Discovery News: Guest Spot

Beyond Genetic Engineering

Tracy Staedter — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:34:16 -0500

Just when you were getting used to the idea of genetic engineering, there’s something new. Listen to the podcast on Engineering Works.

If you’re at all interested in new technology, you probably know that inserting a gene or two into a plant and getting something useful back is no big deal any more. That’s genetic engineering as we now know it.

But listen to this. A new breed of genetic engineers are inventing a new field. They call it synthetic biology. They aim to use the technology pioneered in genetic engineering to build whole new organisms. One new organism these guys are working on is a plant we could harvest and process into petroleum. Not ethanol, like people are talking about to replace gasoline, but good old oil, growing in a field instead of miles underground.

One ambitious group of researchers is aiming eventually at reprogramming trees to grow into the shape of a house instead of leaves and branches. It sounds like science fiction, but they’re serious. We think.

All this will be pretty neat, if it works. But there’s still a long way to go. So far, the longest DNA sequence duplicated in the laboratory is about 35,000 units long. Compare that to human cells that duplicate a sequence three billion, with a B, units long.

Where will it all end? Hard to tell from here. But we’re out of time, and we’re ending here. See you next time.

Image: National Human Genome Research Institute

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Gene Charleton is a science writer at the Texas Engineering Experiment Station and Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He’s been watching and writing about science and technology for more than 30 years. Engineering Works! was born in 2003 as a two-minute radio show on Texas A&M University’s NPR outlet, KAMU-FM.

Computers and Robots on the Battlefield

Tracy Staedter — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:16:00 -0500

Sometimes engineering doesn’t work out the way we planned. We’ll take a look at battlefield robots, today on Engineering Works!

Top brass in the German army are raving about some new equipment that they say will give their soldiers a big advantage on the battlefield. The soldiers who use the new gear aren’t so enthusiastic. They say it’s too bulky, too heavy and unreliable.

The new equipment package, the – infantryman of the future – looks like something out of a science fiction movie. Think Robo Cop.

The new combat gear starts with a protective vest. Plus a built-in mini-computer, new radios and protective goggles. The whole package costs almost 30-thousand-dollars. Each.

And guess what? A lot of the German soldiers who have used it for real in Afghanistan hate it. The body armor is so bulky that soldiers wearing it have to scrunch down whenever they get into a vehicle. Really uncomfortable. The goggles tend to fog up at anything more than a brisk walk.

Then there’s the computer, which includes a satellite navigation system and electronic maps. It doesn’t have enough memory, and sometimes just plain gives wrong answers. The new radios don’t have enough range, and their earpieces tend to fall out of soldiers’ ears.

One fed-up field commander has suggested that the army start over and replace parts of it with off-the-shelf equipment that would work better and be cheaper, to boot.

We hope our engineering words are working better than that. See you next time.

Photo: EPA/Maurizo Gambarini

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Windows 7: It's About Time

Tracy Staedter — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0400

By Talal al-Khatib, Producer, Discovery News

With Windows Vista going the way of Windows 2000 (too soon?), Windows XP users may be a little hesitant to trust a new operating system. After several years sheltered in the comfort of a perfectly functional operating system, hiding from the Vista bogeyman, XP users may not be ready to trust again.

However, after spending nearly a week with Microsoft's new offering, this XP loyalist has come to the conclusion that it's time to move on. I won't go into too many of the details of the new features offered by Microsoft's new operating system, but here are a few reasons why XP users should make the switch:

1. It's Actually New
In many ways, Windows XP felt like a re-hash of Windows 98, which in its own way almost seemed like an expansion of Windows 95. Windows 7 actually feels like a new operating system. The Windows 7 experience seems to take some of its cues from Mac's operating system, except with the same Windows feel that long time users have come to expect.

2. Organization
Although it takes a little time to adjust, the new taskbar and directory structure really helps to cut down on the clutter. Having 10 window panes open simultaneously is much more manageable with the new taskbar, which now features a series of icons for each active program, rather than a label. "Libraries" is a new feature in Windows 7 that can aggregate photos, video and music all in one place, no matter where they are stored on the computer.

3. Style
Windows 7 is not just better organized than XP; it's just better looking. Microsoft's new operating has a sleek, polished look, and the new Aero interface helps to simplify navigation. Although the Windows 7 look is very different than what XP users are used to, the intuitive design helps to ease the transition.

