WEBVTT - Marshall Brain's News Roundup No. 1

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from how stuff Works dot com

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<v Speaker 1>where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain and today's podcast

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<v Speaker 1>is going to be a little bit different because today's

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<v Speaker 1>podcast is an experiment. Every day on the how Stuff

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<v Speaker 1>Works blog, I do a roundup of the day's science

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<v Speaker 1>and technology news. What I'm gonna do here in this

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<v Speaker 1>podcast is summarize the week's most interesting news stories in

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<v Speaker 1>podcast form. After you listen to this, I'd love to

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<v Speaker 1>get your feedback on the approach. You can post something

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<v Speaker 1>to Facebook by visiting Facebook dot com slash brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>or you can send me an email at m brain

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<v Speaker 1>at how stuff works dot com. So we'll give this

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<v Speaker 1>a try. If the feedback is really bad, we won't

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<v Speaker 1>do this again. But if it's okay, then we probably

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<v Speaker 1>do this every Friday. So first off, let's look at

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<v Speaker 1>the four blog posts that really resonated and drove a

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<v Speaker 1>lot of traffic on the blogs this week. By far,

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<v Speaker 1>the most popular is the post on the Jerusalem UFO.

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<v Speaker 1>Over the last weekend, there was supposedly a UFO sighting

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<v Speaker 1>at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, with four

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<v Speaker 1>videos supposedly recording the event. In my opinion, this is

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<v Speaker 1>one of the best orchestrated video hoaxes in YouTube history.

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<v Speaker 1>But you can go look at the videos and be

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<v Speaker 1>the judge yourself. The second blog post covered a remarkable

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<v Speaker 1>speech given by a nineteen year old college student named

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<v Speaker 1>Zach Walls to the Iowa House. Zach was speaking out

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<v Speaker 1>against the constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. The thing

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<v Speaker 1>that was so amazing about it was first of all,

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<v Speaker 1>his ability to deliver such a good speech at age nineteen,

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<v Speaker 1>and second the content of what he said. The third

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<v Speaker 1>was a post on the bandwidth caps being put in

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<v Speaker 1>place in Canada, limiting a household to twenty five gigabytes

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<v Speaker 1>of bandwidth per month. This is enough for about seven

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<v Speaker 1>or eight Netflix or similar movies. Once you reach that

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<v Speaker 1>gigabyte limit, you pay two dollars per gigabyte above it.

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<v Speaker 1>What this means is that a Netflix movie costs about

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<v Speaker 1>eight dollars for the bandwidth once you exceed your cap.

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<v Speaker 1>The idea caused such a huge uproar that it now

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<v Speaker 1>looks like the government's going to repeal it. And finally,

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<v Speaker 1>there was a blog post on a new device that

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<v Speaker 1>makes it much easier for doctors to treat severe burns.

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<v Speaker 1>The device is essentially an airbrush that, instead of spraying paint,

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<v Speaker 1>sprays skin stem cells derived from the patient's own skin

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<v Speaker 1>very rapidly. Healing is unbelievably quick. Just a few days,

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<v Speaker 1>and the healed skin is almost undetectable for second degree burns. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>let's turn to the best news stories of the week.

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<v Speaker 1>First off, a Texas student is attending a public high

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<v Speaker 1>school as a robot. Lynden Batty has a compromised immune system,

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<v Speaker 1>so he uses a telepresence robot to attend classes at

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<v Speaker 1>high school using a computer screen and speakers. He can

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<v Speaker 1>see and hear through the robot, and his mouse can

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<v Speaker 1>drive the robot to the different classrooms. It's funny to

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<v Speaker 1>think about this. Imagine what a high school or college

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<v Speaker 1>would look like if this really took off. Hallways would

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<v Speaker 1>be filled with thousands of little robots. It might make

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<v Speaker 1>for an interesting prom as well. News Corp Is finally

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<v Speaker 1>unveiled its iPad app for reading the news. The news

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<v Speaker 1>is called The Daily. In this case, they used about

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<v Speaker 1>an hour of time on Fox News to broadcast the

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<v Speaker 1>announcement of this new product. After downloading the app onto

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<v Speaker 1>your iPad, users pay nine cents a week for the content.

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<v Speaker 1>It's essentially an electronic newspaper. It will be very interesting

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<v Speaker 1>to see how this experience them it works out. Will

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<v Speaker 1>people pay fifty two dollars a year for a subscription

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<v Speaker 1>to an electronic newspaper, presumably because it makes reading the

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<v Speaker 1>news easy, or would people rather get their news for

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<v Speaker 1>free alla cart from the thousands of news websites and

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<v Speaker 1>news aggregators on the web. We will see how this works.

