Hamartia Antidote
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Micro stories - small news bits too small to have their own thread
- Thread starter SvenSvensonov
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SvenSvensonov
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The Physics Behind Ice Spikes, Nature's Perfect Murder Weapon
Ice spikes may very well be the perfect untraceable weapon, but how do these jagged sticks of frosty death form? Turns out there’s no magic involved (womp), just some simple physics.
Ice cubes freeze from their outer edges inward, expanding as they go. Sometimes, this process squeezes the water in the middle of the cube up and out the top, forming a small protrusion that eventually grows into a long, sharp stick as freezing continues and more water is forced to escape.
Watch the video to see ice spike formation in happen, and learn more about how you can coax your water into forming some awesome death spears of its own. Please use responsibly.
Ice spikes may very well be the perfect untraceable weapon, but how do these jagged sticks of frosty death form? Turns out there’s no magic involved (womp), just some simple physics.
Ice cubes freeze from their outer edges inward, expanding as they go. Sometimes, this process squeezes the water in the middle of the cube up and out the top, forming a small protrusion that eventually grows into a long, sharp stick as freezing continues and more water is forced to escape.
Watch the video to see ice spike formation in happen, and learn more about how you can coax your water into forming some awesome death spears of its own. Please use responsibly.
SvenSvensonov
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Scientists are Growing Tiny Cerebral Cortexes in Petri Dishes
Yep, you heard that one correctly. In what could be a major step forward for personalized medicine, researchers have perfected a technique for growing miniature balls of cortical tissue—the key working tissue in the human brain—in a dish.
And much, like our brains, these simplified, petri dish brains are abuzz with neuronal activity.
As off-the-wall insane as this sounds, it isn’t just some mad science experiment. These tiny, 3D structures function much like the outer mantle, or cortex, of the brain of the person from which they were derived. In the future, similar models could be used to study the brain circuitry of people suffering from neurological disorders, and perhaps, to genetically engineer personalized treatments.
“There’s been amazing progress in this field over the past few years,” said National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel in a statement about the brains-in-a-dish breakthrough, which was published last week in Nature Methods. “The cortex spheroids grow to a state in which they express functional connectivity, allowing for modeling and understanding of mental illnesses. They do not even begin to approach the complexity of a whole human brain. But that is not exactly what we need to study disorders of brain circuitry.”
“While the technology is still maturing, there is great potential for using these assays to more accurately develop, test safety and effectiveness of new treatments before they are used in individuals with a mental illness,” David Panchision, the NIMH program director for stem cell research, added.
The budding cortexes pictured above are the culmination of years of stem cell R&D. Prior to this work, scientists had devised methods of growing neurons in culture, by inducing a patients’ skin cells to revert to pluripotent stem cells, and then placing the stem cells in a chemical environment that would push them down a new developmental path. Growing neurons from skin cells at all is pretty amazing, but until now, we hadn’t been able to organize those neurons into anything resembling the complex circuity of the human brain.
As described in their paper, Sergiu Pasca of Stanford University and his colleagues have developed a new, streamlined method for inducing pluripotent stem cells to form cortex-like “organoids.” These tiny balls of brain tissue include neurons supported by a cortex-like network of glial cells. This results in much more functional and realistic layers of neurons that talk to each other in complex networks.
In a not-too-distant future, a patient suffering from mental illness might be able to have his or her cortex grown in a lab, thin sectioned, and analyzed in order to determine where the neural circuity has gone awry. Now, if that doesn’t fill you with optimism about the future of humanity, I don’t know what will.
Yep, you heard that one correctly. In what could be a major step forward for personalized medicine, researchers have perfected a technique for growing miniature balls of cortical tissue—the key working tissue in the human brain—in a dish.
And much, like our brains, these simplified, petri dish brains are abuzz with neuronal activity.
As off-the-wall insane as this sounds, it isn’t just some mad science experiment. These tiny, 3D structures function much like the outer mantle, or cortex, of the brain of the person from which they were derived. In the future, similar models could be used to study the brain circuitry of people suffering from neurological disorders, and perhaps, to genetically engineer personalized treatments.
“There’s been amazing progress in this field over the past few years,” said National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel in a statement about the brains-in-a-dish breakthrough, which was published last week in Nature Methods. “The cortex spheroids grow to a state in which they express functional connectivity, allowing for modeling and understanding of mental illnesses. They do not even begin to approach the complexity of a whole human brain. But that is not exactly what we need to study disorders of brain circuitry.”
“While the technology is still maturing, there is great potential for using these assays to more accurately develop, test safety and effectiveness of new treatments before they are used in individuals with a mental illness,” David Panchision, the NIMH program director for stem cell research, added.
The budding cortexes pictured above are the culmination of years of stem cell R&D. Prior to this work, scientists had devised methods of growing neurons in culture, by inducing a patients’ skin cells to revert to pluripotent stem cells, and then placing the stem cells in a chemical environment that would push them down a new developmental path. Growing neurons from skin cells at all is pretty amazing, but until now, we hadn’t been able to organize those neurons into anything resembling the complex circuity of the human brain.
As described in their paper, Sergiu Pasca of Stanford University and his colleagues have developed a new, streamlined method for inducing pluripotent stem cells to form cortex-like “organoids.” These tiny balls of brain tissue include neurons supported by a cortex-like network of glial cells. This results in much more functional and realistic layers of neurons that talk to each other in complex networks.
In a not-too-distant future, a patient suffering from mental illness might be able to have his or her cortex grown in a lab, thin sectioned, and analyzed in order to determine where the neural circuity has gone awry. Now, if that doesn’t fill you with optimism about the future of humanity, I don’t know what will.
SvenSvensonov
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The Milky Way's Densest Star Cluster Looks Like A Dazzling Glitter Bomb
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the Arches Cluster, thought to be the densest star cluster in the Milky Way. This visually striking cluster is about 25,000 light years from earth, and is a relative youngster, astronomy-wise, at two to four million years old.
More from NASA and the European Space Agency:
The Arches cluster is so dense that in a region with a radius equal to the distance between the sun and its nearest star there would be over 100,000 stars! At least 150 stars within the cluster are among the brightest ever discovered in the Milky Way. These stars are so bright and massive that they will burn their fuel within a short time (on a cosmological scale that means just a few million years). Then they will die in spectacular supernova explosions. Due to the short lifetime of the stars in the cluster the gas between the stars contains an unusually high amount of heavier elements, which were produced by earlier generations of stars.
Despite its brightness the Arches Cluster cannot be seen with the naked eye. The visible light from the cluster is completely obscured by gigantic clouds of dust in this region. To make the cluster visible astronomers have to use detectors which can collect light from the X-ray, infrared, and radio bands, as these wavelengths can pass through the dust clouds. This observation shows the Arches Cluster in the infrared and demonstrates the leap in Hubble’s performance since its 1999 image of same object.
