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Transparent aluminium is ‘new state of matter’ – “Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. ‘Transparent aluminium’ previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter [...]
You Asked: Is it true that bricks are radioactive? Are brick houses dangerous? — Jen, Elizabeth City, NC Marshall Brain Answered: Radiation tends to be a loaded word in today’s society. It is something many people fear like the plague. But radiation is a natural part of the environment. Uranium, for example, is a naturally [...]
Billboards are sometimes the only real entertainment on a road trip, long after you’ve burned through the good CDs — and the good gossip. Most aren’t memorable, but some always catch your interest (don’t tell me Cracker Barrel has never tempted you from the roadside) and some stick in your mind due to their pure incongruity (“Oh look — you can buy barbecue and guns.”)
If you were in Havana in 2006, you would have seen a different kind of billboard erected — an electronic sign proclaiming in big red letters the differences between the U.S. and Cuba.
The sign, posted in the U.S. interests section of the island, flashed inspirational quotes, pro-democracy messages and anti-Cuba sentiment.
If you’ve read my past few posts about the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), also called the Cash for Clunkers program, then I’m guessing that by now that you’ve also gone to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) official CARS Web site, www.cars.gov, to take a look the program rules. And after you examined those rules, I’m wondering if you had the same question I had…
It clearly states “First, do no harm,” sure, but the Hippocratic oath is conspicuously silent on the issue of physicians chartering planes and deporting severely brain-damaged patients with mental capabilities equaled to children.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the non-profit Martin Memorial hospital in Stuart, Florida, spent $1.5 million over three years to care for Luis Alberto Jiménez. Jiménez had suffered massive brain damage after a drunk driver collided with him in 2000. Simple enough; he was taken to a hospital where he was treated and stabilized. That’s what hospitals do, after all. The big burlap rub is that Mr. Jiménez is a Guatemalan national who lived in Florida illegally and had no health insurance. Since it could find no long-term care facility that would take him, the hospital kept Jiménez as its ward.
OK, so maybe the headline is a bit sensational. But Florida is having quite a python problem. A 14-footer was found in a storm drain yesterday in Bradenton, FL and a toddler was killed by a python north of Orlando in early July.
While I usually reserve Fridays for a post-podcast discussion, I thought I’d break the rules in regard to our recent podcast on the 1916 Jersey Shore shark attacks. As some of you may know, one of the most highly anticipated weeks in summer television is quickly approaching: Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, which will run from Aug. 2 through 8. So if you haven’t made it to the beach by now, get thee to the nearest strip of sand and salt water before you’re scared off!
I’m being a tad dramatic. But the 1916 shark attacks were nothing if not dramatic. Katie and I went into pretty gruesome detail about the five victims who fell prey to sharks — and we mentioned that coastal resorts were whipped into a frenzy as shark attack headlines pushed news from the war front off the front page of the papers. But how does history make sense of these sensationalized events?
If you are, I’d like to see the skin test for it. See, a DJ in the United Kingdom named Steve Miller (wait, he’s a DJ? I thought he had a band.) claimed that he’s got an electrosensitivity — radio waves bug him. John Timmer at Ars Technica wrote an article about the phenomenon, which isn’t limited to just Miller — people complain about being bothered from electromagnetic sources from time to time and you’ll see a story about it in the news. But Miller’s case is different. Media outlets all over the world are printing his story. What’s he saying?
Miller said the radio waves emanating from WiFi routers give him headaches, dizziness and nausea. But Timmer pointed out that blind studies have shown that other people claiming to have electrosensitivity can’t tell when there’s a wireless signal nearby. If there is such a thing as electrosensitivity, you’d probably have to travel to a pretty remote area to avoid radio waves.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell one whale shark from another — it takes a ridiculously complicated computer algorithm designed by NASA. Just look at that photo. The array of white spots on a whale shark’s body is essentially a star scape — and just who makes it their business to map and decipher the heavens?
You Asked: How does trenchless equipment install pipe lines without digging up the ground? — Clifford, Lincoln, Neb. Marshall Brain Answered: The old-fashioned way to put in a pipe or a power line is to have a trenching machine (sometimes referred to as a ditch witch) or a backhoe dig a trench, like this: But [...]
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