Sep 26
After three years and $2.2 billion of construction, California has just flipped the switch for the planet’s largest solar thermal plant—the 392 megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.
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Sep 26
Building collapses are a tragic and overwhelmingly fatal occurrence in the developing world. But that could soon change once NASA and the DH’s revolutionary, handheld radar unit comes to fruition. It scans for and identifies buried building collapse victims based solely on their breathing patterns and heartbeats.
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Sep 25
Conventional data transmission techniques rely on two-dimensional signals to carry the information down a pipeline, but there’s only so much potential bandwidth to go around. There are only so many signals you can pack into a given plane before they begin to overlap and interfere with another. But if we were to add an additional third plane, science could conveniently sidestep that technological roadblock. And that’s exactly what a team at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) has done.
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Sep 24
Given how rarely neutrinos interact with other elementary particles, they’re notoriously difficult to study and consequently, our understanding of these electrically neutral subatomic entities remains rather sketchy. However, the Department of Energy’s famed Fermilab in Batavia, IL aims to unlock these particles’ secrets by blasting them through hundreds of miles of the Earth’s crusts.
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Sep 23
Sep 20
In some ways, exploring the depths of the ocean is every bit as technically challenging as investigating the surface of Mars. In fact, we have a far more detailed understanding of the Red Planet than we do of what goes on under the sea. But this new, affordable manned submersible aims to open undersea exploration to everybody—not just the handful of wealthy nations that currently have the technology.
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Sep 19
Inspired by the fleet of aircraft featured in his film Hell’s Angels, Howard Hughes did what any business magnate/aviation engineer/super rich guy would—he designed and built a plane fast enough to break the transcontinental landplane speed record. And in doing so, he catapulted aviation technology leagues beyond the bi-plane of the day.
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Sep 18
India and China are the epitome of frenemies. Their relationship isn’t outright antagonistic, as India’s is with neighboring Pakistan, but has remained prickly since an ongoing border dispute over Tibet that began in the 1960s. Which is why it could be a bit disconcerting that India’s newest missile can reach Beijing—not to mention deep into Europe.
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Sep 17
Australia has wholeheartedly embraced solar power over the last few years, with usage exploding 10-fold between 2009 and 2011 and the price per watt falling to less than half that of grid power. Now, the southern Australian city of Adelaide is taking the unprecedented step of powering its public transit system solely through solar as well.
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Sep 16
The 114,500-ton Costa Concordia luxury liner has been rotting on an Italian reef since last January, after a collision that killed 32 of the 4,229 passengers and crew on board and has left the ship stranded for nearly 24 months. This morning, a crew of more than 500 engineers is attempting to finally right the Costa Concordia in the single-largest maritime salvage operation of all time. Here’s how they’re getting it done.
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