Nasa probe pictures Phobos moon

The 9km-wide Stickney impact crater is the most prominent feature on Phobos

Nasa's Mars Reconaissance Orbiter (MRO) has captured two stunning images of the Red Planet's major moon, Phobos.

Stickney Crater, a 9km (5.5 mile) -wide depression that is the largest feature on Phobos dominates the pictures.

The images also show a series of grooves and crater chains; the formation of these features is the subject of debate among scientists.

MRO was launched from Florida in August 2005 and entered orbit around the Mars in March 2006.

It is mapping the Martian surface with high-resolution cameras with a view to choosing landing sites for future missions.

It will also study Mars' weather, climate, geology and atmosphere.

MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera acquired two dramatic views of Phobos on 23 March 2008, one at a distance of 6,800km (4,225 miles) from the Martian moon and another at 5,800km (3,603 miles).

The two images were taken within 10 minutes of each other and show roughly the same features, but from a different angle so they can be combined to yield a stereo view.

Get into the groove

Some scientists believe the grooves and crater chains that can be seen in the pictures are related to the formation of the Stickney impact crater.

However, others think they may have formed from ejecta from impacts on Mars that later collided with Phobos.

In the MRO images, surface rocks near the rim of Stickney appear bluer than the rest of Phobos. Based on analogy with rocks on our own Moon, this could mean this surface is fresher, and therefore younger, than other parts of Phobos.

Phobos was discovered in 1877 by the American astronomer Asaph Hall. Both Phobos and Mars' other moon, Deimos, are thought to be captured asteroids.

Phobos' orbit around Mars is dropping by about 1.8m (5.9ft) every 100 years. This means that in 50 million years it will either crash into Mars or break up into a ring.

Russia has been working on an unmanned spacecraft that will return samples of soil and rock from the surface of Phobos. The mission, called Phobos-Grunt, has a provisional launch date of October 2009.

The unique, fist-sized Kaidun meteorite, which fell to Earth at a Russian military base in Yemen in 1980, is claimed by some researchers to be a piece of Phobos.

Anaesthetic drug 'numbs memory'

Bad memories can be difficult to endure

Low doses of a commonly-used anaesthetic could prevent the formation of painful memories, say researchers.

The University of California scientists found that sevoflurane gas stopped patients remembering "emotive" images, New Scientist magazine reported.

Scans showed it interfered with signals between two key areas of the brain.

It is hoped the work could eventually help eradicate rare instances of anaesthetised patients remembering the full horrors of their surgery.

This study reports the discovery of an agent and method for blocking human emotional memory University of California researchers

While anaesthetic drugs are mainly used to make patients fall unconscious before operations, their effects on the body are frequently far more complex.

The Californian researchers, writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were investigating the outcome of much lower doses of the gas than those used prior to surgery.

They treated their volunteers either with the anaesthetic, or a placebo gas, and then showed them a series of photographs.

Some of these had everyday content, such as a cup of coffee, while others had images designed to provoke a far more powerful emotional response, such as a bloody severed human hand.

One week later, the volunteers were asked to recall as many of the images as they could.

Those given the dummy gas remembered approximately 29% of the powerful images, and 12% of the others.

However, those who had received sevoflurane could remember just 5% of the "emotive" images and 10% of the others.

Brain scans revealed that the gas appeared to interfere with impulses between the amygdala and hippocampus, areas of the brain known for their involvement in the processing of emotion and memory.

"This study reports the discovery of an agent and method for blocking human emotional memory," the researchers wrote.

They added that understanding how drugs could stop this happening might provide clues to "intraoperative awareness" - rare instances in which the memory-disrupting qualities of anaesthetic drugs fail and patients can recall the experience of undergoing surgery.

Awake during operations

While this suggested that the gas could prevent the acquisition of new memories following painful events, it does not point to any effect on pre-existing memories, good or bad.

Dr Anthony Absalom, from Cambridge University, said that other anaesthetic drugs had been found to interfere with memory formation.

"If a patient is having an uncomfortable or distressing procedure but not a general anaesthetic, sedative drugs not only make them more relaxed, but help them not to remember it afterwards.

"The same is true in intensive care settings, where patients can spend long periods with tubes into their lungs."

He said that it was unlikely that anaesthetic drugs could interfere with memories that had already been formed.

However, he agreed that it could improve understanding of what happens when patients claim to remember operations even though they have been fully asleep.

"Approximately one in 5,000 patients reports remembering details of operations, and it's a struggle to understand why - but this kind of research might help," he said.

Why You Should Consider Adopting a Vegetarian Diet

Considering to Adopt a Vegetarian Diet

Cruelty to Animals

More than 27 billion animals are killed for food every year in the U.S. alone. Animals in factory farms have no legal protection from cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats, including neglect, mutilations, genetic manipulation, drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling, transport through all weather extremes, and gruesome and violent slaughter. Read more.

