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

[MIKA27]

Dubai's $7 Billion Expo 2020 Could Become A Glittering White Whale

Seven years from now, Dubai will welcome roughly 70 million tourists to its first World Expo, housed inside a gigantic, brand new, solar-powered city. But exactly how smart of an investment is an Expo, these days? And can economically volatile Dubai handle the $7 billion cost?

Dubai beat three other cities to clinch the bid — Ekaterinburg, Izmir, and São Paulo. The projections for how it could help bump up Dubai’s GDP are optimistic: it could add as many as 200,000 jobs, and boost the city’s GDP by one per cent every year until 2020. But there are also plenty of troubling projections. Like so many other cities that have eagerly hosted Expos, Olympics, and World Cups, the ROI is not always what it’s cracked up to be.

Cities have vied to host the World’s Fair (or World Expo), for almost 200 years. Among the chosen host cities, though, there have been winners and losers. Take Shanghai, for example — more than 70 million tourists visited its 2010 Expo, providing a noticeable bump in its GDP. On the other hand, we have the debacle of the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition, during which the company running the show was forced to declare bankruptcy, sending New Orleans into an economic tailspin. There hasn’t been an Expo in the US since.

The Louisiana World Exposition.

So yes: For booming cities like Shanghai, the Expo can be a boon to draw in investors. For cities on shakier ground, it can be a serious risk. Dubai is definitely on shaky ground; caught in a perpetual bubble/bust scenario, it is only a few years out from its last major economic crisis, in which it nearly defaulted on its debt — in part, because of overbuilding and a glut of real estate built during the boom.

Expo 2020 could easily serve to reignite that cycle. According to a report from Reuters, the bid itself has driven up speculation in the Dubai property market, with prices up 20 per cent in the last year. The forthcoming site of the 2020 Expo will add another 1000 acres of new buildings to the market — at a cost of between $US7 and $US9 billion over the next seven years. Keep in mind that roughly $US42 billion of the city’s current debts will come due during the same period — shaky ground, indeed.

So what are those billions going to? 45,000 new hotel rooms, for one thing, not to mention an extension of the city’s subway system (plus roads, tunnels, and other infrastructural investments). Then there are the 12.9 million square feet of exhibition space, designed by the Dubai office of American architecture firm HOK, which worked alongside a design team from Populous:

The four-pronged master plan calls for a massive, woven shading device covered in photovoltaic panels:

Under these “souk-like” canopies, exhibitors from more than 150 countries will set up shop during the fair, inside what the architects describe as “innovation pods” and “best practice areas:”

One major unanswered question regards who will be building these massive structures — and how they’ll be treated. Dubai, like its neighbour Qatar, has a less than pristine record when it comes to the human rights abuses of migrant construction workers.

Another super-expensive, super-fast tracked construction project is not likely to improve that reputation.

And then, of course, what will happen to these massive spaces in 2021, when the tourists go home and the city is left with even more housing and commercial stock? According to HOK, the site will become a “Museum of the Future.”

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: This Nuclear Bomber Could Break The Sound Barrier Twice Over

Delivering a nuclear strike is only the first phase of a mission. Next comes the most important part: hightailing it out of there before the entire area turns to glass. And for crews aboard America’s first supersonic bomber, getting the heck out of Dodge was done at twice the speed of sound.

Developed for the US Air Force’s Strategic Air Command in the 1960s, the Convair B-58 Hustler was America’s first operational Mach 2 jet bomber. It was also one of the first USAF aircraft to employ a true delta wing design, as it lacked a horizontal stabilizer.

The Hustler, as its name implies, was built for high speeds at high altitudes. As such, it was actually about 20 feet shorter with a wingspan only half as wide as the B-47 Stratojet medium bomber it was meant to replace. However, with a quartet of wing-mounted General Electric J79 engines providing a (sonic) booming 81,000Nm of thrust, the B-58 could cruise along at more than 965km/h at heights reaching more than 19,000m with a maximum speed of more than twice that of sound itself. This would theoretically allow the Hustler — and its precious nuclear-tipped cargo stowed under the fuselage — to fly higher and faster than an intercepting MiGs the Soviet’s could muster.

However it wasn’t MiGs that ended the Hustler’s service, it was a new generation of highly-accurate Soviet surface-to-air missiles that could not only reach heights in excess of 18,000m, but were also quick enough to catch the speedy jets. This consequently forced the B-58 to fly at lower altitudes (since they were no longer protected by their flight height) which in turn drastically reduced their operational range on account of the thicker atmosphere down there. Of course, America already had a host of medium range, mid-altitude bombers at its disposal at the time, and the B-58 quickly found itself on the outs. By 1970, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara decided to retire the B-58 from active service. However the plane’s design innovations were later integrated into more advanced high-speed bombers like the FB-111A.

[MIKA27]

Wouldn't It Be Fun To Live In A Translucent House?

Walls are too restrictive. They put up a barrier between you and the outside world — sometimes that’s a good thing — but they also block natural light. So why not make them just a little bit translucent — you know, to brighten things up a bit?

That’s exactly what architects at Suppose Design Office recently did for a family home in Hiroshima, Japan.

Because the site where the house was to be built was surrounded by buildings on three sides, they decided to use translucent walls to provide natural light inside the home but in a way that would still afford some privacy.

That’s exactly what architects at Suppose Design Office recently did for a family home in Hiroshima, Japan.

Because the site where the house was to be built was surrounded by buildings on three sides, they decided to use translucent walls to provide natural light inside the home but in a way that would still afford some privacy.

