The Toyota Motor Corporation isn't wasting
time watching for acceptance of its duel-fuel Prius--the company has introduced
the Estima Hybrid minivan, applying the same gasoline/electric technology
to a four-wheel drive platform. Vehicle specs indicate a cruising range
of about 600 miles, and a brake system that employs a computer chip for
wheel-by-wheel control, plus management of the vehicle's regenerative braking
system. The power plant also generates up to 1500 watts of auxiliary AC
power, sufficient for a laptop computer. No word as to when this vehicle
will arrive here, nor is there a landing date slated for Toyota's Fuel Cell
Hybrid Vehicle, expected to go into commercial production in 2003. Company
engineer's are testing the FCHV-4, a version that carries its hydrogen in
high-pressure tanks. The previous FCHV-3, shown in the photo, used hydrogen-absorbing
alloy tanks. The -4 is demonstrating a top speed of 93 mph and a range of
155 miles from a high-performance stack that outputs at 90 kW. The stack
is coupled to a secondary battery that gives the vehicle regenerative braking
abilities. A newly developed heat pump air-conditioning system substitutes
CO2 for HFCs as the refrigerant. A FCHV bus is also in the works.
Nitrogen
as a semiconductor? Researchers at the Carnegie Institution of Washington
compressed samples of nitrogen gas between two diamond faces at pressures
of 240 gigapascals, which produced a transformation to an opaque, semiconducting
solid that remained stable as pressure returned to normal. The results validates
a prediction that molecular nitrogen would either become a semiconductor
or a metal if subjected to pressures on the order of a million atmospheres
(100 GPa). A similar theory holds for gaseous hydrogen, though solid metallic
hydrogen has yet to be produced in a laboratory. Further tests suggest that
the non-molecular semiconductor state can be at equilibrium over a range
of pressures starting below 100 GPa, depending on temperature--researchers
explored a range between 80° and 300° K. Besides having implications
in superconducting and electronics packaging technologies, the information
on the formation of high-density material from light-weight elements could
account for part of the cores of large gas planets, such as those in our
own solar system.
Reprinted by permission from Nature 411,
171, copyright 2001, Macmillan Magazines Ltd.
FYI from the Telegraph, a
British news service: scientists have found a fungus that eats compact discs.
Victor Cardenes and colleagues at the Superior Council for Scientific Research
in Madrid, Spain, stumbled across the microscopic creature two years ago,
while visiting Belize. Friends complained that in the hot and sticky Central
American climate, a CD had stopped working and had developed an odd discoloration
that left parts of it virtually transparent. The research team discovered
a fungus was steadily eating through the supposedly indestructible disc,
burrowing into the CD from the outer edge, then devouring the thin aluminum
layer and some of the data-storing polycarbonate resin. Dr Cardenes said:
"It completely destroys the aluminum. It leaves nothing behind."
Biologists at the council had never seen this fungus, but concluded that
it belonged to a common genus called geotrichum. Philips, the Dutch electronics
company that invented the compact disc, said it believed the Belize case
was probably a freak incident caused by extreme weather conditions. We anxiously
await a writer in Hollywood who'll apply this to the next "man-tampering-with-nature"
disaster movie ala the 1950's (think of classics like "The Fly"
and "Them").
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The Toyota Motor Corporation isn't wasting
time watching for acceptance of its duel-fuel Prius--the company has introduced
the Estima Hybrid minivan, applying the same gasoline/electric technology
to a four-wheel drive platform. Vehicle specs indicate a cruising range
of about 600 miles, and a brake system that employs a computer chip for
wheel-by-wheel control, plus management of the vehicle's regenerative braking
system. The power plant also generates up to 1500 watts of auxiliary AC
power, sufficient for a laptop computer. No word as to when this vehicle
will arrive here, nor is there a landing date slated for Toyota's Fuel Cell
Hybrid Vehicle, expected to go into commercial production in 2003. Company
engineer's are testing the FCHV-4, a version that carries its hydrogen in
high-pressure tanks. The previous FCHV-3, shown in the photo, used hydrogen-absorbing
alloy tanks. The -4 is demonstrating a top speed of 93 mph and a range of
155 miles from a high-performance stack that outputs at 90 kW. The stack
is coupled to a secondary battery that gives the vehicle regenerative braking
abilities. A newly developed heat pump air-conditioning system substitutes
CO2 for HFCs as the refrigerant. A FCHV bus is also in the works.
Nitrogen
as a semiconductor? Researchers at the Carnegie Institution of Washington
compressed samples of nitrogen gas between two diamond faces at pressures
of 240 gigapascals, which produced a transformation to an opaque, semiconducting
solid that remained stable as pressure returned to normal. The results validates
a prediction that molecular nitrogen would either become a semiconductor
or a metal if subjected to pressures on the order of a million atmospheres
(100 GPa). A similar theory holds for gaseous hydrogen, though solid metallic
hydrogen has yet to be produced in a laboratory. Further tests suggest that
the non-molecular semiconductor state can be at equilibrium over a range
of pressures starting below 100 GPa, depending on temperature--researchers
explored a range between 80° and 300° K. Besides having implications
in superconducting and electronics packaging technologies, the information
on the formation of high-density material from light-weight elements could
account for part of the cores of large gas planets, such as those in our
own solar system.
FYI from the Telegraph, a
British news service: scientists have found a fungus that eats compact discs.
Victor Cardenes and colleagues at the Superior Council for Scientific Research
in Madrid, Spain, stumbled across the microscopic creature two years ago,
while visiting Belize. Friends complained that in the hot and sticky Central
American climate, a CD had stopped working and had developed an odd discoloration
that left parts of it virtually transparent. The research team discovered
a fungus was steadily eating through the supposedly indestructible disc,
burrowing into the CD from the outer edge, then devouring the thin aluminum
layer and some of the data-storing polycarbonate resin. Dr Cardenes said:
"It completely destroys the aluminum. It leaves nothing behind."
Biologists at the council had never seen this fungus, but concluded that
it belonged to a common genus called geotrichum. Philips, the Dutch electronics
company that invented the compact disc, said it believed the Belize case
was probably a freak incident caused by extreme weather conditions. We anxiously
await a writer in Hollywood who'll apply this to the next "man-tampering-with-nature"
disaster movie ala the 1950's (think of classics like "The Fly"
and "Them").