A breath of fresh air can be hard to come by, especially in certain parts of the world.
Today in China's capital, Beijing, air pollution soared to 35 times accepted safety levels, leaving the government to order schools to close and residents to stay indoors. The alert level remains at Orange, one level below the highest alert which would force more drastic closings.
Unfortunately, this kind of pollution alert is not uncommon for Chinese cities. Studies have found that up to 4,000 people die every day in China due to air pollution. In fact, though the air pollution hit a new peak today, this round of smog has been visible since Sunday.
Two years ago similar amounts of smog blanketed the city, and even on days when the pollution is less visible, high amounts of particulates and pollutants in the air make living in the city incredibly difficult.
The pollution is made of tiny particles that can be inhaled causing damage to the heart and lungs. In addition to being a public health risk, the smog has also been linked to other disasters, including flooding in other areas of China.
There is enough junk in the air that artists can suck pollutants out of the air with vacuum cleaners, creating bricks (or even jewelry) from the hazardous dust. Unfortunately, those projects don't make a dent in the amount of air pollution in the city.
China's government is attributing the horrible air quality over the past few days to bad weather and increased emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are burning more coal to provide heat during the cold weather.
The influx of smog comes right at the start of the COP21 climate talks in Paris, where leaders from around the world, including China's President Xi Jinping are negotiating an agreement that they hope will restrict the pace of climate change around the globe. The smog in Beijing serves as a timely and undeniable visible reminder of exactly what humans are doing to the Earth.
Today, hundreds of scientists are gathered in Washington, D.C. for the international summit on genome editing. The three-day conference will discuss the ethical and appropriate use of all genome-editing technologies, but it will likely pay close attention to the newest and arguably easiest method, CRISPR-Cas9, known colloquially as just CRISPR.
The technology has been at the center of scientists’ minds worldwide since April, when Chinese researchers reported that they used the tool to edit nonviable human embryos, or ones that have no chance of developing into human beings. The summit, which started early this morning, is sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as the Royal Academy, and will include researchers from the United States, Great Britain, and China as well as representatives from at least 20 countries worldwide.
The group plans to discuss many direct applications of the CRISPR technique, including the ability to perform genome editing both on human embryos to treat a specific disease as well as to implement gene drive, which would introduce new genes into a few organisms that would then pass that change on to future generations.
Why is this conference so important?
Currently, the rules regarding the use of genome editing tools are hard to follow and as Nature reported back in October, vary by country. In the United States, researchers cannot use federal funds to employ genome editing on embryos and using it in clinical development requires approval, however there are no direct bans on its use.
On the other hand, the United Kingdom allows human-genome editing for research if approved by their version of the FDA (the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority) but it directly bans its use in clinical development. Other countries, such as China, India, and Japan, have guidelines that restrict editing the human genome, but they are completely unenforced.
This conference is also the first of its kind and could therefore guide how future research using CRISPR and other gene editing tools will unfold.
Why this controversy now?
CRISPR is not the first genome-editing technique; others, such as zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology and another enzyme binding technique called TALENS have been around for years. However, as many researchers have pointed out, the CRISPR technique is simple, highly specific, and versatile—more so than any other tool before it. CRISPR has the potential to allow scientists to change the DNA in a viable embryo. This change would then be passed on to that individual’s children and would continue to future generations. In this way, the editing technique could allow humans now to alter or direct the course of future generations, an ability many researchers—including Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, in an interview with Stat—say we are not ready and don’t have the foresight to employ.
What will the summit provide?
Many researchers have already publically stated where they stand on the use of gene-editing techniques. But this summit could likely provide a regulatory approach to help researchers around the world—as a team—navigate how they will use the CRISPR technique over the next several years and decades in an effort to regulate, but not limit, scientists abilities to use this technique for the greatest medical need. However, since various countries already have some rules in place guiding gene-editing research, it remains to be seen what impact any agreement at the summit would have on the field.
Stay tuned to Popular Science for more updates about the summit, which is scheduled to run from Dec 1-3.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg just announced the birth of his first child with his wife Priscilla Chan, along with the huge news that he will be donating a large portion of his wealth to "advancing human potential and promoting equality." Zuckerberg and Chan made the announcement in a lengthy Facebook post addressed to his daughter, Max.
"We will give 99% of our Facebook shares -- currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission," he said. "We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others."
The post also included the announcement of an entirely new organization: "as you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities."
Zuckberberg has been on a philanthropic hot streak lately. Earlier this week, he teamed up with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and other technology entrepreneurs to create a multi-billion-dollar clean energy fund. The Breakthrough Energy Coalition includes several billionaire entrepreneurs in addition to governments and university. The coalition has stated its goal as bringing clean-energy ideas to the marketplace and encouraging the use of sustainable energy.
Diamonds might be forever, but they're no longer the hardest form of carbon on the planet. Sorry, diamonds.
In a series of recently published papers, including a paper published this week in the Journal of Applied Physics, researchers from North Carolina State University announced that they have created a new form of carbon, called Q-carbon.
Pure carbon (without additional elements, such as oxygen, mixed in) has a few distinct solid forms that it can take. The first is graphite, in which the carbon atoms line up to form thin sheets. Graphite is thin and flakey, used to make graphene and pencil lead. The other phase of carbon occurs when carbon atoms form a rigid crystal lattice, the building blocks of diamonds, which are used in industry and, of course, jewelry.
“We’ve now created a third solid phase of carbon,” Jay Narayan, lead author of the paper, said in a statement. “The only place it may be found in the natural world would be possibly in the core of some planets.”
