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

[MIKA27]

Norman Bel Geddes, prophetic designer and unsung hero

His vision was eccentric and, in some ways, remarkably accurate.

Tragic as it may be, many of the world's most prodigious minds fail to see their visions of the future vindicated. Hell, Nikola Tesla laid the groundwork for X-rays, radar, and the first great electric sports car, yet died he penniless and alone. Norman Bel Geddes made plenty of money, but fifty-five years after his death, he hasn't received credit for emphasizing vehicle aerodynamics, pioneering theatrical design, and comprehending an automobile-based society, all of which he did as early as the 1930s.

Though largely marginalized by history, there's a reason The New York Times once called him the "Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th century."

Bel Geddes had no formal training, but he rode his artistic talent from a humble Michigan upbringing to a prominent position designing sets and lighting for the New York Metropolitan Opera. By the mid-1920s, he was unimpressed with contemporary cars—which he found unsightly and aerodynamically inefficient—and branched out into automotive design. In 1928, he convinced the Graham-Paige Motor Company to hire him in order to pen their futuristic '33 Roadster. Though eventually canceled after the stock market crash, the project ushered Bel Geddes's name into the design vernacular. As it turned out, a little credibility was all he needed.

Throughout the 1930s, he penned gas pumps, trains, and yachts for the likes of Mobil Oil, Burlington Railroad, and Swedish billionaire Axel Wenner-Green. He even designed the Texaco Doodlebug, a super sleek, rear-engine split window tanker that foreshadowed the iconic Type 2 VW Camper that would come two decades later.

Handsome, compelling, and boundlessly optimistic, Bel Geddes envisioned a world driven by space age technology. Most importantly, he was convinced that cars (along with appliances and skyscrapers) would soon be the building blocks of American culture. To Bel Geddes, a streamlined, vehicle-based society was inevitable. Drawing from his experiences with the opera, he masterminded dramatic industrial models complete with lighting spectacles, music, and overwhelming visual stimuli, pioneering the 'theatrical design' concept.

The outrageous drama of modern auto shows is a testament to the effectiveness of his idea.

Between 1937 and 1940, Bel Geddes masterminded a pair of elaborate model cities: Shell Oil's City of Tomorrow and General Motors' Futurama, each showcasing a bold prediction of life in the 1960s. The latter was GM's marquee attraction for the 1939 World's Fair in New York; a meticulously detailed, 35,000-square foot interactive exhibition inhabited by some 50,000 miniature cars.

Both sprawling dioramas featured elevated overpasses and multi-level cloverstacks in an intricate freeway scheme—eerily similar to the postwar urban planning that followed a decade later.

But Bel Geddes was far more than just an infrastructure schemer. He believed wholeheartedly that aerodynamics would lead transport into the next frontier and filled sketchbooks with beautifully sleek boats, airplanes, and Dymaxion-esque automobiles. Imagine seeing the 1930s equivalent of a Honda Insight before advanced wind tunnel testing during an era in which much of America had grown up without indoor plumbing ...

A Car is Born: Design in Motion

"The [future] form of the motor car is so difficult to forecast," he once said. "We do know that ultimate efficiency in speed cannot be attained without conforming to nature's own laws for bodies moving through liquids and gases."

When Chrysler needed consultation for its revolutionary Airflow in 1933, it was Norman Bel Geddes who was brought in as a specialist on streamlining. Though it flopped commercially, the Airflow is now acknowledged as a symbol of wind testing and cutting-edge functional design. Other premier automakers relied on Bel Geddes, too—Nash's "torpedo body" 1941 coupe and the Buick Series 40 both contain his fingerprints.

He also created sets for the Ringling Brothers Circus, streamlined scales, radios, and cocktail shakers before WWII, and designed the first computer casing for IBM and Harvard in 1944 as well as the first retractable sports stadium roof in 1950.

And yet, even today, there's still some debate as to whether Bel Geddes was a man of unappreciated brilliance or simply a persuasive dreamer. His legacy is equal parts genius and shortsightedness: While many of his ideas were wildly impractical—he once tried to attain financing for a hotel that hovered in the clouds—Bel Geddes had an unprecedented grasp on modernism. With each new highway or dramatic reveal of a super-aerodynamic car, his vision of transport seems more and more relevant.

Upon finishing their tour of the '39 World's Fair, visitors were given a lapel pin that read, "I have seen the future." The year 1960 has come and gone, but, earlier this year, VW's teardrop-shaped XL1 rolled out into the theater of the Geneva Motor Show, poised to break efficiency records on massive freeways. Maybe Norman Bel Geddes gave those Futurama-goers a glimpse of tomorrow, after all ...

The first major exhibition of Norman Bel Geddes' work is at Museum of the City of New York on Fifth Avenue and runs until February 10th, 2014.

[MIKA27]

Incredibly Elaborate Illustrations by Victo Ngai

New York-based illustrator Victo Ngai creates captivating illustrations with elaborate narratives. Her unique style features swirls of lines and colors that are alive with energy and movement. In much of her work, Ngai uses a signature palette of oranges, reds, greens, and browns to create the ornate forms that have a traditional feel. There's so much going on in each scene that it's like an organized chaos slowly revealing itself to viewers over time.

Often producing illustrations for editorial purposes, Ngai's dynamic images have strong, purposeful narratives that look like still shots from movies. Even though she provides a clear description of her intended stories, it's still fairly easy to get lost in the elaborate, adventurous worlds and to make up our own stories based on the expressive characters.

