Top 10 Best Cities To Live In The World

10. Auckland, New Zealand (the city rates 95.7 out of 100)

 

Auckland, which remained capital of New Zealand from 1841 to 1865, has a rating of 95.7/100. Auckland is the largest city of New Zealand with population of 1,397,300. The city not only offers great accommodation solutions but also provides best transportation facilities.

9. Perth, Australia (the city rates 95.9 out of 100)

Perth is the city that hosts exciting events and other cultural activities that attracts people from all over the world. People are mostly attracted towards the Swan valley that is not only worth sightseeing but also worth living. According to Economist Intelligence Unit’s ‘liveable’ study, Perth has a rating of 95.9 out of 100.

 

8. Helsinki, Finland (the city rates 96.0 out of 100)

The capital of Finland, Helsinki is a large city with a population of 602,200 residents and has a rating of 96.0. If you get a chance to visit it during winter then ice-park at railway station is the most attractive place to enjoy.

7. Sydney, Australia (the city rates 96.1 out of 100)

Australia’s largest and oldest city, Sydney offers one of the best education and healthcare facilities and that is why it has a rating of 96.1.

6. Adelaide, Australia (the city rates 96.6 out of 100)

In addition to Perth and Sydney who are considered as one of best livable cities in Australia, Adelaide comes with an overall rating of 96.6 according to ‘liveable’ study. Therefore, it is also declared as one of the best places to live in.

5. Calgary, Canada (the city rates 96.6 out of 100)

Connecting Queen Elizabeth Park to Henrietta Louise Edwards Park, Nellie McClung Park is full of natural beauty and best for walking as well as biking. Having such beautiful attractions and much more Calgary is a city that everyone would love to live in.

4. Toronto, Canada (the city rates 97.2 out of 100)

Toronto, Canada Toronto, the largest city of Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario with rating points of 97.2 is not only a beautiful city with lots of natural beauty and modern architectures but also considered as a popular business hub.

3. Vancouver, Canada (the city rates 97.3 out of 100)

Everyone desires to live in a beautiful and affordable city with all possible facilities. Along with Toronto (97.2) and Calgary (96.6), Vancouver with a rating of 97.3 is another popular city of Canada.

2. Vienna, Austria (the city rates 97.4 out of 100)

Vienna is not only the Capital but also the largest city. A city having buildings of latest architecture along with more than 100 museums is rated 97.4.

1. Melbourne, Australia (the city rates 97.5 out of 100)

Most populated city of Victoria (state) and second most populated city of Australia, Melbourne has an overall rating of 97.5/100 according to the Economist Intelligence Unit global “livability” study. This city offers great accommodation solutions, education facilities and transportation.

The Richest People Of All Time

A look back at the unbelievable wealth of the richest people throughout history:

Arnd Wiegmann/Newscom/RTR-According to Forbes’ most recent rich list, the wealthiest man on earth is Carlos Slim, he of the $69 billion (as of March 2012) Mexican telecom fortune. A staggering net worth, to be sure, but how does it rank when viewed through the lens of history? The folks at CelebrityNetWorth.com recently compiled a list of the richest people that ever lived, gathering a group of well-known luminaries and translating their wealth into today’s "dollars". The rundown features names you know well, though no women, and no tycoons, tyrants or royals who are still alive today. Who, then, was the richest person of all-time?

10. Cornelius Vanderbilt

Net worth: $185 billion
Source of wealth: Shipping, railroads
Lived: 1794-1877
Born in Staten Island, New York City, N.Y., Cornelius Vanderbilt dropped out of school at 11 and started his own New York Harbour ferry service at just 16. From a $100 loan from his mother, the tycoon was able to grow a steamboat and shipping empire so large it left him money to earn an even bigger fortune in railroads. Vanderbilt entered the railroad business later in life, buying up interests in railroads across the northeast United States and Canada. In 1877, at age 82, Vanderbilt died of exhaustion and left behind a lasting legacy, including a university (Vanderbilt) that is named after him, and a great-great-great-grandson, TV host Anderson Cooper.

