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

[MIKA27]

Anicorn Series K452 Watches

If you don’t remember Anicorn watches, they Kickstarted their unique Series 000 watches that featured a concentric disc time display a few years ago. They’re back with another unique way to tell time, and this version is inspired by the NASA discovery of the exoplanet Kepler-452b. Anicorn’s Series K452 tells time using three concentric discs that you read from the top of the face towards the middle. Powered by a Miyota Calibre 9015 movement, Series K452 requires no batteries as the movement is powered by the motion of your wrist. The watch is available in four different models, along with multiple milanese mesh bracelet and leather strap options. If you want something a little different for your wrist, look no further.

[MIKA27]

Escape Vista

"Escape Homes" first made a name for themselves in the tiny house community with the Traveler, a towable small and comfy house developed for those who are looking for an alternative to the conventional way of life. Now the company have presented their latest model, the Escape Vista, with off-grid technology, very generous glazing (make the small space feel less cramped), and a space-saving layout. Vista is a fully outfitted home-on-the-go that can be moved just about anywhere like an RV.

[MIKA27]

Make It Spicy:

Enjoy the thrill of heat? for all of you with a penchant for all things spicy, check out this guide to spicy cooking. Make It Spicy: More than 50 Recipes that Pack a Punch, features over 50 easy-to-follow recipes from around the world, all with customizable heat levels and expert tips, showing you how enhance just about anything into a merciless delight.

[MIKA27]

The British Are Bringing Criminal Charges Over Harrison Ford's Broken Leg

Hey, remember when Harrison Ford broke his leg in 2014? Well, the British government does, and it’s bringing charges against a Disney UK subsidiary for violating workplace health and safety laws.

Back in 2014, Ford broke his leg on the Star Wars set, instantly panicking everyone. It ended up suspending production on The Force Awakens for two weeks while the schedule was rearranged for his recovery.

Now, a year and a half later, the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has charged Foodles Production, Inc with four violations of health and safety laws. All four of the allegations boil down to Foodles not ensuring as much as “reasonably practicable” the health and safety of their employees and not minimizing the risk of an accident. A spokesperson for the HSE said, “By law, employers must take reasonable steps to protect workers—this is as true on a film set as a factory floor. We have investigated thoroughly and believe that we have sufficient evidence to bring the case to court.”

And bring them to court they will, with a court date set for May 12, 2016. I bet they thought they were through the woods on this accident being a disaster.

[joejack11]

interesting...............

[MIKA27]

Whatever You Do, Don't Set Your iPhone's Date To 1970

The tech world loves its Easter eggs, from Adventure’s original hidden feature to Tesla’s various car tricks. But don’t fall for the recent claims for one hidden in your shiny new Apple iPhone: if you attempt it, you’ll brick your device.

A prank originating from 4chan claims that if you set your iPhone’s (5s models and up) date back to 1970, it will display a retro Apple logo:

What actually happens if you decide to set your iPhone back to 1 January, 1970? It will brick your device and there’s no fix for it: even Apple’s own Geniuses can’t figure out how to fix it, and you’ll have to get the phone completely replaced.

According to Ars Technica, this happens because 1 January, 1970 is the first day of the Unix epoch and that allowing the phone’s battery to go completely dead (or disconnecting the battery) will reset the date.

YouTube user Zach Straley provides a good demonstration of what actually happens when you sent your phone back in time:

Fortunately, this isn’t a thing you can do accidentally: there’s quite a bit of effort on your part to actually set the date back almost five decades, but it’s one of those things where curiosity just shouldn’t take over.

[MIKA27]

A Global Tragedy Is Unfolding In Tasmania

The blackened skeletons of scorched trees jut out of the smouldering Earth like angry bee stings. A smell of ash, dust and death hangs in the air. This isn’t a scene from a post apocalyptic movie. It’s part of a Tasmanian World Heritage Site that harbours some of the oldest trees on Earth.

“These forests are never coming back,” David Bowman, an ecologist at the University of Tasmania told Gizmodo. “When they burn, they’re gone forever.”