Narayan and his team created Q-carbon by putting amorphous carbon on a base layer of a hard substance (either sapphire, glass, or plastic) then shooting lasers at it. Amorphous carbon, for the record, is carbon that doesn't have a defined structure--it's probably got a bit of graphite or diamond, but no unifying structure, so it doesn't count as a 'solid phase of carbon'. The lasers fused the amorphous carbon into a crystalline structure harder than diamond; Q-carbon.
The researchers were able to create layers of Q-carbon between 40 and 500 nanometers thick (that's less than 0.0005 millimeters at the largest). The new substance is ferromagnetic, meaning it can be magnetized, and can glow when exposed to electric fields. Eventually this material could lead to new super-thin yet durable displays or screens, but that day is a long way off. For now, researchers are still learning about the basic properties of this new material.
Other aspects of the research might be more applicable in the short-term. The laser technique can also be used to create tiny diamonds from the Q-carbon, by adjusting how fast the carbon cools down after being hit with the laser pulses. Previously, lab-grown diamonds required incredibly high temperatures and pressures to be created, but this method can be conducted in the lab at room temperature and pressure, allowing researchers to more easily build small diamonds for use in experiments.
After decades of research, the tragic suicides of several former pro football players, and even a movie, we are starting to grasp the devastating effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by repeated head injuries like concussions. Now researchers have looked beyond the pros and found that trauma from recreational sports may bring on the condition, according to a study published in this month’s issue of the journal Acta Neuropathologica.
For the study, researchers analyzed clinical records for patients who had donated their brains to the Mayo Clinic Brain Bank and selected 66 patients that were known to have participated in contact sports as young adults. When the researchers examined their brain tissue, they found that 32 percent of the patients showed distinctive signs of CTE . They also discovered two genetic markers that might make patients more susceptible to CTE, since they only appeared in the genetic makeup of patients who had developed the disease.
While these findings may seem disturbing, it’s important to look at them with some caveats. This study is the first to analyze brains in a brain bank for signs of CTE, and it’s one of the first to determine the presence of the disorder using the guidelines established by the NIH—guidelines that are likely to shift as more studies are done on similar brain banks. The sample size is also quite small, as Bloomberg News points out, especially if it’s supposed to be representative of the overall population as the researchers claim. Also, the researchers note that some of the patients included in their study suffered from dementia; while CTE often appears with other neurodegenerative conditions, the diseases may play a role in each other’s development, muddying the specific effects of CTE.
The researchers note that their findings (especially those about the biomarkers for CTE susceptibility) need to be studied with a larger cohort. And although mounting evidence for the damaging effects of contact sports has been making some parents think twice about enrolling their kids in peewee football, the researchers don’t want parents to interpret this study as discouragement from athletics. “The purpose of our study is not to discourage children and adults from participating in sports because we believe the mental and physical health benefits are great,” said Kevin Bieniek, the study’s lead author, in a press release. The hope, he added, is that studies like this one can help researchers and coaches develop more effective ways to protect the brains of young athletes.
In 2011, die-hard fans of Super Smash Bros introduced Project M. The modification to the game undid many of the changes to the game mechanics that had been made in Wii version, cutting the cruft and making the game more playable. Removing the random tripping mechanic, for example, and adding back in the ability to quickly chain combos favored players who became accustomed to the GameCube version.
It was recently announced that Project M would cease development. While it's still available to download, the team behind Project M will no longer update the game.
But with the attention to detail we’ve seen in the latest iteration—Super Smash Bros 4—Project M may be less necessary. Masahiro Sakurai, the game's creator, addressed many of fans’ complaints. Furthermore, unlike with the previous edition, the Super Smash Bros 4 team has constantly put out updates addressing character balance issues, new levels and—most importantly—introducing new characters. Many of Project M’s strengths lie in the ability to add in fighters and levels that didn’t ship with the original. With official downloadable content handling that responsibility—combined with fewer players of the Wii version—the Project M team’s decision becomes an obvious one.
Toon Link in Project M
Project M allows for custom character mods
Project M
There remains much to look forward to. During Nintendo’s last Direct presentation, the company announced the inclusion of Final Fantasy 7’s Cloud Strife as a playable character in SSB4. But what’s most interesting from the presentation is that something new will come in December.
The smart money’s on a new character or two. With the Smash Bros Fighter Ballot having closed, players are due for a winner to be chosen from the fan vote. No matter what’s announced during the Super Smash Bros 4 winter announcement, we’ll be bringing you details. Keep it locked to PopSci.
Octoblu connects a Tesla to the internet of things
Chris Matthieu at Citrix
The internet of things, or IoT, is becoming more a part of our lives already, with thermostats that learn our preferences and habits and home security systems we can control from a hotel room while we’re on vacation. But cars are things just as much as HVAC systems and deadbolt locks, and Octoblu wants you to connect, as developer and company cofounder Chris Matthieu says, “anything to everything.”
Octoblu was recently used in a 3D printed car by LocalMotors at IBM Insight 2015. The system used Octoblu’s platform along with the drag-and-drop designer NodeRed and IBM’s IoT for Automotive system. “It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine” of systems, Matthieu says.
Even though there were several pieces to the IoT puzzle, the Octoblu team wants to make connecting things as simple as possible. They use inexpensive, open-source solutions like the Raspberry Pi computer so that there’s almost no barrier to entry.
It’s not only cheap -- it’s simple. “Without Octoblu,” Matthieu says, “this internet of things is very difficult, requiring software, hardware, networking and security. Our goal was to get all of that out of the way and make everyone able to build automations in minutes.” You can drag and drop a quick automation at your desk at work without even contacting the guys in IT.
