Overstock.com Assembles Coders to Create a Bitcoin-Like Stock Market

Ariel Zambelich/WIRED. Coin design: Gail Anderson + Joe Newton

Overstock.com is building software, based on the bitcoin digital currency, that could allow the big-name etailer to issue corporate stock over the internet, sidestepping traditional stock exchanges such as the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange.

The Salt Lake City-based company recently hired two of the developers behind CounterParty—an online project that helps individuals and businesses build all sorts of financial services atop the worldwide network of machines that drive bitcoin—and according to Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne, these coders will help build “cryptosecurity” software that any company could potentially use to issue financial securities over the net. Mirroring bitcoin—known as a “crytocurrency”—these securities would be controlled by cryptographic algorithms running across computers spread across the globe, not by a central stock exchange.

Code-named “Medici,” the project aims to democratize Wall Street in much the same way bitcoin seeks to democratize currency and payments. By operating separate from traditional stock exchanges and the big corporate banks, it could eliminate certain loopholes in the system and reduce the costs associated with issuing and juggling stock.

After building the software inside Overstock, Byrne says, he will spin off its developers into a separate company that will continue to hone the software and provide various services to those who use it. “There is an opportunity to recreate the financial world as we know it in the parallel universe that is the blockchain,” Byrne tells WIRED, referring to the online public ledger that keeps track of all bitcoin transactions. “We are writing rules for this whole new universe.”

Previously, Byrne had hinted that Overstock would build such software, and now, he has publicly committed to the project. He will formally announce the effort this afternoon, during a speech at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas, and no doubt, he will describe it in the most grandiloquent of terms. A former amateur boxer with a PhD in philosophy, he likes to build his arguments around high-flying metaphors involving everything from Star Wars, Dilbert, and zombies to the British economist Karl Popper.

The rub is that this software would require the approval of government regulators. Byrne has a long (and rather bizarre) history of pushing for reform on Wall Street, and he has often taken a rather antagonistic stance with regulators. But he says that in this case, he wants Overstock “to be an adult partner to everyone involved in this. I don’t want to be an adversary.”

After Overstock builds its cryptosecurity software—which will likely take several months—Byrne intends to present the system to regulators for approval. But this may be difficult to win, because the SEC and the incumbent banks are so set in their ways. “The biggest hurdle is institutional inertia,” James Angel, a professor of finance at Georgetown University and a visiting professor at the Wharton School of Business who specializes in the nuts and bolts of the economic system, told WIRED when Overstock first indicated that such a plan was in the works.

But in order to grease the wheels, Overstock has enlisted a team of lawyers from the international law firm Perkins Coie, which, in recent years, has sought to build up an expertise in the area of bitcoin and other digital currencies. “We think we have the first string in all positions,” Byrne says, referring to Perkins Coie and CounterParty.

The ultimate aim of the project is to create a stock system that operates, in large part, outside the control of the big incumbent banks. A stock system based on math, the thinking goes, would eliminate loopholes maintained and exploited by interested parties. Byrne, for instance, has long railed against a Wall Street practice known as naked short selling—where banks and funds essentially sell shares that don’t exist—and a system based on the blockchain, where all transaction are public, would eliminate such a thing.

The other hope, says Robby Dermody, one of the CounterParty developers hired by Overstock, is that the system will allow startups to more easily take their companies public. “Startups get a lot less of the money than they otherwise could because there are so many middle men,” he explains. “We hope to really increase the efficiency of the market.” And, in the end, he explains, this could bring investments much closer to the average consumer. “If you shop for linens on Overstock, you can get a new mattress too. And now—oh by the way—you could also spend $10 more and invest in the company,” Dermody says.

After spinning off from Overstock, Byrne says, the company behind this project will help other businesses take their companies public and juggle transactions. The intention is to charge about 20 percent or less of what Wall Street banks charge for similar services today.

Like many others, Byrne uses hyperbole in describing the prospects of bitcoin and its related technologies. And he’s committing between five and ten percent of Overstock’s cash flow—”single-digit millions”—to the company’s cryptosecurity project. “Building this—and being the company that owns this—can be more valuable than Overstock,” he says. “It can be more valuable than Alibaba.”

But it’s worth noting that, at least in terms of public perception, bitcoin is at its lowest ebb in months. After trading at above $1,000 in December, the value of the digital currency dropped below $300 over the weekend. But as is typical of the man, Byrne is unbowed. “This could be as big or bigger than the internet,” he says.

The World’s Best Cars Get Their Own Feature-Length Documentary

There’s not set definition of “hypercar,” but it’s one of those things that when you see it—or hear it, or feel your bones rattle as it goes by—you know it. Sold in tiny quantities for prices that regularly top $1 million, these vehicles are the preserve of the über-wealthy. Most people will never see one in the flesh (well, carbon fiber), let alone get behind the wheel. But they’re important, because not only are they really freaking cool, they represent the work of some of the world’s best and most creative engineers and artists.

And now there’s a feature length documentary all about them. APEX: The Story of the Hypercar will make its world premiere at the Jalopnik Film Festival in New York on November 6. The movie, from the creators of /DRIVE and directed by J.F. Musial, promises to tell “the untold story about the minds of men versus the laws of nature.” As in, nature says, “No one can make a car that delivers one horsepower for every kilogram it weighs.” And Christian Koenigsegg replies, “Shut up nature, you just lost your chance to ride shotgun in the One:1.”

Based on the trailer (above), we know the One:1, Ferrari LaFerrari, and McLaren P1 all show up. So does the Pagani Huayra, along with its maker, Horacio Pagani, who says, “the automobile allows you to embrace and satisfy a series of infinite desires.” APEX also happens to be the first documentary shot entirely in 4K, the new ultra high resolution standard that’ll make these rides look extra awesome. Sounds good to us.

You can find more info on the Jalopnik Film Festival and buy tickets here.

Anyone Can Attend This Coding School That Meets in Coffee Shops

Hackvard

If you want to be a programmer, you pretty much have two choices: Take a class at a school or university, or learn on your own through books and online classes. But Ruben Abergel and Edward Lando wanna give you a third choice. That’s why they founded Hackvard, a web application dedicated to bridging the gap between offline and online education.

Ruben Abergel and Edward Lando Hackvard

The idea is that if you’re planning to work on some programming tutorials at, say, your local coffee shop, you’ll announce when and where on Hackvard, and other aspiring programmers will show up and join you—regardless of what languages they’re learning or what materials they’re using. When you have some time to learn, you can check to site to see if anyone nearby has announced a gathering. These events could lead to the formation of ongoing study groups, or they could just be one-off gatherings. The point is just to get people together, so they can support each other as they learn the craft.

