Demolishing a building is a big, messy pain in the neck. Dynamite is loud and dangerous. Wrecking balls are heavy and dangerous. Why not just get a robot to do the work?
That's exactly what Omer Haciomeroglu was thinking when he designed the ERO Concrete Recycling robot, one of the winners of IDSA's International Design Excellence awards. This Transformer-like device is capable not only of breaking down concrete on the spot but also of pumping out the raw materials and packaging them for reuse. The ERO works in fleets to take down buildings wall-by-wall. And it's all remarkably clean, especially compared to most dust cloud-laden demolition techniques.
The process is pretty simple. The ERO goes to work on a concrete surface with a high-pressure water jet that cracks and breaks down the concrete itself. The robot then gobbles up the waste solid waste, a mixture of aggregate and cement, and sends it into big bags that can be stored and used for new construction. The water itself is recycled as are the steel reinforcement bars inside of the concrete walls. This is all terribly efficient compared to traditional methods that depend on fossil fuels to power all kinds of machinery and recycle pretty much nothing. And just for the record, the ERO itself is actually pretty, especially when it's working.
Despite how amazing and environmentally friendly the ERO sounds, the design is just a concept for now. Haciomeroglu's plans come from his work at Sweden's Umea Institute of Design, and while it's fun to fantasize about how we could upend the Earth-destroying practices currently ruling the construction industry, it will take some heavy-lifting to make robot-powered demolition a reality. But it's still fun to fantasize. [Core 77]
The news has been reporting that 2013 could be a record year for ticks. All of us are at risk to become the host for a tick, even our pets. ?These troublesome parasites live off the blood of their host, whether it is a human or animal. ? ?Here are some tips when it comes to ticks and your furry family members.
Know how to identify a tick. ?Ticks can be black, brown, or tan with eight legs. ?They can be as small as the head of a pin. ?So it can be easy to miss them!
Ticks prefer to stay close to the head, neck, feet and ear area, but are not limited to these areas. ?To check your pet for ticks, run your hands over his entire body. ?If you feel a bump or swollen area, look to see if a tick has made its home there. Don?t forget to check inside your pet?s ears, too!
Be careful when removing a tick. Any contact with the tick?s blood can transmit infection to you or your pet.
According to the ASPCA, to properly remove a tick from your pet, treat the area with rubbing alcohol and pluck the parasite with tweezers, making sure you have gotten the biting head and other body parts. DO NOT use heat to remove a tick. ?You may consider saving the tick in a small container for a few days for your veterinarian to identify or test in case your pet would begin displaying symptoms of a tick-borne illness.
Lyme Disease is a bacterial infection carried by some ticks that can affect humans as well as our dogs and cats. ?According to the Lyme Disease Association, dogs are 50% more likely to get Lyme Disease than humans. Symptoms of Lyme Disease include depression, swelling of the lymph nodes, loss of appetite, fever, and painful or swollen joints. If you suspect your dog may have Lyme Disease, contact your veterinarian. ?Lyme Disease is not the only tick-borne illness, so be sure to monitor your dog for any change in behavior following the removal of a tick.
If you live in a highly infested tick area, or your dog or cat is prone to tick infestation, consider a topical flea and tick treatment or a tick collar.
Ticks can be anywhere; they are not just limited to the deep woods. ?Make sure you take the time and steps to protect your family, including the furry members, from ticks this summer!
Help us find a furever home for Sara!
Feature Rescue: Sara
Sara is a 2-3 year old Boxer/Hound mix with a lot of spunk. ?She knows how to sit, lay down, is crate trained, and is doing really well with her work on ?stay.? She just needs someone who is willing to be the alpha dog and be firm with her. ?Sara would do really well in a home with someone who likes to hike, travel, camp, run, and keep her active. ?Although she wouldn?t do well with cats, Sara gets along with most dogs. ?To read more about Sara or other adoptables who are looking for homes at Paws and Claws Animal Rescue, visit their website?pawsclawsanimalrescue.weebly.com,?fill out the adoption application, and email it over to pawsandclawsanimalrescue@gmail.com. ?Thank you to Paws and Claws for saving Sara and sharing her story!
That?s the short version of Bob Nightengale?s latest column in which he reminds us how the Republic ended last year when Melky Cabrera won the All-Star Game MVP award before his drug suspension. And how, thanks to Biogenesis looming over everything, it could happen again.
Nightengale?s concern here is at about a 20 on a ten point scale, referring to Cabrera?s MVP award as ?a punch line for an otherwise glorious season.? I think it?s stretching it to even call it a footnote, but if Nightengale wants to say it turned 2012 into a joke he?s welcome to his opinion. Fact is every player in the All-Star Game is tested for drugs at some point every year. It?s quite possible that any player ? not just four random ones currently in the news ? could be suspended for drugs at any time. That?s a feature of the system, not a bug. If that feature is something which ruins seasons for him he probably needs to find another line of work, because it?s going to happen again. That?s how it works when you test players for drugs.
I don?t think Nightengale really thinks that, though. I think that, rather, he?s playing the Melky/All-Star Game angle up because it allows him to mix in (a) a Manny Ramirez digression that has zero to do with the All-Star Game or, beyond the yuks of it all, baseball relevance in 2013; and (b) extended quotes from Don Hooton of the Taylor Hooton foundation about the evils of steroids, all in the service of writing a large, point-free ?steroids are bad, mmkay? ramble.
