Wish you could fly over traffic? Flying Car Moves Closer to Reality

Flying Car Moves Closer to Reality

VOA Special English Technology Report - July 10, 2011

You could fill the sky with all the ideas people have had for flying cars -- or what Carl Dietrich calls "flying-driving vehicles."

CARL DIETRICH: "Since the turn of the twentieth century, there have been many hundreds of published concepts for flying-driving vehicles. And some of them have actually been built and flown. But at this point the Transition is the closest to actually getting to the marketplace.”

Carl Dietrich heads a company in Massachusetts called Terrafugia.

Gene Causes Depression - British scientists say they have found evidence proving that a gene causes depression.

Scientists: Gene Causes Depression
VOA - Sunday, May 15th, 2011

A team of British scientists say they have found evidence proving that a gene causes depression, the world's most common mental illness.

Researchers at King's College in London call their discovery “truly exciting.”

They say they have found the chromosome, called 3p25-26, where the errant gene resides.

The scientists say they will now work on finding the exact gene, which could lead to an effective treatment.
Their findings are reported in the latest issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Depression is notoriously difficult to treat. Current anti-depressants do not work in many cases. Patients suffering from severe depression are unable to function and some attempt suicide.


Scientists: Gene Causes Depression
Article from VOA

AeroVironment's nano-hummingbird spy drone - tiny flying drone that looks like a hummingbird

California Company Unveils Hummingbird Spy Drone
Mike O'Sullivan | Los Angeles March 03, 2011 - VOA

Photo: VOA Photo M. O'Sullivan
Matthew Keennon demonstrates AeroVironment's nano-hummingbird spy drone

A California company that makes unmanned drone aircraft for the U.S. military has unveiled a tiny flying drone that looks like a hummingbird. The airborne spy is part of a new kind of military technology that also has civilian uses.

Several years in development, the so-called nano-hummingbird is a smaller and more maneuverable version of drones now used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. It looks like a real hummingbird with quickly flapping wings, and just like the real bird, can hover in mid-air and fly backwards.

The company that created it, AeroVironment, develops and tests drones outside Los Angeles. They give observers an eye in the sky, and spot objects and track people on the ground.

The tiny bird-like drone has a camera and transmitter and a wingspan of just 17 centimeters. It is operated remotely and flies by moving its wings, says project manager Matthew Keennon.

"It's being manipulated and controlled to allow the forward and backward flight, the rotation and also the side-to-side flight. And all that's happening by just changing the curvature and the shape and different aspects of the wing movement at a very high speed," noted Keennon.

The tiny drone is still experimental. The challenge and the funding came from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which asked for an airborne vehicle that would mimic something in nature.

Project manager Keennon says the challenge was huge and the work has been exciting.

"Because every time we made an improvement, got better, we were just so amazed," added Keennon.

While the company is developing some of the world's smallest drones, it is also testing one of the largest. Called Global Observer, this unmanned craft is thin and sleek but has a wingspan almost equal to a Boeing 747. It is powered by liquid hydrogen and can hover in the stratosphere, says AeroViroment's Steven Gitlin.

"And it's designed to fly for up to seven days at a time at about 65,000 feet [20,000 meters] altitude and carry a payload that either helps somebody see what they want to see or relays communication from one point to another," explained Gitlin.

The company spokesman says airborne drones are used for military surveillance, but also have civilian uses.

"Applications like first response, search and rescue, law enforcement, border security, even facility security and event security - anywhere a bird's-eye view in the sky in real time can help somebody do their job more effectively and more safely is a potential application for this technology," added Gitlin.

And the new nano-hummingbird will go places that larger drones cannot.

AeroVironment engineers say the device will still be in development for the next few years, and may not reach the market in its present form. But they say the technology developed for the device will be used in future products.






A California Company Unveils Hummingbird Spy Drone
rticle and video from VOA

Winter’s Weather - How prepared are you? - Quizzes

Weathering the Winter Wonderland
Bay Buddies / By Kathleen Gaskell - Bay Journal

A winter wonderland, while pretty to look at, can also be pretty dangerous. How prepared are you for winter’s weather? Take these quizzes to find out.

