An anonymous reader writes “Today China continued rolling out the future of high speed rail by officially unveiling the world’s longest high-speed rail line — a 2,298-kilometer (1,428-mile) stretch of railway that connects Beijing in the north to Guangzhou in the south. The first trains on the new route hit 300 kph (186 mph), cutting travel time between the two cities by more than half.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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World’s Longest High-Speed Rail Line Opens In China
In November of 2011, American commercial airlines consumed 48.3 million gallons of fuel— every day —and paid a total of $49.8 billion that month to do so. And with increasingly tight operating budgets, fuel efficiency has quickly become a primary concern for the airlines. Boeing thinks one possible solution is its new plug-in hybrid jet concept that burns 70 percent less gas per flight with the help of the local power grid. More »
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Boeing’s Concept SUGAR Plane Plugs In Like a Prius
Enlarge / Meet the latest quantum dot assembly factory. Colorado State Quantum dots are nanoscale-sized pieces of semiconductor. Their small size ensures that quantum effects, like the Pauli exclusion principle, influence the behavior of electrons within them. This gives the dots properties that a bulk material with the same composition lacks, and it makes them appealing candidates for things like tiny lasers, photovoltaic materials, and LEDs. Another area where they’ve shown promise is medical imaging. In terms of absorbing and emitting light, quantum dots behave much like the fluorescent molecules we can use to label cells of interest. But, since their fluorescent properties depend on the shape of the particles rather than the chemical structure of a molecule, they are much less prone to undergoing reactions that destroy their fluorescence. The problem is that most semiconductors aren’t especially biocompatible, meaning additional chemical reactions need to be performed before the dots can attach to or enter cells. Some researchers have started to look towards making the dots in biological systems, figuring that the output would necessarily be biocompatible. After some successes with bacteria and yeast, they’ve moved on to a larger target: the earthworm. And it appears to work very well. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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Earthworm guts become factory for nanoparticles
Robots are so commonplace now that we use them to entertain kids at amusement parks. But even though modern technology has given us artificial lifeforms that can walk, talk, and even fly, there’s still something utterly fascinating about pre-electronic mechanical automatons like this Vers de Soie caterpillar dating back to 1820. More »
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This 200-Year-Old Mechanical Caterpillar Does Everything But Turn Into a Butterfly
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recaps two court cases pending in the U.S. which will decide whether you’re allowed to re-sell the things you purchase. The first case deals with items bought in other countries for resale in the U.S., such as textbooks. An unfavorable decision there would mean “anything that is made in a foreign country and contains copies of copyrighted material – from the textbooks at issue in the Kirtsaeng case to shampoo bottles with copyrighted labels – could be blocked from resale, lending, or gifting without the permission of the copyright owner. That would create a nightmare for consumers and businesses, upending used goods markets and undermining what it really means to ‘buy’ and ‘own’ physical goods. The ruling also creates a perverse incentive for U.S. businesses to move their manufacturing operations abroad. It is difficult for us to imagine this is the outcome Congress intended.” The second case is about whether music purchased on services like iTunes can be resold to other people. “Not only does big content deny that first sale doctrine applies to digital goods, but they are also trying to undermine the first sale rights we do have by forcing users to license items they would rather buy. The copyright industry wants you to “license” all your music, your movies, your games — and lose your rights to sell them or modify them as you see fit.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Defending the First Sale Doctrine
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the dramatic rise in pot farms in Northern California is starting to take a toll on the surrounding environment. Agricultural practices like water-siphoning, pesticide spraying, and littering are having a noticeable effect on what is a very fragile ecosystem. More »
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California’s marijuana boom is wreaking havoc on the environment
There’s something deeply polarizing about eggnog. People either love it or hate it and of those that love it, even they are usually at opposing sides when it comes to homemade nog versus the commercial variety. Whether you love it have drank gallons of it this year or hate it and gag at the very thought of it, here is a little trivia about the milky treat. Image Via texascooking [Flickr] What the Heck is A Nog Anyway? The true origin of the drink is hotly debated, as is the reason for its name. Some, including Alton Brown explain that “nog” was a 17 th century slang for a strong beer brewed in East Anglia, England. Others say that the name was a combination of the words “egg” and “grog,” a term for a drink made with rum. When the words are put together to form “eggngrog,” it’s easy to see where “eggnog” would come from. As for the origin of the drink, it is believed to have come from posset, a medieval drink made with warm milk, booze and spices. One thing’s for sure though, before the drink came to America, it was popular with British aristocrats –but they called it an Egg Flip. Its Patriotic Roots in the New World In England, only the rich could afford the fresh eggs and milk required to make “egg flips,” but when the drink crossed the Atlantic, it soared in popularity as practically every American had access to these fresh ingredients and some kind of hard alcohol. Perhaps the biggest difference between the American eggnog and the British predecessor though is that brandy and sherry were the most common alcohols used in England, but these two items were heavily taxed in America so the locals instead turned to rum –which was particularly cheap thanks to a close trade association with the Caribbean. When the Revolutionary War made it more difficult for the colonists