WEBVTT - Marshall Brain's News Roundup: March 4th, 2011 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:03.800 Welcome to Brainstuff from house Stuff Works dot com, where 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:15.400 smart happens. Hi Marshall Brandon, Welcome to this week's Friday 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.239 news round up. A lot of stuff happened this week, 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.960 but in terms of hype, nothing beat Apple's Wednesday announcement 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.880 of the iPad two. There was lots of stuff to 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.040 like in the announcement. For example, the processor now has 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.880 two cores instead of one, so it's twice as fast, 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.640 Plus there's now much better support for graphics. There are 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:37.640 two cameras in the iPad two instead of none in 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.800 the original iPad, and an HDMI cable can now connect 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.360 the iPad directly to an HD TV or projector. That's 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.000 a big deal for teachers and business people. Battery life 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:51.800 is the same at ten hours, but there were also 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.280 a couple of disappointments. The screen is the same resolution 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.680 as the original iPad, and it appears that RAM did 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.040 not increase either, although no one knows for sure because 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.840 Apple isn't talking about it. The announcement itself was hailed 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.600 as a triumph. Chris Taylor on CNN had this to 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:14.600 say quote his introduction of the iPad two did quadruple duty. 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:20.520 It enticed mainstream customers, wowed spec hunting tech geeks, tweaked 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:25.160 his competitors, and pleased Wall Street future presidential candidates would 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.800 do well to study it. End quote. That's a pretty 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:32.280 good endorsement. If you type brain stuff iPad two into Google, 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.840 you can read more about the announcement and you can 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:38.600 see jobs performance on stage when he announced the product. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.120 To counterbalance that triumph, there was a disaster on the 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:47.720 space front this morning. NASA launched its new Glory satellite 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.240 on top of a Taurus rocket. It cost almost half 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.560 a billion dollars to build the satellite and get it 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.120 on that rocket, and it was scheduled to help with 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.640 climate research. Glory was supposed to study total solar radiation 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.360 hitting the Earth, as well as the effects of things 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.000 like carbon soot, so that we could get a better 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.480 estimate on global warming and things like that. Unfortunately, the cover, 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.120 the fairing that protects the satellite during launch, failed to 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.720 separate from the satellite, so there was too much weight 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:20.239 for the satellite to reach orbit, and the whole thing 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.040 re entered the atmosphere and burned up. And all of 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.720 that happened this morning. Also on board were several cube SATs, 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:29.960 you can. You can go to brain stuff and learn 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:34.160 about cube sets. There are little tiny satellites maybe ten 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:37.440 centimeters on a side, usually built by college students for 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:42.160 experiments in theory. They could have been deployed because they 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.720 were situated differently than the main satellite, but there's no 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:49.000 word yet on whether that happened or not. So maybe 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:50.680 next week I can give you an update on whether 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.399 any of those satellites actually made it into orbit. Two 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.239 video game events have also gotten a lot of hype 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.440 this week. One was the technology nd the upcoming video 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:06.440 game called Battlefield three. They're releasing this new game engine 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.760 called Frostbite Too to drive the game, and there were 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:12.640 a number of improvements in this engine that make the 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:17.760 games trailer extremely impressive. If you type brain stuff Battlefield 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.720 three into Google, you can see videos that break down 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.000 just how impressive the improvements are in terms of adding 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.000 realism to the game. The other big event on the 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.600 video game front is a live action movie trailer that 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.160 came out for a movie called Find Macarrov, based on 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:39.000 Call of Duty Modern Warfare. People are just beside themselves 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.160 when describing this trailer. If you type brain stuff find 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.520 Macarov where Macarrov is spelled m A k A r 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.760 o V. Into Google, you can see what all this 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.840 excitement is about. There's also a lot of buzz on 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.120 the cell phone front, and it's pretty interesting. There appears 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.400 to be a new way to implement cell phone hours. 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.680 When you look at the towers today, they are huge, 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.720 immensely tall, and ugly. Neighbors don't like the looks, so 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:10.600 they fight every tower that people try to put up. 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.720 Now there's a new way to implement the antennas that 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.240 is incredibly small, so small it could fit in your pocket. 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.560 They could be attached almost anywhere. You can put them 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.520 on buildings or water towers, or power lines or just 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.159 about anything, and all they need to work is a 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.479 network cable and a little power. It's one of those 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.159 things where it's hard to believe it's true because the 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.920 size difference in the ease of implementation is so immense 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:38.640 from the old way of doing it. If it works, 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.760 it would mean the cost of cell phone coverage would fall, 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.200 probably dramatically, and the amount of coverage would rise. Google 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:52.000 Interesting Reading number six for details. Also in Interesting Reading, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.880 there's a story about a new way to harvest tidal energy. 