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

[MIKA27]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Gets A Rad First Trailer

Cap’s back! Get in here and watch this new Captain America trailer. It’s practically The Avengers 2 already.

Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, is back in the suit and behind his mighty shield, fighting the good fight.

The plot centres around the Captain and S.H.I.E.L.D agents battling a new “shadowy enemy”. But according to the comics, The Winter Soldier is Rogers’ friend, Bucky Barnes. Barnes fought in World War II with Steve Rogers, and was killed in a plane crash. He was also hurtled into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic Ocean; preserving his body.

The comic story arc sees Bucky found and defrosted by Soviets. He’s given a bionic arm and sent out to do secret assassination and black ops missions for the shadowy government department. Bucky and the Captain eventually meet up, and Rogers conveniently cures him of his amnesia before they begin fighting together again to fend off terrorist attacks.

There are a few details in there that can’t play out exactly as they should because of the events of Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, but it’s awesome to see that this seminal character is back to kick some arse.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier sees the return of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders as S.H.I.E.L.D Agent Maria Hill. The freaking awesome helicarrier is also back, and from the looks of it, S.H.I.E.L.D is going to have one hell of a repair bill for that thing. Again.

There’s also an interesting moment in the trailer when Anthony Mackie’s character sprouts mechanical wings to fly off the helicarrier. In the IMDB credits, he’s listed as Sam Wilson, AKA The Falcon. Sweet.

It’s so good to see more depth in the Marvel universe than ever, with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D burning up the small screen while our main heroes continue to enhance their storylines on the silver screen.

Captain America: The Winder Soldier hits screens on 3 April, 2014.

[MIKA27]

Beneath The Streets, Lost Cities

State-sponsored freeway construction can be a pain for commuters whose daily routines are upended by constant building and maintenance. But roadwork can also be a source of unexpected archaeological discovery.

In California, every project approved by the state begins with a detailed look at the distant past of any future route, looking deep into a history that pre-dates our modern conveniences.

The Cultural Studies Office at Caltrans, California’s highway, bridge and rail agency, is made up of archaeologists, historians and architectural historians who study the landscapes being considered for new projects, hoping to protect the heritage of what came before.

Excavating at the Coast Guard Commander’s House on Yerba Buena Island, half-way between Oakland and San Francisco.

Prior to actually breaking ground, the department will do field-testing to research the site and determine its sensitivity, including the potential for buried artifacts, by poring over old maps, performing soil and geological surveys, and consulting architectural databases, both on-site and online.

“We put a lot of effort into knowing whether or not we’re going to encounter something,” office chief Anmarie Medin tells Gizmodo.

“Our staff has to make judgement calls. In an ideal world, we know everything up front.”

Subterranean studies are done using Lidar, geophysical remote sensing, and magnometers, which send ground-penetrating radar pulses into the soil to detect detect anomalies and identify potential burial locales.

Chicano Park Murals on the Coronado Bay Bridge in San Diego County

The range of assignments keeps the department busy, operating unofficially on what Medin refers to as the 80-20 rule.

Non-invasive civic updates, like pavement re-striping, are common — in fact, the majority of cases — but they are also relatively quick to handle. The remaining percentage of projects — the 20% — is smaller, but their scale makes them significantly more time-consuming. “These are the big hairy furballs,” she joked.

Caltrans archeologists hard at work recording artifacts at the Duhig Road Project in Napa county.

One of largest recent endeavours has been the large-scale seismic and structural reconstruction of San Francisco’s Doyle Drive, a nearly 80-year-old roadway that provides access to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. The surrounding Presidio is a national historic landmark and home to San Francisco’s National Cemetery, a site for Army burials since the late 1800s.

Preserving the area was imperative, so what even Caltrans describes as “huge retaining walls” were built in order keep the final resting place intact and to maintain its place as a significant spot for both the area and the nation. Additionally, the original fence was salvaged and restored. “This was a great example of archaeological teams working together to create a better project,” she says.

The historic fence from the National Cemetery in San Francisco’s Presidio.

The fence being re-erected after the surrounding construction was completed.

Another major project has been the much-publicized, long-time-coming Bay Bridge east span, which opened last month.

“When projects really impact the public like that, we like to give something back, for restitution,” she says. In this case, funds were donated to the Oakland Museum for Above and Below: Stories From Our Changing Bay, a special exhibition dedicated to sharing knowledge about the area’s once was, what is, and what will be — a fitting display for the office’s efforts.

The foghorn from the Bay Bridge at the Oakland Museum’s Above and Below exhibition, courtesy of the Caltrans.

Caltrans continues to peel back the surface of California to reveal ancient sites tucked away underground, landscapes most people never knew were even there. To some, it may seem like an unexpected speciality for the folks donning day-glo vests along ripped up transit lanes all over the west coast; but the refinement they bring to these otherwise massive endeavours is an essential step in re-discovering our hidden cultural heritage.

[MIKA27]

Turn Your Quadcopter Into The Best Halloween Decoration Ever

Once you realise how boring your neighbourhood is from the air, that expensive quadcopter you bought should find a good home in the rafters of your garage. But don’t bury it too deep, you’ll need access to it around Halloween every year because Alton Porter has come up with the perfect use for your forgotten drone: turn it into a flying banshee.

There’s no explanation of how this floating ghost came to be, but watching the video it’s not hard to deconstruct. All you’ll need is a hollow plastic skull, a pair of glowing red LEDs, some lightweight fabric to complete the costume, and the quadcopter you’ve already lost interest in.

Put them all together and you’ve got the perfect Halloween decoration that you can actually take with you trick-or-treating and terrorise the whole neighbourhood. Just make sure you’re extra careful at the controls, because long strands of dangling fabric and spinning rotors definitely don’t mix.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: The UK is building it's first Nuclear Plant in a Quarter of a Century

The UK has set some very ambitious carbon reduction goals for itself — including the overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 80 per cent by 2050, but this goal is proving more challenging than anticipated. At this rate, the UK will have to go fully-carbon free by 2030. So to meet its environmental deadline, they’re building the biggest, safest — and first — nuclear power plant on the British Isles in nearly 25 years.

The UK currently ploughs through some 2400 TWh annually, but by 2050 experts predict that number to fall to between 1400 and 1900 TWh thanks to improvements in energy efficiency. But given that wind, solar, wave and other alternative energy sources can’t even match current consumer demand, there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to do so 17 years from now either. But rather than sitting on its hands and hoping for the best, the British government is hedging its energy bets through nuclear power.