An island the size of Ireland with a population of 500,000, it’s easy to forget about Tasmania, located just 2575km from the Antarctic coast. But this tiny slip of rugged terrain is an ecological wonder. Geographic variation and isolation have colluded to create a stunning diversity of ecosystems, from evergreen eucalyptus forests to alpine heathlands to temperate rainforests. On the island’s cool, wet mountaintops,1500 year old trees carry a genetic legacy connecting Tasmania to the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.

Now, patches of this planetary heritage are going up in smoke, thanks to a devastating fire season that many experts say could portend the future.

A lake in the Central Plateau Conservation area,

Since mid January, out-of-control bushfires sparked by lightning storms have raged across Tasmania’s World Heritage Wilderness Area. The Tasmanian Fire Service, unaccustomed to tackling dozens of wildfires at once in remote locales, is finding itself outmatched. While authorities focus on suppressing the blazes that pose the biggest risk to humans and property, many wild areas are being left to burn.

As of last week, over 25,000 acres of land — roughly two per cent of the World Heritage Area — had been torched. ABC Online reports that the Tasmanian fire service is gearing up for another month of bushfire operations, but it expects that remote areas could continue to burn for weeks to come.

The fires have left raw devastation in their wake, which Tasmania-based wilderness photographer Dan Broun witnessed firsthand when hiking in the Central Plateau Conservation Area on January 13. “The Central Plateau is like a mosaic of thousands of zen gardens, each one unique and borne through several ice ages,” he said. “To see such an ancient and beautiful place that I love devastated has left me in shock.”

A sign welcomes bushwalkers to Tasmania’s Central Plateau Conservation Area

1500 year old Pencil Pine trees were torched in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Are,

Cushion plants were burned as a fire swept through an alpine heathland in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area.

A stand of alpine trees was scorched by a bushfire in Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area

The factors behind this horrific fire season are complex. As in many parts of the world, Tasmania’s normal rainfall patterns are being disrupted by the largest El Niño event on record, which kept spring rains at bay and brought hot, dry weather to the state this summer. The effects of El Niño are compounded by a positive Indian Ocean Dipole event, in which abnormally cool waters in the eastern Indian Ocean produce drier weather in neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Australia.

“We’ve had quite a terrible conjunction [of circumstances] that led to effectively no spring in Tasmania, and then a warm, dry summer,” Bowman said. Right now, the ground is so dry that “if we had a catastrophic fire day, you could burn half the island down”.

But as an ecologist, Bowman sees this exceptional summer in a broader context. From unprecedented heat waves in the southeast to a spate of devastating fires across the Australian alps to record high temperatures around the world, what’s happening in Tasmania is a microcosm of what’s happening to our planet.

“From my point of view, you’ve got all these events piling up,” he said. “If you’re a doctor confronted with a lot of symptoms, you look at the constellation of factors and draw a conclusion.”

To Bowman, that conclusion is clear: “This is a pattern of unusual things that are no longer unusual, they’re consistent with a theory called climate change.”

William Steffen, a climate scientist at Australian National University, agreed. “Those forests have been there for thousands of years,” he told Gizmodo. “El Niños have come and gone, and they have not burned. But now, we have a strong underlying warming trend.”

Michael Grose, a climate scientist with the Australian national science agency, cautioned that scientists haven’t yet directly attributed this bizarre year to human-caused warming. But he agreed that recent events in Tasmania are consistent with what we expect climate change to bring to the state — namely, hotter, drier weather. And that makes him very worried.

“Dry springs and summers, hotter temperatures and more fires would make it difficult for these ecosystems to continue as they are,” Grose stated. “And since this area is on the high plateaus of Tasmania, there isn’t anywhere further uphill where the vegetation could move.”

Scorched Earth recently covered with the shrub Richea scoparia,

But as bleak at this sounds, acknowledging the fiery future may be the best thing Tasmanian land managers can do to protect the remaining wilderness. “If the people running the World Heritage Area identified it as an area at-risk to climate change, that reframes the debate,” Bowman said.

