The E-KomiBus (which, for reasons unknown, bears the nickname “MAYU”) is a totally electric and tiny little bus. It’s only 173” long (shorter than a 2012 Honda Civic), and runs on lithium ion batteries, which have a range of about 25 miles after charging 8 hours. With a top speed of 12mph, it’s ideally suited for driving through the narrow back streets not covered by conventional bus routes.

The university hopes that senior citizens and tourists (the two groups least likely to own driver’s licenses in Gunma) will use the E-KomiBus, which seats 10.

Link

(Image source: Yomiuri Online)

The answer — spoiler alert! — is almost certainly “no”. I want to make sure that’s clear, because I will bet essentially any amount of money that some climate change denial sites will run with this story and claim that we don’t need to worry about global warming. That’s baloney, and what follows is why. The reasons take a minute to explain, but of course that’s where the cool stuff (haha!) is. So let’s take this one step at a time. And if you have the attention span of an E. coli bacterium, you can skip down to the conclusion section.

What follows is a pretty comprehensive but simply written explanation of the sun’s magnetic cyle and its effect on Earth’s temperature. Link

Sunspots are actually regions of slightly cooler material at the Sun’s surface. Hot plasma (ionized gas, stripped of one electron or more) rises from the solar interior, reaches the surface, cools off, and sinks back down. This is called convection, and is the same process you see in a pot of boiling water. But at the surface, the tortured and twisted magnetic field of the Sun can suppress convection, preventing the cooler material from sinking. Since the brightness of the plasma depends on the temperature, this cooler stuff is darker. Boom! Sunspot.

Or, in this case, sunspots. You can see five of the suckers here, changing and mutating as the plasma interacts with the magnetic field. I recognize these spots, too: they were responsible for the first X-class flare of the season on March 15th. There’s dramatic footage of that as well which I posted on my blog at the time. They’re busy spots; they blew out a lower energy flare a few days earlier, too.

And here I am calling them cute and little when they’re actually comfortably bigger than the Earth and exploded with the energy equivalent of millions — millions! — of nuclear bombs.

Now I’m excited, too! Watch the video at Bad Astronomy. Link

(Image credit: NASA/SDO)

Dancing Flower (Solar Powered) – $6.95

Are you in the mood for a little spring time cheer, but you have a black thumb? You need the Dancing Flower (Solar Powered) from the NeatoShop. It’s the perfect plant for people who should avoid caring for living things.  Please help us stop the senseless death and destruction of perfectly healthy house plants!

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fantastic Cubicle Toys.

Today, for the first time in history, humans can see the entire sun.

In October 2006, NASA launched a pair of twin spacecraft into space. Called STEREO — Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory — they traveled in opposite directions, one ahead and the other behind the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The goal was to get a wide, stereoscopic view of the Sun which would provide 3D information on our star.

Today they reached that goal. After traveling a combined 470 million kilometers (290 million miles) relative to the Earth, they are now on opposite sides of the Earth’s orbit, staring down at opposing faces of the Sun.

The full coverage observation of the sun will last for eight years. Dr. Phil Plait has an explanation of how NASA did this, and why it is important, at Bad Astronomy. Link

Terry Hope was presented with a challenge. He was working aboard an 88-foot sailboat and the captain would not let him bring a standard electric scooter on board. The only way he could have one is if it were to fit into a suitcase, and it had to be rechargeable off the grid. So he developed the Hybrid Electric Kinetic Photovoltaic Vehicle you see here! The battery is recharged with both solar and kinetic power -and it folds up. Get the specs at his website. Link -Thanks, Terry!

Here’s a solar prominence that erupted on March 30:

(Link [Flickr])

The sun’s internal dynamics were the subject of intense interest over the last few years as the normal waxing and waning of solar activity did not follow past cycles as closely as anticipated. The solar minimum of 2008 stretched deep into 2009, raising questions about how well we understand the complex internal dynamics that drive sun spots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

Because solar storms can disrupt human technologies, it’s important to know when we might expect a serious event that could shut down the electrical grid, for example.

Link to Wired Science Article

Designed by Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim, the Solar Vertical Lamp takes a typical vertical blind and outfits it with special mini photovoltaic and LED pixels to create a new form of interior lighting.

By day the mini solar cells absorb energy from sunlight. However, at night "artfully placed lighting pixels (similar to those used on billboards) illuminate" to create a sustainable lighting system.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.