4. Speed
Although some credit can go have to having a newer system, programs operating under Windows 7 run quickly and smoothly. Start-up and shutdown times also feel significantly reduced. This point is admittedly subjective and will likely benefit Vista users more than XP loyalists.

5. XP Mode
If you're an XP user who may need a little help coming down, Windows 7 even comes with an XP mode.

(To learn more about Windows 7, click here.)

AP Photo/Christof Stache

On Foot in Mecca

Tracy Staedter — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:30:00 -0400

If you pay attention, you can find traffic engineering in the most unexpected places. We’ll find one; listen to the podcast today on Engineering Works!

When you say, traffic engineering, most of us think of cars and highways and busy big-city intersections. Traffic engineers work with these things, but they also deal with people. Sometimes, people in unexpected places. Like Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.

Every year, Mecca deals with one of the biggest pedestrian traffic jams on the planet. It happens because Mecca is, the, holiest place for Muslims around the world. Devout Muslims try to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lives. This means that for five days every year the population of Mecca balloons to more than four-million-people, three-million of them pilgrims.

What makes this dangerous that all three-million need to get to the same places to worship. Sometimes you get traffic jams and people panic. In 19-90, 14-hundred people died.

Saudi officials are working with pedestrian traffic engineers to find a way to move the crowds smoothly to and from the sites the pilgrims must visit. They built pedestrian bridges so pilgrims can reach important places without crowding. They turned streets into one-way walkways so pedestrians weren’t fighting others going the other way to and from important shrines. The suggestions seem to help, and they’re still working on it.

Photo: Flickr/ForUrEyeZOnly

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Breaking Down Plastic

Tracy Staedter — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:00:00 -0400

If you look around, there’s plastic everywhere. We’ll look, too. Today, on Engineering Works. Listen to the podcast.

You see a lot of plastic because it works. It’s lighter and cheaper than metal and it’s more durable than cardboard. A lot of it can even be recycled.

In fact, engineers have designed some plastics especially to be recycled or to break down safely, quickly, completely. Biodegradable. This is the easy part. Now it gets complicated. Different biodegradable plastics need different treatments to break down as they’re supposed to.

For instance, hydrobiodegradable plastics. They’re made from food or plant starch, sometimes with oil-based polymers. Micro-organisms break them down into water, carbon dioxide, methane and biomass. This is good, but it needs an industrial composter to work. Most folks don’t have one.

Oxobiodegradable plastics are made from petroleum byproducts, like traditional plastics. Most of them have a built-in self-destruct, and they start to break down after a preset period of time. Much more quickly than traditional plastics. Sunlight, heat and what engineers call mechanical stress – basically, stomping on it or cutting it up – does the trick.

Here’s the point: getting plastics to decompose isn’t as simple as it sounds. For instance, some plastics that break down easily in the open air last forever in sealed landfills. If you recycle plastic – and we hope you do – check out what each kind of plastic you have needs to break down.

Our time today is about broken down. See you next time.

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The Numbers of Power

Tracy Staedter — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:20:09 -0400

We’re going to listen to some big words. Engineers know what they are. Today, on the Engineering Works podcast, The Numbers of Power!

Engineers use numbers all the time. Sometimes these numbers are really big. Consider power engineers. Power engineers design and build the systems that make and deliver the electricity that lights our homes. They routinely talk in terms that include millions and sometimes billions. Over time, scientists and engineers have invented some nifty words to describe big numbers.

Here’s an example. Your utility company charges you for the number of kilowatt-hours of electricity you use. A kilowatt-hour is 1,000 watts of electricity used for one hour. A kilowatt will light a 100-watt bulb for 10 hours.

In the world of big number words, kilo, or a thousand, is pretty puny. A kilogram only weighs a little more than two-pounds. Utility company generators regularly produce power measured in millions of watts – megawatts. Many nuclear-powered generators have outputs of more than 200 megawatts. Even this is pretty small when you talk about electric power consumption around the world. That stands at just under two terawatts, two trillion watts. Makes your electric bill seem pretty trivial.

Even this isn’t the end of it. An experimental laser getting ready to go into operation will produce pulses that measure more than one petawatt. Now we’ve got a really big number. A million trillion. And there are words to talk about numbers even bigger than this. But not today.

Our number is up, and we’re quitting. See you next time.

Photo: Thomas Hawk/Flickr.com

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Stop, Look and Listen: Hybrid Cars Are Quiet

Tracy Staedter — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:58:06 -0400

Here’s a question you probably never thought to ask: what should your car sound like? We’ll listen for an answer, today on Engineering Works! Listen to the podcast.

