Environmental Graffiti

Image via Festo

One of our lovely readers brought this amazing video to our attention and we think it’s so fantastic we just had to share it with you – a little something for the weekend:

Inspired by one of the most misunderstood animals of the marine world – the graceful jellyfish, leading electronics company, Festo have designed and created a pneumatic version of the gelatinous creature that moves remarkably like the real thing. There have been a number of other versions floating about over the past few years but none that have caught our attention quite as much as this mechanical offering.

Festo explain how the technological wonder, called Aquajelly, works:

“AquaJelly is an artificial autonomous jellyfish with an electric drive and an intelligent, adaptive mechanical system. AquaJelly consists of a translucent hemisphere and eight tentacles used for propulsion. At the centre of the AquaJelly is a watertight, laser-sintered pressure vessel. This comprises a central, electric drive, two lithium-ion-polymer batteries, the charge control device and the servo motors for the swashplate.”

The ultimate idea is to have a number of the robots autonomously working together via a short-range radio and LED system so that the group of Aquajellys imitate real life. Fascinating stuff.

Check out Festo’s website for more wicked wonders of the robotic world.

Source 1, 2

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Image: nebarnix

Remember how whiny you were when your parents made you get a job or mow the lawn or whatever it was you had to do to “become a man/woman?” Feel like a sissy looking back on how “hard” you had it then? If not, you will.

The Setere-Mawe people of Brazil have found something far worse (albeit less humiliating) than your first job at McDonald’s.

Meet the bullet ant. So named because those unfortunate enough to have been stung by one compare it to a gunshot wound – very unfortunate people; apparently, they have also all been shot. It reportedly has the most painful sting of any insect on Earth.

Image: Ty Christensen

‘Becoming a man’ in the Setere-Mawe society means intentionally letting yourself get stung by these ants. Not just by one but by hundreds of them at once. And not just on one occasion. There, you are not a man until you have done this ritual twenty times.

Twenty times wearing a pair of gloves each laced with hundreds of live bullet ants, stingers pointing inward, for ten minutes at each go. At first it seems like a horrible practice almost on the level of honor killings, but the boys themselves really seem to have a positive outlook on it. And in America, kids cry when daddy gets them the wrong color car for their sixteenth birthday.

Sources 1 2, 3

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Image via Metro

How many times have you wished for a freak storm to come so you could get the day off school? Well, some kid in Devon, England has been wishing hard! Not only did they manage to get the day off school but landed the rest of the town a day off, too. Only they probably weren’t so pleased about it.

Torrential storms saw an estimated 270 million cubic feet of hailstones fall in a five-mile square area within six hours yesterday in Ottery St Mary. That’s enough to fill the Millennium Dome twice over, and no doubt at least one football stadium.

Hail drifts up to 6ft-high buried cars and ensuing floodwaters overwhelmed flood defences. Freezing conditions made the situation worse.

Image: Auntie P

Some residents said a “river of ice” flowed through the main street, and by next morning the streets were described as looking like a “lunar landscape”, buried under a dirty-white blanket of hail and snow.

Resident Sarah Galliford said: “I was woken up by the sound of hail thundering down on the roof.

“I thought it was the end of the world.

“I looked outside at about 1am and there was a river of ice coming down the street – it was like Alaska.”

More than 100 people had to be evacuated from their homes and one poor woman went into labour after a car crash on one of the main roads out of the area. Mother and baby boy are doing fine. And one day he’ll be wishing for a day off school, too.

Check out BBC website to see Devon hailstorm video.

Source 1, 2, 3

Image: New Developments in Earth Science

Limnic eruptions are well outside of public consciousness. Not surprising, considering their extreme rarity. In all of recorded human history we only know of two for certain. Both occurred in Africa in the 1980s; one at Lake Monoun in 1984 and then a particularly deadly one at Lake Nyos, Cameroon in 1986. The latter killed as many as 1,800 people and the lakes have yet to fully recover.

Not only are limnic eruptions among the rarest natural disasters, they are also some of the most bizarre-and terrifying. Basically, a limnic eruption is when a large body of water suddenly releases large amounts of carbon dioxide which, being heavier than air, displaces it at ground level, suffocating oxygen breathers.

Image via Dibussi
Lake Nyos before and after the eruption. Iron, forced to the surface of Lake Nyos after the eruption, oxidised, turning the lake a brown rust colour.

Another probable reason North Americans and Europeans know little about this phenomenon is that they can only occur in areas that are both tropical and prone to volcanic activity. The body of water must also be quite deep. So we can all breath easy, right? We may, if new reports turn out to be wrong.

