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

[MIKA27]

The Director of 10 Cloverfield Lane Will Make an Original Film Called Space Race

Deadline reports that Dan Trachtenberg, the director of last year’s 10 Cloverfield Lane and one of the most unsettling new episodes of Black Mirror (“Playtest”), has just signed to make a movie called Space Race.

The publication had no further information regarding what it’s about, but it’s a spec script by Daniel Kunka (12 Rounds) that’ll be produced and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film is described as “high concept with four-quadrant tentpole potential,” which means it’s almost certainly not a film about the U.S. and Russia racing to get a man on the moon.

So what if it’s way more simple than that? What if it’s literally just about racing in space?

 Trachtenberg is attached to a few other projects at the moment, such as a heist movie called Crime of the Century and a Houdini biopic, so there’s no guarantee this happens next. But it sounds like a project to definitely keep an eye on—especially if that title is also a plot description.

[polarbear]

26 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

It was IMO the WORST Spiderman movie out of the franchise.... But tell me the truth Fuzz, you loved this scene

 

You two should watch this, you'll disagree with it, I imagine, but its still a good watch

 

[Fuzz]

Actually, I agree with that vid, PB.

[MIKA27]

39 minutes ago, Fuzz said:

Actually, I agree with that vid, PB.

I'll second that - Deep down it is a good flick albeit flawed and moving the goth corniness aside as well as Kirsten Dunst, it is pretty good. 

Thanks @polarbear

Here is a gift in return for you to watch

 

[MIKA27]

The Man Who Pulls Cars With His Eyelids

Here's a list of things I can do with my eyelids.

Blink.

That's pretty much it.

Here's a list of things I can't do with my eyelids: pull a car weighing 3.5 tonnes.

Yang Guanghe's list looks a little different. His eyelids do more than blink. Here's a few things Yang Guanghe can do:

1. Hold 23.5 kg suspended with his eye sockets. 2. Stand on sharpened blades with his bare feet 3. Pull three human beings balanced on a tricycle with his eyelids

He did that last one to train for pulling the car. Yang Guange is an absolute superhuman machine.

Yang Guange's bizarre resume includes up to 30 feats that test the limits of human endurance and physical strength. Pretty incredible when you consider he weighs 45kgs. Yep, Yang Guange is a small dude, but he can do some incredible things.

Guange hails from Anshun, in the Guizhou province of China. His stated purpose in life: "test the extremities of people's fragile organs". Yang Guange is not like normal human beings.

For example, Yang Guange has been known to insert an operating power drill into his goddamn nostrils. He has stuffed a live snake through his nose to the point where it then escaped out of his mouth. He is not a one trick pony.

But it's Yang Guange's eyelids that garner the most attention, and rightly so. Many of Guange's tricks are the result of pure bravery (or stupidity) but his ability to pull gargantuan object using his eyelids is legitimately the end result of gruelling, sustained training over a long period of time. He would prefer if you didn't try to imitate him.

"It takes years of training to toughen the eyelids up to get to this sort of level where you can perform feats like this," he said. "My speciality is to turn my softer parts into something formidable."

It makes sense. Because Guange started out slow. First he pulled the human beings on the tricycle. Yeah, not bad. Then he gave the 1.6 ton car a try. Okay, been there done that. Then he thought, you know what. Maybe now it's time to give a 3.5 ton vehicle a red hot go.

Sure why not.

These days Yang is still performing, alongside a swathe of apprentices who also attempt to pull off superhuman stunts. Together they have a fun time climbing mountains of knives, dancing on fire, and being hammered on beds of nails.

[MIKA27]

Watch How Tom Cruise Pulled Off Zero-G Plane Stunt For The Mummy

A nausea-inducing behind-the-scenes featurette shows how Tom Cruise, Annabelle Wallis and the crew defied gravity to bring a key scene from The Mummy to life. No Book of the Dead required.
When the first trailer for Universal's The Mummy reboot came out, one of the most impressive moments was the scene where Cruise, Wallis, and a bunch of soldiers were being tossed around a crashing plane like a bunch of ragdolls.

Turns out, Cruise came up with the idea to perform the stunt a while ago... either because it was part of the script and he didn't want to use a green screen, or he simply said, "Fuck it, let's crash a plane in this movie because I wanna float in space." Based on the director's commentary, I'm leaning toward the latter.

