tech e blog

We have seen the future of chimps, and it's looking a lot like the characters from Planet of the Apes. Fortunately, this hyper intelligent "11-year-old chimpanzee in no stranger to the spotlight as back in 2007 he was featured on MSNBC's Are you smarter than a chimp? segment where scientists had two young adults compete against Ayumu and another chimp in a series of short-term memory tests. Guess who won? Yup, the chimps." Continue reading for the video.

So how does he do it exactly? Scientists aren't entirely sure but there are a couple theories. The first is something called "eidetic imagery" which, in poor latent terms, means Ayumu is able to commit to memory a complete picture of intricate pattern or scene.

The NASA-inspired "Zero Gravity Roller Coaster" will cost approximately $50-million to build and "travel up a steep track at speeds of 100 miles an hour before beginning a controlled drop that would essentially put its passengers into zero gravity for eight seconds." Continue reading to see how passengers would look inside the ride.

To create that illusion, a linear induction motor system would speed coasters up the track with unprecedented precision. As the coaster approached a top speed of more than 100 mph, it would suddenly and ever so slightly decelerate - just enough to throw the passengers up from their seats, like stones from a catapult - and then quickly adjust its speed to fly in formation with and around the passengers.

The latest images to trend on the internet have been of a monster whale shark that washed ashore in Pakistan. It basically "took two cranes and more than four hours to lift the seven-tonne fish on to a jetty." Click here for more pictures. Continue reading for a video.

The shark will be put on public display for three days and the buyer will charge visitors, a fisheries dealer told the Tribune.

That's right, Austrian extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner is set to attempt the world's highest skydive from the edge of space at 120,000-feet above ground. Currently, the "jump record is held by former Air Force pilot Joe Kittinger, who jumped from nearly 103,000 feet in 1960, back when we were still trying to figure out just how high the human body could go." Continue reading to see the record-breaking attempt set in 1960.

As such, Baumgartner will make the ride up to 120,000 in a custom-built pressurized capsule tethered to a 600-foot-wide balloon. A special pressurized suit, similar to a space suit, will protect him from the conditions outside once the door comes open and Baumgartner takes the plunge. About 35 seconds after he jumps, he'll break the sound barrier. Then he'll continue to fall for another five minutes, pulling his parachute about a mile from the ground.

Finally, "Russian scientists have finally drilled down through four kilometres of Antarctic ice to a lake that has been sealed for the last 20 million years." Even more shocking, "this may not be the only surprise from sub-glacial Lake Vostok, a body of water as large as Lake Ontario." Continue reading for the news report.

'The discovery of microorganisms in Lake Vostok may mean that, perhaps, the first meeting with extraterrestrial life could happen on Europa,' said Dr Vladimir Kotlyakov, Director of the Geography Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Protected only by sheepskin and straw hats, Chinese blacksmiths hurl "molten metal against the walls of Nuanquan village in Hebei province to celebrate the end of the Lunar New Year celebrations." This produces a fireworks-like show known as Dashuhua. Continue reading for a video.

As the metal strikes the cold wall is explodes in a shower of sparks, most of which rebound back over the performer. The patterns made by the quickly solidifying molten metal across the cold brick of the wall given the performance its name of Dashuhua, or tree flower.

Unlike other medical devices used to treat burn victims, this groundbreaking skin gun by Jorg C. Gerlach and colleagues at Stem Cell Systems GmbH in Berlin uses "individual adult stem cells from the patient's uninjured skin are applied to the wound site, where they differentiate into normal skin." Continue reading for the video -- warning, not for the squeamish.

The newly introduced stem cells are able to regenerate and differentiate into their respective parts in a matter of days. The first phase of gathering the patient's stem cells, creating a solution, and applying the stem cells takes approximately 1.5-2 hours. Within a week, the wound dressing procedure allows the stem skin cells to fully generate normal skin, and after a couple of months the skin regains its color and texture.

For those who don't already know, blue ice "occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). During its travels, air bubbles that are trapped in the ice are squeezed out, and the size of the ice crystals increases, making it clear." Click here to see more WINS, courtesy of HackedIRL.com. Continue reading to see a real-life ice city in China.

Thanks to heated sheets of carbon nanotubes, underwater invisibility cloaks on a large scale could be closer to reality than you think. In technical terms, "Ali Aliev and colleagues at the University of Texas in Dallas embedded a sheet of carbon nanotubes into aerogel, a foam-like material; when electrically heated, the nanotubes bent light waves to create a mirage, effectively cloaking the sheet and anything behind it." Video after the break.

Aliev says the mirage forms because the nanotubes transfer heat to the surrounding air more efficiently than regular metals, allowing a steeper temperature gradient to form near the device's surface. Because photothermal deflection depends on light's ability to propagate faster through hotter, less-dense material, the device works better when the temperature gradient is steeper. Plus, he adds, because carbon nanotubes do not store heat well, the mirage can be turned on and off quickly.

That's right, "it's not just flat stones that can skip across the surface of water; despite their spherical shape, water-bouncing balls can jump across ponds just as seamlessly." This super ball was developed by Tadd Truscott and his team at Brigham Young University in Utah." Video after the break.

The water-bouncing ball, however, was able to maintain a crushed shape for longer to help it scoot across the pond. Its contact area with the water increased when it was squished, helping it to ride along. The ball sprung from the water over 20 times, covering a stretch of nearly 60 meters.