Victo Ngai's website

[MIKA27]

How An Underwater Bomb In Australia Was Heard Around The World

In 1960, scientists did one of those experiments that just aren’t allowed anymore. For the sake of science, they blew up three 140kg anti-submarine bombs off the coast of Australia. A listening station 16,000km away in Bermuda — on the exact other side of the planet — waited. And waited. And, about three and a half hours later, they saw the blip that confirmed their hypothesis: Yes, sound in the ocean really can travel across the world.

Some 50 years later, Brian Dushaw, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, has been reconstructing that 1960 experiment. His interest is not sound, however, but temperature. Sound travels more quickly through warmer water, and the speed at which sound traveled in 1960 is thus a snapshot of average ocean temperatures half a century ago. Much ocean temperature data is also of surface waters, but the 1960 experiment provides data for what happens a kilometre down, in the Sound Fixing and Ranging (SOFAR) channel.

That’s because sounds in the ocean don’t just bounce around willy nilly. Due to a quirk of physics, sound waves about a kilometer deep get trapped in the SOFAR channel: The competing influences of temperature and water pressure keep those waves in the zone, where sound’s speed is at a minimum. Sound can neither easily enter nor leave the SOFAR channel, and it can travel thousands and thousands of miles unattentuated. Whale song travels through the ocean in the channel. Submarines go out of their way to avoid it and evade detection.

As Dushaw explained at last week’s Acoustical Society of America meeting in San Francisco, he has spent the past decade tracking down and deciphering documents to figure out the exact parameters — such as location — of the explosions in 1960. With the help of a retired lieutenant commander in the Australian navy, he’s deciphered the logs of the ship that fired the original shots. “I thought they were useless at first,” he said of the cryptic, terse ship logs. Although the ship logged its velocity multiple times a day, Dushaw explained, he had to use dead reckoning to figure out its position; however, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the method, because dead reckoning does not take into account the wind or the current a ship is moving in.

Now that he’s managed to figure out an approximate location for the ship, however, he still needs to get even more precise to learn whether ocean temperatures have changed. Dushaw is still cracking at it. For an oceanographer, he’s having fun playing history detective, parsing through the echoes of this bomb heard around the world.

[MIKA27]

How Europe Is Going To Land On A Comet

In November 2014, after travelling 10 years and hundreds of millions of kilometres, a European spacecraft will touch down on a 4km wide ball of ice and dust as it hurtles through space towards the sun. And if all goes according to plan, this unprecedented feat could finally give us what we need to understand the origins of life on Earth. It’s just the “according to plan” that’s the tricky part.

Until now, any attempt at studying a comet has involved either flying by them in attempt to match their speed, or literally crashing into them and just sort of hoping that the material breaking off will offer some sort of insight. This new spacecraft, however, is a much more subtle creature; it’s spent the past 10 years meticulously stalking its comet prey.

The spacecraft, dubbed Rosetta, was actually launched in 2004 and has been hibernating in sleep mode since 2011 to save power as it waits along the outer-edge of the solar system for its final destination, the ever-so-catchily named Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet. Then, at 10am on January 20 (just over a month from now) Rosetta will wake up from its little nap and get ready catch the comet as it comes hurtling by.

As soon as it’s awake, Rosetta will immediately start taking navigational sightings of the comet, giving scientists the information they need to take note of any unexpected shift in the comet’s path and make one final course correction before go-time. Then, by August, the spacecraft will finally have made its way into Churyumov Gerasimenko’s direct vicinity, at which point it will circle the comet and construct a map of its surface. By November, the map will have been made, the course plotted, and Rosetta’s little lander named Philae will be sent to settle on down.

Circling the comet is no routine attempt at orbit, though. Churyumov Gerasimenko barely has any gravity, so Rosetta is going to have to use its blasters to maintain any sort of orbit around it. What’s more, Raw Story notes that as Rosetta starts getting closer to the sun, the “plumes of vapour and gas pouring off 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface will hit the probe’s 14m long solar panels like winds billowing out a sail.” So keeping a steady circle is going to be a highly precarious undertaking.

Nothing like this has ever even been attempted outside of 1998′s Deep Impactand Armageddon, and there’s a whole host of potential problems that come with such uncharted territory. For one, the scientists involved in the mission don’t actually have any idea what Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface is actually like, explaining to The Telegraph that it could resemble either “concrete or candyfloss”. Which, depending on your cotton candy preferences, could be a pretty huge disparity. There’s also the teeny tiny little issue of the comet being essentially void of, you know, gravity. So in order to secure itself, the lander is going to have to shoot a spear into the speeding comet’s surface and quite literally hitch a ride.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, Rosetta has been totally out of communication with Earth during the 957 days it’s been napping along the further reaches of space. So naturally, the spacecraft’s makers are a little nervous about the impending reunion. As Dr Chris Carr, the principal investigator on the imperial team, told The Telegraph:

It is very unusual to put something into hibernation when it has never been used before. To do it with something you’ve just spent several hundred million euros on, to switch it off and let it drift into planetary space for two years without any contact is totally unprecedented.

Speaking to Raw Story, Mark McCaughream, the agency’s senior scientific adviser, elaborated on the team’s tense nerves:

If the alarm fails and Rosetta does not rouse itself, we will be in trouble. On the day, we will all be waiting in the control room, anxious to hear a signal from Rosetta. However, it will take several hours for the craft to complete its wakeup procedures before it transmits a message to Earth to let us know it is alive and well. It will be a nerve-wracking day.

Considering how risky this bout of hibernation is, energy conservation might seem like a strange priority. It’s not by choice, though. Rosetta is a largely solar-powered beast, and being four-and-a-half times the Earth’s distance from the sun means that any solar rays it might catch would be far too weak to provide any lasting power. So let’s just pray that Rosetta’s a morning person.