The rest of the structure is made up of an I-beam frame, concrete ceilings, and timber floors, giving the whole house a stark, simple, and almost industrial look.

The couple who built the house also requested a room where they could both store and work on their motorcycles, which became the entire ground floor of the home. Bedrooms and living space fills up the rest of the house, all of it bathed in beautifully slightly refracted light. All that light, and you can still throw stones.

[MIKA27]

Razer's Rumoured iOS Controller Takes A Different Angle On Gaming

It makes total sense that Razer would have an iOS gaming controller for iPhone and iPod touch in the works, which is why we think that these photos from reliable source @evleaks could be a forthcoming product from the gaming accessory giant.

A few weeks ago, we saw the first two officially sanctioned iOS controllers crop up from Logitech and Moga. Each took a slightly different approach based on the reference designs Apple released at the last WWDC. The Razer “Kazuyo” resembles the simpler button layout of the Logitech Powershell with just a D-pad, and ABXY buttons.

Other new features? This time around, it appears that you can tilt the position of the screen to an angle of your liking. Not a huge development, but I will say that the overall fit and finish looks clean and comfortable, so I’m excited to see Razer’s gamepad — assuming it’s real.

[Fuzz]

Wouldn't It Be Fun To Live In A Translucent House?

I don't know... Every time you'd be getting up to a bit of hanky-panky with the missus, you'd be giving the neighbours (and any passers-by)a free show.

[MIKA27]

These Lamps Make Use Of Your Camera Kit While It's Idle

You love your camera kit. Of course you do, it’s beautiful! But wouldn’t it be great if you could make use of it — by which we mean, well, look at it — while it wasn’t in use? That’s where Phlite might just come in.

The idea is that Phlite transforms your camera gear into a desk, table or floor lamp in a few seconds, so you can make use of it when you’re not shooting. It does that by attaching a lamp to your camera, via the hot shoe, or to tripods and lightstands using a proprietary clip. Simple!

Fortunately, the lamp fitting is also designed to it can work standalone, so when you run out of your house and need your SLR, you can quickly unclip it and not leave the place looking a mess. Which is neat.

Currently on Kickstarter, Phlite will (hopefully!) comes in two sizes: small (best for cameras) and large (best for tripods). Backing at $US65 can secure either, if you’re interested.

[MIKA27]

Is This A Storm Or The Open Gates Of Hell?

Check out this unbelievable storm photograph by Anne Goforth. This is her entry for the 2013 National Geographic Photo Contest.

Taken on May 26th, 2013, this was a dissipating low precipitation thunderstorm near Broken Bow, NE that produced one of the best lightning shows I have ever witnessed in my storm-chasing career. Even more beautiful was when the lightning lit up these incredible mammatus clouds in the night sky. These type of clouds are often associated with severe thunderstorms, and their ominous and foreboding appearance is a message to all that severe weather may be on its way.

Photo and caption by Anne Goforth/National Geographic Photo Contest

[MIKA27]

US Navy Launches Drone From A Submarine -- While Underwater

If you thought launching a drone from an aircraft carrier was impressive, you’re going to be blown away by this: After six years of development, the US Naval Research Laboratory has successfully launched a drone from a submerged submarine.

That’s right. A submerged submarine. Submerged under the ocean. The picture above is real: a composite of time-lapse photos taken during the launch. You can see the wings swing out like a pair of scissors as the drone takes to the sky.

The US Naval Research Laboratory really outdid themselves this time. Their Experimental Fuel Cell (XFC) unmanned aerial system was just fired from the torpedo tube of the USS Providence. The so-called Sea Robin launch vehicle system then floated to the surface, where an all-electric, fuel cell-powered drone with foldable wings took to the sky where it performed an hour-long test flight before landing at the Naval Sea Systems Command Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center (AUTEC) in the Bahamas. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, this is just the beginning. The XFC launch doesn’t come as a huge surprise, because we’ve known for a few months now that DARPA is working on a submarine “mothership” that can launch both unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles — all kinds of drones. Dubbed as the Hydra program, this initiative will enable sailors to send remotely piloted, and someday perhaps fully autonomous, craft into battle zones virtually undetected. It will also scare the pants off unsuspecting fisherman.

[MIKA27]

Here's Why Tom Clancy's: The Division Looks So Good

http://youtu.be/O_j9uKBmUEk

From the early trailers and gameplay footage, Tom Clancy’s: The Division is worth buying a next-gen console for. It’s a tale of a dystopian future where a virus is wiping out humanity and elite soldier units burst forth in order to keep the peace in the ruins of New York City. Those eye-popping visuals are thanks to the Snowdrop engine, and this development featurette gives us another short taste of what The Division will be like.

And in case you’ve never seen that awesome gameplay footage before:

[MIKA27]

Samurai in Fukushima Guard a 1,000-Year-Old Tradition

For more than 1,000 years people of Fukushima Prefecture in Japan have gathered every summer to celebrate an ancient tradition of the samurai. The Soma Namaoi festival is as much a part of their heritage as the warrior and equestrian culture it reenacts and honors, and in the face of radiation from the nearby Daiichi nuclear reactor, they’ve decided the show must go on.

Tokyo photographer Noriki Takasugi’s series Fukushima Samurai — The Story of Identity captures the samurai of the Soma Nomaoi festival as they risk their own health to sustain a tradition that largely defines them.

Many of the men in Takasugi’s photos are from the hard-hit town of Odaka-ku, who along with thousands of others in Fukushima were displaced or saw their homes destroyed when its residential coastlines were swept away in the tsunami of 2011.

