By Ben Wojdyla The Audi R8 is one of the most exclusive and beautiful supercars in the world, commanding auto-lust wherever it goes and wherever it's seen. But what if you want an R8 but don't have the $105,000+ to buy one yourself? You could go through the arduous process of designing and building the whole thing from the ground up in your basement, but that would take 17 years. Who has the time? Why not just design an approximation of the R8 around a 2001 Mercury Cougar, fabricate it from fiberglass, and call it the ReplicaAudiR8?
Amazingly Good Replica Audi R8
Here's the thing about the ReplicaAudiR8 — we don't hate it. For being a front-engine, front-wheel-drive approximation of a mid-engined all-wheel-drive supercar it looks damn good. We find ourselves thinking it wouldn't be a terrible thing if an actual Audi looked like this. Sure some of the details need a little work, like the lack of inner fenders at the back, and an interior upgrade which goes beyond adding an "R8" badge to the steering wheel, but it's pretty slick looking. Lets take a look at the car side by side with its inspiration.
Let's get the first, and most obvious angle out of the way, the profile. Since the ReplicaAudiR8 is based on a front engine front wheel drive sporty hatchback, one would think the thing would look like a wreck from the side. Surprisingly though it's just not that bad. The sculpting works nicely and the car even integrates intake vents from the as-yet unrevealed Audi R8 V10. The lines running front to back are massaged a bit to camouflage the change in layout, but overall it's an impressive effort.
The rear makes the ReplicaAudiR8's lowly Cougar origins blatantly apparent with a much narrower track and a higher roofline. The rear vents are actually bigger on the Replica than on the real Audi, but it lacks the exhaust tips poking through the back bumper. The lower bumper is one of the few places on the car that's fairly awkward, but it's nothing compared to some of the stuff we've seen on Fiero specials.
The front three-quarter view is almost creepy in how much the cars look alike. If you didn't know better, you'd swear it was a Chinese rip-off and not a home-built replicar. The only dead giveaway is the treatment on the lower lip of the front bumper. We'll be honest here, we're split on which one actually looks better from this angle. Henkl and Udo will be miffed at us, but it's the truth.
The one area the ReplicaAudiR8 has nothing on the real R8 (aside from the engine, the transmission, the suspension, the wheels, the chassis etc.) is the interior. The stock Mercury Cougar interior remains largely untouched from the day the Ford line workers installed it. The addition of an "R8" badge to the wheel can't compete against the shiny stainless steel, Nav system, D-wheel and general awesomeness of the Audi R8 interior.
At the front end we see the proportions of the wide Audi is again interpreted pretty cleanly on the Cougar chassis. The intakes are again a bit deeper on the replicar, and that lower lip comes into a clearer focus. Take a note, the ReplicaAudiR8 gets thin-line fog lamps where the real Audi is lamp free.
After all that, here's the big kicker: You can buy one of these if you live in Spain. The car was built by Alberto Gavach Fuertes of Zaragoza, Spain, who has a website dedicated to the car. Don't go to the site unless you want to scream bloody murder at the terrible website design, but on it, Alberto outlines the details on the car and tells us the price on this beauty: 40,000€ or about $50,000. This of course makes us wonder how fast the four-ring fellas will be slapping Al with a cease and desist, but that's for him to worry about. [Replica Audi R8, NECO Forums]
Water, Water, everywhere; nor any drop to drink. The plight of the Ancient Mariner is about to be alleviated thanks to a firm of eco-inventors from Canada who claim to have found the solution to the world's worsening water shortages by drawing the liquid of life from an unlimited and untapped source - the air.
The company, Element Four, has developed a machine that it hopes will become the first mainstream household appliance to have been invented since the microwave. Their creation, the WaterMill, uses the electricity of about three light bulbs to condense moisture from the air and purify it into clean drinking water.