Right now, there’s almost nothing the Tasmanian Fire Service can do about the remote wildfires, many of which are burning through carbon-rich peat underground. But by bringing in more firefighting resources, increasing drone and satellite surveillance, and using controlled burns to reduce the amount of fuel on the ground, the government could help prevent catastrophic situations from developing in the future.

Scientists say Tasmania also needs to be thinking about how to preserve its ecological legacy in the event of a total system collapse. “The final option is to salvage the biodiversity and put it somewhere else,” Bowman said.

An unlucky wallaby got caught in an alpine brushfire in Tasmania

Fortunately, the Tasmanian Seed Conservation Centre, which stores seeds for numerous endemic species, was built for exactly this purpose. “For restoration and revegetation efforts you generally require larger numbers,” Seed Conservation Centre director James Wood stated in an email. But the collections are large enough to at least maintain the genetic heritage of many species.

This year, Wood and his colleagues made their first collection of Huon pine, a very slow-growing conifer restricted to the valleys of Tasmania’s wet temperate rainforests. The species has weathered several ice ages, and high on the slopes of Mount Read, a small stand is reputed to be 10,000 years old. If its soils are burned away by fires, these ancient trees may not be able to hang on much longer.

“We can preserve seeds,” Wood said, “but ultimately we can’t preserve an ecosystem.”

[MIKA27]

Watch A Huge 30 Metre Wave Crash Down And Smash A Ship

Damn. It’s like hitting a wall. Or rather, it’s like a wall hitting you. This footage shows giant wave after giant wave pummelling a ship and when you think they have finally weathered the storm, in comes the biggest and baddest wave that smacks the boat silly.

The maniacal laughter from the person taking the footage might be the best part of the video though.

[MIKA27]

DARPA's New Autonomous Submarine-Hunter Could Change Naval Combat Forever

In 2010, DARPA announced it was creating an autonomous, submarine-hunting war machine that would be manned with exactly zero people. Now, that vehicle is ready for action.

The Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV, is now scheduled to be launched April 17 from the Vigour Shipyards in Oregon. The ACTUV will continue sea-trials for 18 months following its maiden voyage, where it will be tested for its long-range tracking and self-driving functions.

The primary objective of the ACTUV will be to track enemy submarines in shallow waters. The ship is designed to operate autonomously for 60 to 90 days straight, eliminating the hundreds of crew members it typically takes to operate these type of vehicles. The ACTUV also reduces the chance for human error while searching for potential threats.

In addition to locating spying submarines, the ship could also have a role in supplying other US naval vehicles and running logistics in operations. At just 140 tonnes and 40m long, the ACTUV is actually small for a warship, and the US naval forces will likely make use of its nimble TK.

The ACTUV itself is unarmed, but as a scouting vehicle, the ship can be used to locate spying adversaries before other ships are deployed. The ACTUV is pretty cheap to operate, too. The cost of running one per day is between $US15,000 and $US20,000, according to a Sea Magazine report.

The ship is part of the Pentagon’s ongoing Third Offset strategy, which was devised to help the US maintain superiority over rising military powers like China and Russia. The Pentagon is dedicating $US18 billion to the effort.

[MIKA27]

BREITLING AVENGER BANDIT: SPIRIT OF NAVAL AVIATION EDITION

The clock is about to strike on the Baselworld trade show, and this is what Breitling reveals: Their new Avenger Bandit Spirit of Naval Aviation Edition watch. A gorgeous aviator timepiece that exemplifies everything great about the aviator watch wrapped in a 45 mm titanium case that has the dignified matte finish you would expect on the wrist of a 4-star career man.

The strap is a military-grade rubber that is meant to resist weather and wear out on the deck of USS Franklin. Precision mechanical movement keeps true time and is as efficient at sea level as inside a depressurized cockpit. As a survival timepiece, the finish and sapphire crystal give zero reflection or shine, allowing the Bandit to be used on recon missions without catching the eye of an ISIS militant as you sync your watches with command. The watch retails for $5,400, and is certainly worth a portion of your take-home. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

MAD WATER WATERPROOF USA DUFFEL

Determining if a waterproof bag is quality comes down to two things: “Does it have the right material?” and “Will the seams and zippers hold out water?” On both counts, the USA Duffel is able to keep your kit as low and dry as you need it.

