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Science

CERN Wants a New Particle Collider Three Times Larger Than the LHC 238

Posted by Soulskill from the showing-the-higgs-boson-who's-boss dept.
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Not content with the 27-kilometer-round Large Hadron Collider, researchers at CERN have their sights set on a new beast of a particle collider that could have a circumference of 80 to 100 kilometers. The nuclear research organization announced that it was hatching plans for an ambitious successor to the LHC with an international study called the Future Circular Colliders program, which will kick off with a meeting next week. The idea is to consider different hadron collider designs similar to the existing LHC but more powerful — much more powerful. CERN wrote it was looking for a collider 'capable of reaching unprecedented energies in the region of 100 TeV.' The existing LHC will reach a maximum of around 14 TeV."
Mars

Spectacular New Martian Impact Crater Spotted From Orbit 99

Posted by Soulskill from the get-your-cameras-to-mars dept.
New submitter kc123 writes: "The team that runs the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has released a photo showning a new impact crater on Mars, formed sometime early this decade. The crater at the center is about 30 meters in diameter, and the material ejected during its formation extends out as far as 15 kilometers. The impact was originally spotted by the MRO's Context Camera, a wide-field imaging system that provides the context—an image of the surrounding terrain—for the high-resolution images taken by HiRISE. The time window on the impact, between July 2010 and May 2012, simply represents the time between two different Context Camera photos of the same location. Once the crater was spotted, it took until November of 2013 for another pass of the region, at which point HiRISE was able to image it." Reader astroengine adds some more Mars news: "On Thursday at 3:41 p.m. EST (20:41 UTC), Mars rover Curiosity beamed back a photo from its rear hazard avoidance camera (Hazcam). In the shot we see wheel tracks in the downward slope of the dune bridging "Dingo Gap" with the peak of Curiosity's eventual goal, Mount Sharp, on the horizon. This can mean only one thing; the one-ton robot has successfully conquered its first Mars dune! Curiosity has also taken a picture of Earth."

Comment Re:If it bother you that much (Score 4, Informative) 944

by qazsedcft (#45786575) Attached to: 60% of Americans Unaware of Looming Incandescent Bulb Phase Out

The average incandescent bulb lasts about 1000 hours. Currently, the average cost per kilowatt hour is 12 cents in this country. So a 100 watt bulb run for 1000 hours costs about $1.20 in electricity. The bulbs cost about $0.57 each. An equivalent LED bulb costs $36 per, and consumes only 13% of the energy used by an incandescent. They say these will last approximately 50,000 hours.

Except your math is off by a factor of 10. 100 watt is 0.1 kW, times 1000 hours gives 100 kWh, which is $12 dollars of electricity not $1.20. That changes pretty much everything.

I agree about the toxic waste stuff, but if you're worried mostly about energy (and that's what policy mostly focuses on) then incandescents don't make sense.

Comment Re:California is too large (Score 1) 489

by qazsedcft (#45759089) Attached to: Goodbye, California? Tim Draper Proposes a 6-Way Split

I get what you're saying but the political centralization of the USA is also the reason for its incredible stability over the past century. Europe learned that lesson only after nearly wiping itself out.

The thing is, you can't just keep an area stable just by doing nothing. If you want an area to remain relatively stable and prosperous you need to make sure all parts develop at roughly the same rate. Hence, the idea of a common economy with a common currency and free movement of people and goods. But if you're going to have a common economy then you also need to harmonize your fiscal policy or else the debts of small states that live above their means risk destabilizing your whole economy. But that also means that you need to put restrictions over spending. The inescapable consequence of all of this is that the union is going to have more and more say over what the individual states can do and you'll end up with a centralized government.

Still, as grim as it sounds it's still way better than endlessly warring states.

Comment Re:Bitcoiners on reddit are completely delusional (Score 1) 475

by qazsedcft (#45727125) Attached to: Bitcoin Exchange Value Halves After Chinese Ban

Wake up people. This "currency" is never going to have anything close to wide adoption. The inability to charge back is the #1 reason that prevents any consumer from perceiving it as a safe currency against vendor fraud.

Do you feel the same way about cash?

With cash I can see/touch the goods I'm buying before paying for them. I have to physically meet the person selling the goods. Unless I'm paying for something illegal there's little chance of getting screwed over because it would be too risky for the other party.

Comment Language Fads (Score 1) 230

by qazsedcft (#43780691) Attached to: Australia Makes Asian Language Learning a Priority
Chinese (Mandarin to be precise) is the current language fad. I remember when about a decade ago everyone was into Japanese and before that there was Russian. There are many good reasons to learn foreign languages from an early age but frankly the whole "economic relationships" argument is BS. The truth is that the current world lingua franca for business is English and it's going to stay that way for a while.

Comment Re:The Worlds worst nuclear accident (Score 1) 149

by qazsedcft (#42116157) Attached to: Workers Raise First Section of New Chernobyl Shelter
I agree with your post in general, except:

We just need to handle it sensibly. Put a 25 mile exclusion zone around them. Site them away from centres of population.

In the US maybe, but in Europe this is hard to do as population density is pretty high everywhere except way out in the North. In a country like Germany you won't find a large mostly empty area far from any population. But if you ask me I'd rather live next to a nuclear reactor than next to a coal power plant.

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