Of course, with such a high risk comes the potential for major reward. As the comet comes closer to the Sun, it heats up and becomes what scientists call “active”, a state in which the comet’s ice starts to melt and sheds gas. And because the comet has remained virtually unaffected since the solar system’s creation billions of years ago, the team is hoping that, by studying the ways in which the comet changes as it approaches the sun, they’ll be able to gain a deeper understanding of how Earth itself formed.

But again, all of this is dependent on everything going according to plan. In other words, fingers crossed.

[MIKA27]

The Fascinating Story Of Why US Parks Are Full Of Squirrels

In most American cities, it’s hard to walk through a park without spotting a grey squirrel. Those bushy-tailed little buggers are everywhere, chomping on nuts and climbing up trees — but not thanks to nature. No sir. They’re there because we put them there to entertain us — among other things.

As a new paper published the Journal of American History by a professor at the University of Pennsylvania named Etienne Benson explains, the story of America’s squirrels goes back to the early 19th century. At that point in time, squirrels were just another animal running around the woods, mainly useful as a source of food for frontiersmen. If you saw a squirrel in the city, it was almost certainly being kept as a pet. One escaped pet squirrel in New York City, circa 1856, drew a crowd of hundreds according to one of the city papers — which called the squirrel an “unusual visitor.”

Around the same time, a sea change in our relationship with squirrels was already underway in Philadelphia. The city had released three squirrels in Franklin Square in 1847 and had provided them with food and boxes for shelter — and the people loved it. One visitor is quoted as saying “it was a wonder that [squirrels] are not in the public parks of all great cities.” In the years that followed, the trend spread to Boston and New Haven, where squirrels soon grew so fat from humans feeding them that they were falling out of the trees. Cities even started planting nut-bearing trees so that the squirrels would have their own food source.

The squirrel fad really took off in the 1870s, thanks to Frederick Law Olmstead’s expansive parks. Benson says that the movement to fill the parks with squirrels “was related to the idea that you want to have things of beauty in the city, but it was also part of a much broader ideology that says that nature in the city is essential to maintaining people’s health and sanity, and to providing leisure opportunities for workers who cannot travel outside the city.” These squirrels were possibly the only wildlife the workers would ever see.

Central Park led the way in the second wave of squirrels introduced into American cities. A small number of squirrels planted in the park in 1877 soon grew into a sizeable population. By the time it had reached an estimated 1,500 squirrels six years later, authorities even talked about culling the population so that it didn’t get out of control. At the same time, squirrel populations were growing around the country, with squirrels gracing the lawns of both Harvard Yard and Washington D.C.’s National Mall.

Feeding the squirrels became a past time during these years, and was eventually seen by naturalists and conservationists as a way to help humans learn how to better treat animals. It wasn’t just confined to parks at this point, either. There are many accounts from the late 19th century of people in the suburbs feeding squirrels. Ernest Thompson Seton, who helped found the Boy Scouts, even wanted to use feeding squirrels as a way “to cure boys of their tendency toward cruelty.”

So next time you see a squirrel in the park, drink it in. (Not literally of course — one should never drink squirrels.) These little critters were put there for your entertainment. But perhaps more importantly, they were put there to remind us of how man and nature must get along, even if it takes a little effort. Though honestly, how much effort does it take to throw a squirrel an acorn?

[MIKA27]

Tom Cruise Is Fighting Aliens In A Mech Exoskeleton In 'Edge Of Tomorrow' Trailer

Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt wearing giant mech exoskeletons fighting a war in Europe against giant aliens for the sake of humanity, only to be caught in a time loop to fight the same battle over and over again. Sold. Here’s the first trailer for Edge Of Tomorrow.

Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and based on the graphic novel All You Need Is Kill, Edge Of Tomorrow sees a soldier fight, die and inexplicably be resurrected only to fight and die in the same battle over and over. He seeks out a more experienced soldier and trains himself in combat hoping to change his fate.

Here’s the synopsis:

The epic action of “Edge of Tomorrow” unfolds in a near future in which an alien race has hit the Earth in an unrelenting assault, unbeatable by any military unit in the world.

Lt. Col. Bill Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop—forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again…and again.

But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Rita take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy.

Edge Of Tomorrow crashes into cinemas 5 March 2014.

[MIKA27]

10% Of US Electricity Comes From Old Russian Nuclear Warheads

This is basically the least worst thing that can happen with Russian nuclear bombs! For the past 20 years, the Russians have been turning 450 tonnes of uranium from decommissioned nuclear weapons into nuclear fuel for the United States. It’s called the Megatons to Megawatts program. The last shipment from that 1993 deal arrived at a US storage facility Tuesday, according to reporter Geoff Brumfiel of NPR’s Morning Edition.

The deal was brokered by Philip Sewell, then of the US Department of Energy. When Sewell visited Russian military facilities after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he found broken windows and unlocked gates — basically uranium for the taking. To persuade the Russians to get rid of their surplus uranium, he offered something they couldn’t refuse: money.

The US would buy the stuff Russians weren’t using anyways. The Russians have made $US17 billion, and US power plants got a good deal on uranium. In fact, nearly 10 per cent of electricity in the United States over the past fifteen years has come from dismantled nuclear bombs, and most of it from Russia.

All in all, a pretty happy ending for 20,000 bombs’ worth of nuclear material. Instead of destroying our cities, Russian uranium has been quietly powering our lightbulbs — or, as the New York Times joked back in 2009, “the fuel from missiles that may have once been aimed at your home may now be lighting it”. Listen to the whole story at NPR.