9. Henry Ford

Net worth: $199 billion
Source of wealth: Auto-mobiles
Lived: 1863-1947
The father of the assembly line, Henry Ford is often mistakenly credited with inventing the automobile, which he did not. Ford did, however, bring the car to the consumer, developing and manufacturing the automobile into a product the public could buy and drive. Ford founded the car company that took his name in 1903, and his family has since presided over a century of auto sales success. Ford’s great-grandson, William Clay Ford, Jr., is the current executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company.

8. Moammar Gadhafi

Net worth: $200 billion
Source of wealth: Oil
Lived: 1942-2011
The man that began a million revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa last year was also stinking rich. Moammar Gadhafi, Libya’s tyrant leader for over four decades, also allegedly used his power to line his pockets as the domineering controller of the country’s plentiful oil fields. Using Libya’s coffers as his bank account, Gaddafi reportedly spent freely, amassing a personal fortune that included real estate and corporate investments all over the world. At the time of his capture and death in 2011, Gadhafi was the richest man on earth.

7. William the Conqueror

Net worth: $229.5 billion
Source of wealth: Royalty
Lived: 1027-1087
A descendant of Vikings, William the Conqueror is remembered for invading and overtaking England in 1066. As Duke of Normandy, William led an army of Norman and French soldiers in the conquest of England. Ten weeks after the invasion was complete, William crowned himself King of England, a title that brought with it exquisite riches he would leave to his sons upon his death. 

6. Mir Osman Ali Khan

Net worth: $230 billion
Source of wealth: Royalty
Lived: 1886-1967
The stories of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam (ruler) of Hyderabad before the state was taken over by India, are the stuff of legend. Reportedly, the ruler of Hyderabad had more than 50 Rolls-Royces, and claimed to use the famous Jacob Diamond as a paperweight in his office. The Nizam was thought to be the richest man in the world, until his reign ended in 1947 with the invasion of Hyderabad. He died 20 years later in 1967.

5. Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov

Net worth: $300 billion
Source of wealth: Royalty
Lived: 1868-1918
The last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II’s reign has not been viewed kindly by historians.  The ruler is often criticized for driving his once powerful nation into economic and military collapse. The son of Emperor Alexander III, Nicholas II (pictured right, with son Alexei) eventually left the throne in 1917, hoping to seek asylum in the UK. He was denied a safe haven in England, and in 1918 Nicholas II and his family were assassinated by Bolshevik revolutionists.

4. Andrew Carnegie

Net worth: $310 billion
Source of wealth: Steel
Lived: 1835-1919
One of America’s most celebrated industrialists, Andrew Carnegie is actually Scottish, born in 1835 in a town called Dunfermline. Carnegie came over to the U.S. as a boy, where he got a job as a steel factory worker. In 1892, the Carnegie Steel Company was created in Pittsburgh, Pa. The company grew and, after Carnegie sold it in 1901, later merged with U.S. Steel, a corporate giant that is still active today. A great philanthropist, Carnegie gave much of his fortune to schools, libraries and universities before his death at 83.

3. John D. Rockefeller

Net worth: $340 billion
Source of wealth: Oil
Lived: 1839-1937
Tycoon John D. Rockefeller brought on a new era of wealth in America, where he nearly monopolized the oil industry in the late 1800s. The famous New Yorker founded the Standard Oil Company in 1870, capitalizing on a time when soaring demand for kerosene and gasoline grew Rockefeller’s fortune. He became so wealthy that he left his company in 1897 and spent the last 40 years of his life retired. In his later days, Rockefeller endowed much of his fortune to schools and medical research, and founded the University of Chicago.

2. The Rothschild Family

Net worth: $350 billion
Source of wealth: Banking
The wealthiest family there ever was, the Rothschilds are a banking dynasty unlike any other, with a total fortune of $350 billion, according recent estimates. While many of the family members are still alive today, the Rothschilds were richest, and perhaps most powerful, in the 1800s, when their fortune was believed to be the largest in the world. The German-Jewish family all but established banking and finance houses in Europe in the late 18th century, and today are said to hold over $1 trillion in real estate and banking assets.

