Showing posts with label Did you know?. Show all posts

A 14 Year Old Burger Found, Still Looks edible!

The harmful consequences of fast food have been showcased by this hamburger, which is still intact after 14 years. 


Found accidently by David Whipple in his court’s pocket after two years of purchase, he continued the experiment for 14 years, shocked to see that the burger still seems edible.


A 14 Year Old Burger Found, Still Looks edible!
Image credit :THE DOCTORS

David Whipple, a man who bought a hamburger on July 7 1999 and preserved it for a month to show his friends that it would look exactly the same after a month due to preservatives, forgot about it in his coat’s pocket, found it after two years and to his dismay, it looked still the same. He then decided to carry forward this experiment and after 14 years, the burger just refuses to age. Shocking? Isn’t it?



A 14 Year Old Burger Found, Still Looks edible!
Image credit :THE DOCTORS

According to Whipple, the experiment had not been started on purpose. He just used it for a month to show case enzyme’s reactions and forgot about it, until his wife found it after two years. Though even after 14 years, there has been no sign of mould or fungus on the bun or the meat and it did not smell differently. The burger has attracted so much attention that at one point Whipple had auctioned it on eBay and the bids had reached close to $2000. But later, he and his wife had changed their minds and decided to keep it with them for educational purposes and show their grandkids the ills of fast food.



A 14 Year Old Burger Found, Still Looks edible!
Image credit :THE DOCTORS

In 2012, Melanie Hesketh, a mom from Ontario, Canada, had kept a McDonald’s cheeseburger for a year to discourage her teenage children from consuming ‘junk’ food, but she also could not believe that it could last for 14 long years. This edible burger of 14 years had been showcased on the popular TV showThe Doctors’.

Terrifying DIY Prison Tattoo Machines





When famed tattoo artist Scott Campbell visited a prison in Mexico to ink people held inside, he didn’t bring a tattoo machine – he made his own, the same way the inmates would, using the materials that can be found within the prison walls. The artist then immortalized these DIY creations in a series of realistic black-and-white watercolor paintings called ‘Things Get Better.’






The title refers to the ‘things’ that the guns are made of: hair picks, plastic utensils, telephone cords, batteries and ballpoint pens. Campbell spent two months visiting the prison, where he worked with the inmates and tattooed them. Since he wasn’t allowed to bring tattoo equipment inside, he had to use what was available. He donated “a few VCRs and a beaten old guitar” to the prison rec room to help the process along. The motors from the VCRs and the guitar strings, which were then used as needles, proved extremely useful for his creations. The needles were sharpened on the grout between tiles.






“I like the idea that inspiration can come from limitations,” Campbell told Life and Times. “There’s a general notion that inspiration is a sort of expansion of awareness or broadening of creative range. This work is inspired by parameters. The openness of a blank canvas and the infiniteness of the possibilities that canvas may contain can be paralyzing.”







“When I have limitations –a confined range of materials –and a specific task to fulfill, it creates a little world that I can get lost in and walls to push against. These paintings are created within parameters that we can imagine ourselves in and, in that way, are relatable. The watercolors are humble and sweet in their simplicity.”




Japanese Scientist May Have To Grow His Human Organs In American Pigs





Hiromitsu Nakauchi is one of the most prominent stem-cell researchers in the world, and over the past few years, he's been cruising along a path that could well result in a near-unlimited supply of healthy pancreases for humans, which could well cure some types of diabetes. Except, in his native Japan, the law has yet to catch up to his work.

Nakauchi has lately been specializing in chimeric embryos, in which stem cells from one species are implanted in another, which then grows an organ that can be harvested and implanted back in the first species. The name "chimeric embryos" suggests a sort of horrifying (or, to be fair, possibly adorable) mix of species, but that's not really what's going on. Instead, the aim is to induce one species to grow an organ of the other, not a combination of two species.

He's done this with mice and rats; back in 2010, he successfully induced a mouse embryo to grow a rat pancreas by using rat stem cells. But the goal is human organs, so his focus has of late shifted to our friend the pig. The technique involves taking genetically engineered pig embryos that are incapable of growing their own pancreases and implanting human stem cells. The pig embryos will then grow, amazingly, a human pancreas. When the piglets are born, the pancreas is harvested, and then can be implanted into a human in need. Pigs are chosen because they're common and well-understood, and also because their organs are of similar size to our own.





Japan currently has a ban on what's called "in vivo" experiments, meaning "within the living." Essentially, Japanese law forbids experiments that involve a whole, living creature, like these piglets. ("In vitro," or "within the glass," is permitted.) Nakauchi has for years been campaigning to change this law, and he's making baby steps; earlier this week, the Expert Panel on Bioethics of the Council for Science and Technology Policy, Japan's federal science advisory board, recommended the laws be changed to allow Nakauchi's work. But that's not the same as changing a law; even if the Japanese legislature agrees, it'll be at least a year before the law can be updated.

