Popular Science magazine

[ReHerakhte]

Now because magazines are sent to Australia by ship, we generally get them a month after everyone else, however, if any of you can get a copy of the latest Popular Science magazine (July 2008), I think it's worth your while.

Here's a sample of some of the items/articles: -

What's New section:
Short Memory, pg 16 - The smallest 8-Gig memory stick, the Pico C USB Drive is 31.3mm x 12.4mm x 3.4mm. This means it's actually smaller than the plug at the end of of a USB cable and as an extra, it's also water resistant. Manufactured by Super Talent.
Webpage here
http://www.supertalent.com/products/stt ... ?type=Pico#
Drywall Detective, pg 17 - A digital behind-the-wall camera inserts through a 2cm hole, has 2x magnification and displays images on a 6cm LCD on the handset. Hmm, I can think of plenty of "other" uses for that... like peeking under doors or through windows before breaking into a Dark Minion base. Webpage here
http://www.milwaukeetool.com/us/en/news ... enDocument

Page 25. A one page advert displays the myvu, a slimline headset that connects to your media player and allows you to watch movies, video clips etc. These sorts of movie viewing glasses have been made before but the myvu appears to be the first widely available set (plus they highlight the advantage that they don't interfer with peripheral vision)
Webpage here
http://myvu.com/index.html

Headlines section:
Rebuilding The Troops, pg 29 - (In my opinion, this article more than anything else, gives the Players and Ref a much more satisfying reason for having healing rates so quick in DC.)
The "Stem-Cell Gun" will allow a medic to spray immature cells over burns, the cells themselves are extracted from the patient's skin and stimulate faster healing in the wound. It will take as long as conventional skin grafts to heal a burn but uses a third of the skin required by a graft and doesn't require patches of skin to be removed from healthy areas of the patient's body. A larger version, literally an inkjet printer device would allow the rapid creation of an entire organ and again, by using the patient's own cells as the basis, there are no problems with organ rejection. The prototypes have so far managed to create a basic rat heart.
"Pig Dust", a powder extracted from pigs bladders contains molecules that attract cells and proteins that cause cellular growth instead of causing the cell to scar. The Pig Dust is so effective that one of the researchers reported that the powder helped regrow the severed fingertips of two patients in their 60s. With just two weeks treatment, the entire fingertip grew back in 6 weeks. The researchers have also developed an enzyme to eat away scar tissue so that they can treat the helthy cells underneath with the powder. This development is literally the first step in regrowing lost limbs.
Kinder Lab Tests, pg 32 - L'Oreal cosmetics scientists have developed an artificial skin grown from human cells. Called Episkin, it will be used to test the toxicity of various cosmetics components. This is similar to some of the other artificial skins developed in the past to treat burn victims, however Episkin may be superior to those earlier versions so I'm wondering if it would be suitable as a medical treatment?
Solidus Biosciences has developed a system that pairs a 'MetaChip' with a 'DataChip' to test new drugs for toxicity. The 'MetaChip' is a glass slide coated with human liver enzymes while the 'DataChip' is another glass slide but covered with live human cells.
And we thought the Dark Tek computers were bizarre!

The Future Of The Environment
Beaming Electricity From Space, pg 42 - By 2030 Japan hopes to have installed a group of 2.4km long solar arrays into geostationary orbit above the equator. Transmitters on the array convert the solar energy into microwave energy and beam it to recieving stations that collect the enrgy with a 3.2km wide antenna. The stations would produce 1 gigawatt of power, enough to supply electricity to 500,000 homes. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to launch the first collection satellite into orbit in 2013.
The New Gold: Turning Pig Pee Into Plastic, pg 45 - The Danish company Agroplast has developed a method of refining the urea from pig urine which can then by used for a variety of uses such as de-icing roads, producing soap or moisturizer or as a bulking agent for manufacturing so-called bioplastic. The urine is collected and filtered/refined to remove colour and odour but the process has the additional benefit of keeping pigpens free from waste, thus giving the animals a helathier environment to live in.
Still... do you really want to wash your face with soap made from pig pee? Hahaha
Harvesting Energy From Tornadoes, pg 46 - Canadian engineer, Louis Michaud has developed a powerplant that harnesses a man-made tornado to spin turbines for electricity generation. The system consists of a base about 180m wide in which the outer wall contains 20 fans that draw in outside air and blow it over hotwater pipes, heating the air and then blasting it through ducts into an inner chamber. The ducts are angled in a specific configuration to cause the creation of the rotary winds needed to create the tornado. The tornado itself will be approximately 46m wide and anywhere from around 2000 to 3000m high. The tornado then provides the airflow to power a group of turbines that spin generators capable of producing 200 megawatts in total (enough for 200,000 homes)
Requiring about 2000 megawatts to initiate the operation, Michaud plans to use waste heat from power stations for heating the waterpipes. Once the tornado has been started it will require no extra energy input to keep it operating as long as there is low pressure at the bottom of the tornado to draw in more air to feed the storm. If the storm should get out of control, the operators can simply shut down certain ducts or even reverse the flow of air to starve the tornado. A commercial model could be available by 2013.
Similar tower systems have been developed in the past but they relied upon the principle of hot air rising to create airflow to spin turbines. They needed flat terrain with a lot of wind and would have to be around 1000m+ high to transport enough air to spin the turbines.

Hope this gives you all some food for thought!
Cheers,
Kevin

[Morthrai]

Yet again, the wonder from Down Under comes up with the goods
Nice one mate, plenty of food for thought in that lot.