As usual, once I landed at the airport, I made my way to the customs area where
Long lines in airport customs is not unusual. But as I waded through this 45-minute process
Since there were two separate customs areas at the Istanbul airport, my rough calculations came out to well over 10 million man-hours a year wasted at this one single airport.
It s not unusual for governments to waste people s time over what they like to phrase asthe greater good.
The same goes for TSA-like security agents on the front end of airports. Within the next decade, 90%of those jobs will be gone as well.
Some of the positions he mentioned were commercial pilots, legal work, technical writing, telemarketers, accountants, retail workers,
Personal Rapid transit Systems (PRTS) PRTS like Hyperloop, Skytran, Jpods, and ET3 offer a new dimension in transportation.
They operate above the fray, independent of the frenetic energy of today s highways, airports, train, and bus depots.
Details here. 1. Station Designers & Architects 2. Circulation Engineers 3. Traffic Flow Analyzers 4. Command Center Operators 5. Traffic Transitionists 6
Drone Classification Gurus Different laws will apply to different classifications of drone vehicles. 41. Drone Standards Specialists 42.
First as an expensive option for luxury cars, but eventually it will become a safety feature stipulated by the government.
Over the next 10 years we will see the first wave of autonomous vehicles hit the roads,
with some of the first inroads made by vehicles that deliver packages, groceries, and fast-mail envelopes. 104.
Delivery Dispatchers 105. Traffic Monitoring System Planners, Designers, and Operators 106. Automated Traffic Architects and Engineers 107.
Airport Security systems Dismantlers 144. Airport Customs Dismantlers Living on the edge of tomorrow! Extreme Innovation Outside of the multiple categories listed above are a number of unusual jobs, many still decades away.
Here are just a few to whet your appetite. 145. Extinction Revivalists People who revive extinct animals. 146.
Robotic Earthworm Drivers The most valuable land on the planet will soon be the landfills
it will create untold opportunity for non-surface based housing and transportation systems, weather control, and other kinds of experimentation. 161.
#Can We Protect Against The next Moore Tornado? The scenes of devastation in Moore Okla. after a possibly 2-mile-wide tornado tore apart schools and homes on Monday (May 20) led to an inevitable question:
Could anything have been done to save buildings and lives? The answer according to tornado experts and building engineers is yes though there are roadblocks in the way.
Some are scientific because meteorologists have yet to fully grasp why tornadoes form when they form
and how to predict their paths. Others are economic: Building a tornado-proof building for example is already completely possible albeit very expensive.
There's no doubt we could engineer something that could withstand an EF4 or EF5 tornado said Darryl James a professor of mechanical engineering at Texas Tech University.
The question is who could afford it? Despite these challenges researchers are working to make sure future tornadoes wreak less destruction
whether that means getting a better grip on where tornadoes are likely to form and move or protecting property
and people once the tornadoes have arrived. Â Â Predicting twisters The Moore Okla. tornado touched down at 2: 56 p m. CDT (3: 56 p m. EDT) on May 20
and spent 40 minutes on the ground carving a 17-mile-long (27 kilometers) path of destruction through the Oklahoma city suburb.
The National Weather Service pegged the tornado as an EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale meaning winds reached more than 200 mph (322 km h).
) See images of the Moore tornado damage Tornados as strong as the one that ravaged Moore are relatively rare.
About 95 percent of tornadoes in the United states are EF2S or below according to the National Climatic Data center.
Only about 1 percent reach EF5 status. Predicting which storms will generate monster tornadoes or any tornadoes at all remains a challenge.
The basics of tornado formation are simple enough. When wind and humidity conditions are right thunderstorm systems can begin to rotate
and become what are called supercells. Supercells are marked by the presence of a mesocyclone a rotating updraft of air that can sometimes create a funnel cloud.
Exactly why this happens in some storms and not others is a key mystery. We're trying to be able to figure out why of two pretty much identical supercells one will generate a tornado
and one won't said Amy Mcgovern a computer scientist at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Mcgovern and her colleagues are among the researchers trying to improve tornado predictions.
Using supercomputer simulations she and her team are working to model tornadoes on a very fine scale tracking their movements to within 165 to 245 feet (50 to 75 meters).
On-the-ground observations can only take researchers so far Mcgovern said. Radar can't sense every component of the wind's movement for example.
or temperature to see whether and how each influences tornado formation. At the 165-to 245-foot level of precision building a stable realistic simulation is difficult.
