Paradoxus hermaphroditus, the animal responsible for the creation of Luwak Coffee. The luwak is a relative of the mongoose and is slightly larger than the average household cat. There are a number of different types of luwaks, which can be found right throughout the tropics, however the particular species that produces Luwak Coffee is concentrated in south east Asia.

Luwak are nocturnal by nature and steal through the coffee plantations wreaking havoc on the crop of the unfortunate coffee farmer. Because of this habit they are often shot and in some areas they are becoming scarce.

Luwak are quite tolerant of humans and if allowed to live unmolested can be found everywhere from deep jungles to villages and even cities. In Bali they are often seen  climbing around in the roof and along walls of houses and hotels in many popular tourist areas.

Flamingoes are seen in the waters of Lake Nakuru, about 120 km west of Nairobi, capital of Kenya. The population of flamingoes in Lake Nakuru is at high level, with a number of more than 800 thousands because of abundance of water and recovery of natural environment in this region.

source: http://english.sina.com/

In the beginning was thus…

source:http://reuters.com

The authors of the new technology used the properties of metamaterials to create an illusion of the absence of an object and to create the visibility of another object. To make a person see, let’s say, a spoon, the light, which the person perceives, needs to be distorted similarly to the light reflected by the spoon. It is technically possible to create a metamaterial which would be capable of distorting light rays like that.

“To make a cup look like a spoon, for example, light first strikes the cup and is distorted. It then passes through a complementary metamaterial which cancels out the distortions to make the cup seem invisible. The light then moves into a region of the metamaterial that creates a distortion as if a spoon were present. The result is that an observer looking at the cup through the metamaterial would see a spoon,” the scientists wrote in their article.

The work is purely theoretical. In real life, the scientists have succeeded in creating the effect of invisibility. For example, two groups of scientists said in May of this year that they designed invisible cloaks.

source: pravda.ru