[MIKA27]

Rock Piles, Graves And Ice Caves Are Historic Monuments In Antarctica

On these frigid days, it helps to think about a place like Antarctica, which was recently determined to be without a doubt the coldest place on Earth (as if anyone was really surprised?). But it’s also home to unique historic monuments befitting the treacherous environment that include 100-year-old huts, industrial tractors, and even one nuclear power plant — but, often, they’re literally just a pile of rocks.

There are 85 sites currently dubbed a Historic Site or Monument (HSM) based on their importance to exploration, science, or “feats of endurance”. But unlike other monuments that have been denoted and approved by a city, state or national government, these sites are landmarked by the Antarctic Treaty System, a set of international agreements that govern and protect the continent.

Monuments are proposed and approved at annual meetings of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting(ATCM), a multi-national body of scientists and other experts who determine the importance of the sites. Sometimes plaques are produced and placed at the sites to mark them, but it’s not much of a problem in a place where wind or snow and maybe the errant penguin are the only things likely to disturb a site. One of the most recent monuments to be added is a circle of rocks that is assumed to have held down tents at the campsite of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition. They’ve been there since December 1912.

Don’t think these places are off-limits, though. Tourists can actually visit a few of the more accessible sites. Here’s the complete list [PDF] and a few of my favourites.

Amundsen’s Tent

A group of Norwegian explorers led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911. They left their tent and its Norwegian flag to signify to future expeditions that they had made it there first. The tent is now permanently buried beneath the snow.

Charcot’s Cairn

A wooden pillar and plaque lists the names of the first French expedition to Antarctica led by Jean-Baptiste E. A. Charcot, who build this cairn there in 1904. The cairn is on a hill on Booth Island, and visitors can hike to see it [PDF] as long as they don’t disturb the nearby penguin colonies.

Site of Ice Cave at Inexpressible Island

A few seal bones and this wooden plaque are all that mark the site of a melted ice cave which was constructed in March 1912 by the Northern Party of the British Antarctic Expedition. They were forced to spend their winter here when their boat didn’t come to get them.

Terra Nova Hut

This hut built in January 1911 by Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition is one of the only Antarctic sites to be restored and maintained (mostly to keep it from being covered by snowdrifts) and is listed as a specially protected area (ASPA). You can even visit it on Google Street View. New Zealand archeologists continue to excavate the site, where they recently found 100-year-old frozen butter, among other artifacts.

Lenin’s Bust

Yes, that is indeed a bust of Vladimir Lenin, along with a plaque to honour the Soviet Union’s expedition to the “Pole of Inaccessibility” in 1958.

PM-3A Nuclear Power Plant at McMurdo Station

A bronze plaque marks the former site of the PM-3A nuclear power reactor, seen here in 1965. After being plagued with problems that might have originated from building a nuclear power plant in subfreezing temperatures, the plant was shut down in 1972. Because you can’t leave nuclear waste on Antarctica, the entire thing was shipped to San Diego where it reportedly gave naval workers cancer.

Aguirre Cerda Station Ruins

The Chilean meteorological base at Pendulum Cove on Deception Island studied volcanic activity in the area until it was destroyed by volcanic eruptions in 1967 and 1969. You can see the lava flows which swept into the bay.

[MIKA27]

Skip The Kerosene With These Smartphone-Controlled LED Lanterns

Continued advances in the connected home are slowly paving the way for a day when we never have to get up off the couch. That day isn’t here yet though, so we still need to make the occasional trip to the bathroom. Which makes this Bluetooth-controlled LED lantern — called the Vela — the perfect interim device. It can illuminate a dark hallway when needed, but can also be completely remotely operated from your smartphone.

And we’re not just talking about turning the Vela on or off. The accompanying app lets you adjust the lantern’s brightness using an on-screen slider, and it will even give you a real-time estimate of the boost in battery life after dimming its glow. The app also lets you set up timers, for turning it on and off at daily intervals, or even cycling through various colours since the Vela can change its tint through the RGB spectrum for different moods.

There’s even a flicker mode which uses a custom algorithm to randomly flash the Vela’s LEDs, recreating the ambience of a candle’s flame. And that should also help the lantern max out its promised 16 hours of illumination on a single charge from its included corded dock.

Designed by Joe Van Faasen and his team at Twisthink — the same folks behind Whirlpool’s lovely EveryDrop water filter — the official pricing for the Vela hasn’t been set yet. But if you’re interested, you can leave your contact info on the Twisthink site for information on when you can pre-order one, and when you can finally (and safely) toss those old cans of kerosene and propane.

[Twisthink]

[MIKA27]

Japan's Billion-Dollar Plan To Store Its Contaminated Fukushima Dirt15

As the immediate aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster has passed, Japan is faced with another conundrum: Where to store thousands of tons of radioactive soil that have been harvested from around the region. This week, officials unveiled a $US970 million plan to build a massive storage facility to house the stuff.

The plan was recommended by a long-running government panel, which suggested building the storage facilities in one of three nearby towns — Futaba, Okuma and Naraha — at a cost of almost a billion dollars. The (roughly) 13sqkm site would hold multiple facilities, each containing soil of differing levels of contamination.

But there’s another reason to build the site. Many Fukushima homeowners still remain in temporary disaster housing today, because they can’t buy new homes without selling their property in the contaminated zone. These storage facilities would allow Japan’s government to effectively buy back that real estate — letting people move on with their lives.