Match these weather terms with what to expect:
A. Black Ice
B. Blizzard
C. Freezing Rain
D. Frost/Freeze Warning
E. Lots and Lots of Snow
F. Sleet
G. Winter Storm Watch
H. Winter Storm Warning

1. Expect temperatures to fall below freezing.
2. Expect a winter storm to occur soon if it isn’t already present.
3. Expect a coating of ice that is so thin and clear that the road surface readily shows through.
4. Expect to do lots and lots of shoveling.
5. Expect rain to freeze as soon as it hits the road or any other surface.
6. Expect rain to freeze before it hits the ground.
7. Expect reduced visibility because falling or blowing snow combined with wind gusts or sustained wind of more that 35 miles per hour for at least three hours or longer.
8. Expect that it is possible for a snow storm to hit.

How Weather Wise Are You?
1. Can ice form on days when there is absolutely no precipitation?

2. If you are driving on a foggy night with temperatures near or below 32ºF, what road hazard should you be on the lookout for?

3. All other factors equal, which is warmer, gloves or mittens?

4. During a snowstorm, is it better to travel on back roads so as not to impede the progress of snowplows on the main roads?

5. What is the best reaction to a patch of ice on the road?

A. Speed up to get through it quickly
B. Tap your brakes to mitigate sliding
C. Coast through it
D. Swerve around it

6. True or false, four-wheel and all-wheel drive vehicles have extra traction on ice.

7. Which of these is not a sign of hypothermia: uncontrollable shivering, slurred speech, memory loss, hyperactivity?

8. What part of the body loses the most heat when left uncovered?

9. Which is the better treatment for restoring circulation to frostbitten fingers: gently massaging them with snow/ice chips or putting them in warm water?

10. What happens to skin when it is frostnipped?





Answers
Weather Terms: 1-D 2-H 3-A 4-E 5-C 6-F 7-B 8-G 9-F
Weather Wise: 1. Yes, when temperatures are high enough during the day to melt snow but fall at night to refreeze the water. 2. Black ice 3. Mittens 4. One should avoid infrequently traveled back roads because of the danger of not being found if your car gets stuck or breaks down. 5. C 6. False 7. Hyperactivity, in fact, hypothermia victims are often sluggish or drowsy. 8. Top of the head 9. Warm them in water of 104–105ºF 10. Frostnipped skin turns numb and loses color.
Kathleen A. Gaskell, the layout & design editor for the Bay Journal, has been involved with several environmental programs for children.


Weathering the Winter Wonderland
Article from Bay Journal Jan, Feb 2005

Long for This World - Author Explores Quest for Immortality - Book News

Author Explores Quest for Immortality

Mike O'Sullivan | Los Angeles February 16, 2011 - VOA

Nothing in nature is immortal, but some clams can live centuries and a tiny freshwater creature called a hydra lives a very long time, at least until its pond dries up.

Can humans achieve the same?  Weiner says they've always thought about it.

"If you look at the formative stories of so many civilizations, they're about reaching out to try to grasp immortality," he said.  "Adam and Even and the apple and emperors in China and Gilgamesh in Babylon, again and again.  And the Greeks.  Hercules, in his labors, was trying to defeat death, again and again, because in some ways it's our primary task as mortals.  It’s certainly our primary problem as mortals."

He says the quest for eternal youth has captivated some notable people in their middle age.  In the early 20th century, a number believed that vasectomies could renew their failing vigor.

"Sigmund Freud and the great poet William Butler Yeats both went in for surgery to give them tremendously enhanced virility and youth in their older years," he said.  "And that surgery was something that revivified Yeats.  In fact, he had a tremendous flowering of poetry and around Dublin, they used to call him the 'gland old man.' "

The results for Freud were less certain.  The operation was something  the father of psychoanalysis avoided talking about.

The writer says scientists are not sure how far life can be extended, and that they debate the best way to extend it.  Some focus on the separate problems of aging such as cancer, Alzheimer's and heart disease, while others search for the reasons the body breaks down at the cellular level.

