Maglev Cobra: o trem sustentável

A few years ago, maglev trains have existed in other countries, even in commercial scales, as is the case in China. But this does not prevent Brazil from having your participation: the Maglev Cobra, developed by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, is a promising project in the area of ​​public transport.

Moving through magnetic levitation, maglev trains use problems have to stay off the ground. This is where the finger of Brazilian scientists, theoretically, the national project has no consumption at all, except one spent in liquid nitrogen, a cheap product for universities (about $ 0.80 / liter). Until the establishment of system would be more affordable than a system of subways, for example.

Illusion

That is very strange. The optic disc is a blind spot in everyone's retina and I thought this appears to move because, as you move you eyes, you brain is filling the blind spot with different images (it does so based on the image right next to the optic disc). Perhaps people who can't see it's brains are doing a better job of interpolating over their blind spots.

The 10th Kingdom

A fairy tale-themed fantasy miniseries with more than a few twists. All the expected trappings are present: Snow White, a magic mirror, a (sort of) handsome prince and even a big bad wolf (half wolf, actually). Plucky young Central Park waitress, Virginia, is sucked into a magical kingdom filled with fairy tale entities (it’s our own reality that is the titular 10th one, by the way), soon getting mixed up in saving it from the inevitable machinations of the evil queen. Despite receiving generally poor ratings, it had good reviews and even won itself an Emmy. A little cheesy at times but certainly a good effort.

Guaíra Falls - Brazil-Paraguay border

Located on the Parana river the Guaíra Falls were, in terms of total volume, the largest waterfall on earth. 1,750,000 cubic feet of water fell over this waterfall each second on average, compared to just 70,000 cubic feet per second for Niagra Falls. However, the falls were flooded in 1982 when a dam was created to take advantage of this massive flow rate. The Itaipu Dam is now the second most powerful hydroelectric dam in the world, after the Three Gorges Dam. The Itaipu Dam supplies 90% of the power consumed by Paraguay, and 19% of the power consumed by Brazil, including Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Iceberg B-15 - Antarctica

Iceberg B-15 was the largest ever recorded iceberg. It had an area of 3,100 km², making it larger than the island of Jamaica, and was created when part of the Ross Ice Shelf broke off in March 2000. In 2003, it broke apart, and one of the larger pieces (called B-15a) drifted north, eventually smashing into a glacier in 2005, breaking off an 8-km² section and forcing many antarctic maps to be rewritten. It drifted along the coast and eventually ran aground, breaking up once again. In 2006, a storm in Alaska (that’s right, Alaska) caused an ocean swell that travelled 13,500km, over 6 days, to Antarctica and broke up the largest remaining part even more. Almost a decade on, parts of the iceberg have still not melted, with the largest remaining part, still called B-15a, having an area of 1,700 km². The picture above shows B-15a (top left) in 2005, after drifting west into the Drygalski Glacier (bottom), breaking the end off into several pieces.

Don Juan Pond - Antarctica

With a salinity of over 40%, Don Juan Pond is the saltiest body of water in the world. It is named after the two pilots who first investigated the pond in 1961, Lt Don Roe and Lt John Hickey. It is a small lake, only 100m by 300m, and on average 0.1m deep, but it is so salty that even in the Antarctic, where the temperature at the pond regularly drops to as low as -30 degrees Celsius, it never freezes. It is 18 times saltier than sea water, compared to the Dead Sea which is only 8 times saltier than sea water.

Rotorua - New Zealand

Rotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. The city is known for its geothermal activity, with a number of geysers, notably the Pohutu Geyser at Whakarewarewa, and boiling mud pools (pictured above) located in the city. This thermal activity owes itself to the Rotorua caldera on which the city lies. Rotorua is also a top adventure destination and is New Zealand’s Maori cultural heartland. Rotorua city is renowned for its unique “rotten eggs” aroma, which is caused by the geothermal activity releasing sulphur compounds into the atmosphere. If you are ever visiting New Zealand – this is a city you must see. It was once home to the famed Pink and White Terraces and you can visit thermal wonderlands with sights that are truly astounding.

Greenland

This is more of a curiosity and not visually impressive, but 83-42 is believed to be the northernmost permanent point of land on earth. It is tiny, only 35m by 15m and 4m high, but is about 400 miles from the north pole. It beat the previous record holder, ATOW1996, when it was discovered in 1998, and lichens were found growing on it, suggesting it was not just one of the temporary gravel bars that are found in that region, which are regularly pushed around by the rough seas. The picture above features what is currently the northernmost point on land, one of the temporary gravel bars, photographed in 2007, as I could find no photos of 83-42 (For some reason, nobody feels the need to produce a photograph of a tiny rock in the middle of nowhere, which only five people have ever stepped foot on).

