Engineers inspired by octopus silent propulsion system

A team of German scientists develop a silent propulsion system for boats and submarines based on the natural movement of octopuses. 

In 1870 Jules Verne described the Nautilus as "a masterpiece containing masterpieces". Verne, an advanced mind for his era, was no stranger to coming up with fictitious ideas that will later on become a reality - From the Earth to the Moon, 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea. A team of German scientist from the Fraunhofer Institute have recently unveiled a Vernesque nautical propulsion system based on the cephalopods rocketry movement. Octopuses, like other cephalopods, can move around by using its tentacles as legs; but when a rapid movement is required, they can eject a jet of water from their mantle through the siphon for a short burst in order to escape from any peril.

This development of natural evolution has been the inspiration behind the latest water propulsion system designed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation in Stuttgart, Germany. Among the many novelties in this prototype, is the possibility of being 3D printed in a single step. A set of four artificial mantles (elastic balls) replicate the cephalopods movement by filling up with water through a recirculation valve and then internal cables work as the muscle fibers by contracting when activated by the piston, ejecting the fluid through the steerable siphon. The prototype currently fits in a medium fish tank, but it can be scaled up to reproduce elastic mantles of up to two meters in diameter. This would allow for boats, submarines and recreational ships to be propelled by this system. The innovation has many benefits when compared with the current bladed propeller methods: 1. It represents zero danger to sea life because it has no bladed parts that can cut and kill animal life. 2. It does not need any rotating part, therefore it is much more silent than any diesel engine or gas turbine. This could potentially revolutionize stealth vessels. 3. The reduced complexity of the system makes it easier and cheaper to maintain due to the lack of many rotating parts. There are currently other similar ideas to the replication of the octopus propulsion system, but this is the first one fully built with a 3D printer. As of now, the invention is still in its prototype stage, and it will take years before this revolutionary system is present in the market. However, as more players join the competition, the development towards a certified product will move faster.

Golden mystery: Ship carrying precious ore vanishes in Sea of Okhotsk

Cargo carrier Amurskoe disappeared in the Sea of Okhotsk while carrying 700 tons of gold ore. 

Three ships, an amphibious aircraft and a helicopter are undertaking search and rescue operations to find the eight crewmembers of the lost vessel.

­A sonar distress beacon was automatically activated near Feklistov Island in the Shantarsk Archipelago on Sunday, Russia’s Emergency Ministry reported.

The tanker Novik was the first to arrive at the scene, but found no wreckage or survivors. The rescue operation was complicated by severe weather, and waves up to four meters high.

A specially equipped Be-200 amphibious aircraft was dispatched from the city of Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East region to join the operation, but the rescue plane found no trace of the Amurskoe.

By nightfall, the aircraft was forced to return home. The severe weather prevented smaller planes from joining the rescue mission.

The operation continued on Monday morning, with a Mi-8 helicopter and two trawler ships joining the search.

The Amurskoe departed the village of Neran in Russia’s Far East Khabarovsk territory, and was headed toward the port of Okhotsk in the Sea of Okhotsk. After leaving the delta of the Kiran River, the vessel entered the Sea of Okhotsk and sent out a distress signal soon after.

The Amurskoe was built in 1973 in the port of Nikolaevsk-na-Amure. Over the last year, it mainly operated in Russia’s Far East and around Sakhalin Island, and also reportedly made sporadic trips to China.

The vessel was grounded on the bottom of an estuary of the Amur River last year, but was later rescued.

Little hope remains that the Amurskoe's distress beacon was somehow washed overboard and activated, and that the ship is still traveling towards its destination.

The Sea of Okhotsk is situated in the northwestern Pacific – between Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kuril Islands to the east, the large island of Sakhalin and the eastern coast of Siberia to the west and north, and the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the south.

Chinese ships breach Japan’s naval border

Chinese patrol ship Haijian

Six Chinese ships entered Japanese waters near a group of disputed islets claimed by both Beijing and Tokyo early on Friday, ignoring the Japanese coast guard's orders to vacate its territorial waters.