Image: Geo Arizona

These new reports suggest that much larger bodies of water, the world’s oceans, may also be at risk.  No other bodies of water are deeper or more volcanic, and the amount of carbon dioxide they can hold is mind boggling. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have reached almost eight times the current level on more than one occasion in Earth’s history, leading some scientists to speculate that limnic eruptions have occurred in our oceans before, and may happen again. Of course, these were tens of millions of years apart. Whether there is any immediate danger or not, the idea reaffirms two things most of us have known for years. One is that our carbon emissions could one day screw us over (now we just know another way for it to kill us all). Second, science really has a fetish for scaring us.

Sources 1, 2, 3

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All images: Tissue Culture and Art Project

In a lab far, far away grows a tiny coat, made of living tissue and shaped into what looks like small winter-wear for a mouse. The oddity of it is, this coat is alive, or was, (it has since died) a living organism created in a lab for the sake of art. Known as Victimless Leather, this project was grown onto a polymer matrix, coated with immortalized living cells, and shaped into a stitch-less form to create a coat like shape.

The implications of such a project are limitless, but the purpose of the scientific team is to stimulate conversation, debate and discussion on the possibility of wearing ‘leather’ without killing living animals.

The School of Anatomy and Human Biology at the University of Western Australia and a team of scientists, Oran Catts, Ionat Zurr and Guy Ben-Ary, developed the project as an “art form to illuminate our human conduct with other living systems.

“… by de-constructing our cultural meaning of clothes as a second skin through art, we raise questions about our exploitation of other living beings.”

How society views this project and the effects of creating ‘beings’ for art, or otherwise, remains to be seen. Some may call it art, some say it’s horrendous yet some will call it science. In any context, it is still thought-provoking.

Other Tissue Projects:
• The Disembodied Cuisine: attempting to grow sheep or frog skeletal muscle over bio-polymer for food
• The Flying Pig: attempting to grow wings on a pig
• The Extra Ear 1/4 Scale: attempting to show recognizable living body parts as an art form
• The Living Doll: attempting to make partially living worry dolls

Sources 1, 2, 3, 4

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Image: zerega

Dominating the Kazakhstan skyline, like a giant death-ray gun from a sci-fi movie is a decrepit, rusting radioastronomy tower. The photograph was taken at Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory (TSAO) near the Great Almaty Lake, which sits at 2800m altitude.

It’s obviously a good place for stargazing as there are three observatories in total in the Almaty region. As well as the TSAO (which thankfully isn’t all rusty) there’s also an Institute of Astrophysics on Kamenskoye plateau and the Assy-Turgen Observatory, which is located about 150 km to the north-east of the area. Budding astronomists can visit the observatories to study the life beyond the stars, while hikers looking for an adrenaline rush can tackle the nearby snowy peaks of the Tien Shan Mountains. And visitors in the winter months will be treated to great views of the constellations of Orion, Taurus, Gemini and planets of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.

Source 1, 2

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Image: thesaint

Imagine getting a text message from an elephant. What would it say? Perhaps, “Stop calling me Dumbo, and, no, I can’t fly.”? Well, it appears that we might find out pretty soon.

In the last two years alone, the Kenyan Wildlife Service has killed five African elephants from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy because they were trampling through human settlements and cropland. It’s a problem that will only get worse as humans encroach on elephant’s territory.

To avoid the same fate happening to other elephants, like Kimani, pictured above, Save the Elephants has created an alternative solution, and Kimani is the guinea pig. This great drifter has a long history of destroying crops and irritating farmers, so to warn villagers Save the Elephants have inserted a mobile phone SIM card into the collar around Kimani’s neck, set up a virtual fence using GPS technology will track the elephant via Google Earth.

Now, when Kimani gets too close to the villages and farms he’s been reampaging, a text message is sent to the conservancy warning of impending danger. Armed staff members then set off to Kimani’s location and scare him away with bright lights and other methods – shooting is a last resort. Kimani’s crop raids used to be a nightly event but now he only appears every 3-4 months.

Image: Ol Pejeta Conservancy via teachandlearn

Although the project has the potential to reduce conflicts between elephants and humans, as well as the loss of life, it is not without its problems. The project is in its infancy and, so far, only two virtual fences have been created within Kenya. Also, humans can only keep elephants at bay for so long.

What this project shows us is that through innovative thinking and technology animals can live a life free from captivity and humans can be safe from the elephants.

Still, what would an elephant say in a text message, given the chance?

Source: 1, 2
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The school year has started, leaves are falling, and the air is getting cooler. That means it’s almost time for Halloween and a popular Halloween activity is pumpkin carving. Here are 8 awesome Stars Wars carvings by people extremely talented with a knife.

The Good Guys

1. No collection would be complete without the Star Wars logo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker. Luke and Leia don’t look very happy so either they don’t like Halloween or their likenesses were captured after being trapped in the trash compactor.

yogi

2. Everyone’s favorite beeping robot, R2D2. Since he’s already pumpkin-shaped maybe he wasn’t so hard to carve. Unfortunately, his companion, C3PO, could not be found in the pumpkin patch.

