Researchers Built a Solar Simulator That Shines Brighter Than 20,000 Suns

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Scientists looking to test the impact of solar radiation on their materials don’t need to send them to space. Instead they can pay a visit to the new solar simulator designed by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, which burns brighter than 20,000 suns, Gizmodo reports.

The light system at the Laboratory of Renewable Energy Science and Engineering in Switzerland is described in the journal Optics Express [PDF]. It consists of a seven-foot-wide cluster of 18 lamps lit by Xenon bulbs. When the beams of light converge, the luminous flux measures in at 21.7 MW m-2, or the equivalent of 21,700 suns. (That’s bright, but not as bright as some machines that have been built in the past: a particle accelerator in Berkeley, California is more luminous than a billion suns).

Such a powerful simulator could have numerous applications, like testing out solar power equipment and crafts built for space travel. A duplicate of the machine in Australia is accessible to researchers on an open-source basis. The energy of 20,000 suns likely isn’t a requirement for most projects—thankfully, the output level can be adjusted.

[h/t Gizmodo]

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September 23, 2016 – 9:00am

Dream of Being an Astronaut? You Might Want to Work on Your Handshake

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To become an astronaut, one has to meet an extraordinary set of standards and excel physically, mentally, and emotionally. They also need to have a firm handshake.

That’s according to YouTube’s SciShow Space, which recently did an installment on the rarely discussed astronaut ability that’s all in the wrist—and the forearm, and the hands. You see, in zero gravity, space travelers don’t have much use for their legs, especially when performing extravehicular activities (EVAs), a.k.a. spacewalks. As SciShow host Caitlin Hofmeister explains, these outings require a ton of strength and agility, and because of friction, sometimes even result in a lost fingernail. In a 2005 NASA study, nearly half of all EVA training-related injuries were in the hands.

To prepare for the grueling nature of EVAs, astronauts train underwater leading up to the mission. They spend hours in a pool with their spacesuits on to simulate the experience of weightlessness, and to help get their muscles ready. They’re not totally without help, though—for one, they’re tethered to the ship. Also, NASA and General Motors have developed a “Robo-Glove” (officially called the Human Grasp Assist device) which, when responding to pressure from an astronaut hand, can double or even triple the user’s grip strength. (It’s now being applied to factory work as well.)

The Robo-Glove technology could one day even become a complete space suit. So yeah, while astronauts are currently engaged in exhausting, hours-long physical feats, they’re paving the way for a future where superhero-like spacesuits could help us explore the final frontier.

Check out more in the SciShow video below.

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September 23, 2016 – 8:30am

The Earliest Known Descriptions of 5 U.S. Landmarks

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From the European discovery of America through to the land rushes and gold rushes of the 19th century, a host of explorers, navigators, cartographers, and prospectors have opened up the landscape of the United States over the years—and provided vivid accounts of everything they found. The stories behind the discovery and earliest descriptions of five of America’s most familiar natural landmarks are listed here.

1. OLD FAITHFUL // WYOMING

The giant geyser named Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park was discovered in 1870 by members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition, a team of explorers led by the surveyor-general of Montana, Henry D. Washburn, and explorer Nathaniel P. Langford. Old Faithful, so called because it erupts so frequently and predictably, was the first geyser in Yellowstone to be given a name.

On the afternoon of September 18, Langford and a party of his men traveled down the Firehole River and found themselves in what is now the Upper Geyser Basin. He later wrote:

“Judge, then, what must have been our astonishment, as we entered the basin at mid-afternoon of our second day’s travel, to see in the clear sunlight, at no great distance, an immense volume of clear, sparkling water projected into the air to the height of one hundred and twenty-five feet. ‘Geysers! geysers!’ exclaimed one of our company, and, spurring our jaded horses, we soon gathered around this wonderful phenomenon. It was indeed a perfect geyser … It spouted at regular intervals nine times during our stay, the columns of boiling water being thrown from ninety to one hundred and twenty-five feet at each discharge, which lasted from fifteen to twenty minutes. We gave it the name of ‘Old Faithful.’”

