DaveRant

By Dave Bunting, Shopper Editor

• Community Solar Panels
• American Adults Pessimistic
• Asteroid Bennu
• Youth Cellphones & Social Media
• Hydrogen Fuel
• Norway Electric Cars
• Reuse Heat from Air Conditioners

Snohomish PUD offers subscriptions
to large community solar panel
arrays to homeowners

The Community Solar program will build 162 solar panels in a field in Arlington.

The program will sell subscriptions for $600 per 380-watt panel, or $120 for a fifth of a panel.

The panels will remain installed in the community field- no work will be done at the subscriber’s home.

Subscribers will receive a monthly credit of $0.06/kWh on their bill equal to their portion of the solar system’s production. In addition, subscribers will also receive an annual incentive payment provided by Washington State. We anticipate this payment will be $0.16/kWh per year of energy produced for the first 8 years of the program.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2O1yrov

Pew Research finds most
adult Americans pessimistic

• 72% expect income gaps to widen, and 44% see living standards declining.
• 57% see tougher financial times on the horizon for older Americans. 84% say by 2050 most Americans will have to work into their 70’s.
• 59% of adults are pessimistic about the environment, and 69% are worried about climate change.
• 82% say robots and computers will definitely or probably do much of the work currently done by humans. 69% see this as a bad thing for the U.S.
• Americans are more likely to see the nation’s shift to “majority-minority” status as a good thing than a bad thing, but 42% say it’s neither good nor bad.
• 87% expect a woman and a Hispanic person to become president by 2050.
• 60% of adults see a smaller role for the U.S. on the world stage.
• 65% of adults say the U.S. will be more politically divided in 2050 than it is today, and this belief is held across partisan lines: 68% of Republicans say this, as do 62% of Democrats.
• 48% say they are very worried about the ability of political leaders to solve the country’s biggest problems.
• Info: fyi/2TYxWBZ

Asteroid Bennu covered with
boulders instead of dust

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission will return a sample of a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu to Earth in 2023. OSIRIS made the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface.

Bennu also revealed itself to be more rugged than expected. Such space objects are expected to be primarily covered with dust, thus having wide flat spaces on which a spacecraft could land easily. But Benno is covered with boulders, even relatively large house-size boulders, challenging the mission team to alter its flight and sample collection plans, due to the rough terrain.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2CG73In

Increases in youth suicidal
thoughts blamed on
cellphones, social media

But not only on them directly, but also on their seriously reducing youth sleep time.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2TAse4f

Hydrogen from seawater

Stanford researchers have devised a way to generate hydrogen fuel using solar power, electrodes and saltwater from San Francisco Bay.

The findings, published March 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate a new method of electrolysis, separating hydrogen and oxygen gas from seawater via electricity. Both this and existing methods require much electric power, but existing water-splitting methods rely on highly purified water, which is a precious resource and prohibitively costly to produce.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2CG73In

Cheaper way to
hydrogen fuel

Research has demonstrated that using nanocatalysts composed of nickel and iron increases the efficiency of water electrolysis, the process of breaking water molecules apart to produce hydrogen and oxygen and combining them with electrons to create hydrogen gas.

When nanoparticles composed of an iron and nickel shell around a nickel core are applied to the process, they interact with the hydrogen and oxygen atoms to weaken the bonds, increasing the efficiency of the reaction by allowing the generation of oxygen more easily. Nickel and iron are also less expensive than other catalysts, which are made from scarce materials.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2Ost1mJ

In Norway half of
cars sold are electric.

One of the key policies is Norwegian car-taxation system is based on the principle that the more you pollute, the more you pay. Tax for a new car is calculated by combining weight, CO₂ and NO_x emissions. It is progressive, making big cars with high emissions very expensive. This results in most electric vehicles becoming cheaper compared to similar petrol models.

In addition, other incentives are in place such as 25% sales tax exemption for new EV purchases, road toll exemption, low annual road tax, free access to municipal parking and ferries, access to bus lanes and a good network of public charging stations.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2uwEmt4

Can we re-use heat
withdrawn from air
in an air conditioner?

Air conditioners extract heat (energy) from air. They also use a lot of electric power (energy) to do so.

The sum of the heat (energy) extracted from inside air plus the work (energy) that went into the cooling process is discharged in the form of waste heat (energy) into surrounding air.

Is there a way we could convert that waste heat (energy) into a useful form instead of wasting it?

