Popular Mechanics South Africa 2010-12

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20BOLD IDEAS

THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD

● Cheap solar power● Quake-proof buildings● Affordable electric cars ● Digital sight for the blind

● Future fl ight● New life in the lab● Moon mission

SKYWATCHTHE UNIVERSE EXPLORED

EYE SPYUAV PROJECT TAKES AIM AT FOOD SECURITY

CAT WATCHESHP PROBOOKRAZOR SCOOTERS

WIN

DEATH OF OUR RIVERS

FACING UP TO A FRESHWATER CRISIS

WHALE TALEBONDING WITH BELUGAS

UNDER THE PACK ICE

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POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA • DECEMBER 2010 2524 POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA • DECEMBER 2010

Our world is rapidly approaching a freshwater crisis – and we are entirely to blame. The bad news is that building more dams won’t solve the problem. In fact, as governments race to secure and manage access to clean water, they could be creating a nasty social and political head-ache for the next generation…

DEATH THE

OF

RIVERSHave you seen the photos of aluminium sludge surg-

ing through villages in Hungary, heading for the Danube River? With eight people dead, and new cracks appearing in the wall of a pond containing alkaline sludge, we’re left to hope that the toxic

crud is defanged by dilution before it does too much damage to the mighty Danube.

Still, the spill got us thinking about the plight of the world’s rivers. Rivers are our foremost source of freshwater, used for drinking, industry and agriculture. Th eir wetlands and fl ood-plains clarify water, temper fl oods and provide an irreplaceable habitat for countless plants and animals, many of which are the major source of protein for hundreds of millions of people.

But a new study in the journal Nature shows that the globe’s rivers are being lambasted by pollution and invasive species. Heavy burdens of artifi cial fertiliser have created dead zones at the mouth of hundreds of rivers. Rivers are being over-fi shed, channelled into barge canals, and drained for irrigation, industry and drinking water.

A new analysis of 23 threats to global water security and biodiversity shows many regions with a high cumulative level of threats. When the study assessed river health in terms of

> STORY: THE WHY FILES

[ ]FEATURE

pollution, biological change, watershed disturbance and water resource development, rivers carrying 65 per cent of the total amount of water that rivers bring to the ocean “is moderately to severely threatened on a global basis”, says study co-author Peter McIntyre, a professor of zoology and freshwater expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dam diffi cultBoth human water supplies and the natural world are endangered, McIntyre says. “One-quarter of the world’s vertebrate species lives in fresh waters, and hundreds of thousands of plants and animals are at risk because they live in places where threats are high.” In total, biodiversity is more threatened in freshwater than it is in saltwater or on land, McIntyre says; ominous declines are being seen in fi sh, turtles, mussels and plants.

Lest “biodiversity” sound frivolous, estimates suggest that the value of “ecosystem services” such as clean air and clean water exceeds the global economic output. Th e necessity of clean water is obvious, but we are also utterly reliant on plants, above and below water, to convert car-bon dioxide into oxygen – and these ecosystem services are best served by stable ecosystems.

Dams have ensured good water security, but many of the worst threats to biodiversity are in regions with good water supply. Rivers in China, India and the Middle East face severe threats in both categories. Managing fresh-water is a delicate balancing act, and some experts anti-cipate that tightening supplies will lead to disputes or even water wars later in the century.

Th e US Government says if current trends continue, “by 2025, one-third of all humans will face severe and Pi

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/EPA

/Co

rbis

A river of red, toxic mud pours from the damaged reservoir of the Ajka alumina factory in Kolontar, 167 km southwest of Budapest, Hungary. At least eight people died and many more suffered chemical burns in

the disaster; the damage to crops and property has yet to be measured.

POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA • DECEMBER 2010 1

[ ]EDITOR’S NOTES

COMPETITION WINNERS... Details online at www.popularmechanics.co.za

Our second PM Inventors Conference is a wrap, our delegates have returned to

their computers and workshops, and our learning curve continues on its relentless upward sweep. We sincerely hope that the event delivered real value to everyone involved – espe-cially the (mercifully few) inventors who have been bent, folded, spindled and mutilated in their pursuit of The Big Idea. Bloodied but reassuringly unbowed, they represent some of the best minds in the country.

