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

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Mulan's Final Trailer Highlights The Film's Epic Action

Mulan hits theatres on March 26.

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Formula E Is Evolving

Thursday night Formula E tweeted out the above image teasing the “Gen 2 Evo” chassis, which is expected to be a facelifted aerokit for the Spark SRT05e chassis. This should be the car used for season seven (2020/21) and extend through the end of season eight before Gen 3 is introduced.

It may not seem like much, but there are a few takeaways from this teaser image. For one, the Gen 2 Evo will feature open wheels again, removing the wheel surrounds from the front wheels. Further, it looks like the car’s front wing won’t extent out quite as far as the nosecone like it does currently. It’s difficult to tell from the angle, but it looks like the nose cone may be pointed at a sharper angle as well.

Last summer it was mooted that a so-called gen 2.5 update would get a weaker front end to “self punish” drivers for being too aggressive with the proverbial chrome horn. Given some of the antics on display at the most recent ePrix in Santiago, Chile, this will be a welcome change for many.

For reference, here’s what the current spec car looks like, this one is Porsche’s 99X Electric.

The new Evo car will be officially launched on February 4. I look forward to the aero updates and a car that rewards a more delicate approach to overtaking. I personally think the current car is one of the best looking race cars in the world right now, and fittingly alien for a series attempting to be the future.

It’s already great racing, but this will make drivers think twice about a dive-bomb up the inside. That will only be a good thing.

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Fast 9's Trailer Doesn't Take Us To Space But It Does Have Rockets And Resurrection

Now that the Fast and Furious has finally gone sci-fi, nothing is off-limits. And you see that in the first trailer for F9, the official title of the ninth Fast and Furious film. This time around they’re strapping rockets to cars.

There are also cars attached to aeroplanes. Oh, and the franchise is bringing back a character from the dead...again. Han Seoul-Oh, played by Sung Kang, who died in the third film, but was then back in the fourth (due to clever retconning) is back again. How? Why?

Director Justin Lin (who did parts 3-6) is back to tell the final two chapters in The Fast Saga, and the whole gang joins him: Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Jordana Brewster, Nathalie Emmanuel, Charlize Theron, and Helen Mirren. Plus, John Cena is Dom’s brother? Drama!

We’ll see what it’s all about on May 21 when F9 hits theatres.

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Cool Discovery Could Finally Explain Gigantic Ice Rings Found On Siberian Lake

The appearance of large ice rings on Lake Baikal in southern Siberia has confounded scientists since they were first discovered in the early 2000s. Recent investigations into the ice rings have resulted in a plausible explanation, but there’s still much to learn about these unusual features.

Russia’s Lake Baikal is the world’s largest and deepest freshwater lake. It’s home to many varieties of fish not seen anywhere else in the world, and even an endemic freshwater seal population. And it also features strange ice rings, which were first spotted in the early 2000s through MODIS satellite imagery.

Research published late last year in Limnology and Oceanography posits a plausible explanation for strange ice rings that frequently appear on Lake Baikal during the winter months: the circular movement of warm water beneath the ice.

The overall shape of an ice ring isn’t really discernable to an observer on the ground. They’re sufficiently large enough that their ring-like shape can only be seen from planes and satellites. The interior portions of the circles are bright, while the outer perimeters are dark where the ice is thin. The rings tend to be around 5 to 7 kilometres in diameter, while the dark, outer perimeter itself is around 1 kilometre wide, according to the new research. The rings last anywhere from a few days to a few months during the Siberian winter.

Ice rings seen on Lake Baikal and Lake Hovsgol.

Ice rings like this seem to be exclusive to Lake Baikal and neighbouring Lake Hovsgol in Mongolia as well as Lake Teletskoye, another Russian lake about 1,335 kilometres west of Baikal. But it’s entirely possible that they exist on other lakes and just haven’t been observed yet. Their appearance tends to be unpredictable, both in terms of time and place.

The ice rings have been attributed to numerous causes, including atmospheric or biological effects, elaborate hoaxes, and even the activities of aliens. A popular theory suggests the ice rings form from leaking gas, namely methane, which bubbles up from the bottom of the lake. The rings, however, have been observed in shallow parts of the lake where gas leakages are unlikely.

To get to the bottom of this mystery, the authors of the new study—a collaborative team from France, Russia, and Mongolia—organised field expeditions to Lake Baikal during the winters of 2016 and 2017, and studied thermal infrared satellite imagery of the ice rings.

The team drilled holes near the ice rings, into which they dropped sensors that could measure water temperature at depths reaching 200 meters (660 feet). Measurements were taken twice each winter, once in February and then again in March.

This proved to be hazardous work. On March 16, 2016, the ice layer began to crumble beneath their van, requiring the driver and passengers to be rescued. It happened again just two days later.

Left: a vehicle trapped in ice along the eastern boundary of a ring. Right: a researcher exploring a ring on foot.

In February 2016, the researchers, who refer to themselves as The Fellowship of the Ice Rings, detected an eddy—where water moves in a circular motion—at a depth of 45 metres beneath an ice ring. This discovery provided the team with a firsthand look at the ice conditions during the late stage of ice ring formation. The water in the eddy was found to be around 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than the water around it, and it took about 3 days for the eddy to make a complete rotation.

A year later the team found another eddy, which migrated 6 kilometres from its original position by the end of March. No ice ring was seen above the eddy, likely because not enough time had elapsed for a ring to form above it. A similar thing was spotted in 2019, when a ring moved 9 kilometres from its initial position. The findings have led the researchers to believe the warm eddies are the primary cause of the ice rings.

“Results of our field surveys show that before and during ice ring manifestation, there are warm eddies that circulate in a clockwise direction under the ice cover,” Alexei Kouraev, a team member and hydrologist from the University of Toulouse, said in a recent NASA Earth Observatory post. “In the eddy centre, the ice does not melt—even though the water is warm—because the currents are weak. But on the eddy boundary, the currents are stronger and warmer water leads to rapid melting.”

