Inspirational and good news.
Recently researchers have found some new species of life under Antarctica, and the creepy creatures are ugly. I really like how one day people will say the world is so small thanks to “teh internet’s tubes,” yet we are always discovering new things on this planet.
“This is the sixth year of the marine census, an ambitious project that involves 2,000 researchers from 80 countries trying to get a handle on what is living in the world’s oceans”
This a fun thing for this Friday. Japan now has a robot museum.
“Finally, scholars have a place to conduct Astro Boy studies. Robothink, Japan’s first bot museum, opened its doors this fall. The 28,000-square-foot facility is housed in a former used-car dealership in Nagoya. From Robby to Aibo, the droid depository features dozens of actual automatons, plus replicas of real and fictional bots.”
Tea cups get stained and that’s a fact that once was bad and now is good. Thanks to artist Bethan Wood who has made a tea cup that shows groovy designs when it gets stained.
“Stain is a set of a teacups designed to improve through use. This project examines the assumption that use is damaging to a product (For example, scratches on an iPod).
The interior surface of the cup is treated so as to stain more in predetermined places. The more the cups are used, the more the pattern is revealed. Over time they will build up an individual pattern dependent on the users personal way of drinking tea.”
A professor in the UK has come up with a new number (really it’s a non-number-number) that means we no longer have to divide by zero. Instead, zero is replaced with “nullity,” which is nothing times infinity.
“The theory of nullity is set to make all kinds of sums possible that, previously, scientists and computers couldn’t work around.
“We’ve just solved a problem that hasn’t been solved for twelve hundred years – and it’s that easy,” proclaims Dr Anderson having demonstrated his solution on a whiteboard at Highdown School, in Emmer Green.”
Over at the Green Car Congress there’s a post about some new big wheels. Electric trucks will soon be transporting electric (and non-electric) goods to consumers. The trucks are a trial run for a transportation logistics company called TNT and are made out of lightweight materials which will allow them to be even more efficient.
“If the green trial proves successful, TNT will consider adding 200 additional zero emission vehicles to its fleet to serve in other urban locations in the UK. This would result in significantly reduced controlled and CO2 emissions.
TNT has an overall rating of 84 out of a possible 100 on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the highest recorded score in the Industrial Transportation category in 2006.”