Blogs / Discoblog

Cell phones that just make phone calls are so last millennium. Today, those pocket-sized wonders can perform myriad tasks, from checking email to taking photos. Bet you didn’t know what your phone is missing: The ability to survive being driven over by an SUV, blasted with a high-pressure water hose, or trampled by an elephant.

Lucky for us all, Land Rover’s new cell phone, which is touted as the toughest phone in the world, is now on the market. According to the Telegraph:

Staff at The Sun, who laid hands on the S1 a day before it was released, managed to crush the gadget under the weight of a three-tonne forklift truck.

Before it was finally broken, the phone had survived being roasted in an oven at 150 degrees centigrade, soaked in a pint of lager and tossed from the second floor of a building.

Check out a video of some extreme testing of the new phone:

The phone is reportedly shockproof, puncture-proof, water resistant, and dirt and dust-proof. Its plastic case is made primarily from recycled film and bottles.
(more…)

• Bees and their hives aren’t just for honey anymore: They might help farmers in Kenya deter elephant raids that threaten crops.

• It’s a nice day for a weightless wedding, at least for the Brooklyn couple that will get married in zero gravity later this month. They’ll tie the knot on a commercial weightless flight, with a price tag of $5,200 per person.

• Conservatives are more easily grossed out by bugs, blood, and guts than are their liberal counterparts, according to a study in the journal Cognition & Emotion.

• And, finally, a video of the world’s only pet hippo!

Related Content:
Discoblog: Animal Fun Looks a Lot Like Human Fun: Games of Catch and Spa Visits
Discoblog: Meet the Prehistoric Elephantopotamus
Discoblog: In Battle of African Titans, Leopard Vanquishes Crocodile

• “We didn’t pay 37 million zlotys [7.6 million pounds] for the largest elephant house in Europe to have a gay elephant live there” —Polish politician Michal Grzes.

• A chocolate inhaler now provides calorie-free indulgence in four flavors: raspberry, mint, mango, and plain. Inhaled mango-flavored chocolate powder? Really?

• What to do if you—oops!—swallow the Higgs boson.

• A divorced couple fights over frozen dog sperm.

• Watch a spider roll like an eight-spoked wheel.

• And, a humpback whale was spotted swimming under New York City’s Verrazano Bridge! Watch it surface here.

• It’s all in the hands: Did early humans stone the Neanderthals into extinction?

• “Debby was a great bear. She acted like a grumpy old bear a lot of times. It was great. She had a lot of life in her, a lot of feistiness.” The world’s oldest living polar bear is no more.

• The Great Ape Trust is having an auction of ape paintings—that’s paintings done by (non-human) apes—to raise money for conservation. Is it just us, or these look suspiciously like those elephant paintings?

(more…)

Farmers near the Ol Pejeta conservancy in Kenya used to have to bang on pots and pans and wave burning sticks to keep elephants from destroying their crops. Now they rely on GPS and text messaging.

Kimani, a bull elephant who used to be a habitual farm raider, has been sporting a collar with GPS and a cell phone SIM card attached and maintained by the advocacy group Save the Elephants. Whenever he approaches the virtual “geofence” on the boundaries of the conservancy, a text message is sent to rangers who swiftly arrive to drive him back.

Using the text method, rangers have prevented potential human-elephant conflicts 15 times in the last two years, and Kimani now rarely approaches farms.

  (more…)