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

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WOODFORD RESERVE RYE WHISKEY BLEND

Mention Woodford Reserve to any whiskey fans out there and they’ll immediately think bourbon. And rightly so, the Kentucky-based distillery makes some fantastic bourbon for the budget-conscious yet discerning palate. Now, they’re slated to release a rye. Yes, of course, there’s the Straight Rye that’s readily available. However, this will be a blended rye release, consisting of two different ryes Woodford Reserve has stockpiled in their barrel archives.

Dubbed the Woodford Reserve Blended Rye Distillery Series Whiskey, 69% of the batch is 11-year-old straight rye whiskey from the distillery while the remaining 31% is a separate batch of whiskey distilled from a rye mash bill consisting of 53% rye, 33% corn and 14% malted barley. It’s the first in a series of three releases Woodford plans on making available over the summer months including a Toasted Oak Rye and a specialty barrel-finished option. Official tasting notes categorize the aroma with hints of pears, apples, and graham cracker with a palate full of spicy grain notes along with more sweet fruit.

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‘Logan Lucky’ Trailer

Steven Soderbergh’s latest project stars Adam Driver, Channing Tatum, Daniel Craig, Hilary Swank, and a slew of hilarious accents. Logan Lucky is about a couple of brothers who try and pull off an elaborate robbery during the Coco-Cola 600 over Memorial Day weekend. Soderbergh has done the whole “epic heist pulled off by a gaggle of familiar faces” before (see: Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen), so this whole thing seems pretty promising. It also seems promising because we’ve never seen Daniel Craig in such a role, Adam Driver seems to have the movie Midas touch, and it’s time to admit that Channing Tatum is f*cking hilarious. Logan Lucky hits theaters on August 18.

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Christopher Ward Morgan Watches

British watch company Christopher Ward have teamed up with Morgan to create three new watches inspired by the history of the British automaker. The C1 Morgan Chronometer watch collection features three styles that pay homage to Morgan’s most iconic cars – the Aero 8, Classic and 3 Wheeler. Each timepiece uses a 40.5mm-wide C1 Grand Malvern case (water-resistant to 30m), and features Christopher Wards in-house SH21 movement that boasts a 120-hour power reserve. Each watch offers a view of the movement through a sapphire crystal display case back, and will be engraved with the owner’s past or present Morgan car chassis number on the back plate. The perfect accessory to any Morgan enthusiast.    

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Deaus Sea Sider

The talented team at Deus Customs have created the perfect ride for hitting the beach in style. Based on a 1974 Honda Super Cub C70, the "Sea Sider” is a surf commuter built for the itinerant surfer, it features the engine from a 1995 Honda Astra for more power and better reliability, and some vintage bicycle pieces such as the handlebars and the front light. To add to the bicycle feel, a custom metal frame was cut and welded to form the front basket with treated wooden slats to give it the perfect nostalgic touch. The look is complete with a custom hand-made exhaust, two custom leather seats, and an easy on/off surf-rack system built into the frame, making things much easier when you want that quick cruise down to the break.    

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PAUL NEWMAN'S ROLEX DAYTONA WATCH

It's arguably the holy grail of vintage watches. A timepiece so influential its owner became the nickname of the model. Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona has been found. Paul Newman gave the watch to its current owner James Cox while Cox was dating his daughter and informed him that he didn't own a watch. "If you wind it, it tells pretty good time," Newman said to Cox, who proceeded to wear it daily for over a decade. It's in highly respectable condition for a watch of its age, with an original cream dial with patina, a case that's in good shape, and an inscription on the back from Newman's wife Joanne reading "Drive Carefully, Me." It will be auctioned off this October during Phillips's first watch auction in New York.

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SMARTDOME

Easy assembled and taken down, the Smartdome is a new take on prefab shelters for non-urban areas. Their modular design uses welded galvanized steel elements for the dome, letting you connect multiple domes as necessary. Double floors allow for the running of electric, water, and any other utilities, and the transparent polycarbonate can be layered for added insulation while letting you enjoy the views. Designed and manufactured in Slovenia, they come in several guises for different locales.

