If you liked our posts on the Magenn (a, b, and c), you might fancy this too. One of the many pitches used by Californian based Aeros, to sell their modern rendering of the blimp is to dub it ‘The Ecological Aircraft’. They go on to suggest it is “the first manned aircraft of its kind to be propelled by electric motors. This prop-motor combination allows for operations in ultra-low noise emission. This capability, together with the aircraft's inherent ability to stay airborne almost independent of power settings - not available in any other classes of aircraft - will allow [it] to operate in the most ecologically sensitive areas.” And then this; “They are energy efficient, expending fuel only to propel the airship, due to their inherent floating ability.” Compared to a passenger jet of similar carrying capacity it should require only half the fuel to operate. Plans are afoot to build 150-180 passenger cruisers for luxury travel, as well as city-to-city travel (LAX to JFK in 18 hours - although because the Aeroscraft can take off and land vertically, standard runways and infrastructure are not required.) Plus there are freight models too. “The idea is for the Aeroscraft to take 20 truckloads of goods straight from a factory in Japan to a warehouse in California in a day and a half, bypassing crowded ports and clogged rail lines.” A prototype Aeroscraft is, if I read correctly, being built at the moment, as proof of concept and is due to grace the airways in 2010, filled with its 14 million cubic feet of helium. Now that’s thinking big. ::Aeros via ::Dexigner
The building I live in is considering putting a series of small vertical wind turbines on the roof to help offset current electricity costs, click the link, read the whole thing, its worth it:
'Micro' wind turbines are coming to town A handful of start-ups are floating an idea that could change the face of the wind power industry. Rather than build farms of towering wind turbines in rural areas, some companies are designing "micro," or small-scale, turbines that fit on top of buildings. The idea is to generate electricity from wind in urban or suburban settings. "We want to integrate these small wind turbines on buildings in plain sight," said Paul Glenney, director of energy initiatives at Monrovia, Calif.-based AeroVironment. "We think this can really communicate the generation of clean electricity." In their pitch for the technology, the companies are going beyond satisfying the growing interest in clean forms of energy. AeroVironment, Aerotecture and a handful of other businesses are marketing their turbines not just as power generators, but also as attractive additions to existing structures. Right now, giant turbines built by the likes of GE Energy and Siemens are still the norm in the wind power industry, and on-building versions are rare. Newcomers are trying different tacks to break into the market. While some such as Clipper Windpower are producing entire devices, others are focusing on providing specific components of a turbine.
"We're tracking over 20 different emerging wind technology companies in our proprietary deals database, and that list keeps growing," said Robert Day, a partner at Expansion Capital Partners which specializes in clean technologies. Overall, the wind industry is booming, experts said. The American Wind Energy Association said that last year 2,500 megawatts of new generation equipment were installed in 22 states, valued at $3 billion.
When can I sign up to have my stress levels genetically reduced? This plus the 'no-procrastinating' gene therapy would be awesome.... especially because the second one wears off with time:
Mice suffering stress genetically cured DALLAS, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center scientists say deleting a specific gene in the brain has the same effect that antidepressants do in mice. Mice are normally social animals, easily approaching and greeting unfamiliar mice. But, the researchers said, when mice become timid and withdrawn, antidepressants such as Prozac improves their behavior -- and so does deleting a gene called BDNF. The Texas scientists say conditioning mice to be withdrawn also provides a new model for researching depression and other human ailments such as social phobia and post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition, they say deleting the BDNF gene can help track a biochemical pathway of depression in the brain. "This study provides new evidence of the importance of reward pathways in the brain in an animal's responses to social stress, and by extension to depression," said the study's senior author, Dr. Eric Nestler. "It also provides some insight into the underlying molecular events involved." The research is reported in the Feb. 10 issue of the journal Science.
