Friday, May 25, 2012

Bringing a smile to the streets of Russia


Meet the street artist who is quite literally bringing a smile to the streets of Russia.

Nikita Nomerz's unique quirky faces are causing quite a stir in the cities of the former grey, concrete-clad Communist heartland.

His exhibition, entitled The Living Wall, features a variety of different faces sprayed on to the sides of derelict buildings.






Nomerz has travelled around various cities in Russia, including Irkutsk, Perm and of course his home city of Nizhniy Novgorod, to create the eye-catching works of art.

After finding a suitable abandoned structure, the artist attempts to bring it back to life.

By adding eyes and facial features he makes old buildings laugh, smile, scream or just look at the passersby with an eerie gaze.

From laughing water towers to grinning walls with lights for eyes, Nomerz has brightened up dilapidated corners of Russia with his signature faces.


He began his love affair with art by developing his skills as a classic hip hop graffiti artist but he later began to experiment.

On his blog site the artist says he likes to play with space and objects and is inspired by the place itself.

He says he usually doesn’t spend much time creating a work and sometimes finishes a piece in less than an hour. But he says it all depends on the size of the object and his ideas.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The beautiful and mysterious Fukang meteorite


When it slammed into the surface of Earth, there was little sign of the beauty that lay inside.

But cutting the Fukang meteorite open yielded a breathtaking sight.
Within the rock, translucent golden crystals of a mineral called olivine gleamed among a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron.


The rare meteorite weighed about the same as a hatchback when it was discovered in 2000, in the Gobi Desert in China's Xinjiang Province.

It has since been divided into slices which give the effect of stained glass when the sun shines through them.

An anonymous collector holds the largest portion, which weighs 925lb. in 2008, this piece was expected to fetch $2million (£1.26million) at auction at Bonham's in New York - but it remained unsold

It is so valuable that even tiny chunks sell in the region of £20-30 per gram.
Arizona's Southwest Meteorite Laboratory, which holds about 70lb of the rock, says the remarkable find will turn out to be 'one of the greatest meteorite discoveries of the 21st century'.


It says the Fukang specimen outshines all other known examples of the pallasite class, which makes up just one per cent of all meteorites. However, it is not the biggest - in 2005 space rock hunter Steve Arnold dug up a 1,400lb sample in Kansas.

The Arizona lab's experts say pallasites, whose make-up of half nickel-iron, half olivine gives them their mosaic-like appearance, are 'thought to be relics of forming planets'.


They are believed to originate from deep inside intact meteors created during the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago and very few specimens are thought to have survived their descent through Earth's atmosphere.

February 2005 saw the Chinese space rock transported all the way to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, in Tucson, Arizona.

The U.S. lab claims their polished slice of the original meteorite is the world's biggest pallasite cross section, measuring 36in by 19in.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Incredible first pictures inside the £15-million superyacht... that can be controlled by an iPad


The Adastra superyacht is a floating pleasure palace that would fit as comfortably in outer space as it would on the open sea.

And as these amazing new pictures show, she is equipped to entertain a billionaire with even the highest of standards.


She is the the new pet of Hong Kong-based shipping magnate Anto Marden, whose uses for her may include - among other things - gliding between the two tropical islands he already owns off the coast of Indonesia.


Designed by Sussex-based yacht designer John Shuttleworth, the Adastra is so high-tech, it can even be controlled remotely at the touch of an iPad... as long as you don't get any further away than 50 metres.

The yacht's high-concept, space-age look is no gimmick. The shape has been specially developed to cut through waves as it glides across the high seas.



Described as ‘one of the world's most amazing super yachts’, Adastra, unveiled yesterday in China, took five years to build, is 42.5 metres long, 16 metres wide and weighs 52 tons.

Her enormous petrol tank coupled with her dynamic sailing efficiency allows the Adastra to travel up to 4,000 miles without refuelling - the same distance from London to New York.

‘It takes the power trimaran concept further than has ever been attempted before,’ Mr Shuttleworth told Boat International. 


‘The challenge of turning this concept into a viable luxury yacht has taken us to further research and to develop new thinking on stability and comfort at sea for this type of craft.’

It is the result of five years of planning and construction, and rivals anything owned by yacht-lover Roman Abramovich.


The hull of the Adastra is built from glass and Kevlar and can house nine guests and six crewmen. The deck saloon has a panoramic view while the open cockpit has sofas on both sides. The open deck running aft also has a door that hinges out to create a bathing platform.

Boat International magazine said Adastra 'could spell the future for efficient long range cruising'. 

The yacht has an integrated ship monitoring system, and can even be controlled with an Apple iPad within a 50-metre range.



Adastra is powered by one Caterpillar C18 engine of 1150hp at 2300 rpm and has 2 Yanmar 110hp @ 3200 rpm outrigger engines.

Adastra's 16-metre beam features a saloon area on the main deck with a lounge area, dining table, and navigation station.

The deck at the rear of the yacht has a sofa and bar area to port and a dining area to starboard.


The main helm station, which has seating for two, is positioned in a raised pilot house situated between the rear deck and the saloon area and forms part of the cross beam structure. 

The Adastra is the latest in a long line of super yachts that compete to be the most high tech.

Last year Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich bought a £300 million superyacht with two swimming pools, two helipads, a gym, hair salon, dancefloor and submarine.


Eclipse has plenty of room to entertain friends, with 15 double bedroom cabins all equipped with their own luxury bathrooms and 6ft wide television screens. Parties on the 533ft yacht are guaranteed to stay private, as it’s fitted with an ‘anti-paparazzi shield’ that fires a laser beam of light at cameras to ruin photographs.

The 20,000 sq ft interior also houses a sauna, steam bath and whirlpool to help guests wind down.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

'Nightpod' camera took crystal clear pictures from a craft moving at four miles per second


An astronaut on the International Space Station has designed a 'tripod' for taking spectacular night-time pictures of Earth - quite a technical feat when you're on board an orbiting craft that moves at more than four miles a second.

Andre Kuipers installed 'Nightpod' - a motorised camera that compensates for the hurtling speeds of the ISS, by tracking points on Earth's surface. The results are some of the most spectacular pictures ever taken from space.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are regularly treated to a spectacular view of cities on Earth lit up at night - ut the relative speed of the space station meant any photos taken at night were blurred. 




In late 2002 and early 2003, however, astronaut Don Pettit, part of Expedition 6, constructed a device called a barn-door tracker using spare parts from around the space station. 


Any amateur photographer knows the problems of taking pictures at night: the low shutter speeds required to capture enough light make images prone to camera shake. Blurry and unsharp pictures are the result. Professional photographers use tripods to steady their camera and take clearer pictures.

Even if the camera is perfectly still, the Station moves so fast any images of Earth at night will still look blurred.


ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli took many breath-taking images of our planet at night during his MagISStra mission last year, from Cupola, the European observation module on the Space Station. He had to estimate the correct speed to move his camera and compensate by hand, a difficult task at the best of times.


To help astronauts take better pictures, ESA developed a motorised tripod in collaboration with Dutch company Cosine. Called NightPod, this device compensates for the motion of the Space Station by tracking single points on Earth automatically. The subject stays centred in frame so the final image is in focus.