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Designer Garage for Citroen's New C6
With credits including the Munich football stadium, the Allianz Arena, to their name, Neutral partners, Tapio Spellman and Christian Grou, conceived the garage as a sculptural design to "envelop and present the C6 in a truly unique and independent environment". Drawing inspiration from the pronounced architectural forms of the Citroën C6 itself, the garage is formed by three solid strands, which create the 'skeleton' of the main building that stands 3m tall and covers 50m2. Constructed out of light transmitting concrete with transparent sliding 'doors' to the sides, which allow the vehicle to enter from either the front or the rear, the building securely encloses the C6 in the traditional sense of a garage, but at the same time allows it to be displayed to the passer-by. The transparent sliding plates have been constructed of reinforced, environmentally friendly polycarbonate sheets with coloured LCD layers in the sheets allowing for opacity when the car owner switches on the privacy mode......... Posted by: Jim Permalink Source Greener Path To Iron Production
droplet of molten iron held by a magnet
The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) announced recently that the team, led by Donald R. Sadoway of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has shown the technical viability of producing iron by molten oxide electrolysis (MOE). "What sets molten oxide electrolysis apart from other metal-producing technologies is that it is totally carbon-free and hence generates no carbon dioxide gases -- only oxygen," said Lawrence W. Kavanagh, AISI vice president of manufacturing and technology. The work was funded by the AISI/Department of Energy Technology Roadmap Program (TRP). The TRP goal is to increase the competitiveness of the U.S. steel industry while saving energy and enhancing the environment. As per the AISI, the MIT work "marks one of TRP's breakthrough projects toward meeting that goal". Unlike other iron-making processes, MOE works by passing an electric current through a liquid solution of iron oxide. The iron oxide then breaks down into liquid iron and oxygen gas, allowing oxygen to be the main byproduct of the process. Electrolysis itself is nothing new -- all of the world's aluminum is produced this way. And that is one advantage of the new process: It is based on a technology that metallurgists are already familiar with. Unlike aluminum smelting, however, MOE is carbon-free......... Posted by: Kevin Permalink Source Hurricane Katrina One Year Later
3-day average of actual sea surface temperatures
Several NASA satellites gave important details about Katrina's storm structure and strength throughout her life cycle, aiding forecasters and emergency managers. In the aftermath, data from satellites and instruments on NASA planes became useful in recovery efforts, damage assessments, and analysis of the storm's environmental impacts. Katrina left as a number of as 1,833 dead as per the National Hurricane Center, and over $80 billion in damage. Katrina began as only a feeble storm being tracked by satellites and forecasters. On Aug. 23, Katrina was nothing but a mass of organized clouds over the Bahamas. But later that day, she quickly intensified and headed toward the U.S. coastline. Late on Aug. 25, she made her first landfall just south of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as a Category 1 hurricane. As Katrina moved into the Gulf of Mexico, atmospheric conditions were favorable for rapid development. Data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite showed uncommonly warm ocean temperatures in her path -- prime fuel for a hurricane. By early in the morning of Aug. 28, Katrina's winds reached a remarkable 175 mph -- a category 5 storm -- with a central pressure of 902 millibars, the fourth lowest pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic. During this phase of rapid development, forecasters were aided by data from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument on the Terra satellite that supplied information on Katrina's cloud motion and height, improving the accuracy of forecasts and warnings......... Posted by: Tyler Permalink Source Too many men could destabilize society
In the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Dr Therese Hesketh of the UCL Institute of Child Health and Dr Zhu Wei Xing from the Zhejiang Normal University in China warn that measures to reduce sex selection and change cultural attitudes are urgently needed. Dr Therese Hesketh, of the UCL Institute of Child Health, says: "The ratio of men to women in most populations is remarkably constant if left untouched. The tradition of son preference, however, has distorted these natural sex ratios in large parts of Asia and North Africa. Sex-selective abortion and discrimination in care practices for girls have led to higher female mortality. Although health care for women is generally improving, these advances have been offset by a huge increase in the use of sex-selective abortion, and there are now an estimated 80 million missing females in India and China alone......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source Rare high-altitude clouds found on Mars
Clouds in the Martian eastern sky
