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

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The Moon Is Getting A 4G Network

For all those people wandering around our great Australian cities and spewing they can't watch a streaming video over 4G because of network access and congestion - we've found a place where you can get access to a brand new 4G network that isn't being hammered. The downside - you'll need to travel about 384,000km to get there. Nokia and Vodafone are teaming up to put 4G on the moon.

German company PTScientists is planning the first privately-funded Moon landing in 2019, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. Their plan is is to look at an old roving vehicle left behind back in 1972, when the last Apollo mission left the lunar surface. And, to do that, the new vehicles they're sending up small, 1kg, base stations to transmit HD images from the moon's surface back to earth for the first time. Audi is building the vehicles that will be used on the lunar surface.

Nokia said "The 4G network will enable the Audi lunar quattro rovers to communicate and transfer scientific data and HD video while they carefully approach and study NASA's Apollo 17 lunar roving vehicle that was used by the last astronauts to walk on the Moon".

PTScientists is working with a number of technology partners, including Audi who are building their vehicles, Nokia, through Nokia Bell Labs, that will create a space-grade Ultra Compact Network, and Vodafone who will provide the network.

Compared to the Apollo missions, that makes for a lot of corporate sponsorship.

The idea is to start building some of the infrastructure humans will need if they are to start establishing ongoing or regular presence away from earth. And while the moon is relatively close by compared to other places we might like to explore, it gives humans a place where they can learn about the long term exposure to life away from the earth.

Robert Böhme, CEO and Founder of PTScientists, said, "This is a crucial first step for sustainable exploration of the solar system. In order for humanity to leave the cradle of Earth, we need to develop infrastructures beyond our home planet. With Mission to the Moon we will establish and test the first elements of a dedicated communications network on the Moon".

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Stillhouse Black Bourbon

We’re suckers for attractive packaging, which is why Stillhouse has found a way onto our bar cart. The brand’s Clear Corn Whiskey is damn good and damn easy on the eyes. Now Stillhouse is back with what they’re calling “Black Bourbon,” which alludes to the coffee beans the booze rested on. Still packed in an attractive, unbreakable stainless steel can, Black Bourbon is made of corn, rye, barley, and limestone water; barreled in charred new American oak casks; and aged on roasted small batch coffee beans. The result is a smooth spirit with notes of caramel and coffee. Even if you just want a good-looking bourbon bottle for your home bar, we recommend pre-ordering Stillhouse Black Bourbon.

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How to watch the asteroid that’s about to get closer to Earth than the moon

Another day, another close encounter with a flying space rock.

Starting around 12:30 am eastern time on Friday, March 2, asteroid 2018 DV1 will be visible as a tiny dot of light whizzing by the Earth. The asteroid, which is about 23 feet across (about as wide as an orca is long), will come as close as 70,000 miles (113,000 km) to Earth. For context, the moon is more than three times that distance from Earth, circling the planet about 238,900 miles away.

Astronomers at Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona spotted 2018 DV1 earlier this week. Coincidentally, its appearance will come less than a week after DU2018 zoomed past Earth about 175,000 miles away.

Asteroids are fairly common, and generally innocuous. Technically, 2018 DV1 is classified as “potentially dangerous,” but NASA uses that term rather liberally: Anything that is more than 492 feet wide and occupies an orbit that approaches within 4.6 million miles of our planet. To date, there have been 17,774 “near-Earth” asteroids recorded, and none of them have given us much trouble. The record, though, only goes back to 1900, and so doesn’t include the asteroid that struck Earth some 66 million years ago, and sped up the extinction of dinosaurs.

If asteroids do come within our atmosphere, they’re usually traveling so fast they burn up, sometimes explosively, although still far away enough in the sky to not do too much damage. (Every once in a while, an asteroid will make it through and reach the ground; whatever remains is called a meteorite.)

You can watch 2018 DV1 on a live web stream freely (I've posted below) available from the Virtual Telescope Project, which is run by Gianluca Masi, an astronomer at the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy.

 

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MCLAREN SPECIAL OPERATIONS CARBON FIBER SENNA

Ahead of the Geneva Motor Show, slated to kick off later next week, McLaren presented their brilliant road-legal track car in five different bespoke themes. Of course, their Visual Carbon Fiber theme caught our attention – completed in part by McLaren Special Operations (MSO).

Finished with a full carbon fiber exterior covered with upwards of 67 carbon fiber parts that took close to 1,000 hours to complete, under the hood here is a roaring 4.0-liter twin turbo V8 engine boasting an output of 789 horses and 590 lbs-ft of torque. Each of the 500 already claimed examples is also finished in a vibrant Solar Yellow with Laurel Green details – inspired by the helmet of legendary Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna. Inside, a luxurious Carbon Black Alcantara carbon fiber trim adorns the cabin, while lightweight MSO 7-Spoke Hybrid Carbon Fiber wheels finished with a center lock feature reduces both the overall weight of the vehicle and rolling inertia by up to 15 percent. Need we say more?

