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Yeast Biology Yields Insights Into Human Knowledge ExpansionHow does human knowledge expand over time? Intriguing as the question is, it's not easy to investigate, due to the difficulty of measuring knowledge and its spread.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm New Organic Material May Speed Internet Access; Telecom Breakthrough Mimics The Settling SnowThe next time an overnight snow begins to fall, take two bricks and place them side by side a few inches apart. In the morning, the bricks will be covered with snow and barely discernible. What you will see resembles a phenomenon that, when it occurs at the smallest of scales on an integrated optical circuit, could hasten the day when the Internet works at superfast speeds.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm Early Detection Of Second Breast Cancers Halves Women’s Risk Of DeathThe first reliable evidence has been found that early detection of subsequent breast tumours in women who have already had the disease can halve the women's chances of death from breast cancer. According to the research, if the second breast cancer was picked up at its early, asymptomatic stage, then the women's chances of survival were improved by between 27-47% compared to women whose second breast cancer was detected at a later stage when symptoms had started to appear.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm Is Parenting A Joy Or A Trial?An economist is claiming that the idea that parenting makes us happy is an illusion. He offers an explanation to one of the most surprising conclusions of recent research into well-being -- that having children does not increase our level of happiness.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm New Technology Opens Gateway To Studying HIV-specific Neutralizing AntibodiesA new research endeavor has assembled a group of state-of-the-art techniques for the first time to study the phenomenon of natural antibody-mediated HIV neutralization. The project demonstrates how this system can isolate dozens of HIV-specific antibodies from a single HIV-infected individual, something never accomplished before.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm Fossil Fragments Reveal 500-million-year-old Monster PredatorHurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that has an important story to tell about the origin of the largest group of living animals, the arthropods.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm Alzheimer's Disease Therapeutic Prevents Long-term Damage From TBI In Pre-clinical StudiesA class of Alzheimer's disease drugs currently studied in clinical trials appears to reduce damage caused by traumatic brain injury in animals, researchers report.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm Finding Twin Earths Is Harder Than ThoughtDoes a twin Earth exist somewhere in our galaxy? Astronomers are getting closer and closer to finding an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit. NASA's Kepler spacecraft just launched to find such worlds. Once the search succeeds, the next questions driving research will be: Is that planet habitable? Does it have an Earth-like atmosphere? Answering those questions will not be easy.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm Ticking Of Body's 24-hour Clock Turns Gears Of Metabolism And AgingOur internal 24-hour clock or circadian rhythm creates a daily oscillation of body temperature, brain activity, hormone production and metabolism. Now researchers report finding how the biological circadian clock mechanism communicates with processes that govern aging and metabolism.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm New View Of Oceanic PhytoplanktonOceanographers describe a novel strategy for phytoplankton growth in the vast nutrient-poor habitats of tropical and subtropical seas.Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm Gifts Burden Men, Gladden Women (LiveScience.com)LiveScience.com - Thank you so much for reading this column. Really, I can't thank you enough. I am so grateful, and the good news is that I don't feel like I have to repay your kindness at all. I feel no obligation to, say, read something of yours. Instead, I can just enjoy your gift and feel happy. My happy gratitude when receiving a gift is, apparently, a typical response for a woman. ...Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 1:42 pm Genetics Should Decide Warfarin Dose, Study Reiterates (HealthDay)HealthDay - FRIDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers have confirmed previously reported genetic factors that may help doctors more accurately prescribe the proper dosage of the blood thinner warfarin to people at high risk of cardiovascular problems.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 1:23 pm Astronauts gear up for 2nd spacewalk, chores (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 1:19 pm Complete dino skeleton offered at NY auction (AP)AP - A bit of Jurassic Park is going on sale with a 150-million-year-old complete skeleton of a dinosaur going on the auction block in New York.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 12:03 pm Astronauts Set For Second Spacewalk (SPACE.com)SPACE.com - A pair of spacewalking astronauts will work on the oldest U.S. solar arrays of the International Space Station on Saturday, taking care to safeguard themselves against the remote chance of electric shocks near the orbital power plant.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 12:00 pm Feinstein seeks block solar power from desert land (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 11:21 am Hurricane Season 2008 (weather.com)weather.com -Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 10:05 am Liquid gasWhat is liquefied natural gas and where is it from?Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 21 Mar 2009 | 8:49 am Shuttle astronauts unfurl space station's new wingsHOUSTON (Reuters) - Visiting shuttle Discovery astronauts on Friday unfurled the new solar panel wings they installed onto the International Space Station, allowing it to generate full power after a decade of construction.Source: Reuters: Science News | 21 Mar 2009 | 12:01 am 8 Hot Volcanic Eruptions
An underwater volcano exploded near Tonga in the South Pacific to stunning effect this week. The pictures of gas and steam erupting out of the surface of the water captivated the world. Here at Wired Science, we love volcanoes — so we decided to use the Tongan eruption to round up some of our favorite volcano eruption pics and present them as big. Above, you can see Mt. Cleveland in Alaska erupting on May 23, 2006 as photographed by NASA's Earth Observatory .