"Tom said, 'Yeah we're gonna do it for real, we're gonna get on a real plane and we're gonna crash,' and I thought, 'This is just never gonna happen,'" director Alex Kurtzman said.

The crew converted a Zero-G plane from NoveSpace, a subsidiary of the French Space Agency, fitting it with specially designed padding to make it look like the inside of a aeroplane. They went on a series of parabolic flights, which take you thousands of feet in the air so you can float inside the aircraft. Each weightless session lasts about 20 seconds, which isn't a long time to film.

It's amazing to see the actors, stunt doubles, and crew members floating around as they struggled to grab every shot they could. The result, though, is impressive... to say the last.

[MIKA27]

COLORFUL PHOTOS OF AMERICANS PARTYING IN PRE-EMBARGO CUBA

What happens when a black and white photographer brings rolls of color film to Cuba? The results look like a box of confetti and 50s fashion ads.

German photographer Heinrich Heidersberger hopped on a cruise to Cuba back in 1954. Camera in tow, he wandered the streets and captured lively scenes of tourist opulence and style.

These were the days before Fidel Castro took power, meaning Americans still counted on Cuba as a holiday destination.

Brimming with hectic energy, Heidersberger's photos reveal a forgotten style of American tourism. Cuba was a playground for America's rich in the 50s and for good reason.

The Caribbean island boasts delicious sun, food, and style, making Heidersberger's shots appear like a collection of mixed candies and tropical fruit.

[MIKA27]

The First Spacewalker Cheated Death And Crash-Landed In a Forest Full of Wolves

Humanity’s first spacewalk seems even crazier 52 years later.

March 18, 1965 was an ordinary Thursday for the majority of people located on planet Earth. But for 30-year-old cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, one of two people who happened to be off-world at the time, it was all about making history and cheating death.

Exactly 52 years ago last Saturday, Leonov and mission commander Pavel Belyayev blasted into space aboard the Soviet spacecraft Voskhod ("Sunrise") 2. Several crews, both Russian and American, had already orbited Earth, so Voskhod 2 had been tasked with pushing the boundaries of human spaceflight to the next level—a spacewalk, or EVA (extravehicular activity). His audacious mission has since been commemorated with books, stamps, pop culture homages, and an upcoming feature-length film.

Schematic of Voskhod 2.

About ninety minutes after lift-off, Leonov made his way into the ship's Volga inflatable airlock, secured a 5.35-meter (17.6 foot) tether around his torso, opened the hatch, and ventured out into the unknown with only a spacesuit to protect him. It was the first time any human had left the safety of a spacecraft and free-floated in orbit. A Volga-mounted camera that Leonov had set up on his way out captured the extraordinary moment.

A second camera attached to Leonov's chest did not fare so well, because Leonov's spacesuit unexpectedly puffed up in response to the atmospheric pressure shift. As a result, he was unable to reach the shutter switch on his thigh (though this didn't prevent later artistic renditions of the event from depicting him in an idealized cameraman pose).

Voskhod 2 commemorative stamp

Leonov apparently didn't worry much about his inflating spacesuit, becoming enraptured instead with his unobstructed view of Earth. He described the feeling as "like a seagull with its wings outstretched, soaring high above the Earth," in the book Two Sides of the Moon, co-written with American astronaut David Scott, the seventh man to walk on the lunar surface.    

"I heard Pasha talking to me: 'It's time to come back in,'" Leonov recalled. "I realized I had been floating free in space for over ten minutes. In that moment my mind flickered back for a second to my childhood, to my mother opening the window at home and calling to me as I played outside with my friends, 'Lyosha, it's time to come inside now.' With some reluctance I acknowledged that it was time to re-enter the spacecraft."

But returning to Voskhod 2 would not be so easy. Leonov's inflated suit had become stiff over the 12-minute space walk, and it was too large and rigid to fit back in the airlock.

Realizing their star cosmonaut was stuck in space, Soviet mission control cut the live-feed, and ominously replaced it with a rendition of Mozart's Requiem. Meanwhile, Leonov decided to deflate the suit by releasing the oxygen valve. Fortunately, he was able to squeeze back into the Volga module before his breathable air ran out, and before heatstroke and decompression sickness overtook him.

That's when things got really interesting for the crew of Voskhod 2.

After jettisoning the Volga airlock and preparing for reentry, Leonov noticed that the automatic guidance system was malfunctioning. With mere minutes to go until they hit the atmosphere, Leonov and Belyayev had to scramble to manually orient themselves and calculate a retrorocket firing sequence that would land them safely within Soviet borders.  