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ORIS SOURCE OF LIFE WATCH

Inspired by water — the River Rhine in particular — the Oris Source of Life Watch is a special version of the Aquis diver. Most notable on its deep blue face is the circular date scale and the white indicator that takes month-long laps around the dial to show the date. Its 43.5mm stainless steel case is enhanced by a gray tungsten bezel insert and a backplate embossed with a map of the Rhine. It's finished with either a stainless steel metal bracelet or gray rubber strap, and is limited to just 2,343 pieces to reflect the sea level height of Lai da Tuma, the source of the Rhine. $2,229.00

 

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OLD FITZGERALD BOTTLED-IN-BOND BOURBON

Since 1897, the Bottled-in-Bond designation has let whiskey consumers know exactly what is in each bottle. It means that a spirit is the product of a single distillery from a single distilling season, aged at least four years, and bottled at 100 proof. Heaven Hill is releasing a series of bonded bourbons every spring and fall for the next five years, and this 11-year-old Old Fitzgerald is the first on the schedule. The bottle was inspired by an original 1950's Old Fitz diamond decanter and includes a throwback tax stamp with distillation and bottling dates. $110.00

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DISAPPEAR RETREAT

Clad in reflective glass, the Disappear Retreat integrates itself into any landscape. The prefab dwelling puts you right in the middle of nature without disrupting it. At just 83 square-feet, the structure is lightweight and can be transported on a standard trailer. Its compact size has minimal impact on the land and requires no active heating or cooling systems. All of the energy is collected from the sun with a thin-film PV in the south wall. A mirrored facade blends the exterior into its surroundings, while the inside is afforded prime views of the night's sky through the glass ceiling.

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The New Lost In Space Trailer Shows Us This Isn't Your Daddy's Robot

The first full trailer for Netflix's Lost in Space has arrived, and the Robinsons are playing a whole new ball game - with a very alien-looking robot.

The original Lost in Space was about the Space Family Robinson heading out into the unknown to pioneer a colonising mission. This time around, as shown in the trailer, they won't be the only ones out there: Hundreds of families have been selected to help explore the far reaches of space. However, it wouldn't be Lost in Space without them, you know, actually getting lost.

We also get our first look at Dr Smith, played this time by Parker Posey, who I'm really hoping reacts to something painful at some point.

I will admit the trailer is quite jarring. Things are really, really different - not only from the original series, but also the 1998 movie starring William Hurt, Mimi Rogers and Matt LeBlanc. It's darker, grittier and more grounded. Still, the showrunner insists it's still family fare. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner Zack Estrin called it "a true family adventure in the vein of the original Jurassic Park" and said it's designed to appeal to both nostalgic fans of the original series and newcomers who might want something a little less campy in their science fiction.

"Fans of the original show should know we maintain the core of what was special about that experience of watching that as a child," Estrin said. "For new fans of the show, there's a certain baggage associated with the title. 'Oh, that's that campy show from the '60s,' or, 'That's that movie from the '90s that was… what it was.' We are taking that core of an idea - the Robinson family is striving to hold together and survive in this incredible circumstance."

There's also the matter of the robot. As shown in the trailer, the robot looks nothing like the original version. It's basically a Geth from Mass Effect if it was wearing the new Klingon armour from Star Trek: Discovery. It's weird, OK? Even more interesting: It's also not part of their initial crew. Will Robinson finds the robot out in the wilderness, indicating that it's actually an intelligent lifeform existing on its own. Estrin is keeping his cards really close to the chest as to the identity of the creature - not even revealing the actor playing the character since it's a combination of CGI and practical effects.

Lost in Space, starring Molly Parker, Toby Stephens and Ignacia Serricchio, debuts on Netflix April 13.

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Record-Breaking 131-Year-Old Message In A Bottle Found On Australian Beach

On 12 June 1886, a German ship in the Indian Ocean tossed a bottle into the water to track the currents. Amazingly, that bottle was discovered earlier this year on a beach in Australia, making it the oldest message in a bottle ever found - a time capsule, 131 years in the making.

On January 21, Tonya Illman was walking along a beach in Western Australia and discovered a vintage bottle that was so cool she decided to take it home for her bookshelf. But it wasn't until she and her family were in the car heading home that someone noticed that there was a note inside.

"There was a lot of anticipation among the party as to what the 'message in a bottle' might say but it was too wet to open without damaging the note," Tonya said in a statement. "So we took it back [home] and placed in a warm oven for a few minutes to dry it out."

After drying out the note, they discovered that it was in German and the faintest of handwriting could be seen along with the printed material. Tonya and her husband Kym could read the dates, but had to put the text through Google Translate, coming to the conclusion that it must've been tossed from a German ship in the 19th century.

They contacted the Western Australia Maritime Museum, which reached out to their counterparts in Germany. Amazingly, the note matched historical logs held by the German Naval Institute. The boat was heading from Cardiff, Wales to Indonesia (then known as Macassar in the Dutch East Indies) when the bottle was tossed overboard with hundreds of others.

