[Via Medgadget]
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Prosthetic-limbed runner disqualified from Olympics
[Via Medgadget]
Nanotubes Form The Darkest Material Yet Created
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 17, @03:08AM
from the none-more-black dept.
from the none-more-black dept.
toxcspdrmn writes "Bad news for Spinal Tap fans. The BBC reports that researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, have produced the darkest known material by manufacturing "forests" of carbon nanotubes. This forms a surface that absorbs or scatters 99.9% of all incidental light."
Monkeys Thoughts Make Robot Walk
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 16, @08:42PM
from the surrender-now dept.
from the surrender-now dept.
geekbits writes "For all those who have at one time or another been too lazy to get up off the couch and go to the fridge and get a beer, heat up some pizza, or change the channel when the remote is missing, we may be one step closer to being able to keep our tushes parked just a little while longer. There may also be some slightly more noble implications here. According to an article in The New York Times, in an experiment at Duke University, a 12-pound, 32-inch monkey made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity. She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan."
Panasonic's EVOLTA: "the longest lasting AA battery cell in the world"
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Modeling Urban Panic
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 14, @04:44PM
from the godzilla-disappointed dept.
from the godzilla-disappointed dept.
Schneier is reporting that Arizona State University's Paul Torrens has been developing a computer simulation to model urban panic. "The goal of this project is to develop a reusable and behaviorally founded computer model of pedestrian movement and crowd behavior amid dense urban environments, to serve as a test-bed for experimentation." The simulation tests behaviors from how a crowd flees from a burning car to how a pathogen might be transmitted through a mobile pedestrian over time among others.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Ford Claims Ownership Of Your Pictures
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 14, @01:47PM
from the like-a-child-shouting-MINE dept.
from the like-a-child-shouting-MINE dept.
Mike Rogers writes "In a move that can only be described as 'Copyright Insanity', Ford Motor Company now claims that they hold the rights to any image of a Ford vehicle, even if it's a picture you took of your own car. The Black Mustang Club wanted to put together a calendar featuring member's cars and print it through CafePress, but an attorney from Ford nixed the project, stating that the calendar pics and 'anything with one of (member's) cars in it infringes on Ford's trademarks which include the use of images of their vehicles.' Does Ford have the right to prevent you from printing images of a car you own?"
Shiny crops for a bright and shiny future?
I look on the changes to the Earth's climate like a recipe gone haywire. We have messed up royally and now the race is on to limit the damage and restore our climate to something resembling normal. It's hard. All these destructive greenhouse gases, that we fight to reduce with endless protocols and international carbon emission limits and deadlines, just keep on increasing. It's scary. To effectively stop the climate crisis, we need to bring carbon emissions down to zero within the next 2 decades. Or we need to find other ways to restore the balance as fast as we can.
First, those desperate scientists came up with space mirrors to reduce the amount of solar energy zapping our planet. Now, 2 years later, they're talking about shiny trees. Fields of shiny crops, say those in the know, could send more of the sun's heat back into space, and even reverse temperature rises in parts of the world. We could even reduce local day time temperatures by as much as 1.9C. Which might go down well in the Sahara but I'm not too sure about England getting any cooler.
I wonder what's next. Perhaps we could start growing already-tinselled Christmas trees? The mind boggles.
Judge to Navy: no pinging near the whales
Times are a changin'. Resulting from a court case between the US Navy and the Natural Resources Defense Council, a federal judge has ordered the Navy to respect sea animals when running their sonar training exercises off the coast of Southern California. To the benefit of whales and dolphins, the Navy is restricted from using their medium-range sonar within 12 miles of the coast. Not only that, but if whales or porpoises are spotted within 2,200 yards of the sonar vessels, exercises must undergo a mandatory shutdown.Apparently, the sonar blasts have been shown to disorient whales and dolphins, messing with their minds and such. In the judge's ruling, she outlines an entire regimen to safeguard against disturbing the sea creatures. One measure includes having airborne lookouts spotting for dolphins during the exercises -- perhaps a little over the top.
The Navy contends that these exercises are a matter of necessity, since silent submarines technology has become the norm. While this is a momentary win for the environment, Navy and Pentagon officials are saying it's a loss for national security -- and it will most likely be appealed.
Toyota announces plug-in hybrid for 2010
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The top 10 environmental revelations of 2007
So, 2007 has come and gone and we're on to bigger and better things in 2008. I wonder what we're all in store for this year as far as the environment and new discoveries are concerned? Looking back at last year there were all kinds of environmental and planetary revelations, with most of them decidedly not on the positive side and many of them representing big concerns in the scheme of the world. From climate change and extreme weather conditions to endangered animal species and melting ice caps, 2007 was a year of serious discoveries. Here are 10 of the biggest environmental revelations of last year:
Gallery: 10 earth science revelations of 2007
Solar cells that work at night?
