Hurricane Irene looks scary even from outer space, astronauts say

Hurricane Irene is shredding down the US East Coast, growing to be larger and more dangerous than meterologists have predicted. Even from outer space, it looks absolutely frightening.

NASA astronaut Mike Fossum said that Hurricane Irene has had the unmistakable evolution of a major hurricane, and this can be observed from orbit.

“We saw a big change in the structure of the storm over the several days that we’ve watched her, especially yesterday,” Fossum said during a video interview.

Fossum, a native of Texas, has seen quite his share of hurricanes, and says that the storm has become much larger and more organized during the past week – visible to the naked eye.

“There’s kind of a dome shape to the whole thing, with the eye fully formed,” Fossum said. “Yesterday you could see the eye wall and down into the eye itself. You know that is a powerful storm, and those are never good news when they’re headed your way. So our prayers and thoughts are with the people in its path.”

Fossum is currently one of the six astronauts living onboard the International Space Station, where he has completed half of his six months stay.

Top 10 Amazing Grass Sculptures in the World

Here are some amazing sculptures made only of grass! Quite intricately sculpted, must see sculptures! Includes sculptures from elephants to giraffes to even unicorns! We’ve all seen sculptures, but garden art in the form of growing sculptures are spectacular. Mounds of mud mixed with grass or other plants sometimes make for weird yet wonderful works of art. Most of these living green sculptures are simply marvelous.

At the garden show, it was written that “The Dreaming Girl bears witness to the soporific effects of color, scent, texture, birdsong, water, and reflective light.” After the show, this sculpture was purchased by Olivia Harrison, widow of George Harrison, and now has a permanent home in a large Victorian garden at Harrison House in Henley-on-Thames, UK.

The sculpture, In the Garden of Dreams, was made by brother and sister team Sue and Pete Hill.This sculpture was created as a sister to the Mud Maid which can be found at the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall.

Cool and creative Formula 1 car grass figures

Giant’s Head on Woodland Walk: In the grounds of a country house in Cornwall near the fishing village of Mevagissy the Victorian gardens have been restored to their former glory.

Mud Maid on Woodland Walk

Grass-”enlivened” theater in Zurich, Switzerland

The carpet of grass grown from seed was floated in the lake at Akerby Sculpture Park, Sweden. There had been torrential rain for weeks, spring melting of snow, and the fields around the lake were flooded.

National Theater’s Lyttelton flytower (“flytower” is a part of a theatre above the stage), which is the artists’ largest exterior work to date, is the embodiment of Malevich idea in architecture, only it’s green and alive (though for a limited time). Sponsored by Bloomberg and produced by Artsadmin, this $100,000 “living’ installation has transformed the well-known London landmark into a vertical green marvel, on which only clouds and passing airplanes seem to “graze”.

This is an amazing elephant grass sculpture.

Giraffe grass sculpture found in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia during summer time. There’re grass figures of different animals all around the city in summer: these giraffes, hen, elephants, turtles and so on.

Men grass sculpture at Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen by Wim Quist architects.

The 10 most amazing unexplained artifacts

Every once in a while archaeologists (and sometimes regular Joes) make some remarkable discoveries. Stunned, they are often unable to explain what it is they’ve found, how it came into existence, or ascertain its value. This is a comprehensive list of such artifacts; artifacts that many believe should have never existed given the discerned age/period of their creation.

The London hammer – a tool older than history

In June 1936 (or 1934 according to some accounts), Max Hahn and his wife Emma were on a walk when they noticed a rock with wood protruding from its core. They decided to take the oddity home and later cracked it open with a hammer and a chisel. Ironically, what they found within seemed to be an archaic hammer of sorts. A team of archaeologists checked it, and as it turns out, the rock encasing the hammer was dated back more than 400 million year; the hammer itself turned out to be more than 500 million years old. Additionally, a section of the handle has begun the transformation to coal. Creationists, of course, were all over this. The hammer’s head, made of more than 96% iron, is far more pure than anything nature could have achieved without an assist from modern technology.

Wood turning to coal

Pictures from here, copyright David Lines

The Antikythera mechanism – a Greek ancient computer

The Antikythera mechanism has been labeled the first known mechanical computer. Found in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, it was designed to calculate astronomical positions. Consisting of a box with dials on the outside and a very complex assembly of gear wheels mounted within, it’s about as complex as an 18th century top-notch clock. The level of sophistication utilized by the device has forced scientists to accept that their perceptions of ancient Greek engineering may be faulty. Nothing similar to this exists or is mentioned in any known writings from the period of its creation. Based on the knowledge we do have, this mechanism shouldn’t even exist. According to Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University, who led the team studying the mechanism:

“This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully.” He added: “…in terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.”

