A Spiderman impersonator got himself arrested and fined for a breach of the peace at Scotland’s "T in the Park" music festival for clambering up a 30-foot speaker rig during the headline act’s set. Feel free to provide your own punchline in the comments … [via ForbiddenPlanet][Image by Spojení]
Today the UK government gave planning approval for the world’s first large scale wave farm off the coast of Cornwall in South West England. The project, dubbed Wave Hub, is a world first and will include an onshore substation connected to electrical equipment on the seabed about 16 kilometres (10 miles) offshore via a sub-sea cable. Wave Hub could generate enough electricity for 7,500 homes, directly saving 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over 25 years. Because Wave Hub is also a research facility, it could create 1,800 jobs and put £560 million into UK economy over the same 25 year period.
[via Gizmodo]
Inspired by the European mole, Robin Scott and Robert Richardson of the University of Manchester hope to develop a digging robot that could "swim" through debris to rescue people trapped under rubble after a disaster. Here’s a video of their new digging mechanism undergoing tests with a range of materials, and here’s an animation that shows how the mechanism works. A search-and-rescue robot based on the design could be ready in as little as two years.
That’s probably longer than you want to wait if you’re trapped under rubble right now, but if you’re planning on being trapped in the future, it’s good to know improved options are on the way.
Other researchers are experimenting with rescue robots that roll, walk or slither.
And then there’s the human-eating firefighter rescue robot. You have to admit, a mechanical mole sounds downright friendly next to that one.
(Via NewScientistTech.)
(Image from Newsline 36, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)
[tags]robots, search and rescue, engineering [/tags]
The title tells it all – a Nebraskan State Senator, in an attempt to make a point about frivolous lawsuits, files an injunction against God. I can hear the cranks revving their engines already … [Via Pharyngula]
Villagers in Southern Peru became sick with a mystery illness last Saturday after a meteor struck nearby. The villagers complained of headaches and vomiting caused by a strange odor. Several police officers also became sick while investigating the impact. Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater.
One can not help but think of Michael Crichton’s Andromeda Strain.
UPDATE
An engineer from the Peruvian Nuclear Energy Institute told the AFP news agency no radiation had been detected from the crater and ruled out the fallen object being a satellite.
Renan Ramirez said: “It is a conventional meteorite that, when it struck, produced gases by fusing with elements of the terrain.”
The gases are believed to have affected the health of about 600 people who visited the site.