Socotra - Republic of Yemen

Socotra has been described as one of the most alien-looking place on Earth, and it’s not hard to see why. It is very isolated with a harsh, dry climate and as a result a third of its plant-life is found nowhere else, including the famous Dragon’s Blood Tree, a very-unnatural looking umbrella-shaped tree which produces red sap. There are also a large number of birds, spiders and other animals native to the island, and coral reefs around it which similarly have a large number of endemic (i.e. only found there) species. Socotra is considered the most biodiverse place in the Arabian sea, and is a World Heritage Site.

The Great Dune of Pyla - France

Since Europe has no deserts, you’d think the title of “Europe’s largest sand dune” would go to something that wasn’t particularly impressive. But you’d be wrong. The Great Dune of Pyla is 3km long, 500m wide and 100m high, and for reasons I will probably never understand, it seems to have formed in a forest. The dune is very steep on the side facing the forest and is famous for being a paragliding site. At the top it also provides spectacular views out to sea and over the forest (since the dune is far higher than any of the trees surrounding it).

Meteor Crater - USA

Meteor Crater is a meteorite impact crater located approximately 43 miles (69 km) east of Flagstaff, near Winslow in the northern Arizona desert of the United States. Because the US Department of the Interior Division of Names commonly recognizes names of natural features derived from the nearest post office, the feature acquired the name of “Meteor Crater” from the nearby post office named Meteor. The crater was created about 50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch when the local climate on the Colorado Plateau was much cooler and damper. At the time, the area was an open grassland dotted with woodlands inhabited by woolly mammoths, giant ground sloths, and camels. It was probably not inhabited by humans; the earliest confirmed record of human habitation in the Americas dates from long after this impact. The object that excavated the crater was a nickel-iron meteorite about 50 meters (54 yards) across, which impacted the plain at a speed of several kilometers per second.

Mount Roraima

Mount Roraima is a pretty remarkable place. It is a tabletop mountain with sheer 400-metre high cliffs on all sides. There is only one ‘easy’ way up, on a natural staircase-like ramp on the Venezuelan side – to get up any other way takes and experienced rock climber. On the top of the mountain it rains almost every day, washing away most of the nutrients for plants to grow and creating a unique landscape on the bare sandstone surface. This also creates some of the highest waterfalls in the world over the sides (Angel falls is located on a similar tabletop mountain some 130 miles away). Though there are only a few marshes on the mountain where vegetation can grow properly, these contain many species unique to the mountain, including a species of carnivorous pitcher plant.

The Door to Hell

The Door to Hell, as local residents at the nearby town of Darvaza have dubbed it, is a 70 meter wide crater in Turkmenistan that has been burning continuously for 35 years. In 1971, geologists drilling for gas deposits uncovered a huge underground cavern, which caused the ground over it to collapse, taking down all their equipment and their camp with it. Since the cavern was filled poisonous gas, they dared not go down to retrieve their equipment, and to prevent the gas escaping they ignited it, hoping it would burn itself out in a couple of days. Unfortunately, there was a slight miscalculation as to the amount of gas that was trapped, and the crater continues to burn to this day.

You can see it on Google Earth at 40°15′8″N 58°26′23″E

What an Astronaut's Camera Sees

An intimate tour... in 1080p... of Earth's most impressive landscapes... as captured by astronauts with their digital cameras. Dr. Justin Wilkinson from NASA's astronaut team describes the special places that spacemen focus on whenever they get a moment.

We start with the coast of Namibia in southwestern Africa, the very dry desert coast of the Namib Desert. You can see a cloud band butting up against the shore and some straight sand dunes in the lower left of the picture. Yeah those are big red sand dunes that the astronauts say is one of the most beautiful sites that you can get when you're flying.

Coming into the view on the left is an impact crater right in the middle of the picture, right about now and some wind streaks. We know where this area is because it's a bit unique. We've got a major dune field coming into the picture on the left there: the Oriental Sand Sea, as it's called in French, and on the top is the Isawan Sand Sea.

This is the island of Sicily with cloud over Mt. Etna, so you can't quite tell there's a big volcano in the middle of the picture right now. And there's the toe of the boot of Italy coming into the picture from the left. See a good example of sun glint on the right with the sea reflecting the sun.

