Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from House Stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi Marshall Brandon, Welcome to this week's
Speaker 1: Friday news round up. Let's start with a couple of
Speaker 1: interesting vehicles that showed up on the web this week.
Speaker 1: The first comes from SpaceX, which has a video up
Speaker 1: that's teasing a big announcement on April five. SpaceX, as
Speaker 1: you'll recall, is the company that NASA chose for replacing
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle for carrying people and stuff up to
Speaker 1: the space station. They have the Falcon one rocket, the
Speaker 1: Falcon nine rocket, and the Dragon capsule, able to hold
Speaker 1: either people or cargo. Given the way that the teaser
Speaker 1: video ends, it appears that SpaceX is ready to announce
Speaker 1: the new Falcon nine Heavy rocket for carrying bigger stuff
Speaker 1: into space. This rocket is approximately a normal Falcon nine
Speaker 1: rocket plus two additional booster rockets strapped on the sides
Speaker 1: of it. The extra rockets give it the ability to
Speaker 1: lift more cargo weight than the Space Shuttle into low
Speaker 1: Earth orbit and also the ability to lift a significant
Speaker 1: payload into geosynchronous orbit. If this were to come to pass,
Speaker 1: it would be a big boost to getting cargo and
Speaker 1: people and other kinds of stuff up into space. The
Speaker 1: second vehicle is more down to Earth. It's a drug
Speaker 1: submarine and the most sophisticated one that's ever been captured.
Speaker 1: It's claim to fame is the fact that it's actually
Speaker 1: a real submarine with the ability to go underwater using
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty lead acid batteries that can run
Speaker 1: its electric motors for up to eighteen hours submerged, plus
Speaker 1: a diesel engine to recharge those batteries and run the
Speaker 1: ship on the surface. The goal of this submarine is
Speaker 1: to bring something like eighteen thousand pounds or two hundred
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars worth of cocaine to the United States
Speaker 1: without being detected. Now, since it was captured, that's not
Speaker 1: gonna ever happen, but it gives you the impression that
Speaker 1: these drug lords have the ability to build quite sophisticated
Speaker 1: ships now, and if there's one, there's probably more than one.
Speaker 1: You can google interesting reading number seven eighteen for more
Speaker 1: information on both of these vehicles. Speaking of vehicles, the
Speaker 1: Pioneer spacecraft Pioneer ten and eleven have been traveling to
Speaker 1: the outer reaches of the Solar System for decades, but
Speaker 1: there's been a small problem with their trajectory called the
Speaker 1: Pioneer anomaly. These spacecraft have not traveled quite as far
Speaker 1: as they should have according to orbital calculations, and the
Speaker 1: discrepancy has been bugging sciencests for many years. Could it
Speaker 1: be that gravity does not behave as we expect. Could
Speaker 1: it be that dark matter plays a role. Could it
Speaker 1: be some unknown planet having this gravitational effect on the probes,
Speaker 1: or is it space aliens and some low level tractor
Speaker 1: being Now they have solved the mystery, and the solution
Speaker 1: is a little bit more mundane than any of those suggestions.
Speaker 1: The Pioneer spacecraft give off heat in the form of
Speaker 1: infrared light, and this light affects the trajectory. The spacecraft
Speaker 1: gives off the I R light directly and parts of
Speaker 1: the spacecraft also reflected, and the effect is a very
Speaker 1: slight thrust that slows the spacecraft down. The anomaly is solved.
