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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: where smart happens him Marshall Brain and welcome to this

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Speaker 1: week's Friday news round up, where we look at the

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Speaker 1: week's science and technology news and review. Here are some

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Speaker 1: of the articles that seemed the most interesting this week

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Speaker 1: from the Interesting Reading series on the brain Stuff blog.

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Speaker 1: If I had to pick something that surprised me this week,

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Speaker 1: it would be an article I saw about laser spark plugs.

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Speaker 1: Spark plugs have been around in almost exactly their current

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Speaker 1: form for more than a century, and it really hadn't

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Speaker 1: crossed my mind that this area needed improvement. But these

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Speaker 1: laser spark plugs are amazing if they can get them

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Speaker 1: working in real life engines at a reasonable price. They're

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Speaker 1: not amazing because they're lasers, even though lasers are always cool.

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Speaker 1: They're not amazing because their thousand watt plus pulse lasers,

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Speaker 1: although that's definitely cool as well. They're amazing because there

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Speaker 1: is a claim that they can improve fuel economy by

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Speaker 1: and that claim comes from real engines using real prototype

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Speaker 1: laser spark plugs. If you ever look at a spark

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Speaker 1: plug fire, and if you want to do this, you

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Speaker 1: could pull the plug on your lawnmower and watch it fires.

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Speaker 1: Somebody else pulls the string. It's a very tiny little spark.

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Speaker 1: It's it's practically nothing. It ignites a flame front that

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Speaker 1: has to expand outward from that tiny source of ignition,

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Speaker 1: and there just isn't that much time available for that

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Speaker 1: expansion to occur. An engine running at six thousd rpm,

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Speaker 1: for example, fires spark plugs fifty times per second. In

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Speaker 1: contrast to that, when you use a laser as the

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Speaker 1: spark plug, the flame front is huge by comparison, because

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Speaker 1: the beam penetrates down into the cylinder. The only problem

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Speaker 1: I have with this idea is that it falls in

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Speaker 1: to that big stack of other ideas that claim they'll

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Speaker 1: improve engine efficiency by I mean, how many times have

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Speaker 1: we heard this claim. Let's hope that this one pans out,

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Speaker 1: or that electric cars really take off and this idea

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Speaker 1: becomes irrelevant. Speaking of electric cars, what would make electric

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Speaker 1: cars explode in popularity? What we need is something that's

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Speaker 1: better than the current crop of batteries that we're using.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the batteries we have right now are relatively speaking,

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Speaker 1: really big and really heavy and really expensive. Something small

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Speaker 1: and cheap and lightweight that can store or produce lots

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Speaker 1: of power is what is necessary for electric cars to

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Speaker 1: really revolutionize anything. This week there were two announcements that

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Speaker 1: hold promise for something happening in this arena. There was,

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Speaker 1: for example, a recent announcement that fuel cell prices could

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Speaker 1: drop by a factor of ten. The problem with current

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Speaker 1: fuel cells is that they need a lot of platinum,

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Speaker 1: which is pricey, to help catalyze the reaction that produces

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Speaker 1: the power or scientists have come up with a new

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Speaker 1: catalyst made of much cheaper materials like iron. If this

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Speaker 1: works out, it may be possible to consider using fuel

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Speaker 1: cells in cars in the relatively near future. You can

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Speaker 1: google Interesting Reading number seven thirty six for details. But

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Speaker 1: even better is a Darper project that's trying to develop

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Speaker 1: tiny fusion reactors. The idea is to shrink atomic accelerators

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Speaker 1: down to chip scale and then collide ions together to

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Speaker 1: create fusion. DARPA is shooting for an energy ratio of twenty,

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Speaker 1: meaning that the power out is twenty times greater than

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Speaker 1: the power in. How hard could it be? But if

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Speaker 1: they could get this idea working, it would certainly make

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Speaker 1: electric cars more viable. Google Interesting Reading number seven forty

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Speaker 1: to learn more about DARPA's attempts and speaking of electric

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Speaker 1: cars and cars that get really good gas mileage, the

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Speaker 1: Purdue team in the Shell Eco Marathon this year created

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Speaker 1: a car that got an equivalent of two thousand and

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Speaker 1: two hundred miles per gallon. The car weighs only two

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Speaker 1: seventy pounds, it's super aerodynamic, and it got an extra

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Speaker 1: boost from solar panels worked into the carbon fiber body.