So what, exactly, does a car connected to the internet of things do? Pretty much anything you can dream up, it turns out. Octoblu works with Uber, Nest, Chromecast, Spotify, GoToMeeting, Google Places, and dozens of other apps to get your car to work with all the other things in your life.
“Octoblu can start and stop with GoToMeeting,” explains Matthieu. “There's a potential where the car could say, 'I know you're running late; would you like to take the meeting from the car?' Octoblu can start the meeting up without your taking your eyes off the road.”
For a more concrete example, a colleague of Matthieu’s has a Tesla that he sometimes forgets to recharge. He set up a simple automation using Octoblu that checks his car at 8:00 p.m. If the battery is at less than 50%, he gets a text message reminding him to plug the car in. The illustration at the top of this post is exactly this automation in action.
“The more things that are connected, the more valuable the platform is,” Matthieu says. “The platform with the most connected devices is going to speed up commutes and improve safety.”
The phrase “Nazi V-2” is thrown around a lot, probably because it’s the simplest way to describe the rocket Germany launched against European cities towards the end of the Second World War. But that’s a bit of a misnomer. The short answer is that, no, the V-2 wasn’t strictly speaking a Nazi weapon. The long answer is more complicated, and a lot more interesting.
A V-2 Launching
NASA/MSFC
The VfR Lays Down Roots
On June 5, 1927, Max Valier met with a small cohort of fellow rocket enthusiasts in a the back parlour of an alehouse in Breslau. The group who shared fascination with spaceflight founded the Verein für Raumschiffahrt — the Society for Space Travel — that afternoon. Their goal was eloquently summed up by their motto: “Help to create the spaceship!”
In the fall of 1930, VfR member Rudolf Nebel found the group a home, a two square mile vacant property surrounded by a wire fence down a bad road in Berlin’s northern suburb of Reinickendorf. A former ammunitions dump disused since the First World War, it as a perfect spot for testing rockets. On September 27, Nebel mounted a sign out front naming the site “Raketenflugplatz Berlin,” and the rocket men soon followed. They moved in to Spartan living quarters and set to work developing a liquid fuelled rockets, launching 87 rockets and making 270 static firing tests during their first year. But resources were hard to come by. The group was forced to rely on donations garnered during public demonstrations.
Rockets for the Reich
Eventually, word of these demonstrations reached the German army. In the spring of 1932, three plain-clothed military personnel arrived at the Raketenflugplatz: the army’s Chief of Ballistics and Ammunition Colonel Karl Becker; ammunitions expert Major Ritter von Horstig; and chief of the Army’s powder rockets development program Captain Walter Dornberger. They were there to watch two simple rockets fly, the Mirak 1 and Mirak 2. The Mirak 1 was simple with a copper rocket engine inside a cylindrical fuselage behind the bullet-shaped cover and an aluminium tube sticking out the back as a guiding stick. The Mirak 2 was a larger and more sophisticated version. But neither rocket launched that day, leaving the VfR without a rich benefactor.
But one man had made a favourable impression. Though the youngest of the group, Wernher von Braun struck Dornberger as shrewd, technically proficient, and incredibly determined. The young engineer went so far as to deliver VfR results to Becker personally in the hope of securing funding. It worked, sort of. The army colonel who made von Braun an offer: a job developing liquid rockets for the army and a doctorate degree at the University of Berlin; Becker could arrange it so that his work reports would be accepted in lieu of a thesis. Leaving the amateur world behind, von Braun was formally hired by Dornberger and began working for the army on October 1, 1932. A handful of others from the VfR soon followed.
The VfR
Members of the VfR with early rockets. Von Braun is on the far right.
via v2rocket.com
The A-Series
Working under Dornberger at the army’s research site called Kummersdorf West, von Braun and his colleagues developed the Aggregate series of rockets. The A-1 debuted the arrangement of having the rocket engine below the fuel and oxidizer tanks when the rocket stood vertically making it look like a giant artillery shell 1 foot in diameter and 4.6 feet tall. It also had an 85 pound flywheel in the nose for in-flight stability. The A-2 was the same though larger and featured a gyroscope in the centre of its body for better stability in flight.
By the mid 1930s, the team was working on the next in the series, the A-3, gearing up for the combat-ready rocket, the A-4, but the program on the whole was facing financial problems. A pending move to the coastal site of Peenemünde was threatened when cost overruns forced the air force out of the joint arrangement, and the army couldn't foot the bill alone. Dornberger needed a patron for his work and found a potential match in Adolph Hitler, leader of the Nazi party that had been in power since 1933.
On March 23, 1939, Hitler arrived at Kummersdorf West to discuss what role rockets might play in Germany’s future. The Führer watched static fire engine tests and examined cutaway model of rockets, but was ultimately unimpressed. He left without any support from the Nazi party for the army’s weapons. But other factions within the Nazi regime were interested in not only the rockets but the rocket engineers as well, namely the SS, the muscle behind the Nazi party.
On the first of May, 1940, the Second World War had been going for a little more than six months when SS Colonel Mueller met with von Braun on behalf of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS. Mueller had orders for von Braun to join the SS. The engineer politely refused, citing a busy work schedule. But he could only keep Himmler at bay for so long. Rather than forfeit his position and risk transfer to a work camp, von Braun ultimately accepted the offer. The SS and the Nazi party had gained its first direct line of control over the rocket program.