Along with the houses went the accoutrements of Soma Nomaoi — their weapons, their ceremonial Jinbaori clothing, and, sadly, their horses. Much of what they’ve worn for the festival since the tsunami is borrowed or otherwise cobbled together, and after spending months in the vicinity of the Daiichi plant before daytime visits were again allowed, many of the clothes they did retrieve were likely irradiated. In the Odaku-ku area, Takasugi says her geiger counter measures radiation between five and 50 times the levels registered in her Tokyo neighborhood.

“None of the people I asked cared about the irradiated clothes,” says Takasugi. “It was my impression that it was more important for them to have their weapons and their ceremonial costumes.”

Takasugi was drawn to photograph the area around Fukushima after the tsunami, which followed a massive earthquake on March 11, 2011 and set off a chain of events that led to a meltdown at the Daiichi nuclear plant. While interviewing residents, she met a senior official from the Soma Nomaoi festival, who put her in touch with numerous other participants. Takasugi quickly saw how significant the festival was to the shattered community, and began photographing the samurai in full regalia at locations that were significant for them, often at their former homes or shrines.

“Residents there were forced to relocate the day after the disaster, without having the situation explained in detail, many losing their houses, land and jobs indefinitely because the area was designated as a caution zone within a 20 kilometer radius,” she says. “Despite that, the majority of the surviving samurai warriors agreed to hold a gathering right after the disaster. I was so impressed with that, and I thought, it’s not just the event, it’s their identity — they need it.”

The festival goes back more than a millenium to a time when samurai leader Taira no Masakado started using the area’s wild horses in his war games. Since then, the event has been held at the Hibarigahara riding ground and among three shrines in Fukushima, about 30 kilometers north of Daiichi reactor No. 1. Tens of thousands of people attend three days of races, competitions and cavalry displays each July, an occasion Takasugi says is so meaningful to the community that it marks the beginning of their year.

Prior to the disaster, many of the participants in the festival worked for companies related to Tokyo Electric Power Company, the Japanese energy utility that managed (or, critics say, disastrously mismanaged) the Daiichi nuclear plant. Since the meltdown, Takasugi says some have come to question their involvement with the organization, but for many, working in a dominant local industry allows them to stay near enough to maintain the connection to their ancient tradition.

While Takasugi’s series focuses on a small, ancient community within the country, she says the stoic attitude she has documented reflects a larger Japanese disposition. “Despite the radiation they have sustained their determination to carry out their duty to their culture. This kind of mentality is still part of the identity of Japanese people today, I think. It’s not just a story of ‘old fashioned people.’”

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  Yoshimitsu, 48, used to live in a house in nearby Odaka-ku, but now lives in a leased apartment in a neighboring town with his family. He immediately chose to be photographed at Odaka shrine. "Ever since I was born, Odaka shrine was always there for me at important stages of my life," he says. "And of course, Soma Nomaoi starts from Odaka Shrine every year."
  

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  Akihito Sato, 38, stands in the garden of his parents' house in Odaka-ku. "My friends and family members are all connected through Soma Nomaoi. Soma Nomaoi often helps to smooth the connection at workplace too," says Sato. "I was able to overcome the disaster because of Soma Nomaoi."
  

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  "I used to stand in front of this kamidana (a household altar) sacred to Odaka Shrine and pray every morning when we were living here before the disaster," says Kunio, 65.
  

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  Hironobu, 44, is photographed in front of a horse stable built by he and his family members after the disaster. Before the disaster, he ran a youth horse club. Hironobu used to live in Odaka-ku with his family and his parents, who were involved with the Nomaoi Samurai warriors. His children and parents evacuated to his brother's home in a neighboring city where the impact of radiation was less severe.
  

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  Yoshiyuki, 59, is a Kaiyaku, a role in Soma Namaoi that requires him to blow a conch horn. He is pictured at his former house, which was also a small furniture factory in Odaka-ku, the city where he had lived since birth. "We might return to Odaka-ku some day but I don't want my children to live here," he says. "When the disaster occurred, my daughter was in the third trimester of pregnancy. We were trying to determine the best place for her to give birth while moving around for evacuation."
  

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  Kunihito, 40, stands in front of his parents' house in Odaka-ku, where he had lived since birth before the disaster happened. Roof tiles fell off and walls cracked due to the earthquake -- the house would be habitable if not for the level of radiation exposure. He Currently lives in leased housing in a town near to Odaka-ku with his family.
  

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  Kazuhito, 33, stands in front of his parents' house where he grew up in Odaka-ku. After living at the evacuation center and his wife's cousin's house for several months, he now lives with his wife and his three children in neighboring prefecture and commutes one hour to the nuclear power plant where he worked before the disaster."The tsunami reached just a few hundred meters away from this place, and many people that I knew, including Soma Nomaoi friends, died," he says.
  

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  "Soma Nomaoi represents life of Japanese Samurai warriors and my way of living. You need that kind of Samurai spirit otherwise you cannot run around wearing that heavy armor in midsummer," says Takakatsu, 68.
  

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  Masaki, 30, is photographed at the spectator stand in Hibarigahara field where Soma Nomaoi events are held every year. The events were not held here in 2011 because of the high level of radiation exposure. Locals worked hard to decontaminate this area so that events could be held there in 2012. Masaki lost his job at a manufacturing company and now drives large trucks for disaster waste processing and decontamination work. "€We can easily find these type of jobs here now," he says. "I needed a job to protect my family and raise my children."
  

[MIKA27]

North Korea Purges Kim Jong Un’s Powerful Uncle

North Korea on Monday acknowledged the purge of leader Kim Jong Un’s influential uncle for alleged corruption, drug use, gambling and a long list of other “anti-state” acts, apparently ending the career of the country’s second most powerful official.