1. Mansa Musa I

Net worth: $400 billion
Source of wealth: Royalty
Lived: 1280-1337 The wealthiest man of all-time died nearly 700 years ago and you may never have heard his name. But where pure fortunes are concerned, there is no person in history that boasts a larger worth than Mansa Musa I, the ruler of the Malian Empire. Mansa Musa I was known as the “king of kings,” the emperor who controlled what is today the nations of Ghana, Timbuktu and Mali. The king’s outlandish wealth came from the Malian Empire’s vast reserves of salt and gold, which serviced as much as half the world at the time. Dazzling African mosques built by Mansa Musa I still stand.

Largest Offshore Wind Farm

A new champion! The builders of the London Array just turned on their 175th turbine, making it the largest offshore wind farm in the world.

World's largest thermal solar plant

World's largest thermal solar plant (377MW) under construction in the Mojave.

The largest concentrating solar power plant (100 MW) in operation is currently in Abu Dhabi, but it won't stay at the top of the list for too long. Brightsource Energy is putting the finishing touches on its massive Ivanpah concentrating solar power (CSP) plant in the Mojave desert, and if all goes well, the switch should be flipped this year.

Implantable Robotic Arm Controlled By Thought

A team of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, say that they have created the world’s first implantable robotic arm controlled by thoughts. Prosthetic leg technology has ad vanced rapidly in the past decade, but prosthetic arms have been much slower to catch up. Since the 1960s, upper limb amputees have been taught to use prostheses that are controlled by electrical impulses in the muscles. Many still have hooks for “hands.” And, the technology for controlling these prostheses really has not evolved to any great extent since then. There are, to be sure, some advanced electric hand prostheses available, but their movements must be preprogrammed. Rehabilitation is slow and frustrating. And, since there’s no sensory feedback, the sense of touch is a greatly missed.

Most standard socket prostheses are attached to the body using a socket tightly fitted on the amputated stump. Many users say that these are uncomfortable and limiting. In order to pick up electrical signals to control a prosthetic arm, electrodes are placed over the skin. The problem is that the signals can change when the skin moves, since the electrodes move to a different position. Signals can also be affected when users sweat, since the resistance on the interface changes.

Max Ortiz Catalan demonstrates how the system works with the aid of electrodes, which capture bio-electric signals from the surface of the arm.

How It Works:
In this research project, the researchers plan to implant the electrodes directly onto the nerves and remaining muscles instead. Since the electrodes are closer to the source and the body acts as protection, the bio-electric signals should become much more stable. By incorporating “osseointegration,” they will anchor the prosthesis directly to the skeleton. This method for anchoring the prosthesis directly to bone, also called the OPRA Implant System, was first developed by Swedish Professor Per-Ingvar Brånemark in the 1960s when he discovered that titanium is not rejected by the body but instead integrates with the surrounding bone tissue.
Osseointegration enables the electrical impulses from the nerves in the arm stump to be captured by a neural interface, sending them to the prosthesis through the titanium implant. These are then decoded by sophisticated algorithms that allow the patient to control the prosthesis using his or her thoughts.
In most prostheses, amputees have only visual or auditory feedback. This means, for example, that users must look at or hear the motors in the prosthesis in order to estimate grip force applied to objects, such as a cup. With the new method, patients receive neural feedback as the electrodes stimulate the neural pathways to the patient’s brain, in the same way as the physiological system. This should allow users to control the prosthesis in a more natural and intuitive way than has been previously possible.
Max Ortiz Catalan, an industrial doctoral student at Chalmers, said, “We have developed a new bidirectional interface with the human body, together with a natural and intuitive control system. Our technology helps amputees to control an artificial limb, in much the same way as their own biological hand or arm, via the person’s own nerves and remaining muscles. This is a huge benefit for both the individual and to society.” (See Figure )
“Many of the patients that we work with have been amputees for more than 10 years, and have almost never thought about moving their missing hand during this time”, explained Catalan. “When they arrived here, they got to test our virtual reality environment or our more advanced prostheses in order to evaluate the decoding algorithms. We placed electrodes on their amputation stumps, and after a few minutes, they were able to control the artificial limbs in ways that they didn’t know they could, most of the times. This made the patients very excited and enthusiastic.”