Until now, scientists had been aware only of the clouds that hug the Martian surface and lower reaches of the atmosphere. Thanks to data from the SPICAM Ultraviolet and Infrared Atmospheric Spectrometer onboard Mars Express, a fleeting layer of clouds have been discovered at an altitude between 80 and 100 kilometres. The clouds are most likely composed of carbon dioxide. SPICAM made the discovery by observing distant stars just before they disappeared behind Mars. By looking at the effects on the starlight as it travelled through the Martian atmosphere, SPICAM built up a picture of the molecules at different altitudes. Each sweep through the atmosphere is called a profile. The first hints of the new cloud layer came when certain profiles showed that the star dimmed noticeably when it was behind the 90100 kilometre high atmospheric layer. Although this happened in only one percent of the profiles, by the time the team had collected 600 profiles, they were confident that the effect was real. "If you wanted to see these clouds from the surface of Mars, you would probably have to wait until after sunset" says Franck Montmessin, a SPICAM scientist with Service d'Aeronomie du CNRS, Verrires-le-Buisson, France, and lead author of the results. This is because the clouds are very faint and can only be seen reflecting sunlight against the darkness of the night sky. In that respect, they look similar to the mesospheric clouds, also known as noctilucent clouds, on Earth. These occur at 80 kilometres altitude above our planet, where the density of the atmosphere is similar to that of Mars' at 35 kilometres. The newly discovered Martian clouds therefore occur in a much more rarefied atmospheric location......... Posted by: Brooke Permalink Source Teen career plans out of sync with reality
Unfortunately, the goals of too many teens now outpace what they are likely to achieve, a problem that can lead to wasted time and resources, not to mention anxiety and distress, according to a new Florida State University study. Sociology Professor John Reynolds tracked changes in high school seniors' educational and occupational plans between 1976 and 2000 and found the gap in goals and actual achievements has grown over the 25-year period. The study, co-authored by FSU graduate students Michael Stewart, Ryan MacDonald and Lacey Sischo, was published in the journal Social Problems. "Today's teens are both highly ambitious and increasingly unrealistic," Reynolds said. "While some youth clearly benefit from heightened ambition, it can lead to disappointment and discouragement rather than optimism and success". The study, which was supported by a $47,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is the first to show with comparable, national data how dramatically high school seniors' plans have changed since the 1970s, how these expectations are increasingly out of sync with the achievements of their peers and that there is a corresponding decline in the payoffs of student ambition for future accomplishments in school......... Posted by: Tom Permalink Source Bees Calculation Sets Industry Buzzing
Scientists at Cardiff University's Manufacturing Engineering Centre (MEC) developed the procedure, or algorithm, after observing the "waggle dance" of bees foraging for nectar. The algorithm enables companies to maximise results by changing basic elements of their processes. When a bee finds a source of nectar, it returns to the hive and performs a dance to show other bees the direction and distance of the flower patch and how plentiful it is. The other workers then decide how a number of of them will fly off to find the new source, depending on its distance and quality. The MEC team's Bees Algorithm mimics this behaviour. A computer can be set up to calculate the results of different settings on a manufacturing process. More computing power is then devoted to searching around the most successful settings, in the same way as more bees are sent to the most promising flower patches. The Algorithm has been shown to cope with up to 3,000 variables and is faster than existing calculations. By entering basic data about all or part of a company, or even just one machine, the MEC team can calculate the best outcome for a wide range of business processes. They have already used the Bees Algorithm to work out the most efficient settings on welding systems and for the design of springs......... Posted by: Ashley Permalink Source How does brain cells process images?
New research from Harvard Medical School (HMS) scientists has identified an area of the brain where such memories are found. They report in the advanced online Nature that they have identified neurons that assist in categorizing visual stimuli. They found that the activity of neurons in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex encode the category, or meaning, of familiar visual images and that brain activity patterns changed dramatically as a result of learning. Their results suggest that categories are encoded by the activity of individual neurons (brain cells) and that the parietal cortex is a part of the brain circuitry that learns and recognizes the meaning of the things that we see. "It was previously unknown that parietal cortex activity would show such dramatic changes as a result of learning new categories," says lead author David Freedman, PhD, HMS postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology. "Some areas of the brain, particularly the frontal and temporal lobes, have been associated with visual categorization. Since these brain areas are all interconnected, an important next step will be to determine their relative roles in the categorization process"......... Posted by: Sean Permalink Source UK And US Companies Sold Mobile Phone Tapping
"We are appalled to learn that our phone calls with Vietnamese cyber-dissidents have been monitored with equipment provided by European and US companies," the press freedom organisation said. "Coming a year after it emerged that Yahoo! cooperates with the Chinese police, this new case reinforces our conviction that telecommunications companies must be forced to respect certain rules of ethical conduct. In particular, they should be banned from selling surveillance equipment to repressive governments"......... Posted by: Tom Permalink Source Giant praying mantis invades Prague
The police stood by, trying to direct the bug to more peaceful environs, as many of the grumpier tourists nearby were rather put off their expensive goulash and roasted duck......... Posted by: Tom Permalink Source |
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