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Travel (General/Chat)

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  • Super-compact internally rotating combustion engine packs a solid punch

    06/10/2024 1:01:18 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 41 replies
    New Atlas ^ | June 09, 2024 | Joe Salas
    An innovative new combustion engine eliminates half the guts of a traditional engine, and uses a fascinating internally-rotating piston and sleeve arrangement, making it lighter, simpler and more efficient while still making strong power and torque. Michael Arsenaeu designed the Avadi engine 20 years ago in the hopes of creating an entirely new engine design to be efficient as well as reduce emissions. In 2015, Avadi began the build and development. Rotary might be a good name for this sort of engine, if the name wasn't already taken. Everything inside the crankcase rotates, but unlike a Wankel-style rotary engine, this...
  • Chunk of Teton Pass Road Collapses; Unclear How Quickly It Can Be Rebuilt

    06/10/2024 7:16:45 AM PDT · by 1Old Pro · 34 replies
    TIME ^ | 6.9.2024 | AP
    Jackson, Wyo. — A large chunk of a twisting mountain pass road collapsed in Wyoming, authorities said Saturday, leaving a gaping chasm in the highway and severing a well-traveled commuter link between small towns in eastern Idaho and the tourist destination of Jackson. Aerial photos and drone video of the collapse show the Teton Pass road riven with deep cracks, and a big section of the pavement disappeared altogether. Part of the guardrail dangled into the void, and orange traffic drums marked off the danger area. The road was closed at the time of the collapse.
  • Baggage handler issues warning to passengers who tie ribbons to their suitcases

    06/10/2024 6:52:26 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 73 replies
    NY Post ^ | June 05, 2024 | Taylor Knight
    Destined for delays. Avid travelers tend to opt out of checked bags to avoid delayed baggage arrival, difficulty picking out their items or fear of their bag not reaching their destination. But for those who have no choice, they’ll add a personal marker on the suitcase in anticipation of making their baggage pickup smoother. However, this age-old luggage hack is delaying your bags from arriving on the baggage carousel. Travelers have developed a habit of attaching a colorful ribbon, luggage tag or other accessories to make their suitcases stand apart from the hundreds of bags in the rotation. Dublin Airport...
  • Airbnb renters refuse to leave, put up no trespassing sign on North Carolina woman's property

    06/09/2024 2:06:38 PM PDT · by lowbridge · 75 replies
    abc7.com ^ | June 7, 2024 | Diane Wilson
    A months-long Airbnb rental has become a nightmare for the North Carolina host, because the renters refuse to leave. A single parent in the Triangle is out money and now is having to fight to get her property back. "Now they're refusing to leave until there's an eviction order. I think they're just trying to gain time to stay there for free because they haven't paid," Farzana Rahman said. This all started when Rahman's most recent Airbnb guests made a long-term rental reservation through Airbnb. They checked in on October 25 with a check out date of May 24. When...
  • Horses may have been domesticated twice. Only one attempt stuck

    06/09/2024 3:24:03 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 17 replies
    Science News ^ | June 6, 2024 | Tina Hesman Saey
    Horses were domesticated at least twice, researchers report June 6 in Nature. Genetic data suggest Botai hunter-gatherers in Central Asia may have been the first to domesticate the animals for milk and meat around 5,000 years ago. That attempt didn't stick. But other people living north of the Caucasian Mountains domesticated horses for transportation about 4,200 years ago, the researchers found.Those latter horses took the equine world by storm. In just a few centuries, they replaced their wild cousins and became the modern domestic horse...ancient people from southwest Asia known as the Yamnaya have been credited with being the first...
  • Woman Killed Attempting to Take a Selfie With a Speeding Steam Locomotive

    06/07/2024 3:54:56 AM PDT · by Libloather · 21 replies
    Men's Journal ^ | 6/05/24 | Stacey Ritzen
    A 29-year-old woman in Hidalgo, Mexico is dead after attempting to take a selfie with a train bound for Mexico City, but got too close to the tracks. The woman, who has not been identified, was part of a crowd to witness the final leg of a Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) 1930 Empress 2816 steam locomotive's journey, which departed from Calgary in Alberta, Canada on April 24. Last year, the cross-continental Final Spike Steam Tour became the first ever steam-powered passenger train in North America to traverse across Canada, the United States, and Mexico in a single trip. In...
  • The Real Reason You Shouldn’t Order Coffee or Tea on an Airplane

