As unbelievable as it may seem, some scientists actually took time of their busy schedules to model with mathematical rigor the possibility of a zombie attack occurring, and also discovering possible ways to survive it. The authors of a new study on this issue, which was published in a book on infectious diseases, say that highly aggressive tactics need to be employed in case of the unlikely event, and that no mercy must be shown, if humankind is to survive, Wired reports.“An outbreak of zombies is likely to be disastrous, unless extremely aggressive tactics are employed against the undead. It is imperative that zombies are dealt with... [read more >>] Astronomers have known for a long time that the Sun is currently at the middle of its life cycle, having already burnt for more than 4.6 billion years. As a yellow main sequence star, it is expected to live a full life of about 10 billion years, but naturally, during this time, it will evolve. Sadly for Earth, this implies it expanding as it turns into a red supergiant, eventually engulfing the entire planet within its mass. Things are considered to start getting pretty worse in about one billion years, when astronomers believe the heat will be so great that our planet will become uninhabitable.However, this theory has recently been contest... [read more >>] Routinely removing cancerous tumors from the lungs helps some surgeons obtain very good results with the procedure over time. They manage to anticipate most of what could go wrong and learn from past mistakes, so as to get better at what they do. On the other hand, surgeons who do not perform that many operations per year are very likely to get poorer statistics, a recent study shows. Apparently, 40 is a lucky number for some hospitals, as recent surveys show that medical institutions that surpass this limit yearly have significantly lower registered mortality rates than the ones that perform less. The same principle applies to individ... [read more >>] There are researchers who calculated how much time we spend on the toilet: months or even years. But "Mr Toilet", Sim Jae-duck, a South Korean National Assembly representative, has chosen to spend his life in one. Located in Suwon, 40 km (25 mi) from Seoul, there is the world's first "Toilet House", named "Haewoojae" ("a place where one can solve one's worries"), shaped like a toilet bowl which is 24 1/2 feet (7.5 m) tall, with a surface of 4,520 square feet (500 square meters). The toilet bowl-shaped house could turn into a symbol for a movement whose goal is solving a huge issue: world's toilet sanitation. The house commemo... [read more >>] The Wankel rotary engine is another type of internal combustion engine that features a very clever rearrangement of the four elements of the Otto cycle. It was invented by the German engineer Felix Wankel in the 1950s.In the piston engine, the cylinder performs all four steps: intake, compression, combustion and exhaust. In the Wankel engine, there is a triangular rotor incorporating a central ring gear that is driven around a fixed pinion within an oblong chamber, so the same four jobs happen in their own part of the "cylinder" housing.The four strokes of the Otto cycle take place in the space between a rotor, which is roughly triangular... [read more >>] There are many historical accounts of spherical lightnings, or "ball lightnings." Although they were once thought to be very rare, a 1960 paper reported that 5% of the US population reported having witnessed ball lightning and another study analyzed reports of 10,000 cases.Ball lightning has the strange tendency to float (or hover) in the air and take on a ball-like appearance. Its shape has been described as either spherical, ovoid, teardrop, or rod-like with one dimension being much larger than the others. Many witnesses reported them as being red to yellow in color, sometimes transparent, and some containing radial filaments or sparks. ... [read more >>] The hovercraft (to hover - to remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air; craft - vessel or vehicle) is an amphibious military or civilian vehicle designed to travel over any kind of surface (as long as it's reasonably flat), being supported by a cushion of pressurized air.It may look weird and some of them may look like floating UFOs, but they rely on physics and control equipment, float on a volume air at a low pressure, ejected downwards against the surface close below it.It is actually more closely related to aircrafts than it is to boats or automobiles and it is also called an Air Cushion Vehicle (ACV).They are the late... [read more >>] The gamers probably remember the famous "Jet Pack" from the old Command & Conquer: Red Alert series or even from the childish (is it?) Worms game. For those who don't, let me tell you that the jet pack is a concept dating from World War II, when Germany made late-war experiments of strapping two wearable shortened Schmidt pulse jet tubes of low thrust to the body of a pilot. The working principle was the same as the Schmidt-Argus pulse jet that powered the Fieseler Fi 103 flying bomb whereas the size was much smaller.The device was called "Himmelstürmer" (Skystormer) and operated as follows: when the flier ignited both engines simulta... [read more >>] We will look today at what you need in order to make a nuclear fission bomb. You need some money, as it would really help if you were the prince, sultan or other royalty of a small, but rich state. If not, you need to know on a first name basis some evil leader with lots of cash, oil, diamonds and so on, of a small but ambitious country, with a need for revenge on the world.Step 1 - What is a nuclear fission bomb?Fission bombs derive their power from nuclear fission, where heavy nuclei (uranium or plutonium) are bombarded by neutrons and split into lighter elements, more neutrons and energy. These newly liberated neutrons then bombard othe... [read more >>] The mouse, a computer peripheral that probably doesn't save your life, but it sure makes it a lot easier, has evolved over the years, much like its biological counterpart, adapting itself (well, humans did the adapting for it, actually) to new "environmental" conditions. It's the survival of the fittest, a principle as valid in the silicon world as it is in nature.The name mouse, coined at the Stanford Research Institute, derives from the resemblance of early models (which had a cord attached to the rear part of the device, suggesting the idea of a tail) to the common eponymous rodent, and it remained unchanged in most languages,... [read more >>] | 
RSS