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the Arches Cluster, thought to be the densest star cluster in the Milky Way. This visually striking cluster is about 25,000 light years from earth, and is a relative youngster, astronomy-wise, at two to four million years old.
More from NASA and the European Space Agency:
The Arches cluster is so dense that in a region with a radius equal to the distance between the sun and its nearest star there would be over 100,000 stars! At least 150 stars within the cluster are among the brightest ever discovered in the Milky Way. These stars are so bright and massive that they will burn their fuel within a short time (on a cosmological scale that means just a few million years). Then they will die in spectacular supernova explosions. Due to the short lifetime of the stars in the cluster the gas between the stars contains an unusually high amount of heavier elements, which were produced by earlier generations of stars.
Despite its brightness the Arches Cluster cannot be seen with the naked eye. The visible light from the cluster is completely obscured by gigantic clouds of dust in this region. To make the cluster visible astronomers have to use detectors which can collect light from the X-ray, infrared, and radio bands, as these wavelengths can pass through the dust clouds. This observation shows the Arches Cluster in the infrared and demonstrates the leap in Hubble’s performance since its 1999 image of same object.
SvenSvensonov
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No exciting tech news today, so how about a history lesson?
Britain Sent Thousands of Its Convicts to America, Not Just Australia
The joke about Australia is that it was founded by a bunch of criminals. And from 1788 until 1868, Britain did send roughly 164,000 convicts to the land down under. America’s dirty little secret? The same exact thing was happening here. In fact, experts estimate that over 52,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America.
Britain had been shipping convicts to America for decades before they started sending them to Australia. In fact, it was precisely because of America’s fight for independence that the Brits had to start sending their criminals to Australia. But from 1718 until 1775, convict transportation to the American colonies flourished. Some estimates claim that almost 10 percent of migrants to America during this time were British convicts.
Typically, getting banished to America was for a term of either seven or fourteen years, after which the convict could theoretically come back the Britain. Escaping home early, however, was punishable by death. And it wasn’t just men. Some female convicts were transported to the American colonies as well, for crimes such as being “lewd” and “walk[ing] the streets after ten at night.”
Many Australians have more or less embraced their convict history. But if you’re an American who had no idea that your country’s founding included a huge prison population, you’re not alone. Historically, Americans have not been too keen on discussing the fact that convicts came to what would eventually become known as the United States.
As Anthony Vaver explains in his book Bound With An Iron Chain, historians have sought to cover up the fact that so many prisoners were sent to America:
Through the 19th century, most historians simply ignored the institution, and those who did recognize it usually claimed that nearly all of the people who were transported were political prisoners.
No less a figure than Thomas Jefferson himself tried to downplay the history of penal transportation to America. Writing in 1786, Jefferson insisted that even if British criminals had been sent, they must’ve been small in number:
The Malefactors sent to America were not sufficient in number to merit enumeration as one class out of three which peopled America. It was at a late period of their history that the practice began. I have no book by me which enables me to point out the date of its commencement. But I do not think the whole number sent would amount to 2000 and being principally men eaten up with disease, they married seldom and propagated little. I do not suppose that themselves and their descendants are at present four thousand, which is little more than one thousandth part of the whole inhabitants.
Except that this wasn’t true. British convicts came over in droves, and free Americans weren’t too happy about it. In fact, even before the Transportation Act of 1718 really opened the doors for Britain’s dumping of undesirables in America, some colonies tried to pass laws that would prohibit the practice. In 1670 authorities in Virginia passed an act that prohibited convicts from being sent to the area. This, unsurprisingly, was overruled by the king.
Pennsylvania tried to do something similar in 1722 by passing a tax for the importation of any people for servitude who had been found “guilty of heinous crimes.” The king, naturally, said that this wasn’t allowed either, proclaiming in 1731: “Whereas acts have been passed in America for laying duties on felons imported, — in direct opposition to an act of Parliament for the more effectual transportation of felons, — it is our royal will and more pleasure that you approve of no duties laid on the importation of any felons into Pennsylvania.”
Many of those sent to the American colonies were put to work doing manual labor. From an 1896 paper on the subject by James Davie Butler:
Planters both in the West Indies and in Virginia, which was reckoned a part of them far on in the eighteenth century, needed laborers, and welcomed a supply from whatever quarter. [...] As Virginia’s staple was tobacco, it naturally became a centre of white as well as black servitude, whether its victims were indented or not, and criminal or not.
Americans have rather romantic ideas about how their country was founded. We’ve long been fond of the mythology surrounding persecuted people freely traveling to the New World and building the greatest country on Earth. But, like all history, it’s much, much messier than that. Our history includes plenty of genocide, slavery, and just a dash of prison folk — and the latter may be news to many Americans who wouldn’t hesitate to make jokes about Australia being populated by the descendants of criminals.
But Australia really wasn’t special in that regard. Shipping criminals halfway around the world was part of America’s sordid history, too.
Britain Sent Thousands of Its Convicts to America, Not Just Australia
The joke about Australia is that it was founded by a bunch of criminals. And from 1788 until 1868, Britain did send roughly 164,000 convicts to the land down under. America’s dirty little secret? The same exact thing was happening here. In fact, experts estimate that over 52,000 British prisoners were shipped off to colonial America.
Britain had been shipping convicts to America for decades before they started sending them to Australia. In fact, it was precisely because of America’s fight for independence that the Brits had to start sending their criminals to Australia. But from 1718 until 1775, convict transportation to the American colonies flourished. Some estimates claim that almost 10 percent of migrants to America during this time were British convicts.
Typically, getting banished to America was for a term of either seven or fourteen years, after which the convict could theoretically come back the Britain. Escaping home early, however, was punishable by death. And it wasn’t just men. Some female convicts were transported to the American colonies as well, for crimes such as being “lewd” and “walk[ing] the streets after ten at night.”
Many Australians have more or less embraced their convict history. But if you’re an American who had no idea that your country’s founding included a huge prison population, you’re not alone. Historically, Americans have not been too keen on discussing the fact that convicts came to what would eventually become known as the United States.
As Anthony Vaver explains in his book Bound With An Iron Chain, historians have sought to cover up the fact that so many prisoners were sent to America:
Through the 19th century, most historians simply ignored the institution, and those who did recognize it usually claimed that nearly all of the people who were transported were political prisoners.
No less a figure than Thomas Jefferson himself tried to downplay the history of penal transportation to America. Writing in 1786, Jefferson insisted that even if British criminals had been sent, they must’ve been small in number:
The Malefactors sent to America were not sufficient in number to merit enumeration as one class out of three which peopled America. It was at a late period of their history that the practice began. I have no book by me which enables me to point out the date of its commencement. But I do not think the whole number sent would amount to 2000 and being principally men eaten up with disease, they married seldom and propagated little. I do not suppose that themselves and their descendants are at present four thousand, which is little more than one thousandth part of the whole inhabitants.