The Cameron government announced yesterday that it had inked a deal with a consortium of the Électricité de France (EDF), a French government-owned utility, and a pair of Chinese firms, to construct a pair of pressurised water reactors at the Hinkley Point C power station in Somerset to the tune of £26 billion. This 35-year sweetheart deal will pay £92.50 per megawatt hour — double current wholesale rates — to the group.

But the facility that these exorbitant prices are paying for is nothing less than state of the art. Known as the European Pressure Reactor (EPR), these are the third generation of pressurised water reactors built by the Areva NP company. These reactors are named so because they prevent the cooling water surrounding the core from boiling off by keeping it under intense pressure, despite reaching 220C. This hot water is then converted into steam, used to drive a turbine, then condensed and cycled back through to the core for reheating. New Scientist has created the following helpful graphic:

These will be the first nuclear power plants to be built after the Fukushima disaster and are the first built in the UK since 1995.

Both of the proposed reactors will produce 1650 MWe on either a mix of 5% enriched uranium oxide fuel, reprocessed uranium, or 100% mixed uranium plutonium oxide. Combined, they’ll output 7 per cent of the UK’s energy needs — enough for about 5 million homes.

To ensure that Hinkley Point C does not suffer Fukushima’s fate should a natural disaster strike, the EPR incorporates a number of fail safe systems. This includes four, count ‘em four, emergency cooling loops that remain active up to three years after the plant has been shut down, powered by six separate diesel generators spaced around the facility in separate, waterproof buildings.

What’s more, two separate leak-tight containers surround the molten radioactive core re themselves enveloped by a pair of concrete walls 2.6 meters (~16 feet) thick — equally capable of withstanding airliner-class plane strikes and the massive internal pressures caused by a full meltdown. This entire apparatus is being built on a concrete floor six full meters (20 feet) thick, designed with deep channels to spread the molten core while a sub-surface cooling system freezes the spill from the ground up.

“It is unquestionably a safer system,” Timothy Abram of the University of Manchester told the Guardian. The EPR is also far more efficient than existing plants, consuming 17 per cent less uranium and requiring fewer and shorter maintenance sessions.

The UK only produces some 70 TWh from nuclear power currently, though Hinkley will add another 24 TWh. So even if Hinkley C goes online on schedule in 2023, it will barely put a dent in the UK’s 2050 emission goals — another 10 Hinkely-sized plants would be necessary to close the gap. And given nuclear power’s oft-vilified history, that isn’t very likely to happen. We’d better hope that other alternative power sources reach maturity, and fast.

[MIKA27]

HAMMERHEAD | BIKE NAVIGATION SYSTEM

Hammerhead is a new bike navigation system that guides you to your destination while not distracting you with text, small graphics or the need for headphones. The sleek device attaches to your bike and wirelessly connects to the included app on your smartphone, it will then guide you to your destination by lighting up turn signals, and other visual information. You can even set your preferences like hills, distance, scenery or difficulty for a different ride experience every time. Aside as a navigator, it also works as your bike light. watch the video

[MIKA27]

French bust 'vintage wine scam'

French police say they have broken up a scam in which fake bottles of a top French wine were sold.

They say the fraudsters netted up to 2m euros ($2.75m; £1.7m) from the scheme.

Bottles of poor-quality wine were allegedly relabelled as Romanee-Conti, a Burgundy that is one of the world's finest and most expensive wines.

Two Italian wine merchants have been arrested. They are suspected of selling 400 fake bottles - though it is feared many more may be on the market.

French prosecutors say counterfeit labels were treated with wax to make them look older, and the result was so good that the bottles were near-perfect copies of the real thing.

French police started an investigation after the vineyard said it had become aware of inferior copies being sold. Their investigation reached six European countries, including Britain and Italy.

France has requested the extradition of the two Italians - a father and son - arrested in their home country. Several others have been arrested or questioned.

Dijon prosecutor Marie-Christine Tarrare said: "Other suspects are being sought so that we can present this entire counterfeiting network in evidence."

Romanee-Conti, like other Burgundy reds made from the pinot noir grape, is produced on a small estate of just 1.8 ha (four acres), making it highly exclusive.

In 2011 a 12-bottle case of the 1990 vintage went for $297,000 (£183,000) at auction.

[MIKA27]

WAZUMA V8F Matte Edition:

The Wazuma V8F Matte Edition ($TBA) might just be the most fun you could possibly have on four wheels, if you have the guts to actually turn the thing on.

This vehicle — some kind of mad combination of a motorcycle, a trike, and a sports car — is powered by a three-liter Ferrari V8 engine driven through the gear box of a BMW M3. Its massive wheels (two 285 millimeter slicks up front and two connected 315s around back) keep what is essentially an engine, a seat, and handlebars on the ground, while huge Brembo brakes and a highly-customized suspension system keep it from launching into orbit. It might be the strangest combination of vehicles we've seen, and we're not even sure it's street legal, but it definitely looks like a hell of a rush.

[MIKA27]

Revealing Photos of New York City from the 70s and 80s

New York City was the urban culture capital of the 70s and 80s, setting trends and leaving an impression on the world. While the Big Apple has maintained its creative influence, a lot has changed over the years. Taking a look back at photos by documentary photographers from three to four decades ago, one can see a clear difference, especially in the NYC subway.

Redditor Chewbacker shared an image by Martha Cooper, a photographer who became known for capturing the work of graffiti artists in the dawn of street art (long before Banksy hit the scene), revealing an interesting juxtaposition of two NYPD officers standing inside a subway car covered in graffiti. This was a time when spray paint was not exclusively applied outdoors. Artists, both amateurs and professionals, tagged anywhere they could reach.

Like Cooper, several other photographers documented the urban culture rich with graffiti and style as well as crime and violence, allowing one to appreciate an older, grittier version of New York that seems almost non-existent in the present day. Photographer John Conn even admits, "I liked the edge factor. Not knowing what kind of trouble I would get in next."

[MIKA27]

Killing Kennedy’s Rob Lowe on J.F.K.: “He Wouldn’t Have Been Elected Now”

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Rob Lowe’s upcoming turn as John F. Kennedy in the National Geographic Channel’s TV movieKilling Kennedy (premiering November 10) is that this is his first time taking on the role. Lowe has the Kennedy look: the dark hair, the chiseled jaw, the innate charm. For Lowe himself, it also seemed like only a matter of time before he’d get a chance to play J.F.K.: “I had always wondered if I would have an opportunity to play one of the brothers because I find them interesting,” he told VF.com. “They’re fascinating [and have] everything you want in a role . . . [They’re] unbelievably complicated men who are ultimately heroic martyrs. You literally cannot ask for more.”

Lowe said that he refrained from watching any of the other J.F.K. on-screen performances in his preparation, though some loomed large in his childhood imagination. He recalled William Devane’s J.F.K. (in The Missiles of October) as “probably the best one” he’s seen, with his former West Wing co-star Martin Sheen’s take (in Kennedy—The Presidential Years) as “probably a close second.”

