(YouTube Link)

The Tesla Air 2000 was a biplane built in 1933 by William Besler and Nathan C. Price. It was powered by a steam boiler that was so quiet that spectators on the ground could hear the pilot calling to them. From the video notes:

The advantages of the "Besler System" that were claimed at the time included the elimination of audible noise and destructive vibration; greater efficiency at low engine speeds and also at high altitudes where lower air temperatures assisted condensation; reduced likelihood of engine failure; reduced maintenance costs; reduced fuel costs, since fuel oil was used in place of petrol; reduced fire hazard since the fuel was less volatile and operating temperatures were lower; and a lack of need for radio shielding.

For capacities in excess of 1000 horse power a turbine captures the energy released by the expansion of steam more efficiently than a piston. Thus, the steam reciprocating engine turned out to be unsuitable for scaling up to the needs of large aircraft

via Make

The nature blog Treehugger has a slideshow of ten unusual fish that are so scary looking that they'll give you nightmares. Pictured above is the fangtooth fish, a deep sea fish about 17 cm long. It has the largest teeth of any sea creature relative to body size.

Link via Digg | More Information about the Fangtooth | BBC Video about the Fangtooth | Image: Jeff Cart

The V-1 "Buzz Bomb" was the first practical cruise missile in military history. Nazi Germany fired many at Allied population centers in the last year of World War II. One of two brought back to the United States at the end of the war ended up as a war memorial to the veterans of Putnam County, Indiana, dedicated in 1947. Today, it's on display at that outdoor memorial in the town of Greencastle. Deidre of Wandering Goblin visited it recently and took some excellent pictures, including the one above.

Link | More Information about the Memorial | More Information about the V-1

Cameron Chapman of Web Design Depot has written a heavily-illustrated article about the history of the ampersand. This old symbol has again become popular in the last several years with the emergence of abbreviated written communications, such as tweets and text messages.

The word “ampersand” was first added to dictionaries in 1837. The word was created as a slurred form of “and, per se and”, which was what the alphabet ended with when recited in English-speaking schools. (Historically, “and per se” preceded any letter which was also a word in the alphabet, such as “I” or “A”. And the ampersand symbol was originally the last character in the alphabet.)

Link via The Presurfer | Image: Cameron Chapman

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Long exposure animation consists of compiling long exposure photographs into an animated form. "Freezelight Magic Forest" is a demonstration of this technique, shot with about 300 individual photographs.

via Gizmodo | Behind the Scenes Video

At Smithsonian, Sarah Zielinski notes the proverbial wisdom among some gardeners that watering plants on scorching hot days can start fires because droplets of water can focus light like a magnifying glass. Scientists decided to test this idea:

They started by placing small glass spheres on maple leaves and exposing them to sunlight. The leaves were quickly sunburned. However, when the glass spheres were replaced with water droplets on both maple and ginkgo leaves, there was no visible burn. Water drops are usually ellipsoidal in shape and are less able than a sphere to concentrate light. In addition, the ellipsoidal shape is able to intensify sunlight only when the sun is low in the sky—when the light is not so strong—and the water itself provides cooling.

There was an exception, though, with plants that have small waxy hairs covering their leaves, like floating ferns. The hairs are hydrophilic and water is held in spheres above the leaf’s surface. Like the glass spheres, these water droplets can intensify sunlight enough the burn a leaf. The scientists say that if water droplets accumulated on a parched plant, sunlight could theoretically spark a fire. They write, “however, the likelihood of this is considerably reduced by fact that after rain the originally dry vegetation becomes wet, and as it dries water drops also evaporate. Thus, claims of fires induced by sunlit water drops on vegetation should…be treated with a grain of salt.”

Link | Photo: US Department of Health and Human Services

Designer Stuart Haygarth makes chandeliers out of discarded materials, including eyeglasses. Pictured above is one of his works, made from 1020 pairs. In an interview about this ongoing project, Haygarth wrote:

For years I have always wanted to do a piece of work with spectacles or sunglasses. This started because I was always finding strange spectacles at flea markets and the fact that each pair once had an owner who relied on them as a tool to see. This narrative and the idea of making a light from an object that helps people to see (in the same way a light does) I find interesting. I have specifically chosen to use spectacles with transparent plastic frames so that the frame becomes illuminated.