The machine went on display this weekend in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, hosted by Wired magazine at its annual showcase of the latest gizmos its editors believe could change the world. From the outside, the mill looks like a giant golf ball that has been chopped in half: it is about 3ft in diameter, made of white plastic, and is attached to the wall.
It works by drawing air through filters to remove dust and particles, then cooling it to just below the temperature at which dew forms. The condensed water is passed through a self-sterilising chamber that uses microbe-busting UV light to eradicate any possibility of Legionnaires' disease or other infections. Finally, it is filtered and passed through a pipe to the owner's fridge or kitchen tap.
The obvious question to the proposition that household water demands can be met by drawing it from the air is: are you crazy? To which the machine's inventor and Element Four's founder, Jonathan Ritchey, replies: 'Just wait and see. The demand for water is off the chart. People are looking for freedom from water distribution systems that are shaky and increasingly unreliable.'
For the environmentally conscious consumer, the WaterMill has an obvious appeal. Bottled water is an ecological catastrophe. In the US alone, about 30bn litres of bottled water is consumed every year at a cost of about $11bn (£7.4bn).
According to the Earth Policy Institute, about 1.5m barrels of oil - enough to power 100,000 cars for a year - is used just to make the plastic. The process also uses twice as much water as fits inside the container, not to mention the 30m bottles that go into landfills every day in the US. But the mill also has downsides, not least its $1,200 cost when it goes on sale in America, the UK, Italy, Australia and Japan in the spring. In these credit crunch times that might dissuade many potential buyers, though Ritchey points out that at $0.3 per litre, it is much cheaper than bottled water and would pay for itself in a couple of years.
There is also the awkward fact that although there is eight times more atmospheric water than in all the rivers of the world combined, it is unevenly distributed. Those areas of the US that are most desperate for more water - such as the arid south-west where ground water levels are already dramatically depleted - have the lowest levels of moisture in the air.
The mill ceases to be effective below about 30 per cent relative humidity levels, which are common later in the day in states such as Arizona. To combat that problem, the machine has an intelligent computer built into it that increases its output at dawn when humidity is highest, and reduces it from mid-afternoon when a blazing sun dries the air.
If you have an iPhone, you’ll probably want to check out SnapTell Explorer, a free application now available on the App Store. The premise is simple: take a photo of the cover of any CD, DVD, book, or video game, and the application will automatically identify the product and find ratings and pricing information online.
I was skeptical when I first saw the app - the iPhone has had difficulty with image processing for barcodes, and most image recognitions systems I’ve tried on other platforms have been iffy at best. But SnapTell just works. Every time.
The app correctly identified just about everything I threw at it: Xbox games, Pocketbook O’Reilly manuals, The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom, Kurt Vonegut novels, and a number of more obscure books (yes, it worked on The Twinkies Cookbook). It even managed to ID a copy of Civilization 4, despite the fact that it was covered in obnoxious price tags and stickers. I actually tried to mess it up by taking photos in poor lighting and odd angles, but the app still stayed nearly flawless. No, it doesn’t have everything - I managed to stump it on a book about Danish Grammar - but it will do just fine for any trip to a retail store.
But while SnapTell seems to have the technology perfected, the app itself still needs a little work. Once you’ve located a product there is no rating or description offered - instead you’re directed to the appropriate links on stores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble (it would be nice if some basic rating information was pulled into the app). There’s also currently no way to quickly view a product’s price across multiple online stores, though this will be included in the next release which is expected in the next few weeks. The UI could also use some more polish - buttons are oddly placed, and the app doesn’t look nearly as slick as it should.
SnapTell works best on Wi-Fi and 3G, but also supports Edge (it takes around 10-15 seconds to upload the image on the slower network, versus a moment or two). The application will also be coming to the Android soon, and will feature both the image recognition seen on the iPhone version as well as barcode lookup (which is popular on Android but very difficult to pull off on the iPhone). The app was developed by SnapTell, a company that primarily focuses on image-recognition based marketing, and is making use of the company’s 5 million+ product database.