Lowe said he concentrated on the personal details of the former president’s life, focusing on the “story of a man, a father, a son, with flaws and ambitions.” He did his research, as well, learning what he’d eat for lunch, and what music he listened to. "Just the sort of normal, everyday wants and needs,” Lowe explained.

Lowe also had a personal connection to the role, having met John F. Kennedy, Jr. several times, forging a friendship which he discussed in his memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. Lowe said that having met the charismatic John Jr. made playing his dad quite odd at times. He specifically recalled a scene in Killing Kennedy in which J.F.K. and Jackie Kennedy (played by Ginnifer Goodwin) circle November 22, 1963 on the calendar and reflect they’ll be “back [home from Dallas] in time for John Jr.’s birthday.”

Of course, he wouldn’t be. “Having had the great pleasure of knowing John as briefly as I did, and him doing me such a great favor of putting me on the cover of George Magazine in his last issue he ever did, [filming that scene] was a weird moment for sure.”

Reflecting on the current state of affairs in Washington, Lowe said he doesn’t believe a man like J.F.K. would be able to cut it given the climate in the capital. “I think for whatever reason, moderates like John Kennedy have been drummed out,” he assessed. “And if there are moderates still around, they’re unable to build the kind of consensuses that we historically have functioned on. I’m not sure that John Kennedy . . . he barely got elected then, he wouldn’t have been elected now.”

In addition to promoting this film and working on his second book, Lowe is currently finishing up his run on Parks & Recreation. He said that both he and Rashida Jones (who’s also leaving the show) are feeling “very nostalgic and proud.” “You know, all good things end,” he said. “I’ve always thought there’s an art to going out on top while things are good. So if there’s a silver lining in [leaving the show now], I think that’s the silver lining.” He said the actual experience of filming the show is what he’ll miss most. “As much as I love the final result of Parks & Recreation—and I do, I think it’s the funniest show on television—making it is actually even better than watching it.”

Lowe’s next role will allow him to change out of dark suits and into tennis whites, as he’ll be playing the head pro at “the most prestigious, oldest Los Angeles tennis and golf club” for a new NBC series. “It’s a half-hour single camera comedy that hopefully will be in the smart, funny tradition of Parks & Recreation and The Office and 30 Rock,” he said. “It’s almost a comedicDownton Abbey look at the one percent versus the 99 percent.”

[MIKA27]

The Things They Photographed

In the first of a series of fiery suicides by Buddhist monks, Thich Quang Duc burns himself to death on a Saigon street to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government. June 11, 1963.

This photograph aroused worldwide outrage and hastened the end of the Diem government. With the photo on his Oval Office desk, President Kennedy remarked to his ambassador, “We’re going to have to do something about that regime.”

The Vietnam War gave photographers unprecedented access to soldiers and their work. Carrying lighter equipment than ever before and granted front-line access, they produced images of striking force and intimacy, depicting battle in ways few people had ever experienced. The images they captured turned the tide in America, causing protest in many forms. Now, 50 years after America’s early, ill-fated steps into Vietnam, the A.P. has gathered nearly 300 images from its vast archive in a new book, Vietnam: The Real War—A Photographic History by the Associated Press.

The book tells the stories behind the war’s most iconic images, taken by some of the A.P.’s best-known photographers—including Horst Faas, Henri Huet, Nick Ut, and Eddie Adams—and mixes in rarely seen images that are as shocking today as they were then.

Manhattan’s Steven Kasher Gallery will exhibit photographs from the book from October 24 to November 30.

A distraught father holds the body of his child as South Vietnamese rangers look down from their armored vehicle. March 19, 1964.

Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine-gun fire into the tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops as they attack a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, near the Cambodian border. March 1965.

U.S. paratroopers of the Second Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade, hold their automatic weapons above water as they cross a river in the rain during a search for Viet Cong positions in the jungle area of Ben Cat. September 25, 1965.

A young marine goes into battle. 1965.

Private First Class Clark Richie sniffs the scent of a letter from a girl back home in Jay, Oklahoma. April 1966.

Soldiers gather around their transistor radio to listen to a broadcast. 1966.

General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnamese chief of the national police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong official Nguyen Van Lem on a Saigon street early in the Tet Offensive. February 1, 1968.

Sean Flynn, an American freelance photojournalist covering the war for Time magazine, is photographed during operations near a U.S. Special Forces camp at Ha Thanh, in Quang Ngai province. September 1968.

Flynn, son of the film actor Errol Flynn, disappeared along with the photographer of this picture, Dana Stone, on April 6, 1970, in Svay Rieng province in eastern Cambodia. No reliable account of their disappearance has surfaced. The Clash albumCombat Rock, released in 1982, includes the song “Sean Flynn,” with the lyrics, “You know he heard the drums of war.”

A woman mourns over the body of her husband after identifying him by his teeth and covering his head with her conical hat. The man’s body was found with 47 others in a mass grave near Hue. April 11, 1969.

A medic of the 101st Airborne Division attempts to save the life of a fellow medic wounded during the assault against the North Vietnamese at Hamburger Hill. May 19, 1969. The wounded medic later died.

President Nixon meets with troops of the First Division at Di An, 12 miles northeast of Saigon, on his eighth visit to South Vietnam, his first as president. July 30, 1969.

Anti-war demonstrators lie on the grass in Sheep Meadow of New York’s Central Park, as hundreds of black and white balloons float skyward. November 14, 1969.

The Vietnam Moratorium Committee chose the black balloons to represent Americans who had died in Vietnam during the Nixon administration, and the white balloons to symbolize those who would die if the war continued.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, as he returns home from Vietnam after five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war. March 17, 1973.

In the lead is Stirm’s daughter Lori, 15, followed by son Robert, 14, daughter Cynthia, 11, wife Loretta, and son Roger, 12. Although the photo captured the nation’s euphoria at the release of the P.O.W.’s, the family’s own story was not as happy. Stirm already knew that his wife was filing for divorce, and their marriage ended bitterly the following year.

[MIKA27]

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Alleged Boston Bomber, Implicated in 2011 Waltham Murders by Close Friend

Here’s another tragic, gruesome twist in a story that’s full of them: alleged Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the eldest and deceased of the two Tsarnaev brothers, reportedly participated in a 2011 triple homicide according to “a document filed in federal court by prosecutors,” The Los Angeles Times reports. “Unnamed sources have previously linked Tsarnaev to the triple murder, but this marks a more official link between the two.”