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.719 Every day all around the world, the eye goes out 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.240 and the tide comes back in, and that happens twice 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.360 every day. A lot of water is moving around, like 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.960 quadrillions of gallons of ocean water is moving around because 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:12.520 of the tides, and it should be possible to harvest 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.480 energy from it. But the tides tend to move really slowly, 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.559 so energy capture has been difficult without using pinch points 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.799 of some sort. A new solution to the problem involves 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:28.360 flying underwater kites and the tidal flow. So you think 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:32.039 about when you see Chinese fighting kites, they're whipping all 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.960 through the air. They're moving much faster through the air 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.800 than the wind is actually moving because they're going side 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.240 to side. Well, these underwater kites are doing that same 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.359 kind of thing. They're actually flying figure eight patterns in 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:47.839 the tidal currents and they move through the water ten 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.880 times faster than the tide is moving, and that makes 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.920 it possible to harvest power more efficiently. In theory, this 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.080 development could make it possible to generate tidal power in 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.520 many places around the globe where it's in possible to 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:07.279 get it. Now, can technology cause mass protests? There's a 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.520 lot of evidence to suggest that Facebook and Twitter had 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.359 a lot to do with protests in places like Egypt. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.440 But what about Google Earth. There's an interesting article in 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:21.480 Interesting Reading number six nineties seven that suggests that Google 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:25.600 Earth had an effect in Bahrain. People in Bahrain started 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.360 to look at how the country's land is chopped up. 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.440 Much of the land is used by immense palaces and estates, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.679 while most of the remaining population is compressed into these 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.000 small parts of the country. People started talking about the discrepancy, 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.039 so the government shut down the connection to Google Earth. 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.720 So then someone did a screen capture of all these 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.600 different maps and things that were available on Google Earth, 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.279 and those started moving around through email. It certainly fed 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:57.560 into the discontent that led to the protests. Information always 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.599 finds a way, it seems just a paraphrase as Jurassic 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:06.560 part Scientists are worried that the planet's sixth mass extinction 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.000 event has begun. So far in Earth's history, we know 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:14.040 of five previous mass extinctions that destroyed a third or 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.160 more of the species in existence. The asteroid strike sixty 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.800 five million years ago is the best known and most 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.320 recent of these events. It killed about half of all species. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.720 There were four other mass extinction events prior to that 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:31.920 that humans can detect in the fossil record. Why do 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.320 scientists think that we are in another mass extinction event? 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.480 Because quote, biologists estimate that within the past five hundred years, 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:44.200 at least eighty mammal species have become extinct out of 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.520 the starting total of five thousand, five hundred and seventy 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.080 species end quote. That's enough to qualify as a mass 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.800 extinction event, especially since the trend is likely to continue 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.760 or accelerate. If you google interesting reading number six, you 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:02.320 can see details of what they're talking about. You've heard 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.520 of space tourism. It's been pretty limited so far, first 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.080 because flights to the space station cost about twenty million dollars, 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.120 and second because the number of seats were extremely limited. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.280 But things ought to take off in two thousand twelve 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.080 when Virgin Galactic starts offering suborbital flights for just two 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:24.240 hundred thousand dollars on a regular schedule, and x Corp 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:26.760 has a plane that should start flying as well at 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.600 half that price. One big benefit this development will provide 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.880 is the ability to take many more scientists into space. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.880 In the past, unless you could get a payload under 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.160 the Shuttle or the International Space Station. There's been no 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:43.520 way for a scientist to experience more than about thirty 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:47.079 seconds of zero G in one of the airplanes known 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:51.520 as Vomit comments, these suborbital flights will provide a couple 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.920 of minutes of time in that zero G realm. If 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.640 you google Interesting Reading number six seven, you can see 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.160 why scientists are are so excited about this new possibility. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.640 Consumer Reports is reporting that it took its first look 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.280 at the Chevy Vault and they weren't particularly impressed, at 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:15.679 least from a pure logic standpoint. The main problem probably 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:18.200 is the fact that the car costs so much. The 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.880 model they tested had a price tag of over forty 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.200 eight thousand dollars. The amount of money saved with a 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.280 plug in hybrid just isn't enough to match that cost, 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.439 at least when compared to a Toyota Prius, because a 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.559 Prius costs half as much. Using that logic, though, I 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.160 would guess the Consumer Reports must really dislike the Corvette 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.440 or the BMW for that matter. If you google Interesting 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.400 Reading number six six, you can go look at exactly 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.760 what Consumer Reports had to say about the volt. Speaking 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.360 of cars, there is now an experimental new way to 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.800 drive a car. You control the car with your thoughts. 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:58.080 It's kind of a union between a self driving car 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.120 and a human controlled car. You think about where you 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.360 want to go, and the car handles the details of 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.760 getting you there. It's called brain driver. You wear this 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.240 headset that has sixteen sensors on it that are reading 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:14.360 your brain waves off your scalp, and you think about 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:18.360 turning left, or turning right or stopping. Is it perfect? No? 