March 2017 – Page 10

March 5, 2017

In 2003 an ER doctor in Idaho saved a patient…

In 2003 an ER doctor in Idaho saved a patient’s life by performing emergency surgery with a cordless drill in a church parking lot to relieve pressure on his brain caused by internal bleeding. 00

March 5, 2017

Wealthy Ancient Greeks sometimes sent their slaves…

Wealthy Ancient Greeks sometimes sent their slaves to sit on the public toilets (made from slabs of marble) to warm it up “in anticipation of their arrival”. 00

March 5, 2017

What Is an ‘Atmospheric River’?

Dennis Mersereau

filed under: science, weather

A flooded playground in San Jose, California, on February 22. Blame the high water on an atmospheric river. Image Credit: Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images

Storms make for attention-grabbing headlines, and almost every disaster has a meteorological term that makes a hazardous situation sound 10 times as terrifying. A derecho tore through the Mid-Atlantic back in 2012 and had such a profound psychological impact on the affected residents that you could cause mass hysteria by just mentioning the term. Then came the dreaded polar vortex, an ever-present large-scale wind pattern that encircles the North Pole and occasionally gets wavy and injects bitterly cold air into southern Canada and the United States. It was nothing new—but it sounded scary, so the name took off.

The recent deluges in California highlighted the latest captivating weather-y buzzword: an “atmospheric river.” Like its counterparts, this scary-sounding phenomenon is not as uncommon as it seems. It’s responsible for almost all of the rain on the West Coast this winter.

Clouds outline the atmospheric river stretching from Hawaii to California in the storm that affected the West Coast on February 17, 2017. Image Credit: Dennis Mersereau

So what is it? An atmospheric river is a long, narrow band of deep tropical moisture that can span thousands of miles in length. They occur from the tropics to the mid-latitudes. Atmospheric rivers aren’t actual rivers, of course, but it’s a pretty good description of a feature that resembles a river on satellite imagery and can bring torrents of water to the unlucky communities caught beneath one as the system comes ashore.

These ribbons of tropical moisture are the result of sprawling low-pressure systems that form just far enough south that their counter-clockwise circulation scoops up water vapor from the tropics and transports it northward. The storms that cause atmospheric rivers to form in the first place are usually able to generate enough upward lift to create precipitation. Mountains can play a role—they’re very effective at wringing moisture out of the atmosphere as wind travels up the side of their terrain. Whether it’s rain or snow, any precipitation that forms within that band of elevated moisture levels can be quite heavy, producing steep rainfall totals and many feet of snow in extreme cases.

NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission captured three weeks of heavy rainfall slamming into the West Coast between February 1 and February 20, 2017. Watch it happen in the video below.

California has a reputation for calm, sunny weather, but the state never really has it easy when it comes to dealing with nature’s temper tantrums. For the past couple of years, the state has been mired in a devastating drought, a cycle of dryness that was finally broken this winter as one storm after another roared in from the Pacific and drenched the state with unmanageable amounts of heavy rain. The driving force that gave each storm its bulk was an atmospheric river. Without it, there wouldn’t have been much moisture for the storm systems to work with.

An atmospheric river that affects the West Coast—and California in particular—is usually nicknamed the “Pineapple Express” since the source of the tropical moisture is the area around Hawaii. Though they go without a popular nickname, these features are also common over the eastern half of the United States during the warm season. Many of the major flash floods that occur in the eastern U.S. during the summer months are the result of intense thunderstorms tapping into the bountiful moisture present in an atmospheric river flowing over the region.

All weather is the result of nature trying to balance out inequality, and atmospheric rivers, just like every other weather condition, serve this purpose. Wind blows from areas of high air pressure to areas of lower pressure in an attempt to erase the inequality of more air molecules over one spot than another. The jet stream is the direct result of sharp temperature differences between the tropics and the poles. Hurricanes exist to transport heat from the tropics to the poles. Atmospheric rivers exist to take moisture out of the tropics and spread it around the world. Though they can seem difficult to enjoy, we’d be in some pretty big trouble without them. In 1998, a study by MIT scientists reported that 90 percent of all the moisture transfer between the tropics and the rest of the world each year occurs within these narrow bands of evaporated paradise.

March 5, 2017 – 8:00am

March 5, 2017

Meet the Man Who Makes Musical Instruments From Ice

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: design, music, video

Image credit:

Tnarik Innael via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0

Tim Linhart makes musical instruments from an unlikely material: ice. Around 20 years ago, the ice sculptor from Colorado liked what he heard after playing a string bass he carved for himself. Inspired, he ended up founding Ice Music, an orchestra of frozen violins, cellos, basses, and more.

To keep Linhart’s fragile “ICEstruments” from melting, Ice Music’s members perform in a specially designed igloo concert hall in Luleå, in Swedish Lapland. Watch them perform a variety of songs in the video below, courtesy of P2 Photography.

[h/t The Kid Should See This]

March 5, 2017 – 6:00am

March 5, 2017

Happy Birthday, Sinclair ZX81 Computer!

Chris Higgins

filed under: computers, History

Image credit:

Evan-Amos via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 3.0

On March 5, 1981, Sinclair Research launched the ZX81 home computer in the U.K. (It was also known as the Timex-Sinclair TS1000 in the U.S.) It came with just one kilobyte of memory, and was a self-contained unit with a rather crappy keyboard. The keyboard didn’t have moving key switches; instead it used membrane buttons similar to those often used on microwave ovens.

Despite its limitations, the ZX81 was a revolution, because it cost just £49.95 in the U.K.—massively cheaper than anything else on the market. It was also available in normal retail stores, rather than specialty computer shops.

