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Amazing
Hydrogen
It's raining hydrogen inside Saturn and guess what the
bacteria inside you
had for lunch?
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Speedy Star Leaves Long, Revealing Streak
Larry O'Hanlon
Discovery News
August 16, 2007 |
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Mira’s glowing tail looks like
a gigantic version of a comet tail and is made of material blown into the
wake of the guttering giant star as it plows through the thin hydrogen gas
that makes up the interstellar medium. It’s Mira’s high rate of speed —
291,000 miles per hour — that is causing a bow-shock ahead of the star and
the excited hydrogen gas to continue shimmering for 30,000 years in its
wake. |
| VIRGINIA COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY
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ABC
January 8, 2005 |

Scientists Design Mars
Bricks
Sonja Barisic |
NASA hopes to put people on Mars within the next several decades. Because of the different
orbits of Earth and Mars, the window of opportunity for travel between the two planets
occurs only once every two years. That means that anyone traveling to Mars would have to
stay there for a long time.
The prospect of an extended stay on Mars prompts a number of concerns,
among them the health effects of galactic cosmic radiation, found nearly everywhere in
space. The magnetic field surrounding the Earth deflects the radiation, but Mars does not
have such a field.
Radiation can cause illness or even death, depending on the dosage and
length of exposure. Therefore, astronauts will need a material they can use to build
shelters and laboratories that also will shield against radiation.
The lighter the material is in terms of mass, the better its shielding
properties, and research has shown that liquid hydrogen is the best possible shield... |

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DAFNE
goes Hypernuclear
CERN Courier March 11, 2003
A new experiment at the Frascati laboratory's f-factory is set to investigate the
strange world of the hypernucleus.
In 1953 Marian Danysz and Jerzy Pniewski, two Polish
physicists studying cosmic radiation, observed the first hypernucleus. The interaction of
a high-energy proton with a nucleus in the emulsions they were using as a detector
produced a hyperfragment - a nucleus containing a ? particle.
This pioneering observation initiated a new field of fundamental
research - hypernuclear physics. The hypernucleus itself provides a unique laboratory
suitable not only for studying nuclear structure in the presence of a strange quark, but
also for probing weak interactions between baryons. more |
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Hydrogen-7 Makes Its Debut
Belle Dumé PysicsWeb March
7, 2003
The heaviest isotope of hydrogen ever
has been detected at the RIKEN laboratory in Japan. The isotope contains six neutrons and
one proton and is known as hydrogen-7. An international team of researchers from Japan,
Russia, the UK, France and Sweden collided a high-energy beam of helium-8 atoms with a
cryogenic hydrogen target to make the novel isotope (A A Korsheninnikov et al. 2003 Phys.
Rev. Lett. 082501)
Since the discovery of hydrogen-5 in 2001, physicists have thought that
even heavier isotopes - such as hydrogen-7 - could exist, but it was believed that
hydrogen-7 would be difficult to detect because it is so unstable. However, advances in
experimental techniques, including the use of high-energy beams of short-lived radioactive
nuclei, have allowed researchers to look at such unstable systems. more |

Hydrogen Allows
Bacteria to Flourish in Stomach
Lee Bowman The Beacon (Chicago
IL) November 29, 2002
Scientists have found for the first time
that some of the bacteria that make life miserable for our digestive tracts live off
molecular hydrogen that wasn't supposed to play any biological role in the gut.
"Knowing that human pathogens can grow on hydrogen while residing
in an animal may have profound implications for the treatment of some diseases," said
Robert Maier, a microbiologist at the University of Georgia who led the research.
"This was completely unexpected, because most scientists have
thought that hydrogen was always lost from the body as a waste product," Maier added.
Tests of human breath had found hydrogen being released somewhere in
the digestive system, but no role for the gas in metabolism or cell growth had been found.