The document in question is “a filing by the government to prevent Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers from getting certain investigative documents from the government,” and it notes that a friend of Tsarnaev, Ibragim Todashev, told the government that he and Tsarnaev “participated” in the horrifically violent 2011 Waltham, Massachusetts, murders.

Law enforcement officials had even told Tsarnaev that Todashev had named him.

Back in July, The New York Times reported on the appropriately violent May meeting between police and Todashev:

An F.B.I. agent investigating the bombings interviewed Mr. Todashev about Mr. Tsarnaev in his Orlando, Florida, apartment in May and he began to provide information about the Waltham case. To get him to talk, the investigators “made him believe he’s done, and the only way he could help himself is confess and lay out the details of what had happened,” a law enforcement official said. Mr. Todashev “flipped out” and attacked the agent and was then shot at least a half-dozen times in circumstances that still remain unclear.

The government document filed this week confirms this account of what Todashev told police.

[MIKA27]

Ohio woman says a ghost was captured in a photo of her home; girl's image seen in a window

Woman says she heard giggling, footsteps in home

RAVENNA, Ohio - Lu Ann Sicuro has lived in her Ravenna home for 20 years. She says she's experienced some strange and frightening paranormal activity.

She hears voices, noises in the closets and door knobs jiggling in her northeast Ohio home.

She claims the proof is in a photo taken by her son a few years ago. It shows a little girl's image in the window.

Lu Ann said what was captured on camera is quite disturbing and very bizarre, WEWS reported.

“I feel that this image is a very good photo of something paranormal caught on camera,” she said

Lu Ann thinks the girl is roaming her halls at night.

"A very disturbing photo. It appears to be an image of a child. I believe the image in the photograph shows what is in our home," she said. "I’ve heard giggling, I've heard little footsteps."

Two teams of paranormal investigators checked out the house and have confirmed a presence.

[MIKA27]

Drone Mapping Lost Pyramids In The Andes

When we last checked in with archaeologist Mark Willis, he was assembling huge 36GB panoramic photographs of ancient rock art in the wilds of west Texas; now he’s flying drones over ancient pyramids in the Andes.

Normally covered by fog, the landscape — dotted with “earthen mounds and platform pyramids… near Hacienda Zuleta” — is exceptionally difficult to image from above using traditional means, Willis explains. Even old stand-bys, such as satellites, are unreliable due to the region’s atmospheric conditions. From a representational point of view, it’s a kind of hidden landscape, resistant to visual capture.

However, as “part of a team of archaeologists who visited the site in August 2013,” Willis adds, “we aimed to change that.”

Willis and his team, including archaeologist and remote sensing expert Chet Walker, thus set up shop in the field, popped open their travel cases, and brought out a low-flying drone, something that could map the site in detail from above while flying beneath the fog and clouds.

Even then, mapping these artificial land forms — eroded pyramids hidden in the grass — wasn’t easy.

This was a challenging task as most of the pyramids are located in the bottom of steep constricted canyon inhabited by Andean Condors. To make things more challenging there were high winds, clouds, and quirks of the micro-climates within the canyon to contend with. In spite of that, we were able to fly nine missions and collect hundreds of photographs in just a couple of days.

Willis sent a swath of new images from the site, and he has written up the experience for his own blog.

There, he notes that his team’s “approach has already led to the discovery of many more mounds that are not obvious to the naked eye but stand out in the data. Furthermore, it is the first time the detailed spatial relationship between each of the earthen structures can be explored with precision. This data will be used to track the condition of the mounds over time and has created a digital snapshot of their current state for future generations to ponder.”

To help make the revelatory nature of their landscape imaging process clear, here is a GIF put together — isn’t archaeology always better with GIFs? — showing the pyramidal forms in the landscape at a variety of resolutions.

Check out Mark’s own post on the subject for substantially more info, including details on the other members of the team.

[MIKA27]

The Last Supersonic Flight Of The Concorde Was 10 Years Ago Today

We were promised supersonic flights. Today, we stay well below the speed of sound. We were promised transatlantic flights from New York to London in three and a half hours. Today, that flight takes us seven hours. We were promised the future of flying. That future hasn’t existed for 10 years. The last flight of the Concorde was on October 24, 2003, we’ve been flying on slow-haul planes since.

It’s not as simple as this, obviously, but the appearance and disappearance of the Concorde could be thought of as follows: Imagine that starting today, you couldn’t use your phone anymore. Instead, you suddenly have to go back to your flip phone. The transatlantic flights you take today? They’re Razrs.

The Concorde was created by Britain’s British Aircraft Corporation and France’s Aérospatiale in the early 1960s. Its first commercial flight wasn’t until 1976, but it stayed in service for 27 years for Air France and British Airways, the only two airlines who ever flew Concordes. In fact, in its entire history, only 20 Concordes were ever built.

Because the Concorde was only profitable for long distance flights, the fleet typically only flew between Paris or London and New York. But who cares about profits, it’s the technology of the jet that made it special. The Concorde used afterburners to get to supersonic speeds, reaching 2172km/h (commercial planes today cruise under 970km/h), the intake was able to hit Mach 2.0 airspeed (jet engines can only take in Mach 0.5 air), it had a drooping nose that would change its angle depending on takeoff or landing and the ogival delta-wing design was just stunning.

It wasn’t, of course, without its issues.

If it were problem-free we’d still be flying them today. The Concorde was notoriously high maintenance, at times it was an engineering nightmare, it sucked down fuel like a flying Hummer with a gas leak would, its cockpit was complicated with knobs and dials of every kind, the outside of the plane would get hot because of air friction, there were radiation concerns because it flew so high and, worst of all, a Concorde jet suffered a horrific crash on July 25, 2000, where 113 people died, 109 being inside the aircraft.

The crash — the only fatal accident in Concorde’s history — marked the beginning of the end for the Concorde and still stains the memory of one of the world’s greatest technological marvels. Which is unfortunate because before the accident, the Concorde was considered one of the safest planes in the world. But after that fateful day, all Concordes were grounded pending the investigation of Air France Flight 4590 and the Concorde would never recover.

The Concorde’s legitimate issues, enough that it makes sense that we’ve put them in mothballs. But that doesn’t mean we still don’t feel a little bit like we’re living in the dark ages every time we stop onto any other aeroplane.

[MIKA27]

Why Can People Live In Hiroshima And Nagasaki Now But Not In Chernobyl?

On August 6 and 9, 1945, US airmen dropped the nuclear bombs Little Boy and Fat Man on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On April 26, 1986, the number four reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukraine exploded.

Today, over 1.6 million people live and seem to be thriving in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet the Chernobyl exclusion zone, a 30sqkm area surrounding the plant, remains relatively uninhabited. Here’s why.

