All the water and air on earth gathered into spheres and compared to the Earth

Dan Phiffer found this image on a message board (it's by Adam Nieman / Science Photo Library), and by his calculations, he says it's accurate.

Left: All the water in the world (1.4087 billion cubic kilometres of it) including sea water, ice, lakes, rivers, ground water, clouds, etc.

Right: All the air in the atmosphere (5140 trillion tonnes of it) gathered into a ball at sea-level density. Shown on the same scale as the Earth.

From Science Photo Library: Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of water on Earth (left) and of air in the Earth's atmosphere (right) shown as spheres (blue and pink). The spheres show how finite water and air supplies are. The water sphere measures 1390 kilometres across and has a volume of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres. This includes all the water in the oceans, seas, ice caps, lakes and rivers as well as ground water, and that in the atmosphere. The air sphere measures 1999 kilometres across and weighs 5140 trillion tonnes. As the atmosphere extends from Earth it becomes less dense. Half of the air lies within the first 5 kilometres of the atmosphere.

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[via boingboing]

I've lost my key. Can you pass me that banana?

Lock-picking enthusiasts are cracking the 'uncrackable' in increasingly creative ways. And locksmiths aren't happy about it. Patrick White reports

You won't be kicked off a car lot for asking about horsepower or ousted from a bar for asking about booze. But apparently, you can be tossed from a locksmith shop for asking about locks.

It happened to Steve Boisvert a few months ago. He dropped by a locksmith store near his home in London, Ont., and began asking the owner about Medeco locks, the supposedly unpickable industry standard used in government and military installations. The locksmith asked him where he planned to install it.

"Oh, nowhere," Mr. Boisvert said. "I'm just playing with it as a hobby."

That's when the locksmith told Mr. Boisvert to leave. "And he wasn't exactly nice about it."

Mr. Boisvert is a member of a thousands-strong community of amateur lock-pickers whose growth and influence is raising hackles among locksmiths across North America.

Driven mainly by computer geeks who see parallels between hacking networks and picking locks, the hobby has exploded online.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently gave the pastime a further boost, confessing that he has been a picking enthusiast since he was a student.

Canadian blogger Cory Doctorow has also shown an interest, posting a number of picking-related items on his popular site boingboing.net.

Sites such as Lockpicking101.com hold forums where tens of thousands of pickers share techniques and triumphs. Some contest one another in open competitions. Others post tips and tricks on YouTube. Their instructions are so thorough that anyone with half an hour to waste online can learn to crack bike and laptop locks and even break into used Mazdas.

Hobbyists say they broadcast these feats to challenge lock makers to improve their designs.

Many professional locksmiths see it otherwise, arguing that hobbyists could be training thieves.

"This is a skill that can do a lot of harm," says Paul Bentley, president of the Association of Ontario Locksmiths. "That's why we kind of protect it."

Just three decades ago, the finer points of lock-picking remained shrouded in mystery. Family locksmith businesses had hoarded their secrets since the 1400s, when guilds fiercely defended the purity of the trade.

"When I started 35 years ago, the business was still very much closed to outsiders," Mr. Bentley said. "You had to be a member of the family."

That has all changed. Lockpicking101.com, which site administrator and business coach Josh Nekrep runs from his home in Winnipeg, has more than 75,000 members. In 2005, he launched Locksport International, an organization that promotes the competitive aspects of picking.

The biggest showdown takes place at Defcon, an annual computer hacker conference held in Las Vegas every August. Pickers take centre stage, vying to crack unfamiliar locks in the shortest time possible.

One of the most peculiar aspects of the hobby is each picker's choice of tools. Some buy precision tools through online retailers; others consider home tool making an art form.

"My first set of tools was a bobby pin and a hair pin," Mr. Boisvert said from his home, where he has about 120 practice locks. "Now I'll make them out of wiper blades, hacksaw blades, bike spokes, filler gauges - anything you can get at a scrapyard. One guy I know even used a banana."

This is where hobby pickers can brush up against the Criminal Code. Under federal law, anyone caught carrying a "break-in instrument" and an intent to use it could receive 10 years in jail.

The law is rarely used.

"It can be tough to distinguish between criminals and hobbyists," Mr. Bentley said.

When Mr. Nekrep holds Winnipeg Locksport gatherings in his basement, he is careful to screen out unsavoury characters.

"There have been a few people I haven't felt totally comfortable inviting into my house," he said.

