Reviewing Nuclear Accidents: Separating Fact From Fiction

July 22, 2024 by Maya Posch 94 Comments

Few types of accidents speak as much to the imagination as those involving nuclear fission. From the unimaginable horrors of the nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, to the fever-pitch reporting about the accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima, all of these have resulted in many descriptions and visualizations which are merely imaginative flights of fancy, with no connection to physical reality. Due to radiation being invisible with the naked eye and the interpretation of radiation measurements in popular media generally restricted to the harrowing noise from a Geiger counter, the reality of nuclear power accidents in said media has become diluted and often replaced with half-truths and outright lies that feed strongly into fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

Why is it that people are drawn more to nuclear accidents than a disaster like that at Bhopal? What is it that makes the one nuclear bomb on Hiroshima so much more interesting than the firebombing of Tokyo or the flattening of Dresden? Why do we fear nuclear power more than dam failures and the heavy toll of air pollution? If we honestly look at nuclear accidents, it’s clear that invariably the panic afterwards did more damage than the event itself. One might postulate that this is partially due to the sensationalist vibe created around these events, and largely due to a poorly informed public when it comes to topics like nuclear fission and radiation. A situation which is worsened by harmful government policies pertaining to things like disaster response, often inspired by scientifically discredited theories like the Linear No-Threshold (LNT) model which killed so many in the USSR and Japan.

In light of a likely restart of Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the near future, it might behoove us to wonder what we might learn from the world’s worst commercial nuclear power disasters. All from the difficult perspective of a world where ideology and hidden agendas do not play a role, as we ask ourselves whether we really should fear the atom.

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FDM Filament Troubles: Keeping Hygroscopic Materials From Degrading

July 17, 2024 by Maya Posch 18 Comments

Despite the reputation of polymers used with FDM 3D printing like nylon, ABS, and PLA as being generally indestructible, they do come with a whole range of moisture-related issues that can affect both the printing process as well as the final result. While the concept of ‘baking’ such 3D printing filaments prior to printing to remove absorbed moisture is well-established and with many commercial solutions available, the exact extent to which these different polymers are affected, and what these changes look like on a molecular level are generally less well-known.

Another question with such hygroscopic materials is whether the same issues of embrittlement, swelling, and long-term damage inflicted by moisture exposure that affects filaments prior to printing affects these materials post-printing, and how this affects the lifespan of FDM-printed items. In a 2022 paper by Adedotun D. Banjo and colleagues much of what we know today is summarized in addition to an examination of the molecular effects of moisture exposure on polylactic acid (PLA) and nylon 6.

The scientific literature on FDM filaments makes clear that beyond the glossy marketing there is a wonderful world of materials science to explore, one which can teach us a lot about how to get good FDM prints and how durable they will be long-term.

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Smart Ball Technology Has Reached Football, But The Euros Show Us It’s Not Necessarily For The Better

July 16, 2024 by Lewin Day 56 Comments

*Adidas brought smart balls to Euro 2024, for better or worse. Credit: Adidas*

The good old fashioned game of football used to be a simple affair. Two teams of eleven, plus a few subs, who were all wrangled by a referee and a couple of helpful linesmen. Long ago, these disparate groups lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when VAR attacked.

Suddenly, technology was being used to adjudicate all kinds of decisions, and fans were cheering or in uproar depending on how the hammer fell. That’s only become more prevalent in recent times, with smart balls the latest controversial addition to the world game. With their starring role in the Euro 2024 championship more than evident, let’s take a look at what’s going on with this new generation of intelligent footballs.

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Embedded Python: MicroPython Is Amazing

July 11, 2024 by Arya Voronova 105 Comments

In case you haven’t heard, about a month ago MicroPython has celebrated its 11th birthday. I was lucky that I was able to start hacking with it soon after pyboards have shipped – the first tech talk I remember giving was about MicroPython, and that talk was how I got into the hackerspace I subsequently spent years in. Since then, MicroPython been a staple in my projects, workshops, and hacking forays.

