Jumat, 30 Juli 2010

The World's Largest Tent, Khan Shatyr, Debuts In Astana, Kazakhstan

The World's Largest Tent, Khan Shatyr, Debuts In Astana, Kazakhstan

Khan Shatyr, billed as the world's biggest tent, is seen after its opening in Astana July 6, 2010. Designed by British architect Norman Foster, it houses indoor beaches and waterfalls, as well as a mini golf course and botanic gardens. (Mukhtar Kholdorbekov/Reuters)

The world's largest tent Khan Shatyr has debuted in Kazakhstan's capital city, Astana.

The nearly 500-foot tall structure is host to a variety of exciting green features, designed by Foster And Partners, who are known for implementing inspiring sustainable techniques in their other creations, like theVirgin Galactic Spaceport and the Queen Alia Airport.

Inhabitat reports that the arid region of Astana is subject to drastic shifts in temperature, so the Khan Shatyr is designed to remain between 60 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit, even when the outside atmosphere can vary from -30 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

The tent accomplishes this climate control in an efficient way by utilizing three translucent layers of ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (EFTE) fabric. Take a look at lush greenery inside of Khan Shatyr basking in the sunlight brought in from the illuminating material in this photo.

In the winter, this exterior channels light and warm air to prevent condensation. In the summer, the cool air displaces the hot air which is vented through the top.

A 492-foot tripod column runs up the center of the tent, supporting a web of cables attached to the EFTE skin, stretching out to a radius of over 650 feet. Take a look at this incredible photo that shows the central tripod stretching from the uppermost peak down to the bustling visitors below.


With over one million square feet of space provided inside for the people of Kazakhstan to enjoy, the Khan Shatyr contains everything from a water park and garden to a shopping mall and movie complex. And of course, there are plenty of restaurants!


See more stunning photos of the Khan Shatyr, the world's largest tent.

Read More: Astana, Biggest Tent, Biggest Tent Ever, Biggest Tent In World, Green Living, Kazakhstan,Khan Shatyr, Largest Tent, Largest Tent Ever, Largest Tent In World, Worlds Biggest Tent, Worlds Largest Tent

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/663921

Rabu, 28 Juli 2010

Heat brings out the cool in zoos across the nation

Heat brings out the cool in zoos across the nation


Pets Hot ZoosAP – This undated photo provided by Annemarie Ferrie for the Turtle Back Zoo shows an otter snacking on a …

LOS ANGELES – Otters sweltering in the summer sun suck on "fishsicles." For carnivores like the Amur leopard, it's "bloodsicles."

Zoos across the country are using icy treats, shade, water and every conceivable form of cooling machine to help hundreds of thousands of animals, visitors and workers beat the heat this summer.

Even animals from Africa can have problems with extreme heat, says Lion Country Safari wildlife director Terry Wolf.

"It can be pretty stressful to some of them," he said. So at the Loxahatchee park in southern Florida, rhinos, tortoises and birds have slushy wet mud holes and the water buffalo have canals and lakes pumped full of water. Diets have changed from winter protein to summer fiber.

Earlier this month, temperatures soared past 100 in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Newark, N.J., and broke records in Providence, R.I., and Hartford, Conn. In the West, Southern California, Arizona and New Mexico were in triple digits. Death Valley in eastern California reached 125 degrees.

The lions have wet moats, primates and outdoor birds get shade and mist, jaguars and Andean bears have swimming pools, and the orangutans hang out near air conditioning vents at the Houston Zoo, said Brian Hill, director of public affairs.

Ice, frozen in everything from snowcone cups to 25-gallon buckets, is a heat treat. the Essex County Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, N.J., uses fishsicles and bloodsicles, along with "fruitsicles" for bears and ice cream and Italian ices for the humans, explained zoo director Jeremy Goodman.

Some animals sweat and some are just as susceptible as humans to heat stroke and heat exhaustion. Some even get sunburned.

"We apply sunscreen to our pig," Goodman said.

The Phoeniz (Ariz.) Zoo is probably the nation's hottest, said Dan Subaitis, director of animal management there for the past five years. For three months every summer, it is 110 to 115 degrees during the day, the humidity reaches 60 percent and the nights might "cool off" to 90 or 100 degrees, he said. Staff constantly watches the animals, guests and each other for signs of heat distress.

"Our reptile collection likes heat, but our heat is even too hot for most of them, so they will head for their pools," Subaitis said.