At the same time, plenty of people who have returned to their homes are dealing with radioactive soil in their own backyards — literally. A September blog post from a Fukushima resident named Akiko Fukami describes the process of having workers dig a massive hole in the backyard, where they buried bags of radioactive soil in an attempt to decontaminate Fukami’s house. “I just want people outside Fukushima to know that there are people here doing their best to protect themselves and families from radiation to live a normal and decent everyday life,” she wrote.

As we’ve seen in Chernobyl, where a brand-new steel “sarcophagus” is being built over Reactor 4 as we speak, the responsibility of protecting civilians from nuclear waste will be handed down, from generation to generation, for decades to come. The facility in Fukushima would, in theory, only be stable enough to hold the soil for roughly 30 years — after that, the next generation of scientists will hopefully have come up with a better solution.

[MIKA27]

Watch This Poor Guy Lose $1500 Worth Of Camera And Drone In Icy Waters

Drones: The reason future humans won’t have to do some very dangerous things. That includes not piloting vehicles for crazy aerial photography. And this video proves that we’re better off letting the drones do the dirty for us. About four minutes in, the UAV takes a dive into the drink. Brrr.

Photographer Chris Jarvis took his $US680 DJI Phantom on a trip to Iceland and decided to experiment using it with a nice new $900 Sony RX100 II strapped in for the ride. Yes! Experimentation is great! But, um, if you’re going to try out a new toy in harsh conditions, maybe don’t do it over freezing cold body of water?

Because when your $1500 of gear goes for a dip, you’re skít út af heppni. That’s Icelandic for “S**t out of luck.”

[Fuzz]

Tom Cruise Is Fighting Aliens In A Mech Exoskeleton In 'Edge Of Tomorrow' Trailer

Watching Tom Cruise get killed over and over again? I'd pay to see that!

[MIKA27]

This Transparent LCD Bus Will Inspire Rubbernecking Everywhere It Goes

Buses aren’t particularly attractive. Slab sides and hacked-together advertising make them rolling blights in the urban landscape. So what if you could change the design on a whim, provide useful information to travelers, and make some extra scratch for the city? Tad Orlowski’s Willie Bus does just that.

Using transparent LCD displays coating the entire exterior, municipalities can project almost anything on the screens. And it looks a lot better than some slapped-together ad for a local ambulance chaser.

So, part mobile billboard, part rolling information center, with route planning, weather reports, news coverage, and anything else a commuter or tourist could want splashed across the displays. And since they’re transparent, riders can see out, while outsiders can’t see in.

Toyota has played with similar transparent displays on its FV2 and Fun Vii concept cars, and the Willie biggie-sizes it. But like the Toyotas, it’s just a concept, and we somehow doubt those organic structural arches and massive slabs of glass would pass a crash test. But we can get behind anything that spruces up the cityscape.

MIKA: Absolutely brilliant!

[MIKA27]

200-Kilometer-High Jets of Water Discovered Shooting From Europa

SAN FRANCISCO — Jupiter’s icy moon Europa may be showing us its insides. Data from the Hubble space telescope suggests that enormous jets of water more than 200 kilometers tall (roughly twice as high as Earth’s atmosphere) may be spurting intermittently from the moon’s surface.

The frozen body Europa is known to have a vast liquid water ocean beneath its cold crust, a potential home for life. Should these newly observed water plumes be tapping into some Europan sea, they could be bringing material to the surface that would otherwise stay hidden. Follow-up observations from Earth or with probes around Europa could sample the fountains, hunting for organic material and perhaps finding evidence of living organisms beyond Earth.

The findings, presented today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, await independent confirmation. But if the jets are real, the frozen world would join the tiny number of others known to have active jets, including Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Neptune’s moon Triton.

Scientists spotted the plumes in ultraviolet images from Hubble taken in December 2012. “We found that there’s one blob of emission at Europa’s south pole,” astronomer Lorenz Roth of the Southwest Research Institute in Texas, co-author of a paper about the research appearing today in Science. “It was always there over the 7 hours we observed and always at the same location.”

Previous observations from NASA’s Galileo mission, which visited the Jupiter system in the 1990s and early 2000s, suggest that Europa’s south pole is full of ridges and cracks quite similar to features called tiger stripes on Enceladus that spew water.

Lorenz and his team looked back through previous Hubble data to see if the plumes could have been spotted earlier but saw nothing, suggesting that they are likely transient. Europa happened to be at the point in its orbit where it was farthest away from Jupiter in December 2012, which could explain why the jets appeared only then. Researchers recently determined that Enceladus’ plumes are weakest when the moon is closest to Saturn, likely because the ringed planet’s gravity squeezes the tiger stripes shut.

When the moon is far away, its crust relaxes, tripling the plumes power.

“We actually saw this press release on Enceladus,” said astronomer Kurt Retherford, also of SwRI and another co-author. “And we thought, ‘Oh my god! This is the explanation’” for why Europa’s plumes might only appear when it’s far from Jupiter.

Because of its oceanic subsurface, scientists have looked in the past for Europa jets. When the Voyager probes flew by in the 70s, one image showed a fuzzy spot that some thought to be a plume, though most considered it an artifact of imaging. Galileo also saw a row of dark spots on a ridge of Europa, perhaps similar to spots that appear on Earth in active places like Hawaii or Iceland before an eruption begins. But nothing conclusive was ever seen.

Because of previous false positives, scientists should be cautious when interpreting these newest results, said planetary scientist Robert Pappalardo of JPL, who was not involved in the recent work. The findings are exciting and impressive, he says, but also “on the hairy edge” of Hubble’s signal.