While the solar panel in this photo is pretty much a token renewable energy gesture, Wal-Mart’s wind power commitment is significantly more substantial. Photo: Wal-Mart Stores
Say what you like about Wal-Mart (and I certainly have said some less than flattering things), but sometimes the world’s largest retailer does something undeniably positive: Like make its first major purchase of wind power in the United States.
Announced yesterday, Wal-Mart Stores will be supplying 15% of the electricity in approximately 360 Texas stores and other facilities though wind power, purchased from Duke Energy. Wal-Mart says that the purchase will be the equivalent power of some 18,000 ordinary homes. Here are the rest of the details:
150 MW Wind Farm Will Provide Wal-Mart's Power Duke will be generating the power from the under construction 150 MW Notrees Wind Power Project, which is expected to begin commercial operations in December and producing electricity for Wal-Mart by April 2009. Duke expects the project to produce about 226 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, an amount which will avoid emitting 139,000 tonnes of CO2. Or, if you prefer more down to earth references, Wal-Mart compares this to washing 108 million loads of laundry (“enough for every household in Austin, Texas to do laundry for a year”).
Speaking about the wind power purchase, Wal-Mart vice president of energy Kim Saylors-Laster said,
We’re purchasing renewable power at traditional energy rates. The wind power purchase will result in a significant decrease of greenhouse gas emissions and aligns perfectly with Wal-Mart’s long-term goal of being supplied by 100 percent renewable energy.
The student, from Homerton College, who was not named, was photographed in a black lacy thong and stockings straddling one of the city's historic bridges.
She agreed to pose for the latest edition of Vivid Magazine, which is published by a group of students once a term and has a circulation of 5,000.
It also has a website featuring a video of women sitting in a changing room and then playing football.
The page three photo shoot was done on Clare College bridge, which goes over the River Cam and is visited by thousands of tourists each year.
It is the first time a student has appeared topless in a University publication and it has caused an outcry.
One student from King's College said: "I can't believe she agreed to pose for the magazine. Everyone has been talking about it. I'm sure she must really regret it now."
Another student, from Clare College, who did not want to be named, added: "Lots of students and professors have seen this. It's a very risky thing to do when you are studying at one of the top universities in the country."
The magazine is distributed to all the university colleges. It has featured "page three" girls before but none have been as explicit. The magazine is largely constituted of comment pieces of a political and satirical nature.
The model, who is pictured anonymously in the magazine, has declined to comment on reactions to the photo. Vivid's editors also refused to offer a statement.
The university's press office was unavailable for comment.
Chismillionaire was out to dinner Friday night and on his way home drove by Ferrari of New England. In the Parking lot had to be over 30 Ferraris alone. All F360 and newer.
Usually there would only be 5-10 units total. So either the dealership is really putting up some cash to get inventory(doesn't really make sense), or people are clamoring to get out of their leases and raise some cash for Margin calls/debt servicing/asset reallocation.
Michael Jackson wore an abaya, a traditional Arab women's veil, in BahrainPhoto: REUTERS
The singer, who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, converted to Islam in a ceremony at a friend's house in Los Angeles.
He is said to have sat on the floor and worn a small hat while an imam officiated.
According to The Sun, the ceremony took place while Jackson, 50, was recording an album at the home of Steve Porcaro, a keyboard player who composed music on his Thriller album.
The former Jackson 5 star was counselled by David Wharnsby, a Canadian songwriter, and Phillip Bubal, a producer, who have both converted.
A source said Jackson had appeared a "bit down" and added: "They began talking to him about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted. Michael soon began warming to the idea.
"An imam was summoned from the mosque and Michael went through the shahada, which is the Muslim declaration of belief."
Last year his brother, Jermaine Friday, suggested Jackson would convert having taken an interest in Islam since Friday's conversion in 1989.
"When I came back from Mecca I got him a lot of books and he asked me lots of things about my religion and I told him that it's peaceful and beautiful," said Friday.
