Baring its teeth for the first time, personal submarine which boasts 'the agility of a dolphin' (but looks more like a killer whale)

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Breaking the waves: The shark-like Seabreacher X can reach surface speeds of 50mph and has the turning style of a dolphin


A mighty beast rises out of the water, ready to pounce on some unsuspecting prey.

The waters of Whiskeytown Lake, in northern California, apparently have a new
master - but on closer inspection this is no killer whale, it's a hi-tech submarine.

Capable of speeding across the water at 50mph, the Seabreacher X is an underwater vessel which boasts 'the agility of a dolphin'.

The most advanced submersible watercraft built by Innespace Marine, the X is a more extreme take on the company’s Seabreacher J model.


Lift-off: The personal submarine is fitted with an onboard camera so passengers can glimpse the world below the waves


According to Innespace Marine, the Seabreacher X comes in an array of largely threatening colours and ‘can sustain high speed dives and then breach the surface, launching the entire vessel clear out of the water.

‘The new fully vectored thrust system mimic the tail articulation of real aquatic animals like sharks and dolphins,’ the website adds.

‘The custom tuned exhaust system also gives the vessel a more throaty growl as it tears across the surface.’


Red roar: The Seabreacher X boasts a custom exhaust for a 'throaty growl'


And if its 260 horsepower supercharged engine and top speeds of 50mph (surface) and 25mph (underwater) weren’t exciting enough, the Seabreacher X has all the modcons of a high-performance car.

It’s got an onboard stereo with an iPod dock, GPS navigation, colour schemes customised to your design and even a snorkel-mounted video camera that transmits live footage to LCD screens for passengers.

Predictably, such power and luxury doesn’t come cheap.

Seabreachers are built to order for a standard price of $65,000 and watersports enthusiasts who want to speed across the surface in a top-of-the-range model can expect to pay around $85,000.

But for such expense, you could own a vehicle that’s, as AOL’s Bradley Hasemeyer put it, ‘about 27 per cent dolphin, 37 per cent shark, 47 per jet boat – and 100 per cent awesome’.


Shark attack: Watersports fans can pay extra to have their Seabreacher X customised




source: dailymail

End of an era: Space shuttle Discovery lands safely back on Earth after its 39th and final mission

By GRAHAM SMITH

Right on schedule: Space shuttle Discovery lands at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, shortly before noon local time today


Nasa vessel touched down on schedule at Kennedy Space Center at 11.57EST (16.57GMT)

Discovery capped a successful 13-day spaceflight with a smooth landing in Florida today, ending a 27-year flying career for the world's most-travelled spaceship.

With commander Steven Lindsey at the controls, Discovery touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 11.57EST (16.57 GMT) to wrap a cargo run and construction mission at the International Space Station (ISS).

Nasa's oldest shuttle swooped through a mostly clear sky to land at its home base and end its 39th mission.


Grounded: Nasa's oldest shuttle swooped through a mostly clear sky to land at its home base and end its 39th mission


Kennedy Space Center was packed with shuttle program workers, journalists and even some schoolchildren eager to see history in the making


'To the ship that has led the way time and time again, we say, "Farewell Discovery",' radioed the Mission Control commentator.

'For the final time: wheels stop,' Commander Lindsey called out as the shuttle rolled to a stop.

Florida's spaceport was packed with shuttle program workers, journalists and even some schoolchildren eager to see history in the making.

The six astronauts on board went through their landing checklists with the bittersweet realisation no one would ever ride Discovery again.

They said during their 13-day space station delivery mission that they expected that to hit them hard when the shuttle came to a stop on the runway.


Setting off: Discovery leaves the ISS on Monday to begin its 39th and final voyage home


A close-up view of the International Space Station from Discovery after the two undocked more than 200 miles above Earth's surface on Monday. During two spacewalks astronauts completed a number of maintenance and installation tasks


Discovery accumulated 365 days in orbit over 39 missions. It will now be prepared for display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

During its final mission, the vessel delivered a combination storage room-research lab to the station, as well as an external platform to house large spare parts.