The Idaho National Laboratory, Microcontinuum, Inc. and Patrick Pinhero from the University of Missouri are developing an exciting new technology which uses "nano-antennas" to capture solar energy. What is especially cool about this new solar technology is that it would operate both during the day and at night by using the leftover radiation after the sun goes down. Each nano-antenna is a spiral as wide as 1/25 the diameter of a human hair, meaning that many of them can be fit into a tiny space, and may be as much as 80 percent efficient.At this time, researchers have a ways to go before the technology is commercialized, but they are hoping that their finished product would be no more expensive as a coating than a cheap layer of carpeting.
[Source: Gizmag]
Fluorescent lions, tigers and pigs! Oh my!
China may not have been the first country to send its people to the moon, but so far it is the first country to turn its pigs fluorescent green. At least, that's what China's state media is reporting.An agricultural researcher in China injected fluorescent green protein into the pig embryos. Of the 11 born, two share their mother's fondness for green.
The pigs glow green under ultraviolet light.
While this may sound like a joke for St. Patrick's Day, researchers say this is actually evidence that animals can successfully carry and develop foreign genes.
Liu Zhonghua was the researcher in charge. She says this bodes well for organ development.
That is, said green pig could grow a stomach, liver or kidney for later human transplant.
[via Reuters]
Car runs on nothing but air
Hybrid technology has made it possible for cars to emit less and get significantly better gas mileage -- all without hindering performance. Hooray! But while the environmental gains from the new alternative energy vehicles are significant, these cars and trucks are still using up the planet's resources -- just more slowly. Even electric cars still run on juice that most likely came from a coal power plant.
So unless you're walking or riding your bike, your mode of transportation is bound to impact the planet at least somewhat -- unless you drive this. The MiniCat, developed by Motor Development International, probably won't travel at light-speed (or even 50 mph), but it will be able to run on nothing more than compressed air.
Plus, the car is only about 8 feet long, so parallel parking won't be such a nightmare!
Super Soaker Inventor Hopes to Double Solar Efficiency
Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 09, @06:32PM
from the if-they-get-too-hot-we-can-super-soak-them dept.
from the if-they-get-too-hot-we-can-super-soak-them dept.
mattnyc99 writes "With top geeks saying photovoltaic cells are still four years away from costing as much as the grid, and the first U.S. thermal power plant just getting into production, there's plenty of solar hype without any practical solution that's efficient enough. Until Lonnie Johnson came along. The man who invented the Super Soaker water gun turns out to be a nuclear engineer who's developed a solid-state heat engine that converts the sun's heat to electricity at 60-percent efficiency—double the rate of the next most successful solar process. And his innovation, called the Johnson Thermoelectric Energy Conversion (JTEC) system, is getting funding from the National Science Foundation, so this is no toy. From the article: 'If it proves feasible, drastically reducing the cost of solar power would only be a start. JTEC could potentially harvest waste heat from internal combustion engines and combustion turbines, perhaps even the human body. And no moving parts means no friction and fewer mechanical failures.'"
Scientists Examine Dinosaur Skin
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 10, @01:27AM
from the beyond-wrinkled dept.
from the beyond-wrinkled dept.
jd writes "Fossilized skin from a dinosaur in China is allowing paleontologists a better understanding of what dinosaur skin was like. A tear, caused by a predator, shows that below the scales of the Psittacosaurus was a thick hide comprised of 25 layers of collagen. Other than the multitude of layers, this is very similar in nature to modern shark skin. The gash caused by a predator allowed the skin and the soft interior to be fossilized along with the bones. This is not the same dinosaur that had been reported previously on Slashdot, which was found in South Dakota, although the process and extent of fossilization is very similar."
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
2.5 Years in Jail for Planting 'Logic Bomb'
Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday January 09, @08:56AM
from the well-that-seems-fairly-light dept.
from the well-that-seems-fairly-light dept.
cweditor writes "A former Medco Health systems administrator was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $81,200 in restitution for planting a logic bomb on a network that held customer health care information. The code was designed to delete almost all information on about 70 company servers. This may be longest federal prison sentence for trying to damage a corporate computer system, although Yung-Hsun Lin faced a maximum of 10 years." How long before the disgruntled sysadmin replaces the disgruntled postal worker in the zeitgeist?