It worked...kind of. After an extremely rough descent at high pressures of 10 gs, Voskhod 2 touched down in the Soviet Union. But they ended up way off course in a remote wolf-infested Siberian forest near the town of Solikamsk, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the planned landing site.

Leonov recalls Belyayev asking how soon he thought rescuers would come for them. "In three months, maybe, they'll find us with dog sleighs," Leonov joked (one of many instances of astronaut/cosmonaut gallows humor).

But as luck would have it, the pair did not have to brave the freezing temperatures for long. Though they spent one perilous night without heat hiding in the capsule, they were found by a well-stocked rescue team the following day. The crew spent a second night in a fire-warmed makeshift shelter before finally skiing to safety, and from there, world renown. Sadly, Belyayev only got to enjoy his fame for five years; he passed away in January 1970, from peritonitis.

Leonov, at 82, is still an active spaceflight advocate and science fiction artist. He was initially celebrated for securing an important spaceflight milestone, but once the full story was declassified and he could share his experiences, his narrow survival added a new layer of interest in the event.

As Leonov put in 2015: "I keep going over the mission and I keep finding mistakes that could have been avoided. They could have led to tragedy. Everything was on the edge."

If all this action has you itching for a movie about this roller-coaster of a mission, you might want to check out the newest trailer for Время первых (First Time). It's a feature film, directed by Yuri Bykov, about Voskhod 2 set to premiere in Russia in April 2017.

Of course, if you'd prefer a dumbed-down, inebriated version of the story, there's always this Drunk History segment on the mission narrated by Kyle Kinane.

Either way, it's worth remembering and celebrating the quick wits and badassery of Leonov and Belyayev on the 52nd anniversary of their historic achievement. Today, over 200 spacewalkers have followed Leonov's lead into outer space by performing their own EVAs. But as per Bykov's film title, only one can be first.

[MIKA27]

A TRAVEL COMPANY IS LAUNCHING EXPEDITIONS TO THE TITANIC’S WRECKAGE

On 14th April 1912, RMS Titanic collided with an iceberg four days into her maiden voyage from England to America. Just over two hours later, the ill-fated passenger liner was laid to rest at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Now, almost 105 years later, a luxury travel company is offering a select group of guests the chance to visit the remains of the world’s most famous shipwreck. UK-based Blue Marble Private just announced the Dive The Titanic expedition, an 8-day journey that will take intrepid underwater explorers 4,000 metres below the water’s surface to see the skeleton of the historic ship.

After embarking from Canada by helicopter or seaplane, travellers will be transported to an expedition support yacht above the Titanic’s wreckage in the North Atlantic Ocean. Each day will see them board a specially-designed titanium and carbon fibre submersible and descend to the remnants of the ship. Guided by a crew of experts, they’ll tour the doomed oceanliner and its most iconic sights, including the famous grand staircase.

The guests will also be treated to educational sessions on the Titanic’s history and the mechanics of deep-sea exploration, and will have the opportunity to help the crew prepare for dives, operate the sonar, and use the undersea navigation system. Participants can take images, videos, and sonar data home as mementos of their once-in-a-lifetime experience.

This marks the first time since 2005 that the public has been permitted to dive to the site of the Titanic, according to The Daily Telegraph. The sight is so rare, in fact, that fewer people have seen the ship than have travelled to space or summited Mount Everest.

The inaugural Dive The Titanic expedition is scheduled for 2018, with further dives planned for 2019. Just 9 adventurers at a time can be accommodated on each outing. And yes, it won’t be cheap.

The trip reportedly costs US$105,129 per person – equivalent to a first-class passage ($4,350) on the Titanic’s only voyage, after adjusting for inflation. With luck that will be the only thing the two voyages have in common.

[MIKA27]

Exclusive First Look At Dynamite’s Spies And Thrillers Titles Shipping June 2017

Here we have another batch of exclusive first looks from Dynamite, this time we’ve got the covers and solicitations for their spy comics and thrillers. James Robinson and Aaron Campbell wrap up their Felix Leiter series, Benjamin Percy and Rapha Lobosco continue with James Bond and Anthony Del Col and Werther Dell’Edera continue to unveil the Big Lie.

