DURING the recent hoo-ha about the meteorite from Mars which may, or may not,
provide evidence of life there, many science magazines overlooked one angle:
profit. The Wall Street Journal, however, notes that the price of
Martian meteorites has shot up from $200 to $2000 a gram as a
result of the announcement.
According to NASA, only 12 meteorites known to be from the Red Planet have
ever been found. Competition for even a tiny fragment is now so intense that at
known sites of meteor landings, says the paper, 鈥測ou might find four or five
dealers鈥tanding around becoming animals鈥�.
MEANWHILE, a colleague was thumbing through some old copies of New
杏吧原创 the other day and, in the very first issue of the magazine (22
November 1956), came across an article entitled 鈥淥ur neighbour Mars鈥�. The
introduction ran: 鈥淭hree-quarters of its surface is a dusty Sahara. But on the
remainder are signs of vegetation鈥攁nd even animals may long ago have
existed there.鈥�
Advertisement
NEVER wear bunny rabbit slippers at work. This stern warning comes from the
Health and Safety Commission in a news release about dangerous footwear in the
workplace.
The problem with bunny rabbit slippers, the commission explains, is 鈥渢he
attached floppy ears鈥�. One worker fell down a flight of stairs and suffered a
broken leg after tripping on one of the ears while wearing a pair of these
slippers.
The commission has now published a guidance leaflet, Protect Your
Feet, which gives employees practical advice on 鈥渟afe and sensible
footwear鈥� which will help to protect their feet from injury at work.
HOLLYWOOD has mixed some imaginary physics with the real thing in the
thriller Chain Reaction, which opens in Britain next week. The real
physics is sonoluminescence, in which ultrasonic waves are focused onto tiny
bubbles in a liquid. These oscillate at high speeds and emit bright flashes of
light. The process also generates high pressures, and temperatures that may
reach a million degrees.
Although the phenomenon was discovered in the 1930s, its cause remains
mysterious: over a dozen respectable theories have been proposed, but none have
been well accepted. The fictional discovery that drives the film鈥檚 plot is how
to use sonoluminescence to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The
hydrogen burns cleanly, and can provide a tremendous amount of energy. In the
film, the bad guys try to suppress the discovery to preserve their vested
interests in the power industry. However, heroes Morgan Freeman and Keanu Reeves
risk their lives to share it with the world.
It is true that hydrogen is a clean fuel, and University of Washington
physicist Lawrence Crum says 鈥測ou can indeed separate hydrogen from oxygen
within a sonoluminescing bubble鈥�. 鈥淗owever,鈥� he adds, 鈥渢here is no way you can
get those two separate species out of there without doing an amazing amount of
work,鈥� so if the hydrogen and oxygen stay in the same spot, they recombine as
soon as the bubble cools.
In other words, we are sorry to have to report that Hollywood鈥檚 scriptwriters
have not yet come up with a cheap, environmentally friendly way of generating
energy.
STONEHENGE has been closed to visitors for some thirty years. They try and
carve their names in the stones or chip off pieces as souvenirs, so they are
kept at bay by fences. Now English Heritage has put the ancient site on the
Internet, using a virtual reality program developed by Californian software
company Superscape, with funding from Intel.
鈥淭o walk virtually through the stones is better than not to walk at all,鈥�
said Jocelyn Stevens, chairman of English Heritage, at the official launch at
the Planetarium in London. 鈥淎nyone, anywhere in the world, whether in Britain or
Australia, will be able to visit Stonehenge this way.鈥�
Well, yes and no.
The launch demo was impressive, as well it should be when using a 拢20
000 Intergraph computer containing two 200MHz Pentium processors running in
parallel. But the walk through the stones was running from a disc, not a
telephone line, and there were no PCs actually connected to the Internet for
visitors to try.
But credit where due. When asked if this was really a fair trial, one of
Intel鈥檚 team went back to his hotel, collected a laptop computer, found a phone
socket in a back office behind Madame Tussauds waxworks and plugged it in. Up
came the Stonehenge site (http://www.intel.com), and very good it looked, too.
To cut a long technical story short, Superscape鈥檚 Viscape software cleverly
sucks a computer model of Stonehenge down the line and then works on it inside
the PC. So there is no relying on the treacly Internet for smooth motion on
screen.
The Intel computer had, however, already been set up by experts to do the
job. If Feedback鈥檚 weeks of struggling to repeat what they did are anything to
go by, amateur archaeologists round the world may have a lot more difficulty
walking virtually than the publicity suggests.
AND here鈥檚 another daft manufacturer鈥檚 warning to customers. As the proud
owner of a new car, Michael Francis鈥檚 mother was concerned for its security. She
didn鈥檛 want an alarm for fear of it going off in the middle of the night and
waking up the whole street because she couldn鈥檛 turn it off.
So instead she opted for a simple manual lock that stretched from the clutch
peddle to the steering wheel, immobilising them both. Printed in large bright
letters on the end that hooked around the steering wheel was:
鈥淲arning鈥擱emove Lock Before Driving.鈥�
SURPRISINGLY few readers have written in to point out that a technical
glitch, combined with Feedback鈥檚 lengthy summer vacation, resulted in the same
story (about NASA鈥檚 鈥淐lipper Graham鈥� rocket) being run twice, on 13 July and
17 August. Thank you, dear readers. We know you were being kind rather than so
stupefied by your own lengthy summer vacations that you didn鈥檛 notice.
FINALLY, we would like to know what, exactly, was intended by this
advertisement for a snooker club, spotted recently by a puzzled Tony Holkham.
鈥淔ree Membership,鈥� the ad proclaimed, adding: 鈥淪pecial rates for students.鈥