a)Radio waves measure atmospheric temperature changes
Very low frequency (VLF) radio waves can be used to measure temperatures at the mesopause – the lower boundary of the upper atmosphere – according to researchers in Israel. This new method offers a cheaper and more comprehensive way of analysing the effects of long-term climate change on the upper atmosphere, as well as more short-term phenomena, such as solar storms or thunderstorms.
At the Earth's surface, increasing levels of greenhouse gases – such as carbon dioxide – reflect escaping infrared radiation back towards the ground. This results in a warming effect. In the upper atmosphere, however, greater concentrations of these gases have the opposite effect. At these low atmospheric densities, carbon dioxide primarily acts instead to radiate heat out to space – and does so more effectively at these altitudes than oxygen or nitrogen, the other main atmospheric components.
b)Space launch technology: US firm seeks funding for novel 'slingatron'
A US company has launched a fund-raising campaign to build a prototype "slingatron" that could be used to propel a 100g object to a speed of one kilometre per second. HyperV Technologies, based in Virginia in the US, is now attempting to raise $250,000 via the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to build the device, which it says will pave the way for a full scaled-up version that can launch much heavier cargo into space.
A slingatron is based upon an old-fashioned weapon known as a "sling" – it involves a heavy mass on the end of a rope, which a person whirls around their head with increasing frequency before letting go, sending the object flying. However, with the slingatron the rope is replaced by a spiral track spinning at a constant frequency. When an object is released from the middle, it follows the track round with an increasing radius, getting faster and faster as it does so. The larger the final radius – and the greater the spin frequency – the faster the object travels when it leaves.
c)Too hot to handle: A comprehensive review of a book on the 'problem of high level nuclear waste
The second law of thermodynamics is alive and well. Not only does everything we do generate waste – from cooking to working in an office and even just breathing to oxidize whatever food we have eaten – we also have entropy marching on, churning out ever more disorder. Making electricity is no exception. The process of constructing solar panels or wind turbines increases entropy and generates waste; so does the generation of electricity with gas, coal, oil or nuclear power. The creation of waste is inevitable. The question is: what do we do with it?
This question rests particularly heavily on the nuclear industry. Although everything on the planet is radioactive to some degree, history has shown that when the specific activity of a material rises to a sufficiently high level, such as that found in spent nuclear fuel, disposing of this material as waste has proved to be entirely untenable. This is true even though many common household items – bleach, paint and motor oil among them – actually qualify as hazardous waste, and the typical controls required for disposing of them are fairly similar to those required for low-level radioactive waste. If we can cope with these types of waste, we should also manage to handle the radioactive stuff; from a scientific or technical point of view, the issue is not insurmountable.
The real problem lies with politics, which in the US and many other countries has continually blocked any long-term solutions involving the permanent disposal of high-level waste. In Too Hot to Touch, William and Rosemarie Alley tackle this problem head on as they review the history of nuclear waste in the US. The book focuses largely on the story of the would-be nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but it also covers events from the beginning of the nuclear age all the way to 2012.