Ice rings on Lake Baikal as seen on April 25, 2019.

Ice ring development, according to the new research, begins in autumn before the lake is frozen. The eddies are formed from wind-churned outflows of water from the Barguzin Bay to the lake’s middle region. The scientists suspect a similar process is happening in other lakes where ice rings form.

More research will be required to fully elucidate the cause of these ice rings, but this latest study offers an exciting explanation. That said, many mysteries remain, such as why the eddies have a convex shape—a feature that’s typically seen in ocean eddies but not in lakes. Future research will also have to take the shape of the coastline into consideration, as that seems to play an important role in affecting how the eddies move.

In terms of other findings, the scientists found satellite photos of the ice rings that dated back to the 1960s, so these structures aren’t a new phenomenon. Even if they been around for a while, they still show that Lake Baikal continues to be one of the coolest places on the planet. Hopefully we’ll learn more about these enigmatic ice rings soon—and not just for the science. Local residents often drive on the lake during the winter months, and these ice rings pose a real risk to vehicles. Perhaps future traffic reports will highlight the presence of dangerous ice rings and their associated thin ice.

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Hyper-Realistic Masks Are Extremely Hard To Spot

It’s easy to spot someone wearing a mask, right? Well, new research suggests that it can be much harder than you think.

Masks are a great way to help actors get into character and scare young children at Halloween. Unfortunately, they can also help criminals to commit identity fraud. Hyper-realistic silicone masks of the kind that get torn off in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies are being are being used to commit identity crimes.

These masks are incredibly detailed, complete with hair, freckles and wrinkles. They cover the head and chest of the wearer, and include holes for the eyes and mouth which blend seamlessly with the wearer’s skin to create a lifelike appearance.

There have been a number of prominent cases of people successfully using these masks to fool others. In 2010, CNN reported  an Asian man in his twenties passed through Hong Kong Passport Control undetected, despite wearing a mask that disguised him as an elderly white man which resembled the individual in his stolen passport. He was only detected when a fellow traveller noticed that he had removed the mask during his flight to Canada. The mask wearer was apprehended by the police on landing.

In 2016, in a widely reported story, an African American man was arrested after being identified from CCTV as the assailant in a bank robbery. It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity, however. It later transpired that the bank robber was in fact a white man wearing a mask. The true perpetrator was only caught when his girlfriend phoned the police to say that she had found a hyper-realistic mask and a bag of money in his closet, after which the police finally put two and two together.

More recently, in 2019, the BBC ran a report entitled, “The fake French minister in a silicone mask who stole millions”. Here, identity fraudsters used a hyper-realistic mask to mimic France’s minister of defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, as they sought money from people in a hostage scam. It was estimated that the scheme defrauded individuals of around £70 million. The suspect was only rumbled after a linguistic slip of the tongue in which he used the word “vous” rather than “tu” during a conversation.

Research findings

These real-world cases show that hyper-realistic silicone masks are believable enough to provide a viable route to identity fraud. But perhaps these fraudsters just got lucky. Perhaps hyper-realistic masks are usually much harder to get away with. Rob Jenkins research group and Mike Burton’s FaceVar lab from the University of York, set out to address this question. Across several studies, they showed that detecting people wearing hyper-realistic masks in photographs and from memory was indeed extremely difficult.

But what about up close in a real-world border control context? In new research published in the academic journal Perception, Jenkins and his team created a mock airport border control scenario during a public engagement event at the London Science Museum, which included a “traveller” wearing a hyper-realistic mask. Members of the public were asked a series of graded questions to assess whether they had detected that the individual sitting just two metres in front of them was wearing a mask.

Nothing to see here?

The findings showed that only 13% of participants detected the mask straight away. Of the remaining participants, only 11% reported that they had detected the mask when presented with a series of questions, one of which asked if they thought the traveller was wearing a disguise.

Finally, at the end of the test, participants were told about hyper-realistic mask fraud and asked explicitly whether or not the traveller was wearing such a mask. Remarkably, 10% of participants still failed to detect that the individual in front of them was wearing a mask.

It was remarkable that mask detection rates were so low. And interestingly, even those participants who did detect the mask after being asked explicitly, provided nuanced reasons for their decisions. That is, rather than all of a sudden realising “ah yes, this is quite obviously a mask!”, they reported things like “well, the hairline doesn’t look quite right”, or ‘"there is a lack of expression".

Our study will add to concerns that these masks are a route to identity fraud. The task now is to find ways to improve people’s rates of detecting when someone is wearing a mask. Some people are much better than others at distinguishing masks from real faces. That opens the door to personnel selection and training.

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Anthony Mackie's Takeshi Kovacs Suits Up In Altered Carbon Season 2's Teaser

Altered Carbon season two will begin streaming on Netflix on February 27.

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This Modular Watch Boasts A CNC-Machined Steel Case & A Suspended Dial

There’s no denying that the luxury watch space is inundated with busy, high-end models that take complexity to an entirely new level. In fact, the integral workings, and price points, of the genre’s most prominent examples are enough to push most fledgling buyers away. But now, California’s Wilbur has set out to create something a bit more approachable with the Launch Edition.

As the company’s first foray into the realm of high-end luxury, the 2020 Launch Edition looks to blur the boundary between one-of-a-kind timekeepers, and their more versatile counterparts, allowing buyers to customize and swap components at a later date. Built upon designer Jason Wilbur’s innovative nine-part watch architecture, virtually all of the watch’s CNC machined pieces can be exchanged for an alternative, making each of the limited-to-250 Launch Edition examples unique, in their own right. A hand-finished dial and 316 stainless steel case keep the Launch’s custom Japan Seiko movement protected, while a suspended outer dial adds a flair of prestige oft found in the genre’s most prolific variants. To round things out, buyers will be able to choose between a ballistic nylon or silicone bolt-on strap. Head to Wilbur’s website for more information, and keep your eyes peeled for an impending release.