You won't find any moose or polar bears at the zoo because it would cost too much to keep them cool.

The orangutans have learned to help by making their own hats, Subaitis said. "We give them old shirts or burlap sacks and they will get them wet and drape them over their heads."

Throughout the zoo, there are fans, misters, evaporative coolers, trees, grass, artificial shade, ponds, sprinklers, spouts, hoses, drinking fountains and rest areas. Guests can bring fully stocked coolers and ice chests and visit starting at 7 a.m.

Besides keeping them cool, workers try to keep the animals calm, reducing as much stress as possible. They put off as many summer veterinary procedures as they can.

"We do not want an animal to get agitated or nervous. That will increase body temperature and if you add that to an environmental temperature of 110, they can get overheated real quick," Subaitis said.

Wolf echoed the stress concerns. "If we have to put our hands on an animal because they have some kind of medical issue, we have to juggle whether or not the issue is more critical than what might happen if they overheat in the capture process," he said.

A new, $20 million, 17-acre Polar Frontier at the Columbus (Ohio) Zoo and Aquarium has an acre-plus home for 3-year-old polar bear sisters Anana and Aurora.

The 600-pound bears have a chilled pool (stocked with 500 or 600 trout), trees, a grassy area, and 24-hour access to air conditioned dens, said Doug Warmolts, director of animal care.

They get piles of ice to roll in and heavy duty balls or 55-gallon plastic drums to roll around, he said.

"There are big rocks next to the side of the pool and they leap off and do these great belly smackers," Warmolts said.

Anyone worried about nature taking its course can be assured that the heat does little to stop the birds and the bees.

The Cincinnati (Ohio) Zoo & Botanical Garden is nicknamed the "sexiest zoo in America" because of all the births there through the years. The title is probably safe because heat doesn't alter the sex lives of animals as much as instinct and light does, explained curator of mammals Mike Dulaney.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100727/ap_on_re_us/us_fea_pets_hot_zoos

Senin, 26 Juli 2010

Enam Gunung Berapi Ditemukan di Perairan Sangihe Talaud

Enam Gunung Berapi Ditemukan di Perairan Sangihe Talaud


REPUBLIKA.CO.ID,JAKARTA -- Pemerintah Indonesia menemukan enam gunung berapi di bawah permukaan laut Perairan Sangihe Talaud, Sulawesi Utara. Penemuan itu berkat penelitian yang dilakukan kerja sama antara Pemerintah RI dan Amerika Serikat selama 40 hari, yakni sejak 24 Juni lalu hingga 8 Agustus mendatang.

Hanya saja dari keenam gunung tersebut, masih enam yang sudah diberi nama, yakni Gunung Kawio dan Gunung Naung. Gunung Kawio berada di bagian paling utara perairan tersebut dengan ketinggian sekitar 3400 meter. Jarak antara puncak gunung ke permukaan laut setinggi 2.000 meter. Sehingga kedalaman laut secara keseluruhan mencapai 5.400 meter.

Sedangkan Gunung Naung hingga saat ini belum diketahui tinggi, namun dipastikan lebih rendah dari Gunung Kawio. Sementara keempat gunung lainnya belum diberi nama dan ketinggiannya pun juga belum dihitung.

Pihak Pemerintah RI, dalam hal ini Kementerian Kelautan dan Perikanan, menyatakan kemungkinan adanya temuan gunung baru. Hal itu tidak lepas dari kondisi iklim di Indonesia berada pada iklim tropis yang menyebabkan laut Indonesia memiliki keragaman hayati laut yang sangat tinggi.

"Sangat mungkin ada penambahan, karena pencarian masih terus berjalan," kata Ketua Tim Peneliti indonesia, Sugiarta kepada wartawan saat telepresent, di Gedung

Badan Riset Kelautan dan Perikanan, Ancol, Jakarta, Senin (26/7) malam. Dalam penelitian itu, sekitar 30 saintis asal Indonesia bersama-sama dengan peneliti asal Amerika terus mengoperasikan pencarian di dalam laut.

Menurut Sugiarta, dari hasil riset alat pendeteksi canggih itu diketahui bahwa kondisi suhu di gunung berapi bawah laut itu sangat panas. "Setelah dideteksi melalui CTD (conductivy temperatur deept), memang ada perbedaan suhu," lanjut Sugiarta yang juga diamini Bambang Hairunadi, anggota tim riset yang mendampinginya.

