Color Changing Ice Cream, Impossible Space Drive, Smithsonian Volunteers [Knerd Knews]
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Cannae Thrust Engine
NASA has teamed up with local aerospace and defense company Cannae LLC of Doylestown, PA to test a new experimental non-propellant based thruster engine designed for space travel.
On August 3rd, the cannae microwave thruster underwent a few tests. The result? Data that proves this theoretical drive can actually produce thrust. If developed, this engine could shorten the travel time to Mars from months to weeks.
The basic principle behind space propulsion is very simple: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Use a rocket engine to throw mass one way, get propelled the other way. And according to the law of conservation of momentum, the more mass you throw behind you, and the faster you throw it– the stronger your forward thrust will be.
This new study shows the possibility of a new type of spacecraft propulsion that will generate thrust without propellant. Which appears to violate Newton’s 3rd law the conservation of momentum. In other words, if no mass is being ejected from the system, where is the thrust coming from? Where is the equal and opposite reaction?
Our current understanding of it is this: The Cannae Thruster is producing a force that is not attributable to any classical electromagnetic phenomenon. In fact, this force could be potentially demonstrating an interaction with the quantum vacuum virtual plasma. Try saying that three times fast.
Color Changing Ice Cream
Manuel Linares, a former physicist turned cook, has come up with a new way to enjoy your ice cream. This particular classic treat changes colors as you lick it.
This new tutti-frutti flavored concoction, called Xamaleón, changes from periwinkle to pink when it touches your tongue. The ice cream’s colorful trick relies on both changes in temperature and reactions to acids in the human mouth.
The best part about this ice cream is that it’s made from natural ingredients like strawberries, bananas, vanilla and almonds. Before serving the ice cream Linares sprays what he calls a “love elixir” to help accelerate the reaction.
We probably won’t know the whole story behind Xamaleón until Linares secures a patent for his creation, which is currently pending.
If you want to try this color changing Ice Cream you will have to travel to Blanes, Spain where Linares has opened his own ice cream shop. He has plans for more exotic ice cream flavors, including ice cream made with Peruvian and African medicinal plants that will provide an aphrodisiac effect…Talk about screaming for ice cream…
Smithsonian Transcription Center
The Smithsonian Needs your help! Earlier this week the Smithsonian launched its Transcription Center to the public. The website is designed to crowdsource a volunteer network that will unlock the content inside thousands of digitized documents the Smithsonian has currently in its holdings.
Handwritten Civil War journals, personal letters from famous artists and mysteries of the universe are among the few things you’ll find on The Smithsonian’s Transcription Center website.
The Smithsonian has produced digital images for millions of objects, specimens and documents from its collection. Many of the digitized documents are handwritten or have text that computers cannot easily decipher. This is where you come in, humans are necessary to this project to transcribe the text from these documents and create a searchable database.
The information contained in these items could open up endless opportunities for research and discovery.
The Smithsonian’s collection is so vast– transcribing its content using only its own staff could take decades. By harnessing the power of online volunteers their goals can become a reality. In the past year of beta testing with nearly 1,000 volunteers, the Transcription Center completed more than 13,000 pages of transcription. By some estimates, the volunteers are completing in a couple of days what it would take the Smithsonian months to complete without their help.
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