New Chip For Square Kilometer Radio Telescope
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 08, @03:21PM
from the little-green-men-using-quantum-computers dept.
from the little-green-men-using-quantum-computers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet Aus reported on a new low-noise chip that could help in building the $1.6B Square Kilometer Array, the world's largest radio telescope. Wikipedia claims the telescope will be 50 times as sensitive as current instruments. It will have a resolution of able to detect every active galactic nucleus out to a redshift of 6, when the universe was less than 1 billion years old and way crazy. It will have the sensitivity to detect Earth-like radio leakage at a distance of several hundred to a few thousand light years, which could help greatly with the search for extraterrestrial life. The chip's designer, Prof. Jack Singh, commented on the chip's ability to help with quantum computing research, due to its ability to operate at millikelvin temperatures, necessary to prevent quantum decoherence."
Scientists Restore Walking After Spinal Cord Injury
Journal written by stemceller (975823) and posted by kdawson on Wednesday January 09, @05:34AM
from the man-who-mistook-his-legs-for-a-pair-of-scissors dept.
from the man-who-mistook-his-legs-for-a-pair-of-scissors dept.
Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. For the first time, a UCLA study shows that the central nervous system can reorganize itself and follow new pathways to restore the cellular communication required for movement. The lead researcher said, "This pessimistic view [that severe injury to the spinal cord means permanent paralysis] has changed over my lifetime, and our findings add to a growing body of research showing that the nervous system can reorganize after injury."
Voltaic's new Generator solar bag can charge a laptop
Power from Nuclear Waste?
Also from tomorrow's trends
Britain may attempt a program to re-use nuclear waste to get more power...
A plan by the nuclear industry to build a £1bn fuel processing plant at Sellafield is being backed by the government's chief scientist. The plant would turn the UK's 60,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste into reactor fuel that will provide 60 per cent of this country's electricity until 2060, it is claimed.'We can bury our reactor waste or we can treat it and then use it as free fuel for life,' said the cabinet's chief science adviser, Sir David King. 'It's a no-brainer.'Nuclear waste could power Britain | Science | The ObserverBut the plan is controversial. A report by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which operates the Cumbrian plant and backs the plan, acknowledges the move could have 'downside' economic costs, although it also stresses it has many benefits. In addition, green groups say the move would lead to the creation of 'a plutonium economy' in Britain that would see large quantities of nuclear fuel being transported across the country.
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Making oil out of trash
I have read about this machine before. It looks like it may be becoming economically/ commercially viable:
I’m not sure if I’m watching a magic trick, or an invention that will make the cigar-chomping 64-year-old next to me the richest man on the planet. Everything that goes into Frank Pringle’s recycling machine—a piece of tire, a rock, a plastic cup—turns to oil and natural gas seconds later. “I’ve been told the oil companies might try to assassinate me,” Pringle says without sarcasm.The machine is a microwave emitter that extracts the petroleum and gas hidden inside everyday objects—or at least anything made with hydrocarbons, which, it turns out, is most of what’s around you. Every hour, the first commercial version will turn 10 tons of auto waste—tires, plastic, vinyl—into enough natural gas to produce 17 million BTUs of energy (it will use 956,000 of those BTUs to keep itself running). PopSci's Best of What's New 2007
US adds one new person every 12 seconds
From Tomorrow's Trends
The net impact of births/ deaths and migration means that the US adds one person every 12 seconds.
The net impact of births/ deaths and migration means that the US adds one person every 12 seconds.
As our nation prepares to ring in the New Year, the U.S. Census Bureau today projected the Jan. 1, 2005, population of the United States will be 295,160,302 — up 2,835,602 or 1.0 percent from New Year’s Day 2004. In January, the United States is expected to register one birth every eight seconds and one death every 13 seconds. Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 26 seconds. The result is an increase in the total population of one person every 12 seconds.US Census Press Releases
The Air Car
I have posted about the air car concept before. Here is a video on the experimental air-car...
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Tuesday, January 8, 2008
World Record Fuel Efficiency
| The PAC-Car II set a new world record in fuel efficient driving during the Shell Eco-marathon in Ladoux (France) on June 26, 2005. Running on hydrogen, the PAC-Car II achieved the equivalent of 5,385 km per liter of gasoline (12,666 MPG!) |  | |
Are biofuels worse for the planet than gasoline?
The study looks at 26 dfferent biofuels and compares their greenhouse-gas reduction to their overall environmental impact, including effects on ecosystems and use of natural resources. The results showed that all biofuels are not equal, with some being just about as green as claimed, while others aren't much better than powering your car with coal. In all, 12 of the fuels considered had a greater environmental impact than gasoline burning. The best fuels from an environmental standpoint are those made from the waste products of other processes, like used cooking oil or ethanol from wood. The worst are those which may encourage destruction of existing eco-systems to grow the feed crop, especially Malaysian palm oil, Brazilian soy, or American corn. The researchers did not take into account the higher food prices that result from converting farmland over to fuel crops.
The lessons? Conservation remains key, and it's not enough just to avoid oil. Even "green" alternatives can have a downside.
via [Science Daily]
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