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Podcast TranscriptThe Naked Scientists: Science Radio & Science Podcasts |
| 20th Aug 2000 | < Previous Show | Next Show > | |||||||||||
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Gm Plants Capable of Growing Diesel !
Researchers at Purdue University, Indiana are designing genetically modified plants to produce oil that can be used to run cars. Plant oils, like petrol and diesel, consist of chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms - hence the name hydrocarbons. Plant oils usually consist of carbon chains 15 atoms long and luckily diesel oil is also 15 carbons long so the research team, led by Professor Bernie Tao, believes that it will soon be able to produce a plant-based diesel substitute. They then hope to start working on one for petrol too.
Article by Mark Tester about genetically modified (GM) plants including their uses and how they are made.
20th Aug 2000
Rubber Band Powered Aeroplane
On the subject of alternative energy, an aeroplane powered by nothing more than a rubber band had its first trial at Van Nuys airport in California recently. Called rubber bandit and capable of carrying a passenger 1 mile at an altitude of 100 ft the aeroplane is driven by a wound-up 1 metre-wide elastic band. The elastic band drives a propeller carrying the craft forward at speeds of around 55 miles per hour. The project has been funded by sponsors and the plane built by volunteers. The group are hoping to break the world record for rubber-band powered flight. They even have a web-site dedicated to their venture which you can look at - find it at www.rubberbandit.com !
20th Aug 2000
Solar Powered Ferry Built in Australia
Australian designers have built the world's first solar-powered ferry. THe 110 seater Solar-Sailor, which cost 780,000 pounds to build, was launched in June and is currently taking passengers on cruises around Sydney harbour. It has become a hit because it is silent, smooth and above all, clean. The boat is powered by electric motors that are run by banks of photo-electric cells that collect the sun's rays and turn them into electricity. The banks of solar cells also double as sails to make use of any available wind. The boat is capable of sailing at 7 knots, motoring under sun-power at 5 knots and running on both sun and wind power, 11 knots. Just in case it is cloudy and there is no wind the hull contains 2 tonnes of batteries. If they go flat there is a gas powered generator for emergencies ! You can check out their web-site on www.solarsailor.com
20th Aug 2000
Power of Thought Alone Can Make Things Move
A computer scientist in the US has come up with a way of making things happen merely by thinking them ! The invention, which could help thousands of disabled people, works by monitoring brain-waves. Volunteers were able to turn on lights, the stereo, television and answer the telephone in a virtual appartment, just by looking at the object that they wanted to activate. They could even bring a computer-simulated car to a halt on a screen just by thought alone.
Neuro-engineering - article about building interfaces between the brain and machines.
20th Aug 2000
Stress at Work Bad for you - it's Official
Stress at work is as bad for your health as smoking, according to a new study of 21,000 nurses, carried out by researchers at Harvard School of Public Health in the US. THe study also found that the commonest complaints related to job-strain were symptoms of excessive tiredness (81%), headaches (63%), short-temper (71%), low sex drive (55%) and disturbed sleep (78%). Over 30% of workers feel stressed in their jobs, but fewer than 17% of employers do anything about it. 57% of those in the study reported that they use exercise to let off steam, 43% use alcohol and at least 1 in 5 of them goes shopping too !
20th Aug 2000
Help Look for Alien Life From the Comfort of you Own Home
We talked a few weeks ago about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (aliens!) and discussed a computer programme that allows you to help in the search too. Scientists at the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico are scanning the skies for signals from space to see if any of them contain meaningful information that might indicate the existence of other intelligent life forms. The amount of information that they collect is huge and they cannot analyse it all themselves so they wrote a computer programme so that people at home can help too. The idea is that when you are not using your computer it connects itself to the project's central computer at the university of california and helps to sift through some of the signals received from space. This means that lots of computers working together can get the job done much more quickly. So far the project has clocked up 280,000 years of computer time and is attracting 2000 new computer users a day and around 2 million people have already connected their home computer to the scheme ! If you want to join in the search for aliens all you need is a computer connected to the internet, then visit www.setiathome.berkeley.edu
Interview with Astronomer Royal Prof. Sir Martin Rees about extraterrestrial life
Show featuring author and astronomer Dr. Simon Goodwin about the search for life in outer space
20th Aug 2000
New System to Tell If Fruit Is Ripe Or Not - Using Light
The supermarket chain Sainsbury's have set up a new system to check their melons before they go on sale ! A laser is shone into the fruit and a machine analyses the amount of light passing through which changes depending upon how ripe the fruit is. The first machines will be installed on a Trial basis in Murcia, Spain, where they will be used to see if the fruit is ripe for picking.
Inventors produce a fruit label which changes colour when the fruit is ripe
20th Aug 2000
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