Next up is the glorious explosion, below, of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines back in 1991. Credit: USGS
Mt. St. Helens, located about 50 miles north in Portland, Oregon in southern Washington state, experienced the most catastrophic eruption of recent memory. In 1980, the mountain literally blew its top. In one day, Mt. St. Helens lost more than 1,000 feet of elevation. Photo: USGS.
Here we see an aerial photograph of the August 3, 2008 eruption plume from Okmok Volcano.
This underwater volcano, Brimstone Pit, was caught erupting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Submarine Ring of Fire program. You can see the same volcano erupting in the video below. "If we were observing this type of eruptive activity on land we would have to run for our lives!" the researchers note. "At Brimstone Pit the pressure of [1837 feet] of water over the site reduces the power of the explosive bursts."
The Tavurvur volcano in Papua New Guinea experienced a major eruption in 1994. Though it forced the evacuation of most of the area, it wasn't nearly as bad as a 1937 eruption, which killed over 500 people. Credit: USGS
The Kamchatka province is a highly geologically active area in far Eastern Russia, near Sarah Palin's house. On March 29, 2007, the peninsula's Shiveluch Volcano erupted, sending an ash cloud more than 30,000 feet into the air. NASA's Earth Observatory caught the action.
Mt. Stromboli, located on an Italian island, is famous for its fountain-like eruptions, as captured by Wolfgang Beyer. It's one of the few volcanoes that exists in a state of permanent (and thankfully) moderate eruption. It's been bubbling for more than 2,000 years. > See Also:
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal's Twitter , Google Reader feed, and project site, Inventing Green: the lost history of American clean tech; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 Mar 2009 | 11:45 pm Federal report highlights threat to Hawaii birds (AP)AP - Hawaii's native avian population is in peril, with nearly all the state's birds in danger of becoming extinct, a federal report says.Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 9:46 pm Space station unfurls solar wingsTen years after its construction began, the International Space Station now has full power capability.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 9:36 pm Help Science: Build Your Own Bird Tracker, Cheap
With an old computer and 30 dollars worth of off-the-shelf components, you can gear up with cutting edge avian monitoring technology and help save the birds. For years, birdwatchers counted by sight during the daytime. The night — when most migratory birds travel — was literally hidden to them. But that's changing. Anyone can attach a microphone to a computer running birdcall-identifying software and track birds passing overhead in the darkness. "You wouldn't be able to understand what's happening at night without this technology," said Andrew Farnsworth, a Cornell University ornithologist. "And when it comes to recording the things I work on, that's something anyone can do." Scientists already depend on citizen birdwatchers for data that provides the foundation for estimates of species health and behavior. Their spare-time jottings are collated in efforts like the Great Backyard Bird Count, eBird, North American Bird Phenology Program and Project Feederwatch. With hundreds of species threatened by habitat loss, climate change and pollution, that data is now invaluable for conservation efforts. But because many species migrate at night and are hard to find during the daytime, birders can miss them, said Farnsworth, or are forced to use proxy measures: If a bird seen yesterday isn't seen today, then it probably left. "It's not that the proxy methods are bad," he said, "but we're finding this method of nocturnal tracking can be incredibly powerful."