The team has done similar work to predict airplane turbulence with great success so once the database of simulated storms is built using them to predict real-world weather should be said successful she.
when a tornado is bearing down. On Monday the National Weather Service office in Norman Okla. gave residents 16 minutes of warning before the tornado even formed based on radar indicators that the storm clouds were circulating in such a way that a tornado was likely.
That 16 minutes is 3 more minutes than the average tornado warning time of 13 minutes.
The actual time most residents had to seek shelter was been longer because it took the tornado time to reach them.)
Ultimately researchers want to get quicker. Mcgovern's work could help meteorologists look for clues in storms that make tornado conditions more likely.
The eventual goal said William Gallus a meteorologist at Iowa State university is warn-on-forecast.
In other words meteorologists would be able to forecast tornadoes and issue warnings rather than waiting to see rotation
Using tornado simulators Gallus and his colleagues are working on understanding how local topography affects the way a tornado might move
and strengthen. For example they've found that ridges cause tornadoes to deviate left as they climb up
and right as they descend. Narrow valleys can also funnel wind into tornadoes from a mile
or so away Gallus said causing damage far afield from the actual funnel cloud. 50 Amazing Tornado Facts Moore in particular has been hit by three violent tornadoes in less than 15 years:
One in 1999 one in 2003 and one on Monday. Most scientists see that as a coincidence
Statistically that should not happen for about a million years to have a violent tornado pass by the same spot three times
Gallus isn't the only researcher looking to get a hyper-local look at how tornadoes work.
Tornado protection Once a tornado is on its way though saving lives can be a matter of having a place to Go in Moore students at Plaza Towers Elementary huddled in interior hallways
and bathrooms but a direct hit by the tornado collapsed most of the building. Likewise homes in neighborhoods hit by the tornado were destroyed completely.
As of Wednesday the death toll stood at 24 10 of whom were children. Video:
War Zone Sad experience is teaching that some old tornado safety tricks aren't as effective as hoped particularly
when buildings aren't designed with tornado safety in mind. In Joplin Miss. a 2011 tornado killed 158 according to the National Weather Service (the city of Joplin pegs the death toll at 161.
Among the devastated buildings was a local high school and some of the spots disaster experts would normally suggest people go for shelter turned out to be among the most badly damaged there.
Building in tornado country Even in Tornado Alley buildings are designed to withstand only 90 mph (145 km h) straight-line winds said Partha Sarkar who studies wind engineering and aerodynamics at Iowa State university.
and doesn't take into account even the most common types of tornadoes. An EF1 tornado can sustain gusts of up to 110 mph (177 km h).
) What's more Sarkar said rotational tornado winds can put even stronger stresses on buildings than straight-line winds.
A 90-mph tornado can be much more damaging than a 90-mph straight gust.
The buildings are designed simply not to withstand that level of wind he told Livescience. The Deadliest Tornadoes in U s. History Designing a tornado-proof building is said expensive Sarkar.
You need reinforced masonry steel or composite materials instead of timber and enhanced connections between walls foundations and roofs
and that will certainly help to make them stand up to most medium-intensity tornadoes EF2S EF3S maybe Sarkar said.
Another option would be tornado shelters another feature frequently missing from Tornado Alley construction. The storm shelters today are designed for 250 mph (402 km h) wind speeds
and we feel that is higher than will ever be experienced at the ground level in a tornado said Ernst Kiesling a mechanical engineer at Texas Tech and the executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association.
Shelter from the storm Unfortunately cost prevents homeowners in even tornado-prone areas from installing these shelters.
And of course some homes can't be retrofitted mobile homes for example have no slab to fasten a shelter to.
In-ground shelters can be equally as elusive in mobile home parks. The landowner is typically not the homeowner
so who is going to make the investment to make a shelter in the mobile home park?
For Sarkar tornado-ready construction is a national issue. It's not going to go away he said.
One reason for this is that shark skin is composed of a special type of scale covered by riblets that reduce friction as the shark travels through the water.
Reduced friction means that water flows more rapidly across the surface making it difficult for microscopic hitchhikers to grab hold.
By combining the techniques researchers could collaborate with wildlife rangers to protect certain hotspots Wasser told Livescience.