In fact, we have extended our lives dramatically over the past century, and on average, live decades longer than our great grand-parents did.  And more people today are living to be 100.

Still, most don't make it much past 80, and centenarians are a tiny part of the population.

The writer notes that our longer human life span in the 21st century is already creating social tensions, pitting young against old in debates over taxes, public spending and the retirement age in Europe and other places.

He asks how we would cope with the population explosion if couples produced babies for 100 years?

And he asks how longer life span would affect societies burdened with aging or evil  leaders.

"Just imagine if Mao had been given an extra 50 or 60 years of healthy life, or Stalin," he said.  "If Hitler had really had a chance at his thousand year Reich and a chance to rule it himself.  Those are nightmares."

Would dramatic life extension be a violation of nature?  Weiner says, not necessarily.

"If we could engineer ourselves some of the secrets of the clam or the hydra, then would we be doing something very different from what we do now when we get a flu vaccine, or when we get exercise sop that we will continue to live long, happy, healthy lives?  I don't know that those answers are so clear," he said.

He says the most difficult problems do not confront us yet because scientists who want to extend our lives have not achieved the breakthroughs that they hope for.

Living forever is still a dream, the subject of myth and fiction, and many researchers hope to add a more  modest 20 to 30 years to the average lifespan.  The most optimistic hope to add hundreds of years, while skeptics say we may already be approaching our maximum lifespan.

Author Explores Quest for Immortality

Article from VOA

Chesapeake Biological Laboratory - Chesapeake Bay Visitor Center and Research

CBL allows visitors to experience Bay research for themselves
Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network / By Karl Blankenship - Bay Journal

As the sun was setting over the Patuxent River, Eileen Setzler-Hamilton stood on a 750-foot pier stretching off the end of Solomons Island with two high school students, eying their catch.

In their buckets were jellyfish freshly dipped out of the river. “This is the winter, or lion’s mane jellyfish, Cyanea capillata,” said Setzler-Hamilton, a research associate professor at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory.

While scientists at the lab have previously monitored the summertime sea nettle abundance for decades, no one has seriously looked at populations of winter jellyfish — and because no one is swimming in the water to get stung, few people care.

But because they have voracious appetites, Setzler-Hamilton thinks they may be significant, and overlooked, players in the food chain. “There is little known about the winter jellyfish, but they are a major predator on copepods and other zooplankton, as well as fish eggs and larvae when they are available,” she said.

It may seem odd that she has enlisted high school students to help. But at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, research and outreach with the local community has been closely mixed since the CBL became the first state-supported marine laboratory on the East Coast more than seven decades ago.

The lab’s first director, Reginald Truitt, built close ties with the Solomons community when he arrived in 1919 to study oysters, working out of a small shack until he was invited to move into the Episcopal Parish House in 1924. “He was very keen on the idea that this was not only a place to gain knowledge, but to get it out to the public,” said Ken Tenore, the current director of the lab, which now is part of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

The community responded to Truitt: It donated land at the very tip of Solomons Island to build the first permanent building for the Lab in 1931.

Now, the CBL is moving even further to invite the public inside by joining the National Park Service’s Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, which links historical, cultural and natural sites around the region. It is the first research facility to join the Gateways Network.

Truitt mixed easily in the world of the local watermen, as well as that of researchers and resource managers. But he pulled no punches when it came to releasing conclusions from his research: Truitt once reportedly had to slip out a back door of the Capital Building in Annapolis after attacking Maryland’s lack of oyster management.

Ultimately, his work led to the state setting its first minimum size limit on oysters. “Winning that battle was the beginning of my success,” Truitt later said. “It showed some practicality in the use of science.”

Truitt’s successors, which also included Eugene Cronin, known for his groundbreaking studies on the blue crab, have kept that in mind. “Over the years, we have applied our research,” Tenore said.

For example, CBL scientists were in the forefront of the research that showed nitrogen was a major pollutant to the Chesapeake Bay. Those findings, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, were controversial. But the science prevailed, and nitrogen reductions are now considered key to cleaning up not only the Bay, but other coastal areas as well.