Derringdos

3. Our hairy friend Chewbacca is rarely seen without Han Solo, no one seems to have created one, that or Harrison Ford doesn’t like to see his face displayed on veggies.

sushi the great

4. Carve me into a pumpkin you will… A Jedi carver you will be.

dmhergert

The Bad Guys

1. The insignia of the Galactic Empire. The empire is a totalitarian regime ruled by Palpatine, a merciless leader. Luke, Leia, Han Solo and others have joined the Rebel Alliance in an attempt to overthrow the evil dicatorship. Of course, they might not get too far in pumpkin land.

revjim5000

2. Here we have the helmet of a Stormtrooper from the Imperial Army army. The Stormtroopers and Boba Fett are clones of Jango Fett, bounty hunter and personal guard of politicians in the empire.

Travis Jon Allison

3. The ultimate Star Wars baddie himself, Darth Vader. If you only knew the power of Halloween pumpkin carving.

revjim5000

Good, Bad or Neutral?

Darth Vader’s favorite bounty hunter, Boba Fett is often classed as one of the favorite characters from Star Wars, and ‘the main man’ of the Stormtroopers.

dayna1

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Image: Built Report

Resembling contestants from the cattle equivalent of Mr Universe, these absurdly built bovines certainly don’t cut a pretty picture. Affected by a genetic mutation, known medically as Muscular Hypertrophy, or double muscling, the freakishly-shaped cows are the result of cross breeding. About a century ago, a group of Belgian farmers thought it was a great idea to produce a breed of supercows, as you do. The eventual outcome of this breeding plan was the Belgian Blue breed, possibly the most intimidating looking herd in history.

Image: Built Report

Unbeknownst to the cattle ranchers, they had created an entire breed that selectively weeded out the very useful myostatin producing gene (MSTN). The role of myostatin in mammals is to tell the body to stop building muscle mass, so if there are no genes producing myostatin the muscles don’t get a message to stop growing, and the result is a cow that puts even the most ripped body builder to shame.

And it’s not just cows that need myostatin to curtail muscle growth, many mammals do. The non-functioning copy of the MSTN gene is unusually prevalent in a breed of dogs called Whippets. When two whippets with the mutant MSTN gene have puppies, there is a one-in-four chance those puppies will look like this:

Image via DogForum

Myostatin deficiency, though rare, can also affect humans. It’s estimated that between 1% and 4% of the human population are carriers of the gene, though the odds of any two reproducing, as well as each passing their broken copy of MSTN to their offspring, are considerably low. It does occasionally happen, though.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Not surprisingly, once the role of myostatin was understood, people immediately wanted to use it, or rather the lack of it, to artificially grow muscles. Doctors and scientists thought: if too little myostatin causes Muscular Hypertrophy, then there is a chance that too much myostatin may cause Muscular Dystrophy (MD). Various studies and clinical trials are being conducted in blocking myostatin in MD afflicted individuals. On the other side of the coin, guys with a desire to embody cartoonishly exaggerated male sex characteristics have been buying myostatin blockers ever since in the hope of looking as beefed up as a Belgian Blue.

Sources: 1,2, 3

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The insect world never ceases to amaze. These colorful bugs boast familiar patterns like faces or tribal masks on their shields. While potential predators waste prescious time wondering whether it’s food, enemy or prey, the masked creatures plot their protection tactics or escape.

We take a look at seven of these insects that prove: Bug is beautiful!

1. These mini warriors have pretty smart warfare defences. Shield bugs, or stink bugs, have glands in their thorax (the part between the head and the abdomen) between their first and second pair of legs that produce a foul-smelling liquid, which is used for defense and released when the bug feels threatened.

SideView

2. This is a picture example of how the shield pattern resembles a face. Like a huge sign saying “don’t even think about it” to predators – including humans – this stink bug looks slightly grumpy, and for good reason. Just recently, scientists have discovered the nutritional value of edible stink bugs. They’re a good source of protein, fat, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Stink bug stew, anyone?

Casperonian

3. In the photograph, this stink bug looks huge but it is only about 1 cm long in real life, making the markings on the mask all the more intricate.

Barca Branca

4. This too-sexy-to-be-eaten bug with his/her sunglasses is actually a crop pest. Known as cotton stainers, these bugs feed on cotton and get crushed with it during harvesting. Their red bodies leave stains, which are hard to remove.

Wesley Sng

5. These firebugs seem to huddle together to discuss their strategy. They are common in Europe and are also part of the cotton stainer family. Their scientific name is pyrrhocoris apterus.

Landersz

6. This stink bug is also found in Europe. Doesn’t its shield look like it is made of leather?

Tomasz Gorny

7. This stink bug from Singapore looks like it’s carrying a gorilla-mask on its back. Amazing, isn’t it?

InSectHunter

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