July 11, 2012

Good Morning,

A neat development out of Pittsburgh brings about "smart" headlights that can see though raindrops. Check out the details in the second article.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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Study links climate to human activity

WASHINGTON - U.S. and British researchers say they have, for the first time, been able to attribute extreme weather events to "human influence on the climate." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Britain's National Weather Service, known as the Met Office, said Tuesday researchers were able to conclude that temperatures in Britain last November -- the second-hottest November since record-keeping began in 1659 -- were at least 60 times more likely to have occurred because of climate change than because of natural change in Earth's weather systems, The Guardian reported. Researchers found the 2011 crop-destroying drought and heat wave in Texas was "roughly 20 times more likely" the result of man-made climate change -- warming due to greenhouse gasses -- than of natural climate variation, CBS News reported. Peter Stott, head of Climate Monitoring and Attribution at the Met Office, said the study results indicate "a stronger and stronger picture of human influence on the climate." The researchers cautioned climate change could not be identified as the cause of every extreme weather event, The Guardian reported. But NOAA said the climate change identified in the report issued Tuesday is man-made. CBS News said the
researchers evaluated temperature and dryness conditions associated with Texas drought, but nothing in the data for the past 50 years tended to explain the intensity or duration of the 2011 heat wave -- until they accounted for added heat resulting from climate change.


Smart headlights will see 'through' rain

PITTSBURGH - U.S. researchers say a new "smart" headlight design will help drivers in rainy condition by constantly redirecting light to shine between raindrops. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh say the system, successfully demonstrated in lab tests, prevents the distracting and dangerous glare of headlight beams reflected by precipitation back toward the driver. "If you're driving in a thunderstorm, the smart headlights will make it seem like it's a drizzle," robotics Professor Srinivasa Narasimhan said. The system uses a camera to track the motion of raindrops or snowflakes and then applies a computer algorithm to predict where those particles will be just a few milliseconds later and adjusts to deactivate light beams that would otherwise illuminate the particles in their predicted positions. Eventual road-worthy systems likely would be based on arrays of LED light sources in which individual elements could be turned on or off, depending on the location of raindrops, researchers said. A failure in the system's computer would not present a danger, researchers said. "One good thing is that the system will not fail in a catastrophic way," Narasimhan said. "If it fails, it is just a normal headlight."


Army plans to build body armor for women

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military announced plans to develop body armor in the style of "Xena: Warrior Princess" to be more comfortable and effective for female troops. The U.S. Army said it plans to engineer body armor designed to fit women's bodies more naturally, The Christian Science Monitor reported. Adjustments would include more curves in the chest and hips, shorter torsos and narrower shoulders. The changes in female body armor are a response to complaints from the female soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division in 2009 regarding the gear they were using. "It rubbed on the hips, and the vests were too long in the front, so that when you had female soldiers climbing stairs or climbing up a hill or a tree or sitting for a long time in a vehicle, that would create pressure points that in some instances could impact blood flow and cause some discomfort," female body armor developer Lt. Col. Frank Lozano said. Prototypes have been tested with the women of the 101st Airborne Division and feedback has been positive. Military officials said, however, building conforming yet protective armor could take years.


Fossil find of ancient life 'nursery'

OXFORD, England - A volcanic eruption some 579 million years ago buried and fossilized a "nursery" of the some of the world's earliest animals, British scientists say. Researchers from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in collaboration with the Memorial University of Newfoundland, discovered more than 100 fossils in Newfoundland rocks of what are believed to be "baby" rangeomorphs, bizarre frond-shaped organisms that lived 580 million to 550 million years ago that were unlike any creature alive today. The fossils are evidence of life from the mysterious Ediacaran period, 635 million to 542 million years ago, in which the first animals -- complex multi cellular organisms -- appeared, an Oxford release reported Monday. Exactly where rangeomorphs, often described as "fern-like," fit in the tree of life is unclear, the researchers said. They are not thought to be plants but may not have had all of the characteristics of animals, they said. "The fossilized 'babies' we found are all less than three centimeters (1 inch) long and are often as small as six millimeters (0.2 inches), many times smaller than the 'parent' forms, seen in neighboring areas, which can reach up to two meters (6 feet) in length," Oxford researcher Martin Brasier said. "We think that, around 579 million years ago, an underwater 'nursery' of baby Ediacaran fronds was overwhelmed, Pompeii-style, by an ash fall from a volcanic eruption on a nearby island that smothered and preserved them for posterity."

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