GRACE PRO RACE

Grace is a collaboration between designer and entrepreneur Michael Hecken and Karl-Heinz Nicolai. The Nicolai brand already has an established reputation for incredibly impressive downhill and XC frames, and they’ve also recently diverged into urban and commuter bikes. The Grace frames are produced at the Nicolai factory, where most of the CNC machining for the bike is created as well.

The Grace Pro Race is powered by a pedal-assisted engine, which can attain speeds of up to 45km/h and pump out 500 to 1300 watts. A handlebar-mounted computer also houses the two headlights in a massive CNC-machined block of aluminum, and provides the usual information, including the level of charge in the lithium ion cells. The motor is encased within the rear ‘hub’, also carved from a huge aluminum chunk, and is virtually maintenance free—no oil changes. With an axle-mounted brushless motor, there is no loss of power through the transmission. It requires a one-hour recharge, which is good for about 30-50 perfectly silent, emission-less kilometers. Each of Grace’s three frame options is available in 64 colors, with variations available for the computer and waterproof battery case. Check out more detail shots on the Grace Bikes flickr page. Ordering is available through the Grace website, where you can read about it in more detail and watch a video of it in action.

The Pro Race is only one member of the Grace family, but will only be produced to order. The production series consists of the more approachable ‘City’ model, and the short-inseam-friendly ‘Universal’ model, which incorporates a sloping top tube. While this Teutonic behemoth could be viewed by some as intimidating, it’s interesting to note the Grace moniker is a reference to Michael Hecken’s appreciation of Grace Kelly.

CycleExif

Volkswagen hits Qatar with a pair of special Touaregs

After three consecutive wins in the famously brutal Dakar Rally, Volkswagen is no stranger to cresting dunes and speeding across desert terrain. And now the German automaker has rolled in to Qatar with a pair of very special Touaregs.

Most enticing of the two is the Race Touareg 3 Qatar. Envisioned as a street-legal version of the rally raider that recently locked out the podium at Dakar, the Race Touareg 3 Qatar looks every bit the beast it's based on, with a few nods towards usability. It packs the same 300-horsepower 2.5-liter TDI, with the 16-inch wheels of the rally machine swapped out for gold-colored BBS wheels complimented by the "Race Touareg" wording in gold across the "Magic Morning" white flank.

Inside is where the real changes have been made, however, upgrading on the bare-bones race cabin with one designed after the cockpit on a stealth aircraft. The ergonomics and appearance of the interior have been thoroughly worked over, characterized by matte carbon-fiber trim and a Serpetino Grey Metallic role cage, with Recaro racing buckets and door panels trimmed in Nubuk and perforated Nappa leather in black, grey and red.

The Race Touareg 3 Qatar is joined on Volkswagen's show stand in Doha by the Touareg Gold Edition. As you might have guessed, the Gold Edition is decked out in 24-karat gold trim inside and out. The shiny stuff coats the 22-inch wheels, roof rails, window frames, door mirrors, grille surround and more. The interior is likewise distinguished by gold trim, "complimenting" (as it were) the Luna trim color, Alcantara roofliner, Nappa leather seats, natural brown leather and Walnut Burr veneers.

The gold-trimmed SUV is bound to be a hit with the Persian Gulf crowd, but halfway around the world we're hoping the Race Touareg 3 Qatar makes its way from the show floor to the showroom and onto our streets as a compelling import alternative to the Ford Raptor. Too much to wish for? Only time will tell, but you can follow the jump now for the full press release and scope out the two concept vehicles in the pair of high-resolution image galleries below

Autoblog 

Japanese Marathon Fail

Japanese marathon runner takes go wrong way just before finishing line.

Boiling water meets -30C in Yellowknife, Canada guess what happens?

Disaster in Brazil - Jan 2011

The Brazilian government said that it would accelerate efforts to devise a national system for preventing disasters and alerting the population quickly when they occur, in response to the deadly landslides in the state of Rio de Janeiro last week that killed at least 710 people.

A destroyed church stands surrounded by debris and floodwaters after a landslide in Teresopolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, Thursday Jan. 13, 2011

Rescue workers search for victims after heavy rains caused mudslides in a low-income neighborhood in Teresopolis, some 100 km from downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 12, 2011.

President Dilma Rousseff met with ministers and announced the government’s plan to improve its disaster readiness, which will include maps of high-risk areas, better training and improved collection of data on meteorological conditions. The national system will be completely in place in four years, but it is expected to produce results by next year, the government said.The announcement appeared to be a response to news reports that a Brazilian government official had admitted to the United Nations two months ago that a large part of a promised emergency response system was not ready and that the government did not have the ability to verify the efficiency of many existing services.

Rescuers hurry to help a man swept along by the waters in the flooded Kaleme neighborhood in Teresopolis, Brazil on January 12, 2011

The slope on a hill where a landslide occurred in Nova Friburgo, 130 km north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on January 13, 2011

A report sent to the United Nations by Ivone Maria Valente, the national secretary of the National Civil Defense authority, notes that almost one in four cities in Brazil lack a civil defense authority. And where a civil defense authority exists, it does not have a way to measure if it is functioning efficiently, according to the report.

