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Theydrick

Mariah Power Windspire

By Posted on 11.9.2008 Comments
Zoning laws often forbid tall wind turbines. The Windspire captures breezes at 30 feet and below with a design in which blades run up a pole’s length and spin around it. Contoured airfoils make the Windspire the first vertical-axis turbine that can start in slow winds without help from a motor or inefficient scoops or wings. $5,000; mariahpower.com

11.24.2008 at 11:56pm - Comment by Theydrick

The annual energy yield is marketed as 2000kWh, with 1.2kW max draw... So as long as the sum of the energy of everything you have running is less than 1.2kW at any given time (just look at the device's documentation or labelling to find out how many watts it uses, or if it's expressed in amps, multiply by 120 or whatever voltage the device runs on) you can get 2000kWh out of one of these in a year. Typical household consumption for a conservative user is around 3000 to 4000kWh per year (I use less, typically 1000kWh per year - I'm SUPER CEREAL!!). So... mathologically speaking (no, that's not a real word... but it should be... MATHOLOGISTS UNITE!!!) one or two of these could power a whole house given adequate winds year-round (conditions which typically only exist on mountaintops). I'd say, one or two of these, mixed with a couple average size solar panels, just might do it for anyone anywhere there is a fair amount of sun and wind. ALSO!!! You would be restricted by your municipality zoning department from mounting this on top of your house. The whole point of the 30ft idea is to reduce the device's vertical footprint... we wouldn't want endangered birds or commercial airliners flying into it would we?
Science

Where The Universes Are

By PopSci Staff Posted on 10.13.2008 21 Comments
Once again, you ask and you answer, in the latest installment of our FYI Live feature. This week, Edward Owens has a poser: "Our universe as far as we know is finite; space is infinite as far as we know. Does anyone think there is another universe, or more out there?" What do you think? Post your answers below.

10.13.2008 at 07:56pm - Comment by Theydrick

Here's my take on the universe, how it started, and its relationship to other universes. The Big Bang was a point in space where all matter in the "known universe" was expelled from a huge explosion (yay explosions) - but what you have to consider that the matter which comprised the Big Bang had to come from somewhere (hmm...) My thought is that our universe began as a collection of matter expelled from neighboring universes that collected in a large empty space until *BOOM!!!* we have a universe! Obviously this means I believe there are universes outside our own, likely in many different stages of formation. It's likely (given this model) that as our own universe expands, regardless of deceleration (no dark matter) or eventual accelleration (dark matter - wiki "open universe"), matter would be excreted from our universe and either absorbed into a neighboring universe or undergo a Big Crunch with matter from neighboring universes in empty space. So basically what you get is one huge collection of universes in a Crunch-Bang cycle forming and dispersing in the same fashion as solar systems in our own universe. I like my idea, its shiny. If your idea is shiny, I like it too :) I'll check back later to see what the happy haps are here.
Science

I Want Your Antibodies

By Julia Wallace Posted on 9.24.2008 9 Comments
Welcome to the inaugural post of The Sex Files. Almost every publication worth its druthers has a sex column these days, full of Carrie Bradshawish musings about life and love, men and women, this and that. Here's our take on the genre. Instead of faux-sociology, we'll give you a broad view of new research and ideas in the sexiest of the hard sciences: reproductive biology, evolutionary anthropology, and genetics. This is sex from the inside out. Keep track of the column at popsci.com/sexfiles, where you can also sign up for an rss feed. Disassortative mating alert! A group of European scientists led by Oxford biostatistician Raphaelle Chaix has provided some of the most compelling evidence yet that we humans pick our partners based on how different their immune systems—or officially, their Major Histocompatibility Complexes—are from our own.