“This is really pushing the limits of what can be observed from Earth,” he added. “I’ll sleep better when it’s confirmed.”

Even with those reservations, Pappalardo, who leads the planning team for a proposed mission to Europa, said that he’s already discussing with other scientists how these new results should affect their study priorities. Some future orbiter headed to Europa could for instance carry detectors specifically to search for heavy organic molecules that could be indicative of life in the subsurface. When it passed over the geyser’s spray, it would be bathed in material from the moon’s interior, giving scientists a window into Europa’s ocean.

Pappalardo hopes that the finding will help push Europa to a place of high priority in NASA’s exploration agenda. Administrators have recently made comments regarding the agency’s lack of funding for a big costly mission. But a probe to Europa was singled out as the one mission that could justify the expenditure.

[MIKA27]

NSW Govt Working On Shark-Detecting Drones

Sharks suck. They’re all teeth and fins. No fun at all when you’re swimming, that’s for sure. The NSW Government shares this perspective, and wants to buy a fleet of drones to scan the coastline for the finned menace to protect swimmers.

The New South Wales’ Department of Primary Industries is looking into the use of drones for shark detection with a leading university, but wouldn’t confirm the parties involved due to “commercial sensitivity”.

Randwick Council had investigated drones for shark detection earlier this year, but baulked at the idea after realising it would have to employ drone pilots, who are jolly expensive.

Coastal drones have been proposed for everything from monitoring illegal fishing boats through to detecting asylum seeker boats in conjunction with Operation Sovereign Borders. [SMH]

[MIKA27]

Newly Discovered Greenhouse Gas Is 7000 Times More Potent Than CO2

Move over carbon dioxide: scientists have discovered a new greenhouse gas, and it’s 7000 times more powerful than CO2 in its effects of warming the Earth.

Scientists from the University of Toronto have discovered that perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), which has been in used by the electrical industry since the mid-20th century, can have a huge impact on the warming of the planet. Their research suggests that it is 7100 times more powerful at warming the Earth over a 100-year time span than CO2.

In fact, speaking to the Guardian, one of the researchers points out that “PFTBA has the highest radiative efficiency of any molecule detected in the atmosphere to date. Fortunately for us, the concentration of PFTBA in the atmosphere is extremely low, at just 0.18 parts per trillion (at least, in the Toronto area) compared to 400 parts per million for carbon dioxide. So, while it’s potent, it’s not going to be causing the same problems as the CO2 released from burning fossil fuels. The research is published in Geophysical Research Letters.

An industrial chemical, PFTBA has long been used in the manufacture of transistors and capacitors. It remains in the air for about 500 years, and, unlike CO2 which is absorbed by forests and oceans, there are no natural sinks for the gas. The overall message?

There’s not too much to worry about — as long as we don’t pump too much of the stuff into our atmosphere.

[MIKA27]

Kim Jong Un’s Uncle Executed, According to North Korean Media

Jang was described as a traitor and "despicable human scum" by the state-run news agency

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s uncle has been executed as a traitor, the state-run media, Korean Central News Agency, reports.

Jang Song Thaek was described in state media reports as an “anti-party, counter-revolutionary factional element and despicable political careerist and trickster,” according the Korean Central News Agency. The media report alleges that he was trying to steal power from his nephew, who trusted him and appointed him to high government positions.

“Despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him,” the report says.

The media also accuses Jang of resenting Kim Jong Un’s popularity. As a crowd cheered the young leader, “he behaved so arrogantly and insolently as unwillingly standing up from his seat and half-heartedly clapping, touching off towering resentment of our service personnel and people,” the report said.

Jang Song Thaek was ousted as chairman of the National Defense Commission earlier this month, after playing an important role in the early part of Kim Jong Un’s regime. Many considered him something of a puppet master to Kim Jong Il’s young heir, and Jang even made a high-profile trip to China earlier this year without Kim Jong Un. Some experts speculated that purging Jang reflected Kim Jong Un’s rising confidence as a ruler.

[MIKA27]

DUTCHTUB WOOD

Following the huge success of the original Dutchtub, Dutch company Weltevree have recently launched the Dutchtub Wood, a wood fired outdoor hot tub that allows you to explore and enjoy the essence of outdoor bathing. Simply light a fire in the fire basket inside the coil and you´ll have hot water to bathe in no time. Weighing only 17lbs(85kg), the Dutchtub Wood can be easily transported and fits 4 people comfortably, you can even cook on the coil while using the tub!

[MIKA27]

SNOW FOLDABLE HELMET | BY CARRERA

Following on the success of their bicycle folding helmet, Carrera have now applied their innovative patented flexible frame to the Snow Foldable Helmet.

The flexible frame adapts to the shape of the users head ensuring ensures a perfectly snug fit and maximum comfort and, its unique design allows you to fold it saving 20% of space to pack it in your bag. The Snow Foldable Helmet is available in four exclusive colors, and in a unique leather/carbon version.

[MIKA27]

STEALTH-X | BY SNOLO SLEDS

Last week I posted a nostalgic and classic hand-made wood toboggan, today I take you ahead of time with the impressive Stealth-X by Snolo Sleds.

The high performance sled would fit perfectly into Batman’s Armory, it is made of carbon fibre and takes extreme sledding into another dimension, this thing can fly in excess of 40 mph and can be maneuvered with unprecedented levels of control. After use, the sled can be worn as a backpack, making it ideal for back country exploring.

[MIKA27]

Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars'

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs may have catapulted life to Mars and the moons of Jupiter, US researchers say.

They calculated how many Earth rocks big enough to shelter life were ejected by asteroids in the last 3.5bn years.

