News 16 November 2022 We have been trying for decades to perfect fusion reactors. The reason is they are not prone to meltdown and produce no waste. What if I were to tell you a newly revised design for the fission reactor, the one that is used everywhere prevents meltdown and does not produce dangerous waste, and needs no special building? Sound impossible? It uses salt, it won’t melt down because the salt cools the waste, and not only that, the waste gets encased in salt crystals which can be sold to others who can remove some of the elements and reuse them. This is almost as good as having a fusion reactor. There is another thing, and that is the reactor can be made to fit into an area which is four feet by four feet and that small reactor could power over 1,000 homes. Those large cooling pools of water which are needed to cool the rods to prevent an explosion are no longer needed, there are no rods used. There may be a large advancement in technology soon. The reason for this has to do with Nobel-winning science discoveries in chemistry. Scientists have figured out how to use Click chemistry. You may be wondering what the heck I am talking about, and I wouldn’t blame you. Click chemistry is a field of chemistry where scientists have figured out how to snap different molecules together creating new materials. It has been said this is going to change the world as we know it. It has been compared to using Legos. Some stories about government action are just plain weird. I have to tell you about this one. A woman owed money to the Internal Revenue Service so being a good citizen she made out a check and sent it to them and figured this was the end of the problem. Some time later the check was sent back to her, but the check was different in that it was now blank. She couldn’t figure out what happened and knew she had filled out the check before mailing it and began to think maybe she didn’t. Holding the check up she could see the impression which had been made when she filled it out. She had a case in court and lost over the fee she had been charged which was the reason for writing the check and mailing it. The tax court said the reason the check was blank was it had been irradiated. She was told to buy a pen which has ink which can resist radiation. She couldn’t believe this, but went online only to find out the pen was $250 and the fee she was protesting was only $60 so it made no sense. A news station investigated why the check was irradiated and found out all mail sent to government offices in Washington D.C. is irradiated to kill harmful bacteria and viruses in case the mail is an attack. First the mystery was the universe doesn’t have enough matter to explain mass. Scientists said there must be dark matter we can’t see and it must account for about 90% of all matter. Now one scientist and maybe more is saying there is not enough light to explain the amount of hydrogen in the universe so dark matter must somehow be involved. It makes me wonder if dark matter really exists or it is just a way to support an answer to a scientific question which has no known answer yet? One thing archaeologists are always looking for are ancient hidden cities, towns, structures. Some structures are referred to as monuments. Lately LIDAR has become popular, it is a special type of laser which is proficient in seeing through growth and other obstacles. There is an area known as the Bialowieza Forest. This area is on the border between Belarus and Poland. Archaeologists decided to explore the forest using LIDAR and to their surprise found what they called hundreds of hidden monuments. The sites cover an enormous slice of time, dating from prehistory to World War II. It is believed most of the monuments were from the Roman period. Another archaeological find took place in the United Kingdom. Archaeologists love to dig and when they decided to give Merseyside, England’s beach a go, they found an incredible sight. A bed of land was found where there were ancient footprints of humans and animals. It was dated from somewhere between 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. It was also helpful in identifying the types of animal life in the area back then. A new type of paint has been invented. Who cares, you might think. The thing is this paint is not only the whitest paint ever made, it has another function which is it is very thin. Again, you might say, so? It is able to keep vehicles a lot cooler when the sun is beating down on them. It is also said it can cool down buildings as much as 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This could eliminate air conditioning if it works. Originally, the paint needed a very thick coat to work, but scientists have figured out how to make it thin enough to work on objects like planes where it won’t add too much weight. Sometimes what seems impossible happens. There was an equation which required 100,000 steps. Scientists looked at it and made the decision to submit it to an artificial intelligence setup to see if they could streamline it. What came out was incredible. The artificial intelligence reduced the steps from 100,000 down to 4. It is said the new equation is just as accurate as the old one. It is being said this equation can be applied to many other areas, not just the one it was designed for. The most advanced fighter plane in the U.S we know about is the F-22 Raptor. How did we achieve this? It was more than just designing a great plane, which we did. It is 25 years old, but still at the top of its game. Maintenance has a lot to do with this. After the plane was designed, we designed specialized robots to perform some of the complicated maintenance on the machine keeping it functioning at peak performance. Scientists have become very excited about the ancient islands named Crannogs. First of all, these islands were artificially built. Hundreds of these islands have been found which were built in lakes and estuaries in Scotland, and Ireland. Why all this excitement suddenly? It is because DNA has been found in the soil which may answer questions about who built them and who lived on them. Checking one area the date for construction came out as around 400 B.C. It was also found that those who lived there were of high status.
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