TOP 100 CAMPING SITES
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| What Is The Best Way to Turn Plants into Energy? The environmental case for ethanol from corn continues to weaken. Turning the food crop into ethanol would not be the best use of the energy embedded in the kernels' carbohydrates, according to a new study in Science. That's because fermenting corn into ethanol delivers less liquid fuel energy for internal combustion engines than does burning the kernels to generate power for electric motors. [More] rss.sciam.com |
The Last-Minute Guide to Summer Camping In a rugged economy, more Americans are heading to national parks this year for a vacation in the great outdoors. But there is still room for a few more tents out there. travel.nytimes.com |
Does Population Growth Impact Climate Change? Dear EarthTalk: To what extent does human population growth impact global warming, and what can be done about it? -- Larry LeDoux, Honolulu, HI [More] rss.sciam.com |
Algaeus lives! A modified Prius goes cross-country on fuel from algae You really can drive across country on algae and a 700-pound battery pack , or so proved the crew behind the documentary Fuel . Embarking on September 8 and pulling into New York City today, just in time for the film's premiere, the Algaeus covered 3,750 miles."It got 147 miles-per-gallon in the city," says Fuel director Josh Tickell of the converted to plug-in Prius hybrid that he drove on a mix of battery power and algae fuel blended with conventional gasoline. The Algaeus did less well on the highway: 52 mpg, because of the lack of regenerative braking that recharges the battery, among other things. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Portrait of a Black Hole (preview) You have probably seen the TV commercial in which a cell phone technician travels to remote places and asks on his phone, “Can you hear me now?” Imagine this technician traveling to the center of our Milky Way galaxy, wherein lurks a massive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), weighing as much as 4.5 million suns. As the technician approached within 10 million kilometers of the black hole, we would hear his cadence slow down and his voice deepen and fade, eventually turning to a monotone whisper with diminishing reception. If we were to look, we would see his image turn increasingly red and dim as he became frozen in time near the black hole’s boundary, known as the event horizon.The technician himself, however, would experience no slowing of time and would see nothing strange at the location of the event horizon. He would know he had crossed the horizon only when he heard us say, “No, we cannot hear you very well!” He would have no way of sharing his last impressions with us--nothing, not even light, can escape from gravity’s extreme pull inside the event horizon. A minute after he crossed the horizon, the gravitational forces deep inside the hole would tear him apart. [More] rss.sciam.com |