High school student builds Fusion Reactor High
school student Thiago Olson used parts and materials from the local
hardware story and eBay to build a working fusion reactor. A few tiny
bubbles in his dosimeter told him that he'd fused hydrogen nuclei into
helium in his basement.
A step closer to Sustainable Nuclear Energy In
future nuclear reactors will create energy, while producing no nuclear
waste, says Wilfred van Rooijen from the Delft University of Technology
(Netherlands). Van Rooijen's research focused on the safety of
Gas-cooled Fast Reactors.
Quiet Revolution in Wind Turbines Quiet
Revolution Ltd has revolutionized the windmill with their new
QuietRevolution wind turbine, the QR5. The small and quiet wind turbine
has a vertical axis so it can gather power from the changing winds near
around buildings.
Elephants Recognize their Reflection Experiments
have revealed that elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, like
humans, dolphins and great apes. Researchers exposed 3 elephants to a
huge mirror. The elephants didn't behave socially as if their image was
another elephant.
Humanity may split in two Evolutionary
theorist Olver Curry expects human species will split in two. The human
race will decline after the year 3000, due to dependence on technology.
People then become choosier about their sexual partners, causing two
human sub-species.
Single Pixel Camera takes High-Res Pictures Instead
of having millions of photodiodes each scanning one pixel, a newly
developed single pixel camera uses one photodiode to scan the whole
scene. This does not only take up less power and space, the camera can
take night-vision pictures as well.
Some Women can See 100 million Colors Some
women can see four distinct ranges of color, instead of the usual
three. Besides the blue, green and red, tetrachromats have also got
orange cones. They can distinguish 100 million different colors,
instead of the usual 1 million.
MIT listens to echoing rocks to find oil With
the help of a new $580,000 Dept. of Energy grant, MIT scientists will
interpret underground sound of echoing rocks to find natural gas and
oil contained in fractured porous rocks in a Wyoming oil field, and
determine where to drill wells.
Fastest Bite on Earth Scientists
have discovered the fastest bite in the world. The Latin American
trap-jaw ants have jaws that reach up to a speed of 145 mph. The
American scientists used a high-speed video camera capable of taking up
to 250,000 frames per second.
Is Pluto really a Planet? Nearly
2500 astronomers from 75 countries have gathered in Prague, Czech
Republic to agree on a universal definition for a planet. Scientists
debate whether Pluto - smaller than Earth's moon - and the newly
discovered space object Xena are planets.