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

[MIKA27]

See Mondo's 'Thor: The Dark World' Print

If you love superhero movies and art, then you already know the name Mondo.

The purveyor of high-quality, limited-run posters and prints is synonymous with some of the biggest names in the pop culture art world. From Frankenstein to Looper and just about every superhero film released in the past few years, the Austin, Texas-based shop stays at the forefront of the collecting craze by dropping limited edition prints – which go on sale at random times announced by their @MondoNews Twitter account – on their website and in their gallery. The posters often sell out in minutes, and a select few have actually sold out in under a minute.

Today, Rolling Stone is proud to exclusively reveal the latest in Mondo's line of Marvel Cinematic Universe posters: Ken Taylor's fantastic Thor: The Dark World prints, which go on sale tomorrow. The 24" x 36" screenprint comes in two versions, and all are hand-numbered by the artist. The "regular," which features a more sepia-toned colorway, arrives in a limited edition of 400 and sells for $50.00. The "variant," with its gray coloring, carries a limited edition of 175 and goes for $75.00.

This isn't the first time Taylor has tackled the Marvel universe, having previously created Mondo posters for The Incredible Hulk and the first Thor film. He's even jumped over to the DC world to work on Man of Steel. Working on The Dark World, however, had its obstacles.

"It's hard with new releases because you haven't seen the film yet," the artist tells Rolling Stone. "There's a limited reference for Asgard unless you're looking at the first film. They provided some reference material, but they were very open to what I wanted to do." Both versions of Taylor's Thor: The Dark World poster go on sale tomorrow on MondoTees.com.

[MIKA27]

SPRINTBEEMER BY LUCKY CAT GARAGE

The inspiration for a bike build can come from the most unlikely of sources. In the case of this most unusual BMW sprint bike, it was a vintage M&H Racemaster drag tire.

The tire belonged to the amiable Séb Lorentz of the Lucky Cat Garage, a familiar face on the European custom show circuit. While Séb was figuring out what to do with the slick, his family provided the answer: they bought him an Airtech dustbin fairing as a present. All Séb needed now was a frame, two wheels and an engine.

Séb is not only an accomplished builder, but also works for BMW Motorrad France. And so the Sprintbeemer was born—a bike focused on speed and acceleration, with a hefty dash of style. “It has to look fast to frighten competitors,” he laughs. The goal was audacious: to win the Starr Wars sprint race at the huge Glemseck 101 festival in Germany

Sprintbeemer is a cocktail of parts from the 50s to the 90s, with an S 1000 RR superbike battery hiding in there somewhere. The modified chassis was an R50/2 in a previous life, and the shortened fork and front stoppers have been swiped from a R75/5. Séb added an air scoop and vent holes to the drum brake, and machined the wheel hub to save weight.

The swingarm is from a BMW R100/7 and the rear end is suspended by adjustable billet aluminum struts, hidden inside vintage shock covers. Power goes through a short-ratio R60/6 transmission. The drag slick that started it all has been mounted onto an 18” Morad wheel, with an Avon Speedmaster wrapped round the 19” Excel front rim.

Séb is not sure what the tank is, though. It’s an unbranded barn find, maybe from a 1950s French or Italian sport moped. It’s been treated to a high-flow petcock, an aluminum cap and an engine temperature meter.

Just ahead are a Scitsu tachometer and Menani clip-ons—wearing black glitter Amal-style grips—and a Domino GP throttle. The aluminum seat pan is handmade, and the silver bottle just head of the rear wheel is an oil catch can—a modified emergency tank from Mooneyes in Japan.

The star of the show is the engine, though. It’s an R 100 RS motor treated to big valves, breathing through Dell’Orto PHM 40 carbs. A 336-spec cam and lightened flywheel help the motor spin up fast, and Vattier race headers hooked up to race megaphones complete the package. The clutch is essentially stock, but beefed up with an HPN ceramic plate, and the R 100 R gearbox has inverted gears for faster and easier shifting.

But just as the bike was coming together, luck ran out: Séb broke his leg badly in a BMX crash and ended up in a wheelchair. Friends rallied round to help, and Sprintbeemer was finished—the night before the journey over the border to Glemseck.

Sylvain Berneron—aka Holographic Hammer—drove Séb and his bike to Glemseck in a truck. Sylvain then donned leathers and a helmet and sent Sprintbeemer screaming down the track to victory, adding to the trophy he won on his own Suzuki at Wheels & Waves.

As winter approaches in France, Séb is rolling the BMW back into his workshop. But keep an eye out for it in the spring. With a new, shorter-ratio transmission due to be installed, Sprintbeemer promises to be even faster next year.

[MIKA27]

How Robots Will Save Your Life When Disaster Strikes

Search-and-rescue operations are delicate, time-sensitive and intense. That’s why researchers are always looking for new ways to unload some of the dirty work onto robots: machines that will help rescuers get the to the bottom of the rubble — or the top of the mountain — faster and far more efficiently.

Last week, at the SSRR conference in Sweden, researchers from all over the world described the latest concepts in “rescue robotics”, including everything from computational theory to specific hardware proposals. In a few cases, researchers expounded on larger, applied visions for future research.

Here are just a few disaster scenarios and how robots might help get your keister out of them alive.

You’re buried in an avalanche

The challenge

If you’re buried by a mountain of snow, rescuers have 15 minutes to dig you out before you die of asphyxiation — hypothermia doesn’t even have time to set in. In that time, they’ve got to locate victims in an area that averages the size of 100 football fields, and navigate treacherous, unstable terrain without getting themselves killed. Methods for tracking avalanche beacons and mobile phones already exist, but rescuers need to be able to move faster.

The proposal

Launched earlier this year, the SHERPA project is collaborative effort between seven universities trying to develop a “robotic platform” to aid rescuers in Alpine search-and-rescue. The “platform” is basically a coordinated system that uses different types of bots.

How it works

The SHERPA platform (PDF) outlines different roles for a team of robots, working together with human rescuers to assess an avalanche and locate possible survivors as quickly as possible. We mortal humans are categorised simply as “busy geniuses” — the brains — who can think and act very effectively, but will usually be distracted by specific rescue tasks while the machines autonomously serve their roles. These, of course, have their own fun names:

• The patrolling hawk: A high-altitude vehicle, like a helicopter, that hovers above the scene providing over-arching support for the rescue. The hawks are outfitted with a LIDAR sensor for rapid mapping of the rescue area and also serve as a communications hub.
  