The United states also is a destination for illegal ivory according to the study. Two things must be done to stop poaching said Richard Ruggiero an expert on elephant poaching with the U s. Fish
#Human-Powered Vehicles Can Drive Meaningful Change (Op-Ed) Mark Archibald professor of mechanical engineering at Grove City College in Pennsylvania
and race vehicles they have designed. The vehicles negotiate tight turns slaloms rough pavement and grocery stops.
Peak speeds are often around 45 mph (72 km h). ) The men and women designing and competing bring new ideas and innovations each year.
None of the vehicles uses a drop of gasoline. They don t use batteries that are charged via the electric grid.
These vehicles are powered by the students legs and sometimes arms. The vehicles demonstrate remarkable engineering design and vehicle performance.
The event Is powered the Human Vehicle Challenge (HPVC) which has been held annually for each of the last 30 years in the United states
and has expanded to Latin america and Pakistan. India will be added later this year. The American Society of Mechanical engineers (ASME) organizes
of which involve vehicles of one type or another. There are races for off-road vehicles Formula 1 race cars and snowmobiles.
There is a competition for high-mileage vehicles which look a lot like human-powered vehicles but run on gasoline and get about 1300 miles (2100 kilometers) per gallon.
Yet the ASME HPVC stands out among all of these competitions in part because of the structure of the competition itself which gives student teams much more design freedom to innovate
and engineer creative solutions. It also stands out because it encouragesâ womenâ a group significantly underrepresented in mechanical engineering to participate
And it stands out because of the social and environmental ramifications of human-powered vehicles which offer very tangible benefits to people in both developed and undeveloped nations.
At about the same time society was recognizing the value of human-powered vehicles as sustainable transportation
and the competition added a second class of vehicles for utilitarian uses. Â For the first few years teams entering that class struggled to develop viable technologies that would lead to high-performance practical vehicles.
By 2011 the utility vehicles had improved to the point that the vehicle classes were combined. Today successful HPVC teams must design
and build vehicles that are both fast and practical for daily transportation. They compete in four events an engineering design event a speed event an innovation event
and an endurance event that demonstrate all aspects of the design. Â All real engineering projects involve constraints.
because a team of students developing a competitive vehicle must learn those skills in order to even get to the competition.
 The vehicles that students design and race are variations on the familiar bicycle. Most are recumbent with riders sitting down in a more aerodynamic position than they would on standard bicycles.
Most also have aerodynamic fairings to increase speed. Some have three or even four wheels.
Some are sophisticated highly with lighting systems anti-skid brakes and regenerative braking. All are powered by human muscle power alone
and develop efficient sustainable and practical human-powered vehicles. Â In developed countries those types of vehicles along with more conventional bicycles can be used to relieve traffic congestion improve public health reduce airâ pollutionâ and significantly lower transportation costs.
In developing countries human-powered vehicles can provide affordable basic transportation for personal transport deliveries and even ambulance services.
The HPVC mission encourages engineering students to consider the social environmental and economic benefits of the vehicles they design.
The result is vehicles that are affordable clean and safe. They are faster and more comfortable than standard bicycles and many offer protection from foul weather.
 Some particularly within the United states have questioned the benefits of human-powered vehicles. The individual cost advantages are clear and significant.
Consider a new college graduate who purchases a human-powered vehicle rather than an automobile.
On average he or she will save $5000 to $6000 each year money that can go a long way toward repaying student loans
or saving for a new house. Â In addition more than 9000 lbs. (4100 kilograms) of greenhouse-gas emissions would be avoided.
If 5 percent of the U s. population were to switch from automobiles to human-powered vehicles for most of their trips the aggregate difference would be a reduction of 31 million tons (28 million metric tons) of greenhouse
 Studies have shown that people who commute by bicycle live longer and have improved cardiovascular health compared to automobile commuters.
Additionally in many parts of the world human-powered vehicles are used to meet basic transportation needs.
A lack of infrastructure and prohibitive cost often make the automobile a nonviable choice and transit systems may not exist.
 Students participating in the HPVC are designing transportation solutions for a world faced with economic stress and poverty climate change and strife over energy supplies.
They learn to solve problems technical managerial budgetary and logistic in a structured and rational way.
They learn to work together as a team to accomplish a challenging goal. Women and men work together learning to respect each other s contributions and talents.
Nonetheless the participants in the ASME Human-Powered Vehicle Challenge are better for it. They are better engineers.
The German process uses a special conveying system to load de-stemmed grapes onto a belt that travels past a sorting module.