Nazi Brass
Von Braun and his team meet with Nazi brass in 1942.
via v2rocket.com
Hitler Takes Notice
Work on the A-4 continued without much support at the war escalated, and eventually the Allies found out about the weapon. In the early hours of August 18, 1943, the British Royal Air Force staged a partially successful raid on Peenemünde. The Allies did bomb the rocket site, but a navigational error meant the bulk of their bombs landed miles from their key targets, sparing key personnel and their vital documents. The raid also spooked Hitler, driving him to take new measures to protect the rocket. He ordered the A-4 program moved to underground facilities in central Germany and decreed that only concentration camp labour could be used in construction. POWs were too likely to leak details on the secret program.
As the war turned to favour the Allies, the Führer was becoming increasingly interested in the rocket program. In early July, he invited Dornbeger and von Braun to discuss their work at the Army’s Guest House in East Prussia, and this time the presentation left Hitler impressed. He wanted to know whether the A-4 could carry a bomb as heavy as 10 tons and how many rockets Peenemünde could produce each month. Hitler finally believed in the project and saw the A-4 as his secret weapon that would force his enemies into submission and win him the war. The Führer granted the A-4 the priority the priority status Dornberger had coveted for so long.
But Dornberger’s control was waning. On August 20, Hitler appointed Himmler as his new Minister of the Interior, which also made him the leader in the new effort to move the A-4’s production underground. Himmler also persisted in his efforts to recruit von Braun to his staff, an invitation the engineer continued to refuse out of loyalty to Dornberger and the army, earning him an arrest and brief incarceration.
Test Launch
An A-3 test launch.
via v2rocket.com
The Nazis Take Control
On June 6, 1944, the Allies landed at Normandy to begin the final invasion of Europe. Less than two months later, Hitler promoted Himmler to Head of the Home Army, and because Dornberger’s group reported to the Home Army he now reported to Himmler. Himmler in turn appointed Hans Kammler as special commissioner for the A-4 program, a level of authority that Dornberger had never had.
Kammler was now the first man with the authority to deploy the A-4 as a combat missile, and Himmler had overarching control over the whole program. Dornberger likened the change in command to the heartbreak a musician must feel after spending a lifetime lovingly crafting a violin then seeing its strings scraped with a block of wood. By the fall of 1944, the A-4 rocket was firmly under the command of the Nazis and SS, and with underground camps building the weapons, Von Braun and Dornberger became by default an integral part of the SS program and could be held responsible for deaths on both sides of their rocket’s flights.
Though many entrepreneurs and innovators are working to extend the human lifespan, there’s a good chance that much of that borrowed time might be spent in poor health. Now researchers might have found a way to extend adolescence and young adulthood because of some quirky changes in gene expression brought on by an antidepressant, at least in roundworms. The researchers published their findings yesterday in the journal eLife.
During a different study in 2007, the researchers discovered that treating the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans with a common antidepressant compound called mianserin helped the worms live 30 to 40 percent longer. This time, the researchers wanted to figure out why that happened. They were paying special attention to gene expression—whether or not genetic blueprints are used and can change throughout an organism’s life—of a particular set of genes that, if turned on, were known to cause many of the effects of aging.
The researchers divided thousands of roundworms into three groups and gave each a dose of mianserin at a different time in their development into adulthood. After a few days, the researchers looked at how the gene expression changed for each group, using an analytical method called the gene-set enrichment analysis.
On all the worms, mianserin had some surprising effects on the worms’ gene expression. Think of genes as a long line of light switches that can be turned off or on. Typically, throughout an organism’s life, one or two genes might get switched on or off at a time. When the roundworms were treated with mianserin, the drug affected a group of switches that affect all the lights in one room (or function of the body), but instead of flipping them all off, or freezing them in place, the drug caused each one to switch position. The expression of the “off” genes in that group was turned on, and the “on” genes were turned off. The most profound effects on the worms’ genetic expression were in those treated with mianserin earliest.
The researchers called this switch-flipping phenomenon “transcriptional drift,” and the shift of expression disrupted the typical, coordinated process of aging. They suggest that measuring transcriptional drift might be a way to quantitatively measure age-related changes that start in early adulthood.
This isn’t the first study to show that changes in gene expression can lengthen a roundworm’s lifespan. And though this may make us hopeful for immortality, the researchers remind us that though roundworms make a great model organism, but there are “millions of years of evolution” between roundworms and humans, they say in a press release. In future studies, the researchers plan to look at transcriptional drift in mice and human brains, which may bring the prospect of extended youth a bit closer to home.
Since most commercial whaling was halted in the 1980s, the deaths of whales have become more mysterious. With the exception of whale hunters (research or otherwise), usually people aren't around to declare a whale's time and cause of death. Some whale deaths, like the 337 whales stranded in Patagonia earlier this year are still a mystery. But sometimes, the true nature of a whale's death is weirder than you could ever imagine.
In a study published earlier this month, researchers found that a pair of pilot whales off the coast of the Netherlands died after sole, a type of fish, got stuck in their blowholes, suffocating them.
The researchers think that the fish ended up in the blowholes as the whales were trying to eat the fish. Hakai Magazine notes that whales can dislocate their larynx in an attempt to regurgitate a problematic bit of food, which can allow the fish to pass more easily into the respiratory system. The researchers also think it's possible that the fish might have been transferred to the blowhole from the digestive system when the whale sneezed or coughed. But the most dramatic notion is that the fish might have gotten stuck as it floundered around inside the whale trying to escape. Either way, instead of going down the wrong pipe, the fish went up.
Weird as it may be, death by sole is not completely unheard of. In the paper, the researchers mention that other cetaceans like porpoises have suffocated on the flat, flexible fish.
