Good Fact

Hybrid F1 Racing

- Adam Clare

I’ve always thought of F1 racing as being good research and development for car companies. That line of thinking inevitably lead me to wonder why the cars still use gas when all signs point to hybrid automobiles in the future. I’ve been wondering this for years, and my brother has taken the brunt of my unrelenting curiosity around this.

Finally, F1 will be using hybrid technology in their cars.

The hybrid system that will be phased in is know as KERS, which stands for Kinetic Energy Recovery System. KERS doesn’t store as much energy as a traditional hybrid system, but it only weighs 55 pounds and the limited energy storage capacity is well suited for Formula-style racing.

The biggest difference between KERS and a regular battery-electric hybrid is that KERS stores recovered waste energy in a rotating flywheel. Instead of converting waste energy into electricity and than back into useful energy again with an electric motor, KERS simply transfers the kinetic energy to a ~5kg flywheel in the F1 car’s transmission. The energy stored in the flywheel can then be used by the driver by pushing a “boost” button.

LED Cycling Jacket is a Winner

- Adam Clare

I have lights on my bike and I’m a safe rider; however, there is always room for improvenment. An inventor has created a jacket for cyclists that uses LED lights. The lights communicate to other cyclists and most importantly car drivers what the cyclist is doing. The jacket recently won an international design award. The BBC has the scoop.

The jacket uses an accelerometer to sense movement, changing the colour of LEDs on the back from green when accelerating, then to red when braking.

A tilt switch in the jacket also makes LEDs in the arm flash amber when the wearer lifts their arm to indicate a turn.

Swedes Like it Green

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Vaexjoe, a town in Sweden, is looking to be the greenest city in the EU. They’re doing quite well already. It’s great to see that cities are protecting the environment as best they can with such enthusiasm.

While the European Union (EU) aims to raise its share of renewable energy consumption to 20 percent by 2020, Vaexjoe, a town of 80,000 people nestled between lakes and forests in Sweden’s south, can boast of already exceeding 50 percent — and 90 percent when it comes to heating.

Carbon dioxide emissions per inhabitant dropped by 30 percent between 1993 and 2006.

“It’s a lot but we’re not satisfied, we want to reduce them further,” says Henrik Johansson, an environmental expert at city hall.

In fact, Vaexjoe, which in 1996 set the ambitious goal of ultimately reducing its consumption of fossil fuels to zero, wants to halve its CO2 emissions by 2010 and reduce them by 70 percent by 2050.

Biological Determinism for Happiness

- Adam Clare

This is good news for some people and irrelevant news for others. There is new research coming out that hints that biology plays a significant role in how happy we are.

esearchers from the University of Edinburgh and the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane have found our personalities and happiness are largely hereditary and that genetically determined personality traits affect our happiness.

The research, published in the latest issue of the journal Psychological Science, rated the personalities of 973 pairs of twins. The twins were rated using the Five Factor Model of personality, which measures neuroticism, extroversion, conscientiousness, openness and agreeableness.

The study shows identical twins have a very similar personality and well-being. But fraternal twins are only around half as similar.

This suggests that genes are responsible for certain personality traits. Those who are conscientious, extroverted and not overly neurotic are more likely to be happy. People with these personality traits also tend to have a happiness buffer to help them through hard times.

Students Conceive of Plan to Protect Earth from Space

- Adam Clare

NASA asked researchers to look into what to do if an asteroid targeted earth. Some enterprising students have decided that gravity is the most efficient (and cheapest) way to deflect big rocks from destroying our small planet. What’s more is that the students have designed their device to perform research on the asteroid as the spacecraft does it thing.

The equipment will collect data on the location and composition of the asteroid and relay it back to Earth. It is considered very unlikely that Apophis will collide with Earth. However, if required, the craft will be sent to it again in 2025 and, using its gravity, will begin to divert the asteroid from its path. Due to the difference in mass between the asteroid and the spacecraft, it will not be able to divert the asteroid with enough force and will need the assistance of the Earth’s mass. Since in 2029, the asteroid is supposed to pass near the Earth, the spacecraft will use the Earth’s mass in order to divert it.

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