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BE TULUM HOTEL

Located where the jungle meets the sea, Be Tulum Hotel offers beachfront accommodations on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula. The resort's 44 suites inherit the local atmosphere with private gardens, plunge pools, native decor, and views of the Caribbean Sea. There's no need to leave the property thanks to a handful of restaurants serving a unique range of fare including raw seafood, exotic small plates, and open fire specialties. While snorkeling, biking, and horseback riding are available, the jungle side houses a wellness spa specializing in indigenous treatments performed with herbs and plants grown on the rooftop garden.

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ESSENTIAL HOME SMART ASSISTANT

Built with privacy as a chief priority, the Essential Home Smart Assistant is a cloud-connected, but not cloud-focused helper. It runs Ambient OS, a new operating system that runs its AI engine locally to keep from having everything you say blasted over the 'net. Its creators promise that it will automatically find and configure other smart devices around your home, like lamps and speakers, and can even learn your routines, notifying you when you need to leave the house for a meeting or when you've forgotten to turn off a light. A built-in circular display shows you relevant information and provides a physical interface, with clean, well-designed graphics. Other details are scarce, but more should be announced in the coming months.

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Everest Now Has Wi-Fi, So You Can Truly Netflix And Chill

Not having internet connectivity is the epitome of first-world problems and I'm sure there's someone, somewhere that expects to have Netflix on demand in as remote and dangerous a place as the heights of Mt Everest. Well, thanks to Everest Link CEO Tsering G Sherpa, you can now catch the latest episode of Game of Thrones while making your way to the Hillary Step.

In an announcement via Cambium Networks (requires registration), which assisted Sherpa with establishing the connection, the Nepal native explains the long journey of getting wireless connectivity onto the world's tallest mountain.

It's a story that goes as far back as 2000:

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In 2000, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. To get her treatment from a good medical facility, I had to fly her down to the nearest city and then down to India. My sisters were living their normal lives in Nepal, but once news of our mother's illness reached them, they left everything back home – even closed their business – to join her in India. They didn’t know what else to do with such limited opportunities for communication.

Sadly, Sherpa's mother lost her battle with cancer. However, her death acted as a catalyst for the CEO:

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At that moment, what I thought was, "Okay... my sister sustained a loss to help our mother — honestly a year’s loss of business — because of inadequate communication. Not everyone can afford that ... So back in 2000, with a single reset and 128 kbps as a bandwidth, we started our network in Nepal.

Political unrest unfortunately put a stop to Sherpa's activities and forced a "hiatus for eight years due to threats from extremists".

It wasn't until 2014 that the opportunity presented itself to try again, which resulted in getting 802.11b and eventually 802.11g up and running.

With connectivity among villages sorted, it was time to go higher:

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The PTP 650 wireless backhaul provides us high throughput and perfect reliability for our network infrastructure. Today, we’ve connected over 200 hotspots in more than 40 villages. We connect 34,000 locals and over 40,000 tourists annually, which is a new record for tourism ... With the PTP 650 we have a solid link all the time. At the moment, we’re connected to the Everest base camp. There, at 5,320 meters altitude we have a solar powered cnPilot E500 outdoor Wi-Fi hotspot.

So, no Snapchatting from the summit, but to think you can Google "Green Boots" from the base camp is quite the thing.

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The Best Scene In Batman Begins Comes To Life In An Impressive Group Art Show

Hundreds of bats fly to Batman's aid as he valiantly tries to save his love from a deadly poison. The two escape in a rooftop Batmobile car chase and the rest is history. This moment from Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins is a moment I never want to forget. And now, thanks to a new art show, I'll never have to.

The above poster by Christopher Skinner is just one of many, many new posters in an art show called Soldiers of Fourtune, which opens June 2 at the Hero Complex Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. It's a group show of limited edition posters by four artists: Skinner, Adam Rabalais, Patrick Connan and Tom Miatke. Each has done brand new works for several popular cult films, including The Princess Bride, Ghost in the Shell, The Lost Boys and Evil Dead 2.

Hero Complex prefers to keep most of the art secret until the doors open, but we're exclusively revealing one poster from each artist. You see Skinner's above, and here are three other super cool posters from Soldiers of Fourtune.

  

The show opens June 2 at 7PM local time at Hero Complex Gallery in Los Angeles. All posters will go online on June 3. For more information, and the online posters, visit the official website.