Speaker 1: If you google Interesting reading number seven eighteen you can
Speaker 1: get the details. Imagine a telescope with a collecting surface
Speaker 1: as big as a square kilometer. It would be unbelievable
Speaker 1: given that optical telescopes measure their mirrors in terms of
Speaker 1: meters and Even the largest radio telescope in the world
Speaker 1: is only three d and five meters in diameter. But
Speaker 1: a new radio telescope will have a collecting surface that
Speaker 1: really is that big, and it will get it by
Speaker 1: combining thousands of small antennas together across a significant portion
Speaker 1: of the planet. Each antenna will be about fifteen meters
Speaker 1: in diameter. It will cost about one point five million
Speaker 1: euros or more than two billion dollars to build the
Speaker 1: whole thing. One possible site is in Australia, which has
Speaker 1: large parts of the continent that are nearly uninhabited and
Speaker 1: therefore low on radio interference. Via Google interesting reading seven eighteen,
Speaker 1: you can get the details. Speaking of googling, Google has
Speaker 1: been in the news several times this week. First is
Speaker 1: Google's announcement that it will now let its users rate
Speaker 1: search results. Many social media sites offer this kind of
Speaker 1: rating capability, including Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. But the technique
Speaker 1: Google uses to show results is interesting. It sniffs out
Speaker 1: people who you may have a connection with, for example,
Speaker 1: from contact lists, so unlike Reddit, it does not show
Speaker 1: an aggregated score from the world and bubble up the
Speaker 1: highest rated results. It just adds a little plus one
Speaker 1: indicator to let you know that somebody you know thought
Speaker 1: this was a good link. The second thing is Google's
Speaker 1: announcement that it's going to take more control of the
Speaker 1: Android marketplace to make sure that phone manufacturers don't start
Speaker 1: making phone specific apps. If Google didn't do this, then
Speaker 1: the app marketplace for Android phones would fragment, and many
Speaker 1: apps would work on only one phone, or one company's phones,
Speaker 1: or on one carrier's phones. If Google allowed this to happen,
Speaker 1: the Android app marketplace would become a lot less useful
Speaker 1: for customers. Plus, there's already a lot of fragmentation because
Speaker 1: there's so many versions of Android. As a result of
Speaker 1: this change, Android, in theory will become much less open
Speaker 1: for manufacturers and much more uniform for users. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: have to see how things shake out over the next
Speaker 1: year or so to determine whether this is a good
Speaker 1: move or a bad move on the part of Google. Probably,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, Google is trying to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to make the Android app market places powerful as
Speaker 1: the Apple app marketplace. Then the third thing is Google's
Speaker 1: announcement that Kansas City will get Google Fiber. You may
Speaker 1: recall that Google was going to pick one city and
Speaker 1: provide fiber optic internet access and one gigabit speeds for
Speaker 1: that city. Kansas City is the chosen city, and it'll
Speaker 1: be the prototype for possibly future implementation as well. Two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve is the rollout date. If things do go
Speaker 1: well in Kansas City, then other cities should get gigabit
Speaker 1: service from Google. If you google interesting reading seven seventeen
Speaker 1: and seven hundred eighteen you can get the details. It's
Speaker 1: possible that air conditioning and refrigeration will get cheaper in
Speaker 1: the near future. That's because the technology for turning heat
Speaker 1: into cold is about to get smaller and less expensive.
Speaker 1: Unlike typical air conditioners and refrigerators, which use lots of
Speaker 1: electricity to run a compressor, absorption chillers use something like
Speaker 1: silica gel to absorb water, which is then later released
Speaker 1: using heat. The problem is that silica gel is really inefficient,
Speaker 1: meaning that the chillers have to be big and they
Speaker 1: have to use a lot of heat to get the
Speaker 1: job done. A new nanotech material works a lot better,
Speaker 1: meaning that everything gets smaller and more efficient. In theory,
Speaker 1: solar heat could one day be used to run an
Speaker 1: air conditioner, essentially for free. You google interesting reading number
Speaker 1: seven seventeen, you can get the details. Will you get
Speaker 1: Alzheimer's disease, say twenty years from now, There may soon
Speaker 1: be a test that will tell you that it all
Speaker 1: has to do with the way your brain uses glucose. Apparently,
Speaker 1: long before you get actual Alzheimer's disease, the mitochondria in
Speaker 1: brain cells start producing less energy because of a toxic
Speaker 1: chemical in the brain. In theory, scientists may be able
Speaker 1: to discover a way to block or inhibit that chemical
Speaker 1: to reduce Alzheimer's effects. If you google interesting reading them
Speaker 1: or seven seventeen, you can get details. iTunes is getting
Speaker 1: some competition from Amazon on the music front this week.
