Free Republic

What will 3D printers ultimately evolve into? No one has a functioning crystal ball in front of them I assume, but a good guess would be a machine which can practically build anything its user desire, all on the molecular, and eventually atomic levels. Sure we are likely multiple decades away from widespread molecular manufacturing, but a group of chemists led by medical doctor Martin D. Burke at the University of Illinois may have already taken a major step in that direction. Burke, who joined the Department of Chemistry at the university in 2005, heads up Burke Laboratories where he...

One gallon of jet fuel burned creates about 19 pounds of C02. A 747 burns about 25,000 pounds of fuel per hour. A round trip from Washington DC to LA would take about 11- 11 1/2 hours. That comes to about 287,000 pounds of fuel. And that results in the production of about 5,462,500 pounds of CO2. A 757 burns about 6,000 pounds of jet fuel per hour. A similar round trip to LA would burn about 69,000 pounds of fuel and create about 1,310,000 pounds of CO2. Barack Obama and Michelle Obama both traveled to Los Angeles on the...

Pi day occurs only one every 100 years, so revel and enjoy it!

Need an obscure medicinal compound found only in a jungle plant? Just print it.Say you're a medical researcher interested in a rare chemical produced in the roots of a little-known Peruvian flower. It's called ratanhine, and it's valuable because it has some fascinating anti-fungal properties that might make for great medicines. Getting your hands on the rare plant is hard, and no chemical supplier is or has ever sold it. But maybe, thanks to the work of University of Illinois chemist Martin Burke, you could print it right in the lab. In a new study published in the journal Science...

For generations, books, films, and TV have warned us of the danger of mummies. In their crypts they are relatively harmless, but when they rise from the dead and start strangling people, as they did in the Cotswolds of south central England in “Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars,” they become a much greater threat. But this problem may shortly be solved, thanks to global warming. The world’s oldest mummies are at risk of disappearing because of man-made climate change, according to a group of Harvard University scientists. Bodies mummified about 7,000 years ago in Chile are starting to...

was simple and brilliant all at once — a new V-8 engine with walls so thin it was lighter than the straight-six it replaced, despite two additional cylinders. The new engine had an oversquare bore-to-stroke ratio, meaning its 3.67-inch bore was larger than its 3.00-inch stroke. Its stamped steel rocker arms were mounted on spherical pivots, and its hydraulic lifters metered plenty of oil to the cylinder heads via hollow pushrods. Its pistons were ultra-light and its cylinder heads were interchangeable with wedge-type chambers. It could rev high and was incredibly reliable. This all added up to an engine that...

Graphene, a material formed of a mesh of hexagonal carbon atoms, has, according to ExtremeTech author Ryan Whitwam, “many fantastic properties that could change the course of human civilization. It’s chemically stable, highly conductive, and incredibly strong.” In a recent New Yorker article, John Colapinto stated graphene “may be the most remarkable substance ever discovered.” One thing graphene is not, however, is magnetic. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a way to induce magnetism in graphene while preserving its electronic properties. The research team did this by bringing a single sheet of graphene into close proximity to...

Secular scientists are at a loss over how to get their favorite origins story, Darwinian evolution, a more confident presence in schools.After nearly a century of one-sided control of education on origins, Darwinian scientists shouldn’t be faced with this dilemma. After all, their own theory presupposes that human beings are material entities that can be conditioned like other animals. And yet, despite a near total exposure to Darwinian evolution in textbooks, museums, educational TV – and often in the general culture, such as in many sci-fi movies – a substantial majority of the public doesn’t buy the completely materialistic...

Bill Maris, head of Google's investment arm, says humans will live to be 500-years-old in the future, while today's cancer treatments will soon seem "primitive" as scientists continue to hunt for cure. Humans will live to be 500-years-old, according to a top Google executive, who said the company was investing millions of dollars in life sciences to ensure this vision became a reality. Bill Maris, a venture capitalist and the managing partner of Google Ventures, the internet giant's investment fund, said it had hired scientists as partners in order to identify start-ups that could cure cancer and make chemotherapy "seem...

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas told the Iowa Ag Conference that it was time to “push back” on “anti-science zealotry” concerning GMOs or genetically modified organisms, according to a Saturday story in the Washington Times. GMOs are crops that have been modified to have desirable traits, such as resistance to pests or to contain certain helpful vitamins and nutrients that they otherwise would not have. Oddly enough, Bill Nye, the former “science guy” and former GMO opponent has come around to Cruz’s point of view. Nye, who is not a scientist but played one once on Children’s television, has joined in...

