Exploding oil train, Alabama edition

Well, this is becoming an unfortunate trend. Another train carrying oil has derailed and exploded, this time in Alabama. From the Reuters news report: A 90-car train carrying crude oil derailed and exploded in western Alabama in the early hours of Friday morning, spilling oil and leaving eleven cars burning in the rural area. No injuries have been reported, but 20 of the train’s cars derailed and 11 were still on fire, the train owner, Genesee & Wyoming, said in a statement on Friday. Those cars, which threw flames 300 feet into the...

Are “Big Data” Sucking Scientific Talent into Big Business?***

Over the last few years, we’ve heard a lot about how “Big Data”—which as far as I can tell is just data mining in a glossy new wrapper–are going to revolutionize science and help us create a better world.* These claims strike me as all too familiar. They remind me of the hype generated in the 1980s by chaos and in the 1990s by complexity (which was just chaos in a glossy new wrapper). Chaos and complexity enthusiasts promised (and are still promising) that ever-more-powerful computers plus jazzy new software and math were going to crack riddles...

Cocktail Accessories Modeled after Nature’s Survival Mechanisms

A mathematician and a chef have produced objects that mimic the function and beauty of biological organisms Finding a bug in your drink is an unpleasant surprise, but researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a fanciful cocktail accessory based on the mechanics of water bugs—and another less ironically modeled after the workings of a delicate water lily. In partnership with José Andrés, a renowned chef who lectures on the science of cooking at Harvard University, applied mathematics professor John Bush designed two...

What Happens to Google Maps When Tectonic Plates Move?

A couple of weeks ago, I was writing up a description of Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and I thought I’d compare the warping of spacetime to the motion of Earth’s tectonic plates. Nothing on Earth’s surface has fixed coordinates, because the surface is ever-shifting. Same goes for spacetime. But then it struck me: if nothing has fixed coordinates, then how do Google Maps, car nav systems, and all the other mapping services get you where you’re going? Presumably they must keep updating the coordinates of places, but how? I figured...

Should Battery Fires Drive Electric Cars Off the Road?

Rob Carlson drove his Tesla Model S down Route 167 outside Seattle. He accidentally ran over a piece of metal, likely a fender or other curved piece of metal from a truck. That metal somehow punctured the quarter-inch thick armored undercarriage of the vehicle and penetrated its battery pack. Within 30 minutes, the car was in flames—the first fully electric vehicle fire on the road in the U.S. and a viral video sensation. Fortunately, the Model S comes equipped with a warning system. "The car warned the driver to get off the highway as soon...

Warsaw Talks to Thrash Out UN Climate Roadmap

The costs of reducing emissions may be flash points along the path toward a 2015 Paris treaty At a major United Nations climate summit in Warsaw this week, a plan is being hammered out for negotiations on a new climate treaty to be finalized in Paris in two years’ time. Delegates from 195 nations are also seeking to obtain commitments from countries to limit their greenhouse-gas emissions between now and 2020. But the path forward is rife with disputes between rich and poor countries over funding, and how to allocate and enforce emissions reductions. The...

Physicists Now Want a Very Large Hadron Collider

The proposed project's accelerator ring would be 100 kilometers around and run at seven times the energy of the LHC When Europe’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) started up in 2008, particle physicists would not have dreamt of asking for something bigger until they got their US$5-billion machine to work. But with the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, the LHC has fulfilled its original promise — and physicists are beginning to get excited about designing a machine that might one day succeed it: the Very Large Hadron Collider (VLHC). “It’s only...

Monster Typhoon Exposes an Ill-prepared Philippines

Dead bodies clog the basement of the Tacloban City Convention Centre. The dazed evacuees in its sports hall are mostly women and children. Dead bodies clog the basement of the Tacloban City Convention Centre. The dazed evacuees in its sports hall are mostly women and children. The men are missing. That so few men made it to this refuge shows how dimly aware they were of the threat posed by Typhoon Haiyan, which crashed into the central Philippines on Friday with some of the strongest winds ever recorded. Many men stayed at their homes to...

Nuclear Power Is Cheapest Way for Poland to Cut Emissions: Report

Building nuclear power plants is the cheapest way for Poland to curb carbon emissions in the coming decades, a government report said on Wednesday. Building nuclear power plants is the cheapest way for Poland to curb carbon emissions in the coming decades, a government report said on Wednesday. Poland, which generates nearly all its electricity from ageing, coal-fired power plants, is formulating a new national strategy aimed at modernizing its energy sector to make it more efficient and to cut carbon emissions. The report said Eastern...

Global Carbon Market 'Toolbox' in Sight at U.N. Climate Talks

Governments want to launch a platform at United Nations climate talks to help set common standards and accounting rules and tie together national and regional emissions trading schemes, but developing countries and green groups warned that talk of a global carbon market is premature. Governments want to launch a platform at United Nations climate talks to help set common standards and accounting rules and tie together national and regional emissions trading schemes, but developing countries and green groups warned that talk of a global carbon...