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SUZHOU, China -- Walking through WinSun's show lot in the Suzhou Industrial Park, one gets a glimpse of the past and possible future of building construction. Views from the fifth story of a boxy concrete structure reveal a horizon typical of the outskirts of Chinese cities today: Clusters of construction cranes surround high rises sprouting from rice fields.

Streams of trucks flow to and from these construction sites, carrying in the raw ingredients of China's construction industry -- migrant workers, steel and lots of cement -- and departing with loads of wood scraps and building waste. It's a model that has fueled the largest urbanization and housing boom in history, while also helping pollute China's skies and deplete its natural resources.



WinSun (Chinese name: Yingchuang) says it wants to overturn that model. That boxy concrete structure isn't made of the usual blend of ingredients. It was 3-D printed inside WinSun's factory, using a machine that turns construction waste and digital designs into precisely layered walls. That's a production model that could upend labor markets, housing markets and the entire architectural design process.

Or it could be a gimmick, a publicity ploy based on stolen technology with no real chance of working in the real world. At this point it's hard to tell for sure, and that's part of what makes the emerging world of buildings printed in 3-D so fascinating.

WinSun's 3-D printed structures have attracted equal parts buzz and controversy. The company advertises itself as the breakout innovator in a field that will dramatically reduce building waste and labor inputs. But the academic credited as the founding father of this field says WinSun infringed on his patents, stealing innovative techniques that took him decades to formulate. Developers, architects and researchers remain similarly divided over whether 3-D printed houses are safe, affordable or even desirable.



The company at the center of the controversy got its start as a supplier of construction materials, but made international headlines last year when it unveiled 10 small houses in Shanghai that it had printed in its factory.

In 3-D printing (also known as additive manufacturing) objects are built up layer by layer. A 3-D printer intakes a digital design, and then a moving nozzle deposits successive layers of fast-hardening liquid, with each layer drying before the next layer is set down. 3-D printing allows for greater flexibility in the design and prototyping process, but is usually slower and and more expensive than mass production using molds.

WinSun took the basic concept behind 3-D printing and applied it on a much larger scale, using a cement-like mix of construction waste as the liquid. Structures standing in the WinSun lot bear enlarged hallmarks of 3-D printing -- the walls are composed of hundreds of stacked layers, each about an inch thick and rough to the touch. WinSun says it could smooth out the layers but maintains their original outline to demonstrate the technology.



Clusters of empty and roofless structures abut a more polished mansion with some bare bones furnishings inside. WinSun says the mansion's five-story neighbor is the tallest building ever produced by a 3-D printer, but it has a 100-meter-high tower in the works.

The company says it has already secured orders for its machines from clients in several countries, including a firm that hopes to print out 20,000 affordable houses for the Egyptian government. WinSun won't divulge the names of its clients, but one employee claimed that the relative of a Saudi prince toured the facilities and was considering ordering a mansion.

In marketing its technology, WinSun emphasizes the environmental benefits of reductions in construction materials (30 to 60 percent, according to some estimates). WinSun CEO Ma Yihe says that in the coming years the company will build "dream factories" around the world, using sand and other construction waste as the main ingredients in its liquid. Ma says WinSun has already begun construction on a handful of factories in China and one in Dubai.

"We'll use local materials, build locally and sell locally," Ma told The WorldPost.



Most appealing to Chinese developers is the labor-saving nature of the machines. After three decades in which China's number of migrant laborers reached into the hundreds of millions, recent labor shortages have led to wage hikes. On a recent Friday, Xu Feng, a real estate developer from a neighboring province, wandered the WinSun lot, asking for cost specifications and taking pictures with his iPad.

"Right now the biggest problem in real estate is migrant workers," Xu told The WorldPost. "If this can replace migrant workers, then it'll definitely be the trend of the future. Absolutely."

According to WinSun, the company's 3-D printer is 150 meters long, 10 meters wide and 6.6 meters tall. It can allegedly crank out at least one story of a building each day, and these component pieces are then assembled and stacked on site. WinSun doesn't allow anyone to view its machine or production processes, citing concerns over intellectual property.



