Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Science news of note

* New Toilet Turns Human Waste Into Electricity and Fertilizer 
Dubbed the No-Mix Vacuum Toilet, it has two chambers that separate the liquid and solid wastes. Using vacuum suction technology, such as those used in aircraft lavatories, flushing liquids would now take only 0.2 litres of water while flushing solids require just one litre.
The sound of it will probably frighten small children, and it will require cleaning 4 times more often that a normal toilet, would be my guess.   I'll pass on this one, even though it is from Singapore.

* Twisted light could let you download 70 DVDs per second 

Well, that's just ridiculous.   I wonder how many DVDs worth of information you have to transmit to reproduce a reasonable facsimile of me?   I can see transmitting people can't be that far off.

* Don’t want to catch the flu? Don’t breathe in the car
If you travel in a car with someone infected with the flu, your chance of getting sick is up to 99.9%, according to researchers.
The study compared 1989 and 2005 models of passenger cars and estimated the risk ranged from 59% to 99.9% for a 90-minute car trip when air was recirculated in newer, more air-tight vehicles.
The risk of getting sick travelling in a car is higher than travelling on a Boeing 747 for 17 hours with an infected person.
 Actually, it has occurred to me lately that shared use of tablet computers in households is going to increase flu transmission internationally.   Everyone in a household needs to own their own as a health measure.

* Belief in hell, according to international data, is associated with reduced crime  

But if that were true, crime rates in Catholic countries should have soared over the last 40 years. It would be at least that long since I've heard a good threat of fire and brimstone sermon from a Catholic pulpit. Catholics just don't worry that much about hell anymore.

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