Research by CBL scientists helped to lead to the closure of the striped bass fishery in the 1980s to help the depleted stock rebound. Today, CBL scientists are among the leaders in assessing the health of the Bay’s blue crab stock.

Scientists are also examining the impact of low levels of toxic chemicals on fish and other aquatic life: There is growing concern that low levels of pollutants add stresses that impact fish health. Other researchers are studying the impact of various chemicals in atmospheric deposition on the Bay and its watershed — an issue that was largely overlooked until recent years. “We’re looking out at what are going to be the problems 10 years from now,” Tenore said.

To get a sense of the lab and its work, people can tour its small — but soon to be expanded — visitor center, which has exhibits depicting marine life in the Bay, including an oyster reef community. An internet link allows visitors to observe real-time C¹esapeake water quality information from Chesapeake Bay Observing System buoys anchored in the Bay. Other exhibits explain the basic ecological functions of the Bay, and highlight aspects of the lab’s research aimed at better understanding those functions — and how they may be impacted by human activities.

A short video gives a history of the lab and its work, and a variety of other videos are available for viewing upon request. “We have people home schooling their kids on sailboats who will stop in for hours and hours, watching every video that we have,” said Erin Woodrow, the CBL’s outreach coordinator.

But for a fuller sense of the lab’s role, visits should be timed to coincide with lab tours, which are offered Wednesday and Friday afternoons. The 90-minute tours do not follow a set course: They vary according to the research going on at the time.

Visitors may also stroll through the campus, which includes several historic buildings and is located in a spectacular setting nearly surrounded by the tidal Patuxent River.

Throughout the year, visitors can attend a variety of workshops, seminars and other presentations at the lab. It’s all part of an effort by the 170 faculty, students and support staff stationed at the CBL to explain the science that underlies efforts to help clean up the Bay.

“We want what goes on behind these walls to get out to the public,” Woodrow said. “We have to work with them and explain things.”

For example, the CBL recently incorporated environmentally friendly landscaping practices, known as BayScapes, on part of its property. Beginning this spring, it will offer self-guiding tours of the BayScapes gardens, as well as a series of BayScapes workshops. But in keeping with its research theme, the workshops will not only tell people how to BayScape, they will feature CBL faculty members talking about the impacts of nutrient runoff on the Bay — and why alternative gardening techniques such as BayScapes can help.

Similarly, starting Jan. 28, the lab is sponsoring a series of “Savor the Bay” events at local restaurants. They will combine scientists giving seminars on a particular Bay species, followed by a chef preparing a meal of the subject.

This type of connection helps to explain why, on a December evening, Setzler-Hamilton would find herself, dip net in hand, working with high school students collecting jellyfish. At the CBL, the faculty members don’t just tell people what is going on, they help them see it for themselves.

The goal, Setzler-Hamilton explained, is to help people gain a sense of ownership for the resource — something that ultimately will help them work toward achieving the restored Bay envisioned when the Executive Council signed a 10-year cleanup plan. “That is what we have to do if we are ever going to achieve the goals of the Chesapeake 2000 agreement,” she said.

The CBL has grown but, in a sense, its mission is not so far removed from that of Truitt, when he set up shop in an 8-by-10 foot shack only a matter of yards from where Setzler-Hamilton was studying her jellyfish.

Directions:

To get to the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, follow Maryland Route 2 to the end of Solomons Island. After passing the Solomons Pier Restaurant on the right, continue around a bend to the left and then around another bend to the right. The Visitor Center will be on the left when approaching the end of the island.

The CBL Visitor Center is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, from mid-April through mid-December. There is no admission charge. Laboratory tours are offered at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. Space is limited, and reservations are recommended by registering in person at the Visitor Center, or by contacting Erin Woodrow at 410-326-7491.

The public is also invited to attend periodic seminars, workshops, conferences, demonstrations and other events. Check the CBL web site for schedules at www.cbl.umces.edu

For information, visit the lab’s web site at http://www.cbl.umces.edu/, or the Gateways Network web site at http://www.baygateways.net/


Learn more:

• Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (UMCES)

Karl is the Editor of the Bay Journal.


