Random links
- Biodiversity Found to Increase During Warm Periods in Earth's History
- "A new approach contradicts previous research that reported an inverse correlation between high temperatures and biodiversity."
- Look, no hands
- A relatively detailed piece on the future of driverless cars and some of the testing that's been done. Datapoints of note: an average 108,000 people per month die in car crashes - a number which is expected to rise to 150,000 by 2020. 90% of crashes are attributable to human errors. Stuff that Google's cars can't handle yet: "master snow-covered roads, or reading temporary signs and signals around roadworks." Rio Tinto is an Australian mining company already employing driverless vehicles (with 300 ton payloads) in production and apparently their experience has been better than with human drivers due to vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems. Some interesting fuel efficiency improvements as well from test runs involving closely grouped cars resulting in 15% fuel savings (and more efficient use of road space).
- Jil Sander $290 Vasari clutch is actually brown paper bag
- "The $290 designer clutch bag is actually made of treated brown paper, stitched together with metal eyelets at the bottom." It also just looks like a paper bag
- Barmy boyfriend almost dies in botched birthday stunt
- So apparently people are crazy enough to try to mail themselves around as parcels.