Are eco-friendly planes possible?

The ecology is finally getting more attention, and eco-friendly products are becoming increasingly popular. Hybrid cars are one of the best examples how eco-friendly vehicles are becoming more and more popular as their sales have experienced significant growth in the last few years.

And now it looks like air traffic might also have its green representative in form of eco-friendly plane after MIT-led team designed an eco-friendly airplane that is estimated to use 70 percent less fuel than current planes while also reducing noise and emission of harmful nitrogen oxides.

Current estimates say that air traffic will double by 2035 so it is of vital importance to develop eco-friendly planes that would be far more efficient than current planes in order to tackle climate change problem.

THE MIT scientists have designed two series of eco-friendly planes: the 180-passenger D "double bubble" series to replace the Boeing 737 class aircraft, currently used for domestic flights, and the 350 passenger H "hybrid wing body" series to replace the 777 class aircraft now used for international flights.

D series was constructed by reconfiguring the tube-and-wing structure. Instead of using a single fuselage cylinder, scientists used two partial cylinders placed side by side to create a wider structure whose cross-section resembles two soap bubbles joined together. They also moved the engines from the usual wing-mounted locations to the rear of the fuselage. Unlike the engines on most transport aircraft that take in the high-speed, undisturbed air flow, the D-series engines take in slower moving air that is present in the wake of the fuselage. This techniques is knows as the Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI), and it allows the engines to use less fuel for the same amount of thrust, although the design has several practical drawbacks, such as creating more engine stress.

H series utilizes much of the same technology as the D series, including BLI, a larger design is needed for this plane to carry more passengers over longer distances. The MIT team designed a triangular-shaped hybrid wing body aircraft that blends a wider fuselage with the wings for improved aerodyamics. The large center body creates a forward lift that eliminates the need for a tail to balance the aircraft.

Eco-friendly air traffic certainly sounds very good, especially after construction of eco-friendly planes look possible.

How do computers interpret art, beauty and aesthetic?

Some mathematical algorithms actually give computer a clue about the certain style of painting of the certain artist. The composition of colors or some other aesthetic measurements can already be quantified by a computer, but computers are still far from being able to interpret art in the way that people do because artificial intelligence still lacks far behind human intelligence in terms of art and aesthetics.

The Scientists from the Laboratory of Graphics and Image in the University of Girona and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Germany have shown that certain artificial vision algorithms mean a computer can be programmed to interpret an image and differentiate between artistic styles but based only on low-level pictorial information such as brush thickness, the type of material and the composition of the palette of colors.

Humans, on the other hand interpret art by using medium and high-level pictorial information such as type of painting (landscape, portrait, etc.), historical concept, and personal knowledge about the certain artist. Art can only partially be explained by mathematics, and therefore I highly doubt that computers will be able to interpret art like humans now can in years to come because humans do much more than just analyzing pixels and color distribution like computers do.

Human and computer perception of beauty and aesthetics are two completely different things, and though computer technology is constantly developing I do not see how computers would develop sense for beauty and the fine art. For that computers would have to have a human perception, and this is really only possible in some Sci-fi movies.

Advantages of having bigger brain - Bigger brain the smarter you are?

The brain is the center of our nervous system, and a highly complex organ that generates our behavior. Brain still remains a great mystery to scientists despite different studies, and nobody knows the limits of human brain. We only know that we use very small part of our brains, and who knows perhaps the only real difference between humans and gods is in how much of their brain do they use. But since we are getting into the philosophical sphere I will get back to the main topic of this article, namely the size of the brain. What does it mean to have big brain? Does having bigger brain means that you are smarter than the ones with smaller brains or what?

Some studies have discovered that brain size matters for intellectual ability and having bigger brain means having better intellectual ability. The most interesting study that confirmed this took part in 2005 McMaster University researchers have found that brain size really matters. They also found that there are differences between women and men when it comes down to brain size. In women, verbal intelligence is correlated with brain size, accounting for 36 percent of the verbal IQ score. In men, this was true for right-handers only, indicating that brain asymmetry is a factor in men.

But on the other hand lets look at Albert Einstein's brain. Albert Einstein is undisputedly one of the biggest geniuses in our history but his brain was of average size. However his brain did have unusual brain anatomy and many scientist believe this is the main reason why Einstein had different flow of thoughts compared to all other. In fact one part of the Einstein's brain was missing and according to some scientists this enabled neurons in this part of his brain to communicate better resulting in one of the greatest mind in human history.

Lets go a little bit to animal world to see size of their brains. For instance the average adult human brain weighs around 3 pounds (1,361 grams) which is close to average brain weight of dolphin. We consider dolphin to be very intelligent animals, right? Well how about sperm whale, nobody considers this whale to be genius among animals and yet it has brain that weighs around 17 pounds (7,800 grams). We consider dogs to be smart but they only have average brain of around 2.5 ounces (72 grams). Of course we should also take into account the size of the total body, and it is not the same to compare brain of sperm whale that weighs more than ten tons to brain of dolphin that weighs only around 350 pounds (158.8 kilograms). Having bigger body usually means having larger skull, and therefore having bigger brain.

What we should focus here is brain to weight ratio, if we focus on this then we'll see that we are the smartest ones on planet since our brain to weight ratio is about 1-to-50. For most other mammals, it's around 1-to-180, and for birds, it's around 1-to-220. As you can see the brain takes up more weight in a human than it does in other animals, and makes us smarter than animals.

So size does really matter when it comes to brain, but since we only know so little about brain who knows what else our brain is capable of. Perhaps size isn't that important for making us smart as we now think. Well, it's up to future to tell us more. For now the size does matter.

How close is the nearest black hole to Earth?

Until recently it was impossible to give an exact answer on bow close is the nearest black hole to Earth but an international team of astronomers has for the first time accurately measured the distance from Earth to a black hole, and this distance is 7800 light years, which is much closer that many scientists assumed it is.

How did they measure this distance? The breakthrough discovery was in this case the result of measuring the radio emissions from the black hole and its associated dying star. An exact distance from black hole is important from two different reasons. First of all astronomers can now gain a better picture of how black holes evolve, and what is even more important an exact distance is important for measurements of the black hole´s spin.

This nearest black hole was the result of supernova explosion, and it moves through space at a rate of about 40 km per second.

Scientists hope that with the help of this new measuring method they'll be able "to answer the question as to whether there is a difference between black holes that evolve directly from the collapse of a star without a supernova and black holes that evolve via a supernova and a temporary intermediate star, a proto-neutron star. We expect that the black holes in the last group can get a kick. Black holes formed in this way could then move through space faster", as Peter Jonker from SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research said in his interview.