If you’re friends with Python or you’re willing to learn, you might just enjoy it a lot too. What’s more, MicroPython is an invaluable addition to a hacker’s toolkit, and I’d like to show you why. Continue reading “Embedded Python: MicroPython Is Amazing” →

Solar Dynamics Observatory: Our Solar Early Warning System

July 9, 2024 by Dan Maloney 3 Comments

Ever since the beginning of the Space Age, the inner planets and the Earth-Moon system have received the lion’s share of attention. That makes sense; it’s a whole lot easier to get to the Moon, or even to Mars, than it is to get to Saturn or Neptune. And so our probes have mostly plied the relatively cozy confines inside the asteroid belt, visiting every world within them and sometimes landing on the surface and making a few holes or even leaving some footprints.

But there’s still one place within this warm and familiar neighborhood that remains mysterious and relatively unvisited: the Sun. That seems strange, since our star is the source of all energy for our world and the system in general, and its constant emissions across the electromagnetic spectrum and its occasional physical outbursts are literally a matter of life and death for us. When the Sun sneezes, we can get sick, and it has the potential to be far worse than just a cold.

While we’ve had a succession of satellites over the last decades that have specialized in watching the Sun, it’s not the easiest celestial body to observe. Most spacecraft go to great lengths to avoid the Sun’s abuse, and building anything to withstand the lashing our star can dish out is a tough task. But there’s one satellite that takes everything that the Sun dishes out and turns it into a near-constant stream of high-quality data, and it’s been doing it for almost 15 years now. The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, has also provided stunning images of the Sun, like this CGI-like sequence of a failed solar eruption. Images like that have captured imaginations during this surprisingly active solar cycle, and emphasized the importance of SDO in our solar early warning system.

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A Brief History Of Perpetual Motion

July 1, 2024 by Al Williams 65 Comments

Conservation of energy isn’t just a good idea: It is the law. In particular, it is the first law of thermodynamics. But, apparently, a lot of people don’t really get that because history is replete with inventions that purport to run forever or produce more energy than they consume. Sometimes these are hoaxes, and sometimes they are frauds. We expect sometimes they are also simple misunderstandings.

We thought about this when we ran across the viral photo of an EV with a generator connected to the back wheel. Of course, EVs and hybrids do try to reclaim power through regenerative braking, but that’s recovering a fraction of the energy already spent. You can never pull more power out than you put in, and, in fact, you’ll pull out substantially less.

Not a New Problem

If you think this is a scourge of social media and modern vehicles, you’d be wrong. Leonardo da Vinci, back in 1494, said:

Oh ye seekers after perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you pursued? Go and take your place with the alchemists.

There was a rumor in the 8th century that someone built a “magic wheel,” but this appears to be little more than a myth. An Indian mathematician also claimed to have a wheel that would run forever, but there’s little proof of that, either. It was probably an overbalanced wheel where the wheel spins due to weight and gravity with enough force to keep the wheel spinning.

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The SS United States: The Most Important Ocean Liner We May Soon Lose Forever

June 27, 2024 by Maya Posch 14 Comments

Although it’s often said that the era of ocean liners came to an end by the 1950s with the rise of commercial aviation, reality isn’t quite that clear-cut. Coming out of the troubled 1940s arose a new kind of ocean liner, one using cutting-edge materials and propulsion, with hybrid civil and military use as the default, leading to a range of fascinating design decisions. This was the context in which the SS United States was born, with the beating heart of the US’ fastest battle ships, with light-weight aluminium structures and survivability built into every single aspect of its design.

Outpacing the super-fast Iowa-class battleships with whom it shares a lot of DNA due to its lack of heavy armor and triple 16″ turrets, it easily became the fastest ocean liner, setting speed records that took decades to be beaten by other ocean-going vessels, though no ocean liner ever truly did beat it on speed or comfort. Tricked out in the most tasteful non-flammable 1950s art and decorations imaginable, it would still be the fastest and most comfortable way to cross the Atlantic today. Unfortunately ocean liners are no longer considered a way to travel in this era of commercial aviation, leading to the SS United States and kin finding themselves either scrapped, or stuck in limbo.

In the case of the SS United States, so far it has managed to escape the cutting torch, but while in limbo many of its fittings were sold off at auction, and the conservation group which is in possession of the ship is desperately looking for a way to fund the restoration. Most recently, the owner of the pier where the ship is moored in Philadelphia got the ship’s eviction approved by a judge, leading to very tough choices to be made by September.

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