CBL allows visitors to experience Bay research for themselves
Article from Bay Journal - Jan, Feb 2002

Biofuels Powering Jets, Helicopters and Boats in U.S. Navy

Biofuels Powering Navy Jets, Helicopters and Boats
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus speaks to VOA about the Navy's use of biofuels made from algae and mustard seed.

Rebecca Ward | Washington, D.C. February  2011 - VOA

Environmentalists have long complained that so long as diesel or gasoline remains relatively inexpensive, there is little incentive to come up with alternative, greener energies for transportation. But the price of oil and gasoline isn't the only reason to go green. The United States Navy says they are making a tactical decision to find cleaner alternatives. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus says that by 2012, the military branch plans to demonstrate a carrier strike group that uses alternative fuels.

“We're calling that the 'great green fleet,’ like we call the F-18 Hornet that's flying on biofuels, the Green Hornet.”

The Navy has successfully tested biofuels in various air and sea craft. Secretary Mabus says instead of purchasing new vehicles that run on alternative energy, the Navy has found biofuels that can work with its current fleet.

"We have certified the F-18. We have certified the helicopter. We have certified the Riverine boat. We're working on other combatants now. And it's because we've got most of the airplanes, we've got most of the ships, most of the boats we're going to have over the next 10 years. And if we're going to reach the goal of producing half of all our energy from non-fossil fuel sources, we're going to have to do it with the equipment we've got."

Using greener fuels, Secretary Mabus says, may be good for the environment and the economy. But the push toward alternative energies is also a strategic move.

"We buy too much fuel from the most potentially volatile places on earth. We wouldn't allow them to buy our ships and aircraft. But we do give them a 'vote' on whether those ships sail and those aircraft fly because we do buy fuel from them. We also have very tactical reasons for it. To get a gallon of gasoline to a Marine frontline in Afghanistan, it's very expensive, it's very difficult, and it's very dangerous.”

For consumers, fuel produced from algae, wood chips, mustard seed or other organic sources has yet to be mass marketed. But Secretary Mabus says that is likely to change as the military’s demand for alternative energy grows.

"The military oftentimes is the cutting edge of technology and the rest of America follows. And I think that's because (of) how much energy we use, the market we can establish and driving the price down, making sure the infrastructure is being constructed. Then it makes it really easy to move it into the bigger economy and move it out of the military sphere."

For now, the U.S. Navy is using a biofuel blend that includes petroleum products. The reason about 50 percent of petroleum fuel is included is for engine lubrication. But Secretary Mabus says with continued research, biofuels may eventually be able to deliver the correct amount of lubrication on their own.





Biofuels Powering Navy Jets, Helicopters and Boats

Article from VOA Feb 1, 2011

Snowflakes - Science of Winter's Wonder

Watch and learn about snowflakes.

Frost & Flakes

Bay Buddies / By Kathleen Gaskell - Bay Journal

Snow and ice have been in the news for most of the Bay watershed lately. Did you know that temperature, and to a lesser extent, the amount of water vapor, determines the shape of a snowflake? Because of updrafts, a snow crystal may travels through various temperature ranges before hitting the ground, resulting in a crystal that is a combination of shapes. See if you can match up the snow crystal with its temperature range(s).

1) 25°–32° F

2) 21°–25° F


3) 14°–21° F & _ -8°

4) 10°–14° F &

-8°–3° F

5) 3°–10° F

You’re in a bit of a scrape because some form of ice has formed on the windows of your car or building. Can you match these icy terms with how each was formed?

6) Freezing Rain

7) Frost

8) Rime

A)Dendrites

B)Hollow columns

C)Needles


D)Sector Plates


E)Thin plates

F) Water vapor that turns to ice on an object


G) Super-cooled rain that turns to ice when it hits something

H) Drops of water freeze on contact, creating tiny, hollow balls of ice.

Solution

1-E, 2-C, 3-B, 4-D 5-A, 6-G, 7-F, 8-H

Kathleen A. Gaskell, the layout & design editor for the Bay Journal, has been involved with several environmental programs for children.

Frost & Flakes Bay Journal, March 2000