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<v Speaker 1>Wiki leaks announced that al Qaeda is nearly ready to

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<v Speaker 1>use dirty bombs. As you'll recall, a dirty bomb is

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<v Speaker 1>a normal explosive mixed with nuclear material, so when the

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<v Speaker 1>bomb explodes, it contaminates a wide area with radioactivity. The

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<v Speaker 1>type of nuclear material use controls just how toxic and

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<v Speaker 1>long lasting the contamination is. This information comes according to

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<v Speaker 1>one of the diplomatic cables that wiki leaks has been

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<v Speaker 1>releasing over the last several weeks. There's also concerned that

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<v Speaker 1>enriched uranium, which could be used to make a full

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<v Speaker 1>on nuclear bomb, is being smuggled due al Qaeda as well.

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<v Speaker 1>Denmark is get being ready to build an eighteen kilometer

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<v Speaker 1>or roughly eleven mile long tunnel to Germany. It was

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<v Speaker 1>gonna be a bridge, but the tunnel seems to be

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<v Speaker 1>friendlier to the environment. It will cost about seven billion

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<v Speaker 1>dollars to put this thing together. For comparison, the Channel

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<v Speaker 1>tunnel between England and France is about three times longer,

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<v Speaker 1>or thirty one miles. Intel has started recalling chips that

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<v Speaker 1>support its high end Sandy Bridge processors, meaning that if

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<v Speaker 1>you have a motherboard containing these chips you need to

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<v Speaker 1>get a replacement. The problem affects the disc drives connected

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<v Speaker 1>through the chips sat a controller and could really hurt

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<v Speaker 1>the performance of a high end computer. It's thought that

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<v Speaker 1>it will cost Intel about a billion dollars to fix

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<v Speaker 1>this mistake. Scientists are working on plants, you know, like

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<v Speaker 1>little house plants and plants for your garden, that can

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<v Speaker 1>detect certain chemicals and then turn white in their presence.

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<v Speaker 1>The chemicals get absorbed through the leaves and interact with

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<v Speaker 1>the plants chemistry to cause the color change in the leaves,

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<v Speaker 1>hopefully in just a few minutes. It's thought that these

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<v Speaker 1>plants could be put around buildings are left in airports,

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<v Speaker 1>and if chemicals came into play, the plants would let

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<v Speaker 1>people see what's happening. Would you like to go somewhere

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<v Speaker 1>where you can really really see the Milky Way at

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<v Speaker 1>night and all its stars. If you've ever seen it,

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<v Speaker 1>you know it's a magnificent site. But it's getting harder

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<v Speaker 1>and harder to see it because of light pollution caused

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<v Speaker 1>by cities and suburbs. One option is to get on

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<v Speaker 1>a boat and go well out to see to escape

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<v Speaker 1>the lights. Another is to visit the island of Sark

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<v Speaker 1>near Britain. It is the first place to be certified

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<v Speaker 1>as a dark Sky community. You won't find any street

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<v Speaker 1>lights or big illuminated stadiums on this island. The whole

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<v Speaker 1>goal is to keep it dark so you can actually

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<v Speaker 1>see the stars at night. Are you looking for a

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<v Speaker 1>new graphics card. Tom's Hardware dot com now has a

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<v Speaker 1>list of the best cards for the money on their website,

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<v Speaker 1>and they update it every month as the technology advances.

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<v Speaker 1>For example, if you're on a budget and you want

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<v Speaker 1>the best card under a hundred dollars, the page on

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<v Speaker 1>Tom's Hardware dot com will help you find it. Have

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<v Speaker 1>you seen these locks? They're commonly called simplex locks that

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<v Speaker 1>have five mechanical buttons on the front. You push the

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<v Speaker 1>buttons in the right order to unlock the lock. There

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<v Speaker 1>are millions of these things all over the world, providing

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<v Speaker 1>access control to doors. Now it turns out that if

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<v Speaker 1>you have a big enough neodymium magnet, you can open

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<v Speaker 1>one of these locks almost instantly. The magnet needs to

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<v Speaker 1>be pretty big, about the size of half a baseball,

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<v Speaker 1>which means that it's fairly dangerous to the user because

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<v Speaker 1>of a pinch hazard. But it's still interesting that the locks,

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<v Speaker 1>which self for about three hundred dollars, are so vulnerable.

