February 23, 2012

Thursday TOON Roundup 2- More Republicans

GOP

February 23, 2012

Thursday TOON Roundup 1- Satan's little Helper

February 22, 2012

Toon- Fox News and the War on Facts

February 22, 2012

Tesla Motors’ Devastating Design Problem

Tesla Motors' lineup of all-electric vehicles — its existing Roadster, almost certainly its impending Model S, and possibly its future Model X — apparently suffer from a severe limitation that can largely destroy the value of the vehicle. If the battery is ever totally discharged, the owner is left with what Tesla describes as a "brick": a completely immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed down the street. The only known remedy is for the owner to pay Tesla approximately $40,000 to replace the entire battery. Unlike practically every other modern car problem, neither Tesla's warranty nor typical car insurance policies provide any protection from this major financial loss. Here's how it happens.

Despite this "brick" scenario having occurred several times already, Tesla has publicly downplayed the severity of battery depletion risk to both existing owners and future buyers. Privately though, Tesla has gone to great lengths to prevent this potentially brand-destroying incident from happening more often, including possibly engaging in GPS tracking of a vehicle without the owner's knowledge.

more

http://jalopnik.com/5887265/tesla-motors-devastating-design-problem

February 22, 2012

New Super Fun-Pax Comics

February 22, 2012

'Most Innovative' yacht in mystery sinking

'In this Greek Coast Guard photo released on Friday, Feb. 17, 2012, a Greek air force helicopter flies over a half sunken 60-meter French-flagged yacht which suffered mechanical failure in gale-force winds off the coast of the Aegean island of Skyros, Greece. The coast guard said two Air Force helicopters and a Navy frigate, as well as coast guard vessels and four commercial ships headed to the assistance of the yacht, registered as Yogi, after its captain sent out a distress signal Friday morning' .


Its oversized windows, glass skylights, main deck pool area and beach club, which won it accolades last year for its innovative features were not enough to keep it afloat. Yogi, the 60m superyacht which won the 'Most Innovative Yacht of the Year of 2011' has sunk off the island of Skyros in Greece.

Eight crew on board the luxury cruising yacht had a lucky escape today after a Greek helicopter rescued them from the sinking vessel.

While no real explanation for the sinking has yet been given, it is known that the French-flagged yacht was in gale-force winds and had lost engine power before the sinking, which appeared to be in deep water.

The crew had scrambled to the highest point on the yacht to await rescue as it flooded with water earlier this morning.

more
http://www.powerboat-world.com/usa/Most-Innovative-yacht-in-mystery-sinking/94002

February 22, 2012

Going up: Japan builder eyes space elevator

A Japanese construction firm claimed Wednesday it could execute an out-of-this-world plan to put tourists in space within 40 years by building an elevator that stretches a quarter of the way to the moon.


Obayashi Corp claims it could use carbon nanotube technology, which is more than 20 times stronger than steel, to build a lift shaft 96,000 kilometres (roughly 60,000 miles) above the Earth.

The company said it would carry up to 30 passengers at a time and travel at a speed of 200 kilometres per hour for a week, stopping off at a station at 36,000 kilometres.

Tourists would stay there, but researchers and specialists would be able to travel all the way to the end, said Satomi Katsuyama, the project's leader.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-japan-builder-eyes-space-elevator.html

February 22, 2012

Physicists discover evidence of rare hypernucleus, a component of strange matter

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists in Italy have discovered the first evidence of a rare nucleus that doesn’t exist in nature and lives for just 10exp-10 seconds before decaying. It’s a type of hypernucleus that, like all nuclei, contains an assortment of neutrons and protons. But unlike ordinary nuclei, hypernuclei also contain at least one hyperon, a particle that consists of three quarks, including at least one strange quark. Hypernuclei are thought to form the core of strange matter that may exist in distant parts of the universe, and could also allow physicists to probe the inside of the nucleus.

The particular hypernucleus investigated here, called "hydrogen six Lambda" (6?H), was first predicted to exist in 1963. Now, in a study published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters, physicists working in the FINUDA experiment at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (INFN-LNF) in Frascati, Italy, have reported finding the first evidence for the particle. The FINUDA collaboration’s analysis of millions of events has turned up three events for the rare hypernucleus.

Strange properties

As its name suggests, 6?H is a large type of hydrogen nucleus that consists of six particles: four neutrons, one proton, and one Lambda (? hyperon. Since an ordinary hydrogen nucleus contains one proton and no neutrons, hydrogen nuclei that contain one or more neutrons are sometimes called “heavy hydrogen.” The most common types of heavy hydrogen are deuterium (which has one neutron) and tritium (which has two neutrons). Since 6?H has four neutrons plus a L hyperon, physicists refer to it as “heavy hyperhydrogen.”

The L hyperon, which consists of one up, one down, and one strange quark, does an even more interesting thing to 6?H: it increases its lifetime from 10exp-22 seconds (the lifetime of the hypernucleus core 5H without L) to 10exp-10 seconds. When scientists first discovered the L hyperon in 1947, they observed a similarly longer lifetime than predicted for this “strange” object. That observation led to the idea of the existence of the strange quark, with strangeness being the property that causes the quark to live so long.

more

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-physicists-evidence-rare-hypernucleus-component.html

February 22, 2012

Alan Turing's 1950s tiger stripe theory proved

Researchers from King's College London have provided the first experimental evidence confirming a great British mathematician's theory of how biological patterns such as tiger stripes or leopard spots are formed.

The study, funded by the Medical Research Council and to be published online in Nature Genetics, not only demonstrates a mechanism which is likely to be widely relevant in vertebrate development, but also provides confidence that chemicals called morphogens, which control these patterns, can be used in regenerative medicine to differentiate stem cells into tissue.

The findings provide evidence to support a theory first suggested in the 1950s by famous code-breaker and mathematician Alan Turing, whose centenary falls this year. He put forward the idea that regular repeating patterns in biological systems are generated by a pair of morphogens that work together as an 'activator' and 'inhibitor'.

To test the theory the researchers studied the development of the regularly spaced ridges found in the roof of the mouth in mice. Carrying out experiments in mouse embryos, the team identified the pair of morphogens working together to influence where each ridge will be formed. These chemicals controlled each other's expression, activating and inhibiting production and therefore controlling the generation of the ridge pattern.

more

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-alan-turing-1950s-tiger-stripe.html

February 22, 2012

Alex the counting parrot was even smarter than we thought

Alex the gray parrot was no ordinary bird. The subject of a thirty-year investigation into avian cognition, by the time he died in 2007, numerous scientific publications had pointed to Alex as proof that a bird's mathematical abilities could be on par with — and even exceed — those of chimps and other non-human primates.

Now, the results of the Alex's last experiment have been published — and the findings are more compelling than ever.

Alex's mathematical prowess has been well documented. The parrot could quantify sets of up to eight items; identify and correctly order Arabic numerals from 1—8; and even sum two sets of objects presented one after the other, so long as their sum total was less than or equal to six.

But an article published in the latest issue of Animal Cognition by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg — who studied and cared for Alex for over three decades — suggests that Alex was capable of even more impressive mathematical feats.

more
http://io9.com/5887158/alex-the-counting-parrot-was-even-smarter-than-we-thought