Writing in today's issue of the journal Science, Maier and colleague
Jonathan Olson, now at North Carolina State University, said they found the hydrogen
connection by studying mice infected with the stomach bacteria Helicobacter pylori. In
humans, this unwelcome guest on the mucosal surfaces of the stomach produces gastritis,
peptic ulcers and can lead to stomach cancer. more |
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The ATRAP experiment's Penning trap is the heart of
the apparatu
that has provided the first glimpse inside an antiatom.
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ATRAP Looks
Inside Antihydrogen
CERN Courier
November 22, 2002
The ATRAP experiment at CERN's Antiproton
Decelerator has detected and measured large numbers of cold antihydrogen atoms. Relying on
ionization of the cold antiatoms when they pass through a strong electric field gradient,
the ATRAP measurement provides the first glimpse inside an antiatom, and the first
information about the physics of antihydrogen. more
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WHY WERE NO FRAGMENTS OF THE TUNGUSKA METEORITE FOUND?
TUNGUSKA
MYSTERY SOLVED!
A Russian scientist attributes the 1908
explosion above Siberia with the power of 2000 Hiroshima atomic bombs
to the recombination of hydrogen and oxygen produced by the thermal decomposition of a
40,000-ton ice comet fragment hitting the atmosphere at 20k/s. |
The mystery of the
Tunguska meteorite can be solved with the help of the physicochemical properties of water.
The explanation is based upon waters ability to decompose in oxygen and hydrogen at
temperatures of over 1000 degrees centigrade. At the temperature of 5000 degrees
centigrade, the decomposition occurs with detonation. When the temperature of the oxygen
and hydrogen (the detonating mixture) drops below 1000 degrees centigrade, water is
generated again together with the detonation.
"Calculations have revealed that total amount of heat necessary to
turn 1 kg of meteorite ice into decomposition products (warming of ice, ice melting, water
heating, water evaporation, heating of the steam, and decomposition of water vapor) is
about 30.000 kilojoule per one kilogram. The quantity of heat exuded at the deceleration
of a one-kilogram meteorite to the zero speed will be equal to its initial kinetic energy.
Lets assume that the speed at which the meteorite hits the Earth is 20 km per
second. Then, the quantity of heat exuded at the deceleration will be about 200.000
kilojoule per kilogram. This is seven times more than necessary for melting, heating,
evaporation, and decomposition of water for the initial components.
"However, not the whole quantity of heat will be spent on the
waters decomposition; a considerable quantity of heat will quickly disperse in the
atmosphere because of the high difference between the temperatures and the
meteorites high speed in the atmosphere. Obviously, only the front part of the
meteorite has all the conditions necessary for an increase of the pressure and temperature
enough for water decomposition.
"So, the falling of the Tunguska meteorite was as follows. A huge
chunk of ice entered the atmosphere at an acute angle, and then it started decelerating
increasing in temperature. There is evidence proving that the meteorites glow was
first noticed near the city of Vladivostok, and the meteorites deceleration was
registered at 4,000 kilometers, near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin. The ice chunk
increased in temperature along the way, especially the front of the meteorite. The
meteorite started splitting into separate fragments. That is why several differently
glowing objects could have been observed by the end of the deceleration. By that moment,
the gases reached a maximum compression, and fragments of the meteorite increased in
temperature to several thousand degrees. At the end of the motion, the clouds of water
decomposition products (detonating gas) compressed as a result of the fragments
deceleration and increase in temperature and detonated in the atmosphere after quick
expansion and cooling. Forest fires and concentric forest falls were the consequences of
the detonation. Dust particles melted and fell down in the form of small beads. It is
likely that when the gas detonated, some tail-end parts of the ice lump were cast away in
a different, south-east direction. Thus, the remains of the meteorite should have been
searched for not along the meteorites course, but in the opposite direction. Dr. Vladislav Batenkov
Professor of Physical Chemistry, Altay State University, Russia
Tunguska Meteorite
Fragments Must Be in a Different Place
Translated by Maria Gousseva Pravda (Russia)
October 31, 2002 |

"ATHENA"
50,000 Atoms of Anti-hydrogen
Made
Nature (UK) September 19, 2002
If antihydrogen does have quirks, it
will be immensely exciting. The differences might help to explain why there is more matter
than antimatter in the Universe, even though the Big Bang should, in theory, have produced
equal amounts of both.