One of the things that struck us about the conference was the remarkable candour of the partici-pants. In a world where the cynical apportioning of blame is almost a given, it takes someone special to admit that he “blew it” because he didn’t do his homework properly. One presenter cheerfully admitted to winning and losing a couple of fortunes along the way to commercial success; another described how a competitor had effectively “hijacked” his business while he was out of the country.

A few days after the event, we had lunch with a delegate from the Middle East who confessed to being stunned by this degree of honesty, commenting: “Back home, no one would ever admit to failure in front of an audience such as yours. It’s so honest and refreshing… it brings everyone together.”

For the record, planning has already started on the 2011 event, which will probably return to Gauteng some-time in the third quarter. We intend expanding the event to include a public element – possibly a version of the “Pitch it to the panel” session that remains one of the highest-rated components of our annual conference. It goes without saying that we’re looking forward to it.

Now to this month’s issue. Our cover story, focusing on “20 bold ideas that will change the world”, showcases some extraordinarily clever concepts and technologies ranging from the designer organisms of genetics guru Craig Venter (he was the man who created the first synthetic cell) to earthquake-proof buildings, radical aircraft, eco-friendly cars and a deliciously off-beat soccer

ball that harvests the game’s kinetic energy.

Next, we travel to the Boland, where Stellenbosch University’s multi-disciplinary Food Security Initiative has given birth to an unpiloted mini-helicopter, courtesy of the university’s department of electrical and elec-tronic engineering – the fourth machine they’ve automated.

Previously, typical UAV customers would be biased towards the military, but Stellenbosch’s envisaged uses include measuring the water content of soil and the chlorophyll content of plants (by analysing the different colour bands in photographs), mon-itoring soil erosion, dam levels and fencing, and counting livestock. There’s more: UAVs could also be useful in areas such as forestry, conservation, policing, and for monitoring environmental disasters such as oil spills.

In “The death of rivers”, we make a disturbing statement: our world is rapidly approaching a freshwater crisis – and we are entirely to blame. As researchers point out, simply building more dams won’t solve the problem. In fact, as governments race to secure and manage access to clean water, they could be creating a nasty social and political headache for the next generation. Read the article and be alarmed.

Finally, we invite you to sit back and enjoy the awesome images captured by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Our Universe may be 13,7 billion years old and largely inexplicable, but it never ceases to delight us.

[email protected]

Page 24

Celebrating ingenuity


[ ]FEATURE

BREAKTHROUGH AWARDS 2010

GENOMICSALTERNATIVE ENERGYSPACE EXPLORATION

TELEMEDICINEARCHITECTUREBIOCHEMISTRY

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGYPHYSICSAVIATION

CONSUMER TECH

and the editors of PM

BY LOGAN WARD

Never before has technology advanced at such a blistering pace. And yet there’s a diff erence between the latest gadget and innovations that truly move society forward, whether that’s driving down the cost of solar power, proving the

existence of water on the Moon, designing earthquake-proof buildings or fi nding a cure for cancer. “We’re now a society that’s 100 per cent dependent on science,” says this year’s Leadership Award winner, J Craig Venter. We agree. And so we salute the human spirit behind the achievements that really matter. >

3

Page 54

PM Inventors Conference delegate André Wijne (right) won power tools worth over R10 000 in the Skil lucky draw.

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CONTENTS

Cover: PM’s Breakthrough Award winners include the D series jet

(designed to burn 70 per cent less fuel than the Boeing 737), Nasa’s LCROSS mission (confirming the

presence of water ice on the Moon) and the Chevy Volt, which,

along with Nissan’s Leaf, is poised to usher in the era of the electric

vehicle. Main illustration by Jeremy Cook. This page: The one

thing Microsoft’s Xbox lacked, we decided, was portability. “Xbox backpack hack attack” details

how we solved the problem.