There are examples of heat being converted into useable, storable energy. Plants convert energy from the sun into food (energy), all the food we eat, in fact. Heat from the sun also heats, vaporizes water into clouds which rain, and the electric power (energy) is produced in hydro dam turbines. The engines in our cars, turns fuel (energy) into heat, which then performs the work (energy) of propelling our cars.

Apparently no one has yet devised a way to use this great source of readily-available heat energy.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2FznO8V

By Dave Bunting, Shopper Editor

GPS Week Number Rollover

Boeing’s 737Max

Super Commuters Earn More

ENJOY Your Exercise

GPS Week Number Rollover

A GPS week number  rollover will occur at the end of the GPS day on Saturday, 6 April 2019, at which time the GPS week will transition instantly from week 2047 to 2048.

Because the GPS message structure broadcast by the satellites defines the week as a 10-bit binary value, in which 2047 is the largest possible number, the GPS messages will indicate that the week has changed from 2047 to week 0.

To prepare for the week number rollover, it is recommended to install the latest GPS receiver firmware version.

Most of our consumer devices, phones, tablets, computers, cars, etc. should handle this. But it’s a good time to make sure all of them including our handheld GPS receivers for hiking, etc., as well as any high precision surveying or construction GPS devices are updated to the current software version through the manufacturer.

There is a small chance the event could affect the electric transmission and distribution system (PUD, Bonneville, Pacific Power, etc.)

Info:  shpr.fyi/2XXcATN

Download a PDF:     . https://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2017/powers.pdf

More info:      .  https://www.energy.gov/oe/articles/april-2019-global-positioning-system-gps-week-number-rollover

Boeing lands contract to
build 777’s in Everett

Boeing lands British Airways contract for initially 18, up to 42, 777’s, for $375 million each, 5 to 18 billion. As Airbus closes its A380 production, the current models of the 777 are the largest and longest-range airliners produced in the world. Our Washington State workers produce these planes at the rate of five per month at the Everett, WA plant, their paychecks bring about $750 million per month into the Washington State economy.

https://phys.org/news/2019-02-british-airways-huge-boeing.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_777

Boeing revises 737-MAX
stall-prevention software
and training

Boeing plans to release, and the Federal Aviation Administration expects to mandate, new software revising operation of the automated stall-prevention feature known as MCAS, implicated in the October crash of a Lion Air 737 MAX. Likely the same automated feature played a role in the recent crash of an Ethiopian Airline MAX.

Boeing has been advocating comparatively limited training consisting of new written materials aviators would read. But the FAA is pushing for more extensive training, consisting of pilots engaging in self-guided instruction on a laptop.

The MCAS itself is not an autopilot; it’s a system to adjust the trim to compensate for a change in the engine from previous 737 models, which is supposed to be active only when the pilot is manually flying the plane. Airbus aircraft are known to have a similar problem which has caused incidents. The pilots who submitted reports (who were US carrier pilots and appear to have been much more careful about pre-briefing possible issues and acting quickly when an issue happened) did in fact immediately disengage autopilot and bring the plane back to correct pitch attitude when an uncommanded pitch down happened. But again, that had nothing to do with MCAS; in fact, one of the pilots noted that he had engaged autopilot on that flight earlier than he normally would have in order to remove a possible MCAS threat during a manual climb.

Info:  shpr.fyi/2FlT38d

More Info:   shpr.fyi/2TShfHH

Super-commuters earn more

A new study from Apartment List suggests more of Seattle area workers are super commuting (suffering through a 90-plus minute commute), working from home, or doing a combination of both. The study also shows these Seattle area people are making 5 percent more ($63,000 annually) than those whose commute is under 90 minutes ($60,000). The remote workers are making even 30 percent more at ($78,000).

Info:   shpr.fyi/2JoMBBH

Remember those were Seattle area workers. In 2016 (the most recent year for which we found numbers), King County average annual wages were $45,878 ($22.05/hr) to $76,013 ($36.54/hr), while Lewis County average wages were $37,663 ($18.10/hr) to $39,954 ($19.20/hr).

Info:   shpr.fyi/2HFIS01

In active worker men,
those who can do
40 push-ups
are much less likely
to have heart attacks.

Well! Duh!

Tell us something we don’t already know.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2ThZvkx

ENJOY your exercise.