Except that this wasn’t true. British convicts came over in droves, and free Americans weren’t too happy about it. In fact, even before the Transportation Act of 1718 really opened the doors for Britain’s dumping of undesirables in America, some colonies tried to pass laws that would prohibit the practice. In 1670 authorities in Virginia passed an act that prohibited convicts from being sent to the area. This, unsurprisingly, was overruled by the king.
Pennsylvania tried to do something similar in 1722 by passing a tax for the importation of any people for servitude who had been found “guilty of heinous crimes.” The king, naturally, said that this wasn’t allowed either, proclaiming in 1731: “Whereas acts have been passed in America for laying duties on felons imported, — in direct opposition to an act of Parliament for the more effectual transportation of felons, — it is our royal will and more pleasure that you approve of no duties laid on the importation of any felons into Pennsylvania.”
Many of those sent to the American colonies were put to work doing manual labor. From an 1896 paper on the subject by James Davie Butler:
Planters both in the West Indies and in Virginia, which was reckoned a part of them far on in the eighteenth century, needed laborers, and welcomed a supply from whatever quarter. [...] As Virginia’s staple was tobacco, it naturally became a centre of white as well as black servitude, whether its victims were indented or not, and criminal or not.
Americans have rather romantic ideas about how their country was founded. We’ve long been fond of the mythology surrounding persecuted people freely traveling to the New World and building the greatest country on Earth. But, like all history, it’s much, much messier than that. Our history includes plenty of genocide, slavery, and just a dash of prison folk — and the latter may be news to many Americans who wouldn’t hesitate to make jokes about Australia being populated by the descendants of criminals.
But Australia really wasn’t special in that regard. Shipping criminals halfway around the world was part of America’s sordid history, too.
SvenSvensonov
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A Robot That Pushes Like a Human Is More Impressive Than It Sounds
A truly smart robot adapts to a variety of challenges on the fly—like adjusting its posture to push or pull big objects, just like a person does. But what comes naturally to humans is a lot more complicated for robots.
Take this ‘bot developed by the University of Tokyo’s JSK Laboratory, for example. The clever humanoid will try to move a heavy load with its arms. If it senses the object isn’t moving, it wises up and tries an entirely new position autonomously. It might turn around, lean against the object, and try walking backwards against it, just like you might.
It sounds simple, but this is really cool behavior, as IEEE Spectrum explains today. This kind of improvisational problem-solving is an extremely human trait. Lots of robots, especially ones currently being used in factories and whatnot, are only programmed to do one task, in one way, in one place. For example, a robot that stays in the same location on the work floor and lifts heavy boxes coming down a pre-designated conveyor belt.
Even more impressive is that the robot doesn’t stumble or fall—like I might. It can adjust the size of its steps based on how much, or little, the object is moving. This is also a big deal, because it not only shows the robot replacing what could literally be back-breaking labor for a human, but that it could also perform the task better than a human.
According to Spectrum, the ‘bot was presented by University of Tokyo researchers in a paper called “Whole-Body Pushing Manipulation With Contact Posture Planning of Large and Heavy Object for Humanoid Robot,” at IEEE’s International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle last week.
Check out the full video below. And don’t take pushing for granted—it’s hard for our robotic friends.
A truly smart robot adapts to a variety of challenges on the fly—like adjusting its posture to push or pull big objects, just like a person does. But what comes naturally to humans is a lot more complicated for robots.
Take this ‘bot developed by the University of Tokyo’s JSK Laboratory, for example. The clever humanoid will try to move a heavy load with its arms. If it senses the object isn’t moving, it wises up and tries an entirely new position autonomously. It might turn around, lean against the object, and try walking backwards against it, just like you might.
It sounds simple, but this is really cool behavior, as IEEE Spectrum explains today. This kind of improvisational problem-solving is an extremely human trait. Lots of robots, especially ones currently being used in factories and whatnot, are only programmed to do one task, in one way, in one place. For example, a robot that stays in the same location on the work floor and lifts heavy boxes coming down a pre-designated conveyor belt.
Even more impressive is that the robot doesn’t stumble or fall—like I might. It can adjust the size of its steps based on how much, or little, the object is moving. This is also a big deal, because it not only shows the robot replacing what could literally be back-breaking labor for a human, but that it could also perform the task better than a human.
According to Spectrum, the ‘bot was presented by University of Tokyo researchers in a paper called “Whole-Body Pushing Manipulation With Contact Posture Planning of Large and Heavy Object for Humanoid Robot,” at IEEE’s International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle last week.
Check out the full video below. And don’t take pushing for granted—it’s hard for our robotic friends.
Hamartia Antidote
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The first products for Apple’s HomeKit are available today | The Verge
Siri is starting to take over the smart home. The first products that can be controlled by iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches through HomeKit — Apple's smart home platform — are going on sale today, with others being announced for July. The products include light dimmers, air monitors, a thermostat, and an entire smart home hub. They can all be controlled through apps and Siri, allowing homes to be automated by voice command.
Two companies launch today, three more arrive in July
Two companies have products going on sale today: there's a pair of lighting kits from Lutron, and a hub for Insteon's own smart home system. Three other companies are announcing products that will begin shipping in July: Ecobee has a smart thermostat, iHome has a power outlet, and Elgato has a series of home sensors that can detect air quality, weather, energy use, and whether doors and windows are open or closed.
Today's launch comes exactly one year after Apple's announcement of HomeKit — software included in iOS 8 that allows it to control smart home products. HomeKit isn't an app; it's more like a backbone that allows smart home products to talk to each other.
HomeKit allows any company to build an app that connects to any other company's HomeKit products. It also allows Siri to tap into those devices. Finally, it allows homeowners to set up different home presets — such as one for when they're returning from work or heading to bed — and have lights, music, TVs, or other devices turn on or off in response. (Notably, an Apple TV is required to use voice control from outside the home.)
There's a lot of variety in the products being announced today: Lutron's lighting kits allow homeowners to turn lights on and off and to dim them; Ecobee's smart thermostat has Nest-like energy features and can be controlled from outside the home; iHome's power outlet basically just lets you turn devices on and off by killing power to them; and Elgato has a series of sensors that connect to a hub called Eve. There's also Insteon, which is offering a HomeKit-enabled bridge that connects to its existing system of smart home products, which communicate using a number of different wireless standards.
A number of these products will actually be sold through the Apple Store or Apple's online store. Lutron's lighting kits, which sell for $229.95, are supposed to be available in stores today. Elgato's Eve and sensors, which sell separately from $39.95 up to $79.95, and Ecobee's thermostat, which sells for $249, are supposed to be in stores starting in July.