Farnsworth uses high-tech microphones, but he learned his craft from William Evans, a former Cornell University ornithologist who developed the initial recording setup and pared it down for the DIY crowd. "It's one resistor, two capacitors, a 9-volt battery, a microphone element, a dinner plate, some Saran wrap and a flower pot," Evans said. "It costs less than thirty bucks, and you can build it in a couple hours. You can potentially monitor thousands of birds in a night. And that's something we've never been able to do in the field." Farnsworth and his colleagues have accumulated about 30,000 hours of nighttime recordings from microphone-and-hard-drive setups deployed across the central and eastern United States. Using software to extract bird calls from dead space, those recordings can be compressed to a length of several days. A researcher can compile records of a whole migratory season from dozens of locations in less than a week. "You've gained a tremendous amount of information, much more efficiently," said Farnsworth.
Because the microphone is tuned specifically to the high frequencies used for migratory bird calls — which are much higher than frequencies used in mate-attracting or territory-marking birdsong — traffic and airplane noise doesn't register. A single hard drive can hold a season's recordings. Software to compress the recordings and identify individual species can also be downloaded from Evans' site. These are, for the moment, Windows-only, but programmers who can help port them to other operating systems are welcome, and can obtain the source code from Evans. Bird identification software is still relatively rudimentary, tagging roughly a dozen species, compared to the hundreds that can be identified by trained listeners. Other species are being added as quickly as they can be linked to flight calls, said Farnsworth, but for now DIY bird monitors should send their recordings to the Cornell laboratory. "We can turn one expert observer into a hundred, or a thousand, by deploying these microphones and getting information back to a group of people who know how to identify the tough things and summarize it," he said. In the next several years, Farnsworth hopes to partner with conservation organizations to establish online communities where avian audiophiles can upload their recordings, producing databases like those already established by citizen birdwatchers. Audio recordings will supplement visual observations, allowing researchers to generate ever-more-clear pictures of species health and migratory patterns that have yet to be understood. "You go 20 miles in one direction, 20 in another, and you have a different pattern," said Evans. "These are very complex routes that vary from year to year at different sites. And over the next 100 years, once we have the reference data sets out there, people will be able to monitor from their homes and start filling in the gaps." Even if every species can't yet be identified with software, birders can still take pleasure from connecting with an avian world otherwise hidden to their eyes and ears. "You can get information about birds flying from Canada to South America from your house, from a window in New York City," said Evans. See Also:
Brandon Keim's Twitter stream and Del.icio.us feed; Wired Science on Facebook. Source: Wired: Wired Science | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:36 pm Iraqi budget woes force security hiring freeze (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:20 pm 'No Living Thing Left' Near Tonga EruptionThe undersea eruption in the South Pacific has decimated local wildlife and vegetation.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 7:15 pm First liquid gas delivery in portThe first giant tanker carrying super-cooled gas from the Middle East to one of two new terminals in Pembrokeshire docks.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:35 pm Quantum weirdness: What we call 'reality' is just a state of mindA lifetime studying quantum mechanics has convinced Bernard d'Espagnat that the world we perceive is merely a shadow of the ultimate reality I believe that some of our most engrained notions about space and causality should be reconsidered. Anyone who takes quantum mechanics seriously will have reached the same conclusion. What quantum mechanics tells us, I believe, is surprising to say the least. It tells us that the basic components of objects – the particles, electrons, quarks etc. – cannot be thought of as "self-existent". The reality that they, and hence all objects, are components of is merely "empirical reality". This reality is something that, while not a purely mind-made construct as radical idealism would have it, can be but the picture our mind forces us to form of ... Of what ? The only answer I am able to provide is that underlying this empirical reality is a mysterious, non-conceptualisable "ultimate reality", not embedded in space and (presumably) not in time either. How did I arrive at this conclusion? My interest in the foundations of quantum physics developed at quite an early stage in my career, but I soon noticed that my elders deliberately brushed aside the problems the theory raised, which they considered not to be part of physics proper. It was only after I attained the status of a fully-fledged physicist that I ventured to take up the question personally. To put it in a nutshell, in this quest I first found that whatever way you look at it the quantum mechanical formalism, when taken at face value, compels