TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| Not a drag: High-tech airplane wings could cut fuel costs by 20 percent A new study says that within three years jumbo jet makers could be testing out a new type of wing that reduces mid-air drag and cuts fuel costs by an estimated 20 percent. The wing would do this using small, built in jets that redirect air around the wing during flight. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Paving Roads with Old Circuit Boards Millions of printed circuit boards from discarded electronics are tossed into landfills every year. In addition to the volume of waste, the material can leach chemicals into the soil. As an alternative, researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China are finding various ways to reuse the panels, including as an additive in asphalt.Xu Zhenming and his colleagues stripped the boards of all components, pulverized the remains into a powder and used an electrostatic separator to remove fine bits of any remaining metals, leaving a pulp of glass fibers and resin. They then added those remnants to warmed asphalt, to see if the pulp would act as a binder. Binders such as ground tire rubber and charcoal are typically added to improve asphalt’s stiffness at high temperatures (to reduce rutting) and its pliability at low temperatures (to prevent cracking). The pulp improved both properties, especially when the powder grains were made as small as possible. Zhenming’s team is testing the modified asphalt to check how it holds up to outdoor conditions over time. It is also experimenting with forming the pulp into sheets that could be made into structures such as park benches and fences. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Rhode Island: Tent City Residents to Leave Site They also filed a claim against the Cities of Providence and East Providence, saying they had an obligation to provide for the needy and the indigent. nytimes.com |
Rare Frog Species Bear the Brunt of Chytrid, a Deadly Fungal Disease Threats to wildlife survival, such as habitat loss and climate change, tend to strike some species harder than others, and the threat of chytrid , a deadly amphibian fungus, appears to be no different. A study published in this month's Ecology Letters finds that rarer species were more likely to disappear , leading to loss of frog biodiversity in Central America. [More] rss.sciam.com |
U.S., China, India and Other Nations Arrive at Non-Binding Agreement at U.N. Climate Summit Editor's note: After this story was posted, delegates at the U.N. Climate Summit resumed negotiations into the early hours of Saturday morning and the body eventually came to a consensus to recognize the deal outlined in the story below. COPENHAGEN--The U.S., China, India and South Africa form the core of a growing group of nations that have agreed upon a commitment to combat climate change , concluding a grueling two weeks of negotiations in the Danish capital here as part of the United Nations' climate summit. The so-called "Copenhagen Accord" will not be legally binding but will list in annexed documents, for the first time, commitments from both developed and developing countries to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases . [More] rss.sciam.com |