Tonya's husband, Kym Illman, is a photographer and marketing consultant who set up a website about the find. He even made an impressive amateur video of their discovery for YouTube that explains the entire discovery process.

The bottle was missing for 131 years and 223 days after it was tossed overboard on 12 June 1886, making it the oldest message in a bottle by a couple of decades. Previously, the oldest known message in a bottle was roughly 107 years old.

Back in 2013, someone in British Columbia, Canada found a message in a bottle from 1906. And then in 2014, some fishermen off the coast of Germany found a message in a bottle from 1913 that was 101 years old. But this latest find, which has yet to be verified by the Guinness Book of World Records, could be hard to beat.

Finding a century-old message in a bottle is incredibly rare, but still happens. The biggest obstacle is generally corrosion of whatever was sealing the bottle, rendering the note inside worthless. Curiously, the Illmans claim that they found this bottle without a cap, so it's astonishing that the note inside survived.

The best theory might be that it made its way to shore before the cap came off and was covered by the sand dunes near Wedge Island, protecting the message inside from moisture. There was recently a cyclone north of the area, which may have disturbed the (presumably buried) treasure, bringing it to the surface of the beach. But at this point that's just speculation.

"This has been the most remarkable event in my life. To think that this bottle has not been touched for nearly 132 years and is in perfect condition, despite the elements, beggars belief," Tonya said. "I'm still shaking."

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PORSCHE MISSION E CROSS TURISMO

When Porsche unveiled their first response to Tesla, it came in the form of their wildly popular Mission E concept. But while Tesla kept coming out with new consumer-ready electric vehicles, Porsche’s concept never made it to market. Now, the legendary brand has a brilliant new all-electric design that actually looks ready to hit the pavement: a shooting brake they’re calling the Mission E Cross Turismo.

This dreamy wagon boasts a lot of the same stuff we first saw in the original Mission E, like 600 horsepower, a 0-62 time of under 3.5 seconds, a slick futuristic external design (though the Cross Turismo looks to borrow more from the 911), and an interior loaded with tech. But this new version also has some extra goodies built-in. For instance, the 250+ mile lithium-ion batteries can be charged completely in about 15 minutes. It’s also a lot roomier inside and has a body-length sunroof – perfect for the long trips you’ll definitely want to take in it.

 

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THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE ROLEX DAYTONA

Characterized by both a slow burn in acquired popularity and development, the actual history of the Rolex Daytona dates back to the Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf’s infatuation with the high-brow racing lifestyle – specifically that of racing legend Sir Malcolm Campbell. Eventually, this racing-and-Rolex partnership culminated in the indirect advocation by racing legend and actor Paul Newman. It’s from here that the self-winding Rolex Daytona would escalate in value over the course of Newman’s career both on the track and the big screen. But what, if anything, sets the Rolex Daytona apart from other timepieces in the Rolex lineup? And how does a watch that originally sold for less than $200 at the time now fetch more than six figures at collector auctions around the world?

The answer is simple really: rarity and a unique backstory. One that we’ll dive into below beginning with the marriage of Rolex and racing, their partnership with influencer through the the development of the Daytona 500, not one but three total iterations of the iconic Rolex Daytona watch that pay homage to life in the fast lane, as well as a storied timepiece adorning the wrist of Newman on a daily basis for decades on end. In true Rolex fashion, it’s a story of influence and lifestyle unmatched by luxury watch brands in the industry.

ROLEX & RACING

Known at the time as “The Speed King,” Sir Malcolm Campbell quickly caught the attention of Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf thanks to his continued effort in setting land-speed records in his Blue Bird race cars – frequently traveling to Daytona Beach to do so. It’s here where Wilsdorf believed Campbell symbolized the lifestyle of Rolex – making him the first real brand ambassador in the early 20th century.

Campbell’s lavish and fast-paced lifestyle also caught the attention of William France who, at age 26, moved to Daytona Beach to live at the forefront of this new sport. Through his years in the city that soon became known as the winter hub of American racing, France managed and raced in the first Stock-Car race held in 1936 on the beach itself and Daytona’s oceanfront road. The race was 250 miles long and consisted of 78 laps – France would eventually take over the yearly race in its entirety from 1938-1941. And just seven years later, France would then unify with other drivers, mechanics, and car owners to form a little-known racing company called the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR).

In response to the growing popularity of NASCAR throughout the late forties and early fifties, Rolex decided to capitalize on this movement through the production of what many consider to be the grandfather of the famed Rolex Daytona: The Rolex Oyster Chronograph. First introduced in 1955, this would be the very watch after which Rolex would base their first Daytona model. Dubbed Reference 6234, the brand would release about 500 of these a year during the production years of 1955-1961 – during which Rolex registered the name “Cosmograph.”