Officially unveiled today, the site is yet another effort to help bring programming skills to a much broader range of people. It’s known as the code literacy movement, and it includes everything from those online tutorials to hacker “bootcamps” that offer in-person crash courses designed to prepare coders for the workforce.

Don’t ‘Just Google It’

Lando and Abergel came up with the idea for Hackvard after meeting at a conference last year and swapping stories about how they learned to program. Lando taught himself to code after graduating business school. He liked being able set his own hours, but learning the craft on his own was a struggle. “You get stuck, you turn on the TV, you go to get something to eat, you lose time, you lose confidence,” he says.

Abergel, who studied economics in college, had a similar experience. So he signed up for Hack Reactor, a 12-week, full-time crash course in software development in San Francisco. Although many Hack Reactor alum say they love the program, these “bootcamp” programs aren’t for everyone. Not everyone can afford the tuition, and others can’t commit to a full-time school. And while Abergel loved having a community to support him, he found that much of the actual learning was still self-directed. “Every time I asked a question, the instructor said: ‘Just Google it,’” he remembers.

The two realized that what they really wanted when they were starting out weren’t in-person teachers, but a group of people who were going through the same thing they were.

Hackathon Central

What they hope is that Hackvard can become a central place for aspiring programmers to meet each other and organize hackathons. Many online programming schools, such as Coursera and Treehouse, have forums where users can swap ideas, but this isn’t quite the same as getting a group of people together to guzzle caffeinated beverages and solve coding problems. Plus, students who live in the same city but use different online resources may never know about each other. Hackvard could serve as a bridge between all of these different sites.

The biggest challenge may be convincing people that there’s a need to sign-up for yet-another app to manage these gatherings. There’s already Meetup, Craigslist, not to mention numerous social networks and messaging apps that you can use to find nearby people with common interests. But Lando says there are plenty of people who are interested in a dedicated site for people learning to program.

He also thinks the adhoc nature of the meetups will appeal to those with busy schedules, and those who don’t want to commit to a weekly group. “Meetup is inefficient because it’s dependent on the leader of the group,” he says. “We want it to be decentralized so that people can say: ‘Hey, I’m going to be here.’”

He could be right. Lando says that hundreds of users had signed up for the site before it launched today, and a few people have already used the prototype to host gatherings.

Novel roadmap through bacterial genomes leads the way to new drug discovery

For millennia, bacteria and other microbes have engaged in intense battles of chemical warfare, attempting to edge each other out of comfortable ecological niches. Doctors fight pathogens with an arsenal of weapons -- antibiotics -- co-opted from these microbial wars, but their efforts are frustrated by the development of drug resistance that outpaces drug discovery. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have now innovated and demonstrated the value of an algorithm to analyze microbial genomic data and speed discovery of new therapeutic drugs.

A large proportion of the medications used today were discovered by screening bacteria and other organisms for their ability to produce natural products, biologically useful compounds. In recent years, pharmaceutical companies have largely abandoned this strategy in favor of screening synthetically created chemicals for useful properties, an area of research which has yielded a tiny number of new antibiotics.

Microbiologist and molecular and cellular biologist Bill Metcalf, a leading investigator in the new study, described the reason for pharmacological research's shift away from the exploration of natural products. "There was a reason why they gave up . . . they kept discovering the same things over and over and over again," he said. "They were getting very diminishing returns."

This type of problem will be familiar to anyone who has ever collected trading cards. It's easy to acquire a set of the common cards, but it can be nearly impossible to find the rare ones scattered among them. A collector might wish that he or she could sneak a peek at all the cards hidden inside the wrappers, and only buy the new ones.

Genome sequence information, which is now available for an ever-increasing number of bacterial species, holds the promise to allow antibiotic hunters to do just that. Groups, or "clusters" of genes within each genome code for enzymes, proteins that work together to synthesize a natural product for that bacterium. Part of the vision of the Institute for Genomic Biology's Mining Microbial Genomes research group, led by Metcalf, is to use bacterial genome sequence data as an index of what products each one can produce.

If researchers could infer what type of product the bacterium is making by looking at its DNA, they wouldn't have to go through a lengthy screening process -- they could just scan genomes for promising gene clusters. Unfortunately, this task is much harder than it sounds. Many clusters have some sequences or whole genes in common, making them indistinguishable by traditional comparative methods even though they enable the production of different compounds.

Metcalf, co-lead author and Institute for Genomic Biology Fellow James Doroghazi, and colleagues cleared this hurdle with a clever computational solution: they combined multiple comparative metrics, each with a carefully calibrated weight, to produce an algorithm that sorted 11,422 gene clusters from 830 bacterial genomes into an orderly, searchable reference. Their work was published this month in Nature Chemical Biology.

In the database created in the study, gene clusters predicted to make very similar products are linked with each other in networks referred to as families. These predictions mesh almost perfectly with prior knowledge; gene clusters that produce similar known compounds were sorted by the new algorithm into the same family in every case but one.

The value of the new database was showcased by an experiment performed in collaboration with a group of chemists at Northwestern University, led by former University of Illinois faculty member Neil Kelleher. Kelleher's group used a high-precision analytical technique to infer the chemical composition of unknown compounds isolated from 178 different bacterial strains. The research team was then able to assign a biological function to gene cluster families by correlating their presence in the genome with the production of particular compounds.

In addition to this power to link gene cluster families to potential new antibiotics, the database is a huge step toward solving the "trading card" problem. By comparing the distribution of gene cluster families across bacterial species, researchers can now predict which species are most likely to contain novel antibiotics, and target the richest strains for study. "We've got the framework, we know the number of gene clusters, we know who has them and therefore we know where to look to find new drugs," said Metcalf. "It clearly leads to discovery."

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . The original article was written by Claudia Lutz. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Hewlett-Packard Splits in Two, In Sign of Changing Times for Hardware Giants

HP CEO Meg Whitman. Image: HP

Hewlett-Packard is splitting in two.

As the company announced on Monday, it will soon separate into two publicly traded companies. One company, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, will focus on cloud computing services and other tools for businesses, while the second, HP Inc., will handle personal computers and printers.

In a statement on the split, CEO Meg Whitman, who joined the struggling tech giant in 2011, said that dividing the company in two will make both halves more agile, and therefore, stronger. “The decision to separate into two market-leading companies underscores our commitment to the turnaround plan,” said Whitman. When the split is completed in October 2015, she will become CEO the enterprise business, while Dion Weisler, who now leads the company’s printing operations, will become CEO of HP Inc.

This division is a sign of the times for some of the country’s most established hardware companies. Sales of PCs and printers have dwindled in recent years, due in part to the rise of smartphones and tablets. Meanwhile, the rise of cloud computing services such as Amazon Web Services—which let businesses rent computing power over the internet—has undermined the market for computer servers, data storage gear, and other data center hardware. As a result, the giants of the computer hardware business have been forced to rethink their strategies.