Amazing Animals

Farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as our companions. They are inquisitive, interesting individuals who value their lives, solve problems, experience fear and pain, and are capable of using tools. According to animal-behavior scientists, chickens begin learning from their mothers while they are still in their shells, pigs can play video games better than some primates can, and fish form social bonds and can remember things that they have learned for the human equivalent of 40 years. Read more.

Your Health

Vegetarian foods provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants that are found in meat, eggs, and dairy products. Plant-based diets protect us against heart disease, diabetes, obesity, strokes, and several types of cancer. Vegetarians also have stronger immune systems and, on average, live 10 years longer than meat-eaters do. Read more.

The Environment

America’s meat addiction is poisoning and depleting our potable water, arable land, and clean air. More than half the water used in the United States goes to animal agriculture, and since farmed animals produce 130 times more excrement than the human population does, the run-off from their waste greatly pollutes our waterways. Read more.

World Hunger

Raising animals for food is extremely inefficient—for every pound of food that they eat, only a fraction of the calories are returned in the form of edible flesh. If we stopped intensively breeding farmed animals and grew crops to feed humans instead, we would easily be able to feed every human on the planet with healthy and affordable vegetarian foods. Read more.

Worker Rights

Human Rights Watch has declared that slaughterhouse workers have “the most dangerous factory job in America.” The industry has refused to do what’s necessary to create safe working conditions for its employees, such as slowing down slaughter lines and supplying workers with appropriate safety gear, because these changes could cut into companies’ bottom lines. Read more.

Factory Farms: Poisoning Communities

Factory farms pollute the air and water for many miles in every direction, often spreading contamination and illness to the people who live and work nearby. Chronic sickness, brain damage, poisoned waterways, elevated cancer rates, and even death plague these communities, while the government does nothing to protect citizens or regulate the industry. Read more.

Government Negligence

Between 2000 and 2005, agribusinesses funneled more than $140 million to politicians, who more than earned their money by helping to ensure that laws that might protect consumers, animals, and the environment did not pass. The unfortunate truth is that the federal government does very little to protect human health, animal welfare, and our environment from the factory-farming industry’s negligence and excess. Read more.

Corporate Campaigns

Since October 1999, when we launched our "McCruelty" campaign against Fortune 500 company and fast-food-giant McDonald's, PETA has waged a series of successful campaigns urging the restaurant and grocery industries to improve conditions for the animals killed for their menus and shelves. Read more.

Benefits of Eating Fruits and Vegetables - Vitamins

Vitamins

Eating a wide variety of fruit and vegetables means you're more likely to get all the vitamins and minerals you need. But what are vitamins - and why are they so important to your good health?

• Vitamins are organic substances - this means

they're found in plants and animals.

• Most vitamins can't be made by your body,

so they must be sourced from your diet.Vitamin D
and the B vitamin niacin are exceptions to this.

• Nutritionists have divided vitamins into two groups:

fat-soluble and water-soluble.

• The fat-soluble vitamins - A, D, E and K -

are transported through your body by fat.
They can also be stored in your fat and
liver cells for a limited period of time.

• The water-soluble vitamins - B and C -

are absorbed by and transported through your body in water.
They need to be eaten every day, as you can't store them for
any length of time.

Fat-soluble vitamins

Vitamin	Why important?	Where found?	Daily Recommendation
Vitamin A	It looks after your eyes, the lining of your nose, throat and lungs, and your skin cells.	Carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, red chillies, tomatoes, 'orange' fruits, such as apricots and mango, and dark green leafy vegetables.	600µg for females, 700µg for males.
Vitamin D	It helps your body to absorb calcium, needed to ensure strong bones and teeth.	The most important source is the sun, but it's also found in tiny amounts in dairy products, cod liver oil and oily fish.	No recommendations as sunlight is the main source.
Vitamin E	It fights free radicals - unbalanced molecules that can cause damage to your cells. It also contributes to the healthy condition of your skin.	Vegetables, poultry, fish, fortified breakfast cereals, vegetable oils, nuts and seeds.	Up to 4mg for adult males and up to 3mg for adult females is considered a safe intake.
Vitamin K	It helps your body to make a number of proteins, one of which helps your blood to clot.	Dark green leafy vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, spinach and asparagus. It's also found in soya oil and margarine.	1µg for every kg of body weight is considered a safe intake for both men and women.

Water-soluble vitamins

Vitamin	Why important?	Where found?	Daily recommendation
B-complex Vitamins	They help you to metabolise your food and help your blood cells to form and flow.	Green vegetables, wholegrains, meat, such as liver, kidneys, pork, beef and lamb, vegetable extracts, nuts and fortified breakfast cereals.	Eight vitamins make up the B-complex family: B1 (Thiamin) - Adult male, 0.9mg. Adult female, 0.8mg. B2 (Riboflavin - Adult male, 1.3mg. Adult female, 1.1mg. B3 (Niacin) - Adult male, 17mg. Adult female, 13mg. B5 (Pantothenic Acid) - 3 to 7mg is considered a safe intake for both sexes. B6 (Pyridoxine) - Adult male, 1.4mg. Adult female, 1.2mg. B9 (Folate) - 200 mcg for both adult males and females. B12 (Cobalamin) Biotin - 10-20 µg is considered a safe intake for both sexes. - 1.5 µg for both adult males and females.
Vitamin C	It helps your body to produce collagen (important for skin and bone structure) and to absorb iron.	A wide variety of vegetables and fruit, including spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, strawberries, citrus fruit and potatoes.	40mg for both adult male and female.