­The first two ships in the battalion entered the disputed waters at around 21:20 GMT on Thursday. After a few hours of “patrolling,” three of the ships have left the disputed waters, while another three stayed, local media reported.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that six of its surveillance ships had entered the waters near the islands.

So far, Japanese border patrol ships have not taken any active measures against the Chinese vessels.

“The patrol activity is intended to demonstrate the jurisdiction of the Chinese government over the Diaoyu Islands and the adjacent islands, and also to protect the country’s naval interests,” the statement reads.

Japan has created a crisis headquarters in response to the incident. The country's officials urgently summoned the Chinese Ambassador to a meeting with the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

This is the latest in a series of diplomatic rows between China and Japan centered on control of the Senkaku, or Diaoyu in Mandarin, islands.

On Tuesday, Japan announced it had purchased the islands from a private owner, ignoring Chinese territorial claims. Following the announcement, two ships from the China Marine Surveillance were dispatched to the tiny archipelago in the South China Sea “to assert the country’s sovereignty.”

At that time, however, the vessels did not come within 12 nautical miles of the islands, an area Japan considers its territorial waters.

Chinese smash Japanese cars in protest

­Meanwhile, the nationalistic spirit has taken a hold in China. Blogs and forums have been throbbing with discussion over various protests against the Japanese repatriation of the disputed islands.

In Shanghai, an angry man was said to have driven his Honda Civic to a local dealership and set the vehicle ablaze. In Shenzhen, several Japanese-made cars have been smashed.

The tourist industry is reacting as well by canceling plans to visit Japan in early October, when China celebrates its National Day. A couple in Kunming told the state-run Xinhua news agency that they had canceled a wedding photo shoot because the studio couldn’t meet their demand to take their pictures with cameras not made by Japanese companies, reports the Los Angeles Times. Many Chinese celebrities and politicians are refusing to travel to Japan.

On Wednesday, a crowd of people demonstrated outside the Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai; and about 60 people rallied outside Japan's Interchange Association, Japan's de facto embassy in Taipei, to protest the nationalization move, as Taiwan also lays claim to the islands.

Recently, Chinese state media began broadcasting weather reports for the islands for the first time.

US deploying warships to Libyan coast

USS McFaul Guided Missile Destroyer

American officials have said that the Pentagon is sending two warships toward the coast of Libya, the Associated Press reports. Earlier, the US announced it was sending 50 Marines to Libya to reinforce security at American diplomatic facilities.

The move comes in the aftermath of an attack on US the consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi that killed the US ambassador to Libya and three members of his staff.

The USS Laboon moved to a position off the coast Wednesday, and the USS McFaul is en route to arrive to its destination within days. Sources say that the vessels are equipped with Tomahawk missiles but are not scheduled for deployment yet, giving the commanders flexibility to respond to any mission ordered by President Obama.

The destroyers have crews totaling about 300.  American drones also were expected to join the hunt for potential targets. They would be part of "a stepped-up, more focused search" for a specific insurgent cell that may have been behind the attack, the official told the CNN.

“The United States military regularly takes precautionary steps when potential contingencies might arise in a given situation,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said, without commenting on specific ship movements.

The drones are expected to survey militant encampments over the North African country before handing over the information to the Libyan leadership to strike any targets.

Earlier, a special task force of 50 Marines group known as a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team was deployed to the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

The attack on the Benghazi consulate that left US ambassador and three his staff members dead, forcing American embassies across the globe to tighten their security.

Meanwhile, protests over the American-made film satirizing the Prophet Muhammad are continuing and widening. Cairo saw a second night of clashes with police using tear gas against an angry crowd of protesters who threw stones and petrol bombs.

Russia’s biggest assault landing ship to be auctioned - report

The Russian Navy is reportedly prepared to sell one of its biggest landing crafts for scrap, since modernizing costs the vessel would cost too much. The massive seaborne assault operations it was intended for never happened.