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Suntory’s Oldest Yamazaki Whisky Ever Is Limited To 100 $30K Bottles

Suntory boasts one of the most prolific reputations in the whisky industry, and every so often, the company strikes liquid gold with a limited-edition release. For 2020, the Osaka-based brand is already leaving its mark on the world of high-end spirits, thanks, in large part, to the announcement of an ultra-limited Yamazaki 55-Year Whisky.

Arriving in a beautifully-adorned glass container, this collectible liquor boasts an unblended, single malt stature, and calls upon an exclusive seasonal taste that’s inherently wood-like. A fruity aroma precedes the Yamazaki 55’s subtle palette, giving the matured spirit a substantial flavor that sets it apart from other, less-refined offerings. As the oldest Yamazaki whisky to be listed for sale by the brand, you’d be correct to assume that getting your hands on one might be a bit complex. First, you’ll have to enter a drawing to test your luck, but only Japanese residents will be admitted. However, if you do come out on top, you’ll have to shell out around 3.3 million Yen (or $27,600+ USD) to claim one of the limited-to-100 Yamazaki 55 as your own. Head to Suntory’s website to learn more. $27,600+

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TUBMARINE WOOD-FIRED HOT TUB

Beautifully designed and easy to maintain, these wood-fired hot tubs are a sleek addition to any property. The Tubmarine heats up in under two hours, requires no electricity, and is built using eco-friendly, high specification parts and materials. Each tub has a Kirami water heater from Finland and is outfitted in a wood manufactured in the UK called Kebony. The tub can fit up to four adults comfortably and comes with a 25-year guarantee. $20K

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NO TIME TO DIE - Teaser

With the release of No Time to Die, the Bond franchise will celebrate its 25th film. Daniel Craig reprises his role as the 007 for the fifth and final time as the MI6 agent tries to enjoy retirement in Jamaica. Not to anyone's surprise, he gets pulled back into active duty after crossing paths with old friend and CIA agent Felix Leiter. Directed by and co-written by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the film's cast includes Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Ben Whishaw, Lea Seydoux, and Ralph Fiennes, and is slated for release April 8, 2020.

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Skeleton Found In Submerged Mexican Cave Sheds New Light On Earliest People In America

An extraordinary 9,900-year-old skeleton found in the submerged caves of Tulum is both enhancing and complicating our understanding of the first humans to settle in the Americas.

Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is typically associated with the Maya civilisation, but emerging archaeological evidence suggests this region was settled thousands of years earlier by some of the first people to set foot in the Americas.

New research published today in PLOS One describes an important new discovery that’s adding to our understanding of this period in human history: a 9,900-year-old skeleton found in the submerged Chan Hol cave near the Tulum archaeological site in Mexico’s Quintana Roo state.

The skeleton, which belonged to a woman who died in her 30s, has some unique characteristics that suggest the region was inhabited by at least two different groups of early Mesoamerican settlers, who made the area heir home roughly 8,000 years before the Maya first appeared on the scene.

A striking feature of this part of the Yucatán Peninsula is the large complex of submerged caves and sinkholes. Thousands of years ago, these caves and sinkholes served as shelters, and only later did they become inundated. In recent years, archaeologists have dared to dive to the bottom of these dark pools, an effort for which they’ve been suitably rewarded. To date, archaeologists have discovered 10 human skeletons in these underwater caves, including the new one, designated Chan Hol 3.

The Chan Hol 3 skull as it was found at the bottom of the submerged cave. The red arrow indicates a broken stalagmite nearby.

The story these fossils are telling is nothing short of extraordinary. Back in 2014, Tulum divers found the skeletal remains of a young girl in a cave called Hoyo Negro, which is Spanish for “black hole.” Using carbon dating, scientists dated these remains to 10,976 years ago. During the 2000s, archaeologists working in Naharon cave, also near Tulum, found a skeleton that was dated to 11,570 years ago.

These are some of the oldest human fossils to be found anywhere in the Americas—but there’s a major problem, and it has to do with the dating method used. Bones that have been submerged in water for a long time are stripped of their organic tissue, namely collagen. That makes carbon dating a precarious proposition at best.

Scientists analysing the skeleton at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK. 

Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, the first author of the new study and an archaeologist from Heidelberg University in Germany, used a different approach to date the Chan Hol 3 skeleton, which is 30 per cent complete.

“We used an indirect dating technique from physics,” Stinnesbeck told Gizmodo. “This method is based on the radioactive decay of uranium and its conversion into thorium. We dated the uranium-thorium isotopes of a lime crust that had grown on the finger bones when Chan Hol cave was still dry.”

The solid calcite crust that formed on the finger bones was caused by water dripping from the cave ceiling, according to the paper. Study co-author Norbert Franck and his team from the Institute of Environmental Physics at Heidelberg University performed the dating, coming up with a minimum age for Chan Hol 3 at 9,900 years old—with “minimum” being the key word. Clearly, the body had already become “skeletonized,” in the words of Stinnesbeck, before the crusts could appear, so the fossil is likely much older.

Similar encrustations appeared on Chan Hol 2, a skeleton previously found in the same cave. Stinnesbeck’s team used the same uranium-thorium technique to date this fossil back in 2015, coming up with a minimum age of 11,300 years but a likely age of 13,000 years, given the amount of crust seen on the skeleton. The Chan Hol 2 individual is thus one of the oldest skeletons to have ever been found in the Americas.

Other archaeological evidence from Chan Hol cave has produced similar timeframes. In 2018, the same team dated bits of charcoal from ancient fire pits, resulting in a date range between roughly 9,100 and 7,900 years ago.

“These charcoal concentrations are interpreted by us as ancient illumination sites,” Stinnesbeck told Gizmodo. “They provide strong evidence that the Chan Hol cave was dry and accessible and that humans used the cave for at least 1,200 years during the early and middle Holocene, before access was successively interrupted by global sea level rise and flooding of the cave system.”