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Murder on the Orient Express’ Official Trailer

Based on the novel by Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express is getting another film adaptation with an absolutely star-studded cast. Johnny Depp. Michelle Pfeiffer. Penelope Cruz. Daisy Ridley. Willem Dafoe. Judi Dench. Josh Gad. Kenneth Branagh. If this official trailer is any indication, the film that tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train is going to play out like the most fantastic game of Clue ever, and we’re all going to get a front row seat to the puzzle and the carnage. Directed by Kenneth Branagh (who also stars as famed detective Hercule Poirot) and produced by Ridley Scott, Murder on the Orient Express is expected to hit theaters on November 10 of this year.

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BORN AND BRED VODKA

To many, all vodkas are the same. But there are some truly exceptional vodkas being distilled these days, and one of those just happens to be made in the USA. Born and Bred Vodka is distilled by Grand Teton Distillery in Jackson, Wyoming, home to some incredible unspoiled glacial water that flows from the Grand Teton mountains. It's made using some of the best Idaho potatoes and is more than just a casual mixer as it is fit to be enjoyed neat or on the rocks as well.

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Trailer For ‘American Made’ Teases A Truly Insane True Story

 

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and that appears to be the line that American Made is walking. The trailer teases a story where “some of this shit really happened.” It follows Barry Seal, a fired TWA pilot who becomes a drug smuggler for the CIA and the DEA. Director Doug Liman described the movie back in 2015 and why it appealed to him as a filmmaker:

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“I love stories of improbable heroes working against the system, and Barry Seal took the government, and our country, for an unbelievable ride. Interpreting his story has the makings for an entertaining film that is equal parts satire, suspense and comedy—and always surprising.”

The movie, which has seen a title change from Mena, has been bouncing around Hollywood since 2014, where it ended up on The Black List. The movie eventually fell into Liman and star Tom Cruise’s hands in 2015. The trailer, which was supposed to be released with Cruise’s The Mummy this weekend, leaked early and Universal Pictures put up a high-quality version.

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Summary: A pilot lands work for the CIA and as a drug runner in the south during the 1980s.

American Made, directed by Doug Liman, stars Tom Cruise, Caleb Landry Jones, Domhnall Gleeson, Jesse Plemons, and Sarah Wright. It will be released on September 29th.

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The Curious Case of Phineas Gage

When we think of unexplored domains and mysterious frontiers, many of us may look to the uncharted wildernesses of the world, to the deep sea abysses, or to the vast, yawning chasm of space. Yet often just as impenetrable and unexplored are the mysteries within each and everyone of us, and the human body in many ways remains little understood. There are numerous cases that seem to defy everything we think we know about the way our body works, and such medical miracles serve to show us that just as strange and mysterious as the fringes of our known world are the unknown realms within our own bodies. One such case concerns a simple railway foreman who miraculously survived an injury that should have killed him, and which would vault him into the history of medical curiosities, where he remains 170 years later.

The story begins on September 13, in the year 1848, with a 25-year-old railroad construction crew foreman by the name of Phineas Gage. On this day the crew was involved in the dangerous task of blowing up rocks and boulders in order to clear a path for a railroad line in Cavendish, Vermont, in the United States. This was perilous work to say the least, which involved stuffing explosive charges into holes drilled into the rocks and then tamping it all down with sand using a long metal bar called a “tamping iron,” that was 43 inches long, 1.25 inches in diameter and 13.25 pounds in weight. The idea was that the explosive force would be directed downward into the rock to blow it to smithereens, and with few safety regulations in place it was a harrowing proposition. Whether due to carelessness or a freak accident, as Gage was working on one of these charges the explosive powder was accidentally detonated by a wayward spark, sending the tamping iron rocketing up through his left cheekbone, right on through his brain, and out of the top of his head in a geyser of blood, ultimately landing about 30 yards away covered in blood and brain matter.

In most cases this would be the end of the story, game over, but incredibly Gage was not only found to be alive, but by many accounts conscious and getting up to walk around within minutes of the accident. Although blinded in one eye and a bit shaken, he seemed to be none the worse for wear considering an iron rod had just been propelled completely through his head to leave a gaping exit wound, and he would allegedly calmly tell the doctor who saw him, “Here is business enough for you,” as the physician went about removing flecks of bone from his head and trying to replace the larger fragments like pieces of a puzzle. The whole thing would be covered with a flap of scalp, wrapped up with adhesive tape, and Gage was sent on his way under his own power as if he had just been in for a routine check-up rather than having just had his head put back together. The massive exit would more or less remain open, never really totally healing and leaving a permanent hole in his skull measuring about 2 inches wide and 4 inches in circumference.

