Paint That Can Prevent Plane Crashes

Chemists And Materials Scientists Develop Paint That Reveals Evidence Of Impacts
July 1, 2008 — Chemists created a paint embedded with pressure-sensitive capsules that contain a contrastingly colored dye. Violent scratches, dents, or strikes cause the capsules to burst. Visual inspections for changes in the color of the paint allow inspectors to pinpoint potentially damaged areas.

Airplanes are visually inspected everyday, but tiny cracks and flaws on planes can be easily missed. Now, a new kind of paint could expose hidden damage on planes.

Check out the video:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/0703-paint_that_can_prevent_plane_crashes.htm

Coca-Cola readying 100-flavor soda fountains

Thank you Engadget

Your typical soda fountain in a fast-food joint features eight boring choices, usually offering nothing more exotic than “Orange.” It’s been that way for decades, but one of the oldest players in the market is finally shattering that paradigm. Coca-Cola is introducing a machine that can pour 100 different flavors. Early prototypes underwent testing earlier this summer and second-gen units are headed for limited markets early next year — the same thing they said about those self-cooling bottles last year. Assuming they do come to market, swapping out the highly-concentrated flavors is likened to changing a print cartridge, meaning new choices can come and go quickly depending on popularity. It all sounds refreshing, but we’re not looking forward to the lines as the thirsty yet indecisive ponder 15 different flavors of Diet Coke.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/29/coca-cola-readying-100-flavor-soda-fountains/

Three Wheeled Wind-Driven Ventomobile Wins Aeolus Race

The solely wind-driven Ventomobile constructed by the InVentus team, a team of some 20 Stuttgart University students of Aerospace Engineering, came in first at the “Aeolus Race” in the Dutch town of Den Helder last Friday.

Racing the extremely stylish and lightweight three-wheeler, the vehicles of five European universities and research centres had difficulties to catch up. For their “innovative design” and public relations work, the InVentus team were also awarded prizes. The ECN-impulse built by the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) came in second. The Flensburg University of Applied Sciences won the third prize with their very solid but slow Headwind Tricycle.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news08/next-energy-news8.29.08b.html

Raser to build High Tech Modular Geothermal Plant in New Mexico

Raser Technologies has joined with New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former United States Secretary of Energy, to announce the beginning of the construction phase of the first commercial geothermal power project in New Mexico. Raser Chairman Kraig Higginson introduced Raser’s geothermal power project at Lightning Dock near Animas, New Mexico along with its unique geothermal development process. Joining Mr. Higginson and Governor Bill Richardson in the announcement were other state officials including Fred Mondragon, Director of Economic Development, and Mark Fesmire, Director of the Oil Conservation Division for the State of New Mexico.

Situated at Lightning Dock near Animas, the new plant will incorporate an innovative binary liquid technology that allows it to make use of the site’s low levels of geothermal energy. If more of these modular plants are built then they could be mobilized to take advantage of over 120,000 MW of untapped low-temp geothermal energy across the US.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news08/next-energy-news8.29.08d.html 

Researchers Develop Eco Friendly Way to Recycle Nuclear Waste

A new recycling plant will soon recover uranium from the ashes of radioactive garbage to be recycled back into nuclear fuel using an efficient, environmentally friendly technology inspired by decaffeinated coffee. The technique’s future may even hold the key to recycling the most dangerous forms of radioactive waste.

Over the course of 20 years, Chien Wai, a University of Idaho chemistry professor, has developed a process that uses supercritical fluids to dissolve toxic metals.

When coupled with a purifying process developed in partnership with Sydney Koegler, an engineer with nuclear industry leader AREVA and University of Idaho alumnus, enriched uranium can be recovered from the ashes of contaminated materials.

On Wednesday, Aug. 20, representatives from the company and the university signed an agreement to share the technologies and pave the way for the recycling plant’s construction.

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news08/next-energy-news8.29.08c.html

Neutralizing Fluorocarbons

A new catalyst breaks down greenhouse gases and pollutants at room temperature.

Fluorocarbons–common chemicals in which carbon is bound to fluorine–are potent greenhouse gases, and some form toxic compounds that can accumulate in the environment. But neutralizing fluorocarbons has required a process whose high temperature drives up its cost, limiting its adoption. Researchers at Brandeis University report in Science today that they have found a catalyst that breaks the carbon-fluorine bond at room temperature, promising easier and more effective disposal of pesky pollutants.

The strength of the fluorine-carbon bond makes fluorocarbons valuable in chemically resistant and durable materials such as stain repellants, nonstick cookware, and coolants. But it also explains why they are so difficult to dispose of. One type of fluorocarbon, the ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), has now been widely banned under the Montreal Protocol, but the two other main types also present environmental problems.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21311/

Ancient Amazon Cities Found; Were Vast Urban Network

Dozens of ancient, densely packed, towns, villages, and hamlets arranged in an organized pattern have been mapped in the Brazilian Amazon, anthropologists announced today.

The finding suggests that vast swathes of “pristine” rain forest may actually have been sophisticated urban landscapes prior to the arrival of European colonists.

…Nevertheless, he said, the repeated patterns within and among settlements across the landscape suggest a highly ordered and planned society on par with any medieval European town.

The finding supports a controversial theory that the Amazon River Basin teemed with large societies that were all but obliterated by disease when European colonists arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries. …

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080828-amazon-cities.html