Can Microsoft's Vista inspire consumers?

Bill Gates promises to "wow" consumer

Microsoft has launched the latest version of its Windows operating system, called Vista. But can it inspire consumers?

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is passionate about Vista: "For the technology industry, it's a huge milestone."

The president of Microsoft International, Jean-Philippe Courtois, is equally impressed: "Vista is the biggest launch ever" in Microsoft's history, more important than Windows 95.

Considering the hype, it must be worrying for Microsoft that many technology experts believe that Vista is at best accomplished but not really a breakthrough.

Vista, they say, is not any better than OS X, the operating system of rival Apple.

VISTA PC SPECIFICATIONS VISTA CAPABLE 800MHz processor 512Mb memory DirectX9 capable graphics processor PREMIUM READY 1GHz processor 1Gb memory 128Mb graphics memory 40Gb hard drive DVD-ROM Internet access

Corporate IT bosses are not impressed either, surveys suggest. Some will move to Vista for security reasons, says George Colony, chief executive of technology consulting firm Forrester, but most will do so because Microsoft is forcing them.

While corporate users may have little choice, it's with consumers where Vista will have to prove its mettle. Here Microsoft has not just to capture the market, but also inspire it.

Only if Vista delivers its promise of managing the digital lifestyle will it become the central hub of consumers' connected world.

Success by default?

Let's make no mistake: Windows Vista will be a success. But it will happen almost by default.

Corporate IT administrators are tied into Microsoft's network architecture, while consumers will probably pick a PC because they trust brands such as HP, Dell or Sony and because PC manufacturers simply take up more shelf space than Apple's narrow product range.

"Very few consumers will choose to upgrade to Vista," says Mr Colony. "Nobody is choosing to install it, they will upgrade only by buying a new machine."

Forrester estimates that by the end of this year, Vista will have a 15% share of the North American consumer market, which amounts to about 12.2 million units. By 2011 it expects Vista to have 70% of the market, or just over 73 million installations.

Considering that Windows is one of Microsoft's two big profit engines (the other is the productivity software Office), executives at the company headquarters in Redmond, Washington, can probably relax.

But these numbers do not secure Microsoft's future in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.

The problem, says Mr Colony, is Microsoft's brand perception: A Forrester survey of 50,000 consumers suggests that Microsoft is the consumer brand with the highest number of installations, but also the company with the second-lowest approval rating among its customers, says Mr Colony.

'Vista is user-centric'

Vista is supposed to change that perception and "wow" computer users.

Microsoft hopes to capture people's minds

When you use Vista, "it's just not like using software anymore... it's more user-centric, less systems-centric," says Mr Gates, who is also the firm's chief software architect.

To make the right first impression, Microsoft has scheduled big launch events in 50 countries. In Paris, for example, fireworks will light the sky that will be larger than those at the start of the new millennium.

"This is about capturing the minds of the people," says Mr Courtois. "They have problems [with their computers], need help" and Vista is going to provide it.

The boss of Microsoft International tries to explain:

• Looks: Vista looks much prettier than XP, with a 3D feel to it and see-through windows.
• Security: "The company has learned its lessons, and Bill Gates was leading the work to make security central to Vista." The software will be secure by design and by default, he says, with all security options switched on straight out of the box. Better back-up software will protect your digital memories, parental controls will safeguard your children, and strong encryption software will ensure that a stolen laptop or PC will not give up your personal secrets (although this part of Vista is available only in Vista's most expensive version).
• Connectivity: Whatever kind of device you want to connect to, eg using Wifi or Bluetooth, Vista will make it easier; and a new "meeting room" allows users to share a virtual workspace between computers in the same area.
• Fun and entertainment: The gaming technology in Vista has "increased significantly". Better graphics boost the quality of game play, and the popular Flight Simulator, for example, now integrates real-time weather conditions. Watching and working with photos, music and videos has been improved, Mr Courtois says, and Vista comes integrated with Microsoft's Media Centre, which is optimised to watch media on a television.
• Search: A fully integrated search function makes it easy to find the needles in the rapidly growing haystacks of our digital lives.

Microsoft has not left much to chance. To iron out bugs, some five million people have tested Vista over the past year or two.

In your living room

Microsoft's biggest challenge, however, will be for Windows to make the jump from the study into our living rooms.

