Nature's Grossest Creatures on world

A good dose of nature can still soothe the psyche of the modern human, but sometimes nature, red in tooth and claw, can also just gross you out. Wasps turn helpless caterpillars into a 24x7 buffet for young ones, mama mantis snacks on the head of its former lover, and a frog gives new meaning to oral fixation when nurturing the kiddies.
Go ahead and judge. These creatures don't care whether they win marks for beauty by human standards -- anything goes when survival and reproduction are at stake. They compete to not win any Darwin Awards.
Perhaps it's time for us humans to reassess our thinking, rather than let an aesthetic sense blind us to natural forms and functions that work well. Maggots writhing in a wound can disgust, sure, but saving a limb without risking an attack by antibiotic-resistant bacteria? That's beautiful.

Microvision's Pocket Projector Shines

We finally got a look at the SHOW, Microvisions almost-ready-for-prime-time laser projector. We certainly like the size—alittle bigger than an iPod in current form, and planned to be about iPod-sizedwhen other companies brand it and sell it around the end of the year. But the video quality left us a little disappointed. Color is fantastic, thanks to the lasers. (More impressive than the white LEDs Isuspect are in 3Ms projector.) But forthe same reason, the detail was a bit lacking, due to a phenomenon calledspeckle. When a laser hits a screen, some of the light bounces straight back,into the oncoming beam, causing interference. The effect made it look like the SHOW was projecting onto burlap instead of onto a smooth tablecloth, wall, orscreen. Although they promise the final versionwill look better.
The folks from Microvision say that 9 out of 10 people theyshowed it to didnt even notice the speckle. That seems hard to believe. Buteven with the speckles, the ability to shine big-screen images anywhere you gois awfully appealing.

Sony XEL-1 OLED Television

Hanging a television on the wall is nice. Even better is sticking it on, like wallpaper. The first organic light-emitting diode TV isn’t that thin, but at three millimeters, it’s close. (Sony has prototypes that are one tenth as thick.) It also produces stunning colors and the highest contrast possible—from brilliant white to pitch-black.
OLEDs have long promised these results, while presenting plenty of challenges. The achievement of taking OLED from a lab experiment to a consumer product is the top innovation of the year.
It took clever engineering. To optimize color, for instance, Sony placed the OLED in microscopic troughs sized to match specific wavelengths of light. So the red part of each pixel sits in a cavity that allows only the ideal shade of red to escape.
Why did a giant technology advance appear in an 11-inch screen? OLED circuitry requires a type of glass that isn’t produced in large sizes, and applying the material to bigger sheets requires new techniques. Retooling factories will cost a fortune. But companies will spend big money if they see a big market, and selling a real OLED TV, even a small one, has fired up demand. Sony promises 27-inch models soon. You could see sets of 32 inches or more, from several companies, by 2011.

Apple App

The Apple Store’s dead-simple interface makes it easy to search for and download games, sports tickers, news readers and other programs. One-click installation and a central repository (accessible from the phone itself) transforms your phone or iPod into a pocket-sized computer.

The Pocket Printer

In 1948, Polaroid introduced on-the-spot photo printing with the Land Camera. It continued making instant film until this year, when a successor emerged in the PoGo, a full-color, pocket-sized printer for digital cameras based on an idea that Polaroid’s founder, Edwin Land, had 30 years ago.
Land challenged his researchers, including a recent MIT grad named Stephen Herchen, to make color printers smaller by eliminating the need for liquid ink. Over the years, they explored technologies such as the heat-activated dyes used in fax machines and clear chemicals that produce color when mixed. Every method took too long or produced prints with low image quality or longevity.
The breakthrough finally came in 2000, when Polaroid developed a dye that’s clear in its solid, crystalline form but turns permanently colored when the crystals melt and change shape. Because different-colored crystals have their own melting points, it’s possible to create a full-color image with one pass of a printhead that applies precise, pinpoint doses of heat. Polaroid was developing a consumer product with this technology when it went bankrupt in 2001 and became simply a brand name for budget electronic products.
In 2005, a group of former Polaroid employees formed Zink (short for “zero ink”) Imaging, with Herchen as chief technology officer. They converted a Konica Minolta paper factory to make paper embedded with the heat-activated dyes and recruited Alps Electric to build the printer. Zink is licensing the technology so companies can build printers directly into devices such as digital cameras. But the first partnership is with its old parent company to make the Polaroid-branded PoGo, which turns out richly colored 2-by-3-inch photos.

