World's first bionic human walks, talks and breathes

He walks, he talks and he has a beating heart, but he's not human — he's the world's first fully bionic man.

Scientists have developed the world's first robot human made up of entirely artificial parts and he can talk, walk and also has a beating heart.  The robot costed about 1 million US dollars was assembled from prosthetic body parts and artificial organs donated by laboratories around the world,   Roboticists Rich Walker and Matthew Godden of Shadow Robot Co in England put together the bionic man.

"You put a prosthetic part on a human who is missing that part. We had no human; we built a human for the prosthetic parts to occupy," Walker said. 

The robot was modelled in some physical aspects after Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist at the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, who wears one of the world's most advanced bionic hands.

The bionic man has nearly complete set of artificial organs including artificial heart, blood, lungs ( and wind pipe), pancreas, spleen, kidney and also functional circulatory system.  However, he lacks a few major organs, including a liver, stomach and intestines, which are too complex to replicate in a lab.

The bionic man's brain can mimic certain functions of human brain.  He has speech recognition and speech production systems.  The engineers have equipped the bionic man with a sophisticated chat bot program which can carry on a conversation.  The only problem is that it has the voice of a 13 year old boy.

The bionic man simulates about two-thirds of the human body but he lacks few major organs like liver, stomach and intestines which are very difficult to replicate in a lab.


The bionic man made his U.S. debut at New York Comic Con Oct. 10-13, and he will be on display at Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. this fall.

Robot commits suicide - fed up with tedious work

This is the world's first case of a 'Robot suicide'.  A house robot fed up with its tedious job of cleaning works in the house ended its life by climbing onto a kitchen hotplate and destroyed itself in the flames.

The robot was used for cleaning up some split cereal when it has climbed onto a kitchen hotplate and destroyed itself.  The robot was tired of being forced to clean the same house every day, according to reports in Austria.


"It seems to have reactivated itself and made its way along the work surface where it pushed a cooking pot out of the way and that was the end of it", explained a fireman who was called to tackle the blaze at Hinterstoder in Austria.   The robot quickly started to melt underneath and then stuck to the kitchen hotplate and then caught fire.  By the time the fireman has come, there was a pile of ash.

The entire building was to be evacuated as there was severe smoke in the flat where the robot was being used.  It is a mystery how the robot came to be activated and ended up its life on the hot plate.  This is because the house owner says that the robot was switched off.

Some interesting and funny facts

Here are some more interesting and funny facts!

• Babies can breath and eat at the same time until they are 6 months old.  
• If a new pen is offered for writing, 97% of the people will write their own names.
• Do you know that male mosquitoes are vegetarians.  Only female mosquitoes bite us.
• There was a snow fall in Sahara desert in February, 1979.
• Do you know that plants watered with warm water grow larger and quickly than plants watered with cold water.
• Those stars and colors you see when you rub your eyes are called Phosphenes.
• Wearing a headphone for 1 hour will increase bacteria in your ear by 700 times
• A hotel in Sweden is built by ice completely.  It is built every year.
• Onions help reduce cholesterol if eaten after taking fatty food
• Babies eyes do not produce tears until they are 8 weeks old.

Funny and interesting facts

Here is a list of funny, amazing and interesting for your General Knowledge.

1. A fire in Australia has been burning for 5000 years!
2. 20% of garbage in the world is generated by Americans!
3. Hong Kong has more Rolls Royce cars per person than any country in the world!
4. If you drop a bullet from top of Empire State Building, you can kill a person!
5. The Bank of America was originally the Bank of Italy!
6. There are 2,500,000 rivets in Eiffel Tower!
7. Oak trees can live for 200 or more years!
8. In many countries, urine was used as detergent for washing!
9. In Tokyo, a bycycle is faster than a car for trips of less than 50 minutes!
10. 80% of millionaires drive used cars!

Interesting Facts about Forests

Here are some interesting facts about forests.