Analysis of the Chan Hol 3 skeleton points to a woman who was around 30 years old when she died. A comparative analysis involving over 400 ancient skulls found across the Americas, including Tulum, revealed a “mesocephalic” skull pattern indicative of a round head. This stands in contrast to skulls found elsewhere, including those belonging to Paleoamericans from Central Mexico and North America, which feature “dolicocephalic” skull patterns indicative of long and narrow skulls. The Chan Hol 3 individual also suffered from tooth decay, likely caused by a sugar-rich diet. Dolicocephalic individuals don’t tend to have cavities and instead feature badly worn teeth, which is caused by chewing on tough foods.

Together, this evidence points to the presence of at least two physically distinct human groups who lived at roughly the same time in the Mexican region as the Pleistocene gave way to the Holocene. This presents one of two possibilities: At least two different groups arrived to North America from Eurasia, or the two groups are offshoots of a single group that arrived to the Americas but subsequently diverged and developed distinctive physical characteristics over time.

“In either case, the early settlement history of the Americas appears to be more complicated and may date back thousands of years earlier than commonly believed,” said Stinnesbeck, who pointed to his own work and a recent study co-authored by Ohio State University scientist Mark Hubbe as evidence. “In the absence of DNA data, nevertheless, we cannot say where these people originally came from and how they came to the Americas,” he said.

Indeed, the scenarios presented in the paper don’t preclude the possibility that other groups spilled into North America from Eurasia around the same time but weren’t connected to the two groups described in the new study. And the DNA evidence that does exist—scant as it is—points to a complicated story of ancestral splits, multiple migrations, and the reunification of diverged groups.

But the analysis of Chan Hol 3 doesn’t end there. This ancient woman endured skull trauma and disease.

Signs of trauma on the skull.

Evidence of at least three serious injuries were found on her skull. The woman appears to have been struck by a hard object, or multiple objects, which broke the bones in her head. It’s not clear if the woman died from these injuries, but no signs of healing were found on the skull. It’s “likely” that these wounds resulted in her death, but there’s “no positive evidence” to support this scenario, cautioned Stinnesbeck.

Chan Hol 3 also appears to have contracted a bacterial disease, as evidenced by dents and crater-like deformations on her skull. Specifically, she may have been infected with Treponema peritonitis, which can lead to osteitis (inflammation of bone) or severe periostitis (inflammation of connective tissue that surrounds bone). The researchers ruled out the possibility that these skull deformations were caused by erosion.

“They are thus of anthropological importance, in particular when it comes to the possibility that Treponema may be involved—a group of bacteria which causes syphilis,” said Stinnesbeck, who made it clear that “we did NOT present evidence for this disease [syphilis]” in the new paper.

The submerged caves at Tulum are steadily showing their immense value as archaeological sites. These chambers undoubtedly have many fascinating stories still to tell—we just have to dive right in.

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Call Of Duty's 'Outback Relief' DLC Raises $2.3 Million For Bushfire Relief

There's been no shortage of developer support for the Australian bushfires, but it's the ones with DLC to sell that have raised the most. After announcing that proceeds of the "Outback Relief" DLC would be donated to the bushfire charities, Activision and Call of Duty players have raised over $2.3 million ($US1.6 million).

Sales of the Outback Relief Pack closed at the end of January. At the time, Activision announced it would donate "all sales of the previously released Outback Pack" along with ongoing net proceeds of the Outback Relief Pack from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

"The Call of Duty community's amazing support will translate directly into help for people in Australia," said Thomas Tighe, chief executive and president of Direct Relief, the charitable body distributing all of the funds raised by Activision to Australian communities and charities.

Direct Relief has already committed to provide as many as 1 million N95 masks for communities affected by bushfire smoke. The organisation also distributes emergency medical packs designed to help communities and first responders have standardised medical equipment and supplies to diagnose, treat trauma and meet various needs in the midst of a natural disaster.

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FLORIDA RACE TRACK ESTATE

With a 20-car garage, 11,000-square-foot workshop, and an eight-turn racetrack, this Florida estate is a gearhead's dream. The French-Normandy manor is situated on the shore of Lake Thonotosassa just outside of Tampa and was built by RV mogul and car enthusiast Don Wallace. His expansive collection once included some of the rarest race cars in the world ranging from Ferraris and a McLaren F1 to championship drag cars like Bob Glidden's Pro Stock Pinto, and his home reflects that passion. To accompany the garage, there's a retro diner with two race simulators for when the track conditions aren't ideal. The main house has an elevator to navigate its four floors and offers six bedrooms, eight full and seven half baths, and an additional seven-car garage. It also comes with a wood-lined lounge, chef's kitchen, fitness room, sauna, and bowling alley. Thought the 36-acre property is a saltwater pool, two-story boathouse, horse stable, and one-mile jogging trail all baked by 1,300-feet of lakefront.

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ST. ELMO BOURBON

The legendary St. Elmo Steak House has been an Indianapolis institution for more than a century and is regularly listed among the best steak houses in the country. But a rather simple cocktail has given the iconic restaurant a new claim to fame. The 'Elmo Cola' has been a menu staple for years, and for the first time ever, it's now available in bottled form as well. The 88 proof bourbon is finished with dark cherry and bourbon vanilla beans and not only helps you emulate the famous Elmo Cola at home by just adding cola, but is also great on the rocks, neat, or with a dash of bitters for unique Manhattan.

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Cooking Through the South’s Past, Present & Future

Three new cookbooks, Sean Brock’s “South,” Rob Newton’s “Seeking the South,” and Toni Tipton-Martin’s “Jubilee,” tackle the roots of Southern cooking and its modern influences.

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The most quotable, perhaps the only quotable thing William Faulkner ever wrote, gets plucked from the sea of lengthy sentences, neologisms, and rippling complexity because it is succinct and it bends to the needs of those who use it—as it will here. It resonates with the whole South, a region that is forever wrestling with history and identity. The South isn’t the South. It’s not even a place. 