Based on its analysis of the colors of individual items on the belt it controls air jets that blow bad grapes and detritus off the belt and sorts the remaining berries into grades for production of various qualities
Unfortunately about half of the world's food is consumed never due to inefficiencies in the harvesting storage and delivery of crops.
and show how and when to deploy delivery trucks to ensure immediate shipment an especially important factor in farmlands where the lack of paved roads can paralyze distribution.
That information is combined with multi-spectral images of fields taken by advanced camera systems from satellites and airplanes.
The system then combines the field data with a diversity of public data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration the National aeronautics and space administration and the U s. Geological Survey and private data from companies like Earth Networks.
and predicting of weather effects on transportation networks can help farmers make better decisions about
That is especially critical in countries like Brazil where many of the roads are unpaved and heavy rain can cause trucks to get stuck in mud.
Coupling predictive analytics and modeling techniques with other sophisticated farming methods can prove to be quite beneficial
With everything from printed metal airplane wings to replacement organs on the horizon could printed food be next?
and even tiny spaceships made of deep fried scallops. Novelty food suppliers have become early adopters of similar technology.
The Sugar Lab had adapted 3d Systems'Color Jet Printing (CJP) technology to print flavoured edible binders on a sugar bed to fabricate solid structures.
And NASA sees 3d printed food as a revolutionary way to make personalised meals for astronauts.
Beyond providing cosmic delivery food would also be tailored for astronauts'daily activities. will printed food go beyond novelty value?
and that at some point in the future groundwater pumping rates are going to have to decrease study lead author David Steward a professor of civil engineering at Kansas State university said in a statement.
10 Health Status Signs Taking water measurements Steward and his colleagues collected data on past and present groundwater levels in the Ogallala Aquifer and developed statistical models to project various
It would take an average of 500 to 1300 years to completely refill the High Plains Aquifer Steward added.
if we're able to save water today it will result in a substantial increase in the number of years that we will have irrigated agriculture in Kansas Steward said.
NASA satellites that studied the parched land determined that the drought depleted the region's aquifers to low levels that had rarely been seen
Steward and his colleagues anticipate future technologies will help farmers irrigate their land more efficiently.
which means that every year we're growing about 2 percent more crop for each unit of water Steward said.
In Africa criminal syndicates are reportedly using helicopters and infrared goggles to kill elephants in the dead of night.
What if unmanned arial vehicle (UAV) developers could imagine their inventions through the eyes of conservation field staff?
Already authorities are using fixed-wing conservation UAVS to successfully keep track of hard-to-see rhinos in Nepal
Increased battery life and flight duration greater payloads cheaper infrared sensors and affordable real-time transmission of imagery would all make a major difference.
They might consider a fisheries agent based on a coastal atoll who uses a tethered balloon carrying a radar sensor to detect all vessels that enter the community's no-take fishing sanctuary.
UAV developers might even conceive of a squadron of drones with heat-sensing cameras flying across the vast plains of Central asia's Ustyurt Plateau searching for signs of saiga-antelope poachers.
Vehicle engines and warm bodies provide telltale signs that would otherwise be hidden by the night.
Prizes such as the automotive XPRIZE (vehicle efficiency) the lunar XPRIZE (space exploration) the genomics XPRIZE (genome sequencing)
NASA has been funding research into methods of storing food for long periods while keeping astronauts healthy.
In the near term before colonists can construct greenhouses they will have to use artificial light from LEDS for example to power their plants'photosynthesis. NASA has conducted plant-growth research in microgravity aboard the International Space station (ISS) and in the Long Duration Exposure
Placing a laboratory near the International Space station (ISS) would be one logical way of doing this;
the lab's shipment of supplies and crew could travel along with those for the ISS.
and a spent final-stage booster rocket at the other. The lab would have to remain close enough
When working in the plant section crew members would need to wear oxygen masks similar to those worn by high-altitude fliers.
For this to become a viable possibility NASA engineers would have to solve some daunting technological materials-science and physics issues.
Unmanned spacecraft can carry experiments and float freely in Earth's orbit as the Long Duration Exposure Facility did.
and orbit control system part of its onboard systems bus. Engineers could configure this system to emulate Mars'gravity.
Indeed astronauts have grown successfully peas and mizuna lettuce in space along with carbohydrate staples like wheat and rice.
just as astronauts do today. All of the above-mentioned crops can grow hydroponically to conserve space and resources.