us to consider that two particles that have once interacted always remain bound in a very strange, hardly understandable way even when they are far apart, the connection being independent of distance. Even though this connection-at-a-distance does not permit us to transmit messages, clearly it is real. In other words space, so essential in classical physics, seems to play a considerably less basic role in quantum physics. I soon found out, as often happens, that these things had been known for quite a long time. Schrödinger had even given them a name: entanglement, and had claimed entanglement is essential. But strangely enough he had not really been listened to. Indeed he had been unheard to the extent that the very notion of "entanglement" was hardly mentioned in regular courses on quantum physics. And in fact most physicists felt inclined to consider that, if not entanglement in general, at least the highly puzzling 'entanglement at a distance' was merely an oddity of the formalism, free of physical consequences and doomed to be removed sooner or later, just through improvements on the said formalism. At the time the general view was therefore that if any problems remained in that realm these problems were of a philosophical, not of a physical nature so that physicists had better keep aloof from them. I was not convinced I must say, and in the early sixties I wrote and published a book and some articles developing physical arguments that focused attention on such problems by showing that entanglement is truly something worth the physicist's attention. And then a real breakthrough took place in that John Bell, a colleague of mine at Cern, published his famous inequalities, which - for the first time - opened a possibility of testing whether or not entanglement-at-a-distance had experimentally testable consequences. The outcome confirmed my anticipations. Entanglement-at-a-distance does physically exist, in the sense that it has physically verifiable (and verified) consequences. Which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that some of our most engrained notions about space and causality should be reconsidered. Bernard d'Espagnat is a theoretical physicist, philosopher and winner of the Templeton Prize 2009. He is the author of On Physics and Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 2006 guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:31 pm Finch Head Color Affects Mating OutcomeFemale finches control the gender of their offspring, depending on their mate's head color.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 6:15 pm SLIDE SHOW: The Week's Top StoriesBrowse through images of some of the week's top stories.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 5:43 pm We're all activists nowFrom recycling to mass protests on social networks like Facebook, having an ethical conscience is becoming part of our daily lives. Now it's the turn of governments and companies to change, writes Andy Miah Amid all the great changes afoot in the world, a trend is emerging that is as pervasive as it is critical. I call it an "ethical turn", a surge in popular activism, broad democratic demands and institutional reforms that mark a new era of ethical concern in our daily lives. The furore over bankers' financial arrangements and the need for tighter monetary regulations is just one area where the ethical turn has come to light. Everyone from the rightfully indignant public to ministers and celebrities has joined calls for greater accountability. With luck, we are now on the cusp of truly ethical economic reform. The ethical turn has emerged as a powerful movement in popular culture. Celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver have attempted to transform society by urging schools to provide nutritious meals, meanwhile teaching the rest of the nation to cook for ourselves. We are encouraged to ditch fast food, TV dinners and pre-chopped, pre-cooked supermarket foods, and to rediscover the joys of cooking. In doing so, we will regain not only the pleasure of making meals for ourselves, but the social benefits that come with it. We may even find our sense of taste again. Reality television has now been joined by ethical television. In BBC3's recent show, Kill it, Cook it, Eat it, participants and viewers were asked to re-engage with their inner carnivore by taking part in the slaughter and butchery of animals before feasting. The underlying message is clear: by facing up to the realities of the food we buy and eat, we develop a more finely honed morality towards animals. Others are taking up the idea. Artist and activist John O'Shea is developing what he calls the "Meat Licence Proposal", which requires people to have killed an animal before they are allowed to eat one. The licence works on a species level. If you've killed a fish, you can eat fish, but if you want to eat beef, you need first to have killed a cow. The environmental movement is surely the most public arena where the ethical turn has come into play, and here, the sense of public conscience is growing. Today, failing to recycle is stigmatised, but tomorrow, we may feel ashamed of how many flights we take, a shift that would transform our view of the well-travelled citizen. Dealing with climate change is clearly a pressing obligation, but speaking at the first Natural Economy Northwest Green Lecture recently at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology in Liverpool, green campaigner Jonathon Porritt emphasised how much