It’s hard to do. Some of their hints:

• Focus on physical activity that you enjoy on its own merits. I enjoy walking the 1.5 mile loop at the end of my routine. I know I won’t do the routine if my walk is not included.
• Your goal should not be to achieve the perfect body. For most of us, looking like a model is medically impossible. Instead, aim to establish a habit that will improve your overall health and mood. You might schedule a workout during the work-day, using that physical activity as an excuse to get away from your desk for half an hour. This could even help you be more productive at the office. If you have other errands to run over your lunch break, turn them into your exercise of the day: Walk or bike to the store with a backpack. Even heavy exercisers can’t lose 20% of their calorie intake with exercise. The biggest withdrawal from your caloric bank comes not from that physical activity, but from your diet- be serious about 1,500 calories EVERY DAY!
• But wait, shouldn’t all workouts provide heavy, sweaty action? One expert says that it’s more about consistency than intensity: “One year, I was having some health issues, and all I did for an entire year was walk and lift some weights. And my legs were in the best shape they’d been in years,” she says. “I walked 2016 miles in the year 2016, so it was a lotof walking!” Scientists agree that even a low-intensity exercise like walking, when undertaken consistently, has real health benefits. In a 2014 Journal of the American College of Cardiology study, just five to ten minutes a day was enough to improve subjects’ health, provided they put in those minutes every single day.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2TX8ADK

Water, landslide and other damage occurs annually to every mile of every road, especially here in our heavy rainfall climate.

Some such damage is minor such that its repair can be handled in normal scheduled periodic maintenance. Some damage is major, making the road unsafe or impossible to drive, and requires a project to repair it.

Repair of these damages are essential to maintain access. Even the minor damages must be regularly repaired, or they accumulate to become major obstacles to drivability of the road. Significant maintenance must be scheduled and funded annually to cover both the accumulated minor damages and the less frequent major damages that are more expensive to repair. The amount of such annual damage is somewhat constant over the years, so the amount of funds needed annually can be estimated reasonably accurately.

Sadly, through changes in personnel and administration at the top Washington DC levels, through recent decades, the Forest Service has regrettably and surprisingly lost the simple mechanical process of estimating, totaling up and applying for this adequate funding annually from the Congress. Allowing this loss is grounds for legitimate, very serious criticism of the Forest Service’s high-level managers.

Thus, sadly local districts are usually allotted only a small fraction of the money they need to keep the roads open, and to thus keep the forests usable and manageable. Highest level Forest Service managers do not know how much money the districts need, and do not even ask the districts for that amount. How they determine the ludicrously low amounts they request for road maintenance is a mystery.

Last year’s road maintenance funding to the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District was very inadequate, only a fraction of funds needed in an average year. This year the District’s funding was cut in half.

Fortunately, Pacific Northwest leaders especially our own Congresswoman Jaime Herrera-Beutler, have recognized this serious funding gap, and created the Emergency Relief for Federally Owned Roads, or ERFO. ERFO makes at least some of the gap funding available but requires the district staff to make extensive and wasteful-of-time applications for the funds,  project by project. Most of those funds should be simply in their basic annual appropriation.

We the public, the owners of the forests, depend upon road access for all of our uses of the forests including such as hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, berry and mushroom picking, wildlife viewing, income-supplementing commercial gathering of forest products, and many others. An additional important aspect of “our use” of the forest is the use, on our behalf and for our benefit, by our hired forest employees’ activities, including management of recreation, vegetation including timber, wildlife including hunting and poaching enforcement, water, soils, minerals, cultural resources, law enforcement, and of course, their critically important fire suppression.

A forest without roads cannot be used or managed in any real sense.

Our national forests are dedicated to these above “Multiple Uses,” unlike lands such as National Parks, which are dedicated to only viewing from afar and not touching. Nearly all direct use of the forest in a National Park is strictly prohibited.

A forest without roads is thus indeed “useless.” Closing of roads, whether intentionally for some reason, or by allowing them to close by becoming undriveable due to unrepaired weather damage, prevents all normal uses and management of the forest.

A forest without roads is use-less.

Responsible management of our forests for our multiple uses requires keeping our forest roads open, so our forests remain useful and manageable.

Responsible forest management requires seeking and obtaining sufficient funds to keep the forest roads open and the forests useful and managed.

Closing a road closes the forest.

Image: Curtin University

Trapdoor spiders spend most of their lives in their burrows

 Trapdoor spiders’ habit of rarely coming out of their burrows seems to be a tactic that works. The oldest-known spider, a  trapdoor spider, found in WA (not Washington State but Western Australia), lived until she was 43 years old.