Constructed out of double coated PVC-free polyurethane, the seams are RF welded for pure security. The greatest point of ingress, the zipper, is official YKK waterproof. It can be drug down on a basic dive or submerged up to 15 feet without letting in a drop. On the side are nylon handles with enough length to turn the duffel into a backpack should you need it, or be lashed to your leg as you float downstream. If the bag itself isn’t quite enough luggage for the rack, quad-mounted D-rings allow for attached accessories and expansions. Pricing for the bag starts at $168. [Purchase]

[MIKA27]

KOVAL X MIKKELLER SINGLE BARREL WHISKEY

The craft beer and craft distilling businesses have lots in common, so it's great to see their paths intersect from time to time. Koval Distillery in Chicago and gypsy brewer Mikkeller have teamed up for Koval x Mikkeller Single Barrel Whiskey. Using the same grain to bottle distillation Koval is known for, this collaboration whiskey adds a new chocolate malt to the mix as well. This addition not only adds a unique chocolate aroma, but also provides a lightly sweet toffee taste as well.

[MIKA27]

Star Wars: Episode VIII Teaser Released, Benicio Del Toro And Laura Dern Join Cast

Star Wars: Episode VIII is officially in production, as celebrated in this first teaser. While this video is all about Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Luke (Mark Hamill) and the joy of the crew, it has also been confirmed that we will see some familiar faces return for the next instalment of the series — and some new ones.

“Rey took her first steps into a larger world in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and will continue her epic journey with Finn, Poe, and Luke Skywalker in the next chapter of the continuing Star Wars saga, Star Wars: Episode VIII, which began principal photography at Pinewood Studios in London on February 15, 2016.” Disney announced in a statement.

“Star Wars: Episode VIII, which is written and directed by Rian Johnson and continues the storylines introduced in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, welcomes back cast members Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, and Andy Serkis.”

“New cast members will include Academy Award winner Benicio Del Toro, Academy Award nominee Laura Dern, and talented newcomer Kelly Marie Tran.”

[MIKA27]

Coleco's Chameleon Is A Retro Gaming Console Every '80s Kid Will Love

The brand new video game console, Coleco Chameleon, made its public debut at the New York Toy Fair this weekend. Although the system spent most of the convention behind a glass enclosure, it easily ran through short demos of old classic games and new retro-style games created by indie developers.

The Coleco Chameleon — which was announced late last year — promises to take a stand against the proliferate downloadable content (DLC) racket by shipping non-upgradeable cartridge games just like systems from the 1980s and 1990s.

Downloadable content was once a hallmark of the absolute best online games. Back when video games were first connecting to the internet, DLC was an easy way to extend the life of a game by adding new weapons and levels to a game long after it was released. Then game developers caught on. They started creating games with DLC planned right from the launch date, forcing hardcore gamers to shill out even more cash for basic gameplay. Not the Coleco Chameleon. Instead, people will buy fully developed cartridge based games that will never need an update or patch to unlock content.

For the uninitiated, the Coleco Chameleon was originally announced under the name Retro VGS in early 2015 after the creators acquired the originally tooling kit from the legendary 1990s gaming system, the Atari Jaguar. The Retro VGS project was later cancelled due to crowdfunding issues and complications that occurred while building the initial prototype.

Oddly enough, the short delay actually helped Retro VGS in the long run. Following its failed IndieGoGo campaign, the team was able close a licensing deal with the classic 1980s gaming company Coleco, which is best known for popularising games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. Now, with the Coleco brand and the Atari Jaguar console casting, Retro VGS has built something that truly lives up to its retro roots — and they expect a lot of people to buy one.

