How do spiders cope with weightlessness?

We now know a fair deal about how the human body copes with extended weightlessness. In part, this is thanks to the Soviet cosmonauts who logged epic stays in space. Muscle atrophy and loss of body mass were only some of the learnings.

The International Space Station, which is kept supplied with materials, scientists, and engineers by the space shuttle missions, is presently hosting spiders. One of the objectives is to learn how they cope with zero-gravity.

(Keep in mind that the loss of gravity is not because of distance from earth alone. It is also due to the orbit of the station, which tends to fling objects outwards with about as much force as gravity pulls them inwards. These cancel out, giving you zero gravity.)

The web in space story

Mini Nuclear Reactors

Nuclear Power Plants tend to be these large hemispheres about the size of a small stadium. In the future, though, that may not be the only model. Here's a report on a quite tiny version

Link to original article

Drive or Fly

Apparently, driving in a car with a modest fuel efficiency of 10.5 km/litre generates 215 grams of CO2 per kilometre.

On the other hand, flying 1 km generates 381 grams per person.

Now bear in mind that the per-person rate in a car can be halved or quartered by the occupancy. So if you're one of 4 people in that same car, you are responsible for only 54 grams/km.

Of course, this does not take into account the cost of fuel, or the time taken.

(using source material from popsci.com)

Telemedicine finally coming of age?

Some time ago, I had friends over for dinner, and some were doctors. We had a heated discussion on the feasibility of long-distance medical diagnoses. (Where the doctor is far away, and you rely on the internet/phone to make a diagnosis.)

There seems to be some progress on this front, as this article shows.

http://www.popsci.com/bown/article/2008-11/making-all-right-calls

Chemical powered car competition

Canopologist

Nalini Nadkarni studies forest canopies. Apparently, there is a great deal of flora and fauna up there that scientists just don't get, because they don't climb trees very well. Well, Nalini does, and here's an interview that ran in the Hindustan Times.

Link to original article

New honeycomb tire is "bulletproof"

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10098240-42.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

Will this, someday, spell the end of tyre inflation?!