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"It is thought that there are hundreds of different olfactory receptors, each encoded by a different gene and each recognizing different odorants."

The product and the domain no longer exists, but HowStuffWorks still has an article about DigiScents. There was also Olfacom and iSmell that claimed to do the same.

Actually, the number of possible moves in a game of Go far outnumbers those in chess. In fact, they outnumber the number of atoms in the universe!

The possible number of moves in a 40-move chess game also outnumber the number of atoms in the universe.

Yes, Go has much more branching, complexity, etc. But the Go players' hype is a bit misleading. It's like comparing the damage done to someone who jumps off a 30 story building with that to someone jumping off a 110 story building. The latter will hit a lot harder (let's just ignore terminal velocity for this analogy, OK?), but 30 stories is hard enough. Chess is hard, and complex, enough to devote a lifetime to.

I'm not bashing Go (I like them game, and recommend it, but I'm more into chess), but I get tired of all the Go fanatics acting as if Go makes chess look like Slapjack. It does not.

When I was eight, we had three computers... one in the family room, one in my sister's room, and one in my room. Of course, they were an Apple IIe clone, and Apple IIe, and an Apple II+, respectively. My sister was valedictorian. My grades sucked, but that's because I didn't do homework. :)

I don't think that multiple computers in a household are patently bad. I think that poor parental understanding and control of their children's using habits is to blame. The key is not too much computer usage, it's too much computer usage doing the wrong things. Half-Life 2 is not a learning experience. How Stuff Works can be.

Computer use in the school is still a fairly new tool. We aren't adept at producing good on-screen content for learning, yet. We still try to push everyone along at the same pace , where computer-based learning should preferably guarantee that a student meets the class requirements and has an opportunity to extend their knowledge beyond the "lowest common denominator" teachings.

Bottom line, computers are still too new to teachers and too unfamiliar to parents right now. Give it some time.

Most sets or set-top boxes, Tivos, etc. have parental control built right in, often using a V-Chip. If you only want children's programming to work when you aren't there, just set it to limit that type of programming for them, then when they're in bed you unlock it for yourself. Still means things need to be rated properly (and news of all things, one of the worst things you can show children is often rated G) but it is better than sticking all of us with TreehouseTV.

There is one other problem, commercials aren't V-Chip rated yet and while you'd think they'd make the commercials match the show, often there are innappropriate commercials around educational shows. Surprisingly, Discovery channel is one of the worst culprits, at least Discovery Canada does. With simulcasting I'm not sure about the original signal.

Is this page wrong, then?

Yes, its usually induction:

Howstuffworks: How does a traffic light detect that a car has pulled up and is waiting for the light to change?

Connecticut has these in many intersections.

I go crazy when strange drivers in front of me don't pull far enough up to actual go on top of the loop sensors. This is something that should be taught to all drivers.

Why is this being treated as some sort of new technology? I had always assumed this was standard everywhere. In Oklahoma City where I live, EVERY traffic light has this; there is only one in the entire city that I know does not. (I'm sure there are more, but they ARE rare.) I've seen them standard in every major city in Oklahoma I've been to, also.

In low traffic situations (e.g., night) usually the "bigger" road stays on green, and will only switch if a car is detected on the crossroad. Sometimes you won't even have to stop since they put additional sensors maybe a couple hundred feet before the light, so it knows you're approaching, and will switch to green before you even are close enough to start braking.

When the light is busy, it still helps because there are never any unnecessary lights (or lights that stay on too long.) If there is no one turning left in a left-turn lane, the light won't turn on, and instead straight traffic from the opposite direction will get the light immediately. If you get to a left turn lane after straight traffic has already been given a green light, but there are no more cars coming from the opposite direction, that side will turn red, and you'll get to turn left. Lights know to turn red after it doesn't recognize any more traffic, or if it's been on for a certain period of time.

