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Saturday, October 24, 2009
Believe it or not, there is a real story to why Americans drive on the right side of the road. In feudal England, swordsmen carried their weapons on the left hip because it was easier to pull and draw their long swords across their bodies. These weapons were some 4 feet long, and for this reason sitting a horse from the left side of the road made practical sense, since the swordsman's right hand would always be closest to an enemy.  The French In the 1700s freight haulers in France started using multiple horse teams to move large loads by road. The carts did not contain a seat, so French teamsters arbitrarily decided to sit on the left inside horse to ensure that a driver could see the wheels of oncoming carts. The American Revolution France was an active participant in the U.S. war of independence, and their conventions became equally embedded within America's emerging culture. As a result, when moving heavy loads in the States, American teamsters began to follow French conventions, and drove their wagons and carts on the right side of the road. Napoleon When Napoleon marched through Europe (and nearly everywhere else), he bound his French cultural conventions within the various countries he conquered. Interestingly, if you look at where he operated throughout the early 1800s, you can see his influence on today's driving habits. World War I Prior to WWI and the emergent "horseless carriage," vehicles were primarily converted from horse-drawn wagons and carts to gasoline-powered vehicles. As the car became more prominent, driving habits were carried forward as well. As a result, during WWI, there were some issues between American and English truck drivers over which side they were supposed to be driving on when moving ambulances to and from the front, and when traversing muddy or unmarked roads. Today About a quarter of all of the countries of the world still drive on the left, and of these, most are former outposts, or colonies historically part of the British Empire. These range from Anguilla to Zimbabwe. http://www.ehow.com/about_5505868_do-americans-drive-right-side.html Labels: drive, right side, why
posted by kEMe @ 10:12:00 PM
Tuesday, October 13, 2009  It is easy to see that the sky is blue. Have you ever wondered why? A lot of other smart people have, too. And it took a long time to figure it out! The light from the Sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.
A prism is a specially shaped crystal. When white light shines through a prism, the light is separated into all its colors. If you visited The Land of the Magic Windows, you learned that the light you see is just one tiny bit of all the kinds of light energy beaming around the Universe--and around you! Like energy passing through the ocean, light energy travels in waves, too. Some light travels in short, "choppy" waves. Other light travels in long, lazy waves. Blue light waves are shorter than red light waves.
All light travels in a straight line unless something gets in the way to--
Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.
Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. The sunlight reaching us from low in the sky has passed through even more air than the sunlight reaching us from overhead. As the sunlight has passed through all this air, the air molecules have scattered and rescattered the blue light many times in many directions. Also, the surface of Earth has reflected and scattered the light. All this scattering mixes the colors together again so we see more white and less blue. What Makes a Red Sunset? As the Sun gets lower in the sky, its light is passing through more of the atmosphere to reach you. Even more of the blue light is scattered, allowing the reds and yellows to pass straight through to your eyes.
Sometimes the whole western sky seems to glow. The sky appears red because larger particles of dust, pollution, and water vapor in the atmosphere reflect and scatter more of the reds and yellows.