Hobby groups throughout North America have cracked supposedly unbeatable locks. Mr. Nekrep, who maintains a personal collection of more than 300 locks, has demonstrated online how to open a Kensington laptop lock using Scotch tape and a Post-it note. Another Lockpicking101.com member discovered the well-publicized method of opening Kryptonite bike locks with a ball-point pen, a revelation that prompted Kryptonite to replace all of its compromised locks.

Other lock manufacturers haven't admitted their flaws so readily. Marc Tobias, a lawyer and security expert, recently shook up the lock-picking community by publishing a detailed analysis of how to crack the uncrackable: Medeco locks.

"We've figured out how to break them in as little as 30 seconds," he said. "[Medeco] won't admit it, though. They still believe in security through obscurity. But by not fixing the problems we identify, lock-makers are putting the public at risk. They have a duty to disclose vulnerabilities. If they don't, we will."

More progressive locksmiths agree with that sentiment.

"Most crooks don't waste time with locks anyway," said Thomas Fraser, head of the Institutional Locksmiths Organization of Canada. "They use a hammer."

Mr. Fraser, who works as a full-time locksmith for the Toronto District School Board, identifies with most hobbyists. "I've always treated locksmithing as a game, too. It's a puzzle. I don't want that lock to beat me."

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[via theglobeandmail]

Ten Disturbing Spa Treatments

A girl needs to be pampered every now and then. After a long week at the 9-to-5, few things sound better than a relaxing massage and a bubbly drink. Clearly, I’m not alone—there are spas popping up all over the world, each one’s sole purpose to cater to our every desire. Papaya-scented body scrub? No problem. A mani-pedi-Botox package? Standard these days. Bull semen in your hair? You betcha!

The proliferation of spas has created a competitive market. Some of these spas, like the ones listed below, are coming up with the wackiest, strangest services to lure us in through sheer curiosity. Apparently pampering isn’t enough anymore—it’s got to shock us, too.

1. Snake Massage

Photo source: Dano on flickr

A spa in Israel has put a unique spin on the standard massage. While some masseuses use soothing music or scented candles to supplement massages, owner Ida Barak prefers to use snakes; she believes that they have a calming effect and can alleviate joint pain. Imagine—lying facedown on a bed, strong hands rubbing oil on your back as a few snakes slither up and down your body. What could be more relaxing? Try anything.

2. The Geisha Facial

Photo source: Wikipedia commons

At the Shizuka Day Spa in New York, they use (according to the Web site) “traditional and natural Japanese ingredients” to make skin vibrant and soft. Traditional and natural sounds so purifying … until you realize that the treatment includes nightingale excrement. The treatment, uguisu no fun, incorporates powdered (and sanitized) nightingale feces into a facial mixture that revitalizes skin. Nightingale droppings contain natural enzymes that act as exfoliants and skin brighteners, so what looks unsightly on the ground actually makes your face look great.

3. Aberdeen Organic Bull Sperm Treatment

Photo source: Wikipedia commons

As much as I hate untangling my dry, frizzy hair, there’s no way I’m smearing it with bull sperm. No way—ain’t gonna happen. However, if you don’t have an aversion to sperm in your tresses, go to Hari’s Salon in London and get their infamous treatment. The protein in this ingredient moisturizes, brightens, and repairs your hair like nothing else. It’s combined with Katera root, another protein powerhouse that does amazing things for hair. Considering its nickname (“Viagra for hair”) and the state of my own ’do, I may need to retract my previous dismissal.

4. Fish Reflexology

Did you ever see a whale being cleaned by tiny fish on the Discovery Channel and wish that were you? Singapore’s Sentosa spa can make your dream come true. People who pay for this service (which is called Fish Reflexology) sit in a bath while tiny Turkish spa fish (also called doctor fish) swim around and eat the dead skin off your feet. After the fish nibble (a painless process, according to the Web site), you’re left with softer, healthier feet. Watch the above YouTube video to see a fish reflexology session in action.

5. Bathe in Your Favorite Beverage

Photo source: yunessun.com

I enjoy a good glass of wine, but I’ve never considered bathing in it. At the Hakone Kowakien Yunessun spa in Japan, you can soak in a big pool of red wine. If alcohol’s not your thing, how about green tea, coffee, or sake? Each liquid offers therapeutic benefits for the skin—for example, green tea contains immune-boosting antioxidants, and red wine has skin-restorative properties. I’m not sure how refreshing the treatment actually is, but standing under a huge, pouring bottle of vino sounds mighty relaxing.

6. Chocolate Fondue Wrap

Photo source: hersheypa.com

Going to a spa is an indulgent act already, so why not step it up a notch and indulge your sweet tooth, too? The spa in the Hotel Hershey (possibly the most delicious-sounding hotel ever) offers a plethora of cocoa-infused treatments designed to both soothe you and make you really hungry. The sweet, seductive smell can be relaxing, but what products do they offer for the stomachache you’ll surely get after “sampling” the Chocolate Sugar Scrub?