But it’s not a tactic that helps spiders meet mates, which is why males must emerge from the safety of their burrows. When outside their burrows, the spiders are exposed to predation by wasps.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2xtKbs1

Drone with explosives used in attempt to kill candidate

On July 31, 2018, a drone carrying an explosive is reported to have been flown toward a Venezuelan presidential candidate in an attempt to kill him.

Drones capable of such an attack are easily available to anyone in the US and around the world. The technology is simple. Many Americans, even high school students, could today obtain and operate such a drone, arm it with explosives made from components available in grocery stores, fly it to and explode it against any disliked person.

Various ways of stopping such a drone are envisioned and easily buildable but have serious secondary dangers like injuring bystanders and disrupting public events. No such defense is known to be in place now.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2QzUow1

A third of teens haven’t read a book in the past year.

A study at San Diego State University suggests that today’s teens are no less curious or intelligent than previous generations. But many simply don’t have experience delving into long-form texts. Learning to do so is imperative, the study argues, as it lays the groundwork for developing critical thinking skills and understanding complex issues.

“Think about how difficult it must be to read even five pages of an 800-page college textbook when you’ve been used to spending most of your time switching between one digital activity and another in a matter of seconds,” the study empathizes.

“It really highlights the challenges students and faculty both face in the current era.”

Just 2% of sophomores read a daily newspaper — compared to third of same-aged teens in 1990s.

Info:   shpr.fyi/2xgIKhx

MJI Mavic Drone

The MJI Mavic Drone has:

• Four mile radio control range.
• Battery life 30 minutes.
• Propeller tip to propeller tip: 21”.
• 24 oz.
• Five cameras.
• Obstacle avoidance system.
  Automatic return to launch location on loss of control signal.
• Lift extra load capacity 2.3 lb.
• Up to 40 mph speed.
• Folded for carrying: 3”x3”x8” the size of a water bottle. Easily packable by hiker.
• $818 refurbished from Amazon.

Info:   www.dji.com/mavic

Editor Note: Very inexpertly, I enjoy flying—trying to fly–  a very simple drone. I wish I had time to learn to fly it better. I’m fighting the urge to order a drone like the Mavic.

US suspects Russia’s new space weapons

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States voiced deep suspicion on Tuesday over Russia’s pursuit of new space weapons, including a mobile laser system to destroy satellites in space, and the launch of a new inspector satellite which was acting in an “abnormal” way.

Russia’s pursuit of counterspace capabilities was “disturbing”, Yleem D.S. Poblete, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, told the U.N.’s Conference on Disarmament which is discussing a new treaty to prevent an arms race in outer space.

Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled in March “six new major offensive weapons systems”, including the Peresvet military mobile laser system, Poblete said.

“To the United States this is yet further proof that the Russian actions do not match their words,” she said.

Referring to a “space apparatus inspector”, whose deployment was announced by the Russian defence ministry last October, Poblete said: “The only certainty we have is that this system has been ‘placed in orbit’.”

She said its behaviour on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before, including other Russian inspection satellite activities, adding: “We are concerned with what appears to be very abnormal behaviour by a declared ‘space apparatus inspector’.”

Excerpted from euronews.com

Info:    shpr.fyi/2D7yiy1

Steve is not an aurora

Every few years, a thin river of purple light slashes through the skies of northern Canada.
A group of citizen skywatchers who witnessed it on July 25, 2016 decided to give the “magnificent, mysterious, borderline-miracu-lous” phenomenon a fittingly majestic name: “Steve.”
A scientific team working on other projects had the opportunity to measure Steve: At about 200 miles (300 km) above Earth, the air inside Steve blazed at about 5,500 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the air on each side and moved about 500 times faster. This band of hot, surging gas was about 16 miles (25 km) wide and 600 miles long tall.
Steve does not contain the tell-tale traces of charged particles blast-ing through Earth’s atmosphere that auroras do. Steve, therefore, is not an aurora at all, but something en-tirely different: a mysterious, large-ly unexplained phenomenon that the researchers have dubbed a “sky glow.”
Steve has been a familiar night phenomenon for decades.
This article contains excerpts from space.com.
Info: shpr.fyi/2BUAJU5

