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DerivePi

Diverging Diamond Interchange

By Posted on 10.31.2009 10 Comments
Want to avoid gridlock? Drive on the wrong side of the road. In July, traffic engineers in Springfield, Missouri, reconfigured the jammed I-44/Kansas Expressway interchange. The new design does away with risky left turns. The street approaching the highway now diverts to the left, and cars get uninterrupted access to the highway, which, experts say, can reduce clogging by as much as 60 percent. Think of it as a one-way street. Drivers who want to turn left onto the highway can do so without crossing oncoming traffic.

11.12.2009 at 06:01pm - Comment by DerivePi

Kudos to MODOT for such a simple and elegant solution!
Biobased Composites

By Posted on 10.31.2009 1 Comments
A research group at Stanford University is developing synthetic wood that they expect will be sturdy enough to build a house frame and pliable enough to carve. The team of engineers says the faux timber (bacteria-derived biodegradable plastic resin bound to hemp fibers) could not only replace dozens of construction materials, it decomposes in a landfill after a few weeks, emitting methane that can be used to make more synthetic wood. stanford.edu

11.12.2009 at 05:58pm - Comment by DerivePi

"decomposes in a landfill after a few weeks." Sure hope the construction crew put the vapor barrier on correctly!
TKTS, Times Square

By Posted on 11.17.2009 7 Comments
The largest load-bearing glass structure in the world, the new TKTS booth in Times Square, supports glass benches atop two-inch-thick windows. Sounds delicate, but it regularly holds 500 foot-stomping Jumbotron watchers. For reinforcement, engineers at Dewhurst Macfarlane used a plastic film called SentryGlas Plus. The film is 100 times the strength of typical laminates and binds sheets together into structural pieces that are five times as strong as a wooden frame.

11.12.2009 at 05:55pm - Comment by DerivePi

Two problems with glass - It doesn't absorb much energy before failure and it doesn't fail slowly. I appreciate that the laminate layer will provide some redundancy and absorb some energy, but to state "You could literally make a skyscraper." speaks of salemanship and not engineering.
DIY

Kit of the Month: Twitter Your Home's Power Consumption

By Mike Haney Posted on 8.4.2009 7 Comments
Nothing motivates like peer pressure, whether it’s friends goading you into one shot too many or friends tracking your power consumption on Twitter. That’s the thinking that led Limor Fried and PopSci contributing editor Phil Torrone, circuit wizards who run the electronics-kit seller adafruit.com, to cross a small power monitor with an XBee wireless home-automation module and a few lines of code.

8.4.2009 at 02:31pm - Comment by DerivePi

All we need now is to find a way to make this an online game with prizes. I could just imagine a 9 year old telling the parents that they have to cut down on energy consumption so that they can win against Jimmy down the street. Or, "look honey, our energy consumption is 1 millionth of Al Gore's."
Science

Engineering Adult Stem Cells to Cure Blind Mice

By Dan Smith Posted on 8.3.2009 5 Comments
Researchers at the University of Florida claim to be the first to use targeted gene manipulation to take adult stem cells and change them into another kind of cell completely. They changed the stem cells, from bone marrow in this instance, into retinal cells. These retinal cells, when injected into blind mice, helped cure their blindness.

8.4.2009 at 09:41am - Comment by DerivePi

Yeah, this research could definitely be profitable with all of these discoveries.
Entertainment & Gaming

China Tries to Curb Gold Farming

By Stuart Fox Posted on 7.1.2009 13 Comments
Bad news for professional orcs all across the Middle Kingdom. On Monday, the Chinese government announced a ban on the conversion of virtual money into real money for the purpose of buying actual goods and services. By allowing Chinese citizens to spend real money on virtual products, but not vice versa, the government has specifically targeted gold farming, an activity that employs hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers.