We’ve all listened to cars, all our lives and we’ve always heard them. The clatter of an old VW bug. The rumble of a high-performance muscle car. But those sounds may be fading into the past. As hybrids and all-electric cars become more common, the sound of cars is changing. Hybrids and electric cars make almost no noise at all, especially when they’re moving slowly.

Some engineers think this could be a bad thing. Think about it. You’re walking across a parking lot, minding your own business, and suddenly there’s that almost-silent electric car. Right on top of you. You never heard it coming. And imagine what it would be like at night. Or any time if you can’t see.

Engineers are working on ways to fix the problem. By adding sound back into electric cars. Some are going the simple route. Just plain noise. One possible added sound is a little like a jet engine with some added static. Kind of hard to miss.

Another possibility some engineers are exploring would allow you to change the sound of your electric car or hybrid to fit your mood. Anything from that jet to a superstock Dodge or an 18-wheeler.

Our car isn’t electric or silent. It’s just plain noisy. See you next time.

Photo: Darrel Ronald/Flickr.com

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Gene Therapy Treats HIV

Tracy Staedter — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:11:14 -0400

For many years, the human immunodefiency virus, or HIV, was misunderstood and practically untreatable. Now in 2009, the Centers for Disease Control reports that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States. Most of these people deal with the symptoms of this disease through drug therapies. But now scientists are working on an alternative to drugs — gene therapy -- that could provide a lifetime protection against the disease. Listen to the Podcast.

Gene Therapy Treats HIV

Eric Dundon is a senior journalism student at the University of Missouri. There, he works in local media outlets with a particular interest in science, technology and sports reporting as well as print design.

Pouring the Pyramids

Tracy Staedter — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:53:59 -0400

Everybody knows the Egyptians used huge stone blocks to build their pyramids. Some engineers aren’t so sure. We’ll listen to the argument. Today, on Engineering Works! Listen to the podcast.

Everybody learned in school that ancient Egyptian engineers used thousands of huge limestone blocks to build the pyramids. What we didn’t learn was how the Egyptians got those blocks from the ground to the top of those pyramids.

Archaeologists and engineers have speculated for decades about how they did it. Sloping ramps. Rollers. Gangs of sweating slaves. You’ve seen the movies. But nobody knows for sure.

Now, materials engineers have come up with a new explanation that has the archaeologists in an uproar. Maybe some of those huge limestone blocks weren’t really limestone. And maybe those gangs of slaves didn’t push them up the ramps after all.

The engineers think just maybe the Egyptians invented an early kind of concrete from crushed limestone and binders that work just like the Portland cement in modern concrete. Since the powdered limestone would be just like the limestone in limestone blocks, it would be really hard to tell the difference.

So maybe instead of thousands of slaves pushing huge blocks of stone around, they were carrying bags of wet concrete and pouring it into forms on top of the half-built pyramids. Not as mysterious and romantic as big blocks of stone, but it could have worked.

We haven’t been pushing stone or carrying concrete, but we’re still done. See you next time.

Photo: Bruno Girin/Flickr.com

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Fast Trains Still Marvel Us

Tracy Staedter — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:39:44 -0400

Once railroads were the engineering marvels. In France, they still are. We’ll check it out. All aboard! Today. On Engineering Works! For the podcast, click here.

Trains used to be the way to travel — across town or across the country. In much of the world, it still is. Railroads of one sort or another have been around a long time. The first trains were pulled by horses on wooden rails in Germany more than 400 years ago.

The first steam engine hauled freight and passengers in 1804 in Wales. A nine-mile trip took about two hours. The first railroad to run on a regular schedule pulled out in 1825.

In the United States, railroads and towns that grew up along them did a lot to settle the West. The east and west coasts were connected when the rails met in Promontory Point, Utah, in 1867.

These trains were pretty fast for their time, but pretty slow by modern standards. Now, some trains are flying down the rails faster than a lot of airplanes. Just a while ago, a high-tech French train, the TGV, set a new speed record – just over 350 miles an hour. That’s almost as fast as a World War II Spitfire fighter going flat out.

The TGV set the record for conventional trains, with wheels. But a Japanese train that ran suspended over the tracks by magnetic levitation is even faster — more than 360 miles an hour.

Our train is getting ready to pull out, so we’ll talk some more later.

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