For the aspiring wood worker... I would LOVE to retire from computer work and become a furniture maker. I have no skills at it and in fact have created exactly one piece of really crappy furniture (my specially purpose built bookcase is so far from true....) These saws are pretty neat, in expensive, and great for those with no storage space.... take a look at the pics if you can:
Kugihiki Flush-Cutting Saw Japanese Hand Saws The Japanese Kugihiki flush cutting saw saves me time, makes a cleaner cut, and needs no setup time. Since the teeth have no set, you can slide the saw against a surface without marring it. These and other Japanese hand saws such as Dozuki and Ryoba have caused me to abandon power tools for many jobs. The cut almost never needs cleaning up and is good for many materials. The Ryoba looks intimidating but can replace a cheap circular saw any day for a lot less money. -- Alan
Advancement in batteries.... 27 hour iPod in the future:
MIT Researchers Fired Up About Battery Alternative by Staff Writers Cambridge MA (SPX) Feb 08, 2006 Just about everything that runs on batteries -- flashlights, cell phones, electric cars, missile-guidance systems -- would be improved with a better energy supply. But traditional batteries haven't progressed far beyond the basic design developed by Alessandro Volta in the 19th century. Work at MIT's Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) holds out the promise of the first technologically significant and economically viable alternative to conventional batteries in more than 200 years. Joel E. Schindall, the Bernard Gordon Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and associate director of the Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems; John G. Kassakian, EECS professor and director of LEES; and Ph.D. candidate Riccardo Signorelli are using nanotube structures to improve on an energy storage device called an ultracapacitor. Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, making them more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions. Ultracapacitors are capacitor-based storage cells that provide quick, massive bursts of instant energy. They are sometimes used in fuel-cell vehicles to provide an extra burst for accelerating into traffic and climbing hills. However, ultracapacitors need to be much larger than batteries to hold the same charge. The LEES invention would increase the storage capacity of existing commercial ultracapacitors by storing electrical fields at the atomic level. Although ultracapacitors have been around since the 1960s, they are relatively expensive and only recently began being manufactured in sufficient quantities to become cost-competitive. Today you can find ultracapacitors in a range of electronic devices, from computers to cars. However, despite their inherent advantages -- a 10-year-plus lifetime, indifference to temperature change, high immunity to shock and vibration and high charging and discharging efficiency -- physical constraints on electrode surface area and spacing have limited ultracapacitors to an energy storage capacity around 25 times less than a similarly sized lithium-ion battery. The LEES ultracapacitor has the capacity to overcome this energy limitation by using vertically aligned, single-wall carbon nanotubes -- one thirty-thousandth the diameter of a human hair and 100,000 times as long as they are wide. How does it work? Storage capacity in an ultracapacitor is proportional to the surface area of the electrodes. Today's ultracapacitors use electrodes made of activated carbon, which is extremely porous and therefore has a very large surface area. However, the pores in the carbon are irregular in size and shape, which reduces efficiency. The vertically aligned nanotubes in the LEES ultracapacitor have a regular shape, and a size that is only several atomic diameters in width. The result is a significantly more effective surface area, which equates to significantly increased storage capacity. The new nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors could be made in any of the sizes currently available and be produced using conventional technology. "This configuration has the potential to maintain and even improve the high performance characteristics of ultracapacitors while providing energy storage densities comparable to batteries," Schindall said. "Nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors would combine the long life and high power characteristics of a commercial ultracapacitor with the higher energy storage density normally available only from a chemical battery." This work was presented at the 15th International Seminar on Double Layer Capacitors and Hybrid Energy Storage Devices in Deerfield Beach, Fla., in December 2005. The work has been funded in part by the MIT/Industry Consortium on Advanced Automotive Electrical/Electronic Components and Systems and in part by a grant from the Ford-MIT Alliance.
And here we thought we had already gotten them all:
Pharaonic tomb find stuns Egypt Archaeologists have discovered an intact, ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the first since King Tutankhamun's was found in 1922. A team led by the University of Memphis found the previously unknown tomb complete with unopened sarcophagi and five undisturbed mummies. The archaeologists have not yet been able to identify them. The Valley of the Kings near Luxor in southern Egypt was used for burials for around 500 years from 1540BC onwards. The tomb, the 63rd discovered since the valley was first mapped in the 18th century, was unexpectedly found only 5m away from King Tutankhamun's, a member of the team told the BBC's World Tonight. Patricia Podzorski, curator of Egyptian Art at the University of Memphis, said the team had not been looking for it. Surprise "The excavation team was focused on the tomb of a 19th Dynasty pharaoh, King Amenmesses," she said. "They were working in front of the tomb looking for foundation deposits possibly related to that tomb, and clearing away some workmen's huts from the 19th Dynasty that were both to the left and right side of the tomb," she explained. "Underneath these workmen's huts, they found a shaft." Four metres below the ground was a single chamber containing sarcophagi with coloured funery masks and more than 20 large storage jars bearing Pharaonic seals. The sarcophagi were buried rapidly in the small tomb for an unknown reason. Ms Podzorski said the tomb was thought to date from the 18th Pharaonic Dynasty, the first dynasty of the New Kingdom which ruled between 1539BC and 1292BC and made its capital in Thebes, the present city of Luxor. The discovery has come as a surprise to many, Ms Podzorski added. "People have been saying the valley was done for 100 years," she said. "They said it before Howard Carter found King Tutankhamun's tomb and they said it after. But, obviously, they are still wrong."
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