Photo: Snorky [wikipedia]
In the coal stripmine Hambach in Germany, there was a machine so big that it boggles the mind.the Bagger 288:
This is the 45,000 ton Bagger 288 digger built by Krupps in Germany, and it is the largest land based machine built by humans on the face of the planet.
It’s not fast, moving at about 2 meters a minute, but boy can it shift rubble.
It can dig up 240,000 cubic meters of dirt a day. That’s about the same as a football field sized hole that’s 30 metres deep.
And why do you need a machine so absurdly big? So we can strip mine coal out of the ground, transport it hundreds of miles on massive trains and take it to power stations where we burn it to make electricity. And where does quite a chunk of this electricity go? Strangely back to the digger, as it requires 16.56 megawatts of electricity to operate. You’re not going to find a lot of solar panels on this leviathan.
Once it starts digging, it literally will not stop. Anything in its path will be chewed up, including this 60 ton bulldozer. How, I ask you, do you miss a 60 ton bulldozer?
But what is the true purpose of such a machine? Let’s all welcome our new digger overlord, as explained by Rathergood.
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What causes the scarcity of women in the field of computer science? While some pointed out that girls aren’t attracted to math and science in high school, a new study by Sapna Cheryan of University of Washington revealed another factor: they’re repulsed by geeks!
"When people think of computer science, the image that immediately pops into many of their minds is of the computer geek surrounded by such things as computer games, science-fiction memorabilia and junk food," said lead researcher Sapna Cheryan, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington. "That stereotype doesn’t appeal to many women who don’t like the portrait of masculinity that it evokes." [...]
In the first experiment, about 40 male and female students entered a small classroom that either contained objects stereotypically associated with computer science, such as Star Trek posters, video game boxes and Coke cans, or non-stereotypical items such as nature posters, art, a dictionary and coffee mugs. (The students were told to ignore these objects because the room was being shared with another class.)
Then, the students filled out questionnaires about their attitudes toward computer science.
In the geeky environment, women were significantly less interested than men in computer science, while there was no gender difference for the non-stereotypical classroom. Female students in the stereotypical environment said they felt less similar to computer-science majors than did those in the classroom that wasn’t geeked out.
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Researchers say that Uranus and Neptune may have full oceans of liquid diamonds with giant diamond icebergs floating through them. The research showed that when diamonds are in their liquid state, they function similar to water and similarly, solid chunks can float in them.
“Diamond is a relatively common material on Earth, but its melting point has never been measured,” said J. H. Eggert of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. “You can’t just raise the temperature and have it melt, you have to also go to high pressures, which makes it very difficult to measure the temperature.”
Ordinarily, before diamonds are melted, they turn into graphite. It takes a perfect level of pressure and heat to turn them into liquid diamond form. Researchers found that the pressure has to be similar to those found on Neptune or Uranus.
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Neatorama has featured a number of stories about animals who have received prosthetics before, including Beauty the Bald Eagle, who lost her beak when it was shot by a hunter. WebEcoist has a great collection of these stories including many you probably haven’t seen yet.
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NASA is developing an aerial vehicle that will probably come as close to the personal jet-pack we were looking forward to. The “Puffin” features Vertical Takeoff and Landing, an electric engine, and a face-melting top speed of 300 miles per hour. They are already fine tuning its performance values for military use:
The rather unusual-looking craft would be especially handy for military applications. Its extremely low heat signature would make it difficult to detect in the air, and the fact that it’s whisper quiet doesn’t hurt, either. In fact, because it’s so quiet similar technology may be used for commercial transportation in the future. The lack of loud, emissions-heavy aircraft engines would mean that airports could be situated closer to city centers and even residential areas. And if we can’t have personal jet packs, then personal aircraft would be the next best thing.
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Scientists have discovered what may be the world’s oldest set of footprints. The fossil record may be evidence of a four-legged animal’s first steps on land 397 million years ago:
Scientists tell the journal Nature that the fossil trackways even retain the impressions left by the "toes" on the animals’ feet.
