Friday, August 31, 2012

Triumph Of The Will At The Paralympics

They are the images which sum up the spirit of the athletes who have been dubbed The Superhumans.
Each has found their own remarkable way to overcome their disability and perform to the highest level in their chosen sporting discipline.
MASTER ARCHER

Remarkable: American Archer Matt Stutzman competes in the London Paralympics by holding the bow between his toes and using a harness on his shoulder to pull back the arrow

QUEEN OF THE POOL

True grit: China's Lu Dong, who has no arms, grips a towel between her teeth so she can launch herself into the pool at the Aquatics Centre

Going swimmingly: The 20-year-old powered to gold in the 100m backstroke in a world-record breaking time

Butterflies Bursting Out Of Book

Artist David Kracov was commissioned to create an award to be given in honor of, and named for, the late director of Chabad's Children of Chernobyl.


Called the "Book Of Life," it was inspired by the extraordinary life of Rabbi Yossi Raichik, a man who saved thousands of children's lives from the devastating effects of the Chernobyl disaster. The metal sculpture has pages filled with words from those he touched, and also features a flurry of butterflies, each representing the 2,547 children he helped save and give new lives. Below are the making of photos along with some snapshots of the finished sculpture. What a beautiful and meaningful piece!



How To Make an Electricity-Free Refrigerator

How To Make an Electricity-Free Refrigerator 

How To Make an Electricity-Free Refrigerator

Conventional refrigeration does an incredible job keeping food fresh. But that technology hasn't helped desert dwellers without steady electricity. A more recent development in refrigeration—the Zeer pot-in-pot refrigerator—only requires water, sand, and a hot, dry climate to preserve produce through evaporative cooling. Here's how to make the simple gadget.

Materials and Tools Required

  • two terra cotta pots with a 2-3 inch difference in diameter. The smaller pot should be glazed and preferably lacking a drainage hole. If the inner container is double glazed (on its inner and outer walls), non-potable water—say seawater—can be employed.
  • a bag of sterile sand
  • a square of burlap cloth large enough to cover the top of the inner pot
  • a trowel

Building It

  • 1. If your pots have drainage holes, plug them with a bit of cork, caulk, or other waterproof material. If you don't, moisture from the sand will seep into the lower pot and immerse the stored goods or seep out the bottom of the larger one.
  • 2. Put down a one-inch deep, level layer of sand in the bottom of the large pot. Set the smaller pot on top of that layer and center it in the larger one. Make sure that the smaller pot's lip is even with the larger one's.
  • 3. Fill sand in around the sides of the of the two pots, leaving about an inch of space below the lip.
  • 4. Pour cold water over the sand until it is thoroughly saturated. Put your food into the smaller pot. Cover that with a burlap cloth, also soaked with water. That's it! Just be sure to refill the water regularly, about once or twice a day.

How It Works

The Zeer was developed in 1995 by Mohammed Bah Abba, a Nigerian school teacher that hailed from a family of pot makers. The design is incredibly simple: a glazed earthen ware pot nestled inside a larger, porous one with a layer of wet sand separating them. As the water evaporates through the surface of the outer pot, it draws heat from the inner one, keeping up to 12kg food fresh for as long as three to four weeks without using a single watt of electricity.
For his efforts, Bah Abba was awarded the $75,000 Rolex Award for Enterprise in 2000 and the World Shell Award for Sustainable Development in 2001 to help spur its development. Presently, Bah Abba sells about 30,000 Zeer per year for 200 Nigerian naira ($1.30) a piece.

Why It Matters

For unprotected food in the North African heat, there is no such thing as a shelf life. Fresh fruit and vegetables last maybe a day or two, and meat spoils within hours. This means that most food must be either sold or consumed immediately. Taking produce to market, in Sudan at least, is a task that typically falls on the women. This tight freshness deadline leaves little free time for their education. But if they had to go to market only weekly, rather than daily, they might actually have time for school—that's the promise of the Zeer.
The Zeer benefits not just individuals but the greater Sudanese society as well. Farmers are granted greater negotiating power when they don't have to sell their wares right there and then. Parents see fewer cases of food-borne illness. And when disease does occur, water and temperature-sensitive medicines can also be preserved in the cool pots.
For the rest of the world, the Zeer represents a zero-electricity option for refrigeration. In extended power outages like the ones we've seen this summer, long after the local store sells its last bag of ice, the Zeer could be your best chance to keep critical perishable goods from spoiling in the heat.

RARE EINSTEIN PHOTOS

Rare Einstein photos of everday life — brilliant







One World Trade Center Claims its Title as the Tallest Building in New York City

One World Trade Center Claims its Title as the Tallest Building in New York City

New York, 30th of April 2012:
As of this afternoon, One World Trade Center -the lead building of the new World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan, New York City- will reclaim its title as the tallest building on the island. Steel installation for One WTC has reached the 100th floor at a height merely over 381 meters (1,250 feet), just enough to peek over the roof of the observation deck on the Empire State Building.

Once completed, the glass-paneled mammoth formerly called the Freedom Tower will stand 541 meters (1,776 feet) tall from ground level to spire, boasting 104 floors. It will be 99 meters (325 feet) taller than the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower) in Chicago, claiming its new title as the tallest in the U.S
.
One WTC, designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, is scheduled for completion in 2013 with a whopping price tag of $3.8 billion. The new complex consists of 5 high-rise towers, a museum scheduled for completion in 2012, the 911 memorial open since September of last year on the 10th anniversary of the attacks, and a transportation hub similar in size to Grand Central Terminal.

Here's a photo gallery gathered by Buzzfeed from WTC's Twitter account showing off the rising giant.

Manhattan is back!

Fantastic Unusual Fireworks

Unusual long exposure photographs of fireworks look like giant flowers in the night sky

Resembling giant three dimensional flowers with their plumes on display, these photographs were in fact taken at this months International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada.
The bright and colourful images were snapped during Spain's entry into the competition and resulted from photographer David Johnson's efforts to add some spontaneity to his work.
Deviating from the standard exposure style that is common among photographers of firework displays, Johnson's decision caused him to fix his focus at certain points around the fireworks when they first went off, and then to refocus his lens at the point of detonation.
Canadian photographer David Johnson used refocusing techniques on a long exposure to capture his images of the International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada earlier this month
Canadian photographer David Johnson used refocusing techniques on a long exposure to capture his images of the International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada earlier this month
'The technique I used was a simple refocus during the long exposure,' said Johnson, who is from Ottawa.
'Each shot was about a second long, sometimes two. I'd start out of focus, and when I heard the explosion I would quickly refocus, so the little stems on these deep sea creature lookalikes would grow into a fine point. 
The arresting images resemble plant life or small microbes - all made possible by the exposure of up to two seconds on the detonation of the firework
The arresting images resemble plant life or small microbes - all made possible by the exposure of up to two seconds on the detonation of the firework
Some of Johnson's images are surreal and look more like microscopic pollen, flowers or sea life
Some of Johnson's images are surreal and look more like microscopic pollen, flowers or sea life

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Tata Motors Presents AirPod - a Possible Alternative to Fuel Cars


Indian car manufacturer Tata Motors is ready to start mass production of its AirPod vehicles. AirPod was developed several years ago by a French auto engineer Guy Negre. The car is powered by compressed air, it reaches speeds of 30mph-plus (50 km/h) and can travel 65 miles on a one-minuterecharge. And the best part is its price. It will be selling for about $5,000.