If the snooze button on your alarm clock is your best friend, then we’ve got your dream gig. 

A group of  scientists with the German Aerospace Center is searching for patients (just women at the moment) who are willing to lie in bed for 60 days as part of a NASA-commissioned study. Participants will be compensated with 16,500 euros, the equivalent of about $18,522. 

According to CNN, the experiment is designed to provide  data on how the reduced physical stress experienced by astronauts in space leads to muscular and skeletal breakdown in the human body. The effects of body fluids shifting toward the head will also be observed. 

CNN reports: 

By simulating weightlessness’ effects with bed rest, scientists hope to develop methods to counteract the impacts of weightlessness so that astronauts do not have to spend most of their days on the space station exercising.

The researchers have already created a “short-arm human centrifuge” that generates artificial gravity and corrects the distribution of body fluids. They are hoping to test it out on two-thirds of the study participants each day.

“Crewed spaceflight will continue to be important in the future in order to carry out experiments in microgravity, but we must make it as safe as possible for the astronauts,” says Hansjörg Dittus, executive board member for space research and technology at the German Aerospace Center.

“This bed rest study…offers space researchers from all over Europe and the USA the opportunity to work together and jointly acquire as much scientific knowledge about human physiology as possible.”

Subjects will stay in a bed inclined at 6 degrees with the head positioned downwards. Nutritionists will curate meals, which will occasionally include treats like pancakes. The study will be conducted at the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, Germany, from September to December 2019.

Here’s the catch: Only non-smoking, healthy women between 24 and 55 years of age who speak German will be considered. Right now. They’ll have to experiment on other people one day, too. 

If there’s an easier way to make nearly $19,000, let us know. 

First as a host of the BBC’s Top Gear, which was the world’s most watched factual program reaching hundreds of millions of global fans, and now on the immensely popular The Grand Tour, Richard Hammond lives the life most men dream of; driving the world’s greatest cars, tackling some of Earth’s most beautiful and challenging roads and regions, and getting paid millions of dollars to
do it. 

But there’s been an unfortunate dark side to this dream existence. Cars crash, and cars going fast crash even harder, a truism that has nearly ended the show, as well as Richard Hammond’s life, on more than one occasion. 

Amazon Prime Video’s The Grand Tour retains many of the automotive and comedic aspects of Top Gear, but gives Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May more freedom and control over their show, in addition to a larger budget.

The result has been epic, with humorous adventures in Africa balanced by serious reviews of the top supercars and luxury vehicles of the moment. When Hammond strapped into a jet engine-powered vehicle while filming an episode of Top Gear, it seemed extreme, even for a show that regularly pushed boundaries. 

A few moments after leaving the start line, he lost control of the beastly machine which began tumbling through a grassy field, eventually coming to a stop with Hammond, by sheer luck, alive albeit badly injured; badly enough to put the entire show’s future in jeopardy, which surely must have made him reconsider the risks inherent in filming a show at 200 mph-plus. 

And then in 2017, he was involved in another horrific crash in Switzerland, this time
at the wheel of a $1 million Rimac Concept_ One electric supercar. Failing to slow down enough to navigate a turn he careened down a hillside, narrowly missing a house before bursting into flames. 

His fellow presenters figured they’d just watched their friend die in a fireball; and yet, for the second time, Hammond survived an accident that likely should have killed him. Accepting the risks, Amazon has just picked up the show for a fourth season.

As Hammond, May and Clarkson continue, they’ve tweaked the format, eliminating many of the duller segments and celebrity appearances in exchange for more of the absurd escapades that made them so popular in the first place. 

Season 3, currently on Amazon Prime, features some remote locales that push the presenters out of their comfort zones, both culturally as well as physically, especially as they struggled to cross an immense desert in Mongolia – sans alcohol. 

“It was absolutely horrendous in that sense,” Hammond relates. “Normally we drink heavily and talk utter rubbish to entertain ourselves when we’re not filming. So those two elements – the lack of one, and the presence of the other – were soul-crushing.” 

“The weather was also brutal…. We weren’t properly kitted out, we hadn’t brought the right stuff so we were bloody cold, wet and miserable. It was an endlessly long day with all three of us sharing a car. That’s when I was most irritated: all three of us in a row in this stupid car that they wouldn’t let me drive because they thought I’d crash.” 

Not, perhaps, totally unreasonable, but still….

If you’re going to name a vehicle after a wartime operation, it’d better be tough as hell. 

EPTA Design’s “Desert Storm” Trophy Truck fits the bill. The London-based firm’s off-road concept looks like a cross between the Batmobile and a post-apocalyptic machine from Mad Max. 

A blacked-out body that’s slightly reminiscent of a vintage Mustang sits high on four aggressively-styled metal wheels surrounded by knobby tires. Roof-mounted flood lights suggest that this thing could go for miles in total darkness. The cockpit is heavily protected with metal screens on the windows and what appears to be a hefty roll cage. 

We don’t know what materials EPTA would use to build the 4×4’s shell—Hi Consumption says carbon fiber. Same goes for the Desert Storm’s powertrain, but given its purpose, we’d at least expect a turbo-charged V8, automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive. 

Fingers crossed that EPTA can bring their badass creation to fruition. 

Baselworld 2019 has introduced some fascinating new watches as well as killer variations on familiar collections—like the G-SHOCK GMW-B5000V-1, a gritty take on the stylish GMW-B5000. 

This badass timepiece should stir up a serious sense of adventure.

To achieve that vintage, well-used look which Casio says is representative of G-SHOCK‘s “legacy of timeless toughness,” they applied a “black aged IP treatment”—a special aging process—to the case and the stainless steel band. 

And still it’s got beneath the tough exterior the base of a sophisticated GMW-B5000, which according to Casio is an example of continuing “evolution in an unchanging form.”

Some vital G-SHOCK features include:

• 200-meter water resistance
• Total shock resistance
• Tough Solar power
• Multi-Band 6 radio wave timekeeping 
• Low-power Bluetooth mobile link

Smartphone link functions that come when the watch is hooked into G-SHOCK’s connected app include: automatic time adjustment, easy watch setting, reminder setting, and a phone finder.

Watchonista reviewed the timepiece here. The Full Metal GMW-B5000V will be available in summer 2019 and should go for about $1,000.