A villager walks in a flooded street after heavy rains in Atibaia January 15, 2011.

Rescue workers and residents search the rubble of a building that collapsed in a landslide in Nova Friburgo, Brazil on January 13, 2011

Ludmila Moura, 5, sits on a mattress at a shelter for people displaced by landslides in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011, Ludmila was pulled out of her destroyed house by her father Marcelo Moura on the first night of heavy rains last Thursday

An official at a United Nations agency, International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, provided a copy the report, whose content was first reported by the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de São Paulo.Ms. Valente reported that the small number of municipal authorities created to deal with disasters made it “impossible to measure, in a reliable way,” which cities were prepared for disasters.

While the government said it had made advances in disaster preparedness, it also noted that it had not analyzed the readiness of any hospital or school in preparing the report.The lack of a risk-reduction program “will contribute to the increasing occurrence of natural disasters” and to “increasing insecurity in local communities,” Ms. Valente wrote.

Brazilian marines aboard a helicopter loaded with humanitarian aid fly over an isolated area severely hit by landslides in Sumidouro, 70 Km from Teresopolis, Brazil, on January 18, 2011.

Brazilian National Force rescue workers find the body of a man at the scene of a recent landslide, where seven people were found buried among debris in the neighborhood of Jardilandia, in Nova Friburgo, Brazil on January 19, 2011

Disaster experts have contended that Brazil’s lack of disaster-warning systems and a general lack of preparedness was responsible for the deadly scale of the disaster last week, which with its increasing death toll has become the country’s worst natural disaster. In addition to more than 700 people killed, nearly 14,000 are homeless or have abandoned their homes in Teresópolis, Nova Friburgo and Petrópolis — the three hillside towns struck hardest by the heavy rains.

Dakar Race 2011

The 2011 Dakar Rally was the 32nd running of the event. It was held in Argentina and Chile for the third successive time, and ran from 1 to 16 January. The Amaury Sport Organisation and the governments of Argentina and Chile agreed to a return to South America for the event on 23 March 2010.

The rally concluded in Buenos Aires, with Vladimir Chagin of Russia achieving a record seventh victory in the truck division, at the wheel of his Kamaz, thus becoming the most successful driver in a single category in the history of the event.Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar and Timo Gottschalk of Germany won in the car division, giving Volkswagen their third successive victory in the car class. Marc Coma from Spain won his third Dakar in the motorcycle category,and Alejandro Patronelli of Argentina repeated the feat of his brother—Marcos Patronelli in 2010—to win the class for quad-bikes.

The race began on New Year's Day in downtown Buenos Aires.The total racing distance was 9,618 kilometres (5,976 mi) for cars, 9,605 kilometres (5,968 mi) for bikes and quads and 9,458 kilometres (5,877 mi) for trucks. Of these distances, 5,020 kilometres (3,120 mi) was timed special stage for cars, with 5,007 kilometres (3,111 mi) for bikes and quads and 4,457 kilometres (2,769 mi) for trucks. Of the thirteen stages, six were in Argentina, five in Chile with two stages cross-country.

Chile's biker Francisco "Chaleco" Lopez races his Aprilia in the seventh stage of the 2011 Argentina-Chile Dakar Rally between Arica and Antofagasta, Chile

Jincheng biker Baohua Han, left, from China, looks on after falling down from his motorcycle, not seen, during the seventh stage of the 2011 Argentina-Chile Dakar Rally between Arica and Antofagasta, Chile, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2011. At right, Kamaz driver Artur Ardavichus and co-driver Denis Berezovskiy, both from Russia, compete.

 

Chile's biker Ignacio Nicolas Casale falls from his Yamaha motorcycle during the eighth stage of the 2011 Argentina-Chile Dakar Rally between Antofagasta and Copiapo, Chile

Mexico's Pedro de Uriarte and co-driver Moctezuma Fernando round a corner in their Predator x-18 during first leg of stage 3 between San Miguel de Tucumán and San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina

Followed by a TV helicopter, Volkswagen's Nasser Al-Attiyah, of Qatar, and co-driver Timo Gottschalk, from Germany, race in the eighth stage of the 2011 Argentina-Chile Dakar Rally between Antofagasta and Copiapo, Chile.

Competitors start the ninth stage of the third South American edition of the Dakar Rally 2011 from Copiapo

 

Pictures from Boston

 

 

SMS thwarts suicide bomber’s attempt

Egyptian officials might want to get a whiff of this news after blocking off the Internet as well as mobile phone services (that means calls and SMSes) from the masses – an unexpected and unwanted SMS from a telecommunications company actually caused a bomb stashed away in a would-be suicide bomber’s vest to explode prematurely. This happened in Russia New Year’s Eve, where the incident happened near the Red Square. The would-be suicide bomber was a female, and we guess that she forgot to turn off her handset until the right time came around, since cell phones are well known to be makeshift detonators. Guess this is the first (and probably only) time where spam from a wireless carrier ends up as useful. Perhaps the next terrorism crash course would include a module on when to turn on your phone…

UberGizmo

Sony updates PS3 firmware to 3.56 to prevent jailbreaking

This probably isn’t going to be good news for the hacking community. PS3 owners will soon be prompted to update their system to the latest 3.56 firmware version, which will probably hit the pause button on your jailbreaking attempts at the moment. Aside from that, let’s not forget that Sony has managed to win a temporary restraining order against Geohot, the popular PS3 hacker. It’ll be interesting to see if this latest update will put an end to the jailbreaking game, or will it just be another chess move in the game of cat-and-mouse between Sony and the jailbreaking community. You can bet that Sony isn’t going to be winning many fans with actions such as this.

