The Bodybag
Three hamburger patties, ham, salami, cappicola, pepperoni, provolone, american cheese, two eggs, french fries, coleslaw and hot sauce, on a whole loaf of italian bread.
(Submitted by foodedge)
I want to make this.
Could Mars be the next home of the human species? Probably. It will take a few hundred years of engineering and unimaginable amounts of money and sacrifice, but it can be done. The first step is sending radiation-proof living pods to Mars, such as a place to sleep and a slightly larger place to spend time. Next, we’d send astronauts there to live in the pods. A high amount of the Sun’s radiation penetrates the Martian atmosphere because it doesn’t have an ozone layer. After a few days, the radiation exposure would be dangerous and the astronauts will have to return. Most likely, however, we’ll send astronauts who will voluntarily never return, succumbing to radiation sickness after a few weeks or possibly a few months.
Before we can even think about this, though, we need to perfect our geoengineering capabilities. Geoengineering is the process of developing a climate. For instance, since Mars has a thin, cold atmosphere, releasing a mixture of the compounds found in pollution on Earth would significantly heat the atmosphere after a hundred years or so. Ozone molecules could be released from refuelable orbiting spacecrafts. Eventually, Mars’ water would begin to melt and its dry oceans may fill again. We’d have to speed up the evolution of plants in order to release oxygen in the air, likely by cultivating ones from Earth in the Martian soil. After a few hundred years, human exploration without a space suit might be possible. After a few thousand years, such exploration would be normal.
The gravity of Mars is significantly less than Earth’s and it’s minimal atmosphere means it has significantly less atmospheric pressure at the surface. It would be an awful death if you were left on the surface of Mars without a pressurized space suit: since there is no atmospheric force pushing so powerfully on your body as on Earth, your blood would boil and your organs would expand and probably explode, starting with your eyes. Inside the theoretical living areas, a suit would not be needed but they too would be pressurized to Earth-like atmospheric pressures. Still, the lack of gravity means that the bones of humans living there would be subject to less pressure and they would therefore lose bone mass: a painful process. To temporarily fix this they would likely wear heavy smocks or body suits, as they do on the ISS.
This is one of the easiest problems we’ll face on Mars, but the solution involves something that is very scary to those who don’t understand it: genetic engineering. By making small modifications to the genes of humans living on Mars over hundreds of years and several generations, we can design people who need less gravity to retain their bone mass, people who can breathe properly in a thinner atmosphere. We can design a race of humans who are truly Martian. They would probably not be able to travel to Earth, but why would they want to when they have a beautiful, young planet of their own?
If humans are going to live on Mars, what I’ve said here is the only possible course of action. The Constellation program, currently under financial review by the White House, is the first step. It calls for establishing a livable base on Mars, as well as a launching base on the Moon. If it lives through the White House’s budget cuts, the first human colony on Mars could be established in our lifetime.
Dock Ellis (Part 2 of 3)
No Mas, a New York-based apparel and art company, created this amazing animated video about Dock Ellis’ legendary no-hitter.
I would watch baseball if it were broadcast like this! This video is hilarious, by the way. Watch it!
“One time I covered first base, and I caught the ball and I tagged the base all in one motion, and I said, ‘OOh I made a touch down!’”
One of my favorite stories.
The White Stripes - Stop Breaking Down (Live BBC Radio Sessions)
I have to imagine this is the song Rolling Stone heard when they declared him the 17th greatest guitarist of all time.
This song is sick.
“Man cannot realize, he cannot calculate how small, how utterly insignificant is his own planet compared with the totality of the universe.”
— Charles Nevers Holmes
Not only is John Mayer an amazing musician and guitarist, but he also seems like a genuinely funny and nice guy, like a dude I would have no problem hanging out with. Given that and his humanitarian work, he might be one of the coolest celebrities around.
World’s Largest Burger
A 185 pound burger is the latest Guinness World Record holder.
(via Mallie’s Bar)
I wonder how many cows were used to make this?