But that hasn’t stopped folks from writing about it and three new cookbooks confront the South, or the legacy of the South, in completely different ways.

Sean Brock’s South, Rob Newton’s Seeking the South, and Toni Tipton-Martin’s Jubilee are each wonderful and expressions of completely different aspects of the same discussion. 

Whenever I read Brock’s work, or read stories about him, I sense in the subtext that he is a seed saver. To me, it is his defining characteristic. A seed saver wants to carry forward bits of the past, bits of heritage, and germinate that heritage to grow again. A seed saver also believes that this responsibility falls to him. It is an apostolic position, and it is a certain kind of person who believes themselves an apostle. The relationship of duty and ego is complicated: to spend one’s life pursuing the preservation of tradition, the germination of the past into the future, is a big responsibility, but one has to feel called to do this work.

“I hope that someday I will be remembered for helping people everywhere understand that Southern food should be considered among the most revered cuisines of the world,” he writes in the introduction of his new book. And I agree that the cuisines of the South have very little to do with “the stereotypes of heavy, greasy, and overdone dishes.” What’s interesting to me, however, is how easily he could have written that Southern food should be revered and left his own legacy out of it. That’s the thing about apostles: they always want you to name the chapter of the book after them. 

Brock looks at the South as a collection of microregions, rightly pointing out that “The food in the parts of Virginia that border Kentucky is different from that found in the region that borders Tennessee.” It is not monolithic, he writes, but it is linked together by cultural connections. 

In his pixelated version of Southern cuisines, the South has as many cuisines as continental Europe. His vision of how to study and understand it is to be hyper local. 

The rules he sets out are strict. “If you eat only vegetables that you and your neighbors have grown or fill your pantry with grains, oils or other fats, and dried herbs and spices produced in your own community, your relationship with food and cooking will change pretty quickly. And that is the only way to re-create what a day tastes like in the South, or in your region, in a very pure sense.” 

Luckily, these beliefs are aspirational. He’s added koji rice (the national flavor of Japan) to his recipe for hot sauce, and there’s Manchego cheese grated over the top of his baby collard Caesar. This came as a relief.

None of which is to say that this vision of the South isn’t worth having. It’s very much Sean Brock’s and here it’s very much focused on the home kitchen and the pantry. Gone are the restaurant plates of his last book, replaced with gorgeous, practical recipes for steaks and burgers. There are here fantastic presentations of crock fermented sour corn, jars of mixed pickles, tomato-okra stew, and pit-cooked chicken sandwiches. Ambitious cooks looking for fun projects will find recipes such as crab roe bottarga, bologna, and watermelon molasses. There are asides on country ham and cast iron, and some of the recipes are really love letters. Canned greasy beans—so called because of their slick and shiny skin, not because of a fat—for instance, is hardly a recipe. It’s just instructions on putting beans in jars with a little salt and then pressure canning them. Important instructions, in other words, included here not because of the recipe but because Brock loves greasy beans, and feels that your pantry should have a few jars in it, too.

Interestingly, Rob Newton’s vision of the South is also one in which the South is divided into sub regions. His divisions are pretty straightforward: Upper South, Deep South, Gulf Coast, the coastal plains and Piedmont, Low Country and the southeast coast. (He smartly leaves out most of Florida and all of Texas, as well as barbecue. Each of those things is its own world.) These regions each also have their own terroir—different kinds of fish, different growing seasons. (Brock points out the same point with a great little table about different grits and different types of shrimp served across the South.) 

What’s different here is who is using the shrimp. Newton introduces each section with “a little bit of the history of each region and the forces (geographical, political, and demographic) that have shaped it over time.” Which, of course sounds like lots of Southern cookbooks and the syllabus for a high school civics class, but he also writes: “Today, I drive across the South and see Asian markets and Mexican restaurants in even the tiniest towns, and I think about how excited I am to get to know my new neighbors.” 

That is decidedly not what we’ve come to think of when we think about Southern food and Southern cookbooks.

Newton writes that there is no dogma in his kitchen. “The biggest pleasure in cooking Southern cuisine is finding ways to make it your own.” And he means that for everyone, which is why he’s included beautiful dishes such as his Kalbi-Style Grilled Beef with Summer Vegetable Pancakes. Pickled okra is right there next to kimchi, which makes a ton of sense. Consider a recipe for Shrimp and Country Ham Lumpia with Soy-Sorghum Vinegar Dipping Sauce, which he links to the Filipino community around Virginia Beach. He credits Cathy Mai, of Greenwood, Mississippi, (“daughter of the woman who ran the Delta’s first Chinese restaurant in the 1970s”) for inspiring his Hot Potlikker, which I suppose is pretty close to a typical hot pot, but with potlikker broth as the bubbling soup base that grows more delicious as the meal progresses. 

The Black-Eyed Pea Falafels just make you want to look at his recipes for fried chicken or buttermilk biscuits. He didn’t box out the standards, because he knows that they’re not being replaced but just reinvented. In the dynamic, forward-looking South, acculturation means that we can now have biscuits with Masa-Fried Flounder that’s topped with a dollop of Tomatillo Salsa Verde.

Jubilee isn’t a Southern cookbook. It’s a scholarly book that includes recipes and is the product of Toni Tipton-Martin’s impressive study of African American cooking. She began in her previous book, The Jemima Code, examining the patterns of cuisine, the fusion of flavors from Haiti and the West Indies, for instance, with traditions that survived the Middle Passage, which formed the foodways of the American South. Her new book looks at how these dishes were then taken all over the country and adopted by cooks far from the South. Tipton-Martin herself grew up in the Los Angeles hills and writes about a childhood of comfort during which she learned to embrace diverse culinary traditions. She now sets what she calls “a global table” in her own home. “Cast-iron abides with bone china, crystal and damask, and iconic Southern and international dishes are served alongside one another and seem right at home.” (See kimchi and pickled okra, above.)

