Long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad, in her fifth attempt, has successfully swum from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida. She is the first to make the entire 112-mile crossing using neither a shark cage nor a wetsuit, but did use a silicone mask designed to protect her from jellyfish. Her swim took just under 53 hours. One other remarkable aspect of Nyad's accomplishment is that she did this at age 64.
I'm not a big fan of having drones fly around our spacious skies that we have here in America, but I think I've found a drone that I could get used to. Fans at an outdoor rock concert in South Africa were served beer, dropped by parachute from a flying robot, after placing their orders via a smartphone app.
According to Sanford County police, a man rescued from an overturned SUV told firefighters that the person who pulled him out of the vehicle was George Zimmerman, recently acquitted of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. The accident occurred on July 17 at the intersection of Interstate 4 and state route 46, and involved no other vehicles. There were four people in the SUV, two parents and their children. Zimmerman had not seen the crash, but showed up soon afterwards. He and another man were able to get the entire family out of the vehicle before a sheriff's deputy arrived. No injuries were reported.
Austrian adventurer Felix Baumgartner has successfully completed a skydive from a record height of 128,000 feet, which is just over 24 miles. It took him about 10 minutes to descend from his balloon capsule to the ground in New Mexico. Whether he met his other goal of exceeding the speed of sound during the jump has not yet been determined. The height record will not be official until it is confirmed by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale.
Baumgartner's "Capcom" (capsule commander) was none other than the man whose record he broke, retired Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger, now in his eighties, who jumped from an altitude of 102,800 feet (about 19 and 1/2 miles) in 1960.
Baumgartner's feat gives me a chance to revive a label we used during my time at AndRightlySo, and which I certainly mean as a compliment: Badass.
Read more at BBC News, the Telegraph, the Washington Post, USA Today and PopSci. Space.com has this infographic with some technical details. Blogger's video search feature has turned up this record of the jump. During the first few minutes, you can hear the audio from Baumgartner and Col. Kittinger.
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