The cauldron is finely decorated with designs and figures, including the head of the Greek god Achelous.France’s National Archaeological Research Institute (Inrap) on Wednesday revealed the discovery of an ancient grave site, probably that of a Celtic prince, which is helping shed light on trade between some of Europe’s earliest civilizations. Archaeologists uncovered the tomb dating from the fifth century BC in an industrial zone in the small town of Lavau, in France’s Champagne region. Inrap, which routinely scours construction sites in order to find and preserve the country’s archaeological heritage, began excavating at Lavau site in October 2014....

Des Moines—Only weeks after taking this key state in the presidential race by surprise, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker returns to Iowa Saturday to defend his front-runner status at a major Republican event focused on 2016 and agricutural issues.The GOP governor and a line-up of other major White House contenders—including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush—will take the stage at the Iowa Ag Summit on Saturday at the state fairgrounds here.A key point to watch will be whether Walker, an early favorite among conservatives for 2016, will stick to his past opposition to government intervention to aid the ethanol industry or moderate...

An artist’s impression of the ancient ocean on Mars, which lasted for billions of years more than was previously thought. A massive ancient ocean once covered nearly half of the northern hemisphere of Mars making the planet a more promising place for alien life to have gained a foothold, Nasa scientists say. The huge body of water spread over a fifth of the planet’s surface, as great a portion as the Atlantic covers the Earth, and was a mile deep in places. In total, the ocean held 20 million cubic kilometres of water, or more than is found in the...

A Two Thousand Year Old Project Two thousand years ago the Epicureans believed that the world arose spontaneously. Their idea was that randomly veering atoms attained a great variety of configurations by chance, and would eventually find themselves forming stable, functional structures. And while this may seem unlikely, the immense universe provided a great many opportunities for those configurations to come about. In Cicero’s dialog, the Epicurean explains this to his stoic opponent: You [stoics] would surely have no need of the activity of such a figure [a skilled craftsman] if you would only observe how unlimited, unbounded tracts...

Lasers have staggering range, can attack land or air-based targets and are dirt-cheap to fire, making them ideal for a military with one eye on the budget. Now, Lockheed Martin has worked out that the technology could also be used for stopping a car without resorting to lethal force. The company has been testing out a new fiber-optic laser, called ATHENA, which was able to burn through the engine manifold of a truck that was over a mile away. For the purposes of the test, the truck had its engine and drive train running, although the vehicle itself was...

One thing you can depend on, Apple is going to pack all kinds of goodies into its technology that offer the potential to transform the functionality of these devices and transform how you communicate with your customers. A case in point is Apple’s Indoor Positioning functionality, which Apple has updated for iOS 8 to provide facility owners with indoor latitude, longitude and floor level via API. To utilize Indoor Positioning in their own app, facility owners will need to survey their facility using Apple tools and upload a map to the Maps Indoor interface. Once that is done, the technology...

Three-dimensional printing has been used to make everything from pizza to prostheses, and now researchers are working on using the emerging technology to fabricate hearts, kidneys, and other vital human organs. That would be very big news, as the number of people who desperately need an organ transplant far outstrips the number of donor organs available. On average, about 21 Americans die every day because a needed organ was unavailable. What exactly is the promise of 3D printing organs and tissues, or "bioprinting?" How does the technology work, and when might it start saving lives? For answers to these and...

In an open letter released on Tuesday, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker said he would sign legislation banning most abortions after the fifth month of pregnancy, the point after which infants can feel pain and survive if born prematurely. "As the Wisconsin legislature moves forward in the coming session, further protections for mother and child are likely to come to my desk in the form of a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. I will sign that bill when it gets to my desk and support similar legislation on the federal level," Walker wrote. "I was raised to believe in...

For more than 2 million years our earth has cycled in and out of Ice Ages, accompanied by massive ice sheets accumulating over polar landmasses and a cold, desert-like global climate. Although the tropics during the Ice Age were still tropical, the temperate regions and sub-tropical regions were markedly different than they are today. There is a strong correlation between temperature and CO2 concentrations during this time. Historically, glacial cycles of about 100,000 years are interupted by brief warm interglacial periods-- like the one we enjoy today. Changes in both temperatures and CO2 are considerable and generally synchronized, according to...

Greatest threat is the scores of environmental organizations that have been exaggerating and distorting their alleged “science” in order to thwart development here and around the world that would enhance everyone’s life It is a sure sign that the advocates of the “global warming” and “climate change” hoaxes know that the public no longer believes that the former is occurring or that the latter represents an immediate, global threat. Even though the “climate skeptics”, scientists who have produced research proving false methodology and the conclusions based on it are quite few in number, an effort to silence them by smearing...