杏吧原创

Set back for in-flight Wi-Fi

We would all like to enjoy Wi-Fi as we fly, but not if the price is panic in the cockpit. Aircraft giant Boeing of Seattle, Washington, hit trouble when it was testing a new, ultra-bright LCD screen in the cockpits of the latest version of its 737 planes. High-power signals from an in-flight Wi-Fi system, turning the screen blank, potentially depriving the crew of key navigation data. Screen-maker Honeywell says it will make its screen Wi-Fi proof.

Here鈥檚 a tornado I made earlier

Ever wanted to create your own tornado? That will be possible with the world鈥檚 first hexagonal wind dome 鈥� the handiwork of a team from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. The Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment Dome will produce complex wind systems such as tornadoes, downbursts and gust fronts that cannot be replicated in any existing wind tunnel. The dome will have 106 large fans positioned around its six sides, which can be controlled by software to recreate swirling patterns of air in the centre. Armed with results from the WindEEE Dome, engineers will be able to design buildings, bridges and other infrastructure to withstand these severe weather systems.

Happy tweeting

Birds of a feather flock together 鈥� it seems that happy people on Twitter seek each other out as do unhappy people, which is perhaps not surprising. Psychologist Johan Bollen of Indiana University tracked 102,009 Twitter users over six months, analysing 129 million of their tweets (). To measure the emotional content of the tweets they looked for positive or negative words. From this they could assess the 鈥渟ubjective well-being鈥� of the users. Happier people 鈥� those recording a high subjective well-being 鈥� tended to be tweeting and receiving tweets from people who were also happier. The same applied to those who were less happy.