Iconic vehicles from movies and TV shows

Lightning McQueen

Films: "Cars" (2006), "Cars 2" (2011) and "Cars 3" (2017)

The hero of the franchise, this bright red stock car was reportedly named after Pixar animator Glenn McQueen (1960-2002). 

Batmobile

TV series: "Batman" (1966-68)

An iconic adaptation of a popular superhero, the short-lived TV series starring Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin also featured a stylish Batmobile - a modified version of the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car. 

Batman Tumbler Batmobile

Films: "Batman Begins" (2005), "The Dark Knight" (2008) and "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012)

A dark and menacing all-terrain vehicle for a dark and menacing Batman! Driven by Christian Bale, this vehicle is powered by a Chevrolet Corvette V8 5.7 liter petrol engine. 

Lotus Esprit

Film: "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977)

Starring Barbara Bach (L) and Roger Moore (R), the James Bond film featured this Lotus Esprit that could even convert into a submarine.

Aston Martin DB5

Film: "Goldfinger" (1964)

James Bond's (played by Sean Connery) ride in the 1964 film was this Aston Martin DB5 that boasted an ejector seat, machine guns, smoke screen and a futuristic map. 

Vintage racing car

Film: "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968)

In this musical, directed by Ken Hughes, and starring Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Adrian Hall, Heather Ripley and Lionel Jeffries, the flying car's license plate said 'GEN11' that can be read as Genie, meaning it is a magic car. 

1959 Cadillac Ecto-1

Film: "Ghostbusters" (1984)

A converted 1959 Cadillac Ecto-1 was used in the supernatural comedy film.

Volkswagen Beetle

Film: "The Love Bug" (1968)

The comedy film was about the adventures of a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle that was called Herbie.

Monkeemobile

TV series: "The Monkees" (1966-68)

The NBC TV show about the misadventures of a band (Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith, Peter Tork and Davy Jones) featured a customized 1966 Pontiac GTO named the "Monkeemobile." 

1966 Ford Thunderbird

Film: "Thelma & Louise" (1991)

The film focused on the adventures of friends Thelma (Geena Davis, pictured L) and Louise (Susan Sarandon). Both actresses were seen driving this 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible.

The General Lee

TV series: "The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979-85)

Owned by Bo Duke (John Schneider) and Luke Duke (Tom Wopat), the 1969 Dodge Charger was named for Robert E. Lee, an American Civil War general.

Bluesmobile

Film: "The Blues Brothers" (1980)

The 1974 Dodge Monaco that was earlier used as a police car was driven by Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) and 'Joliet' Jake Blues (John Belushi). 

Ford Gran Torino

TV series: "Starsky and Hutch" (1975-79)

The ABC series was about two cops who brought down criminals, driving in their popular red-and-white Ford Torino.

DeLorean DMC-12

Film: "Back to the Future" (1985)

The DeLorean car was used as a time machine that was invented by Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd).

KIIT

TV series: "Knight Rider" (1982–1986)

David Hasselhoff’s character drove this virtually indestructible supercar, named KITT, to fight criminals. It was a customized 1982 Pontiac Firebird.

Chevrolet Lumina

Film: "Days of Thunder" (1990)

Tom Cruise's character Cole Trickle drove this car with number 46 printed on it. 

Mutt Cutts van

Film: "Dumb and Dumber" (1994)

The fur-covered Mutt Cutts van driven by Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) and Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) in the comedy classic was a 1984 Ford Econoline Van.

Bloody Sunday: how the Lord's day was murder in Medieval England

Cambridge University has mapped the murder hot spots of Medieval England

Sunday is traditionally a day of rest, but for 14th century Londoners it could be deadly, according to academics.

Criminologists at Cambridge University trawled through Coroner’s Rolls which document sudden and unnatural deaths between 1300 and 1340 to determine when the capital was at its most murderous.

They discovered the majority of killings took place in London’s busy streets and markets, and one third happened on a Sunday, including six in religious buildings and one by a jealous priest who caught his lover with another man.

Professor Manuel Eisner, who has created an interactive map of the murders, said: “Sunday was the day when people had time to engage in social activities, such as drinking and gaming, which would often trigger frictions that led to assault.

“The events described in the Coroners’ Rolls show weapons were never far away, male honour had to be protected, and conflicts easily got out of hand.

“They give us a detailed picture of how homicide was embedded in the rhythms of urban medieval life.”

Academics trawled through Coroner's rolls of inquests to find the most bloody and violent deaths

Among the more notable killings was that of Thomas of Lynn, who irritated by the sound of late night musician chased him up Cornhill with a wooden bar only to be stabbed to the death by the minstrel in self defence.

Innkeeper Stephen of Lynn was murdered by a sore-loser after winning a backgammon, while

Roger Styward of Hamptone was beaten to death by irate shopkeepers after he threw pungent eel skins on to the ground outside their premises.

Hot spots emerged in Cheapside and near Leadenhall market

Fishmonger William Mysone was stabbed to death by his mistress Isabella Heyron, while Thomas the Baker was pushed down the stairs by a disgruntled employee.

Although the map shows murders occurred across the city, two main homicide ‘hot spots’ emerged, one was the stretch of Cheapside from St Mary-le-Bow church to St Paul’s Cathedral.

The second was further east near streets radiating out from Leadenhall market, the history of which can be traced back to the 14th century.

Around 77 per cent of murders were committed between early evenings, “around the hour of vespers” - between 4pm and 6pm -  and the first hours after curfew around 9pm.

Daggers and swords dominate the list of murder weapons, used in 68 per cent of all cases and thick ‘quarter staff’ poles designed for close combat also accounted for 19 per cent of cases.

