Comments

supergrover

The Environment

Saudi Arabia's Jurassic Park

By SciIll Staff Posted on 12.4.2008 28 Comments
It’s hard to imagine it raining in Riyadh. Less than five inches of water fall from the clouds above Saudi Arabia’s capital city each year. When the thermostat rises above 110°F, it’s not a heat wave—it’s midday. But it wasn’t always like this. A little over three million years ago, before climate-change cycles turned the area into a desert, the Arabian Peninsula’s empty riverbeds were overflowing valleys, and its dry expanses of shrubland were lush grasslands.

12.6.2008 at 12:30pm - Comment by supergrover

my GREEN N' SMART seal of aproval goes to jatropha biodiesel. why? 1. crop density. the fuel per acre per year will rival algae, which is still experimental. 2. doesn't take up crop land, unlike anything to produce ethanol, except cellulosic ethanol(which we can't do easily yet) 3. you don't have to brew or distill it, which saves a lot of energy. 4. energy density. everyone knows that diesel packs more punch per gallon than anything else. 5. no mods. little or no modification to use on current diesel vehicles. P.S. why can't we creationists have quarter billion dollar botanical garden in the middle of a desert?
Technology

A Silent Electric Plane

By Amanda Schupak Posted on 12.4.2008 26 Comments
In August, at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Randall Fishman’s ElectraFlyer-C made a virtually silent pass over the audience at a mere 200 feet. What they were seeing (but not hearing) might be the world’s first fully electric-powered airplane—representing, said one EAA official, “a groundbreaking technology that would be aviation’s first true alternative to a fossil-fuel engine.”

12.4.2008 at 06:54pm - Comment by supergrover

being the first full electric airplane to hit the market, this gets my GREEN N' SMART seal of aproval. ps. asuming its made of metal, i'd switch to carbon fiber and/or fiberglass and put some solar panels in the wings, because the cruise range isn't too great.
FIT-5

By Posted on 11.9.2008 Comments
The FIT-5 anti-fire canister quickly squelches flames when there’s no water at hand. Pull the cord, toss it into the fire, and watch it emit a misty cloud of potassium carbonate. The chemical keeps the blaze from spreading and cools a room from 1,000°F to 300° in 10 seconds flat. arasafety.com

12.4.2008 at 11:46am - Comment by supergrover

sound like a lifesaver, but what about cost?
XPAK

By Posted on 11.9.2008 Comments
This 10-pound portable bomb detector requires no special training to use. Just pull out the roller, brush it over an object—backpack, clothes, hands—and insert it into a viewing device. The machine sprays a polymer over the roller and exposes it to ultraviolet light. Within seconds, trace explosives glow on a viewfinder. redxdefense.com

12.4.2008 at 11:43am - Comment by supergrover

this will save a whole lot of time at airports.
Ground Bot

By Posted on 11.25.2008 Comments
The GroundBot is a spherical sentry designed to roll up to 6 mph through just about anything—mud, sand, snow and even water. Two gyroscopically steadied wide-angle cameras and a suite of sensors give remote operators a real-time, 360-degree view of the landscape, letting them zoom in on prowlers or detect gas leaks, radioactivity and biohazards. Originally invented by Swedish physicists to explore other planets, the GroundBot features a tough design that requires almost no maintenance and can also be programmed to run autonomously.

12.4.2008 at 11:31am - Comment by supergrover

make a lot bigger, more powerful motor, a lot more batteries, a couple of vents here and there, and stuff someone inside. sure, it can't climb more than a 20 degree incline without rolling over, but since when have you gone to work in a giant hamtser wheel?
Science

Veggies May Be the Key to Fighting Cancer

By Jaya Jiwatram Posted on 12.4.2008 2 Comments
When your mother says eat your greens, you just might want to listen. It's been known since the 1970's that cruciferous vegetables, or cabbage family vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale, have anti-cancer benefits. But researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who have studied the benefits of anti-cancer vegetables for 15 years, are the first to explain how an anti-cancer compound, indole-3-carbinol (I3C), found in broccoli and cabbage, works to slow down the activity of an enzyme linked to rapidly developing breast cancer.

12.4.2008 at 11:15am - Comment by supergrover

wow. it increases the effectiveness of cancer treatment-- with few additonal side affects. count me in, man!
Tartan Racing Boss

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
“Boss,” the brainchild of Tartan Racing (a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University and General Motors), was the winner of the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge, a competition of autonomous vehicles. The mission: execute tricky merging, passing and parking maneuvers as quickly as possible, while obeying California-state traffic laws. More than a dozen lasers, cameras and radars feed information about Boss’s surroundings into its “brain,” a computer that uses 500,000 lines of code to make decisions about the best way to reach its destination.

12.2.2008 at 01:57pm - Comment by supergrover

well, since darpa (a U.S. agency) is hosting the challedge, i'm assuming uncle sam wants the robocar for high risk situations; but not for low risk, where human drivers would be far cheaper. this make sense in off road or near off road situations, such as delivering suplies from a fort to a outpost in a hostile enviroment. it makes less sence in an urban enviroment. therefore, i think darpa should invest more in off-road robocar prizes
Science

What's Good and What's Bad

By Posted on 12.1.2008 3 Comments
Also, laying off makeup, slurping up bottled water, and more, in today's link roundup.

12.1.2008 at 02:34pm - Comment by supergrover

1. the author(s) should have read FIELD & STREAM before writing the second point. the only times you could possibly consume poisonous venison is if the hunter or butcher is stupid enough to put the meat cut around the bullet hole into ground beef or sausage. 2. show me one study linking hunters to a lead poisoning increase of more than 3% (to rule out unrelated differences between hunters and non hunters). 3. i agree with the canadians; sinse when is plastic water bottles eco frendly?
Honda FCX Clarity

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Highways filled with hydrogen cars are still decades away, but that doesn’t diminish the achievement of rolling the first fuel-cell car off a mass-production line. To open up interior space, Honda developed its own fuel cell, a 100-kilowatt stack that packs substantially more energy into a 65 percent smaller space than other designs and squeezes neatly into the tunnel between the front seats.

12.1.2008 at 02:13pm - Comment by supergrover

hydrogen, in theory, is green. however, first you have to make hydrogen. you could use green electricity, but you still have to compress it, which uses more energy. plus, it would take a lot more hydro stations to become viable. sorry hydrogen fans, but-- the FCX does not get my green n' smart seal of aproval.
Ford Capless Fuel Filler

By Posted on 11.11.2008 Comments
Concerns about fuel theft and spillage have made the gas cap a standard feature. Ford replaces it with a spring-loaded interior lid that closes off if anyone tries to put a nonstandard fuel-pump nozzle in the hole. The system, which rolled out this year, seals tighter than a typical fuel cap, too, reducing evaporative emissions. ford.com

12.1.2008 at 02:01pm - Comment by supergrover

since billions of dollars' worth of gas spills and evaporates of of uncapped gas tanks each year-- this gets my GREEN N' SMART seal of aproval.