'Azzam' - the World's largest & fastest Super-yacht

The Azzam is 590-feet long, 68-feet wide and can travel at a speed of over 30 knots & The hulking superyacht is longer than a football field, larger than the US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and more capacious than many popular cruise ships.

With the launch of the gleaming new Azzam, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich can no longer lay claim to being the owner of the world's largest superyacht.

At 590- feet long, the Azzam is 57-feet longer than Abramovich's mighty Eclipse -- previously the largest yacht on the waves. The hulking superyacht is significantly longer than a football field, larger than the US Navy's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and more capacious than many popular cruise ships.

Last month, the behemoth eased cautiously out of its shipyard in Bremen, Germany, ushered by a team of powerful tugboats which were dwarfed by its enormous scale. The yacht has been kept under wraps throughout its construction for the past three years.

The identity of the huge boat's owner remains a mystery, but some speculate that it belongs to a powerful Middle Eastern billionaire.

The superyacht took one year to design and three years to build. Lürssen Managing Partner Peter Lürssen says that the Azzam 'represents a milestone in yachting history.'

Just building the yacht cost a staggering $605 million -- a fee which doesn't even begin to take into account the sky-high costs of its annual upkeep. In his book on the Lady Linda superyacht, author G. Bruce Knecht said that, "operating and maintaining a yacht is at least 10% of what the thing cost." By which estimation, just keeping the Azzam on the water could cost as much as $60 million every year.

The project was brought to fruition by Mubarak Saad al Ahbabi, who assembled a triumvirate of yacht-building super stars: the Azzam's engineering was done by premier German shipbuilding company Lürssen, the exterior design was by Nauta Yachts and the interior was composed by Christophe Leoni.

At present, very little is known about the interior detailing of the vessel. A spokesperson for Lürssen said "the yacht is still under construction, and I doubt that we will get permission to shoot her even when she is ready."

The vessel is powered by two gas turbines and two diesel engines, with a total of 94,000 horse power.

Experts suggest that the interior could match or even surpass the opulence of Abramovich's yacht which is equipped with two helipads, two swimming pools, a cinema, a disco and a mini-submarine that can dive to 150-feet to explore the ocean floor. Bullet-proof glass and armor plating lines Abramovich's master bedroom, and the boat has its own missile defence system.

The Azzam is described as having a "sophisticated and luxurious interior in a turn of the century Empire style." Although his primary work is not in yachting, French interior decorator Christophe Leoni says he is "confident that the final yacht is everything and more the owner expects."

TheYachtPhoto's Peter Seyfferth commented: "For a yacht of this size, I think that she looks amazingly elegant and sleek."

As well as its prodigious length, the yacht also travels at a record-breaking pace. With a top speed of over 30 knots (around 34 mph), the Azzam is considered to be the fastest superyacht on the sea.

The Azzam is the latest in a line of vessels to have held the mantle of world's largest yacht. Prior to the Eclipse, the 482-foot Prince Abdulaziz, owned by the Saudi royal family, held the record for 22 years. And before it, the Rising Sun was briefly the record-holder. Built by American businessman Larry Ellison, The Rising Sun came in at 454-feet and cost $200 million.

With many more billionaires around the world eager to inscribe their names into the history books, it is anyone's guess quite how long the Azzam will remain at the top. For now, its mystery owner can revel in the knowledge that his or her boat is at the very pinnacle of the yachting pecking order.

Source and Read more news around the world: CNN

How One Man Flies Like a Bird - Watch Video

What does it feel like to fly like a bird by using a jet-propelled wing? Only one man on Earth knows, and he shared his story with the crowd at TED Global in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Tuesday.

Yves Rossy’s invention allows him to fly by attaching to his back a four-engine jet suit with wings, which he starts up after jumping out of a helicopter or plane.

Check out the Video of the man Who files like a bird Below:

Unlike similar aircraft, Rossy’s has no steering controls. Rather, he uses his body to steer — arching his back gains altitude and pushing his shoulders forward sends him into a dive. “If you put steering in it’s more like an airplane. … I wanted to keep freedom of movement,” Rossy told the TED Global crowd.

Traveling at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour and a height of 3,000 meters, the aircraft can stay in the air for about 10 minutes, which was enough time for Rossy to cross the English Channel. He also recently flew above the Grand Canyon.

The device isn’t quite ready for mass consumption, however. Rossy, who served as both a commercial and military pilot earlier in his life, has had to use the wing’s escape parachute about 20 times — sometimes after becoming disoriented in the clouds, others after more than one of the engines fails.

Rossy, who does hope that one day his invention or something like it could be used by anyone, summarized the experience by saying, “I don’t have feathers, but I feel like a bird sometimes. It’s an unreal feeling.”

You can check what one of his flights and invention look like in the video below from his Grand Canyon mission:

Source: Mashable

Antarctica Tops the List of Coldest Places on Earth

Antarctica takes position number one among the coldest places on earth. Mostly uninhabited except for penguin and seal colonies found along the coast, Antarctica has practically no match on the temperature department. At the Plateau Station, temperatures can easily plummet to -119.23° Fahrenheit (-84° Celsius) and the annual average temperature barely reaches -32.8°F (-36°C). The record as the coldest place, however, goes to Vostok Station, Antarctica, where the temperature reached -129°F (-89.4°C) on 21 July 1983. Scientists are the only humans to live on Antarctica for months at a time, and even they do it only in summer.

