Green Architecture

Finally, green architecture is appreciated at its true value as a green home designed by Sarah Featherstone was sold for a record price of £7.2million the equivalent of $14.2 million. The structure is called Orchid House and it’s a part of the Lower Mill Estate, the project that has the purpose of turning a swamp into a 450 acres natural reserve.
Orchid House is one of the key homes on Lower Mill Estate which is a project to turn a disused gravel pit into a beautiful nature reserve.
The building aims to generate more energy than it consumes, by making use of geothermal heating. The house it is very flexible so can be adapted to any occasion: a family holiday or a large reception.
The Orchid House will generate more energy than it needs thanks to geothermal heating, and it should subsidize a cost of property of about £3,000 per square foot. The design of the house was inspired by the flora and the fauna of the landscape area, but I have to say that the Orchid is not entirely green as it’s based on laminated veneer lumber which uses adhesives to keep the wood layers together.
The house will blend with its landscape and environment. The organic form is created from laminated veneer lumbar (LVL) ribs and clad with timber shingles (tiles). The camouflage pattern is burnt to the timber.
The house offers flexible living spaces, adopting a layout which we have pioneered in our house designs. The kitchen is at the heart of the house with the living and dining wings fanning out to create an intimate open courtyard around which the house orientates. It is like a 'whorl' of leaves encircling the seed of the flower.
Brad Pitt and Kylie Minogue expressed an interest so far buying this house but the buyer remains anonymous.

We may have to wait until 2011 to find out who he is, when the house will be completed. Sarah Featherstone’s modern green house was sold for a record-breaking £7.2million, or $14.2million USD!

You can Save someone's life by sharing this.

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters... S.T..R ...
My friend sent this to me ...and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree. If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a party, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. (they offered to call ambulance)

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm , Ingrid passed away.)
She had suffered a stroke at the party . Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.

Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead. It only takes a minute to read this...

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE

Remember the '3' steps, STR . Read and Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster.
The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions :

S * Ask the individual to SMILE ..
T * = TALK. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (eg 'It is sunny out today').
R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS .

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call the ambulance and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

NOTE : Another 'sign' of a stroke is
1. Ask the person to 'stick' out their tongue.
2. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.

A prominent cardiologist says if everyone who gets this status shares it; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.......

Heart Attack

Heart Attacks And Hot Water
A very good article which takes two minutes to read. Heart Attacks And Drinking Warm Water

This is a very good article. Not only about the warm water after your meal, but about .Heart Attacks. The Chinese and Japanese drink hot tea with their meals, not cold water, maybe it is time we adopt theirdrinking habit while eating.

For those who like to drink cold water, this article is applicable to you. It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this 'sludge' reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by theintestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.
Common Symptoms Of Heart Attack...
A serious note about heart attacks - You! should know that not every heart attack symptom is going to be theleft arm hurting . Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line.
You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack. Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up. Pain in the jaw can wake you from a sound sleep. Let's be careful and be aware. The more we know, the better chance we could survive.

A cardiologist says if everyone who reads this message sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read this & Send to a friend. It could save a life... So, please be a true friend and send this article to all your friends you care about.

Watch for the Blind

Time to Get Touchy-Feely: Bumpy Watch for the Blind..!!
Like most other timepiece concepts geared toward blind people, the Rub Feel Know watch relies on some element of tactile sensation to keep users updated on the current time. But this slick-looking concept features an intriguing (and rather unexpected) element.
The hour indicator on the watch face is a concave space: a small dip in the plastic that, when considered along with its position on the face, indicates the current hour. The minute indicator is a smaller convex dot, jutting out slightly from the watch’s face. A quick brush of the fingertips against the watch face tells the time with ease.
In case the dots are still too difficult to differentiate, the hour and minute “hands” feature different temperatures. The hour “hand” is warm to the touch while the minute indicator is cool to the touch. We have a feeling that producing this watch in the real world would be a little more complicated and costly than it’s worth, but this elegant-looking concept is a very cool exploration of the nature of timepiece design.

Feathers of Seduction

His bend is deep and dignified even as his cape of velvet black feathers rises to expose pale flanks. Springy wires topping his head tap the ground, one, two, one, two. The showman's stage is a patch of earth that he's cleared of forest debris before scattering beakfuls of roots, like petals in a bride's path. His audience: a row of skeptical females fidgeting on an overhanging limb. Their attention is fleeting, so he launches into his routine, toeing forward on skinny legs like a ballerina en pointe. He pauses for dramatic effect, then moves into the jungle boogie. His neck sinks and his head bobs, head wires bouncing on the offbeat. He hops and shakes, wings flapping or tucked in, chin whiskers fluttering.


