Feb 04
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now. It’s just a spring clean for the May queen. Either that or it’s the Globus machine trimmer working its way down the line. More »
Feb 01
How Stanford’s Million-Core, Five Dimensional Super Computer Will Silence Jet Engines
Posted in: Today's Chili
The modern day jet engine may be powerful enough to shuttle travelers across a continent in just six hours but it’s also unbearably loud—for both the ground crews that work around them and residents within earshot of airports. And while aircraft engineers are developing quieter designs, building and testing these hushed prototypes can run into the six figures. But with the help of Livermore National Labs’ supercomputer and some open-source modeling software, commercial airliners may soon be whisper quiet. More »
Jan 31
The 109,000 HP Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C diesel engine is the largest and most powerful, but at 2,300 tons, any warship it’s attached to is going to have trouble outmaneuvering jellyfish, much less torpedoes. Instead, the British Navy is relying on a new gas turbine engine that, while only half as powerful as the RTA96, weighs 68 times less. More »
Jan 30
These Wireless Battlefield Routers Will Make Air Strikes Even More Accurate
Posted in: Today's Chili
Battlefield communications will be getting a boost in the near future. The US Air Force has just completed testing on a new plane-mounted wireless router system that will allow troops to collaborate with other ground forces as well as jets overhead. More »
Jan 29
In 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake decimated China’s Sichuan province, killing nearly 70,000. The disaster which was compounded by the country’s lack of large cargo aircraft, which are essential vehicles for humanitarian missions, brought on by the military’s unyielding focus on fighter jets. In response to this logistical shortfall (and the disgrace of having to accept a pair of loaner C-17s, from the Americans of all people), China’s military kicked a languishing strategic air freighter project into gear and have debuted the results: a C-17, minus the performance capabilities. More »
Jan 28
The Sun’s corona—essentially its plasma “atmosphere”—is actually hotter than the surface of the star itself. Scientists have long suspected that the region’s million-degree temperatures influence its massive magnetic fields, and have hypothesized that solar flares originate there. But researchers had never been able to observe these phenomena first-hand—until now. More »
Jan 27
If you’re watching the Winter X Games this weekend, you might see that insane Super Pipe course and wonder how they cut something that big (22 feet tall) out of snow and make it so perfectly symmetrical. The answer is the Zaugg Pipe Monster. It’s like a Zamboni for frozen half-pipes. More »
Jan 25
Our depth perception doesn’t work without two eyes. However an estimated 285 million people worldwide suffer from some form of visual impairment in at least one theirs. The loss of sight in just one eye also means the loss of one’s ability to accurately judge short distances. However, a team of researchers have devised an ingenious solution to restore binocular vision. More »
Jan 24
Very little water vapor ever rises above the troposphere (where the majority of Earth’s weather occurs) but the little bit of vapor that makes it to the stratosphere is kind of a big deal. One recent study suggests that just a one to two percent increase in mid-stratospheric humidity can retain up to twice as much CO2—the equivalent of a decade’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions. However, these estimates are based on severely incomplete climate models. An ambitious NASA program hopes to patch these data gaps with the help of America’s biggest UAV. More »
Jan 23
Big Ivan, better known as Tsar Bomba, was 57 Megatons of Soviet might. That’s 1,400 times Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined and ten times the entire combined fire power expended in WWII. In one bomb. One explosion. And, incredibly, that’s only half of what it could have done. More »
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.