A cosmic fire hose..

Astronomers have found a nascent star 750 light years from earth that shoots colossal jets of water -- a cosmic fire hose -- out its poles in bullet-like pulses

In a process that almost defies adjectives and analogies, each jet of water is the equivalent of a hundred million times the water flowing through the Amazon River every second and the speed of the jet is the equivalent of 80 times the muzzle velocity of an AK-47 assault rifle.

The blast creates huge shockwaves around the star and the process may be responsible for sprinkling the universe with water.

And it could go on for a thousand years in each star. Astronomers think all baby stars go through this process as they form, and that our sun did it too once.

The protostar was found in the Perseus constellation in an object called L1448-MM, seen from the earth to the right of the Pleiades, also called the Seven Sisters cluster of stars, in the constellation of Taurus. It is called a low-mass protostar, meaning it is just beginning to grow into a star.

While jets like that have been seen in other baby stars, astronomers, using the European Space Agency’'s Herschel infrared orbiting telescope were able to measure the flow of the jets using water molecules as the tracer.

Lars E. Kristensen, a postdoctoral student at the Leiden University in the Netherlands, an author of the paper, said that all stars are formed by the accretion of dust and other particles in interstellar space and are eventually surrounded by a disk of material that falls into the star as it builds.

The disks are something like the rings of Saturn but far less well-defined, he said, "more puffy."

Material that is not used by the forming star is blasted back out into space from the poles, perpendicular to the angle of the disks.

"We don’'t know the launching point or the exact launching mechanism," Kristensen said. "There is no self-consistent theory that can explain what we are seeing."

Thanks to: Physorg.com

The Bunker Business–to survive the apocalypse

  Luxury bunkers @ $25k could be your ultimate survival place if 2012 is gonna happen…

Millions of people believe that we are living in the “end times”.  Many are looking for a viable solution to survive potential future Earth devastating events.  Eventually, our planet will realize another devastating catastrophe, whether manmade, or a cyclical force of nature. Disasters are rare and unexpected, but on any sort of long timeline, they're inevitable.  It's time to prepare!
The accepted solution to most of the threat scenarios is to find underground shelter. The soil of the Earth itself can provide the best shelter for most catastrophes, including a pole shift, super volcano eruptions, solar flares, earthquakes, asteroids, tsunamis, nuclear attack, bio terrorism, chemical warfare and even widespread social anarchy.  The governments of the world have been busy building vast underground shelter complexes for the elite. What do they know?  The rest of us are on our own, without a long-term survival solution. Watch this video.

More here: http://www.terravivos.com

 

 

  

One more step closer to the reality of Space Travel -

Footage of VSS Enterprise as she is released from her mothership, VMS Eve and glides fantastically back down to Mojave Space Port

 

 

Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, who was present during the first successful flight, added “This was one of the most exciting days in the whole history of Virgin. For the first time since we seriously began the project in 2004, I watched the world’s first manned commercial spaceship landing on the runway at Mojave Air and Space Port and it was a great moment. Now, the sky is no longer the limit and we will begin the process of pushing beyond to the final frontier of space itself over the next year.”

Virgin Galactic is now well on the way to becoming the world’s first commercial space line with 370 customer deposits totalling $50 million. Future commercial operations will be at Spaceport America in New Mexico where final preparations are taking place for a finished runway inauguration ceremony on Friday 22nd October 2010. National Geographic channel in the United States will be showing a documentary on the build up and preparation for the first flight of VSS Enterprise on Monday, 18 October at 10.00pm ET/PT.

George Whitesides, CEO of Virgin Galactic who was also present at the historic flight, added “To see the world’s first manned commercial spaceship landing on a runway is a sight I always dreamed I would behold. Now, our challenge going forward will be to complete our experimental program, obtain our FAA licence and safely bring the system into service at Spaceport America, New Mexico.”

More here: http://www.virgingalactic.com/news/item/vss-enterprise-completes-first-manned-glide-flight/

Sikorsky X2–the fastest heli..

 

Charge a phone in your pocket!!

An integrated thermogenerator converts heat from any source into electrical energy to charge the phone, whether while being carried in your pocket or placed on top of a radiator.

 

     

 

Nokia E-Cu (E for environment, Cu for Copper)
Heat-conductive charging system

Creating a charger-free cellphone future

Annually, unwanted phone chargers produce 51,000 tons of waste in addition to the greenhouse gases created by the production of the electricity needed to charge them.