Late last year, Dell founder Michael Dell took the company private, hoping he could revive the business if relieved of the pressures of being a publicly traded company. Back in 2004, IBM sold off its PC business to Lenovo, and earlier this year, it sold off its low-end server business—again to Lenovo—in an effort to shed some of its reliance on hardware.

In splitting itself in two—and investing more heavily in its own cloud computing services—Hewlett-Packard is fighting much the same battle, as it seeks to retain its relevance in the face of competition from the likes of Amazon, Google, and others. Recently, HP acquired Eucalyptus, a startup that lets companies build cloud computing services in their own data centers. With Eucalyptus, companies can keep some of their data in private cloud services for security reasons or otherwise, while also using public cloud services to run their software applications. A reflection of its larger strategy, this is a move that HP hopes will help fuel its growth in the cloud computing space, which will be an explicit goal of its new enterprise business.

This is not the first time Hewlett-Packard has considered a split under Whitman’s watch, and yet, back in 2011, she rejected the idea of spinning off the company’s PC business, noting that the two parts bolstered each other. Now, it seems that Whitman, like others in the industry, has adopted the belief that the nimbler a company is, the stronger it will be. In other words, if the company isn’t saddled by its PC and printers businesses, it has more room to innovate and build new products and services for a new age.

In an interview with CNBC Monday, Whitman acknowledged the shift in her thinking, saying that the split was only possible because the turnaround Whitman architected has succeeded. “We had to gather ourselves as one H-P,” she said, “but now we’re in the position to take advantage of what’s going on in the marketplace and position these two companies for growth.”

5 Comics You Need to Read Before Watching The Flash

courtesy the CW

When Grant Gustin speeds on to screens as the Flash in the new CW series of the same name, he’ll be filling some pretty big (bright yellow) boots. Barry Allen was the forerunner of a new generation of superheroes when he first appeared in 1956′s Showcase #4, presaging the creation of DC Comics’ Justice League of America, a comic so successful it led to the creation of the entire Marvel Universe.

The strange thing about the comic book incarnations of the character is that there are so many different versions—Jay Garrick, the original Flash; Barry Allen, the version in the current comics and TV show; Wally West, who took on the role for multiple decades after Barry’s assumed death (he got better); Bart Allen, a time-traveling descendant of Barry from the 31st century—and yet, so few “iconic” stories centering around the character. With this in mind, here are five ways to learn more about the Flash, and his legacy—both good and, in one case, just plain weird. Time to start speed-reading!

The Flash #1-24 (2011-2014)

The first couple of years of the current series featuring the character are the best groundwork one could find for the show. Not only do you get to meet Barry Allen, Iris West, and the various Rogues who make crime happen in Central City (including Grodd, the telepathic gorilla), you’ll also find some theorizing about quite how the Flash’s powers work, an introduction to the case that drives Barry to solve crimes—one that also drives the television version of the character—and some wonderfully inventive artwork and layout by co-writer Francis Manapul.

How to read it: Available digitally and in print collections.

The Early Years (1956-1961)

As pointed out above, the first years of the Barry Allen character hold a particular importance to superhero comics and the superhero genre in general. Beyond that, they’re also a lot of fun, with creators including Gardner Fox, Robert Kanigher, and Carmine Infantino inventing a lot of now-familiar tropes out of 1950s sci-fi ideas, and playing around with an impressively straight-laced hero (the original Barry Allen is fairly square from today’s point-of-view). There’s a staggering amount of invention going on in these pages. This is literally where it all begins.

How to read it: Available digitally and in print collections as Showcase Presents: The Flash .

The Flash: The Return of Barry Allen (1993)

Arguably the most loved era for the Flash came after the “death” of Barry Allen in 1985′s Crisis on Infinite Earths series, when former sidekick Wally West took over the role and writer Mark Waid took over the series. Less than a year into his time on the series, Waid toyed with fans’ affections—and their minds—by appearing to bring Barry back from the dead, only for him to be a jerk. As much a story about hero worship and the need to grow out of such things as it is a superhero slugfest (but it is the latter, as well), this is a pretty great primer on the Flash as a concept and a legacy.

How to read it: Available digitally and in a print collection.

The Flash: Terminal Velocity (1994-1995)

This is another Waid story, and another sequence that focuses on the idea of the Flash as a legacy position. “Terminal Velocity” revisits Wally West’s origins before propelling him towards his death, which means he needs to find and train his replacement—at exactly the same time that a terrorist organization launches a plan to freak out the world, if not outright subjugate the human race. One of the wonderful things about the Flash mythology is its use of ideas like time-travel and this run of issues, although not a time-travel story per se, explores the consequences of such things in an impressive, exciting manner.

How to read it: Available digitally and in a print collection.

The Trial of The Flash (1983-1984)

And here is one for those looking to do a deep dive into Flash history. The final couple of years of the original Flash series contained one of the strangest, most drawn-out stories of the character’s 50-plus year career, in which the character killed one of his villains and went on trial for murder as a result. Because that alone isn’t enough, the storyline also involves the Flash being given an entirely new face by super-intelligent gorillas, some more time-travel, and the revelation that there is, of course, more to the court case than meets the eye. While the main plot is a twisty, turny mess at times, the storyline as a whole is a wonderful summary of what the Flash series had become by that point, and what makes it unique amongst superheroes: supervillains who work together, the ability for a story to change directions without warning, and a feeling that—no matter how bad things might look—everything will ultimately turn out alright. It’s a curio, but a fascinating, fun one to revisit.

How to read it: Available in a print collection.

New Funding Gives Square a Fighting Chance In Changing Payment Landscape

Square

Square is poised for its next act.

According to The New York Times, the San Francisco-based payments startup has raised an additional $150 million, at a $6 billion valuation. A spokesman for the company confirmed a new round of funding with The Times on Sunday, though he wouldn’t comment on the valuation or how much was raised. With this money, investors have bought Square some time as it struggles to live up to the lofty expectations that have hovered over the company ever since CEO Jack Dorsey founded it back in 2009.

Meeting such expectations won’t be easy. The payments industry is going through a turbulent period, marked by fresh technological constraints and a series of new entrants. This round of funding will give Square a fighting chance of fending off new rivals like Apple and Amazon, while also diversifying its business beyond payments with new tools and services for merchants.

The Changing Credit Card

Credit cards themselves are changing, as companies like Visa and MasterCard are doing away with the traditional magnetic stripe, in favor of so-called “chip and PIN” cards. As a result, merchants have until October 2015 to adopt new card reading technology. Square—whose flagship product is a sleek and simple credit card reader that merchants plug into their phones and tablets—will not only have to release a new version of the product, but it will also have to undertake a new sales effort to ensure merchants will still choose Square over the competition.