While these are relatively simple pieces to a home, they're enough to allow someone who's interested in home automation get started on the basics. It's possible that we'll learn more about Apple's smart home plans next Monday, during its developers conference, but it could turn out that today's announcements are the big news for now. HomeKit is the start of what could be another vibrant ecosystem of iPhone accessories for Apple — now that the program is up and running, it shouldn't take long for more devices to start rolling out.
Siri is starting to take over the smart home. The first products that can be controlled by iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches through HomeKit — Apple's smart home platform — are going on sale today, with others being announced for July. The products include light dimmers, air monitors, a thermostat, and an entire smart home hub. They can all be controlled through apps and Siri, allowing homes to be automated by voice command.
Two companies launch today, three more arrive in July
Two companies have products going on sale today: there's a pair of lighting kits from Lutron, and a hub for Insteon's own smart home system. Three other companies are announcing products that will begin shipping in July: Ecobee has a smart thermostat, iHome has a power outlet, and Elgato has a series of home sensors that can detect air quality, weather, energy use, and whether doors and windows are open or closed.
Today's launch comes exactly one year after Apple's announcement of HomeKit — software included in iOS 8 that allows it to control smart home products. HomeKit isn't an app; it's more like a backbone that allows smart home products to talk to each other.
HomeKit allows any company to build an app that connects to any other company's HomeKit products. It also allows Siri to tap into those devices. Finally, it allows homeowners to set up different home presets — such as one for when they're returning from work or heading to bed — and have lights, music, TVs, or other devices turn on or off in response. (Notably, an Apple TV is required to use voice control from outside the home.)
There's a lot of variety in the products being announced today: Lutron's lighting kits allow homeowners to turn lights on and off and to dim them; Ecobee's smart thermostat has Nest-like energy features and can be controlled from outside the home; iHome's power outlet basically just lets you turn devices on and off by killing power to them; and Elgato has a series of sensors that connect to a hub called Eve. There's also Insteon, which is offering a HomeKit-enabled bridge that connects to its existing system of smart home products, which communicate using a number of different wireless standards.
A number of these products will actually be sold through the Apple Store or Apple's online store. Lutron's lighting kits, which sell for $229.95, are supposed to be available in stores today. Elgato's Eve and sensors, which sell separately from $39.95 up to $79.95, and Ecobee's thermostat, which sells for $249, are supposed to be in stores starting in July.
While these are relatively simple pieces to a home, they're enough to allow someone who's interested in home automation get started on the basics. It's possible that we'll learn more about Apple's smart home plans next Monday, during its developers conference, but it could turn out that today's announcements are the big news for now. HomeKit is the start of what could be another vibrant ecosystem of iPhone accessories for Apple — now that the program is up and running, it shouldn't take long for more devices to start rolling out.
Last edited:
SvenSvensonov
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The Ingenious Plan for the Ocean to Clean Itself Is Led By a 20-Year-Old
A Dutch man barely out of his teens is leading one of the most ambitious ocean cleanup efforts ever: to halve the amount of plastic debris floating in the Pacific within a decade.
The man’s name is Boyan Slat, and he’s come up with a pretty ingenious way of doing it. Instead of clamoring around the globe on a never-ending junk hunt, he wants the ocean to “clean itself.”
Every year, 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans. Slat’s plan is to place enormous floating barriers in rotating tidal locations around the globe (called gyres), and let the plastic waste naturally flow into capture. These barriers aren’t nets—sea life gets tangled in those. They’re big, V-shaped buffers anchored by floating booms.
Slat’s nonprofit, the Ocean Cleanup, says the current will flow underneath those booms, where animals will be carried through safely. The buoyant plastic is funneled above and concentrates at the water’s surface along the barriers for easy gathering and disposal.
Last month, it was announced that this ocean-cleaning system—which the company says is the world’s first—will be deployed in 2016. They’re planning to station it near the Japanese island of Tsushima, situated in between Japan’s Nagasaki prefecture and South Korea. The detritus-catching apparatus will be 6,500 feet wide and is being called the longest floating structure ever placed in the ocean.
Eventually, more of these storm-resistant, plastic-gathering structures will be placed around the world, if all goes according to plan.
This August, meanwhile, the Ocean Cleanup is sending 50 vessels to scour the area between Hawaii and California to make the first hi-res map of plastic floating in the Pacific.
Slat leads a team of 100 oceanographers, naval engineers, translators, designers, and others. He’s also getting support from key political figures, like the mayor of Tsushima and the mayor of Los Angeles.
The Ocean Cleanup started with a crowdfunding campaign last year that raised $2 million. Pretty incredible for a 20-year-old with a big idea.
A Dutch man barely out of his teens is leading one of the most ambitious ocean cleanup efforts ever: to halve the amount of plastic debris floating in the Pacific within a decade.
The man’s name is Boyan Slat, and he’s come up with a pretty ingenious way of doing it. Instead of clamoring around the globe on a never-ending junk hunt, he wants the ocean to “clean itself.”
Every year, 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans. Slat’s plan is to place enormous floating barriers in rotating tidal locations around the globe (called gyres), and let the plastic waste naturally flow into capture. These barriers aren’t nets—sea life gets tangled in those. They’re big, V-shaped buffers anchored by floating booms.
Slat’s nonprofit, the Ocean Cleanup, says the current will flow underneath those booms, where animals will be carried through safely. The buoyant plastic is funneled above and concentrates at the water’s surface along the barriers for easy gathering and disposal.
Last month, it was announced that this ocean-cleaning system—which the company says is the world’s first—will be deployed in 2016. They’re planning to station it near the Japanese island of Tsushima, situated in between Japan’s Nagasaki prefecture and South Korea. The detritus-catching apparatus will be 6,500 feet wide and is being called the longest floating structure ever placed in the ocean.
Eventually, more of these storm-resistant, plastic-gathering structures will be placed around the world, if all goes according to plan.
This August, meanwhile, the Ocean Cleanup is sending 50 vessels to scour the area between Hawaii and California to make the first hi-res map of plastic floating in the Pacific.
Slat leads a team of 100 oceanographers, naval engineers, translators, designers, and others. He’s also getting support from key political figures, like the mayor of Tsushima and the mayor of Los Angeles.
The Ocean Cleanup started with a crowdfunding campaign last year that raised $2 million. Pretty incredible for a 20-year-old with a big idea.
indiatester
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The Ingenious Plan for the Ocean to Clean Itself Is Led By a 20-Year-Old
A Dutch man barely out of his teens is leading one of the most ambitious ocean cleanup efforts ever: to halve the amount of plastic debris floating in the Pacific within a decade.
The man’s name is Boyan Slat, and he’s come up with a pretty ingenious way of doing it. Instead of clamoring around the globe on a never-ending junk hunt, he wants the ocean to “clean itself.”
Every year, 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans. Slat’s plan is to place enormous floating barriers in rotating tidal locations around the globe (called gyres), and let the plastic waste naturally flow into capture. These barriers aren’t nets—sea life gets tangled in those. They’re big, V-shaped buffers anchored by floating booms.