It also carried tons of supplies and science gear, including a prototype humanoid robot built in partnership with General Motors.

Sister ships Endeavour and Atlantis will have their finales in April and June respectively, delivering the $2billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer particle detector and a year's worth of supplies to the station, a $100billion project of 16 nations that has been under construction 220 miles above Earth since 1998.


This incredible image gives a detailed ISS, the assembly of which began in 1998. It is currently orbiting about 220 miles above the surface of Earth


The $100billion space station, whose span would cover the length of a football field, has been under construction since 1998 and measures 167ft x 358ft x 66ft


Setting off: Discovery, pictured the northern Atlantic Ocean, left the ISS on Monday


At the controls: Commander Steve Lindsey (right) and astronaut Alvin Drew (left) confer on the flight deck


Two other shuttles were destroyed in accidents. Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff on January 28, 1986, killing seven astronauts.

Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere over Texas on February 1, 2003, killing seven more astronauts.

The U.S. is ending the 30-year-old shuttle program due to high operating costs and to free up funds to begin work on new spaceship's that can travel to the moon, asteroids and other destinations beyond the station's orbit.

Congress, however, has not yet allocated funds to start new programs.

The U.S. will now rely on the Russian government to launch astronauts to the space station, although it hopes to eventually buy rides from commercial companies, if any develop the capability.

Cargo runs will be handled by Russia, Europe and Japan, as well as two U.S. firms, Space Exploration Technologies and Orbital Sciences.


Astronaut Michael Barratt watches a water bubble float near him on Discovery's mid-deck (left), while his colleague Eric Boe takes a photo of the ISS on the flight deck


STS-133 Space Shuttle Discovery Lands To Complete Her Final Mission To Space


source : dailymail

The real Up! Scientists recreate floating house from Pixar movie... and prove it really CAN fly

By RACHEL QUIGLEY

Magic: The Up! house which will be part of a new National Geographic TV series called How Hard Can It Be? was 10 stories high, including the balloons. It reached 10,000 feet and flew for about one hour


It was another one of those Disney moments of magic.

When 78-year-old retiree Carl Frederickson's house takes off into the air aided by the help of hundreds of helium balloons in Up!, viewers saw it is a heart-warming moment of pure fiction.

But for some people, it became more than that.


Record: Dozens of volunteers worked around the clock in the Californain desert to get the custom-built house airborne with the aid of 300 eight-foot-high helium balloons


Film: Carl Fredricksen attached the balloons to his house to fulfil his life-long dream of discovering the wild in South America


The team from National Geographic have built a house inspired by the Pixar movie Up! that can really fly.

Using 300 helium-filled weather balloons, a team of scientists, engineers, two balloon pilots and dozens of volunteers, they managed to get the small house 10,000 feet into the air.

Of course it was not a real house, but a custom-built light weight one.
Executive producer Ben Bowie said: 'We found that it is actually close to impossible to fly a real house.'

Producer Ian White added: 'But what we can do is kind of fly a light-weight house and fly it safely with people on board.'


Up!: National Geograhic's house, left, and the Pixar one from the Disney film Up! about an old man's journey to see the great wilds of South America which he travels to in his own house which flies with helium balloons


Up! The house was life-sized and together with the balloons was ten storeys high


Away!: The house and two pilots soared 10,000 feet into the air for more than an hour over the desert


Each of the balloons were eight-feet high and filled with a whole tank of helium.
As well as getting the house to fly, they set a world record for largest cluster balloon flight ever attempted.

The experiment was done as part of a new National Geographic TV series How Hard Can it Be?

The 4.8m x 4.8m x 5.5m house flew across California's High Desert for about an hour with two people inside, just like the Disney Pixar film.

The new series will premier in the autumn.



source: dailymail

12mph step-on-and-go unicycle you can take anywhere

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Balancing act: A user test out the Solowheel, which has a top speed of 12mph and can travel for two hours on a single 45-minute charge


A designer has reinvented the wheel - with the world's smallest self-balancing unicycle.

Suitable for the daily commute or for weekend leisure, the one-wheel machine is powered by a 1,000-watt electric motor that generates a top speed of 12mph.