"He read everything and he was proud of me that I found something that would give me inner strength and peace.
"I think it is most probable that Michael will convert to Islam.
"He could do so much, just like I am trying to do. Michael and I and the word of God, we could do so much."
LOS ANGELES – Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality. The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.
"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.
Dr Pepper is owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc.
It's not unusual for Her Majesty's Secret Servant to employ the same car in more than one movie. The iconic DB5 appeared in "Goldfinger" and "Thunderball," so why not let 007 have another go at Aston's freshened flagship, the DBS, for "Quantum of Solace?" For 2009, the DBS offers the optional availability of a six-speed automatic transaxle, 2+2 seating, a new 20-inch wheel package, and a Bang & Olufsen audio system.
The DBS shares its layout and architecture with the DB9, but is much sportier and differentiated enough to earn its own name. Available in coupe form only, its sinuous body is crafted of aluminum and carbon fiber. There's no change underhood: 510 horsepower still boils out the same 5.9-liter V-12 the model was launched with in late 2007.
This is our first track test of a DBS, and it has the goods to honor the badge on its bonnet. With a 0-to-60 time of 4.2 seconds, grip at 0.96 g, a 60-to-0 stopping distance of 106 feet, it's the quickest, stickiest, and shortest-stopping Aston Martin we've ever tested. And it feels so good doing it. The engine whirs and warbles as only a V-12 can. There's a ton of grip and good body control, yet the ride harshness isn't over the top.
The new trans isn't as responsive as the best dual-autoclutch units, but lets you be in command. In manual mode, there are no downshifts even when you floor it, and it will hold gears to redline (which unfortunately isn't marked on the tach).
Fire up the new B&O audio package and speaker towers rise out of the dash, looking for all the world like props from a Ken Adam Bond set. The system's imaging, clarity, and transparency are impressive. The rest of the cabin is a study in leather, Alcantara, aluminum, French stitching, and satin-finished carbon fiber. It's too bad the key fob looks like it came out of a 10-year-old rental car.
Aston Martin's DBS walks a smart line between GT and sports car and is an eminently desirable piece. The new color, by the way, is named Quantum Silver, after the movie of a similar name.
Cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease: All have stubbornly resisted billions of dollars of research conducted by the world's finest minds. But they all may finally be defied by a single new class of drugs, a virtual cure for the diseases of aging.
In labs across the country, researchers are developing several new drugs that target the cellular engines called mitochondria. The first, resveratrol, is already in clinical trials for diabetes. It could be on the market in four years and used off-label as an all-purpose longevity enhancer. Other drugs promise to be more potent and refined. They might even be cheap.
"It's going to revolutionize western medicine," said Doug Wallace, a pioneer of mitochondrial medicine at the University of California at Irvine. "All the things that are common for an aging society, and nobody worried about when they died of infectious disease," he said, could be treated.
If the idea of a cure-all sounds fantastic, that's because it is. History is littered with failed wonder drugs, elixirs of youth and miracle cures. But these new drugs have shown tremendous promise in mice. And though success in animals is far from a guarantee for humans, the research has gone from tantalizing curiosity to a possible foreshadowing of human health care in the 21st century.
As fewer people in the West die of infectious diseases, these new mitochondrial drugs could prevent a wide range of age-related illnesses, though they likely won't extend the lifespans of healthy individuals.
Not long ago, the silver-bullet approach was disregarded, and it's still far from achieving a consensus in the scientific community. But standard research approaches to cancer, dementia and heart disease have provided relatively small benefits, and evidence has continued to accumulate in favor of Wallace and like-minded researchers who advocate a mitochondrial theory of disease.
The new drugs work by stimulating enzymes that regulate the function of mitochondria. Hundreds of these structures are found in every cell in the body, ceaselessly converting glucose into usable energy. But over time, mitochondria degenerate. They lose strength and efficiency, releasing highly reactive oxygen molecules that bind easily with other molecules and wreak cellular havoc.