2 POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA DECEMBER 2010

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POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA DECEMBER 2010 3

DECEMBER 2010 VOLUME 9, NO. 5

SUBSCRIBE – BUY 6 AND GET 6 FREE; SEE PAGE 82

12 Tech watch ● Vanishing pedestrians? ● Deadliest catch revisited ● Airships for the US Army ● Zombies actually exist (sort of)

98 Our Universe explored A showcase of stunning images from the European Southern Observatory

54 Eye spy Stellenbosch University’s UAV project takes aim at food security

61 DIY tech The Xbox backpack hack attack

68 Digital clinic Q&A ● So you want to talk to a human? ● Drag, drop, save… no problem

20 Swimming with Belugas Free divers bond with white whales

86 Treacherous waters You’ve watched these fi shermen on TV. The real story is just as scary

70 Jay Leno’s garage Bonding with the Doble steam car

74 New on the block ● Blue is the new green ● Diesel vs petrol ● Volvo’s S60 attitude adjustment

24 The death of rivers Our planet is facing a freshwater crisis

33 Breakthrough Awards for 2010 ● Pioneering new life ● More affordable solar ● Cellphone-enabled healthcare ● Earthquake-proof buildings

66 Go with the fl ow Time to tackle micro-tasking

92 Playing it safe How to beef up your home security

73 PM Saturday Carve a rustic bench – with a chainsaw

104 Homeowner’s clinic Q&A ● Painting kitchen cabinets ● Rotten to the core ● Low-down on the low fl ow

1 Editor’s notes4 Contact us6 Letters10 Time machine106 This is my job120 Do it your way

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EDITOR & PUBLISHER: Alan DugganDEPUTY EDITOR: Anthony DomanASSOCIATE EDITOR: Sean WoodsART DIRECTOR: Thea WoodmanDESIGNER: Sharon GunstEDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Kate Downs

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We cannot be responsible for loss of unsolicited queries, manuscripts or photos. For return, they must be accompanied by adequate postage. AS A SERVICE TO READERS, POPULAR MECHANICS publishes newsworthy products, techniques and scientific and technological developments. Due to possible variance in the quality and condition of materials and workmanship, POPULAR MECHANICS cannot assume responsibility for proper application of techniques or proper and safe functioning of manufactured products or reader-built projects resulting from information published in this magazine.

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FORGET ICE. TRY TABSIn response to Alex Hutchinson’s piece on “effi cient architecture” (Tech Watch, October issue), I would like to highlight the fact that although ice storage technology certainly works, it is decades old and not very effi cient when compared with the latest generation of load-shifting technology. Current methodology is called TABS (“Thermally active building systems”), where the concrete structure of the building is cooled and heated with cool and warm water rather than cold and hot water.

This system is far more effi cient from an energy point of view because it employs passive input, and also because it allows for load shifting for both the cooling and heating cycles. It offers greater comfort by adding a radiant component to the energy transfer, and not only the convective component found in conventional air conditioning systems. The company that’s spearheading this technology can be found at www.orenge.co.za

In passing… the Atlantic has the potential to cool the entire built environment of Cape Town’s CBD by using seawater at 12 to 13 degrees without any mechanical refrigeration cycle. That translates into energy savings of gigawatts, along with signifi cantly reduced carbon emissions.

SIMON HOUGHCAPE TOWN

[ ]LETTERS

Write to us, engage us in debate, and you stand to win a Navigon 70 Premium GPS valued at R2 799. This user-friendly navigator offers a host of innovative technologies and features, including “active lane assistant” (helping you to avoid stressful highway situations) and a motion sensor, which allows you to navigate with almost no need to touch the device. You also get information about traffi c jams and suggestions for alternative routes. The deal includes a two-year subscription to Navigon’s map updating service. For more information, visit www.navigon.com

Send your letter to: Popular Mechanics, PO Box 180, Howard Place 7450 or e-mail [email protected] Please keep it short and to the point. Regrettably, prizes can be awarded only to South African residents.


Yes, but is it really clean?Your “green” issue offered some very good insights into what is happening commercially in terms of reducing carbon emissions. The motor industry in particular seems to have made great progress in cleaning up its emissions and lightening its vehicles. Pure electric cars are starting to catch up with fossil-fuelled cars in terms of performance and range.

But I have a question: what is the point of making a super effi cient, emissions-free, all-electric car when all you are doing is transferring the carbon emissions from the car to some coal fi red, carbon-spewing power station 10 or 100 km down the road? It’s like dumping your rubbish over your fence into a public park. You are awarded prizes for your immaculate garden but the rest of your neighbourhood has to suffer because of the extra pollution you foist on it.