It's a really sad story once you get past the absurdity. National Geographic reports that the whales probably lingered in unfamiliar territory to stay with an injured member of their pod. The pilot whales' favored prey, squid, was unavailable in the North Sea, so the whales fed on the fish nearby, including their unfortunate last meal.
It's a question that has puzzled geologists and Bob Dylan for a long time: "how many years can a mountain exist, before it's washed to the sea?"
Now, a new study shows that changes in climate, particularly ice ages, can wash a mountain away to the sea faster than it can be built up by geologic forces. Over the years, the St. Elias mountains have eroded, with rocks soil and other sediments from the mountains eventually landing in the depths of the Gulf of Alaska. The researchers spent over a decade drilling into these sediments to get a better picture of how erosion rates changed through the mountains' history.
Of course, on some level, the findings are not a total surprise. While there are mountains here on Earth that are growing right now, they are always acted on by erosive forces. Wind, water, ice and gravity pull and prod at a mountain's mass, gradually turning even high peaks like the Himalayas into softly rolling mountains like the Appalachians. What wasn't clear before was how quickly erosion could tear down what tectonics were building up.
Researchers working on the new study looked at the St. Elias mountain range in Alaska, which has been growing at more or less a consistent rate for the past 6 million years, pushed towards the sky by the collision of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. And though the rate at which the mountain range grew stayed constant, the climate in that region changed a lot over the years.
In the Gulf of Alaska, the researchers found that the volume of sediments eroding from the St. Elias mountains increased suddenly about one million years ago. During that time, the Earth went through a cooler period where ice ages were more common. In the past million years, the authors write, erosion outpaced the growth of the mountain range by 50 to 80 percent. The finding shows that in some cases, changes in climate can dramatically change geologic processes.
“Humans often see mountain ranges as static, unyielding parts of the landscape,” John Jaeger said in a statement. “But our work has shown that they are actively evolving along with and responding to Earth’s climate, which just shows how truly dynamic and coupled this planet is.”
For 99 years, armored tanks have been a part of modern battlefields, shrugging off bullet fire and sending footsoldiers running for cover. The development of anti-tank weapons is almost as old, with people struggling to create new tactics and new weapons that can stop the lumbering warmachines. Countries especially want anti-tank weapons light enough to be carried by a single person into battle, but powerful enough to punch through modern tank armor. For years, DARPA’s been quietly working on a human-portable anti-tank railgun. And now, it appears, China’s working on one too.
Here’s how DARPA describes their MAgnetoHydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM) railgun:
Explosively formed jets (EFJ) and fragments and self-forging penetrators (SFP) are used for precision strike against targets such as armored vehicles and reinforced structures. Current technology uses chemical explosive energy to form the jets and fragments. This is highly inefficient and requires precise machining of the metal liners from which the fragments and jets are formed. The Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition (MAHEM) program offers the potential for higher efficiency, greater control, and the ability to generate and accurately time multiple jets and fragments from a single charge.
The MAHEM program will demonstrate compressed magnetic flux generator (CMFG)-driven magneto hydrodynamically formed metal jets and SFP with significantly improved performance over EFJ. Generating multiple jets or fragments from a single explosive is difficult, and the timing of the multiple jets or fragments cannot be controlled. MAHEM offers the potential for multiple targeted warheads with a much higher EFJ velocity, than conventional EFJ/SFP. This will increase lethality precision. MAHEM could also be packaged into a missile, projectile or other platform, and delivered close to target for final engagement.
Essentially, the weapon will use electricity to bend metal into the specific deadly form needed as it’s fired. If built, a person firing the weapon could adapt their attacks if the vehicle they’re attacking survived one type of shot. Beyond that, details of the weapon in American publications are sparse, but David Hambling at Popular Mechanics appears to have found a paper by Chinese researchers that details a very similar weapon. He reports:
For $28, I downloaded a scientific paper entitled "Physical Modeling of Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition and Detonation Control" from the journal Applied Mechanics and Materials. The paper was written by a team at the "ministerial key laboratory" at the Nanjing University of Science and Technology, and is a detailed theoretical breakdown of how MAHEM works. It includes block diagrams of the electronics, the complex "kinematics differential equations of kill element" that indicates how it accelerates metal projectiles, and details of the ferroelectric ceramics in the flux generator. This is more information than you can get from any US source, and appears to be based on the reverse-engineering MAHEM by a team with a very detailed knowledge of magnetohydrodynamics and muntions.
Is imitation the deadliest form of flatery? Here’s hoping the battlefields of the future don’t find out.
The Honda Clarity FCV is a new hydrogen fuel cell vehicle from the Japanese motoring company and was shown off to journalists at its sprawling research and development center in Tochigi, Japan, held in conjunction with the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.
For a few brief moments, Honda showed us the future of driving. It’s not what you think. It’s electric, yes, but not dependent on batteries alone. It’s certainly autonomous, but probably not quite as soon as other carmakers would have you believe. It’ll still be gasoline-powered, too, but with efficiencies that will rival today’s hybrids. It’ll be filled with ten-speeds.
The reality, though, is this: the truly best stuff? Not gonna happen. But we’ll get to that in a sec.
First, background. Automobile manufacturers aren’t known for their open-door policies. You can’t just waltz in and see what they’re up to, any more than you can at Apple, say, or Sony. The reasons are obvious: Concealment of trade secrets and new tech from the competition, and the simple fact that most of the stuff in development at any given moment likely won’t see the light of day. It may not pan out, it may evolve into something else, or it may just not be anything anybody really wants. The archives of high-tech companies the world over are filled with really stupid stuff they’d rather you just didn’t see.