The Chicxulub impact was strong enough to fire chunks of debris all the way to Europa, they write in Astrobiology.

Thousands of potentially life-bearing rocks also made it to Mars, which may once have been habitable, they add.

"We find that rock capable of carrying life has likely transferred from both Earth and Mars to all of the terrestrial planets in the solar system and Jupiter," says lead author Rachel Worth, of Penn State University.

Three metres is the minimum they think necessary to shield microbes from the Sun's radiation over a journey lasting up to 10 million years.

They then mapped the likely fate of these voyagers. Many simply hung around in Earth orbit, or were slowly drawn back down.

Others were pulled into the Sun, or sling-shotted out of the Solar System entirely.

Yet a small but significant number made it all the way to alien worlds which might welcome life. "Enough that it matters," Ms Worth told BBC News.

About six rocks even made it as far as Europa, a satellite of Jupiter with a liquid ocean covered in an icy crust.

"Even using conservative, realistic estimates... it's still possible that organisms could be swimming around out there in the oceans of Europa," she said.

Travel to Mars was much more common. About 360,000 large rocks took a ride to the Red Planet, courtesy of historical asteroid impacts.

Big bang theory

Perhaps the most famous of these impacts was at Chicxulub in Mexico about 66 million years ago - when an object the size of a small city collided with Earth.

The impact has been blamed for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, triggering volcanic eruptions and wildfires which choked the planet with smoke and dust.

It also launched about 70 billion kg of rock into space - 20,000kg of which could have reached Europa. And the chances that a rock big enough to harbour life arrived are "better than 50/50", researchers estimate.

But could living organisms actually survive these epic trips?

"I'd be surprised if life hasn't gotten to Mars," Ms Worth told BBC News.

"It's beyond the scope of our study. But it seems reasonable that at some point some Earth organisms have made it over there."

Early Mars is thought to have been a muddy, watery world

It has been shown that tiny creatures can withstand the harsh environment of space. And bacterial spores can be revived after hundreds of millions of years in a dormant state.

But even if a hardy microbe did stow away for all those millennia, it might simply burn up on arrival, or land in inhospitable terrain.

The most habitable places in range of Earth are Europa, Mars and Titan - but while all three have likely held water, it may not have been on offer to visitors.

Europa's oceans are capped by a crust of ice that may be impenetrably thick.

"But it appears regions of the ice sheet sometimes break into large chunks separated by liquid water, which later refreezes," Ms Worth said.

"Any meteorites lying on top of the ice sheet in a region when this occurs would stand a chance of falling through.

"Additionally, the moons are thought to have been significantly warmer in the not-too-distant past."

Moon fossils

On Mars, there is little evidence of flowing water during the last 3.5bn years - the likeliest window for Earth life to arrive.

But what if the reverse trip took place?

The early Martian atmosphere appears to have been warm and wet - prime conditions for the development of life.

And if Martian microbes ever did exist, transfer to Earth is "highly probable" due to the heavy traffic of meteorites between our planets, Ms Worth told BBC News.

"Billions have fallen on Earth from Mars since the dawn of our planetary system. It is even possible that life on Earth originated on Mars."

While her team are not the first to calculate that panspermia is possible, their 10-million-year simulation is the most extended yet, said astrobiologist Prof Jay Melosh, of Purdue University.

The first space travellers? Bacterial endospores can survive for millions of years

"The study strongly reinforces the conclusion that, once large impacts eject material from the surface of a planet such as the Earth or Mars, the ejected debris easily finds its way from one planet to another," he told BBC News.

"The Chicxulub impact itself might not have been a good candidate because it occurred in the ocean (50 to 500m deep water) and, while it might have ejected a few sea-surface creatures, like ammonites, into space, it would not likely have ejected solid rocks.

"I sometimes joke that we might find ammonite shells on the Moon from that event.

"But other large impacts on the Earth may indeed have ejected rocks into interplanetary space."

Another independent expert on panspermia, Mauricio Reyes-Ruiz of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the new findings were "very significant".

"The fact such different pathways exist for the interchange of material between Earth and bodies in the Solar System suggests that if life is ever found, it may very well turn out to be our very, very distant relatives," he said.

[MIKA27]

Suntory Yamazaki 25 Whiskey

If you're looking to dip your toes into the world of Japanese Whiskey, we suggest starting with Yamazaki, the first distillery in the country, which began production in 1924. And if you are looking to dive in headfirst with a premium offering, Yamazaki 25 Single Malt Whiskey ($1,600) should fit the bill.

This complex whisky was aged for over 25 years in sherry casks, giving it an unusually dark color and huge amount of flavor. It's available in limited quantities of only around 12,000 bottles every year.

[MIKA27]

Soundmatters Dash7 Speaker

The next time you're out traveling, don't settle for the mediocre speakers on your smartphone or laptop — upgrade your mobile audio with the Soundmatters Dash7 Speaker ($250).

One of the slimmest, lightest high fidelity Bluetooth speakers available, this little unit measures three-quarters of an inch high and weighs less than half a pound, while still packing plenty of sound. It features Bluetooth connectivity for wireless listening, or an auxiliary input if you don't mind being connected. With 12 hours of Bluetooth battery life, and as much as 20 hours if you use the auxiliary cord, you won't have to worry about it dying on you. Available in range of colors, this speaker also includes an international charging kit, cables, and a carrying case.