And there’s plenty of competition. Earlier this year, Amazon released its own card reader, joining a growing cohort of companies offering merchants a low cost way to accept credit cards. Then, just last month, Apple followed the likes of Google in threatening to do away with credit cards altogether, unveiling its long awaited mobile payments product, Apple Pay, which lets iPhone 6 owners pay for things using only their phones.

Of course, even if Apple fails to kill the credit card, Square must still face the fact that with so much competition, payments have become a commodity business. In order to live up to investor expectations, Square will have to develop new and novel products that generate different sources of revenue. And to do that, Square will need money.

Eye on Merchants

The process of transitioning Square from a pure payments company to more of an all-purpose ally for merchants is already underway. Over the last year, Square has launched a loan program for merchants called Square Capital. It recently acquired the startup Caviar, which gives restaurants that don’t offer delivery, access to delivery services. And it’s now offering everything from an appointment booking tool to an online invoicing tool, a customer feedback tool, and an analytics tool.

Even as Square works to redefine itself in a crowded market with new products, it has killed off some once promising products, too. Like Square Wallet, for instance, a predecessor to Apple Pay that allowed customers to start a virtual tab with merchants, and pay for things by just saying their name. But the product never took off, and this spring, Square shuttered it, replacing it with a new product called Square Order, which allows customers to place an order with a merchant ahead of time.

It’s a curious time to be shifting focus from the payments industry. After all, it seems to be the one space that every other company from Apple to Amazon, and even Facebook, wants to own. And yet, even with $150 million in funding, Square doesn’t have quite the coffers these other competitors have to build a big and sustainable company in such a low-margin business. Which is why it makes sense for Square to seek out new lines of business that can not only become new sources of revenue, but can also make Square more appealing to its merchant clients.

Of course, Square still needs to figure out exactly what those new lines of business will be. Now, at least, the company has the time—and the money—to do just that.

Liquid DNA behind virus attacks

Viruses can convert their DNA from solid to fluid form, which explains how viruses manage to eject DNA into the cells of their victims. This has been shown in two new studies carried out by Lund University in Sweden.

Both research studies are about the same discovery made for two different viruses, namely that viruses can convert their DNA to liquid form at the moment of infection. Thanks to this conversion, the virus can more easily transfer its DNA into the cells of its victim, which thus become infected. One of the studies investigated the herpes virus, which infects humans.

"Our results explain the mechanism behind herpes infection by showing how the DNA of the virus enters the cell," said Alex Evilevitch, a researcher in biochemistry and biophysics at Lund University and Carnegie Mellon University.

Evilevitch stated that the discovery was surprising. No one was previously aware of the 'phase transition' from solid to fluid form in virus DNA. The phase transition for the studied herpes virus is temperature-dependent and takes place at 37°C, which is a direct adaptation to human body temperature. Evilevitch hopes that the research findings will lead to a new type of medicine that targets the phase transition for virus DNA, which could then reduce the infection capability and limit the spread of the virus.

"A drug of this type affects the physical properties of the virus's DNA, which means that the drug can resist the virus's mutations," said Alex Evilevitch.

The second study that Evilevitch and his colleagues have published recently is about bacteriophages, i.e. viruses that infect bacteria, in this case E coli bacteria in the human gastrointestinal tract. The results show that this virus also has the ability to convert its DNA from solid to fluid form. As with the herpes virus, the phase transition takes place at 37°C, i.e. adapted to human body temperature.

These two virus types, bacteriophages and the herpes virus, separated at an early stage in evolution, several billion years ago. The fact that they both demonstrate the same ability to convert their DNA in order to facilitate infection indicates that this could be a general mechanism found in many types of virus.

In previous studies, Alex Evilevitch and his colleagues have succeeded in measuring the DNA pressure inside the virus that provides the driving force for infection. The pressure is five times higher than in an unopened champagne bottle. This high pressure is generated by very tightly packed DNA inside the virus. The pressure serves as a trigger that enables the virus to eject its DNA into a cell in the host organism. It was this discovery that led to the two present studies, which were recently published in Nature Chemical Biology and PNAS.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Lund University . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

What Should You Use to Build a Cashteroid?

This is a trillion dollar cahsteroid next to the ISS.

I will go ahead and define it:

cashteroid: A giant pile of money that is so large it could be treated like an asteroid. The best cashteroids have a gravitational field that is large enough so that you could walk on the surface.

I originally talked about cashteroids when I looked at the amount of dollar bills you would need to stack to the moon. In our recent Google Hangout (Uncertain Dots Episode 23), Chad Orzel asked the question – what would be the best coin to make a cashteroid? I can’t remember why we were talking about cashteroids, but I’m sure it had something to do with a big pile of money. Chad also guesses that dime would be the worst thing to make a cashteroid out of since they are pretty small for their value.

Currency Data

Ok, let’s get right to it. I can look up the dimensions of different coins on Wikipedia and I get the following data. I’ve included both the older (almost pure copper) pennies as well as the new zinc pennies since you can easily find both. I did not include any silver quarters since those aren’t so easy to find (I know from trying).

• New penny: m = 2.5 g, d = 19.05 mm, t = 1.52 mm


• Old penny: m = 3.11 g, d = 19.05 mm, t = 1.52 mm


• Nickel: m = 5 g, d = 21.2 mm, t = 1.95 mm


• Dime: m = 2.268 g, d = 17.9 mm, t = 1.35 mm


• Quarter: m = 5.67 g, d = 24.67 mm, t = 1.75 mm


• Half dollar: m = 11.34 g, d = 30.61 mm, t = 2.15 mm


• Dollar coin: m = 8.1 g, d = 26.5 mm, t = 2


• Dollar bill: m = 1 g, length = 155.96 mm, t = 0.11 mm

From this, I can calculate the volume of each coin (and the dollar bill) as well as the price per mass and price per volume. Oh, it seems the thickness of the dollar bill isn’t so obvious. For some reason it’s not stated on the US One Dollar Bill Wikipedia page. However, in a previous post I experimentally determined a value of .11 mm.

There’s something else that is quite interesting. When calculating the volumes, I found that the volume of a dollar coin and a dollar bill are almost exactly the same at around 1.1 x 10^-6 m³. I just thought that was weird. Or maybe it’s not weird and the US Department of Treasury planned it this way so that it wouldn’t matter if you built a cashteroid out of dollar coins or dollar bills (at least in terms of volume).

Now for a comparison. This is what you have been waiting for (maybe). Here is a graph showing the price per kilogram for the different monetary options.

From this you can see the old penny is the cheapest currency per mass with a cost-mass density of 3.2 x 10^-6 USD/kg. The newer penny is just slightly more expensive and probably easier to find. Also, it looks like the dollar coin is the most expensive option but that’s wrong. I left off the dollar bill because it was too high. The dollar coin is 1.23 x 10^-4 USD/kg and the bill is 10^-3 USD/kg.