7.2.2009 at 03:59pm - Comment by DerivePi

There was actually a scare about a year ago where a prominant beaurocrat was talking about taxing virtual income from online games. The thinking was that because a real money value could be applied to the virtual money then the virtual money could be taxed based on that rate. Imagine what that would do to your gaming experience!
Science

Invention Awards: An Escape Harness for Skyscrapers

By Elizabeth Svoboda Posted on 6.3.2009 10 Comments
Trapped on a high floor? Reach for today's featured Invention Award winner. As the 9/11 inferno unfolded on television, one question kept dogging Kevin Stone: Why weren't the people trapped in the World Trade Center able to make their way to safety? "I said to myself, This is crazy," recalls Stone, an orthopedic surgeon and seasoned inventor in San Francisco. "There should be a better way to exit a skyscraper when something like this happens."

6.4.2009 at 04:02pm - Comment by DerivePi

I think the best option is to prevent planes from flying into our buildings. This is a good second best. I'm sure if the people who had free falled had this option it would have been a welcome improvement. Might be worthwhile having these devices for smaller buildings too.
Science

The Essential Guide to Stem Cells

By Elizabeth Svoboda Posted on 6.1.2009 20 Comments
For more than a decade, researchers have touted stem cells as the most promising advance in medicine since antibiotics. And this winter, when President Obama lifted the Bush administration's ban on federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research, talking heads buzzed that his decision could bring scientists that much closer to cures — not just treatments — for conditions like heart failure, spinal-cord injuries and Alzheimer's disease. Biologists around the world toasted their new prospects with champagne. "Lifting the ban will free us up to use additional cell lines," says Jack Kessler, director of the Feinberg Neuroscience Institute at Northwestern University. "It's very important for science."

6.2.2009 at 09:44am - Comment by DerivePi

Since the article starts off with a political statement, I think is is disengenuous of the author not to make a clear distinction between embryonic stem cells, ESC (federal funding ban recently lifted) and adult stem cells, ASC (always been funded). - In particular, many of the listed successes of "stem cell" research are isolated to adult stem cell research. - Embryonic stem cell (ESC) research has continued just not with Federal funding. Free market theory would suggest that a miracle drug developed from ESCs would be just as "exciting" with or without Federal funding. - Quick search on Alzheimers and stem cells brought up articles that suggest that stem cells are not an appropriate approach to this disease. - ESCs usually cause cancer (this was mentioned in the article).
Technology

Analysts: Obama's Much-Touted New Cybersecurity Plan Is Full of Holes

By Stuart Fox Posted on 6.1.2009 7 Comments
After a year of alarm and hype, cybersecurity has finally made it to the top of the Obama administration's to-do list. President Obama, introducing a new report on U.S. cybersecurity in a speech on Friday, said cybersecurity represents "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation."

6.2.2009 at 09:18am - Comment by DerivePi

Read a good book regarding hacking called "Hacker Cracker." I'd recommend reading it as a fun read. I think cyber security would be best placed under homeland security. It should be seen more as a tool and not a function of the government. The only benefits I can think of for connecting cyber security directly to the President (other than a headline) is for nefarious political gain (and not necessarily for just the current administration - think Nixon/Ted Kennedy). I would appreciate more discussion on this topic.
Science

What the Sotomayor Nomination Means for Technology

By Stuart Fox Posted on 5.27.2009 3 Comments
With their shapeless black robes and lined faces, the justices of the Supreme Court do not project a particularly cutting-edge image. And for the most part, that's not a problem. The judges concentrate primarily on cases related to either hot-button issues like torture and abortion, or cases dealing with the legal minutiae of how courts should properly function.

5.29.2009 at 11:36am - Comment by DerivePi

OK Just read the Mattel vs Barbie-Club.com case as any good journalist would do. Short and skinny: - Mattel owns Barbie - Other company in Australia purchased Barbie domain names from a company in Baltimore - Mattel sues to get rights to those domain names (CaptainBarbie.com -haha) - District Court says they don't have jurisdiction - Mattel appeals to the Honorable Sotomayor - In an amazing act of technological saviness, Judge Sotomayor unveils a judgement ... wait for it... upholding the District Courts decision. Wow. If you want tech savvy lawyers and judges you need to be looking at the 40 and under crowd. The old ones are too bound to the written word. Go Drexel Law!