According to Science, Nakauchi is considering moving his research to another country that allows in vivo experiments--like, say, the U.S., where, at Stanford, he did some postdoctoral work. The U.S. does not federally prohibit in vivo chimeric embryo research, though a few states have passed their own laws.

Chimeric embryo experiments are highly controversial; they're easy to confuse for some kind of Dr. Moreau-type madness, but even when you've got a grip on what's actually going on, it's hard to take a firm stance on either side. On the one hand, you could well cure forms of diabetes, grow hearts or kidneys or any other organs, and legitimately save lives. On the other hand, this is wild, foreign stuff, and also involves some genetic manipulation and almost certainly some inhumane treatment of animals. (How happy are those pancreas-less piglets, really?) It's a debate without easy answers, but one we'll be following closely.

9 Top Tech Myths Debunked





Jailbreaking and Rooting are Illegal





Smartphone owners can jailbreak their iOS devices and root their Android phones to get around the restrictions of manufacturers and carriers. But is this ominous-sounding practice legal? The word itself—jailbreaking—makes it sound like the process is illegal. In actuality, it's more complicated: The technique both is and isn't illegal under U.S. copyright law. Last fall, when the Library of Congress updated the rules for 2013 through late 2015, it decided that you can legally jailbreak your smartphone (though you'll void your Apple warranty) but not necessarily your tablet, because, the Library says, "tablets" is an ill-defined category. What is definitely not legal is unlocking your phone. The Library's ruling prohibits tinkering with your device so it works on different cellular networks without your wireless carrier's permission, which is subject to as much as $2500 in fines, or even jail time. Legal questions aside, is jailbreaking worth the trouble? Nearly 7 million iOS users who cracked their devices using the latest jailbreak since it became available in February say yes. And as for the riskiness of jailbreaking an iPad, just consider: Despite the law, absolutely no one has (yet) been prosecuted or fined.

More Bars Equals Better Mobile Service





If your phone has five bars, you'll get the best wireless service performance, right? Well, no. Those bars indicate your signal strength to the nearest cellular tower, but if many other people are also connected to that tower, you can still experience dropped calls and poor speed due to the congestion caused by networks' limited capacities. For instance, it might take about a square block of people in Manhattan to overload a single cell tower, whereas in Wyoming, it would take a population spread over 15 square miles. And even if you capture some of that service, speed varies by network provider. According to wireless-coverage mapper RootMetrics, AT&T has the fastest LTE data network, followed by Verizon and then Sprint.

LED and LCD are Different Screen Technologies





This is more of a technicality, but "LED" screen is a bit of a misnomer. It is not a new kind of display, as some retailers might assert, but rather a type of LCD television. The only difference between a so-called LED TV and a regular LCD TV is the type of backlighting: Though both rely on LEDs to form the picture, LED displays also use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to illuminate the display, whereas non-LED sets use fluorescent backlights. So which is better? That depends. LED-backlit LCDs come in two configurations: Some have a full array of LEDs behind the LCD, others have LEDs just on the edges. Edge-lit TVs tend to be thinner, while full LED-backlit screens can do tricks such as "local dimming" to increase contrast in dark sections of an image. Regardless, all LED sets have two distinct advantages over conventional fluorescent LCDs and plasmas: They are more energy-efficient, and they last longer. If you plan to keep your set for a while, go with LED.

It Doesn't Matter if You Keep Your Laptop Always Plugged In





Speaking of life spans, you might also have come across advice saying that if you have a lithium-ion battery in your laptop, you don't ever have to completely drain it the way you needed to with older nickel-metal-hydride laptop batteries. This is false if you want to get the most out of your battery. For one thing, if your plugged-in laptop gets hot while you use it and the battery is charged fully, all you're doing is exposing the battery to heat, which will make it age more quickly. Besides heat, the other extreme that shortens Li-ion battery life is high voltage—like the high voltage maintained by a charger—after the battery is full. Keep the battery just below a full charge by keeping it active, and when you do charge it for a long time, do it when the computer is off to avoid blasting it with extra heat. You need to be careful about charging only if your computer doesn't include battery-management software, as many made by Lenovo, Sony, and Samsung do. For computers that don't automatically optimize charging, the advice on how often to charge and discharge their batteries varies. Apple recommends getting battery juices flowing by using the computer unplugged from time to time—though not too many times, since Li-ion batteries have limited charge cycles (each cycle is from complete charge to complete discharge). No matter what, though, Li-ion batteries will eventually lose capacity; expect to get about two to three years of good charges.