Users place their feet on a foldable platform either side of the wheel and simply lean forward to move, back to stop and left and right to turn.

The further forward you lean, the faster it goes, and a series of gyroscopes inside ensure the wheel remains perfectly balanced.

The Solowheel can travel for two hours on a single 45-minute charge and can climb hills with an incline of up to 15 per cent.

The rechargeable lithium-ion battery even recaptures energy when going downhill or slowing down.


The one-wheel machine will retail at £975


It was designed and created by Shane Chen, 54, who has created over 30 sports-related products for his company, Inventist.

A spokesman for the firm, based in Washington, U.S., said: 'The Solowheel is the smallest, greenest, most convenient people-mover ever invented.

'Our new self-balancing electric unicycle is more compact and fun to ride than any folding electric bike.

'Because of the gyro-sensors and left and right steering capability, you can literally step on and go - it is easy to learn.

'The Solowheel is very portable and weighs only 20lbs. This allows you to carry your wheel with you into a shop or restaurant, on an elevator, into work, to the cinema, onto a bus or train or into your classroom.

'It eliminates chaining your electric bike up to a bike rack along with others where it may get damaged or even stolen.

'Solowheel provides users with an easy, uncomplicated, straightforward ride.'
The unicycle costs £975 and will be available in the UK from next month.





source: dailymail

A mother's grief: The startling images which show how chimpanzees mourn their dead just like humans

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By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Grieving process: A chimpanzee mother tenderly lays her dead 16-month-old infant on the ground after carrying the body for more than 24 hours. Scientists filmed this heartbreaking footage in Chimfunshi, Zambia


Chimpanzees appear to mourn their dead infants just like humans, scientists have discovered.

Chimpanzee mothers establish close physical relationships with their young, carrying them for up to two years and nursing them until they are six.

But now scientists have filmed how one chimpanzee mother, whose 16-month-old infant died, apparently begins the grieving process.

It’s the latest evidence highlighting just how similar chimps and other great apes are to humans.

The ape continued to carry the body for more than 24 hours before tenderly laying on the ground. Then from a short distance she watched over her child.

Periodically she returns to the body and touches the face and neck with her fingers to establish it was dead.

She then took the body to other chimpanzees in the troop to get a second opinion. The following day the chimp had abandoned the body, according to a report by scientists from the respected Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

Dr Cronin said the research provided 'unique insights into how chimpanzees, one of humans' closest primate relatives, learn about death'.

Dr Katherine Cronin and Edwin Van Leeuwen together with Prof Mark Bodamer, of Gonzaga University in Washington State, and Innocent Chitalu Mulenga videoed the chimpanzee in Chimfunshi, Zambia.


Devastated: Struggling to take in the news, the mother then moves to a nearby grass bank and watches over the body of her dead child


Dr Cronin said the research provided 'unique insights into how chimpanzees, one of humans' closest primate relatives, learn about death'.

She said: 'After carrying the infant's dead body for more than a day, the mother laid the body out on the ground in a clearing and repeatedly approached the body and held her fingers against the infant's face and neck for multiple seconds.

'She remained near the body for nearly an hour, then carried it over to a group of chimpanzees and watched them investigate the body. The next day, the mother was no longer carrying the body of the infant.'

The report, published in the American Journal of Primatology, said almost nothing is known about how primates react to death of close individuals, what they understand about death, and whether they mourn.

The researchers therefore believe they have reported a unique transitional period as the mother learned about the death of her infant, a process never before reported in detail.


Second opinion: The mother then invites other chimpanzees over to the body, touching the face and neck with her fingers to confirm it is dead


'The videos are extremely valuable, because they force one to stop and think about what might be happening in the minds of other primates,' Dr Cronin said.

'Whether a viewer ultimately decides that the chimpanzee is mourning, or simply curious about the corpse, is not nearly as important as people taking a moment to consider the possibilities.'

Previous reports have documented chimpanzee mothers carrying their deceased young for days or weeks, showing the strength of the mother-infant bond.
The latest research complements these observations and sheds new light on how chimpanzees might learn about death.

