Underground wireless charging will be a better idea!
Fossil fuels are bad for the planet, and freight haulage is one of the more carbon-intensive activities that operate today. That’s why Siemens and Scania have teamed up to trial what’s being called the world’s first “electric highway.” Much like an electrified railroad, the 1.2 mile stretch has a series of wires hanging overhead that a pantograph-equipped truck can connect to. Then, the vehicle can deactivate its fuel-burning engine and coast along on that delicious, dirt-cheap electricity, switching back when the wires stop.
Scania official Claes Erixon has said that the project is “one important milestone on the journey towards fossil-free transport.” Cleantech Canada quotes an unnamed Siemens representative, who says the move could cut energy consumption in half. As it stands, this is the culmination of a two-year project to develop this test track, with more work to be done to determine if it could be rolled out across the country. That is, unless, an alternative freight-transport network that’s even more energy-efficient and speedy, can make its case to governments across the world.
In the right hands, broken electronics can be turned into something useful again. But useful isn’t the best way to describe Drake Anthony’s200-watt laser bazooka made from a bunch of old DLP projectors he bought off eBay. Words like incredibly dangerous, do-not-try-this-at-home, or “are you crazy?” seem more appropriate.
For comparison, the handheld laser pointers used during PowerPoint presentations measure in at a measly 0.005-watts, while the FDA limits the lasers that most consumers can buy to a maximum power rating of 0.5-watts. That means that Drake’s creation, which focuses four 50-watt lasers through a massive lens—is 400 times more powerful than what the FDA will let you play with. And those rules are there for a good reason. Lasers can be deadly!
Astronomers have combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope and the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to conclude that a peculiar source of radio waves thought to be a distant galaxy is actually a nearby binary star system containing a low-mass star and a black hole. This identification suggests there may be a vast number of black holes in our Galaxy that have gone unnoticed until now.
For about two decades, astronomers have known about an object called VLA J213002.08+120904 (VLA J2130+12 for short). Although it is close to the line of sight to the globular cluster M15, most astronomers had thought that this source of bright radio waves was probably a distant galaxy.
Thanks to recent distance measurements with an international network of radio telescopes, including the EVN (European Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network) telescopes, the NSF’s Green Bank Telescope and Arecibo Observatory, astronomers realized that VLA J2130+12 is at a distance of 7,200 light years, showing that it is well within our own Milky Way galaxy and about five times closer than M15. A deep image from Chandra reveals it can only be giving off a very small amount of X-rays, while recent VLA data indicates the source remains bright in radio waves.
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos today put a spotlight on the construction of a giant rocket production facility in Florida for his Blue Origin space venture – but he also gave a shout-out to the engine production team back in Kent, Wash.
In an email to Blue Origin’s fans, Bezos noted that ground has been broken for an orbital vehicle manufacturing site at Exploration Park, just south of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Ground-clearing actually began last month.)
“The 750,000-square-foot rocket factory is custom-built from the ground up to accommodate manufacturing, processing, integration and testing,” Bezos wrote. In comparison, the production facility in Kent where Blue Origin is building rocket engines and its New Shepard suborbital spaceships takes in about 300,000 square feet.
A humanoid named Jia Jia has been attracting a lot of attention at the 2016 Summer Davos Forum in Tianjin, China.
The robot is the same size as a real person and dressed in a traditional Chinese-style dress. Some people have found her so attractive that they’ve started calling her “Robot goddess,” according to Sina (via Shanghaiist).
Jia Jia was created by Chen Xiaoping and his colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China. They claim that she’s “the most realistic ever made.”
She can also show micro-expressions, move her lips and body and is able to interact with people. She responds when people say things like, “You are beautiful,” You are gorgeous,” or “You look like an 18-year-old.”
What if industrial waste water could become fuel? With affordable, long-lasting catalysts, water could be split to produce hydrogen that could be used to power fuel cells or combustion engines.
By conducting complex simulations, scientists showed that adding lithium to aluminum nanoparticles results in orders-of-magnitude faster water-splitting reactions and higher hydrogen production rates compared to pure aluminum nanoparticles. The lithium allowed all the aluminum atoms to react, which increased yields (Nano Letters, “Hydrogen-on-demand using metallic alloy nanoparticles in water”).
A snapshot from a large quantum molecular dynamics simulation of the production of hydrogen molecules (green) from an aluminum-lithium alloy nanoparticle containing 16,661 atoms (represented by the silver contour of charge density) and dissolved charged lithium atoms (red). For clarity, the water molecules were removed from the snapshot. Simulations were carried out at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility.
