michael schumacher back to life

The seven-time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher is gradually being lifted out of his artificial coma, his management confirmed on Thursday.

A statement released by Schumacher's manager, Sabine Kehm, said: "Michael's sedation is being reduced in order to allow the start of the waking-up process which may take a long time. For the protection of the family, it was originally agreed by the interested parties to communicate this information only once this process was consolidated."

Schumacher has been at a specialist clinic in Grenoble since hitting his head in a skiing accident at the Meribel resort in the French Alps more than a month ago. He was put into an artificial coma after two emergency operations to reduce the swelling caused by severe brain trauma.

Clinical staff have been regularly moving his legs and arms in order to stop his muscles from withering away. Doctors had until recently described his condition as "critical, but stable".

On Monday the medical team led by Emmanuel Gay had begun slowly to reduce Schumacher's sedation and conduct a series of neurological tests, according to French newspaper L'Equipe. The former racing driver had reportedly "responded positively" to the tests so far.

Schumacher's manager said the clinic had originally planned to handle the next stage of the treatment discreetly in order to protect Schumacher's family. But Kehm confirmed the latest development after the information was leaked to the French broadcaster Radio Monte Carlo on Wednesday.

The process of reducing sedation can take days or even weeks, depending on the strength of medication used. Whether Schumacher can fully recover from his injuries, however, is doubtful. He has stayed in a coma for a relatively long time, indicating severe swelling, probably relating to severe damage, said Peter Andrews, professor of intensive care at Edinburgh University, who is leading the world's largest trial of using hypothermia to reduce brain pressure.

In Britain patients with head injuries are usually kept in a coma for a week to ten days.

Andrews said he avoided the term "awaken" because it could trigger too high expectations among relatives. "I would expect Schumacher to survive," he said. "But we won't know his cognitive ability until at least three months after the injury."

Doctors will be slowly reducing the sedation over the next few days. If the pressure on the brain increases again, there is a possibility that Schumacher will be re-sedated. The worst-case scenario would be that the patient remains comatose without sedation. A more positive outcome would be a reactive state where the patient can lift a limb or obey basic commands.

"In his favour, we know he's relatively young, very fit and that he has had a period of consciousness since suffering the injury," said Peter Hutchinson, a professor of neurosurgery at Cambridge, who has met Schumacher through his role as medical officer at the British Grand Prix.

"But we have to be very open-minded. With an injury like this one, a full return to the previous state of health is unlikely. It would be very unusual if he doesn't retain some kind of disability"

Sebastian Vettel, the current F1 champion, said: "You pray, you wish, you hope that a miracle will happen and he will wake up as same person he was before."

Formula 1 legend Niki Lauda left a message on the website of Italian car manufacturers Ferrari, for whom Schumacher won five consecutive titles between 2000 and 2004: "Michael, I follow your development every day, and every day my thoughts are with you. I hope that I'll be able to talk to you again very soon."

Investigations by French public prosecutors in Albertville had shown that Schumacher had strayed about three to six metres into off-piste territory before his fall. Hitting a snow-covered rock, the 45-year-old had been catapulted forward and hit his head on another rock about 3.5 metres further down, his helmet splitting on impact.

Barcelona insist Lionel Messi will not be sold, despite PSG rumours

New Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has insisted Lionel Messi is not for sale and says the club intend to start negotiations over a new contract with the Argentina star soon.

Messi penned a two-year extension to his existing deal with Barca last February, which ties him to the club until June 30, 2018, but the Spanish champions are ready to discuss a new contract with the 26-year-old.

Bartomeu, who took over the Barca presidency on Thursday night following Sandro Rosell's shock resignation, also warned potential suitors that Messi is not on the market amid reports of interest from big-spending French side Paris St Germain.

Speaking to Catalan radio station RAC1, Bartomeu said: "Messi is not for sale.

"We want to sit down, without any rush, with his father and his agent because we want to ensure he's the best-paid player like he deserves.

"It won't be anything imminent because the players right now are focused on competition."

Messi made his 400th appearance for Barca in last week's Copa del Rey quarter-final first leg against Levante and has scored 331 goals so far for the Catalan giants.