Ecofriendly Scooter

Due to the chronic nature of air pollution and the fact that its impacts fall disproportionately on the poor, it is not always recognized for its pervasive role in poor health, poverty and economic stagnation. A major source of outdoor air pollution is carbureted two-stroke engines, which power 100 million "two-wheelers" (e.g. motorcycles, scooters) and "three-wheelers" (e.g. tricycles, "tuk-tuks") across Southeast Asia. Each of these carbureted two-stroke engines produces the pollution output of 50 modern automobiles, thus contributing the pollution-equivalent of approximately 5 billion automobiles. These engines represent one of the largest sources of vehicular emissions in the world.

Envirofit International has developed a Direct In-cylinder (DI) fuel injection retrofit kit for two-stroke engines that is cleaner and more fuel efficient than the replacement four-stroke engines.

Safer kitchens in the developing world

More than half the world’s population cooks over open fires or small charcoal or biomass stoves. These burn fuel incompletely, producing carbon monoxide and smoke that cause 1.5 million deaths a year. Envirofit’s Cookstove burns the same easily found wood but does so more completely to cut emissions by more than 80 percent and use half as much fuel. The can-shaped stove has a precisely measured opening that lets in enough air to fan the flames, yet not enough to cool it and slow down combustion. A chimney-like tube inside helps funnel in fresh air, and a ceramic lining insulates the stove to keep the fire hot and burning efficiently.

A camera that makes time stand still

Casio’s coup was recognizing that the necessary tech—fast image sensors and processors, big memory buffers to hold the images until the memory card records them—already existed in consumer-grade camera components. And it bet correctly that amateurs like me would trade a little quality to get their hands on this kind of high-speed power.

The resolution and image quality aren’t as high as in a pricier rig, but the EX-F1 is small enough to carry everywhere. As a result, one can catch explosive chemical reactions, the acrobatics of dragonflies, and a host of other things that happen at faster-than-human speed.

A super-strong bridge beam

When John Hillman subjected his bridge beam to load tests, it handled a hydraulic press’s 145 tons of maximum force with ease. The Hillman Composite Beam weighs one third as much as concrete competitors—saving 20 percent on shipping and installation costs—and can hold 50 percent more weight. The beam gets its strength from within. A concrete arch supports the weight above it, and a steel plate running lengthwise prevents the arch from collapsing. A plastic shell wards off corrosion. The first bridge built with the beams opened in August in Illinois. Next up: a 540-foot bridge in Maine, and licensing deals in Canada and Europe.

The first permanent highway installation of HCBs -- the High Road Bridge over Long Run Creek in Lockport Township, Ill. –opened to traffic in August 2008.
The superstructure for this 57-foot (17.4 m), single-span bridge is comprised of six 42-inch (1.067 m) deep HCBs spaced at 7-foot-4-inch (2.23 m) centers, supporting a conventional 8-inch (200 mm) thick reinforced concrete deck.

The longest-flying electric plane yet

The first two-seat battery-powered airplane, the Taurus Electro gives pilots the quiet-as-a-bird flight of a glider coupled with the practicality of a powered aircraft. Two lithium-polymer battery packs drive a top-mounted propeller, so the Electro can take off from a runway like a typical plane. Once airborne, the Electro switches into glider mode and rides thermal currents back to earth. A 31-pound electric motor makes it all possible by providing 30 kilowatts of power. Although the Taurus Electro is still classified by the FAA as "experimental," Pipistrel hopes to change that ruling and start selling it by next year.

The finish that repairs itself

It won’t save you from a key-gouging vandal, but the finish on the 2008 Infiniti EX and FX-model SUVs can erase scrapes caused by, say, car washes or stray branches. The clear coat contains a synthetic resin that, when activated by daytime heat and sunlight, flows into surface wounds, repairing the damage in anywhere from a day to a week, depending on temperature and the depth of the scratch. Thanks to the extra resin in the coating, the finish is more durable than most, too, showing 80 percent fewer abrasions than conventional clear coat after 50 trips through an automated car wash.