Those are precautions Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis didn't take. Khoshnevis, a professor at the University of Southern California, pioneered a 3-D printing technique for concrete known as Contour Crafting. That technique recently won a major award from NASA, and based on video recordings, it appears strikingly similar to techniques employed by WinSun. The similarity is no accident, according to Khoshnevis.

"WinSun basically copied my patents, infringed on my patents," Khoshnevis told The WorldPost.

Khoshnevis says WinSun's CEO approached him in 2013, offering to act as a materials supplier for Khoshnevis' project. Ma visited Khoshnevis' Los Angeles workshop and Khoshnevis saw Ma's company in China.

"He showed me materials and asked me to show him the consistency and all that," says Khoshnevis. "I showed him a lot of things thinking he was going to supply material."

Khoshnevis remains indignant about the incident, but says he isn't pursuing legal action because he believes his technology is years ahead of his rival's. He believes his technology holds massive promise for affordable housing, post-disaster relief and even space colonization.



WinSun's CEO says Khoshnevis isn't pursuing legal action because he has no basis for his claims. Ma says WinSun developed the crucial liquid entirely on its own, and points out that Khoshnevis and his team have yet to build a complete structure.

"I don't know what kind of intellectual property he has and I don't really understand the things he's done because there isn't anything there," Ma told The WorldPost. "What does he have that we could look at? Nothing. What does he have that we could learn from? Nothing. Even if we wanted to learn from his stuff, there'd be no way for us to learn."

Khoshnevis says he has been working on Contour Crafting for 20 years, and he claims that he could have produced WinSun-like structures as early as 2004. But to-date he hasn't been able to complete a full structure because of funding limitations and U.S. liability laws.

"We cannot build a structure out in the field without having a permit from authorities," Khoshnevis explains. "If we build something and some homeless guy goes and lives in there and they have an earthquake, then I would be liable."



Those concerns haven't held back WinSun, and the company's first-mover status has brought huge amounts of publicity. Khoshnevis and some experts in the field maintain that WinSun's structures aren't earthquake resistant, but in January the company's structures received the thumbs-up from the lead engineer at a major state-owned construction company. Ma claims that the companies' first structures already have people living in them.

Those people are "very brave," according to Lei Yu a Harvard-educated architect who now conducts research and produces 3-D printers in Beijing. He argues that major problems exist in maintaining stability between printed layers in the event of an earthquake.




Yu has extensive experience in both architecture and cutting-edge 3-D printing, but he says for now the fields are tangentially related at best. While 3-D printing is helping architects build models to better conceptualize organic and non-linear structures, Yu and other architects say we'll likely see traditional homes put together by robots before we see 3-D printers popping out finished structures.

In the meantime, both Khoshnevis and WinSun are forging ahead. Khoshnevis says he is now forming a company and acquiring the factory space that will allow Contour Crafting to finally produce finished structures. Ma claims he welcomes the competition.

"We hope they'll produce something and give us an opportunity to learn," Ma said. "But so far we haven't seen it and he hasn't contacted us." -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

TORONTO (RNS) Canada's Supreme Court has ruled that a small town in Quebec may not open its council meetings with prayer.

In a unanimous ruling Wednesday (April 15), Canada's highest court ruled that the town of Saguenay can no longer publicly recite a Catholic prayer because it infringes on freedom of conscience and religion.

The case dates back to 2007, when a resident of Saguenay complained about public prayer at City Hall.

Just last year, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legislative bodies such as city councils could begin their meetings with prayer, even if it plainly favors a specific religion.

But the Canadian high court ruled that the country's social mores have "given rise to a concept of neutrality according to which the state must not interfere in religion and beliefs. The state must instead remain neutral in this regard. This neutrality requires that the state neither favor nor hinder any particular belief, and the same holds true for non belief."

The court said a nondenominational prayer is still religious in nature and would exclude nonbelievers.