In an age when medical technology and the ability to treat brain trauma was in its infancy and not nearly what it was today, and considering that even in modern times one would not expect someone to live through this sort of grievous injury, the initial report was met with skepticism and even downright disbelief by other medical professionals. However, it slowly came to be accepted under further scrutiny, much to the amazement of everyone. Phineas Gage’s miraculous survival with so little medical attention made him somewhat of a celebrity at the time both with the public and within the field of medicine, and his case launched up into the upper ranks of the world’s greatest medical mysteries.

Despite his incredible story, the days after the accident would show that all was not totally well with Gage, as those around him began to notice dramatic personality changes within him. Whereas before he had been a calm, level-headed leader and a model foreman, he was now boisterous, irrational, vulgar, and confrontational, spouting off profanity at a moment’s notice and showing little concern for those around him. His own doctor, a John Martyn Harlow, said of his character shift, “He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity, which was not previously his custom, manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint of advice when it conflicts with his desires, at times pertinaciously obstinent, yet capricious and vacillating,” and explained this all as him losing his sense of control of his baser instincts and the balance between his “intellectual faculties and animal propensities.” He became reckless, violent and impulsive, with little ability to concentrate on any one thing for long and almost no social inhibitions, which was far from what his employers had once described as a reasonable, efficient and focused worker, and who his friends described as an even-tempered man of good cheer.

Such was the extent of his steady descent into bizarre behavior and his inability to get along with others that he lost his job with the railway and many of his friends as well, who claimed to not even recognize him anymore. He wound up doing odd jobs such as driving a coach along the Valparaiso-Santiago route in Chile, working at a livery stable in New Hampshire, and working at a small, modest farm in Santa Clara, California. In addition to his dramatic personality shifts and diminished mental state, Gage also started to fall victim to epileptic fits, a condition almost certainly related to his horrific injury, possibly due to the formation of scar tissue upon the brain. As his health deteriorated, he eventually moved to the San Francisco area to live with his mother, brother-in-law and sister, where he would remain until his death in 1860 in the aftermath of a particularly intense seizure.

Gage would go on to become rather a sensation in the world of neuroscience, in an era when the inner workings of the brain were poorly understood at best, and his case was latched onto by the medical field, and some might even argue that it ushered in the area of brain science as a proper field. The main attraction to Gage was not only had he survived major trauma to the brain while remaining more or less healthy, but that his marked transformation in personality suggested for the first time that there were parts of the brain that regulated and controlled such things, and that there was a correlation between the brain and a person’s character and behavior, which was a concept that had never been really understood or demonstrated to any appreciable degree, and indeed it was not really even understood what functions different parts of the brain had at all, if any. Even today such things are poorly understood, so at the time it was an incredible revelation. A neurologist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital named Allan Ropper nicely explained the significance of Gage’s case thus:

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If you talk about hard core neurology and the relationship between structural damage to the brain and particular changes in behavior, this is ground zero, it was an ideal case because it’s one region [of the brain], it’s really obvious, and the changes in personality were stunning.

Since this was the first time that an injury to a specific part of the brain, in this case the frontal lobe, could be definitively linked to a subsequent change in personality, Gage became a common fixture in medical textbooks and medical lectures, and was used to bolster the suspicions of various doctors at the time who had long suspected that different areas of the brain correlated to different facets of character. One of these was a Scottish neurologist named David Ferrier, who used Gage’s case to cement his theories on brain damage in relation to behavior that he had observed in experiments of cerebral function with primates. Indeed, the case was pounced on by a variety of medical professionals, all of whom used Gage as a way to justify their own various disparate theories on how they thought the brain was supposed to work.

Gage’s body was dug up a mere 7 years after his death so that his skull could be examined, and has in the decades since been extensively studied. The skull has been mapped, scanned, and modelled in various ways all the way up to the present, and it continually surprises. For instance, in 2012 one 3D digital model of the skull conducted by UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuroimaging found that the extent of the damage to Gage’s brain was even worse than previously thought, with around 11% of the frontal lobe totally destroyed in the accident, along with 4 % of the cerebral cortex, making it even more spectacular that he should have survived at all, let alone with most of his facilities intact. To this day the curious case of Phineas Gage is a compelling one, not yet fully understood, and it still used as a textbook example of the mysteries of the brain and is discussed by neurologists, doctors, and psychologists. Gage’s skull and the tamping iron that sent him into the annals of medical legends can be seen amongst the 15,000 medical curiosities housed at the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard University School of Medicine, part of the Center for the History of Medicine in Harvard’s Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.