His performance has the desired effect. The nearest female quivers in invitation, and with a nasal blast the dancer jumps her. Feathered commotion blocks the view, and it's unclear whether the romp is successful. But no matter: Another show will begin soon.
Here in the sweaty, vine-tied jungle of New Guinea is nature's most absurd theater, the mating game of the birds of paradise. No other birds on Earth go about the business of breeding quite like these. To dazzle choosy females, males strut in costumes worthy of the stage: cropped capes, shiny breast shields, head ribbons, bonnets, beards, neck wattles, and wiry feathers that curl like handlebar mustaches. Their vivid reds, yellows, and blues blaze against the relentless green of the rain forest. What makes for the sexiest mix of costume and choreography is a mystery, but it seems the more extreme the better.


Birds of paradise perch on an improbable branch of the avian family tree, the flashy cousins of straitlaced ravens and crows. They began splitting off from their bland kin millions of years ago, evolving into today's 38 eclectic species. Of these, 34 live only on New Guinea and its satellite islands.

Fractional Distillation of Air

Did you know that the air we breathe isn’t just oxygen, infact it’s made up of a number of different gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, neon and many others. Each of these gases carry useful properties so separating them from the air around us is extremely beneficial. 

The process is called fractional distillation and consists of two steps, the first relies on cooling the air to a very low temperature (i.e. converting it into a liquid), the second involves heating it up thus allowing each gas within the mixture to evaporate at its own boiling point. The key to success here is that every element within air has its own unique boiling temperature. As long as we know these boiling temperatures we know when to collect each gas. 


So what are the real world benefits of separating and extracting these gases? Well liquid oxygen is used to power rockets, oxygen gas is used in breathing apparatus, nitrogen is used to make fertilizers, the nitric acid component of nitrogen is used in explosives.


The other gases all have their own uses too, for example argon is used to fill up the empty space in most light bulbs (thanks to its unreactive nature). Carbon dioxide is used in fire extinguishers and is great for putting out fires in burning liquids and electrical fires. There really are too many uses to list but suffice it to say that fractional distillation is an extremely useful process for humans the world over.

How Do Camels Survive The Desert ?

The body of a camel is so amazingly adapted to survival in the desert that it can with stand even the harshest of desert climates. Their biggest strength has to be their ability to survive without food and water for long periods of time. This unique ability stems from their body being able to store fat in their humps and water in the lining of their stomachs. These stores can be used in times of need which is ideal in deserts where both food and water are extremely scarce.


Their wide, padded feet grip well on loose sandy soil and stop the camel from sinking into the sand. An insulating wool coat keeps out both the heat of the day and the cold of the night. Hairy eyelashes, ears and slit nostrils keep out the desert dust and sand. If that wasn’t enough camels are also extremely simple about the food they eat, consuming anything from thorny shrubs to desert thistles.

Most Dangerous Animal In Africa ?

Apart from snakes and insects the hippopotamus kills more people in Africa than any other! It’s a statistic which many find shocking especially because they’re not actually meat eaters. So what makes the hippo so dangerous ?

Well to begin with they’re large, extremely bad tempered and surprisingly quick on both land and water. If you combine these factors with a strong set of jaws and large tusks you have an animal with an extremely destructive bite.

Most attacks seem to occur at watering holes or near to water where humans either come too close or simply disturb the hippo from a distance. So just remember next time you’re in Africa it’s not only the lions, cheetahs and crocidiles you need to worry about. Beware of the bad tempered hippo!

An engineering and architectural marvel!

The French Millau viaduct project :

An engineering and architectural marvel! Just imagine it took them just 39 months to complete such a difficult feat.
Designed by British master-architect Lord Foster in collaboration with French bridge engineer Michel Virlogeux, it is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with one pier's summit at 341 metres (1,118 ft)-slightly higher than the Eiffel Tower and only 40 m (132 ft) shorter than the Empire State Building.
Intriguingly, the Millau Viaduct is not straight. A straight road could induce a sensation of floating for drivers, which a slight curve remedies. The curve is 20km in range. Moreover, the road has a light incline of 3% to improve the visibility and reassure the driver.

Where Did The Word Robot Come From ?

This is a question we get asked a lot so we thought we’d put people out of their misery. Firstly the word robot comes from the Czech word ‘robotnik‘ which means forced labour or even slave. Watching movies like I Robot, Wall-E and reading various sci-fi novels of the past you’ll quickly see that robots have mostly always been portrayed as helpers and servents of humanity.

It’s only in recent years that the image of robots has been upgraded to sentient beings with minds of their own e.g. transformers and even IRobot.

Anyway the word was first introduced by playwright Karel Capek in his play ‘RUR – Rossum’s Universal Robots‘ and it’s from there that the word and idea became popular. The first robot to be developed was by Joseph Engelberger and George Devol back in 1961 and if you’re imagining a metallic being with 2 arms, 2 legs and a head you can forget it. The first robot was basically a clawed arm that dropped hot steel car parts into water for cooling.

90% of robots today are used in factories, working on production lines and often handling dangerous materials that humans would find difficult or even impossible to handle. Other uses include exploration such as deep sea exploration and mining.