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.120 Does it have any practical application No? Does the car 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.800 go very fast? No? But it does show that the 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.720 thought control of devices is improving. Maybe one day we 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:32.040 won't have to type on keyboards anymore. We can just 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.120 think about what we want to type and it'll come 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.640 out on the screen as we think it. If you 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:39.520 google interesting reading number six nine six, you can see 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.400 the details. There is now a new material available that 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:47.280 has the moldibility of plastic and the strength of steel. 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:52.360 The key is an alloy called metallic glass. So instead 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:54.880 of having to forge or cut the steel on a 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.000 C and C machine, these new alloys can be poured 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.840 into a mold or blown like uh plastic bottle is 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.680 blown through blow molding. Scientists are claiming that This could 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.160 open up a whole new world of inexpensive metal parts. 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:12.800 They claim it could be as revolutionary as the development 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:15.800 of plastics has been. If that's true, and if you 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.240 think about how ubiquitous and cheap plastic is today, you 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.439 can get a sense of what's in store. Google Interesting 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:26.280 Reading number six nine six for details. There is a 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.400 guy in Spain who has lived to be a hundred 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.960 and fourteen years old. Obviously, scientists would like to know 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.520 what's going on, so they've been studying the guy. So far, 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:39.640 they've determined that he is not a mutant. He appears 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.440 to have a normal genome. So what do they think 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.880 is going on? First, he's been on the Mediterranean diet 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.160 all his life. Plus, the weather is nice where he lives, 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.800 and he stayed active. Apparently he rode his bike every 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.040 day up until the age of a hundred and two. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:57.400 So if you want to live to be more than 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.840 a hundred, you might want to get on your bikes 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.160 arting tomorrow. You might want to google the Mediterranean diet 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.360 and see what he's eating. And maybe you want to 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.079 move to Florida or San Diego if you want to 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.680 get out of the cold weather. You can Google Interesting 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.679 Reading number six s to learn more about the one 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:18.560 hundred and fourteen year old Spaniard. Speaking of humans who 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:21.480 live a long time, there was another article looking at 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.200 the number of early human beings on planet Earth. Apparently, 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.120 for a period of about a million years, there just 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:32.360 weren't that many of our human ancestors around. There were 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:36.440 maybe twenty thousand breeding humans, twenty six thousand at most, 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.560 according to the article. Why such a small number? Apparently 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.240 there was a huge volcanic eruption that nearly wiped out humanity, 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.600 and possibly a second event at that same scale, and 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.960 then it's likely that without rifles and hd TVs and 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.120 cars and so on, we just didn't compete exceedingly well 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.680 with the local fauna. If you go to Interesting Reading 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.840 number six six you can learn more out early humans, 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.559 and there are a couple other really interesting evolution articles 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:08.520 in there. And finally there's an article entitled six important 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.880 things you didn't know We're running out of And really 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.800 that's a good title because it immediately creates curiosity. I mean, 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.120 we all know that we're running out of oil and 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.680 we're running out of bluefin tuna, But what are the 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.720 six things that I didn't know about. I'll give you 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.319 the short version here, and you can google interesting reading 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.640 number six nine six for the details. The six things 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.640 are first of all helium. It could all be gone 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.520 in twenty five years. Second is chocolate because there's only 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:40.400 so many places to grow it. Third is radioactive medical 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:44.400 isotopes because there are just not very many suppliers left. 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:49.160 Fourth is tequila, of all things, because of the destruction 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:53.040 of the cactus from which tequila is derived. That number 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.040 five is phosphorus, which could all be gone in thirty years, 0:13:56.120 --> 0:13:58.080 at least the easy supplies of it, and that would 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:00.920 be a freaking disaster if we ran out of phosphorus. 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.400 And finally water. Now, obviously we aren't going to run 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.920 out of water per se. It's fresh water that's the problem. 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.880 Because we are busy eliminating the aquifers and sucking rivers 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.920 dry as it is as the population grows, coming up 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.160 with supplies of fresh water is a real problem. So well, 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.760 that's not really an upper to end up on. I 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.800 guess I'll say that you should go get a glass 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:27.000 of water and be thankful for it, and also be 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.160 thankful the next time you see a helium balloon, because 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.200 they may not be around that much longer anyway. If 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.480 you'd like to learn more, you can google interesting reading 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:43.680 number six and have a great weekend. For more on 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.200 this and thousands of other topics. Does that how stuff 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:48.320 works dot com and don't forget to check out the 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.360 brain stuff blog on the house stuff works dot com 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.240 home page. You can also follow brain stuff on Facebook 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:58.240 or Twitter at brain stuff hs W. 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