The Dropa Stones

In 1938, an expedition led by archaeologist Dr. Chi Pu Tei into the Baian-Kara-Ula in China made an astonishing discovery. Nearby caves held traces of the ancient culture which once occupied them. Buried by the dusts of time, hundreds of stone disks lay scattered about the cave’s interior. Nothing too spectacular you may think, but the disks turned out to be eerily similar to phonograph records — nine inches in diameter, a circle cut into their centers and an obvious spiral groove. They are believed to be more than 10,000 years old. But the spiral, as it turns out, is composed of tiny hieroglyphics. When studied and translated, it was revealed that the discs tell the amazing story of spaceships that crashed into the mountains, piloted by people who called themselves the Dropa.

The Saqqara bird – an Egyptian plane

Discovered during the 1898 excavation of the Pa-di-Imen tomb in Saqqara, Egypt, the Saqqara bird is (as you could have guessed) a bird shaped artifact made from the wood of a sycamore tree. Weighing in at just under 40 grams and with a wingspan of more than 7 inches, it’s been dated back to approximately 200 BC. Lack of documentation and other data has led to some speculation. In fact, the ancient egyptians were well aware of the principles of aviation. Was it simply the toy of an affluent Egyptian child? Did it serve some kind of ceremonial purpose? Regardless, the object has few realistic bird traits. With its vertical tail, resembling that of an airplane or glider, it resembles no known bird. Scientists came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be effective as an aircraft due to lack of technology, but it could have in fact been a glider.

The Baghdad battery – a 2000 year old battery

This device consists of a 5-1/2-inch high clay vessel, inside of which was a copper cylinder held in place by asphalt. Within the cylinder, archaeologists found an oxidized iron rod. In 1940, Wilhelm König (the German director of the National Museum of Iraq) suggested that these could be galvanic cells, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects. Nobody has been able to prove him wrong, especially since it only needed to be filled with an acid or alkaline substance to produce an electric charge.

Unexplainable fossils and metal objects

Geology is a relatively “new” science. The progress and developments made through experimentation are absolutely remarkable and have helped in many other fields. Still, there are some things yet to be explained. Though the honeycomb pattern of paleodictyon is already well known, we remain stumped as to the creation of such and more questions are being raised.

paleodictyon

drawing of metallic tube

For example, a fossil of a human handprint was found in limestone estimated to be more than 110 million years, a fossilized human finger with just as much, and the aparent discovery of a human footprint that possibly sported a sandal which dates to more than 300 million years ago. These amazing fossilized imprints/remains have left the scientific community scratching their collective heads. Not to mention the 65 million year old semi-ovoid metallic tubes being dug out of France, the unusual block of coal discovered 124 years ago which contained a metal cube that couldn’t have formed naturally within the lump, and many more such things

The Piri Reis map

In 1929, a group of historians made what can only be described as an amazing discovery, written on the skin of a gazelle. After study and research, they found that it is a genuine map drawn in 1513 by Piri Reis, a well documented admiral of the Turkish navy. He depicts Europe and North Africa, the coast of Brazil, several islands (Azores, Canary Islands, and the mythical island of Antilia), and even Antarctica, which was thought to be discovered more than 300 years later. The most puzzling thing is not that it shows we need to rethink the chronology for a number of exploratory discoveries, but that it describes Antarctica’s topography as not being masked by ice and in great detail. The last time that occured was more than 6000 years ago. Tell me then.  How did a Turkish admiral from half a millenium ago map a continent that’s been covered by ice for the last 6000 years?

The Nazca drawings

The Nazca drawings (or lines) definitely have something otherworldly about them.

Meditation stronger than morphine and drugs

Meditation can have pain reliefing effects much greater than even morphine, one of the strongest drugs, according to a recent study.

We are only beginning to understand the deep effects that meditation has on our bodies, and researchers are baffled, to say the least. It calms and relieves pain with unbelievable efficiency, reducing the pain by more than half, and also providing long term results.
“This is the first study to show that only a little over an hour of meditation training can dramatically reduce both the experience of pain and pain-related brain activation,” said Dr Fadel Zeidan, lead author at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina.
For this study, 15 volunteers who have never meditated before attended four 20 minute classes where they were thought how to meditate using a technique called focused attention. Mind you, ordinary people with only 80 minutes of training. Both before and after this training, their brain was monitored using a special type of imaging called arterial spin labelling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI).
For the purpose of this study, a pain inducing stimulae was applied on the volunteers, and the results showed that the amount of pain was reduced by approximately half after the meditation. The research also showed that meditation increased brain activity in areas including the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula and the orbito-frontal cortex.
“We found a big effect – about a 40 per cent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 per cent reduction in pain unpleasantness,” said Dr Zeiden. “Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 per cent.”
Of course, the advantages of such a technique are numerous: it’s easy to learn, free, offers tremendous pain relief, non invasive, and also has other benefits.

