Students using the clicker system score 10% higher than without and it seems to level the field between the genders.
Even though the students are not forced to participate in the clicking, 90% generally do. If you add an incentive, 98% do.
This article rounds up a little on desicion making in general, showing that the time could be up to 30 seconds before determination when making mistakes and 10 seconds when picking ‘random’ events. Amazingly, ‘random’ desicions can be predicted accurately around 70% of the time!
So, if you were upset that ESA was hiring astronauts because you’re not a European and couldn’t make it, no problem!
The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center is seeking an astronaut to support the ISS program./a>
Surprisingly the job requirements are way less stringent than for the ESA. You can make do with a batchelor degree (as opposed to two degrees and being a published leader in your field) and good health, or, if you want to fly your way in only 1000 hours in jets (not 3000 in experimental jets). Damnit, I make the qualifications for this one!
It was the X-Prize that Burt Rutan’s Spaceship 1 took when it launched into space and recovered.
In part it’s about pushing boundaries in a bit of a crazy way with some degree of (financial) motivation behind it.
This is an interview with the founder of the prize
Origo Industries has developed a system that captures the CO2 from your vehicle’s engine and then allows you to turn these emissions into fuel at your own home to re-power your car. The same fuel could also be used to power your house.
The system uses a revolutionary new approach where CO2 is regenerated through algae in a home unit, allowing the user to produce bio-oil (up to 2500 litres per year tax-free).
Origo Industries: Capture your car’s CO2 and use it to re-power your vehicle – and your home
Let’s hope it’s true!
To the long list of objects vulnerable to attack by computer hackers, add the human heart.
The threat seems largely theoretical. But a team of computer security researchers plans to report Wednesday that it had been able to gain wireless access to a combination heart defibrillator and pacemaker.
They were able to reprogram it to shut down and to deliver jolts of electricity that would potentially be fatal — if the device had been in a person. In this case, the researcher were hacking into a device in a laboratory.
The researchers said they had also been able to glean personal patient data by eavesdropping on signals from the tiny wireless radio that Medtronic, the device’s maker, had embedded in the implant as a way to let doctors monitor and adjust it without surgery.
Don’t call it a flying car. It’s a “roadable aircraft.”
It’s named the Transition, and the first full-scale model is taking shape inside a former machine shop on an industrial back alley in Woburn, MA. Between now and late July, the 10 employees of angel-funded startup Terrafugia will be spending “a lot of long days, nights, and weekends” in that shop, says CEO and founder Carl Dietrich. That’s because they want to show off their concept vehicle at AirVenture—the world’s largest aviation festival, held annually in Oshkosh, WI—and there’s a lot of work to finish first.
When I visited Terrafugia yesterday, technicians were shaping the grooves in the fuselage’s carbon-fiber skin that will hold the straps for the vehicle’s rocket-fired emergency parachute. They hadn’t yet attached the folding wings to the fuselage or the fuselage to the empanage (which will hold up the dual tails), and they had yet to figure out where to put the engine’s exhaust system. “It’s crunch time,” says Dietrich.
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In a study just published by Britain’s Which? Computing magazine, alarming levels of dangerous bacteria and other gross-out biological matter was found on many computer keyboards. A microbiologist examined and measured bacteria levels on 33 keyboards in an office, and one was found to be five times dirtier than the office toilet seat, carrying 150 times the acceptable limit of bacteria. Two others had ‘warning’ levels of bacteria, and a further two had elevated levels of coliform, which is usually associated with fecal matter.
Eating at your desk along with poor personal hygiene are primarily responsible for these problems, so it might make sense to invest in some kind of cleaning device. Some have also said that you can actually wash a standard keyboard in your dishwasher as long as you remove it before it melts in the dry cycle, but don’t take my word for it.
This is a one horsepower vehicle. Literally. Get it?! It has a horse inside powering it, meaning it is literally powered by one horse! One horsepower! Do you get it? Hold on, let me explain more clearly for you.
It’s called the Naturmobil, and it was built by Abdolhadi Mirhejazi of Dubai. Yes, it has a horse on a treadmill inside which powers the car. But it also has a battery, which the horse powers while it walks and that can take over the power when that poor horse gets tired, with enough energy left over to power a couple of LCD screens on the side of the vehicle. Because what good is a crazy contraption like this if you can’t slap a couple of ads on the side?
Dutch ecologist Roxina Soler and her colleagues have discovered that subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects can communicate with each other by using plants as telephones. Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, aboveground insects are alerted that the plant is already %u2018occupied%u2019.
Insects use plant like a telephone
Wedging yourself into an economy-class airplane seat is one of the atrocities of our age, but there’s help on the way. The Cozy Suite is a revolution in airline seating, giving you more room to yourself while giving the airlines the opportunity to pack even more sardines into their pressurized tin cans. Sure, it’s not as tricked-out as some of the latest business class seating, but it’s a whole lot better then the disgraceful seats in steerage now.
Designed by Thompson Solutions, Delta Air Lines plans to place the “fixed cocoons” in its Boeing 777 and 767 economy classes by 2010. With the seats’ staggered arrangement, the design not only keeps that person next to you out of your face, you also end up with a comfy place to rest your weary head. You can also recline without smacking into that unfortunate soul behind you, and there’s a footrest along with an extra 2 inches of legroom. Another major advantage: the passenger in the window seat can get to the aisle without the other two getting up.
Of course, Delta’s new merger mate Northwest Airlines (we call it “Northworst”) will probably help the new combined company find a way to make these great-looking seats uncomfortable, too, cramming even more people into those horrid, stuffy (albeit safe) airborne rattletraps. See the gallery for more shots of the Cozy Suite, and also see Thompson’s other version (with the orange seats) using a diagonal arrangement that’s a bit less fancy.
This day’s launch is a test to check out design and handling inside the atmosphere as the craft maneuvered through a pre-planned course in the sky. Although the flight didn’t go into space, the builders of the vehicle hoped to learn a lot about how the on-board computers, software and avionics, work together.