And if antihydrogen responds differently to gravity, it will
raise questions about the theory of relativity. It might even point to the long-sought
unification of relativity and quantum theory. All of which makes antihydrogen worth
looking for.
The ATHENA experiment,
which is run by a collaboration of 39 scientists from 9 different institutions worldwide,
saw its first clear signals for antihydrogen in August - appropriately, the 100th
anniversary of the birth of theorist Paul Dirac who predicted the existence of antimatter
in the late 1920s.
...Cold antihydrogen will be a new tool for precision studies
in a broad range of science. Most fundamental will be the comparison of the interaction of
hydrogen and antihydrogen with electromagnetic and gravitational fields. Any difference
between matter and antimatter, however small, would have profound consequences for our
fundamental understanding of Nature and the Universe.
Thousands
of Cold Anti-atoms Produced at CERN - European
Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) September
18, 2002
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Just what is a hydrogen atom,
anyway?
The Glue That Holds
the World Together
The most we learn about subatomic paricles called gluons, the more
the universe seems to be made of nothing at all.
by Robert Kunzig, Discover Magazine |
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Hydrogen-fed
Bacteria May Populate the Universe
April 3, 2002
Primitive
bacteria exist in huge numbers deep in the Earth, living on hydrogen gas produced in
rocks, a NASA scientist reports in the spring issue of the journal Astrobiology.
Recent studies suggest that the mass of bacteria existing below ground
may be larger than the mass of all living things at the Earths surface, according to
recent studies cited by the paper's lead author, Friedemann Freund, who works at NASA Ames
Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
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UK Scientists Show That
Hydrogen Transmits Magnetism
The discovery, which could be the first step to a new class
of magnetic materials, opens up a new field of chemistry.
"The chemistry leading to
this compound was totally unexpected - before this work, most chemists would not have
believed that anyone could synthesize a material with this composition."
Matthew Rosseinsky
Chemistry Department, Liverpool University
"Muons behave like tiny
gyroscopes and spin round when they experience a magnetic field. When implanted in the new
material, we found that they carried on spinning round as we warmed the sample from a
degree above absolute zero to room temperature, demonstrating that the sample was magnetic
over the whole region. That was a surprise because without the hydrogen in there, we would
have expected the oxide chains to lose their magnetism at all but the lowest
temperatures."
Dr. Stephen Blundell
Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University Department of Physics
The new oxide
hydride LaSrCoO3H0.7 adopts an unprecedented structure in which oxide chains are bridged
by hydride anions to form a two-dimensional extended network. The metal centers are
strongly coupled by their bonding with both oxide and hydride ligands to produce magnetic
ordering up to at least 350 K. The synthetic route is sufficiently general to allow the
prediction of a new class of transition metal-containing electronic and magnetic
materials.
Daily University Science News (UK) |
| The Hydride Anion in an Extended Transition Metal Oxide
Array - LaSrCoO3H0.7 - Science
Magazine March 8, 2002 |
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THE ICHC SHORT LIST
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1)
The Riversimple Open Source Car Design
Are Our Designs Free?
Patrick's blog
40 Fires Foundation June 19, 2009
How does open source car design work?
The honest answer is that we won't know until we have done
it. But we have plenty of ideas, which will develop over the coming months
as we share the designs for the Riversimple technology demonstrator and
start to produce collaboratively a production prototype.
There are lots of inspiring examples from open source
software, and we are being advised by people with experience in this area.
But there are many differences between open source hardware and software
design.
