Giant Amazing Sand Sculpture Festival

SAND sculptures are created during preparations for the FIESA 2009 International Sand Sculpture. Just take a look at this amazing view by the sand sculptors. Well, am really interested in this and sure want to be there... 

Creation ... a man works on a sand sculpture during preparations for the FIESA 2009 International Sand Sculpture Festival in Pera, Southern US.

Group effort ... an international team of 60 sculptors will turn 35,000 tons of sand into sculptures spread over 15,000 square metres for the festival.

Amazing ... a sculpture of a plane.

Pondering ... a sculptor works on a sand sculpture of "The Thinker".

Massive ... a man works on a sand sculpture of a primate.

Digging deep ... working on the sculptures.

Swirl ... the detail is incredible .

Effort ... sculpting is hard work.

Precision ... fine detail is prominent..

Work of art ... the sculptures .

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Giant 400 Years Old Egg For Sale

Its mother has long since departed the scene. As, indeed, has its entire species.

But this giant egg is a great survivor. It was laid around 400 years ago by one of the great elephant birds of Madagascar.

Before becoming extinct in the 17th century, the flightless creature was the world's largest bird, standing 10ft tall and weighing half a ton.

Duncan Phillips holds a Giant Elephant Bird of Madagascar egg, which went on sale in London today.

The egg, which is more than 3ft in circumference, was discovered by Victorian explorers and has since been held in private collections.

Its current owner is antiques dealer John Shepherd, of Ashford in Kent, who bought the egg after seeing David Attenborough discover one while filming in Madagascar.

Mr Shepherd, a trained palaeontologist, has decided to sell the egg, which is on display at the Chelsea Antiques Fair, which runs until Sunday.

The egg is larger than a rugby ball and measures more than 3ft in diameter.

It is expected to fetch at least £5,000. He said: 'The egg is a talking point. It's very eye-catching and it has a wonderful simplicity about it. It stands on its own.

'It has a great social history. The Madagascan elephant bird was the only giant bird to exist with man and man caused its extinction.

'It's nice to be able to show children today about environmental issues that have been going on for hundreds of years.'

Great elephant birds became extinct after being hunted by the natives of Madagascar.

Even though the bird weighed about half a ton, it also suffered at the hands of other predators such as pigs who ate their chicks and destroyed their eggs.

The flightless bird, the largest to have ever lived, resembled a heavily-built ostrich. It had long legs, talons and stood at more than 10ft tall.

But despite its fearsome appearance, it was a herbivore.

The bird as it would have looked 400 years ago, and right its skeleton reveals how much larger it was compared to its giant eggs

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Google Earth Reveals Ancient 1,000 Years Old Fish Trap !!

For a millennium it has lain undisturbed beneath the waves a stone's throw from one of Britain's best-loved beaches.

But now modern technology has revealed this ancient fish trap, used at the time of the Norman Conquest.

In Photo : The giant fish trap, built during the Norman Conquest and designed to trap fish behind rock walls, was spotted on Google Earth.

Stretching more than 280 yards along the sea bed, the V-shaped structure was used to catch fish without the need for a boat or rod. Scientists believe it is one of the biggest of its kind.

The trap close to Poppit Sands on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed was discovered by archaeologists studying aerial photographs of the West Wales coast.

In Photo : This image shows the coastline curving round with the trap visible out at sea. It is in water just 12ft deep, and the wall is around three feet wide.

It was designed to act like a rock pool, trapping fish behind its stone walls as the tide flowed out.

At its point is a gap where fisherman would have placed nets to catch fish. They could also have blocked up the gap, and then scooped up fish trapped in the shallows.

Now, however, it is submerged even at low tide and fish are no longer trapped as the water recedes. Researchers believe it has sunk into the sand over the centuries.

Dr Ziggy Otto, a diver and lecturer in the coastal environment at Pembrokeshire College, believes the trap is around 1,000 years old.

'It is an amazing structure,' he said. 'It looks well defined on the photographs, but when you are in the water it looks just like a natural reef.'

In Photo : The trap, made of stones, is located on the Teifi Estuary in Dyfed, Wales.

Although it was only recently spotted on aerial photographs, an armchair archaeologist could have discovered the trap on Google Earth.

Google said the V-shaped structure has been visible on its collection of satellite and aerial photos since at least December 2006.

Fish traps, or fish weirs, were common and controversial in Britain 1,000 years ago.

They were so effective at removing fish from rivers that they were banned in the Magna Carta, and were allowed only on the coast.