The young North Korean leader will now rule without the relative long considered his mentor as he consolidated power after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, two years ago. Jang Song Thaek’s fall from the leadership, detailed in a lengthy dispatch by state media, is the latest and most significant in a series of personnel reshuffles that Kim has conducted in an apparent effort to bolster his power.

Some analysts see the purge as a sign of Kim Jong Un’s growing confidence, but there has also been fear in Seoul that the removal of such an important part of the North’s government — seen by outsiders as the leading supporter of Chinese-style economic reforms — could create dangerous instability or lead to a major miscalculation or attack on the South.

Tensions are still high on the Korean Peninsula following a torrent of threats in March and April by Kim Jong Un’s government against Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, including vows of missile and nuclear strikes and warnings that Pyongyang would restart nuclear bomb fuel production.

South Korean intelligence officials said days ago that a purge was likely because two of Jang’s aides had been executed last month for corruption. A recent state documentary in the North had all images of Jang removed.

Jang — who is married to Kim Jong Un’s aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, the younger sister of Kim Jong Il — was described by state media as “abusing his power,” being “engrossed in irregularities and corruption,” and taking drugs and squandering money at casinos while undergoing medical treatment in a foreign country. The dispatch also said he had “improper relations with several women and was wined and dined at back parlors of deluxe restaurants.”

Referring to North Korea as a “popular democratic dictatorship,” the dispatch said “Jang seriously obstructed the nation’s economic affairs and the improvement of the standard of people’s living.” Kim Jong Un has vowed to lift the country from poverty while also pursuing a nuclear weapons program that has drawn worldwide criticism — and heavy economic sanctions.

The decision to strip Jang of all posts and titles and expel him from the ruling Workers’ Party was made at a Political Bureau meeting of the party’s Central Committee on Sunday. The dispatch also indicated that the purge would extend to supporters of Jang, but did not provide details.

Opinion has been divided among analysts on what the purge may mean for the future of North Korea. Some analysts believe it shows a weakened Kim Jong Un fending off challengers, but others say it indicates the young leader’s growing strength.

“I believe it shows Kim Jong Un is firmly in control and confident enough to remove even the senior-most officials,” said Bruce Klingner, an Asia specialist at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington.

He added, however: “There is no reason to believe with this latest ouster that there will be a change in North Korean policy; that the Kim dynasty will suddenly turn around its bad behavior.”

Jang has held a string of senior jobs, including membership in the National Defense Commission, the government’s top ruling body.

He served as a leading economic policy official in charge of the push to draw foreign investment, traveling in 2012 to China to discuss the establishment of special economic zones. Over the past, he assumed responsibility for North Korea’s burgeoning sports industry, a pet project of Kim Jong Un’s.

Jang has also reportedly been purged several times previously, only to return to power. But the formality and length of the current allegations against Jang suggest a more serious development.

Kim Jong Un has reportedly overseen other purges of senior officials, though none as high profile as this one.

One of the most notable personnel changes was the 2012 firing of military chief Ri Yong Ho, who was once also dubbed a mentor to Kim Jong Un. State media said he was dismissed in July 2012 due to an unspecified illness, but analysts speculated that Ri was purged because Kim wanted to reshape the government.

The North publicly executed 17 people last year and 40 this year, according to lawmakers who were briefed by South Korea’s spy agency last week.

[MIKA27]

BRABUS 850

Brabus have tuned a Mercedes E63 AMG Wagon into a 850 Horsepower beast! The original AMG model was already equipped with an impressive 550 horsepower, now German tuner Brabus have tuned it to a whole new level, they were able to get an impressive 850 hp and 848 lb-ft torque. The Brabus 850 wagon is capable of sprinting to 0-60 in 3.1 seconds, with a crazy top speed of 186 mph.

[MIKA27]

COIN GUITAR PICKS

Crafty Artisan Andy Gonzales makes these very cool and creative guitar picks from coins. The edges have been sanded and buffed to a glossy shine, preventing any decrease in string life. The nickel alloyed picks lend a unique characteristic to the tone of any stringed instrument. You can purchase them individually or as sets of 2 and 5.

Every Coin Guitar Pick is unique and comes with a nice box for convenient gift giving.

[MIKA27]

WOOD TOBOGGAN | BY LUCKY BUMS

Bring some nostalgia and classic fun to the slopes this winter, get ready for those downhill adventures with this hand-made toboggan by Lucky Bums. The beautifully crafted wooden toboggan features the vintage classic shape and measures 48L x 18W inches, accommodating 3 children or 2 adults. It includes a seating pad for extra comfort, a curved front for protecting your feet, and a pull rope. When not in use, you can enjoy it as a decorative piece on your cabin wall.

[MIKA27]

Harrowing Japanese Ad Comes With An Advisory Warning

http://youtu.be/jGFWEoCGhi8

When you think of advertisements for cars and tyres, you’re reminded of those generic expansive landscape photography commercials, with a scenic setting, zero traffic and an Enya soundtrack in the background.

Not so if you’re Autoway, a Japanese tyre company who decided to highlight how good their tyres can be using the forces of the supernatural. With some seriously shocking results.

They’re not the first, earlier this year a terrifying tea advert went viral featuring all manner of serial killers and ghastly ghouls. But unlike that particular commercial, Autoway’s actually comes with a legitimate advisory warning, so if you’re of the faint of heart, you might want to reconsider watching.

For all you clown lovers out there, be warned of the below video.