During rush hour, the busy lights will usually favor the traffic (e.g., waiting longer before giving cross-traffic a green light, even if it detects them) which I'm sure is programmed in based on time of day.

Is this any different from what is bring "proposed"? Is there something I'm missing?

BTW, the sensors here are the inductive loops that they explain here.

Sources: Found in natural gas deposits & in the air (5 parts per billion) Constantly lost to space; replenished by radioactive decay (alpha particles). Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe by mass (25%).

The nice people over at Jefferson Lab Education site confirm this:

Helium makes up about 0.0005% of the earth's atmosphere. This trace amount of helium is not gravitationally bound to the earth and is constantly lost to space. The earth's atmospheric helium is replaced by the decay of radioactive elements in the earth's crust.

Also in the "it leaks into space" camp are HowStuffWorks.com and Encarta.

No, that's mercury vapour lamps (don't get in my way, I just got off a 3-hour interferometry lab dealing with the bastards). Fluoresecnt tubes tend to be filled with noble gases, e.g. Neon.

Fluorescent lights are filled with a mercury vapor. So are "Mercury Vapor" lights. Though the two operate differently.

See http://science.howstuffworks.com/question293.htm

Like the idiot I am, I needed to go to How Stuff Works in order to find out more about AIDS/HIV. obligatory link

Now it doesn't take a senior pathologist to recognize immediately that, under microscope,
HIV looks a helluva lot like that AOL bastard.

Mosquitos do not harbor AIDS or HIV.

For those too lazy to click the link, the reasons are obvious, just use a little common sense: (1) when mosquitos bite, they suck blood, not inject it; (2) although the mosquito uses saliva for lubrication when biting, the HIV virus cannot live in saliva; and (3) mosquitos bite and the fly off and rest after gorging on you. They are not vampiric, going from person to person, sucking blood.

I forgot rice doesn't explode. Sorry.

Huh? Of course rice explodes.

For over a grand, I'd expect more thought put into how a camcorder is actually USED.

How about image stabilization? They could put in a metal disk and it would spin. I wonder if they could think of any secondary use for it as well.
Of course the camera would tend to want to roll a bit when you want it to tilt.

Don't worry, the FBI has a backup.

Most self-winding watches I've seen work on that principle. Even the rolex knockoffs I've seen use the moving weight to wind a spring.

If cars could eat big macs, it would take about 2.46 to go a mile.

A human on a bicycle is the most efficient means of active transportation in existence, including machines and animals. The only way to get more efficient is to float and let water or air currents take you where they will.

Here are some links on how the grid and customer transformers work.

You can use your existing power transformer so long as you don't exceed its power rating. Here is one utilities regulations.

And of course this hinders centralized control - if a power line needs to be worked on, how do you guarantee that no current is flowing in it?

convert the pole transformers to be dual and rig it so that if you generate excess power, your metering runs backwards

slightest mismanagement can cause blackouts and other system failures

Look. I'm not interested in a argument for its sake. Every time you pull some new reason out of the air that solar can't work I've proved you wrong and uninformed. If you want to learn more, or have informed opinions you want to share, then fine - but I am starting to feel this is going nowhere. (have you learned anything about solar in this process?)

Here's a great little intro to Sterling Engines, for those who have never heard of one.

Simply amazing.
You're calling me a troll for posting factual information that counters your making shit up off the top of your head.
Why not make the simple effort of searching google? Type "battery performance temperature".

but I can assure you, cold tempuratures have a much more serious effect on your engine than any decent batteries.

Right so the same guy who didn't know anything about the effects of temperature on a simple chemical battery is now an expert the thermodynamics of engines?
FYI, cars have a thermostat.
This keeps the temperature of the mechanical parts pretty consistent, regardless of weather.
In cold conditions, your car will actually perform BETTER due to the increased density of the air.