Yellowstone was given National Park status just two years later, with one of its earliest advocates, U.S. Army General Philip Sheridan, spending much of the latter part of his military career fiercely protecting its land from development—although his passionate environmentalism seemingly didn’t pass down to the men in his 1882 expedition, who used Old Faithful to do their laundry.

2. DENALI (FORMERLY MT. MCKINLEY) // ALASKA

While the native Koyukon living in the area knew of North America’s highest mountain long before anyone else, and Russian explorers may have come across it in the 1770s, the earliest known European description of Denali is from the British naval captain George Vancouver, who noted “distant stupendous mountains covered with snow and apparently detached from one another” while he was exploring the area in May 1794.

Other accounts would soon follow: in 1878, Arthur Harper and Al Mayo supposedly described “a great ice mountain off to the south which was plainly visible.” In 1885, Lieutenant Henry Allen is said to have made a sketch of the range, and in 1889 Frank Densmore traveled to the region and returned to the Yukon with such effusive praise for the mountain that locals started referring to it as “Densmore’s Mountain.” But the peak would remain obscure to the outside world until 1897, when a gold prospector named William Dickey wrote an account of his time panning for gold in the Susitna river near the mountain in the New York Sun:

“We named our great peak Mount McKinley, after William McKinley of Ohio, who had been nominated for the presidency and that fact was the first news we received on our way out of that wonderful wilderness. We have no doubt that this peak is the highest in North America, and estimate that it is over 20,000 feet high.”

He wasn’t far off: McKinley—which was officially renamed Denali in 2015—stands 20,310 feet tall.

3. NIAGARA FALLS // NEW YORK AND ONTARIO, CANADA

The French cartographer Samuel de Champlain navigated and mapped Lake St. Louis (now Lake Ontario) as early as 1604. Although it’s thought that he didn’t actually see Niagara Falls himself, he nevertheless included a description of it in his journals, based on the description from a young Algonquin that they met:

“That there was a fall about a league wide and a large mass of water falls into said lake: that when this fall is passed one sees no more land on either side but only a sea so large that they have never seen the end of it, nor heard that anyone has.”

The earliest eyewitness description of the Falls didn’t appear until 1683, when a Belgian-born Roman Catholic missionary named Louis Hennepin published a travelogue, Description de la Louisiane, translated into English in 1698:

“Betwixt the Lakes Ontario and Erie, there is a vast and prodigious cadence of water which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel. ’Tis true, Italy and Suedland [Sweden] boast some such things; but we may well say they are but sorry patterns, when compared to this of which we now speak.

At the foot of this horrible Precipice, we meet with the River Niagara … It is so rapid above this descent, that it violently hurries down the wild beasts while endeavoring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand the force of its current, which inevitably casts them above six hundred foot high.”

4. GRAND CANYON // ARIZONA

As early as the mid 16th century, a Spanish conquistador named Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led an expedition from modern-day Mexico as far north as Kansas, in the hope of finding the legendary city of Cíbola. Coronado’s expedition might not have succeeded in locating the Seven Cities of Gold, but it did at least take in the Grand Canyon.

On hearing word of a huge river in the middle of the desert from Native Americans living in the area, Coronado dispatched one of his commanders, García López de Cárdenas, along with around a dozen of his men to locate it. They likely arrived somewhere near to what is now Moran Point in September 1540, becoming the first non-Native Americans in history to see—and eventually explore and describe—the Grand Canyon. An account of their arrival later recorded that:

“After they had gone 20 days, they came to the banks of the river. It seemed to be more than 3 or 4 leagues [10-13 miles] in an air line across to the other bank of the stream, which flowed between them … [They] spent three days on this bank looking for a passage down to the river. It was impossible to descend, for after the three days Captain Melgosa and one Juan Galeras and another companion made an attempt to go down at the least difficult place, and went down until those that were above were unable to keep sight of them. They returned … in the afternoon, not having succeeded in reaching the bottom on account of the great difficulties which they found, because what seemed easy from above was not so, but instead very hard and difficult.”

