The Power of Surface Area

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 01:10 Written By Albert Greenhut Friday, 19 December 2014 04:56

Coral is a vital part of the underwater ecosystem but the temperature of the sea has been affecting coral, killing (an estimated) 25% of it, bleaching large swaths of it, and making it difficult for new natural coral to grow. Humans have been working on ways to spur on new growth of coral to replace what has already died. This New York Times article tells the story of how some scientists believe they have found a way to dramatically increase the growth rate of new coral. The “eureka moment” happened when one scientist realized that the tiny spores, or polyps, that remained at the bottom of his tank when he broke off a larger piece, not only didn’t die, but grew rapidly. Scientists have realized that the small pieces grow quickly because, they theorize, the living coral does not want something else to infringe on its territory, so it grows quickly to recover open ground.

Remington Statues in Danger

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 01:06 Written By Albert Greenhut Monday, 15 December 2014 10:18

Tom Daschle, a former US Senate Majority Leader, was also the target of an attack during the fall of 2001. His office was mailed an enveloped of Anthrax (as were other politicians and journalists) this parcel was delivered into his personal office where some of his staffers were exposed to it. His office was quickly quarantined.

After the initial panic of the attack passed and authorities concluded their investigations Daschle wanted to get back to work in the comfort of his own surroundings. The first step was fumigating his office with highly reactive chlorine to ensure that the active components of Anthrax were neutralized. The Chlorine gas was so unstable that they had to create it on site. The problem is that the decontamination would also ruin all computers and any other item unfortunate enough to be in the office. The problem is that Senator Daschle had several bronze Remington statues that would have been ruined if exposed to the chlorine gasses. When officials reached this impasse they contacted the Senate Conservator.

The Genuine Article

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 01:03 Written By Albert Greenhut Tuesday, 18 November 2014 05:53

The Tycoon line of games (Rollercoaster Tycoon , City Tycoon, and Railroad Tycoon to name a few) is a popular line of video games where players can design and operate their own business or cities. There was a title of the same concept released in 2013, Game Developer Tycoon. The premise was that the player could make choices about what kinds of games to develop and then actually market and sell the games to see the results and hopefully grow their businesses from their garage businesses into empires.

The, small and independent, game developers decided to release one copy of the game for sale and then release a second copy, directly onto a bit torrent site (an online software sharing site that is used for free software sharing). The trick was that the one designed for the bit torrent site was programmed identically except that it would let the user play up to a point but then sales of their developed video game would start slumping (and the company would eventually fail) because of free online sharing and piracy.

Preparing for the Future

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 12:59 Written By Albert Greenhut Thursday, 6 November 2014 04:21

I usually stay away from writing about anything remotely political, especially after being buried in political ads over the past few months, but I wanted to address a potentially political topic. There are those who propose secession as an option for various regions, states, or counties. I personally do not think secession is a good idea, which was tried with bloody consequences back in 1861, however sometimes I do revel in the comedy of the suggestion (my favorite is the aura of superiority I sense when I hear about the secessionists from the northern parts of Michigan who actually want to call their offshoot Superior). There are so many ways that Americans are bound together it would be a travesty, and extraordinarily inconvenient, for a small group to break away. Further proof that secession isn’t all it is dreamed about is Scotland’s recent vote to not separate from the rest of the United Kingdom, thus preserving their union (and their national animal the unicorn).

Safety Measures for Credit Cards

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 12:54 Written By Albert Greenhut Thursday, 30 October 2014 04:46

America leads the way in losses due to credit card fraud, accounting for 47% of the $11.3 Billion in worldwide fraud in 2012, the total amount is up 15% from 2011. American consumers are targeted because there are more credit cards here and magnetic strip security systems are easy to bypass. This is why many companies are rolling out new security measures, for instance Target is spending $100 Million to be ready for the new chip and pin cards.

The norm for American credit card protection is defensive, in essence verifying after the transaction that there was no fraud. Other countries have dramatically lowered their losses due to credit card skimming (data theft) by preventing the fraudulent purchases from taking place by using the chip and pin system. For example Canada, using the chip and pin system, lowered losses from M$142 to M$38 (a 70% decrease).

Different Scales

Last Updated on Thursday, 17 September 2015 03:11 Written By Albert Greenhut Friday, 3 October 2014 02:40

Sometimes making sense of things that are on different scales of magnitude than we are can be difficult. I use scale in the broadest of terms here. Sometimes it is hard to wrap our minds around the really big things like the scale of the universe or on the small end of the spectrum like atoms or quarks. Other scales include things that are moving quickly or slowly. Really anything that is outside of our ability, mainly our senses, to experience can be hard to grasp. Technology has helped us grasp and understand some of these things. My favorite visualization of scale is from the video, see below, from the 70s when we were beginning to climb up the steep curve of technology, in that case it was microscopes and telescopes. Time lapse or high-speed cameras have more recently helped us envision things that were previously undetectable to our eyes. Things like the growth rate of lichen or how a curveball spins can now actually be seen in motion.

One interesting application of this is mapping out the wing patterns of different types of winged creatures found here. The scientist watched slowed down versions of revolutions of different creatures’ wings to show how they work. I thought that the most interesting ones were the goose and the dragonfly. The goose uses its elbow joint on the upswing to rotate it wing and the dragonfly’s two sets of wings move differently. Humans have started being able to visualize these things to visualize how they work.

Intercept at the 2014 Turbomachinery Symposia

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 12:54 Written By Albert Greenhut Tuesday, 23 September 2014 03:57

Intercept Technology is proud to announce that it will be represented at the Turbomachinery Symposia in Houston, Texas by Xtend packaging, an Intercept distributor. The event takes place from September 22nd to the 25th.

We frequent this show because it is a coming together of experts in energy generation who are concerned with maintenance, performance, and operation of their equipment. Our role in this field is to come up with ways that this equipment can be stored, transported, and used in such a way that corrosion and degradation is no longer an issue.