During his time at the Nou Camp, Messi has won the Ballon d'Or a record four times as well as helping Barca win a host of trophies, including six Primera Division titles, three Champions Leagues and two Copa del Reys

Top 10 Deadliest Natural Disasters

A natural disaster is the consequence of a natural hazard (e.g. volcanic eruption, earthquake, landslide) which moves from potential in to an active phase, and as a result affects human activities. In some cases these disasters have lead to the loss of millions of lives. This is a list of the top 10 natural disasters (ranked by number of fatalities). From fewest to most killed:

10. Aleppo Earthquake – 1138, Syria [Deaths: 230,000]

The Citadel at Aleppo

Aleppo is located along the northern part of the Dead Sea Transform system of geologic faults, which is a plate boundary separating the Arabian plate from the African plate. The earthquake was the beginning of the first of two intense sequences of earthquakes in the region: October 1138 to June 1139 and a much more intense series from September 1156 to May 1159.

The worst hit area was Harim, where Crusaders had built a large citadel. Sources indicate that the castle was destroyed and the church fell in on itself. The fort of Atharib, then occupied by Muslims, was destroyed. The citadel also collapsed, killing 600 of the castle guard, though the governor and some servants survived, and fled to Mosul.

9. Indian Ocean Earthquake – 2004, Indian Ocean [Deaths: 230,000]

The tsunami hits

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake, was an undersea earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The earthquake triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most landmasses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing large numbers of people and inundating coastal communities.

The magnitude of the earthquake was originally recorded as 9.0, but has been increased to between 9.1 and 9.3. At this magnitude, it is the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. It was large enough that it caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as half an inch, or over a centimetre.

8. Banqiao Dam Failure – 1975, China [Deaths: 231,000]

The dam After it failed

Banqiao Dam was designed to survive a 1-in-1,000-year flood (306 mm (12 inches) rainfall per day). In August of 1975, however, a 1-in-2,000 year flood occurred, pouring more than a year’s rainfall in 24 hours, which weather forecasts failed to predict. The sluice gates were not able to handle the overflow of water, partially due to sedimentation blockage. As a result of the blockage, 64 dams failed.

When the dam finally burst, it caused a large wave, which was 10 kilometers (6 miles) wide, 3-7 meters (9-23 feet) high, to rush downwards into the plains below at nearly 50 kilometers per hour (31 mph). It almost wiped out an area 55 kilometers long, 15 kilometers wide, and created temporary lakes as large as 12,000 km² (4,600 square miles). Evacuation orders had not been fully delivered because of weather conditions and poor communications.

7. Tangshan Earthquake – 1976, China [Deaths: 242,000]

Aftermath of the quake

The Tangshan earthquake is one of the largest earthquakes to hit the modern world, in terms of the loss of life. The epicentre of the earthquake was near Tangshan in Hebei, China, an industrial city with approximately one million inhabitants. The earthquake hit in the early morning, at 03:42:53.8 local time (1976 July 27 19:42:53.8 UTC), and lasted for around 15 seconds. Chinese Government’s official sources state 7.8 on the Richter magnitude scale, though some sources list it as 8.2. It was the first earthquake in recent history to score a direct hit on a major city.

The People’s Republic of China government refused to accept international aid, and its own efforts were criticized as inadequate. It was also criticized for having ignored scientists’ warnings of the need to prepare for an earthquake. The ramifications of the political situation created, largely contributed to the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

6. Kaifeng Flood – 1642, China [Deaths: 300,000]

Kaifeng, a prefecture-level city in eastern Henan province, People’s Republic of China, located along the southern bank of the Yellow River, was flooded in 1642 by the Ming army with water from Yellow River to prevent the peasant rebel Li Zicheng from taking over. Roughly half of the 600,000 residents of Kaifeng were killed by the flood and the ensuing peripheral disasters such as famine and plague, making it one of the deadliest single acts of war in history (excluding systematic genocide) and the second greatest single loss of human life of its time. The flood is sometimes referred to as a natural disaster due to the role of the Huang He river.