more we have to do in the UK to come close to being ethical in this field. Of course I'm not trying to claim the ethical turn is only at work in Britain. President Obama's emphasis on "mutual responsibility" encompasses the development of science and technology. From stem cell research to internet privacy, there has been a tremendous backlash against moves to limit our freedoms. In the recent controversy over Facebook's new "terms of service", ethically aware members appealed to the ideology of social media and convinced Facebook to revert to its original policy. It worked this time, but ethical issues will arise again in the world of social media. Overwhelmingly, the ethical turn seems a force for good, but there are substantial hurdles it is likely to encounter. Undoubtedly, we must take responsibility as individuals for making the world a better place, but too often, governments and companies undermine individual actions by doing too little themselves. For individuals to have their greatest impact, those in power need to radically rethink how they can make it easier for us. It is neither adequate nor reasonable for us simply to use fewer plastic bags when shopping for groceries. We need to distinguish between what individuals can do, and what governments and companies must enact to allow us to make a difference. We need to democratise ethics and find a way to put it at the heart of our organisations and daily lives. We need transparency to understand the labels on our food, the privacy settings on our computers, and the difference between fair trade and ethical trade. Above all, we need to cultivate an ethical awareness that can identify bad practice before it becomes catastrophic. A middle class ethical crisis will do wonders to raise awareness of broader social injustices. It might even help us find the right moral ground for our times, which will be critical when science and technology create fresh ethical dilemmas that cut across society in fundamental ways. Inevitably, an ethical conscience has already found its way into the branding of multinational corporations. That alone should tell us that a new era of ethical vigilance is upon us. However, if we are not careful, we will empty ethics of its value. This is why the ethical turn cannot be about ethics for ethicists. It involves recognising the many ways in which an ethical conscience is becoming a part of our daily lives, from what we wear and who made it, to asking fundamental questions about emerging technologies and their implications. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Mar 2009 | 5:33 pm Africans Came with Columbus to New WorldA new analysis of teeth from grave sites suggests Africans played a much larger role in exploring America.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 4:47 pm Robotic "Eye-Cyte" May Bring Vision to Blind PeopleNeural messages sent by cyber-circuits may supply artificial vision. Such "cyber-sight" devices will likely shrink to cellular-size. [Story]Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 4:21 pm Energy Boom Bad News for Birds?From wind tech to coal mining, the energy business is contributing to bird declines.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 4:09 pm Tonga Quake Prompts Tsunami WarningA powerful 7.9 quake near Tonga stokes tsunami fears around the region.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:40 pm German lab develops test for gene dopingBERLIN (Reuters) - A German research laboratory said Friday it had successfully developed a test for gene doping, tracing a substance that increases muscle tissue and boosts endurance levels.Source: Reuters: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:34 pm Gifts Burden Men, Gladden WomenGratitude when receiving a gift is, apparently, a typical response for a woman. For men, they feel obligation.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:33 pm Report: Energy production choking bird population (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:31 pm Romeo and Juliet's Balcony Opens for WeddingsCouples may now marry at the House of Juliet in Verona, where Romeo wooed Juliet.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 3:30 pm Earth’s Future: Scary Ozone Scenario ThwartedSimulation shows what would have been if ozone-eating chemicals hadn't been banned.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 2:21 pm Unleash the Bloodhound: How to design a 1,000mph carIf they get their calculations even slightly wrong, Bloodhound SSC could spin out of control or become airborne. Engineering director John Piper describes the challenges of designing a machine 160 times more powerful than a Formula 1 racing car Right now, working on Bloodhound SSC, our supersonic car, feels like being in a never-ending episode of CSI. We're investigating our design in forensic detail, hunting for the minute problems that supersonic speeds could magnify into major disasters. Every time we find and fix one, four more pop up. This is normal in the world of engineering. The difference between Bloodhound SSC and, well, practically anything else on the planet, is that there is no such thing as a "small problem". This is no surprise given the sorts of numbers we're dealing with: potentially more than 210 kilonewtons (47,000lbs) of thrust from the jet and rocket engines, which together make Bloodhound SSC over 160 times more powerful than a Formula 1 car; four huge and heavy solid-titanium wheels spinning at up to 10,300 revolutions per minute, generating 