The hybrids seem to make a lot more sense, where a car is powered by a highly effi cient fossil-fuelled engine with low carbon emissions. Batteries capture and store energy that would otherwise be lost when braking or coasting downhill, or when switched off at traffi c lights, yet offering a quick pull-away when the lights turn green.

I believe that a super-effi cient fossil-fuelled engine combined with super-effi cient batteries will emit much less carbon than an all-electric engine powered from the national grid.

The only effective way to develop all-electric cars and reduce carbon emissions at the same time would be to use solar, wind or tidal power generators to top them up. Motor companies should put as much research funding into renewable energy as they spend on their all-electric cars, so that by the time they start rolling them out in volume, the vehicle “top-up”

WINNING

LETTER

Celebrating the Airfl ow Jay Leno’s article on the Chrysler Airfl ow (August issue) took me back to circa 1935, when the sports master of the prep school I attended near Seaford, England, purchased one of these – probably the two-door version, since teachers didn’t earn much in those days. The reaction was much as Leno describes: the staff treated it as a joke, accusing the sports master of showing off.

We boys thought it was spectacular and secretly wished we could ride in it. It was so different from the conventional vehicles that visitors brought to school “open’ days: blunt nosed, separated headlights, even running boards. I just thought someone might like to know that the Airfl ow reached that far from home base.

PETER MILLS, VIA E-MAIL

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power grid will be operating independently of the mainly fossil-fuelled national grid.

DAVID SHORTHARRISMITH

New converts, unite!My stepson has subscribed to POPULAR MECHANICS for two years, but to be quite honest, I never took an interest because I didn’t think it was my kind of magazine. Wrong! This morning, my attention was caught by the unusual picture on your latest cover, and I was inspired to delve into the magazine. Congratulations – you now have a new ambassador!

I intend to promote your magazine among my friends as an excellent source of news from the worlds of technology, science and lots more besides. I commend you on producing a very fine publication.

MARJORIE STEPHENSCONSTANTIA

I beg to disagree, MikeIn Car care Q&A (October issue), Mike Allen responds to a question in which a writer complains that “the grease cups had leaked oily residue all over my brakes”. This is puzzling: since the grease cups on a trailer axle are on the outside of the wheel and hub, any grease leaked from them would end up on the wheel rim and tyre, and not on the brake linings, which are inside the brake drum.

Mike focuses on the grease cap when he mentions that “a lot of grease caps have a poor metal-to-metal seal”. The problem here is not the grease cap, but could be one (or all) of the following: 1. The inner hub oil seal is worn or damaged; 2. The oil seal rubbing surface is scored; 3. There’s excessive grease in the hub cavity.

Once the bearings have been cleaned and re-packed as per Mike’s instructions, a spoonful or two of grease at most is needed in the hub cavity. Pumping in grease from a grease gun is a really bad thing; it will simple blow past the inner hub seal and end up on the brake linings!

Furthermore, ixnay on the “expensive marine-style grease”; this stuff is designed for an entirely different application. Good- quality wheel bearing grease is adequate to the task if applied properly!

TERRY MCCLEMENTVIA E-MAIL

Snap! I found the letter written by Mike Mortlock (October issue) interesting since I had a similar experience some years ago. I saw a small picture (about 3x5 cm) in a UK model magazine of a cargo vessel which I thought would make an interesting

construction project. Since I was still working in those days, it took me five years to complete – from drawing to a scale model measuring 102 cm. I used plaster of Paris and glass fibre moulds to shape the hull and upper structure.A year or two after completing the model, my family and I were in Durban and visiting my favourite haunt, the docks, where by chance I spotted “my” boat, the SA Letaba. I was amazed to find that I had correctly positioned the winches and gear from the tiny picture. I went on board and chatted to the captain, and he allowed me to take photos of the deck gear and superstructure.

I also constructed a Duesenberg car after 10 months of research, mainly in American museums (the Duesenberg being the US equivalent of Britain’s Rolls-Royce). The scale is 15:1 and it took me five years and 10 months to complete.

At the age of 86, I am still busy with my many hobbies, and recently completed a 1908 Ford Model “S”, also in 15:1 scale. I make every part of my models. All I buy is basic materials – brass, copper, spring steel – as the particular model requires.

