It doesn’t look like it, but this is the most powerful computer in the world.

IBM’s Blue Gene/L operates at an enormous 280 teraFLOPS. This means that it can carry out 280,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second (calculations of the form ax=b); making it more than 100,000 times more powerful than the most powerful modern home computers. You can find more pictures of Blue Gene/L at the IBM website.

The UK’s most powerful computer is the Atomic Weapons Establishment‘s LARCH supercomputer which clocks in at 32 teraFLOPS; unfortunately most of the details of what it actually does with all that computing power are classified.

If you point an infrared remote control at a cameraphone or digital camera whilst one of the buttons is held down you’ll notice an odd effect: your eyes will see nothing different but the camera will pick up a purplely glow:

This is because the CCD (the “eye”) that the camera uses is sensitive to infrared light; whereas the human eye is not. The camera sees a type of light that your eye cannot.

Kameraflage is a special ink that only reflects infrared light. This enables designers to create clothes, posters etc. that show one thing to the naked eye and something completely different to digital cameras.

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Okay. I was wrong. This is the stupidest-looking animal ever.

Cranchia scabra can pull its head and arms inside its body to make itself into a ball to deter predators.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously. I am not making this up. This is a real animal.

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