­“Modernization of the landing ship ‘Mitrofan Moskalenko’ has been considered unpractical for economic reasons, also the ship is morally and physically outdated,” a source in Russian Navy told the Izvestia newspaper. “The cost of its modernization is equal to construction of at least two small artillery ships.”

“Also, [the] ship’s necessity is questionable from a strategic point of view. Russia does not plan to land seaborne troops anywhere,” the source said.

The Soviet-built naval line, known collectively as ‘Project 1174,’ entered service in 1991 in the Northern Fleet. Each ship can provide sea transport and landing for up to 50 tanks (or 80 armored vehicles, or 120 trucks) and 500 marines. They can also carry four Ka-29 transport-combat helicopters, air defense missiles and volley-fire rocket systems to support landing operations.

The USSR constructed three such ships in total. The first ship of Project 1174, the ‘Ivan Rogov,’ entered service in 1978 and was the namesake of NATO’s classification scheme for the series. It was scrapped in 1996. The second, the Aleksandr Nikolaev, was built in 1982 and is now in conservation. The third, the Mitrofan Moskalenko, has remained docked for most of its life and was put into conservation in 2002.

As of now, all of Russia’s landing ships were made during the Soviet era, and are no longer useful. By the next decade, they will all likely be scrapped, naval expert Andrey Frolov told Ivestia.

“In such a way the Russian Navy’s capability to conduct massive assault sea-born operations outside the country will be very seriously limited,” Frolov said.

To speed up modernization of the Russian Navy, Moscow has ordered two French-made Mistral-class helicopter aircraft carriers, and is preparing to build two more in Russian shipyards.

A series of six large modern landing ships ‘Ivan Gren’ (Project 11711) have been launched to replace the outdated Soviet-made ships, including the Mitrofan Moskalenko.

The first vessel in the series, the ‘Ivan Gren’, was put to sea on May 18, 2012. It is expected to enter service next year.

Most of the Russian Navy’s new landing vessels are either in construction, or in the design phase, which leaves many experts doubting the stated purpose behind the decommissioning of the two remaining large landing ships.

“Ships of the Mitrofan Moskalenko series are notably universal and their characteristics are not only comparable to the Mistral-class ships, but in many ways exceed them,” a naval expert told the Interfax news agency. Unlike Mistral-class ships, Project 11711 ships can deploy troops directly on to shore.

Izvestia newspaper claimed that the maximum amount the Russian Navy could hope to earn from auctioning off the Mitrofan Moskalenko is $2.5 million, the price of the 11,500 tons of steel the ship is made of.

Mad Mullah Republic of Iran plans to deploy warships off US coast

Iran says it will counter US presence in its waters by sending ships TARGETS ! to the international waters off the US coast, says Iranian Navy chief Admiral Sayyari.

No specifics were mentioned, but during an interview broadcast on state TV, Sayyari said the plans were aimed for “the next few years.”

In the past two years Iran has broadened the range of its navy, sending ships to the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Sayyari did not deny that the proposed measure was a response to the increase in the number of US vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil passageway off the coast of Iran, which Tehran previously threatened to shut off.

“We will not allow anyone to trespass our country’s waters. There is no need for anyone else to establish security in our region,” said Sayyari.

The US Fifth Fleet is currently located in Bahrain, on the southern coast of the Strait of Hormuz.

More than a third of all the seaborne oil in the world passes through the narrow waterway.

Due to US and EU-led sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which the West suspects of covertly developing nuclear weapons, Iran’s export of oil has halved in the past year.

Financial data company Bloomberg reports that the country is missing out on $130 million a day in lost sales as a result.

In response to the sanctions, Tehran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz. A majority of Iranian parliamentarians voted in favor of the blockade in July, and although the vote was seen as largely symbolic, the option is still on the table.

The US then upped its presence, and currently has two aircraft carriers in the region, also scheduling extensive war games for later this month.

Iranian high command has previously claimed that it will send its ships towards the US, but the threats have not yet resulted in actions.

Tension between the two countries are at a high, as speculation mounts that Washington’s close ally Israel may carry out a (possibly US-supported) strike on Iran to derail its incipient nuclear program.