This Alien World Is Evaporating Faster Than Any Known Planet
“In only a few billion years from now, half of the planet may be gone.” Continue reading This Alien World Is Evaporating Faster Than Any Known Planet
Tag Archives: Radiation
‘Marie’ Is the First Life-Sized, 3D-Printed Human Body
Marie—a five-foot-one, fifteen-pound 3D printed body—could be used to help create better radiation treatments for cancer. Continue reading ‘Marie’ Is the First Life-Sized, 3D-Printed Human Body
The Electronics of Cold War Nightmares
It is a good bet that if you look around you, you’ll be able to find at least one smoke detector in sight. If not, there’s probably one not too far away. Why not? Fires happen and you’d like to know about a fire even if you are sleeping or alert others if you are away. During the cold war, there were other things that people didn’t want to sleep through. [Msylvain59] tears down two examples: a Soviet GSP-11 nerve agent detector and a Polish RS-70 radiation alarm. You can see both videos, below.
In all fairness, the GSP-11 is …read more
California’s Woolsey Fire Burns Near Site of Nuclear Meltdown, Sparking Panic
The owner of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Boeing, says the wildfire may have started “on or near” the contaminated Los Angeles facility. Continue reading California’s Woolsey Fire Burns Near Site of Nuclear Meltdown, Sparking Panic
Solar Power For Chernobyl’s Second Generation of Electricity
When featuring cool hacks repurposing one thing for something else, we prefer to focus on what we could get our hands on and replicate for ourselves. Not this one, though, as nobody else has the misfortune of being responsible for 2,000 square kilometers (772 square miles) of radioactive contaminated land like the government of Ukraine. Trying to make the best of what they have, they’ve just launched a pilot program working to put up solar power farms inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
This is sure to invite some jokes in the comments section, but the idea has merit. Thirty years …read more
Continue reading Solar Power For Chernobyl’s Second Generation of Electricity
China’s Construction Industry Is Putting Earth’s Ozone Layer Back At Risk
A rise in atmospheric levels of CFC-11, a substance banned by the Montreal Protocol, prompted environmental investigators to find the source. Continue reading China’s Construction Industry Is Putting Earth’s Ozone Layer Back At Risk
A Vacuum Tube and Barbecue Lighter X-Ray Generator
A certain subset of readers will remember a time when common knowledge held that sitting too close to the TV put you in mortal peril. We were warned to stay at least six feet back to avoid the X-rays supposedly pouring forth from the screen. Nobody but our moms believed it, so there we sat, transfixed and mere inches from the Radiation King, working on our tans as we caught up on the latest cartoons. We all grew up mostly OK, so it must have been a hoax.
Or was it? It turns out that getting X-rays from vacuum tubes …read more
Continue reading A Vacuum Tube and Barbecue Lighter X-Ray Generator
Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling
More energy hits the earth in sunlight every day than humanity could use in about 16,000 years or so, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to tap into other sources of energy too. One source that shows promise is geothermal, but these methods have been hindered by large startup costs and other engineering challenges. A new way to tap into this energy source has been found however, which relies on capturing the infrared radiation that the Earth continuously gives off rather than digging large holes and using heat exchangers.
This energy is the thermal radiation that virtually everything gives …read more
Continue reading Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling
Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling
More energy hits the earth in sunlight every day than humanity could use in about 16,000 years or so, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to tap into other sources of energy too. One source that shows promise is geothermal, but these methods have been hindered by large startup costs and other engineering challenges. A new way to tap into this energy source has been found however, which relies on capturing the infrared radiation that the Earth continuously gives off rather than digging large holes and using heat exchangers.
This energy is the thermal radiation that virtually everything gives …read more
Continue reading Harvesting Energy from the Earth with Quantum Tunneling
The Physics of Healing: Radiation Therapy
Few days are worse than a day when you hear the words, “I’m sorry, you have cancer.” Fear of the unknown, fear of pain, and fear of death all attend the moment when you learn the news, and nothing can prepare you for the shock of learning that your body has betrayed you. It can be difficult to know there’s something growing inside you that shouldn’t be there, and the urge to get it out can be overwhelming.
Sometimes there are surgical options, other times not. But eradicating the tumor is not always the job of a surgeon. Up to …read more