The Coleco Chameleon will sell newly made cartridges for old classic games, some of which may not have been released in Australia, in addition to producing cartridges for brand new games created by indie developers. There’s no set number of titles that will launch with the console, but members of Retro VGS told us the number will likely be low, so that they can actually give people time to appreciate and discover some of the new indie games.

The system will include 4 USB slots in the front of the machine, which lets people plug in their own USB controllers to play games. Players can also use a USB slot to plug in a keyboard — something you still can’t do on most modern systems.

There’s also an official Coleco Chameleon controller that ships with every console. The branded controller is essentially a third-party Nintendo Wii U Pro controller. But the team at Retro VGS emphasises just how adaptable the new console is. The said someday the console might be able to read even cartridge types from other brands and historic gaming controllers. To start, though, the console bundles will remain relatively simple.

The Coleco Chameleon comes out the of the box with a bunch of different video outputs including HDMI, RCA and 9-pin Mini-DIN. That means you can basically plug this system into any popular television — whether it was built decades ago or came off the rack this year.

In addition to showing the console in public for the first time at the New York Toy Fair, Retro VGS also used the occasion to announced its release date: “We are excited to announce the Coleco Chameleon Video-Game System Kickstarter campaign will begin the morning of Friday, February, 26th 2016,” said Retro VGS in a recent Facebook post.

One day later the team announced that the first Kickstarter reward will be sell for $US135 ($189) and include the system, one USB controller, HDMI cable, AC adaptor and game. To see more live demos of the Coleco Chameleon from the 2016 New York Toy Fair, check out the videos below:

[MIKA27]

Broken Bone? Soon You Will Be Able To 3D Print A New One

US scientists have created a prototype 3D bioprinter capable of creating human-scale, structurally stable tissues in any shape. Their study explores the capabilities of the new bioprinter for fabricating bone, cartilage and skeletal muscle using human as well as animal cells. And they’ve succeeded in making the printouts human-sized.

3D bioprinters are machines that print cells in layered patterns with the aim of creating a functional tissue or organ. However, the resulting constructs are often structurally unstable and too fragile for surgical implantation. And because they lack blood vessels, their size is constrained by the diffusion limit for nutrients and oxygen, which is around 200 micrometers — too small to make most human tissues and organs.

Anthony Atala and colleagues addressed the problem of structural stability by printing cells together with biodegradable polymer materials that confer mechanical strength until the newly forming tissue matures. To overcome the size limit and produce large tissues, they integrated microchannels into the construct design so that nutrients and oxygen can be delivered to cells anywhere in the structure.

The researchers demonstrate an approach for customising the shape of printed constructs to the needs of individual patients. They use clinical imaging to create a 3D computer model of the missing tissue, and translate the model into a program that guides the printer nozzles that dispense cells.

The study explores the capabilities of the new bioprinter for fabricating bone, cartilage and skeletal muscle using human, rabbit, rat and mouse cells. Future refinements that will be required to make transplantable tissues include the use of clinical-grade human cells (ideally derived from the patient) and a wider variety of cell types printed in patterns that replicate native tissues.

[MIKA27]

The 'Daredevil' Season Two Trailer Features The Punisher And Elektra

Frank Castle (The Punisher) and Elektra Natchios make their way to Hell’s Kitchen in the second season of the brilliant Daredevil TV series. The fight scenes are always a standout in this show, but it looks like they can only get better now. Seriously, The Punisher. This is going to be rad.

[MIKA27]

Panasonic Lumix GF8

Panasonic have introduced the beautifully retro-styled Lumix GF8. The sleek single lens mirrorless camera features a 16 megapixel Digital Live MOS sensor, 5.8fps shooting speed, 1080/60p video and built-in Wi-Fi, and a 3-inch 1040K-dot LCD rear monitor that can be flipped 180 degrees. The GF8 also comes with 100GB of storage on Google Drive, and the faux-leather-wrapped body is available in a choice of brown, silver, pink or orange colors. Theres no word yet on pricing or availability.