JAMES BOND #4
Cover A: Dominic Reardon Cover B: Jason Masters Cover C: Matt Taylor Writer: Benjamin Percy Art: Rapha Lobosco

James Bond #4, “The Suicide Forest” The latest installment in the Black Box storyline will leave you breathless. An epic car chase through the gritty, neon wonderland of Tokyo gives way to a sexy layover near Mt. Fuji, where James Bond goes “undercover” with the mysterious assassin, Selah Sax. Little does 007 know his mission is about to change — and danger lurks in the nearby “Suicide Forest,” where he and Selah will be both the hunters and the hunted.

JAMES BOND: FELIX LEITER #6 (of 6)
Cover A: Mike Perkins Writer: James Robinson Art: Aaron Campbell

The thrilling series conclusion! Tiger and Felix have cornered their prey, the North Korean agent responsible for the bio-weapons – but Alena Davoff, Felix’s former lover, is still at large, and Felix is dead-set on investigating! He must figure out if Alena is still working for her former Russian handlers… or if she’s gone rogue?

NANCY DREW & THE HARDY BOYS: THE BIG LIE #4
Cover A: Fay Dalton Cover B: Dave Bullock Writer: Anthony Del Col Art: Werther Dell’Edera

Who can you really trust? Now on the inside of the Rover gang that runs Bayport’s criminal world, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys turn to a black sheep brother to guide them through it all. But as they put together a sting operation, are they the ones that will be stung?

 

 

 

[MIKA27]

WHISTLEPIG FARMSTOCK CROP 001

You might find it hard to believe, but famed whiskey brand WhistlePig actually built their reputation on products that they had not, themselves, produced. That’s right – they were a non-distilling liquor company who sourced their ryes from different parts of Canada and the United States. But now, they’re looking to finally change that with the release of their first partially in-house distilled rye whiskey, FarmStock Crop 001.

A portion of this whiskey’s content (about 20%) comes from a 1.5 to 2-year aged batch of rye made entirely on-site – meaning from seed to locally-sourced oak barrels – at WhistlePig Farms in Vermont. Not only is that a huge step forward for the brand in their quest to create a “a true farm-to-bottle whiskey,” but it’s also encouragingly respectable to see that they are being so transparent about the journey. With a pleasant nose of oak, caramel, toffee, and a hint of mint; a palate rich in spices and with hints of fruit and citrus; and a complex tobacco, butterscotch, and vanilla finish, this promises to be a superb rye whiskey that will go down in the annals of liquor history. It will retail starting at $90. 

[MIKA27]

A Documentary About International Barbecue Culture

We don’t think it’s a stretch to say there’s no better food than well barbecued meat. Someone taking the time to cook pork or beef or chicken to perfect succulent smoked deliciousness is an amazing culinary gift. That’s the topic Barbecue explores, except this documentary blows the scale out to examine international barbecue culture. Just in the short trailer, cooks from every inhabited continent make an appearance, all of them talking about the community barbecue creates and fosters. Even if the food isn’t exactly the same, everyone’s experience with it is, since having a good time with friends and food isn’t something that’s separated by borders or language. And we realize that’s sappy to say out loud, but it’s also the truth, and it’s a truth that Barbecue hopes to illustrate.

[MIKA27]

Raen Kettner Sunglasses

The Kettner is a new timeless frame by Raen Optics. Handcrafted from zyl acetate, the frames´ square shape offers a look that keeps things casual, and the CR-39 lenses offer reliable defense against harmful UVA/UVB rays during your day, while the included premium felt case and polishing cloth provide secure storage as the sun goes down. They also feature a combination temple and an inlaid metal brow bar. Available now in four different styles.

[MIKA27]

TYRCONNELL 16 YEAR OLD IRISH WHISKEY

Whiskey is booming everywhere. But you might be surprised to know that the brown spirit making the biggest moves right now is none other than Irish Whiskey. Among those gaining popularity is Tyrconnell, named after the unlikely winner of the National Produce Stakes Horse Race in 1876. Their latest release is a 16-year-old single malt made using only the finest Irish barley and pure Irish spring water. Produced at Cooley Distillery in County Louth, this special expression is an ideal celebratory pour on St. Patrick's Day but will keep your interest long after the holiday as well.

[MIKA27]

The Haunting Face Of A Man Who Lived 700 Years Ago

This may look like a photograph, but the highly realistic face staring back at you belongs to a man who died over 700 years ago. The researchers who performed this unbelievable facial reconstruction say their work is providing new details about the way ordinary people lived in medieval England.