• Trained wasp: A small UAV-type vehicle that can move quickly from place to place, examining areas of interest in greater detail, as well as exploring holes in the high-altitude map. The wasps are outfitted with lightweight laser scanners to for terrain mapping.
  
• Intelligent donkey: A ground rover with a multi-function robotic arm. It’s lightweight, so it can be carried in a box on the back of a human rescuer. The donkey serves as a local communications hub, as well as a recharging station for the wasps.
  

The SHERPA platform is specifically designed for use in mountainous backcountry, but researchers think the overall methodology can be applied to broader scenarios. The plan is to build hardware specific to each of the robot roles as well as to develop AI for the bots’ autonomous tasks.

You’re stranded by a flood

The challenge

You’ve got to survey large flooded areas and disseminate critical supplies to victims spread widely across the target region. A simple air drop won’t do.

The proposal

A team at Carnegie Mellon University is working on the Cooperative Robotic Watercraft, a low-cost airboat that can be deployed in small platoons to serve the joint task of discovering and reporting what’s going on, as well as delivering critical supplies to isolated victims.

How it works

An army of cheap, easy-to-assemble fan boats is set loose upon a flooded region, surveying environmental conditions and delivering aid. So far, researchers have developed (PDF) several models model for a plastic boat that’s propelled by a large fan, and connected to the outside word with a commercial smartphone, which relays GPS coordinates and data captured from any on-board sensors. The phone connects to everything else through a simple Arduino interface.

The stock plan calls for boats that are 2 x 1 foot in size, but they can scale up — amongst the projects, for example, is a 9.5-foot ocean-ready boat loaded with a mass spectrometer The simple modular design costs between $US800-$US1200. Figure in six hours of labour and you’re looking at a $US2000 price tag.

How many boats will you need? According to Professor Paul Scerri, about one for every four acres. But, he points out, the size of the fleet is only of secondary importance.

“Part of our argument, however, is that we don’t think this is an interesting point,” he writes. “Robots will become so cheap that human time is the far more important thing so go crazy with the number of boats — we don’t think this time is far off.”

Of course, you can’t simply push a boat out into the water and hope everything goes as planned — so the researchers have also developed systems that help the boats do everything from avoiding obstacles in shallow water to sampling water quality.

The boats have been tested for hundreds of hours (PDF) in the water, and the team behind the research has spun it off into a startup called Platypus, which sells complete boat kits for $US3000 a pop.

According to Scerri, the applications extend far beyond mere disaster relief. In early 2014, the Carnegie Mellon team will be travelling to Kenya with a fleet of boats to help map hippo pools. “It’s a great robotic project because it’s so dangerous for humans.”

You’re trapped in a collapsed building

The challenge

Just because a building has collapsed doesn’t mean everybody inside is dead. Rescuers with limited time and resources need a faster way to find their way into rubble so they can pull out survivors.

The proposal

Using UAVs outfitted with RGB-D cameras — colour and depth cameras like the one found in a Kinect — researchers at Ryerson University have developed a system for identifying potential access holes in large areas of rubble.

How it works

In a proof-of-concept demonstration, used a Microsoft Kinect sensor strapped to a UAV to find holes — potential entryways — in mountains of rubble. The system analyses the camera’s twin 640 x 480 images — one displays colour, one displays depth — and identifies candidate holes for rescuers to investigate. Potential access portals are scored based on a number of criteria, including depth disparity with the surrounding pixel areas, size, and relative brightness.

So far, the concept has been tested on UAVs over training areas for Urban Search & Rescue teams. The next step is to expand the different criteria used to identify potential entryways, as well as to improve the data processing so it can be done in real-time as a UAV flies over a scene.

[MIKA27]

The Trick To Disposing Of Nuclear Waste Could Be Turning It Into Glass

Nuclear power is great, but the waste it creates is a problem. Best case scenario we can turn it into more power in the future, but for now we’re stuck just stashing it away. But there’s another way — a badass way — that’s poised to make it easier and safer: nuclear glass.

The process is surprisingly simple. You just take whatever plutonium-contaminated waste you have, mix it with some blast furnace slag, and through a process called vitrification, turn the mixture into glass that locks the dangerous waste inside. The idea itself isn’t brand spanking new, but engineers at the University of Sheffield have shown that it’s possible to use their blast-furnace-slag process to shrink piles of nuclear waste down by 90 per cent.

This process isn’t used on actual spent rods or anything, but instead on things like used filters, personal protective equipment, and leftover metal and stone from decommissioned plants. Right now, all that stuff just gets encased in concrete and buried. But if it’s all melted down into compact little cubes of glass, the burial process suddenly gets way easier. And safer, for everyone involved.

So far the engineers at Sheffield haven’t tested their process on actual plutonium contaminated waste. Instead, they have been using cerium, a safer but similar analogue, to perfect the glass-making magic before getting real plutonium involved. But if this method holds up, we could be on the cusp of a much much easier way to deal with some of our radioactive waste. And also maybe the world’s most dangerously badass glassware.

[MIKA27]

New RoboCop Trailer: A Badass Robot Cop Built To Save The World

Holy wow, the new Robocop movie is shaping up to be a monster of a movie about one monster of a human-machine-hybrid law-enforcement killer. The latest trailer details some of the backstory the movie will use to justify Robocop’s existence. And Samuel L. Jackson yelling stuff. Oh and Michael Keaton being evil. Evil Keaton is the best.

“Why is America so robophobic,” yells Jackson’s character in frustration. Is robophobia a medical condition? I don’t know, but I can’t wait for the this movie, even if the tone evidently different from Paul Verhoven’s original. Can a robot cop save the world? Hell yeah.

[polarbear]

The Trick To Disposing Of Nuclear Waste Could Be Turning It Into Glass

Nuclear power is great, but the waste it creates is a problem. Best case scenario we can turn it into more power in the future, but for now we’re stuck just stashing it away. But there’s another way — a badass way — that’s poised to make it easier and safer: nuclear glass.

The process is surprisingly simple. You just take whatever plutonium-contaminated waste you have, mix it with some blast furnace slag, and through a process called vitrification, turn the mixture into glass that locks the dangerous waste inside. The idea itself isn’t brand spanking new, but engineers at the University of Sheffield have shown that it’s possible to use their blast-furnace-slag process to shrink piles of nuclear waste down by 90 per cent.

This process isn’t used on actual spent rods or anything, but instead on things like used filters, personal protective equipment, and leftover metal and stone from decommissioned plants. Right now, all that stuff just gets encased in concrete and buried. But if it’s all melted down into compact little cubes of glass, the burial process suddenly gets way easier. And safer, for everyone involved.