to find rum, they instead turned to using bourbon in its place –which is the most common alcohol used in eggnogs today. George Washington was a huge proponent of the creamy mixture and helped cement it into the nation’s history. In fact, he kept eggnog on hand all year long. Of course, his was not just any eggnog. White House records show that his recipe included rum, rye, whiskey, sherry and brandy. Need more proof of how important eggnog was in our fledgling nation? Look no further than the Eggnog Riot of 1926. It all started when some students at the West Point Military Academy, where alcohol was prohibited, smuggled some whiskey into their barracks to make eggnog for their Christmas party. As officials started to crack down on some of the drunk cadets, other drunken revelers started smashing and burning property at the school. By the time the riot was over, twenty cadets and one enlisted soldier were court-martialed. Amongst the many rioters, though he wasn’t court-martialed, was the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. Image Via indigo_jones [Flickr] About the Drink Itself Eggnog is essentially a milk and egg custard and the base is almost identical to ice cream –except that the traditional alcoholic varieties have too much alcohol to freeze. Those that cook their eggnog before serving it actually make a real custard. While the CDC says that you should always cook your eggnog prior to consumption in order to kill off any possible salmonella contamination, Alton Brown claims that if your mix contains at least 20% alcohol, is kept below 40 degrees and sits for at least a month, the alcohol will kill off any bacteria. The alcohol also managed to keep the milk from going sour and if you don’t cook the eggnog, it takes at least a month for the flavor to really develop. Alton Brown has a great booze-heavy recipe on Mental Floss if you want to make some of your own at home. Want the traditional eggnog flavor without alcohol and the risk of salmonella poisoning? Then try using the new pasteurized eggs available at most grocery stores. They’re pasteurized at a steady, low temperature to kill of bacteria without cooking the eggs themselves. Old School or New School As for the commercial varieties, there is a reason why real eggnog fans will always badmouth the store stuff. Under U.S. law, commercial eggnogs only need to contain at least 1% of a drink’s final weight to be made from egg yolk solids. If you buy the cheaper alternative “eggnog flavored milk,” it only has to have .5% egg yolk solids. Other than that, commercial eggnog can also contain milk, sugar, modified milk ingredients, glucose-fructose, water, carrageenan, guar gum, natural and artificial flavorings, spices, monoglycerides and colorings. Image Via chotda [Flickr] Need an Alternative? You lactose intolerant eggnog fans are in good company and people have been working for a long time to develop something you can drink without worry. In fact, nondairy eggnogs have been around at least since 1899, when Almeda Lambert printed a recipe for eggnog in her Guide for Nut Cookery that featured a drink made from coconut cream, eggs and sugar. I hope all you eggnog fans enjoyed this article, but before you celebrate too much, you’d better head to the store and grab a few more cartons –or get to mixing up some of your own, before it heads away for the season. Sources: Wikipedia #1 and #2 and Mental Floss #1 , and #2
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The Eggheaded, Noggin-Filling Story of Eggnog
Hugh Pickens writes writes “About 80 percent of the gasoline consumed in the U.S. is blended with ethanol, primarily with a 10 percent mix of ethanol, generally derived from corn. Now Kate Sheppard writes that the Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new policy that will allow states to raise the blend to up to 15 percent ethanol (also known as E15), approved for use for cars and light trucks from the model year 2001 and later. A few weeks ago, AAA issued a statement saying that the EPA’s new policy creates the ‘strong likelihood of consumer confusion and the potential for voided warranties and vehicle damage.’ AAA surveyed vehicle manufacturers, and found that only about 12 million of the 240 million vehicles on the roads today are built to use E15 gasoline. The EPA will require that gas pumps with E15 bear a warning sign noting the blend and that it is not recommended for cars older than the 2001 model year. But what happens if you accidentally use it? ‘Nobody really knows what negative effects [E15 is] going to have on the vehicle,’ says Brian Lyons, Toyota’s safety and quality communications manager. ‘We think that there needs to be a lot more study conducted to make sure there are no longer term effects on the vehicle. So far everything we’ve seen says there will be.’ The concern is that repeated, long-term exposure could cause the higher-alcohol-content fuel to degrade engine parts like valves and cylinder heads — which could potentially cost thousands of dollars to replace. Gas station owners don’t like it very much either, because they’d likely have to upgrade their equipment to use it. Nor are environmental groups big fans of the EPA’s decision arguing that increasing the use of ethanol can drive up food prices, and isn’t the best means of reducing our reliance on foreign fuels. The ethanol lobby is the only group that really seems to like the new rule. ‘We’ve force fed a fuel into every American’s car that benefits a few thousand corn farmers and ethanol refiners at the expense of virtually every other American,’ says Scott Faber.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apparently Christopher Lee, the guy what played Saruman in LoTR, is a fan of metal. He’s also a fan of Christmas. So, he did the only logical thing that someone who likes both metal and Christmas would do—he recorded a metal Christmas album. No, seriously. More »
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Christopher Lee: A Heavy Metal Christmas
GhostX9 writes “Tom’s Hardware just published a detailed look at the Intel Atom Z2760 in the Acer Iconia W510 and compared it to the NVIDIA Tegra 3 in the Microsoft Surface. They break it down and demonstrate how the full Windows 8 tablet outperforms the Windows RT machine in power consumption. They break down power consumption to include the role of the CPU, GPU, memory controller and display. Anandtech is also reporting similar findings, but only reports CPU and GPU utilization.” Despite repeated claims that x86 is beating ARM here, they look neck in neck. Assuming you can make a meaningful comparison. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Intel Challenges ARM On Power Consumption… And Ties