This 13th-century man — dubbed "Context 958" — is one of approximately 400 complete burials found and excavated beneath the Old Divinity School of St John's College in Cambridge, England, between 2010 and 2012. Back during the medieval era, this spot was home to the Hospital of St John, a charitable institution set up to care for the poor and sick in the community. For centuries, the dead were buried in a cemetery right out back.

Facial reconstruction of Context 958

The reconstruction of Context 958 is part of a collaborative effort between Cambridge University's Division of Archaeology and the University of Dundee's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification. The Wellcome Trust-funded project, called "After the plague: health and history in medieval Cambridge", is an effort to catalogue and analyse the burials in as much depth and detail as possible.

Based on an exhaustive analysis of his remains and the burial site, here's what we know about Context 958.

He was just slightly over 40 years old when he died. His skeleton showed signs of considerable wear-and-tear, so he likely lead a tough and hard working life. His tooth enamel stopped growing during two occasions in his youth, suggesting he likely lived through bouts of famine or sickness when he was young. The archaeologists found traces of blunt force trauma inflicted to the back of his head, which healed over before he died. The researchers aren't sure what he did for a living, but they think he was a working-class person who specialised in some kind of trade.

Dr Sarah Inskip examines the skull of Context 958

Context 958 ate a diverse diet rich in meat or fish, according to an analysis of weathering patterns on his teeth. His profession may have provided him with more access to such foods than the average person at the time. His presence at the charitable hospital suggests he fell on hard times, with no one to take care of him.

"Context 958 was probably an inmate of the Hospital of St John, a charitable institution which provided food and a place to live for a dozen or so indigent townspeople — some of whom were probably ill, some of whom were aged or poor and couldn't live alone," noted John Robb, a professor from Cambridge University's Division of Archaeology, in a statement.

Strangely, he was buried face down, which is rare but not uncommon in medieval burials. Robb and his colleagues are fascinated by Context 958 and those like him. Their analysis shows what it was like to live as an ordinary poor person back then — warts and all.

Context 958 was found buried face-down in the historic cemetery of St John's.

"Most historical records are about well-off people and especially their financial and legal transactions — the less money and property you had, the less likely anybody was to ever write down anything about you," said Robb. "So skeletons like this are really our chance to learn about how the ordinary poor lived."

Of course, facial reconstructions are only as good as the data they're based on, in this case a highly-weathered skeleton. We can't be completely certain that this is exactly what Context 958 looked like. But at the very least, it's bringing his remains back to life. Work on other skeletons found at the site will continue, as the researchers are putting together a kind of biography of every individual studied. It's a fitting tribute to regular folks whose lives would have otherwise been completely forgotten.

[MIKA27]

Here's What The Original, Far Less Tragic Ending Of Rogue One Would Have Been

By now, it's common knowledge that Rogue One does not end happily for any of the main characters. Sure, they accomplish their goal, and that goal makes many major things possible, but they never get to see the fruits of their labour. In early versions of the script, however, that was not the case.

While director Gareth Edwards has admitted this in the past, Rogue One's first writer Gary Whitta just gave all the details of the original ending to Entertainment Weekly. 

After Jyn and Cassian stole the plans, they ran across the beach (a shot seen in early preview footage) and a Rebel ship dropped down to pick them up. Once in space, Leia's ship met up with Jyn and Cassian's, but with Darth Vader's Star Destroyer in pursuit. They transferred the data to Leia's ship just as their ship was destroyed. However, as the first shot of A New Hope happened in the back of the frame, a small escape pod ejected from the destroyed wreckage, indicating Jyn and Cassian had survived.

It's obviously a much happier ending, but Whitta said it just didn't feel right.

"The fact that we had to jump through so many hoops to keep them alive was the writing gods telling us that if they were meant to live it wouldn't be this difficult," Whitta told EW. "We decided they should die on the surface [of Scarif], and that was the way it ended. We were constantly trying to make all the pieces fit together. We tried every single idea. Eventually, through endless development you get through an evolutionary process where the best version rises to the top."

It's worth noting this version was never shot. It just existed on the page.

Entertainment Weekly has many more details at the link, and it's definitely worth a read. Rogue One hits Blu-ray on April 5.