5. India Cyclone – 1839, India [Deaths: 300,000+]

A site near Coringa today

In 1839, a 40-foot tidal wave caused by an enormous cyclone wiped out the harbor city of Coringa that was never entirely rebuilt; 20,000 vessels in the bay were destroyed and 300,000 people died. This was not the first major catastrophe to occur in Coringa: in 1789 three tidal waves caused by a cyclone destroyed the harbour city at the mouth of the Ganges river. Most ships were sunk and estimated 20,000 people drowned.

4. Shaanxi Earthquake – 1556, China [Deaths: 830,000]

The effect of the quake

The 1556 Shaanxi earthquake or Hua County earthquake is the deadliest earthquake on record, killing approximately 830,000 people. It occurred on the morning of 23 January 1556 in Shaanxi, China. More than 97 counties were affected. A 520 mile-wide area was destroyed and in some counties, sixty percent of the population was killed. Most of the population in the area at the time lived in yaodong, artificial caves in loess cliffs, many of which collapsed during the catastrophic occurrence, with great loss of life.

Modern estimates, based on geological data, give the earthquake a magnitude of approximately eight on the moment magnitude scale. While it was the most deadly earthquake and the fifth deadliest natural disaster in history, there have been earthquakes with higher magnitudes. Aftershocks continued several times a month for half a year.

An account written at the time says:

“In the winter of 1556 AD, an earthquake catastrophe occurred in the Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces. In our Hua County, various misfortunes took place. Mountains and rivers changed places and roads were destroyed. In some places, the ground suddenly rose up and formed new hills, or it sank in abruptly and became new valleys. In other areas, a stream burst out in an instant, or the ground broke and new gullies appeared. Huts, official houses, temples and city walls collapsed all of a sudden.”

3. Bhola Cyclone – 1970, Bangladesh [Deaths: 500,000 - 1,000,000]

The impact of the cyclone

The 1970 Bhola cyclone was a devastating tropical cyclone that struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on November 12, 1970. It was the deadliest tropical cyclone ever recorded, and one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern times. Up to 500,000 people lost their lives in the storm, primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta. The Pakistani government was severely criticized for its handling of the relief operations following the storm, both by local political leaders in East Pakistan and in the international media.

The cyclone intensified into a severe cyclonic storm on November 11, and began to turn towards the northeast as it approached the head of the Bay. A clear eye formed in the storm, and it reached its peak later that day with sustained winds of 185 km/h (115 mph). The cyclone made landfall on the East Pakistan coastline during the evening of November 12, around the same time as the local high tide.

2. Yellow River Flood – 1887, China [Deaths: 900,000 - 2,000,000]

Boats on the Yellow River

The Yellow River (Huang He) in China is prone to flooding, due to the broad expanse of largely flat land around it. The 1887 Yellow River floods devastated the area, killing between 900,000-2,000,000 people. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded. For centuries, the farmers living near the Yellow River had built dikes to contain the rising waters, caused by silt accumulation on the riverbed. In 1887, this rising seabed, coupled with days of heavy rain, overcame the dikes, causing a massive flood. The waters of the Yellow River are generally thought to have broken through the dikes in Huayankou, near the city of Zhengzhou in Henan province.

Owing to the low-lying plains near the area, the flood spread quickly throughout Northern China, covering an estimate 50,000 square miles, swamping agricultural settlements and commercial centers. After the flood, two million were left homeless. The resulting pandemic and lack of basic essentials claimed as many lives as those lost directly by the flood itself.

1. Yellow River Flood – 1931, China [Deaths: 1,000,000 - 4,000,000]

Refugees caused by another Yellow River flood

The 1931 Yellow River flood (Huang He flood) is generally thought to be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded, and almost certainly of the twentieth century (when pandemics are discounted). Estimates of the number of people killed in the 1931 flooding range from 1 to 4 million. Deaths caused by the flooding include but are not limited to drowning, disease, ensuing famines, and droughts. Lesser population densities in prehistoric times make it unlikely that this toll had previously been surpassed.

Between July and November, some 88,000 sq km of land were completely flooded, and about 21,000 sq km more were partially flooded. The river is often called “China’s sorrow” because millions of people have been killed by flooding.