VISTA HOME VERSIONS Home Basic - improved search and security but no Aero interface (pictured) Home Premium - As above but with Aero, Media Center options, back-up tools, DVD burning software Vista Ultimate - All home and business features, plus a series of downloadable Ultimate Extras Vista and rivals: Your view

Irritatingly for Microsoft executives, this make-or-break move is out of the company's control.

Windows is a platform; Microsoft's partners build on it by providing hardware and software.

If the industry develops and sells products with the right form factor, combining the beauty and simplicity of hi-fi equipment with the Vista operating system, Microsoft will sit at the top of our digital world.

Forrester's George Colony is dubious about Microsoft's chances of success: "Operating systems crash, they don't give you any pleasure," he says. "It's still too difficult to install and administer computers."

'Two sets of idiots'

So what about the long-awaited convergence between PCs and consumer electronics?

Niklas Zennstroem, the co-founder of internet telephony success Skype and backer of video-on-demand service Joost.com, believes that the "computerisation of television sets" is just a few years away.

Mr Colony is more sceptical: "You have two sets of idiots here, the PC idiots and the TV idiots," he says, and neither understands yet how to make convergence work.

So if Microsoft's hardware partners fail to deliver, the company has a problem.

Mr Courtois for his part points to "an incredible variety of form factors" in the pipeline, from media centres to what he calls "ultra-mobile PCs".

Why the rivals don't deliver

Microsoft's weakness, however, is also its biggest strength.

Rival Apple may grab the headlines (and the biggest share of the MP3 player market), but in the computer space it is puny.

The reason: Apple insists on controlling the whole package, from the operating system to the central hardware.

As a result, Apple lacks the breadth of hard- and software that attracts customers.

Apple may glow in the halo of its iconic iPods and gain kudos from the tech-savvy crowd. But so far, the shallowness of Apple's industrial ecosystem has made the firm's offering pricey and limited its success in the market place.

Microsoft's other rival, the open-source Linux operating system, has a similar problem.

Even though products like Ubuntu and Suse Linux show great promise, there are still issues with compatibility and ease of use.

Beyond Vista

But as Microsoft celebrates Vista, the company is already thinking about what comes next.

Consumers had to wait five years for the new operating system. A gap that long won't be allowed again, promises Mr Courtois.

But as it works on the next incarnation of Windows, Microsoft will have to face a profound shift in the world of software.

More and more companies are offering software online as a service. All that users need is a good browser.

And that could make operating systems somewhat irrelevant.

Last chance

So why is Vista so important?

Well, it may be Microsoft's last chance to confound the critics who say the company is not capable of developing a secure and user-friendly operating system.

One of Vista's new features is that it shuts down in just two seconds.

Microsoft is hoping that its customers won't shut down Windows for good.

Cup of tea may help boost memory

Dr Okello has high hopes for his research

Drinking regular cups of tea could help improve your memory, research suggests.

A team from Newcastle University found green and black tea inhibited the activity of key enzymes in the brain associated with memory.

The researchers hope their findings, published in Phytotherapy Research, may lead to the development of a new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease.

They say tea appears to have the same effect as drugs specifically designed to combat the condition.

Alzheimer's disease is associated with a reduced level of a chemical called acetylcholine in the brain.

In lab tests, the Newcastle team found that both green and black tea inhibited the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which breaks down this key chemical.

They also found both teas inhibited the activity of a second enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), which has been discovered in protein deposits found in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's.

Green tea went one step further in that it obstructed the activity of beta-secretase, which plays a role in the production of protein deposits in the brain which are associated with Alzheimer's disease.

The scientists also found that it continued to have its inhibitive effect for a week, whereas black tea's enzyme-inhibiting properties lasted for only one day.

Drugs work same way

There is no cure for Alzheimer's but it is possible to slow the development of the disease.

Drugs currently on the market hinder the activity of AChE, and others are being developed which scientists hope will inhibit the activity of BuChE and beta-secretase.

However, many of the drugs currently available, such as donepezil, have unpleasant side effects and the medical profession is keen to find alternatives.

The Newcastle University researchers are now seeking funding to carry out further tests on green tea, which they hope will include clinical trials.

Their aim is to work towards the development of a medicinal tea which is specifically aimed at Alzheimer's sufferers.

The next step is to find out exactly which components of green tea inhibit the activity of the enzymes AChE, BuChE and beta-secretase.

Lead researcher Dr Ed Okello said: "Although there is no cure for Alzheimer's, tea could potentially be another weapon in the armoury which is used to treat this disease and slow down its development.

"It would be wonderful if our work could help improve the quality of life for millions of sufferers and their carers.

"Our findings are particularly exciting as tea is already a very popular drink, it is inexpensive, and there do not seem to be any adverse side effects when it is consumed.

"Still, we expect it will be several years until we are able to produce anything marketable."

Professor Clive Ballard, director of research, Alzheimer's Society, said: "This interesting research builds on previous evidence that suggests that green tea may be beneficial due to anti-oxidant properties.

