Biosphere 2 is Dying

If you grew up when we grew up, chances are you learned about the Biosphere 2 project in science class. Maybe you even read about it in Ranger Rick magazine. It was a hugely ambitious project — recreate the earth (aka Biosphere 1) so that people could live inside entirely self-sufficient. Some called it a failure because people only lived in there for two entire years, but they were calorie and oxygen deprived. However, many scientists call it a success because of the amount of knowledge gained by the experiment. We vote it as a success.
It was interesting to visit. In the magazines growing up, the entire structure radiated newness and cleanliness. Now, there are rusty spots, the paint is pealing away … it’s dying. Biosphere 1 is kicking Biosphere 2′s ass.
However, it was most interesting to hear the insider stories. Rumor has it that two factions formed during the long mission and there are still members of the groups that refuse to speak to each other! And supposedly there was at least one Biosphere hook-up — two of the original team were married after the mission according to our guide. Also according to our guide, the second experiment ended because the knowledge they were gaining was the same as the knowledge gained during the first experiment. Because of this, it was cut short. Wikipedia, however, tells a different story: federal marshals served the management team with a retraining order, removing them from the site. This pushed the mission into chaos.
The structure is now being used for other experiments, notably the LEO experiment that is going on now that hopes to learn more about soil formation and the interaction between rain and soil. It’s now wholly owned by the University of Arizona, and it’s evidently pretty expensive to keep up — tickets for the tour are $20.
We, of course, took a lot of pictures.

Biosphere 2 housing -- everybody had a duplex apartment.

Biosphere 2 kitchen. They cooked without oil for 2 years.

The Biosphere 2 rainforest.

The Biosphere 2 "ocean" area.

Under the ocean.

The guts of the Biosphere 2 building. This leads to one of the lungs.

One of the lungs -- the middle ceiling rises and falls to equalize the pressure when sealed. Otherwise it would blow out on hot days.

The LEO project gives the building new life.

The LEO is a big experiment. This is the old agricultural area.

Biosphere 2 shows its age -- construction finished in the early '90s.

A fresh coat of paint would do wonders ... and cost millions.

spooky...

An unexpected side-effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiders webs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before, but they also reported that there were fewer mosquitoes than they would have expected, given the amount of standing water that was left. Not being bitten by mosquitoes was one small blessing for people that had lost everything in the floods. Photo and caption by Russell Watkins/National Geographic Photo Contest

Bane Lets It Rip in Dark Knight Rises’ Menacing Prologue

As Bane, actor Tom Hardy brings convincing menace to The Dark Knight Rises, at least in the prologue.
Image courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

HOLLYWOOD — Heath Ledger’s Joker blasted through the opening heist sequence of The Dark Knight with chilling conviction three years ago. Smart, scary and utterly riveting, Ledger’s character set the tone for the rest of the picture by blending ice-cold humor with utterly remorseless criminal smarts.

sign of the Apocalypse #71

Taco Bell Doritos Taco: Chain Claims New Shell Will Reinvent Titular Menu Item .

Some things are perfect: sunshine, rainbows, koala bears, King Lear, fish tacos eaten on the beach in Malibu. These are things that, like the wheel, no one would want to reinvent. But what about Taco Bell tacos? Given that they've been accused of being filled with a faux-ground meat mixture, they hardly seem as perfect as rainbows. So why not reinvent them? Probably can't make them any worse, right?

If only.
As it turns out, Taco Bell had the capability to make its tacos much, much worse. Parent company Yum Brands just had to team up with fellow food giant PepsiCo for an answer, in the form of taco shells made of nacho cheese-flavored Doritos.

The tacos debuted at the beginning of 2011 in selected markets in the San Joaquin Valley in California, and proved enough a success that Yum Brands has decided to bring the product to Taco Bells around the country.

Representative from the company told Nation's Restaurant News that the Doritos Locos Tacos would "reinvent the taco," and help separate Taco Bell from its competitors. The fillings on the Dorito-clad tacos are said to be spiced more mildly than those in traditional tacos, to help compensate for the extra flavor in the shell.

At this point, it's unclear how the bright orange cheese powder on the exterior of the new tacos will affect Taco Bell's sodium reduction initiative, but we can't imagine it's helping. Maybe Taco Bell shouldn't have reinvented its wheel after all.

