KNIGHT XV adds security and luxury upgrades to reclaim the strongest armored car title

Just in from BornRich

When Conquest Vehicles launched the KNIGHT XV, it was regarded as the most luxurious SUV of the time, but grenade-proof, the €1million Dartz Monaco Red Diamond Edition took away the title after claiming itself to be the world’s most expensive, luxurious and strongest armored car. However, the biofuel-powered KNIGHT XV has added more than 60 new security and luxury upgrades, probably to reclaim the title. New upgrades include a turbo kit, a commercial-grade multi-link air-ride suspension system, a high-performance front brake system with 15.5-inch rotors and 12-pot calipers. Among our personal favorites and a 24-inch vehicle extension package to fit all your friends and family and right-hand drive conversion to suit your country’s traffic norms and an amazing addition is an onboard black-box system that constantly has the record button on and multiple layers of armor help push the KNIGHT XV’s weight to 12,000 pounds.

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[Read more: http://www.bornrich.org/entry/knight-xv-adds-security-and-luxury-upgrades-to-reclaim-the-strongest-armored-car-title/]

Copenhagen’s Noma Named World’s Best Restaurant

By Bruce Palling in The Wall Street Journal

Copenhagen’s Noma, which showcases the work of a young Danish chef whose dishes include radishes in edible dirt, edged out the top two “molecular” eateries Monday to win the award for world’s best restaurant.

René Redzepi, 32, chef at the two Michelin star-rated Noma on Copenhagen’s docks, brought seven of his top eight staff to celebrate winning first place in the S. Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards. The list was announced at a chef-studded ceremony at Guildhall, in London’s financial district.

Hundreds of world famous chefs and other gastronomic stars saw them don T-shirts emblazoned with a picture of Ali, Noma’s head dishwasher, who had fallen foul of Britain’s immigration laws and wasn’t granted a visa for the occasion.

Noma was the insider’s favorite to knock both Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli and Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck from their culinary perch, where they have exchanged the top two positions for the past six years. El Bulli has been ranked first since 2006.

For some gastronomic commentators, the award marks a shift away from laboratory and test- tube cuisine toward cooking rooted in “fiercely local” regional produce. Mr. Redzepi, who is half Danish, half Macedonian, employs five full-time foragers and insists employees spend time unearthing exotic produce. Noma boasts that it doesn’t use olive oil, tomatoes or nonseasonal garlic, as all of its produce is from Denmark and the neighboring Nordic countries. He has championed such obscure ingredients as 45-year-old horse mussels from the Faroe Islands, monkfish livers and wild beach roses.

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[Read the rest at; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704471204575209542091581002.html]

New evidence may solve mystery of the origin of water on Earth

By Hannah Devlin in the UK’s Times Online

Scientists have found new evidence that the water on Earth was delivered by asteroids during the earliest years of the solar system.

The development comes after two teams of scientists independently discovered the first “wet” asteroid, paving the way for the first experimental proof of a longstanding mystery surrounding the origin of water on Earth.

Scientists believe that the Earth was formed barren. During a period of intense bombardment, between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, ice-covered comets and asteroids could have delivered water. It had been assumed that these asteroids would have now dried out.

But the new observations, by teams using infrared telescopes at Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, and the University of Central Florida, show that 24 Thermis, one of the largest asteroids in the solar system’s main asteroid belt, is covered in a thick layer of frost.

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[Read the rest at; http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7110943.ece]

Black Widow Steampunk Chopper

Few details out as yet about this stunning piece of steampunk. Who cares? Just take a look at the Black Widow chopper created by Solifague Design.

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[http://theawesomer.com/black-widow-steampunk-chopper/35946/]

Hong Kong Mini Apartment Transforms into 24 Different Rooms

Architect Gary Chang transforms the 34 square meter family apartment where he grew up in Hong Kong into 24 different rooms by use of his “Domestic Transformer”.