"Certainly the effect on the cholinesterase enzyme (the target of current anti-dementia drugs such as Aricept) and beta-secretase (an enzyme which is important in the build up of plaques) is very exciting and requires further investigation."

Black tea - traditional English breakfast tea - is derived from the same plant as green tea, Camellia sinensis, but has a different taste and appearance because it is fermented.

Black tea 'soothes away stress'

Black tea - As Anti-Stress

The easy way to relax

Scientists have evidence behind what many tea drinkers already know - a regular cuppa can help you recover more quickly from everyday life stresses.

The study of black tea - instead of green or herbal varieties - found it helps cut levels of the stress hormone cortisol circulating in the blood.

They found people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a tea substitute.

The University College London study is in the journal Psychopharmacology.

Slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease Professor Andrew Steptoe

In the study, 75 young male regular tea drinkers were split into two groups and monitored for six weeks.

They all gave up their normal tea, coffee and caffeinated beverages, and then one group was given a fruit-flavoured caffeinated tea mixture made up of the constituents of an average cup of black tea.

The other group was given a caffeinated placebo identical in taste, but devoid of the active tea ingredients.

Stressful tasks

All drinks were tea-coloured, but were designed to mask some of the normal sensory cues associated with tea drinking (such as smell, taste and familiarity of the brew).

This was designed to eliminate confounding factors such as the 'comforting' effect of drinking a cup of tea.

Both groups were subjected to challenging tasks, while their cortisol, blood pressure, blood platelet and self-rated levels of stress were measured.

In one task, volunteers were exposed to one of three stressful situations (threat of unemployment, a shop-lifting accusation or an incident in a nursing home), where they had to prepare a verbal response and argue their case in front of a camera.

The tasks triggered substantial increases in blood pressure, heart rate and subjective stress ratings in both of the groups.

However, 50 minutes after the task, cortisol levels had dropped by an average of 47% in the tea-drinking group compared with 27% in the fake tea group.

Blood platelet activation - linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks - was also lower in the tea drinkers.

In addition, this group reported a greater degree of relaxation in the recovery period after the task.

Complex drink

Researcher Professor Andrew Steptoe said: "Drinking tea has traditionally been associated with stress relief, and many people believe that drinking tea helps them relax after facing the stresses of everyday life.

"However, scientific evidence for the relaxing properties of tea is quite limited."

Professor Steptoe said it was unclear what ingredients in tea were responsible.

He said it was very complex, and ingredients such as catechins, polyphenols, flavonoids and amino acids had all been found to affect neurotransmitters in the brain.

Nevertheless, the study suggests that drinking black tea may speed up our recovery from the daily stresses in life.

"Although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress we experience, tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal.

"This has important health implications because slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease."

Rinspeed's first underwater Car - Inspired from James Bond's Movie

James Bond fanatic creates underwater car

By Stephen Adams

Last Updated: 3:19am GMT 26/02/2008

Q would have been proud - 30 years after James Bond
disappeared under the waves in a specially adapted Lotus,
car designers have done it for real.

Classic Bond vehicles Off-road rules of going for a sQuba drive Cinema audiences gasped as Roger Moore's 007 took his white Lotus Esprit for a surprise dip to evade the enemy in the film The Spy Who Loved Me. Watch: Could this be the car for you? Watch the amphibious Lotus take to the waves The famous scene, shot using a model, triggered the imagination of countless gadget-lovers, who wondered if such a car could be made. Now a self-confessed Bond fanatic has made an up-to-date version of the wondercar using the Esprit's spiritual successor, the Lotus Elise, as its base. The "sQuba" will be exhibited at the Geneva Motor Show next month. These pictures show the €1 million (£750,000) prototype, which can dive to a depth of 10m, in action off the coast of Florida. It was the brainchild of concept car designer Frank Rinderknecht, 52, who said: "For three decades I have tried to imagine how it might be possible to build a car that can fly under water. Now we have made this dream come true." He added: "Everybody knows James Bond and the Esprit but it was always just fiction. We thought, 'Let's do something everybody knows but nobody has tried.'" The team at his firm Rinspeed replaced the petrol engine with three electric motors, one to power the rear wheels and two for the specially designed propellers. They are capable of taking it to 75mph on land, a more sedate 4mph while cruising in "boat" mode and a positively tranquil 2mph while underwater. The company also claims that the car is extremely "green" as well, as it is a zero-emission vehicle powered by rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Unlike the Bond original, which featured an enclosed passenger cabin, the modern version has an open top with the occupants exposed to the elements. The Swiss car designer explained: "The passenger compartment is three square metres of air - you'd need to add about three metric tonnes of added weight to pull it down under the surface. "That would give it the land mobility of a turtle." The second reason for having an open cabin is safety: "Even at one metre depth, the water pressure would keep the doors closed so you could not get out in an emergency." Although one would expect the car to sink like a stone, special compart ments have been filled with foam to ensure it floats. "The car will come to the surface by itself," said Mr Rinderknecht. "It is basically unsinkable." Rather than achieving neutral buoyancy with weighting, the propellers drive it downwards so that if it were to stop it would rise up. Once under water, its occupants breath air coming from an integrated tank of compressed air similar to that used by scuba divers. The vehicle can stay under water "until you run out of air or battery power," which is about two hours. The designer said the sensation was just like scuba diving - in a car. He said: "It's a special feeling." While some might quibble that on land the sQuba is not fast enough, he said the main aim was to demonstrate its aquatic potential. Former Bond girl Britt Ekland talks money How about that? Because news doesn't have to be serious "We could have made it a lot quicker by using a bigger model with more batteries but that wasn't the issue," he said. "The focus was really on it going underwater." Sadly, those taken by the sQuba may never be able to get their hands on it as there are no plans to put it into production. "It's a tradition that we produce a concept car for the Geneva Motor Show," said the designer, whose firm makes its money making concept cars and parts for the mainstream motor industry, and tuning Porsches. "We don't plan to build it, even in a limited capacity," he admitted. "But if someone wants to take up the project that would be great. I'm sure there will be people interested in buying one." A spokesman for Lotus, which is not involved in the project, said: "We are delighted that they have chosen to use the Elise."

