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Dec 31, 2020

‘Bad business’: the rise and fall of China’s bike-sharing twin stars

Posted by in categories: business, transportation

But their cash-burning tactics to attract users and uncertain business models turned out to be unsustainable. By 2017, the bubble was already bursting – yet another casualty in big tech’s seemingly endless proxy wars for users and market share, leaving a trail of broken companies, and bikes, in their wake.


Mobike officially halted operations of the mobile app and WeChat mini programme under its own brand last week, fully merging under its parent company Meituan.

Dec 31, 2020

If You See a Guy Outside Your Airplane Window, Don’t Worry, It’s Only “Jetpack Man”

Posted by in category: transportation

Well, at least he’s enjoying the view.


Jetpacks only operate for a limited amount of time, and they can’t achieve heights of several thousand feet, but don’t tell that to “Jetpack Man” who has been seen by passing airliners flying over the skies of southern California.

Dec 31, 2020

Ripsaw: The Luxury Tank

Posted by in category: futurism

I want one. 😃


Say hello to the EV2 Ripsaw Tank is a luxury 600hp super tank!

Dec 31, 2020

Electric airplanes are getting tantalizingly close to a commercial breakthrough

Posted by in categories: military, sustainability

For $140000, you can fly your own electric airplane. The Slovenian company Pipistrel sells the Alpha Electro, the first electric aircraft certified as airworthy by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2018. It’s a welterweight at just 811 pounds (368 kilograms), powered by a 21 kWh battery pack—about one-fifth the power of what you’d find in a Tesla Model S. For about 90 minutes, the pilot training plane will keep you and a companion aloft without burning a drop of fossil fuel.

Those of us without a pilot license will have to wait longer for emissions-free flight—but not much. For all its challenges, 2020 has proven to be a milestone year for electric aviation. Electric aircraft set new distance records, replicated short commercial flight paths, won over the US military, and attracted buyers from big airlines.

And in June, European regulators granted another of Pipistrel’s aircraft, the Velis Electro, the world’s first electric “type certification,” deeming the entire aircraft design safe and ready for mass production (airworthiness only certifies individual aircraft).

Dec 30, 2020

The map of nuclear deformation takes the form of a mountain landscape

Posted by in categories: particle physics, transportation

Until recently, scientists believed that only very massive nuclei could have excited zero-spin states of increased stability with a significantly deformed shape. Meanwhile, an international team of researchers from Romania, France, Italy, the USA and Poland showed in their latest article that such states also exist in much lighter nickel nuclei. Positive verification of the theoretical model used in these experiments allows describing the properties of nuclei unavailable in Earth laboratories.

More than 99.9 per cent of the mass of an atom comes from the atomic nucleus, the volume of which is over a trillion times smaller than the volume of the entire atom. Hence, the atomic nucleus has an amazing density of about 150 million tons per cubic centimeter. This means that one tablespoon of nuclear matter weighs almost as much as a cubic kilometer of water. Despite their very small size and incredible density, atomic nuclei are complex structures made of protons and neutrons. One may expect that such extremely dense objects would always take spherical form. In reality, however, the situation is quite different: most nuclei are deformed—they exhibit shape flattened or elongated along one or even two axes, simultaneously. To find the favorite form of a given nucleus, it is customary to construct a landscape of the potential energy as a function of deformation. One may visualize such landscape by drawing a map on which the plane coordinates are the deformation parameters, i.e.

Dec 30, 2020

Is Caral, Peru the Oldest City in the Americas?

Posted by in category: education

On a high, dry terrace overlooking a green river valley in the Andes Mountains of Peru, sits a complex of American pyramids that may be older than the pyramids of Egypt. These structures are remnants of the ancient city of Caral, which some have called the oldest society in the Americas. Caral was built around 5000 years ago, give or take a few centuries, according to groundbreaking research published in Science back in 2001. That origin date places it before the Egyptian pyramids in Africa and roughly 4000 years before the Incan Empire rose to power on the South American continent. That history, and the shear scope of the site, prompted UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, to dub it a World Heritage Site in 2009.


These pyramids in Peru are older than the ones in Egypt, and predate the Incan Empire by roughly 4000 years.

Dec 30, 2020

Swiss Firm Engineers Hybrid Electric eVTOL/eSTOL Prototype

Posted by in categories: sustainability, transportation

A Swiss firm has engineered a one-third scale model of a hybrid-electric aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) or efficient short take-off and landing (STOL) operations. The nifty vehicle will soon be performing its first test flight.

RELATED: NEW EVTOL VERTICAL ROTOR AIRCRAFT JOINS THE AEROSPACE RACE

The firm, called Manta Aircraft, says their new model combines the best features of a helicopter and a plane.

Dec 30, 2020

Pipistrel Unveils Cool Electric VTOL Aircraft Concept For Uber Elevate

Posted by in category: transportation

Circa 2018


Hot on the latest Uber Elevate summit this month in Los Angeles, Pipistrel planned the unveiling of its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concept to the public.

Continue reading “Pipistrel Unveils Cool Electric VTOL Aircraft Concept For Uber Elevate” »

Dec 30, 2020

Indonesian Fisherman Caught What Appears To Be A Chinese Underwater Drone

Posted by in category: drones

The craft matches an underwater glider that China builds, which is capable of traveling for weeks and over huge distances.

Dec 30, 2020

Octopus And Squid Evolution Is Officially Stranger Than We Could Have Ever Imagined

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, evolution, genetics

I have to admit, they really sound “alien-like” if you ask me. 😃


Just when we thought octopuses couldn’t be any weirder, it turns out that they and their cephalopod brethren evolve differently from nearly every other organism on the planet.

In a surprising twist, in April 2017 scientists discovered that octopuses, along with some squid and cuttlefish species, routinely edit their RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt to their environment.

Continue reading “Octopus And Squid Evolution Is Officially Stranger Than We Could Have Ever Imagined” »