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The World's Biggest Flying Giant

NASA and Boeing have joined to develop the most advanced RC (radio controlled) model plane called the Skyray 48.

This prototype could be the future of commercial aviation. The RC plane will have less power consumption and fewer emissions, while increasing carrying capacity and speed compared with current cargo and passenger aircraft.



One of the latest cutting-edge experimental aircraft, or X-Planes, the X-48B BWB is a collaborative effort of the Boeing Co., NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The 21-foot wingspan, 500-pound, remotely piloted plane is designed to demonstrate the viability of the blended wing shape.



After completion of six flights, the X-48B team began a four-week maintenance and modification period during which removable leading edges with extended slats are being replaced with slatless leading edges in order to mimic a slats-retracted configuration. The change requires a software update to the flight control software. In addition, the team is removing and replacing all of the aircraft's flight control actuators for maintenance purposes.



NASA is interested in the potential benefits of the aircraft - increased volume for carrying capacity, efficient aerodynamics for reduced fuel burn, and, possibly, significant reductions in noise due to propulsion integration options. In these initial flights, the principal focus is to validate prior research on the aerodynamic performance and controllability of the shape, including comparisons of flight test data with the extensive database gathered in the wind tunnels at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia



The Subsonic Fixed-Wing Project, part of NASA's Fundamental Aeronautics Program, has long supported the development of the blended wing body concept. It has participated in numerous collaborations with Boeing, as well as several wind tunnel tests for different speed regimes. The team is focused on researching the low-speed characteristics of the design and expanding its flight envelope beyond the limits of current capabilities.



The composite-skinned, 8.5 percent scale vehicle can to fly up to 10,000 feet and 120 knots in its low-speed configuration. The aircraft is flown remotely from a ground control station by a pilot using conventional aircraft controls and instrumentation, while looking at a monitor fed by a forward-looking camera on the aircraft.



Up to 25 flights are planned to gather data in these low-speed flight regimes. Then, the X-48B may be used to test the aircraft's low-noise and handling characteristics at transonic speeds.



Two X-48B research vehicles were built by Cranfield Aerospace Ltd., in England, in accordance with Boeing specifications. The vehicle that flew on July 20, known as Ship 2, was also used for ground and taxi testing. Ship 1, a duplicate, was used for the wind tunnel tests. Ship 1 is available for use as a backup during the flight test program



So far, so good as the Skyray 48 team works through the late summer heat of the Mojave Desert as they continue blazing a trail with this futuristic aircraft design.

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World's Most Creative - Cork Mosaic !

Pop art ... the Albanian artist who created the world's largest toothpick mosaic has set another world record with a mosaic made of 229,764 corks.


Big plans ... artist Saimir Strati, 42, created a cork mosaic of a guitarist at the Sheraton Hotel in Tirana, Albania. The artist told visitors to the hotel to "Drink, because I need the corks." He worked 14 hours of work a day for 28 days.


Mediterranean tribute ... Strati glued 229,764 corks of various shapes and colours over a plastic banner measuring 12.94m by 7.1m to show "Romeo with a crown of grapes playing the guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun"


Backing the champion ... Albanians have been following Strati's third world record attempt much more closely than his previous two record-breaking pieces of art, a portrait with nails of Leonardo Da Vinci and a galloping horse made with toothpicks.


Dot matrix ... "I love mosaics, they are a dying genre. I follow the same technique used 3000 years ago," said Strati, at work here on his cork mosaic. "A mosaic requires you to work for a long time and keep the emotion alive," said Strati.

He has a 25-year-old mosaic collection which features one created with fragments of egg shells and a portrait of Elvis Presley, made with compact discs.


Record-holder ... Albanian artist Saimir Strati holds his certificate from Guinness World Records adjudicator Carlos Martinez in front of the largest mosaic made of corks in Tirana.


Take it in ... visitors to the Sheraton Hotel in Tirana, Albania admire Starti's finished cork mosaic.

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World's Giant Digging Machine

This is the largest digging machine (or trencher or rotating shovel) in the world built by Krupp.
The machine is 95 meters high and 215 meters long (almost 2.5 football fields in length).
Weight is 45,500 tons (that's equivalent to a bumper to bumper line of jeeps 80 miles long).
It took 5 years to design and manufacture at a cost of $100 million .
Maximum digging speed is 10 meters per minute and can move more than 76,000 cubic meters of coal, rock, and earth per day.

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