Fat Man and Little Boy

Dropped by the Enola *** on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, Little Boy was a uranium-fuelled bomb about 300cm long and just over 60cm across, that held 64kg of uranium and weighed nearly 5000kg.

When he exploded as planned 600m above Hiroshima, about 1kg of uranium underwent nuclear fission as it released nearly 16 kilotons of explosive force. Since Hiroshima was on a plain, Little Boy caused immense damage. Estimates vary but it is believed that approximately 70,000 people were killed and an equal number were injured on that day, and nearly 70 per cent of the city’s buildings were destroyed. Since then, approximately 1900 people, or about 0.5 per cent of the post-bombing population, are believed to have died from cancers attributable to Little Boy’s radiation release.

Squat and round, Fat Man, so named for its resemblance to Kasper Gutman from The Maltese Falcon, was dropped three days later on the city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. About 1kg of Fat Man’s 6kg of plutonium fissioned when it detonated about 500m above Nagasaki, releasing 21 kilotons of explosive force. Because the bomb exploded in a valley, much of the city was protected from the blast. Nonetheless, it is estimated that between 45,000 and 70,000 died immediately, and another 75,000 were injured. No data on subsequent cancer deaths attributable to radiation exposure from the bomb is readily available.

Chernobyl

Sadly, Chernobyl was likely preventable and, like other nuclear plant accidents, the result of decision-makers’ hubris and bad policy that encouraged shoddy practice.

The design of the reactors at Chernobyl was significantly flawed. First, it had a “built-in instability.” When it came, this instability created a vicious cycle, where the coolant would decrease while the reactions (and heat) increased; with less and less coolant, it became increasingly difficult to control the reactions.

Second, rather than having a top-notch containment structure consisting of a steel liner plate and post-tensioning and conventional steel reinforced concrete, at Chernobyl they only used heavy concrete.

On August 26, 1986, engineers wanted to run a test of how long electrical turbines powered by the reactor would continue operating when the reactor was no longer producing power. To get the experiment to work, they had to disable many of the reactor’s safety systems. This included turning off most automatic safety controls and removing ever more control rods (which absorb neutrons and limit the reaction). In fact by the end of the test, only six of the reactor’s 205 control rods remained in the fuel.

As they ran the experiment, less cooling water entered the reactor, and what was there began to turn to steam. As less coolant was available, the reaction increased to dangerous levels. To counteract this, the operators tried to reinsert the remaining control rods.

Sadly, the rods also had a design flaw, graphite tips (remember, graphite encourages the nuclear reaction). When the nearly 200 graphite tips were inserted into the fuel, reactivity increased and the whole thing blew up. It is estimated that about 6-9 tonnes of nuclear fuel were released and at least 28 people died directly as a result of the explosion.

It is further estimated that over 233,000sqkm of land was seriously contaminated with the worst effects being felt in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. However, radiation quickly spread in the wind and affected wide swaths of the northern hemisphere and Europe, including England, Scotland and Wales.

Hard data on the number of people who died as a result of the radioactive release are difficult to find. It is known that of the 100 people exposed to super high radiation levels immediately after the accident, 47 are now deceased. Additionally, it has been reported that thyroid disease skyrocketed in those countries closest to Chernobyl; by 2005, 7000 cases of thyroid cancer were recorded in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

Radiation Contamination

Most experts agree that the areas in the 30km Chernobyl exclusion zone are terribly contaminated with radioactive isotopes like caesium-137, strontium-90 and iodine-131, and, therefore, are unsafe for human habitation. Yet neither Nagasaki nor Hiroshima suffer these conditions.

This difference is attributable to three factors:

(1) the Chernobyl reactor had a lot more nuclear fuel;

(2) that was much more efficiently used in reactions; and

(3) the whole mess exploded at ground level. Consider:

Amount

Little Boy had around 64kg of uranium, Fat Man contained about 6kg of plutonium and reactor number four had about 160 tonnes of nuclear fuel.

Reaction Efficiency

Only about two pounds of Little Boy’s uranium actually reacted. Likewise only about two pounds Fat Man’s plutonium underwent nuclear fission. However, at Chernobyl, at least six tonnes of nuclear fuel escaped into the atmosphere; in addition, because the nuclear fuel melted, volatile radioisotopes were released including 100 per cent of its xenon and krypton, 50 per cent of its radioactive iodine and between 20-40 per cent of its caesium.

Location

Both Fat Man and Little Boy were detonated in mid-air, just metres above the Earth’s surface. As a result, the radioactive debris was taken aloft and dispersed by the mushroom cloud rather than being drilled into the earth. On the other hand, when reactor number four melted down at ground level, the soil underwent neutron activation, where the already active neutrons in the burning fuel reacted with the soil causing it to become radioactive.

Uncertain Future

Lately, some weird reports have been coming from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone — wild animals have returned, and, for the most part, they seem fine. Moose, deer, beaver, wild boar, otter, badger, horses, elk, ducks, swans, storks and more are now being hunted by bears, lynx and packs of wolves, all of which look physically normal (but test high for radioactive contamination). In fact, even early effects of mutations in plants, including malformations and even glowing are now mostly limited to the five most-contaminated places.

Although not everyone is ready to agree that Chernobyl is proof that nature can heal herself, scientists agree that studying the unique ecosystem, and how certain species appear to be thriving, has produced data that will ultimately help our understanding of long term radiation effects. For example, wheat seeds taken from the site shortly after the accident produced mutations that continue to this day, yet soybeans grown near the reactor in 2009 seem to have adapted to the higher radiation. Similarly, migrant birds, like barn swallows, seem to struggle more with the radiation in the zone than resident species.

As one expert explained, they’re studying the zone’s flora and fauna to learn the answer to a simple question: “Are we more like barn swallows or soybeans?“

[MIKA27]

Japan Successfully Tests Asteroid-Shattering Space Cannon

You have to crawl before you can walk — be you a baby or an asteroid-blasting space cannon. Now, after a successful test-fire here on Earth, Japan’s specially made cannon for its Hayabusa 2 spacecraft is ready to take its first, real steps in outer space.

Built by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the space cannon’s job is to fire off a 1.8kg metal projectile into the catchily named 1999JU3 asteroid, giving the previously attached space probe access to all that sweet, sweet asteroid soil. Because the surface of asteroids have been affected by the harsh environment of space, the only way to get at the information-rich interior is by essentially making a DIY crater.

So once Hayabusa 2 is properly positioned between Earth and Mars — where 1999JU3 orbits — the spacecraft will release the cannon, float downwards, and head off to take refuge behind the asteroid before the space blaster does its damage. It’s at this point that Japanese scientists here on Earth will remotely detonate the cannon, allowing Hayabusa 2 to float back over and collect all the newly revealed asteroid debris it can carry.