It really was the people’s computer, and for many it was their introduction to home computing and computer programming. Incidentally, at that cheap price, it was a kit you assembled at home (a soldering iron was required). You’d have to pay an extra £20 if you wanted a pre-assembled unit. In the U.S., the fully-assembled unit cost $149.95.

The ZX81 was also expandable. You could upgrade it from its RAM using an external cartridge to bring it up to 16k—making it vastly more usable for real work. If you needed to store programs, you saved them on cassette tapes using a tape recorder. This was a finicky process, as you had to fiddle with the volume to get things just right…but for the price, it was unbeatable.

The ZX81/TS1000 sold millions, despite its limitations. Although it didn’t take over the computing world, its serious focus on retail price made it a common computer in the early home computing market. (My family had one!) It was literally a fraction of the price of competing systems. Here’s a detailed remembrance of the ZX81, showing some of what it could (and could not) do:

Here’s more detail from that interview, including a discussion of the “wobbly” RAM pack:

If you want to go deeper, read this 1982 interview with Clive Sinclair, watch this long interview with Sinclair employee Ruth Bramley. The ZX81 Wikipedia page is also quite solid.

March 5, 2017 – 4:00am

March 5, 2017

Timberland Is Making Shoes and Bags From Recycled Plastic Bottles

Rebecca OConnell

filed under: design, environment, fashion, shopping

Image credit:

Timberland

Americans go through about 50 billion water bottles a year, but only recycle a fraction of that colossal total. Now, more companies and organizations are looking for creative ways to repurpose the waste that hydration leaves behind. Possibly taking cues from Adidas, Timberland has started making its own environmentally-conscious footwear.

The shoe company has partnered with Pennsylvania-based manufacturer Thread (and their Ground to Good fabric) to transform used water bottles into wearable shoes, bags, and shirts. The Timberland x Thread collaboration is taking bottles from the streets and landfills of Haiti in an effort to promote sustainability and create new jobs for a nation in need.

Here’s how it works: Over 1300 Haitians help to collect the water bottles and sell them to one of 50 Haitian-owned and operated collection centers. The centers then sell the plastic to Haiti Recycling and ECSSA in Port-au-Prince, where it’s washed, shredded, and sent to the United States. The shredded plastic is then melted and turned into fabric, which Timberland buys and uses to create new clothing.

“At Thread, we believe that dignified jobs cure poverty—and our fabric creates those jobs,” Ian Rosenberger, founder of Thread, said in a statement. “Our partnership with Timberland marks a seismic shift in the fashion industry, combining Timberland’s large supply chain and loyal customer base with Thread’s responsible, transparent approach to creating premium fabrics and vital jobs in the developing world. The Timberland x Thread collection is a major step towards improving the way our clothes are made.”

[h/t Inhabitat]

March 5, 2017 – 12:00am

March 5, 2017

Can You Solve the Control Room Riddle?

Chris Higgins

filed under: math, puzzle, video

Image credit:

Getty Images

In this riddle from TED-Ed, you’ve got a tricky math problem to solve.

In the riddle, you’re trying to infiltrate the headquarters of an enemy organization, locate a secret control panel, and shut down their death ray. There are various reasons why this isn’t easy.

First off, the enemy headquarters is a ten-story pyramid. It has a regular structure, where the top level contains one room, the floor below that has two rooms, and so on—the ground floor has 10 rooms. The control panel is hidden behind a painting, on the highest floor that satisfies the conditions listed below.

Each room has exactly three doors to three other rooms on that floor…except the control panel room, which only connects to one room. (Thus, the control panel room only has one door in it.)

There are no hallways, and you can ignore stairs while figuring the layout of the building.

You have no floor plan.

You only have enough time to search a single floor before the alarm system goes off.

Given the rules above, can you figure out which floor the control room (with its associated control panel) is on? Watch this video, and pause at the one-minute mark (when instructed), for a video view of the same problem. The solution is then presented, with a step-by-step breakdown of how to get there.

To figure out the solution, it may help to start drawing room maps, starting at the highest floor. If you’re interested in this kind of puzzle, read up on graph theory.

For more on this puzzle, check out this TED-Ed page, and be sure to visit the “Dig Deeper” section, which includes links to the puzzle author’s website, Doctor Ecco.

March 4, 2017 – 8:00pm

March 4, 2017

Why B.B. King’s Guitar is Called Lucille

Mental Floss Studios

filed under: video

5332634605001

Blues musician B.B. King famously dubbed his guitar “Lucille,” even when he replaced it or got a slightly different model. Here’s why.

March 4, 2017 – 1:00pm

March 4, 2017

Get This Weekend’s Best Amazon Bargains Now

Smart Shopping Team

filed under: shopping

Image credit:

amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, March 4.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

March 4, 2017 – 11:00am

March 4, 2017

9 Fun Facts About The Moon

Here on planet earth, the moon is something of a superstar. After all, some planets have more than one moon, like Jupiter, which has at least 16 moons! Imagine looking up into the night sky and seeing four or five moons. It would be an extraordinary sight here on earth, but on other planets, it’s probably just another normal night. Our moon certainly gets its share of attention considering that songs have been written about it, it’s been used in countless movie and book titles, and some people even believe there are magical powers associated with it. There may be

The post 9 Fun Facts About The Moon appeared first on Factual Facts.

GADGETS, TOYS, AND MEDIA

KITCHEN

HOME

HEALTH AND BEAUTY

OFFICE, SCHOOL, AND CRAFTS

OUTDOORS, GARDEN, AND SPORTS

ELECTRONICS

TOOLS