White Roofs for a Green Planet

Why the F did we decide that having all the roofs in the world be black was a good idea? I mean, I know, tar is black, and that's what most roofs are sealed with, but I really can't imagine a much dumber decision.

Sure, it's great in the winter, when the roof becomes a giant solar heat collector. But there's no way to turn that giant solar heat collector off when the summer rolls around.

Simply painting roofs white in warm climates could decrease air conditioning bills for those buildings by 20%. That's one reason why California has required all new buildings to have white roofs for the past few years.

But now there's even more reason to spend the extra dough. It looks like, if all the roofs in the world were white, enough sunlight would reflect back into the atmosphere to significantly reduce the effects of global warming. WTF?! Such a simple change, such a massive effect!

This new study says that if the 100 biggest cities painted all their roofs white, and switched their road materials to lighter colors (concrete instead of asphalt) it would reflect enough light and heat back into space to entirely offset the warming of the last few decades.

It's not a true fix for the problem, obviously, for that, we need clean, sustainable energy. But it could buy us enough time to make the changes we truly need.

Wrong Time, Wrong Place

3 February 1990, Washington

The following mind-boggling attempt at a crime spree appeared to be the robber's first, due to his lack of a previous record of violence, and his terminally stupid choices:

1. His target was H&J Leather & Firearms. A gun shop.

2. The shop was full of customers - firearms customers.

3. To enter the shop, the robber had to step around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door.

4. A uniformed officer was standing at the counter, having coffee before work.

Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a holdup, and fired a few wild shots. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, covered by several customers who also drew their guns, thereby removing the confused criminal from the gene pool.

No one else was hurt.

Wife Tossing in Buenos Aires

It happened in February 1998 in a working-class Boedo neighborhood. During a heated marital dispute, a 25-year-old man picked up his 20-year-old wife and threw her off their eighth-floor apartment balcony.

To his dismay, she became tangled in the power lines below. He immediately leapt from the balcony and fell towards his wife. We can only speculate as to his reasons. Was he angrily trying to finish the job, or was he remorsefully hoping to rescue her? He did not accomplish either goal. He missed the power lines completely, and plunged to his death.

The woman managed to swing over to a nearby balcony and was saved.

Software engineering explained!

Isn't it cool??

Meet the world’s only immortal animal

If you’re thinking McLeod, you couldn’t be further from the truth. What you have to do is think small; not microscopic, just big enough to see with your naked eye. Turritopsis nutricula is a hydrozoan, and it’s considered by scientists to be the only animal that cheated death.

Solitary organisms are (according to current belief) doomed to die, after they completed their life cycle. Hydrozoa are a huge class of predatory animals that live mostly in saltwater, closely related to jellyfish and corals. Eggs and sperm from an adult jellyfish (medusa) and they then develop into polyp stage. Medusae evolve asexually from polyps.

Still, our Turritopsis nutricula (could we call it Joe??) managed to find a way to beat that. What these little folks do is they revert completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after they reach sexual maturity. They’re even cooler than that. When they’re young they’ve got only several tentacles, but at a mature stage, they get to 80-90 of them.

They’re able to return to polyp stage due to a cell change in the external screen (Exumbrella), which allows them to bypass death. As far as scientists have been able to find out, this change renders the hydrozoa virtually immortal.

The World's Tallest Virtual Building

Check out this cool site. You'll be amazed to see this.
Click here.

Perfectly Timed Photos!!!

Some really great pics clicked at critical timings to produce an unusual effect...
Click here to go to the destination.