They’ve all been converted to accept biodiesel by an outfit in Los Angeles called Lovecraft BioFuels.
They’ve got outlets in California and Portland, Oregon, so far.
Author Archives: Jonathan Soroko
DARPA attempts to synthesize canine nose
[singlepic=167,320,240,,left] Sharon Weinberger reports at Danger Room that DARPA is attempting to synthesize or simulate the canine nose. We understand that it certain circumstances call for miniaturization – concealment, portability and risk limitation all make dog-and-handler teams, plus their needed transportation and support, relatively unwieldy. We’re reminded of General Patton’s admonition that “A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later.” We can have new human/canine teams ready to go in a matter of months, depending on the particular specialty (debris search, explosives search, general guard work). In addition to time spent raising and selecting canine candidates.
In the long run – a successful simulation of canine olfactory capability – would do very well at airports, and other security bottlenecks. But let’s not plan around having this capability any time soon. Let’s plan around technologies in hand. As someone who has to cop to liking Star Trek quite a lot, I still had problems every time the Enterprise
(or Voyager, etc.) crew made a big scientific or engineering breakthrough on the fly – in hours or minutes, without experimentation, getting it right the first time. Technology takes false turns, rethinking, and redesign.
Link to the excellent Sharon Weinberger’s piece on DARPA and dog noses at Danger Room. (and thanks to Sharon for giving us an excuse to post the cute dog photo).
Aren't "secret" and "blimp" contradictory concepts?
Airship World – recently added to our link list – appears to have video of a new classified airship under development at Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks.
Link to the post at Airship World.
The Popular Logistics Aviation Research Team, world-reknowned for its fear of heights, knows little about this – but suspects that for energy-efficiency and other reasons – this technology deserves a renaissance.
Unusual occurrence – DHS blog permits gently critical comment
I don’t understand it.
But – Michael Chertoff has started a blog. And, after a recent post, David W. Stephenson, of Stephenson Strategies, made a comment that actually made it through DHS screening.
I’m not sure he could have gotten the comment onto a commercial flight, though, unless it was in checked luggage.
Check out Mirabile dictu! My comment on Chertoff’s blog was ok’d
, on Stephenson blogs on homeland security 2.0.
Stephenson is co-author, with Eric Bonabeau, of Expecting the Unexpected: The Need for a Networked Terrorism and Disaster Response Strategy, in the February 2007 issue of Homeland Security Affairs .
We’ve blogged about this article before – but it’s good enough that I’m happy to shill for it more than once – as I am about HSAJ’s parent organization, the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense & Security.
Between Stephenson, Bonabeau, and Professor Brian Steckler of NPS, I’ve been persuaded of the utility of wireless networks in emergencies – although it’s my contention that, organized from the bottom up – we need more than one system. More about system redundancy and about NPS soon.
Land mine detection via plants – from GoodMagazine.com
GoodMagazine reports that that Denmark-based ARESA has conducted successful field tests with its genetically modified Thale Cress, for use in land mine detection.
Thale Cress, also known as Arabidopsis thaliana, commonly called arabidopsis, or mouse-ear cress, has a short life cycle – six weeks from germination to mature seed.The ARESA modified Thale Cress is very sensitive to nitrogen, which is a component of the explosives in land mines, and emitted in tiny amounts.
Photo (Aresa) by Henrik Freek; via GoodMagazine.
The Thale Cress
has been genetically modified to provide a natural warning in the presence of land mines. Thales cress is inherently sensitive to nitrogen dioxide, a chemical byproduct of land mines. The Copenhagen-based biotech company Aresa tweaked the weed’s genes so that its leaves would turn from their natural green to bright red in the presence of latent explosives. Field tests have thus far been successful, meaning traditional methods of human and canine mine detection may soon have a less dangerous alternative.
From Ben Jervey’s post in Good Magazine .While there are good reasons to have reservations about the genetic modification of plants, until and unless the powers that have been responsible for placing land mines start removing them, this seems an excellent technology.
Ben Jervey is also the editor of GreenAppleGuide
.