She writes: “I knew what my family and our friends and community are, and yet, traditional written history and modern social media consistently ignored our style of cooking. Some restaurant critics mischaracterized inventive Afro-Asian fine dining as ‘inauthentic.’ Others panned mid- to upscale African America restaurants that didn’t serve soul food or Southern fare.” 

Tipton-Martin wanted to set the record straight and honor the joyous diverse cooking from the South no matter where said cooking took place. She has certainly succeeded. She wants us to end our dependency on using the labels “Southern” and “soul.” Because, to paraphrase Faulkner, really, the South isn’t even the South, it isn’t even a place. 

So here we have wonderfully French beef stew and Roasted Leg of Lamb with Rosemary and inset on that page is a historical recipe for Roast Shoulder or Leg of Mutton from a book by Tunis G. Campbell, published in 1848. (Tipton-Martin’s knowledge of historical black cookbooks is astounding.) Within a few pages the book drifts into African flavors with a peanut sauce that is introduced as being inspired by a Senegalese cookbook, and then to Caribbean Roast Pork. 

There are also plenty of recipes for what the South is known for, including étouffée, gumbo and barbecue. There’s a whole page on biscuits in general before a few recipes for biscuits of different types.

It all comes together on the table, like she promised it would, cast iron sitting right next to bone china.

[MIKA27]

The 2020 Rallye Monte Carlo Historique Had The Good Cars

This week’s Rallye Monte Carlo Historique had Alpines, Porsches, and not one, not two, but three mighty Lancia Stratos (Stratoses? Stratii? Straterix?) taking part. You know, the Good Cars.

Starting from a number of points around Europe, participants in the rally made their way towards their destination in Monte Carlo, competing in a number of both open and closed rally stages along the way. This is sort of how the regular Monte Carlo Rally was run at its inception in 1911, with competitors meeting up or “rallying” as they approached Monaco. Though the regular rally now conforms to World Rally Championship guidelines, the spirit of the original remains with the Historique.

The Rallye Monte Carlo Historique, though officially sanctioned by the Federation Internationale d’Automobile (FIA), is more of a celebration of the iconic rallies of the 20th century than a race. In order to participate, your car must be a model that was entered into the regular Rallye Monte Carlo between 1911 and 1980.

Now, that does cut off the notorious Group B cars that competed between 1982 and 1986, but it leaves plenty of the legendary cars from the ‘60s and ‘70s eligible. You know, those Good Cars I was talking about before.

The full list of all participants and their cars (303 in total) can be found here, but I wanted to put a spotlight on a couple of my favourites. Like I said, there were Three Lancia Stratoses out there, but there were also ten Alpines, nearly fifty Porsches, and even a Polski Fiat 125P.

The overall winners of the 2020 rally, the 23rd of its kind, were Dane Henrik Bjerregaard and Czech Jaromir Svec in their ‘79 Ford Escort RS2000, followed up by Rafael Fernandez Cosin and Julen Martinez Huarte in a 1970 Lancia Fulvia HF 1.6. Rounding out the top three were Juan Carlos Zorilla-Hierro and Marcoz Gutierrez-Dominguez in a ‘78 Golf GTI. All great cars, and I’m sure an incredible time was had by all.

If you like the shots up above, have a look here for the rest of the gallery.

[MIKA27]

The Latest Invisible Man Trailer

The Invisible Man opens February 27.

 

[MIKA27]

RETRO CHAMP PORTABLE NES CONSOLE

Screen sizes have finally caught up with the size of NES cartridges, enabling the creation of Game Boy XL-like consoles like the Retro Champ. Sporting a 7-inch full-color screen, it has slots for both NES and Famicom carts and built-in controls. Done traveling for the day? A built-in kickstand, HDMI output, and bundled wireless controllers let it connect to a TV for couch-based gaming. It also has a rechargeable battery, and a built-in cleaning kit to keep older cartridges in tip-top shape — no blowing required. $110

 

[MIKA27]

It's Time To Learn About The Mystery Of The Insane Locomotive-Like 1932 Stapp Land Speed Record Car

When it comes to sheer madness, it’s hard to pick an automotive category more blessed with vehicular batshittery than Land Speed Record cars. They’ve been around since at least the later 1800s, and even in this category that includes rocket cars, cars made from jet fighters, and electric torpedoes you basically sit on top of, this incredible monster from a Frenchman named René Stapp stands out. But to this day it’s not really known if this man and his car represented a genuine, earnest attempt at the record, or a baffling hoax. Either way, it’s fascinating.

René Stapp was a racing driver and at least some sort of automotive designer and engineer, as his land speed record car was entirely his own design. It was built just outside of Paris, using what is said to have been a Voisin chassis.

It’s also suggested that the Voisin engine was left in the chassis to act as a starter motor for the planned main propulsion of the car, a trio of nine-cylinder radial engines from Bristol Jupiter aeroplanes.

I guess just having three radial engines powering a car must have seemed too pedestrian for old René, because he claimed that those three engines would have all their 27 pistons removed, and would be operating as gasoline turbines, somehow. According to historian Dale LaFollete,

Quote

The engines would make 800 horsepower each and would transmit their power to all four wheels by an electric transmission. He estimated that the car could attain maximum speed of 372 mph (600 kph)...

I’m not really clear how an “electric transmission” would send 800 HP to the wheels without using an 800 HP motor?

It seems that Stapp may not have been entirely clear, either, since there’s no actual evidence that the three radial engines were ever installed in the car. That’s not to say that the car didn’t run; it absolutely did, as you can see in some period footage, but it was likely just using the original Voisin engine.

That footage of the car driving is interesting for a number of reasons: first, just look at that damn thing, and second, note how the driver, Mssr. Stapp himself, is piloting it: standing up.

There was no provision to actually sit in the car, so the driver just stood in that little socket, and there appears to have been no windscreen or anything like that. I guess the thinking was the driver would have goggles?

