Free Republic

Dec 3, 2009 — In the previous entry, Darwin inspired some geologists, even though he was wrong. Here are some news stories showing nature inspiring engineers with wonders right under their noses...

Nov 15, 2009 — Biomimetics is the new science of imitating nature – but why not save a step, and just copy the design directly?  That’s what Aussie and British researchers did.  They wanted a self-cleaning surface that could repel moisture and dust, so they made a template of an insect wing.  And why not?  “Insects are incredible nanotechnologists,” reported Science Daily.  Their wings are self-cleaning, frictionless and super-water-repellant. Insect wings have these properties due to their properties at the scale of billionths of a meter.  “For instance, some wings are superhydrophobic, due to a clever combination of natural chemistry...

America is turning out plenty of science and engineering grads, a university study concludes, but many of the best are taking jobs in finance and consulting. U.S. colleges and universities are graduating as many scientists and engineers as ever, according to a study released on Oct. 28 by a group of academics. But that finding comes with a big caveat: Many of the highest-performing students are choosing careers in other fields. The study by professors at Rutgers and Georgetown suggests that since the late 1990s, many of the top students have been lured to careers in finance and consulting. "Despite...

Oct 21, 2009 — Plants are not as stationary as one might think. Parts of them, like seeds, can travel for miles. One good example is the maple seed. Its little helicopter seeds can catch an updraft and fly a long distance from the tree. Now, engineers at University of Maryland have imitated its physics and designed a radio-controlled mono-copter that can sustain stable flight for hours...

In a brutal job market, here's a task that might sound easy: Fill jobs in nursing, engineering and energy research that pay $55,000 to $60,000, plus benefits. Yet even with 15 million people hunting for work, even with the unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, some employers can't find enough qualified people for good-paying career jobs. Ask Steve Jones, a hospital recruiter in Indianapolis who's struggling to find qualified nurses, pharmacists and MRI technicians. Or Ed Baker, who's looking to hire at a U.S. Energy Department research lab in Richland, Wash., for $60,000 each. Economists say the main problem is a...

(Please also see email to a Sacramento employer who is running a PERM ad to demonstrate that "no Americans are available" to sponsor an H-1b worker for a green card.) For years the Programmers Guild has been calling for some basic reforms to the H-1b program. Now the harm of the H-1b program is hitting home. In May 2009, Kim's daughter Stephanie graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with dual STEM degrees. (U.S. News ranks USC Engineering school 7th in the nation.) Stephanie completed both degrees in only four years and worked at summer internships. She has incurred...

If you have a look at the world of today from an economic point of view, you'll quickly find out that the Nordic countries (Scandinavia + Finland) is the richest part of the Globe (mesured by nominal GDP per Capita). This is not a matter of coincidence and neither is it a matter of oil, at least not to a large extent. For instance, the Danes earn the highest salaries on Earth and very few of them work for oil companies. The Nordic countries are immensely wealthy because we focus on things in life like R&D, economic growth, education, infrastructure,...

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/594 About the Lecture Don’t believe everything you learn in business school, cautions Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. “It’s the principles of good management we teach that cause successful companies to fail.” In this meaty lecture, Christensen distills several books’ worth of research describing how business leaders sometimes metamorphose into losers when confronted with market-rocking innovations. He also reveals how we may harness his insights in such socially significant and complex industries as health care. Christensen distinguishes between the kind of sustained and incremental technological improvements that help a market leader retain its edge, and “disruptive technology,” where a...

John Scalzi's Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design I'll come right out and say it: Star Wars has a badly-designed universe; so poorly-designed, in fact, that one can say that a significant goal of all those Star Wars novels is to rationalize and mitigate the bad design choices of the movies. Need examples? Here's ten. R2-D2 Sure, he's cute, but the flaws in his design are obvious the first time he approaches anything but the shallowest of stairs. Also: He has jets, a periscope, a taser and oil canisters to make enforcer droids fall about in...

Hoping to protect one of the Bay Area's main water supplies after the next major earthquake, construction crews will soon embark on a job that sounds like something out of a Jules Verne novel: building a massive, 5-mile-long tunnel underneath San Francisco Bay.The project is believed to be the first major tunnel ever built across the bay.Using a giant boring machine, workers will carve a 14-foot high corridor through clay, sand and bedrock from Menlo Park to Newark as deep as 103 feet below the bay floor. They'll then run a 9-foot-high steel water pipe through the middle."All the experts...

Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. ‘Transparent aluminium’ previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion. In the journal Nature Physics an international team, led by Oxford University scientists, report that a short pulse from the FLASH laser ‘knocked out’ a core electron from every aluminium atom in a sample without disrupting the metal’s crystalline structure. This turned the aluminium nearly...

The Hollywood star's striking appearance was often put down to the contrast between her ample cleavage, tiny waist and swinging hips. Her vital statsistics were an amazing 37-23-36. But her voluptuous body was not all God-given, it has been discovered – she boosted her bust to a D cup using a heavy duty padded bra favoured by strippers and burlesque dancers. One of her bras – known as a Fling – is up for auction in Britain after being unearthed after 50 years in a private US collection. The heavy-duty bra – which "perfectly positioned" and enlarged the breasts was...

THE WIDER VIEW: Taking shape, the new bridge at the Hoover Dam 04th July 2009 Creeping closer inch by inch – 900ft above the mighty Colorado River – the two sides of a £160million bridge at the Hoover Dam in America slowly take shape. The bridge will carry a new section of US Route 93 past the bottleneck of the old road which can be seen twisting and winding around and across the dam itself. When complete, it will provide a new link between the states of Nevada and Arizona. In an incredible feat of engineering, the road will be...

One of the most significant transformations in U.S. graduate education and the international market for highly-trained workers in science and engineering during the last quarter century is the representation of students from outside of the United States among the ranks of doctorate recipients from U.S. universities. In all but the life sciences, the foreign share of Ph.D. recipients now equals or exceeds the share from the United States. Students from outside the United States accounted for 51 percent of Ph.D. recipients in science and engineering in 2003, up from 27 percent in 1973. In 2003, doctorate recipients from outside the...

The eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 pumped so much sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere that New England farmers found their fields frosted over in July. Climate change, it seems, can be quick and overwhelming, at least on short scales. The eruption of the Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 cooled global temperatures for several years by about half a degree Celsius. Sulfur dioxide works. So how about this: We send a fleet of airships high into the stratosphere, attached to hoses on the ground that pump 10 kilos of sulfur dioxide every second. The airships then...

Claims of bias against women in academic science have been greatly exaggerated. Meanwhile, men are becoming the second sex in American higher education.In 2006 the National Academy of Sciences released Beyond Bias And Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, which found “pervasive unexamined gender bias” against women in academic science. Donna Shalala, a former Clinton administration cabinet secretary, chaired the committee that wrote the report. When she spoke at a congressional hearing in October 2007, she warned that strong measures would be needed to improve the “hostile climate” women face in university science. This “crisis,”...

Two months ago I did what most environmentalists would consider unthinkable. I purchased my first 4X4 vehicle. Since I wasn't planning on using it as my primary vehicle, I wasn't willing to shell out the multiple thousands of dollars involved in purchasing new. The logical choice was to pick an early 1990's model which was still in good condition. I found one with electronic fuel injection, A/C, and power everything. Even though it's verging on its twenty year birthday, it is still a sharp looking vehicle in very good condition. So, imagine my surprise at the responses of my friends...

Blog: Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Iran, China Ink $17 Billion In Deals Asadollah Asgarowladi, director of the Iran-China trade bureau, has said that China has signed 18 economic contracts, worth $17 billion, with Iran in the areas of technology, engineering, infrastructure, and trade. Iran's Press TV reported that in 2008 there was $29 billion in trade between the two countries. Source: Press TV, Iran, May 18, 2009 Posted at: 2009-05-18

The Ancient World's Longest Underground Aqueduct Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it. When the Romans weren't busy conquering their enemies, they loved to waste massive quantities of water, which gurgled and bubbled throughout their cities. The engineers of the empire invented standardized lead pipes, aqueducts as high as fortresses, and water mains with 15 bars (217 pounds per square inch) of pressure. PHOTO GALLERY: ROME'S LONGEST PIPE In...

Viral Batteries: A Case for Evolution? by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Researchers at MIT have invented a “greener” battery with the help of viruses. Three years ago, they engineered a virus that coats itself with material that serves as an anode, a structure within a battery that attracts positive ions. They have now engineered a virus (bacteriophage) that serves as a cathode, which indirectly links to the anode to help make the battery functional. The result is a battery with little impact on the environment. National Public Radio (NPR) ran a report on its Morning Edition that compared the development of...