[MIKA27]

'Fast & Furious 7' is being rewritten to give Paul Walker an 'honorable' send-off

Filming could resume in January, if all goes to plan

The death of actor Paul Walker has cast doubt upon the future of the Fast & Furiousfranchise, but according to The Hollywood Reporter, work on rewriting the next installation is already underway. Sources familiar with the matter tell THR that screenwriter Chris Morgan has begun revising the script for Fast & Furious 7 to allow for Walker's character to exit the series using footage that has already been shot. The hope is that with a reworked script, cast and crew will be able to resume filming by late January, though that's far from guaranteed.

After a fiery car crash claimed Walker's life in late November, it was reported that Universal Studios would proceed with production of Fast & Furious 7 as planned, though the studio later reversed course and put the film on indefinite hold. The movie, directed by James Wan, had been scheduled to hit theaters in July 2014, but sources tell THR that this timetable has now been scrapped.

"IS THERE AN HONORABLE AND SENSIBLE WAY TO DO THIS?"

Universal has reportedly invested about $150 million in the film, and about half of Walker's scenes have already been shot.

Executives are looking at ways to salvage that footage, and the studio says there is widespread fan support for continuing the franchise, though Morgan and Universal's creative team realize that it must be handled delicately.

"What will drive everything is, is there an honorable and sensible way to do this?" a source told THR, before admitting that "there's not really a road map" for the dilemma the studio now faces.

[MIKA27]

Why Are Millions Addicted To A Drug That Eats The Flesh Off Their Bones?

Codeine, gasoline, paint thinner, hydrochloric acid, iodine and red phosphorous from matchstick heads. Those are typical ingredients in the street drug known as krokodil, a highly addictive toxic cocktail that’s three times as cheap to produce as heroin and could be becoming an international problem.

What makes this drug so exceptionally strange, however, is that once injected it begins eating the user’s body from the inside out, causing blood vessels to burst and surrounding tissue to die. Essentially a corrosive acid with opiate effects, krokodil destroys body tissue the way battery acid eats through plastic, opening large sores that can go all the way to the bone.

Clinically known as desomorphine, on the street it’s simply called “the drug that eats junkies.” Krokodil is reportedly 10 times as strong as codeine—its principal euphoric ingredient—and especially popular in impoverished areas where heroin is too expensive to buy, and hope seems too fanciful to indulge.

Like many “new” street drugs, desomorphine has rather old roots. First formulated in 1932 as a derivative of morphine, the drug was actually patented in Switzerland under the brand name Permonid. Because it was several times as potent as morphine (8-10 times as strong), it quickly gained in popularity with recreational users.

In its modern form, krokodil emerged around 2002 from rural Russia as a cheap heroine substitute that anyone with access to codeine pills and a few other ingredients could make in their kitchen. Over the next ten or so years, it spread across the country’s poorest communities, picking up an estimated three million addicts. Unlike its clinically invented predecessor, krokodil is as dirty as dirty drugs come—named for the fact that users develop scaly skin like a crocodile.

Since prolonged use of the drug is terminal (the typical lifespan of a krokodil addict is estimated to be about two years), it’s impossible to really know how many people have been addicted to it, but what’s clear is that it’s no longer just Russia’s problem.

Like any cheap but effective street drug, it’s spreading to other impoverished areas where people can quickly learn how to make it.

One of those places is Mexico.

The New York Daily News recently reported on a girl in Mexico City who was hospitalized with “severe lacerations” to her reproductive organs. What was first thought to be a horrific STD infection turned out to be the effects of the 17-year old injecting krokodil directly into her genitals.

“The young woman who used this drug had an infection that had rotted her genitals,” Mexico’s National Institute of Migration’s José Sotero Ruiz Hernández told El Periodico Correo.

“It wasn’t sexually transmitted. She said she’d been using krokodil for the last two months,” he added.

Cases like that could begin appearing with increasing frequency in Mexico City, where other toxic highs like huffing glue, gasoline and propane have already taken a terrible toll on the poorest communities—with children and teenagers topping the list of those hardest hit.

In a recent report, Time magazine dubbed krokodil “The World’s Deadliest Drug” and chronicled the cheap narcotic’s movement out of Russia into Europe and now into parts of North and South America. “The monster has crossed the ocean,” according to the Time report.

So far, however, emergency rooms in the U.S. are not reporting cases involving krokodil, and those that have been reported are still unverified.

In U.S. cities, heroin, methamphetamine and prescription drugs are the reigning addiction heavyweights. It’s unlikely that krokodil will ever come close to any of these, or for that matter even take hold here. The relatively lower cost and higher availability of other drugs makes using a corrosive, euphoric acid unappealing to even the worst-off junkies. As a Slate article recently pointed out, why would drug users in the U.S., where heroin is relatively cheap and easy to find, go out of their way to find krokodil, a drug that would be much harder to locate and will eat their flesh?

The Time report and a similar one on CBS News have made many skeptical about whether krokodil is an actual threat or a media fabrication. For now it’s safe to say that in the U.S., there is no credible evidence of a developing krokodil drug threat.

Nevertheless, in other parts of the world the threat and damage are very real.

In terms of raw physical damage, meth comes closest to krokodil, with the infamous “meth mouth” dental destruction and pervasive skin lesions that make seasoned meth users look many years older than they are. But even meth, as destructive as it is, doesn’t measure up to the suicide high of the flesh-eating narcotic.

“I don’t care, I’m gonna f–king die in a week” says one young boy about to inject krokodil in a Vice documentary called “Krokodil Tears” released in 2011.

Even if it never becomes a drug problem in the U.S., krokodil’s appeal elsewhere should be cause for concern. It’s a drug born of despair, a sort of chemical nihilism seemingly designed to kill its host, and it’s taking young lives wherever it appears.