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HOUSTON - At the international space station, it was one small sip for man and a giant gulp of recycled urine for mankind. Astronauts aboard the space station celebrated a space first on Wednesday by drinking water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water that condenses from exhaled air. They said "cheers," clicked drinking bags and toasted NASA workers on the ground who were sipping their own version of recycled drinking water. "The taste is great," American astronaut Michael Barratt said. Then as Russian Gennady Padalka tried to catch little bubbles of the clear water floating in front of him, Barratt called the taste "worth chasing." He said the water came with labels that said: "drink this when real water is over 200 miles away." The urine recycling system is needed for astronaut outposts on the moon and Mars. It also will save NASA money because it won't have to ship up as much water to the station by space shuttle or cargo rockets. It's also crucial as the space station is about to expand from three people living on board to six. The recycling system had been brought up to the space station last November by space shuttle Endeavour, but it couldn't be used until samples were tested back on Earth and a stuck valve was fixed on Monday. So when it came time to actually drink up, NASA made a big deal of it. The three-man crew stood holding their drinks and congratulated engineers in two NASA centers that worked on the system. "This is something that had been the stuff of science fiction," Barratt said before taking a sip. NASA deputy space shuttle manager LeRoy Cain called it "a huge milestone." On the Russian side of the space station, moisture in the air — not urine — is turned into drinking water. The new system takes the combined urine of the crew from the toilet, moves it to a big tank, where the water is boiled off, and the vapor collected. The rest of contaminants — the yucky brine in the urine — is thrown away, said Marybeth Edeen, the space station's national lab manager who was in charge of the system. The water vapor is mixed with water from air condensation, then it goes through filters, much like those put on home taps, Edeen said. When six crew members are aboard it can make about six gallons from urine in about six hours, Edeen said. Some people may find the idea of drinking recycled urine distasteful, but it is also done on Earth, but with a lot longer time between urine and tap, Edeen said. In space, it takes about a week, she said. Source
It could be the ultimate in political control — but it won't be patented in Germany. German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied. The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily. Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat. The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas. "The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local. Source, Source
The world's first robot teacher proved a hit with pupils on her first day at a Japanese primary school. One pupil described Saya as "pretty" another said that she was a bit "scary but fun" while another said that he "couldn't believe he was getting taught by a robot". First, she called the name of each child before asking the pupils to carry out tasks from a text book for the pilot project in Kudan Primary School, next to Tokyo University. Professor Hiroshi Kobayashi, of Tokyo's University of Science, who has been developing the robot for 15 years, said: "The children were not fazed by Saya at all. "They don't see her as a humanoid but human. They were very happy and surprised when she was able to call their names. They treated Saya like a real teacher." Saya's steel skull is covered with fine latex cast from a female university student. Underneath, a system of 18 motors works like muscles to give her facial expressions including surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness. The robot is able to talk, potentially in any language, move her head and respond to questions. She currently speaks around 300 phrases and has a vocabulary of 700 words and is programmed to respond to words and questions. It is planned that the first robot teachers will be used in several classrooms where they will be operated by 'controller' teachers operating from a control centre. Each teacher robot has a price tag up to £25,000. They are claimed to be the first economically viable robot and aim to make back their money in a couple of years. "The aim is to develop something that is useful to society and humans in daily life. The robot teacher is the perfect application for a robot," added Professor Kobayashi. Source
Article Submitted by ShapeSphere. A Formula 3 racing car with a top speed of 145mph has been unveiled, which is made of vegetables and powered by chocolate. The British-built ecoF3 racing car has a steering wheel made from carrots, a bodywork crafted from potatoes and a soya bean seat. It uses plant oil-based lubricants to grease its moving parts and boasts a biodiesel engine capable of running on chocolate extracts and vegetable oil. The car's bodywork was made by mixing vegetable fibres with resins and it is the first Formula 3 car built from eco-friendly materials. But the ecoF3 is currently ineligible to compete in next season's championship because the engine's unusual fuel means it fails to meet regulations. James Meredith, project manager of the WorldFirst team from Warwick University, in Coventry, West Mids, which designed and built the car, said the car breaks new ground. He added: "It's been very exciting working on the project and important for our team to develop a working example of a truly green motor racing car. "The WorldFirst project expels the myth that performance needs to be compromised when developing the sustainable motor vehicles of the future." Source
CLEVELAND (AP) — When Connie Culp heard a little kid call her a monster because of the shotgun blast that left her face horribly disfigured, she pulled out her driver's license to show the child what she used to look like. Years later, as the nation's first face transplant recipient, she's stepped forward to show the rest of the world what she looks like now. Her expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is bloated and squarish. Her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new muscles. But Culp had nothing but praise for those who made her new face possible. "I guess I'm the one you came to see today," the 46-year-old Ohio woman said at a news conference at the Cleveland Clinic, where the groundbreaking operation was performed. But "I think it's more important that you focus on the donor family that made it so I could have this person's face." Until Tuesday, Culp's identity and how she came to be disfigured were a secret. Culp's husband, Thomas, shot her in 2004, then turned the gun on himself. He went to prison for seven years. His wife was left clinging to life. The blast shattered her nose, cheeks, the roof of her mouth and an eye. Hundreds of fragments of shotgun pellet and bone splinters were embedded in her face. She needed a tube into her windpipe to breathe. Only her upper eyelids, forehead, lower lip and chin were left. A plastic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Risal Djohan, got a look at her injuries two months later. "He told me he didn't think, he wasn't sure, if he could fix me, but he'd try," Culp recalled. She endured 30 operations to try to fix her face. Doctors took parts of her ribs to make cheekbones and fashioned an upper jaw from one of her leg bones. She had countless skin grafts from her thighs. Still, she was left unable to eat solid food, breathe on her own, or smell. Source, Source