What Was The First Car? Part II

How The Car Changed The County, Town by Town

In 1903, in Winfield, Kansas Mr. H. T. Trice is seen standing in from of the first car in town. Acutally it was more like a truck and was used to haul customers out to see land. The railroads brought potential customers to town and Mr. Trice picked them up at the depot and took them out to his new developments.

Steam power was widely used in the 1880's and 1890's on the farms of America. Cowley County had its share of these behemoths and had a large group of people with the ability to use, and the skill to fix and repair them. The smaller, less expensive automobile, with an internal combustion engine provided a new avenue of interest that was much more personal than the steam engine with its team of attendants.

Mr. Martin Baden of Winfield, Kansas and his new eight-cylinder Cadillac roadster. This car was especially built for Mr. Baden, and was equipped with all modern appliances. Driving an automobile required a high degree to technical dexterity, mechanical skill, special clothing including hat, gloves, duster coat, goggles and boots. Tires were notoriously unreliable and changing one was an excruciating experience. Fuel was a problem, since gasoline was in short supply. Mr. Baden became interested enough to become a self-taught geologist and eventually discover major oil deposits in Cowley County, Kansas, and surrounding area.

The drivers of the day were an adventurous lot, going out in every kind of weather, unprotected by an enclosed body, or even a convertible top. Everyone in town knew who owned what car and the cars were soon to become each individuals token of identity. Notice the guy at the far right fixing his flat time. The dirt roads were a challenge in any weather. By 1910 Winfield paved the downtown streets with brick, horses were no longer welcome. The mule drawn trolleys were upgraded to electric streetcars.

By 1915 racing had become a passion all over the United States. A typical local race track was at the Cowley County Fairgrounds in Winfield, Kansas. The local obsession with horse racing, started by the earliest settlers in 1870, turned to the new technology of auto racing. Local farm boys who were familiar with motors and equipment used their talents on cars and motorcycles to go faster than anyone in the county.

The horse racing facilities were quickly converted to the new, faster, more dangerous, and thus more exciting, motor racing. See Bob Lawrence's Home Page for new sections on both Auto Racing and Motorcycle Racing in Cowley County, Kansas

Eventually the automobile change the face of small town America. The town gentry bought cars, albiet fashoned to match their station in life. In Winfield, Kansas, Main Street went from a gathering place for people and horses and wagons to a parking place for the ubiquitous automobile. The Trolley Cars were displaced to make room for more cars. The brick streets were covered with asphalt to provide a smoother ride for the automobile. The old fire maps of Winfield show the inexorable spread of the automobile and all of the supporting businesses. Filling stations, auto dealers, battery stations, oil depots all grew and expanded to displace to older technologies of the day. R. B. Sandford's Winfield Carriage Works appears on the fire-map of Block 127 in 1918. But on the same spot on Block 127 in 1925 it has been replaced by a Battery Station and an Auto Storage facility.

Midway through the century, cars had become a central feature of life for young people. The cars owned by the students of Winfield High School in the fifties are typical of every where in America at that time. It was mobility, status, challenge, and social freedom. It certainly hurt our football team at the time. A typical excuse for not playing on the football team was that a student had to work to earn money to pay for their car. When asked why they needed a car, the answer was invariably: to get to work!

After a century of the automobile, we can begin to assess the effects of long term transport by internal combustion. Nearly every aspect of our lives has developed around this technology. Only now, are we seeing new digital communications technologies, of the internet and beyond, that may eventually displace some of the functions of the automobile and replace our current problems with a new set that you, our grandchildren, will be charged with solving. Ask your grandparents about their first car. I'm sure you will get to hear a great story.