• Forests occupy 1/3rd of the total land area on earth.
• An area of the size of a football size in the forest is being destroyed each second
• The single oldest living thing on earth is a tree.  It is 4,700 years old and located in USA. It was growing when Egyptians built the pyramids.
• In a period of less than 100 years, half of the entire forest area of the world has been cut.  
• A forest area of more than 3,00,000 acres was burnt in Indonesia's East Kalimantan.  Many people are now suffering from smog related diseases due to that.
• 3/4th of the world population still depends on wood as this is the main source of energy for them.
• Over 1.8 million hectares of forest disappear every year
• Canada's rate of deforestation is zero and is like this from past two decades
• If we assume a tree lives for 50 years, it exhales 6,000 pounds of oxygen in its life time or about 120 pounds per year.
• About 1% of the world forests ( equal to area of New Zealand )are destroyed by fire every year.

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Headless Chicken lives for 18 months

This is a real story of a Headless chicken which lived for 18 months after its head was removed by a  farmer.  Mike the Headless Chicken also known as Miracle Mike was a chicken which lived for 18 months after his head was removed.  

On 10th September, 1945, the farmer LLoyd Olsen of Colorado in USA wanted to cut a chicken for the dinner.  So he went to the yard and chosen a 5 month old chicken named Mike  The axe missed the main Jugular vein leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact.  

Even then Mike was able to balance and walk and the bird did not die.  So Mr., Olsen was surprised and decided to continue to take care of the chicken for ever.  He started feeding the chicken with milk and water via an eye dropper and also small grains of corn.  

Mike was able to jump to highest perches without falling.  His crowing was something like gargling sound made in his throat.  Mike spent his time attempting to search for food with his neck.

In March 1947 at a hotel in Phoenix while traveling back home from tour, Mike started choking in the middle of night.  Mr. Olsen left his feeding and cleaning syringes at home, he could not save Mike.   People say that the chicken could not take enough air properly to be able to breathe; and so choked to death in the hotel.

 In the Post Mortem, it was found that the axe had missed the carotid artery and a clot prevented Mike from bleeding to death.  Even though most of his head was removed, most of his brain stem and one ear were left on his body.  As the basic functions like breathing, heart rate etc. are controlled by the brain stem, Mike was able to remain healthy.

The scientist concluded that Mike had no problem by losing his head aside from loss of sensory input from tongue and eyes.  The farmer missed an ear as well as brain stem.  So Mike could hear also.



Here is a documentary on Mike, the headless Chicken

 

Amazing Facts about Solar Energy

Here are some of the most interesting facts about Solar Energy.  You can read some interesting facts about solar energy and sun related information.

• Solar Energy is very good for environment than the traditional forms of energy
• There are many uses of solar energy like producing electricity and heating water
• Solar energy can be used for heating swimming pools, powering cars and also for calculators.  
• It is possible to cook food with solar energy
• Solar energy is measured in Kilowatt-hours.   
• 1 Kilo watt hour = the amount of energy required to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours
• According to the US Department of Energy, an average American household used approximately 866-kilowatt hours per month in 1999 costing them $70.68.
• About 30% of the total energy consumption by us is used for heating water 
• A solar system for homes typically contains solar panels on roof top, a charge controller unit, an inverter, wiring and support structure
• It takes about 2 days to install a 1 Kilowatt home solar system and costs around Rs.5,00,000 ( US $10,000) and it can vary greatly
• A 1 KW home solar system contains about 10 solar panels of 100 Watts each  and may need a space of 100 square feet for installation  
• A 1 KW home solar power system generates nearly 1,600 Kilowatt hours per year in a sunny climate ( receiving 5 hours of sun shine per day) and nearly 750 Kilowatt hours in a cloudy climate ( 2.5 hours of sun shine per day) 
• You can prevent nearly 77 Kgs. of coal from burning, 135 Kg of CO2 being released into atmosphere and 105 gallons of water from consumed each month by using a 1 KW home solar system
• Around 40 solar cells are usually combined into a single solar panel and 10 to 12 panels are mounted in an array facing due north for receiving maximum sun shine.
• Solar panels come in various colors
• Solar energy can be collected and stored in batteries, which can provide electricity 24x7 even on cloudy days and at night
• The amount of sun light that falls on earth in one hour is more than what is being used by entire world population in one year.
• In the year 1990, a solar powered air craft flew 4060 Kms. across USA using no fuel.  This was the world record.
• About 2 billion people in the world are without electricity at present.
• The third world countries with abundant quantity of sun light and most population are currently without electricity represent the fastest growing market for solar energy. 

  
        Read more articles about solar energy and solar panels.