Professor Bodamer said: 'These data contribute to a small but growing body of data on how non-human primates respond to death.

'We hope these objective accounts will continue to accumulate and eventually allow researchers to take a comprehensive look at the extent to which non-human primate understand death, and how they respond to it.

'It was only a matter of time, and the right conditions, that chimpanzees' response to death would be recorded and subjected to analysis that would reveal remarkable similarities to humans.'

Chimps are human’s closest relatives in the wild. Like people they can use tools, using sticks to fish out termites, hunt in teams and plan ahead.

They are also one of the few animals that can recognise themselves in a mirror - and realise that they are looking at a reflection.


Chimpanzee mother learns about her dead infant



source: dailymail [endtext]

A robotic performance: Japanese android actress Geminoid F appears on stage alongside human in play

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O87gCOv-X0cendofvid

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By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Geminoid F in her stage debut in a play in Japan. The android took part in a play alongside a human actress


Her performance could perhaps be described as being a little mechanical.
But this new actress treading the boards in Tokyo has a good excuse: she's a robot.

Humanoid robot Geminoid F has appeared on stage alongside a human actress for the first time in a play called 'Sayonara,' or 'Goodbye', last week.

Geminoid F - a robot designed to look and act like a human - played alongside a human actress, American Bryerly Long. in a play directed by Japanese director Oriza Hirata.


Geminoid F remained seated on a chair throughout the performance, while she carried out conversations and monologues


'It won't be that a robot replaces human beings on a drama stage, it's more as if a new type of actor has emerged in the theatrical world,' said Hirata, who had already put on two plays featuring ordinary, non-android robots.

Long plays a girl suffering from a fatal illness whose parents hire an android carer and then abandon her. The android, made to resemble a part-Russian, part-Japanese woman with long hair parted in the middle, recites poetry to her.

Seated on a chair throughout the performance, the human-sized Geminoid F carried out conversations and monologues, dressed in a dark, scoop-necked shirt and dark trousers.

Her eyes blinked and her chest rose and fell as if she was breathing even as she spoke, smiled and looked surprised, though her faced lacked the depth of expression of a real person.

Her voice and gestures were created by an actress in a soundproof chamber behind the stage whose head and body movements were detected by a camera and replicated by the android. Microphones were used for her voice.

Geminoid F was produced by Hiroshi Ishiguro, a renowned robot designer at Osaka University in western Japan, whose usual androids come with a steep $1.2 million price tag.


American actress Bryerly Long worked alongside the robot in a Japanese play titled Sayonara. She said Geminioid F t lacks 'human presence', making her feel 'alone' on stage


A model (right) touches the face of a humanoid robot called 'Geminoid-F' shaped to resemble her


For the play, he modified one to give it only the bare essentials needed to preform the given acting, which cut costs to one-tenth of the usual. All the android's movements were carried out with only 12 motors.

'Androids can look very similar to human actors, but more than that, we can technically create a superior actor by featuring all the good techniques of human actors such as staring, moving and talking,' said Ishiguro.

Despite the raves, Geminoid F's human counterpart said she felt as if she was performing solo.

'There's a bit of distance. The robot has a quite particular position because it's got a voice, but it's not some kind of human presence,' Long said.

Some in the audience also had doubts.

'It looked like an android playing an android,' said 28-year-old Chihiro Aikawa.
Hirata said androids are not only good actors but also great for boosting ticket sales. About 600 people were expected to watch the play over a two-day Tokyo run.

'All of their acting problems can ultimately be solved if I only invest enough time, and the audience always loves to see them acting,' he said.


source: dailymail
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Green Float: The futuristic concept that sees humans live in giant skyscrapers on floating water lilies in the middle of the Pacific

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXbYRxl16SAendofvid

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By NIALL FIRTH

The majority of people on the cells would live in huge towers 1km high surrounded by lush green fields


Humans in the future could live in mini floating cities that drift across the Pacific as if on giant water lilies.

The startling new concept has been dreamed up by Japanese technology firm Shimizu and is designed to be a way of harnessing green technologies and creating carbon-neutral cities.