5. DEATH VALLEY // CALIFORNIA

After gold was discovered in California in 1848, pioneers from all across the United States began to trek across country to try their luck prospecting in the West. The ill-fated Donner Party expedition from two years earlier—in which a group of emigrants became trapped by the snow in the Sierra Nevada, leading to the deaths of almost half the travelers and grisly stories of cannibalism—was still fresh in many people’s minds, so most of the prospectors delayed their journeys to escape the worst of the weather and risk the same fate. One party of 49ers, however, waited too long.

A group of around 100 wagons arrived in Utah in early autumn, much too late in the year to cross the Sierra Nevada without risk of getting snowbound. With little alternative but to spend the winter in Salt Lake City, they opted instead to take the “Old Spanish Trail,” a route that would take them around the southern edge of the Sierra Nevada and was, more importantly, traversable all year round. They set off in mid-October led by a local guide named Jefferson Hunt and, following the Beaver River, soon reached modern-day Minersville. From there, Hunt attempted an untried shortcut south into the desert. After nearly dying of thirst, the group was forced to turn back, effectively wasting a week’s worth of provisions. With their confidence in Hunt shot—and after a chance meeting with a pack train led by a New Yorker named Orson K. Smith, who had a trapper’s map showing a different route through Walker Pass—the party disbanded. Only seven wagons maintained their faith in Hunt and continued heading south to the Spanish Trail, while the remainder followed Smith. Barely 25 miles from the trail, however, Smith’s party began to regret their decision.

Ahead of them was a vast canyon, impossible to cross with a wagon. After several days trying to find a suitable route across, the majority of the 49ers turned back in the hope of catching up with Hunt and following his original route south around the mountains, while the rest set off around the edge of the canyon in the hope that, so long as they kept vaguely heading west, they would eventually reach the pass through the mountains.

Days and eventually weeks went by as the group headed further out into Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. With provisions running low, they were forced to drink from puddles and eat ice to quench their thirst, began slaughtering their oxen (and eventually their horses) for food, and dismantled their wagons for firewood. Disagreements among the group led to their numbers dwindling even smaller: Some turned south to try to intercept Hunt’s party, others headed north towards a distant range of snow-capped mountains in search of a better water supply, while one group—the Bennett–Arcan party, of around a dozen individuals—first headed south, but then changed direction and headed to what they thought would be safety. Instead, they were unwittingly walking straight into Death Valley.

What happened next was recorded by a 29-year-old fur-hunter turned gold prospector named William Lewis Manly, who had joined the 49ers just outside Provo, in Utah. When it became clear that the Bennett-Arcan party was hopelessly lost, the group set up camp beside a small spring (now called Bennett’s Well) while Manly and a fellow prospector named John Rogers climbed out of the valley and set off on foot to find aid. Two weeks and more than 250 miles later, they reached Rancho San Fernando, a small settlement 30 miles outside Los Angeles, where they managed to procure a mule, two horses (which wouldn’t make it), and additional supplies—before they headed back, another 250 miles across the Mojave Desert, into Death Valley to rescue the rest of their party.

They arrived in February 1850 to find that one of the group, a Captain Culverwell, had died just days before they returned, while other members of the group had given up hope and headed out of the valley themselves, presuming Manly and Rogers to be either lost or dead. Those that had remained followed them out of the valley and back towards civilization.

Manly and his fellow prospectors are today credited with the discovery of Death Valley, while Manly’s description of it—and of his and Rogers’ rescue of the Bennett-Arcan party—included in his memoir, Death Valley ’49, remains one of its earliest accounts:

“West and south it seemed level, and low, dark and barren buttes rose from the plain, but never high enough to carry snow even at this season of the year … The range next east of us across the low valley was barren to look upon as naked, single rock. There were peaks of various heights and colors, yellow, blue firery [sic] red and nearly black. It looked as if it might sometime have been the center of a mammoth furnace. I believe this range is known as the Coffin’s Mountains. It would be difficult to find earth enough in the whole of it to cover a coffin.

