Toyota Develops New Plant Species

oznigot writes "Yes, that's Toyota, the car company. In what appears to be a publicity stunt to promote their hybrid vehicle technology Toyota has developed a new species of plant. Of the Cherry Sage shrub family, the new plant absorbs nitrogen oxide and other substances from the air better than the original Cherry Sage." Update: 10/16 00:01 GMT by Z : Original link removed.

Comments

How long before...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before we have giant hydroponic farms full of these plants just cleaning the air?

Hybrids shifting attention

[Y-Crate]

This is somewhat on topic, so if you disagree with me posting it, just leave it un-modded in +2 semi-obscurity

With the rise of larger and larger vehicles, and the questions that have arisen regarding their impact, most of the attention has been focused squarely on the fuel economy issues. Now, I will be the first one to admit that the matter of gas consumption needs to be taken seriously and many vehicles out there are a simply irresponsible purchase with gas prices being what they are, even if the people buying them can afford to fill them. The rise in demand is increasing prices for everyone.

So, hybrids are being rushed onto the scene as fast as possible. Great, eh?

Not quite.

By addressing the fuel economy problem and thinking that it is the end of the concerns with the larger vechicles on the road, we are ignoring the most important of them all, which is the danger they pose on the road to other drivers.

Link

Federal information shows that although light trucks account for one-third of all registered vehicles, traffic crashes between a light truck and any other vehicle now account for the majority of fatalities in vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Of the 5,259 fatalities caused when light trucks struck cars in 1996, 81 percent of the fatally injured were occupants of the car.(9) In multiple-vehicle crashes, the occupants of the car are four times more likely to be killed than the occupants of the SUV.(10) In a side-impact collision with an SUV, car occupants are 27 times more likely to die.(11)

This study was very important because it examined how many car occupants killed in accidents with SUVs might have survived had the accidents involved passenger cars weighing the same as SUVs. This is in important finding, because auto manufacturers have maintained that the weight of SUVs make them dangerous to smaller cars, not the design. The NHTSA study concludes that 2,000 people would have survived if their vehicles had been hit by a heavy car instead of a heavy SUV. Two thousand is five percent of the nation's annual traffic fatalities. The study declares that light trucks and SUVs are twice as likely to cause a fatality in the struck car than a passenger car of comparable weight.(13)

In response to studies like this, automakers have begun saying they will make changes to make SUVs more compatible with other cars. When Ford Motor Company introduced it's new monster, the Excursion (19 feet long, 6 1/2 feet wide, and weighing in at 8,500 pounds), Ford added a front beam and a rear tow hitch to prevent other vehicles from sliding under the Excursion during an accident. The Excursion will be the largest SUV on the market and could be extremely dangerous in an accident with a smaller vehicle since almost every vehicle on the road is smaller. Ford has not added the safety beam to its other SUVs.

The compatibility issue is not confined to crashes. The size and design of SUVs raises other safety issues. For instance, placement of headlights is a serious nuisance and a potential safety problem. On large SUVs, the headlights are mounted higher than on cars. Large SUVs have headlights mounted 36 to 39 inches above the ground - the same height as the side mirror on a small car. The glare from SUVs' headlights can appear to other drivers as bright as high beams. Glare can be 10 to 20 times worse than recommended levels when headlights are at the height of a driver's eyes or side mirror, according to a study by the Society of Automotive Engineers. (14)

Yes, the site is biased, but their sources are another matter.

It's ironic to think that with the introduction of more hybrids, we will see more SUVs on the road, which will increase the death rate for drivers all across the U.S.

Re:Hybrids shifting attention

[procon]

Your point about light trucks remaining the same weight is a good one, but it ignores the current elephant in the living room, SUVs. Light trucks served a different purpose 35 years ago; chiefly they were trucks. They were driven by experienced drivers, mostly for work, and nationwide they were far less common then cars.

High & Mighty, a great book on the subject, painstakingly shows how American car companies shoe horned SUVs into the light truck category to avoid safety and environmental requirements. Free of these requirements, SUVs evolved to become as dangerous to fellow drivers as possible. They were built high, with bumpers that rode over other cars, and stiff under bodies that did impaled its victims. The government looked the other way, protecting American Motors, and then Chrysler, until it was too late.

And your other point about the physics of big cars being fundamentally safer ignores all the improvements in car design that has occurred over the past 35 years. Cars are now built with air bags, crumple zones, and unibody construction. I'll let others who are more knowledgeable than me weigh in, but I think a modern Camry is actually safer for its occupants than a 1972 mid-sized car.

In closing, nobody's evil here, I have close family who drive SUVs, and calling them names doesn't go over well at reunions. That being said, Randy Cohen, the New York Times' Ethicist eloquently concluded that it is selfish to drive a vehicle that puts others at mortal risk for style or comfort. Food for thought when deciding what our next vehicle should be.

Re:Hybrids shifting attention

[Osty]

While it's true that large SUVs increase fatalities with smaller cars, it seems that as adoption increases we'll eventually have mostly SUVs and be back to ground zero.

The problem is that "building a better tank" only gets you so far. That's why cars have designed crumple areas, side impact protection, and airbags. Your car is more likely to be totalled in an accident, but you're much more likely to survive because your car absorbed most of the energy. A body-on-frame style truck/SUV (like your Suburban) is pretty rigid, and isn't going to crumple much. While you may be safer in that than an old (pre-80s) sedan, you'd be much safer in a modern car design (without even getting into the fact that you've probably killed whatever you've hit). This arms race has to stop, because there will always be something bigger than you. And that's not even getting into rollover problems with larger vehicles (hint: side-curtain aribags are not a solution).

small cars are starting to put in those ridiculous halogeon neon zeon opteron laser beams, so NOBODY in the opposite lane within a hundred miles can see until the car is past.