The Green Float concept involves a number of cells, each one kilometre wide, that house between 10,000 and 50,000 people.

Each individual cell would be free to float on the Pacific Ocean near the equator but could also be joined together with other cells to form larger towns and even cities.

A group or modules, a collection of cells, would become a country in its own right.
Most people in this brave new world would live in a 1 kilometre-high ‘City in the Sky’ at the centre of each cell. More people would live in residential areas around the edge of the cell.

The central towers would be surrounded by grassland and forests and be self-sufficient in terms of food, while livestock and other farming would take place in 'plains' also surrounding the tower - all built on a lattice of 7,000-tonne honeycomb pontoons.

The towers would be built from super-light alloys with the metal deriving from magnesium in seawater.

The imaginative plan is designed to create a future carbon-neutral society and the Shimizu developers claim that living on cells in this way would cut carbon emissions by 40 per cent.


The floating cells, each with a City in the Sky structure at its centre, can join together to form larger modules


The City in the Sky skscrapers are designed to be carbon negative with extensive environmental technologies and recycling facilities built in


The cells would create zero waste and recycle every product and covert waste into energy using new green technologies. Islands of waste would drift around the ocean and could be ‘harvested’ to provide energy
The location of the islands is key to their success too, the designers claim.

Each group of cells would be near the equator where the climate is at its most stable and a range of technologies would be used to protect the floating cities from tidal waves and extreme weather.

To protect the inhabitants from large waves, strong elastic membranes would be attached to the lagoons around the outer edge of the cells, with the shallows above the membranes standing 30 feet above sea level.

Shimizu scientists calculate that the water pressure difference between the lagoons and the ocean would limit the movement of the membranes and buffer the force of the open sea waves.

Seawalls as high as 100 feet could also be constructed. And tsunamis in the open sea are far less dangerous than those that hit coastal areas, the designers say.


A country consisting of one million people would be formed after modules joined together one by one


Lightning rods would be fitted around the circumference of the towers and mesh lightning conductors will be placed on the exterior walls to protect against lightning strikes.

Shimizu wants to develop the first cells by 2025 and is concentrating on developing the technologies to make it happen. The concept was displayed at a recent Japanese university conference.

This is the not the first outlandish idea that Shimizu has come up with. The firm also proposes encircling the moon in a belt of solar collectors that would collect solar energy and transmit it to Earth.


source: dailymail [endtext]

Why laughing is instinctive but we have to learn how to cry

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By FIONA MACRAE


Babies are instinctively able to laugh but other sounds have to be learned


We are born to laugh - but learn to cry, research suggests.

Research suggests that giggling when tickled or chuckling at a joke is instinctive but most other 'emotional vocalisations' are picked up through experience.

Dutch researchers asked 16 volunteers, half of whom were deaf, to make the sounds behind a range of emotions without using words.

The interpretations of sadness, terror, relief, anger, hilarity and other emotions were then played back to 25 people with normal hearing, who were asked to name the emotion.

Only laughter and sighs of relief were easily identifiable on the tapes of the deaf volunteers, this week's New Scientist reports.

All the other sounds, including cries of terror and sobs of sadness, were much easier to guess when made by volunteers without hearing problems.

As the deaf volunteers would never have had the chance to hear other people laugh, it suggests that it is something that we are born knowing how to do.

But learning how to convey other emotions, such as sadness, comes with experience, an Acoustical Society of America conference will hear next week.

Researcher Disa Sauter, of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, says that laughter and smiling likely evolved as ways of diffusing confrontation.

She said: 'Even other primates laugh, if you ticked a gorilla or orangutan.'
Professor Sophie Scott, an expert in the biology of speech from London's Institute of Neuroscience, said: 'The laughter finding makes a great deal of sense and laughter has been described as being more like a different way of breathing than a way of speaking.'

But Professor David Ostry, of the University of Montreal, cautioned that deaf people may learn to laugh simply by watching how hearing people do it.

Learning more about which sounds are instinctive and which are picked up through experience could make it easier to work out when deaf babies are in distress.






source: dailymail [endtext]