So far the engineers at Sheffield haven’t tested their process on actual plutonium contaminated waste. Instead, they have been using cerium, a safer but similar analogue, to perfect the glass-making magic before getting real plutonium involved. But if this method holds up, we could be on the cusp of a much much easier way to deal with some of our radioactive waste. And also maybe the world’s most dangerously badass glassware.

Beer bottles that glow in the dark!?

Best. Idea. Ever!

[MIKA27]

Falling Soon Through A Sky Near You

It’s what the New York Times calls “the latest in a parade of spacecraft falling from the sky”: the imminent crash of the European Space Agency’s Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer satellite (or GOCE).

Somewhat unbelievably, no one has any real idea where it will land — due to its orbit, “almost all places on Earth pass beneath it at some point” — and parts of the satellite, weighing as much as 90kg, are expected to survive the long and fiery journey back down to the Earth’s surface. That could cause some significant damage.

In fact, nearly 100 tonnes of space debris will fall from the sky in the year 2013 alone, a slow and steady rain of machines that brings to mind Robert Charles Wilson’s scifi novel Axis. In a beautiful line, Wilson writes that “the sky filled with the luminous debris of ancient, incomprehensible machines,” an ashen snow drifting down to the planet, forming mechanical drifts across the landscape.

Orbital debris is a growing problem — as anyone who’s seen Gravity can attest — but not all of those old, derelict, and broken spacecraft will crash, falling uncontrolled back to Earth. Satellites are normally parked in a graveyard orbit or otherwise “decommissioned,” effectively dropped back to the planet using thrusters and some very careful maths, steered safely into the sea, far from land (and major cities).

Indeed, a remote region of the South Pacific is colloquially known as a “spacecraft cemetery.” As the always-trustworthy Russian news site RT describes it:

The Spacecraft Cemetery is an area of the South Pacific, approximately 3,900 km from the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. It is used to deposit the remains of spacecraft that do not burn up on re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, such as the carcass of the Russian Mir space station and waste-filled cargo ships.

The remote location was specially selected for the disposal of spacecraft because of its depth of four km and distance from shipping lanes.

GOCE, of course, will not get the honour of this burial at sea. Where it falls through its fiery break-up is anyone’s guess — but don your hardhat and step outside to watch the skies any time from Sunday night, Eastern time, on into Monday morning.

[MIKA27]

Star Wars: Episode VII Finally Has a Release Date

Jedi, smugglers and wookies of the world, rejoice — Star Wars: Episode VII finally has an official release date: December 18, 2015, just in time for the holiday season.

“We’re very excited to share the official 2015 release date for Star Wars: Episode VII, where it will not only anchor the popular holiday filmgoing season but also ensure our extraordinary filmmaking team has the time needed to deliver a sensational picture,” said Alan Horn, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, in a statement posted Thursday on StarWars.com.

Episode VII underwent a screenwriter switch-up last month, with the film’s director J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan taking over for original writer Michael Arndt, most well-known for his work on Toy Story 3 and Little Miss Sunshine. Abrams told Deadline that the 2015 completion deadline had a role in the swap.

“It became clear that given the time frame and given the process and the way the thing was going that working with Larry in this way was going to get us where we need to be and when we needed to be,” Abrams told Deadline.

Shooting for the highly anticipated film, which takes place after the events of 1983′s Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, is set to begin in the Spring of 2014.

[MIKA27]

Der Ziesel Offroad Driving Machine:

The Der Ziesel Offroad Driving Machine ($30,000) — the unlikely and bizarre offspring of an M1 Abrams battle tank and a Hoveround mobility scooter — is one serious vehicle, ready to handle snow, sand, mud, and grass. It's essentially a tube steel frame and a racing seat bolted onto two off-road tracks powered by two PMS electric disk motors producing 21 horsepower and 30 pound-feet of torque. The battery pack will last up to five hours, though driving at the top speed of 22 mph will reduce that dramatically. All of this is controlled by a simple one-handed joystick, and is fitted with wood armrests, metal mudguards, and a range of good-looking paint schemes.

[MIKA27]

Clash of Monsters – Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi

The horror movie industry has perhaps never seen a greater pair of rivals than Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Lugosi – a Hungarian immigrant who initially learned his English-language scripts phonetically – rose to fame in his never-bettered performance as Dracula in Universal’s 1931 adaptation, one of the first such movies of the sound era.

His time as the reigning King of Horror was to be short-lived however when he was usurped by English actor Boris Karloff, who stunned filmgoers with his performance as the Monster in that same year’s ‘Frankenstein’ – a part which according to some, Lugosi had turned down due to it being a non-speaking role. Other sources suggest that a disastrous screen test for Universal’s head honcho Carl Laemmle was the reason Lugosi was not cast. Either way, thanks in no small measure to the outstanding work of make-up artist Jack Pierce, Karloff’s Monster would become every bit as iconic as Lugosi’s Dracula – the mannerisms and looks of the pair indelibly etched into pop culture as their definitive incarnations.

Born Bela Blasko in 1882, Lugosi would take his stage name from his hometown of Lugos. He was already a promising stage actor in Hungary (even having played Jesus Christ in one production) when political upheaval gave him reason to emigrate in 1917.

Working as a laborer to make ends meet, he would soon return to the stage and ten years later would make his first appearance on a Broadway stage as the Count – the role that, for better or worse, would be forever associated with him.

Boris Karloff was born in London in 1887 under the somewhat unfortunate moniker of William Henry Pratt. The youngest of nine children, he was raised in Enfield by his siblings when his mother passed away. His rise to stardom was perhaps an unlikely one given his lanky appearance and multiple speech impediments – both a stutter and a lisp, the former of which he would overcome though the lisp would remain throughout his career. Like Lugosi, he began as a stage actor, traveling to Canada in 1909 and adopting his unusual stage name (the origins of which are unclear) around this time. Finally arriving in Hollywood some years later, while he found some success appearing in silent films, he had to support this through manual work which left him with back problems that would plague him for the rest of his life. His hard graft would eventually pay off when the sound era dawned and films like ‘The Criminal Code’ and ‘Five Star Final’ raised his reputation before ‘Frankenstein’ made him a star and a household name.