What’s Next:
After testing the method on a few patients, the researchers expect that they will prove that the technology works and then hope to get enough grants to continue clinical studies and further develop the technology.
Catalan said, “We want to leave the lab and become part of the patients’ everyday life. If the first operations this winter are successful, we will be the first research group in the world to make ‘thought-controlled prostheses’ a reality for patients to use in their daily activities, and not only inside research labs.”

Video of Max Ortiz Catalan demonstrating the hand

The Loudest Creature On Earth

 The tiger pistol shrimp is arguably the loudest creature on earth. This little shrimp is capable of snapping its claw and emitting a sound up to 200 decibels which it uses to stun its prey. This process also creates a little bubble which – for a fraction of a second – is hotter than the surface of the sun at 8,000F (4,426C).

The Tiger Snapping Shrimp may also be called Symbiosis Shrimp and Snapping Shrimp. The body is tan with rust colored broken stripes running across the back. These beneficial shrimp will constantly move gravel making them excellent sand stirrers in the reef aquarium, as well as scavenging any uneaten food.

The sound it makes comes from an appendage on the pincher which moves when the pincher is opened or closed and water is ejected. The Snapping Shrimp can be easily confused with Mantis Shrimp if judged by sound only. Unlike the Mantis Shrimp, it is not harmful and will not pose any threat in the tank, with the possible exception of very small shrimp.

The name Symbiotic Shrimp comes from the equally beneficial relationship the Pistol Shrimp has with gobies (e.g. Amblyeleotris or Stonogobiops). The goby, with better eyesight, warns the shrimp of predators. The shrimp share its food with the goby.

Tiger Snapping Shrimp thrive in environments with sand, rock caves, and dim light. If in pairs, one will often stand guard at the burrow while the other is inside. The Pistol Shrimp are intolerant of copper or high nitrate levels, but need a correct level of iodine in the water to promote proper molting.

Snapping Shrimp will accept any meaty freeze-dried and frozen foods and bottom feeder tablets.

Rotary UPS

A flywheel driven rotary UPS is used for applications requiring ride-through of short duration power system outages, voltage dips, etc. The flywheel driven rotary UPS typically does not include batteries, and support times are usually on the order of a few seconds to a few minutes. The use of a generator driven rotary UPS can provide extended power for an indefinite power outage and also supply air-conditioning and lighting loads. Data processing equipment rooms will typically overheat within a 15- to 30-minute period if the ventilation system is not working, making the generator set a near necessity for outages in excess of this time. Analysis of battery cost will often justify a generator set at lower cost than choosing a long battery support time with an accompanying restriction of eventually implementing an orderly critical load shutdown. A battery support time of as little as a few minutes may be specified with generator set backup; however, longer support times in the range of 15 minutes are more typical.

1) Diesel engine
3) Electromagnetic clutch
6) Synchronous motor /alternator
4) Flywheel


Some of rotary UPS systems consists of an AC Motor Generator (M-G) set with a flywheel, as well as a rectifier, storage batteries, inverter, static switch and solid state circuitry. Both the motor generator set and the rectifier/battery/inverter combination are supplied by the incoming utility service. They represent parallel supply paths and either path is capable of supplying the load. A static switch selects the path to be utilized to supply the load. During normal operation, the M-G set powers the computer loads, while the off-line static section is on "stand-by" and charges the system batteries. Upon loss of the utility feed, the control circuitry will disconnect the M-G set from the utility by opening the static switch and closing the inverter-output circuit breakers, allowing the system batteries to power the M-G set through the inverter. Mechanical energy "stored" in the flywheel allows the M-G set to continue to deliver its full-rated output for (generally) a minimum of 200 milliseconds. This provides sufficient time for the control system to sense a loss of utility supply and to transfer to the battery/inverter combination for supply of loads.