What about price per volume? I’ll call this this cost-volume density.

Again, the penny wins as the most affordable option here. Both the old and new penny have the same volume so they are equivalent in cost-volume density. Since the dollar coin and bill have nearly the same volume, they are both terrible options for a volume-based cashteroid.

Ok. One more thing. What if you want to line money up? You know, end to end? What would be the cheapest option?

The penny wins again. Of course the dollar bill is better than the dollar coin since it is much longer. Still, it doesn’t beat the almighty penny.

How Much Would a Cashteroid Cost?

I gave a terrible definition for my cashteroid. I said it should have a large enough gravitational field so that you could walk on it. But what is the smallest gravitational field for which you could walk? I’m not exactly sure.

In a previous calculation, I looked at the possibility of walking on the surface of comet 67P. I found that it has a surface gravitational field of about 5.24 x 10^-5 N/kg (compared to 9.8 N/kg on Earth). This was not a large enough field for a human to reasonably walk. In fact if an astronaut jumped with a speed of just 0.46 m/s, that human would be going fast enough to leave the surface and never come back.

For a walkable asteroid, let’s just guess (for now) that it would have a minimum gravitational field of 5 x 10^-4 N/kg (10 times larger than 67P). Now I can calculate the cost of my penny cashteroid by looking at the surface gravitational field (assuming that the pennies are tightly packed and the penny density remains constant). If I have a spherical object, the surface gravitational field can be calculated as:

Here M is the mass of the casteroid and R is the radius. These two things are not independent. If the density of the cashteroid is ρ, then I can write the mass in terms of the radius.

This gives the following expression for the gravitational field on the surface of the cashteroid.

Now I just have to put in my value for g and solve for R assuming a penny density of 5770 kg/m³. Note that I am just using the new pennies – however, I should probably find the ratio of new to old pennies in actual coin change to get an average penny mass. This would be a fun future blog post. It would be very similar to the same issue with isotopes.

Using the penny density, I get a cashteroid with a radius of 310 meters. Wow, that is smaller than I would have guessed. But I guess it’s not too crazy. Comet 67P has an estimated radius of 2,000 meters but a much lower density.

I can also find the mass of my penny cashteroid. It would be 7.2 x 10¹¹ kg. Again, notice that this is a lower mass than comet 67P (with a value of 3.14 x 10¹² kg), but it is also much smaller in radius. The gravitational field depends on both the size and mass.

Ok, so how much would this cashteroid cost? Using a cost-mass density, I get cost of 2.8 million dollars. That’s not too bad.

Homework

I am going to write your homework assignment here on the chalk board. Copy it down.

• Estimate how long it will take for the word “cashteroid” to appear in the official dictionary.


• How much would it cost to make a cashteroid out of dollar bills?


• What if you wanted to put your cashteroid in orbit around the Earth (at the same altitude as the ISS). How big would it have to be so that you could see it with the naked eye? What should you make it out of?


• Calculate the escape velocity for both penny cashteroid and a dollar bill cashteroid. Why are they different?


• Collect 1,000 pennies in the wild. Find the ratio of old to new pennies and determine the average penny mass.

'Programmable' antibiotic harnesses an enzyme to attack drug-resistant microbes

The multitude of microbes scientists have found populating the human body have good, bad and mostly mysterious implications for our health. But when something goes wrong, we defend ourselves with the undiscriminating brute force of traditional antibiotics, which wipe out everything at once, regardless of the consequences.

Researchers at Rockefeller University and their collaborators are working on a smarter antibiotic. And in research to be published October 5 in Nature Biotechnology, the team describes a 'programmable' antibiotic technique that selectively targets the bad bugs, particularly those harboring antibiotic resistance genes, while leaving other, more innocent microbes alone.

"In experiments, we succeeded in instructing a bacterial enzyme, known as Cas9, to target a particular DNA sequence and cut it up," says lead researcher Luciano Marraffini, head of the Laboratory of Bacteriology. "This selective approach leaves the healthy microbial community intact, and our experiments suggest that by doing so you can keep resistance in check and so prevent certain types of secondary infections, eliminating two serious hazards associated with treatment by classical antibiotics."

The new approach could, for instance, reduce the risk of C. diff, a severe infection of the colon, caused by the Clostridium difficile bacterium, that is associated with prolonged courses of harsh antibiotics and is a growing public health concern.

The Cas9 enzyme is part of a defense system that bacteria use to protect themselves against viruses. The team coopted this bacterial version of an immune system, known as a CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) system and turned it against some of the microbes. CRISPR systems contain unique genetic sequences called spacers that correspond to sequences in viruses. CRISPR-associated enzymes, including Cas9, use these spacer sequences as guides to identify and destroy viral invaders.

The researchers were able to direct Cas9 at targets of their choosing by engineering spacer sequences to match bacterial genes then inserting these sequences into a cell along with the Cas9 gene. The cell's own machinery then turns on the system. Depending on the location of the target in a bacterial cell, Cas9 may kill the cell or it may eradicate the target gene. In some cases, a treatment may prevent a cell from acquiring resistance, they found.

"We previously showed that if Cas9 is programmed with a target from a bacterial genome, it will kill the bacteria. Building on that work, we selected guide sequences that enabled us to selectively kill a particular strain of microbe from within a mixed population," says first author David Bikard, a former Rockefeller postdoc who is now at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

In initial experiments, Bikard and colleagues targeted a strain of the common skin and respiratory bacteria Staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to the antibiotic kanamycin. Treatment by Cas9 programmed to target a part of the resistance gene killed most of the resistant Staph, but left behind the kanamycin-susceptible Staph.

Targeted bacterial genocide is only one option. Bacteria share genes, including those conferring drug resistance, in the form of rings of DNA known as plasmids. In a second series of experiments, researchers turned Cas9 on tetracycline resistance-harboring plasmids in a strain of the potentially deadly multidrug resistant bacteria Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Not only did the resistant cells become sensitive to tetracycline after Cas9 destroyed the plasmids, but the arrival of Cas9 in other Staph cells acted as an immunization, preventing them from taking on resistance-carrying plasmids.

And, in a final set of experiments, conducted in collaboration with Vincent Fischetti's Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology, adjunct faculty member Chad Euler confirmed their test tube results on living skin, by using Cas9 to selectively kill kanamycin-resistant Staph infecting the shaved backs of mice.

In spite of the promising results, the delivery system needs improvement. The researchers used bacteria-infecting viruses to inject the programmed Cas9 enzymes into the bacterial cells, but these viruses only attack specific types of cells. Scientists need to devise a less discriminating method of delivery, before the technology can be used to develop a new class of antibiotics, Marraffini says.