8. Corona Beer Face Lift

Photo source: merfam on flickr

First chocolate and now beer—I guess we’re all looking for new, non-caloric ways to experience our favorite things. If you love Coronas, but hate the subsequent bloat, head to the Esperanza Resort Spa in Mexico and experience the healing power of beer for a change. The beer treatment is supposed to clear your pores, tighten your skin, and give your face a fresh “glow”—quite different from the glow you get after drinking a couple of Coronas.

9. The “Other” Face Lift

It’s not enough that we have to worry about how toned our legs or arms are. According to Phit, a spa in New York dedicated to pelvic health, we should also be mindful of our vagina’s muscle tone. The clinic offers pelvic services for mothers who’ve recently given birth, women with bladder control issues, and those who are dedicated to fitness on all levels. The Web site claims that the “Other” Face Lift, which is geared toward older women worried about wrinkling or sagging in that area, can “restore labial and vulvar contour to a plump firmness” with a process involving lasers. Since even the thought of lasers near my eye scares me, I think I’ll steer clear of this lift.

10. The Fanny Facial

Facials aren’t just for our faces anymore. All of our body parts need equal love, including our derriere. The Smooth Synergy Day Spa in New York offers the Fanny Facial, a process involving exfoliation, microcurrent therapy, and a spray tan for your booty. The microcurrent therapy helps reduce the appearance of cellulite and tones your backside, and the spray tan enhances the tone. If it saves me a trip to the gym, I’m all for it.

With all of these spas trying to one-up each other with unique (read: bizarre) services, it’s exhausting just trying to find one that offers the basics! I think I’ll just stay home and make my own spa services. It’ll be cheaper, save time, and most likely be excrement-free.

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[via divinecaroline]

Strongest Material Ever Tested

Graphene, praised for its electrical properties, has been proven the strongest known material.

Materials scientists have been singing graphene's praises since it was first isolated in 2005. The one-atom-thick sheets of carbon conduct electrons better than silicon and have been made into fast, low-power transistors. Now, for the first time, researchers have measured the intrinsic strength of graphene, and they've confirmed it to be the strongest material ever tested. The finding provides good evidence that graphene transistors could take the heat in future ultrafast microprocessors.

Jeffrey Kysar and James Hone, mechanical-engineering professors at Columbia University, tested graphene's strength at the atomic level by measuring the force that it took to break it. They carved one-micrometer-wide holes into a silicon wafer, placed a perfect sample of graphene over each hole, and then indented the graphene with a sharp probe made of diamond. Such measurements had never been taken before because they must be performed on perfect samples of graphene, with no tears or missing atoms, say Kysar and Hone.

Hone compares his test to stretching a piece of plastic wrap over the top of a coffee cup, and measuring the force that it takes to puncture it with a pencil. If he could get a large enough piece of the material to lay over the top of a coffee cup, he says, graphene would be strong enough to support the weight of a car balanced atop the pencil.

It's unlikely that graphene's incredible strength will be put to use in such a task. At the macroscopic level of coffee cups and cars, "any material will be full of cracks and flaws," says Kysar. It's at the level of such cracks and flaws that airplane wings and bridge supports fail. "Only a tiny sample can be perfect and superstrong," says Hone.

However, the measurements are yet another demonstration of the remarkable properties of graphene. "We knew graphene was the strongest material; this work confirms it," says Konstantin Novoselov, a fellow at the University of Manchester, who was the first to isolate two-dimensional sheets of the material.

The material's strength is particularly good news for those in the semiconductor industry who hope to make computers faster by developing microprocessors that use graphene transistors. "The main liability concerning the microprocessing industry is strain," says Julia Greer, a materials scientist at Caltech. Not only must the materials used to make transistors have good electrical properties, but they must also be able to survive the stresses of manufacturing processes and the heat generated by repeated operations. The processes used to pattern metal electrical connections onto microprocessors, for example, exert stresses that can cause chips to fail. And, says Greer, the main obstacle to making faster microprocessors is that "the heat is too much for materials to take." Based on measurements of its strength, graphene transistors could take the heat.

Graphene is the basic building block of several other three-dimensional nanostructures made up of carbon, including nanotubes and buckyballs, hollow soccer-ball-shaped molecules. "In theory, a nanotube is rolled-up graphene, so it should have the same strength," says Hone. In reality, however, most nanotubes have tiny flaws--an atom missing here or there. "When you pull on a nanotube," says Hone, it breaks at any site where there's a defect.