While we won’t know for sure until we have the samples, scientists are fairly confident that this C-type asteroid has remained relatively the same since our solar system first began, which would allow them new insight into planet formation. What they’re really hoping for though is leftover water and organic matter form our galaxy’s humble beginnings.

We’ve got a bit of a wait before we’ll know for certain what I999JU3 holds; Hayabusa 2 is scheduled to arrive at its target mid-2018, and we won’t have the soil samples back on Earth until sometime in 2019. In the meantime, you can sleep a little easier knowing that planet Earth is the proud owner of a space cannon, and it works

[MIKA27]

Watch A 320,000km Canyon Of Fire Rip Open On The Sun

Trying to watch the sun’s explosions with your naked eyes is a recipe for blindness, but luckily NASA has a couple of telescopes that can show you all that fusion glory with none of the permanent ocular damage. Take, for instance, this 320,000km long canyon of fire.

Of course, the whole “canyon of fire” thing is a bit of an oversimplification; the sun is actually composed of superheated plasma, not fire. Likewise, this isn’t actually footage of the explosion, but a painstaking visualisation built off of real-life telescope data captured the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, between September 29 and 30, and then condensed down and spun into this fiery visualisation.

NASA explains the process:

Different wavelengths help capture different aspect of events in the corona. The red images shown in the movie help highlight plasma at temperatures of 90,000° F (50,000C) and are good for observing filaments as they form and erupt. The yellow images, showing temperatures at 1,000,000° F (556,000C), are useful for observing material coursing along the sun’s magnetic field lines, seen in the movie as an arcade of loops across the area of the eruption. The browner images at the beginning of the movie show material at temperatures of 1,800,000° F (1,000,000C), and it is here where the canyon of fire imagery is most obvious.

By comparing this with the other colours, one sees that the two swirling ribbons moving farther away from each other are, in fact, the footprints of the giant magnetic field loops, which are growing and expanding as the filament pulls them upward.

So the next time sunlight clocks you in the face, just remember there’s some mind-blowing stuff going on up there. You just can’t see it with your puny, squinty human eyes.

[MIKA27]

Drivers In Sierra Leone Have To Play A Board Game To Get Their Licence

Remember how boring and unbearable driver’s ed was in high school? It turns out that learning to drive in other countries isn’t so bad. In Sierra Leone, on Africa’s west coast, wannabe motorists have to commit to playing a custom board game for several months that makes learning the rules of the road far less tedious.

Described as a cross between Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, and even Scrabble, the game features trivia questions that quiz potential drivers on everything from what signage means, to basic driving etiquette. And while it sounds simplistic, it’s actually a brilliant way to encourage more drivers to actually take the time to learn how to become safe motorists, which will in turn curb the high number of accidents and deaths that occur in that country every year.

[MIKA27]

Iran's Suicide Combat Drone Is Held Together With Packing Tape

While Iran’s been busy bragging about mass producing the American ScanEagle drone that crash landed there last year — and giving the Russians a copy — some less than intimidating footage is trickling out of Tehran. It looks like Iran’s newest drones are pretty rickety.

This video from Iran TV showcases the country’s killer Ra’ad-85 suicide drone all dressed up and ready to fly. (Some people are calling this a “drone-like guided missile” but that amounts to the same thing.) However, since it appears the nose and tail are held on with packing tape — or duct tape, it’s hard to tell — it’s unclear how far they’d go.

To be fair, these remotely piloted planes are designed to be flown directly into a target. (Hence the “suicide drone” designation. So many names!) Regardless of the intended use, though, the simple fact that Iran’s holding its latest weapons together with tape suggests that they might not be as advanced and high tech as they say they are.

MIKA: Wow!! For the Iranians, that gotta be an upgrade!

[MIKA27]

Batman: Arkham Origins: The Kotaku Review

Troy Baker’s Joker voice is one of the best things about Batman: Arkham Origins. But it’s also a disturbingly reverent impersonation of Mark Hamill’s take on the Clown Prince of Crime. Therein lies the conundrum of the latest video game featuring the Dark Knight.

On multiple levels, this game is about finding one’s voice. Players inhabit a Bruce Wayne who’s been Batman for two years, as he faces a crucible that will test his resolve as never before. The Christmas Eve drama starts with eight assassins out to collect a $US50 million bounty on Batman’s head — set by crime lords and gets complicated by a first run-in with future arch-foe The Joker.

The people making Origins are trying to establish their creative voice as well. The game has been made by a new studio who are following up two well-regarded games by originating studio Rocksteady.

Playing Origins feels like listening to a great cover band. As you glide, sneak and brawl your way through Gotham, you’ll remember the rhythms that made you fall in love with this playable adaptation of Batman. But that same experience reminds you that this is a tribute act — often a convincing one — but still a tribute. And like any tribute, it’s wise to worry when new interpreters try to put their own spin on the familiar.

There’s a lot of new in Batman: Arkham Origins.

New gadgets, new voice actors, new villains and, most significantly, new developers. New gadgets like the Remote Claw tether and Shock Gloves serve dual purposes throughout, with combat and traversal applications that let you vary up strategies. New enemy types — like burly, hit-sponge Enforcers and nimble Martial Artists who can counter your counters — also make for a nice change up from the last two Bat-games. Indeed, for the most part, the infusion of new gameplay elements meshes well with the established ones that have won hundreds of thousands of fans for Batman’s most recent video game outings. But sometimes, the new stuff feels like so much nervous fiddling.

Take the Crime Scene Investigations.. When Batman comes upon the site of a murder, players will need to scan for multiple pieces of evidence that will eventually congeal into a virtualized version of what happened. But all you’re really doing is looking for glowing indicators in Detective Vision. There’s no real sifting through possibilities, no red herrings to lead you astray. It’s just turn the camera and click on the red thing. What would Harvey Harris say?

Then there’s the Dark Knight System, which is a bit of a split offering. It’s sort of like the synchronisation tiers that the Assassin’s Creed series added as it annualized, a subset of challenges that task you with fulfilling the role of The Dark Knight in a specific way.

So, you’ll have to do stuff like take out two enemies in one slide or finish a stealth encounter without ever being seen. The system isn’t invasive and acts as a set of passive objectives that unlock XP points as you clear them. There’s also a related scoring system that feels like an attempt to make players care about how they fight and sneak in Origins. I never cared about that stuff in previous Bat-games, though, and while adding this tweak here doesn’t seriously hurt anything, it mostly feels like distracting clutter. Every fight judges your performance and grades you, so instead of the world being immersive, you’re constantly being reminded of the game-iness of the whole thing.