Speaker 1: Amazon's product is called the Cloud Drive, combined with a
Speaker 1: product called the Cloud Player. Instead of storing music on
Speaker 1: a device like a laptop or an iPod, you store
Speaker 1: your songs on an Amazon server up in the cloud.
Speaker 1: Then you play your songs using a little app that
Speaker 1: runs on your Android phone or on your laptop. It's
Speaker 1: very likely that Apple and Google will soon release identical products,
Speaker 1: but for now, it gives Amazon a unique way to
Speaker 1: compete in the music arena. Should you use this service,
Speaker 1: the advantages that you can access your music anywhere. The
Speaker 1: disadvantages that you have to have a connection to the
Speaker 1: Internet and it consumes bandwidth. If you look at interesting
Speaker 1: Reading seven seventeen, you can get more information on the product.
Speaker 1: Can magazines and newspapers save themselves by using digital subscriptions.
Speaker 1: Most of these digital magazine runs apps on things like
Speaker 1: the iPad, and many media outlets are hoping that the
Speaker 1: idea of digital subscription apps takes off. Popular Science is
Speaker 1: one magazine that's taken the plunge and has done so
Speaker 1: very early. In five weeks, it's sold ten thousand digital
Speaker 1: subscriptions through Apple's app store. The subscription price is fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars per year, making it more expensive than a print subscription,
Speaker 1: reportedly because Apple takes a thirty percent cut of the
Speaker 1: subscription price. On the other hand, popsi has no printing
Speaker 1: or mailing costs with these digital subscriptions, so it seems
Speaker 1: amazing that they would charge this much. Is ten thousand
Speaker 1: subscriptions good or bad? Popsi has about one point two
Speaker 1: million print subscribers, so they have a long way to
Speaker 1: go to replace that base. If you google interesting Reading
Speaker 1: numbers seven seventeen, you can get details what if you
Speaker 1: could put something in your coffee that would quickly cool
Speaker 1: it down to the right temp. Picture, store that heat,
Speaker 1: and then keep your coffee at that temperature for a
Speaker 1: long time. That's the idea behind something called coffee julies.
Speaker 1: Imagine a little stainless steel capsule that contains a special wax.
Speaker 1: The wax melts at the perfect coffee temperature. It takes
Speaker 1: heat to melt the wax, cooling the coffee down to
Speaker 1: the right temperature, and then as the wax releases that heat,
Speaker 1: it re solidifies. Lots of things already used this phase
Speaker 1: change idea to store heat. This is simply a novel
Speaker 1: application with a very specific temperature range that it's working in.
Speaker 1: If you look at Interesting Reading number seven seventeen, you
Speaker 1: can learn more about coffee Julies. There was a good
Speaker 1: bit of buzz this week about artificial leaves. Solar cells
Speaker 1: create electricity directly. The idea in an artificial leaf is
Speaker 1: to use the sun's energy to power a photosynthesis kind
Speaker 1: of reaction to create a fuel. Imagine an index card
Speaker 1: and you put this index card into water. Then you
Speaker 1: put the water out in sunlight. The card catalyzes a
Speaker 1: reaction that breaks the water down into hydrogen and oxygen,
Speaker 1: which you then store, combining the hydrogen and oxygen back together, saying,
Speaker 1: a fuel cell lets you create electricity when you need it.
Speaker 1: This would be perfect for powering a home and could
Speaker 1: in theory power cards as well. It is essentially a
Speaker 1: cheap way to store electric energy generated by the sun
Speaker 1: for later use. See Interesting Reading number seven sixteen for details.
Speaker 1: So that's it for this week. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: catch up on any of these topics and more than
Speaker 1: a hundred others, google Interesting Reading number seven fourteen, seven fifteen,
Speaker 1: seven sixteen, seven seventeen, and seven eighteen. Have a great
Speaker 1: weekend for more illness and thousands of other topics. Doesn't
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