Earth reversed its magnetic field in 150 years

Approximately 98,000 years ago, a magnetic reversal occurred over just a century and a half, approxi-mately 10 times faster than had been believed possible.
In a magnetic reversal, compasses would point south instead of north.
Earth’s magnetic field is generat-ed by liquid metal churning at depths 1,700 miles below the sur-face. But sometimes, that churning can change slightly, affecting the magnetic field.
There have been 183 reversals over the last 83 million years. A brief complete reversal, known as the Laschamp event, occurred only 41,000 years ago during the last glacial period. That reversal lasted only about 440 years
If such rapid polarity changes occurred in the future, they could severely affect satellites and human society.
This article includes excerpts from phys.org and Wikipedia.
Info: shpr.fyi/2ojIDge

A critical vulnerability has been discovered in HP Fax/Printers

Criminals have found a way to get into our home and business networks—through our Fax machines from the phone line! Really!
All Fax devices should be updated immediately, and it’s blessedly simple:
Go here: bit.ly/2vHis7i
Lookup device.
Download executable.
Run it.
Select discovered device and go.
Info: grc.com

Seattle tunnel could open as early as this fall

The tunnel under downtown Seattle will move Highway 99 traffic off the ugly, old, deteriorating Alaska Way Viaduct.
The tunnel is mostly finished, with workers now striping the pavement and installing signs along the walls.
But first drivers must deal with a 3-week viaduct closure to realign SR 99 into the tunnel.
Info: shpr.fyi/2oir4gH

Canadian expert says Washington forests need much more intentional burning

“Climate change plays a significant role in this,” said Robert Gray, a fire management consultant who’s worked in the US Forest Service in Washington state and across the west. “It’s not entirely climate change, but certainly climate change in the sense that the amount of burned area has correlated quite strongly with increases in global temperatures. We have significant increases in fire season; in California, they are talking about a year-round fire season. Other states and territories here in BC, we’ve got an extended fire season now.”
   “We’ve got a lazy jet stream, which is giving us these stagnant, high-pressure systems that just park over parts of the west for weeks at a time. Historically, we had a strong-er jet stream that moved things around a bit more,” he said.
   “In Washington state, there is just not enough burning going on,” Gray said. “Nowhere near enough compared to the scale of the hazard. Our treatments have to match the scale of the disturbance. So if we are seeing 10,000 or 20,000 acre fires, our treatment areas have to be similar size. And they’re just not and they are porous. There’s 200 acres over there, another 1,000 acres over there … they are too few and too dispersed.”
Above article includes excerpts from mynorthwest.com.
Info: shpr.fyi/2wpsrxA

The Parker Solar Probe – A Mission to Touch the Sun

People around the world look up and see our Sun every day. But through a space telescope, it looks nothing like it does from down on the ground. The surface dances with arches of solar material that reach up into the solar atmosphere – an environment of charged particles and magnetic fields unlike anything we experience on Earth. In 2018, the Parker Solar Probe will launch from a Delta IV Heavy rocket and travel approximately 3 months to take its first swing by the Sun right through that atmosphere. Over sev-en years it will get ever closer, un-til ultimately it’s within 3.9 mil-lion miles (6.2 million km) of the Sun’s surface. That’s so close, that the previous record holder, the He-lios-B Spacecraft, was seven times farther away.
An important objective of the Parker Solar Probe is to learn more about the solar wind, an exotic stew of magnetic forces, plasma and particles. It interacts with plan-etary magnetospheres and atmos-pheres, which over the eons may have contributed to a planet’s hab-itability. It blankets our spacecraft and astronauts traveling to the moon or Mars. It affects space weather at and around Earth and causes beautiful aurorae.
The solar wind also travels at immense speeds, and scientists want to learn why. It leaves the Sun at a speed of up to 500 miles (800 km) a second and engulfs all major planets in the solar system. What is the source of the wind? From a distance, it’s difficult to tell.
Dr. Adam Szabo, the Parker mis-sion scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center says, “We’ve been examining the solar wind for over 50 years. But the wind is pro-cessed by the time it reaches Earth. By studying it much closer to the Sun, the Parker Probe will be able to tell us such things as what part of the Sun is providing the energy source for the wind’s particles and how they can accelerate to such incredibly high speeds.”
From NASA Science News 2018