However, boss battles are one significant area where Origins feels like it’s better than its predecessors. The Bane showdowns — yeah, there’s more than one — are less of a goad-charge-dodge-attack endurance affair than in previous games. You feel like you’re actually fighting and out-thinking the ‘roided-out mercenary rather than reacting to his brute force. The fight with Firefly is a nice departure, too, changing up camera angles to top to side and creating a larger playfield for the flying pyromaniac to torment Batman. The reliance on quick-response prompts hasn’t gone away but at least it’s embedded in duels that show some varying approaches.

The fast-travel feature is yet another thing emblematic of the changes that WB Montreal is implementing to the Bat-Arkham game recipe. You need to unlock the travel points in each section of the map by hacking security consoles. Where hacking puzzle sequences were more or less elements unto themselves in previous games, here they’re more embedded into the gameworld. So, it’s “defeat one node, fight the guys guarding another, solve the traversal conundrum making the last node impossible to reach.” It’s a lot of busywork and it’d be worth it if it unlocked a cool story beat or impressive cutscene. But after all that effort, all you’re getting mostly is a way to get around faster. Other subquests open up, too, like the option to track down and destroy the relay network that Enigma (a pre-question-mark Riddler) uses to collect blackmail information. But that, too, is tertiary, just more busywork that adds nothing to narrative momentum. You don’t have to do any of it, of course, since it’s pinned to an auxiliary but still helpful procedure.

But the alternative is much slower travel across the map.

But this deeper interconnectedness feels good in other portions of the game. The Most Wanted missions are threaded tangents that form a sort of mini-campaign away from the main plotline. They’re standard open-world side missions, like tracking down and destroying Penguin’s weapon caches, defusing Anarky’s scattered bombs and foiling Mad Hatter’s kidnapping. But, whether it’s the psychedelic sidescrolling Mad they’re presented in ways that experiment Hatter. Yes, finishing a Most Wanted campaign unlocks even more gadgets but — combined with the tougher Crimes in Progress pop-up encounters in the open world — they all congeal to make the game feel like Bruce Wayne’s final exam in Batmanology.

Speaking of Batmanology, Origins’ story will ring familiar for longtime fans. It’s a mix-and-match buffet of Significant Bat-Moments, with Barbara Gordon hero worship, Alfred pleading with Bruce to stop his crusade and the earning of Jim Gordon’s trust all nestled in the Story mode. If you’ve absorbed seminal Bat-lore likeThe Long Halloween, The Dark Knight, The Killing Joke, Batman: Year One and the previous Arkham games, many scenes and plot threads — psycho-criminals supplanting mobsters, for example — will ping off of your memories. There’s also WB Montreal’s take on a fateful first meeting between Batman and Joker, where each comes away realising that their lives are going to be much different because of each other.

Some of the proceedings reek of formulaic thinking, though. Oh, look, it’s another sequence where Batman’s stumbling around hallucinating because he’s been drugged. Oh, look, more guilt-ridden visions. Oh, look, Batman being terse and dismissive of allies. It doesn’t matter that this is a prequel and that these moments may be chronologically justifiable. They may meant to be homage but feel like required assignments on a Batman 101 syllabus.

Baker’s Joker is an amazing if occasionally strained Hamill impersonation. You can almost see him clenching his jaw to get the killer clown’s cadence just so. To his credit, Roger Craig Smith doesn’t try to ape the legendary Kevin Conroy with his Bat-voice. His Bruce and Batman are essentially the same, a medium-rumble growl that occasionally breaks into shouts. It’s a safe Bat-voice but I found myself wishing for more enough emotional inflection in Smith’s performance.

It needs to be said that there’s a ton of stuff to do in Origins. When the credits rolled on my Story Mode playthrough, my completion percentage stood at 21%, after about 10-12 hours of playtime. It’ll take some digging to root out all the characters lurking around Gotham as some of the assassins are buried in side missions. For example, I went through the entire story mode without encountering Deadshot or Lady Shiva, even though I know that they’re in the game.

Origins makes me think about what I want out of a Batman game.

The answer has always been a deeper, interactive understanding of what it’s like to be Batman. But Rocksteady’s efforts had it easy. The first one oozed atmosphere and established Batman as a stealthy opponent, fearsome combatant and observant detective. Arkham City showed us the scope of his crusade, giving us a whole chunk of Gotham to prowl and adventure through.

This one? It has the burden of showing you how it all started.

Maybe the name of this latest Bat-game bothered you. Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were places, locales that the games bearing their names brought to life in expert fashion. Arkham Origins doesn’t have the same clear-cut messaging and it has the unfortunate ring of prequelitis, that disease that makes serial entertainment go backwards when it can’t figure out how to go forward. But, in its latter third, Origins does illustrate why there needs to be an asylum for the new breed of criminal. There had been thugs and mobsters before but not sheer insanity.

Origins is an incremental instalment , not a transformative one. It doesn’t have the massive leaps forward that differentiated City from Asylum. It’s almost understandable since WB Montreal have been tasked with harmonizing along to someone else’s lead vocals. Right here, right now, the result is good enough. But the very success of the Batman video game franchise could prove to be its biggest limitation. And decisions to ever so slightly vary the template could be a slowly contracting deathtrap that not even the Caped Crusader can escape.

[MIKA27]

DARPA's Spending $US70 Million On A Brain Chip For Mentally Ill Soldiers

Picture this: In the near future, 10 per cent of US veterans could be walking around with chips implanted in their brains. These aren’t intended for some I, Robot-style takeover, but rather to treat conditions like PTSD and substance abuse. Sound crazy? DARPA only deals in crazy.

The Pentagon’s prodigal R&D lab just announced a $US70 million project “to develop and apply therapies that incorporate near real-time recording, analysis and stimulation in next-generation devices inspired by current Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS).” That’s DARPA-speak for a brain chip, an implantable device that will help the military get a handle on its widespread mental health problem. The agency’s Systems-Based Neurotechnology for Emerging Therapies (SUBNETS) also seeks a better understanding of how these mental illnesses manifest themselves in the brain, and how neuropsychiatry might provide more treatment options. The program is part of the White House’s recently-announced BRAIN initiative from which DARPA received $US50 million.

Deep brain stimulation is not a new thing. Currently, about 100,000 people worldwide have DBS implants designed to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and dystonia. The technology is also being tested as a possible treatment for patients with spinal cord injuries as well as other conditions like chronic pain and severe depression. Existing devices use a battery-powered neurostimulator to target specific areas of the brain with mild electrical stimuli. Think of the chips as a sort of pacemaker for the brain. It’s pretty effective, but as Motherboard’s Meghan Neal points out, doctors don’t entirely understand how the existing devices work, and they can’t collect data on their efficacy. (Pro tip: It’s probably not a bad idea to know how technology works before implanting it in someone’s brain.)