KEN MILEMANKRUGERSDORP

MONTHLY POLL

Cadavers have been taking rides in Orion space capsule simulations for crash test research with the idea of protecting future astro-nauts from hard landings in wild oceans. Should cadavers be used as crash-test dummies?

Yes. To find out how a landing impacts soft tissue or bone, researchers need to use actual bodies donated to science. 80%No. Had the silent subjects known that they would be used for this kind of scientific research, they would probably have declined. 20%

Conducted online at www.popularmechanics.co.za – visit PM’s Web site to vote in our current poll.

80 %

20 %

PM

Bring it on I can promise Mercedes-Benz that if they introduced the G-Wagon Light Armoured Patrol Vehicle 6.X Concept (“Somewhere out there”, October issue) to the South African market, they would be overwhelmed by the response. I’m still salivating.

GEORGE SMITHBLOEMFONTEIN

[ ]LETTERS


My perfect braai I had always yearned for a braai that would satisfy all my needs. A normal 200-litre drum cut in half was too short and too wide, so that wouldn’t work. Then one day, someone gave me a boiler cut in two lengthwise, and I could start building my perfect braai.

On the left is a hopper for the fuel, and an adjustable L-shaped bar takes care of the potjie. A little door in the front allows me to remove ash when required. I placed tiles around the drum for use as work surfaces. A crankhandle raises or lowers the grid. By the way, you can probably find a similar boiler in a scrapyard. The sprockets and chains came from old photocopiers.

JH DU PISANIVIA E-MAIL

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OGILVY CAPE TOWN 32460/REV

*As tested against the industry Sequence IVA wear test

PROTECTION THAT STARTS BEFORE YOUR CAR DOES

OGILVY CAPE TOWN 32460/REV2

ALL OILS SINK TO THE BOTTOMWHEN THE ENGINE’S OFF

CASTROL MAGNATEC’S INTELLIGENT MOLECULES DON’T

Did you know that up to 75% of engine wear happens during warm up? That‘s why Castrol Magnatec‘s intelligent molecules are different. They dramatically reduce* engine wear when it matters most – during warm up. While all oils drain to the sump when the engine‘s off, Castrol Magnatec‘s intelligent molecules don‘t. They cling like a magnet to your engine, sticking relentlessly to their task – so they are always ready with an extra layer of protection, from the moment you turn the key.

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[ ]TIME MACHINE


1949

Why can’t you get this kind of stuff any more? The American-made Deezil, a precision-engineered miniature diesel engine intended for model boats, planes and cars, weighed just 142 g and produced 0,1 kW at a formidable 7 500 r/min. Sigh.

American suburbia has long been obsessed with spectacular displays to mark the arrival of the so-called “festive season”, a strange time of year during which credulity is suspended and all manner of people pretend to be imbued with good cheer. This issue featured detailed plans for the decora-tion of an otherwise inoffensive house with Disney characters, assuring readers that they would “cop first prize in any neighbourhood lighting contest”.

1966 DECEMBER

DECEMBER

1954 DECEMBER

Welcome to the Unobtrusive Swim Aids Department. This ingenious device, invented by an unnamed German swimming teacher, employs a pair of pontoons, a tubular-steel frame and a harness suspended on adjust-able chains.

1962 DECEMBER

Conceived as an inter-city commuter, this weird pedal machine suspended the driver from a horizontal pole. As his weight moved forward, the ball rolled. For reasons that elude us, the concept did not revolutionise our urban transport system. PM

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[ ]TECHWATCHAviation > Computers > Energy > Environment > Medicine > Military > Robotics > Space > Transportation

MARSMERCURY

EARTH

VENUSSUN

LUTETIA

Illu

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avid

San

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MATERIAL SCIENCE

A N C I E N T A I R

Whipping past at a speed of 14,5 kilometres per second, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe captured the fi rst-ever images of the scarred surface of the asteroid Lutetia. The fl yby provided clues to astronomers puzzling over the origin of the asteroid – and the Universe. Next stop for Rosetta: comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, where it will attempt to deploy a landing craft in 2014. – ALEX HUTCHINSON

Asteroid forensics

1. Dusty landslidesPowder accumulated in craters looks like the result of landslides – surprising since the asteroid’s gravity should be too weak to cause such activity. Lutetia likely experienced an orbital irregularity or spin that generated the necessary force to move the powder.