Just as we were ready to leave and return to camp we took off our hats, and then overlooking the scene of so much trial, suffering and death spoke the thought uppermost, saying:—“Goodbye, Death Valley!” … Even after this, in speaking of this long and narrow  valley over which we had crossed into its nearly central part, and on the edge of which the lone camp was made for so many days, it was called Death Valley.”

It took another 23 days for the Bennett-Arcan party to cross the Mojave Desert and reach civilization. The shortcut Smith’s map had promised—and which had taken them away from Hunt’s original route—had led to a four-month-long ordeal.

All images courtesy of iStock.


September 23, 2016 – 8:00am

The Water-Gen Device Makes Water From Air

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An Israeli company called Water-Gen has created a device that produces fresh drinking water from water vapor in the air. Business Insider reports that the company, founded by Arye Kohavi, wants to help bring clean drinking water to regions experiencing water shortages.

The water generator, which comes in three sizes, uses plastic “leaves” to cool the air and then collects the resulting condensation. On an 80°F day with 60 percent humidity, the largest size can produce up to 825 gallons of water. The smallest, meanwhile, is able to produce 4 gallons under the same circumstances. While a warmer, more humid climate allows the generators to produce more water, the technology still works in cool, dry environments—albeit at a slower rate.

While the smallest water generator is designed for homes and offices, Kohavi hopes to collaborate with national governments to bring the largest generators to areas without enough potable water. The company is currently running tests in several cities, including Mumbai, Shanghai, and Mexico City. Kohavi told Business Insider his goal is to make the devices available throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

“Water from air is for places that you don’t have any water to filter,” Kohavi told Business Insider. “We think our solution can solve the problem on the level of countries. It’s an immediate solution—governments don’t need to spend decades to make a big project.”

[h/t Business Insider]


September 23, 2016 – 7:30am

Hipster-Themed Convenience Store Opens in Portland

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Are you a Portland resident or visitor who’s frustrated that you can’t find Lion Heart kombucha on tap, or naturally sweetened plantain and lentil chips in your neighborhood? You might want to make a trip to Mini Mini, a hipster-themed shop that sells locally sourced products, Vice’s Munchies reports.

The idea behind the store came from former Stumptown coffee shop workers Jonathan Felix-Lund and Matt Brown, who co-own the shop with Aaron Draplin, the graphic designer behind Field Notes. After a few negative experiences at gas stations during a cross country trip, the pair decided they wanted to create a space that was more enjoyable than a standard convenience store.

“If it looks good, it feels better,” Felix-Lund explained to Munchies. “The lighting in most convenience stores is really harsh; people get in and get out, and customers deserve a place that feels clean. Most convenience stores are gross.”

While the store offers items you can buy at any convenience store, Mini Mini also features local artisanal products, such as Salt & Straw ice cream, Stumptown coffee, and Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwiches, as well as Double Mountain beer on tap and Hot pocket-like “Quickie Pies” from Portland’s Sizzle Pie Pizza (who also co-owns Mini Mini).

Still, the founders promise that those special offerings doesn’t come at an extra cost.

“People think Mini Mini’s going to be expensive because it’s nice, but we will fill up your growler for $7 with local cider and beer,” Brown insisted. “Nothing in this store is over 20 bucks.”

Mini Mini hopes to expand to more areas around Portland and to tailor each convenience store experience to the needs of each neighborhood.

[h/t Munchies]

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September 23, 2016 – 7:00am

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Friday, September 23, 2016 – 02:45

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You Can Turn Your Deleted Food Photos Into Real Meals for the Hungry

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For some foodies, a meal isn’t complete unless it’s been filtered, hashtagged, and immortalized on Instagram. Now, Instagram users who document everything they eat have a good excuse to clean out their portfolio. As Adweek reports, Land O’Lakes will donate 11 meals for every food picture deleted from Instagram.