In 2011, a human rights tribunal in Quebec ordered an end to the prayers and awarded $30,000 in damages to the complainant.

Quebec's Court of Appeals overturned that decision two years later, saying the town imposed no religious views on its citizens.

But the high court ruled that it is the state's "duty to protect every person's freedom of conscience and religion." That means it "may not use its powers in such a way as to promote the participation of certain believers or non-believers in public life to the detriment of others."

The court awarded the complainant $33,500 in damages.

Only hours after the ruling was made public, the city of Ottawa suspended its practice of beginning council meetings with a prayer, saying it needs to review the decision. Other municipalities have also halted the practice, pending a review.

This is what it looks like to stare danger in the face.

Pakistani photographer Atif Saeed captured this incredible image of a lion at a wildlife park outside of Lahore by slowly creeping out of his car's open door. The 38-year-old told NDTV he sat on the ground, "a stone's throw" from the animal, and snapped a couple of photos, but was forced to retreat "within seconds" when the lion noticed him and leapt in his direction.


"The Ghost and the Darkness."

"It was a pretty close encounter," Saeed conceded to ABC News. "I was laughing afterwards at the time, but I don't think I'd ever be able to do something like that again."

Saeed retreated to his car, where we hope he locked the doors.

Saeed took the photo in 2012, though it went viral earlier this month. Saeed shared the photo on Facebook in 2013, titling it "Angry king;" In January of this year, he shared it on 500px, calling it "The Ghost and the Darkness."

It was like a Monty Python moment -- only it was real.

A Buckingham Palace guard slipped and fell during the famous Changing of the Guard last Thursday, giving hundreds of tourists a way more eventful photo op.

We're amused. The Ministry of Defence? Maybe not so much. The Telegraph reported that the department would not comment on "a young man falling over while doing his job."

So there.




H/T Pixable

NEW YORK, April 15 (Reuters) - The Clinton Foundation will limit donations from foreign governments to six countries that already support it, in the wake of Hillary Clinton's decision to become a U.S. presidential candidate, the nonprofit charitable group said in a statement.

The countries are Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom, which fund the foundation's work around the world on climate change and economic development, the statement said, citing a board decision.

The foundation said it would disclose its donors more frequently, publishing the names of new contributors four times a year. Clinton stepped down from the foundation's board on Sunday when she announced she would seek the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen: Editing by Peter Cooney)

UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Reuters) - U.N. special adviser to Yemen Jamal Benomar is planning on stepping down from his job and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is considering appointing a Mauritanian diplomat to the post as the civil war escalates, a U.N. diplomatic source said on Wednesday.
Benomar, a veteran Moroccan diplomat, had recently irked Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations for his handling of so far unsuccessful peace talks between Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen and the Western and Gulf Arab-backed Yemeni government, Western U.N. diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
The Gulf countries, which have been involved in Saudi-led air strikes against Houthi positions in Yemen for three weeks, felt that Benomar was being too accommodating towards the Shi'ite Houthis, the Western diplomats said.
Benomar did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
It was not clear when Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed would take over the post. The U.N. diplomatic source said the appointment had not been confirmed yet and could be still be changed.
A Western diplomat said Ould Cheikh Ahmed was "in the mix" as a candidate, adding that a final decision had not been made. Several diplomats said it had been known for months Benomar wanted to leave the Yemen post.
In January last year Ould Cheikh Ahmed was appointed deputy U.N. special envoy for Libya and then in December was charged with heading the United Nations Ebola response mission, UNMEER.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed has almost three decades of development and aid experience with the United Nations. More recently, he was U.N. resident humanitarian and development coordinator in Syria between 2008 and 2012, and in Yemen from 2012 to 2014.
UNMEER did not have an immediate response to a request for comment from Ould Cheikh Ahmed on the possibility that he may take up the Yemen post.
Western diplomats have repeatedly voiced support for Benomar's peace efforts in Yemen, though they privately acknowledged that Gulf Arab irritation with Benomar has been growing in recent weeks.
Saudi Arabia launched air attacks in Yemen last month as Houthi rebels, who had taken control of the capital Sanaa in September, closed in on the port city of Aden and forced Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to flee to Riyadh.
The Houthis and pro-Saleh army units have been fighting alongside each other on several fronts against militia forces loyal to Hadi. (Reporting by Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

