Robot surveillance dragonfly takes flight
Researchers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands earlier this week unveiled a small, remote-controlled aircraft weighing just 0.11 ounce (3.1 grams) and with a four-inch (10-centimeter) wingspan—just large enough to accommodate an onboard camera. The DelFly "micro air vehicle," which flaps its wings and looks like a dragonfly, can fly for about three minutes at a speed of 16.4 feet (five meters) per second. The team hopes the DelFly Micro—Delft's third-generation robot flyer (after the 0.81-ounce, or 23-gram, DelFly I in 2005 and the 0.56-ounce, or 16-gram, DelFly II a year later) will capture images from nooks and crannies that bigger cameras cannot reach. The DelFly II's camera transmits TV-quality images, allowing it to be operated from a computer using a joystick and giving the person controlling the mechanical insect the feeling of being inside the cockpit of a miniature aircraft. The researchers are hoping to further develop the DelFly Micro's camera so that it can be used the same way. They are also working to give it DelFly II's ability to hover (like a hummingbird) and fly backward. Next on the agenda: the DelFly NaNo, projected to weigh a single gram and have a two-inch (five-centimeter) wingspan. In addition to making ever-smaller robots, the researchers want to add image-recognition software that will let the DelFlys zoom on their own without getting tangled in a tree or crashing into a wall.
Lime-aid: Acid oceans, warming globe? Just add lime
By adding lime to seawater, scientists hope to slow or even reverse some of the worst effects of climate change by cutting the acid in oceans caused by the excess carbon dioxide released by an industrialized world. When the world's seas—which absorb the greenhouse gas—become acidic, coral and other shelled sea life suffers. But by adding lime (derived from the stone formed from billions of dead coral), the acid is neutralized and even more CO2 can be absorbed without upsetting marine denizens—or so goes the theory. First proposed in the 1990s by ExxonMobil, the plan was dismissed because of the hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs, along with the CO2 that would have been emitted in the process of making and transporting the lime. But researchers backed by another oil giant—Shell—now believe they can get over those hurdles by producing the lime in areas that are rich in limestone and have readily available cheap electricity, such as solar. "There are many such places," says management consultant Tim Kruger, the brains behind this renewed idea. "For example, Australia's Nullarbor Plain would be a prime location for this process, as it has [2,400 cubic miles] 10,000 cubic kilometers of limestone and soaks up roughly 20 megajoules per meter squared of solar irradiation every day." Of course, that wouldn't even put a dent in the 7.7 billion tons (7 billion metric tons) of greenhouse gases that the U.S. alone emits. And no one knows what the other consequences of adding that much lime to the ocean might be.
Back to the Future?: 14-million-year-old fossil reveals a warmer Antarctic
Was the Antarctic once a balmy place? Researchers report in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B that a fossil of a tiny crustacean offers proof that it had a relatively toasty clime as recently as 14 million years ago. The rocks in eastern Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys region yielded the fossil of an ostracod—a shrimplike crustacean that lived in an ancient lake. The tiny crustaceans need liquid water to survive—unavailable in today's Antarctic where temperatures average –13 degrees Fahrenheit (–25 degrees Celsius), but possible eons ago when the climate there was more like Alaska's. The living progeny of the ancient critter don't get any closer to Antarctica than the surrounding seas, but the fossil indicates that the bone-dry landscape, often compared to that of Mars, once was warm enough to have liquid water. What it doesn't reveal is what caused the shift to a colder climate, a process that may be reversing itself at present.
E-squire? Men's mag cover to feature electronic ink news ticker
Esquire magazine plans to give its readers both the written—and digital—word in its October issue, which will feature so-called electronic ink. E Ink, the company that supplies the technology for Amazon's popular Kindle and the Sony Reader e-books, is behind the devices—paperlike display cells that will allow black-and-white words and images to crawl news ticker–style across the cover. A tiny battery will power the display for about 90 days before it runs out of juice. (The issue will also include a foldout ad on the back cover that will also use electronic ink.) Only 100,000 issues of the mag (circulation: 720,000) will feature the snazzy technology; these coveted few will be delivered via refrigerated vehicles designed to preserve the batteries. Esquire editor David Granger told The New York Times that he wants to shake up the world of magazines, which have looked basically the same for the past 150 years. He hopes that in several years the budding technology will have advanced enough that this first attempt will look like "cell phones did in 1982."