Karloff would go on to achieve sustained popularity for the rest of his life thanks to roles in other Universal movies such as ‘The Mummy’ and ‘The Old Dark House’, revenge thrillers such as ‘The Man They Couldn’t Hang’, and later his anthology TV series ‘Thriller’ and his much-loved narration of the animated version of ‘The Grinch’. Lugosi however would never again attain the level of fame and attention that ‘Dracula’ had brought him. Despite a memorable turn as Ygor in 1939′s ‘Son Of Frankenstein’, a chilling part in ‘Island Of Lost Souls’ and a brief role in 1941′s ‘The Wolf Man’, he would largely be relegated to making B-movies and hammy TV appearances that played upon the Dracula persona. Eventually, following a period in rehabilitation for drug dependency, he would strike up a friendship with a young director who idolised him: Ed Wood, leading to his appearance in the truly awful ‘Bride Of The Monster’ and a posthumous turn in the legendarily terrible ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’.

There are many theories as to why Lugosi was denied the long-term stardom achieved by Karloff. Like many, I believe that it was Lugosi’s own accent, gestures and appearance that became too closely associated with Dracula. If Karloff removed his make-up, he was no longer Frankenstein’s monster. Lugosi, even in candid interview footage, is impossible to disassociate from the Count. Much has been made of the alleged rivalry between the pair over the years. Lugosi’s family have repeatedly denied that there was any animosity between them, particularly taking exception to dialogue in Tim Burton’s ‘Ed Wood’ biopic that suggested bitterness on Bela’s part. Boris’ daughter Sara Karloff seems to agree that the two, while not great friends, were consummate professionals with a mutual respect.

Nevertheless, thankfully movie producers were savvy enough to realize the potential of pitting the pair against each other on screen on several occasions.

[Fuzz]

Der Ziesel Offroad Driving Machine:

Hang some see hessian mesh over the top and install a paintball minigun, and you've got yourself a badass paintball tank.

[Philski]

Beer bottles that glow in the dark!?

Best. Idea. Ever!

But: warm beer

[MIKA27]

Crater Burning for Over 40 Years is a "Door to Hell"

Door to Hell is an aptly named natural gas field in the Karakum Desert of Darweze, Turkmenistan that has been burning for over forty years. The flaming crater was originally a level surface identified by Soviet scientists in 1971 as an area rich in gas resources. Unfortunately, the ground collapsed under the weight and pressure of the drilling rigs set up at the site. Thus, environmentally hazardous methane gases were released from the massive depression, forcing scientists to take quick action and burn out the gases. What they didn't expect was for the fire to last over four decades.

Considering the large size of the crater, containing the gaseous outbreak would be very expensive, which is why the scientists opted for an easier, more cost-effective, and what they presumed would be a quicker solution. The gas firing, a common practice for extreme circumstances like this 42-year-old incident, set the enormous basin ablaze and was expected to last only a few days.

Instead, it continues to burn bright to this day. Now, it is a tourist hotspot (no pun intended), drawing visitors from all around the world to the inferno pit.

[MIKA27]

PowerPot by Power Practical

Boil water and charge your devices at the same time with this mobile thermoelectric generator

Going off the grid for a few days is one of life's purest pleasures. While ditching modernity is sometimes a must, having a flat battery on your mobile phone or digital camera can dampen your adventure. From making a call in the event of an emergency to shooting photos, a simple and reliable power source is the key to a stress-free foray into the bush. When external battery packs aren't enough, enter the PowerPot, a mobile generator that converts heat into electricity.

Operating on the PowerPot is surprisingly simple: Just add water, plug in your device, place the pot over heat and begin charging. All of the PowerPot's electrical wires and components are fire-resistant so there's no need to stress about keeping them away from your heat source (just don't let your iPhone get cooked). Housed within the orange base of the pot are thermoelectric modules, and these modules convert heat into electricity without any moving parts, making the PowerPot light and durable.

The PowerPot maximizes efficiency of energy by capitalizing on excess heat energy during cooking—as your water boils for coffee, you can charge all of your adventure-capturing devices. While the main charging chamber is only meant for liquids, the top can be used for cooking solid foods and, at just over 500 grams, it won't weigh you down.

Of course, for the PowerPot to operate, you'll need a heat source. We recommend using the BioLite stove for maximum ease, efficiency and charging abilities. Similar to the PowerPot, the BioLite offers USB-compatible charge via excess heat energy. The PowerPot is rated for heat up to 300 degrees Celsius, you can put it right in the camp fire—but it can generate electricity from any heat source and since the thermoelectric modules operate on temperature differential, the colder the liquid or snow inside and the higher temperature of the heat source, the greater the electric output.

The PowerPot is available for purchase for $150. For more information and different models of the thermoelectric generator, check out their website.

[MIKA27]

Oldboy: New Theatrical Trailer

FilmDistrict has released a new theatrical trailer for Spike Lee's Oldboy. The movie is described as being a "unique reinterpretation" of the original Park Chan-wook film. I didn't really care that this movie was being remade, but the more I've seen of it, the more intrigued I've become. It would be kind of cool if this remake ended up being really good. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. The movie comes out on November 27th.

[MIKA27]

What We Found At Hart Island, The Largest Mass Grave Site In The US

It’s a place where few living New Yorkers have ever set foot, but nearly a million dead ones reside: Hart Island, the United States’ largest mass grave, which has been closed to the public for 35 years. It is difficult to visit and off-limits to photographers. But that may be about to change, as a debate roils over the city’s treatment of the unclaimed dead. Never heard of Hart? You’re not alone — and that’s part of the problem.

Hart Island is a thin, 800m long blip of land at the yawning mouth of Long Island Sound, just across the water from City Island in the Bronx. Depending on who you ask, it was named either for its organ-like shape or for the deer (or hart) that thrived here after trekking across the frozen sound in the 18th century. Hart is dense with history; it’s been used as a prison for Confederate soldiers, a workhouse for the poor, a women’s asylum, and a Nike missile base during the Cold War.

Its most important role has been to serve as what’s known as a potter’s field, a common gravesite for the city’s unknown dead. Some 900,000 New Yorkers (or adopted New Yorkers) are buried here; hauntingly, the majority are interred by prisoners from Riker’s Island who earn 50 cents an hour digging gravesites and stacking simple wooden boxes in groups of 150 adults and 1,000 infants. These inmates — most of them very young, serving out short sentences — are responsible for building the only memorials on Hart Island: Handmade crosses made of twigs and small offerings of fruit and candy left behind when a grave is finished.