What Was The First Car?

A Quick History of the Automobile for Young People

by William W. Bottorff

Several Italians recorded designs for wind driven vehicles. The first was Guido da Vigevano in 1335. It was a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.

A Catholic priest named Father Ferdinand Verbiest has been said to have built a steam powered vehicle for the Chinese Emperor Chien Lung in about 1678. There is no information about the vehicle, only the event. Since Thomas Newcomen didn't build his first steam engine until 1712 we can guess that this was possibly a model vehicle powered by a mechanism like Hero's steam engine, a spinning wheel with jets on the periphery. Newcomen's engine had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind, and it used steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. It was an enormous thing and was strictly stationary. The steam was not under pressure, just an open boiler piped to the cylinder. It used the same vacuum principle that Thomas Savery had patented to lift water directly with the vacuum, which would have limited his pump to less than 32 feet of lift. Newcomen's lift would have only been limited by the length of the rod and the strength of the valve at the bottom. Somehow Newcomen was not able to separate his invention from that of Savery and had to pay for Savery's rights. In 1765 James Watt developed the first pressurized steam engine which proved to be much more efficient and compact that the Newcomen engine.

The first vehicle to move under its own power for which there is a record was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. A replica of this vehicle is on display at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, in Paris. I believe that the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D. C. also has a large (half size ?) scale model. A second unit was built in 1770 which weighed 8000 pounds and had a top speed on 2 miles per hour and on the cobble stone streets of Paris this was probably as fast as anyone wanted to go it. The picture shows the first model on its first drive around Paris were it hit and knocked down a stone wall. It also had a tendency to tip over frontward unless it was counterweighted with a canon in the rear. the purpose of the vehicle was to haul canons around town.

The early steam powered vehicles were so heavy that they were only practical on a perfectly flat surface as strong as iron. A road thus made out of iron rails became the norm for the next hundred and twenty five years. The vehicles got bigger and heavier and more powerful and as such they were eventually capable of pulling a train of many cars filled with freight and passengers.

As the picture at the right shows, many attempts were being made in England by the 1830's to develop a practical vehicle that didn't need rails. A series of accidents and propaganda from the established railroads caused a flurry of restrictive legislation to be passed and the development of the automobile bypassed England. Several commercial vehicles were built but they were more like trains without tracks.

The development of the internal combustion engine had to wait until a fuel was available to combust internally. Gunpowder was tried but didn't work out. Gunpowder carburetors are still hard to find. The first gas really did use gas. They used coal gas generated by heating coal in a pressure vessel or boiler. A Frenchman named Etienne Lenoir patented the first practical gas engine in Paris in 1860 and drove a car based on the design from Paris to Joinville in 1862. His one-half horse power engine had a bore of 5 inches and a 24 inch stroke. It was big and heavy and turned 100 rpm. Lenoir died broke in 1900.

Lenoir had a separate mechanism to compress the gas before combustion. In 1862, Alphonse Bear de Rochas figured out how to compress the gas in the same cylinder in which it was to burn, which is the way we still do it. This process of bringing the gas into the cylinder, compressing it, combusting the compressed mixture, then exhausting it is know as the Otto cycle, or four cycle engine. Lenoir claimed to have run the car on benzene and his drawings show an electric spark ignition. If so, then his vehicle was the first to run on petroleum based fuel, or petrol, or what we call gas, short for gasoline.

Siegfried Marcus, of Mecklenburg, built a can in 1868 and showed one at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873. His later car was called the Strassenwagen had about 3/4 horse power at 500 rpm. It ran on crude wooden wheels with iron rims and stopped by pressing wooden blocks against the iron rims, but it had a clutch, a differential and a magneto ignition. One of the four cars which Marcus built is in the Vienna Technical Museum and can still be driven under its own power.

In 1876, Nokolaus Otto patented the Otto cycle engine, de Rochas had neglected to do so, and this later became the basis for Daimler and Benz breaking the Otto patent by claiming prior art from de Rochas.

The picture to the left, taken in 1885, is of Gottllieb Daimler's workshop in Bad Cannstatt where he built the wooden motorcycle shown. Daimler's son Paul rode this motorcycle from Cannstatt to Unterturkheim and back on November 10, 1885. Daimler used a hot tube ignition system to get his engine speed up to 1000 rpm

The previous August, Karl Benz had already driven his light, tubular framed tricycle around the Neckar valley, only 60 miles from where Daimler lived and worked. They never met. Frau Berta Benz took Karl's car one night and made the first long car trip to see her mother, traveling 62 miles from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888.

Also in August 1888, William Steinway, owner of Steinway & Sons piano factory, talked to Daimler about US manufacturing right and by September had a deal. By 1891 the Daimler Motor Company, owned by Steinway, was producing petrol engines for tramway cars, carriages, quadricycles, fire engines and boats in a plant in Hartford, CT.

