It's about time

We've been needing this for years.

One of the U.K.'s top nuclear officials said today that she was told the U.S. will okay plans to build the first nuclear power plants since the accident at Three Mile Island nearly three decades ago. Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, chair of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority, said that the chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission informed her that the NRC will approve three applications for new nuclear reactors that it's currently considering.

One of them is for the Shearon Harris plant just down the street.  Of course, it will be another three years before the paperwork necessary for the approval is even ready.  Not to mention the actual approval and building.  If it is ready before 2020 I'll be surprised.

It's also interesting to note the recurrent mentions of the Three Mile Island incident, as well as the Chernoybl accident.  And, of course, they had to mention global warming and climate change.  But, if that demagoguery is going to get us some cheaper, cleaner energy, then I am willing to put up with it for now.

Posted by: jcallery at 09:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 186 words, total size 1 kb.

Killing pain - with mirrors?

Just goes to show you how little we know about the brain.

Dr. Jack Tsao, a Navy neurologist with the Uniform Services University, was looking for ways to help soldiers like Paupore (who lost a leg in Iraq). He remembered reading in graduate school a paper by Dr. V.S. Ramachandran that talked about an unusual treatment for amputees suffering "phantom limb pain," using a simple $20 mirror.

The mirror tricks the brain into "seeing" the amputated leg, overriding mismatched nerve signals.

Here's how it works: The patient sits on a flat surface with his or her remaining leg straight out and then puts a 6-foot mirror lengthwise facing the limb. The patient moves the leg, flexing it, and watches the movement in the mirror. The reflection creates the illusion of two legs moving together.

The brain thinks that it is actually moving both legs, and seeing 'success' from the mirror, interprets the leg as existing.  But, it isn't getting any pain information from the leg, so everything must be OK and the phantom pain goes away.  That is just crazy.

It seems like every time we think we are getting a handle on what goes on in the brain something like this pops up.  It strains the imagination to think about what we will learn over the coming decades.

Posted by: jcallery at 02:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 224 words, total size 1 kb.

High Tech Salvage

Wired has an amazing story about a salvage crew rescuing a car carrier off the coast of Alaska (Warning:  includes language you would expect from a salvage crew off the coast of Alaska). 

Having been in the Navy, I am semi-familiar with what they do, but I did not realize how much they rely on computers and 3d modeling.  The salvage team takes a computer expert with them to the salvage site in order to build an exact 3d replica of the ship so that they can model the effects of pumping out water, or moving water around in the tanks.  This way they can re-float the ship with the least amount of work possible.

As the Ship's Diving Officer on a submarine, I was responsible for making sure that the sub had the proper amount of ballast on board.  Ideally, a sub, once submerged, should have neutral buoyancy, meaning it does not tend to sink or float.  This can be very difficult if the sub has been in port for a while, taken on stores, added more people, pumped out tanks, loaded weapons, or anything else that can change the weight of the boat.  Now I'm jealous - all I had to calculate all this was an Excel spreadsheet.

Posted by: jcallery at 08:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 213 words, total size 1 kb.

Building a new box - Part 2

Click 'more' to see the build.  Here's a picture of my helper to get you started.




more...

Posted by: jcallery at 06:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 573 words, total size 5 kb.