BOSTON (AP) — The defendant's startling admission on Day One that he did it. Tearful testimony from survivors who lost limbs. The boat. The white hat. As the prosecution rests, here's a look at some of the most compelling moments in the government's case against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev:

OPENING STATEMENTS

Tsarnaev's lawyer, Judy Clarke, startled a packed courtroom when she bluntly admitted during opening statements, "It was him." In a strategy designed to save him from the death penalty, Clarke told the jury that Tsarnaev had fallen under the malevolent influence of his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan, who she said had become radicalized and drew his brother into his plan to bomb the marathon.

But prosecutor William Weinreb said the two brothers were equal partners in a plan to "tear people apart and create a bloody spectacle" to retaliate against the U.S. for its wars in Muslim lands. The Tsarnaevs — ethnic Chechens — moved to the U.S. from Russia more than a decade before the bombings.

___

THE SURVIVORS

People who lost limbs in the explosions delivered heart-wrenching testimony about the moments after the explosions. Rebekah Gregory said she looked down at her leg: "My bones were literally laying next to me on the sidewalk and blood was everywhere. ... At that point, I thought that was the day I would die."


Boston Marathon bombing victim, Rebekah Gregory, right, arrived at Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston, where the second day in the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev got underway on March 5, 2015. (Photo by Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Bill Richard, the father of 8-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the second explosion, described making the agonizing decision to leave his mortally wounded son with his wife so he could get help for his 6-year-old daughter, whose leg had been blown off. "I saw a little boy who had his body severely damaged by an explosion, and I just knew from what I saw that there was no chance," Richard said.

Jeff Bauman, who lost both legs in the attack, recalled locking eyes with Tamerlan Tsarnaev just before the first bomb exploded. "He was alone. He wasn't watching the race," Bauman said. Bauman, who gave the FBI a description of Tamerlan from his hospital bed, became a symbol of the attack when he was captured in an Associated Press photograph as he was wheeled away from the bombing scene, ashen-faced and holding onto his ravaged legs.

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THE BOAT

Investigators work, on Saturday, April 20, 2013, near the location in Watertown, Mass., where police captured Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a backyard boat after a wild car chase and gun battle earlier in the day left his older brother dead. (AP Photo/Katie Zezima)

Jurors were taken to South Boston to see the boat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured hiding in four days after the bombings. On the inside walls of the boat, Tsarnaev wrote and carved a note denouncing the U.S. for its actions in Muslim lands. "Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop," he wrote. Jurors also saw more than 100 bullet holes on the sides of the boat, which was fired at by police before Tsarnaev was captured.

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THE WHITE HAT

This Monday, April 15, 2013 photo provided by Bob Leonard shows bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, center right in black hat, and his brother, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, center left in white hat, approximately 10-20 minutes before the blasts that struck the Boston Marathon. (AP Photo/Bob Leonard)

An FBI agent showed jurors the white cap Tsarnaev wore during the attack. In video and still photos released by the FBI three days after the bombings, Tsarnaev was seen wearing a white cap backward. The FBI referred to him as "White Hat" until they learned his identity.



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THE KILLING OF THE POLICE OFFICER

Jurors heard the frantic radio call made by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer who found fellow Officer Sean Collier mortally wounded in his cruiser. "Officer down! Officer down! ... Get on it!" the officer yelled. A medical examiner testified that Collier, 26, was shot three times in the head, including one shot between the eyes. Tsarnaev's lawyer said it was Tamerlan who shot Collier. An MIT graduate student who was riding his bike by the scene around the time of the shooting identified Dzhokhar as the man he saw leaning into Collier's cruiser.