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[Via http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/domestic-transformer-mini-apartment-transforms-into-24-different-rooms]

Omega-3 fatty acids are key to a healthier life

Research shows they promote heart health and reduce pain in people with rheumatoid arthritis. They also may help treat autism, bipolar disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, ADHD and prostate cancer.

By Emily Sohn in the Los Angeles Times

Pregnant women need them for their babies’ brains. Kids need them to learn. Adults get healthier hearts from them. The do-it-all nutrients known as omega-3 fatty acids appear to reduce pain in people with rheumatoid arthritis — and may help treat autism, bipolar disorder, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, ADHD and prostate cancer.

Even dogs and cats need omega-3s to stay healthy.

So eat more fish. Take fish oil pills (or their vegetarian counterparts). Start buying fortified foods. However you do it, you — like most Americans — could likely benefit from getting more omega-3 fatty acids, specifically DHA and EPA.

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[Read the full article; http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-omega-3s-20100426,0,4578236.story]

To sleep or not to sleep? Math software to help plan astronaut, shift worker schedules

By Brad Thomas of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute

Shifting work schedules can wreak havoc on a person’s ability to get enough sleep, resulting in poor performance on the job.

Researchers funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) have developed software that uses mathematical models to help astronauts and ground support personnel better adjust to shifting work and sleep schedules. Outside the space program, the software could help people who do shift or night work or who experience jet lag due to travel across time zones.

“The best methods that we know to help people operate at peak performance are first to ensure that they get adequate sleep, and second that their work schedules are designed to be aligned with the natural body clock,” said project leader Dr. Elizabeth Klerman, associate team leader for NSBRI’s Human Factors and Performance Team.

According to Klerman, a physician in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, the software has two components. The Circadian Performance Simulation Software (CPSS) uses complex mathematical formulas to predict how an individual will react to specific conditions. CPSS also allows users to interactively design a schedule, such as shifting sleep/wake to a different time, and predicts when they would be expected to perform well or poorly.

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[Read the full article at http://www.nsbri.org/NewsPublicOut/Release.epl?r=132]

Fra Angelico to Leonardo: drawn to perfection

Italian Renaissance drawings at the British Museum (Handout/British Museum)

The British Museum’s parade of pioneering drawings by Italian Renaissance masters is beguiling and enlightening.

By Waldemar Januszczak in the UK’s Times Online

I was going to begin here with the assertion that drawing was back. But that would have been silly. Drawing cannot be back because it cannot ever have been away. It is too central and useful an artistic activity ever to allow us to do without it. As long as human beings have fingers and the rubbing of one substance across another leaves a mark, there will always be drawing.

The point I would have been trying to make, had I attempted to make it, however, is that a certain fashionableness has once again attached itself to this primary means of communication. At Christie’s recently, a bedazzled foreign moneybags was so taken by a Raphael drawing of a woman’s head that he spent £29m on it. It’s a beautiful drawing. No argument there. And since it was made in preparation for Raphael’s great decoration of the papal apartments in the Vatican, it has some genuine historic resonance. But as a pretty drawing of a woman tilting her head, angelically, it tells us more about the predictability of a modern billionaire’s tastes than it does about the progress of the Renaissance. Why didn’t the poor sap just buy a framed photo of Lady Di?

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[Read the full article; http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article7103877.ece]

Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010

Two minutes and five seconds of pleasure thanks to Chris Peck, a student at Pratt Institute.

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[www.chrspck.com via www.theawesomer.com]

Stunning First Images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

Image shows several flares and their associated waves across the sun (courtesy: NASA/GSFC/AIA)

By Darren Quick in Gizmag

Although we do know some things about the Sun – it’s big and hot for example – in many ways it remains a great mystery to scientists. In a bid to shed some more light on our closest star, NASA launched its most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the Sun in February this year. The goal of the the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is to help us understand where the Sun’s energy comes from, explore its inner workings, and learn more about how energy is stored and released in the Sun’s atmosphere. A nice side benefit will also be the capture of stunning images – the first of which have just been released.

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[Read the full article at http://www.gizmag.com/nasa-solar-dynamics-observatory/14890/]