A growing number of scientists suspect that the breakdown of mitochondria is among the most important causes of cell-level changes that eventually cause the body's tissues to degenerate with age. The damage accumulates gradually until hitting some critical mass of malfunction, at which point diseases arrive rapidly. That may be why so many diseases first occur during middle age, and become steadily more common afterwards.
Repair and prevent this damage, say proponents of the mitochondrial theory of disease, and those afflictions can be averted.
In the last year, mitochondrial malfunction was associated with heart disease, just as it's also been associated with Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. Researchers verified that the cellular changes produced by caloric restriction — a longevity-enhancing dietary intervention — are enjoyed by mice taking resveratrol, the first and best-known mitochondrial drug. Resveratrol, which also occurs naturally in red wine, didn't extend the maximum lifespan of the mice, but it did protect them from the ravages of aging. Most recently, a next-generation longevity drug with the same molecular target as resveratrol allowed mice to gorge on high-fat food for four months without gaining weight or developing diabetes.
Early-stage human trials of resveratrol for diabetes appear promising and have been expanded. Those trials are led by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Massachusetts , which claims to have several compounds in its pipeline that are stronger than resveratrol. The company was purchased last year by GlaxoSmithKline, signaling how seriously mitochondrial medicine is now taken by the pharmaceutical industry. According to Sirtris CEO Christoph Westphal, every major drug company is now researching mitochondrial targets.
For many sober-minded scientists, the question is no longer whether an intervention in age-related diseases will happen, but when. And they say it could be soon.
"Enough evidence has come out to suggest that, since we've now accomplished this successfully in other species, there's reason to think we could do it in people," said Stephen Jay Olshansky, a University of Illinois public health and aging expert, who recently co-authored a British Medical Journal article on the near future of anti-aging research.
Olshansky also co-authored an upcoming analysis of American demography in 2050 as part of a $3.9-million MacArthur Foundation research project on aging in America. The analysis assumes a multi-target breakthrough against the diseases of aging.
"We genuinely think it's going to happen," he said. "We said that we not only believe it's possible, but should be aggressively pursued as the new approach to health and disease prevention for this century."
But not everyone is so enthusiastic. Steve Austad, a University of Texas gerontologist who warned two years ago against thinking of mice "as small little furry humans with long tails," is still unconvinced and doesn't think that mitochondria will be an easy drug target. University of Southern California gerontologist Valter Longo noted associations between mitochondria and health aren't yet as firm as their proponents suggest.
"As far as aging itself and the major diseases of aging are concerned, such as cancer and Alzheimer's, we really have no idea how important mitochondrial damage is to it. It's not clear that major diseases are caused by mitochondrial damage, though that's still a good bet for where to go," Longo said. He added that resveratrol does appear promising for obesity and diabetes.
There's also the issue of side effects. Resveratrol has proven safe in animals and early clinical trials, but much more testing is required. As a cautionary, Longo offered the example of his own research on caloric restriction and genetic manipulation of IGF-1, a cell-growth-regulating gene. In simple organisms, it's produced the most-dramatic life extension ever seen — yeast lived 10 times its normal lifespan — but a group of Ecuadorians who naturally have that mutation have severe growth deficits and other health problems.
Even Longo, however, thinks resveratrol will enjoy some success in the near future, and mitochondrial approaches are being steadily embraced within the medical research community, which has been largely frustrated in its disease-by-disease, gene-centered approach.
"The approach we've taken is to go one disease at a time," said Olshansky. "We've created national institutes to go after all these major diseases, and every time we identify a new gene, or do something that lets us attack disease a little more efficiently than before, everyone jumps up and says we've succeeded and that's wonderful."
Such research is important, said Olshansky, but not as promising as hitting diseases at a common root. And though he won't yet commit to resveratrol as a wonder drug, he suspects that mitochondria-targeting drugs will provide a breakthrough. The most important question now, he said, is how much the drugs will cost.
