Bloodhound SSC: Fastest Land vehicle in the world!

Bloodhound SSC is a pencil-shaped car powered by a jet engine and a rocket that is designed to reach approximately 1,000 miles per hour (1,609 km/h). It is being developed and built with the intention of breaking the land speed record by the largest ever margin. If £10 M of sponsorship funding is obtained the construction should be complete by end 2009 and the record attempt may happen in 2011.

The project was announced on 23 October 2008 at the Science Museum in London by Lord Drayson, the Minister of Science in the UK's Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, who in 2006 first proposed the project to Richard Noble and Andy Green; the two men who between them have held the land speed record for 25 years.

Richard Noble, engineer, adventurer, and former wallpaper salesman, reached 633 mph (1,019 km/h) driving turbojet-powered car named Thrust 2 across the Nevada desert in 1983. In 1997, he headed the project to build the Thrust SSC, driven by Andy Green, an RAF pilot, at 763 mph (1,228 km/h).

The task of driving the vehicle will fall to the land speed record holder Wing Commander Green, 46, who will lie feet-first in the Bloodhound. As the car accelerates, from 0-1,050 mph in 40 seconds, he will experience a force of 2.5g (two and a half times his bodyweight) and the blood will rush to his head.

Design and development:
To slow down, airbrakes will deploy at 800 mph (1,300 km/h) and parachutes at 600 mph (970 km/h). As he decelerates, experiencing forces of up to 3g, the blood will drain to his feet and he could black out. He will practice for this in a stunt aircraft, flying upside-down over the British countryside.


Construction:

Engineers from the University of the West of England produced the scale model which was exhibited at the launch, and will integrate the engineering behind the car into its curriculum, working with design team, lead by John Piper (JCB Dieselmax Chief Designer). The car will be built at a site that has still to be decided (July 2009). Four sites are putting together proposals - they are Belfast, Bristol, Coventry and Farnborough. The site will include an educational centre.

Water Found on the Moon

Large quantities of water have been found on the Moon during India's first lunar mission, it has been disclosed.

According to the Telegraph.Co.Uk; it is believed that the water is concentrated at the poles and possibly formed by the solar wind.

The finding was made after researchers examined data from three separate missions to the moon.

The reports, to be published in the journal Science on Friday, show that the water may be moving around, forming and reforming as particles become mixed up in the dust on the surface of the moon.

Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, the mission’s project director at the Indian Space Research Organisation in Bangalore, told The Times: “It’s very satisfying.

“This was one of the main objectives of Chandrayaan-1, to find evidence of water on the Moon.”

The unmanned craft was equipped with Nasa’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, designed specifically to search for water by picking up the electromagnetic radiation emitted by minerals.

The M3, an imaging spectrometer, was designed to search for water by detecting the electromagnetic radiation given off by different minerals on and just below the surface of the Moon.

Unlike previous lunar spectrometers, it was sensitive enough to detect the presence of small amounts of water.

M3 was one of two Nasa instruments among 11 pieces of equipment from around the world on Chandrayaan-1, which was launched into orbit around the Moon in October last year.

Carle Pieters of Brown University in Rhode Island and colleagues reviewed data from Chandrayaan-1 and found spectrographic evidence of water. The water seems thicker closer to the poles, they reported.

"When we say 'water on the moon,' we are not talking about lakes, oceans or even puddles. Water on the moon means molecules of water and hydroxyl (hydrogen and oxygen) that interact with molecules of rock and dust specifically in the top millimetres of the moon's surface," Pieters said in a statement.

Scientists said the breakthrough would change the face of lunar exploration.

Technologies of the Future: The High Frontier

The High Frontier (2005)
Reporter: Ticky Fullerton
Broadcast: 02/05/2005 - ABC Australia
Length: 39:34



Outer space is open for business. It’s a booming $50 billion a year industry – and growing so fast that not even the sky is the limit.

Few of us give a thought to the myriad satellites bobbing around thousands of kilometres above our heads. But they are an integral part of our daily lives, governing bank transactions, what we watch on TV, the Internet, weather forecasts, international phone calls and stock market trades.

We can’t see them, but they can see us - very clearly. They have the potential to reach deep into our private lives. Just how deeply is a secret – but some experts believe modern satellites can zoom in close enough to read the headlines of the newspaper you’re reading.

Governments and defence forces use satellites to spy on their enemies and on their friends, to communicate in secret, or to lock their missiles on to targets.

It’s a business that reaps millions for companies that build the satellites and for space brokers like Mary-Ann Elliott, a former beauty queen who now buys and sells satellite air-time. She knows US government secrets and keeps them, but she unashamedly spruiks her company: "Over the last five years we’ve grown 1061 per cent."

This is the here and now. In a few years entrepreneurs like Jim Benson plan to send robots into space to gouge metals out of asteroids and transport the ore back to Earth. "Well, I’ve been called a space buccaneer. I haven’t been called a space cowboy - but I kind of like the image," he tells Four Cormers.