Progress seems very slow to people bright enough to 1) see there's a problem then 2) try to fix it. It's sort of like WAR which many times comes from a serious LACK OF COMMUICATION. I've been writing about how I fixed the nitrogen engine (LN2000) by adding steam, which allowed the supercold nitrogen to be injected directly into the cylinder and not freeze the piston to the cylinder wall. Been writing about it since August 27 2003, onto my website http://www.newpath4.com/ . It would be easy for me to adopt your attitude but I don't because most people haven't heard about my engine solution yet. I shouldn't count out people who haven't even seen the information... The people at TechTV called me about 8-9 months ago, said they would show it running on their Show. But since I haven't built a prototype they left the building. When Global Warming is accelerating from recent CO2 escalation, you would think people would get really excited about my answers. Since the engine is heat-cold balanced and does not combust fuel, it doesn't need a radiator or cooling system. I sort of disagree with you on the people not caring. I think they care plenty because all of us have family members suffering from all this engine pollution. The problem I've run into is the MEDIA. I've written http://www.howstuffworks.com/ but they won't mention my LN2000 changes; written to many environmental & energy groups (some gov't.,some private) but they won't say anything; newspapers? ditto. I believe people care, but being shut out by the media to where my information creeps along slower than a tortoise has a very chilling effect. However, I do have a car ready to convert by this summer. I'll have it running, TechTV will honor their word, howstuffworks should print it, and the snowball will begin. It is very unfortunate that the fate of the engine and the fate of the human race has to rest on my shoulders. But, once people realize what a powerful and efficient engine this is... how the lowered engine weight reduces tire wear (landfills stuffed with tires), how getting rid of the cooling system means no more need for antifreeze (no groundwater pollution)... how QUIET it is with no spark plugs... how powerful it is because the cylinders don't have any compression to overcome (no resistance because the compressed nitrogen manually delivers it per each engine revolution)... how it doesn't need a heavy starter... Sometimes the longer a stew sets the better it is. http://www.newpath4.com/index.html#RocketScience has a comparison. I'm posting under Anonymous because my password got misplaced in last week's household rearrangement. I usually post as newpath4com. But I think people want to know things, and when they find out how many in our "FAIR AND BALANCED" NEWS SHOWS have refused to talk about my engine there's going to be a lot of upset people around. You said the air would have to be brown and thick for anything to get done. Is that true? How can we know? If our national NEWS MEDIA FOLKS are hiding my engine, how many other innovations have they been squashing into non-existence? How can we KNOW people don't care if they are never given a chance?? Once people find out how easy it is to replace sparkplugs with nitrogen injectors and port steam in past the intake valves, find out how quickly a car can be switched off of gasoline and diesel, implementation will be VERY QUICK. And environmental damage will cease just as quick. As soon as gasoline hits $4.00 a gallon you'll see that people do care. They'll be caring in their garages and driveways, converting their old clunkers instead of WAITING ON DETROIT.

I'm surprised it took rather long to supposedly come out with these. Traffic lights around NZ have used LEDs for some time, and since they arrived a few years ago, I've been waiting for consumer bulbs in the supermarket. I see they're not uncommon in other countries, though, a la howstuffworks and Google (the howstuffworks link explains the benefits and another google search explains some history).

At least there's LED torches to keep me happy in the meantime while I wait for those floodlights to make their way here.

Oops...

The whole concept sounds a lot like Aimster. I never used Aimster (because i havent used the AIM application since Trillian became available), but as I remember it, it was an application that "piggybacked" on AIM and allowed you to have filesharing circle with anyone on your buddy list. This "Grouper" thing just seems to run with that idea to me. Aimster ran into legal trouble and became Madster.

The whole concept sounds a lot like Aimster. I never used Aimster (because i havent used the AIM application since Trillian became available), but as I remember it, it was an application that "piggybacked" on AIM and allowed you to have filesharing circle with anyone on your buddy list. This "Grouper" thing just seems to run with that idea to me. Aimster (a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/09/ 0049220&tid=141">ran into legal trouble and became Madster.

Thin CRTs offer the best of both worlds -- superior picture quality with a slim size.