The word you're looking for is "xenon", and I seriously doubt you're getting glare from that. Xenon lights have a much sharper cut-off, so that you're very unlikely to get glare from above he light, and manufacturers are required to adjust the lights such that they are pointing more towards the passenger side (the right in the US) to avoid blinding oncoming cars. Many cars, like mine, have a leveling system built in, so that even if I'm going over a speed bump I'm not going to blind you. Self-installed lights may not be adjusted properly, but that's a problem with any light as you can certainly be blinded by a maladjusted halogen light just as well as a Xenon.

More likely, you're just reaping the bad will towards SUVs that many car drivers harbor. Because your lights shine directly in their eyes, once you pass them many people will turn on their high beams to give you a taste of your own medicine. Serves you right, IMHO.

What is a problem is the fact that they obstruct lanes, but in my experience SUVs are far from the worst offender in that regard. I'd rather drive behind an Excursion or a Suburban than a tractor-trailer or a full-sized windowless van.

You keep bitching about semis, but you don't mention the fact that tractor trailers are relatively rare in daily traffic. Maybe you live in a major shipping hub, but for the rest of us the biggest vehicles we will encounter on our daily commutes are Suburban-sized SUVs. You're also ignoring the fact that truckers are specially trained and licensed, and in general are some of the best drivers on the road. Don't believe me? Watch all of those semis that you seem to see while driving. See how they try to keep a very large distance between themselves and the traffic in front of them? See how they always use their turn signals, and wait for a good clear patch of traffic before merging? See how they generally don't drive much beyond the speed limit? If all large SUV drivers were required to carry a CDL, our roads would be much safer (and there'd be many less SUVs, too). If you think that's too draconian, consider that you do need a special license to drive a motorcycle.

And again, as cars tend to gravitate toward the SUV model, the issue of sight obstruction will be less of an issue

Sadly, that's going the wrong direction. Sight obstruction would be better if fewer people drove SUVs, not more.

I personally am very uncomfortable in an SUV on freeways unless it has convex mirrors installed -- the the point where I will gladly add half an hour to my commute each way if I can avoid freeways. With a convex mirror though, I feel and drive much more safely.

Genomic Pollution

[Doc Ruby]

"the new species does so 1.3 times more effectively"

Why doesn't Toyota just spend the time and money cultivating the natural species, increasing its biomass by 30%? Maybe by planting it all around their car factories, to compensate for the vast pollution their machines spew into the sky every day. Without tinkering with yet another complex global ecosystem they don't understand?

Re:Genomic Pollution

[Darius Jedburgh]

How moronic can you get? They tell us to stop GMOs and use plants that are a result of 'natural' breeding methods. We do that. And now they tell us we shouldn't even do that. It's a frickin' plant for God's sake. How is this (1) not natural? and (2) tinkering with the ecosystem? Maybe you'd like us all to go back to eating wild rabbits (hunted of course), nuts and berries.

Improve mileage

[Belseth]

They'd accompish more simply improving mileage. The fact that an electrical engineer on his own with a few grand worth of batteries and adding a recharging feature improved gas mileage to 200mpg just proves that there is resistence to improving mileage. Not to sound star chamber but the only thing that makes sense is the car and gas companies are working together on this one. The hybrides all originally came out of Japan because american oil companies have less influence there. With the amount of driving I do a 200 mpg hybride would mean I could get by on filling up about 3X a year. Considering most of my driving is less than 5 or 10 miles a trip I might actually do much better. Would I pay an extra $5,000 for a 200mpg car, absolutely. In case of emergency, gas shortages, I could run a long time on a five gallon can of gas.

Goatse link

[shird]

Nice.... the main article now links to the goatse man. Some guy playing with his redirecting no doubt. Mind you, it does kinda look like some flesh eating virus/plant thing. Great for work.

Goodbye Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that anyone really cares but that stunt ends my ever looking at /. again. Not only has this made the entire site no longer work friendly but I would not dare think of ever clicking a link around my children. So long and thanks for all the fish.

But it's good news that a plant company made it

[Doug Coulter]

Hey, most plant companies make plants -- but not ones that reduce pollution. As an organic gardener amongst other things, I like it that I can get pretty much what I want in certain areas -- and I only mildly complain that some of it is hybrid and won't breed true so I can save seeds. That's a lot of bother that's rarely worth it. But this is a new thing, and a good direction, assuming it's truly an improvement. As a sometimes "farmer" I never thought oxides of nitrogen raining down on my garden were a bad thing, since otherwise I'd have to pay for them as fertilizer in some form, whether compost or chemical. But I live in the sticks, too, where pollution isn't yet a problem. We are in fact already paying to reduce nitrogen oxides, as our auto engines are mandated to be low compression, which means lower thermodynamic efficiency (poorer gas milage) to reduce nitrogen oxides in the first place. Although I'm dreaming here, it would seem a good thing for the planet to solve this in some way that didn't mandate greater use of fossil fuel. Hope this is the first of many. After all, plants can make more plants without our help, they have a lot of gain in effort over machines that don't self replicate.

Re:NOTE: ARTICLE LINK IS GOATSE REDIRECT

[Anonymous Coward]

And n00bs wonder why we prefer to read the comments before teh article.

Re:Specifically, a script window.location call

[Cheapy]

Hell, if linking to goatse isn't terrorism, I don't know what is!