Its most important role has been to serve as what’s known as a potter’s field, a common gravesite for the city’s unknown dead. Some 900,000 New Yorkers (or adopted New Yorkers) are buried here; hauntingly, the majority are interred by prisoners from Riker’s Island who earn 50 cents an hour digging gravesites and stacking simple wooden boxes in groups of 150 adults and 1,000 infants. These inmates — most of them very young, serving out short sentences — are responsible for building the only memorials on Hart Island: Handmade crosses made of twigs and small offerings of fruit and candy left behind when a grave is finished.

There are a few ways to end up on Hart Island. One third of its inhabitants are infants — some parents couldn’t afford a burial, others didn’t realise what a “city burial” meant when they checked it on the form. Many of the dead here were homeless, while others were simply unclaimed; if your body remains at the city morgue for more than two weeks, you, too, will be sent for burial by a team of prisoners on Hart Island. These practices have given rise to dozens of cases where parents and families aren’t notified in time to claim the body of their loved one. It can take months (even years) to determine whether your missing mum, dad, sibling, or child ended up at Hart.

Even if you do learn that a friend or loved one is buried at Hart, you won’t be able to find out exactly where. Though Hart Island is the largest publicly funded cemetery in the world, it’s been closed to the public since 1976, when the Department of Corrections took control of the site. Family members can request a visit on the last Thursday of every month, but they aren’t allowed to visit specific graves — in fact, there’s no official map (not to mention burial markers) of the mass graves on Hart. The Hart Island Project, a nonprofit organisation led by an artist named Melinda Hunt, is spearheading the fight to change that: Hunt has worked for decades to convince the city to transfer control of the island from the DOC to the Parks Department, making it into a public cemetery in name, as well as in function.

Hunt got involved with Hart during the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic put the island into the public spotlight for the first time (the first New York child to die of the virus is buried here in the only individual grave on the island). Her book about the island was published in 1998, and represents the last time an artist was allowed to work on-site. Since then, Hunt has single-handedly acted as the sole legal and political advocate for families of the deceased buried here, and in the process, become the foremost historian and keeper of knowledge about the island.

Part of her self-assigned job is to liaise with family members searching for information about their loved ones — like Elaine Joseph, a lifetime New Yorker and veteran who now serves as Secretary of the Hart Island Project. It’s taken Joseph more than 30 years to find out that her child was buried on the island — not an unusual scenario, it turns out, though no less heartbreaking. It’s women like Joseph, who have come forward to tell their stories, who are helping Hunt to raise awareness of the gross mishandling of Hart Island.

On a dreary, lukewarm morning last month, Gizmodo — myself and co-worker Leslie Horn — along with two other reporters, met Hunt and Joseph in the quaint town of City Island. They had graciously offered to include us on a tour of the island, and we were about to become some of the first members of the press to visit since the 1980s.

Because inmates perform weekly burials on Hart Island, the DOC treats outside visitors with a certain amount of caution. The two polite employees we met on the rundown dock at City Island asked first for our IDs, then for any electronics we had, storing our phones, tablets, and laptops in manila folders inside a DOC trailer on the dock, where we also used the restroom (there are none on the island). Inside the stall, someone had taped up a picture of a manatee — a reference to this meme — with the following mantra:Everything will be OK.

After everyone was ready, we boarded a small ferry and chugged off into the fog. To overly-dramatic loons like me, stepping aboard felt like crossing the River Styx or sailing out to Arnold Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead — except, in this scenario, the gatekeepers were clad in NYC corrections uniforms. As Joseph recounted her story, and our ferry slogged across the channel, it became clear that, for the loved ones of people buried here, the fight for Hart Island isn’t about entering an underworld — it’s about seeking the right to mend ties with the living.

“It all happened so fast,” she begins. 35 years ago, Joseph gave birth to a baby girl who needed surgery a few days later. The operation took place at Mount Sinai Hospital during the Great Blizzard of 1978, which shut down the city’s roads and phone lines for days. When a recovering Joseph got through to the hospital, she learned that her baby had died during surgery. Eventually, she was connected with the understaffed city morgue — which informed her that her child had already been buried with other infants. When the death certificate finally arrived, no cemetery was listed.

In city parlance, a blank spot next to the cemetery means one thing: A Hart Island burial. But, in a time before the internet, that fact was lost on anyone without inside knowledge — and Joseph spent the next decade trying to find out where her daughter was buried, visiting the Medical Examiner’s office and digging through the municipal archives. It was as if her child had never been born. “It came to a standstill,” she says, speaking over the phone later. “Over the years, I went on with life.” But every so often, she’d try again — fruitlessly searching the city’s archives for a trace.

It was only in 2008, 31 years after she gave birth, that Joseph’s first lead emerged — thanks to the internet. A Google search for “potter’s field” returned a mention of Hart Island, and then, the Hart Island project — headed up by one Melinda Hunt. She sent her an email. A few months later, after a Freedom of Information request granted them access to burial records, the duo made a heartbreaking discovery: Two volumes of infant burial records, spanning 1977 to 1981, were missing. The lead had gone cold.

What’s perhaps even more painful about city burials is that the relatives whose loved ones are buried on the island — thousands of the living — can’t freely visit it. Instead, they must request a visit formally from the Department of Corrections, which will usually grant the right to visit a small gazebo near the dock, rather than any of the actual burial sites. Our tour was Joseph’s second time on the island, and she visibly fumed about being forced to sign into a DOC visitor’s book as we disembarked.

It’s a grim scene: A trash-covered shoreline gives way to scrubby brown grass and a gravel driveway, where two rusting vans are parked beside a handful of officers waiting to check our IDs. The only sign of the island’s purpose are several tiny white angel statues that line the rotting pathway around a nondescript garage building. The cherubs seem like new additions, judging by the tags still visible on their behinds.

The two DOC guides flanked our small group closely on either side, guiding us along the shore. Our “tour” of the island was, in a sense, over even before it began: The final destination is less than 20 yards from the dock, where a small wooden gazebo — someone in the group calls it a “chicken coop” — gives shelter to mourners who visit the island. The DOC’s regulations prevent us from walking further into the patchy grass that covers the island, so we sit down on the benches inside the hut.

A few feet away, a small gravestone represents the only sign of a burial memorial. The stone was paid for by the family of the island’s long-time backhoe operator when he passed away. Behind it, a Victorian-era administrative building, likely left over from the island’s one-time psychiatric hospital, lies in ruins. Any real grave markers that remained were removed years ago by the DOC; today, Hart looks like a dreary but nondescript spit of land you might find anywhere else along the mid-Atlantic.