Of course, one of the other bonuses of LCD screens is their low power consumption. Good for the electricity bill, and for Mother Nature.

At a 20% reduction, that comes out to between 80-90W, compared to 30-40W for LCDs.

Actually it's a mechanical system that prevents elevators from falling down.
See here.

Elevators werent popular when they first came out. People wouldn't trust is so they were only used for lifting goods.
After the invention of the second brake system mentioned on HSW they became accepted by the general audience.

Learn to use Google

Just go for the printable version. The whole article on one page. No popups either, because I'm running firefox.

http://stuffo.howstuffworks.com/halo2-ai.htm/print able

This will help with dispersion and the attenuation of radio coms, but at ranges where it is a problem, travel time is already a major factor. And then there is the extra difficulty of doing relativistic calculations in order to aim this communications laser correctly. I found another article on the subject, dealing with relativistic communications, over at How Stuff Works.

Linkified:

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question587.htm
http://www.riaa.com/news/filings/aimster.asp

It looks like the 3500 lumens is part of the projector spec -- but they are still missing something major. LCDs use polarized light, so, at most, they'll transmit half of incoming (unpolarized) light. I'd rate this projector at 1750 lumens, max. That number puts it in the company of a lot of other projectors.

It's used by the military for an unusual property -- when DU munitions strike armor or metal, they basically vaporize themselves in a heat flash, allowing DU shells to cut through tank armor.

Actually, the reason why they went through tank armor was because, by volume, they're the heaviest thing you can throw at the enemy. High mass, small impact zone = massive penetrating power. Thus they can cut through armor not because they're on fire, but because they're bullets which are 15% heavier than lead, and about 63 times harder.

The uranium burning is useful inside the tank, after the shell has been penetrated, where it burns like potassium and takes out whatever's inside. The burning doesn't help with the penetration as much as the density and hardness.

But don't just take my word for it. Read this:

How Stuff Works - Bunker Buster Bombs

Grr... Why is the submit button so close tbe preview button.

There is also Biodiesel which would be quite adept at moving our vehicles in a more eco-friendly manner.

The major problem that I have seen mentioned about biodiesel is the fertilizer used to grow corn (or other oily crop) is usually derived from natural gas.

This problem could be mitigated by using different farming techniques and finding alternative sources of fertilizer.

Designing city spaces in such a way to take advantage of more efficient machines could have a much greater impact:

Assume a baseline of the Volkswagen Passat TDI which gets approximately 38 MPG from diesel fuel, which would be comparable to the mileage from biodiesel.

A 180 pound person will use about 120 calories per mile walking at 4.5 miles per hour. That is the number of calories in one Tablespoon of corn oil, the main constituent of biodiesel. Considering there are 256 teaspoons per gallon, that comes up with an efficiency of 256 miles per gallon of corn oil, or greater than six times the efficiency of the Passat TDI (which is a fairly efficient vehicle already.)

The human body can also use much more tasty fuels than drinking pure corn oil, although they might have lower energy densities and higer prices. Additionaly, walking places will actually bring the efficiency up as weight goes down! Other side effects would be reduced stress, lower health and auto insurance premiums, strengthened immune system, and a body that is not repulsive to the opposite sex.

If the commuter needs higher speeds, they can get on a bicycle and increase their speed while actually increasing efficiency to about 912 miles per gallon at 15 miles per hour, nearly thirty times the efficiency of that Passat.

Okay, I've convinced myself. I'm gonna go put on some shoes and take a walk now.

I don't think color film has a 'black' pigment layer; a white object would produce cyan, yellow, and magenta dye in the film, making a black (negative) image. A black object would produce no pigment in the film, so light would pass through freely. Maybe. I'm no expert either!

Social Security has been wrecked for years.