Here's an ad for the tacos that's been aired in California test markets

AL JAFFEE's Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions: Live at Joe's Pub

Uploaded by jahfurry on Nov 14, 2011

AL JAFFEE's Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions

hooray!!!!!!!!!!!

Nigella Douses Self In Salted Caramel As Guest Editor For Stylist Magazine

If someone really loved salted caramel, she could proclaim that love by consuming the sweet treat. Or she could pour the sugary sauce over her head, photograph it and put it on the cover of a magazine. That just so happens to be the way cookbook author and TV personality Nigella Lawson shared her love for this sweet confection with the world -- as Eater brought to light -- with an image of caramel dripping down her heavily made-up face on the latest cover of Stylist.

Nigella denies that this haunting image is by any means sexual in nature. In an interview with the London Times, Nigella maintains that this image "is simply rapturous joy in caramel," the Daily Mail reports. Well, we have never seen such joy take this form in the past, and we certainly hope that it sticks to its usual smiles from here on out.

It is safe to assume that not everyone perceives the Domestic Goddess' cover in the innocent light she may have hoped for. Celebrities do have a history of dousing themselves in food items while suggestively posing for the camera. If you have managed to forget some of the more striking erotic food photographs, Grub Street has nicely rounded up some of the best ones to refresh your memory. From images of actress Josie Maran spraying her face with milk straight from an udder to Giada De Laurentiis playing in a vat of tomato sauce -- feels like we have seen it all.

OMG!!!!!!

Mr. Spock Of 'Star Trek' A Woman? Nichelle Nicols Says She Was Offered Role

Though the "Star Trek" has been rebooted with a new sheen, make no mistake: Leonard Nimoy is Mr. Spock. But here's a twist: had things turned out the way series creator Gene Roddenberry intended them, the role would have been perhaps been cast as Ms. Spock.

In an interview filmed in 2002 for "Trek Nation Director's Log" and aired recently on the Science Channel special "Trek Nation," Nichelle Nicols revealed that she was the original Vulcan of Roddenberry's eye.

"They gave me a three-page script to read from that had three characters named," she said. "There was Bones, Kirk and someone called Spock and they asked me to read for the role of Spock. When I looked at this great text, I said to myself, 'I'll take any one of these roles,' but I found the Spock character to be very interesting, and I asked them to tell me what she [Spock] was like."

As io9 points out, there was a female character, much like Spock, named Number One in an early iteration of the script; it was later cut and Spock was added, seemingly in its place.

Eventually, of course, Nicols would end up winning the role of Lieutenant Uhura, leading to what is largely considered the first interracial kiss on television, with William Shatner's Captain Kirk.

As for Spock, Nimoy said he got a call from his agent saying that Roddenberry, who produced a show he had already been on, wanted him for a role in another show he was working. He sent in an episode of "Dr. Kildare," in which, as he told Emmytvlegends.org, "he played a very quiet, shy guy who befriended a blind girl and quoted poetry to her, a very sensitive, nice character," which was the absolute opposite of what he had done on Roddenberry's show.

Then came a meeting in a studio with Roddenberry, and the rest is history. In the most recent iteration of the franchise, director JJ Abrams' films, Zachary Quinto plays Spock, to devastating effect, but after three seasons of orignal show, seven film starring roles and various other cameos, Nimoy will forever be the one true Spock.

FOLLOW HUFFPOST ENTERTAINMENT

going to be hard to top Noomi Rapace...

 

MythBusters Accidentally Fires Cannonball Into Suburban Neighborhood

 

If there were an urban myth that suburban homes are impervious to becoming cannon fodder, it just got busted

yummy.....

Brain sandwich ( bread crumbs and painted clay )
Cervello panino ( pangrattato e creta dipinta )

Food for canaries / Mangime per canarini

Candies / Zuccherini

What have you got in your head? is a two-part artwork series of human brains made with food from Italian artist Sara Asnaghi. Created in 2006, Part 1 of the series includes human brains molded from polenta, red lentils, salt and more. Later in 2010, Sara created Part 2 which includes brains made from canary food, nonpareil candies and a ‘brain sandwich’ made from bread crumbs and clay

great turing sculpture

people and the fish they look like

looks interesting..

 

Escape From New York goes to outerspace in the new sci-fi flick from French action man Luc Besson. In Lockout, Guy Pearce plays a wrongly-convicted felon who invades an interstellar prison and extracts the president’s daughter in exchange for his freedom

wow....Hero, A Pointillist Portrait Made With 3.2 Million Dots

 

stupid, but funny..

oh please...oh please.....