Depression + anxiety x madness = genius?

 

The painter, who died 70 years ago today, created one of the most recognized masterpieces in history, "The Scream", which came to him in a sinister vision as he stood on the edges of Oslofjord.

"The sun began to set - suddenly the sky turned blood red," he wrote. "I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an endless scream passing through nature."

The painting is thought to represent the angst of modern man, which Munch experienced deeply throughout his life, but saw as an indispensable driver of his art. He wrote in his diary: "My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art."

Munch may be one of the most high profile artists to walk the line between extreme talent and torment, but he is not the only one.

Vincent van Gogh, who cut of his ear after an argument with his friend Paul Gauguin, and later killed himself, swayed heavily between genius and madness.

In a letter to his brother Theo in 1888 he wrote: "I am unable to describe exactly what is the matter with me. Now and then there are horrible fits of anxiety, apparently without cause, or otherwise a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the head... at times I have attacks of melancholy and of atrocious remorse."

These painters' personal struggles still echo in popular culture today, and have given rise to the belief that artists are more susceptible to a range of mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

A growing body of research suggests that there is merit to that popular assumption. Madness may lurk where creativity lies.

Using a registry of psychiatric patients, they tracked nearly 1.2 million Swedes and their relatives. The patients demonstrated conditions ranging from schizophrenia and depression to ADHD and anxiety syndromes.

They found that people working in creative fields, including dancers, photographers and authors, were 8% more likely to live with bipolar disorder. Writers were a staggering 121% more likely to suffer from the condition, and nearly 50% more likely to commit suicide than the general population.

They also found that people in creative professions were more likely to have relatives with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorexia and autism.

That is significant. Earlier studies on families have suggested that there could be an inherited trait that gives rise to both creativity and mental illness.

Some people may inherit a form of the trait that fosters creativity without the burden of mental illness, while others may inherit an amped-up version that stokes anxiety, depression and hallucinations.

Psychologists have established a link between mental illness and creativity, but they are still piecing together the mechanisms that underlie it.

Your urine can change the world in 10 ways

10Robot Blood

Who knew our future overlords will be powered by our very own bladders? The guys at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory have created an artificial heart that can power the robots of the future.

As of 2010, there are an estimated 8.6 million robots in the world, employed in different industries and serving different functions. Depending on their purpose, robots are traditionally charged with solar energy, battery power, or electricity. Peter Walters and his colleagues from the University of Bristol have taken a slightly more unconventional route, creating a robot that cancharge itself with a urinal.

The scientists built an artificial heart that pumps a regulated supply of human urine into microbial power stations, which then break down urine and convert it into electricity. This artificial heart was able to run a robot called “EcoBot” using nothing but human urine. These robots have been able to function before on other biodegradable materials, but this is the first time that an EcoBot was sustained with power using an artificial heart that pumps urine. The researchers are inspired to make improvements on this pee-pumping heart and hope to see these urine-powered EcoBots being used in the future, especially in green projects such as monitoring pollution.

9Tracking Climate Change

The rock hyrax, locally known in Africa as pelele, is a mammal of theHyracoidea order. Small and furry with a close resemblance to a guinea pig, the rock hyrax spends most of its time bathing under the sun or eating grass and leaves. At first glance, the rock hyrax doesn’t seem to be a very special animal – except that its urine will be proven an essential tool for studying climate change.

Whole families of rock hyraxes tend to pick a favorite spot to pee and their quick-drying discharge often capture artifacts of a particular time period—such as pollens, dried leaves, and air bubbles—that provide clues as to how the climate changed during that time. Researchers from France’s Montpelier University studied these dried urine layers and compared them with existing theories about changes in our climate past. They concluded that the urine was consistent in accurately telling the story of how our climate really changed over the years, like how ice glaciers retreated in Europe during the end of the last ice age and how lakes of melted water formed after the planet has warmed. Because of its precision in detailing our climate past, the researchers are hoping that the rock hyrax urine will be a useful tool in making better predictions of future deviations in the climate.