The Canna Chopper is the latest addition of the Dutch police crime-fighting arsenal. It is a special mini helicopter in order to detect illegal Cannabis Hemp growers. This happened in the area of “De Achterhoek”. The so-called “Canna chopper” is equipped with odor and video detection which can trace hemp fields from the air. Also Cannabis factories are not safe. The unmanned aircraft can stay in the air for several few hours. The Task Force for Organized hemp growers hopes that with the use of cannabis chopper they can combat illegal cannabis crop growers more effectively. The Police uncovered a cannabis factory during the first test flight of the mini-helicopter. In the outskirts of Doetinchem, they discovered cannabis farm. Seven suspects were arrested and several kilos of hemp were intercepted. The cultivation of Cannabis Hemp is big business in the Netherlands, with profits estimated to have reached over €2 billion in 2008 alone. Only around 10 percent of the crops are sold legally in the country’s many coffee shops, according to the Dutch police. The vast majority of it is smuggled abroad. Source, Source, Source
When Jarrard Woods decided to hand in his notice yesterday he did it in a very geeky way. Woods, a game developer who works with leading Canberra-based game producer 2K Australia, embedded his resignation advice in a game he created which he then forwarded to his boss and colleagues. Combining elements of his own creation, Polychromatic Funk Monkey, and the iconic Nintendo game Super Mario Bros, Woods' resignation game gave six weeks' notice and a simple farewell message. "Thank you 2K Australia! You gave me a paycheck, an incredible project and a world-class team to learn from. But my princess is in another castle. My last day is June 5, so I can still probably sign-off with ... " The game, which is built in the Flash format, is posted on his WEBSITE. Woods, who turns 30 on Friday, has worked with 2K for the past 3½ years. Source
The producers of Jeopardy! and IBM are in discussions to allow an IBM supercomputer known as Watson to compete on the show against human competition. According to The New York Times, if Watson is able to beat the human competition the field of artificial intelligence will have made a leap forward. IBM has had success in the past building super computers that were able to best human competitors. In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer was able to defeat chess world champion Garry Kasparov in a match. The difference between chess where all pieces have a known value and Jeopardy! is that the trivia questions asked in the game show have a wide and greatly varying range of relationships. These relationships are open to interpretation and the interpretations have to be made very quickly. The IBM researchers who created Watson -- an homage to IBM founder Thomas J. Watson Sr. -- have said that they are not confident yet that their creation could compete well on the show. The New York Times reports that human champions are able to provide correct response 85% of the time to questions asked. David A. Ferrucci, an AI researcher at IBM said, "The big goal is to get computers to be able to converse in human terms. And we’re not there yet.” The contest is an effort by the IBM engineers to choose "grand challenges" that will help them make significant technical progress in AI. The rules proposed for the contest will force Watson to emulate all human qualities. Questions posed to Watson will be in text format while players will see text and hear the questions spoken by the show's host. The computer will offer answers to the question via a synthesized voice and will choose its own follow up categories. IBM says that for the show, the computer would not be connected to the internet. How Watson will be presented and what gender the computer will be are under consideration. A screen and a projected avatar are one consideration. Jeopardy! executive producer Harry Friedman said, "We’ve only begun to talk about it. We all agree that it shouldn’t look like Robby the Robot." Source
Adults are often reminded to drink responsibly but customers entering a new cocktail bar where they are literally enveloped in a mist of alcohol are warned to breathe responsibly. Just 40 minutes inside the venue – which delivers an intoxicating vapour of gin and tonic – will leave you feeling slightly merry. Punters are also advised to don special protective suits as they enter the walk-in cocktail to avoid going home smelling like a brewery. To complement the whiff of G&T the bar is decorated with giant limes and massive straws to make visitors feel as if they are inside the drink. The experience is further enhanced by a special soundtrack featuring the noise of liquid being poured over ice cubes. The bar, which has capacity for 40 people, is the brainchild of gastronomes Sam Bompas and Harry Parr. Their other wacky innovations include scratch and sniff cinema and jelly banquets. Mr Bompas said: 'It's something we have always wanted to do. We are about making food on an epic scale and this is an epic cocktail. 'If you think of what you do in a bar you might spend 40 minutes per drink, so we've calibrated the mixology to account for that much.' Mr Parr said: 'Here we've vaporised a cocktail. In the future I would like to make a liquid banqueting table.' The Alcoholic Architecture bar can be found in Ganton Street, the Newburgh Quarter, central London. Source
Article Submitted by master911. A fir tree has been found growing inside a man's lung by surgeons who were operating on him for suspected cancer. The tree, measuring 5cm, was discovered by Russian doctors when they opened up Artyom Sidorkin, 28, to remove what they thought was a tumour. Medical staff believe that Mr Sidorkin somehow inhaled a seed, which later sprouted into a small fir tree inside his lung. The patient had complained of extreme pain in his chest and had been coughing up blood. Doctors were convinced he had cancer. 'We were 100 per cent sure,' said surgeon Vladimir Kamashev from Izhevsk in the Urals. 'We did X-rays and found what looked exactly like a tumour. I had seen hundreds before, so we decided on surgery.' Before removing the major part of the man's lung, the surgeon investigated the tissue taken in a biopsy. 'I thought I was hallucinating,' said Dr Kamashev. 'I asked my assistant to have a look: "Come and see this - we've got a fir tree here". 'He nodded in shock. I blinked three times as I was sure I was seeing things.' They believed the coughing of blood was caused by the tiny pine needles piercing blood capillaries. 'It was very painful. But to be honest I did not feel any foreign object inside me,' said Mr Sidorkin. 'I'm so relieved it's not cancer.' The report appeared in popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Gazeta, and was picked up by Russian news service Novosti. Source