[MIKA27]

North Korea Makes Failed Missile Launch Attempt

North Korea was pretty proud of itself earlier this month when it launched four ballistic missiles in a single day. But much of that enthusiasm has waned overnight as North Korea's latest launch did not go as planned.

"US Pacific Command detected what we assess was a failed North Korean missile launch attempt the morning of March 22 in Korea (12:49 PM Hawaii-time,) in the vicinity of Kalma," Commander David Benham, a spokesman for US Pacific Command, told ABC News in a statement.

"A missile appears to have exploded within seconds of launch," Benham continued. "We are working with our Interagency partners on a more detailed assessment. We continue to monitor North Korea's actions closely."

It's still unclear what kind of missile the North Koreans were attempting to launch, but it isn't unusual for this kind of testing to occur during this season. The US military is currently conducting joint exercises with the South Koreans, simulating an attack on North Korea.

Robert Kelly, associate professor of political science at Pusan National University (and the guy who became a meme when his kids barged in during a Skype interview with the BBC), told CNN that "missile tests are a nice way to send a signal", and that these kinds of tit for tat tests and military drills happen every year.

But the world is on edge this year perhaps more than in previous years if only because of the heightened rhetoric coming out of Washington. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has been beating the drums of war, and says that he won't rule out a preemptive strike against the isolated nation.

As yet we haven't seen footage of North Korea's launch failure. If the North Koreans do get one up next time, you can bet we'll see video footage. North Korea has an enormous amount of pride and appreciates the attention when others watch.

[MIKA27]

Mountain Biking Down An Abandoned Mine Shaft Is A Dimly Lit Descent Into Hell

There are lots of places to go off-road mountain biking if you're looking for a cheap thrill (or the chance to break your neck). But one of the most dangerous has to be riding into an abandoned mine shaft. If your torch dies as you're pedalling deep into the earth, you're probably screwed.

After countless rainy days foiled Kilian Bron's outdoor cycling adventures, he decided to instead make a short film about mountain biking through a mine shaft. If years of watching Scooby-Doo has taught us anything, it's that old abandoned mines are ripe for collapsing, and are also possibly haunted. But despite the risks, clearly Kilian made it out alive, with some genuinely unique mountain biking footage of the ride.

[MIKA27]

Australian Scientists Inject Spider Venom Into The Brain To Protect It From Strokes

Funnel web spiders are a perplexing bunch. The eight-legged Australian creatures can kill with their venom, but are simultaneously required for creating the antidote. Now, it turns out their venom might have another purpose — protecting the brain from the damaging effects of a stroke.

Most strokes are ischemic, meaning they result in a lack of blood and therefore oxygen to the brain, usually from a blood clot. Oxygen deprivation causes the brain to start breaking itself down, leading to permanent damage. But a team of Australian scientists have learned that a chemical in funnel web spider venom seems to block the brain's self-destruct process in rats. We don't know if it will work in humans yet, but it might.

Brain cells usually power themselves the way other cells do — via their mitochondria, which use oxygen to help them create lots of energy. If a blood clot cuts off the oxygen supply, the cells switch to a last-resort energy making method that's a lot less efficient and creates an acidic environment in the brain. This over-activates one of the brain's key sensors, acid-sensing ion channel 1a or ASIC1a, and can lead to permanent damage. Finding something to stop those sensors from freaking out in the acidic environment should prevent some of the long-term damage caused by strokes.

Spider venoms from a Caribbean tarantula species, Psalmopoeus cambridgei, already seem to offer some protection — but they don't work if they're administered to lab rats more than two to four hours after the stroke. Funnel web spider venom seemed like a logical next step, since a few chemicals in it, including a peptide called Hi1a, looked a lot like the brain-protecting chemicals in tarantula venom.

To find out if funnel web venom was as useful as they suspected, researchers induced strokes in some rats, and injected Hi1a directly into the brain. Injected up to eight hours after the stroke, it performed wonders. The rats had fewer negative cognitive effects one to three days afterwards, and a reduced amount of damaged tissue throughout their brains. The researchers published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

The study's results are obviously exciting, since the only FDA-approved ischemic stroke drugs just help the blood flow better after the stroke and don't deal with brain damage. That's pretty unsatisfactory, seeing as strokes are the third-leading cause of Australian deaths. But there are a ton of caveats. First of all, these are just rats. There's no guarantee Hi1a will work in humans. And how long-term will the molecule's effects be? The researchers only tested the rats' cognitive performance after a few days.

