Furry sock shoes designed for walking, running and sports

Swiss Protection Socks from Swiss Barefoot put a whole new spin on the barefoot movement. These are essentially big, burly socks that are designed to be worn not inside shoes, but instead of them. The manufacturer claims that the socks are hefty enough to protect your feet from the pain and dangers of walking completely barefoot.

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Here we thought that current barefoot offerings like the Vibram Five Fingers and were strange-looking. The Swiss Barefoot socks look like they belong below a barren stare and hospital gown in a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

These five-toed sock-shoes are for real, though. The company that makes them describes them as the "first firm socks for the ultimate barefoot feeling without the risk of injury from sharp objects." They supposedly give you a more natural stride thanks to the elimination of the sole, while protecting your feet from rocks and other sharp objects with their thick bottoms. They basically split the difference between the average barefoot shoe and grippy slipper socks designed to be worn around the house.

The socks get their claims of toughness from a blend of 50 percent Kevlar (that's the stuff they make bulletproof jackets out of), 32 percent polyester, 10 percent cotton and 8 percent Spandex. The soles are laminated with naps of PVC that Swiss Barefoot says makes them cut-resistant.

Interestingly, Swiss Barefoot doesn't just see these as useful for walking around your garden or getting the paper in the morning. In its video and photos, the company depicts all types of activities, including running, rock climbing and water sports.

The socks sell for 55 euro (US$73) for the short version and 59 euro ($78) for the longs. Take a look at the video below for a little more information, and footage of people using their Protection Socks.

South Africa - Floods

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South Africa


In South Africa December 2010 more than 6,000 people have been displaced and 70 known to have been killed due to the floods. This number is expected to rise as police continue to search for an unknown number of missing persons.Eight of the country's nine provinces have been declared disaster areas, allowing for national funds to be distributed. Preliminary estimates placed crop damage at R1 billion ($145 million USD). Property damage was also estimated at $52 million.An estimated 20,000 hectares (49,200 acres) of agricultural land has been affected by the floods.

Vereeniging

Barnyard Teathre

The South African Air Force was brought in to aid in evacuating residents through air lifts by January 15. In a statement Co-operative Government Minister Sicelo Shiceka, displaced residents were told not to return to their homes.


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Further evidence that Mars once had oceans emerges

The European Space Agency (ESA) has provided more evidence that suggests the surface of Mars was once home to an ocean. Featuring ground-penetrating radar capabilities, the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) radar aboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has detected sediments like that seen on an ocean floor.
In 1877, with the aid of a 22 cm (8.6 in) telescope, Italian astronomer Giovanni Sciaparelli produced the first detailed map of Mars, which featured what he called canali. Although canali actually means "channels" in English, it was popularly mistranslated as "canals," which, along with books by Percival Lowell, helped foster the popular notion of water and life - including Martians - on the Red Planet's surface. Although these "canals" were later proven to be an optical illusion, these myths weren't dispelled until NASA's Mariner missions in the 1960's.
Yet more recent mapping efforts still point to there being liquid water on the planet's surface at some point in its history. It is within the boundaries of features tentatively identified in images from various spacecraft as shorelines that MARSIS detected sedimentary deposits reminiscent of an ocean floor.
"MARSIS penetrates deep into the ground, revealing the first 60 - 80 meters (197 - 262 ft) of the planet's subsurface," says Wlodek Kofman, leader of the radar team at the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG). "Throughout all of this depth, we see the evidence for sedimentary material and ice."
The sediments detected by MARSIS are areas of low radar reflectivity, which typically indicates low-density granular materials that have been eroded away by water and carried to their final resting place.
"We interpret these as sedimentary deposits, maybe ice-rich. It is a strong new indication that there was once an ocean here," says Jérémie Mouginot, from IPAG and the University of California, Irvine.
Two oceans at different times in Mars' history have been proposed - one 4 billion years ago when warmer conditions prevailed, and one 3 billion years ago when geothermal activity may have caused subsurface ice to melt and flow into areas of low elevation.



Dr Mouginot estimates that this latter ocean would have lasted only a million years or less, with the water either being frozen in place underground again, or turned into vapor and released into the atmosphere.
"I don't think it could have stayed as an ocean long enough for life to form," he says, suggesting astrobiologists would have to look further back into Mars' history when liquid water existed for much longer periods.
But the ESA says the MARSIS findings provide some of the best evidence yet that large bodies of water once existed on the surface of Mars and that liquid water played a role in martian geological history.
"Previous Mars Express results about water on Mars came from the study of images and mineralogical data, as well as atmospheric measurements. Now we have the view from the subsurface radar," says Olivier Witasse, ESA's Mars Express Project Scientist. "This adds new pieces of information to the puzzle but the question remains: where did all the water go?"

The ESA says the Mars Express spacecraft, which was launched in 2003 and has been granted five mission extensions - the latest until 2014 - will continue its investigations with the hope of providing an answer.

New Earth discovered

An international team of scientists led by Professors Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler from the Carnegie Institution for Science in the U.S. has discovered a potentially habitable Super-Earth that's "just" 22 light years away. The new Super-Earth has a mass that is 4.5 times larger than that of our planet and it revolves around its parent star in 28 days - a star that is significantly smaller than ours. This remarkable new discovery suggests that habitable planets could exist in a wider variety of environments than previously believed.

Of the 750-odd exoplanets (extrasolar planets) discovered so far only very few can be considered "Super Earths This newly discovered example called GJ667Cc is rocky like Earth and is rich in heavy chemical elements such as iron, carbon and silicon. Positioned at a distance from Earth of 22 light years, corresponding to a bit over 129 trillion miles (209 trillion km), the planet can be considered to be on Earth's doorstep. Furthermore the planet is expected to absorb about the same amount of energy from its star that our Earth absorbs from the Sun. Surface temperatures are therefore expected to be similar to Earth's and the existence of water is quite possible.

"This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it," said Anglada-Escudé.

The team made the discovery using public data from the European Southern Observatory, incorporated with new measurements from the Keck Observatory's High Resolution Echelle Spectrograph and the new Carnegie Planet Finder Spectrograph at the Magellan II Telescope.

The team is also hopeful that within the triple star system where GJ667Cc resides, there may be the presence of a gas-giant planet and an additional super-Earth with an orbital period of 75 days. However, further observations are needed to confirm these two possibilities.

"With the advent of a new generation of instruments, researchers will be able to survey many M dwarf stars for similar planets and eventually look for spectroscopic signatures of life in one of these worlds," explained Anglada-Escudé.

Source: Carnegie Institution for Science

Child creates molecule

Ten year-old Clara Lazen, however, has done something a little more noteworthy. The fifth-grader from Kansas City, Missouri, built a model of a molecule that is new to science. If the molecule itself were to actually be created, it could possibly be used for energy storage, or in explosives.

Lazen built the model out of balls representing oxygen, nitrogen and carbon atoms, as part of a science exercise at Border Star Montessori School. When her creation was spied by her teacher, Kenneth Boehr, he emailed a photo of it to his friend Robert Zoellner, a chemistry professor at California's Humboldt State University. Zoellner in turn checked the Chemical Abstracts online database, and determined that Lazen's model was unique - although a previously-archived molecular modeldid incorporate the same formula as Clara's, its atoms were arranged differently.

Dubbed tetranitratoxycarbon, Clara's molecule contains the same combination of atoms as nitroglycerin, and according to Zoellner, could potentially be used to store energy or create a large explosion.