[MIKA27]

THINO CHARGER

You can buy a big backup battery to keep your phone going when its charge runs down. It won't do you a bit of good if you don't carry it with you. The Thino Chargeris an EDC-friendly gadget that gives you just enough power to curb your anxiety while not taking up a ton of space in your bag or pocket. Inside its sandblasted aluminum housing is a 480 mAh battery — enough to get you through a couple hours — and an integrated Lightning or Micro USB cable that lets it serve as both a charging cable and battery, and locks into place so you can carry it on a keychain or carabiner.

[Fuzz]

A Global Tragedy Is Unfolding In Tasmania

An island the size of Ireland with a population of 500,000, it’s easy to forget about Tasmania, located just 2575km from the Antarctic coast.

Geez. Of course it sounds like Tassie is easily forgotten when you say it is 2575km from the Antartic coast. How about you say it is only 240km off the coast of Victoria (nearly the same distance between Sydney and Canberra)?

[MIKA27]

Geez. Of course it sounds like Tassie is easily forgotten when you say it is 2575km from the Antartic coast. How about you say it is only 240km off the coast of Victoria (nearly the same distance between Sydney and Canberra)?

Nah, I much prefer the sound of 2575km from the Antartic coast. or perhaps the same distance from Buffalo New York to New Mexico Albuquerque. Simply put, I didn't want to be affiliated with two headed Tassies

[Fuzz]

Nah, I much prefer the sound of 2575km from the Antartic coast. or perhaps the same distance from Buffalo New York to New Mexico Albuquerque. Simply put, I didn't want to be affiliated with two headed Tassies

That's the whole purpose of Victoria, to act as a buffer for NSW!

[MIKA27]

That's the whole purpose of Victoria, to act as a buffer for NSW!

A pre-filter hey

[MIKA27]

China's Giant 'Alien-Hunting' Telescope Comes With A Human Cost

China is building the biggest radio telescope on Earth. And the country is displacing over 9000 people to do it.

As headlines like “China uproots 9,000 people for huge telescope in search for aliens” suggest, people are justifiably upset about it. It’s especially egregious, considering that these folks are being paid a laughable pittance to move: 12,000 yuan. That’s barely $2580, and less than half the average annual salary in China.

Upsetting to be sure — but would people react differently if it were a highway or a dam? This telescope is a different breed of public works progress, on a different scale. It won’t necessarily fix China’s notorious traffic problems or keep the lights on in Shanghai. But this telescope could help all of mankind to see the universe in a whole new way.

The 500m-wide telescope is called FAST (Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope), and it’s almost double the size as the next biggest radio telescope, a similarly shaped contraption in Puerto Rico. Its 460,000 reflective mirrors will reflect radio signals emitted by the universe onto a 30-ton antenna, which could help us unlock all kinds of galactic secrets, including whether or not we’re truly alone in the universe. The $US184 million project is supposed to wrap up in September after five years of construction.

But to make that happen, over 9000 people will trade their homes for a small amount of money. China is actually nefarious for development-induced displacement. Back in 2010, a staggering 300,000 residents were moved back in 2010 to clear the way for the Three Gorges Dam. That seems like a paltry number of people compared the million-plus Chinese that were moved against their will for construction for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In fact, since the ’70s, over 40 million Chinese have been displaced due to various public works projects or infrastructure initiatives.

But this just isn’t any public works project. It’s one of the most ambitious space research telescope projects in history. The telescope is a lot more than just some hunt for aliens. Last year, a Chinese astronomer told the South China Morning Post that the telescope is built to capture barely audible radio transmissions that are more than 1000 lightyears away. If there’s intelligent life out there, astronomer Shi Zhicheng said in July, then we could hear messages they left behind using FAST.