Sementara itu, Menteri Kelautan dan Perikanan, Fadel Muhammad, mengungkapkan kekagumannya terhadap penemuan itu. Hasil penelitian itu, kata dia, menakjubkan karena belum pernah ada peneliti di Indonesia yang melakukannya. "Hasilnya luar biasa, karena ternyata banyak gunung-gunung berapi di Sulawesi," kata Fadel.

http://id.news.yahoo.com/repu/20100726/tpl-enam-gunung-berapi-ditemukan-di-pera-97b2f71.html

Big Bang investigators want new atom smasher

Big Bang investigators want new atom smasher


Rolf Heuer, Guy WormserAP – Guy Wormser, Senior Researcher of the National Center for Scientific Research, France, left, and Rolf …

PARIS – Scientists behind the European particle collider aimed at uncovering the secrets of the universe pushed Monday to build an even bigger machine — with money and partners from around the world.

Instead of whirling atoms in giant rings, as existing colliders in Switzerland and the United States do, scientists want a new-generation machine that will shoot them straight.

Depending on who wants to host it — and how much they are willing to pay — the next-generation collider could potentially be built anywhere in the world. Japan, Russia, the U.S. and Switzerland are all potential hosts, although scientists from China, India, Canada and elsewhere also will be associated with it, said Barry Barish, director of one of the proposed new collider projects.

Scientists gathered in Paris on Monday were encouraged by the results of the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider run by CERN, a particle physics laboratory outside Geneva. A smaller collider called Tevatron is run by Fermilab near Chicago. Both are highly complex machines that took years to bring to fruition.

Rolf Heuer, head of CERN, said at a press conference in Paris that he is "pretty happy" about what scientists have so far discovered from the LHC about how the universe was created.

The machine is "opening a new era of research."

But he said there will be a need for a new linear collider. It is the "interplay and combination of results" between the two different types of atom smashers that allows high-energy physics to advance, he said.

More than 1,000 physicists have gathered in Paris to hear the latest results of the LHC — and the preparations for its successor — at the International Conference on High Energy Physics, which runs through July 28.

The experiments are more about shaping our understanding of how the universe was created than immediate improvements to technology in our daily lives.

Scientists are attempting to simulate the moments after the Big Bang nearly 14 billion years ago, which they theorize was the creation of the universe.

Plans for the next step include a euro10 billion ($12.85 billion), 50-kilometer (31-mile) tunnel called the International Linear Collider, and the Compact Linear Collider, or CLIC, which has not yet been priced.

"Both are now really international cooperations, collaborations," said Heuer.

He said plans for the ILC, which first originated in a Hamburg laboratory, is more technologically advanced, but CLIC, which started at CERN, aims at higher-energy experiments.

The choice will be determined by the discoveries of the LHC, he said.

Barish, director of the proposed ILC, told The Associated Press that scientists could have the technology ready to go ahead with his project in 2012.

"If we are going to build an ambitious machine, then it's got to be a global machine," said Barish, a professor at the California Institute of Technology.

Jean-Pierre Delahaye, CLIC study leader at CERN who is also involved with the ILC, said the conceptual design of CLIC should be ready next year, when scientists will have a better idea of how much it costs.

He said CLIC could be five to ten times more powerful than the ILC — depending on how much funding is available.

"When we go up in energy we get closer to the Big Bang moment," he told the AP.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking at the conference on Monday, said that despite budget pressures, France has continued investing in science. But he noted that investments of the scale being discussed in Paris "can't be made by a single country, not even by a small group of countries."

The LHC was launched with great fanfare in September 2008, but days later was sidetracked by overheating that set off a chain of problems. CERN had to undertake a $40 million program of repairs and improvements before restarting the machine in November. Since then the collider has reported a series of successes.

With the LHC "we made a machine which allowed us to make a big leap in understanding, a sort of enlightener, and now we study and detail things and that's the linear collider," Guy Wormser, a leading particle physicist and one of the conference organizers told the AP.

"It's the future of our discipline."

Instead of crashing protons together, the new international collider will accelerate electrons and positrons, their antimatter equivalent, he said.

In March, the Large Hadron Collider produced its first bang, the most potent force on the tiny atomic level that humans have ever created.

Two beams of protons were sent hurtling in opposite directions toward each other in a 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel below the Swiss-French border — the coldest place in the universe at slightly above absolute zero.

CERN, or the European Organization for Nuclear Research, used powerful superconducting magnets to force the two beams to cross; two of the protons collided, producing 7 trillion electron volts.