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Speaker 1: The most interesting part is the fact that they hope

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Speaker 1: to make this vehicle street legal at some point. If

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Speaker 1: you google Interesting Reading number seven thirty eight, you can

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Speaker 1: get the details on this, and you can also see

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Speaker 1: Interesting Reading number seven thirty seven for a discussion of

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Speaker 1: Michigan's solar car strategies that's quite revealing. Also in Interesting

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Speaker 1: Reading number seven forty there's a video that's worth watching.

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Speaker 1: The problem that they're trying to solve is the truck

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Speaker 1: full of explosives trying to drive through a checkpoint problem.

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Speaker 1: It's not easy having a barrier that's strong enough to

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Speaker 1: keep a multi ton high speed truck out, but that's

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Speaker 1: also easy to raise and lower, and is also inexpensive

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Speaker 1: and is also attractive. This company offers a number of

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Speaker 1: solutions that fit the bill, and of course, how better

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Speaker 1: to demonstrate them than to ram some real trucks into

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Speaker 1: some real barriers and show it on a video on YouTube.

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Speaker 1: The most interesting one is this thing that looks like

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Speaker 1: a flimsy fabric net. When it rises out of its

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Speaker 1: little protective pocket in the road, it is surprisingly effective. However,

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Speaker 1: then there's this bar that looks like a flimsy piece

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Speaker 1: of wood that the guard can raise and lower by hand. Again,

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Speaker 1: you might think that you could drive right through it.

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Speaker 1: This video demonstrates otherwise. If you google interesting Reading number

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Speaker 1: seven forty you can see the video. Why is it

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Speaker 1: that human beings are sometimes so bad at self control?

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Speaker 1: For example, more than half of Americans are overweight, and

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Speaker 1: that happens because we're not particularly good at controlling what

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Speaker 1: we eat. Why is eating so hard to control? Scientific

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Speaker 1: American has an article this week that tries to explain it.

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Speaker 1: The theory proposed is something called a dual system model

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Speaker 1: in our brains. According to the article, we have quote

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Speaker 1: two emotional stems, our impulses and our powers of reflection

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Speaker 1: end quote. These two systems are constantly fighting with each

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Speaker 1: other and impulses often went out because they're impulsive, they

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Speaker 1: don't require a lot of processing power or energy. The

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Speaker 1: article goes through the research in this area and offers

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Speaker 1: several techniques to try in order to gain better self control.

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Speaker 1: Simply knowing that obesity is unhealthy is not enough to

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Speaker 1: stop impulsive behaviors around obesity. One thing you can try

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Speaker 1: is pre planning strategies or rules that you can rehearse

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Speaker 1: and execute whenever temptation arises. For example, if I have

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Speaker 1: a problem with peanut m and m's, I might say, look,

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Speaker 1: if I ever see a peanut eminem, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: physically turn around and walk in the other direction. If

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Speaker 1: I practice this enough, I do it automatically. The article

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Speaker 1: suggests that an alcoholic person can practice ordering a nonalcoholic

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Speaker 1: beverage at a bar until the behavior becomes automatic, and

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Speaker 1: so on. If you google Interesting Reading seven forty you

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Speaker 1: can get the details on these techniques. So let's say

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Speaker 1: that you're going to buy an hd TV or a

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Speaker 1: bluebery player or something in the video sphere. There are

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Speaker 1: all kinds of headline specs that most people can deal with,

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Speaker 1: like screen size and resolution and the contrast ratio. But

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Speaker 1: when you get into some of the esoteric stuff, it

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Speaker 1: gets harder. For example, what kind of motion interpolation algorithms

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Speaker 1: should you look for if you're buying an HD TV.

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Speaker 1: The article points out that when a film gets converted

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Speaker 1: from its native twenty four frames per second to a

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Speaker 1: TV refresh rate, there are different ways to do it

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Speaker 1: depending on the TV you buy. For example, if you're

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Speaker 1: increasing from twenty four frames per second to a sixty

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Speaker 1: hurts TV signal, one way to handle it is called

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Speaker 1: three to pull down processing. The CPU repeats one frame

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Speaker 1: three times and the next frame two times to create

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Speaker 1: sixty frames per second. The article then points out that

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Speaker 1: the imbalance the three and the two ratio creates an

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Speaker 1: artifact called jutter. An easy solution is to jump up

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Speaker 1: to a twenty hurts refresh rate. Now you can use

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Speaker 1: five five pull down processing and get rid of the jetter.