Slat’s nonprofit, the Ocean Cleanup, says the current will flow underneath those booms, where animals will be carried through safely. The buoyant plastic is funneled above and concentrates at the water’s surface along the barriers for easy gathering and disposal.
Last month, it was announced that this ocean-cleaning system—which the company says is the world’s first—will be deployed in 2016. They’re planning to station it near the Japanese island of Tsushima, situated in between Japan’s Nagasaki prefecture and South Korea. The detritus-catching apparatus will be 6,500 feet wide and is being called the longest floating structure ever placed in the ocean.
Eventually, more of these storm-resistant, plastic-gathering structures will be placed around the world, if all goes according to plan.
This August, meanwhile, the Ocean Cleanup is sending 50 vessels to scour the area between Hawaii and California to make the first hi-res map of plastic floating in the Pacific.
Slat leads a team of 100 oceanographers, naval engineers, translators, designers, and others. He’s also getting support from key political figures, like the mayor of Tsushima and the mayor of Los Angeles.
The Ocean Cleanup started with a crowdfunding campaign last year that raised $2 million. Pretty incredible for a 20-year-old with a big idea.
Excellent idea. Will it work for rivers, streams and ponds too?
SvenSvensonov
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Russia's Aerobatic Aviation Teams Are Pure, Ridiculous Spectacle
Russia has added a new aerobatic layer to its yearly military aviation competition, and just like it’s shirtless, horse-riding leader, it’s just as outrageously over the top as you’d expect.
Aviadarts is taking place near the Russian city of Voronezh, and this leg of the newly expanded international competition saw Russian aerobatic units showing off their formation and ground attack skills displayed in spectacular fashion.
Although we’ve seen Russia’s multitude of aerial display teams before – including the Swifts, Russian Knights, Falcons and Golden Eagles – the helicopter formation work during this display stood out as uniquely awesome.
The larger international portion of Aviadarts kicks off in August and is reported to include Russia, Armenia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Belarus and Kazakhstan participants. Bahrain and Brazil, both of which have close ties with the U.S., will be there, but only attending as formal observers. You can get a taste of what this large-scale air combat contest looks like here.
Yes it will. Any place where trash floats, this type of system should work. Unfortunately, that's its main limitation too as some 70% of ocean trash doesn't float, but that will be worked out if the trial run, for surface waste, is a success. For rivers, where items tend to be smaller and thus float, this type of system would work wonders (if it works)... assuming river traffic can avoid it.
Russia has added a new aerobatic layer to its yearly military aviation competition, and just like it’s shirtless, horse-riding leader, it’s just as outrageously over the top as you’d expect.
Aviadarts is taking place near the Russian city of Voronezh, and this leg of the newly expanded international competition saw Russian aerobatic units showing off their formation and ground attack skills displayed in spectacular fashion.
Although we’ve seen Russia’s multitude of aerial display teams before – including the Swifts, Russian Knights, Falcons and Golden Eagles – the helicopter formation work during this display stood out as uniquely awesome.
The larger international portion of Aviadarts kicks off in August and is reported to include Russia, Armenia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, China, Belarus and Kazakhstan participants. Bahrain and Brazil, both of which have close ties with the U.S., will be there, but only attending as formal observers. You can get a taste of what this large-scale air combat contest looks like here.
Yes it will. Any place where trash floats, this type of system should work. Unfortunately, that's its main limitation too as some 70% of ocean trash doesn't float, but that will be worked out if the trial run, for surface waste, is a success. For rivers, where items tend to be smaller and thus float, this type of system would work wonders (if it works)... assuming river traffic can avoid it.
SvenSvensonov
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Watch Las Vegas' Population Boom As Its Primary Water Source Drains
Among the many criticisms of cities during this epic drought is the idea that maybe not so many humans should live in deserts. But nowhere has more fingers pointed at it than Las Vegas. This visualization shows just how much Vegas relies on its man-made water system: As Vegas sprawls, Lake Mead sputters to its lowest-ever levels.
For ProPublica’s latest story in their drought series, writer Abrahm Lustgarten profiles the former head of the city’s water district Pat Mulroy, nicknamed the “Water Witch” for her drastic conservational efforts. Most people don’t know that Vegas has actually managed to reduce its water use significantly through stringent water-use restrictions and a comprehensive water recycling program, among other efforts.
Mulroy moved beyond public awareness campaigns and began to crack down on profligate residential and recreational water use in Las Vegas more aggressively. She banned the lush green lawns that had typically lined the city’s newly developed suburban streets and offered cash incentives for homeowners to rip out their existing lawns. She also barred fountains and ornamental waterfalls, the kind that decorated just about every hotel and a good number of upscale communities. She installed watering restrictions for golf courses and demanded that new housing developments meet water efficiency guidelines.
But growth in Las Vegas has always been limited to how much water the city could allocate for its residents. That’s why, in addition to her public conservation work, Mulroy sealed several deals to ensure that Vegas was getting more and more water to bolster its development. When you look through history, as the flow of water is increased—like a faucet being turned on—the city grows. The last big project she helped move towards reality is the “Third Straw,” a giant infrastructure project which is designed to suck more water out of Lake Mead, the city’s Colorado River-fed water source. Vegas gets only four inches of rain per year.
Accompanying the story is a gorgeous interactive map that makes the correlation even more apparent—and disturbing. Looking especially at the last 15 years of drought, Lake Mead gets lower and lower, while Vegas gets bigger and bigger. What’s especially smart about the visualization is the inclusion of the iconic buildings on the Strip, which more than anything convey the city’s skyrocketing development agenda. According to the story, the goal is growth at any cost. Read the full story at ProPublica.
Among the many criticisms of cities during this epic drought is the idea that maybe not so many humans should live in deserts. But nowhere has more fingers pointed at it than Las Vegas. This visualization shows just how much Vegas relies on its man-made water system: As Vegas sprawls, Lake Mead sputters to its lowest-ever levels.
For ProPublica’s latest story in their drought series, writer Abrahm Lustgarten profiles the former head of the city’s water district Pat Mulroy, nicknamed the “Water Witch” for her drastic conservational efforts. Most people don’t know that Vegas has actually managed to reduce its water use significantly through stringent water-use restrictions and a comprehensive water recycling program, among other efforts.
Mulroy moved beyond public awareness campaigns and began to crack down on profligate residential and recreational water use in Las Vegas more aggressively. She banned the lush green lawns that had typically lined the city’s newly developed suburban streets and offered cash incentives for homeowners to rip out their existing lawns. She also barred fountains and ornamental waterfalls, the kind that decorated just about every hotel and a good number of upscale communities. She installed watering restrictions for golf courses and demanded that new housing developments meet water efficiency guidelines.