Harvard gerontologist David Sinclair, who co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and first showed resveratrol's effect on mice, says the drug will be inexpensive. Since the company is testing its own formulation as a diabetes drug, it will need to be priced at just a few dollars per dose, competitive with other diabetes treatments. People who use it off-label for other diseases would pay the same price.
But that's still speculative, said Olshansky, and there's no guarantee of resveratrol's efficacy. To make sure of success, he said, there needs to be a massive public investment in research.
"We believe we know how much it will cost to generate an intervention that slows aging in people," he said. "It will cost about $3 billion. It could be developed in enough time to influence the health and longevity of baby boomers. And any intervention that helps them will help all subsequent generations."
This may seem far-fetched. The makers of resveratrol and other mitochondrial medicines are merely the latest scientists to promise easy and universal health in a bottle. But everything is unproven until it's proved.
"Powered flight research was fruitless until it wasn't," said Aubrey de Grey, founder of the longevity-research-sponsoring Methuselah Foundation. "The harder we try, the sooner we'll succeed."
Image: The Fountain of Youth / Lucas Cranach the Elder
Video: A mouse taking resveratrol (right) runs twice as far as a control mouse in the laboratory of David Sinclair / a4m1510
Sharper image: Laser light that passes directly through animal tissue (A) is less diffuse than light that the tissue scatters (B). Images made using unscattered light (C) show the localization (red) of a tumor in a mouse more clearly than those made with scattered light (D). They also show the tumor’s extent in the other side of the lung. Credit: National Academy of Sciences
The list of genes and proteins associated with cancer and other diseases is growing rapidly: earlier this month, for instance, scientists reported sequencing the whole genome of a cancer cell for the first time. A field called molecular imaging puts this information in context by letting scientists watch biological molecules in action inside diseased cells and tissues. Now researchers have found a way to let molecular imaging that uses near-infrared light peer deeper into the body.
Fluorescent-protein tags can be made to target just about any biological protein, be it an enzyme that helps cancer cells advance through surrounding tissue or a marker of arthritic inflammation. But their use has been limited to shallow tissues in humans or to small animals. The markers are activated by, and emit, near-infrared or infrared light, which scatters in tissue; the more tissue the light has to penetrate, the blurrier the images. A new 3-D near-infrared imaging system uses ultrafast cameras to capture light that hasn't scattered. It's been used to create richer, higher-resolution images of the molecular workings of lung cancer in mice, and with further development, it might be used to study disease in thicker tissues and in people. The research was led by Vasilis Ntziachristos, director of the Institute for Biological and Medical Imaging at the Helmholtz Center, in Munich, and Mark Niedre, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University, in Boston.
You can see how tissue scatters light by holding a laser pointer to your fingertip, says Niedre: the light spreads out and your finger glows. By the time most of the photons emerge, they "have bounced numerous times in the tissue and contain little image information," says Changhuei Yang, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at Caltech, who is not involved in the project.
Niedre and Ntziachristos's imaging technique records photons that have taken a relatively straight path through the body and thus contain better imaging information. But the photons also pass through the tissue much more quickly, which is why previous imaging techniques haven't been able to exploit them. The Munich and Boston researchers used a combination of an ultrafast light source called a femtosecond laser and an ultrafast camera to capture these so-called early-arriving photons. Light that bounces around inside the tissue before emerging doesn't get recorded by the new imaging setup. "We're preferentially choosing photons with more spatial information," says Niedre. The group also created better models of how these photons travel, which help sharpen the images even further.
Capturing early-arriving photons makes for much better pictures of the biological activity of deeper tissue. In images of mice with lung cancer, Niedre says, "we resolved features that you couldn't see" with a conventional infrared-imaging setup. Not only were the images sharper, Niedre says, but they also revealed molecular markers of inflammation and other problems throughout the lungs. The slower imaging setup showed only the tumors themselves.
