Why Large Carbon-Fibre Planes Are Still Grounded

Image: Still grounded (Image: Boeing)

From New Scientist:

IF YOU want to know why carbon-fibre planes such as the Boeing 787 are still on the tarmac, it's worth rewinding to the 1950s.

That's when the UK's chances of dominating the post-war aviation market were dashed by fatal in-flight failures of the de Havilland Comet, the first airliner to sport a pressurised aluminium fuselage. Metal fatigue induced by repeated pressurisation cycles created cracks that started around the plane's window frames. "Although much was known about metal fatigue, not enough was known about it by anyone, anywhere," lamented Geoffrey de Havilland in his autobiography.

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Toxic Soup: Plastics Could Be Leaching Chemicals Into Ocean

Photo via Pathways of Altruism

From Wired Science:

Although plastic has long been considered indestructible, some scientists say toxic chemicals from decomposing plastics may be leaching into the sea and harming marine ecosystems.

Contrary to the commonly held belief that plastic takes 500 to 1,000 years to decompose, researchers now report that the hard plastic polystyrene begins to break down in the ocean within one year, releasing potentially toxic bisphenol A (BPA) and other chemicals into the water.

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Mercury Found In All Fish Caught In U.S.-Tested Streams

Two USGS scientists analyze fish for mercury in the St. Marys River in northern Florida.
By Mark Brigham, AP

From USA Today:

Sports fishermen take heed: A government test of fish pulled from nearly 300 streams in the USA found every one of them contaminated with some level of mercury.

The U.S. Geological Survey's research marks its most comprehensive examination of mercury contamination in stream fish. The study found that 27% of the fish had mercury levels high enough to exceed what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for the average fish eater, those who eat fish twice a week.

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Solar SunFlowers Look Like Reincarnated Cell Tower Trees

SunFlower Solar Panels: This isn't your mother's garden. David Newsome/GOOD Magazine

From Popular Science:

Fifteen of these flower-shaped solar panels were installed last month in an open space between a highway and a retail lot in Austin, Texas. They not only provide a green source of energy, but also bring a fresh look to solar panel design. Unfortunately, I can't help but think of those fake-tree cellphone towers when I see these things.

Designed by Massachusetts art duo Harries/Heder, the SunFlowers are an art exhibit at heart, and stand over 30 feet tall. They collect power from the sun by day, and use that energy to power their blue LEDs at night. Up to 15 kilowatts of surplus power is sent back to the grid as payment for any maintenance fees the SunFlowers incur.

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Anthropogenic Global Warming Started When People Began Farming

From The Economist:

IMAGINE a small group of farmers tending a rice paddy some 5,000 years ago in eastern Asia or sowing seeds in a freshly cleared forest in Europe a couple of thousand years before that. It is here, a small group of scientists would have you believe, that humanity launched climate change. Long before the Industrial Revolution—indeed, long before a worldwide revolution in intensive farming, the results of which kept humanity alive—people caused unnatural exhalations of greenhouse gases that had an impact on the world’s climate.

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Geothermal Power Search Holds Promise, Threat

From Stltoday.com:

On a high ridge in the Mayacamas Mountains, a drill slowly bores into the earth to test a new way to generate electricity.

The test, by a Bay Area company called AltaRock Energy, could give the world another source of renewable energy, a valuable weapon in the fight against global warming. It could also trigger earthquakes in a corner of California that already shakes most every day, a prospect that is jangling the nerves of some nearby homeowners.

AltaRock has chosen this ridge to try a new form of geothermal power, using the heat of the Earth to produce energy. The surrounding hills -- in an area known as The Geysers, about 70 miles north of San Francisco -- hold more than a dozen older geothermal plants that tap underground pockets of steam to turn turbines and generate electricity.

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Personality Traits Associated With Stress And Worry Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

Personality traits associated with chronic worrying can lead to earlier death, at least in part because these people are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, according to research from Purdue University. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mikael Damkier)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Personality traits associated with chronic worrying can lead to earlier death, at least in part because these people are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, according to research from Purdue University.

"Research shows that higher levels of neuroticism can lead to earlier mortality, and we wanted to know why," said Daniel K. Mroczek, (pronounced Mro-ZAK) a professor of child development and family studies. "We found that having worrying tendencies or being the kind of person who stresses easily is likely to lead to bad behaviors like smoking and, therefore, raise the mortality rate.

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Prehistoric 'Runway' Used by Flying Reptile

A photo and depiction of the pterosaur tracks that suggest an ancient landing strip.
Credit: JM Mazin et al.

From Live Science:

A prehistoric runway for flying pterosaurs has been discovered for the first time.

Scientists uncovered the first known landing tracks of one of these extinct flying reptiles at a site dubbed "Pterosaur Beach," in the fine-grained limestone deposits of an ancient lagoon in southwestern France dating back some 140 million years ago to the Late Jurassic.

The footprints suggest the pterosaur — a "pterodactyloid" with a wingspan roughly three feet wide (one meter) — flapped to stall its flight during landing, and then planted both its two-inch-long feet (five cm) simultaneously at a high angle.

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Space Shuttle Discovery Cleared For Lift-Off

Space Shuttle Discovery

From AFP:

WASHINGTON — The space shuttle Discovery will blast off next Tuesday on a mission to the International Space Station, NASA said, clearing the launch after days of debate over safety issues.

Lift-off was set for 0536 GMT from the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral in Florida, NASA said, after two days of meetings between mission officials.

"It was a very effective review. I think we're ready to go fly," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, told a briefing.

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Full Steam Ahead As British Supercar Prepares To Smash Land-Speed Record

The 25ft-long car will race across the desert in California to try and break a land speed record.