Hunt and Joseph pull out a pen-marked map (pieced together by Hunt using satellite imagery) and try to locate the general direction of where her daughter — along with many other misplaced infants from the same year — might lie. It’s woefully inadequate, not to mention unnecessary given the advent of GPS. Even if the DOC doesn’t create markers for each gravesite, they could certainly make the information available online. But Hart — right down to its decaying Victorian buildings — is stuck in the past. As Hunt explains, much of the way Hart operates dates from the Civil War. “This is a very 19th century kind of place,” she adds.

But it doesn’t have to be. Hunt, who qualifies as nothing short of a hero, is working to extract answers to painful questions — not only at the personal level, but at a legal one. Do loved ones have a legal right to visit a family gravesite? In some states — mostly in the South, where Civil War graves often lie on private land — yes. But, in New York, things are more ambiguous: State public health laws codify the common law right to a decent burial, but it is unclear whether that includes the right to visitation. In 2012, a New York Ob/Gyn named Dr. Laurie Grant, whose stillborn daughter was buried on Hart Island without her consent in 1993, brought a lawsuit in New York State Court seeking an injunction against the DOC that would allow her to visit the gravesite.

Thanks to years of testimony by Hunt, things are slowly changing on the city side of things: In April, the DOC set up an online database of burial records. And in September, Hunt tweeted that the DOC would grant access to GPS information, too. Just this week, a request to visit grave sites made by Joseph and seven other women received a response that promised their petition is being considered.

After all, the Department of Corrections isn’t to blame, since it’s their job to run prisons — and they do this well — but prison guards simply aren’t a good match for running a massive cemetery. The next big push will be a bill first introduced last year, which would mandate the Department of Parks to assume control of the island. A big part of getting the bill off the ground — and mothers like Grant and Joseph to their children’s graves — is rousing public awareness and support. In many cases, New Yorkers just haven’t heard about what’s going on at Hart.

What’s most curious about the situation, in some ways, isn’t whether the city will eventually open up Hart Island to the public — that seems all but inevitable — but what will happen to the island afterward. Hunt’s hope, which she described in a New York Times op-ed last month, is that the island will become the city’s next public park and memorial to the city’s past inhabitants. “I like to think of Hart Island as New York City’s family tomb,” she wrote. “We don’t always get along, but we do live and die and are buried close to one another.” Joseph, for her part, would just be happy with grave markers. “I have nothing to lose by continuing to fight for these rights,” she added as we left the island last month. Today, she’s hoping that Bill de Blasio’s election as mayor will speed up the process.

The big question, of course, is why? Why hasn’t the city taken over control of the island? Why hasn’t anyone attempted to make it easier for families to visit? Where is the harm or danger in letting people mourn near where their loved ones lie? Tragically, the answer is similar to the reason people end up at Hart Island in the first place: A mixed bag of budgetary issues and pure practicality, wrapped up in a painful and banal truth. In a city of eight million, some things — whether people or whole islands — slip by unnoticed.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: The Next F-35 Lightning's Engine Adapts For Flight, Fight And Beyond

Unlike commercial airliners, modern military aircraft are subjected to ever-changing flying conditions — from high-thrust takeoffs to flying at altitude to combat manoeuvres. So why are they outfitted with engines that perform optimally in only one of those flight envelopes? For the next iteration of the F-35 Lightning II, Pratt and Whitney is developing an engine that performs at its best no matter what’s required of it.

Turbofan technology is the backbone of modern aviation, using a pair of air streams to propel everything from commercial airliners to jet fighters far faster than any propeller could. The problem is that the dual air stream design limits the engine’s efficiency to a single speed point. That’s why commuter jets can’t go supersonic, and fighter jets are terrible at low-speed cruising.

Turbofans are air-breathing jet engines that use a large fan at the front of the engine with a smaller gas turbine engine core behind. The fan pushes air both into the core as well as a bypass duct that surrounds it. There are some variations to the basic design, of course, as military jets use more and smaller fans while commercial airliners use a single larger fan. “You can design turbofan engines off of that single design point but you are not operating at your best performance and typically what you end up giving up is efficiency,” Jimmy Kenyon, Pratt & Whitney’s Next Generation Fighter Engine General Manager, explained to Gizmodo.

He continued:

If you look at the evolution of the turbine engine over time, we started out with turbo jets, and they had what we call a single stream. So the air flowed into the compressor, then went into a combuster, burned, and then exited out the turbine. The turbine actually drives the compressor so it’s something that can keep itself sustained and going. And at the time it was considered a very efficient way of doing business.

Later on, we introduced what we called the turbofan. And what the turbofan did was it added an extra turbine on the back end of that turbojet (now called the core), but it added a turbine on the back end of that, and added a big fan up in front. That extra turbine drives that extra fan, but what that allows you to do is, part of the air that comes in the front goes through the core just like it did before, but a part of the air goes through the fan and then passes by the rest of the engine.

The super-hot compressed exhaust coming from the core then pushes this cooler, denser bypass air to generate the thrust. The ratio of the two streams is called the bypass ratio and it’s this ratio that determines the engine’s efficiency envelope.

For high-performance engines like the Pratt & Whitney F135 powering the F-35 Lightning, the bypass ratio is very low — that is, it uses mostly jet thrust from the core in relation to the bypass stream — hence the term, low-bypass turbofan. Long-haul engines, such as the GE-90 that powers the 787 Dreamliner and military cargo jets, instead utilise more fan thrust from the bypass than jet thrust from the core and are referred to as a high-bypass turbofan.

But what if you could make an engine that performs equally well at both low- and high-bypass ratios? That’s exactly what Pratt & Whitney is attempting with its Adaptive Engine Development Program for the upcoming sixth-generation F135 turbofan.

“What we are looking at with adaptive engines are engines that can operate at multiple design points across a range of flight envelopes while maintaining optimal operating efficiency,” Kenyon said.

This adaptive cycle engine will utilise a secondary bypass stream (three air streams in total) to act much like the gearing on a car’s transmission, allowing the F135 engine to adjust and match its bypass ratio at will, whether it’s high-thrust takeoffs or high-efficiency cruising at altitude. “That third stream is something that we have the ability to modulate, to change the conditions of that flow,” Kenyon told Gizmodo. “How much flow, and flow characteristics so that we can kind of optimise the bypass ratio over the flight envelope.”