2. Impact divotsLarge dents in Lutetia’s side hint at the asteroid’s violent history. Scientists say these features indicate that Lutetia has been

around 4,5 billion years – since the birth of the solar system – rather than break-ing off more recently from a larger rock.

3. Surface groovesLong, parallel grooves on the surface may have been left by rolling boulders or could represent sedimentary layers from an extraterres-trial process. Scientists are studying data from Rosetta’s sensors to determine how the asteroid was formed and how the grooves were created.

Spill statsRoughly 4,9 million barrels of oil – 780,4 million litres – spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the runaway well drilled by BP’s Deep-water Horizon rig. About 363 million litres of petrol could have been refi ned from the amount lost. That equates to a whole lot of mileage.– JEREMY REPANICH

184 181Trips

around the Earth

in a Toyota

Prius hybrid

electric car.

69 068Trips

around the Earth

in a Hummer H3 mid-

size SUV.

Fungal packaging?Forget petroleum-based Styrofoam peanuts. Ecovative Design uses fungus from mushroom roots, grown from agri-cultural waste such as cotton seeds or wood pulp, to create a foam-like packing alternative. The process uses one-eighth the energy – and produces just one-tenth the carbon dioxide – of the manufacturing process that creates Styrofoam packing material. Ecovative hopes to market a kit in 2013 that customers can use to grow their own packaging. – AH

Down in the holeAfter 14 months and 2 530 metres of drilling, an international team of scientists in Greenland fi nally hit bottom. The team removed 75 mm-dia-meter core samples that date to a period between ice ages, 115 000 to 130 000 years ago, when the Earth was as much as 2,7 degrees warmer than it is today. Bubbles of air trapped in the ice will reveal how levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere changed as global temperatures fl uctuated. – AH

VIDEO > Visit www.popularmechanics.co.za to watch as the innovators of EcoCradle explain how it's made...

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OF FREEDOM


DIGITAL ANONYMITY

Amazing armThis year, a person will test the first prosthetic limb to be controlled by thought alone. HDT Engineered Technologies’ Modular Prosthetic Limb (MPL) allows unprecedented dexterity, weighs only as much as a natural limb and, most notably, will be connected to electrodes in the user’s brain. The MPL is the product of a consortium led by Johns Hopkins University – and funded by a R235 million DARPA grant – aiming to merge the latest in brain–computer interfaces with advanced prosthetic-limb techno-logy. The team plans to test the limb on five other patients within the next two years. – AH

Scanning surveysAs Arctic Sea ice melts, an increas-ing number of cruise liners and commercial fishing ships are able to navigate the waters around Alaska. Only most of the state’s north and west coasts haven’t been mapped since the 1960s – if ever – so existing charts leave vessels vulnerable to hidden haz-ards. The USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) dispatched the survey ship Fairweather to spend two months mapping critical sea routes in the Bering Strait around Cape Prince of Wales. The ship can profile depth and topography of the sea-floor with a multibeam sonar and discern rock fields, shipwrecks and other obstructions with a side-scan sonar. There are nearly 1,3 million square kilometres of US Arctic waters, of which NOAA has identified 6 per cent as high pri-orities to survey. The agency says it will take more than 25 years to survey the priority sites.

– AH

PROMPTED BY PRIVACY CONCERNS, Google already blurs the face of anyone whose picture is captured by its Street View program. Still, many feel uncomfortable with their image appearing in the ubiquitous online maps. Searching for a solution, computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego, developed a program that makes people disap-pear from Google Street View data, filling in the missing pixels with images taken by Google’s vehicle-mounted cameras immediately before and after the offending shot. The developers unveiled the program at a recent software conference, but challenges remain – for instance, fine-tuning the algorithm to avoid weird artifacts such as a dog on a floating leash or a pair of shoes walking themselves down the street.

– ALEX HUTCHINSON

The pedestrian

vanishes

MEDICAL FRONTIERS

VIDEO > Visit www.popularmechanics.co.za to find out how to use Google Street View.

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[ ]TECHWATCH

3 913165162

165 km1 700 m

458

140 km1371 m

352 90913

6145 88864

Army crews fl ing 1-ton containers of mustard gas into the Atlantic, 1964.