Bahrain World Trade Center: The wind-power towers

The first skyscraper to integrate large-scale wind turbines suspends three 1,200-megawatt units between its matching 787-foot office towers. The turbines, which were completed in April, supply 15 percent of the electricity for the two buildings—roughly the same amount used by 300 homes.
To maximize energy output, the tapered towers funnel wind between them, creating a negative pressure zone behind the buildings that draws more air through the gap. This suction effect increases wind speeds by up to 30 percent at each of the 95-foot-long rotors to boost electricity production. It also redirects wind gusts hitting the tower by up to 45 degrees off center so that they hit the turbines at a nearly perpendicular angle for optimal electricity generation.

GluBam Bridge

The bridge Yan Xiao built in Leiyang with GluBam was the town’s first. Each beam that spans the brick columns was created using Xiao’s novel process of transforming irregular bamboo into a practical building material. First he tore strips of bamboo from the stalk and arranged them in such a way as to provide the most strength. He then coated the strips with glue and compressed them in a self-built hydraulic press into beams, 33 feet long and up to three feet wide, each capable of supporting eight tons. Xiao says that the beams cost just 20 percent as much as imported lumber. Better still, rural China has a constantly replenishing supply of bamboo.
Bamboo is a remarkable material. Some species have stalks as dense as hardwood. It’s the world’s fastest-growing woody plant, and it’s an exceptionally good absorber of carbon. But its irregular, knotty form is a problem. Making a reliable bamboo structure used to mean picking through stalks to find the ones that met precise measurements. Timber, on the other hand, can be cut to standard sizes. So Xiao set about developing a process to transform bamboo strips into easy-to-manage beams. In 2006 he devised GluBam, bamboo timber sturdy enough for beams and trusses. Last winter, he returned to China and, using just an eight-man crew and no machinery, built a 33-foot GluBam bridge capable of supporting eight tons in the remote, ramshackle Hunan province town of Leiyang. The feat was so surprising, it was covered on China’s national news.

Saudi Arabias Jurassic-park

Beneath Saudi Arabia’s blazing sun, the largest greenhouse ever planned is taking shape. It will take visitors on a walk through Earth’s history—and into its future.
It’s hard to imagine it raining in Riyadh. Less than five inches of water fall from the clouds above Saudi Arabia’s capital city each year. When the thermostat rises above 110°F, it’s not a heat wave—it’s midday. But it wasn’t always like this. A little over three million years ago, before climate-change cycles turned the area into a desert, the Arabian Peninsula’s empty riverbeds were overflowing valleys, and its dry expanses of shrubland were lush grasslands.
Set to open in 2011, the ambitious King Abdullah International Botanical Gardens will attempt to display the diverse array of the region’s plant species throughout the past 400 million years in its “paleobotanic” greenhouse. And, as if helping visitors peer into the past isn’t enough of a challenge, the garden will also explore the land’s potential future. The designers hope to educate visitors about the process and consequences of natural-resource depletion and human-wrought climate change as well as the benefits ofpreserving Earth’s bounty.

Terror hit Mumbai

26/11, terror attack in Mumbai, the financial capital of India. Piles of bodies were found in Taj Mahal Palace hotel. Nine terrorists were killed in the battle. Commandos brought 300 people out of the five-star Taj Mahal Palace hotel, where the siege ended. Some 250 others were rescued from the Oberoi-Trident hotel and 60 people were brought out of the Jewish centre.

Sensex Crash

Indian stock analysts and economists tried to sooth the growing fears of Indian and international investors as the Sensex. World markets were torpedoed as growing fears about the state of the world's largest economy, the United States, started to reach panic levels.
There is growing concern that the United States might not only hit a recession, but a nasty one at that. A major recession in the United States would cripple the global economy, especially those in rapidly growing nations funded by Western investment such as India and China.
Analysts in India tried to make the point that the Indian economy didn't change overnight, so there is no reason for this panic. This is true, but if the United States suffers through a crippling recession then India will take a beating due to decreased investment in the country. When a company is trudging through a rough patch due to a bad economy, the first thing that they usually do is cut their research and development.