Tag: Engines

Planting a flag on the moon

With virtually no atmosphere on the moon – and, therefore, no wind – flags that fly freely on Earth would hang like limp cloth in the lunar environment. So Apollo 11 engineers had to rethink flagpole design entirely. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/planting-flag-on-moon-apollo11…

Airplane Contrails Will Do Triple the Damage They Do Today By 2050, Study Finds

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: The contrails left by airplanes last only hours. But they are now so widespread that their warming effect is greater than that of all the carbon dioxide emitted by airplanes that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the first flight of the Wright brothers. Worse still, this non-CO2 warming effect is set…

Swapping Spark Plugs For Nanopulses Could Boost Engine Efficiency By 20 Percent

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Transient Plasma Systems has its roots in pulsed power technology developed for the Department of Defense at the University of Southern California, specifically nanosecond-duration pulses of power. Since 2009, it has been working on commercializing the technology for the civilian market in a number of applications, but obviously it’s the automotive one…

Python Passes C++ on TIOBE Index, Predicted To Pass C and Java

Python reached another new all-time high on the TIOBE index, now representing 8.5% of the results for the search query +”<language> programming” on the top 25 search engines. Python overtook C++ this month for the #3 spot, now placing behind only Java (#1) and C (#2). That’s prompted TIOBE to make a bold prediction: If Python can keep this pace, it…

How Star Trek’s warp drives touch on one of physics’ biggest mysteries

Star Trek’s light speed engines may not be possible in our universe, but we are learning more about the particles that fuel them, says Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24232342-600-how-star-treks-warp-drives-touch-on-one-of-physics-biggest-mysteries/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…

Book Subtitles Are Getting Ridiculously Long. Blame it on SEO.

How many words can you fit in a subtitle? For a slew of modern books, the answer seems to be as many as possible. From a report: Just look at Julie Holland’s “Moody Bitches: The Truth About the Drugs You’re Taking, the Sleep You’re Missing, the Sex You’re Not Having, and What’s Really Making You Crazy,” Erin McHugh’s “Political Suicide: Missteps,…

Congress Scraps Provision To Restrict IRS From Competing With TurboTax

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: Congressional leaders are planning to scrap a provision of an IRS reform bill making permanent the Free File deal between the government and private tax filing companies, torpedoing a long-sought goal by industry giant Intuit, the maker of TurboTax. The development, first reported by Politico Pro and confirmed to ProPublica by a House…