Google invests $168 million in solar tower power plant

A model of the ISEGS, the world's soon to be largest solar tower power plant.

The search engine giant who has dabbled in environmental projects before announced that it will chip in $168 million to the yet under development Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS), the soon to be world’s largest solar tower power plant. The site will be located on 3,600 acres of land in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California, where it will boast 173,000 heliostats that will concentrate the sun’s rays onto a solar tower standing approximately 450 feet (137 m) tall. Construction has already started in October 2010, and is expected to be finished sometime in 2013.

Just to get an idea how important the ISEGS will be, the current largest solar tower power plant is located in Spain and is more than 150 smaller both in surface covered by heliostats (1,300 mirrors) and power outputted (only 20 MW) than the soon to be completed ISEGS. When completed the ISEGS will single-handedly almost double the amount of commercial solar thermal electricity produced in the U.S. today and nearly equal the amount of total solar installed in the U.S. in 2009 alone.

Solar tower power plants are on track to become the industry standard in terms of solar power, since they’re a lot more efficient than the conventional trough systems, which consist of parabolic mirrors that concentrate sunlight onto a Dewar tube running the length of the mirror through which a heat transfer fluid runs that is then used to heat steam in a standard turbine. On the other hand, solar power towers work differently.

The ISEGS solar tower generates electricity by focusing it’s numerous solar panels towards a perfectly balanced tower, which heats a system, producing high temperature (550 ° C) and pressure, which ultimately drive a turbine and generator. The ISEGS works differently thanks to its dry-cooling technology as well, which reduces water consumption by 90 percent and uses 95 percent less water than competing solar thermal technologies.

The entire complex will consist of three separate plants developed by BrightSource Energy that will be built in phases between 2010 and 2013. The energy generated from all three plants at peak hours is estimated to produce more than 2,600 MW of electricity,  enough to supply more than 140,000 homes in California.

Up until now, Google has already invested $250 million in other environmental and eco-friendly projects, but the company’s ISEGS deal is its largest single investment in the field to date.

Stunning photos of the Perseid meteor shower

I was lucky enough this weekend to be away from the city and at an altitude of about 1800m, deep in the mountain side. The rare, clean atmosphere allowed for an uncanny view of the night sky, at least for an urbanite as myself, filled with the most distinguishable stellar bodies I’ve ever been granted to see. The whole experience was turn to gold as I found myself right in the middle of the annual Perseid meteor shower, which covered the firmament with shooting stars every few minutes or so. Actually, the International Meteor Organization recorded an average of 30 shooting stars an hour Friday morning, rising to 45 to 60 by Friday night and Saturday morning. And on top of everything, one had a bright full moon performing on the skyline stage as well.

Now, like I said, I had an incredible view which I’d love to re-edit as many times as possible, but can you imagine how the show must have been like from above the meteor shower, instead of beneath it. Well, astronaut Ron Garan surprised a shooting star with his camera in all its splendor as it was passing below the International Space Station, and like expected it’s nothing short of breathtaking.

Photo of a comet plummeting towards Earth's atmosphere taken from on-board the International Space Station by NASA astronaut Ron Garan. Click on photo for larger zoom. (c) NASA/Ron Garan

Wow, eh? My reaction exactly!

“What a ‘Shooting Star’ looks like #FromSpace Taken yesterday during Perseids Meteor Shower…” Garan tweeted from his Twitter account on Sunday, who is at the end of his six months tour on-board the ISS. Quite the finale it must have been for the American astronaut.

The Perseid meteor shower hits Earth every August, as a result of a myriad of debris filled with dust particles left over from the Swift-Tuttle comet. The meteors originate from the constellation Perseus, hence the name. The ice and dust particles, most sized like a grain of sand, while others comparable to peas or marbles, enter Earth’s atmosphere at 133,200 mph, plummeting in flames – none reach the ground.

Although, the Perseid meteor shower peaked on August 12, those of you who missed it due to weather or whatever other reasons shouldn’t fret since Perseids will be active till August 24, where you can glimpse at least 5-10 meteors per hour.

It’s time to dust off that telescope from the attic. What was your experience with the Perseids? Did any of you manage to take some photos? If so, please share – impressions and photos are welcome in the comment section below or on our facebook page.

Here’s some more stunning photos of the Perseids, this time taken from the ground.

A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky over over El Torcal nature park reserve in Antequera. (c) Reuters

A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky over over El Torcal nature park reserve in Antequera. (c) Reuters

A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky over the village of Kuklici. (c) Reuters

A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky in Tecate in Baja California. (c) Reuters

A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky over Stonehenge in Salisbury Plain, southern England. (c) Reuters

A meteor streaks past stars in the night sky over El Torcal nature park reserve in the southern Spanish town of Antequera, near Malaga. (c) Reuters