But growth in Las Vegas has always been limited to how much water the city could allocate for its residents. That’s why, in addition to her public conservation work, Mulroy sealed several deals to ensure that Vegas was getting more and more water to bolster its development. When you look through history, as the flow of water is increased—like a faucet being turned on—the city grows. The last big project she helped move towards reality is the “Third Straw,” a giant infrastructure project which is designed to suck more water out of Lake Mead, the city’s Colorado River-fed water source. Vegas gets only four inches of rain per year.
Accompanying the story is a gorgeous interactive map that makes the correlation even more apparent—and disturbing. Looking especially at the last 15 years of drought, Lake Mead gets lower and lower, while Vegas gets bigger and bigger. What’s especially smart about the visualization is the inclusion of the iconic buildings on the Strip, which more than anything convey the city’s skyrocketing development agenda. According to the story, the goal is growth at any cost. Read the full story at ProPublica.
SvenSvensonov
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Large Plasma Tubes Confirmed to Exist Above The Earth's Atmosphere
For over six decades, scientists have speculated about the existence of plasma structures that reside in the magnetosphere’s inner layers. Researchers in Australia have now created 3D images of these tubes for the very first time, proving they’re quite real.
This is an important discovery for a number of reasons. First, these structures are the likely cause of unwanted signal distortions affecting both civilian and military satellite-based navigation systems. The discovery is also offering an unprecedented glimpse of the odd plasma formations that arise in the Earth’s atmosphere; it’s the first time scientists have directly observed these tubes over a large scale and mapped their shape.
The lead author of the study, Cleo Loi, is a 23-year-old graduate student from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) and School of Physics at the University of Sydney. Her team’s findings have been published at the scientific journalGeophysical Research Letters.
The Earth’s magnetosphere — the magnetic field surrounding the Earth — is inundated with plasma, i.e. ionized gas consisting of positive ions and free electrons in proportions that produce no electric charge. This plasma is produced when the atmosphere is ionized by incoming sunlight. The innermost layer of the magnetosphere is called the ionosphere, and above it resides the plasmasphere. Plasma structures take on a variety of strange forms within these regions — including the now-documented plasma tubes.
As reported in The Age, Loi was able to visualize these tubes by mapping large patches of sky with the 3x3 kilometer Murchison Wide Field Array in the Western Australia desert.
Loi described the plasma tubes in a statement:
We measured their position to be about 600 kilometres [373 miles] above the ground, in the upper ionosphere, and they appear to be continuing upwards into the plasmasphere. This is around where the neutral atmosphere ends, and we are transitioning to the plasma of outer space. We saw a striking pattern in the sky where stripes of high-density plasma neatly alternated with stripes of low-density plasma. This pattern drifted slowly and aligned beautifully with the Earth’s magnetic field lines, like aurorae.
Things got particularly interesting when Loi considered an innovative use of the array. By splitting the 128-antenna radio telescope into a stereoscopic western and eastern half (similar to creating a pair of eyes), she was able to track changes over time, allowing for the development of real-time visualizations of the structures.
“We were able to measure the spacing between them, their height above the ground and their steep inclination,” says Loi. “This has never been possible before and is a very exciting new technique.”
When Loi presented her data to her senior collaborators, they said the results were “too good to be true.” But over the following months she convinced them — and the larger scientific community — that the readings were both real and scientifically interesting. Loi has since been awarded the 2015 Bok Prize of the Astronomical Society of Australia for her exemplary work.
For over six decades, scientists have speculated about the existence of plasma structures that reside in the magnetosphere’s inner layers. Researchers in Australia have now created 3D images of these tubes for the very first time, proving they’re quite real.
This is an important discovery for a number of reasons. First, these structures are the likely cause of unwanted signal distortions affecting both civilian and military satellite-based navigation systems. The discovery is also offering an unprecedented glimpse of the odd plasma formations that arise in the Earth’s atmosphere; it’s the first time scientists have directly observed these tubes over a large scale and mapped their shape.
The lead author of the study, Cleo Loi, is a 23-year-old graduate student from the ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) and School of Physics at the University of Sydney. Her team’s findings have been published at the scientific journalGeophysical Research Letters.
The Earth’s magnetosphere — the magnetic field surrounding the Earth — is inundated with plasma, i.e. ionized gas consisting of positive ions and free electrons in proportions that produce no electric charge. This plasma is produced when the atmosphere is ionized by incoming sunlight. The innermost layer of the magnetosphere is called the ionosphere, and above it resides the plasmasphere. Plasma structures take on a variety of strange forms within these regions — including the now-documented plasma tubes.
As reported in The Age, Loi was able to visualize these tubes by mapping large patches of sky with the 3x3 kilometer Murchison Wide Field Array in the Western Australia desert.
Loi described the plasma tubes in a statement:
We measured their position to be about 600 kilometres [373 miles] above the ground, in the upper ionosphere, and they appear to be continuing upwards into the plasmasphere. This is around where the neutral atmosphere ends, and we are transitioning to the plasma of outer space. We saw a striking pattern in the sky where stripes of high-density plasma neatly alternated with stripes of low-density plasma. This pattern drifted slowly and aligned beautifully with the Earth’s magnetic field lines, like aurorae.
Things got particularly interesting when Loi considered an innovative use of the array. By splitting the 128-antenna radio telescope into a stereoscopic western and eastern half (similar to creating a pair of eyes), she was able to track changes over time, allowing for the development of real-time visualizations of the structures.
“We were able to measure the spacing between them, their height above the ground and their steep inclination,” says Loi. “This has never been possible before and is a very exciting new technique.”
When Loi presented her data to her senior collaborators, they said the results were “too good to be true.” But over the following months she convinced them — and the larger scientific community — that the readings were both real and scientifically interesting. Loi has since been awarded the 2015 Bok Prize of the Astronomical Society of Australia for her exemplary work.
SvenSvensonov
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From Today the LHC Runs at Full Power to Push the Limits of Physics
As of today, the Large Hadron Collider will run at full, record-breaking power levels, as scientists kick off a new set of experiments that will help us understand the secrets of particle physics.
After rebooting in March following a two-year period of repairs an upgrades, teams of scientists have been testing the Collider’s abilities to run at higher powers than ever before. In May, itsmashed it previous record, hurling together beams of protons with an energy of 13 TeV (tera-electronvolts) — a full 5 TeV higher than the previous standard. For some context, that’s enough energy to melt a tonne of copper on impact.
Now, the scientists working on the project are satisfied that the Collider can run at full power for sustained periods of time. From today, then, teams will begin regularly colliding particles at these record-breaking energies, in the hope of discovering as-yet undetected particles that could shed light on some of the mysteries of physics.
“The higher energy means more chance of finding new discoveries,” Alan Barr, a Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Oxford who works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, told us when we spoke to him in March. “The LHC’s higher energy can give us sensitivity to new, as-yet-undiscovered particles.” Indeed, researchers hope that the experiments could reveal the origins of dark matter, super-symmetric particles and more. You can read all about how that might happen—and what it could mean for physics—in a feature we published earlier this year.