[MIKA27]

Japanese Swordsmith Attempts To Craft Mythical ‘Koto’ Sword

He’s one one of Japan’s last remaining swordsmiths, but for the past 40 years, Korehira Watanabe has been meticulously honing his craft, so that he can reach his ambition of recreating the mythical “Koto” sword. The skills, direction and process of which have been lost long ago, but may yet be rewritten.

I need to pass along the aesthetics and soul of the Japanese people through my swords.

This captivating documentary tracks Korehira’s story, from his the moment he was inspired to become a swordsmith to those that guided him in the pursuit of creating the “Koto” sword – believed by many to be the very pinnacle of Japanese sword making, a perfect blend of steel, balance and beauty. He chasing his dream, Korehira faced many obstacles, not only in trying to learn his craft but also in being shunned by his family for following a tradition which in their eyes, was a dying art.

How wrong he’s proved them to be…

[MIKA27]

Building The Bentley: Old World Luxury Meets New-World Techniques

The Flying B logo is a symbol of luxury automotive not found anywhere else in the world. Sitting in a Bentley is like sitting in the smoking room of an old British country mansion, situated on a thousand acre estate. Each one is handcrafted from scratch, with only the finest materials in the world. This is Inside Bentley.

The car nuts from /DRIVE were let into the factory where Bentley’s are being built, and discovered that it’s one of the most intricate hand-crafting operations in the world.

The leather is marked by professionals, then laser scanned and cut by a robot so that not a single piece is wasted.

It then gets sent out to the factory floor, where it’s hand stitched by real humans to create that plush, luxury feel that only a Bentley can replicate.

Then there’s the wood shop. Oh my, the wood shop.

[MIKA27]

Four Different Connectors Let This Flash Drive Connect To Any Device

It turns out that trusty USB flash drive you’ve been using to sneakernet files between your computers has been slacking off. At least compared to the new i-FlashDrive from PhotoFast that features four connectors so it can be used with mobile devices like your Android phone as well as old and new iOS devices.

Available soon in 16GB to 64GB capacities running from $US149 to $US299, the i-FlashDrive includes stacking adaptors making it USB, microUSB, Lightning and Apple Dock Connector compatible. It allows you to share files and media between devices without having to rely on a wireless connection like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth which can be particularly taxing on your device’s battery. It also doubles as a backup for your more important files when you just can’t trust the cloud completely.

[MIKA27]

Curiosity Rover Zeroing In on Best Place to Hunt for Life on Mars

SAN FRANCISCO — NASA’s Curiosity rover is zeroing in on its quarry. The latest results from the probe tell scientists that the site it’s exploring at Gale Crater was once an ancient and habitable lakebed on Mars. Moreover, the findings could point to the best places for scientists to find telltale organic molecules, if they exist.

Curiosity arrived more than a year ago on Mars and roved right onto an ancient riverbed. The robot spent a good deal of its first few months exploring an area known as Yellowknife Bay, taking pictures and drilling into the rocks. Scientists determined that the area once might have been a great place to find living organisms. The new findings, which appear today in Science, help put those initial results into context with the entire environment.

“Really what we’ve come to appreciate is that this is a habitable system of environments,” said geologist John Grotzinger of Caltech, Curiosity’s project scientist, during a press conference today, here at the 2013 American Geophysical Union conference. “The lake, associated streams, and the groundwater environment had a neutral in pH, that was low in salinity, and had minerals in different oxidation states, which would have been essential for a microbial metabolism.”

A model showing the extent of the lake at Gale crater.

The team was excited to find a huge diversity of different rocks at Yellowknife, including fine-grained and medium-grained sandstones and crossbedded sandstones, types of rock that are known to be deposited by water on Earth.

“These rocks are telling us a story of deposition and flowing and standing of liquid water,” said geoscientist Joel Hurowitz of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who also works on the Curiosity team.

Chemical analysis of the rocks suggests that they are a mixture of two types of volcanic rock. One is an every-day basalt seen all over the Martian surface while the other is high in potassium and is known as an alkaline-igneous rock. By looking at different levels of radioactive isotopes in the rocks, Curiosity was also able to determine their age: roughly 4.2 billion years old. This is the first time that scientists have ever measured the age of rocks on another planet and gives them an important data point for future investigations.

Looking at the mineralogy of Yellowknife Bay, the team found an abundance of clay minerals that could have only formed in water with a neutral pH. When Curiosity heated up the rocks in its internal oven and looked at their molecular composition, it found a huge amount of carbon dioxide and nitric oxide. These molecules show that the rocks at Yellowknife contain carbon and nitrogen, both essential components of living creatures on Earth.

Though Curiosity might have carried a small amount of the carbon and nitrogen to Mars when it launched, the team found far more of both molecules than could be possible if they were just contaminants. The researchers don’t know if this carbon and nitrogen came from organic or non-organic molecules, but it all adds up to “evidence of minerals that tell us that we had a good chance of preserving organics,” said biogeochemist Jennifer Eigenbrode during the conference.

The one wrench that could be thrown into Curiosity’s search for organic compounds is the large amount of radiation at the Martian surface. Because Mars has no protective magnetic field, six months on the Red Planet would give a person more than three times the radiation dose that an astronaut receives on the International Space Station (which is partially protected by Earth’s magnetic field) over that same time period. Galactic cosmic rays and energetic ions from the sun could easily destroy any organic molecules sitting around in the Martian regolith

The retreat of rock from wind erosion, which exposes younger rock beneath that could contain organic molecules.