Cain exit sparks Gingrich poll surge in Republican race for the White House

Former House Speaker now leads favourite Romney in key states

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Newt Gingrich's resurgence comes after his hopes of winning the nomination appeared dead and buried only a few weeks ago

AFP/Getty Images

Newt Gingrich, whose career seemed dead and buried just weeks ago, has capitalised on Herman Cain's exit to establish a huge lead in the early voting states that could decide the Republican White House race.

A poll in The Washington Post yesterday put him 15 points ahead of Mitt Romney, the nominal front-runner whose victory has been seen as a given by political analysts.
Mr Gingrich has similarly large leads in two of the other three states that hold presidential primaries next month and is steadily closing the gap in the fourth – Mr Romney's once-impregnable stronghold of New Hampshire.

watched it last night for the first time in years..

very cool and spooky

first look prometheus

because it's monday and I need it......

very cool.......

not really surprised...but saddened..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/03/kurt-vonnegut-biography?newsfeed=true

Kurt Vonnegut's dark, sad, cruel side is laid bare

A biography of the author of Slaughterhouse Five undermines his warm, grandfatherly image

Despite being hailed by so many as a genius, Kurt Vonnegut felt that the literary establishment never took him seriously. Photograph: Crescent/Everett /Rex Features

A new biography of acclaimed American author Kurt Vonnegut, beloved by fans worldwide for his work's warm humour and homespun Midwestern wisdom, has shocked many with a portrayal of a bitter, angry man prone to depression and fits of temper.
The book on Vonnegut, who died in 2007, lifts the lid on the writer's private life, revealing a man far removed from the grandfather-like public figure his millions of devotees adored.
And So It Goes was written by Charles Shields, who also wrote a controversial biography of Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird. The book paints a picture of a man who was often distant from his children, cruel to a long-suffering first wife, caught in an unpleasant second marriage and spent much of his later years depressed and angry. "Cruel, nasty and scary are the adjectives commonly used to describe him by the friends, colleagues, and relatives Shields quotes," wrote one reviewer, Wendy Smith, on the Daily Beast website. The New York Times reviewer, Chris Buckley, called Shields's portrayal "sad, often heartbreaking".
Through novels such as The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle and the classic Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut's career spanned five decades, often working in the science fiction genre, and catapulted him into the canon of great American writers. His work, while often dealing with tragedy, was famed for espousing humanitarian, even socialist values, and often had a strong anti-war, anti-capitalist feel. It is full of references to the virtues of small-town life, volunteer firefighters and the Midwest, especially his home city of Indianapolis.
Yet Shields's book is unsparing in its portrayal of Vonnegut's dark side. It reveals that the writer – whose experience as a PoW during the firebombing of Dresden scarred his psyche for life – had no qualms about investing in firms that made napalm or indulged in a host of other morally suspect activities. He fell out with friends, editors and relatives and had a shocking temper. In later life he appeared deeply bitter and lonely. In the opening part of the book Shields describes meeting Vonnegut just a few months before his death. He describes Vonnegut asking him to look up his name in a dictionary (it was not there) and then look up Jack Kerouac (it was there). "How about that?" Vonnegut then states with a frown. The chapter of Shields's book dealing with Vonnegut's final 15 years of life is called simply "Waiting to Die".
"Towards the end he was very feeble, very depressed and almost morose. I think that slants this book," said Jerome Klinkowitz, an academic at the University of Northern Iowa and one of the world's leading experts on Vonnegut.
"It is a little naive to be surprised by this," said Gregory Sumner of the University of Detroit Mercy, who recently wrote a book exploring Vonnegut's work, called Unstuck In Time. "Personal relationships were difficult for him. He had a lot of survivor's guilt."
Vonnegut definitely had survived a lot. His once wealthy family was impoverished by the Great Depression, causing grim strains in his parents' marriage. His mother committed suicide. His beloved sister died of breast cancer, a day after her husband was killed in a train accident. But the defining horror of Vonnegut's life was his wartime experience and surviving the Dresden bombing, only to be sent into the ruins as prison labour in order to collect and burn the corpses. The ordeal cropped up continually in his work, but most notably formed the basis of Slaughterhouse-Five, the book that made Vonnegut famous.
But there was more to it than just coping with such traumatic situations. In later life, despite being hailed by so many as an American genius, Vonnegut felt that the literary establishment never took him seriously. They interpreted his simplistic style, love of science fiction and Midwestern values as being beneath serious study.
The book will do little to dampen enthusiasm for Vonnegut's work. "He's not a relic of the 1960s. His work is vibrant today even posthumously," said Sumner. "Maybe we just expect too much of our heroes."