This is the smooth east coast of the Kamchatka peninsula again. As you move inland it gets even more striking as a picture because of all the volcanoes on this peninsula and the snowy mountains. There's a volcano just coming into the picture from the top left there. You can see a knob-shaped feature.

Here is a smaller finger of land in China sticking into the Pacific Ocean. In winter you can see all the snow lower left. This is called the Qindoa P eninsula and we recognize it. And again, the sun glint point moving along the coast upper center.

In a very clear picture, the Zagros mountains with snow on them in Iran, in the country of Iran.

Here we have the north coast of Australia and the gulf of Carpenteria and some islands. The biggest island at the bottom of the screen there is Groote island, which means the big island in Dutch.

When you see a huge powerful feature like this and the astronauts do shoot them a lot and we have had some detailed views looking right down the eye, looking at the eyewall. In fact I seem to remember views of breaking waves on the sea surface at the bottom of the eye. Amazing detail.

Look at this neat picture of Great Salt Lake in Utah. And the variation in color? That's due to an almost a complete blockage of the circulation of the lake by a trestle for a railroad that crosses from one side to the other. It stops the circulation and things get a little bit saltier and certainly saltier at the north end of the lake.

Here you see two circles coming in to the top of the view now. These are either volcanoes or effects from inside the earth producing circular features. We think this is the Big Bend area of Texas.

This is an interesting sideways view of the peninsula of Florida, with the Keys stretching out into the lowest part of the picture there. And the shallow seas around the Bahama Islands top right. And Cuba coming into the picture lower right.

And this I believe is the coast of Northern Chile in South America. It's a very straight coast, except for that strange headland out to the right just disappearing. And so the desert is the first part of the inland zone, and then you see much blacker at the top of the picture the Andes Mountains with some many dozens of volcanoes.

Here is a thunderhead. The typical look of the thunderheads, the big rainstorms, that develop over the Amazon Basin. And another one coming in top right. Here's an obviously a major river. There's an even bigger one coming in on the right. That looks to me like it could well be the Amazon River, with one of its big tributaries on the left. And the flow would seem to be from the bottom of the picture to the top.

Glass Furniture

Our Earth at night

Weird Plants

Watch out...Google+ is here!

 

A man was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching his wife, who was looking at herself in the mirror. Since her birthday was not far off he asked what she'd like to have for her birthday. 'I'd like to be six again', she replied, still looking in the mirror . On the morning of her Birthday, he arose…

Take a Vacation in Beautiful Bangladesh

If you have come this far, you are probably already planning your vacation to Bangladesh – at least in your mind if not on paper. You will already know that this beautiful country has many secrets just waiting to be discovered by the western world. You may also know that the weather controls the country and that the monsoon season brings more than just a lot of rain. So what is it then that has attracted you to the idea of a vacation in Bangladesh? Bangladesh holidays are incredibly varied and offer you the chance to mix shopping, historical attractions, great locations, sports and nature all into one intense and very competitively priced package. What more could you want from a holiday in Bangladesh?
Bangladesh’s feature attractions include archaeological sites, historical monuments, buildings and mosques, resorts, miles of beautiful, turquoise beaches, stunning forests and enchanting wildlife. After spending a morning roaming the Sundarbans in search of the world-famous Bengal Tiger, you might head to the coast or the nearest lake for a bit of water skiing, surfing, yachting, swimming, angling or rowing. Or, if you really enjoy nature, you might try hiking through Bangladesh’s many wilderness areas where you might spot a variety of mammals or birds. There are a number of short and long trails available and there are great picnic spots where you can stop over for a bite to eat.
Likely it will not take long for the fact that there are over 123 million people living in Bangladesh to sink in. As one of the most heavily populated countries in the world, many Bangladeshis struggle with poverty. However, instead of allowing this to become a deterrent, why not visit this stunning country and let your travel money help support the many families that call Bangladesh home. Who knows, you may make some great friends along the way - or you may simply return home with the satisfaction of knowing that your bargain holiday to Bangladesh was everything you wanted it to be and more.

Visiting Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

New basketball tactic

I am not a basketball expert, far from it. But I do know that there is lots of strategies and tactics than can be used to win a game, and it is always good to know them.
Here is a new basketball tactic, one that I did not know about. Pretty simple, the idea is to put a finger in the nose of the opponent when he jumps to put the ball in the basket! Very effective, no?