Imagining dinosaurs in the flesh is tricky since the prehistoric subjects died out some 65 million years ago, but a new tool is helping to fill out the skeleton of T. rex and one of the largest-known duckbill dinosaurs, among other beasts.
Paleontologists used laser imaging technology called LiDAR for the first time to create 3-D computer models of five dinosaurs, including two of Tyrannosaurus rex, a spiny predator called Acrocanthosaurus atokensis, the ostrich-like Strutiomimum sedens and the plant-eating Edmontosaurus annectens, a hadrosaur or duckbill dinosaur.
Seventy-six years after the invention of the modern sprinkler helped revolutionize farming, a professor of environmental engineering is pointing a laser beam across an alfalfa crop in Southern California’s Imperial Valley, looking for a better way to conserve the millions of gallons of water sprayed each year on thirsty crops.
Jan Kleissl and a handful of his students at UC San Diego have rigged up a contraption called a large aperture scintillometer to study exactly how much irrigation water is lost to evaporation and the peak times that water disappears.
Although the Airborne Laser (ABL) was fired from a stationary plane at a target on the ground just a few metres away, the test marked a milestone for the weapon, developed by aerospace firms Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
So starts a recent article on airborne laser from New Scientist. The most useful information for me is the following time line.
It took Norma Margeson a few minutes to learn to control the skinny metal robot. But instead of viewing it as a machine, she soon warmed up to it as a companion.
Researchers have uncovered a pond-sized crater in the woods of central Alberta, Canada, carved out by a meteor that slammed into Earth about 1100 years ago. The technique they used to pinpoint the pit–a laser take on radar–figures to help scientists find evidence of hundreds of similar impacts that have remained hidden until now.
In the past two and a half thousand years, the temples of the Acropolis have suffered fire, bombing and earthquake. Now, scientists are trying to save them from a new modern enemy: pollution.
Standing on a hilltop at the centre of Athens, a city of 4 million people, the Acropolis’ elaborately sculptured stones have fallen prey to a film of black crust from car exhaust fumes, industrial pollution, acid rain and fires.
A team of Greek engineers and restorers are using an innovative laser technology system to clean the surface of the ancient monuments, uncovering colours and ornamentation hidden for decades.
DuPont has unveiled an advanced technology the company said will transform seed research and considerably speed up the development of higher yielding corn and soybean varieties.
DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred introduced Laser-Assisted Seed Selection as the newest tool in its Accelerated Yield Technology (AYT) toolbox. The technology promises to increase the size and scope of the Pioneer breeding program five-fold in the next three years, said DuPont.
Laser-Assisted Seed Selection uses a 120-watt carbon dioxide laser to score a small slice from a seed to capture its genetic information while maintaining the seed’s viability for planting.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing a new contract worth up to $30 million for the next phase of development on the Advanced Tactical Laser.
The ATL is a C-130H aircraft outfitted with a 12,000-pound high-energy chemical laser module that would be used as a weapon against ground targets. It’s the smaller sibling of the Airborne Laser, a highly modified 747 under development that packs a similar weapon but that would be used against ballistic missiles.
The July 2008 issue of Pain, a prestigious peer-reviewed medical journal published by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), featured a German study conducted by eight pediatric doctors and clinicians. The researchers attempted to determine whether or not laser acupuncture would prove effective in relieving the symptoms of chronic headaches in 43 children.
The German researchers concluded, “that laser acupuncture can provide a significant benefit for children with headache, with active laser treatment being clearly more effective than placebo laser treatment.”