THE ROLEX DAYTONA

Such a storied history and close relationship with the racing community would eventually culminate in 1965 with the initial release of the Rolex Daytona Chronograph (ironically initially named the “Le Mans” but for licensing reasons had to be dropped and replaced by “Daytona”) for $210 at the time. Each piece paid homage to the Daytona International Speedway (officially in operation since 1959) and and were built specifically for racecar driver thanks to a larger-than-average tachometer engraved on the bezel, one-minute, 30-minute, and 12-hour recorders, a 17-jewel movement, stainless steel waterproof oyster case, and a sweeping second-hand time to 1/5th of a second. From here, the attractive and utilitarian nature of Rolex’s new chronograph caught the attention of celebrity race car driver Paul Newman who, beginning in 1972, sported the watch – first gifted to him by his wife Joanne Woodward – every day of his life up until his passing in 2008.

Ironically enough, it would be years before the Rolex Daytona would gain such popularity within the collector community. However, slow and steady incremental progress – thanks in part to Newman’s unofficial ambassadorship – led to enough demand that in 1988 Rolex released a second iteration of the Daytona. Now featuring a Zenith El Primero modified winding movement, this new iteration would become designated by a five digit reference number (as opposed to the original four-digit reference).

ONWARD AND UPWARD

In addition to the second iteration released in 1988, Rolex continued to push the envelope with a third iteration introduced in 2000 that featured a new Rolex movement and now a six-digit reference. The new movement, Caliber 4130, is still in use for today’s Daytona’s – complete with 44 jewels, 72-hour power reserve, Kid shock absorbers, and column wheel switching. Additional modifications are found on the dial face as well, with the running-seconds subdial now at the 6 o’clock position as opposed to the previous 9 o’clock position. Their value has also increased as well, selling for upwards of $12,000 new. In an extreme example, it’s rumored the 50th-anniversary platinum version fetched upwards of $75,000 upon its introduction in 2013.

The legacy of the Rolex Daytona, by far and large, lies with the traditional Paul Newman model – characterized predominantly by a white dial complemented by black elapsed-time counters and large art deco numerals. Additional characteristics of the classic Paul Newman Daytona include a specific four-digit reference number, block markers instead of lines on the subdials, running seconds subdial at the 9 o’clock position, and one of four color combinations. The last time we checked, an original Paul Newman Daytona Rolex (reference 6239) owned and worn by Newman himself sold for $17.75 million at the Phillips Bacs & Russo Auction in New York City in October of 2017. That’s a percentage increase of over 8,450,000%.

THE ULTIMATE ROLEX DAYTONA COFFEE BOOK

“Ultimate Rolex Daytona” is an incomparable publication created to showcase the most outstanding collection of Rolex Daytonas in the world, from the early pieces of the 1960s to present day production, highlighting the evolution of design and construction techniques of the illustrious chronograph.

The superlative condition of all 180 Rolex Daytonas presented contributes to making this collection truly breathtaking. Many of the timepieces are unique. Special models and all the variants of the famous Paul Newman dial are exhibited, as are those with concept dials or cases used to evaluate stylistic choices before production.

Considerable attention is dedicated to prototype dials and to custom-made examples, alongside an ample section devoted to the more familiar Daytonas. An unrivalled Collection worthy of scrutiny under the master watchmaker’s lense; six hundred superb pages, high definition print and the extreme precision of the techniques of architectural photography are the only possible means through which all the qualities of these timepieces can be expressed.

The resulting images provide rare visual depth, telling the Rolex Daytona story as never before. “Ultimate Rolex Daytona” portrays the history of an iconic symbol. But above all, it is a tribute to industrial still life.

The publication, bounded entirely by hand with a leather lined 8mm wood binding, is a ‘Limited Edition’ of 599 numbered copies, consisting of over six hundred pages in 45×35 cm (17,7×13,3 inches) large format, with English and Italian text, typographically printed in nine colours and weighing 12 kg (26,4 pounds).

An exact miniature reproduction of the Rolex Ultimate Daytona book (size 12,2×15,6 cm and 3,7 kg weight) completes the work.

‘Limited edition’ of 599 numbered copies

SPECIFICATIONS

THE ULTIMATE ROLEX DAYTONA
• 608 pages
• 45cm x 35,5cm
• 2,000 new images
• 12Kg in weight

Case
• Wood, metal and Perspex
• 58cm x 42cm
• 7Kg in weight

Photographs by Pino Abbrescia and Fabio Santinelli
Texts by Paolo Gobbi
English version by Naomi Ornstein

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MERCEDES-AMG GT 4-DOOR COUPE

It might have double the doors, but the Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe offers all the performance you'd expect from a sports car. Powered by AMG's well-regarded 4.0L biturbo V8, it produces 630 hp in the 63 S model, good for a 0-60 time of 3.1 seconds and a top speed of 195 mph. Less-powerful 63 and 53 hybrid models are also available. An MCT 9-speed transmission is used across the lineup, as is 4MATIC+ all-wheel drive, active aerodynamics, and a new performance steering wheel with touch control TFT display-laden buttons.