Animated Classic Comic Book Covers by Kerry Callen

blade runner set...

Ennis House (Los Angeles)

Location for: Blade Runner (1982)

Blade Runner is supposed to be set in Los Angeles in 2019, but one of its most compelling settings is this Frank Lloyd Wright architectural masterpiece from 1924 in the city's Los Feliz neighborhood. The Ennis House, also known as the Ennis-Brown House, serves as Deckard's home and — true to the future predicted in Blade Runner — the mansion began falling into disrepair after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
The Ennis House Foundation began a campaign to repair the building that was never truly finished. Businessman Ron Burkle purchased the Ennis House this summer for nearly $4.5 million. (Let's see someone try to afford that on a blade runner's salary.) According to the terms of the sale, Burkle will provide some form of public access to the home at least 12 days out of the year, but even if you're not lucky enough to visit Los Angeles on one of those dozen days, Wright's masterpiece is pretty visible from the street.
While you're there: Visit another beautiful building from Blade Runner -- the Bradbury Building. The Griffith Observatory (featured in The Terminator) is also a lovely place to spend an afternoon; it's open Wednesday through Sunday and admission to the grounds and observatory building is free.

Top photo

dig it....

Dolphin Tattoo Transforms Amputee's Shoulder Into A Work Of Art (PICTURE)

Norway's own Heine Braeck lost his right arm in an accident when he was 13, but now he's turned a sorry situation into art by tattooing a dolphin on to the stump.

 

sleek.....Megaphone, A Giant Ceramic Horn Amplifier For iPhone

This cartoon had a bad day at work by See Mike Draw

As Above, So Below, Video Projection Mapped on the Manhattan Bridge

I would say there are seven life lessons I learned from "Star Trek" that I take with me to this day. These are lessons I hope to pass along to my own children someday--but for now, I will share them with the interweb.

1. The best way to travel is to boldly go where no one has gone before. This is true for vacations, for self-exploration, for life itself. If you want your days filled with adventure, laughter, love, learning and the occasional mind-meld, follow this route.
2. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few--or the one. Sometimes you must make great sacrifices for the greater good. And, like the Genesis device, it will all come back around.
3. Expressing your emotions is a healthy thing. Sure, McCoy seemed angry all the time when exclaiming, "Dammit, Jim! I'm a doctor not a mechanic/bricklayer/soothsayer," but he knew that by expressing his anger and frustration it wouldn't get the best of him and he could then perform at his peak capacity.
4. When estimating how long a job will take, overestimate--and when you do better your captain will always be impressed. Replace the word "captain" with "teacher" or "mom/dad" and you'll see what I mean. Sure, Mr. Scott might have been telling the truth--maybe it would take six hours to get the warp engines back online in the heat of the battle. Or maybe he was padding things so he looked good. Either way, when the engines did come back on line, everyone was happy.
5. Wearing red makes you a target. This is true of cars, dresses and, most especially, shirts. Red gets you noticed--which is good if you want to be noticed, bad if you don't want to end up vaporized.
6. When you don't know what to say, pause. It will give you the time to figure it out. Or at the very least, you'll sound like you're being thoughtful. "But....Spock.....why?"
7. The most powerful force in the universe is friendship. It's more powerful than phasers, photon torpedos, even more powerful than the force itself. With friends, you can accomplish any task, escape any perilous situation, defeat any enemy--and you get to laugh together when it's all over.

I am convinced that these lessons will serve us all, adults and children, well as we seek out new life, new civilizations, new experiences. In short, thanks to "Star Trek," we may all live long and prosper

Robot Tea Infuser...very cool

Pope John Paul,Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry Truman relived secret is out...

Newt Gingrich: I helped defeat communism

 

Newt Gingrich, who has often blasted the press for "stupid," "gotcha" or insider questions, focused closely on process in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News tonight.
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Via ABC News, which was given a partial transcript, Gingrich listed his accomplishments this way:

“I helped Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp develop supply side economics. I helped lead the effort to defeat communism in the Congress.”

wtf?

 

great golden age illustration...