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8A Solution To The Water Crisis

As disgusting as it is, we’ve become inured to images of drinking urine. Aside from it being Bear Grylls’s claim to Internet fame, astronauts regularly recycle urine to quench themselves during manned missions to space. However, scientists warn that drinking urine may no longer be the exclusive territory of TV shows or space shuttles. As our freshwater supply runs dry at an alarming pace, scientists advise that we should also begin treating anddrinking our own urine as soon as possible.

With new technology that can treat urine less expensively and more efficiently, the US National Research Council says that reclaiming it for reuse may potentially be a long-term solution to the water crisis. While urine naturally ends back into our water reservoirs, it takes a very long time for it to get back into our natural water system. Directly treating urine from our sewage systems would be much speedier than waiting for it to go back to our waters. The council even suggests advantages of processing urine over freshwater—the health risks of recycling urine may be significantly lower than extracting water from our present sources. We may even be able to recover phosphorus from our urine, which is also currently a dwindling resource.

We are already starting to see a future of reprocessed pee unfold. Because of the harsh drought that has affected many towns in the state, the Texan town of Big Spring has already resorted to reprocessed urine to supply its 27,000 residents with potable water.

7Fighting Pollution

According to the UN Weather Agency, our levels of CO2 are at an all-time high. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in 2012 was at 393.1 parts per million (ppm), 2.2 ppm higher than in 2011. It is predicted that in 2016, the number will reach a staggering 400 ppm, far beyond the 350 ppm that scientists say is the ceiling for a safe level of CO2.

CO2, the main agent of global warming, occurs naturally in the planet. However, human activities like factory work and car emissions multiply our CO2 emissions at a rate that is more than what Mother Earth can take. This makes our planet warmer at a pace we can barely follow, melting our glaciers and drying our lakes before our very eyes. Thankfully, scientists from Andalusia discovered that global warming can be staved off by a bizarre brew of urine and olive waste water. They have found out that this curious cocktail can absorb CO2 when exposed to the air.

The researchers explain that each molecule of urea in urine produces one mole of ammonium bicarbonate and one mole of ammonia, which then absorbs one mole of CO2 from the air, lessening our excessive output of the greenhouse gas. When the CO2 is absorbed, urine produces another mole of ammonium bicarbonate, which can then be used to fertilize our farms. The olive waste water’s role is to prevent the urine from going stale, maximizing the urine’s use until it is saturated with gas. This unique concoction can be strategically installed in chimneys where CO2 emissions usually pass through. A special filling and emptying mechanism can also be added to make replacement of this fluid more convenient.

6Pee-Powered Smartphones

About half of Americans now use smartphones. These high-end cell phones that can do almost anything won’t be going away soon and it’s only a matter of time before we have to address the issue of their energy consumption.

Thankfully, Dr. Ioannis Ieropoulos of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory is on the job. Earlier this year, he and his team developed a method of charging smartphones using urine. Allowing urine to pass through microbial fuel cells (MFC), which break down our pee into electricity, the researchers were able to power a mobile phone long enough to send messages, browse the Internet, and make a brief phone call.

While this urine-converting process is still in its infancy and can only produce small amounts of electricity, the researchers and their supporters are optimistic about its potential future value. The Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation—who has funded further improvements on this technology—hopes that with pee-powered smartphones, we can expect a more sanitized and energy-efficient future.

5Urine-Powered Cars

In the past decade, alternative cars—those that run on fuels like hydrogen rather than fossil fuel—caught the public’s eye, with big car companies parading the possibility of a future of low cost vehicles running on fewer pollutants. However, alternative cars seem to always encounter problems that hinder them from even making it to the market. While the natural gas is abundant in our universe and can be derived from water, it’s difficult to make hydrogen in large enough quantities because of the energy required to do so.

To solve this, Dr. Gerardine Botte of Ohio University devised an electrolyzer that can extract hydrogen from urine using lesser energy. With this technology, Dr, Botte had achieved the potential to power cars using hydrogen from our pee. She explains that, because hydrogen is less bound to urine than it is to water, her devise only requires 0.37 volts of energy—or less than half the energy of an AA battery—to extract it from urea. Water, on the other hand, requires a significantly more powerful energy at 1.23 volts for its hydrogen to be separated. With the tiny amount of energy needed to separate hydrogen from urea and our urine supply of 64 ounces per person, a future of vehicles running on bladder power is not far from the impossible.