In addition to its potential as a much-needed new weapon against drug-resistant microbes, the new system could also be used to advance research on the complex populations of microbes in the body, about which very little is known. "There are enormous microbial communities in the human body," Marraffini says. "Programmable Cas9 enzymes may make it possible to analyze these populations by eliminating their members, one by one, and studying the effects."

MRSA biofilms in joint fluid make infections tough to tackle

Physicians have long speculated at the hard-to-treat nature of joint infection. In an article published in Journal of Infectious Diseases, Thomas Jefferson University scientists, in collaboration with scientists at the National Institutes of Health, come one step closer to understanding why these infections are so tough to tackle. The results could help explain the joint pain caused by different infections, including Lyme disease and why they're so resistant to antibiotic treatment.

"Biofilm formation has been suspected to play a key role during septic arthritis and prosthetic joint infection." said Noreen Hickok, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery in the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. "This study could help explain why these infections have been so difficult to treat and point to therapeutic approaches that could make antibiotics more effective."

Hickok and Michael Otto, Ph.D., a Senior Investigator with the Laboratory of Human Bacterial Pathogenesis National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, served as co-senior investigators on the study.

"Our goal was to determine why Staphylococcus aureus, particularly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), infections of the joint tend to be relatively unresponsive to standard antibiotic treatment," offered Sana Dastgheyb, lead author on the study and student at Jefferson's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Although many researchers study bacterial growth in standard growth medium, Hickok, Otto, and their teams wanted to know whether the bacteria behaved differently in the liquid that surrounds the joints -- the so-called synovial fluid. They grew up several strains of MRSA in human synovial fluid, blood, and typical bacterial growth medium.

The researchers found that the bacteria begin to grow as clumps in the synovial fluid, and that these clumps share many of the same properties as biofilms. For example, the clumped bacteria embed themselves in a protective mesh of proteins that resist the penetration of antibiotics. They also found that the bacteria slow their growth, making them even less susceptible to antibiotics, which are designed to target rapidly growing cells like bacteria.

The collaborators showed that they could inhibit the formation of these biofilm clumps that they called "bio-floaters" by pre-treating the synovial fluid with a plasmin enzyme that degraded the protein matrix. With this pre-treatment, the research team reduced the formation of bio-floater clumps and increased the bacterial susceptibility to antibiotics.

"The study also helps explain why joint infections are so difficult to diagnose, even when there are overt signs of infection," said Dr. Hickok. Current tests for bacterial growth cannot differentiate a single bacterium from a bio-floater clump containing millions of cells, leading to an underestimate of the infection or a lack of detection altogether.

"This study strikes at the heart of one of the most pertinent questions in medicine, namely how the medical community can use antibiotics in the most effective manner to prevent infections." said Javad Parvizi, M.D., the James Edwards Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery in the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Director of Clinical Research at The Rothman Institute, and an author on the study. "Dr. Hickok and her team, by conducting this groundbreaking research, have enhanced our understanding of this phenomenon and opened our eyes to a very novel concept."

Although the pre-treatment appeared to stall growth in the lab, more research is needed before the results can be translated to patient care.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Thomas Jefferson University . Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

If We’re Going to Give Facebook Our Data, At Least It Can Do Some Good

Getty

In a recent exposé, The New York Times revealed the appalling conditions that surround end-of-life care in New York City and the perverse incentives that perpetuate the system. The piece—tragic, enraging, and, one hopes, change-inducing—exemplifies the real, meaningful value that the best journalism creates for a society.

The story moved me, and because the doings of the tech industry are my daily bread, it made me think: why isn’t this the kind of problem Silicon Valley is trying to hack?

Startup entrepreneurs love to talk about how they can remove “pain points,” though that’s usually in reference to something like getting your dinner delivered faster. But The Times piece showed people in real, terrible pain. Sure, there are political reasons why Medicare provides far better coverage for cut-rate nursing home stays than genuine quality home care—it’s one of those intractable public policy issues that doesn’t offer a clear path to an easy startup exit—but if Silicon Valley is going to live up to its self-image as a center of innovation, these are the kinds of problems it needs to devote more of its energy to targeting.

Perhaps another reason for the reluctance to take on serious healthcare issues is the absence of any real role models. The biggest companies in the Valley haven’t done much to change how healthcare works, and not always for lack of trying. Most conspicuously, Google has made various attempts to apply its technology and resources to the world of healthcare, from its discontinued Google Health personal health record service to its backing of genome analysis startup 23andMe, none of which have had a huge impact. More recently, Google has taken the more traditional approach of giving lots of money to fund biomedical research.

Facebook has taken less initiative with healthcare, even though it’s the big tech company that seems most naturally compatible with health issues. From posting their latest workouts to complaining about their sniffles, people talk about their health on Facebook. What’s more, all that information is tied to a broader demographic context—age, location, social connections, background—that creates the potential for all kinds of previously unobtainable insights.

Now, the social networking giant seems be recognizing that these possibilities exist. According to Reuters, the company is exploring forays into ailment-specific support communities and preventative care apps. One apparent impetus for the effort is Facebook’s organ-donor status option, which one study found correlated to a dramatic rise in online organ donor registrations.

The most serious hindrance to Facebook doing more with healthcare is the ever-hazardous terrain surrounding privacy. Beyond Facebook’s clumsiness in the past around specific privacy issues, the entire premise of the company hinges on aggregating users’ personal information to sell to advertisers. People reveal a lot about themselves on Facebook, but will they really want the most intimate details of their physical lives packaged and sold? For Facebook, health information presents ethical and regulatory challenges that may not always seem worth the trouble in the context of a quarterly earnings report.

Last week, Facebook sort-of apologized to users for experimenting on them (us) without their (our) knowledge. But nowhere did Facebook say the experiments would stop. One reason they won’t is that we users haven’t stopped using Facebook, even though we’re appalled—appalled!—at the violation of trust.

But if users aren’t going to use their leverage to get Facebook to stop exploiting our trust, maybe we can at least get Facebook to exploit us for better ends. The study that got everyone so mad focused on the concept of “emotional contagion”—could Facebook friends’ feelings impact our own? For instance, what if Facebook used its massive trove of data on the human species to track actual contagion?

Part of the reason a Dallas hospital sent home a man showing Ebola-like symptoms who had recently traveled to west Africa was that a nurse’s note of his travels didn’t show up on the electronic health report viewed by a hosptial doctor. I’m just spitballing here, but what if the patient’s Facebook profile was included as part of his medical record, and the doctor could see a recent status update from Liberia?

As for Ebola outbreak itself, the outbreak itself reportedly wasn’t detected early thanks to sophisticated big-data algorithms. Rather, the information surfaced through traditional media, government, and public health channels. Imagine an algorithm with the power of Google Flu Trends, which attempts to predict infectious outbreaks based on searches, applied to personally reported health information.