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Speaker 1: The best TVs can then do some image processing and

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Speaker 1: do frame interpolation, essentially creating new frames between two film

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Speaker 1: frames using computational techniques. Now, Lee and I would end

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Speaker 1: up buying whatever TVs on sale, But if you have

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Speaker 1: the time and the money to explore the high end stuff,

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Speaker 1: it's a really interesting article. Google Interesting Reading number seven

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Speaker 1: thirty nine for details. Do you own an iPhone? Would

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Speaker 1: you like to get more out of it? If so,

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Speaker 1: there's an article entitled getting the most out of your

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Speaker 1: iPhone twenty easy tips and tricks that you may be

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Speaker 1: interested in this week. A lot of these are tiny

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Speaker 1: little features hidden in the user interface. This simply may

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Speaker 1: have escaped your notice. For example, there's a way to

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Speaker 1: lock the screen orientation, and Lee has actually been looking

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Speaker 1: for this because she likes to read in bed and

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Speaker 1: when she puts the thing sidewise, it flips on her.

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Speaker 1: There's an easy way to bring up the music controls

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Speaker 1: even if the screen is locked, and so on. Google

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Speaker 1: Interesting Reading number seven thirty eight to read this article.

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Speaker 1: Is peanut butter carcinogenic? Yes? It turns out it can

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Speaker 1: be because of a chemical called a plot toxin that's

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Speaker 1: common in peanuts. If you're the sort of person who

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Speaker 1: eats a lot of peanuts or peanut butter, you may

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Speaker 1: want to google Interesting Reading number seven thirty seven to

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Speaker 1: learn more about this threat to your existence. What are

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Speaker 1: the chances that you or I will ever travel in space?

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Speaker 1: I'd say they're pretty slim, but it's still fun to imagine. So,

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Speaker 1: while we're imagining traveling in space, what are the six

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Speaker 1: most common space dangers we will face in our dreams?

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Speaker 1: An article entitled the six Weirdest Dangers of Space Travel

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Speaker 1: tackles this question. The winners are, in order, moon, dust,

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Speaker 1: space debris, static electricity, heat stroke, an inability to stop,

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Speaker 1: and kidney stones. Kidney stones. Yes, kidney stones, because astronauts

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Speaker 1: get kidney stones more often then regular people do. It's

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Speaker 1: because weightlessness causes bone loss, and bone loss drops a

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Speaker 1: lot of calcium into the bloodstream, and calcium causes kidney stones.

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Speaker 1: If you're interested in these threats to your dream world,

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Speaker 1: you can google Interesting Reading number seven thirty seven for details.

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Speaker 1: And finally, you've probably heard of royal jelly. In a beehive,

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Speaker 1: the worker bees need to sometimes raise up new queens,

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Speaker 1: and they do this by picking an egg at random

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Speaker 1: and feeding it royal jelly. For some reason, royal jelly

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Speaker 1: causes some kind of transformation that turns what would have

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Speaker 1: been an ordinary worker bee into a queen bee. Scientists

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Speaker 1: obviously have been trying to figure out how a food

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Speaker 1: could do this. What a scientist in Japan named Massaki

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Speaker 1: Kamakura has discovered is a new protein that he is

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Speaker 1: named royal actin. It works by activating a gene that's

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Speaker 1: common in many animals. For example, when he fed royal

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Speaker 1: actin too fruit flies, they increased in size and they

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Speaker 1: laid more eggs. In bees, the genes effects are simply

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Speaker 1: more pronounced. If you google Interesting Reading number seven thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: you can learn more about royal jelly and how it

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Speaker 1: turns worker bees into queen bees, and it raises the

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Speaker 1: obvious questions should we be feeding this stuff to our kids?

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Speaker 1: So that's it for this week. To learn more about

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Speaker 1: these and dozens of other topics, you can google Interesting

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Speaker 1: Reading number seven thirty six, seven thirty seven, seven thirty eight,

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Speaker 1: seven thirty nine, and seven forty have a great weekend

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Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does

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Speaker 1: that house stuff works dot com and don't forget to

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Speaker 1: check out the brain stuff blog on the house stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com home page. You can also follow brain

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Speaker 1: stuff on Facebook or Twitter at brain stuff hs W.

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Speaker 1: The house Stuff Works I Find app has arrived. Download

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Speaker 1: it today on iTunes