A Ruger pistol, that was shown during the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev federal death penalty trial, is displayed at a conference room at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Tuesday, March 17, 2015. Authorities say the P-95 Ruger was the gun used to kill MIT police officer Sean Collier. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)


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CARJACK VICTIM

Dun Meng testified about a harrowing ride he had with the Tsarnaev brothers the night of April 18, 2013, hours after the FBI publicly released photos of the two men as suspects in the bombings. Meng said he pulled his car to the side of the road to respond to a text message when suddenly a man jumped in, pointed a gun at him and told him to drive. Meng said the man — Tamerlan Tsarnaev — told him he had committed the Boston Marathon bombings. Meng testified that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev later joined them in the car, took his bank card and withdrew $800 from an ATM in Watertown. Meng said he jumped from the car when the brothers stopped to get gas and ran across the street to another gas station. Jurors saw surveillance video of a terrified Meng begging the clerk to call police.


Dun Meng is seen here on a gas station's surveillance camera moments after escaping from Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who had carjacked his Mercedes SUV and stolen money from his bank account at an ATM in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 18, 2013.
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You've heard about all the benefits associated with mindfulness meditation. You want to be involved, establish a practice, and experience those benefits yourself: lowered stress and anxiety; improved emotional regulation; increases in the areas of attention span, focus, and executive functioning. These sound great, but when can you fit it in?

Never.

You don't "fit" mindfulness into your schedule. Rather, you make the time and take the time. You do this because you are just that important to yourself, and to those around you, that you make sure this is a daily practice.

Still can't figure out when it would work for you? Try a few of these suggestions.

Will mornings work for you? Sure, you say, except for the kids and carpooling. Or you just have to watch the morning news and complete the crossword puzzle. And, besides, you're always feeling like you're rushing because you're running late to get wherever you're supposed to be going. How could you meditate in the morning?

• Wake up before the kids do. Find a spot where you can be alone (a closet? a corner of an extra bedroom or home office? how about a corner of the dining room?), set a timer, and give yourself the amount of time that's right for you.



• Don't think of waking up earlier as a punishment, because it's not! You don't have to wake up earlier; you get to wake up earlier to experience the quiet start of a new day. You're blessed that you now have a moment to feel the calm energy of your home around you. Did you ever imagine that you would have this gift of time to appreciate the miracles in the world, like hearing birds sing or seeing dew resting softly on the grass?



• How fortunate are you that you can take a moment to set your intention for the day to come? Maybe you'll want to focus on how you can show people extra appreciation today, or surprise others with an unexpected treat. Maybe you'll decide that today will be a good opportunity to show extra kindness to yourself. You're going to avoid the negative self-talk, and remove yourself from as many pessimistic influences as you possibly can. Sure, you might have to give up a television show, time reading that new novel, or even put aside that new recording you've been wanting to play for yourself. But this is better. This is going to positively impact your entire day, and then your entire life!

Does the night seem to be a better time for you to meditate?

• What can you remove from your regular routine in order to have an opportunity to focus on your breath? That time just before going to bed?



• Is this when you'll find the occasion to clear your mind? Have you thought about, just as you are finishing your mindfulness, taking an extra few minutes to reflect on the positive events that took place within the last 24 hours? Maybe you'll write down the events that really stood out in a positive way, remembering exactly what happened, who said what, how each person responded and how it felt. And, not only how it felt to you then, but how it feels to you now!

And maybe, just maybe, you'll have found a few opportunities during the course of your busy day to notice the smells around you that you'd normally let pass by, the colors on the flowers you didn't even notice yesterday, or the texture of the steering wheel in your car. And that tinkling of the tags on that dog that passes by so often. Do those tags always make that sound? You'd never noticed before! And how lunch tasted today? Superb!

Yes, during the day maybe you'll have stopped, every so often, just to take three deep breaths and focus on the beauty of the world around you. You'll do this because you've realized, finally, that you really are that important. To yourself. And to those around you.

Yes, you will make sure this is a daily practice. May you find peace and goodness, always.

Dr. Wolbe can be contacted via her website, Facebook, or LinkedIn.