But rocks buried deep underground get protected from this high-energy radiation bath. So the best place to search for organic molecules would be to drill deep down, while Curiosity’s drill only reaches a few centimeters into the ground. But there are also natural processes that expose deep rocks. Erosion from wind or water can eat away at the surface, revealing fresher material.

Curiosity was able to analyze the rocks at Yellowknife Bay and determine that they had been exposed on the surface for a relatively short period of 80 million years.

This means that the dominant erosion process here is wind (there is no evidence that water existed on Mars this recently), which blasts rocks away as it sweeps over the ground. The wind hits the slopes of Mount Sharp, slowly chewing away at its lowest edges at a rate of around 1 meter per million years. The most recently exposed rocks would appear at the steep scarps at the base of large rock formations. Radiation would have had less time to destroy organic molecules here, suggesting that it is the best place to find signs of life.

Curiosity is currently driving toward Mount Sharp and expected to be halfway there in about two months. At the halfway point is a site where satellite pictures show a large rock that has scarps where rocks might have recently become exposed, perhaps in just the last million years or so. Curiosity will drill at this area and could find further clues of organic molecules.

[MIKA27]

Get to Know a Projection: Gene Keyes’ 40-Year Quest for the Perfect Map

All Gene Keyes ever wanted was a perfect map. It would have all the features in proportion, measured and accurate down to the closest tightest possible measurement. It would be a map he could look at for hours, days, years. Was it too much to ask to find a flat surface that projected the globe with minimal distortion, high accuracy, and maximum aesthetic appeal?

Keyes never found his perfect map, because he’s still making it. For 40 years, Keyes has been tweaking the details of his own custom projection, based on the Cahill butterfly projection. In fact, if it weren’t for Keyes’ obsessive research, the modern world might well have completely forgotten about Cahill’s iconic butterfly. A lifelong pacifist, Keyes originally viewed geography as a way to illuminate war, but eventually it came to dominate his impressive capacity for obsession.

Keyes called his projection the Cahill-Keyes Octal Gradient. Like the butterfly, it is a map projected onto an 8-sided polygon. In addition to making rearranging the tiles into an M, Keyes has spent hundreds of hours hand-adjusting tiny geometric variables to erase every bit of distortion that messes with his understanding. And he’s spent thousands more drawing the projection at the tightest possible resolution, and has calculated a version of the map for every scale — from one that’s the same size as earth when viewed from the moon, to one that would fill a gymnasium

It all started in 1973. Keyes was writing his thesis on the conflict between China and Russia. In 1969, these two countries had started a land war (that almost went nuclear) over a tiny island on their river border. Keyes believed the fight was rooted in geography, and he proposed R. Buckminster-Fuller’s Dymaxion map as a tool for understanding it.

Two years later, his thesis was long published, but Keyes’ curiosity still paced the map like a caged tiger, hungry for answers. The Dymaxion, which had been fine for big, thematic visualizations, had many flaws that nagged at Keyes when he inspected it closely: Its layout was too unwieldy; the landmasses too contorted; the graticule (the grid of longitude and latitude) too irregular. Keyes started paying more attention to Cahill’s butterfly, which he’d discovered in his research. He’d originally shunned the projection because he thought the way the continents were splayed in odd directions would make labeling their features too painful for typesetters. Then, he had a eureka moment: He wasn’t bound by the butterfly arrangement, he could rearrange the octant faces into a pattern that fit his tastes. He settled on a zig-zagging M-shape.

Slits on the Cahill (left) reach 22.5° into the map, penetrating the Russian Mainland. Keyes wanted to keep landforms intact, so he reduced the slits to 17°.

Starting in February of 1975, he went on a “study and design marathon,” scouring several of the libraries around Toronto, where he was pursuing his doctorate in political science. He found a few small maps, enough to make enlarged photocopies that he could cut and tape into his desired goal. But Keyes was was too meticulous to ever be content with a makeshift copy, and it takes more than shuffling the deck to make a cartographer. Before Keyes could attach his name to the variant, he would have to tackle the underlying equations.

Map projections aren’t the landmasses, latitudes, and longitudes you see when you look at a map, they are the formulas that transform the globe’s features into those flat shapes. Keyes was more interested in the arrangement than abstract geometries, but there was no way around it. He spent the next 6 months scouring libraries from D.C. To England looking for Cahill’s notes to ease the load, but came up short. “While I would have preferred an “off-the-shelf” Cahill map to incorporate into my system,”

The first hand-drawn Cahill-Keyes wall map.

First among his chores was removing the flaws he’d introduced himself. Along the seams where he’d had stitched together the octants of his previous map, the lines of latitude were pinched. Keyes called these graticular hiccups “cusps and sags,” and ironed them out, one by one, with mathematical smoothing. Then he recentered the projection at the 20° meridian, for easier east-west calculations.

Other things nagged him, too, like the fact that Iceland and some other high-latitude landforms were were split in half. More calculations.

On November 4th, 1975, after 40-days and nights, he emerged with a six-and-a-half square foot, hand-drawn, featureless graticule. “Yahoo!” read his diary, “the exact Master Map Profile!” He was so excited, he stayed up until dawn the next day sketching in the profile of North America.

Keyes traces his fascination with maps back to childhood, starting with National Geographic. Even then, he was dissatisfied with the faint borders and clipped edges in the magazine’s foldouts. As he grew older, geography fused with his main interest: Political science. He got into Harvard, but at that point in his life, he was less interested in academics and more into practical applications of his studies, like protesting war. He got so involved that he couldn’t focus on his studies, and dropped out of school in his first year.

