Unless you are living under a rock, you know that losing weight is all the rage these days. Statistics say that you are either getting in shape yourself or you know someone who is trying to. In some countries, a fourth of all men, and a full third of the women are considered obese. The sedentary nature of our modern work environment and transportation methods is fueling a trend toward obesity and weight problems. This is a serious problem. Research places the financial cost of poor fitness-related illness to 24 billion dollars, while obesity alone costs around 70 million dollars. Is it possible that transportation improvements could contribute to this dilemma?

Children are certainly not exempt from this frightening trend. Skateboards, bicycles and roller blades are replaced by go-carts and Segways. Traditional children’s toys requiring self-propulsion like the pogo stick and the bicycle now have motorized counterparts. Pocket bikes and mini-bikes take the leg work out of riding a bicycle. A little bit less than watered down motorcycles, these bikes require no more caloric expenditure than it takes to turn the wheel to park in front of your favorite ice cream shop.

A team of Harvard economists blames technological advances for obesity, but not in the way that you might think. They proposed a theory that new and varied convenience foods are the culprit. It’s no longer necessary to dig up a few potatoes to make mashed potatoes, just open the box of flakes and stir with some water. Fewer calories are spent to make the meal. Along the same lines, advances in commercial transportation allow these items to make it to our grocery store shelf faster than ever.

The popularity of the Segway shows that Americans are more than comfortable letting machines move them around. Sales of Segways reportedly increase 50% year over year.

Do all advances in personal transportation make us fatter? Some improvements are keeping the physical activity in, like the Trikke for example, a 3-wheeled cambering vehicle that relies on good old-fashioned leg power. It works much like a scooter or bicycle, with better balance and control, and can be propelled without touching the ground.

Popularity: 21% [?]

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India, the second most populated country in the world, crosses the population mark at 1.02 billion people! (Only China has a higher population.) It seems that people are not dissuaded from having large families, even though the cost of living in India is relatively high. To an American, products from India may seem cheap, however the Indian rupee, not the dollar, is the major currency and they don’t go very far in India’s economy today.

Gasoline alone is a little more than 70 times as expensive as gas in the United States. And with the economy of India as it is, the majority of the population can’t afford a can of gas, let alone the car that goes with it. Needless to say, mass transit or “pedal power” has been the way to get around for quite some time.

Imagine, though, if there were a way for a sizeable percentage of the almost one billion people to be able to afford a car. What would that mean for the economy? The average household? Employment rates? The environment? These are some of the many issues dredged up by the introduction of the TATA Nano, an extremely cheap vehicle unveiled in India at the New Delhi Auto Expo.

Later this year, these cars will roll out of the factory ready for consumers in the mainstream Indian population. This four-door, five-seater (if you really squeeze in) hatchback is in the shape of a kidney bean, small in front and wider in back. This helps cut wind shear and allows for cheaper engines. Part of the cost-cutting measures involved questions such as: “Is it necessary to have four brake pads, or can we get by with three?” and “Do we really need [insert car part here]?” It certainly has none of the luxuries Americans seem to require such as a radio, air conditioning, or power windows and steering. However, as one Indian man put it, “it’s faster than a bicycle!” This is the sentiment many Indians may be sharing as they consider the ramifications of adding a vehicle to their household.

But they’re not the only ones considering the cost. Critics of the vehicle are concerned with its impact on the environment. They worry the car could burden already-crowded streets and add enormous amounts of air and noise pollution in the atmosphere, creating an “environmental nightmare.”

Hopefully, with projected pollution levels more than quadrupling in the next 30 years, Indian officials will consider ways to offset the impact. If India’s population continues to increase exponentially, though, that’s certainly a lot of trees to plant. Still, chairman Ratan Tata insists the Nano will release less pollution than motorcycles, meet safety standards, and pass emission standards. And at 50 miles to the gallon, few are thinking about the environmental impact, and instead see the opportunity to trade two wheels for four. But does it really matter if a car gets 50 miles to the gallon when millions of them eventually are added to the roads of India and beyond?

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These days, there seems to be a Guinness World Record for just about everything. From how many hot dogs a person can eat in one sitting to the largest kidney stone ever recorded, records are not only made to be broken, but they are made to be remembered. Transportation, jumping on the Guinness bandwagon, also has its fair share of world class anomalies.

Highest Limousine
Many people may find themselves high the instant they set foot in a limousine, the glitz and the glamour lifting their spirits. But, for those who take a ride in Gary and Shirley Duval’s 1998 creation, spirits aren’t the only thing lifted.

The Duval’s limo is parked in the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest limousine ever made. Measuring 10 feet 11 inches - from the ground to the top - this limo took more than 4,000 hours to build and contains an eight wheel independent suspension system as well as two engines. Sitting atop eight monster truck tires, this limo definitely commands the road, leaving both onlookers and passengers in awe.

Heaviest Car Balanced on a Person’s Head
With the days of people balancing books or buckets of water on their heads apparently over, people now see how heavy of a car they can keep teetered on their skull. No matter how this even came to be a thing - perhaps a double dog dare or an alcohol enlightened moment - the record now belongs to John Evans.

Evans, a man who has balanced everything on his head from people to beer, balanced a 352 pound car on his head on May 24, 1999 in London. A man who is large in size, 343 pounds, Evans also possesses an abnormally large neck; its circumference measures 24 inches. He declares himself a “Professional Head Balancer” by occupation, leaving us to wonder what kind of medical plan his career choice offers.