Finally, where will we get all these spiders? As we've reported recently, Australian zoos already struggle to get enough funnel web spiders to make antidote for spider bites. Would we need to weigh strokes versus bites in terms of how to deploy limited venom supplies?

We've reached out to other researchers to get their thoughts on the study, and to ask whether the chemical could be produced without spiders in the lab. Until Hi1a is demonstrated to help human stroke victims, I'm going to keep spiders in the "scary" camp.

[MIKA27]

James Gunn Reveals First Look At Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 Imax Poster On Twitter

According to a headline that says pretty much everything there is to say about this news story, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 director James Gunn has revealed the first look at the official Imax poster for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 by tweeting it. Internet custom dictates that this article be at least three sentences long, so we’re going to finish this off by telling you when the movie comes out. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hits theaters on May 5.

[MIKA27]

Michael Shannon May Kneel Before Deadpool 2… As Cable

His name hasn’t come up in any earlier reports, but THR is saying that Michael Shannon (Man of Steel) may be the front runner to play Cable in Deadpool 2. The report says that Shannon tops a list that also includes David Harbour (Stranger Things), but Kyle Chandler whose name has been mentioned was never a serious contender.

The thing that could hold up the casting is that Shannon has just signed on to another film, What They Had, which starts shooting this spring. He recently wrapped shooting on Horse Soldiers, in which he appears with Chris Hemsworth and Michael Pena.

David Leitch (John Wick) is directing and of course Ryan Reynolds is returning as the Merc with the Mouth. Zazie Beetz has signed on to play Domino. The film is scheduled to start shooting in Vancouver this summer.

[MIKA27]

Experts Predict 7,000 More Siberian Holes Opening Soon

It’s time for a new saying.

Quote

Mysteries are like Siberian craters. When one is solved, a new one opens up.

Or, in this case, 7,000 may open up. According to a new study reported in the Siberian Times, researchers have identified over 7,000 methane bubbles just beneath the permafrost surface in the areas of northern Siberia where bubbles like these have exploded or collapsed over the past few years to form huge craters, including the Batagaika Crater, which is living up to its reputation as the Doorway to the Underworld by continuing to expand and swallow up Siberia. We may soon gaze up at the Moon and think, “It looks just like Siberia.”

The bulging ground zero for the methane bubble crisis is Bely Island (also known as Belyy Island) in the Kara Sea off the coast of the Yamal Peninsula where the Siberian crater mystery first opened and eventually was solved, at least the cause was. Bely Island helped in the resolution after researchers noticed the ground bounced when they walked on it. That bounce turned out to be from dirt-covered methane bubbles and walking on them was not a good idea.

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With time, the bubble explodes, releasing gas. This is how gigantic funnels form.

Alexey Titovsky, director of the Yamal Department for Science and Innovation and Siberian crater expert, explained last year why the formation of the Siberian craters — the “giant funnels” –was no longer a mystery. That was when a mere 15 of the bubbles had been found. Just a year later, the count is up to over 7,000 and growing.

The new mystery is why Bely Island has so many of these bubbles. The researchers found that methane levels in the atmosphere on the island were 1,000 times above normal, while CO2 levels were 25 times higher. As more bubbles explode, more of Bely Island disappears. Experts are concerned that this is an indication of what will soon happen on the Yamal Peninsula and beyond, where the bubbles are near human populations with roads and buildings.

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We need to know which bumps are dangerous and which are not. Scientists are working on detecting and structuring signs of potential threat, like the maximum height of a bump and pressure that the earth can withstand.

Um, it sounds like a good plan would be to consider ALL of these ground-bouncing methane bubbles as dangerous and focus on global warming instead. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done.

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That is a self-reinforcing cycle with greenhouse gasses released as permafrost thaws, which causes warming. This results in more permafrost thaw and causes more warming and on and on. That is something we worry a lot about. Once this cycle gets going it is hard to stop.

“Once this cycle gets going it is hard to stop.” That’s true of a lot of things but we’re talking about exploding methane bubbles opening up doorways to the underworld here.

The methane locked in Siberia’s permafrost is being released because Siberia is warming at a rate estimated to be twice as fast as the rest of the planet
Are these Siberian bouncy bubbles another canary in the global warming coal mine? It will no longer be a mystery if people outside of Siberia suddenly feel the Earth move under their feet.

It will be too late.