So FAST can help us study space at new, mind-blowing distances, and that has many benefits beyond the off chance that we discover life on other planets. As researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported when the telescope was still in the planning stages:

As the most sensitive single dish radio telescope, FAST would be able to discover more mega-masers and measure the radial velocities of masers with higher precision. This may yield more delicate dynamics of their maser spots. FAST will increase the precision of time of arrival (ToA) measurements for pulsars. This will help in detecting the stochastic gravitational wave background and in establishing an independent timing standard based on the long-term stability of the rotations of a group of millisecond pulsars. FAST might also work as a very powerful ground station for the future space missions

And don’t forget that NASA recently discovered the most Earth-like planet ever found and detected gravitational waves for the first time. More powerful and accurate telescopes will undoubtedly open the door to new discoveries.

Does the Chinese government need to treat the people displaced by this massive project better? Absolutely. But let’s also bear in mind the fact that China’s efforts in developing its space technology won’t just help China learn more about the universe. It will help everyone.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Discover A Boiling River Of Amazonian Legend

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, legends tell of a river so hot that it boils from below. As a geoscientist, Andrés Ruzo’s training told him the stories couldn’t be true. But that was before he saw the river with his own eyes.

It’s incredible to think there are natural wonders on this planet not yet known to science, but such was the case for the river at Mayantuyacu, publicised for the first time in The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon. The book is an engrossing, true story of discovery, adventure, science and mysticism, told by a man who was driven to explain something impossible, and is now on a quest to preserve it.

When he was 12 years old growing up in Peru, Ruzo’s grandfather told him a strange story. After Spanish conquistadors killed the last Inca emperor, they headed deep into the Amazon rainforest in search of gold. Few of these men would ever return, but those who did spoke of a waking nightmare — poisoned water, man-eating snakes, starvation, disease and a river that boils from below, as if lit by a great fire.

The image of that boiling river seared itself into Ruzo’s mind. But it wasn’t until years later, as a PhD student in geophysics at Southern Methodist University, that he started to wonder if the legend could be true. This wasn’t just idle curiosity: Ruzo’s thesis project centred around creating the first detailed geothermal map of Peru, including parts of the Amazon. If a boiling river existed, it would surely merit recognition.

But his senior colleagues dismissed the idea as preposterous. It would take a tremendous amount of geothermal heat to boil even a small section of a river — and the Amazon basin lies hundreds of kilometres from any active volcanoes. One advisor even suggested that Ruzo stop asking “stupid questions” if he wanted to finish his PhD.

But Ruzo didn’t stop asking. And eventually, he found someone who took his questions about a boiling river seriously: his aunt. That’s because she’d been to one.

The Boiling River at Mayantuyacu,

The river turned out to be no legend at all, but the sacred geothermal healing site of Mayantuyacu, nestled deep in the Peruvian rainforest and protected by a powerful shaman. Ruzo couldn’t quite believe it until he saw it for himself, but once he did, his life changed.

Up to 25m wide and 6m deep, the river surges for nearly 6km at elevated temperatures. Around Mayantuyacu, the water is hot enough to brew tea or cook any animals unfortunate enough to fall in. And yes, a small portion of it is so hot that it actually boils.

“You’re surrounded by the sounds of the rainforest,” Ruzo told Gizmodo. “You feel this water surging past you and plumes of vapour coming up. It’s truly a spectacular place.”

Mayantuyacu is visited each year by a handful of tourists, who come to experience the traditional medicinal practices of the Asháninka people. Save several obscure references in petroleum journals from the 1930s, scientific documentation of the river is non-existent. Somehow, this natural wonder has managed to elude widespread notice for over seventy five years.

Many of us turn to fiction to escape the mundanity of the real world. But as The Boiling River so poignantly illustrates, fantastical discoveries are lurking all around us. It takes a special type of persistence, and a little bit of crazy, to pull the clues out of the white noise of everyday routine. When Ruzo did, he was rewarded with the biggest adventure of his life.

Sampling 97C water

And it’s an adventure that’s just beginning. Having forged a strong relationship with the local community, Ruzo is now conducting detailed geothermal studies of the boiling river, attempting to place it in the context of the Amazon basin. He’s also collaborating with microbial ecologists to investigate the extremophile organisms living in its scalding waters. Anything that survives here could offer insights into how life got its start billions of years ago, when the Earth was a much harsher planet.

