Video: Zbrush Sculpt - Demon Warrior

Thanks for all the great interest in this piece! To clear a few things up:

1) I am a sculptor with no real background in 3D modeling. I’ve been dabbling with digital sculpting in Zbrush and some minor modeling in other programs. I’m trying to learn as I go.
2) I know that in it’s current form it’s probably not ready for inclusion in any game. I just did this for fun. Read more …

Biofuels Not So Friendly to Gulf of Mexico

The push to ramp up biofuel production may reduce oil imports, but it’s likely to come at a high environmental cost: It will boost the size of the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, a huge swath so depleted of oxygen that almost nothing can live there, according to a new analysis.

The gulf’s dead zone is already a major environmental problem. First spotted in 1971, it now spans 14,600 square kilometers, or 1,460,000 hectares, a region larger than Connecticut. It is triggered every spring and summer when nutrient-rich water flows from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers into the Gulf of Mexico. The nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorus, come primarily from fertilizer washed off of farms throughout the Midwest. They trigger blooms of algae that then die and are eaten by bacteria. The bacteria use up most of the water’s dissolved oxygen, killing fish, shrimp, crabs, and other organisms. Read more …

Filmmaker Circles “Atlantis” Adaptation

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

Writer-director Joby Harold is negotiating to write the adaptation of the comic book “Atlantis Rising” for DreamWorks.

Len Wiseman (”Live Free or Die Hard”) is attached to direct the apocalyptic science fiction project.

In “Atlantis,” an underworld civilization is discovered after seismic rumbles announce its presence. Hostilities with Earth’s land-dwellers ensue.

“In all the classic versions of this kind of movie, the threat is always from the stars,” said Roberto Orci, who will produce with his “Transformers” partner Alex Kurtzman.

“The idea that it’s somehow our cousins who went off in a different path of evolution who have been here, literally, underneath our oceans. … That’s fascinating, the idea of secrets right under your nose.” Read more …

Real Dragon Fossils on Display in China

Some fossils, named the “China dragon fossils”, were recently exhibited in the Xinwei Ancient Life Fossils Museum in Anshun, Guizhou. When archeologists first stripped the clay off the fossil, they found the dragon had a pair of horns above its head and the shape of the dragon was very like the legendary animal often described in books and stories.

Dragons have often appeared in Chinese legends. The dragon with two horns on its head is regarded as a totem. The totem was first invented by Chinese ancestors and worshipped by the Chinese people. Therefore Chinese people are also called the “descendents of the dragon”. For a long time, scientists thought that the dragon was a fictional animal existing only in stories. Read more …

All Men are from Mars… and Women …

Author Heather Couper believes Martian meteorites may have seeded life on Earth billions of years ago.

She said: “Mars is closer to the solar system’s asteroid belt than us and must have been hit by many more impacts. Some collisions blasted bits of Mars into space which circled the sun and fell to Earth as meteorites.

“So it is possible life began on Mars and spread to Earth thanks to cosmic collisions. It means we could all be Martians.” Read more …

Increible Parrot Mimics Owner to Boss Other Pets

Barney, an African Grey Parrot, calls Margaret Sullivan’s three dogs – Harry, Tilly and Bluey – by name. The bird, 10, squawks out orders like “come here” and even offers praise to his favourites such as “good dog”. Mrs Sullivan, 65, who lives in Tredworth, Gloucestershire, with partner Ken Kersey, 62, admitted that Barney has a “very high opinion of himself”.

She said: “Barney’s a really bossy parrot. He even chats back at me and swears when I’m talking sometimes – he’s so cheeky. “He’s always tried to learn how to speak in my voice but he has got better and better at it ever since I bought him. Read more …

Mistery of Viking Steel Imported From Afghanistan

Boffins at the UK’s famous National Physical Laboratory (NPL) - birthplace of the Dambusters’ bouncing bomb and perhaps the internet - say they have used an electron microscope to analyse Viking swords. In a surprise twist, it turns out that the old-time Scandinavian pests, many of whom moved to England to become our ancestors, actually imported their best steel from Afghanistan.

“Sword making in Viking times was important work,” says Dr Alan Williams, a top archaeometallurgist at the Wallace Collection, a London-based museum of objets d’art which has a massive array of old arms and armour.