A day after being whacked with a US $900,000 FCC fine for launching four tiny CubeSats without permission, Silicon Valley startup Swarm Technologies sought permission for dozens more of its controversial small satellites, according to documents obtained by IEEE Spectrum. Swarm wants to create an orbital network of miniature satellites that will offer a global Internet of […]
Danny Bal was riding his brand new motorcycle to work from his home in Ocala, Fla., two years ago when the driver of an oncoming car fell asleep and plowed into Bal’s electric-blue bike. After the accident, which crushed three of Bal’s thoracic vertebrae and shredded a spinal nerve, Bal adjusted to life in a […]
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.mobileShow { display: none;} /* Smartphone Portrait and Landscape */ @media only screen and (min-device-width : 320px) and (max-device-width : 480px){ .mobileShow { display: inline;} } .mobileHide { display: inline;} /* Smartphone Portrait and Landscape */ @media only screen and (min-device-width : 320px) and (max-device-width : 480px){ .mobileHide { display: none;} } Illustration: Blood Bros. The […]
Underwriters Laboratories (UL) 1203 is defined as the “Standard for Explosion-Proof and Dust-Ignition-Proof Electrical Equipment for Use in Hazardous (Classified) Locations.” To certify an epoxy for the UL1203, sample castings are exposed to saturated vapors in air for the following chemicals: UL then assesses the performance of each set of castings in the manner described […]
These were the most popular (by number of page views) posts on our blog in 2018. Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (2008) NASA’s Mars Curiosity Rover (2011) * Backyard Wildlife: Red-tailed Hawk (2018) * Home Engineering (Halloween edition): Gaping Hole Costume (2010) * 500 Year Floods (2008) Growing Citrus in the Snow (2018) * Science Toys You […]
Photo-illustration: Stuart Bradford I have no animosity toward cars and planes. For decades I have depended for local travel on a succession of reliable Honda Civics, and for years I have flown intercontinentally at least 100,000 miles annually. At these two extremes—a drive to an Italian food store, a flight from Winnipeg to Tokyo—cars and […]
Photo: Amionx Flame Out: Punctures such as this one can cause lithium-ion batteries to catch fire by creating an internal short inside the cell. For the most part, lithium-ion batteries are extraordinarily safe. But if a battery is overcharged or develops an internal short, it can catch fire and explode. Unfortunately, this happens frequently enough […]
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Many of us are ready to throw our collection of tangled charging cables in the garbage and replace it with technology that relies on wireless power transfer. So far, though, wireless power transfer (WPT) systems have mostly been limited to supplying power to a single load, such as an individual phone. The few systems that […]