NASA has experimented also with using 3d printers for making chocolate and even pizza. The grasshoppers would make a better dessert if dipped in the 3d printed chocolate.
The crucial step to making aircraft was to separate these two functions leaving the wing to do the lifting
but transferring the power function to an engine and propeller something no bird ever possessed.
When we design a component for a car or aircraft we need to ensure that the probability of failure of that part per year is something like one in a million.
Because a vehicle has thousands of parts and is supposed to last for tens of years without catastrophic failure.
But nature is happy to work with much higher failure rates: the chance of breaking a bone
This is important because shaving a few percent off the weight of a component in a car means lower material costs less fuel usage less CO2 emissions and so on.
that's equal to 6. 4 billion pounds or as much as the weight of 1. 4 million new Ford F150 pickup trucks.
Top down studies take air samples from aircraft or towers. These types of studies offer an accurate measurement of overall methane emissions
Car-mounted devices sample the air and can locate leaks and estimate their magnitude from a distance which avoids the challenge of acquiring property owner permission that bedevils direct on-site measurement.
How Off-road Tech Aids Conservation Google earth and Google street view have made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to explore some of the world's most spectacular destinations right from their computer tablet or smartphone.
Now homebodies and wannabe globetrotters can dive into the Great Barrier reef uncover the history of the Roman Colosseum and even climb Mount everest for free and without the airport hassles.
But the search-engine giant's mapping and imaging technology has uses beyond navigation and armchair travel.
Google usually uses camera-equipped cars to take images for its Street view but because the Rio Negro region is inaccessible by car the researchers had to come up with an alternative method.
To capture the images the teams strapped a camera onto a bicycle and pedaled it down dirt paths through the forests
and they even mounted it onto a boat to collect images of a section of the Rio Negro the Amazon's largest tributary Google explained on one of its Outreach pages.
and more portable than the camera used on the bike. This will enable us to run Street view to farther places and show more about our largest natural asset:
akin to taking more than 68 million vehicles off the road for 30 years, depending on which chemicals fill the void.
The US panel charged with reviewing NASA's human spaceflight programme issued its final report last week,
Present funding doesn't match the space agency's targets, says the commission, which is chaired by ex-aerospace executive Norman Augustine.
Many of its suggestions, such as bypassing human exploration of the Moon and scrapping the Ares
-I rocket in favour of commercial space flights, had already been aired in public meetings (see Nature 460,791;
The US Environmental protection agency (EPA) has agreed to set new rules governing emissions of mercury and other toxic chemicals from power plants by November 2011,
but the administration of former US President George w bush avoided this in part by creating a market-based system that would allow mercury emissions to continue at some plants
$286 million to Solyndra of Fremont (photovoltaics), $82. 5 million to Tesla Motors of San Carlos (electric vehicles) and $60 million to Serious Materials in Sunnyvale (energy-efficient building materials.
A European council summit meeting in Brussels may firm up European promises to finance climate-change action in developing countries. go. nature. com/1kwxls 2 november The European space agency is scheduled to launch its Soil Moisture
they are talking about apples and oranges and Porsches and whales and moons, he says.
Keith is developing a method to use aircraft to release fine sulphur particles that will stay aloft for years in the stratosphere.
In the meantime, other organizations, including the UK Royal Society and TWAS the academy of sciences for the developing world, based in Trieste,
and candidates will begin making trips and promises to corn-growing country, just like they always have.
Venus probe flop In a bitter disappointment for Japan's space agency, its Akatsuki spacecraft failed to enter orbit around Venus on 6 december.
The probe was intended to monitor the hot planet's atmosphere but must now wait six years for another chance to reach orbit.
Events Private spaceflight success Spacex (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation) has become the first private firm to launch a spacecraft into orbit and return it to Earth.
On 8 december, its reusable'Dragon'capsule was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape canaveral, Florida.
NASA expects the craft to ferry astronauts, supplies and research materials to the International Space station when its shuttle fleet retires next year.
Spacex, based in Hawthorne, California, hopes to dock Dragon with the station during its next demonstration launch,
NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati will be NASA's chief scientist from 3 january, the agency's administrator Charles Bolden announced on 13 december.
A researcher on polar ice who worked at NASA for a decade until 2008, Abdalati is currently director of the Earth science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
He is NASA's first chief scientist since James Garvin, who served in the post during 2004 05.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011