Latest news with #TwentyThousandLeaguesUndertheSea
France 24
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- France 24
Jules Verne: The 'Extraordinary Voyages' of a visionary French writer
France 12:14 Issued on: From the show This week we delve into the life of Jules Verne, one of the world's most widely translated writers. The French author's "Extraordinary Voyages" include "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", "Around the World in Eighty Days" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth". They continue to inspire fans of adventure stories, 120 years after his death in 1905. Many consider Verne to be one of the founding fathers of science fiction, while others see him as a visionary. Those familiar with the man himself speak of a tireless worker, with an unparalleled gift for making his ideas accessible to all and, with the help of his publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel, a creator of imaginary worlds that are still part of the cultural landscape today. We discuss Verne's life and legacy with Jean Verne, his great-grandson; Céline Giton, author of "Jules Verne: an Extraordinary Animal Anthology"; Agnès Marcetteau-Paul, author of "The very curious Jules Verne"; and Pierre Stépanoff, director of the Maison Jules Verne in Amiens.
UPI
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Watch: Shazad Latif is Captain Nemo in 'Nautilus' trailer
1 of 3 | Shazad Latif arrives on the red carpet at the "Star Trek: Discovery" Season 2 premiere in 2019. He will portray Captain Nemo in a new series on AMC. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo May 29 (UPI) -- AMC is previewing Nautilus, its upcoming adventure drama based on the 1869 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, and starring Shazad Latif as Captain Nemo. Nemo is a prince and a prisoner of the East India Mercantile Company who becomes captain of the submarine known as the Nautilus. "He audaciously steals a prototype submarine from the penal colony in which he is imprisoned, escaping into the ocean with a motley crew of fellow prisoners," an official synopsis reads. The trailer released Thursday shows him making the choice to take the submarine. "Nemo plans to reach the fabled Viking treasure buried at the Pillars of Halvar. But first, he must win the trust of his crew and keep out of the clutches of the ruthless East India Mercantile Company, who will do whatever it takes to stop him," the synopsis continues. Nautilus also stars Georgia Flood, Celine Menville, Thierry Fremont, Richard E. Grant, Anna Torv and Noah Taylor. The first pair of episodes premiere June 29 on AMC and AMC+.
Spectator
30-04-2025
- Spectator
The enduring lure of Atlantis
When you picture Atlantis, what do you see? For most people, this mythic city is a classical arcadia sunk beneath the sea – fallen columns, shattered arches and perhaps even an aqueduct. But that is not the place described by Plato, the original source of the Atlantis myth. His version consists of an immense Atlantic island, many millennia older than the Egyptian and Babylonian empires. The popular image of Atlantis was created by Jules Verne in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. When that novel's narrator, Professor Pierre Aronnax, joins Captain Nemo on his underwater exploration, they encounter a ruined city. He notices temples and even 'the floating outline of a Parthenon'. Verne's Greco-Roman scenery has influenced almost all subsequent depictions of the city, right up to Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. But as Damian Le Bas observes: Instead of having the architectural style of a mysterious 11,000-year-old empire, Atlantis looks just like the places its creator, Plato, lived in… It seems to be accidentally admitting that is where the 'lost city' was really born. Le Bas became interested in the myth of Atlantis as a child. He was drawn to the idea of an underwater kingdom which mixed fantastical mermen with futuristic sub-marines. This interest revived as an adult when he began scuba diving after the death of his father. The Drowned Places is an account of a search for the city beneath the waves, an exploration of the lure of sunken settlements and a memoir of overcoming grief. The search is never very serious. Le Bas visits some of the classical candidates that might have inspired Plato's story – Santorini, Helika, Pavlopetri – as well as other well-known underwater cities: Baia, near Naples, and the flooded streets of Port Royal in Jamaica.
Bloomberg
15-04-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Trade Tensions With China Clear Path for Salt-Powered Batteries
The idea of making batteries from sodium has been around for centuries. In Jules Verne's 1870 novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Captain Nemo drives an electric submarine powered by salt. But while researchers have experimented for years with using the cheap, superabundant material for power storage, sodium-ion batteries could never match the energy density of other battery types, particularly lithium-based formulas. Now expanding energy needs and global trade tensions mean the long-overlooked technology is finally breaking through. Born out of founder Colin Wessells' doctoral thesis in 2012, Natron Energy Inc. is among the few companies in the world that mass-produce sodium-ion batteries and is the only one doing it in the US. Its first plant, in Holland, Michigan, opened in April 2024 at a cost of $40 million to retrofit an existing $300 million facility, and is set to produce 600 megawatts of batteries annually by the end of 2025, almost enough to power a city the size of San Diego. The company is lining up funding for an additional $1.4 billion factory in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, that would increase its production capacity by roughly 40 times. Natron says that's needed to meet demand from its customers, which include data centers and cloud computing companies, particularly as artificial intelligence sucks up more and more energy. 'Power demand is going to go through the roof,' says Chief Executive Officer Wendell Brooks.
Gulf Today
26-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
German man sets world record for longest time living underwater
A German aerospace engineer celebrated setting a world record for the longest time living underwater without depressurisation — 120 days in a submerged capsule off the coast of Panama. Rudiger Koch, 59, emerged from his 30-square-metre (320-square-foot) home under the sea in the presence of Guinness World Records adjudicator Susana Reyes. She confirmed that Koch had beaten the record previously held by American Joseph Dituri, who spent 100 days living in an underwater lodge in a Florida lagoon. "It was a great adventure and now it's over there's almost a sense of regret actually. I enjoyed my time here very much," Koch told AFP after leaving the capsule 11 metres (36 feet) under the sea. "It is beautiful when things calm down and it gets dark and the sea is glowing," he said of the view through the portholes. "It is impossible to describe, you have to experience that yourself," he added. To celebrate, Koch toasted with champagne and smoked a cigar before leaping into the Caribbean Sea, where a boat picked him up and took him to dry land for a celebratory party. Koch's capsule had most of the trappings of modern life: a bed, toilet, TV, computer and internet — even an exercise bike. Located some 15 minutes by boat from the coast of northern Panama, it was attached to another chamber perched above the waves by a tube containing a narrow spiral staircase, providing a way down for food and visitors, including a doctor. Solar panels on the surface provided electricity. There was a backup generator, but no shower. Koch had told an AFP journalist who visited him halfway through his endeavor that he hoped it would change the way we think about human life — and where we can settle, even permanently. "What we are trying to do here is prove that the seas are actually a viable environment for human expansion," he said. Four cameras filmed his moves in the capsule — capturing his daily life, monitoring his mental health and providing proof that he never came up to the surface. "We needed witnesses who were monitoring and verifying 24/7 for more than 120 days," Reyes told AFP. The record "is undoubtedly one of the most extravagant" and required "a lot of work," she added. An admirer of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," Koch kept a copy of the 19th century sci-fi classic on his bedside table beneath the waves.