Sir Richard Branson wants to send his ubiquitous Virgin brand into space. In three years, he says, five Virgin spaceships will be shuttling tourists into space. At $200,000-plus a ticket, there will be no hitchhikers. "Each passenger will experience weightlessness in space; each passenger will come back as a fully qualified astronaut," he promises.

So what rules govern what entrepreneurs and military powers are allowed to do in space? Four Corners discovers that the legal situation is almost as much a void as space itself.

To "space buccaneers" like Jim Benson, that’s fine. Regulation, he says, is "a communistic approach" that will dampen exploration and development. One opportunistic real estate operator is selling the moon for $59 an acre; there is no law to stop this - and none to support gullible buyers either.

The treaties that do cover space – such as the UN Moon Agreement and the Outer Space Treaty - seek to share its resources among all mankind and to ensure that space is used for peaceful purposes only. But the major space powers either refuse to ratify these agreements or, it seems, are prepared to ignore them.

In a post 9/11 world, national security concerns are overriding. The US, China and Russia are believed to be working on powerful weaponry that can destroy enemies’ satellites, devastating their national economies. There are concerns that the nuclear energy now used to propel spacecraft to Mars may be a precursor to nuclear weapons in space.

How much need we fear our space adventure? As space becomes increasingly commercialised and militarised, are we allowing the dangers to outweigh the potential benefits? And what of Australia’s role ... will it come under pressure to get involved in the Bush Administration’s ambitious space program?

Who lives in the eleventh dimension?

Scientists discuss what sort of life could be found in the eleventh dimension. 


With talk of world of lightning bolts, electricity, unstable atoms and more. 


This video from  'Parallel Universe' series is full of mind-bending theories to set our imagination racing. 

Future Of Our Way Of Reading

Video 1:




The American Channel CBS dissect the impact of the internet and computers on reading and writing.


Video 2:




Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon subsidiary Lab126 for reading e-books and other digital media. Three hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2," and "Kindle DX" support this platform, as does an iPhone application called "Kindle for iPhone". The first device was released in the United States on November 19, 2007.

The Kindle hardware devices use E Ink brand electronic paper displays, and are able to download content over Amazon Whispernet using the Sprint EVDO network. Kindle hardware devices can be used without a computer, and Whispernet is accessible without any fee.[2] These devices also provide free access to the internet. The Kindle is not available outside the US yet, due to import/export laws and other restrictions.

On March 3, 2009, Amazon.com launched an application entitled Kindle for iPhone in the App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch owners to read Kindle content. Through a technology termed "Whispersync," customers can keep their place across Kindle hardware devices and other mobile devices.

Amazon announced the Kindle DX on May 6, 2009. This device has a larger screen than its predecessors and supports PDF files natively. It is marketed as more suitable for displaying newspaper and textbook content.

The Kindle competes with other e-paper devices: the Sony Reader, iRex iLiad, the Jinke Hanlin eReader, and CyBook by Bookeen.

United States: Swine Flu (1976)

The programme "60 minutes" put the spotlight at the epidemy of Swine Flu that hit the United states in 1976.


According to Wikipedia, "Swine Influenza" (also called swine flu, hog flu, and pig flu) is an infection by any one of several types of swine influenza virus. Swine influenza virus (SIV) is any strain of the influenza family of viruses that is endemic in pigs. As of 2009, the known SIV strains include influenza C and the subtypes of influenza A known as H1N1, H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3.

Swine influenza virus is common throughout pig populations worldwide. Transmission of the virus from pigs to humans is not common and does not always lead to human influenza, often resulting only in the production of antibodies in the blood. If transmission does cause human influenza, it is called zoonotic swine flu. People with regular exposure to pigs are at increased risk of swine flu infection. The meat of an infected animal poses no risk of infection when properly cooked.

During the mid-20th century, identification of influenza subtypes became possible, allowing accurate diagnosis of transmission to humans. Since then, only 50 such transmissions have been confirmed. These strains of swine flu rarely pass from human to human. Symptoms of zoonotic swine flu in humans are similar to those of influenza and of influenza-like illness in general, namely chills, fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, weakness and general discomfort.

What is the future of the library?

What is a library when "everywhere is here"? "here" means the Internet..


This architectural animation explores the question of the role of the public library when digital information is everywhere and is everything.


What happens to the spaces of books? and how should traditional spaces of information change for a digital world? Even better...


in the developing world, how could the library nurture an information society, when people don't have access at home?


Could the future of the library be an urban information pub?


Or a theatre of knowledge? and what does that really mean anyway?

Top 10 Worst Foods

The worst possible foods include foods that are fried, processed foods and foods that are high in salt and additives.


Find out how many of the worst foods are high in fat, calories and salt with helpful information in this video on poor eating.