From The Daily Mail:

Enthusiasts behind a British-built steam supercar will attempt to break a century-old world land speed record for steam-powered vehicles tomorrow afternoon.

The 25ft-long car - dubbed the 'fastest kettle in the world' - aims to go faster than 127mph - the speed reached by American Fred Marriott in a Stanley steam car in 1906 at the Daytona Beach Road Course.
The team will begin their attempt at 6am tomorrow morning in California, or 2pm UK time.

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Wi-Fi via White Spaces

Photo: White spaces: Accessing the Internet over unused portions of TV spectrum could provide good long-range connectivity in rural areas, and help fill in gaps in city networks. Microsoft researchers tested a new protocol, called White Fi, using the device shown here. Credit: Microsoft Research

From Technology Review:

A network design that uses old TV spectrum could produce better long-range wireless connectivity.

Long-range, low-cost wireless Internet could soon be delivered using radio spectrum once reserved for use by TV stations. The blueprints for a computer network that uses "white spaces," which are empty fragments of the spectrum scattered between used frequencies, will be presented today at ACM SIGCOMM 2009, a communications conference held in Barcelona, Spain.

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NASA Successfully Tests Nuclear Reactor to Power Future Moon Bases

Gone Fission : See it bigger. John MacNeil

From Popular Science:

For a while now, NASA has been planning to use a nuclear fission reactor to power future bases on the Moon and Mars. They have now finally begun testing a Stirling engine-based system, subjecting it to simulated extraterrestrial conditions to examine how it would fare as a lunar power generator.

The fission reactor uses a sodium-potassium liquid metal mixture to transfer heat to a Stirling engine, which then uses gas pressure for electricity conversion. Testing has been successful so far, as researchers have been able to generate a constant 2.3 kilowatts of power from the engine, using a non-nuclear heat source. With the full nuclear reactor running, their goal is to produce 40 kilowatts of power.

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Tight Budget Quashes US Space Ambitions: Panel

Orion Exploration Vehicle

From Breitbart/AFP:

US ambitions for manned space exploration have hit a major hurdle in the wake of severe budget constraints, according to preliminary findings of a panel appointed by President Barack Obama.

Reaching Mars was deemed too risky while returning to the Moon by 2020 was ruled out barring an additional three billion dollars per year to replace the retiring space shuttle fleet and build bigger rockets, according to the group led by Norm Augustine, a former CEO of US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

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New DNA Test Uses Nanotechnology To Find Early Signs Of Cancer

In this illustration by Yi Zhang, quantum dots are depicted as gold spheres that attract DNA strands linked to cancer risks. When the quantum dots are exposed to certain types of light, they transfer the energy to fluorescent molecules, shown as pink globes, that emit a glow. This enables researchers to detect and count the DNA strands linked to cancer. (Credit: Image courtesy of Johns Hopkins University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Using tiny crystals called quantum dots, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a highly sensitive test to look for DNA attachments that often are early warning signs of cancer. This test, which detects both the presence and the quantity of certain DNA changes, could alert people who are at risk of developing the disease and could tell doctors how well a particular cancer treatment is working.

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Hunting: So Easy A Cave Man Could Do It

Anthropologists work to excavate Qesem Cave, where early human hunters carved up their prey. The cave was discovered in Israel about nine years ago. Credit: Qesem Cave Project

From Live Science:

Early humans who lived in caves more than 250,000 years ago were just as good at bringing home the bacon as their later human descendents of the Paleolithic era, though their dining habits were a little less refined, a new study suggests.

The remains of early human dinners were found in Qesem Cave in Israel, which was discovered during road construction in hilly limestone terrain, 7 miles (11 km) east of Tel Aviv about nine years ago. ("Qesem" means "surprise.")

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How To Turn Seawater Into Jet Fuel

Turning water into jet fuel (Image: Stocktrek Images/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater.

Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel. But they will have to find a clean energy source to power the reactions if the end product is to be carbon neutral.

The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen – obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity – to make a hydrocarbon fuel.

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My Comment: It seems that they must put a lot of energy into the process to convert the sea water into usable energy. Not useful from a practical point of view .... so far.

Good Vibrations Generate Electricity

PARTS LIST: Relying on the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which certain crystals and other materials generate electricity when twisted or flexed, this new device harvests energy from tiny vibrations. Credit: ISNS

From Live Science:

A new device that can harvest useful energy from extremely tiny vibrations may allow new ways to power remote electronic devices with batteries that need replacing less often, or are actually self-charging. The "vibration-to-electricity" device could capture up to 10 times more energy than is possible with the conventional device.

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Egypt Warns Pharaohs' Tombs Could Disappear

A view of King Tutenkhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, close to Luxor in 2007. The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned. (AFP/File/Cris Bouroncle)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) – The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned.

Zahi Hawass said humidity and fungus are eating into the walls of the royal tombs in the huge necropolis on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor, which is swamped daily by several thousand tourists.

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DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

From The New York Times:

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

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The Most Exciting Cars of 2010

STAN HONDA / AFP / Getty

From Time Magazine:

The popularity of the Jeep Grand Cherokee was instrumental in launching the SUV boom of the 1990s. America's love affair with big, gas-guzzling hulks is pretty much over, but Chrysler believes there's a new chapter for this rugged classic. Jeep's engineers have shortened the vehicle, given it a more aerodynamic shape and equipped it with a more luxurious interior, featuring more expensive materials and higher-grade controls. It also comes with a more efficient V-6 engine while trying to remain faithful to Jeep's can-do heritage. The introduction of the Jeep Grand Cherokee is now scheduled for the second quarter of 2010.

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