The Delete to Feed campaign is a partnership between the food company and the nonprofit Feeding America. Anyone on Instagram can participate: Just connect your account to the Delete to Feed website and choose one of your perfectly-saturated food pictures to let go of for good. Once the image has been removed, Feeding America will work with local food banks to provide 11 meals to people in need.

Land O’Lakes plans continue the campaign until October 18, or until they reach their donation target of 2.75 million meals. That means 250,000 food photos will have to disappear from the app in the next month. Considering there are over 187 million posts under #food alone, that sounds like a reasonable goal.

[h/t Adweek]

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September 22, 2016 – 1:30pm

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Commit $3 Billion to Eradicating Disease

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Physician, educator, and philanthropist Priscilla Chan and her husband, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have announced a wildly ambitious $3 billion plan to “eliminate, cure, or prevent disease” by the end of this century.

The couple intend to spend their money on basic science research—that is, the study of the fundamental concepts and phenomena that make up our world. Basic research is essential to scientific and medical advancement, yet it’s often overlooked and underfunded in favor of drug research and other studies with more immediate potential to change human lives. The initiative will also support education, health research, and internet connectivity, which many consider a public health issue in its own right.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has already signed on and consulted with a number of scientific heavy hitters, including Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, a prominent cancer researcher.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the initiative aims to create networks of thinkers. “Building tools requires bringing scientists and engineers together in large numbers for large periods of time, and that’s not something most science funding is set up to do,” Zuckerberg told Nature. “That emerged to us as a big opening where we could help grow this movement among other scientific funders.”

The initiative’s “challenge networks” will bring together teams of scientists from different backgrounds, specialties, and institutions to tackle large-scale medical issues like neurodegenerative disease.

Superstar neuroscientist Cornelia Bargmann will be the initiative’s “president of science.” Speaking to Nature, Bargmann expressed excitement about the initiative’s focus on collaboration, which she says may reduce redundancy and introduce new ways of thinking.

“In my lab, everyone now writes code; that’s a bit like everyone making their own soap,” she said. “We should be finding ways of doing this that are general and powerful, that allow us to interact and share our knowledge.”

[h/t Nature]

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September 22, 2016 – 1:15pm

Bill Murray Has Launched His Own Golf Clothing Line

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Want to be the most stylish athlete at the country club? Vanity Fair reports that Caddyshack (1980) star and real-life golf fan Bill Murray has teamed up with his younger brother, actor Joel Murray, and website The Chive to design a line of golf apparel. The brand is called William Murray Golf, and its aesthetic is equal parts quirky and quintessentially preppy.

To celebrate Murray’s 66th birthday on Wednesday, the clothing line released its first two designs: a limited-edition Chicago Cubs-inspired polo ($75)—Murray’s favorite baseball team—and a baseball hat ($32) emblazoned with the label’s official logo, a silhouette of Murray tossing his putter aside. (The image pays homage to a famous photo of Murray, taken at The Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament in 2011.) A portion of the proceeds for both items will be donated to the Murrays’ favorite Chicago charity, Mercy Home for Boys & Girls

The remainder of the line’s designs are playfully reflective of Murray’s personality. According to Bloomberg, one button-up is sprinkled with little highball glasses—a homage to the actor’s fondness for mixed drinks. Another is patterned with bunker rakes—a sly nod to Murray’s greenskeeper character in Caddyshack.

“With William Murray Golf, we’re looking for that perfect combination of style, humor and subtle irreverence as a way to make things more laid back, relatable and fun,” Joel Murray told Vanity Fair‘s website in an email.

A full catalog (and an expanded website) is slated to arrive later this fall, and the entire WMG line—which will include shirts, shorts, hats, and T-shirts—will be officially available on October 20. Until then, you can follow the brand on Instagram.

[h/t Vanity Fair]

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September 22, 2016 – 1:00pm