The team says the find means that land vertebrates appeared millions of years earlier than previously supposed. [...]
They represent the movements of many animals as they scurried around what would have been a tropical muddy shoreline in the Middle Devonian Period of Earth history.
Slabs of carbonate rock are dappled with prints that range in size and detail. Some indentations are obscured where successive animals have trampled over the same patch of ground; but others retain exquisite features of the pads and digits that made them.
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If you just finished looking at the Google Street View of Stonehenge, it might be time to take a trip to the World Famous San Diego Zoo. All from your computer, of course. The paths can be a little difficult to navigate and some of the animals are hard to see from the street map distance, but it’s definitely awesome to be able to check out one of the best zoos in the world from your home. When you first load the site, it drops you right in the heart of the zoo’s newest exhibit, the Elephant Odyssey.
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The fastest human alive, Usain Bolt, can run 28 MPH. But a new study proposes a theoretical maximum of 40 MPH for the human body under ideal conditions:
This provides a new twist on the old school of thought that speed limits depended on how much force a runner could exert against the ground. Past studies showed that sprinters can apply up to 1,000 pounds of force with a single limb during each sprinting step, and so researchers thought that humans simply could not push beyond that point.[...]
One-legged hopping produced ground forces greater than those applied during normal running by 30 percent or more, and active leg muscles also generated about 1.5 to 2 times greater force during one-legged hopping. That shows how humans don’t exert the maximum possible force during the act of forward sprinting, the researchers say.
Going one step farther, the researchers also found that the “critical biological limit” depends upon how quickly runners can exert ground force while sprinting. Elite runners have foot-ground contact times of less than one-tenth of a second, and max out ground forces within one-twentieth of one second when their foot first hits the ground.
Link | Photo: US Department of State
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Lockheed Martin’s Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) is an actuated exoskeleton that helps a soldier carry up to 200 pounds of weight on its frame. It senses the direction that the user wants to move, and then moves in it. In the links, you find a video from the company showing the HULC in action.
Link |YouTube Video | Image: Lockheed Martin
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This video shows a neutrophil (a type of white blood cell) chasing a staphylococcus aureus bacterium. The video was recorded by biochemistry professor David Rogers of Vanderbilt University in the 1950s. Notes on the movement by med school professor Thomas P. Stossel:
Contraction waves are visible along the surface of the moving cell as it moves forward in a gliding fashion. As the neutrophil relentlessly pursues the microbe it ignores the red cells and platelets. However, its leading edge is sufficiently stiff (elastic) to deform and displace the red cells it bumps into. The internal contents of the neutrophil also move, and granule motion is particularly dynamic near the leading edge. These granules only approach the cell surface membrane when the cell changes direction and redistributes its peripheral “gel.” After the neutrophil has engulfed the bacterium, note that the cell’s movements become somewhat more jerky, and that it begins to extend more spherical surface projections.
Link via Geekologie
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A lot of people buy clothes and immediately wear them without washing them, but a recent study has come out showing that this can be an unintentionally filthy habit. Good Morning America went to a number of both high-end and low-end retailers and purchased 14 items of clothing, which they then sent to Dr. Philip Tierno, director of microbiology and immunology at New York University, to test. The results were surprisingly disgusting; many of the items had fecal germs on them and one blouse also had vaginal organisms and yeast on it. Some of the samples had many people’s secretions, while others only had one heavily contaminated person’s germs.
While this isn’t usually enough to make you sick, it could be and either way, it is certainly disgusting.
Link Image via Clean Wal-Mart [Flickr].
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One of the more daunting challenges of sending missions to Mars is the problem of dust. Due to the atmosphere and lack of displacing elements, the dust can be a menace to all forms of human operation. With challenges come great solutions, though; scientists are zeroing in on controlling the particles with acoustic levitation, as shown here:
Blasting a high-pitched noise from a tweeter into a pipe that focuses the sound waves can create enough pressure to lift troublesome alien dust from equipment, suits or vehicles, according to a study published January in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.