Longest Tractor Ride
When glancing at a rearview mirror in a car, a person isn’t likely to see a tractor trailing behind them, moseying on down the highway. But, if Vasilii Hazkevich is on the road, this sight might not be so foreign.

Hazkevich holds the world record for most miles traveled by tractor. Covering 13,172 miles across Vladimir, Russia on an unmodified tractor, Hazkevich’s journey began on April 25, 2006 and ended that following August. We aren’t sure just how fast the tractor went, but chances are no speeding tickets were handed out.

Largest Pedal-Powered Vehicle
The folks at Guinness World Records probably look at tandem bikes and even three or four person bikes and laugh, rolling their eyes and muttering, “Amateurs.” They have something better: a bike that holds 82 riders, or, in bicycle terms, 164 legs and 164 feet.

Built in Sweden by the Hägglunds Marine Septoped Sällskap, this bicycle took to the streets on September 3, 2005. Seemingly designed for a caterpillar, this bike allows entire families (both sides) and entire businesses to ride their bikes together. Now, all it needs is 82 baskets and 82 bells and, perhaps, 82 decks of cards to put inside the wheel spokes.

Largest Motorcycle
Motorcycles may seem dangerous, after all they are tiny and anything tiny is no match for a large car or truck. That notion dispelled, Gregory Dunham built a motorcycle that makes even the largest automobiles look like match box cars.

Measuring 11 feet three inches high, and weighing 6,500 pounds, this motorcycle requires both a helmet, and a ladder.

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Many automobile companies have spend millions of dollars each year in research and development of more efficient fuel consumption for cars. Each year more and more cars are rolled out the production plants and there is an urgent call by consumers and environmental groups to reduce the fuel consumption of automobiles.

With the increasing cost of fuel and the environmental concerns regarding harmful emissions of toxic gases into our atmosphere, automobile companies are forced to developed radically different types of cars. One of which is the hybrid car

A hybrid is powered by conventional fuel as well as uses electric energy. Hybrid cars have lower fuel consumption and are more environmentally friendly.

All hybrid cars are powered by two engines : a gasoline engine and a electric engine. Typically, they work in tandem with each other. The gasoline engine is used during starting and stopping the car. Once the car is travelling at a certain speed, the electric engine will take over automatically.

In the current market, there are 2 types of hybrid car. The first type is the series. Typically, the gasoline engine is used to start and stop the car. Once the hybrid car has attained a certain speed, the electric engine will take over. The gasoline engine is also used to charge the electric engine’s batteries. As you can see, both engines are used in tandem with each other but never together.

The second type is called the parallels. It has the same physical configuration of the series hybrid however the operation is quite different. Both the electric engine and the gasoline engine can be used to start and stop the car. The electric engine is used to boost the power of the car when required. Parallel hybrid cars are more suited for long distance travelling.

Usually, hybrid cars are built using very lightweight materials in order to reduce the load on the hybrid car when travelling. This help to save fuel by requiring less energy to move the vehicle. The tires are made more rigid than conventional vehicles with higher tire pressure to increase fuel efficiency.

In on whole, a hybrid car consumes 50 to 60 percent less fuel than a conventional car. The only obstacle is the high cost at the present moment but I am sure as consumers start to recognize the benefits of hybrid car, the prices will start falling and become more affordable.

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Citizens of the German town of Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (wow) could be forgiven for peering out of their windows last November. Why were they staring? The worlds largest beer keg was being paraded through the streets.

The keg, which weighed 200-tons and was contained in a super-oversized barrel-like structure was actually a supersize spectrometer en route to the nearby city of Karlsruhe. There, it will play a critical role in a joint European and American experiment called KATRIN, designed to measure the mass of a neutrino, the elusive “ghost particle”, which is found abundantly throughout the universe.

Although the spectrometer was manufactured just 200 miles from its destination, it was just too big to be transported on the highway and instead it made a two-month journey down the Danube River to the Black Sea, across the Mediterranean, through the Strait of Gibraltar, north to the English Channel, up the Rhine River to Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen (god I hope I never have to type that again), and overland to Karlsruhe. A slow haul for a machine that will detect particles that normally move at nearly the speed of light.

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About five years ago, super-engineer Steve Fambro realized that up to 70% of the total power that it takes to run a vehicle goes into dispersing air from it’s front side. With that in mind, he stripped the car’s exterior design of everything inessential and asked: What shape offers the lowest drag, and the most flexibility. The design would have been much easier had Steve decided not to include space for two passengers.

His answer is this teardrop-shaped three-wheeler, which has the drag coefficient of just 0.11. In comparison, the eco-friendly Toyota Prius has a relatively parachute-like coefficient of 0.26. High strength composites drop the weight to roughly 1,400 pounds, and an electric motor combined with a one-cylinder engine that powers this futuristic beauty.

The resulting commuter pod, the Aptera, will chug one gallon of regular unleaded gas for every 300 miles driven. Once production starts late this year, prospective drivers might need a motorcycle license, approximately $30,000, and a West Coast address - initially. The Aptera will only be available in California. But look for eco-friendly people everywhere to ramp the car into a possible national production model by late 2010.

Wondering about the speed? Of course you are. The aptly named Aptera will travel 0 to 10 in just under 10 seconds and it tops out at about 95 mph. To protect passengers that are used to driving on four wheels, the Aptera also boasts a roll-cage design similar to that of an F1 Racecar. Not bad!

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