Kenyon further explained:

On top of that adaptive fan we’re also making improvements, tremendous improvements in the core system as well. We’re putting in a higher pressure ratio, higher efficiency compressor, leveraging a lot of our advanced commercially-derived, 3D aerodynamic design capability…We’re looking at increasing the temperature capability and the efficiency of the turbine stages, and then we’re also looking at the exhaust system. Having that adaptive third stream allows us to work with that stuff as well…we’re making improvements to the efficiency of the core engine, but we’re also using the adaptive architecture to give us a lot more design options in terms of how we can manage the engine over the flight envelope.

These improvements should translate into marked improvements in the engine’s overall fuel efficiency on both sides of the sound barrier. What’s more, the new system is expected to offer superior heat sinking abilities that will reduce the plane’s thermal signature while further improving its stealth capabilities. You know, just in case the F-35 wasn’t deadly enough as it is.

[MIKA27]

Forza Motorsport 5's Launch Trailer Makes Me Forget Visuals Aren't Important

Next-gen consoles are always sold to consumers in the same way, especially in the beginning. ‘LOOK AT THESE NEW GRAPHICS’. ‘THESE ONES LOOK REALER THAN THE ONES BEFORE’. As much as my brain is telling me this is silly and irrelevant and sort of useless, I’m still dumb enough to fall for it from time to time. This new Forza Motorsport 5 trailer is one of those times.

Because let’s face facts: Forza Motorsport 5 looks pretty incredible.

And I think Turn 10 Studios has been consistent enough with this series to the point where we can honestly say that, in terms of big AAA titles, Forza Motorsport 5 might be the most important launch game. It certainly looks as though it may be the most essential one.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Found The Wolverine Healing Gene

Deep within our bodies are all kinds of genes that turn on and off over the years, including the very genes that make you grow a body in the first place. This is where scientists are looking for the magical code that could enable us to regrow organs and regenerate limbs. A Harvard researcher thinks he might’ve found it.

George Daley of Harvard Medical School stumbled upon it somewhat accidentally, in fact. While employing a (rather cruel) identification technique for his lab mice — clipping their ears or the tips of their toes — he noticed something odd. Unlike other mice, these little guys would grow back their ears and toes in a few days. Why? Well, the mice had been genetically engineered so that a gene that helps them grow in the womb would continue to function after birth. It would, in a sense, never turn itself off. It’s called Lin28a, and, by boosting metabolism, it can trick the body into thinking it’s younger than it actually is.

This is good news! The only question now is: How good? Daley and company confirmed that the gene could regrow parts of body parts, but his method had some limitations. Scientific American described the experiment’s shortcomings thusly:

The power of Lin28a appeared to only extend so far. When mice were no longer babies — at five weeks — the scientists were not able to regenerate their limbs, even if the gene was stimulated. And mice with Lin28a activation were never able to repair damage to the heart, suggesting that the protein is not equally effective everywhere in the body.

So Lin28a works — but not forever, and not everywhere. Don’t give up hope, however, because there are plenty of other genes out there that could be the key. Now that scientists know bodily healing can be controlled by manipulating certain metabolic processess, they can seek out other genes that might be involved. In other words, they now know where to look.

Limb regeneration is likely still a ways off, but we’re now one step closer. Even basic research on Lin28a could be tremendously important for making new drugs that enable us to heal faster and better. Call it the Wolverine gene.

[MIKA27]

Report: The Next NSA Chief May Be A Civilian

The Hill reports today that the White House is considering appointing a civilian leader to run the NSA when current director Keith Alexander, who has led the agency since 2005, steps down in the autumn. This could signal a changing view of the agency’s role and is seen by some as a promising if small first step toward greater transparency.

Naming a civilian to head the NSA would involve making a separate agency out of Cyber Command, the military hacker group currently under Gen. Alexander’s command. While White House sources did not provide The Hill any details, a former administration official confirmed that a list of potential civilian appointees is being considered. While the FBI and CIA are both led by civilians, only military personnel have occupied the NSA’s top post since the agency’s inception in 1952. As The Hill points out, unlike a military appointee, a civilian leader would be subject to Senate confirmation.

[MIKA27]

Super Sad Guy Watches Hindenburg Show, Tries To Blow His House Up

Gotta feel bad for this guy: a Pennsylvania man who’d hit some very hard times wanted to end it all in a fiery blaze after watching a TV show about the Hindenburg crash. He’s still alive, but the explosion he set off levelled his house.

According to police in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, just outside of Pittsburgh, the 47-year-old was distraught after a spate of bad news — an estranged marriage, a child custody fight, a stint in rehab and trouble holding down a job. The police complaint says that on October 12, having been inspired by a movie or documentary about the doomed zeppelin’s 1937 demise, the man broke open a gas line in his basement and went to bed, hoping for a spontaneous combustion while he slept. Awaking to find his house intact, he went to light a cigarette — and set the house ablaze.

He’s alive, but still recovering from his injuries. The circumstances around his attempted suicide came to light this week, when Allegheny County police charged him with arson.

Here’s hoping this guy gets his life turned around. Giant airships are starting to look viable again. Perhaps that will be some positive inspiration for this unfortunate fellow

[MIKA27]

New Airport Complex Takes Shape In Abu Dhabi

A new airport complex is taking shape in Abu Dhabi, where roughly 12,000 construction workers are on-site daily to finish the massive structure, whose floor area is larger than that of the Pentagon. According to UAE paper The National, it will take 76,000 tonnes of steel to build the structure’s dramatic arches, designed by New York-based KPF.

Meanwhile, two other new mega-airport terminals-one in Dubai and one in Doha — are rising nearby,raising questions about whether there’s enough demand to fill the space.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: This 'Caspian Sea Monster' Was A Giant Soviet Spruce Goose

Soviet engineering is often derided as effective but crude and simplistic, but that’s a bum rap. The USSR produced a number of technologies that were as visually arresting as they were effective. Just look at the sleek, humongous, flying hammerhead named Ekranoplan.

The Lun-class (“Harrier”) Ekranoplan is a ground-effect vehicle, that is, one that takes advantage of the increase in lift and decrease in drag that flying close to a fixed surface provides — typically within 4m or less. These craft were created by famed engineer Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeev at the Soviet Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau in the late 1980s. The only unit to be actually produced actively served in the Russian Army and Navy for over a decade beginning in 1987.