Who knows what DARPA will come up with. Bear in mind that this is the same agency currently building a fully functioning humanoid robot that can walk on rocks, along with an exoskeleton for soldiers to wear on the battlefield. They also more or less invented the internet. So when you cast your sceptical eye on this new brain chip project, remember that these guys only take moonshots. And they often make them.

[MIKA27]

This One-Man Submarine Was Built From A Kayak

We all dream of venturing into the unknown, though some of us would prefer to do it via the camera on the end of a robot, rather than diving head-first into whatever dangers the not-known has to offer. Not Olivier Feuillette though — over the course of a few years, he transformed a kayak into a one-man, human-powered submarine.

The video here shows the magnificent creation in operation, but sadly doesn’t explain details of its creation. However, the Huffington Post did spot the following comment to the clip, from someone claiming to be Feuillette, regarding how he breathes:

“Air comes from a cylinder, over flow comes out. For long dive co2 filter is used i am talking over 2/3 hours. The pressure is equalized so scuba rules are apply, same for depth.”

One of the first submarines was a rowboat with leather wrapped around it, so it’s not that far-fetched an invention. That doesn’t mean you’d catch me inside it.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: This Barge Fleet Keeps The Mississippi On Course

For as much as we rely on the Mississippi River for trade, transportation and agricultural irrigation, the world’s third-largest tributary system has only recently been tamed. One multiple occasions, the mighty Mississippi has overflown its banks, flooding into the surrounding valley, destroying property and lives.

After an especially damaging series of floods in 1912, 1913 and 1927, US Congress pushed through the Flood Control Act of 1928.

This legislation empowered the Army Corps of Engineers to reign in the river’s might through the strategic use of levees, floodgates, targeted dredging, and most importantly, bank revetments. The Mississippi, like the Nile and Amazon, does not follow a set route to the sea. Its banks continually erode and reform as its waters shift sediment downstream. Revetments prevent this natural occurrence and keep the river on-course by covering soft soil embankments with articulated mats of reinforced concrete.

Each individual unit of the revetment mat is constructed from nearly a cubic yard of concrete measuring 1.2m wide, 7.6m long and 7.6cm thick. These blocks are then strung together with steel wire tendons to form a 43m wide mat which is loaded onto a “laying” barge — part of the USACE’s unique “Mat Sinking Unit” — and towed out to its designated resting place.

The Army Corps of Engineers website explains:

The articulated concrete mattress (mat) arrives on location by barge from one of the mat-casting fields along the river in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. A fleet of 50 mat supply barges, some loaded and on location and some empty and awaiting loading by the mat-loading crew at the casting field, are towed up and down the river by Corps or contract boats.

On location, the mooring barge and spar barge are perpendicular to the shore and the work barge (mat boat) is parallel to shore and tied off to the mooring barge. The work boat positions a supply barge to be tied off to the back of the mat boat and the mat-laying operation is ready to begin.

The four overhead cranes move the 16-block sections of mat from the supply barge across to the mat boat where workers, using a pneumatic “mat-tying” tools, wire the sections together and connect to 3/8-inch launching cables running from the mat boat to the bank. The 4- by 25-foot sections (squares) are tied together with 35 other squares to form one launch. A typical blanket of mat will consist of from 12 to 24 launches. Each supply barge holds 585 squares of mat, consisting of 950 tons of concrete.

In order to get the mat anchored firmly on the bank, anchors are driven in the ground. The crew will hook the mat cables to dozers (tractors) waiting on shore that serve at temporary anchors. The mat boat will then move away from the bank launching the concrete mattress in the process. The mat boat can move riverward [along the] mooring barge and then spar barges are utilized to allow the mat boat to continue out for the remainder of the channel mat length. The entire plant moves upstream… and begins the first launch of a new channel mat.

To date, some 580km of shoreline in the New Orleans are alone have been matted. And while this has certainly kept the river from meandering, it has also effectively turned the mouth of the Mississippi into a gigantic concrete sluice. How this will affect the long term health of both the river and the larger Gulf region remains to be seen.

[MIKA27]

This Tiny Mask Provides 5 Minutes Of Filtered Air For Emergency Escapes

In primary school, we were all taught to get as low to the ground as possible during a fire, to avoid excessive smoke inhalation. But a fire can also quickly create a dangerous mix of toxic gases hindering a safe escape. A fire fighter’s mask and oxygen tank provides a constant supply of fresh air, and that’s what the 5aver promises on a smaller scale giving someone five minutes to escape a burning building.

Designed to be mounted throughout buildings in high-visibility areas — just like fire extinguishers — the 5avers can be activated in just five seconds and through the use of various filters their built-in respirators can remove about 92 per cent of toxins in the air. And that’s more than enough to allow someone to make their escape from a burning building.

An included nose plug prevents smoke and other toxins from entering a person’s lungs through their nostrils while they’re using the 5aver. And the emergency respirator will function at full capacity for at least five minutes, which is the maximum recommended time for an evacuation. Of course the device is useless if it never becomes an actual product, so hopefully with a Red Dot Design Award behind it the 5aver will soon see the light of day and start saving lives.

[MIKA27]

New York City Is Replacing Its 250,000 Street Lights With LEDs

In recent years, we’ve watched with wonder as boring old yellow halogen car headlights have been replaced with futuristic, Tron-like LEDs. Now, that transition is about to take place on the city scale, as New York City prepares to replace its street lamps — all 250,000 of them — with LEDs.

Mayor Bloomberg announced the massive project on Thursday, pointing out straight away that the shift to LEDs would save the city $US6 million in energy costs and $US8 million in maintenance — that’s $US14 million total, maths whizzes — every year. That’s not even counting the long-term environmental effects of the energy conservation. With the announcement, Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was ready with the puns: “Using LEDs for street lighting is more than just a bright idea, it’s a necessity for sustainable cities to operate more efficiently while also delivering clearer, better quality light for New Yorkers.” While testing has been underway for years, the transition should be complete by 2017.

Indeed, New York is not the only city to take this more sustainable route. Earlier this year, Los Angeles completed the first phase of the world’s largest LED street light replacement project to date, though New York’s 250,000 will eclipse that figure. Smaller cities like St Paul and even Las Vegas have also made the transition and saved taxpayers millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the Netherlands is experimenting with getting rid of street lights altogether in favour of crazy futuristic glow-in-the-dark road paint that also responds to extreme weather. It’s even more futuristic when you consider that the improved road paint will help self-driving cars work better. Of course, this sci-fi inspired future is not without its challenges. But it is awesome.