250 km1 200 m

260

120 km1 800 m

1

2 km60 m

67413

200 km2 750 m

58

370 km4 000 m

450 km5 000 m

OTHER GASES

MUSTARDAGENT

Skin and eye irritation, diffi culty

breathing, nausea, seizures.

LEWISITE

Chemical burns,

weakness, fl uid

accumulation in the lungs.

CHLORINE-BASED GASES

Coughing, watery eyes,

chest tightness,

burns to the throat.

OTHER CHEMICAL WEAPON DUMPS

SYMPTOMS

WMDINTONS

Distancefrom shore

Depth

SARIN

Pupil constriction,

spasms, coma, death.

RELICS OF WAR

When the crew of the ESS Pursuit dredged the ocean 72 kilometres off Long Island, New York state, they found more than the clams they sought: they caught 10 artillery shells stamped with dates from World War I. When one canister broke open, the contents – later identifi ed as mustard gas – blistered one man’s arm and leg, while other crew mem-bers suffered from eye and nose irritation. According to army records, the US government sank about 30 000 tons of chemical agents, plus conventional weapons, off that country’s coast between 1917 and 1970, when the practice stopped. “We don’t see a big infl uence on the surrounding environment,” says the University of Hawaii’s Margo Edwards, who in 2010 completed a comprehensive study of chemical munitions in deep water. “But they’re continuing to deteriorate at an unknown rate. What happens later?” To be prepared, the US army this year purchased a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that can safely collect discarded weapons from the seafl oor. The ROV uses cameras and a laser measuring system to identify ordnance, two arms to manipulate the weapons and compartments that protect operators from contaminants. The army plans to deploy the robot next year for a three-week fi eld test off Oahu, Hawaii. – AMBER ANGELLE

Deadliest catch

OAHU, HAWAII1 861 tons, including mustard, lewisite and cyanide agentsDEPTH: 1 100 metresDISTANCE: 20 kilometres

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA9 982 tons, including mustard gas and lewisiteDEPTH: 4 100 metres DISTANCE: 170 kilometres

GULF OF MEXICO6,35 tons of mustard gas inside German bombsDEPTH: 18 metresDISTANCE: 20 kilometres

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[ ]TECHWATCH

21ST-CENTURY CURES

Scientists tag genetically modifi ed mosquitoes by altering their eyes to become fl uorescent under ultraviolet light, as seen in this larva.

The gene that helps regulate a mosquito’s immune system is also linked to those that determine the insect’s life span. Researchers exploit this connection to fi ght malaria: the para-site that causes the disease needs more than a week to ges-tate inside the insect, so shortening mosquitoes’ two-week life span could further reduce human infections.

A SHORT-LIVED OPPORTUNITY

DNA vs diseaseResearchers have engineered mosquitoes that are 100 per cent immune to Plasmodium, the primary single-cell organism that causes malaria in humans. University of Arizona

entomologist Michael Riehle, collaborating with scientists at the University of

California, Davis, boosts the insects’ resistance by introducing genetic material into mosquito eggs – which, in turn, prompts increased production of an enzyme capable of warding off the parasite. Because the process involves altering only one DNA molecule in the insect’s genome, the outcome is easier to control. It’s also consistent. “If even a single parasite can evade the killing system, it will result in an infectious mos-quito that can transmit malaria to dozens of people,” Riehle says. Millions of mosquitoes would have to be released to spread the new gene, and there’s no way to know how it will function outside the lab. But because Plasmodium is becom-ing increasingly resistant to drugs, transgenic mosquitoes could be an attractive gamble in places such as Africa, where pharmaceuticals are failing. Still, Riehle says, controlled testing is needed to guard against unintended consequences.

