A tiny species of lizard is so light that it falls to the ground like a feather, scientists have discovered.
Outwardly, little of the animal's body seems adapted to flying, gliding or moving through the air in any way.
But a slow-motion camera has revealed that when the lizard jumps from a height, it can slow the rate of its descent and land gently on the ground.
The lizard's surprising aerial ability might help explain how some animals became true gliders.
Passengers on Thomas Cook flight TCX9641 from Menorca were told to expect an eight-hour wait while an engineer was flown out from the UK.
One passenger then identified himself as a qualified aircraft engineer and offered to try to remedy the fault.
He was successful, and the plane landed in Glasgow only 35 minutes late.
...
"Then a stewardess told us there was an engineer on board and they were checking out to see if he could work on it. He was obviously successful. When he came back onto the plane there was a round of applause from the back of the aircraft.
"It was reassuring to know the person who had fixed it was still on the aeroplane. What are the odds o something like that happening?"
The robot works with a combination of GPS navigation and with a gyroscope to keep it upright. There are also a number of sensors on the machine so it does not bump into anything.
Dustbot's inventors say they hope it will put an end to fixed times for rubbish collection and they say it is designed to work in tightly packed urban areas where large refuse trucks find it difficult to operate.
Scissors cut paper.Paper covers rock.Rock crushes lizard.Lizard poisons Spock.Spock smashes scissors. (SPOCK SMASH)Scissors decapitate lizard.Lizard eats paper.Paper disproves Spock.Spock vaporizes rock.Rock crushes scissors.
Here's how it works.
Imagine 1,000 people worried about contracting a smelly disease called Statisticitisis. If they all take a new wonder-pill, their risk is cut by 50%. Sound good?
Meanwhile, one in 1,000 suffer side effects. Trifling, a risk worth taking for such benefit, surely?
Here's the scam. 1 in 1,000 turns out to be the same as 50%. You are as likely to suffer side effects as to be protected from the illness.
How can 1 in 1,000 be the same as 50%? Because only two people out of 1,000 ever have the illness. Cut that by 50% and only one of them has the illness. So one person in 1,000 is protected. But we also know that one person in 1,000 suffers side effects.
One number is a relative risk reduction expressed as a percentage - 50% - and sounds impressive. The other is an absolute number of people - 1 in 1,000 - and sounds like not much to worry about. In fact, they represent the same number of people. That's mixed framing.
Female offences against teenagers (hebophiles rather than paedophiles) are more of a mystery, he says, because victims don't come forward, partly because in a patriarchal society boys are even expected to enjoy that kind of abuse, and not admit how scared they are by it.
Some believe that society's different attitude to women offenders is reflected in the language of the media reporting it. They point out that teachers "seduce" pupils if they are female but "sexually assault" if male.
Meanwhile for friends who doubt that women can be paedophiles, Yingxian is an effective counterexample.A US pilot was in luck when his falling aeroplane made a soft landing, thanks to a row of portable toilets.
The Cessna 182 suffered apparent engine failure after taking off from Thun Field airfield south-east of Tacoma in Washington state.
As it fell, the plane hit a fence, flipped upside down and landed on toilets being stored near the runway by the Northwest Cascade company.
A company employee said the toilets had "kind of cushioned things".
Like ... faeces?
It's in China, but I don't have much information. I'll edit this when I do.
I am not so sure about this one.
This one is the Giant Basket Building of the Longaberger Basket Company. Newark, Ohio.Using a process that combines polymers, the material not only moves on its own, but also can change colors and can be used to perform calculations. According to the scientists involved in the project the morphable material could even one day be used as components of a future robot, thus making the notion of the incredibly scary Terminator T-1000 a real possibility.
Here is the chemical gel struggling to move.
Built to link secret underground military facilities, the Pyongyang Metro is nevertheless an important part of the transport infrastructure in the capital of North Korea (officially, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK). There is evidence that it includes secret government-only lines, although the extent of these, if they exist, is unknown. Its station architecture is among the most attractive in the world. However, relatively little is known about the Metro outside the country, as few visitors are able to investigate the system. In recent years North Korea’s economic crisis has affected Metro operation, and service has apparently been reduced significantly. Yet in recent years replacement trains have been bought from Germany, and plans still exist to expand the system, particularly in the direction of other military command posts.
"This is more than disappointing. In fact, it fills me with a sense of despair."
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a foreign rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light, that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price.... This rival ... is none other than the sun....
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights and blinds; in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures.