 

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SEA LEVEL RISE IN THE SF BAY AREA JUST GOT A LOT MORE DIRE

If you move to the San Francisco Bay Area, prepare to pay some of the most exorbitant home prices on the planet. Also, prepare for the fact that someday, your new home could be underwater—and not just financially.

Sea level rise threatens to wipe out swaths of the Bay's densely populated coastlines, and a new study out today in Science Advances paints an even more dire scenario: The coastal land is also sinking, making a rising sea that much more precarious. Considering sea level rise alone, models show that, on the low end, 20 square miles could be inundated by 2100. But factor in subsiding land and that estimate jumps to almost 50 square miles. The high end? 165 square miles lost.

The problem is a geological phenomenon called subsidence. Different kinds of land sink at different rates. Take, for instance, Treasure Island, which resides between San Francisco and Oakland. It’s an artificial island made of landfill, and it’s sinking fast, at a rate of a third of an inch a year. San Francisco Airport is also sinking fast and could see half its runways and taxiways underwater by 2100, according to the new analysis.

Now, subsidence is nothing new to climate scientists. “People have been aware that this is an issue,” says UC Berkeley’s Roland Burgmann, coauthor of the paper. “What was missing was really data that has high enough resolution and accuracy to fully integrate” subsidence in the Bay Area.

To get that data, the researchers took precise measurements of the landscape from lidar-equipped aircraft. They combined this with data from satellites, which fire radar signals at the ground and analyze the return signals to estimate how fast land is moving either toward the spacecraft or away from them.

By comparing data from 2007 to 2011, the team showed that most of the Bay’s coastline is subsiding at a rate of less than 2 millimeters a year. Which may not seem like much, but those millimeters add up, especially considering a study that came out last month suggested sea level rise is accelerating.

"You talk to someone about, Oh the land is going down a millimeter a year, and that can be kind of unimpressive," says the University of Nevada Reno's William Hammond, who studies subsidence but was not involved in the study. "But we know as scientists that these motions, especially if they come from plate tectonics, that they are relentless and they will never stop, at least as long as we're alive on this planet."

Speaking of being alive on this planet: Humans have induced subsidence at an astonishing scale by rapidly depleting aquifers. Take the South Bay, for instance. “Parts of San Jose have been lowered up to 12 feet due to groundwater extraction,” says USGS coastal geologist Patrick Barnard. Fortunately, the extraction policies that led to those losses are kaput. But the same can’t be said for the rest of the planet, in particular for communities that are suffering drought exacerbated by climate change.

“It's not a major concern for the Bay anymore,” Barnard adds, “but it is for in general aquifers worldwide, especially in developing countries where a lot of groundwater is extracted from these large river deltas where millions of people live. They're already extremely vulnerable to sea level rise.”

The developing world is nowhere near ready to deal with subsidence and rising seas, but neither is the developed world. This is a problem that defies human ingenuity. It’s not like the San Francisco Bay Area can build one giant sea wall to insulate itself. And it’s not like low-lying Florida can hike itself up, or New York City can move itself inland a few hundred miles.

“There is no permanent solution to this problem,” says Arizona State University geophysicist Manoochehr Shirzaei, lead author of the paper. “This will impact us one way or another. The forces are immense, it's a very powerful process, the cost of really dealing with it is huge, and it requires long-term planning. I'm not so sure there's a good way to avoid it.”

Save for keeping seas from rising in the first place. That, of course, would require a tremendous global effort to cut back emissions. But even conservative projections suggest future sea level rise could be dramatic. Which means we as a species have to seriously reconsider the idea of a coastal town, or in case of the Bay Area, a sprawling coastal metropolis. Because the sea is coming to swallow us, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

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Soccer Is Infinitely Better When Will Ferrell Calls the Games as Ron Burgundy

 

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NIXON REGULUS WATCH

While we love them, G-Shock isn’t the only one out there making rugged and durable digital watches. Just recently Nixon threw their hat into the tactical watch world with their military-inspired Regulus watch.

Designed with input from both former and current U.S. special operations personnel, this watch is built endure all kinds of use and abuse while still keeping accurate time. The 46mm custom injection molded and fiber reinforced polycarbonate case boasts a protective stainless steel bezel and a big, easy to read LED display, that – through thick and thin – will show an easily legible and precise time. The interior protective PORON XRD housing means that the watch can absorb brutal shocks, and can operate up to 100m under water. The functions on the watch include military or civilian time, a day/date display, dual chrono, count down timer, and much more. When it’s all said and done, we can’t honestly say we see anything missing with this rugged timepiece.

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New Zealand Is Getting Flying Taxis

Self piloting, zero emissions flying taxis are being shown off in New Zealand. Backed by Google co-founder Larry page, the Cora is a flying vehicle, that can get you from A to B faster than pretty much any car. And while there are sure to be lots of regulatory challenges along the way, we are getting closer to the utopian dream of flying cars.

