Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find this week as we get our nerd on: A car that gets 11,000 miles per gallon; Isaac Newton’s apple tree defies gravity; and how much would it cost to build your own Iron Man suit? That, and more, in this week’s edition of News For Nerds!
A group of college students in France have taken the idea of fuel-efficient to a whole new level. They built an ultra-light vehicle which is powered by electricity generated from a hydrogen fuel cell. You might have heard of this technology, but here’s one of the first applications.
Technically, because the car doesn’t run on gasoline, the figure of 11,000 mpg is simply a calculation. It’s based on converting the energy density between gas and hydrogen, but even if their numbers are off a bit, it’s still a mind-boggling development.
Don’t expect to be scooting around in one of these cars anytime soon, however. The prototype was built purely for the annual competition which is sponsored by the Shell energy company. In fact, the students say the vehicle is practically worn around the body, rather than driven. The idea of the contest is to focus attention on alternative energy sources for future development.
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Chock up even more evidence that life on Earth might have received a big boost from comets.
Scientists studied bits of meteorites and comet dust that has been buried beneath the ice of Antarctica, and discovered many of the essential elements crucial to developing life on our planet. High amounts of carbon and deuterium were packed within the tiny fragments, suggesting that the early solar system was teeming with the building blocks that would eventually spawn us.
Not only that, but the water that we rely on was very likely delivered to our home planet by these very same comets and meteors. There’s lots of evidence that dusty snowballs pelted Earth in its formative years. All of that water collected over hundreds of millions of years, and created the oceans that cover the majority of the surface.
You can find lots of information online about this. Here’s one story you might want to check out.
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Isaac Newton is famous for developing the first true equations concerning gravity, and most school children are familiar with the legend of the falling apple that inspired him.
Well, one of the astronauts on this latest space shuttle mission is taking a piece of history into Earth orbit. Piers Sellers, a British-born representative on space shuttle Atlantis, is carrying along a small chunk of the very same tree that Newton observed back in the 17th century.
You gotta love the irony of this, because once in space the piece of wood will be weightless, something that Sir Isaac would have been thrilled to experience. There’s more on this story waiting for you right here.
Oh, and here’s an interesting PS to this: The tree is still alive and going strong after all these centuries. Cool.
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Speaking of Atlantis, it’s likely that this will be the proud ship’s final voyage. The shuttle fleet is being retired after two more trips into space.
Atlantis is carrying a Russian-made module that will be added to the International Space Station. The module will act as a docking port and science lab at the complex.
This is the 32nd mission for Atlantis, which has spent more than 280 days in space, carried 185 different astronauts, and covered more than 115 million miles. Bon voyage, Atlantis.
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Uh-oh. Bad news for women (and, yes, men too) who have had Botox injections. A professor of dermatology in New York has completed a new study that suggests that the cosmetic injections might actually CAUSE wrinkles.
Hoo boy. Essentially what he’s saying is that, by deadening certain muscles in one area, you’re actually causing other muscles around it to work overtime in order to compensate. That leads to additional activity for muscles that aren’t used to the work load, and, subsequently, they wear out.
As the good doctor put it: “If your skin wants to wrinkle, it will find some place to do it.” In other words, ladies, there’s no free lunch.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
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Iron Man 2 is making a ton of money at the box office, just like the original flick. For those of you who dream of building your own Iron Man suit, here are a few figures you can consider when it comes to the price:
Development cost for a typical HMD (helmet mounted device) for a fighter jet: $54.1 million
Cost to develop one XOS skeleton: $10 million
Cost of one MMRTG (Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator), according to NASA: $36 million
Cost of two jet packs (one for each boot): $400,000
Estimated cost for wearable computers: $20,000
Total price tag to live like Tony Stark: $100,420,000.
Have fun.
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That’s it for this week’s News For Nerds. Until next week, keep gettin’ your nerd on!
Hydrogen Fuel is very promising, i only hope that we can mass produce soon enough.’*-
hydrogen fueled vehicles are the best but they are still not widely available.:.;