Atlas Powered Rope Ascender
The Atlas Ascender – is a powered rope or cable ascender/descender capable of, for instance,
- equipment hauling
- military special operations (rapidly and quietly scaling a building
- rescue operations (capable of retrieving casualty in litter and rescuer)
This image doesn’t do it justice. There’s a video clip on the Atlas site . The inventor was an MIT student when he developed this – reportedly as an entry in a DOD-sponsored competition.
World's First Building-Integrated Wind Turbines
World’s first buildling-integrated wind turbines – in, of all places, Bahrain.
Our enthusiasm about wind-powered energy generally is tempered by our experience as New York City residents. It’s our understanding that the City has yet to approve a single application for wind-powered generation – because of concerns about noise. We’ve yet to follow up on this intelligence about the NYC Department of Buildings – but plan to, and welcome submissions from any of our readers who can help us out on this.
Rescue Streamer – exceptionally well-designed emergency signal device
We’ll have a longer post later, but for now, we’ll say that the Rescue Streamer is brilliant. This tiny (when stored) banner greatly increases the probability of being seen from overhead – one doesn’t need to apply Bayes’ theorem to figure that out – and also has the following attributes:
- not subject to battery failure
- no training required
- no fuel required (as in triangles of signal fires)
- no fire starting required – and no risk of, for instance, starting a forest fire – when what you really wanted was to be rescued
- not prohibitively expensive (by any stretch of the imagination)
- works on land and water
Safe, non-toxic, effective, inexpensive, easy to use. Apart from our interest in emergency preparedness, this is a fantastic example of excellent engineering.
We hope to be following up shortly with photographs and more information about the development of the Rescue Streamer.
Is that a flashlight in your pocket, or … ? (9/11 Commission recommendation, Part II)
The 9/11 Commission’s recommendation struck me as particularly sensible. I was in Foley Square and watched the first plane as it passed behind the Federal Building, work in a high-rise near Ground Zero, take the NYC subway system to and from work, as does the Girl From Kansas. And almost everyone else we know and care about in the neighborhood – with the rare exception of people who work at home, or work within walking distance of home. As a community, we have numerous opportunities, every workday, to be stuck in an unlit space in the event of any power interruption. Thus began the search for the ideal pocket light, based on the following assumptions and criteria:
- All other things being equal, it would be best if all of us – including friends and neighbors – used the same device, for a number of reasons – the same reasons that armies standardize equipment:
- it’s cheaper to buy things in bulk;
- easier to maintain supplies of spare batteries
- to the extent that there’s any learning needed – better to have everyone using the same equipment. (Flashlights being relatively simple, this wasn’t too big a deal; but it did occur to me).
- Because people – especially me – can’t be trusted to regularly check batteries, it had to consume little enough power that, if needed, there would be a high probability that it would work as intended
- Rugged enough to be maltreated routinely but still work
- Small enough that it wouldn’t be left behind the first time the purse or bag felt too heavy (“I never use this thing anyway;” “nothing will happen today“)
The need for robustness and economical power consumption eliminated anything with an incandescent bulb. So I started shopping for a compact LED flashlight, sturdy, cheap and compact.
Thus far we’ve purchased and tested the following pocket lights; there are certainly other makes and models worth testing, but, since this has all been done out-of-pocket, we haven’t been able to test everything we’d like. We
The Streamlight Stylus was quite effective, but, for present purposes, two limitations: first, at 6.2 inches, it turned out to be slightly too long to be easily carried in a pocket or attached to a keychain. We’ve had good experiences with other Streamlight models, and suspect that several of their other small lights might be ideal for carrying every day (More on other types of flashlights, including Streamlight’s, to come. New Yorkers who care about such things may know that Streamlights are favored by our Fire Department; our police officers, who purchase their own flashlights, seem to gravitate towards other brands).
The Gerber Infinity fit our criteria, and the Girl From Kansas has one on her keyring, and we’ve given a couple to friends: pretty bright, LED, uses a single AA. But “on/off” and “unscrew to replace battery” is just a matter of extra turns, and strikes me as an opportunity for things to go wrong in the dark. You can see a much more detailed review
at the excellent Flashlight Reviews
Two other makers have produced lights that – so far, at any rate – lead the pack: the Pak-Lite and the Safe-Light. Both are excellent – we’ve bought and given away over a dozen of each, and they’ll be discussed in the next post.