Italian architect David Fisher is building his first skyscraper, the Dynamic Tower, and it happens to be one of the most ambitious construction plans since the Pyramid of Khufu. Every floor of the 80-story self-powered building rotates according to voice command, and nearly the entire structure of the $700 million building is pre-fabbed. I caught up with the architect in New York, and he blew my mind again and again.

Fisher was inspired to design the Dynamic Tower during a visit to a friend’s top-floor Midtown Manhattan apartment. “I had a view of the Hudson River and East River at the same time, it was beautiful and I wanted to make that feeling accessible to more people.” He loves the idea of seeing the sun rise and set in the same room, and considers the building to be four-dimensional. “Time is always changing the shape of the building,” he told me.

The rotation takes up to 3 hours (so you’re not always spilling your coffee), and gets power from photovoltaic solar cells and 79 wind turbines, one located between each floor. The system is meant to create enough energy to power to the entire tower and still have juice to spare for some surrounding buildings. According to Fisher, two of these $700 million futuristic scrapers are planned so far, one each in Dubai and Moscow. They will be built using a truly radical technique.

Construction on the Dynamic Tower will be unlike anything that preceded it. The only part of the tower built on site will be the skinny center core. It is strong enough to hold the floors in place, and will contain the building’s elevators, which transport people and cars right to their door. Each floor will be made piece by piece in a factory in Italy—a throwback to Fisher’s previous life in prefabricated bathroom design—and placed onto the core using a lift system. With this method, each story is completed in about six days. By comparison, traditional ground-up methods can take six weeks per floor.

Groundbreaking for Dynamic Towers in Dubai and Moscow is expected to happen in the fall, with construction reaching completion by the end of 2010. If you’re game—and very, very loaded—you can sign up now for a villa or office space. The going rate is $3000/sq foot.

Source: Gizmodo

New Zealand Fisheries Department shown is a giant squid caught in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. New Zealand scientists have begun thawing the world’s largest squid to try to unlock some of the secrets of one of the ocean’s most mysterious beasts. The 495 kilogram (1,089 pound), 8-meter (26-ft.) long colossal squid was removed from its freezer Monday April 28, 2008, and put into a tank filled with a saline solution, the first step of a plan that will eventually put it on public display

Source: AP

China’s latest world-beating megastructure, the longest sea-bridge ever built, has opened to traffic

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

GATESHEAD, UK.- Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art presents Erwin Wurm New Sculpture, on view through October 10, 2006. A fat house, a distorted truck and a stuffed sausage dog that appears to have swallowed a brick, all form part of a new show at BALTIC. The exhibition is by one of Austria’s leading artists – Erwin Wurm. Embracing the absurd, Wurm invites us to consider different possibilities. He creates a distance between us and the everyday, asking for a re-examination of the world we inhabit and everyday things we take for granted. He plays with perception, and on upsetting established meanings. Familiar objects overcome materiality and utility to become emblematic and free ranging in their possible significance and use.

She may have a suspicious lisp and possess a full five metres of feminine curves but this python has proved herself a more than trustworthy friend. While a snake is a rather strange choice for a companion, this odd couple have found a lasting friendship in the most unlikely of places.

Seven-year-old Sambath Uorn’s unique relationship with his python, known as Chamreun, or Lucky, in Khmer, was first revealed to the world last December. Since then the bond between the two has only grown deeper.

Lucky first slithered into Sambath’s Cambodian village of Sit Tbow, 50 kilometres east of Phnom Penh, when the boy was only a couple of months old.Now the two have learnt new tricks together as the snake continues to be loyal to her friend and allows him to ride her.

Although she could easily crush him by constricting her powerful coils, Lucky likes nothing more than to let her young master curl up beside her.

The python, which previously measured 4.8 metres in length, has now grown to a huge 5 metres long and weighs over 100 kg.One of the world’s largest snakes, the Burmese python can grow up to 8 metres long and weigh up to 180 kg.

She is so heavy that Sambath needs the help of both his father and his neighbour to carry her.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

A dog only slightly taller than a soft-drinks can has been named by the Guinness Book of Records as the smallest adult canine in the world. “Heaven Sent Brandy”, a female chihuahua, was given the title of “smallest dog in terms of length” in 2005.

Heaven Sent Brandy is a mere six inches tip-to-tail and weighs less than two pounds. She is a mere six inches (15cm) from her nose to the tip of her tail and has legs as thin as lolly sticks.

Brandy and Coke: the tiny dog is barely taller than a drinks can Tipping the scales at a bantam-weight 2lb (0.9kg), Brandy lives in Largo, Florida, with her owner Paulette Keller and her family.

Chihuahuas are the smallest breed of dog in the world, with the average specimen standing between 6 and 10 inches (15 to 25cm) tall and with show dogs weighing no more than 6lb (2.7kg), although pet chihuahuas have been known to reach 10lb (4.5kg).

The tiny dogs and their counterparts such as the pug, shi tzu and pomeranian are currently the subject of controversy in the UK.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

Yu Zhenhuan, the world’s hairiest man, is looking for love online after breaking up with his girlfriend of three years. Mr Yu said that online dating agencies are his best shot at happiness, as potential love interests are “shocked” when they see him in person. Yu Zhenhuan, the world’s hairiest man, says “many girls are shocked” when they see him in person

“I am being honest with any new partners”, he told Zhejiang Online. “I tell them at the start that I am listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the hairiest man in the world.

“My whole body is covered with hair. I tried waxing it off but the pain was incredible, and I tried shaving but my skin was like sandpaper. “This way many girls are shocked when they see me in person, but at least they see the real me and if they get to know me I hope they will like what they find.”

The Guinness Book of Records gave him the title in 2002. Ninety-six per cent of his body is covered by hair, and Mr Yu says that his parents are worried that he won’t be able to find a partner.

“I know I am ugly,” said Mr Yu, “but I am a good person and I need love like everyone else.

“I feel like King Kong, ugly outside, but with a big heart.”

Source: telegraph.co.uk

If you tend to take a couple of laps of the pool before work, you may have to get up extra early.
 
The San Alfonso del Mar pool is over a thousand yards long and holds 66 million gallons

The Guinness Book of Records has named a 20-acre swimming pool in the Chilean resort of San Alfonso del Mar as the largest in the world. A hundred and fifteen feet deep at its deepest and a thousand yards long, the 20-acre leviathan holds 66 million gallons of water and is navigable in small boats.

It is a hundred and fifteen feet deep at its deepest, and cost almost £1 billion to make

The pool, near Algarrobo on the south coast of the South American country, opened last month after a building project lasting five years and costing almost £1 billion. It has become an instant tourist magnet, with thousands of people flocking to see it. 
  
The vast lido requires high-technology filtration systems to keep the water fresh, with a computer-controlled system drawing in water from the sea from one end and pumping it out of the other.

Fernando Fischmann, developer of the “pulse oxidation” technology used in the pool, says that that pumping the water back in to the ocean does no harm to wildlife or ecosystems.

Crystal Lagoons, Fischmann’s company, is believed to be planning as many as six more mega-pools for locations in Panama, Argentina and, predictably, Dubai.

Source: telegraph.co.uk