Social Security was a Ponzi scheme from the start.
"The first person to receive monthly benefits was Ida May Fuller from Vermont, who retired in November 1939 and started collecting benefits in January 1940 at age 65. In the three years that Fuller worked under the program, she contributed a total of $24.75. Her first benefit check was for $22.54 and she went on collecting benefits for 35 years, until 1975, when she died at age 100. In this time she collected a total of $22,888.92."

The fundamental problem is that the ratio of workers to retirees is going to drop precipitously in the near future, and no amount of Democratic or Republican proposals is going to change that basic fact. It should mean a devaluing of assets relative to the price of labor, but it may also mean near-war between the young and the old.

How stuff works has some explaination.

1) Create radio station
2) Distribute content over internet or via CD-ROM
3) Take advantage of LPFM by running the station from hundreds/thousands of different nodes - all broadcasting under low power rules, yet dense enough to provide good coverage.

Could be something cool to do with all that old hardware, no? You'd have to come up with some pretty good synchronization software but this would be ClearChannel's worst nightmare...

Printable version of the article, so you don't have to wade through six pages of ads just to read a paragraph or two on each page...

Yes it does

Short answer - they don't. They simply assume that every occupied address in the country has a working TV receiver. If the address doesn't have a licence, a demand/warning letter is sent.
Long answer - what's detected is the Intermediate Frequency (IF) used to interfere with the carrier frequency of the ariel signal and reduce it to a more easily handled level. This is why you can use a computer monitor or a TV connected to a VCR/DVD - the device that's detected is the TV tuner, not the CRT.

As for detecting a radar detector, this might help. Short version - if it's a passive detector, you can't.

A turbocharger uses exhaust heat energy to drive an intake air compressor, and thereby recovers some of the 25 percent or more of the fuel's BTU content that goes straight out of the tailpipe.

Nope. A turbocharger uses exhaust gases and the pressure thereof to spin a turbine, driving an air pump, to increase atmospheric pressure on charge air. More air allows more fuel to be injected, more fuel and more air equals a larger bang.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/turbo.htm

According to HowStuffWorks the egg does indeed create it's own shell. So presumably some precursor to the first egg-laying animal started its life by wrapping a stiff membrane around itself, inside which it grew to a sufficient size.

Here is a good intro: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/blu-ray.htm/

How stuff works in Einstein's theory of special relativity? is a good starting point for the contesters.

Watching TechTV on Saturdays got me hooked on The ThunderBirds, and the same reportedly inspired Parker/Stone to make this flick. It looks just as fun, if not more so, than the original.

Can't wait!

Maybe I don't understand the analogy...

Assuming that the light uses a dimmer switch as described in http://home.howstuffworks.com/dimmer-switch.htm/pr intable then the two lights will both be on/off at the same time (same sinusioudal source begin converted to on/off signal). So, the probably of light being on is still 1/2.

If instead, we use an old dimmer (with variable resistor), then it is simply the voltage that is adjusted and the light is on always.

If instead, we assume that light is being driven with a random (i.e. some unique source other than power signal) PWM that is high (light on) 50% of the time? If so, then the probability of _a_ light being on is 1-prob(no light on) = 1-(.5*.5)=.75 so it is not definate (and never will be unless the light state is deterministic).

Can someone adjust my thinking?

The media cartels are not the artists who are getting protected by copyright law.

Actually Asimo (the honda robot) can self adjust its footsteps while being controlled. Or it can be preprogrammed for a specific task, not needing any control.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/asimo6.htm

Yeah what's that ultra violet lamp all about? It's in UK crime programs as well -- the blue glow lamp will find evidence of blood that's been washed and scrubbed off any surface. Does anyone know if this is for real? Hmmm, perhaps I should use google... naaah couldn't be arsed.

Don't you watch the discovery channel? Luminol is the stuff they spray on the crime scene, then they look at it in the black light. It's not all crazy magic, this one's actually chemistry.

Flying cars have been made several times in the past. The deal is that flying is hard. Moller's Skycar, which purports to solve this problem, will be available "real soon now."