Link via Make | Official Website | Interview with the Artist

Artist Peter Schuyff, among other activities, carves baseball bats. When asked about the origins of this idea, he wrote:

The whole thing started with carving sticks on my walks. I’ve made long walks in New Guinea, the Amazon, Burma, jungles, I like jungles. At the end of the day there’s not much to do and I started carving sticks while staring off somewhere. Sometimes in the morning I’d climb a tree, bore a hole and put the stick in it. They were about the size of pencils and when I got back to New York I’d carve pencils in front of the television. It was weeks before I left for Vancouver, and in New Guinea I didn’t have much to do. When I got to Vancouver I saw straight away logs and totem poles

Link via DudeCraft | Interview with the Artist

Chemist Mark Leach has a website filled with dozens of different periodic tables. Pictured above is one that illustrates Madelung's Rule addressing electron sequencing. I have no idea what that means. Fortunately, there is another, more understandable periodical table filled with pretty elephants.

Link via The Presurfer | Image: Mark Leach

The AirMule, developed by the Israeli aerospace company Urban Aeronautics, completed its first test flight. It only went two feet, but since it was just a concept two years ago, that's pretty far. In Aviation Week, Graham Warwick writes:

Urban says the tethered hovers, about 2ft off the ground, showed the control system's ability to stabilize the vehicle in all three axes using inertial measurements augmented by GPS and two laser altimeters. The next phase of flight tests will be untethered and will include horizontal and vertical position stabilization.

The AirMule is powered by a 730shp Turbomeca Arriel I turboshaft driving fore and aft ducted rotors. Urban says the initial tests show the vane system used for roll and yaw control will, with planned improvements, allow the production vehicle to hover with high precision in winds gusting up to 50kt.

Israel hopes to use it for medical evacuation in urban areas that helicopters cannot access.

Link via Popular Science | Photo: Urban Aeronautics

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This awesome commercial re-imagines MS Office as an action/thriller film. In this two-minute trailer, the partner of the slain agent Clippy swears to bring his killer to justice. It was directed by Dennis Liu working under Traffik Advertising.

Official Website via reddit

Australian millionaire David Walsh plans to open a new museum in 2011 called The Museum of Old and New Art. One of his ongoing exhibits will be the life of French artist Christian Boltanski, recorded on camera 24 hours a day:

Photographer, sculptor and installation artist Boltanski has said the deal with the Moorilla winery, brewery and restaurant owner gives him an ongoing fee until he dies.

The 65-year-old artist told the French press agency AFP recently: "This man (Walsh) thinks he can beat the odds and he says he never loses. Anyone who never loses or thinks he never loses must be the devil."

His payment increases with each passing year, so to make the venture financially worthwhile, he must live for another eight years.

Link via Marginal Revolution | Museum of Old and New Art | Photo: Saatchi Gallery

(YouTube Link)

Solar Dog is a prototype cell phone recharging station developed by Erik Schiegg of Switzerland. The user mounts it on a dog's back to collect solar energy as it plays outside. Schiegg writes:

My Android phone is charged in no time... The dog feels good and I'm feeling good and planet mud is turned a little bit more into planet earth. But this idea would be interesting? for farmers around the world, letting their animals collect electricity, too. Without the cost and waste for installation and the ground.

via Make

Oxygen therapy is variously a medical or spa treatment in which people breath air with a higher than normal oxygen content. In Japan, dogs can experience it as well as humans. Air Press is a Tokyo-based company offering this service at the Wag Style salon to your pampered pooch.

Link (Google Translator version) via DVICE

Melbourne-based Lowbrow illustrator Nate Holmes Trapnell puts tattoo-like designs on bowling pins. The curves of the pins add a lovely element of three-dimensionality to the images.

http://www.thesouthpaw.com.au/illustrations.html via DudeCraft | Photo: Nate Holmes Trapnell