Heuer said that CERN's experiments so far have "done an incredible job," locating the particles scientists already knew existed. Now their job is to find new ones.

The colliders also may help scientists see dark matter, the strange stuff that makes up more of the universe than normal matter but has not been seen on Earth.

"Your work represents the oldest dream of man since he tried to understand and transform what goes on around him," Sarkozy said. "Why is there something rather than nothing?"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100726/ap_on_sc/eu_france_atom_smashers

Minggu, 25 Juli 2010

World's Large, Tree House Stands 10 Stories Tall

World's Large, Tree House Stands 10 Stories Tall

by Stephen Messenger, Porto Alegre, Brazil on 03. 7.10

worlds biggest treehouse in winterPhoto via Obvious

16 years ago, Horrace Burges had a divine vision, a calling from heaven. And, like the ark-crafting Noah before him, Horrace picked up a hammer and built a large wooden structure of his own--the world's largest tree house. At 10 stories tall, with roughly 10,000 square feet, the tree house may be more aptly called a 'tree mansion', but according Horrace, it's a work in progress.

worlds biggest treehouse photo

Located in Crossville, Tennessee, Horrace built the tree house was using onlyrecycled lumber, donated or salvaged from demolition sites. He says that since so much of the material used to build the house was given to him, the whole project has only cost him around $12 thousand--most of which was spent on nails.

SLIDESHOW: Tree Houses Fit for TreeHuggers

The structure, which climbs 100 feet into the air, is mainly supported by a single large tree which makes up it's foundation--though a spiral staircase allows access inside from the ground level.

worlds biggest treehouse detail photo

Horrace Burges, as a landscape architect, is no stranger to building structures that compliment their setting so well--but he's also an ordained minister, which means he's no stranger to the often curious calls of divine inspiration which led him to build the giant tree house.

SLIDESHOW: Terrific Treehouse Designs from Baumraum

The 'tree mansion' has become quite the tourist attraction in Crossville since Horrace opened it up to the public--with nearly 400 visitors a week coming to take a look at what he's built. After all, it's every kid's dream to live in such a tree house, particularly one with 10 stories--but most weren't brave enough to try. As it turns out though, all it takes is $12 thousand, some salvaged lumber, and a little inspiration.

More on Treehouses
Treehouse by Tham & Videgard Hansson is Almost Invisible
Spectacular Brazilian Treehouses by Casa Na Arvore (Slideshow)
Serious Treehouses

At Sweden's Treehotel, Guests Sleep 18 Feet Off the Ground

At Sweden's Treehotel, Guests Sleep 18 Feet Off the Ground

The hotel's stated objective is to bring guests "close to nature."

Rachel Cernansky

By Rachel Cernansky | Tue Jul 13, 2010 13:24

Treehotel Sweden photo

Courtesy of Treehotel

We've seen crazy-concept green hotels before, and even other mirrored treehouses (!!), but theTreehotel in Harads, northern Sweden may come closest in its mission to offer "a new experience living close to nature in a place of great natural beauty."

The hotel, which opens this month, is made of tree house units, each with a different theme and most designed by a different architect. The rooms vary between 15 and 30 square meters in size and 4 to 6 meters from the ground, and have either two or four beds each—bringing family vacations to whole new level.

Each unit has "its own state of the art eco-friendlyincineration toilet and water efficient hand basin," minimal use of chemicals, and electric floor heating powered by an "eco-friendly source." The plan is to build 24 units over five years and to continue adding variety and architectural involvement to the tree houses.

Above is the "Mirrorcube" unit—designed to reflect its surroundings, but the glass has an infrared film, invisible to humans, that will prevent birds from flying into it—and below are some of the other offerings at Sweden's soon-to-be launched Treehotel.


Treehotel's "UFO" unit


UFO Treehotel Sweden photo


The Cabine Tree House


Cabine Treehotel Sweden photo


The Cone


Cone Treehotel Sweden photo


The Bird's Nest


Birds Nest Treehotel Sweden photo

More on green hotels:
9 Questions You Must Ask Before Booking a "Green" Hotel
Stay at Green Hotels When You're On the Go
Almost Invisible Mirrored Tree House Built In Sweden
Danish Green Hotel Offers 'Cycle for Your Supper' Deal
Recycled Hotel Rooms from Wine Barrels for the Oenophile

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/travel-outdoors/sweden-treehotel-guests-sleep-18-feet-off-ground.html