...and we'll never hear about this again. |
So you know every once in a while you come across something absolutely amazing, a technological innovation, or a medical breakthrough, and you think "Gat dayum, that's fucking sick." And then you never hear about it again. Well, this tumblr is to archive those things, so we can look back on them later and see just exactly what the fuck happened. |
http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/8-grams-of-thorium-could-replace-gasoline-in-cars-20110812/
The price of oil is on an upward spiral due to increasing demand and diminishing supplies. Short of finding vast new untapped reserves buried somewhere under out feet, we need to find an alternative sooner rather than later.
Unless you have a lot of money to spend on an electric vehicle, everyone who drives a car today relies on oil for the gasoline that keeps it running. Although replacing the petrol engine with a battery and electric motor seems to be where we are heading, it only really shifts the problem to the power stations rather than the fuel pumps.
There may be another way to power our cars, however, and it would mean never having to refuel you car–be it with gasoline or an electric charge.
Charles Stevens is an inventor and CEO of Laser Power Systems. His idea is to replace the gasoline engine with an electricity generator that doesn’t require a battery. He is proposing the use of the rare earth mineral thorium in conjunction with a laser and mini turbines that easily produce enough electricity to power a vehicle.
Thorium is abundant and radioactive, but much safer to use than an element such as uranium. When thorium is heated it becomes extremely hot and causes heat surges allowing it to be coupled with mini turbines producing steam that can then be used to generate electricity. It also helps that it has a very large liquid range between melting and boiling point.
Combining a laser, radioactive material, and mini-turbines might sound like a complicated alternative solution to filling your gas tank, but there’s one feature that sells it as a great alternative solution.
Stevens has worked out you’d require a 227kg, 250MW thorium engine in order to power a typical road car. Within that system 1 gram of thorium produces the equivalent of 7,500 gallons of gasoline. So if you fit the Thorium engine with 8 grams of Thorium, it will run the vehicle for its entire lifetime without needing to be refueled while all the time not producing any emissions. The engine lasts so long in fact, that it could be taken from one vehicle and used in another as and when they wear out.
The issues to overcome are the radioactivity and the mining of thorium to make this engine possible. Stevens says the radioactivity can easily be contained with aluminium foil. As for the mining, the reserves are there, with 440,000 tons alone in the U.S., we just need the mining facilities to extract it in large enough quantities. With the potential benefits that is sure to happen.
Stevens admits that his biggest hurdle isn’t the thorium and laser aspects of the system, but the mini turbines which have to be made small enough to fit inside a vehicle while generating enough electricity. Even so, Stevens believes he’ll have a working prototype by 2014 and the potential to not only replace, but improve upon the gasoline-powered engines we rely on today.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028181.700-evolution-machine-genetic-engineering-on-fast-forward.html?full=true
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/scientists-youtube-videos-mind/story?id=14573442
California scientists have found a way to see through another person’s eyes.
Researchers from UC Berkeley were able to reconstruct YouTube videos from viewers’ brain activity — a feat that might one day offer a glimpse into our dreams, memories and even fantasies.
http://www.rense.com/general66/zombie.htm
Scientists have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans. US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2006/10/19/invisibility-cloak.html
A team of British and U.S. scientists has demonstrated the first working “invisibility cloak,” although don’t expect it to appear in the Halloween costumes aisle just yet.
http://news.discovery.com/tech/synthetic-gasoline-for-150gallon-and-no-emissions.html
http://www.gizmag.com/breakthrough-promises-150-per-gallon-synthetic-gasoline-with-no-carbon-emissions/17687/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1772ea5469-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/7845-fda-approves-canadian-hiv-vaccine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new HIV vaccine pioneered by researchers at the University of Western Ontario. The vaccine will be used in clinical trials on humans starting in the new year. It’s the first vaccine to win approval from the FDA that uses a complete HIV-1 virus that’s dead but has been genetically altered to make the body’s immune system ward off an HIV infection. The same method was used to develop vaccines against polio, influenza, small pox, and more, and Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, the professor that spearheaded the research, believes that the vaccine could one day save millions of people from ever becoming infected by the virus. Here’s hoping.
New drug could cure Alzheimer’s and boost super-human memory
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Discovery+could+lead+memory+enhancing+pill+realm+science+fiction/5873583/story.html
You’re over the hill and — along with everything else — your memory is slipping. Your doctor gives you a pill and, suddenly, you can remember your high school locker combination.
Science fiction? Maybe not. New research out of the U.S. holds out the hope of a superhuman assist for failing memories — and a badly-needed new therapy for Alzheimer’s patients.