Macs Don't Get Viruses





In the raging Mac-versus-PC debate you'll usually find at least one Apple loyalist claiming Macs are immune to viruses. Apple itself has contributed to this myth (remember that "I'm a Mac" ad in which the poor PC guy gets sick with a virus while Mac is unconcerned?), but after the Flashback virus crisis last summer, which affected around 250,000 Macs, Apple quietly changed its "virus-free" sales pitch on its Mac page from "It doesn't get PC viruses" to "It helps keep you safe." It's a subtle but significant change. While it's true PCs get more viruses and malware than Macs, that's mostly because attackers target the more widely used Windows operating system. Now that Apple computers are growing rapidly in market share, however, Mac users may need to be more cautious. So, do you need an antivirus program for OS X? Probably, though don't assume it will keep you entirely safe. No antivirus program will catch 100 percent of all viruses, and some antivirus software can cripple your system's performance. The first and foremost defense against malware is safe browsing habits. Still, unobtrusive software such as the free Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition can give you peace of mind by protecting your not-so-invincible system.

The More megapixels a Camera Has, the Better the Pictures





New 18-megapixel cameras might make your 6-megapixel seem obsolete, but the emphasis on megapixels in the camera world reflects marketing spin as much as technological superiority. It's true that more megapixels means more detail in larger photos. That detail, though, depends not just on pixel count but also on the camera's sensor: The larger it is, the more light data it can pick up, and the more detailed your images will be. If you add megapixels without increasing the overall size of the sensor, you reduce the amount of light reaching each pixel. Your point-and-shoot camera may have 20 megapixels, but if its sensor is the size of a pinhead, your photos won't look so great. According to camera reviewer and self-proclaimed "Forrest Gump of photography" Ken Rockwell, "10 megapixels is more than enough for anything," and even just 6 will probably be good enough (most new cameras tend to come with at least 12). The goal, Rockwell says, is a sharp photo, not tons of pixels.

To Get the Best HD Experience, You Need Expensive Cables





You can spend $3 on an HDMI cable, or you can spend $2000. But when it comes to these cables, the you-get-what-you-pay-for maxim doesn't apply. Premium-cable manufacturers would have you believe gold-plated connectors and "high-density triple-layer metal-to-metal shielding" give you a better signal and, therefore, the ultimate picture and audio performance. But generic—and cheaper—cables will deliver the same picture and audio quality. Signal over an HDMI cable is digital; it either comes through or it doesn't. There are, however, some cases in which spending more is a good idea. For example, if you need a very long cable (more than 6 feet), skip the cheapest ones, since poorly made cables are more likely to impede the signal at longer distances. For the record, unless you don't care at all where your money goes, no one should spend two grand on a cable.

Emptying the Trash or Recycle Bin Permanently Deletes Files





It would make sense that deleting a file would actually delete it. But when you empty the Recycle Bin (Windows) or Trash (Mac), the data aren't erased, only the links to the complete files are. A computer told to delete a file won't actually remove it but will instead deallocate the space it takes up on the hard drive, opening that space up to be written again. That means bits of information still remain, and any snooping hacker could piece them together to rebuild what you thought was gone forever. To truly and permanently delete files, you have to instruct your computer to go a step beyond emptying the Trash or Recycle Bin. On a Mac, choose "secure empty Trash"; on a PC, you have to work in the command-line interface of Sdelete, a free program that allows you to totally wipe either all free space or only specific files. There is an upside: If you accidentally delete something and must get it back, in theory, you can.

Private/Incognito Browsing Protects Your Privacy





Here's one last downer. The "private browsing" feature of your browser isn't as private as it suggests. The setting tells your browser not to do its usual job of saving information about which pages you've visited or about what you've typed into forms. It does not, however, keep you anonymous. Websites, ad trackers, and your ISP can still record your visits, and files you download will still remain on your computer or mobile device. Even worse, a 2010 study by Stanford University found that some browser add-ons store information about your browsing even while in private mode. If you're wondering what you can do to stay anonymous online, you'll need to use a proxy server, such as Tor, so you appear to be somewhere and someone else as you surf, or a VPN, which can secure and encrypt your information. Also, get in the habit of clearing your browser's cookies cache and history every week or so.

World's longest and widest cable bridge with a span of SEVEN miles is finally completed (and it's in China, of course)

The world's longest and widest multi-pylon cable-stayed bridge has opened in China after seven years of construction work

The Jiaxing-Shaoxing Sea Bridge stretches 6.2miles (10 kilometres) over the Hangzhou Bay, in Shaoxing, China.