50,000 g at the rim; air screaming past the carbon and aluminium bodywork at 1000mph, applying 12 tonnes of pressure to every square metre of bodywork ... To have a crack at the land speed record and, more importantly, keep fighter pilot Andy Green safe while trying, everything has to work perfectly. Considering this thing is a) more advanced than most spacecraft and b) utterly unique, it's an order of magnitude harder than say, building an F1 car. Let me show you what playing detective with Bloodhound SSC feels like. As was reported on guardian.co.uk, we recently had Arup, the construction experts, analyse our chassis design using the same computer techniques they have for mega structures. We discovered some issues: it isn't as stiff as we had hoped; the jet wobbles; and at full speed the rear wheels – which are out on struts to keep the vehicle stable – get pulled outwards by the enormous force of air slamming into them. This rear wheel "deflection" could steer the car off the track and we'd really like Andy to be doing all the steering! It's easy enough (for which read: "pretty hard really but no one goes home until we get it done") to address these points individually, but keeping the entire system in balance is an exercise in extreme plate-spinning. For example, beefing up the chassis to make it stronger may just make things worse, as increased mass causes more flex. The bending may not be that big an issue, nor the bouncing jet. It's how they relate to the harmonics of the suspension that counts. Which isn't as simple as you'd hope, either. To keep Andy from flying or inventing the world's fastest burrowing machine, we have to control the airflow over the car extremely carefully to avoid a buildup of high pressure under the car as the sonic shockwaves travel down the car as we build up speed. To have airflow control the angle of the car relative to the ground is very important as well. As the car accelerates, it wants to point downwards; as Andy takes his foot off the gas (or our case, high test peroxide), it wants to point up. Either option would be bad. Someone else already has the record for the world's fastest crash and we're quite happy for them to keep it. During one run from zero to 1000mph and back again, Bloodhound SSC will travel through three very different "environments" – subsonic, transonic (as we go through the sound barrier) and supersonic, the rarefied world beyond 760mph. Each zone presents its own fascinating combination of factors to be considered: drag, lift, changing air flow around the wheels, air speed into the jet intake … Adding to the problem is weight (as engineers we call this "mass") or, more precisely, the loss of it. During the 40-second dash from standstill to 1,050mph, Bloodhound's three engines will use up 1.5 tonnes of fuel. This is a very high proportion of the car's total 6,500kg mass. As it gets lighter and the suspension "unloads", the car will try to "sit up". If it sits up too much, the aerodynamics (or the way the air flows) under the car can change to the extent that very high lift forces are generated and then Bloodhound becomes a missile. Helping to keep the show on the road – literally – are four small, adjustable wings, one each side near the nose and one each near the rear of the car. Our detective work suggests, however, that our winglets are currently too small. We also discovered that we have 5 tonnes of lift at supersonic speeds. This is exactly 5 tonnes too much, or in professional engineering terms, "a bit of a bugger". To cure this, we can add a bigger "diffuser" – a piece of bodywork shaped to channel air out from underneath the car in a controlled way. That, however, will likely mean redesigning part of the chassis (possibly adding mass and bendiness) and changing the shape of the bodywork. Which means more weeks of aerodynamic tests in Swansea University's supercomputer … We call Bloodhound "an engineering adventure". Sometimes the phrase "satanic domino topple" seems more appropriate. John Piper is engineering director for Bloodhound SSC guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Source: Evolution, genetics, medicine, physics & astronomy news | guardian.co.uk | 20 Mar 2009 | 2:13 pm US birds in 'widespread decline'Nearly one third of US bird species are "endangered, threatened or in significant decline", a report shows.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 2:11 pm Red Tides Prey on Poisoned FishThe plankton that form red tides indirectly eat the fish they kill.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 2:00 pm Robot Madness: Human Becomes 'EyeBorg'A one-eyed filmmaker tries to wear a bionic eye camera.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:38 pm Mountains Fed Amazon's Frog DiversityThe Amazon has the Andes to thank for its diverse population of poison frog species.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:38 pm Finches choose sex of offspringFemale finches "decide" the number of male or female offsprings in their brood.Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:36 pm More People in Love Than Previously ThoughtA new study found that romantic love can stand the test of time.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:15 pm Caves Reveal Evolution of Ancient MicrobesScientists explore caves to study the Earth’s history, as they dream of traveling back in time. In this case, to the Precambrian.Source: Livescience.com | 20 Mar 2009 | 1:04 pm
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