| Uncharted waters: When hydrogen fails, the students turn to that old standby--Gasoline Editor's Note: A team of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students are traveling up New York's Hudson River this week on the New Clermont , a 6.7-meter boat outfitted with a pair of 2.2-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cells to power the boat's motor. Their journey began September 21 from Manhattan's Pier 84 and will cover 240 kilometers (at a projected speed of 8 kilometers per hour). After making several stops along the way, the crew expects to arrive back at Rensselaer Polytech's campus in Troy, N.Y., on September 25. This is the second of Scientific American.com's blogs chronicling this expedition, called the New Clermont Project. [More] rss.sciam.com |
What Undersea Vents Reveal about Life's Origins (preview) Few places on Earth’s continents remain to be explored, and it is unlikely that many new natural wonders await discovery in some forgotten corner. But below the ocean surface is a different story. We know more about the facade of Mars than about the 75 percent of our own planet’s surface that lies underwater. Untold surprises await us there.One such revelation occurred in December 2000. An expedition mapping a submerged mountain known as the Atlantis Massif, midway between Bermuda and the Canary Islands and half a mile under the surface of the North Atlantic, came across a pillar of white rock as tall as a 20-story building rising from the sea­floor. Using the remotely operated ArgoII vehicle and the manned submersible Alvin , scientists surveyed and sampled the mysterious formation. Although time constraints limited their investigation to a single Alvin dive, the researchers were able to collect enough information to determine that the white pillar was just one of several such structures in the area that were emitting heated seawater. They had discovered a field of undersea hot springs they named the Lost City Hydrothermal Field. It was unlike anything seen before, including the now famous black smokers. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Next-Gen Scientists Honored for Evolving Medicine and Renewables [Slide Show] The more mysteries that scientists unlock, the more opportunities emerge for the next generation of researchers to transform newfound knowledge into tomorrow's breakthroughs that serve society. The Lemelson–M.I.T. Program recognized several potential breakthroughs Wednesday in awarding four of its $30,000 Lemelson–M.I.T. Student Prizes to those from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (R.P.I.), and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (U.I.U.C.). [More] rss.sciam.com |
Spare Times A selected guide to museums, gardens, talks, walks, recreation and other events in New York. nytimes.com |
Salmon farms in the Bay of Fundy worry fishermen Editor's Note: Expedition Blue Planet, led by Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter Alexandra Cousteau, is traveling 14,500 miles of road over 138 days to investigate and film some of North America's most pressing water-use and management stories. Expedition members will file dispatchs from the field for Scientific American until the expedition concludes on November 12 in Washington, D.C. This is their fifth blog post. "The microorganisms seem to be disappearing," says Reid Brown, a herring weir fisherman on Deer Island, New Brunswick. [More] rss.sciam.com |