However much users complain about big tech companies tracking us and probing our private lives for profit, the services those companies provide in exchange are apparently too valuable to cause those user bases to shrink. But if users won’t use their power to force practices they don’t like to change, perhaps we at the very least can act as constituents to demand companies like Facebook do more, to take advantage of their unique power to effect genuine innovation, not just better photo filters. If Facebook going to watch you, mess with your News Feed, turn you into a micro-target for marketers, at least it could use some of the data we all give away to do some real good.

The Navy’s Building Little Autonomous Boats to Defend Its Ships

An unmanned 27-foot harbor security boat from Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock operates autonomously during an Office of Naval Research (ONR)-sponsored demonstration of swarmboat technology held on the James River in Newport News, Va. John F. Williams/U.S. Navy

Navy ships are at their most vulnerable when they’re resupplying in port or navigating narrow straits or rivers. They tricky to maneuver in tight quarters and vulnerable to attack. The attack 14 years ago on the USS Cole as it refueled while berthed Yemen, an attack that killed 17 American sailors, reiterated the need to protect warships in port.

To counter asymmetric attacks—the 505-foot Cole was attacked by a small craft packed with explosives that ripped 40-foot gash in the destroyer—the Navy uses small patrol craft for close-quarters defense. And that means placing sailors in the line of fire. That’s got the Office of Naval Research developing autonomous technology for small “swarmboats” that could be used for risky jobs.

These vessels would, much like the autonomous minesweepers the Army is testing, act as a force multiplier, allowing one sailor to do the work of several, from a safe location.

The technology, called Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS), essentially is an autopilot on steroids that can be installed on nearly any boat. During a test in August on the James River in Newport News, Virginia, Navy researchers used 13 rigid-hulled inflatable boats equipped with the technology to escort a “high-value” ship and swarm an “enemy” vessel. The boats decide on their own where to go, when to steer, and when to apply the throttle. A human operator, who can be in another ship, a helicopter, or well away from the action, uses a laptop to tell the swarmboats which craft are to be protected and which are to be attacked. Think of it as an officer giving his (robotic) sailors a mission (protect this guy, attack that one) and letting them determine how best to fulfill it.

The Navy wouldn’t say much about how the technology works, but it appears similar to what is used in other autonomous vehicles, including passenger cars. Hardware turns the wheel, adjusts the throttle, and so forth, while computers and radar detect other boats and decide where to go and what to do.

The ships in August’s test didn’t open fire, but the Navy is getting there—though it says robots will not decide when or whom to attack. “If there is any kind of designation, any kind of targeting,” says Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, Chief of Naval Research, “there is always a human in the loop.” If a boat loses communication with its human captain, who may be halfway around the world, it goes dead in the water.

Fans Are Giving the Best Zelda Game a 2-D Makeover

Mido still blocks the path to The Great Deku Tree, even in 2-D.

With Oculus Rift on the horizon and modern filmmaking techniques infusing gaming, all eyes are on virtual reality and 3-D. But one group of fans is taking a beloved game forward into the past, giving the Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a gloriously old-school 2-D look.

The project uses original graphics and audio along with 2-D Zelda artwork, sprites, animations, and sounds largely taken from Link’s Super Nintendo outing A Link to the Past. It’s still a work in progress—the team estimates it’s 10 percent of the way through—but you can download a playable version of the game’s opening.

Ten percent may not seem like much, but it’s impressive considering the scope and scale of the project, especially for a team with just a handful of people. Ocarina of Time is a huge game, and porting it to 2-D means essentially building a new game from scratch. New cut scenes are being animated, enemy A.I. programmed, and Ocarina’s famous and time-honored songs re-recorded as 16-bit chiptunes.

The 11 Coolest Cars From the Paris Motor Show

Lamborghini may be synonymous with excess, but its latest concept, the Asterion LPI 910-4, shows the Italians do care at least a smudge about fuel efficiency: This charging bull is a plug-in hybrid electric that delivers a remarkable 75 mpg. Lamborghini

Lamborghini may be synonymous with excess, but its latest concept, the Asterion LPI 910-4, shows the Italians do care at least a smudge about fuel efficiency: This charging bull is a plug-in hybrid electric that delivers a remarkable 75 mpg.

Lamborghini

But it’s not exactly restrained. The combination of three electric motors and a naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 engine produces over 900 horsepower, enough to send this hybrid from a standstill to 62 mph in three seconds flat. Lamborghini

But it’s not exactly restrained. The combination of three electric motors and a naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 engine produces over 900 horsepower, enough to send this hybrid from a standstill to 62 mph in three seconds flat.

Lamborghini

Jaguar has been on a roll this past year, putting the terrific F-Type sports car on the market and making us shiver with delight at the resurrected racing version of the iconic E-Type. Now it’s making good on its plans to expand into more segments with the XE, an all-new midsize sedan set to compete with the BMW 3 Series. Jaguar Land Rover

Jaguar has been on a roll this past year, putting the terrific F-Type sports car on the market and making us shiver with delight at the resurrected racing version of the iconic E-Type. Now it’s making good on its plans to expand into more segments with the XE, an all-new midsize sedan set to compete with the BMW 3 Series.

Jaguar Land Rover

The most aerodynamic Jag ever, the XE packs a supercharged 3-liter V6 engine that will send it from 0 to 60 mph in 4.9 seconds. In the event of a collision with a pedestrian, the hood automatically pops up a few millimeters, creating a cushion of air between the relatively soft aluminum and the much harder engine underneath. Jaguar Land Rover

The most aerodynamic Jag ever, the XE packs a supercharged 3-liter V6 engine that will send it from 0 to 60 mph in 4.9 seconds. In the event of a collision with a pedestrian, the hood automatically pops up a few millimeters, creating a cushion of air between the relatively soft aluminum and the much harder engine underneath.

Jaguar Land Rover

France’s Citroen used the home court advantage to reveal one of the craziest we’ve come across in quite a while. Produced for DS, the automaker’s luxury division, the Divine concept will never be built, but comes with a lot of intriguing design details that could make their way onto the road. DS

France’s Citroen used the home court advantage to reveal one of the craziest we’ve come across in quite a while. Produced for DS, the automaker’s luxury division, the Divine concept will never be built, but comes with a lot of intriguing design details that could make their way onto the road.

DS

Don’t expect to see those insane doors on a dealership lot, or the scale-like things (whatever those are) that cover the rear window. But we won’t be surprised if elements of this angular, edgy, near reptilian look creep into production cars, especially since DS plans to double its lineup from three to six models. DS

Don’t expect to see those insane doors on a dealership lot, or the scale-like things (whatever those are) that cover the rear window. But we won’t be surprised if elements of this angular, edgy, near reptilian look creep into production cars, especially since DS plans to double its lineup from three to six models.