The Nokia E-Cu is a mobile phone charged by sources of heat therefore eradicating the need for a charger. The phone has a thermogenerator integrated inside, which converts heat energy into electric potential energy.

It is surrounded by copper with engraved heatsinks in a dry earth pattern which represents the effect of heat on the natural environment. The phone can be charged by placing it on any source of heat e.g. a radiator, even inside a pocket.

Humvee… the flying Hummer??

        

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals for a Humvee that can fly over insurgents, conduct night raids or whisk injured soldiers away from the battlefield. Textron, the defense company, says it has the solution—and they have the sketches to prove it.

        

Sure, the concept looks like a model car you might buy at Toys R' Us, but the technology is sound, and the engineers think it could be ready to fly relatively soon, according to Steven Reid, vice president of unmanned aircraft systems at AAI, the Textron subsidiary that produced the Shadow UAV. "Envision a Humvee-like vehicle with wings that fold out from the side and attach just above the rear door," Reid says.
Textron's plan is to integrate its work on military ground vehicles and unmanned aircraft like the Shadow, and combine it with licensed technology from its partnership with Carter Aviation Technologies, a small Texas-based outfit working on a personal air vehicle for the commercial market. Textron is incorporating Carter's slowed compound rotor technology, which uses rotors that are similar to helicopter blades but heavily weighted in the tips. As the aircraft takes off, the rotor provides lift, but as the vehicle gains speed, the rotor slows down and the wings provide lift.

The vehicle would have a roof panel that contains wings that rotate and fold out from the sides, as well as a mast that comes up and houses the slowed rotor system. Coming out the back of the vehicle is a shrouded, ducted fan that provides forward motion, and then a series of control surfaces that help regulate speed, as well as pitch, roll and yaw.

 

To win funding for the project that DARPA formally calls Transformer, the company has to meet a challenging set of demands. The defense agency has asked companies and researchers to come up with a flyable vehicle that can carry up to four people, is capable of vertical takeoff and landing and can travel without having to refuel at ranges for 250 nautical miles (with a combination of driving and flying). While DARPA officials have talked about such a vehicle for avoiding roadside bombs, they are also considering it for a variety of missions, including "strike and raid, intervention, interdiction, insurgency and counterinsurgency, reconnaissance, medical evacuation and logistical supply."
For veteran defense companies like Textron, the DARPA project did elicit some surprise. "I have to admit," recalls Reid, "we scratched our heads and asked: Is this real?" But if the goal of DARPA's Transformer project to hunt down innovative technologies that may lie resident at nontraditional defense companies, then Textron's approach, which draws heavily on Carter Aviation, may pave the way.
Despite the far-out notion of a flying Humvee, Reid says the company's engineers are intrigued by the idea of pushing the envelope on aircraft technology, and the concept fits well with ideas they already have about combining manned and unmanned aircraft, particularly helicopters. While Reid jokes about flying cars not being in Textron's "five-year plan," he says the DARPA program is exciting because it allows the company to build off Carter Aviation's technology, and perhaps incorporate that into the Shadow UAV.
"Quite frankly, our hopes are quite modest," Reid says. "We don't have visions of fleet sales of flying Humvees quite yet."

How ink is made?

2 Page eReader..

 

 

With most e-readers you get only a single page at a time, rather than two opposing pages like you would see in a traditional paper book. This dual screen e-reader fixes that problem, making the whole experience another step closer to reading a good old-fashioned paper book.

Created by French designer Karim Zaouai, the Digital eBook feels like a lightweight hardcover book in your hands, and you flip through the pages by simply pushing the two screens slightly together. A row of buttons along the edges of the display control other functions, and when you fold it shut, the clamshell design provides much better screen protection than most e-readers.

More here:  www.designtaxi.com

Finally, a physical keyboard for your iPhone

 

Have you found it difficult to get used to the iPhone's touchscreen keyboard? Do you long for a physical keyboard with real buttons you can feel with your fingers? Well, this new iPhone case features a flip-out keyboard, giving you what you've been aching for for so long.

The little keyboard connects to the iPhone via Bluetooth, so you don't need to worry about plugging anything in. And when it's closed, it will help protect your phone just like any other case. At $50, it's not too bad a deal, either. So, what do you think? Are you willing to stick it out with the touchscreen keyboard, or do you need something a little more tactile?