posted by kEMe @ 11:29:00 AM
Wednesday, August 12, 2009  Apparently, researchers can't make up their minds. A study done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison now shows that the virus that causes Swine Flu (H1N1) is more dangerous than they originally thought. This study was published on the 13th of July and its findings are in stark contrast to a previous study by Harvard University-Massachsetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, reported earlier in the month which showed a protein on the surface of the H1N1 virus which supposedly makes it inefficient at attacking receptors inside of the human respiratory tract. The new study, (the one in Wisconsin), shows that in direct contradiction to regular influenza viruses the H1N1 virus can infect cells deep in the lungs, causing pneumonia and, in some cases, death. “There is a misunderstanding about this virus,” says Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of pathobiological sciences at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine. “People think this pathogen may be similar to seasonal influenza. This study shows that is not the case. There is clear evidence the virus is different than seasonal influenza.” Kawaoka also says that the mechanism the virus uses to invade the lungs is very similar to other pandemic viruses, particularly the pandemic that occurred in 1918. Research has also found that individuals born prior to 1918 often have antibodies (immunity) to H1N1. The study was performed on several animal species including non-human primates and was reported in Nature magazine. On a positive note Kawaoka believes that vaccination and treatment with anti-viral drugs such as Tamiflu will still be effective against H1N1 in it's current form. Researchers are still anticipating a possible mutation of the virus in the fall which might make it even more dangerous. Why the difference in the two studies? I haven't a clue. Only God knows what kind of havoc, or not, the H1N1 virus may cause come October. http://ent.about.com/b/2009/07/16/how-dangerous-is-h1n1.htm
posted by kEMe @ 3:56:00 AM
Wednesday, July 22, 2009  Tower cranes arrive at the construction site on 10 to 12 tractor-trailer rigs. The crew uses a mobile crane to assemble the jib and the machinery section, and places these horizontal members on a 40-foot (12-m) mast that consists of two mast sections. The mobile crane then adds the counterweights.The mast rises from this firm foundation. The mast is a large, triangulated lattice structure, typically 10 feet (3.2 meters) square. The triangulated structure gives the mast the strength to remain upright.    To rise to its maximum height, the crane grows itself one mast section at a time! The crew uses a top climber or climbing frame that fits between the slewing unit and the top of the mast. Here's the process: 1.The crew hangs a weight on the jib to balance the counterweight. 2.The crew detaches the slewing unit from the top of the mast. Large hydraulic rams in the top climber push the slewing unit up 20 feet (6 m). 3.The crane operator uses the crane to lift another 20-foot mast section into the gap opened by the climbing frame. Once bolted in place, the crane is 20 feet taller!   Once the building is finished and it is time for the crane to come down, the process is reversed -- the crane disassembles its own mast and then smaller cranes disassemble the rest. Labels: tower crane
posted by kEMe @ 9:32:00 PM
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
 Scania (part of Volkswagen) builds modified, heavy-duty diesel engines designed to run on almost pure ethanol (E95, or 95% ethanol, with a 5% ignition improver).If that sounds weird, that’s because it is. US auto manufacturers make a big deal out of converting cars and trucks to run on ethanol/gasoline blends of up to 85% ethanol. Scania has done better than that for 15 years, and guess what, their engines can run on 100% biodiesel too, without any modification. Scania’s compression-ignition (CI) ethanol engine is a modified 9-liter diesel with a few modifications. Scania raised the compression ratio from 18:1 to 28:1, added larger fuel injection nozzles, and altered the injection timing. The fuel system also needs different gaskets and filters, and a larger fuel tank since the engine burns 65% to 70% more ethanol than diesel (whoa! see below). The thermal efficiency of the engine is comparable to a diesel, 43% compared to 44%. While Scania originally introduced this technology for “heavy commercial vehicles in urban operation” (city buses), they’re now extending it to trucks as well. Scania maintains that with existing technology, the transition to renewable fuels can be painless. Since in the last 15 years they’ve put 600 ethanol buses on the road (mostly in Sweden), the company seems to know what it’s talking about. Scania is also working to develop ethanol refueling infrastructure, which should make it easier for smaller transport companies to invest in ethanol-powered vehicles.  But why not use biodiesel, since ethanol requires about 1.5x more fuel usage? Scania’s answer may raise a few eyebrows: “the farming capacity [for biodiesel] is insufficient for the huge need foreseen for the transport industry.” Unless you take EU spokesman Michael Mann’s comments seriously (he said that Europe can grow enough fuel to meet 10% of it’s transportation fuel), Scania must be betting on cellulosic ethanol. The intensifying food vs. fuel debate isn’t taking this issue lightly, as I’ve written about here and here. In any case, Scania’s work seems to indicate it might not be as hard to create engines that run on alternative fuels as auto manufacturers maintain. Labels: biodiesel, ethanol diesel-engine, scania
posted by kEMe @ 11:00:00 AM
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