It is mainly supported by two cable-towers, both of which reach 745ft in the air, and has a main body stretching 2,560ft wide.
Long cross: Jiaxing-Shaoxing Sea Bridge is the world's longest and widest cable-stayed bridge, and stretches so far in the distance the end disappears in the mist

The six-lane bridge opened to traffic on May 28th but the final tweaks were made on Monday.

The high speed bridge is designed for vehicles travelling exclusively above 60mph and pedestrians, motorbikes and cars with a maximum speed below 45mph are not allowed to cross.

It starts from the front part of Maqing Road in Haicang District in Xiamen and ends at Houzhai, Longhai in Zhangzhou.

A cable-stayed bridge has one of more towers where the cables are attached to support the bridge's deck.
Big stretch: The bridge crosses Hangzhou Bay and starts from the front part of Maqing Road in Haicang District in Xiamen and ends at Houzhai, Longhai in Zhangzhou
Hard(hat) work: Electricians work on the Jiaxing-Shaoxing Sea Bridge earlier today in Shaoxing, China as it is finally completed
Held together: The 6.2miles (10 kilometres) long bridge is held up by two cable-supported towers, both of which are 745ft (227 metres) tall

They can appear similar to a suspension bridge, but its construction differs.

Before the construction of the Jiaxing-Shaoxing bridge, China already had three bridges in the top ten of largest cable-stayed bridges.

The top position was held by The Russky Bridge, in Vladivostok, Russia, with China's Sutong Bridge in Suzhou, Nantong in second place.

How Death Valley's 'sailing stones' move across the desert all by themselves?


In the dusky, cracked surface of a dried up lake bed in Death Valley, California, the stones move across the desert all by themselves.

On the barren Racetrack Player, the rocks, some as big as 700 pounds, leave trails in the sand, marking their inexplicable movements. Some of the tracks are nearly 600 feet long.

The 'magic' force behind these 'sailing stones' has been a mystery to scientists for nearly a century.


Now, a NASA geologist believes he has finally found the answer.
Mystery: The sailing stones of the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley have stumped scientists for nearly 100 years
Leaving their mark: No one has actually been able to record the stones physically moving, but the trails they leave in the mudflats offers proof of the path that have taken
Mythic: The strange and wonderful movement of the stones in the barren expanse of Death Valley has led some to say that the rocks are magic or are manipulated by aliens

Professor Ralph Lorenz, a planetary scientist, believes the rocks become encased in ice during the winter, then as the lake bed thaws and becomes muddy, the ice allows the rock to 'float' on the mud - making them easily blown around by strong desert winds.

In an interview with Smithsonian magazine, he summarized his 2009 breakthrough this way: 'Basically, a slab of ice forms around a rock, and the liquid level changes so that the rock gets floated out of the mud.

'It’s a small floating ice sheet which happens to have a keel facing down that can dig a trail in the soft mud.'

To date, no scientist has been able to record the rock physically moving. It is believed that no one has ever seen them in motion.

Smithsonian reports that Lorenz devised his theory after a simple experiment on his kitchen counter.

He froze a small rock in just enough water that a small amount of the stone was sticking out of the ice.

The dried lake bed of the Racetrack Playa greats the perfect conditions to allow the stones to 'sail'
Theft: The Parks Service has begun investigating several incidents where stones were stolen from Death Valley because people believe they hold magical powers
Dr Ralph Lorenz's theory indicates the rocks could move with only a slight breeze, under the right conditions, because the ice causes them to float - dramatically reducing their friction

He then flipped the stone upside down and placed it in a small pool of water with sand on the bottom.

The ice allowed the stone to float just enough that it still touched the sand.

Dr Lorenz found he could move the rock around simple by blowing it gently.

Previously, scientists have theorized that massive sheets of ice locked several rocks together and blew them through the desert.

However, new mathematical models calculated that winds would have to be hundreds of miles an hour to push the rocks in this way.

This stone appears to have changed direction midway through its course of sailing across the desert
Like most geological phenomena, the mystery of the 'sailing stones' comes down to wind and water

Dr Lorenz's theory indicates the rocks could move with only a slight breeze, under the right conditions, because the ice causes them to float - dramatically reducing their friction.

Despite this new explanation for the movements of the 'sailing stones,' park rangers say many visitors continue to attribute mythical properties to the rocks on the Racetrack Playa.

Visitors have claimed magnetism, aliens and mysterious energy fields move the rocks. Some of the most superstitious believe that stones have magical properties.

Last month, the Los Angeles Times reported that park rangers have begun investigating the disappearance of several of the stones.