Despite the dramatic advances in our technology and understanding of medicine, it is clear that in many respects the human body, and in particular our brains, remains an unexplored wilderness, harboring oddities and surprises that we have yet to fully comprehend. Cases like that of Phineas Gage occasionally pop up to remind us of this fact, and to show us that some frontiers lie not out there in the far-reaches of the world and universe, but also within each and every one of us.

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NASA Hunting Asteroid Worth Quadrillions of Dollars

The massive 16 Psyche asteroid is not only an interesting piece of rock, but the minerals she’s made up of are literally worth quadrillions of dollars. Being wildly fascinating and extremely rich does have its perks, and NASA is definitely courting her.

Earlier this year, NASA confirmed a mission to 16 Psyche. About a month ago, they bumped up their timeline, and now the mission seems to be ahead of schedule. The launch of  the Psyche robotic spacecraft will occur in 2022. Employing a fancy sling shot maneuver using the gravity of Earth and Mars, the spacecraft will reach the asteroid by 2026.

The reason for NASA’s interest in this asteroid is that it is comprised totally of nickel and iron, the same metals which make up the Earth’s core. The working theory is that 16 Psyche is actually the core of a long dead planet, which was roughly the same size as Mars, but was ripped apart due to massive collisions billions of years ago. While NASA views this as an opportunity to view a planetary core, similar to that of our own ‘terra firma‘, the niggling reality of a corpse planet serves as a cold reminder to an unfriendly cosmos.

Only slightly less interesting is that the asteroid has an estimated value of $10,000 quadrillion American dollars. The nickel and iron content of 16 Pysche is enough to crash the Earth’s entire economic system. The current gross world product (GWP) is only about $74 trillion, so humanity can only hope 16 Psyche gives change.

Lindy Elkins-Tanton, the lead scientist on the NASA mission and the director of Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, stated in an interview that;

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Even if we could grab a big metal piece and drag it back here … what would you do? Could you kind of sit on it and hide it and control the global resource — kind of like diamonds are controlled corporately — and protect your market? What if you decided you were going to bring it back and you were just going to solve the metal resource problems of humankind for all time? This is wild speculation obviously.

The technology required to drag a 200 kilometre wide metal asteroid from its current orbit, and bring it back to Earth, is still quite a ways away.  The Psyche mission is purely to observe the asteroid, and not to begin mining operations. The spacecraft will send data back to Earth which should help scientists here better understand how planets form, as well as how and why planets, such as Earth, separate into layers that make up the core, mantle and crust.

In addition to learning more about Earth, the NASA team also believes that asteroids such as 16 Psyche could provide possible life lines in space. New research suggests that this asteroid could be full of water. As humans endeavour deeper into space, similar asteroids could be used as sources of water. Elkins-Tanton notes,

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That water can be used to make rocket fuel or be drunk by people, so then we’d have a resource stop that has metal and water.

While this is all still speculative, by 2026, NASA will get a close up view of 16 Psyche. Perhaps the intimate knowledge of a dead planet will remind humanity that its current squabbling over politics, religions, and resources are meaningless to the cosmos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdCU1QQQro

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This Watch Is Made for the World's Deadliest Race

On a small charming island off the coast of England, tourists and townsfolk gather in the early summer—not for a relaxing seaside getaway, but to witness a yearly motorcycle competition known as the world's deadliest race. Each year since 1907, The International Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (also known as "TT") takes place: It's a traditional time trial race in which speeding motorcycles careen down a 37-mile course made of narrow, winding country lanes. The bragging rights of participating in the race, never mind winning, surely pale in comparison to merely surviving.

Taking part in the TT is an enormous honor for motorcycle manufacturers, with various race heats for different classes, from Superbikes to Sidecars. Famed British maker Norton Motorcycles rejoined the TT in 2012 with bikes specifically developed for the Isle of Man course. For the upcoming 2017 races (which takes place from May 27 through June 9) come two new road-ready evolutions: The limited edition V4 SS, a motorcycle with a polished aluminum frame, full carbon fiber bodywork and 1200cc engines designed and built in-house at England's Donington Hall, and the similar unlimited production version, the V4 RR.