The Cora, which is made by Kitty Hawk - the company owned by Page, has 12 fans on the wings which give it enough lift to allow it to take off vertically. That means it could land on rooftops as well as in the front or backyard. Powered by electric motors, the rear prop powers the aircraft along at a lazy 150kmh for a range of about 100km.

As it's electric, the vehicle is emissions-free assuming you can charge it from a clean energy source. Which likely explains why New Zealand was chosen. Our eastern neighbour uses lots of geothermal, hydroelectric and wind power giving it some of the cleanest energy on the planet and goal of being a zero emission country by 2050. Also, New Zealand's regulators have a track record of clearing the ay for innovative projects like this.

You don't even need a pilot's license to fly the Cora. It's self piloting so all it needs are a pick up address and somewhere to drop you off. It then takes care of getting you to your destination in a straight line without having to worry about pesky thinks like traffic lights and annoying drivers. Cora's makers also say the vehicle is very quiet.

It's still early days for the Cora and we are probably still years away from broader trials with the vehicle flying in congested areas. And while seeing one in the sky is pretty cool, I wonder if we'll be happy with dozens of them are buzzing over our homes. But progress is being made on the dream of a flying car.

 

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Video Reportedly Shows Navy Jet's Encounter With A UFO

The extraterrestrial and fringe science research group founded by former Blink-182 member Tom DeLonge has released what is purportedly declassified Pentagon footage of a Navy pilot observing an unidentified flying object.

"What the fuck is that thing," someone in the video says, "Wow, what is that, man?"

The research group, To The Stars Academy of Arts and Science (TTSAAS) wrote in a blog post that the video was captured by a F/A-18 Super Hornet in 2015 and was "reviewed by multiple government organisations".

The object, a white oval, appears to be flying at a high speed above water. As the TTSAAS notes in its blog, the "object has no distinguishable flight surfaces or exhaust plume, and its flight seems to defy the known laws of physics".

Tom Crosson, a spokesperson for the US Department of Defence, told Gizmodo that the Pentagon will not provide comment of the footage. TTSAAS did not respond to a Gizmodo request for comment on how it obtained the footage, but the group's blog post says that the footage "should be available to any member of the press or public via the Freedom of Information Act".

This new footage comes three months after The New York Times released another similar video along with its report that the Pentagon secretly operated a $US22 million ($28 million) program - Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program - focused on researching unidentified aerial phenomena from 2008 to 2012.

Luis Elizondo, who is the former head of that program and who now serves as director of global security for TTSAAS, told CNN that this video and the other Pentagon footage of unidentified aerial phenomena released last year are just the "tip of the iceberg".

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Disneyland's Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Is Really Taking Shape

We've still got another year before Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, but Disney is temporarily sating our thirst with a new peek at what's in store. And holy crap, it's massive.

Disney Parks released a drone video showing the 14-acre Galaxy's Edge in progress, and it looks even better than the concept photos. Sure, it's nothing but scaffolding and framed rock formations, but just look at all the stuff that's going to be there. I can barely wrap my head around it.

As of now, there are only two new rides in development. There's the Millennium Falcon ride, where players are ranked on how well they perform their mission (if you bang up the ship, expect trouble at the cantina). There's also one in the works where guests are inside a Star Destroyer hanger bay during a major battle between the First Order and the Resistance, though there isn't a lot of information available on that one yet.

However, much like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, it's just as much about the atmosphere as the rides. And this one is looking totally immersive, taking place on the new planet of Batuu. Plus, they're going to have blue milk. Refreshing! Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge opens at both the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim as well as Walt Disney World in Orlando sometime in 2019.

 

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This Charming Video Of Moonstruck Pedestrians Is A Good Reminder To Check Out Our Cool Moon

Recently, some folks really looked at the Moon, and they were blown away. Rightfully so.

Director Alex Gorosh and writer Wylie Overstreet captured folks on Los Angeles footpaths looking at the Moon through a Dobsonian telescope to the tune of Claude Debussy's "Clair de lune".

"Oh my god" and "no way" were the general consensus.

"Seeing the moon like that has a unifying and humbling effect that's visible in the faces of people that are seeing it," Overstreet told Gizmodo. "That's sort of the magic of the video and the montage."

If you, too, would like to see really neat images, plenty of telescopes can capture incredible details of celestial objects from here on Earth - even if you live in the city. Here's an example of just how much Moon you might be able to spot, depending on your scope:

But the end game here isn't just stopping to look at the Moon for a second. Hopefully, viewers of this video might become more interested in looking at the Moon on their own.

"I hope their curiosity is ignited," said Overstreet. "I hope that they won't just watch the video, but seek these experiences out themselves."

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Particle Accelerator Reveals Ancient Greek Medical Text Beneath Religious Psalms On Parchment

If you're a history buff, you might not know much particle physics. But the two fields share more in common than you'd think. X-rays from a high-energy lab have revealed ancient Greek medical texts that had been stripped and covered with religious writing.

Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have long been using high-powered X-rays at their Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) to analyse ancient texts. This week, they will be revealing the text beneath 10th-century psalms from the St Catherine's Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula. The hidden words were a translation of writings by the ancient Greek doctor Galen.

Synchrotrons might sound complex, but they're a relatively common kind of particle accelerator. Rather than crash particles together like researchers do at the Large Hadron Collider, the SSRL just accelerates electrons to nearly the speed of light and keeps them travelling around a many-sided polygon. Magnets on the straightaways and bends change the electrons' directions, which produces a beam of high-energy X-rays.

There's all sorts of stuff scientists can do with these X-rays, such as imaging, characterising what something is, or revealing mysteries between objects' surfaces. Here, the researchers reveal the ink that had been scraped off, which they can detect based on the way the X-rays react upon hitting the surface. The text contains Galen's words translated into the ancient Syriac language a few hundred years after his death, reports LiveScience.

Galen himself was a Greek doctor in the Roman empire who lived from 129 to around 216 CE. He studied all sorts of medicine through dissecting apes (he could not dissect humans, according to Britannica) and his works remained influential into the Middle Ages. He still believed the outdated study of the four humours, but he made some important discoveries, including that arteries carried blood, not air, as had been previously believed.

Researchers will scan each of the religious texts' 26 pages to produce high-resolution files that they will post online. Each page will take about 10 hours to scan.

It isn't the first time science has used high-powered X-rays to understand history and art - others have looked at Picasso's paintings and even ancient poop. But it does go to show just how science has transformed the study of the ancient.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Create A Way For People With Amputations To Feel Their Prosthetic Hands

Prosthetic hands have gotten increasingly sophisticated. Many can recreate the complex shape and detail of joints and fingers, while powered prostheses allow for independent, wilful movement. But a new study published this week in Science Translational Medicine offers a potential glimpse into the future of the technology: Artificial hands that actually feel like a living limb as they move.

The researchers recruited people with amputations who had been given surgery that reconfigured certain muscle and sensory nerves surrounding the amputated limb, allowing them to control their prosthesis through intuitive brain signals (thoughts) sent to the repurposed nerves.

Across a series of experiments involving three of these patients, the researchers attached devices that generated vibrations along specific muscles near the amputation site. When the device was turned on, these vibrations created an illusionary sense of kinesthesia - an awareness of conscious self-movement - in the prosthetic hand as the person performed tasks with it, both in a virtual stimulation and in the real world. The volunteers had amputations that extended just past their elbow as well as their whole arm.

Not only did the experiment let them "feel" their hand as they opened and closed it, but the restored intuition allowed them to perform tasks without needing to constantly look at their hand. And coupled with vision, it gave them overall better motor control over their prosthesis.

"We pre-position our grip when we grab things - we move our hand and space it out when we're getting ready to grab a glass of wine without even really thinking about it," lead author Paul Marasco, a biomedical engineer at the Cleveland Clinic and head of its Laboratory for Bionic Integration, told Gizmodo. "So the individuals we worked with, we were able to provide them with that sensation that they could just move their hands into specific places without ever having looking at it and perform every bit as well as able bodied people."

 

Scientists have known that muscle vibrations can create this same sort of illusion in able bodied people since at least the 1970s, Marasco said. But while his team had been working on exploiting the illusion for use in prosthetic technology for the last three years, they were still blown away by how potent and consistent it was in the patients.

"We thought that if it worked like it did in an able bodied person, we'd just get one or two joints; we'd get a wrist - something basic," he said. "But what we found were these complex, multi-digit synergies where the whole hand is moving and they know where their fingers are going and what they're doing, and they're adopting these really interesting grip conformations [shapes]. We were totally floored."

Adding more support to the idea that their technology could someday be adopted widely, Marasco noted that they were able to create the illusion in patients in different labs.

The research might also offer some insight into how we perceive reality. Scientists have found that there are two related components of self-perception, brought about by complex interactions of the sensory information our brains receive. There's the feeling that our movements are being made intentionally (a sense of agency) and there's the feeling that our bodies feel like our own (a sense of embodiment). The subjects did feel like they were in charge of their hand, but they still never felt as if it was "their" hand. The findings further suggest that agency and embodiment aren't created by the same mechanisms, Marasco said.

The research is one of the first to address kinesthesia in prosthetic technology, Marasco said. And since it's started, they're already had tangible improvements.

"It takes a lot of horsepower to vibrate those big muscles to the frequency required to generate those vibrations that create the illusion," he said. "But we went from a robotic vibration system that's the size of a soda can to one that's now just a little bigger than a matchbox. And it still has the same horsepower, but this one runs on batteries and it can be mounted directly to a prosthetic socket."

Agency is only part of the recipe needed to create life-like artificial limbs, though, and Marasco's team is trying to further bridge the gap with other emergent technologies.

"We've got experiments in the process of running where we've got touch and movement and motor control all running simultaneously in the same arm," he said. "So they think about moving the arm, they feel that it's moving through space and when they grab something, they feel that touch as though it's theirs. That's the next part of this, integrating these pieces into a whole."

