Believe it or not, making ice is more complicated than just making water really cold. One thing that helps is bacteria. Yes, bacteria! In this captivatingly magic video, it takes just a second for Pseudomonas syringae to turn a whole jar of water into ice. Read more…
Continue reading here:
Whoa, Watch Bacteria Instantly Turn Water Into Ice
alphadogg writes “When a certain Los Angeles office building lights up, it’s a dark day for nearby cellphone users, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Fluorescent lights at Ernst & Young Plaza, a 41-story tower near the heart of downtown, emit frequencies that interfere with the Verizon Wireless 700MHz network, the agency said in a citation issued against the building owner. The FCC’s message comes through loud and clear in the filing: the building owner could be fined up to $16, 000 a day if it keeps using the interfering lights, up to a total of $112, 500. The alleged violation could also lead to ‘criminal sanctions, including imprisonment, ‘ the citation says.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
View article:
L.A. Building’s Lights Interfere With Cellular Network, FCC Says
Zothecula writes “In another step forward for laser weapons that brings to mind the Death Star’s superlaser, Lockheed Martin has demonstrated a30-kilowatt fiber laser produced by combining many lasers into a single beam of light. According to the company, this is the highest power laser yet that was still able to maintain beam quality and electrical efficiency, paving the way for a laser weapon system suitable, if not for a Death Star, for a wide range of air, land, and sea military platforms.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more here:
Many Lasers Become One In Lockheed Martin’s 30 kW Laser Weapon
Airborne pollution is a major issue in China, with local hospitals opening up ” smog clinics ” and waves of city-dwellers migrating to more rural areas to escape . While Chinese officials are pursuing “cloud seeding” as a way to control pollution, a Zhejiang University professor thinks he has a better idea: Sprinklers. Big ones. Read more…
Continue reading here:
China Could Wash Away Smog With Artificial Rain Storms From Skyscrapers
As Mexico City archaeologists sort through the surreal array of Aztec sacrificial skulls recently uncovered while excavating their city’s subway system , it’s worth remembering that parts of the London Underground were also tunneled, blasted, picked, and drilled through a labyrinth of plague pits and cemeteries. Read more…
Discovered in 2009 by the MEarth project, researchers now have strong evidence that GJ 1214 b has an atmosphere “But now a team of astronomers led by UChicago’s Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean have detected clear evidence of clouds in the atmosphere of GJ 1214b from data collected with the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble observations used 96 hours of telescope time spread over 11 months. This was the largest Hubble program ever devoted to studying a single exoplanet. … The first spectra, which were obtained by Bean in 2010 using a ground-based telescope, suggested that the planet’s atmosphere either was predominantly water vapor or hydrogen-dominated with high-altitude clouds. … More precise Hubble observations made in 2012 and 2013 allowed the team to distinguish between these two scenarios. … The best explanation for the new data is that there are high-altitude clouds in the atmosphere of the planet, though their composition is unknown. Models of super-Earth atmospheres predict clouds could be made out of potassium chloride or zinc sulfide at the scorching temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit found on GJ 1214b.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Excerpt from:
Researchers Confirm Exoplanet Has Clouds Using Hubble Telescope
SonicSpike writes “Light bulb manufacturers will cease making traditional 40 and 60-watt light bulbs — the most popular in the country — at the start of 2014. This comes after the controversial phasing out of incandescent 75 and 100-watt light bulbs at the beginning of 2013. In their place will be halogen bulbs, compact fluorescent bulbs, LED bulbs and high efficiency incandescents — which are just regular incandescents that have the filament wrapped in gas. All are significantly more expensive than traditional light bulbs, but offer significant energy and costs savings over the long run. (Some specialty incandescents — such as three-way bulbs — will still be available.) … The rules were signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2007. They are designed to address gross inefficiencies with old light bulbs — only 10% of the energy they use is converted into light, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has a handy fact sheet about the changes. The rest is wasted as heat. But the rules have drawn fire from a number of circles — mainly conservatives and libertarians who are unhappy about the government telling people what light bulbs they can use. They argue that if the new ones really are so good, people will buy them on their own without being forced to do so.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
As winter settles in, many of us are getting an up-close look at more snowflakes than we might care to. Let’s take a moment to look at just what forces are shaping (literally) our winter weather. Read more…
Read more here:
How snowflakes get their shape
Read more…
See more here:
Just Four People are Making This Stunning Video Game
An anonymous reader writes in with some exciting news if you are a storage array manufacturer with a lot of money to spend on hard drives.”HGST Monday announced that it’s now shipping a helium-filled, 3.5-in hard disk drive with 50% more capacity than the current industry leading 4TB drives. The new drive uses 23% less power and is 38% lighter than the 4TB drives. Without changing the height, the new 6TB Ultrastar He6 enterprise-class hard drive crams seven disk platters into what was a five disk-platter, 4TB Ultrastar drive.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
See more here:
6TB Helium-Filled Hard Drives Take Flight