[MIKA27]

Leaked Report Claims Soviet Fallout “Worse than Chernobyl”

The nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima are regarded as the two worst nuclear disasters our planet has witnessed. While the Chernobyl meltdown was once regarded as the radioactive disaster on the planet, the fallout from the Fukushima disaster has recently been shown to spike at levels above those measured at Chernobyl. Now, terrifying leaked Soviet documents show that those disasters might be overshadowed by covered-up nuclear testing from the height of the Cold War and nuclear arms race.

The former Soviet nuclear test site at Semipalatinsk, now called Semey.

New Scientist has reported the discovery of Cold War-era reports which show that Soviet nuclear tests in 1956 at the infamous Semipalatinsk Test Site had a worse environmental and human impact than the Chernobyl disaster. The report is claimed to have been found by scientists from the Institute of Biophysics in Moscow who discovered the documents in a dusty, forgotten archive at the Institute of Radiation Medicine and Ecology (IRME) in Kazakhstan.

The USSR conducted 456 nuclear tests at Semipalatinsk between 1949 and 1989 with utter disregard for the local people and environment.

According to New Scientist, these documents show that the Soviet Union’s 1956 atomic tests in the Semipalatinsk region in what is now Kazakhstan left villages throughout the region dangerously irradiated:

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Near Znamenka, radioactive substances that affected the people and the environment fell out repeatedly for years.

One report claims that close to 700 people were hospitalized for acute radiation poisoning but how many might have died remains a mystery. The Soviet report downplays the role that radiation could have played in these illnesses, instead blaming the illnesses on the local people’s diet and lifestyle. While the radioactive damage has already been done, these documents are an important piece of nuclear history and underline the need for transparency in nuclear research. It’s amazing that such a document escaped the paper shredders or bonfires of Soviet censors once the Soviet Union fell.

The Semipalatinsk Test Site today is a graveyard, home to the skeletons of the Soviet Union’s nuclear past.

This isn’t the first cover-up of a secret Soviet weapons disaster to be unearthed recently. Just last year, Harvard historians pieced together the hidden history of an outbreak of weaponized anthrax from a Soviet biological weapons lab. It is believed that hundreds of people could have been killed in the disaster, which went unreported in the USSR. Could the unexplained spikes in radiation levels in the Arctic and northern Europe in recent months be a sign of another cover up? Stranger things have happened in Russian geopolitics lately…

[MIKA27]

Watch: ‘Rogue One’ Ending Meets the Beginning of ‘Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope’

Back in 1977, before anyone really knew what a “Star War” was, moviegoers watched a spaceship flee from a much larger spacecraft high above the surface of an unknown planet. In short order, they met a blue-and-white trashcan on wheels, a golden metal man, and a princess, surrounded by helmeted soldiers defending against an unseen threat with their poorly aimed laser blasts. This was all fairly run of the mill, but once Darth Vader, with his now-iconic look and voice, came onto the scene, Star Wars fans were born.

40 years later, Lucasfilm and Disney went back to the well with another prequel story known as Rogue One, an anthology film that is sandwiched smack between George Lucas‘ prequel trilogy and his original film. It fits so snugly up against the original, in fact, that the end sequence of Gareth Edwards‘ standalone film dovetails quite nicely into the famous opening sequence of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. Yes, this was the intention all along, to provide some connective tissue between worlds, characters, and movies, but now an intrepid video editor has cut the final few moments of Rogue One together with the inciting moments of the whole feature film franchise. Unsurprisingly, it works quite well.

 

 

[MIKA27]

GRADO LABS GH2 COCOBOLO HEADPHONES

I'm a firm believer that all music fans should own a pair of superb high fidelity headphones. They’re an excellent thing to have when you can’t blast tunes from your stereo and they can also bring out subtleties in music that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. Coincidentally, Grado Labs has just released their newest edition of their Heritage Series hi-fi headphones. And let us tell you, they are something special.

Already equipped with some superb technology – including dynamic transducers, a nominal impedance of 32 ohms, a UHPLC copper voice coil, and a HPlC copper connecting cable – these headphones are excellent. But the brand has taken things a step further with the inclusion of a tone wood resonation chamber. For reference, Cocobolo (the wood Grado has chosen) is a central american lumber that is renowned for its tonal properties. In fact, it can be found in the construction of some of the world’s best guitars. So when Grado makes the claim that these are some of the finest headphones they’ve ever built, you should probably believe them. Get a pair for yourself for $650. [Purchase]