tagged w/ Popular Science
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Popular Science does a rundown of the facts and concludes the story that appeared in the media last week about a kid being hit by a meteorite must be bogus.
"Could a pebble-sized meteor moving at that speed be dangerous? It could. Will it have a velocity sufficient to induce enough compressional heating to produce a "flash of light"? Not likely. Could it create an impact crater a foot in diameter? No, it couldn't. Busted!"
See link for full explanation and some video footage of another meteorite impact.Popular Science does a rundown of the facts and concludes the story that appeared in... more
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yonie
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added this
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5 months ago
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The team at Terrafugia is about to fulfill the fantasy of every driver pilot: a consumer vehicle that can take to the highways and the skies. All they have to do is finish the first one.
And yet they’re doing it. As this article goes to press, a full-scale, fully functional proof-of-concept vehicle is being readied for a flight test in November. Every expert I spoke to expects the design to fly. More than 40 customers have put down a good-faith deposit of $7,500 to $10,000 for a Transition, and the company has roughly $1 million in private funding. The investors have been told that the first customers will be driving it next year. In a category marked by decades-long efforts, it’s an insane schedule. But the group has hit every one of its benchmarks since starting out two years ago, methodically pushing through its plan. Dietrich and his partners have adorned their bumpers with the message “My next car will be an airplane.” To them, this is not a joke. It’s the headline to a list of promises they intend to keep.The team at Terrafugia is about to fulfill the fantasy of every driver pilot: a... more
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Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research are taking improv comedy classes so they can better explain to a nervous world that the new Large Hadron Collider will not, in fact, create a black hole that could end life on earth. Physicist Bob Stanek and improv pioneer Charna Halpern talk about helping scientists communicate better. Have a listen. Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research are taking improv comedy... more
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World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is alarmed by the dramatic decline of at least 30 percent in the Bengal tiger population of Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal, once a refuge that boasted among the highest densities of the endangered species in the Eastern Himalayas. The recent survey of April 2008 showed a population of between 6-14 tigers, down from 20-50 tigers in 2005.
The Government of Nepal made a low-key announcement on July 1 based on the results of a long-term camera trap study conducted in large part by WWF. Officials identified poaching as perhaps the major cause of tigers disappearing from this protected area. Ironically, armed poachers have been photographed by the very equipment set up to capture tiger images.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is alarmed by the dramatic decline of at least 30 percent in... more
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A biomedical engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin is using a concept called "grid computing" to allow the average person to donate idle computer time in a global effort to fight cancer.
Muhammad Zaman, assistant professor in biomedical engineering, recently introduced Cellular Environment in Living Systems @Home or CELS@Home for short. The program already has more than 1,000 computer users worldwide contributing to the project. And the numbers keep growing.
The idea is based on what is called grid computing. Instead of using local computing resources, which are almost always limited, grid computing allows Internet users worldwide to contribute their idle computer time, creating a "virtual" supercomputer to solve a difficult problem. In this case, the grid computing program is calculating cellular interactions in different environments to help understand the principles of cell migration and cancer cell metastasis, or the spread of cancer from the original tumor to other parts of the body.
A biomedical engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin is using a... more
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"This is a concept for Singapore’s Metro Rail Line so that trains can pick people up without ever stopping. That sounds impossible, right? The idea is that people who want to board the train get into a smaller car that piggybacks onto the moving train as it passes through the station. To get off, you get into the smaller upper car while on the train and it unhitches at the station."
Watch the video ... way cool!