The Hooton stuff makes me sad. Taylor Hooton, in case you were unaware, was a high school baseball player who committed suicide several years ago. He was also taking steroids at the time and his parents have decided that the steroids caused his suicide. He also happened to have suffered from low self-esteem and was taking an anti-depressant (Lexapro) which has been linked to an increased risk of suicide, but that part is usually left out. The Hootons ? and most baseball writers ? have determined that the suicide was caused by the steroids alone and they are widely quoted on the matter whenever PEDs in baseball returns to the news.
When one sees a quote from Mr. Hooton in these stories one?s heart can?t help but go out to him and the tragedy which befell his son and his family. One can?t escape the fact, however, that Mr. Hooton?s experience and views on the matter, however tragic, are wholly irrelevant to Major League Baseball, its drug testing program and the All-Star Game. Even if you accept Don Hooton?s explanation for the cause of his son?s suicide, Taylor Hooton was a teenager playing high school sports, facing wholly different sorts of pressures and incentives than professional athletes do. His foundation is the recipient of funds and support from Major League Baseball, but he not part of baseball?s drug enforcement regime. ?As such, when?Mr. Hooton opines on the All-Star Game and Manny Ramirez and suggests that baseball?s collectively-bargained PEDs penalties are insufficient, one struggles to find a point.
But hey: if the column gets one more person emotionally agitated over PEDs in baseball, mission accomplished, right?
5D optical memory in glass could record the last evidence of civilizationPublic release date: 9-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Glenn Harris G.Harris@soton.ac.uk 44-023-805-93212 University of Southampton
Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000C and practically unlimited lifetime.
Coined as the 'Superman' memory crystal, as the glass memory has been compared to the "memory crystals" used in the Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which is able to store vast quantities of data for over a million years. The information encoding is realised in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.
A 300 kb digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D using ultrafast laser, producing extremely short and intense pulses of light. The file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometres (one millionth of a metre).
The self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarisation of light that can then be read by combination of optical microscope and a polariser, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses.
The research is led by the ORC researcher Jingyu Zhang and conducted under a joint project with Eindhoven University of Technology.
"We are developing a very stable and safe form of portable memory using glass, which could be highly useful for organisations with big archives. At the moment companies have to back up their archives every five to ten years because hard-drive memory has a relatively short lifespan," says Jingyu.
"Museums who want to preserve information or places like the national archives where they have huge numbers of documents, would really benefit."
The Physical Optics group from the ORC presented their ground-breaking paper at the photonics industry's renowned Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO'13) in San Jose. The paper, '5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Nanostructuring in Glass' was presented by the during CLEO's prestigious post deadline session.
This work was done in the framework of EU project Femtoprint
Professor Peter Kazansky, the ORC's group supervisor, adds: "It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we've learnt will not be forgotten."
The team are now looking for industry partners to commercialise this ground-breaking new technology.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
5D optical memory in glass could record the last evidence of civilizationPublic release date: 9-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Glenn Harris G.Harris@soton.ac.uk 44-023-805-93212 University of Southampton
Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated the recording and retrieval processes of five dimensional digital data by femtosecond laser writing. The storage allows unprecedented parameters including 360 TB/disc data capacity, thermal stability up to 1000C and practically unlimited lifetime.
Coined as the 'Superman' memory crystal, as the glass memory has been compared to the "memory crystals" used in the Superman films, the data is recorded via self-assembled nanostructures created in fused quartz, which is able to store vast quantities of data for over a million years. The information encoding is realised in five dimensions: the size and orientation in addition to the three dimensional position of these nanostructures.
A 300 kb digital copy of a text file was successfully recorded in 5D using ultrafast laser, producing extremely short and intense pulses of light. The file is written in three layers of nanostructured dots separated by five micrometres (one millionth of a metre).
The self-assembled nanostructures change the way light travels through glass, modifying polarisation of light that can then be read by combination of optical microscope and a polariser, similar to that found in Polaroid sunglasses.
The research is led by the ORC researcher Jingyu Zhang and conducted under a joint project with Eindhoven University of Technology.
"We are developing a very stable and safe form of portable memory using glass, which could be highly useful for organisations with big archives. At the moment companies have to back up their archives every five to ten years because hard-drive memory has a relatively short lifespan," says Jingyu.
"Museums who want to preserve information or places like the national archives where they have huge numbers of documents, would really benefit."
The Physical Optics group from the ORC presented their ground-breaking paper at the photonics industry's renowned Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO'13) in San Jose. The paper, '5D Data Storage by Ultrafast Laser Nanostructuring in Glass' was presented by the during CLEO's prestigious post deadline session.
This work was done in the framework of EU project Femtoprint
Professor Peter Kazansky, the ORC's group supervisor, adds: "It is thrilling to think that we have created the first document which will likely survive the human race. This technology can secure the last evidence of civilisation: all we've learnt will not be forgotten."
The team are now looking for industry partners to commercialise this ground-breaking new technology.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
HTC may have its Mini Bluetooth handset, but Sony thinks such implementation works best as a big clip without the numeric pad. Dubbed the SBH52, this splashproof device comes with FM radio, a headphone jack plus a small OLED display to show caller ID and text messages, so in a way it's similar to its predecessors. What's new is that you now get NFC as well as an earpiece -- the latter lets you use the clip as a mini phone. Expect to see this on the shelves in Q3 this year.
Imgur, a reservoir of viral photos, adorable kittens and vapid memes, is going mobile: it's releasing an official Android app today. Technically, the app has been floating around Google Play since April, albeit in beta form. The final build allows users to view and comment on photos, as well as to upload their own -- basically everything the service's full website offers. Read on for the company's full press release, or check out the source link below to fuel your mindless addiction.
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Public release date: 9-Jul-2013
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