    06/06/2024 11:50:46 AM PDT · by nickcarraway · 23 replies
    Food & Wine ^ | June 4, 2024 | Jelisa Castrodale
    Here's why you're better off with canned and bottled drinks.Regardless of where you’re traveling from or where you’re flying to, the best part of being on a plane is when the flight attendants start handing out snacks and drinks. Would I like a bag of pretzels? Yes, I would. Do I want a second package of cookies? Of course, I do. As enjoyable as it is to crack into a tiny bottle of in-flight bourbon — or even a can of Sprite Zero — one former flight attendant is warning passengers off ordering two common beverages. TikTok influencer Kat Kamalani,...
  • Spacex Super Heavy has splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico

    06/06/2024 10:40:53 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 56 replies
    Jared Isaacman @rookisaacman · 4h Unreal SpaceX team.. great job. You just brought the most powerful booster in the world one step closer to reusability.
  • Ancient snake drawings are among the largest known rock art worldwide

    06/05/2024 1:38:07 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 19 replies
    New Scientist ^ | June 4, 2024 | Chen Ly
    Prehistoric engravings of giant snakes along South America's Orinoco river are among the largest examples of rock art we know of anywhere in the world, with some stretching for more than 40 metres.The Orinoco is one of the world's largest rivers, flowing through Venezuela and along its border with Colombia. "There's an outstanding record of rock art along the Orinoco, especially on the Venezuelan side," says José Oliver at University College London. "Usually, they are paintings found in rock shelters."Engravings are common in many open-air sites along the river, he says, but not all of them have been officially recorded...Since...
  • Airbus Wingman concept gives stealthy look at aerial combat future

    06/05/2024 12:59:30 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 26 replies
    New Atlas ^ | June 05, 2024 | David Szondy
    The Airbus Wingman concept Bringing some flash to military aviation, Airbus is showing off its Wingman drone concept this week at the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) in Berlin. The 1:1 scale mock-up is the aerospace equivalent of a "show car" for highlighting ideas. Trade shows like the ILA that runs through June 9 are not only an opportunity for salespeople to fatten up their order books, they're also a chance for companies to give potential customers an exclusive look at future products before the general public gets to know about them. Not only that, these sneak peaks allow engineers to...
  • Boeing Starliner launches to International Space Station from Florida

    06/05/2024 10:55:06 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 30 replies
    UPI ^ | June 05, 2024 | Doug Cunningham
    1 of 7 | A ULA Atlas V rocket launches the Boeing Starliner spacecraft on its maiden crewed flight from Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Wednesday. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo June 5 (UPI) -- NASA said Wednesday Boeing's Starliner carrying astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams successfully separated from the United Launch Alliance rocket booster following liftoff to the International Space Station. United Launch Alliance confirmed the successful separation and said in a statement on X, "The names of Wilmore and Williams now join Glenn, Carpenter, Schirra and Cooper as...
  • The Crash that CHANGED Aviation Forever (With Real Audio)

    06/05/2024 8:41:55 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 7 replies
    You Tube ^ | May 30, 2024 | TheFlightChannel
    70,759 views While flying between New Jersey and New York the Q400 operating as flight 3407 enters an aerodynamic stall and crashes into a house in Clarence Center, New York. Families of the victims lobbied the U.S. Congress to enact more stringent regulations for regional carriers and to improve the scrutiny of safe operating procedures and the working conditions of pilots. As a result, the FAA required some of these regulation changes. Seven years later, an ATR 42-500 operating as flight 661 also stalls in the sky, and the aircraft nosedives into the mountain. Find out what really happened. 16:00...
  • 3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles

    06/05/2024 5:50:11 AM PDT · by Red Badger · 91 replies
    internationalman.com ^ | June 04, 2024 | Nick Giambruno
    25 refrigerators. That’s how much the additional electricity consumption per household would be if the average US home adopted electric vehicles (EVs). Congressman Thomas Massie—an electrical engineer—revealed this information while discussing with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, President Biden’s plan to have 50% of cars sold in the US be electric by 2030. The current and future grid in most places will not be able to support each home running 25 refrigerators—not even close. Just look at California, where the grid is already buckling under the existing load. Massie claims, correctly, in my view, that the notion of widespread...
  • Analysis of 4,000-year-old Egyptian Skull Reveals Something 'extraordinary' That Leaves Researchers 'stunned'

    06/04/2024 9:14:35 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 57 replies
    The Debrief ^ | May 30, 2024 | Christopher Plain
    An international team of researchers studying a 4,000-year-old Egyptian skull that had signs of cancer say they have found evidence that ancient Egyptian medical practitioners knew about and potentially even tried to treat the deadly disease...While previous studies have revealed that Egyptians from these periods were able to identify, describe, and treat diseases and traumatic injuries, build prosthetics, and even place dental fillings, this study is the first to show that these surprisingly advanced ancient people may have tried to treat cancer around the same time they were building the pyramids...To conduct their analysis, the researchers were able to procure...
  • New electric car sales drop for fourth month in a row [Ireland]