Differences between open source hardware and software
There are some major differences between open source software
and hardware design:
- There is a "gap" between the on-line design work and the finished
product delivered to the consumer. Not only is there substantial physical
testing to be done, but also there is significant work to be done to turn
the designs into an actual functioning product (we like the analogy of a
food recipe – a recipe is not a meal, you need a chef to turn it into a
meal). The answer we believe lies in establishing the right relationship
between 40 Fires and the manufacturers (the first of which is Riversimple),
where each party has its needs met.
- There’s a technical challenge to share ideas on-line, where there is
no satisfactory open source CAD (Computer-Aided Design) application. Our
solution is to use a low tech approach at first, using a wiki-based
website and freely available 3-D viewers to show the 3-D drawings. In time
we may get involved in developing a OS CAD program.
- Licensing. We cannot simply take the standard OS software license
(the GPL is the most common), since we are dealing with hardware, which is
not so well protected by copyright. See further down for some thoughts on
the licensing issues.
We'd like to hear from you!
As in Open Source software projects, we are not attempting to
do everything at once and we don’t have to. The designs that Riversimple
is licensing to 40 Fires resemble in many ways the code base which a
complex software project starts with.
However, because a car is different to software and requires
different development stages and processes, we will be asking for input
into specific areas, as well as procedural matters.
That's why we would like to hear from you, not only from
engineers or designers, but also if you have contributed to large scale
open source software projects and can help set up our project management
structure. Lawyers with an understanding of copyright and patents would
also be useful as we review the most appropriate license to use and if and
how we should be using patents for some new inventions which emerge.
To get involved, send an e-mail to
participate@40fires.org explaining your interest and skills.
The stages
We envisage different stages:
Stage 1 Over the coming months, starting this month (July
2009), we will make available design schematics from the Riversimple
technology demonstrator vehicle, together with a description of each
component's function in the whole system, and a vehicle design brief for
the production prototype. We will provide a mailing list or discussion
forum to enable comments and discussions. At this stage we expect
Riversimple, as the creator of the original designs, to be leading the
discussions.
Stage 2 As the detailed discussions develop, we expect a
broad consensus to emerge amongst the participants as to which is the best
solution to pursue for each design . By this stage, we expect the
conversations to be more democratic, with a broad cross-section of
collaborators participate, sharing their knowledge and insights.
Stage 3 We start creating detailed designs collaboratively
and publishing them on-line. Eventually an entire vehicle will be created,
and tested, on-line. We are aiming to complete the design of the
production prototype by the summer of 2010.
Stage 4 Riversimple and other entrepreneurs, under license
from 40 Fires, can start downloading the schematics and building and
testing the vehicles. With the lessons from this, work can start on an
improved production prototype.
Are our designs free (as in beer)?
Richard Stallman famously said that free software is "free as
in speech not free as in beer."
Are our designs free?
We consider that the designs themselves will be free in the
sense of free speech, with one exception. Currently we have chosen a
Creative Commons, non-commercial license. So the designs can be used,
modified, distributed under the same license terms but not for commercial
purposes.
We have chosen to be conservative at this stage and not
allowed commercial use. This may change - we intend to set up a discussion
group to debate this. The issue is that we don't want a large,
profit-focused organisation taking the designs and starting manufacturing
with them yet. We intend that when we grant a manufacturing license, this
will be for a small fee (say $10 per car) to cover 40 Fires running costs.
We are also keen on collaborating so if a commercial
organisation wants to use the designs, we'd like to chat with them first
before allowing them to use the designs for commercial purposes.
The licensing issues are very complex (patent law is not
copyright law; cars are not software) and we don't pretend to have all the
answers. It is quite possible that our license may in the end not meet the
strict requirements of the Free Software Foundation. But all we really
care about is that the license works to ensure that the cars can be built
in hundreds of different variations around the world, by local companies
and entrepreneurs as well as big multinationals if they like, and that no
one company (whether Ford or Riversimple) can dominate the market and keep
the ideas to itself. |
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