Of all inhabited areas, one of the coldest places in the world is Siberia. Although global warming has taken a toll on Siberian winters over the past decade, it's normal for temperatures to reach -60°F (-51.1°C) in January. Oymyakon, in Eastern Siberia, has an average winter temperature of -49°F (−45°C), and may have reached a low of -96.16°F (-71.2°C), although the official record is -90°F (-67.7°C). The little village is home to 900 permanent residents, who endure winter for nine months out of the year, and considered -30°F (−34.4°C) "balmy." The area is so cold that empty plastic bags taken outside will freeze within minutes and then crack like glass.

Outside of Russia, the prize as one of the coldest places goes to Greenland, where the cities of Northice and Eismitte frequently see temperatures of -50°F (-45.5°C). The Yukon, Canada, falls close behind by only a few degrees. In the US, one of the coldest places is definitively International Falls, Minnesota, where temperatures normally reach -32°F (-35.5°C) in winter. Prospect Creek, Alaska, has broken several records in the American continent, including reaching -79.8°F (-62.1°C) in 2003.

To survive in the coldest places in the world, humans have had to adapt their environment and lifestyle significantly. Everything freezes at such low temperatures, from electronics to gasoline to pen ink; batteries lose power and pipes crack under the pressure exerted by ice and snow. In Ojmjakon, children are not allowed to play outside for more than 20 minutes at a time during a typical winter day. At -60°F (-51.1°C), their lungs can freeze and collapse. Despite all the difficulties, humans have found a way to change the environment and survive. Many of the coldest places in the world now attract tourists that are eager to see, at least for a few days, what real winter is all about.

Check out the Video to know the Coldest Places in World:

Antarctica tops the list of coldest places on earth, with one spot recording a bone-chilling -129F. By comparison, the US record of -80 seems downright warm.

Source: wiseGeek and Yahoo WhoKnew

First Ever Fully cured HIV-AIDS Patient - Timothy Ray Brown

Timothy Ray Brown, a resident of San Francisco Bay Area, is possibly the first ever person to be fully cured of the incurable HIV-AIDS disease, according to scientific journal Blood. Timothy Ray Brown was tested positive for HIV around 15 years ago when he was around the age of 30. He later found out that he was also diagnosed with Leukemia. When he was still in Germany in 2007, doctors used bone marrow stem cell transplant as a method of curing his Leukemia and neither HIV nor Leukemia has been traced on him since 2008.

"I quit taking my HIV medication the day that I got the transplant and haven’t had to take any since," said Brown, who is known as 'The Berlin Patient' in medical circles.

Brown received the stem cells from a person who is apparently immune to HIV, a character that only about 1 percent of Caucasians have. Dr. Jay Levi, a leading researcher in the field of HIV-AIDS at University ofCalifornia-San Franciso (UCSF), has called this a "functional cure."

"If you're able to take the white cells from someone and manipulate them so they're no longer infected, or infectable, no longer infectable by HIV, and those white cells become the whole immune system of that individual, you've got essentially a functional cure," said Levy.

Although the researchers this a "productive area to study," they warned people not to get too excited just yet, because it is not something that can be generalized.

"You don't want to go out and get a bone marrow transplant because transplants themselves carry a real risk of mortality," said Dr. Paul Volberding, another researcher at UCSF.

Volberding added, "one element of his treatment, and we don’t know which, apparently allowed the virus to be purged from his body."

Watch Timothy Brown discuss the miracle in the video below:

Source: IBTimes & CBS News

World's first zero-carbon city - Masdar City

1.       A masterplan of Masdar City. It is being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy company, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development, with the majority of seed capital provided by the government of Abu Dhabi.

World's first zero-carbon city - Masdar City, near Abu Dhabi

Masdar City, which is being constructed near Abu Dhabi, will rely entirely on solar energy and other renewable energy sources, and hopes to become the first zero-carbon, zero-waste city

One of the most sustainable communities on the planet, Masdar City is an emerging cleantech cluster that offers a creative and entrepreneurial atmosphere where businesses can thrive and innovation can flourish, in part because the city itself serves as a model of what green urban development can be. This is especially the case because Masdar City is being designed and operated to provide the highest quality of life with the lowest environmental footprint - all in manner that is commercially viable.

The Teflon-coated wind tower in Masdar City, which shows citizens how much energy the community is consuming

A model of an upcoming project at Masdar shows a conference centre suspended from the ceiling

The headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), to be located in Masdar City. It will be the first building in history to produce more energy than it consumes

A few hundred people will be guinea pigs in Masdar city, a Big Brother-style 'green policeman' monitoring their energy use.

Phase one of the city is now complete. By 2015, Masdar is expected to house 7,000 residents and 12,000 commuters from Abu Dhabi.

Two of the 10 magnetically controlled driverless vehicles that whiz people the 800 yards from the entrance of the city to the institute

first zero-carbon city - Masdar City

first zero-carbon city - Masdar City

Night Ariel View of Central Plaza in Masdar City

Night View of Central Plaza in Masdar City

Ariel View of Central Plaza in Masdar City

Amphitheater, Masdar City

World's Tallest High Heels

 

Apparently, the world's highest heels are 16 inches tall with an 11 inch platform – that's a 5 inch difference. Can you imagine wearing something like that? Your demure, average height 5ft 4in lady will end up looking like one of those Amazonian warriors, or worse, circus clown who's 6ft tall and struggling not to fall over.