"I'll tell you what, it's unlike anything else in the world," explains Giles English, co-founder of British watchmaker Bremont, which created two watches with Norton to commemorate the race. "Regular roads are just shut off, and there are no safety barriers put up. These motorcyclists go and race round—I think the average is 130 miles an hour for 17 minutes, going in and out of these country lanes with brick stone walls. It's like some old gladiatorial event. I arrived there last year on Friday, and it had been ongoing—still had a week, three days to go—and five people had already died. The mood isn't somber, these guys died what they loved doing, and they all carry on."

Bremont Norton V4, $7,295 by Bremont (available Summer 2017)

 

To celebrate, Bremont has come onboard as Norton's principal racing sponsor and has created two chronographs inspired by the motorcycles. Both are limited editions, and one of them is only available to owners of the V4 SS. The Bremont V4 RR watch is a bit more accessible, not requiring the purchase of a £44,000 ($57,000) motorcycle, yet still comes in a small run of only 200 pieces. The COSC-certified stainless steel chronograph features numerals inspired by the lettering of the Norton logo, plus the Norton logo itself printed in gold with chrono subdials edged to match. Each of the bike owners' special-edition pieces gets an individual number customized to correspond with details of their V4 SS.

Not a bad way to celebrate your time at the TT—if you're still alive, that is.

Spectators watch as Artie Bell of Great Britain rides the #41 Norton 500cc motorcycle around Governor's Bridge hairpin during the Isle of Man

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Gordon Ramsay’s Perfect Burger Tutorial

Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at Planet Hollywood in Vegas might not be one of the most instagrammed restaurants in America, but they serve one mean burger. In Gordon Ramsay’s Perfect Burger Tutorial, he walks you through the creation of the “F Word” burger from start to finish. He might not be spitting expletives the entire time (this was filmed for Good Morning America, after all), but you still get that Gordon Ramsay enthusiasm throughout his description of the process. Here are some of his tips. Season liberally. Let the meat sit before you cook it. Grill both sides of the bun. Season some more. Manipulate your lettuce. Watch the video for the full process and prepare to finish hungry.

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SOFIA COPPOLA'S BEACH HOUSE

Overlooking the ocean in a small village in Belize, Sofia Coppola's Beach House adds a mid-century flare to the traditional tropical getaway. The Laurent Deroo-designed accommodations is a part of the Coppola family resort Turtle Inn and consists of a main house and two guest bungalows. The home steps away from the rest of the resort's Balinese style with more modern lines, while still maintaining the relaxed atmosphere of a Caribbean retreat. Features include an open-air living area, private pool, master suite, bunkroom, private butler, and oceanfront media room where you can watch your favorite Coppola family films.

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AIRBUS X PAGANI INFINIO JET CABIN

Pagani is known for its striking car designs. Now it can add aircraft design to its portfolio. The Airbus x Pagani Infinio Jet Cabin brings the Italian firm's panache to the interior of a business aircraft. Based on the ACJ319neo, which already offered the widest and tallest cabin in its segment, the Infinio's signature feature is the sky ceiling. This series of roof-mounted screens brings in a live view of the sky above the plane, providing a feeling of openness unmatched in traditional aircraft. Walls separating the different areas, such as the lounge and conference room, switch from transparent to opaque at the press of a button, furthering the open feel. The influence of Pagani's supercars is felt throughout, with soft leather carpets, sculpted metal features, and carbon fiber furniture that's both aesthetically pleasing and functional — much like the aircraft itself.

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Einstein, Galileo, Zych

Sixteenth century scientist Galileo Galilei threw two spheres of different mass from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa to establish a scientific principle.

Now, nearly four centuries later, a team of Italian physicists has applied the same principle to quantum objects - using a novel scientific method proposed by Australian physicist Dr Magdalena Zych.
Dr Zych, from ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, said the work could lead to the development of new sensors used for studying volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, searching for mineral deposits, navigating Earth and space, and in high-precision measurements of time, frequency and acceleration.

Mathematician and physicist Albert Einstein described the principle last century and it became known as "Einstein's equivalence principle" for atoms whose mass is in a "quantum superposition state". Dr Zych said the principle played a vital role in physicists' understanding of gravity and space-time.

