Climate change IS happening and WE are causing it. Here’s a great video that sums up ‘what you need to know’ in 24 simple steps. Check it out, and share!
How to kill an introvert
Very funny comic…but only funny because it’s true. 🙂 Click the thumbnail for the full size image. From jhallcomics.com.
51 foot long, walking, fire breathing mechanical dragon
Now this is cool…a walking, fire breathing robot dragon that’s 51 feet long (would that count as ‘life size’?). Created by the Zollner Group in Germany, its purpose seems to have been a fun publicity stunt (it was a part of some folk play), but hey, nothing wrong with that if this is the result! The stats are impressive. Weight is around 11 tons, and it’s powered by a diesel engine generator to drive the massive hydraulic system, with a top speed of 1.8km/h. Ok, so it’s slow, but it *walks* and breathes *fire*! How cool is that. Check out this video:
If you’d like more technical details and history of the project, the best place to go is Zollner’s website here. Or, for those of you with short attention spans, check out the video below.
You’ll notice a cart-like dolly under its belly in many shots. This is to assist with moving this monster around, though it CAN fully walk on its own as shown in this video:
Graphene body armor
I love graphene…this is truly a super material and I can’t wait until production methods are able to mass product it! The latest potential application is in the construction of body armor, where it’s shown to have 8-10 times the stopping power of steel. Pretty cool for just plain carbon! Add this to graphene’s already impressive resume of, among other things, transparency, flexible, strong, able to create super-batteries, highly electrically conductive, etc. Cool stuff (you can read more about the body armor study here).
Speaking of graphene, though…I was disappointed to see my daughter’s third grade spelling test recently. One of the words was ‘grapheme‘…which I had to Google to find out what it was (it’s the smallest semantically distinguishing unit in a written language). What a completely useless word that the kids will quickly forget. The same spelling challenge could have been taught by asking them to spell graphene instead…and THAT is a word that will undoubtedly become as much of a part of their lives as ‘plastic’ is in mine!
Big GMO study about to start
What is being called the ‘world’s first ever comprehensive and independent study on the safety of GMOs and their associated pesticides’ is expected to launch in 2015. At a cost of around $25 million, this international effort will be an approximately three year study of rats with the goal of answering these questions:
- Are GMOs (or their associated pesticides) toxic to organ systems over the long-term?
- Do GMOs (or their associated pesticides) cause cancer?
- Do GMOs (or their associated pesticides) reduce fertility or cause birth defects?
- Is the mixture of chemicals present in Roundup herbicide more or less toxic than its active ingredient glyphosate?
This is a BIG deal. Monsanto had used a 90 day study which showed no ill effects, while a two year study by others showed tumors in the rats (only detected after around 18 months) – source. A three year study will help address the concerns raised by that two year study, and may also lead to regulators requiring long term studies for future GM products (currently, long term studies are not required in any country).
So, great news…but we’ll have to wait three or four years to hear the results. Read more about it here.
Computer simulation of CO2 in the atmosphere
This is a really fascinating video showing CO2 levels dispersed throughout the atmosphere over a year, as simulated by NASA’s climate modeling program GEOS-5. It’s really interesting to see how the levels change over the year based on plant growth, and also the stark differences between the northern and southern hemispheres. Check it out below, or read about it more over at Wired.
Study looks at the effect of cannabis extract on brain cancer
I’ve seen plenty of stories about people using cannabis to treat brain cancer and other medical problems, but there hasn’t been a lot of hard science looking at this treatment. That’s where this new study is particular interesting, for it does just that – looks at the effects of using two cannabis extracts, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), both by themselves, and also in conjunction with irradiation. The result showed a clear benefit of the cannabis extracts, and the best results were when the treatment included both those extracts and the irradation – where the tumors virtually disappeared. Pretty promising stuff…read more here.
Cool experiment – bowling ball versus feathers, falling
Galileo is usually credited with first describing the idea that objects will fall to the Earth at the same rate, regardless of mass (there’s some debate over whether he actually experimented with this at the Tower of Pisa though). So yes, a feather should fall at the same rate as a bowling ball…but air resistance gets in the way of performing this experiment. Unless you remove the air of course, which is exactly what physicist Brian Cox did in the video below, using an enormous vacuum chamber in Ohio. Great video to show your kids!
Wireless transmission of electricity using ultrasound
Ever since Nikola Tesla demonstrated the wireless transmission of electricity, the world has been fascinated by the idea and countless people have tried to make it work. Physics have continuously gotten in the way…the power transmitted decreases dramatically with distance. UBeam is taking a different approach though…using targeted ultrasound to accomplish this. Electricity is converted to ultrasound, broadcasted to your approximate location, where a receiver then converts it back into electricity. Imagine your iPhone automatically charging when you walk into Starbucks, for example. Pretty cool. Read more about it here.
The possibility of irreversible climate change
A draft UN science report, expected to be approved this week, warns that we’re on the path toward irreversible climate change. We can still avoid that by making significant cuts to CO2 emissions, but the question is, will we? Unless you’re a Republican (sorry, but I call it like I see it), you’ve probably already accepted that the current situation is unsustainable and that immediate change is needed. What will it take? Fortunately, the answer is ‘not much’…well, apart from a decision to change (which in this political climate in the US, is no small feat!). A report from Deutsche Bank finds that rooftop solar will reach grid parity in all 50 states in the US by 2016. This means the cost will be the same or less than getting power from the electric grid (10 states have already reached grid parity). Removing the ‘cost’ argument from the debate will help a ton. What about the reality that solar power is not a 24/7 energy source? Good news there, too. Many companies have been working on energy storage systems, and they’re looking more and more promising (meaning, closer to production!). The latest is interesting…a company called Alevo has been operating out of the spotlight (sort of in stealth mode, though not like some startups)…and expects to be producing hundreds of utility-scale (read:massive) energy storage systems within a year. These 1MWh containers use lithium ferrophosphate and graphite batteries..cool tech. It’s easy to perhaps dismiss Alevo as yet another company with dreams and promises…except this one has raised a billion dollars from Swiss investors. Whoa. So they have the technology, they have the money, and they’re taking over a former Phillips Morris plant in North Carolina. This is a company to watch. Then of course you have Solar City looking to include battery storage systems with every home solar installation within 5-10 years.
So the future is bleak if we do not act…yet advances in technology along with greatly decreased costs is looking to push renewable energy to the forefront, despite the best efforts of Republicans opposing it. Now, just imagine how awesome that industry could be if it actually had broad support! Oh well. It’s a tsunami that can’t be stopped, I think…fortunately!