At low powers, scientists did the almost-impossible and found the Higgs Boson. This time, they might find something even more exciting.
As of today, the Large Hadron Collider will run at full, record-breaking power levels, as scientists kick off a new set of experiments that will help us understand the secrets of particle physics.
After rebooting in March following a two-year period of repairs an upgrades, teams of scientists have been testing the Collider’s abilities to run at higher powers than ever before. In May, itsmashed it previous record, hurling together beams of protons with an energy of 13 TeV (tera-electronvolts) — a full 5 TeV higher than the previous standard. For some context, that’s enough energy to melt a tonne of copper on impact.
Now, the scientists working on the project are satisfied that the Collider can run at full power for sustained periods of time. From today, then, teams will begin regularly colliding particles at these record-breaking energies, in the hope of discovering as-yet undetected particles that could shed light on some of the mysteries of physics.
“The higher energy means more chance of finding new discoveries,” Alan Barr, a Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Oxford who works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, told us when we spoke to him in March. “The LHC’s higher energy can give us sensitivity to new, as-yet-undiscovered particles.” Indeed, researchers hope that the experiments could reveal the origins of dark matter, super-symmetric particles and more. You can read all about how that might happen—and what it could mean for physics—in a feature we published earlier this year.
At low powers, scientists did the almost-impossible and found the Higgs Boson. This time, they might find something even more exciting.
SvenSvensonov
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- Oct 15, 2014
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The Secret 1949 Radiation Experiment That Contaminated Washington
The physicists who invented the nuclear bomb worked out of Los Alamos in California, but the people who did the dirty work of making the bombs were in Hanford, Washington. Throughout the Cold War, Hanford churned out plutonium for our nuclear arsenal. It was also, conveniently, a place to experiment with radiation.
Today, Hanford is the most contaminated radioactive site in America—the site of a massive (and troubled) cleanup effort. Radioactive material is still accidentally leaking into the ground. Though Hanford’s plants routinely released small doses of radioactive material into the air, most of this damage came from an event in 1949 called Green Run.
Green Run was a secret Air Force experiment that released Hanford’s largest single dose of radioactive iodine-131. On the night of December 2, 1949, at the behest of the military, scientists at Hanford let 7,000 to 12,000 curies of iodine-131 into the air, where it rode the wind as far as 200 miles. For a sense of scale, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident released an estimated 15 to 24 curies of iodine-131 and the Chernobyl accident 35 million to 49 million curies.
The Green Run stayed secret until the 1980s, when it was revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests from local newspapers. The military details are still classified. More than half a century later, suspicion and controversy continue to lurk around Green Run, especially among the residents who lived downwind of Hanford.
There’s still much that we don’t know about the Green Run, but here is what we do.
Hanford, Factory and Farm
The B reactor at Hanford under construction.
When Hanford broke ground in 1943, residents nearby in eastern Washington knew it was a war construction project but not much else. Under the then-secret Manhattan Project, Hanford’s reactors produced the plutonium for the first nuclear bomb, dropped at the Trinity site in 1945, and Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki. Only after the war was Hanford’s true purpose widely known.
As the U.S. entered the Cold War, Hanford grew. Its nine reactors together processed enough plutonium for 60,000 bombs. Rural eastern Washington became the Atomic Frontier.
Hanford was always more than a production facility; it was also a research complex. Up to 1,000 animals were housed on a farm near reactor F for experiments on the effects of radiation. The animals included fish, dogs, pigs, sheep, and even alligators. Sheep, especially, were given feed with iodine-131, the same radioactive material that the reactors were discharging into the air.
Hanford workers feeding radioactive food to sheep. DOE
Testing a sheep’s thyroid for radiation.
Spying on the Soviets
The “Green Run” sounds benign, even pleasant, but its name has more dangerous origins. Normally, irradiated uranium fuel is cooled for up to 101 days before it is processed, so that short-lived radioactive elements like iodine can decay. In the Green Run, the fuel was cooled just 16 days; it was still “green.”
Carl Gamertsfleder, then Hanford’s Health Instruments Deputy Chief, later told the Spokane Chronicle, that the “green” order came from the military, who assumed the Soviets were rushing to produce nuclear bombs. If the Soviets were short-cooling their fuels, the radioactive results might be spotted some distance away. So Air Force wanted to fly planes behind a radioactive test plume, to test out their own instruments.
That’s why, on the night of December 2, 1949, Hanford employees processed one ton of 16-day-old fuel without filtering the exhaust, releasing 7,000 to 12,000 curies of iodine-131 in the air. It was two to three times as much as they intended. The experiment also went forward despite, Gamertsfleder claimed, reservations about weather. “We knew what the weather was and we didn’t want the release to be done then,” he told the Chronicle, “On the Columbia River it probably got as many people as it could.”
The radioactive iodine-131 spread over a 200-by-40 mile plume, which was, actually, too small. That meant much of the iodine-131 made it onto the ground, in higher than desired concentrations. The vegetation in nearby communities had readings of 0.1 to 4.3 microcuries/kg, ten to hundreds of times higher than the “permissible permanent concentration.”
Downwinders
In the decades since, committees and researchers have revisited the question of whether the Green Run’s iodine-131 endangered the health of people living downwind. The answer, according to official sources, is no.
Iodine travels through tainted food and milk, and the Green Run happened in winter, when few people were harvesting vegetables from the ground and few cows were grazing. A Congressionally mandated study could not find a link between thyroid disease caused by iodine-131 and releases of the material by Hanford, during the Green Run or otherwise.
But, as secret government experiments do, the Green Run bred suspicion and mistrust. In 2005, a lawsuit filed on behalf of 2,300 downwinders finally had its had in court. Of the first six plaintiffs, two who had thyroid cancer were awarded $500,000 in damages—too little for the rest of the cases to continue.
That’s pretty much where the story ends with the Green Run, a largely-forgotten episode of history in a largely-forgotten place. But Hanford still bears the scars of the Cold War, and the Green Run is an unsettling example of what the government has done in the name of keeping its citizens safe.
The physicists who invented the nuclear bomb worked out of Los Alamos in California, but the people who did the dirty work of making the bombs were in Hanford, Washington. Throughout the Cold War, Hanford churned out plutonium for our nuclear arsenal. It was also, conveniently, a place to experiment with radiation.
Today, Hanford is the most contaminated radioactive site in America—the site of a massive (and troubled) cleanup effort. Radioactive material is still accidentally leaking into the ground. Though Hanford’s plants routinely released small doses of radioactive material into the air, most of this damage came from an event in 1949 called Green Run.