"The principle contends that the total inertial and gravitational mass of any objects are equivalent, meaning all bodies fall in the same way when subject to gravity," she said. "Our research team conducted a quantum version of the Leaning Tower test."

The novel approach was first proposed by Dr Zych and University of Vienna and Austrian Academy of Science researcher Professor Časlav Brukner.

"Our test relied on a unique quantum feature: superposition," Dr Zych said. "In relativistic physics, the total mass of a system depends on its internal energy. In quantum theory, a system can occupy two or more different energy states 'at once'. This is called quantum superposition, which means a quantum system may occupy different mass-energies concurrently."

A team led by Professor Guglielmo Tino of the University of Florence and Rome's Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (National Institute for Nuclear Physics) designed and realised the experiment.

"The spheres in Galileo's Leaning Tower example were replaced by rubidium atoms," Dr Zych said. "The tower was replaced by a scheme developed by Professor Tino’s team that is based on Bragg atom interferometry. The experiment confirmed the validity of the Einstein equivalence principle for quantum superpositions with a relative precision of a few parts per billion.”"

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The Australian Scientists Turning Air Into Drinking Water, With Renewable Energy

Manufacturing 2,000 litres of drinkable water, extracted from the air (using renewable energy), at a cost of less than two cents per litre.

That's the challenge set to those entering the Water Abundance XPRIZE, where 98 teams from 25 countries will compete for the $1.75 million. Four Australian teams will take on the challenge, and we spoke to Hydro Harvest Operation (H20) about how they plan to win.

The winning device must be able to create decentralised access to water, giving people the power to access fresh water whenever and wherever they need it.

Professor Behdad Moghtaderi, is head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Newcastle, Director of the Priority Research Centre for Energy Technologies and Utilisation and the Director of VTara Clean Energy Technology Centre at the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources. Professor Moghtaderi is also leading team "Hydro Harvest Operation (H20)" in the competition.

"We've been working in areas related to energy, energy efficiency and water for some time and some of the technologies we've been working on have actually become commercialised and are now on the market," Professor Professor Moghtaderi says.

The first one, GRANEX heat engine, is an engine for waste heat recovery, the second, Infratech Energyon demand, is an advanced thermochemical energy storage system, and the third, VAMCO, is a chemical oxidiser for abatement of ventilation air methane.

"In a moment of serendipity, we came across the Water Abundance XPRIZE and thought, well we've been working in this area, so why not give it a shot!", Professor Moghtaderi says.

The team was established about 10 months ago, and Professor Moghtaderi says the requirements of the competition are "very tough".

"We've been trying to minimise costs by working on a concept with an energy footprint that is as small as possible," Professor Moghtaderi says. "We're using a combination of renewable materials and renewable energy sources to do that."

Professor Moghtaderi says this competition is important, because air and moisture are resources accessible anywhere.

"We believe there should be as much emphasis placed on water security as is placed on energy security," Professor Moghtaderi says. "Some people suggest that future wars will be fought over water resources rather than energy resources."

The Water Abundance XPRIZE was launched in India in October 2016 at a United Nations day reception in New Delhi. The two-year competition will look to announce up to five finalist teams in February 2018 and will then embark on final testing through July 2018. The winner for the prize will be announced in August 2018.

[MIKA27]

Australian Scientists Just Found An Exoplanet So Hot It Tears Molecules Apart

International and Australian astronomers have discovered the hottest giant exoplanet to date, which is sitting at a balmy 4,327 degrees Celsius (or 4,600 kelvin). The immense, Jupiter-like planetary oven is sitting in orbit of a star whose mercury nudges almost 9,900 degrees Celsius, say the scientists studying it.

As if that wasn't metal enough, and the stellar radiation hitting it is stripping away the atmosphere and tearing apart molecules in the sky.
This finding helps to improve our understanding of planets orbiting massive, hot stars, which has been limited owing to the small number of previous observations.

Thousands of transiting exoplanets are known to exist but only six have been found orbiting hot, A-type stars (which have temperatures of 7,300–10,000 kelvin), and none has been found around even hotter B-type stars. Previously, the hottest known planet (around 3,300 kelvin) was found orbiting a star with a temperature of around 7,430 kelvin.

Scott Gaudi and the team reported the discovery of the Jupiter-mass gas giant called KELT-9b, orbiting a massive star called KELT-9 in Nature. This star has an estimated temperature of around 10,170 kelvin, placing it at the dividing line between A and B-type stars. The researchers measure the planet's dayside temperature to be around 4,600 kelvin, similar to that of K-type dwarf stars.

