Human-Powered Helicopter Wins Award (VIDEO)

by Sean McLachlan on


Oh Canada! First you gave us William Shatner, now you give us a human-powered helicopter.

A team of engineers called AeroVelo has won a $250,000 award for creating a human-powered helicopter that could fly three meters off the ground for 60 seconds while keeping the cockpit within a ten-square-meter area. The American Helicopter Society sponsored this Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition, and the prize money has been on offer for nearly 30 years.

Man-powering a helicopter is tough to do since humans don’t have strength to lift themselves off the ground without large rotors. Of course, large rotors are heavy, making it hard for a human to get the helicopter off the ground. This is the reason all those Renaissance-era experiments with birdlike flapping wings never worked. To cut down on weight, the team used super-light materials that are too delicate to be flown outdoors.

AeroVelo’s flight lasted 64.11 seconds, a world record, and reached up to 3.3 meters in altitude. As you can see from the video, drift was a problem with this and all other competitors, with the machine drifting up to 9.8 meters.

So will this be the new way to get to the hockey game? Probably not. The personal jetpack has been around for decades but never took off either. The Martin Jetpack company is trying to change that, although they haven’t yet made their jetpacks — which will probably cost in the six figures — commercially available yet. Popular Mechanics did an interesting article on why jet packs aren’t feasible.

The Plague Closes Los Angeles Forest

by Sean McLachlan on

Officials evacuated and closed parts of the Angeles National Forest after finding a dead squirrel that was infected with bubonic plague, the BBC reports.

Scientists are currently examining the squirrel to see if it died of the disease or of other causes. Park officials are using insecticides on squirrel burrows to kill off any fleas, which is how the disease spreads from one animal to another. The Twisted Arrow, Broken Blade and Pima Loops of the Table Mountain campgrounds are closed until further notice, although hiking is still permitted.

The plague killed about a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century but is not nearly as active these days. Only four people have contracted the disease in Los Angeles County since 1984. This map from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows each case of the plague in the United States since 1970. About 80% were of the bubonic variety and most cases were not fatal, since antibiotic treatment is usually successful. In related news, researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany are developing an easy test to detect the plague in its early stages.

As you can see, there are two main clusters. New Mexico gets about half of all the human infections in the U.S. In the 1980s, the worst plague decade, it had slightly more than a hundred cases. Worldwide, most plague cases are in south central Africa and east Asia. People tend to get it while engaged in outdoor activities.

The Gastrointestinal Gamble: Kimchee Carbonara With Doritos

by David Farley on

The contents of the bowl in front of me looked familiar. In it, eggy noodles swirling with some variety on the theme of bacon. It was recognizable but at the same time it wasn’t. That’s because it also included kimchee and – wait for it – Doritos.

[Record scratch across the heavens.]

Welcome to King Noodle in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, the stoniest stoner restaurant you’ll come across this side of San Francisco. Mirrored walls and a disco ball (relics from the space’s previous incarnation as a Dominican bar) and a ceiling lined with strips of red, blue and purple Christmas lights illuminate the spray painted walls of corral reefs on a Martian-like landscape (done by local artists at Secret HandShake). If the space seems like an electric Kool-Aid acid test, the menu reads like it was concocted after several hits from an evil wizard bong and a trip to the kitchen to see what’s in the fridge: Spam fried rice, mapo tofu with chili cheese fries, and rice cakes with krab and mozzarella in a spicy sauce.

And then there’s that dish I described above: kimchee carbonara. When I first heard about it – the restaurant just opened last month – I knew I had to try it.

I have a love affair with the Roman pasta dish carbonara. I wrote about it for Gadling after a recent trip to Rome in which I mostly only ate the egg-y pasta dish of contested origins every place I sat down to eat. And I happen to have just fused Korean and Italian tastes in a cooking competition my friends had just organized.

Here I was in Bushwick, a name that translates as “refuge” in Dutch. The neighborhood was once a civic wasteland, particularly after the 1977 riots that decimated the area. In the 1990s, artists began moving into the desolate warehouse and loft buildings, which had no heat and very few comforts. It wasn’t until a decade ago when galleries, bars and restaurants slowly and quietly began opening up here. Then in early 2008 came Italian restaurant Roberta’s. It has drawn people to the neighborhood ever since, especially now with the addition of Roberta’s upscale spin-off Blanca garnering rave reviews. Bushwick is now so self-sustainable that residents don’t necessarily need to drift into neighboring Williamsburg for decent eating and drinking.

King Noodle is a prime example, which sits next to The Narrows, a great cocktail bar. When chef Nick Subic, late Roberta’s, delivered my kimchee carbonara, I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions.

“It all started when my restaurant partner and I were at Snacky” – an Asian restaurant in Williamsburg – “when we got this idea to do a restaurant that evokes those weird second-floor, pub-like restaurants in Korea Town. But we wanted some stoner-dorm-room-vibe thrown into the mix. And that’s where the kimchee carbonara came into it all.”

He added: “We wanted to do something that was as inauthentic to Korean food as Taco Bell was to Mexican food.”

Goal achieved. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the dish is bad. In fact, I liked it very much. The Doritos gave it a nice textural crunch. And the lo mein noodles were the perfect size to wrap around the kimchee and bacon.

I can’t say that when I come back to King Noodle – and I will return – that I’d get the kimchee carbonara again. There’s something about stoner food in restaurants that almost feels like cheating. Part of the appeal, after all, is being stoned (which I wasn’t) and also inventing it yourself. And then, of course, thinking that you just created what might be the greatest thing ever eaten (and then, the next morning, realizing just how wrong you were).

[Photo by David Farley]

Fashion Do’s And Don’ts From The TSA

by Elizabeth Seward on


When talking about airport security, we generally focus on what travelers are carrying, not what they’re wearing. But thanks to the TSA recently cracking down on passengers’ fashion choices, style is now a part of the airport security conversation. Forget regulations on liquids or weapons: the TSA’s new security threat is clothing, accessories and hairdos, or so they seem to think.

On July 16th, a TSA spokeswoman tweeted a photo of black pumps that had small replica guns as heels. The shoes were confiscated by the TSA at New York’s Laguardia Airport despite the fact that they could have been easily verified as non-weapons. Also in the tweeted photograph was a black belt lined with mock silver bullets. While mock weapons aren’t ever supposed to be admitted on planes, I have to wonder: how far does that regulation extend? Would a charm bracelet with a mock handgun be permitted?

The TSA’s fashion crackdown has also come to include dreadlocks. Numerous reports have surfaced involving hair searches if the passenger sports dreads. Other style conflicts include an instance in which a male TSA officer recently told a 15-year-old traveler to cover herself in a criticism of her tank top, leggings and button-down shirt (not that it matters; it’s not appropriate for a TSA officer to remark on the perceived modesty or lack thereof in regard to passenger clothing).The TSA’s Fashion Dont’s include (or seem to include):

  • Don’t wear accessories that include mock weapons or accessories for weapons, no matter how small or obviously fake.
  • Don’t wear loose head coverings, religious or otherwise.
  • Don’t wear body piercings.
  • Don’t wear thick shirts.
  • Don’t wear studded clothing.
  • Don’t have dreadlocks.
  • Don’t wear tank tops.

Do’s include:

  • Do wear slip-on shoes.
  • Do wear comfortable, layered clothing.
  • Do remove as much jewelry beforehand as possible.

Have your fashion choices been judged by the TSA? Share your stories in the comments below.