The images were also three-dimensional, an effect that the researchers achieved by moving the laser up and down and back and forth while spinning the mouse. A similar principle is used in clinical computed tomography (CT) scans, which use x-rays instead of infrared light and an imaging system that moves around the patient.
Improving image resolution by catching early-arriving photons isn't a new idea, but it took some technical finesse to make it happen. Bruce Tromberg, director of the Laser Microbeam and Medical Program at the University of California, Irvine's Beckman Laser Institute, says that the new work is "retro cool." When researchers like Tromberg first started working on imaging with infrared light, they hoped to look at the early-arriving photons but didn't have good enough fluorescent markers or hardware. Now that better markers and cameras are available, Tromberg says, it's logical to revisit the idea.
Arjun Yodh, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania and another optical-imaging pioneer, is skeptical that the new approach will work in thick tissues in people, where the scattering is greater than it is in a mouse's chest cavity. Niedre himself cautions that the work is still in its early stages, and that the instrumentation and image processing will need substantial improvement before the technique can be applied to larger animals and humans.
Until that time, the technique will allow researchers to study the progression of cancer in greater detail in animal models. Much of the basic biology of cancer is still a mystery--in particular, the molecular processes that allow it to spread from the initial tumor site to others throughout the body--and the new technique will give biologists a better look.
Energy Integration Technologies Aevex Intelligent Heat main
To make a fabric-thin heater that runs for up to six hours—perfect for the insides of gloves, jackets or boots—Energy Integration Technologies did away with thermostats that suck power and take up space. Its system, Aevex, uses a flexible polymer film that automatically regulates its own temperature. As the wearer’s body gets cold, the film gets denser, which increases its electrical conductivity. This change pulls power from a battery and warms the fabric up. When the wearer’s temperature increases, the heat reduces the film’s conductivity and shuts off current flow. Aevex debuted in Outdoor Research Primovolta gloves [top; $250] and Mountain Hardwear Red Savina gloves [bottom; $300], with more gear to follow. energyintegrationtech.com
Truck-mounted IED-destroying lasers have already been tested in Iraq, but firing lasers from an airplane is a more difficult proposition. The first successful test of a plane-mounted laser gun came on August 7, when Boeing’s 18-ton chemical laser fired a beam from a C-130H aircraft and destroyed a three-by-three-foot target on the ground. It was the first time all of the ATL’s lab-tested pieces came together to vaporize a target. Why use a beam instead of a bomb? Precision strikes, with (theoretically) no collateral damage. The military hopes to deploy the system in the next five years. boeing.com
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
The Audi R8 is one of the most exclusive and beautiful supercars in the world, commanding auto-lust wherever it goes and wherever it's seen. But what if you want an R8 but don't have the $105,000+ to buy one yourself? You could go through the arduous process of designing and building the whole thing from the ground up in your basement, but that would take 17 years. Who has the time? Why not just design an approximation of the R8 around a 2001 Mercury Cougar, fabricate it from fiberglass, and call it the ReplicaAudiR8?
The front three-quarter view is almost creepy in how much the cars look alike. If you didn't know better, you'd swear it was a Chinese rip-off and not a home-built replicar. The only dead giveaway is the treatment on the lower lip of the front bumper. We'll be honest here, we're split on which one actually looks better from this angle. Henkl and Udo will be miffed at us, but it's the truth.
The one area the ReplicaAudiR8 has nothing on the real R8 (aside from the engine, the transmission, the suspension, the wheels, the chassis etc.) is the interior. The stock Mercury Cougar interior remains largely untouched from the day the Ford line workers installed it. The addition of an "R8" badge to the wheel can't compete against the shiny stainless steel, Nav system, D-wheel and general awesomeness of the Audi R8 interior.
At the front end we see the proportions of the wide Audi is again interpreted pretty cleanly on the Cougar chassis. The intakes are again a bit deeper on the replicar, and that lower lip comes into a clearer focus. Take a note, the ReplicaAudiR8 gets thin-line fog lamps where the real Audi is lamp free.
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