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Submission + - Museum of Failure opens in Sweden (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: A new museum in Helsingborg displays more than 70 failed products and objects, including the Apple Newton, Google Glass, Sony Betamax, Harley-Davidson perfume, and the Donald Trump board game. According to curator Samuel West, “none of the companies that I contacted wanted to cooperate. I approached quite a few innovation directors and asked them for examples of failure that they’ve learned from. I thought it would be easy to get them to collaborate but none of them—zero—choose to cooperate.”

Submission + - Russia's Dyatlov Pass Incident explained by modern science? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Fifty-five years ago today, nine young Russians died under suspicious circumstances during a winter hiking trip in the Ural mountains. Despite an exhaustive investigation and the recovery of the group’s journals and photographs, the deaths remained unexplained, blamed on “an unknown compelling force.” Now American film and television producer Donnie Eichar believes he has solved the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident. Working in conjunction with scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, CO, Eichar developed a theory that the hikers died because they panicked in the face of infrasound produced by a Kármán vortex street.

Submission + - USMA: Going the extra kilometer for metrication (failuremag.com)

Submitted by EagleHasLanded
EagleHasLanded writes: The U.S. Metric Association has been advocating for metrication since 1916 – without much success. In the mid-1970s, the U.S. government passed the Metric Conversion Act, but now it seems the time for complete conversion has come and gone. Or could U.S. educators and health & safety advocates put this issue back on Congress’ radar screen?

Submission + - Insects as Weapons (failuremag.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Timothy Paine, an entomologist at the University of California-Riverside, recently “committed to the scientific record the idea that California’s eucalyptus trees may have been biologically sabotaged, publishing an article [in the Journal of Economic Entomology] raising the possibility of bioterrorism.” Specifically, Paine argues that foreign insect pests have been deliberately introduced in the Golden State, in hopes of decimating the state’s population of eucalyptus (especially the two species regarded as invasive, which “are particularly susceptible to the pests.”) In California’s Bioterror Mystery, Paine (and scientists who are sceptical) make their arguments. What isn’t in dispute is that the insect pests have already inflicted hundreds of millions of dollars in damage, making the story a cautionary tale about what might happen if a food or crop were intentionally targeted.
Books

Submission + - Remembering Sealab (failuremag.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “Some people remember Sealab as being a classified program, but it was trying not to be,” says Ben Hellwarth, author of the new book Sealab: America’s Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor, which aims to “bring some long overdue attention to the marine version of the space program.” In the 1960s, the media largely ignored the efforts of America’s aquanauts, who revolutionized deep-sea diving and paved the way for the underwater construction work being done today on offshore oil platforms. It didn’t help that the public didn’t understand the challenges of saturation diving; in this comical exchange a telephone operator initially refuses to connect a call between President Johnson and Aquanaut Scott Carpenter, (who sounded like a cartoon character, thanks to the helium atmosphere in his pressurized living quarters). But in spite of being remembered as a failure, the final incarnation of Sealab did provide cover for a very successful Cold War spy program.
Science

Submission + - BP-owned toxic lake filled with cancer-fighting ex (failuremag.com)

Submitted by EagleHasLanded
EagleHasLanded writes: The Berkeley Pit, an abandoned open pit copper mine in Butte, Montana—part of the largest Superfund site in the U.S.—is filled with 40 billion gallons of acidic, metal-contaminated water. For years the water was believed to be too toxic to support life, until Andrea and Donald Stierle, a pair of organic chemists at the Univ. of Montana discovered that the Pit is a rich source of unusual extremophiles, “many of which have shown great promise as producers of potential anti-cancer agents and anti-inflammatories.” In the course of their ongoing investigation, the two self-described “bioprospectors” have also discovered an uncommon yeast, which might play a significant role in cleaning up the site. In the meantime, the Pit has become a tourist attraction in Butte, which charges $2 for the opportunity to take in the view from the Viewing Stand.
Transportation

Submission + - Are Folding Containers the Future of Shipping? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Earlier this year Maersk ordered 20 super-size container ships—each to have “16 percent larger capacity than today’s largest container vessel, Emma Maersk.” But instead of embracing the bigger/more-is-better mentality, Staxxon, a NJ-based startup, has engineered a folding steel container (it folds like a toddler’s playpen), which is designed to make shipping more efficient by “reducing the number of container ship movements.” No one has yet succeeded in the marketplace with a collapsible container, but Staxxon has made a point of learning from the mistakes of others.
Science

Submission + - Studying the Impact of Lost Shipping Containers (failuremag.com) 3

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Looking at a picture of the world’s largest container ship it’s easy to visualize how 10,000 containers fall overboard from these vessels every year. Now scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute are undertaking the Lost Container Cruise, an attempt to gauge the effects of shipping containers lost at sea by studying a tire-filled container, which marine biologists discovered in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. ( The research is being funded by a multi-million dollar settlement with the operators of the Med Taipei, the ship that lost the cargo.) The work is not unlike studying a deep water shipwreck: Use robotic submarine to take pictures and collect sediment samples; repeat.

Submission + - Earthquake hazard in Midwest equal to California? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by swellconvivialguy
swellconvivialguy writes: Next year marks the bicentennial of the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes, with earthquake drills and disaster tourism events planned across the Midwest, including the Great Central U.S. ShakeOut. But despite the fact that Earthquake Hazard Maps equate the New Madrid seismic zone with California, geologist Seth Stein says new science (especially GPS data) tells us the hazard has been significantly overestimated and that we should not spend billions on earthquake preparations in the Midwest.

Submission + - The Search for the Mount Everest of caves (failuremag.com)

Submitted by NoMeansYes
NoMeansYes writes: An interview with James Tabor, author of the new best-selling book “Blind Descent,” reveals that it's a pair of accomplished scientists — American Bill Stone and Ukranian geologist Alexander Klimchouk — that are the two most prominent figures in extreme caving, and both have figured prominently in the ongoing quest to discover the deepest cave on earth. Tabor describes what conditions are like inside supercaves like Cheve (-4,869 feet) and Krubera (-7,188 feet), before discussing Stone and his far-reaching technological innovations, which include The Posideon Discovery Rebreather and NASA’s ENDURANCE. Extreme caving probably won't remain underground (so to speak) much longer, however. The article notes that James Cameron is planning to release a 3D film next year about extreme cave divers.
Space

Submission + - If ET calls, who speaks for humanity? (failuremag.com)

Submitted by EagleHasLanded
EagleHasLanded writes: Who speaks for humankind if ET calls on us? Paul Davies, chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup , is a likely ambassador. But Allen Tough founded the Invitation to ETI Web site, which encourages ET to make contact via email (and also strongly discourages humans from impersonating ET). But an individual in the UK got over some of the hurdles designed to weed out hoaxers, before finally throwing in the towel.
Math

Submission + - Grigory Perelman and the Poincare Conjecture (failuremag.com) 1

Submitted by EagleHasLanded
EagleHasLanded writes: Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman doesn't talk to journalists. Actually, he doesn't talk to anyone anymore. So we'll have to settle for insights via his biographer, Masha Gessen, who, strangely enough, has never talked to him either. But she has spoken with just about everyone who has ever had any significant interaction with Perelman, and the result is the book 'Perfect Rigor,' which more than adequately explains why Perelman has gone into self-imposed exile, and why he hasn't collected the million dollars owed him for solving the Poincare Conjecture.

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