"This is a concept for Singapore’s Metro Rail Line so that trains can pick people up... more
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Wonder what it's like in space? NPR interviews U.S. Navy Commander Mark Kelly and Lt. Col. Sergei Volkov of the Russian Federation Air Force about life on the International Space Station. Wonder what it's like in space? NPR interviews U.S. Navy Commander Mark Kelly and Lt.... more
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To rescue the Earth, we need bold engineering ideas that go beyond simple recycling. Making a dent in the climate crisis is going to take more than solar panels and recycled toilet paper. Scientists are finding ever more creative ways (pig pee! DIY tornadoes! mini nuclear reactors!) to clean up the Earth.To rescue the Earth, we need bold engineering ideas that go beyond simple recycling.... more
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Sea otter deaths linked to water runoff contaminated with parasite-filled cat feces
By Matt RansfordPosted 06.05.2008 at 10:40 am
Toxoplasma gondii is one of the fascinating little parasitic creatures capable of changing the natural behavoir of its infected host. It needs to live in a cat in order to reproduce, but the rest of its life cycle can be spent in just about any warm-blooded animal. When it makes its way into a rat or mouse, for example, it has the peculiar ability to render the rodent unafraid of cats and even drawn to their scent. This powerful evolutionary trait increases the T. gondii's chances of reproduction—a mouse hanging around with cats is obviously likely to be eaten. In recent years, T. gondii has been mysteriously appearing in sea mammals. Scientists have been at a loss to explain the mechanism of infection, considering dolphins and seals aren't usually cavorting with cats.
It has been generally assumed that the origin of the infections stems from fresh water runoff contaminated with cat feces, but there is no definitive science on the issue. There has been new research, however, on anchovies' ability to filter the protozoa from the water in which they live. Scientists at California Polytechnic State University discovered that when exposed to T. gondii in a controlled environment, two-thirds of the anchovies absorbed the parasite.
While the mechanism for moving the infection from anchovy to sea lion is as well still an unproven question mark, the researchers are guessing it will turn out to be the same as its migration from mouse to cat—through the food chain. While humans have nothing to fear from T. gondii in anchovies (it is killed when cooked), ocean-dwelling mammals do not have that luxury. T. gondii is the cause of an estimated 17 percent of all sea otter deaths along the coast of California.
Via PhysOrg
Sea otter deaths linked to water runoff contaminated with parasite-filled cat feces... more
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Look ma no porn! j/k
Scientists develop a glass that dissolves harmlessly in the body and activates calcium-producing genes
By Abby SeiffPosted 06.05.2008 at 2:36 pm
Vitamins may soon be a thing of the past. Researchers at Imperial College have developed a new type of glass that dissolves harmlessly in the body and promotes calcium growth. As the bioactive material dissipates, it releases silica and calcium ions into the body. If released at the correct rate, these can activate genes responsible for producing calcium—a near-panacea for an otherwise healthy aging body.
Though used previously in clinical trials, the mechanism behind the material wasn't well known. Now, using neutron diffraction, scientists can see how the material releases calcium at the needed rate at the atomic level. For the next round of research, the scientists are hoping to develop a stronger version of the glass that could be used in joint replacements to promote bone re-growth in a way ordinary replacements can't.
Via PhysOrg
Look ma no porn! j/k
Scientists develop a glass that dissolves harmlessly in the... more
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Our experts tackle the answer to your burning questions
By Matt CokeleyPosted 06.05.2008 at 3:06 pm
You may find this hard to believe if you’re standing near a swarm of chain smokers, but most scientists think the trace amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in cigarette smoke have, at most, a negligible effect on the climate. “In fact,” theorizes John M. Wallace, a professor at the University of Washington’s climate-research department, “it might even counteract global warming by an equally minuscule amount, because the white particulate matter in smoke would reflect some of the sun’s energy, thereby minimizing heat.”
But the smoky end-product is not the entire story. Tobacco must be grown, and that process puts a serious hit on the environment. The plant itself is very demanding, absorbing six times as much potassium from the soil as most crops do. Farmers in some undeveloped nations grow tobacco until the soil is useless and then clear-cut forests for fresh land. In those areas, 600 million trees are felled and burned annually to dry and cure tobacco leaves. Additionally, four miles of paper an hour is used to wrap and package cigarettes. Setting aside the pollution generated from manufacturing cigarettes, just losing this many carbon-dioxide-absorbing trees leaves at least 22 million net tons of CO2 in the atmosphere, roughly equivalent to burning 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline.
The damage isn’t confined to the air, either. According to common estimates, tobacco companies produce 5.5 trillion cigarettes every year—approximately 900 for each person in the world. Of those, 4.5 trillion have nonbiodegradable filters that are tossed away, representing as many as one out of every five pieces of litter. Cigarette butts require months or even years to break down, releasing almost 600 chemicals into the soil.