Today, over 10 per cent of people with upper limb amputations ultimately reject using their prosthesis, oftentimes because it simply doesn't seem comfortable or essential. And as prosthetic limbs become even more intricate and able to perform functions without the person's input, scientists such as Marasco have worried that patients could be more likely to reject them, since they would feel more artificial. But the illusion of sensation might also give these patients peace of mind.

"There's a real disconnect when people have any kind of autonomous machine or computer with them in the loop," one that doesn't exist when people have to cooperate with another person for instance, Marasco explained. "And that's the place where people with prosthetics are stuck."

"We think that if we can tap into that system and provide them a sense of agency and ownership so that their brain recognises their device as being human, it will actually overcome these barriers between the two players," he added.

Marasco and his team also plan to explore whether their research could be used to help stroke and damaged spinal cord patients with sensation problems.

[MIKA27]

DOCUMENTARY: SHOOT THE SALT – THE FASTEST WOMAN ON A V-TWIN

Shoot The Salt is a documentary covering the first attempt of Jody Perewitz to set a new land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2011.

Jody has been around motorcycles her whole life, her father is the larger than life, multi-award winning custom builder Dave Perewitz. Dave has been building custom motorcycles since 1973, including custom builds for the likes of Hulk Hogan and hundreds of others, establishing himself a nationwide reputation and making regular appearances on TV shows like Biker Build Off.

I won’t go into too much detail here about the film so as not to give anything away, it’s a great watch and well worth your time.

[MIKA27]

Atari Finally Unveils Their New Gaming Console: Atari VCS

After months of not seeing anything beyond the primary console, Atari finally revealed the full look and details of their latest gaming console, the Atari VCS. In case you’re wondering, the VCS stands for Video Computer System, both as a nod to past PC names and to accurately describe what this system is. Dropping the “Ataribox” name, the reveal comes ahead of the console’s debut at the Game Developers Conference, which is an interesting choice as everyone assumed we’d be waiting until E3 to see it.

As you can see from the image above, the company went with both the old-school joystick look we’ve known from Atari, as well as a modern controller that even comes with one of the analog sticks being orange. While the look and feel of it is kind of cool to look at, the major details of what’s inside were left out of the press release. We’re assuming those will finally get talked about at GDC, since its a topic Atari can’t hide forever, and will probably help determine whether people purchase it or not. Below is a quote from the COO of Connected Devices, Michael Arzt, about the console.

Quote

“Every person at Atari and every partner involved with the new platform is just as fanatical about the brand and its heritage as our biggest fans are,” explained Michael Arzt, Atari COO of Connected Devices. “With the Atari VCS name, we know how important it is to get everything completely right and that’s why we briefly paused an imminent launch late last year. It was a difficult decision with the countdown underway, but we weren’t willing to go forward with even one thing out of alignment. We hope that Atari’s fans appreciate our extreme attention to detail and are as excited about the Atari VCS as we are.”

 

[MIKA27]

The 'Holy Grail' of Ultra-Rare Macallan Whisky Is About to Go Up for Auction

Peter Blake, the artist who designed the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album—that wonderful and wacky collage of very cool people, both alive and dead—also lent his art to a bottle of Macallan in 1986. Now, that bottle is going up for auction in Hong Kong on May 18; it's expected to go for as much as $460,000 to $587,000.

With it is a second bottle of 1986 Macallan, also up for auction, also expected to bring in around half a million. Its label was designed by another iconic Pop Art artist, Valerio Adami, whose use of bold colors and black outlines might remind you of comic art.

The story behind what's inside the bottle is remarkable, too. The whisky inside these editions was distilled in 1926 and bottled in '86. Only 12 bottles of each label were made, and they were gifted to Macallan's most valuable customers. The custom-made wooden cases are designed to mimic a distillery spirit safe.

The last time any of those bottles hit auction was in the late '80s, scotchwhisky.com reports. Now, the two bottles of the 60 Year Old 1926 Macallan are expected to shatter records.

“Only 24 of these bottles were produced, and the sale is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for collectors to acquire the holy grail of Macallan," said auction house Bonhams head of fine wine and whisky in Hong Kong, Daniel Lam.

As for the taste, you'll just have to put in a bid and find out for yourself.

[MIKA27]

OUTRUN YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES WITH LAMBORGHINI’S $25,000 BIKE

When a Canadian bicycle maker and Italian supercar maker team up, this is the result. The P5X features some of the boldest lines ever seen on a triathlon bike and it performs exactly how it looks – bloody fast. The space age bike features advanced racing technology which isn’t specified but looking at the price tag and the design, expect lots of carbon fibre and cutting edge aerodynamics. Besides the vented disc brakes front and rear, the P5X also features a striking black and yellow paint job with Lamborghini’s signature ‘Y’ motif. Only 25 examples will be made so if you have a spare $20,000 to drop, you better move fast.