Wired has the story.
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No, it’s not really made of glass, but you can see the heart beating inside this frog, one of 30 new species of creatures found in the highlands of Ecuador. See more of the discoveries in a photo gallery at National Geographic. Link -via Metafilter
(image credit: Paul S. Hamilton, RAEI)
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Most states and countries would be loathe to name a state bacteria, but Wisconsin is not most places. After boasting their dairy products in the form of giant foam cheeseheads for years, the state is taking a new step towards celebrating the substance that put the state on the map –cheese.
Wisconsin Assembly Bill 556 aims to honor bacterium Lactococcus (the little guy that helps make milk become cheese) as the state microbe.
If the measure passes, be sure to keep an eye on the Neatorama store, because I’m sure it won’t be long until Giant Microbes releases the first ever state microbe, Lactococcus. The cute guy to the left is in fact not him, but his distant cousin, mad cow disease.
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Hair ice, also called silk frost, is a type of ice formation that looks like silk and seems to only appear on woody, barkless materials on the ground. The ice structures tend to grow out of a small pore in the wood, sort of like hairs on the human head. Dr. James Carter has more on the phenomenon (and more photos too) on his site.
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I can’t get enough of the video series at Big Think featuring Dr. Spencer Wells and his Genographic Project. Here’s a guy who I’d pick to be my professor of anthropology, molecular science, ancient history, and other topics that could use clear yet exciting delivery.
Wells’s own journey of discovery began as a child whose zeal for history and biology led him to the University of Texas, where he enrolled at age 16, majored in biology, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa three years later. He then pursued his Ph.D. at Harvard University under the tutelage of distinguished evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin. His landmark research findings led to advances in the understanding of the male Y chromosome and its ability to trace ancestral human migration.
All of the topics are intriguing and made more accessible through Wells’ evident passion for the subject matters. Here he talks about how the human population went from the brink of extinction (world poulation: 2,000, all in Africa) to migration and adaptation with development of better tools, art, and language.
Link to video. Link to bio and video directory.
Photo: Wikipedia
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Can you imagine telepathically sending messages to those around you, seeing out of a tooth or discovering a volcanic crater filled with all types of new species never before seen by man? Scientists can and while many of the new discoveries listed on this WebEcoist article have been featured on Neatorama before, they are all fascinating enough to deserve a second look.
What’s your favorite recent discovery? I personally like the volcanic crater the best because I’m a sucker for animals.
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Why are humans mostly free of body hair, in comparison to other primates? Losing body hair was an evolutionary advantage in that it allowed early hominids to forage over a greater distance in harsher climates. In Scientific American, Mariette DiChristina writes:
Our forebears abandoned their easier foraging habits, traveling longer distances through a tropical landscape to acquire sufficient food to survive. Adding meat to their diets meant more calories, but finding prey also took more work. Their activity level increased and with it their need to dissipate body heat to avoid tissue damage. By 1.6 mya, protohumans had long legs for sustained walking and running. Along with that trait came naked skin and a large number of eccrine sweat glands, which produce moisture that removes body heat through evaporative cooling. The hairs on our head also help to combat overheating, by shielding our big brain from direct sun.
Link | Photo: US Department of Energy
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Crysomallon squamiferum, also known as the scaly-foot gastropod, was discovered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean in 1999 at a depth of 2420 metres. Its shell is remarkably strong because it is flexible, allowing it to absorb blows from predators and dissipate their energy, rather than shatter:
For example, the shell’s outermost layer consists of strong particles of iron sulphide created in the hydrothermal vents, each around 20 nanometres across, embedded in a soft organic matrix secreted by the snail. This structure is designed to crack when hit, but in a way that absorbs energy.