The MD-160, dubbed the “Caspian Sea Monster” by US Intelligence services, was indeed one of a kind. This massive 136Tonne seaplane measured 73m long and 19m tall with a 44m wingspan — that’s longer than the Spruce Goose and bigger than many modern commercial airliners. It was capable of carrying up to 124 tonnes of troops and equipment — including as many as six nuclear missiles — at speeds up to 560km/h as far as 2000km — albeit only 5m off the surface of the water. Eight Kuznetsov 128.9kN NK-87 turbofans mounted on the front cannards provided the thrust to get the seaplane’s hull up and out of the water and engage the ground effect.

While ground-effect vehicles are a highly efficient way to transport cargo over long distances, the MD-160 had significant drawbacks in its military applications. For one thing, the plane manoeuvred about as gracefully as a drunk cow lost on a tilt-a-whirl. Anything resembling a sharp turn was right out, and allowing a wing tip to even sniff the water could result in 500 tonnes of seaplane cartwheeling along the surface of the Caspian. And since the ground effect didn’t actually take effect until the plane was out of the water, the MD-160 had to always take off into the wind, like a bird does.

So while the MD-160 was thoroughly impervious to subsurface mines and torpedoes, its hulking size and complete lack of manoeuvrability made the planes sitting ducks against Western air forces (hence its NATO designation: Duck), often requiring armed escort and forward scouting boats to avoid obstacles. The Ekranoplan wasn’t completely helpless, however. It carried anti-ship P-270 Moskit guided missiles in six pairs mounted onto its fuselage as well as a pair of 23mm Pl-23 cannons in a tail turret and forward-facing pair under the forward missile tubes.

Despite the the MD-160′s shortcomings, Soviet high command continued to move forward with the program right up until the Soviet Union fell. A second MD-160, destined to be a mobile field hospital, was 90 per cent complete and another 30 A-90 Orlyonok GEVs, meant to strengthen the Black Sea Fleet, were on order when the program’s funding was cut. The MD-160 currently resides at a naval station in Kaspiysk.

[MIKA27]

YAMAHA: Tactical Black Rhino 700

Whether you have a seemingly never-ending list of chores to do around your property, or you're just trying to access your favorite hunting outpost, the Yamaha Tactical Black Rhino 700 ($13,000) will get you there quicker, and more comfortably.

Based on the well-known Yamaha Rhino 700, this special edition gets an all-matte-black paint treatment that conveys the toughness and capability riders have come to expect. With cushy bucket seats, three-point seat belts, controls that will feel natural to any car driver, and independent four-wheel suspension, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more comfortable off-road vehicle. Powered by a 686cc liquid and oil cooled four-stroke engine, with an automatic transmission, and with three-position four-wheel drive, there's pretty much nowhere this thing can't go.

[MIKA27]

Pressure Mounts to Return Nazi-Looted Art

BERLIN — The mysterious discovery of 1,400 artworks apparently collected by a German dealer under the Nazis continued to ripple disturbingly through Germany and the art world on Sunday, prompting reports of a deal with Hitler’s propaganda chief and calls for Germans to do more to return lost works to Jewish heirs.

The Bild newspaper reported on Sunday that the dealer — an art connoisseur named Hildebrand Gurlitt who supported artists banned by the Nazis but also dealt in stolen art with Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels — arranged with Goebbels in 1940 to pay 4,000 Swiss francs for 200 pieces of “degenerate art,” the Nazi term to describe many modernist European works.

In southwestern Germany, meanwhile, the police said they had recovered 22 “valuable” artworks after a call from someone who gave an address just outside Stuttgart to go there and retrieve them.

Deidre Berger, head of the American Jewish Committee in Germany, called on the German government to move decisively to clear up ownership questions surrounding the art.

“It is a disgrace that laws are still in existence that justify injustice,” Ms. Berger said in a statement, referring to Nazi-era laws that leave the ownership status of some confiscated art unclear. She also noted the poignancy of having the art come to light as Jews gathered in Berlin this weekend to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the beginning of Hitler’s murderous persecution of the Jews.

Paris Match published what it said was a photograph of Hildebrand Gurlitt’s son, Cornelius, who reportedly kept the 1,400 works stashed for decades in a Munich apartment belonging to his family. A neighbor of Mr. Gurlitt’s in Salzburg, Austria, confirmed that the picture was that of the elderly man.

Der Spiegel magazine also reported receiving a typewritten and signed letter last week from Cornelius Gurlitt that listed the return address as the same apartment where the art was found. In the letter, the writer praised “your spiritually rich and nobly minded” magazine, but asked that the Gurlitt family name no longer be mentioned in it.

The large trove of art was discovered by authorities in February 2012, but became public knowledge only in recent days, stunning the art world and setting off a scramble to establish ownership. Authorities have publicly identified just a handful of the works.

In its report on the Gurlitt-Goebbels contract, Bild included a list of the 200 works that were to change hands, including ones by, among others, Picasso, Chagall and Gauguin.

After World War II, Hildebrand Gurlitt reported that most of his collection and all of his inventory had been destroyed in the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Twenty to 25 works listed as belonging to him were included in an exhibition that toured the United States in the mid-1950s. He died in a traffic accident in 1956.

The police in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg said on Sunday that they had received a call from a resident of Kornwestheim, about six miles north of Stuttgart, which sent officers to a house there on Saturday, where they recovered 22 artworks.

The police did not identify the caller, but Bild named the man as Nikolaus Frässle, the brother-in-law of Cornelius Gurlitt. The police said that the caller had said that news reports led him to fear for the safety of the works. The police took the works “to a safe place,” the statement said. Bild said Mr. Frässle was married to Cornelius Gurlitt’s sister, identified in official archives as Nicoline Benita Renate Gurlitt, who was born in Hamburg in 1935, three years after Cornelius. Bild said she had died but provided no further details.

The contract with Goebbels listed Hildebrand Gurlitt as living in Hamburg at the time. At some point during World War II, the family moved to or near Dresden, and fled farther south to Bavaria as the war was ending.

The elder Gurlitt was interrogated by the Allies, and his collection — listed as a few hundred works — was kept until 1950, when it was returned to him. The origins of those pieces — and of the far larger cache found in the Munich apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt — is unclear. German authorities have said that research is needed before they can publish a list, but museums and the heirs of collectors who were stripped of their works by the Nazis have urged swift action to return artworks to their rightful owners.

The Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, meanwhile, reported that a painting by Max Liebermann, one of the few of the 1,400 works to be publicly identified, was listed in Germany’s official databank for art seized by the Nazis. The piece, depicting two men riding horses on a beach, is sought by the descendants of David Friedmann, who had been a sugar refiner in Breslau, a former German city now known as Wroclaw in Poland.