A fully illustrated Cahill-Keyes map

He was nothing if not committed. He swam icy waters in Connecticut to lay across the bow of nuclear submarines, protested segregation in Boston, and stood a 12-hour vigil in front of his local selective service office before Megamap. It would be 1:1 million scale, nearly half the size of a football field, with a 1° graticule spacing. The huge scale would mean Keyes could explore the planet as though he were looking at it from a low-flying airplane. The 1° resolution would mean the measurements between the lines of latitude and longitude would be incredibly accurate.

MegaMap Simulation: A 1/20,000,000 wall map prototype with figurines to indicate the size of people walking on a floor layout of the 1/1,000,000 Megamap.

Because each line of longitude and latitude is an exact translation of the mathematical function that transforms globe into map, the thicker the graticule, the more accurate Keyes could measure. Most maps use a 7.5° or 15° graticule spacing for their grid. On the Megamap, a 1° x 1° area – which Keyes called the geocell – could be large enough to stand in.

Since 2006, Keyes has featured all his work on his website (which also has Esperanto poetry, tips on how to eat a watermelon, and writings on strategic nonviolence). The physical Master Map is still a dream, but Keyes has had smaller victories. In 2010, based on his hand-calculated tables, Keyes’ companion Mary Jo Graça digitized Keyes datasets and plotted the entire projection, by now known as the Cahill-Keyes Octant Graticule. The next year, the two teamed up again and digitized the entire map at the 1:1 million scale on a crash-prone, Linux-powered, $300 Asus notebook. Other collaborators have helped too, creating beautifully illustrated versions and translating it for web, using the visualization tool D3.

Now 72, Keyes is still a dedicated, if less active, pacifist. He’s quick to say he’s not a cartographer (he audited one class back in the 70′s), but he’s certainly much more than a hobbyist. Keyes isn’t done trying to figure out the world. In September, he commissioned what he believes to be the world’s first 1° globe. Why? Well, partly because he wanted a globe to match his map, and also to prove his Cahill-Keyes projection is almost perfectly lined-up, “point for point, geocell for geocell, continent for continent, octant for octant.”

Of course, he admits, it’s not perfect. But then, it’s only worth judging a map in context of the job it’s performing. By most measures, this map has worked well for Gene Keyes.

Keyes, holding his one-of-a-kind 1° graticule globe.

[MIKA27]

Wolves, Like Dogs, Can Learn From Humans

Dogs are highly skilled at reading human social cues, more so than any other animal. But even as researchers learn more about the social-cognitive abilities of dogs, a question remains: Did these skills arise from domestication and millennia of co-evolution with humans, or were their roots present before dogs became man’s best friend?

To answer this question, Friederike Range and Zsófia Virányi of the Messerli Research Institute at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna tested both dogs and wolves on a social learning task. Previous research indicates dogs can benefit when a human or another dog acts as a demonstrator, for instance indicating the location of hidden food.

Range and Virányi tested 11 North American grey wolves and 14 mixed-breed dogs from shelters. All of the dogs and wolves were born in captivity, bottle-fed, and raised together with extensive contact with humans at the Wolf Science Center of Game Park Ernstbrunn, Austria.

When the animals were between five and seven months old, Range and Virányi presented them with a social learning task. The subjects watched as either a human or a familiar, specially trained dog hid a treat — a dead chick — in a meadow. To test how closely the dogs and wolves were paying attention, there were also trials in which the demonstrator only pretended to hide the chick.

To control for the animals’ simply using their sense of smell to find the hidden food, the experimenters conducted trials in which they hid the chick out of sight before bringing the dog or wolf to the meadow.

Watching and Learning

Overall, both wolves and dogs were more likely to find the treat after watching a human or dog demonstrator hide it, showing that they were relying on the visual information provided by the demonstrator rather than their sense of smell. That’s not to say they didn’t use their powerful noses at all; each animal sometimes found the chick in the control trials with no demonstration. Range and Virányi also note that both wolves and dogs seemed to rely less on their sense of smell and more on the visual information provided by the demonstrators as they grew older. Older pups watched the demonstrations longer and were less successful in finding the chick in the trials with no demonstration.

Wolves and dogs were rarely tricked when a human demonstrator only pretended to hide food, showing that the animals were watching the details of the demonstration. However, while dogs showed the same behavior after a dog demonstrator pretended to hide food, wolves paid less attention to the dog demonstrator than the human one and didn’t differentiate between when the dog hid the treat and only pretended to do so. Interestingly, the wolves were less interested in the dog demonstration than the dogs even on trials in which the demonstrator hid the treat.

Range and Virányi have some ideas why wolves were less interested in dog demonstrators than humans ones. First, wolves were accustomed to humans rewarding them with food during training sessions. Since wolves expect humans, but not other dogs, to provide them with food, the dog demonstrator may not have piqued their interest in the same way. Additionally, wolves may have focused on different details of the demonstration. Range and Virányi note the demonstrator dogs did not like taking the dead chick in their mouths to hide them and would turn their heads or try to spit it out. It’s possible the wolves noticed this and interpreted their behavior as indicating the snack was not particularly tasty, so they didn’t bother to look for it. Range and Virányi suggest that being more attentive to the details of other individual’s actions is probably more important for wolves than dogs. Wolf society requires cooperative actions with other pack members in order to execute highly coordinated actions like group hunting.

The researchers conclude that dogs are not unique in their ability to learn from humans, and this skill may have already been present in their wolf ancestors. When humans began domesticating dogs, they could have built on this preexisting capacity of wolves to learn from others. This ability to learn from others, even those outside of one’s species, may have benefited the domestication process and cemented dogs’ reputation as man’s best friend.