UberGizmo

The International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) is an internationally developed habitable satellite currently being assembled in Low Earth Orbit. Primarily a research laboratory, the ISS offers an advantage over spacecraft such as NASA's Space Shuttle because it is a long-term platform in the space environment, where extended studies are conducted.The presence of a permanent crew affords the ability to monitor, replenish, repair, and replace experiments and components of the spacecraft itself. Scientists on Earth have swift access to the crew's data and can modify experiments or launch new ones, benefits generally unavailable on unmanned spacecraft.

Crews, who fly expeditions of several months duration, conduct scientific experiments each day (approximately 160 man-hours a week).As of the conclusion of Expedition 15, 138 major science investigations had been conducted on the ISS.[31] Scientific findings, in fields from basic science to exploration research, are published every month.

The ISS provides a location in the relative safety of Low Earth Orbit to test spacecraft systems that will be required for long-duration missions to the Moon and Mars. This provides experience in the maintenance, repair, and replacement of systems on-orbit, which will be essential in operating spacecraft further from Earth. Mission risks are reduced, and the capabilities of interplanetary spacecraft are advanced.

Part of the crew's mission is educational outreach and international cooperation. The crew of the ISS provide opportunities for students on Earth by running student-developed experiments, making educational demonstrations, and allowing for student participation in classroom versions of ISS experiments, NASA investigator experiments, and ISS engineering activities. The ISS programme itself, with the international cooperation that it represents, allows 14 nations to live and work together in space, providing lessons for future multi-national missions.

Pagani Huarya

 

There’s a new Pagani on the road, ladies and gentlemen.  The new Pagani Huayra has been officially revealed to the world, although few of us may ever see it in the flesh.  The Huayra is the newest flagship of this boutique Italian sports car manufacturer, a name that will replace the equally-fun-to-say Zonda.  Like its predecessor, the Pagani Huayra will be a rare bird in the world of super cars, as Pagani is expected to produce less than 40 Huayras within the first year of its production.

The Pagani Huayra continues this marque’s tradition of serious-yet-smart muscle, aerodynamics without compromise and styling that borders on the eccentric.  The Huayra is powered by an AMG-sourced 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12 engine, capable of pushing 700 horsepower and 740 pound-feet of torque.  That muscle isn’t pushing a whole lot of weight, as this one measures under 3,000 pounds at the curb thanks to no shortage of carbon fiber in the body work.  If you push the pedal and hold it on a straight-away, that AMG engine will force the light-as-a-feather Huayra to speeds of up to 230 mph.

As we said, the styling is a bit eccentric, but this has always been Pagani’s trademark.  It’s not your overly angular Lamborghini, it’s not your curvy Porsche, it’s not your bulbous Bugatti.  If you’re lucky enough to see one of these in the wild, you’ll immediately recognize it for what it is: a genuine Pagani.  If you want to be one of the few to actually drive one, you can expect a million and a half Washingtons on the price tag.  That’s the price you’ve got to pay if you want to put just about every car on the road in your rear view, and in a very rare style.

 

coolist

Scientists Developing Plants That Can Detect Bombs

A University of Colorado biologist working with the Pentagon is developing plants that can detect bombs. Yes: Terrorism-fighting plants that change color in the presence of certain chemicals. 

 

Picture this at an airport, perhaps in as soon as four years: A terrorist rolls through the sliding doors of a terminal with a bomb packed into his luggage (or his underwear). All of a sudden, the leafy, verdant gardenscape ringing the gates goes white as a sheet. That’s the proteins inside the plants telling authorities that they’ve picked up the chemical trace of the guy’s arsenal.

It only took a small engineering nudge to deputize a plant’s natural, evolutionary self-defense mechanisms for threat detection. “Plants can’t run and hide,” says June Medford, the biologist who’s spent the last seven years figuring out how to deputize plants for counterterrorism. “If a bug comes by, it has to respond to it. And it already has the infrastructure to respond.”

That would be the “receptor” proteins in its DNA, which respond naturally to threatening stimuli. If a bug chews on a leaf, for instance, the plant releases a series of chemical signals called terpenoids — “a cavalry call,” Medford says, that thickens the leaf cuticle in defense.

Medford and her team designed a computer model to manipulate the receptors: Basically, the model instructs the protein to react when coming in contact with chemicals found in explosives or common air or water pollutants.

Wired

 

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