DS

With the TT Sportback Concept, Audi fills a niche we didn’t realize needed to be filled. It took the small sports car and made it a bit longer, a bit wider, and added two doors. Audi

With the TT Sportback Concept, Audi fills a niche we didn’t realize needed to be filled. It took the small sports car and made it a bit longer, a bit wider, and added two doors.

Audi

The four door result, which Audi deems a coupe, will hit 60 mph from a standstill in under four seconds, thanks to the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine under the hood, and the Quattro all-wheel drive system. Audi

The four door result, which Audi deems a coupe, will hit 60 mph from a standstill in under four seconds, thanks to the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine under the hood, and the Quattro all-wheel drive system.

Audi

Volvo banks a lot of its reputation on safety, and the renovated XC90 shows the Swedish automaker fully intends to eliminate crash-related deaths in its cars by 2020. The SUV is “semi-autonomous,” and has an industry-first auto brake function that stops drivers from making risky left hand turns. Volvo

Volvo banks a lot of its reputation on safety, and the renovated XC90 shows the Swedish automaker fully intends to eliminate crash-related deaths in its cars by 2020. The SUV is “semi-autonomous,” and has an industry-first auto brake function that stops drivers from making risky left hand turns.

Volvo

Inside the XC90, Volvo focused on infotainment, replacing good old fashioned buttons with a touchscreen. As we see it, this is something of a safety hazard, forcing drivers who want to do things like turn on the air conditioning to take their eyes off the road. Volvo

Inside the XC90, Volvo focused on infotainment, replacing good old fashioned buttons with a touchscreen. As we see it, this is something of a safety hazard, forcing drivers who want to do things like turn on the air conditioning to take their eyes off the road.

Volvo

Just a month after revealing the latest reincarnation of one of the most beloved sports cars ever, Mazda used the Paris Motor Show to tell us the MX-5 (aka the Miata) will be powered by a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, at least in the U.S. Mazda

Just a month after revealing the latest reincarnation of one of the most beloved sports cars ever, Mazda used the Paris Motor Show to tell us the MX-5 (aka the Miata) will be powered by a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, at least in the U.S.

Mazda

We don’t have any specific power production numbers but yet, but Mazda promises “the fun-to-drive essence that only MX-5 can offer.” We’ll know more before the car hits dealerships mid-2015. Mazda

We don’t have any specific power production numbers but yet, but Mazda promises “the fun-to-drive essence that only MX-5 can offer.” We’ll know more before the car hits dealerships mid-2015.

Mazda

The interesting thing about the Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta isn’t the fact that it exists, or that it’s got an open top that will let the sonic boom from the 597-hp V8 engine flood directly into your ear canals. What matters here is that this will likely be the final iteration of the glorious 458, and the end of Ferrari’s devotion to naturally aspirated engines. Ferrari

The interesting thing about the Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta isn’t the fact that it exists, or that it’s got an open top that will let the sonic boom from the 597-hp V8 engine flood directly into your ear canals. What matters here is that this will likely be the final iteration of the glorious 458, and the end of Ferrari’s devotion to naturally aspirated engines.

Ferrari

Ferrari is preparing a successor to the 458, which means those who love the car—which should be everyone with eyes, ears, or a heart bigger than the Grinch’s—should ogle the Aperta all they can. Oh, and it goes from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds flat. Ferrari

Ferrari is preparing a successor to the 458, which means those who love the car—which should be everyone with eyes, ears, or a heart bigger than the Grinch’s—should ogle the Aperta all they can. Oh, and it goes from 0 to 60 mph in three seconds flat.

Ferrari

The Paris show tends to focus on the luxury and supercar segments, so it’s nice to see Nissan putting a good old hot hatch on the floor. Behold the Pulsar Nismo Concept. Nissan

The Paris show tends to focus on the luxury and supercar segments, so it’s nice to see Nissan putting a good old hot hatch on the floor. Behold the Pulsar Nismo Concept.

Nissan

The Nismo version makes the ordinarily staid five-door Pulsar look like a blast, covered in aerodynamic flourishes, sitting lower to the ground, and equipped with a new suspension to keep it going on track day. Nissan

The Nismo version makes the ordinarily staid five-door Pulsar look like a blast, covered in aerodynamic flourishes, sitting lower to the ground, and equipped with a new suspension to keep it going on track day.

Nissan

The automotive public may be focused on hybrids and battery-powered electric vehicles to save them from wallet-crushing gas bills, but Toyota sees another way: Hydrogen. The unimaginatively named Fuel Cell Sedan made its European debut in Paris. Toyota

The automotive public may be focused on hybrids and battery-powered electric vehicles to save them from wallet-crushing gas bills, but Toyota sees another way: Hydrogen. The unimaginatively named Fuel Cell Sedan made its European debut in Paris.

Toyota

The car can drive 300 miles on a full tank of hydrogen, refill in just a few minutes, and the exhaust pumps out nothing but water vapor. But there are downsides the technology: It’s expensive. Hydrogen fuel is hard to find, no cheaper than gas, and its production can produce greenhouse gases, if it’s generated from natural gas. Toyota

The car can drive 300 miles on a full tank of hydrogen, refill in just a few minutes, and the exhaust pumps out nothing but water vapor. But there are downsides the technology: It’s expensive. Hydrogen fuel is hard to find, no cheaper than gas, and its production can produce greenhouse gases, if it’s generated from natural gas.

Toyota

For Paris, Infiniti trotted out the ambitiously named Q80 Inspiration concept. Infiniti

For Paris, Infiniti trotted out the ambitiously named Q80 Inspiration concept.

Infiniti

As a design study, it's superb. Unfortunately, we don't expect the struggling luxury arm of Nissan to make a production car that looks anything like it. Infiniti

As a design study, it's superb. Unfortunately, we don't expect the struggling luxury arm of Nissan to make a production car that looks anything like it.

Infiniti

Two years after buying Ducati, Volkswagen has done something unexpected: It took the motorcycle brand’s 197-bhp V-twin engine, used on the 1199 Superleggara bike, and slapped it under the hood of a car. Thus we have the XL Sport concept. Volkswagen

Two years after buying Ducati, Volkswagen has done something unexpected: It took the motorcycle brand’s 197-bhp V-twin engine, used on the 1199 Superleggara bike, and slapped it under the hood of a car. Thus we have the XL Sport concept.

Volkswagen

That Ducati engine is the world’s most power V-twin. Thanks to the XL’s minimalist and aerodynamic design, it will be enough to send the concept from 0 to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds, and up to a top speed of 168 mph. Volkswagen

That Ducati engine is the world’s most power V-twin. Thanks to the XL’s minimalist and aerodynamic design, it will be enough to send the concept from 0 to 60 mph in 5.7 seconds, and up to a top speed of 168 mph.

Volkswagen