Steam cars had been built in America since before the Civil War but the early one were like miniature locomotives. In 1871, Dr. J. W. Carhart, professor of physics at Wisconsin State University, and the J. I. Case Company built a working steam car. It was practical enough to inspire the State of Wisconsin to offer a $10,000 prize to the winner of a 200 mile race in 1878.>

The 200 mile race had seven entries, or which two showed up for the race. One car was sponsored by the city of Green Bay and the other by the city of Oshkosh. The Green Bay car was the fastest but broke down and the Oshkosh car finished with an average speed of 6 mph.

From this time until the end of the century, nearly every community in America had a mad scientist working on a steam car. Many old news papers tell stories about the trials and failures of these would be inventors.

By 1890 Ransom E. Olds had built his second steam powered car, pictured at left. One was sold to a buyer in India, but the ship it was on was lost at sea.

Running by February, 1893 and ready for road trials by September, 1893 the car built by Charles and Frank Duryea, brothers, was the first gasoline powered car in America. The first run on public roads was made on September 21, 1893 in Springfield, MA. They had purchased a used horse drawn buggy for $70 and installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition. It must not have run very well because Frank didn't drive it again until November 10 when it was reported by the Springfield Morning Union newspaper. This car was put into storage in 1894 and stayed there until 1920 when it was rescued by Inglis M. Uppercu and presented to the United States National Museum.

Henry Ford had an engine running by 1893 but it was 1896 before he built his first car. By the end of the year Ford had sold his first car, which he called a Quadracycle, for $200 and used the money to build another one. With the financial backing of the Mayor of Detroit, William C. Maybury and other wealthy Detroiters, Ford formed the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. A few prototypes were built but no production cars were ever made by this company. It was dissolved in January 1901. Ford would not offer a car for sale until 1903.

The first closed circuit automobile race held at Narragansett Park, Rhode Island, in September 1896. All four cars to the left are Duryeas, on the right is a Morris & Salom Electrobat. Thirteen Duryeas of the same design were produced in 1896, making it the first production car.

At left is pictured the factory with produced the 13 Duryeas. In 1898 the brothers went their separate ways and the Duryea Motor Wagon Company was closed. Charles, who was born in 1861 and was eight years older than Frank had taken advantage of Frank in publicity and patents. Frank went out on his own and eventually joined with Stevens Arms and Tool Company to form the Stevens-Duryea Company which was sold to Westinghouse in 1915. Charles tried to produce some of his own hare-brained ideas with various companies until 1916. Thereafter he limited himself to writing technical book and articles. He died in 1938. Frank got a half a million dollars for the Westinghouse deal and lived in comfort until his death in 1967, just seven months from his 98th birthday.

In this engraving Ransom Eli Olds is at the tiller of his first petrol powered car. Riding beside him is Frank G. Clark, who built the body and in the back are their wives. This car was running by 1896 but production of the Olds Motor Vehicle Company of Detroit did not begin until 1899. After an early failure with luxury vehicles they established the first really successful production with the classic Curved Dash Oldsmobile.

The Curved Dash Oldsmobile had a single cylinder engine, tiller steering and chain drive. It sold for $650. In 1901 600 were sold and the next years were 1902 - 2,500, 1903 - 4,000, 1904 - 5,000. In August 1904 Ransom Olds left the company to form Reo (for Ransom Eli Olds). Ransom E. Olds was the first mass producer of gasoline powered automobiles in the United States, even though Duryea was the first auto manufacturer with their 13 cars.

Ransom Olds produced a small number of electric cars around the turn of the century. Little is known about them and none survive. The picture at left is the only known picture of one of these rare cars. It was taken at was taken at Belle Island Park, Michigan. In 1899 and 1900, electrics outsold all other type of cars and the most popular electric was the Columbia built by Colonel Albert Augustus Pope, owner of American Bicycle Company.
an interesting footnote to the Olds electric.

J. A. Koosen and H. Lawson in a 1895 Lutzmann. This is typical of American design in the mid 1890's. It was truly a horseless carriage. Tiller steering, engine under the floorboards, very high center of gravity, not designed for road travel. Imagine climbing into one of these and trying to drive across town and around a few corners. Kind of scary, huh?

This Daimler of 1899 was owned by Lionel Rothchild. The European design is much advanced of the American designs of the same time. Gottlieb Daimler took part in the London-to-Brighton run in 1896 but died in 1900 at the age of 66 without ever meeting Benz. His German engines powered the automobile industries of Britain and France.

The 1908 Haynes in the back ground shows the rapid development of the petrol powered car when compared to the 1894 model in the foreground. Consider the present difference between a 1998 Tarus and the 14 year old 1984 Tarus. Some difference. Old man Haynes claimed to have build the 1894 car in 1893 but had no proof.

The Rolls Royce Silver Ghost of 1906 was a six cylinder car that stayed in production until 1925. It represented the best engineering and technology available at the time and these cars still run smoothly and silently today. This period marked the end of the beginning of the automobile.