The mechanical strength of graphene on the nanoscale could prove useful for applications other than in transistors for microprocessors. The material could, for example, serve as a durable, mechanically operated electrical switch for communications devices including cell phones and advanced radar, says Kysar.

Although most research on nanomaterials has focused on their electrical, optical, and chemical properties, "mechanical properties control more than it might appear," says Greer. Existing databases of materials' strength don't account for differences in strength at the nanoscale. But now, at least, researchers testing the strength of nanomaterials will have a record to shoot for.

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[via technology review]

The Origin of Your Favorite Condiments

Next time someone asks you to pass the ketchup, mustard, mayo or Worcestershire sauce, you can wow them with your knowledge on the history of condiments.

Ketchup
The word “ketchup” comes from the Chinese “ke-tsiap,” and if you’re wondering why ketchup isn’t used in Chinese food, well, there’s your story. Ke-tsiap wasn’t at all like ketchup. It was a sauce made from pickled fish that frankly wouldn’t taste so great on a burger – or in our opinion on much else. Nonetheless, it was popular enough to catch on in Malaysia, where it was called “kechap,” and Indonesia (“ketjap”), and to be honest it probably wasn’t as bad as it sounds; it’s been compared to soy sauce . When English and Dutch sailors made their way to the Far East in the 17th century, they “discovered” the sauce and brought some back with them. Homemade versions immediately became popular; Elizabeth Smith’s The Compleat Housewife (copyright 1727) called for anchovies, shallots, vinegar, white wine, cloves, ginger, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and lemon peel.

Note the lack of tomatoes in that recipe. In the grand East-meets-West tradition of fusion cuisine, someone thought to add tomatoes to ke-tsiap in the early 1700s. The British counterpart of that person, by the way, went another direction and added mushrooms instead; you can still find mushroom ketchup at a few specialty retailers, and The New Joy of Cooking contains a recipe for the homemade stuff. Anyway, in both nations, the spelling also mutated around the same time; the first reference to “ketchup” appeared in 1711. This, too, caught on, and within 100 years or so ke-tsiap had acquired yet another regional name: tomato soy. Teresa Heinz Kerry’s great-great-great in-laws started selling a thin, salty version of the stuff in as “tomato ketchup” in 1876, and it was such a hit that eventually they just dropped the “tomato.”

Mustard
Mustard, in our opinion, has one of the best linguistic back stories in the English tongue: its name is a contraction of the Latin mustum ardens, meaning “burning wine” – presumably because the seeds are spicy and used to be as valuable as the vintage stuff. (The French used to mix mustard seeds with grape juice , which may also have something to do with the name.) Mustard’s tastier qualities, however, weren’t always appreciated the way they are today. It started out as the ancient equivalent of Neosporin: Pythagoras prescribed it for scorpion stings. His successor, Hippocrates, tried to cure toothaches with it (at least he didn’t use something sugary). Later, the stuff had fans among religious types, too: Pope John XXII was reportedly so enamored of mustard that he established a new Vatican position, grand moutardier du pape, which means “mustard-maker to the pope.” Conveniently, he happened to know the perfect candidate; his nephew was a moutardier.

Mayonnaise
Our friends at HowStuffWorks have a great, simple retelling of this tale, so we’ll let them do the honors: “Mayonnaise was invented in 1756 by the French chef of the Duc de Richelieu. After the Duc beat the British at Port Mahon, his chef created a victory feast that was to include a sauce made of cream and eggs. Realizing that there was no cream in the kitchen, the chef substituted olive oil for the cream and a new culinary creation was born. The chef named the new sauce ‘Mahonnaise’ in honor of the Duc’s victory.”

Worcestershire sauce
Worcestershire sauce was invented accidentally in England by Brits trying to ape what they thought was authentic Indian food. In this case, the demanding diner was one Lord Marcus Sandy, a former colonial governor of Bengal. Having grown attached to a particular flavor of Indian sauce, he recruited two drugstore owners, John Lea and William Perrins, in hopes that they could recreate it based on his descriptions. Lea and Perrins thought they’d make a profit by selling the leftovers in their store, but frankly, the sauce they created had a powerful stench – so they stashed it in the basement and forgot about it for two years while it aged into something that tasted much better. (We suspect that in a similar manner, we are harboring the next big culinary phenomenon in the back of our fridge.)

Lea and Perrins sold the stuff to a boatload of customers, literally; they convinced British passenger ships to carry some aboard. Presumably they didn’t mention the way they’d come across their secret recipe since it probably would have made most people seasick.

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[via mentalfloss]