The International Asteroid Hunt

On February 15, 2013, a house-sized meteor entered into Earth’s atmosphere at over 40,000 mph and exploded 14 miles above Chelya-binsk, Russia. The blast – wielding more than 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atom bomb – gener-ated a shock wave that shattered windows and damaged buildings in several Russian cities, injuring over 1600 people.
“The Chelyabinsk event was an ominous warning shot. It drew attention to what should be done to detect even larger asteroids that could possibly strike our planet.”
According to Johnson, the need for worldwide collaboration in as-teroid detection and tracking was already recognized, but Chelya-binsk was a spectacular reminder.
It was also an ironic coincidence.
“Our report with recommenda-tions on what should be done about the hazard from near-Earth objects (NEOs) was being presented at a U.N. committee meeting that very same day.”
That coincidence helped lead to a coordinated effort among many nations to keep a closer eye on the sky. In 2013, the United Nations endorsed the creation of the Interna-tional Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN), for which observatories around the world regularly search the skies to find and track asteroids and comets whose orbits periodical-ly bring them within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit. Additional-ly, NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in 2016 to organize the near-Earth object search and to plan and coordinate any response to pos-sible asteroid impacts.
So, how well would the IAWN, the PDCO, and their partners work together if an object was flying into Earth’s neighborhood?
October 2017 presented a golden opportunity for asteroid trackers around the world to test their abil-ity to operate as a coordinated net-work. Led by the US, IAWN mounted a practice observation campaign to find and track a small asteroid named 2012 TC4, first detected in 2012. While this aster-oid posed no risk of impact with Earth, it was predicted to come back into view in the fall of 2017 with a very close approach.
Observers with the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory were the first to re-acquire 2012 TC4 in late July 2017 by calculating where to look with an 8-meter aperture telescope in Chile. Then, more than a dozen observatories, universities, and space labs around the globe detect-ed 2012 TC4 and reported their observations to the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astro-physical Observatory where experts calculate asteroid orbits to identify any danger to Earth.
As expected, the object ap-proached and passed by Earth on October 12, 2017.
Dr. Kelly Fast is manager of NASA’s NEO Observations Pro-gram at NASA Headquarters.
“This was a very successful exer-cise for the IAWN with precise prediction of the orbit and tracking of the asteroid. It passed about 27,000 miles from Earth’s surface – only a tenth of the distance to our Moon.”
From NASA Science News 2018

Electric VW EV beats gas fair and square.

French racing driver Romain Dumas and car maker Volkswagen stamped their authority in 7:57:148 on all 12.4-miles (19.99km) of the course, destroying its existing record and setting the first sub-eight minute time in race history. The VW had 875hp inside a car that weighed just 1,929 lbs.

In the lead-up to the 2018 race, VW’s stated goal was clear—beat Rhys Millen’s 2016 EV record of 9:07.22, even though that race was won byRomain Dumas’ gasoline-powered performance in his Norma M20 on that day of 8:51:445.

Second place this year was taken by Simone Faggioli in 08:37.2 driving a piston powered Norma M20 SF PKP.

If any car has an advantage at Pikes Peak it’s the electric EV. The start line is already at 9,390 feet (2,862m) above sea level; the finish line is an even higher 14,110 feet (4,300m), and much of the course is above the tree line, where there’s 40 percent less oxygen to breathe. Consequently, internal combustion engines will lose power—significantly—as they climb the route, even with the aid of forced induction or crafty fuel mixtures.

This year Dumas in the electric VW handily beat both of those records with his 7:57:148.

The Pike’s Peak is the second-oldest motor race in the United States—only the Indy 500 predates it— and is unlike virtually every other professional motorsports event.

Science and Digital Briefs June 20, 2018

By Dave Bunting, Shopper Editor

IQ has been declining since WWII 

Research has found that human IQ has been declining since WWII. It had been increasing continuously before then through much of human history.

The loss in intelligence is suspected to be related to our increasing dependence on intelligent machines (i.e. “computers”) to make our mundane minute-by-minute as well as major life choices of how to live and do things, how to fulfill our needs, instead of exercising and thus expanding our minds to “figure it out for ourselves.”

In a closely related study, the group found that higher exposure to commercial television reduces cognitive ability and high school graduation rates for boys. The effects appear to be driven by consumption of light television entertainment crowding out more cognitively stimulating activities. Point estimates suggest that the effects are most negative for boys from more educated families. They found no effect on high school completion for girls, pointing to the growth of non-educational media as a factor in the widening educational gender gap, though the study needs to be looked at carefully to determine whether boys’ and girls’ television watching is the same or different. Girls are rapidly gaining on boys in both school attainment and both business and political success.