So although most scientists believe that the act of smoking itself has a zero net effect on global warming, secondhand smoke appears to be a minor annoyance compared with the larger damage cigarettes do to the planet.
Send your questions to fyi@popsci.com.
Our experts tackle the answer to your burning questions
By Matt CokeleyPosted... more
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Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees -- which need nectar for food -- are declining in several areas of the world, including California and the Netherlands. "The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major cites, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters," said Jose D. Fuentes, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a co-author of the study. "This makes it increasingly difficult for pollinators to locate the flowers."
Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers... more
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A new study mapping the evolutionary history of animals indicates that Earth's first animal - a mysterious creature whose characteristics can only be inferred from fossils and studies of living animals - was probably significantly more complex than previously believed. Using new high-powered technologies for analyzing massive volumes of genetic data, the study defined the earliest splits at the base of the animal tree of life. The tree of life is a hierarchical representation of the evolutionary relationships between species that was introduced by Charles Darwin.
The study is published in the April 10, 2008 issue of Nature.
A new study mapping the evolutionary history of animals indicates that Earth's first... more
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An ambitious vision to take people to the moon and Mars may fall apart before it even gets off the ground because of uncertain planning and inadequate funding, several experts said on Thursday. A congressional report said NASA's replacement for the space shuttle, the Constellation Program, is in jeopardy, and members of Congress as well as at least one former astronaut agreed at a hearing on the issue. The U.S. Government Accountability Office said the Constellation program, scheduled to begin by 2015, is troubled by engineering, funding and mechanical issues.
An ambitious vision to take people to the moon and Mars may fall apart before it even... more
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The scientific equivalent of a fine-toothed comb may soon sweep across the skies looking for Earthlike planets outside our solar system.
Dubbed the astro-comb, the technology improves on a highly successful planet-hunting technique called the radial velocity—or wobble—method, which looks for small shifts in the wavelengths of a star's light caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet.
The scientific equivalent of a fine-toothed comb may soon sweep across the skies... more
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Sports professionals and fans get pretty emotional about their picks for the NCAA basketball tournament each year, and that emotion often clouds their judgment. But three engineering professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology have created a computer ranking system, called LRMC, that consistently predicts NCAA basketball rankings more accurately than the AP poll of sportswriters and the ESPN/USA Today poll of coaches, formulas (the Ratings Percentage Index), other computer models (the Massey ratings and the Sagarin ratings), and even the tournament seeds themselves. After correctly picking all four of this year’s finalists, the LRMC method has now identified 30 of the last 36 Final Four participants (83 percent accuracy over the past nine years of NCAA tournaments) as one of the top two teams in their region. Over the same nine-year stretch, the seedings and polls have correctly identified only 23, and the RPI indentified 21.
Sports professionals and fans get pretty emotional about their picks for the NCAA... more
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Scientists say they've found the smallest black hole so far, which is less than four times the mass of our sun and about the size of a large city. But the mini-black hole, dubbed J1650, could still stretch a person into a 'strand of spaghetti' with its pull, the researchers told a meeting in Los Angeles.Scientists say they've found the smallest black hole so far, which is less than four... more
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Using radio observatories in the UK and US and computer simulations, a team of astronomers have identified the youngest forming planet yet seen. Dr Richards adds, “The new object, designated HL Tau b, is the youngest planetary object ever seen and is just 1 percent as old as the young planet found in orbit around the star TW Hydrae that made the news last year. HL Tau b gives a unique view of how planets take shape, because the VLA image also shows the parent disk material from which it formed.”
Using radio observatories in the UK and US and computer simulations, a team of... more
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Scientists have created a Human/Cow embryo that could, in the future, assist with creating stem cells. The embryos, a first of their kind, have caused controversy among religious groups. The Catholic Church in Britain have labeled the embryos as "monstrous". While the they have not yet produced stem cells, the embryos could be a strong step toward the sucess of stem cell research. Scientists have created a Human/Cow embryo that could, in the future, assist with... more
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A leatherback turtle has been tracked swimming from the coast of the Papua province in Indonesia to Oregon, researchers said, in what may be the longest trip for marine vertebrae between breeding and feeding sites.
A leatherback turtle has been tracked swimming from the coast of the Papua province in... more
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