36 Joint Strike Fighters would be lost for every SU-35S downed. The simulation was run on H3MilSim software developed by Mills’ RepSim, a company he and a colleague set up after retiring from the RAAF.

A simulation of the aerially superior F-22 Raptor, though, results in an almost precisely opposite outcome — with 2.14 Sukhoi jets destroyed per F-22 loss. While the F-35 is a newer jet, it is a multirole fighter capable of ground attack and reconnaissance, while the F-22 has the sole role of air superiority and supremacy in enemy airspace.

With future fifth-generation aircraft like the Sukhoi PAK FA / T-50, China’s own Chengdu J-20 andShenyang J-31 on the horizon from Australia’s regional competitors, Mills suggests that production of the F-22 be restarted and the fighter itself exported for Australia’s use in local air superiority roles. Production of the F-22 by Lockheed Martin, its partners and the USAF was discontinued in 2011, but Mills says the tooling to produce several hundred new jets still exists and could be put to work on the very same production line as creates the Joint Strike Fighter in Dallas, Texas.

This is a thought exercise, obviously — the United States has never sold the F-22A to any other country on Earth, and the export itself is currently banned on national security grounds. But the shortcomings of the F-35 — without any next-generation “beyond visual range” over-the-horizon air-to-air missiles like theMeteor BVRAAM planned for Australia, although that missile is being developed for F-35 compatibility by the UK RAF and Ministry of Defence — are made clear by Mills’ submission.

Another submission from retired Wing Commander Anthony Wilkinson says that in its capacity as a multirole aircraft, the F-35’s bomb load is too small and its range is too short to be effective in the South Asia region. Other submissions, like that from Jai Galliott, suggest the Air Force and government should look into drones and pilotless versions of the F-35, which are not currently planned for development.

[MIKA27]

Watch The Last Flight Of Air France's Boeing 747

The beautiful, venerable Boeing 747 is reaching the end of its lifespan at many airlines across the world. Take-up of the new-generation 747-8 has been slow, with many carriers choosing the smaller Boeing 777 alongside the behemoth Airbus A380. Air France has just retired the last of its once-68-strong fleet of 747s, and it flew the final jumbo jet around France with an escort from the country’s premier aerobatic team, the Patrouille de France.

The final flight occurred a few days ago, and saw the Queen of the Skies travel around France’s Camargue region, in formation with the French Acrobatic Patrol’s 12 Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jets. The video above is absolutely beautiful — you really get a sense of the 744’s beautiful lines, including that exclusive upper deck section. It’s a fitting send-off to one of the most iconic aircraft of the 20th century. (I strongly recommend you read 747: Creating The World’s First Jumbo Jet.)

Australia’s Qantas still has nine 747-400 ‘Longreach’ aircraft running to Singapore, Chile and the United States, and dutch carrier KLM has 22 of the newest 747s in service and expects them to keep operating until 2020. British Airways is currently the king of Queens, though, with 42 747-400s still operating around the globe. Bonus: here’s an entire playlist of material from Air France about the retiring its 747 fleet.

[MIKA27]

Sandalwood Odour Could Be A Treatment For Leukaemia

Olfactory receptors are not limited to your nose. You have them all over your body, including your blood. Now, synthetic sandalwood has been shown to promote cell death in cancer cells for patients with a certain kind of leukaemia. This could open the door for a whole new kind of treatment.

Researchers from Essen University Hospital and Ruhr-Universität Bochum have found olfactory receptors in white blood cells, according to a paper published today in Cell Death Discovery. This is not as strange as it might seem. Although we first discovered olfactory receptors in the nose, many different parts of our bodies make use of chemical receptors. Scientists have discovered “olfactory receptors” in the liver, “taste buds” in the colon and, most recently, the receptor OR2AT4 in the white blood cells of patients suffering from acute myeloid leukemia.

Sandalore is a synthetic sandalwood scent that is used to replace actual sandalwood oil in many skin creams and perfumes. It’s a chemical the binds to the receptor and causes a chemical reaction in the cell. In this case, it provoked an influx of the calcium ion Ca2+ into the cell. The scientists noticed that this influx triggered a higher rate of cell death.

They also found that it caused phosphorylation. Phosphorylation adds a phosphoryl group, PO32−, to an enzyme. Adding or subtracting these groups turns enzymes on and off. Enzymes speed up functions in a cell, and in this case, phosphorylation decreases the rate at which cells proliferate.

This is important, because in myeloid leukaemia patients cells in the spinal cord called myeloblasts create too many immature white blood cells. A medication that depresses the creation of these cells — and causes them to die earlier — could be a life-saving treatment. According to Professor Hans Hatt, one of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum scientists, “Acute myeloid leukaemia in particular is a disease for which specific medication is not, as yet, available.”

This treatment might only be the first. The researchers discovered seven different odour receptors in the cells, and they’re studying them to see if they can also be used to manipulate blood cells and treat cancer through odourants. Using olfactory receptors to shut down and kill off cancer cells might be a whole new way of treating the disease.