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<v Speaker 1>Amazon appears to be ready to start stree naming movies

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<v Speaker 1>like Netflix does. The pitch is that it quote is unlimited, commercial,

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<v Speaker 1>free instant streaming of five thousand movies and TV shows

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<v Speaker 1>at no additional costs to normal Amazon Prime subscribers. This

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<v Speaker 1>is currently just a rumor. It's been seen by certain

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<v Speaker 1>people uncertain screens that were publicly released by Amazon and

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<v Speaker 1>then retracted. There's not been a formal announcement yet, but

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<v Speaker 1>because of the screens, it's thought that Amazon is getting

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<v Speaker 1>ready to announce this. Amazon will have a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>catching up to do, mainly because Netflix has managed to

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<v Speaker 1>get its service embedded into so many TV and Blu

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<v Speaker 1>Ray players. There's word from NASA that a developing plasma

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<v Speaker 1>engine could make Mars missions a lot quicker. It might

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<v Speaker 1>even make a mission to Jupiter possible. The idea is

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<v Speaker 1>to use nuclear power to create heat and electricity for

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<v Speaker 1>the engine. The nuclear fuel heats the propellant gas to

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<v Speaker 1>a plasma state before it gets mag metically accelerated to

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<v Speaker 1>produce thrust. The goal is a ship that travels at

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<v Speaker 1>more than a hundred thousand miles per hour, which is

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<v Speaker 1>about four times faster than chemical rockets can go. One

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<v Speaker 1>big question that has to be answered is how to

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<v Speaker 1>get a nuclear reactor safely into orbit. White space WiFi

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<v Speaker 1>has moved a step closer this week with the FCC

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<v Speaker 1>granting licenses denying companies to use the spectrum. As you

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<v Speaker 1>may recall, white space spectrum uses radio frequencies between accessed

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<v Speaker 1>frequency bands, as well as TV spectrum that's been released

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<v Speaker 1>by the switch to digital TV. If we're lucky, it

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<v Speaker 1>would be possible to create a powerful nationwide WiFi network

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<v Speaker 1>using white space that lowers the cost of wireless data significantly.

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<v Speaker 1>If you've been following the protests in Egypt this week,

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<v Speaker 1>you know that one peculiar and unexpected event was the

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<v Speaker 1>shutdown of the Internet in Egypt. Egypt, the entire country

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<v Speaker 1>disappeared from the Internet for several days, and the text

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<v Speaker 1>messaging system was also shut down. How did they do that?

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<v Speaker 1>It's known that the five major Internet providers in Egypt

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<v Speaker 1>cut off access in sequence, with about three minutes between providers.

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<v Speaker 1>According to Scientific American. Based on that sequencing and the timing,

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<v Speaker 1>it's thought that the government simply called the providers up

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<v Speaker 1>and asked each one to disconnect. And finally, out of China,

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<v Speaker 1>there's news that a maglev train there is traveling as

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<v Speaker 1>fast as an airplane. It's only an experimental model, but

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<v Speaker 1>it's still promising because it is so fast and because

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<v Speaker 1>it uses about a tenth of the energy used by

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<v Speaker 1>an airplane. The train is able to travel so fast

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<v Speaker 1>because it's traveling inside a vacuum tube, a tube where

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<v Speaker 1>all the air has been sucked out. And this is

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<v Speaker 1>just the first step, and the future speeds could ramp

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<v Speaker 1>up by a factor of ten. If you would like

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<v Speaker 1>more details on any of these topics, you can visit

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<v Speaker 1>the brain Stuff blog at blogs dot how stuff works

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<v Speaker 1>dot com. Look for the posts marked interesting reading. And

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<v Speaker 1>as I said at the beginning, your feedback on this

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<v Speaker 1>format would be great. Did you enjoy this podcast or not?

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<v Speaker 1>How is the length and the detail level on each topic?

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<v Speaker 1>You can post something to Facebook by visiting Facebook dot

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<v Speaker 1>com slash brain stuff, or you can send me an

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<v Speaker 1>email at M brain at how stuff works dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>Thanks a lot for more on this and thousands of

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<v Speaker 1>other topics. Doesn't how stuff works dot com and don't

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<v Speaker 1>forget to check out the brain stuff blog on the

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<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com home page. You can also

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<v Speaker 1>hs W. The how Stuff Works I fine app has

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<v Speaker 1>arrived down at it today on iTunes