According to The Clarion Project, a political information bureau that warns westerners of the growing threat from radical Islam, ISIS has published a ‘kill list’ that includes the names, addresses and emails of 15,000 Americans.
So far, this is interesting news, but it is not really new. I found ISIS, Hezbollah and Al-Qaida kill lists going back at least 8 years. This 2012 bulletin complains that NBC would not release the names contained on a kill list.
A kill list is newsworthy, and the Clarion article is interesting—but the article has more “facts” with which the publisher wishes to generate mob frenzy…
It echos a report by Circa News that the FBI has decided to not inform citizens that they are on the ISIS kill list.
In a clear effort to whip up and direct audience indignation, it asks readers to take a one-question poll. Which answer would you choose?
I have a right to know if I am on an ISIS kill list
I do not need to know if my name is on the ISIS kill list. The FBI can protect me without my knowing
Let’s ignore, for a moment, that the editorial comment appended to answer #2 involves a misleading assumption (i.e. that your safety is related to inclusion on the list and that you need or would be the focus of FBI protection). Even before this cheap tactical mis-direction, I am frustrated with the sleazy promotional and shock tactics of The Clarion Project (formerly, stopradicalislam.org).
Muslim Imam, orders the destruction of Christian churches
This a pity—because the Clarion Project also creates and distributes valuable educational literature. For a few years, they were the credible standard in defining and issuing warnings about the dangers of radical Islam—especially as it is seeded and spread from within. The Clarion Project also produces terrific “wake-up” videos and documentary evidence about life under Sharia law and the shocking intolerance, misogyny and disrespect for human rights that characterize ISIS. It highlights the brutal tactics that emerge when regional governments are controlled by religious zealots. Like any repressive dictatorship, ISIS rules through fear instilled by bands of roaming thugs and by turning everyone into snitches.*
But the Kill List Poll points to a growing trend at Clarion. Four years ago, I objected to Meira Svirsky’s inflammatory report that criticizes a DOJ official for refusing to answer a complex and subtle question with a Yes-or-No response. The Clarion Project has a critical and noble goal. But pushing the emotional hot buttons of an audience by over simplifying or vilifying subtleties undermines the entire organization. In the end, it only demonstrates that they are bullies. And just like Donald Trump, bullying plays only to mobs. It is no the way to win hearts and minds.
My Answer to the Poll
I do not need to know if my name is on the ISIS kill list
Rationale
Both ISIS leaders and radical clerics have repeatedly declared that *all* Americans, American allies, Jews and non-believers may be killed on the spot or taken as sex slaves to pleasure suicide bombers and Jihadist soldiers. They state that doing this fulfills Jihad and prophecy and is sanctioned by the Holy Qur’an. With this in mind, I the choice of poll responses is political, selfish and offensive. It assumes that readers are idiots…
The multiple choice answers are incomplete and misleading. Of course, Americans have a right to know if they are on a kill list—and, in fact, we already know We are all on that list!
About Radical Islam
The warning bell at the heart of Clarion journalism is an alarm that must be heard—very loudly. Radical Islam is a cancer and not just figuratively. It exhibits all earmarks of a spreading cancer that invades and attaches itself to its neighbors while building offensive outposts far from the region that it started. It has not yet been contained and excised. It presents a significant ongoing threat to our safety, our health and our wealth.
—Philip Raymond is a Lifeboat board member and columnist. He hosted The Bitcoin Event and is co-chair of the Cryptocurrency Standards Association
* I could illustrate my point with photos of men being burned in a cage, the abduction of preteen school girls from their homes (they were give to soldiers), a child slitting the throat of captives, or a women having her nose cut off because she was raped by a stranger. After all, in the twisted world of radical Islam, anyone who is different, unique gay, Christian, or not in agreement with the local Imam are to be tortured and killed.
But I can similarly point to even this comparatively mild video. It shows a Turkish music store under attack last week (June 2016), because a group of thugs suspects that the band signing autographs represents secular hedonism—or that that fans must be consuming alcohol during Ramadan.
So far, this is interesting news, but it is not really new. I found ISIS, Hezbollah and Al-Qaida kill lists going back at least 8 years. 
They state that doing this fulfills Jihad and prophecy and is sanctioned by the Holy Qur’an. With this in mind, I the choice of poll responses is political, selfish and offensive. It assumes that readers are idiots…