'We've had more instances of folks taking the rocks,' Death Valley spokesman Terry Baldino told the Times. 'They don't seem to understand that outside of the Racetrack, these marvelous rocks have no value.'

Photograph of the Largest Landslide Ever Recorded in the United States





A couple of months ago, a massive landslide at Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine cut production at the second largest copper producer in the US in half. What began as a movements measured at only fractions of an inch, turned into a 165-million ton wall of loose dirt tumbling down the northeast section of the mine around 9:30pm local time on April 10th.



The picture above was taken after the slide by Desert News photographer Ravell Call, and captures the sheer size of a slide of this magnitude (some experts believe that it’s the largest ever recorded in the US). To put what you’re seeing in perspective, if the debris from the slide were spread out over NYC’s Central Park, the park would be buried approximately 65 feet deep.






Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest man-made excavation on Earth, and as such, even the high-res photo has a hard time doing the slide justice. Fortunately, Kennecott was prepared for the slide. The company is always using four redundant systems to keep track of any and all movement in the mine.

When their special, 96,250-photo-per-minute radar began detecting significant movement, the company immediately set about moving buildings, personnel and equipment to make sure that the slide would cause as little damage as possible.





Even with all of the detection devices at work, however, the company couldn’t have predicted how deep the slide would travel down the mine pit, and a good deal of equipment wound up buried in the bottom right of the photo.

Beautiful HDR Photographs of an Airplane Cockpit by a Pilot Photographer





Karim Nafatni has a view of the world that most other photography enthusiasts don’t have. When he’s not scouring the Dubai landscape for sweeping architectural photographs, Nafatni is often tens of thousands of feet in the air, working in the cockpit of large jetliners as a pilot for a major airline.






After being interested about photography while growing up, he purchased his first DSLR a few years ago and began being passionate about the art form.


He soon began bringing his Nikon D300s to work and onto planes (often the Airbus A320, the popular commercial passenger jet airliner that seats up to 220 passengers). Setting up his camera in the back of the cockpit, Nafatni points the camera forward, shoots a number of bracketed exposures, and then combines the photos into beautiful HDR views of what his “office” looks like while he’s working.

Here’s a photograph of a 1st officer enjoying the sunrise at 37,000 feet above sea level en route to Chittagong Bangladesh:







Dubai can be clearly seen in this following photo, captured while on a flight to towards Nairobi, Kenya:





This next photograph, titled “Sunrise in the Office,” was the last photograph Nafatni captured while serving as a 1st officer. He was then promoted to the left chair (the “hot seat,” as he calls it) to work as the captain on flights:





Finally, here’s a selfie showing Nafatni sitting in the hot seat:





Stunning Street Art by Seth Globe painter





Stunning streetart by @seth_globepainter


Toyota Unveils Futuristic Car for Kids, Calls it the Camatte





Young auto enthusiasts rejoice! The Toyota Camatte is an electric concept car unveiled at the June 2012 Tokyo Toy Show that's designed specifically for kids. The name 'Camatte' comes from the Japanese word 'kamau', meaning 'care'. Its outer panels are removable, allowing the user to customised the body work. Two sets of panels have been shown - the Camatte Sora has an aqua and white, rounded design with cycle guards over the front wheels and the Camatte Daichi has a sandy brown, angular design with integrated front wheel guards.






Toyota has also swapped out the Camatte's pedals in favor of an electrical drive system, making the 2013 Camatte a little less Flintstones and a little more Power Wheels. The DIY factor of this year's model has also been ratcheted up. Instead of a mere handful of removable panels, the Camatte features 57 unique, interchangeable pieces. Each needs to be screwed in individually, but Toyota's designers like it that way.














Belgium launches Europe’s first solar train

A two-mile-long Belgian rail tunnel, built to shelter trains from falling trees, will from Monday provide a double environmental benefit by hosting a unique solar power project.


The high-speed line running from Paris to Amsterdam passes Antwerp and a nearby ancient forest. To avoid the need to fell protected trees, a long tunnel was built over the line which has now been topped with 16,000 solar panels. The electricity produced is equivalent to that needed to power all the trains in Belgium for one day per year, and will also help power Antwerp station.


"For train operators, it is the perfect way to cut their carbon footprints because you can use spaces that have no other economic value and the projects can be delivered within a year because they don't attract the protests that wind power does," said Bart Van Renterghem, UK head of Belgian renewable energy company Enfinity, which installed the panels.


"We had a couple of projects lined up around London with train operators and water utilities, but they have been put on hold."


Van Renterghem said this was due to the UK government's controversial review of subsidies for large-scale solar power projects, which will lower the returns available.