4Brain Cells From Urine

Contrary to popular belief, the adult brain does grow new cells. However, neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease destroy more brain cellsthan we create, leading to certain horrible symptoms like dementia and depression. Where can patients of these debilitating diseases acquire new brain cells to function properly? Scientists from China believe they can pee them. Duanqing Pei and his team of scientists reported that human urine can be used to grow new brain cells.

In their study, researchers extracted the cells from urine samples of three different donors and converted them into neural progenitors, immature brain cells that eventually turn into either glial cells or neurons. The cells were then grown and reprogrammed into different brain cells, some of which were made into actual mature neurons that were able to produce nervous impulses. Other cells were grown to become supportive glial cells like astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. These cultivated brain cells were then transplanted into the nervous systems of newborn rats. A month after the transplant, the brain cells were still seen to be alive and active, though their integration with the existing circuitry of the rat’s brain is still under study.

The biggest benefit of this method is its ethical advantages. Presently, scientists are considering embryonic cells for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, but many pro-life groups are opposed to using them. With this new method, scientists can just take urine samples from donors or patients. When this method is improved, we could have better and faster treatment for neurodegenerative disorders that is simple, effective, and ethical.

3Rocket Fuel

There’s a chance our next trip to space will be potty-powered, as scientists from Radboud University in the Netherlands have developed a way to turn urine into rocket fuel. Microbiologist Mike Jetten says that a type of bacteria that grows and survives without oxygen can convert urine’s ammonia into hydrazine, a type of rocket fuel.

The researchers say that the anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (“annamox”) bacteria are responsible for this amazing feat of nature. While the bacteria’s ability to convert ammonia into hydrazine is already common knowledge among microbiologists, the complex processes involved in the conversion were only figured out recently by Jetten and his team, opening the possibility for a practical use of the bacteria. Their discovery encourages space programs to incorporate the use of the magnificent microbe in our future missions to space. With millions of gallons of ammonia produced every single day from bathroom breaks, the scientists are hopeful to efficiently produce huge quantities of rocket fuel from our urine.

Because space programs like NASA continually suffer from immense budget cuts, which can hinder ground-breaking space missions, looking into this golden idea of turning urine to rocket fuel may be the answer to more cost-effective trips to the last frontier.

2Pig Pee Plastic

Pig urine is currently Denmark’s most disgusting dilemma. The country’s 20 million pigs produce gallons and gallons of urine per day and the environment isn’t too thrilled about it. Fortunately, a company named Agroplast offers a unique solution to this smelly situation. While we really don’t want the words “pig urine” and “plastic spoons” to ever be combined, Agroplast plans on doing exactly that. The Denmark-based company aims to minimize the hassles of pig pee pollution by turning the compounds of urine into plastic precursors to be used in spoons and plates. Because pig urine in itself has no use and is a financial burden to dispose, plastic made from the substance becomes a very attractive solution to the growing pollution caused by pig urine.

Bioplastics—plastic material made from biomass sources—aren’t a new concept. People have been creating them for years from vegetable oil, corn starch, and plant cellulose. However, bioplastics have proven to be more expensive to produce than those made from fossil fuel. Agroplast claims that, unlike other bioplastics, turning pig pee into plastic would cost one-third less to produce than fossil fuel plastics.

1Self-Healing Rubber

Broken toys and flat tires are but a few shortcomings of using rubber. It’s a conveniently stretchy and soft material that can be molded into various uses, but when exposed to certain circumstances like heat, it breaks easily. Inspired to solve these deficiencies, French physicist Ludwik Liebler turned to urine to create an amazing invention pulled straight out of sci-fi—rubber that heals itself.

This amazing material is created by combining urea and vegetable oil. When snapped into two, this distinct rubber can be simply stuck back together, immediately returning to its original. Liebler says that the secret is the fatty acids of the vegetable oil and their reaction to urea, creating a material made of a non-uniform molecular system that doesn’t crystallize and become rigid.