But most importantly, Ruzo’s trying to save the boiling river. “In the middle of my PhD, I realised, this river is a natural wonder,” Ruzo said. “And it’s not going to be around unless we do something about it.”

Since Ruzo first visited Mayantuyacu in 2011, the surrounding forest has been decimated by illegal logging. If action isn’t taken, the site — held sacred by generations of Asháninka cultural practitioners — could soon vanish.

Ruzo hopes that by putting a spotlight on the boiling river, he can garner the public interest and financial support needed to ensure its long-term survival. While Mayantuyacu faces many threats, from loggers to would-be energy developers, the coalition to protect its unique natural and cultural heritage grows stronger every day.

Destruction of Amazon rainforest surrounding the Boiling River site

Ruzo recently received a grant from National Geographic, part of which will go toward using technology — including drones and satellites — to learn which regions of the surrounding forest are the most vulnerable. To strengthen the conservation effort on the ground, he’s teamed up with Peruvian environmental organisations, and local community leaders.

Ultimately, if the boiling river is to survive, it will be because people came together and recognised its intrinsic value. After reading Ruzo’s captivating, real-life adventure story, you might be inclined to agree.

“I don’t like the concept of one person leading this charge — I think it’s about building a community on an international scale,” Ruzo said. “The planet’s gotten small, and natural wonders like this are few and far between.”

[MIKA27]

Revolutionary Cancer Therapy Shows Promise In Terminally Ill Patients

A groundbreaking new therapy in which white blood cells were reprogrammed to attack cancer cells is showing great promise after more than 90 per cent of terminally ill leukaemia patients had their symptoms disappear completely.

For the new therapy, white blood cells were extracted from terminally ill cancer patients, and then genetically reprogrammed to better recognise and target cancer cells. Once reintroduced into a patient’s bloodstream, the juiced-up immune cells made it much more difficult for the cancer to spread and take hold. Oncologist Stanley Riddell from Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shared his team’s findings on Monday at the annual meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Washington DC.

In one trial, 94 per cent of terminally ill lymphoblastic leukaemia patients went into remission. Patients with similar blood cancers experienced response rates greater than 80 per cent, with more than half going into remission.

Before and after image shows lymphoma regression after CAR T-cell therapy.

The details have yet to be published in a peer reviewed science journal, so we need to be cautious about these findings. Indeed, the researchers themselves said that the results are very preliminary and that more work needs to be done. It’s not known, for example, how long the patients will remain in remission; the scientists aren’t calling it a cure, even though symptoms disappeared in many cases. What’s more, two patients actually died from the therapy after it triggered an extreme immune response. All participants involved in the study were terminally ill cancer patients with about two to five months to live, and none were responding to conventional treatments. But Riddell described the early data as “unprecedented”, saying it’s a “potential paradigm shift” in cancer treatment.

For the therapy, T cells, also known as T lymphocytes, were taken from the blood of cancer patients and then genetically altered to contain “receptor” molecules that target cancer. The technique only works for refractory B-cell malignancies — so-called “liquid” blood cancers — such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

T cells are a type of white blood cell that detects foreign or abnormal cells, including tumours, and kickstarts an immune response that targets the invading cells for attack. In some cases, however, these attacks aren’t strong enough to destroy cancer cells, and the immune cells become exhausted. That, or the tumours themselves deploy resistance measures that constrain immune response. In the new therapy, a subset of T cells were armed with chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs, using gene transfer, making them better at targeting cancer cells. The enhanced immune cells produced “a potent and long-lasting response” to the cancer.

“The merging of gene therapy, synthetic biology and cell biology is providing new treatment options for patients with refractory malignancies and represents a novel class of therapeutics with the potential to transform cancer care,” noted Riddell in a statement. “In the laboratory and in clinical trials, we are seeing dramatic responses in patients with tumours that are resistant to conventional high-dose chemotherapy.”

Looking ahead, the researchers want to locate target molecules that are typically expressed by human cancers and then design even more powerful receptors.