For the little trip into the streets of Paris that you can see in that old footage, it’s funny to note the spare tire and rear-view mirror slapped onto that thing for the trip.

The sheer scale of the car is remarkable, and could easily have held those three radial turbine whatevers, I’d expect. The rear cone was perforated with a lot of exhaust nozzles of some sort, and there’s some interesting early streamlining attempts going on here: the overall torpedo shape, the tapered, pointed fenders leading and behind each wheel, and that gigantic rear fin, perhaps to provide some rudder-control while at speed?

Stapp’s plan was to take the beast to Daytona Beach, where he’d try to beat the then-current speed record of over 253 mph (407 km/h), set by Malcom Campbell in the Campbell-Napier-Railton Blue Bird.

Before shipping that thing all the way across the ocean, though, Stapp decided to test it on a French beach called La Baule that was nice and long and used extensively as a raceway in that era.

While getting ready to do a speed run on the beach, Stapp’s creation caught fire and burned to the, sand, I guess, and while René himself was able to get clear, the car was destroyed.

The Italian magazine La Tribuna Illustrata’s May 8, 1932 issue covered the fire, and suggested that Stapp fractured his knee, and his mechanic was banged up a bit. 

The question remains, though: was this disaster staged? Did Stapp rig the machine to burn, somehow, or was this a genuine accident? If the car had none of its three turbines installed, there wouldn’t have been much to test on the beach. Was the fire a cover for the fact that the car was nowhere near what it claimed to be?

We really have no idea. Stapp sort of disappeared after all this, and while it’s possible the car had the strange and advanced drivetrain he suggested, there’s no proof, either—no patents or photographs or blueprints of any kind.

If it was a hoax, it’s also confusing as to the goal—just a publicity stunt? For what, exactly, though? His engineering abilities? His daring? What was the goal, here?

I’m just not sure. And, after 88 years, I don’t really think we’re any closer to an answer.

Still, it’s a gloriously bonkers thing, isn’t it?

 

[MIKA27]

Watch The Record Breaking World's Largest Firework Turn The Night Sky Into Day

If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again are words that Tim Borden apparently lives by, because after an incident thwarted his Guinness World Record attempt back in 2019, this past weekend he finally succeeded in launching the world’s largest aerial firework ever, with a behemoth that weighed in at 2,797 pounds (1,269kg).

Borden’s previous attempt was made back on February 10, 2019, with a shell that was packed with 2,500 pounds (1,134kg) of pyrotechnic materials. It was supposed to be launched approximately a mile into the air where it would safely detonate its payload, but it instead exploded inside the mortar. But on February 8, 2020, atop Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Borden’s second attempt was a complete success. A custom-built, 26-foot (8 metre) long mortar launched the record-breaking 62-inch (1.57 metre) shell 1.6km into the air where the spectacular explosion momentarily turned the city from night time into a particularly apocalyptic sort of day time.

Previous Guinness World Records for aerial fireworks have been set in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates. The latter country is where the most recent record holder, a 2,397 pound (1,087kg) shell, was successfully launched as part of New Year’s celebrations back in January of 2018.

Without seeing it in person, it’s hard to fathom the scale of this achievement; watching the gigantic starburst on YouTube just can’t compare to having experienced it in real life. But the shell itself measured in at just over five-feet across, which is almost incomprehensibly massive. And its 2,797-pound (1,269 kg) weight puts it about three pounds lighter than a Toyota Corolla. Imagine the explosives needed to launch a Toyota a mile straight up into the air. The explosion from jus the shell launch alone was probably louder and more impressive than the fireworks displays most small towns put on for the Fourth of July.

[MIKA27]

Royal Enfields Gives The Classic 500 A Final Blacked-Out Farewell Edition

In 2008 Royal Enfield released its Classic 500, a retro-styled half-liter thumper that for the last decade has been a valued member of the brand’s lineup. Though with declining sales, RE can no longer justify updating the Classic 500 — or the Thunderbird and Bullet 500 — in order to meet forthcoming BS6 compliance and will cease sales by April 2020. So, to celebrate the significant role the Classic has played over the last ten years, the company is releasing a limited run of special Classic 500 Tribute Black editions.

The murdered-out limited edition retains its 27.2hp, air-cooled, unit construction (where the gearbox and engine are housed in a single casing) single, though the mill’s been hit with a matte coat of black before having its cooling fins polished down to the bare metal. Individually painted by hand, the tank, front and rear fenders, and side-covers sport a dedicated gloss and matte black livery with gold pinstripes. The special edition also gets a quilted touring saddle, commemorative “End of Build” serial numbered plaque, and blacked-out fork uppers and exhaust pipes. RE hasn’t cited a production number for the Tribute Black-spec, though it’s holding a three-hour online flash sale on February 10, 2020, where the model will be priced at $3,499.

[Guest Nekhyludov]

15 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

RE hasn’t cited a production number for the Tribute Black-spec, though it’s holding a three-hour online flash sale on February 10, 2020.

I'm glad I didn't see this earlier today. If I had, I'd have another motorcycle, $3500 fewer dollars, and a very upset wife.

[MIKA27]

NASA Requests Funding For Audacious Plan To Bring Martian Soil To Earth

NASA is officially asking Congress to fund a Mars sample-return project, in what would be one of the most complex missions ever attempted by the space agency.

NASA’s much-anticipated budget request for fiscal year 2021 came out Monday, and it showcases all the space- and aeronautics-related things the space agency would like to accomplish over the next few years—and the amount of money it’ll need to make it all happen.

NASA wants to spend $US25.25 ($38) billion in 2021, which is 12 per cent more than it got in 2020. Among the many items listed, the budget request provisions for the upcoming Artemis mission (which could see American astronauts land on the Moon by 2024), new Earth-observation missions, ongoing low Earth orbit spaceflight operations (including missions aboard the International Space Station), a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, and a Mars sample-return mission.