The possible uses of this material are endless. Once nothing more than a science fantasy, self-healing objects such sneakers, gloves, wallets, and tires made of this magical substance may actually be the next ground-breaking leap in technology. Because urine and vegetable oil are renewable and easily accessible, mass production of this wonder material won’t be much of a problem. As the French chemical company Arkema has recently adopted this innovation, we can actually aspire to have self-repairing stuff in the near future.

Your Perception Of Time Depends On Your Gender

Remember The Time Traveler’s Wife? It was a weepy movie about how hard it was for a couple who experienced time in different ways, and how that affected their relationship. Well, here’s some trivia to blow your mind: If you’re in a relationship, the same thing is happening to you right now.

Over the years, a number of studies have seemed to suggest that men and women experience time differently. As far back as 1992, researchers found that shoving men and women into a dark, noise-reduced room and then asking them to estimate the time resulted in wildly different answers between the genders. A few years later, another study found that women in negative moods felt time passed more quickly than their male counterparts. Tip-toe into our present era and yet more studies seem to confirm these findings.Now, we should point out that the research in this field seems far from conclusive. But even so, it raises some interesting ideas—namely that you and your partner might well experience time at slightly different speeds. It may not quite be the basis for a sci-fi tearjerker, but it’s still pretty weird

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Amazing prison escapes

5.Escape From Alcatraz

In its 29 years of operation, there were 14 attempts to escape from Alcatraz prison involving 34 inmates. Officially, every escape attempt failed, and most participants were either killed or quickly re-captured. However, the participants in the 1937 and 1962 attempts, though presumed dead, disappeared without a trace, giving rise to popular theories that they were successful. The most famous and intricate attempt to escape from Alcatraz (June 11, 1962) saw Frank Morris, and the Anglin brothers burrow out of their cells, climb to the top of the cell block, cut through bars to make it to the roof via an air vent. From there they climbed down a drain pipe, over a chain link fence and then to the shore where they assembled a pontoon-type raft and then vanished.

The trio are believed to have drowned in the San Francisco Bay and are officially listed as missing and presumed drowned. However, they may have made it and gone to a place where people did not know them. 

4.Libby Prison Escape

The Libby Prison Escape was one of the most famous (and successful) prison breaks during the American Civil War. Overnight between February 9 and 10, 1864, more than 100 imprisoned Union soldiers broke out of their prisoner of war building at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Of the 109 escapees, 59 succeeded in reaching Union lines, 48 were recaptured, and 2 drowned in the nearby James River. Libby Prison encompassed an entire city block in Richmond. To the north lay Carey Street, connecting the prison area to the rest of the city. On the south side ran the James River.

The prison itself stood three stories above ground with a basement exposed on the river side. Living conditions were extremely bad; the food, sometimes lacking altogether, was poor and sanitation practically nonexistent. Thousands died there. The prisoners managed to break in to the basement area known as “rat hell” which was no longer used due to rat infestations, and dig a tunnel. After 17 days of digging, they succeeded in breaking through to a 50-foot vacant lot on the eastern side of the prison, resurfacing beneath a tobacco shed inside the grounds of the nearby Kerr’s Warehouse. When Col. Rose finally broke through to the other side, he told his men that the “Underground Railroad to God’s Country was open!”

The officers escaped the prison in groups of two and three on the night of February 9, 1864. Once within the tobacco shed, the men collected inside the walled warehouse yard and simply strolled out the front gate. The tunnel provided enough distance from the prison to stealthily subvert those jurisdictional lines and allow prisoners to slip into the dark streets unchallenged.

3.Pascal Payet

There can be no doubt that this man deserves a place on this list – he has escaped not once, but twice from high security prisons in France – each time via hijacked helicopter! He also helped organize the escape of three other prisoners – again with a helicopter.