Similar ideas are explaining the decline in demand for college education.

Certainly, many jobs require the full four-year or more college degrees; upon such professional jobs, and the beautiful education that supports them, rests the scientific health and world-leading strength and advancement of the US, and indeed of the world. The tiny effort by me here in the Shopper in rural Lewis County to point local students toward STEM (Scientific, Technological, Engineering and Mathematical) education is my contribution toward encouraging our students to four-year or more professional degree education.

But also, a big share of the jobs formerly requiring four-year degree-level knowledge are now assisted, almost replaced, very strongly and fundamentally by intelligent machines. Starting and rote operation of a machine, even an intelligent one, usually doesn’t require the four-year-degree level of knowledge, and full four-year education of students to fill these jobs is wasteful.

As a result, many colleges have too many professors, administrators and buildings, wastefully necessitating tuition and tax support at levels that students and governments increasingly cannot afford.

Technical schools, in curriculums of one year or less, without professors and campuses, teaching how to use intelligent machines to make sophisticated products and services are growing very strongly, and providing good jobs with big paychecks to millions of graduates. In some such schools, students are even paid to enroll and attend.

Info:    shpr.fyi/2HZmH1b

A blob of liquid mercury in space: Would it boil?

Remember that a liquid boils if its internal pressure exceeds the external pressure, which, in space is zero. Water boils instantly if released in space. Astronauts must be in their pressurized suits, as their blood would boil if it was exposed to pressure-less space.

So will mercury, a liquid at room temperature, boil if placed in space where there is no external pressure?

Answer: It will freeze first, when it reaches its freezing temperature, which is just minus 38° F.

Read this fascinating discussion by very knowledgeable scientists, some of whom, embarrassingly, got a long way down ratholes before recognizing the simple truth. At first thought, I didn’t know the answer either.

Info:    shpr.fyi/2M3X3uQ

EPA hopes to calculate costs and benefits of regulations more accurately.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is asking for guidance in how it should estimate more accurately the costs and benefits of its regulations.

EPA regulations often bring small benefits while costing much in jobs, workers paychecks and retirees’ pensions. They often also unnecessarily increase consumers’ costs of products and services.

The EPA is asking for ideas for improve its legally-required cost vs. benefit calculations for laws and regulations.

Groups have complained that the agency has improperly boosted the benefits and downplayed the costs of the agency’s rules.

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I Learned This Week

iPhone Do Not Disturb setting allows only rings from my contact list, silences all others including the very bothersome typical twenty-plus solicitor calls daily. All calls continue to show in the Recent Calls list so if I see the President called, I can return the call.

US Regains #1 Spot in Competitiveness Ranking

A respected independent research group in Switzerland, that annually ranks 256 nations’ competitiveness, concluded that the United States has regained its position as the #1 nation in its global competitiveness ranking.

For 2018, there was this big surprise: The US jumped three places to take over the top spot in global competitiveness – now ahead of Hong Kong, Singapore, the Netherlands and Switzerland – the previous leaders in recent years. That jump was based on the US “strength in economic performance and infrastructure,” ranking first in both areas.

Since the beginning of last year, GDP growth has averaged 2.9%, up from 2% through the preceding eight years. Consumer confidence indexes are at or near multi-year highs. Investment in both large and small businesses by Americans is surging, and a big reason for that is that taxes are low. Inflation, at about 2%, remains under control. Things are getting better.

Meanwhile, we continue to slash away at the mountain of regulations that strangles the US economy, costing us collectively nearly $2 trillion a year. All of this has helped to fuel an economic renaissance of sorts. Since January, 2017, US households are $7.1 trillion richer– that’s average $40,000 per household richer!

Partly excerpted from garydhalbert.com, Forecasts & Trends, June 5, 2018.

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Dave’s Briefs June 13, 2018: Student in Nationally Prominent Science, NASA Educational Programs for Students

By Dave Bunting, Shopper Editor

Chehalis High School Student Advances Diagnosis of Zika Virus

F. West Chehalis High School senior Ashlynn Gallagher won 1st place in the Intel South Sound Regional Science Fair among 300 students from 50 high schools. She advanced to the international fair in Pittsburgh for her project, a test strip that detects the Zika virus and delivers results in 2 min.

Her proposal was also named fourth best in the International Science and Engineering Fair sponsored by Intel.