So when Honda (slogan: “the Power of Dreams”) recently opened the doors of its sprawling research and development center in Tochigi, Japan—complete with a its own banked-oval test track—it was a rare opportunity to see what directions the company is headed, beyond what you can infer from recent history.
The event, held in conjunction with the Tokyo Motor Show, certainly wasn’t a complete baring of its techno/corporate-soul—we saw a carefully curated selection of next-gen tech, and under strictly controlled circumstances at the test track. There were no glimpses of drawing boards where ideas are floated and honed, and no look at hardware labs or testing facilities. Also: virtually no photography allowed. It was all completely clinical, but still quite telling.
Stop one: Realities
The Tour de Tech of Honda's facilities necessarily had to include the most near-term and practical innovations, starting with Honda’s Clarity fuel cell vehicle (FCV). We took a hyper-brief spin in this hyper-advanced fuel cell car, and found it more powerful and stylish than its somewhat clunky immediate predecessor, the FCX. The big innovation here is the continued miniaturization and efficiency-enhancement of its fuel cell stack. That previously had to sit buried in the passenger compartment, but it now fits under the hood, freeing up more space amid the front and rear seats—capacity bumps up from four to five people.
The challenge here, as we’ve discussed frequently before, is the hydrogen fueling infrastructure, but the fact that Honda and Toyota (by virtue of its Mirai hydrogen car released over the summer) appear so dedicated to the role of hydrogen in our collective future is telling. Critics slag the tech constantly, but these are not stupid companies. They’re taking the long-view, seeing the fuel as an important contributor to our alt-fuel plan—not a single solution. The new Clarity FCV has a 434-mile range, the longest of an electric vehicle, and it fuels in mere minutes. That says a lot—and suggests that maybe these companies know something we don’t.
Honda’s new 10-speed transmission and its small turbocharged 1-liter, three-cylinder and 1.5-liter four-cylinder engines made appearances, as well. The small engines represent Honda’s first effort to downsize and turbocharge its engines, and the models we tested were surprisingly spry and responsive. Neither felt sluggish in the Civic sedan mules with tried them in—the three-cylinder in particular was eyebrow-raising in its non-three-cylinderishness.
We won’t be getting the 1.0-liter soon, but the 1.5-liter turbo will appear in the redesigned Civic coming to the U.S. in the spring, bringing improved fuel economy. They signal Honda’s renewed interest in ultra-efficient small engines for future lineups.
Honda Civic redesigned
The redesigned Honda Civic, shown off by the Japanese motor giant at its Tochigi, Japan research and development facility in conjunction with the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.
Honda
The new ten-speed transmission shown off in Japan is a world first for front-engine, front-wheel-drive cars. It boosts fuel economy by 6 percent and cuts gearshift times by 30 percent, making it more responsive. Additionally, the transmission can cut down engine RPMs at cruise speed by 26 percent, and it can skip three gear in one go, allowing it to drop from seventh to third and tenth to sixth when called on to accelerate with gusto. It can also skip single gears from any level. On the test track, it felt seamless and responsive, and not nearly as distracting as other high-gear transmissions tend to, with constant shifting.
You hardly notice it in action, but you do notice the difference in responsiveness and reduced engine ROM at cruising speeds. This could be the high-water mark for transmission gearing, as the laws of diminishing returns will kick in when confronted with increased complexity, but the new gearing still promises a significantly more fine-tuned future for internal-combustion engines.
Stop Two: Dreams
Our visit to the R&D center included a brief—really brief—drive of the new Acura NSX supercar, in Honda’s upscale, luxury brand extension. This was in advance of the official full media rollout of the $155,000 hybrid machine early next year, and we were granted two laps of the circuit at a speed-limited 120 mph.
Still, it was good enough to show off the new car’s performance capabilities up to that point. The NSX is the first hybrid supercar in a relatively affordable price range—the others are Ferrari, Porsche, and McLaren hypercars in the $850,000+ range. But even among those technological giants, the Acura has an edge—its three-electric motor hybrid system (two motors up front paired to a twin-turbo V6 with an additional electric motor) is a uniquely fine-tuned all-wheel-drive setup that deploys subtle but noticeable torque-vectoring to help force the car more firmly and confidently through turns.
Though my drive didn’t include much in the way of actual turns, I got a good feel for the car’s dynamics in terms of acceleration and stability at higher speeds while banking through an oval’s turns. In short, the 573-hp system felt controllable and stable right at the outset, with minimal learning curve. It’s user-friendly, but it still eggs you on with the promise of even more power and control, far beyond the electronically limited variant we experience in Tochigi.
So if Honda has its way, the future will be filled with performance cars melding electricity and gasoline not just in the service of fuel economy, but to create a new levels of performance and controllability. In fact, we’re already seeing it: the RLX hybrid flagship from Acura uses a similar system, but in reverse—two motors in the rear, with an engine and third motor up front—to generate the same benefits. You notice it immediately, and quickly come to love it.
In Tochigi, we also got to drive Honda’s sporty S660, a compact, two-seat sports car that technically is considered a Kei-car—a tiny, fuel efficient machine intended for use in urban areas. If the NSX is a dream car, the S660 is one of a decidedly different stripe. The car has a tame .66-lite, three-cylinder, 63-hp engine that’s good for just 83 mph. In this country, that’s a joke, but the car was nevertheless pretty legit fun, and a uniquely satisfying driving experience if for no other reason than it was absolutely unapologetic about its capabilities. Will it scream down desert highways? No, but it handles beautifully and is 1,800-pounds of open-air enjoyment.