9.25.2008 at 11:56pm - Comment by Theydrick

I generally take the South Park view of Mormons... but that's neither here nor there. This article is about stinky smelly people being attractive because their stinky smelliness is indicative of their histological compatibility. So cool your jets guys... they're not saying Mormons are more stinky or smelly than anyone else (and how would they know unless they went around giving random people the sniff test?), they're just saying that the next time you DO happen to smell a Mormon, they have as much chance as anyone else to be your histological soulmate.
The Environment

Forests to Serve as Fire Sentinels

By Molika Ashford Posted on 9.24.2008 4 Comments
Trees may be able to protect themselves from forest fires by serving as living batteries—housing small devices, which would measure temperature and humidity and broadcast the data from tree-to-tree.

9.25.2008 at 11:47pm - Comment by Theydrick

Don't expect to be seeing "Tree batteries" anytime. Stick a multimeter in a tree and you won't see much usable energy there - the strength of the current is proportional to the difference in acidity between the tree and the soil, and that's not a very big difference. That's why you don't see many tree-huggers dying of cardiac arrest from electric shock :D Damn hippy tree-huggers... Besides, even if you harvested an entire forest for energy, solar panels and wind turbines still win out in terms of efficiency. Still... it's kind of an amusing prospect that someone could hook up an outlet to a tree and enjoy some portable TV or something :D
Science

How Your Laptop Will Just Keep Getting Faster

By Corey Binns Posted on 9.25.2008 12 Comments
Since the invention of the transistor, silicon semiconductors have been king. But now silicon-based transistors are nearing the limit of their potential. Excess heat and manufacturing hurdles are impeding the development of ever-faster and -smaller processors. Advances in materials and chip design to resist extreme heat and move huge amounts of data, quickly, will be crucial. Experts are exploring three technologies to overcome these challenges: spintronics, graphene and memristors.

9.25.2008 at 11:39pm - Comment by Theydrick

I don't think trinary computations are out of the question, they're just a little ahead of us right now. In order to perform trinary operations, we would have to completely rewrite machine code to take advantage of this advancement. Til then, best to stick with binary. This isn't the first time I've heard of memristors, but I still get excited when I think about the prospect of "save state" for my computer :D Now all we need is a genius scientist to develope a process for replacing slow, cumbersome electrons with shiny new photons! Then we'll be in super-duper computer business.
The Environment

Obscure Knowledge: The Trickiest Trap in Nature

By Stuart Fox Posted on 9.16.2008 5 Comments
Most spider webs work through chance: The spider erects an invisible trap and waits until some unlucky insect hits it. But a common Australian spider called the St. Andrew’s Cross—known for its striking, cross-barred web—is sneakier.

9.24.2008 at 06:35am - Comment by Theydrick

Hey look, a flower! *bzzzzzzz* Hey wait, this isn't a flower... it's a sticky net full of DOOM!! OHNOES!! x_X With over 40000 species of spider, I'm sure there's more than just one that employs "sneaky webs". Where's Gil Grissom when you need him? "You have a question? I've got an answer! I just make no gaurentees it's the right one or the one you were looking for" :P
Science

Ghost Heart

By Elizabeth Svoboda Posted on 9.23.2008 9 Comments
In late 2005, cardiac researcher Doris Taylor revived the dead. She rinsed rat hearts with detergent until the cells washed away and all that remained was a skeleton of tissue translucent as wax paper—a ghost heart, as Taylor calls it. She injected the scaffold with fresh heart cells from newborn rats. Then she waited.

9.24.2008 at 05:34am - Comment by Theydrick

I don't think this would be a cure for cancer so much as a stall. Sure, you'd cleanse the organ initially, but the "ghost organ" must be implanted with cells from the new host, and there's no guarentee that once the cells start dividing that they will do so healthily. Cancerous cells beget cancerous cells - that's just the way it is. Even if you implanted cells from a healthy, compatible donor, eventually the cancerous cells in the patient would replicate again into the organ. So, while not a cure for cancer, this could very well be viewed as a viable alternative to chemotherapy or other treatments, but until we discover the reason why there are cells that do not divide properly and find a way to fix this process, we will not have a cure for cancer. Very well posed question though. "You have a question? I've got an answer! I just make no gaurentees it's the right one or the one you were looking for" :P