Have I Got News For You 3

Have you heard the voice of Alexander Graham Bell?

You haven't heard? Today is your lucky day! The National Museum of American History has about 400 of the earliest audio recordings ever made. They were made using a variety of methods and materials such as rubber, beeswax, glass, tin foil and brass, as the inventors tried to find a material that would hold sound. Alexander Graham Bell was one of the early inventors that tried to improve on the original invention made by Thomas Edison in 1877. The six recordings, tested for sound recovery to date, are examples of experiments conducted by the Volta Laboratory Associates—Alexander Graham Bell, his cousin Chichester Bell, and Charles Sumner Tainter—roughly between 1880 and 1885. The National Museum of American History recently released digital copies made of some of the earliest recordings. Here are some of the recordings:

To know more about the recordings, please visit the Smithsonian Institution website.

Source: UTICAOD

Have I Got News For You 2

World’s Oldest Dog Dies at Age 26

Pusuke, listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest-living dog, died in Japan on Monday. He was 26 years old — or somewhere between 117 and 185 in “human years,” according to various calculations. There is no official method for converting dog years to human years. The dog’s owner, Yumiko Shinohara, said the male cross-breed died at Sakura in the Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo, according to the Kyodo news agency. Pusuke was reportedly eating well and staying active until Monday, when he lost his appetite and had difficulty breathing. Pusuke died peacefully, minutes after his owner returned home from a walk. “I think (Pusuke) waited for me to come home,” she said, according to Kyodo. Born in April of 1985, Pusuke was recognized last December as the world’s oldest-living dog. The oldest-known dog on record, according to Guinness, was an Australian cattle dog named Bluey, who lived to the ripe old age of 29 years and five months before it was put down in November 1939.

Source: ABC News

Bart - Reminds me of my cat Siti Payung (1999 - April 2011) :(

Have I Got News For You 1

'Brinicle' ice finger of death filmed in Antarctic

By Ella DaviesReporter, BBC Nature

A bizarre underwater "icicle of death" has been filmed by a BBC crew.

With timelapse cameras, specialists recorded salt water being excluded from the sea ice and sinking.

The temperature of this sinking brine, which was well below 0C, caused the water to freeze in an icy sheath around it.

Where the so-called "brinicle" met the sea bed, a web of ice formed that froze everything it touched, including sea urchins and starfish.

The unusual phenomenon was filmed for the first time by cameramen Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson for the BBC One series Frozen Planet.

Creeping ice

The icy phenomenon is caused by cold, sinking brine, which is more dense than the rest of the sea water. It forms a brinicle as it contacts warmer water below the surface.

Mr Miller set up the rig of timelapse equipment to capture the growing brinicle under the ice at Little Razorback Island, near Antarctica's Ross Archipelago.

"When we were exploring around that island we came across an area where there had been three or four [brinicles] previously and there was one actually happening," Mr Miller told BBC Nature.

The diving specialists noted the temperature and returned to the area as soon as the same conditions were repeated.

"It was a bit of a race against time because no-one really knew how fast they formed," said Mr Miller.

"The one we'd seen a week before was getting longer in front of our eyes... the whole thing only took five, six hours."

Against the odds

The location - beneath the ice off the foothills of the volcano Mount Erebus, in water as cold as -2C - was not easy to access.

"That particular patch was difficult to get to. It was a long way from the hole and it was quite narrow at times between the sea bed and the ice," explained Mr Miller.

"I do remember it being a struggle... All the kit is very heavy because it has to sit on the sea bed and not move for long periods of time."

As well as the practicalities of setting up the equipment, the filmmakers had to contend with interference from the local wildlife.

The large weddell seals in the area had no problems barging past and breaking off brinicles as well as the filming equipment.

"The first time I did a timelapse at the spot a seal knocked it over," said Mr Miller.

But the team's efforts were eventually rewarded with the first ever footage of a brinicle forming.

Credits: BBC website, Published on 23 November 2011