[MIKA27]

New Stealth Spy Drone Already Flying Over Area 51

The latest top secret unmanned spy plane to be uncovered isn’t just a design idea, it’s already flying at the Air Force’s famed Area 51. Unlike the recently announced SR-72, the new RQ-180 from Northrop Grumman is believed to be currently in flight testing according to Aviation Week and Space Technology.

The RQ-180 is a new design aimed at intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR, a.k.a. spying) and incorporates stealth technology, in addition to an efficient new design that’s tailored to flights over countries where the red carpet isn’t being rolled out for current U.S. spy drones.

It’s the successor to the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, known as the “Beast of Kandahar” for its countless missions out of Afghanistan since 2007. It is assumed the RQ-170 has flown missions over Iran and Pakistan, but the aircraft lacks the endurance of other unmanned aircraft, somewhat limiting its capabilities. Iran displayed what is claimed to be a captured RQ-170 in December 2011. The U.S. Air Force would only acknowledge that it lost control of an RQ-170 over western Afghanistan at the same time.

The new RQ-180 is thought to largely address the problem of flying in hostile airspace through improved stealth design and better aerodynamics. According to Aviation Week, the unmanned spy plane would allow the Air Force to expand ISR capabilities beyond the “permissive environments — such as Iraq and Afghanistan,” where current drones such as the Global Hawk and Predator/Reaper operate. Instead the RQ-180 would be able to fly undetected in airspace where the U.S. does not have permission and/or the protection needed to fly.

This denied airspace capability has been missing from the Air Force’s inventory since the speedy SR-71 retired in 1998.

The Blackbird mainly relied on its speed and altitude — along with some stealth-like qualities — to fly over countries and gather intelligence where the U.S. was not welcome.

Aviation Week points to financial reports from Northrop Grumman that suggest the possibility of the new airplane, as well as satellite images of the company’s facility in Palmdale, California and Area 51 that show new hangars capable of holding aircraft with a wingspan of at least 130 feet — larger than a Boeing 737. When asked about the existence of the RQ-180, the Air Force told the trade publication that it “does not discuss this program.”

The use of unmanned aircraft for spying continues to rise year after year. But most of the work is done by slow flying aircraft such as the Global Hawk and Predators. In addition to flying relatively slow, these airplanes are also far from invisible to radar. Most of their use has been limited to flying over areas where manned fighter aircraft are able to control the skies, providing protection for the vulnerable drones.

The RQ-180 on the other hand is expected to have a stealth design with greatly improved aerodynamics giving it greater efficiency, which in the case of ISR work, translates to longer missions which could include longer transits to a target area, or more time over the target.

Northrop Grumman has also been publicly flight testing its X-47B unmanned combat aircraft, including take offs and landings from an aircraft carrier. The X-47B is aimed at combat as well as intelligence gathering, and is being developed for the Navy.

[MIKA27]

Metallica Has Officially Rocked on Every Continent Following Antarctica Gig

Heavy-metal icon Metallica made rock history Sunday night by playing a gig in the most unusual of locales: Antarctica.

The Sunday night show, called “Freeze ‘Em All” in a riff on the band’s 1983 debut album Kill ‘Em All, was played in a transparent dome. The enclosure was packed with approximately 100 concert-goers made up of contest winners and research staff, Yahoo! News reports.

Metallica played 10 songs, including favorites like Master of Puppets, One and Enter Sandman. However, it wisely chose to skip Trapped Under Ice from the 1984 release Ride the Lightning — lest the group jinx everyone’s safety.

According to Metallica’s Facebook page, “the energy in the little dome was amazing! Words can not describe how happy everyone was.”

Metallica later posted the entire hour-long show on YouTube, where you can watch it without the need for thermal undies:

[MIKA27]

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[MIKA27]

Mid-East governments sign Red Sea-to-Dead Sea water deal

Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have signed a water sharing pact aimed at one day replenishing the rapidly drying Dead Sea.

The agreement will build a pipeline to carry brine from a desalination plant at the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, while providing drinking water to the region.

The Dead Sea is dropping by as much as 1m (3.3ft) a year as the River Jordan is depleted for use in irrigation.

But critics fear the plan's impact on the Dead Sea's fragile ecosystem.

Such a project has been under discussion for years.

With peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians apparently stagnating, it offers the prospect of successful co-operation at a time of political difficulty, says the BBC's Kevin Connolly in Jerusalem.

The agreement was signed on Monday at the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington DC. The project is expected to cost $250m-$400m (£152m-£244m).

Call for study

The Dead Sea is so rich in salt and other minerals that humans float naturally on the surface. The area around the sea has an established tourism and health industry because of the water's unique properties.

But the Dead Sea is losing water rapidly, with some fearing the Dead Sea could dry up entirely by 2050.

The scheme will pipe water from the Gulf of Aqaba off the Red Sea through a desalination plant in Jordan, sending brine to the southern-most edge of the Dead Sea.

The brine will be used to test the impact of Red Sea water being transported to the Dead Sea, according to World Bank officials.

It will involve the construction of a desalination plant in Jordan, projected to yield 80 million-100 million cu m of water annually. A water transfer deal will also see Israel supply water to Jordan and the Palestinian territories.

The project will also yield hydroelectric power for use in the desalination process.

Environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth Middle East has called for an environmental study of how the brine from the desalination plant should be treated before the project begins in earnest, arguing it is unclear how brine from the Red Sea water will affect the Dead Sea's ecosystem.

The agreement was signed by Israeli Energy Minister Silvan Shalom, Shaddad Attili, head of the Palestinian water authority, and Hazim el-Naser, head of the Jordanian water ministry.