Zika is the extremely dangerous and incurable mosquito-borne virus that causes few or no symptoms in infected people, but that, if it infects a pregnant woman, causes her baby to be borne with a very under-developed brain in an unusually small head.

She believes her test strip can be modified to detect other serious diseases such as Ebola, HIV or cancers.

Her efforts to find doctors and laboratories to test her strip were made more difficult because the doctors feared her contacting the virus could endanger her chance of bearing children herself.

She has also won an internship in this year’s summer school with Fondazione Bruno Kessler WebValley in Italy.

In the fall, she will enter Oregon State University to seek degrees in bioengineering and mathematics or computer science.

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NASA Projects For High School Students

The Space Shuttle was a glider!

This week’s emphasis in one NASA program for students is gliders. NASA offers several activities this week for high school students on this week’s subject of gliders. Here’s one of them:

Energy Activity
If so instructed by your teacher, print out a worksheet page for these problems.

Background:

Potential energy is stored energy. The chemical energy in a can of gas, the energy in a compressed spring, and the energy in water behind a dam are all examples of potential energy. Potential energy is also called energy of position. In this case the formula for potential energy is: E_p= m*g*h where E_p stands for potential energy and is measured in joules, m stands for mass and is measured in kilograms, g stands for gravity and equals 9.8 m/s², and h stands for height and is measured in meters.

Kinetic energy is energy of motion. The formula for kinetic energy is: E_k= 1/2*m*V² where E_k stands for kinetic energy and is measured in joules, m stands for mass and is measured in kilograms, and V stands for velocity and is measured in m/s.

When a glider loses altitude it converts potential energy into kinetic energy. This is an example of the law of conservation of energy. When potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, the velocity of the plane or glider increases. The amount of increase can be calculated by solving for velocity in the kinetic energy equation given above.

Problems:

1. A model glider has a mass of 1 kg. How much potential energy does it have 2 meters off the ground?
2. The same model has a velocity of 2.2 m/s. How much kinetic energy does it have?
3. If the same model descends 2 meters and all it’s potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, what is the glider’s change in velocity?
4. A full-sized glider has a weight of 4,900 N, while it’s pilot has a weight of 825 N. If it is 1,000 meters off the ground, how much potential energy do the plane and pilot have?
5. The same glider from Problem 4 has a velocity of 35 m/s. How much kinetic energy does it have?
6. The same glider from Problem 4 has a velocity of 35 m/s. The glider descends 900 meters. What is it’s new velocity?
7. Compare the velocity you calculated in Problem 6 to the speed of sound. Is this answer reasonable? Why or why not?

Students 9-12 NASA:

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College students compete for NASA extracting water from Mars ice

In deep space, accessing water is a top priority for human survival. NASA is exploring ways to provide water using existing resources on multiple planetary surfaces and engaging universities in this mission through the RASC-AL (Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkages) Special Edition: Mars Ice Challenge.

The Mars Ice Challenge is one of several RASC-AL collegiate design competitions sponsored by NASA and administered by the National Institute of Aerospace in Hampton, Virginia, that exercise innovation in support of NASA’s vision for expanding human space exploration – in this case, a technology demonstration for critical in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) capabilities.

Teams and their advisors travelled from their universities and set up their drilling systems in the hangar at NASA’s Langley Research Center. Teams had a day to set up before the two-day competition began.

In its second year, Mars Ice Challenge judges 10 competitively selected teams to travel to NASA’s Langley Research Center from June 5-7 to demonstrate unique methods for harvesting water from simulated Martian subsurface ice. The goal? Extract as much water as possible over a two-day period.

This year, the team from Northeastern University placed first overall and collected the most water with its concept titled Planetary Articulating Water Extraction System. Northeastern University, with 18,000 students spread among four campuses, is a relatively small school in Massachusetts.

“The team is very excited, they all worked very hard,” said Dr. Taskin Padir, the team’s advisor. “One of the great things about this competition is that we were able to build on what we learned from the past year’s teams.”

Northeastern mechanical engineering student Emmy Kelly added the team is already thinking about what’s next.

“We were glad we performed so well but as soon as we got back to the hotel we started talking about next year,” she said. “We want to improve and make modifications so we can run more autonomously. We’re looking to be more Mars ready.”

For more about this project:

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NASA has thousands of projects, competitions, and learning opportunities for students from K-8, high school, and college.

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