Cracks spread only by fanning out around the iron sulphide particles. This “microcracking” not only absorbs energy, it also ensures that larger cracks do not form. What’s more, the particles of iron sulphide may blunt and deform intruding claws, the study suggests.
Scientists who have studied the creature suggest that it might be possible to duplicate the structure synthetically for armor or pipelines.
Link via Popular Science | Photo: JAMSTEC
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We’ve previously posted about a ceiling-walking robot developed by the robotics lab at Ben Gurion University. Here are four more ingenious robot designs developed at that same laboratory, each of which scales walls using different mobility techniques:
First, a magnetic climber that has compliant magnetic wheels and is capable to climb on ferromagnetic surfaces. This robot can be used for inspection of ship hull or bridges. Second, is a Snail inspired wall climbing robot capable of climbing on non metallic surfaces using hot melt glue. The robot secretes the adhesive at the front and peels off the track from the wall at the bottom leaving a trail behind just like the snail does. Third, is a robot that uses sticky wheels in order to attach itself to the wall. It simply has 3Ms sticky tape on the wheels. It can climb on smooth surfaces like glass. Fourth, is a four legged wall climbing robot for climbing on rough surfaces. It has 12 claws made of fishing hooks mounted on each footpad, and it climbs like cat or other rodents.
via Gizmodo
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A Japanese shipbuilding company named IHI Marine United is developing a ship that can be powered entirely by rechargeable lithium batteries. It will be able to travel 80 km while carrying 800 passengers:
Its Zero Emission Electric Propulsion Ship will use batteries that can be recharged at charging stations in ports it visits. The plug-in ship powered by lithium-ion batteries would run without a diesel engine, thus cutting its carbon dioxide or nitrogen oxide emissions to zero.
The company hopes to have a commercial vehicle available in 2015.
Link via technabob | Photo: Far East Gizmos
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Photo: Vincent Fournier
A photography exhibit detailing the training of American astronauts, along with spacefarers from China and Russia, was recently on display at the London Art Fair. In addition to snazzy spacesuits and a mission control center that still looks like NASA’s old room, the participants (Like the one in the lower right of the photo above) are made to mobilize in a barren, Mars-like location at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah.
Vincent Fournier’s Website, where you can see all of his work.
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Science is wonderful of course, but it can also be vaguely terrifying if you take things to their logical (or not so logical) conclusions. Take batteries that run on human blood:
So scientists have developed a battery that is powered by human blood. The idea is a cybernetic power source, to keep your pacemaker or whatever running. But, lets think about this for a second…what do we have way too much of on this planet? People. And what do we have way too little of? Power. A battery that runs on human blood is an easy fix for both of them. Jonathan Swift would be proud of this, screw eating the poor, lets just power all our gadgets with them.
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Peter Rombough, a biologist at Brandon University in Canada, has conducted a study on the functions of fish gills. He concludes that although gills may allow a fish to breathe, that might not be the original reason why they evolved:
In order to keep from shriveling like your fingers in the bathtub, fish must constantly exchange ions, such as sodium and potassium, with the water. Larval fish can exchange ions through their skin, and early fish likely used rudimentary gill structures known as branchial baskets. But when the salinity of the water changes rapidly–as happened when fish invaded freshwater habitats–fish would have needed a much more efficient way of exchanging ions with their environment. That means large, complex gills.
Link via reddit | Photo: US Department of the Interior
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The cost of putting things into space is astronomical, to say the least. Getting things into space takes more fuel than moving them from planet to planet because of gravity. So what if we had a new method for sending supplies into orbit for the International Space Station? John Hunter says he has a better idea: shoot supplies into space with a cannon! He say a space gun would bring the cost of launching a pound of supplies from $5,000 down to $250.