Green Run was a secret Air Force experiment that released Hanford’s largest single dose of radioactive iodine-131. On the night of December 2, 1949, at the behest of the military, scientists at Hanford let 7,000 to 12,000 curies of iodine-131 into the air, where it rode the wind as far as 200 miles. For a sense of scale, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident released an estimated 15 to 24 curies of iodine-131 and the Chernobyl accident 35 million to 49 million curies.
The Green Run stayed secret until the 1980s, when it was revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests from local newspapers. The military details are still classified. More than half a century later, suspicion and controversy continue to lurk around Green Run, especially among the residents who lived downwind of Hanford.
There’s still much that we don’t know about the Green Run, but here is what we do.
Hanford, Factory and Farm
The B reactor at Hanford under construction.
When Hanford broke ground in 1943, residents nearby in eastern Washington knew it was a war construction project but not much else. Under the then-secret Manhattan Project, Hanford’s reactors produced the plutonium for the first nuclear bomb, dropped at the Trinity site in 1945, and Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki. Only after the war was Hanford’s true purpose widely known.
As the U.S. entered the Cold War, Hanford grew. Its nine reactors together processed enough plutonium for 60,000 bombs. Rural eastern Washington became the Atomic Frontier.
Hanford was always more than a production facility; it was also a research complex. Up to 1,000 animals were housed on a farm near reactor F for experiments on the effects of radiation. The animals included fish, dogs, pigs, sheep, and even alligators. Sheep, especially, were given feed with iodine-131, the same radioactive material that the reactors were discharging into the air.
Hanford workers feeding radioactive food to sheep. DOE
Testing a sheep’s thyroid for radiation.
Spying on the Soviets
The “Green Run” sounds benign, even pleasant, but its name has more dangerous origins. Normally, irradiated uranium fuel is cooled for up to 101 days before it is processed, so that short-lived radioactive elements like iodine can decay. In the Green Run, the fuel was cooled just 16 days; it was still “green.”
Carl Gamertsfleder, then Hanford’s Health Instruments Deputy Chief, later told the Spokane Chronicle, that the “green” order came from the military, who assumed the Soviets were rushing to produce nuclear bombs. If the Soviets were short-cooling their fuels, the radioactive results might be spotted some distance away. So Air Force wanted to fly planes behind a radioactive test plume, to test out their own instruments.
That’s why, on the night of December 2, 1949, Hanford employees processed one ton of 16-day-old fuel without filtering the exhaust, releasing 7,000 to 12,000 curies of iodine-131 in the air. It was two to three times as much as they intended. The experiment also went forward despite, Gamertsfleder claimed, reservations about weather. “We knew what the weather was and we didn’t want the release to be done then,” he told the Chronicle, “On the Columbia River it probably got as many people as it could.”
The radioactive iodine-131 spread over a 200-by-40 mile plume, which was, actually, too small. That meant much of the iodine-131 made it onto the ground, in higher than desired concentrations. The vegetation in nearby communities had readings of 0.1 to 4.3 microcuries/kg, ten to hundreds of times higher than the “permissible permanent concentration.”
Downwinders
In the decades since, committees and researchers have revisited the question of whether the Green Run’s iodine-131 endangered the health of people living downwind. The answer, according to official sources, is no.
Iodine travels through tainted food and milk, and the Green Run happened in winter, when few people were harvesting vegetables from the ground and few cows were grazing. A Congressionally mandated study could not find a link between thyroid disease caused by iodine-131 and releases of the material by Hanford, during the Green Run or otherwise.
But, as secret government experiments do, the Green Run bred suspicion and mistrust. In 2005, a lawsuit filed on behalf of 2,300 downwinders finally had its had in court. Of the first six plaintiffs, two who had thyroid cancer were awarded $500,000 in damages—too little for the rest of the cases to continue.
That’s pretty much where the story ends with the Green Run, a largely-forgotten episode of history in a largely-forgotten place. But Hanford still bears the scars of the Cold War, and the Green Run is an unsettling example of what the government has done in the name of keeping its citizens safe.
Transhumanist
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Insane GoPro footage of a dogfight between 2 jets over the North Sea
At the end of March 2015, 125th Fighter Wing, Florida Air National Guard, from Jacksonsville, Florida, deployed to Leewuwarden air base with 12 F-15C Eagle as part of the first Air National Guard TSP (Theater Security Package) in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve.
From Apr. 13 to 24, the F-15s and supporting personnel (belonging to units from Florida, Oregon, California, Massachusetts and various bases throughout Europe grouped, regardless of their origin, in the 159th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron) took part in Frisian Flag 2015 one of the largest exercises in central Europe.
The footage in this post was filmed from the cockpit of a Dutch F-16 during a FF 2015 mission.
It shows the RNlAF “Viper” depart from Leeuwarden, join and refuel from an American KC-135 tanker launched from RAF Mildenhall, UK, over the North Sea, and engage a U.S. F-15 in a 1 vs 1 dogfight.
Watch the F-16’s pilot, wearing a JHMCS (Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System) maneuver under high g-loads to try to get a shot on the Eagle. The JHMCS, used also by the American F-15 pilots, is a multi-role system that enhances pilot situational awareness and provides head-out control of aircraft targeting systems and sensors. It can be used in an air-to-air role, combined with the AIM-9X missile, as High-Off-BoreSight (HOBS) system, to cue onboard weapons against enemy aircraft merely by pointing their heads at the targets to guide the weapons.
From GoPro footage of a dogfight between Dutch F-16 and U.S. F-15 over the North Sea - Business Insider
At the end of March 2015, 125th Fighter Wing, Florida Air National Guard, from Jacksonsville, Florida, deployed to Leewuwarden air base with 12 F-15C Eagle as part of the first Air National Guard TSP (Theater Security Package) in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve.
From Apr. 13 to 24, the F-15s and supporting personnel (belonging to units from Florida, Oregon, California, Massachusetts and various bases throughout Europe grouped, regardless of their origin, in the 159th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron) took part in Frisian Flag 2015 one of the largest exercises in central Europe.
The footage in this post was filmed from the cockpit of a Dutch F-16 during a FF 2015 mission.
It shows the RNlAF “Viper” depart from Leeuwarden, join and refuel from an American KC-135 tanker launched from RAF Mildenhall, UK, over the North Sea, and engage a U.S. F-15 in a 1 vs 1 dogfight.
Watch the F-16’s pilot, wearing a JHMCS (Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System) maneuver under high g-loads to try to get a shot on the Eagle. The JHMCS, used also by the American F-15 pilots, is a multi-role system that enhances pilot situational awareness and provides head-out control of aircraft targeting systems and sensors. It can be used in an air-to-air role, combined with the AIM-9X missile, as High-Off-BoreSight (HOBS) system, to cue onboard weapons against enemy aircraft merely by pointing their heads at the targets to guide the weapons.
From GoPro footage of a dogfight between Dutch F-16 and U.S. F-15 over the North Sea - Business Insider
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