Monday, October 14, 2002
Friday, October 11, 2002
ABCNEWS.com : Can Giraffes Talk? Von Muggenthaler has made a startling discovery. She says giraffes are communicating in a range far beneath our own hearing, called infrasound. And she says it's produced when the giraffes throw back their heads
ABCNEWS.com : Water-Powered Robot Explorers "You're saving the battery energy for the sensors, navigation and communication equipment," says Jones. "A thermal glider will run for like four years."
Thursday, October 10, 2002
Ribbon to the Stars: Science News Online, Oct. 5, 2002 You board an elevator at the top of the platform and prepare for the ride of your life. After only a few minutes in the pressurized compartment, you leave Earth's atmosphere behind and the planet appears as a brilliant, ever-shrinking ball of blue. With Earth exerting less and less of a tug, you feel noticeably lighter. The sky gradually blackens and the heavens are aglow with more stars than you've ever seen before.
While you marvel at the crystal-clear view of the Milky Way, you try not to think about a harsher reality: For the next 7 days, your life will literally hang in the balance. All that will keep you aloft is a slender ribbon that stretches from the top of that mid-ocean platform to your destination 100,000 kilometers into space.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Battery powered by leftover food Scientists in Bristol have developed a battery which generates electricity from organic waste.
The battery, or microbial fuel cell (MFC), costs just £10 to make and in the future, could allow leftovers from Sunday lunch to top up the power supply of a household.
Wednesday, October 09, 2002
Geek Toys: MicroCar Smackdown Pocket-sized radio controlled cars, available for $20 or less with controller -- and infinitely customizable -- are now taking the New World by storm. These tiny cars, which measure about 2 ½" long, have been a favorite of salarymen and schoolboys in Japan and throughout Asia. Imports have been available in the US for a while; some using illegal radio frequencies. In fact, Hobbico has been selling a US-friendly version of Tomy's Bit Char-G, the R/C MicroSizers, since the end of August.
ABCNEWS.com : Largest Solar System Found Since Pluto Peering out 1 billion miles beyond Pluto, astronomers have discovered a frozen world 800 miles across in what marks the biggest find in the solar system since the ninth planet was spotted 72 years ago.
TIME.com: Spoil Ports While the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and port employers resumed contract talks with the help of a federal mediator, little progress was evident. The impasse was costing businesses an estimated $2 billion a day, and threatened an already slumping U.S. economy that depends more than ever on a just-in-time supply chain. The West Coast docks support an estimated 4 million jobs across the U.S. In Fremont, Calif., an auto assembly plant owned jointly by GM and Toyota had to stop production for lack of engines and transmissions, idling 5,100 workers. Such retailers as the Gap, Target and Wal-Mart, which expect to do 40% of their annual business during the holiday season, would suffer a blow to their profits from any long disruption in supplies of toys, apparel and appliances from the Far East.
Tuesday, October 08, 2002
Crossing Deals Gap at the Tennessee/North Carolina state line, the Dragon is considered by many as one of the world's best motorcycling and sports car roads. Anyone looking for an exciting highway will enjoy this stretch of US129.
The road is desolate and can be a real adventure in the winter months. We've had to deal with bears and wild boars in the road, trees down, and tractor-trailers taking-up both lanes in the curves. It is not a road for the squeamish, but if you're looking for a little excitement don't miss this one.
We've been driving the Tail of the Dragon since 1975. At first it was in the family car, then in our 1976 Corvette for many years. Now we have graduated to motorcycles. We have always loved the road, finding it exciting in whatever we happen to be driving.
In the summers we ride the Dragon at least twice a week. It's better than any roller coaster you've ever been on. Our favorite sections are the Hump and the esses just before Cattail Straight. Be ready to scrape your footpegs in some of these wild curves.
To us the Dragon begins on the North Carolina side at Fugitive Bridge with a view of the Cheoah Dam where Harrison Ford jumped in the movie The Fugitive. It ends 14 miles across the mountain at the Tabcat Creek Bridge in Tennessee. US129 climbs through The Slide, a steep series of "S" curves where one would not want to meet a tractor-trailer. The road then levels and straightens until a series o
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Morocco's miracle mule A mule has given birth to a male foal in a hamlet deep in rural Morocco.
No big deal, you may think, but in fact the birth was a minor scientific miracle.
A mule is the hybrid of a horse and a donkey and should be sterile - except in this instance.
There have only been two substantiated cases of a mule giving birth in the past quarter century: one in China in 1988 and the other also in Morocco in 1984.
• Key Players in the Plame Affair