Hunter wants to operate the gun, the “Quicklauncher,” in the ocean near the equator, where the Earth’s fast rotation will help slingshot objects into space. A floating cannon—dipping 1,600 feet below sea level and steadied by a ballast system—would let operators swivel it for different orbits. Next month, Hunter will test a functional, 10-foot prototype in a water tank. He says a full-size launcher could be ready in seven years, provided the company can round up the $500 million. Despite the upfront cost, Hunter says he has drawn interest from investors because his reusable gun saves so much cash in the long haul. Just don’t ever expect a ride in the thing: The gun produces 5,000 Gs, so it’s only for fuel tanks and ruggedized satellites. “A person shot out of it would probably get compressed to half their size,” Hunter says. “It’d be over real quick.”
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NASA is shutting down the space shuttle program and so is trying to sell off its remaining merchandise at increasingly low prices. It’s already slashed the price for a (pre-owned) shuttle from $42 million to $28.8 million:
When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in December 2008 put out the call seeking buyers at museums, schools and elsewhere, the agency received about 20 inquiries. An agency spokesman, Mike Curie, said he expected more interest, especially with the discount.
“We’re confident that we’ll get other takers,” Mr. Curie said Friday.
The Discovery is already promised to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The Atlantis and the Endeavour are up for grabs. It is possible that the Enterprise, a shuttle prototype that never made it to space, will also be available. The Enterprise is currently at the Smithsonian.
Link via Instapundit | Photo: NASA
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Archaeologists
Do It in the Dirt, design by Chris
Murphy - $14.95
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A new addition to our growing line of cheeky Scientists Do It T-Shirts, here's one for all you archaeologists. I hear they'll date any old thing: Link
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Physical chemists at Northwestern University have demonstrated that a simple droplet of oil can navigate a complex labyrinth.
Grzybowski’s team made a number of silicon mazes roughly 6.5 square centimeters in size. To create the conditions for movement, the researchers filled the labyrinths with an alkaline solution of potassium hydroxide. The maze runners, placed at the entrance of the labyrinths, were millimeter-wide droplets of either mineral oil or the organic solvent dichloromethane, both loaded with a weak acid and red dye. The “prize,” placed at the exit of each maze, was a lump of agarose gel soaked in hydrochloric acid. “We wanted to give [the droplets] a bit of a challenge and see if they could do more than just go in a straight line,” Grzybowski says.
Over the course of a minute or so, each droplet found its way to the end of the maze.
The mechanism is explained at the link. The left diagram above shows that a droplet chose the shortest route from the entry to the dashed box where the “prize” was placed. The droplet on the right went astray twice but corrrected itself en route.
Istvan Lagzi, Bartosz Grzybowski, et al., JACS
Pulled along. Watch a droplet navigate a silicon maze.
The observation potentially has more than curiosity value; the researchers suggest that the basic principles involved may be applicable to the delivery of antineoplastic chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells.
Link.
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Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera recently revealed fascinating shots of a dune sea of sorts in a crater of the Hellas impact basin. What has officials at NASA excited about the dunes is their symmetric nature.
The dunes here are linear, thought to be due to shifting wind directions. In places, each dune is remarkably similar to adjacent dunes, including a reddish (or dust-colored) band on northeast-facing slopes. Large angular boulders litter the floor between dunes.
The most extensive linear dune fields known in the solar system are on Saturn’s large moon Titan. Titan has a very different environment and composition, so at meter-scale resolution they probably are very different from Martian dunes.
Link. See more stunning images (like frosted dunes) at the HiRISE site.
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Photo: Tim Bullen Photography
Environmental Graffiti has a beautiful set of photographs depicting various shots of planes and rainbows. Starting things off is Tim Bullen’s amazing picture of the aerial display group, The Red Arrows.
The Red Arrows are the crème de la crème when it comes to aerial displays, but as they tear through a rainbow, coloured smoke trails resplendent, is it a case of man outshining mother nature’s best efforts – or is the opposite true?
Also at the EG post, learn about glories – rainbows formed from a plane’s silhouette and viewed from the aircraft on the top layer of cloud cover.
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