Estimates for London populations in the 14th century range from 40,000 to 100,000, which suggests that murder rates were about 15-20 times higher than we would expect to see in a contemporary British town of equivalent size today.

And the records show that death by murder could be a slow process in the 14th century.

“Over 18 per cent of victims survived at least a week after the initial trauma, probably dying eventually from infections or blood loss,” added Prof Eisner.

One saddle-maker who had his fingers cut off by a rival died of his wounds – and consequently became a murder victim – a full three weeks later.

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The “murder map” of medieval London will be made publicly available on Wednesday on the website of the Violence Research Centre at Cambridge University.

How Did We Get to Be Human?

I spoke recently to a scientist who was writing up a summary of what we know about human evolution. He should have had a head start, having written a similar article five years ago.

But when he looked at what he had written then, he realized that little of it was relevant. “I can’t use much of any of it,” he told me.

As a journalist, I can sympathize.

In recent years, scientists have offered a flood of insights into how we became human. Fairly often, the new evidence doesn’t square with what we thought we knew.

Instead, many of these findings demand that researchers ask new questions about the human past, and envision a more complex prehistory.

When Science Times debuted 40 years ago, scientists knew far less about how our ancestors branched off from other apes and evolved into new species, known as hominins.

Back then, the oldest known hominin fossil was a diminutive, small-brained female unearthed in Ethiopia named Lucy. Her species, now known as Australopithecus afarensis, existed from about 3.85 million years ago to about 2.95 million years ago.

Human fossil

Lucy and her kin still had apelike features, like long arms and curved hands. They could walk on the ground, but inefficiently. Running was out of the question.

Hominin evolution appeared to have taken a relatively direct path from her to modern humans. The earliest known members of our genus, Homo, were taller and had long legs for walking and running, as well as much larger brains. Eventually, early Homo gave rise to our own exceptional species, Homo sapiens.

Now, it’s clear that Lucy’s species wasn’t the beginning of our evolution; it was a branch that sprouted midway along the trunk of our family tree. Researchers have found fossils of hominins dating back over six million years. Those vestiges — a leg bone here, a crushed skull there — hint at even more apelike ancestors.

But even the earliest known hominins were like us in one important regard. They appear to have been able to walk on the ground, at least for short distances.

Paleoanthropologists have uncovered a wealth of new fossils from all points on the spectrum of hominin evolution. Some clearly belonged to known species, such as Australopithecus afarensis. Some were so distinct that they deserved a new designation.

But others have fallen somewhere in between. Often they look like mosaics of other species, carrying remarkable combinations of traits. Some of these mosaics may have been the result of interbreeding between species.

But it may be, too, that hominins independently evolved many traits many times, along separate lines of evolution.

All this mixing and experimentation produced as many as 30 different sorts of hominins — that we know of. And one kind did not simply succeed another through history: For millions of years, several sorts of hominins coexisted.

Indeed, our own species shared this planet with near-relatives until just recently.

In 2017, researchers found the oldest known fossils of our species in Morocco, bones dating back about 300,000 years. At that time, Neanderthals also existed. They continued to live across Europe and Asia until 40,000 years ago.

At that time, too, Homo erectus, one of the oldest members of our genus, still clung to existence in what is now Indonesia. The species did not go extinct until at least 143,000 years ago.

Homo erectus and Neanderthals are hardly new to paleoanthropologists. Neanderthals came to light in 1851, and Homo erectus fossils were discovered in the 1890s. But still other hominins, recent research has shown, shared the planet with our own species.

In 2015, researchers unearthed 250,000-year-old fossils in a South African cave. Known as Homo naledi, this new species had a Lucy-sized brain, but it was also a complex structure in ways that resembled our own.

The wrist and other hand bones of Homo naledi were humanlike, while its long, curved fingers seemed more like an ape’s.

While Homo naledi thrived in Africa, another mysterious species could be found on an island now called Flores, in Indonesia. Known as Homo floresiensis, these hominins stood only three feet high and had brains even smaller than that of Homo naledi.

Dr Peter Schmid (R) from The University of Zurich prepare 'Neo', a new found fossil skeleton in the Cradle Of Human Kind area, to be displayed on May 8, 2017 in Maropeng, South Africa. Primitive hominids may have cohabited in Africa with the early modern men, scientists have put forward for the first time, a scenario that further complicates the genealogical tree of the human species. Among others a new skeleton was discovered in one of the chambers, the skeleton was nicknamed 'Neo' by the team, chosen for the Sesotho word meaning 'a gift'. According to Berger 'The skeleton of Neo is one the most complete ever discovered, and technically even more complete than the famous Lucy fossil, given the preservation of the skull and mandible'

The species may have arrived on Flores as early as 700,000 years ago, and these hominins endured until at least 60,000 years ago. Homo floresiensis appears to have made stone tools, perhaps to hunt and butcher the dwarf elephants that once lived on the island.

Paleoanthropologists today are no longer limited to just examining the size and shape of fossils. Over the past 20 years, geneticists have learned how to extract DNA from bones dating back tens of thousands of years.

In one remarkable discovery in Siberia, researchers examining a nondescript pinkie bone discovered the genome of a separate line of hominins, now known as Denisovans.

As it turns out, we have had the planet to ourselves only in the past 40,000 years — a small fraction of Homo sapiens’ existence. Perhaps we outcompeted other species. Maybe they just had bad luck in evolution’s lottery.

But in one way, we are still living with them. Both Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with our ancestors some 60,000 years ago, and billions of people today carry their DNA. Still mosaics, after all this time.