The toughest animal on the planet

Not really the kind of animal you see everyday as they are only about 1 mm to 1.5 mm long but still, they are animal.

The toughest, hardest creature is a tardigrade, also known as a water bear. They are found everywhere in the world, from the highest mountains to the deepest oceans, and there are more than 900 species of them.


Tardigrades or water bear. Freeze them, dry them, expose them to radiation and they're so resilient they'll still be alive! Image credit: Dailymail



Image credit: Dailymail


Tardigrades can dehydrate their bodies to just 1% of their normal water content. Without water, most chemical reactions happen too slowly to harm them and ice crystals can’t rupture their cells. They are extremophiles – animals that can exist in the most hostile of conditions.

They have been boiled at over 150ºC and frozen in liquid nitrogen without any noticeable harm. They can survive pressures of 6,000 atmospheres and in 2007, the Russian FOTON-M3 spacecraft took tardigrade passengers into orbit.

After 12 days exposed to the vacuum, cold and radiation of space, they hadn’t just survived; they had laid eggs that hatched! Pretty cool.


Now, for a comparison, the bears, despite their big and tough body build, is nothing compared to the toughness and survivability of the tardigrades.


The Bear that we know; only more than a thousand times bigger. Image credit: fanpop.com


References: Dailymail, Sciencefocus

Facebook admits data breach exposed 6 million users

If you are accessing your Facebook account from a mobile device, chances are you have stored your telephone number in your page, privately or publicly.

This disclosure should be a good reason for you to be alarmed and be prudent with the sort of information you store online:


Facebook has blamed the data leaks on a technical glitch in its massive archive of contact information.


6 million users exposed?

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook Inc has inadvertently exposed 6 million users' phone numbers and e-mail addresses to unauthorised viewers over the past year, the world's largest social networking company disclosed late Friday.

Facebook blamed the data leaks, which began in 2012, on a technical glitch in its massive archive of contact information collected from its 1.1 billion users worldwide. As a result of the glitch, Facebook users who downloaded contact data for their list of friends obtained additional information that they were not supposed to have.

Facebook's security team was alerted to the bug last week and fixed it within 24 hours. But Facebook did not publicly acknowledge the bug until Friday afternoon, when it published an "important message" on its blog explaining the issue.

"We currently have no evidence that this bug has been exploited maliciously and we have not received complaints from users or seen anomalous behavior on the tool or site to suggest wrongdoing, it's still something we're upset and embarrassed by, and we'll work doubly hard to make sure nothing like this happens again."
- Facebook, on its blog.

The breach follows recent disclosures that several consumer Internet companies turned over troves of user data to a large-scale electronic surveillance program run by US intelligence.

The companies include Facebook, Google Inc, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Yahoo Inc. - Reuters


TheGreenMechanics: Sometimes I feel registering with social network such as Facebook is not worth it. What say you?

Source

China invests nearly $40 billion in international renewable energy projects

China is known to rank first in the world in attracting clean energy investment, receiving US$ 65.1 billion in 2012.

But new analysis shows that China is increasingly becoming a global force in international clean energy investment, too. Between 2002 and 2012, the country has provided nearly $40 billion (RM126.4 billion) to other countries’ solar and wind industries.

A new update in the findings should include Malaysia in the destination countries list. We have China's investment in West Malaysia and the recent launching of Solar wafer manufacturing plant in Kuching Sarawak.

Figure 1: China's top 10 destination countries for the 2002-2012 period. Source

This investment is consistent with a broader trend of major emerging economies like China, India, and Brazil becoming important sources of global overseas investments.

China’s overseas Wind and Solar investments

Research shows that Chinese companies have made at least 124 investments in solar and wind industries in 33 countries over the past decade (2002 – 2011), more than half of which were made in 2010 and 2011 (see Figure 1). The wind/solar investment by the numbers:-

1. Of the 54 investments for which financial data were available, the cumulative amount invested came to nearly US$40 billion.
2. China invested roughly US$10 billion in 16 wind projects and US$27.5 billion in 38 solar investments.
3. Of 53 investments with capacity data available, the cumulative installed capacity added was nearly 6,000 MW.
4. The majority of investments were in electricity generation. Several investments were made in manufacturing facilities and to establish sales and marketing offices.
5. Most of the investments were in developed countries. A huge amount went to the United States, as well as Germany, Italy, and Australia.
6. A handful of developing countries—including South Africa, Pakistan, and Ethiopia—also attracted multiple investments.

Drivers and challenges to China's overseas investments

Both wind turbine and solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing industries have grown substantially – in 2010, four Chinese companies from each industry ranked among world’s top 10 manufacturers for wind turbine and solar PV respectively.

However, their market bases are quite different – China’s wind industry relies on its vast yet oversupplied domestic market, whereas the solar industry relies on the international market for 95% of its sales.

Both industries need to boost sales in international markets, which has not always been easy. Chinese wind companies are relatively new entrants to the international markets.

Declining subsidies in the European solar market have decreased demand for Chinese solar products. As a result, direct investments overseas are seen as a way of retaining and expanding market share, typically through creating demand for the export of products.


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