There’s no chance this car will come to the United States, but it does make a compelling statement: Fun doesn’t have to set your hair on fire. Maybe we could use some of that over here, after all.
We next sampled Honda’s burgeoning autonomy game, via its Traffic Jam Assist. This new system helps take the edge off of monotonous driving via an adaptive cruise control system that detects lane markers and vehicle movement ahead of your own car, allowing it to take complete control of speed and steering all the way down to a full stop/restart. It keeps the car centered better than similar systems from other carmakers, and it works quite smoothly in the new Honda Accord Hybrid that we tried it in.
Honda’s vision is to use autonomous tech primarily to simply ease fatigue and driver stress, and the company is adamant that more advanced systems—that is, fully autonomous cars that will drive through all conditions—are still at least 15 years away, though some carmakers argue they’re as close as 5 years away.
Stop three: Fantasies
Our day closed out with a drive of Honda’s extreme-prototype four-motor electric CR-Z. Using the base chassis and body of the sporty two-seat hybrid coupe, Honda flicked out the engine and instead inserted four electric motors, one at each wheel. Driving this car around a compact autocross proved to be the most entertaining and memorable experience of the day, in part because the power was so instantaneously available and in part because the system takes cornering capability to the next level. The drivetrain is based on Honda’s Super Handling All-Wheel Drive and Precision All-Wheel Steer that was developed in a much more aggressive form for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb earlier this year.
Honda CR-Z
The Honda CR-Z, one of several cars the Japanese automobile company showed off to journalists at its Tochigi research and development facility for the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show.
Honda
The CR-Z we drove had about half the power of that racecar, but it was still insanely exciting, with hyper-precise torque-vector-controlled steering—the system slows and speeds up different wheels to help aim the car—and gobs of torque for crazy acceleration. This has both performance benefits and safety—it’s more controllable, and thus more likely to keep drivers out of trouble.
Sadly, this setup is purely a developmental experiment, so it has no direct path to production. Therefore, it earns a spot in our recap as pure fantasy. But it’s a fantasy we’re glad to entertain—and one that might crop up in our future in one form or another, for either pure fun or pure safety and practicality. This thing alone is a vision we can totally get behind.
The Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), an organization founded to help combat obesity, will be disbanding after months of criticism following a New York Times report back in August that revealed Coca-Cola had funded the organization.
The group wiped its website clean, leaving a post that said it was discontinuing operations “due to resource limitations.”
Following the August article, public health officials across the country argued that Coca-Cola had funded the group in an effort to play down the association between sugary soft drinks and obesity. While the group had previously claimed that Coke had given them an “unrestricted gift” and the company had “no input” on the research, the Associated Press reported last week that they had obtained emails between Coca-Cola and GEBN group leaders that showed the beverage company had both hand-picked GEBN’s group leaders and, “edited its mission statement and suggested content for the group’s website.” In response, Coke told the AP that its chief scientist, Rhona Applebaum, would be retiring as well.
The New York Timesreported yesterday that in an email exchange between James O. Hill, GEBN’s president, and Applebaum, Hill had suggested a study to focus the blame for the rise in obesity on a lack of exercise, and keep it away from the rise in consumption of Coca-Cola’s soft drinks.
Going forward, Coke claims it will be more transparent about its research and collaborations in the coming months and years. But in an interview for the AP story, Coca-Cola North America president, Sandy Douglas, said that his company would continue to argue that moderate consumption of soda does not contribute to obesity. "If folks are saying the moderate consumption of our beverages is causing obesity, then we're going to argue with that, because it's not true."
If weather permits, Orbital ATK will send up fresh supplies to the International Space Station on Thursday evening.
The launch will be Orbital's first since their rocket exploded shortly after takeoff in October 2014. No one was onboard at the time, but the explosion destroyed 5,000 pounds worth of space station supplies, damaged the launch pad, and left Orbital Sciences grounded for more than a year.
One of the AJ-26 engines inside Orbital's Antares rocket was at fault. Since the accident, the company has been working on replacing the rocket's AJ-26 engines with Russian-made RD-181s.
Although the new-and-hopefully-improved Antares isn't ready to launch yet, Orbital has a contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. So, while its rocket is in the shop, Orbital will hitch a ride on United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. (ULA is a conglomerate formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin.)
A NASA press release has more on the science experiments that will launch this week:
Science payloads will offer a new life science facility that will support studies on cell cultures, bacteria and other microorganisms; a microsatellite deployer and the first microsatellite that will be deployed from the space station; and experiments that will study the behavior of gases and liquids, clarify the thermo-physical properties of molten steel, and evaluate flame-resistant textiles.
The launch is schedule for takeoff at 5:55pm Eastern on Thursday. Watch it here, with NASA's coverage starting at 4:30pm.
Ready for liftoff
Orbital ATK's enhanced Cygnus spacecraft, fitted inside the payload fairing of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket
United Launch Alliance
If all goes well, the Cygnus spacecraft will rendezvous with the ISS in the early hours of Dec 6. It'll hang out there for a month or so as astronauts fill it with about 3,000 pounds of trash. Then the spacecraft and its smelly cargo will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
Protests at the building site halted construction starting in April of this year, cyberattacks targeted the TMT's website, and activist groups challenged the project in Hawaiian courts. Now those courts have reached a decision. In a decision announced yesterday, the court determined that the board issuing the construction permit had done so improperly, issuing the permit before opponents could bring forth their side of the case.