Payet was initially sentenced to a 30 year jail term for a murder committed during the robbery of a security van. After his first escape (in 2001) he was captured and given seven more years for his role in the 2003 escape. He then escaped from Grasse prison using a helicopter that was hijacked by four masked men from Cannes-Mandelieu airport. The helicopter landed some time later at Brignoles, 38 kilometres north-east of Toulon, France on the Mediterranean coast. Payet and his accomplices then fled the scene and the pilot was released unharmed. Payet was re-captured on September 21, 2007, in Mataró, Spain, about 18 miles northeast of Barcelona. He had undergone cosmetic surgery, but was still identified by Spanish police. 

2.The Great Escape

Stalag Luft III was a German Air Force prisoner-of-war camp during World War II that housed captured air force personnel. In January 1943, Roger Bushell led a plot for a major escape from the camp. The plan was to dig three deep tunnels, codenamed “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.” Each of the tunnel entrances was carefully selected to ensure they were undetectable by the camp guards. In order to keep the tunnels from being detected by the perimeter microphones, they were very deep — about 9 metres (30 ft) below the surface. The tunnels were very small, only two feet square (about 0.37 m²), though larger chambers were dug to house the air pump, a workshop, and staging posts along each tunnel. The sandy walls of the tunnels were shored up with pieces of wood scavenged from all over the camp.

As the tunnels grew longer, a number of technical innovations made the job easier and safer. One important issue was ensuring that the person digging had enough oxygen to breathe and keep his lamps lit. A pump was built to push fresh air along the ducting into the tunnels. Later, electric lighting was installed and hooked into the camp’s electrical grid. The tunnellers also installed small rail car systems for moving sand more quickly, much like the systems used in old mining operations. The rails were key to moving 130 tons of material in a five-month period; they also reduced the time taken for tunnellers to reach the digging faces.

“Harry” was finally ready in March 1944, but by that time the American prisoners, some of whom had worked extremely hard in all the effort to dig the tunnels, were moved to another compound. The prisoners had to wait about a week for a moonless night so that they could leave under the cover of complete darkness. Finally, on Friday, March 24, the escape attempt began. Unfortunately for the prisoners, the tunnel had come up short. It had been planned that the tunnel would reach into a nearby forest, but the first man out emerged just short of the tree line. Despite this, 76 men crawled through the tunnel to initial freedom, even through an air raid during which the camp’s (and the tunnel’s) electric lights were shut off. Finally, at 5 AM on March 25, the 77th man was seen emerging from the tunnel by one of the guards. Out of the 76 men only 3 evaded capture. Fifty men were killed and the rest were captured and sent back. 

1.Colditz Escape

Colditz was one of the most famous German Army prisoner-of-war camps for officers in World War II. The camp was located in Colditz Castle, situated on a cliff overlooking the town of Colditz in Saxony. There were numerous successful attempts at escaping Colditz, but one in particular is the most interesting. In one of the most ambitious escape attempts from Colditz, the idea of building a glider was dreamt up by two British pilots, Jack Best and Bill Goldfinch, who had been sent to Colditz after escaping from another POW camp. The plan was to construct a two-man glider part by part.

The glider was assembled by Bill Goldfinch and Jack Best in the lower attic above the chapel, and was to be launched from the roof in order to fly across the river Mulde, which was about 200 feet (60 m) below. The officers who took part in the project built a false wall, to hide the secret space in the attic where they slowly built the glider out of stolen pieces of wood. Since the Germans were accustomed to looking down for tunnels, not up for secret workshops, they felt rather safe from detection. Hundreds of ribs had to be constructed, predominantly formed from bed slats, but also from every other piece of wood the POW’s could surreptitiously obtain. The wing spars were constructed from floor boards. Control wires were made from electrical wiring in unused portions of the castle.

A glider expert, Lorne Welch, was asked to review the stress diagrams and calculations made by Goldfinch. Although the Colditz Cock never flew in real life, a replica of the Colditz glider was built for the 2000 Channel 4 “Escape from Colditz” documentary, and was flown successfully by John Lee on its first attempt at RAF Odiham with Best and Goldfinch in tearful attendance. While Best and Goldfinch did not escape Colditz (the camp was relieved by the allies just as the glider was nearing completion), they certainly had the most interesting and innovative method for executing it.
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