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Australian Monster Motorbike

Yeeha! Hope one day I got a chance to see this live. They called this

the Australian monster motorbike from hell. It is build by Ray Baumann,

he claims that it is much safer riding this monster crushing cars than

it was to jump them on a much smaller machine. The monster weighs 130

tons and standing 10 feet tall and there’s no suspension at all, so

don’t fall from the bike, also don’t let the bike fall on you. The

frame comes in upside-down ladder design, with wheels and tires from

Caterpillar. And last, the monster is powered by a Detroit Diesel

engine mated with a 6-speed Allison automatic transmission. More pictures after the jump.

Motor Amphibian

Three decades ago James Bond (then enacted by British star Roger Moore) wowed the world with a car that could 'fly' under water in the movie The Spy Who Loved Me. Only, it was animation and not an actual scene.

But Frank M Rinderknecht, the 52-year-old automobile visionary and boss of Swiss automaker Rinspeed, has turned a dream into reality with his 'sQuba.'

Rinspeed sQuba is the most exciting thing at this year's Geneva Motor Show and is creating many a ripple.

Population by Age and Sex 2008

Midyear Population, by Age and Sex

---------------- --------------- -------------- -------------- ----------- -------- -------- ------ 

Country or area/                                                                                   

 Year/                 Population     Population     Population     Percent  Percent  Percent    Sex 

Age                   both sexes           male         female  both sexes     male   female  ratio 

---------------- --------------- -------------- -------------- ----------- -------- -------- ------ 

 WORLD/2008

Total, all ages    6,706,992,932  3,376,791,855  3,330,201,077       100.0    100.0    100.0  101.4

    0-  4              631,830,670    325,650,877    306,179,793         9.4      9.6      9.2  106.4 

   5-  9              603,252,033    311,221,609    292,030,424         9.0      9.2      8.8  106.6 

   10- 14              597,053,767    307,792,656    289,261,111         8.9      9.1      8.7  106.4 

   15- 19              601,271,944    309,143,400    292,128,544         9.0      9.2      8.8  105.8 

   20- 24              582,319,765    297,873,397    284,446,368         8.7      8.8      8.5  104.7 

   25- 29              536,412,822    273,815,731    262,597,091         8.0      8.1      7.9  104.3

   30- 34              497,152,332    253,358,442    243,793,890         7.4      7.5      7.3  103.9

   35- 39              490,257,604    249,574,789    240,682,815         7.3      7.4      7.2  103.7

   40- 44              446,771,081    225,792,902    220,978,179         6.7      6.7      6.6  102.2

   45- 49              375,195,788    187,509,590    187,686,198         5.6      5.6      5.6   99.9

   50- 54              341,483,006    169,439,247    172,043,759         5.1      5.0      5.2   98.5

   55- 59              282,446,909    138,679,948    143,766,961         4.2      4.1      4.3   96.5

   60- 64              214,089,542    104,130,895    109,958,647         3.2      3.1      3.3   94.7

   65- 69              174,129,418     82,396,707     91,732,711         2.6      2.4      2.8   89.8

   70- 74              137,647,461     62,858,804     74,788,657         2.1      1.9      2.2   84.0

   75- 79               97,620,891     42,067,905     55,552,986         1.5      1.2      1.7   75.7

   80+                  98,057,899     35,484,956     62,572,943         1.5      1.1      1.9   56.7

  ---------------- --------------- -------------- -------------- ----------- -------- -------- ------

 Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base. 

World Population Trends

The page entitled "Total Midyear Population for the World: 1950-2050" presents the latest estimates and projections of world population from the U.S. Census Bureau. These figures are also presented in the figure at left. The world population increased from 3 billion in 1959 to 6 billion by 1999, a doubling that occurred over 40 years. The Census Bureau's latest projections imply that population growth will continue into the 21st century, although more slowly. The world population is projected to grow from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2040, an increase of 50 percent is expected to require 41 years.

The world population growth rate rose from about 1.5 percent per year from 1950-51 to a peak of over 2 percentin the early 1960s due to reductions in mortality. Growth rates thereafter started to decline due to rising age at marriage as well as increasing availability and use of effectivecontraceptive methods. Note that changes in population growth have not always been steady. A dip in the growth rate from1959-1960, for instance, was due to the Great Leap Forward in China. During that time, both natural disasters and decreased agricultural output in the wake of massive social reorganization caused China's death rate to rise sharply and its fertility rate to fall by almost half.

In addition to growth rates, another way to look at population growth is to consider annual changes in the total population. The annual increase in world population peaked at about 88 million in the late 1980s. The peak occurred then, even though annual growth rates were past their peak in the late 1960s, because the world population was higher in the 1980s than in the 1960s.

Historical Estimates of World Population presents estimates of world population from different sources for years up to 1950.