"The Board of Land and Natural Resources (Board) issued the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo (UH) a permit to construct a 180-foot high astronomical observatory within a conservation district on Mauna Kea over the objections of Native Hawaiians and others, who sought a contested case hearing to fully assess the effects of the project prior to making a decision of whether to issue the permit. Instead, the Board approved the permit but included a condition that, if a contested case proceeding was initiated, then construction could not commence until the Board conducted such a hearing. The Board’s procedure of holding a contested case hearing after the permit has already been issued does not comply with our case law...nor with due process under the Hawaiʻi Constitution"
The court's ruling revokes the construction permit, halting the building process.
Henry Yang, chair of the board of theThirty-Meter Telescope issued this statement: “We thank the Hawaii Supreme Court for the timely ruling and we respect their decision. TMT will follow the process set forth by the state, as we always have. We are assessing our next steps on the way forward. We appreciate and thank the people of Hawaii and our supporters from these last eight-plus years.”
With a 98-foot-wide mirror, TMT would have been the largest telescope in the world upon its completion, but only for a time. Other huge projects like the Giant Magellan Telescope with an 85-foot-wide mirror, and the European Extremely Large Telescope, with a 129-foot-wide mirror, are still on track in less contentious settings.
Health concerns for people in late 16th century France were a bit different than today. Most people lived in squalid conditions in which infectious diseases ran rampant; life was pretty difficult and short (by the mid-1700s, the average person could expect to live to about 30). But many who were spared consumption or the plague couldn’t avoid a health condition that is one of the most common today: heart disease. Archaeologists in France uncovered five embalmed hearts dating back to the late 1500s and early 1600s, several of which showed signs of disease, according to a presentation given yesterday at the meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
The researchers found the hearts, which likely belonged to wealthy noblemen, when they were excavating the ruins of the Convent of the Jacobins in Rennes, France. Since the excavation began in 2011, they have found some 800 graves, along with these five embalmed hearts, each encased in heart-shaped urns made of lead. Slowly and carefully, a team of experts in many different disciplines removed the hearts from their urns and unwrapped the embalming material. They took MRI and CT images of the hearts, identifying the valves and chambers in four of them (one was too poorly preserved to show much). Once the researchers rehydrated the tissue, they took more scans and dissected the hearts to look closely at the muscle and tissue.
One of the hearts showed no signs of disease, but three of them had a buildup of plaque around the arteries, a condition called atherosclerosis. Scientists still aren’t sure what causes the disease, but they know that smoking and high blood pressure can exacerbate it and that, as the disease progresses, it can cause heart attack and stroke. "Atherosclerosis is not only a recent pathology, because it was found in different hearts studied," study author Fatima-Zohra Mokrane told Reuters.
Without the rest of the body, the researchers don’t know exactly what caused the deaths of the former owners of these hearts. But finding old, well-preserved specimens like these could help researchers better understand the causes and progression of the disease. Another specimen from the same dig, a corpse that was perfectly preserved inside a lead casket, might have pathogenic bacteria preserved in it, which would allow researchers to see which communicable diseases were prominent at the time.
What is the appropriate consequence for outwitting Death? The ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus tells us: eternal drudgery. The clever king, after outwitting Hades twice, was sentenced to an eternity of hard, repetitive labor: pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it come tumbling down every time it reaches the summit. It’s a dark tragedy, a cruelly fitting punishment from ancient gods. But that was millennia ago. What’s the best way to get out of such a sentence today? Make a Lego robot push the boulder instead, for all eternity
The kinetic sculpture, built by Jason Allemann of JK Brickworks, stars a plastic version of the former Corinthian king, pushing eternally against a gently bobbing boulder. The robot walks in place but seems to heave with frustration, a fitting tribute to his eternal torment.
Night's Watch leader and bastard Stark John Snow is at the center of the new Game Of Thrones season 6 teaser. What could this mean...
HBO
A new Game Of Thronesseason 6 teaser trailer has hit the web and Jon Snow is back--well, kind of. The bastard Stark is at the center of HBO's latest for the upcoming season, which ends with a confirmed release window: April 2016.
The new GoT trailer gives fans little in the way of official details from Winds Of Winter--the upcoming book which season 6 will be based off of. Though even still, the choice to focus on Jon Snow in the opening shot of the trailer is a deliberate one. Take note Song Of Ice And Fire fans.
Few series are as important to HBO as Game Of Thrones. As one of the first and few networks to offer a traditional cable channel and internet-only service (that doesn't require cable), other services are carefully watching. Taking after Netflix, HBO has provided commercial-free content to cable subscribers as well as an online version for those who paid. With HBO Now, the channel is able to get their shows like Boardwalk Empire, Girls, and Game Of Thrones in front of the eyeballs of cordcutters--not just cable users. With the return of Game Of Thrones season 6 the company could see a significant spike in subscribers around the April 2016 release date.
(Spoilers ahead)
Season 5 of the fantasy show answered as many questions as it introduced. When we discovered that Daenerys could ride one of her dragons, the question of who would ride the other two introduced itself. As Arya Stark learns discovered more about the Faceless Men, the more we scream at our TV's about Arya's sight--questioning how she'll get it back.
And then there's the giant question mark surrounding Jon Snow. The death of the lead Crow put a period on an already gripping season finale. As one of the few characters considering the bigger picture regarding the looming threat of White Walkers, Jon Snow's existence almost seems like a no-brainer. Though while half of the entire season 6 teaser is dedicated to the young Stark child, it's accompanied by the phrase "The past is already written. The ink is dry." We've seen how ruthless George R.R. Martin can be when removing beloved characters from the equation. We'll see in April of 2016 if the same applies to Jon Snow.