    06/04/2024 1:54:50 PM PDT · by Olog-hai · 20 replies
    RTÉ News ^ | Tuesday, 4 Jun 2024 16:11 | Gill Stedman
    Just over 1,000 new electric cars were sold here in May, down over 39% on the same month last year. This is the fourth month in a row that new EV sales have dropped. New figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) show that just over 10,000 new EVs have been registered across the country so far this year, down almost 22% on the same period in 2023. Petrol cars continue to lead the new car market, with a share of over 33%, followed by diesel at 23%, hybrid (petrol electric) at around 20%, electric at just...
  • Yellowstone Bison Was ‘Defending Its Space’ When It Gored Elderly Woman

    06/04/2024 12:15:02 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 63 replies
    Cowboy State Daily ^ | June 03, 2024 | Greg Johnson
    An 83-year-old South Carolina woman visiting Yellowstone National Park was gored by a bison Saturday that was “defending its space,” the National Park Service reported Monday. She was airlifted to a hospital in Idaho. An 83-year-old South Carolina woman visiting Yellowstone National Park was gored by a bison Saturday. The bison was “defending its space” near the Storm Point Trail at Yellowstone Lake when it “came within a few feet of the woman and lifted her about a foot of the ground with its horns,” the National Park Service says in a Monday evening press release announcing the goring. It’s...
  • Cleveland Museum of Art to Return a Rare Ancient Icon to Libya

    06/04/2024 10:52:20 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 9 replies
    DNyuz ^ | May 30, 2024 | New York Times va DNyuz
    While excavating an ancient Greek palace in eastern Libya in the 1930s, an archaeologist dug up a large earthen storage jar, looked inside and spotted something unexpected — a 2,200-year-old sculpture of a bearded man carved from basalt, a dark volcanic stone.The two-foot-tall antiquity, most likely chiseled during ancient Egypt's Ptolemaic Dynasty, was a rare find. Known as a striding male figure, it is one of only 33 statues like it known to exist, Egyptologists say.But it wasn't long before thieves got ahold of the bearded figure and took it on an illicit odyssey that brought it, in 1991, to...
  • Purpose of Mysterious Ice Age Tool Revealed

    06/04/2024 7:40:15 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 41 replies
    ExplorersWeb ^ | February 4, 2024 | Martin Walsh
    A few years ago, archaeologists working in Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany unearthed some mysterious ice-age objects. The team found 13 pieces of carved mammoth ivory that fit together to form what they described as a "perforated baton, with four holes containing precisely carved spiral grooves." ...archaeologists Nicholas Conard (from the University of Tubingen in Germany) and Veerle Rots (from the University of Liege in Belgium)... argue that the 35,000-year-old ivory baton is a tool for making rope. Researchers were fairly sure that Paleolithic people used rope or twine, but the evidence was limited to depictions in art and...
  • Maui Fire Department Battalion Chief Arrested for Child Sex Crimes

    06/03/2024 7:34:53 PM PDT · by george76 · 13 replies
    Gateway Pundit ^ | Jun. 3, 2024 | Anthony Scott
    Maui Fire Department battalion chief Shawn Rogers has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a minor under the age of 14. Hawaii News Now reported an indictment alleged Rogers raped a child for years, starting when the victim was around 11 years old. The indictment alleged the sexual abuse occurred between 2019 and 2021. In a statement, Maui Fire Chief Brad Ventura stated: “Today, the County of Maui was made aware that Shawn Rogers (52), a 25-year veteran of the Department of Fire and Public Safety, was arrested and charged for Sexual Assault in the First Degree and Continuous...
  • 1 In 5 Crashed Cars Now Totaled By Insurance Firms, ADAS Partly To Blame

    06/02/2024 7:27:35 PM PDT · by where's_the_Outrage? · 63 replies
    Carscoops ^ | June 2, 2024 | Chris Chilton
    More than one fifth of all crashed cars are now totaled by insurance assessors. Proportion of new vehicles written off has increased due to high repair costs. The cost of fixing ADAS systems designed to prevent accidents is often deemed not worth it. The rocketing cost of repairing crashed cars means 21 percent of wrecks now result in a vehicle being totaled by insurance firms, a five-fold increase versus 1980. And some experts think that number could jump to a staggering 30 percent as cars become even more complex. Ironically, it’s the same ADAS driver aids designed to save us...