In terms of specific numbers, the space agency is asking Congress for $US3 ($4) billion to develop a human lunar landing system for Artemis, which, if approved, would be the “first time we have had direct funding for a human lander since the Apollo Program,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine in his preface to the budget request. In addition, NASA wants $US8.76 ($13) billion to design and build deep space exploration systems, $US2.71 ($4) billion to develop planetary science projects, and $US1.97 ($3) billion to fund Earth science missions, among other things.

The Martian Ascent Vehicle blasting off with its cargo. 

The cost of space transportation in 2021 was pegged at $US1.88 ($3) billion, with the NASA chief saying the ability to launch American astronauts from U.S. soil is “a capability we must never lose again.” As for the proposed Europa Clipper mission, NASA is asking for $US403.5 ($601) million to kickstart development, which in this humble reporter’s opinion would be worth every penny; Europa is one of the more fascinating objects in the solar system, with its icy crust that hides a potentially habitable ocean.

Excitingly, NASA wants $US233 ($347) million to fund Mars Future Missions—a hefty portion of which would be allocated “for studies and technology development... towards a Mars sample return mission,” according to the budget request. This marks an important next step in the program, in which the space agency is partnering with the European Space Agency.

NASA has already provisioned for this future sample-return mission through its design of the Mars 2020 rover, which is scheduled for launch in July. Once this still-to-be-named machine gets rolling on the Martian surface, it will use its drill to reach down below the surface and extract sample materials. Contents dredged by the drill will be placed inside 30 pen-sized canisters, which the rover will eventually leave on the surface. NASA had hoped these samples would be fetched and returned to Earth during a future mission, and it now appears this could actually happen.

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission will involve three distinct phases, if you include the Mars 2020 contribution. The second phase would see another lander sent to Mars, which would deploy a rover designed to intercept the left-behind caches. A sample transfer arm would then place each canister inside a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), which would blast off into space with its precious cargo. The third stage would involve a support satellite waiting in Mars orbit, which would intercept the rocket and send the samples on a trajectory toward Earth.

The MSR mission will also require the construction of a secure sample-retrieving facility, to ensure the integrity of the samples and to make sure nothing leaks out and contaminates our environment here on Earth (we don’t know, for example, what dangerous substances may lurk in Martian soil—a concern shared by planners of the Apollo Program).

It’s a tremendously complex mission with lots of moving parts. MSR would involve a number of technical firsts, including the first sample return from another planet, the first rocket launch from another planet, and the first round-trip mission from another planet.

“It is complicated, but fortunately we’re not doing it alone. We have a great partnership with the European Space Agency and they’re providing some major pieces of this mission,” said Austin Nicholas, MSR lead mission engineer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in a NASA video. “Within NASA we’ve actually got a number of centres working on all of the different pieces.”

Specifically, the MSR team is partnering with the Marshall Space Flight Centre on the Mars Ascent Vehicle), Langley and Ames research centres for the Earth entry vehicle), Glenn Research Centre for the sample fetch rover wheels, and Goddard Space Flight Centre for the orbiter payload. It’s “a whole NASA effort to get the Mars Sample Return done,” said Nicholas, who expects launches of the second and third stage components in 2026 and a sample return by 2031.

Once on Earth, these samples would be studied with state-of-the art instruments. Mars 2020 is slated to land inside Jezero crater, which once hosted a large lake. Samples from this spot would provide scientists with a richer understanding of the chemicals and compounds found within the Martian soil, and possibly even biosignatures indicative of ancient life.

NASA’s new budget request for 2021 still needs to be approved by Congress, and many of the items and figures listed in the 817-page document could be adjusted.

At the same time, NASA’s current Moon-to-Mars strategy stands in contrast to a recently proposed House bill that would see American astronauts on the Moon in 2028 and on Mars by 2033. The proposal would also change NASA’s ability to procure partners from the private sector, which could have a material bearing on the recently proposed budget. Plenty of i’s to dot and t’s to cross, but it appears we’ll have lots exciting space exploration news to cover over the next decade.

[MIKA27]

“The Division 2” Dives Into Next Expansion With “Warlords Of New York”

Ubisoft revealed the next expansion for Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 today, as players will hit Manhattan and deal with the Warlords Of New York. The next expansion will add a new story, which you can read about below with the trailer, but will also add improvements. This will include an RPG overhaul to better read and manage gear inventory. You’ll also see the UI screen will be updated, the return of god rolls, a streamlined gear recalibration system (with item and stat usefulness indicators) and a permanent attribute and stat storage at the recalibration station. You can find more information on these updates at the Season Pass here, as this will all be dropped into The Division 2 on March 3rd, 2020.

Quote

Division Agents will go on the ultimate manhunt for Aaron Keener, a former Division Agent who has now gone rogue. Keener, along with his network of Rogue Agents, is now a major threat to the burgeoning rebirth of civilization. To track down Keener, Agents will roam the untamed living open world of Lower Manhattan; a former Dark Zone that was recently hit by a devastating hurricane that hit New York City harder than anywhere else in the US. Agents are tasked to explore new zones, each with iconic locations such as Two Bridges, Chinatown, and Wall Street. To get to Keener, players must take down each of his Rogue Agents.  Each Rogue Agent has their own unique back story and skill – which you gain once you take them down.

 

[MIKA27]

New Trailer for ‘Altered Carbon’ Season 2 Comes with a Military Upgrade

The first trailer for Season 2 of Altered Carbon arrived just last week to tease Takeshi Kovacs’ return (of sorts), but a new trailer reveals more about the upcoming season’s increasingly complex plot. However it ultimately shakes out, fans of the sci-fi series will get to enjoy twisting, turning narratives interspersed with plenty of high-stakes shoot-em-up action and mind-bending headgames. Get a good tease with the new trailer below.

Starring Anthony Mackie, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Lela Loren, Simone Missick, Chris Conner, Dina Shihabi and Torben Liebrecht, with Will Yun Lee and James Saito recurring, Altered Carbon returns for Season 2 and eight hour-long episodes on February 27th.