It's the level of extreme-ultraviolet stellar radiation that the planet receives that is causing its outer atmosphere to be stripped away. Atomic metals in the atmosphere are probably the primary absorbers of the radiation, the researchers say.

[MIKA27]

Cowboy Bebop Is Getting An American, Live-Action TV Series

You like bounty hunters? You like space? Take a seat, friend, because I've got some good news for you. A live action adaptation of Sunrise's Cowboy Bebop anime is in the works. Prepare yourself.

According to Deadline, Marty Adelstein's Tomorrow studios is partnering with Midnight Radio to produce Cowboy Bebop for television with the blessing of Sunrise, the studio responsible for the original series. In a public statement, Adelstein expressed his excitement at developing the adaptation for American audiences.

"The animated version has long resonated with audiences worldwide," Adelstein said. "With the continued, ever growing, popularity of anime, we believe a live action version will have an incredible impact today."

In the original Cowboy Bebop series that ran for 26 episodes and concluded in 1999, humans have fled an uninhabitable Earth in favour of various colonised planets where groups of bounty hunters make a living tracking down rogue criminals. The series chronicles the adventures of the Bebop, a ship piloted by one Spike Spiegel (a con artist), his partner Jet Black (a former police officer), Faye Valentine (a con artist dealing with amnesia), Ed Wong (a prodigy hacker), and their dog Ein, a superhumanly intelligent corgi.

While Cowboy Bebop has some of the most gorgeous animation you'll ever see, it's the series' soundtrack that people most often bring up in their celebration of it. It will make a jazz fan out of you.

No news about casting or production has been announced as of yet. For now, you'll have to spend your time debating whether or not this adaptation is actually a good idea (could be) and who you want to see as Spike (Keanu, obviously).

 

[MIKA27]

In The First Seven Sisters Trailer, Monday Goes Missing

We are living in a golden age of Very Good Actors™ playing opposite themselves as identical siblings or clones of themselves. In the first trailer for Seven Sisters, Noomi Rapace throws her hat into the ring by playing all of the film's titular septuplets, who are fighting for their lives in a dystopian future where families are only supposed to have one child.

In a world where the earth's population swells by a million people every four days, it makes sense that governments would attempt to curtail the crisis by limiting the number of children people can have. When Terrence Settman (Willem Dafoe) discovers that he's to be the grandfather of seven infant girls, though, he concocts a plan to ensure their survival. The girls, named after the days of the week, all live in hiding together, but each is allowed to leave the house once a week under a shared identity that they all maintain as a singular person.

When Monday goes missing, her six sisters and grandfather realise that they have to track her down before the authorities do, lest their secret is found out and they're forced to deal with the consequences.

Seven Sisters opens in French theatres this August and will be streaming to Netflix later on this year.

 

[MIKA27]

India Just Launched Its Giant 'Monster' Rocket

Yesterday was a big day for India and its very, very large rocket: Last night the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched its 640 tonne GSLV-Mk III rocket, carrying the GSAT-19 communications satellite on it. The GSLV-Mk III's maiden voyage brought its satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit above Earth's equator — a high Earth orbit that allows a satellite to sync up with Earth's rotation. Not to shabby for a first launch.

GSLV-Mk III, which The Indian Express recently called a "monster" rocket, certainly lives up to its nickname. The 43m rocket is allegedly as heavy as 200 full-grown Asian elephants, which is an adorable and very useful way to measure things. It still isn't quite as many elephants as NASA's Saturn V rocket, though — the 3100-tonne rocket was equivalent to roughly 400 elephants back in its day, according to NASA's estimates. (Either one of these two estimates is off, or Indian and American space agencies are using very different elephants to gauge the size of their rockets.)

GSLV-MKIII's successful launch bodes well for Indian aerospace, which has traditionally relied on foreign countries to send its heftier payloads into orbit. A rocket that can carry several hundred elephants' worth of weight means it will be able to ferry up heavy communications satellites at a lower cost.

Naturally, everyone's happy.

"The GSLV — MKIII D1/GSAT-19 mission takes India closer to the next generation launch vehicle and satellite capability," Indian prime minister Narendra Modi tweeted after the launch. "The nation is proud!"