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Gizmorama - December 3, 2014
Good Morning, Researchers have determined that the Antikythera Mechanism is the world's first computer. It wasn't used for Tweeting or playing solitare or Facebook. It actually had an important job to do.
Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.
Until Next Time,
ErinP.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click
GopherArchives****-- Scientists develop process to turn human waste into rocket fuel --*GAINESVILLE, Fla. (UPI) - It sounded like an immature April Fool's joke, but it wasn't. NASA really did want researchers at the University of Florida to figure out a way to turn human excrement into rocket fuel. So Pratap Pullammanappallil and his colleagues complied.
Fast forward a few years, and Pullammanappallil's research team has found a solution -- a process that converts human waste into rocket-powering methane fuel.
Everybody poops -- even astronauts. But as of now, the bodily byproducts of astronauts are simply stored and dispatched to burn up in Earth's atmosphere upon re-entry. It's a perfectly fine solution for now, but by 2024, NASA expects to have an operating base on the moon that will serve as the launching point for future deep space missions.
Because they can't dump human waste on the moon, and because it would expensive and wasteful to launch it back toward Earth, NASA wants a way to repurpose the poo.
First, Pullammanappallil and his colleagues ran the numbers.
"We were trying to find out how much methane can be produced from uneaten food, food packaging and human waste," Pullammanappallil, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Florida, explained in a press release.
Their calculations suggested the endeavor was feasible. They estimated they could convert as much as 290 liters of methane per crew per day. Next, they came up with an conversion process using an anaerobic digester. The process produces a biogas -- a combination of methane and CO2 -- while killing off harmful pathogens in the waste.
"Methane can be used to fuel the rockets," Pullammanappallil said. "Enough methane can be produced to come back from the moon."
The process is detailed in the latest issue of the Advances In Space Research.
While the process was intended to launch rockets, it could eventually power electric grids or heat homes here on Earth.
"It could be used on campus or around town, or anywhere, to convert waste into fuel," Pullammanappallil said.
*-- World's first computer dates to 205 BCE, earlier than thought --*PUGET SOUND, Wash. (UPI) - Long considered the world's first computer, the Antikythera Mechanism is now thought to be 100 years older than first determined, researchers said.
The bronze mechanism, discovered in 1901 in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, was initially dated to 150 to 100 BCE, but researchers now found that it recorded a solar eclipse that happened on May 12, 205 BCE.
The research, published in the Archive for History of Exact Sciences, found the mechanism's calendar to be 50 years to a century older than first believed. Researchers from the University of Puget Sound in Washington and the National University of Quilmes in Argentina said the mechanism allowed Greeks to predict eclipses, but wasn't based on Greek trigonometry, which didn't yet exist.
Instead, it was based on Babylonian arithmetic, borrowed by the Greeks, and a study of Babylonian eclipse records revealed when the device was made to start.
The new date also means the Antikythera Mechanism, also called the Saros Dial, may have been constructed during Archimedes' life, lending plausibility to Cicero's story that Archimedes created the device and sent it back to Rome with the Roman general Marcellus just before his death in 212 BCE.
Though the new date puts the creation of the mechanism "tantalizingly close" to Archimedes' lifetime, debate continues about who made the device, and where.
The mechanism, made up of 37 complex gears and a dial display, is thought to be the first analog compute. It was used to chart the movements of the sun, moon and other planets. The device also tracked the dates of the Olympic games.
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