– BRIAN RESNICK

O B S C U R E S C I E N C E M I L I TA R Y AV I AT I O N

The hidden physics of peeling paintEngineers from Yale and Princeton have published a gripping study of how paint dries. (No, really.) They injected fl uorescent tracer particles into paint, with which they then coated a fl exible silicone rubber surface. The technique, called traction force microscopy, allowed them to observe the formation of micro-scopic cracks in real time by recording the movement of the tracer particles. The slight deformations in the soft rubber also created a 3D map of the mechanical stress that causes paint to peel. The research could inspire longer-lasting paint and improve other protect-ive coatings. – ALEX HUTCHINSON

Airships for the US armyBy 2012, the US Army hopes to fi eld three unmanned reconnaissance airships capable of hovering at 6 000 metres for more than three weeks. The Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles (LEMVs), each the size of a rugby fi eld, will be developed by Northrop Grumman under a R3,5 billion contract. The company estimates the cost of a three-week mission to be about R140 000 – far cheaper than comparable missions by conventional aircraft. Another advantage: Airships can monitor large areas longer than fi xed-wing UAVs, which have to refuel and are often called away on other missions. Slated for test fl ights next summer, LEMVs are part of a Pentagon procurement strategy of new lighter-than-air craft, including a radar blimp that can stay aloft for years at a time. – AH


ON THE WEB > For more information on this feat, read the news story "First malaria-proof mosquito" on www.popularmechanics.co.za

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ASUS ROG 3D GAMING LAPTOPSEXPAND YOUR GAME

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[ ]TECHWATCH

Let me hear your heart beatWhat if monitoring your heart rate were as easy as listening to music while you jog? Thanks to advances in space technology, an iPhone will soon be able to do double duty: keep you in tune with your favourite artists and your vital signs.

Swiss technology-transfer company CSEM created the final prototype for their Pulsear device this year. A tiny unit embedded in a regular earphone uses infrared signals to see how fast your heart is beating. It works by sending the infrared signals through the tissues in your ear. A very small photo diode records the results and sends the information via the normal earphone wires to a device that plugs into your phone.

The result is an accurate reading of your heart rate, without the irritation of wearing a chest belt. Pulsear is based on space technology developed to examine how astronauts will behave during long space voyages.

University of Utah computer scientists have developed software that quickly edits “extreme resolution imagery” – huge photographs containing billions to hun-dreds of billions of pixels or dot-like picture elements. Until now, it took hours to process these “gigapixel” images. The new software needs only seconds to produce preview images that are useful to doctors, intelligence analysts, photogra-phers, artists, engineers and others.

By sampling only a fraction of the pixels

in a massive image – for example, a satellite photo or a panorama made of hundreds of individual photos – the soft-ware can produce good approximations or previews of what the fully processed image would look like. The new software – Visualisation Streams for Ultimate Scalability, or ViSUS – allows gigapixel images stored on an external server or drive to be edited from a large computer, a desktop or laptop computer, or even a smartphone.

Extreme processing

CSE

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POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA • DECEMBER 2010

SFX makeup artist Greg Nicotero applies prosthetics on a zombie.

For hundreds of years, when Caribbean shamans have wanted revenge – or needed a compliant workforce – they’ve given a person poison derived from the neurotoxin in pufferfi sh. It paralyses the victim and slows his heart until a pulse

is undetectable. An antidote can revive him, but the toxin causes severe neural damage. “This explains a victim’s inability to run away,” says Neil Whitehead, an anthro-pologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. It also explains pop culture’s

depiction of zombies: glassy stares, dragging feet, incomprehensible noises. Key difference: Real zombies don’t eat brains. “George Romero’s great,” Whitehead says, “but not ethnologically accurate.”

Greg Nicotero sees zombies everywhere – even among the living. In fact, he can’t stop pointing them out. “See this tall guy with the glasses?” he asks. “He’d be a great zombie.” Five minutes later, he’s at it again. “This girl has a long face, nice bone structure. Look at her forehead! Great zombie.”

It might seem macabre, but Nicotero has a reason to look for potential ghouls: As the special-effects makeup supervisor on The Walking Dead, a new television series about a group of humans trying to survive in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, he’s tasked with bringing the show’s most gruesome characters to life.

The creation of the zombies starts with casting. The series is based on a graphic novel, and Nicotero drew from its depiction of the undead to fi nd tall, slender actors with ideal bone structure. “If you start with someone whose proportions are already thin, it feels organic and realistic when you add prosthetics,” he says.

For more involved looks, Nicotero made moulds of the actors’ heads and bodies and used them to create foam latex prosthetics that mimic rotting anatomy. For the simpler ones, he relied on partial facial prosthetics, dental plates that distort the jaw and 3D prosthetic transfers that create wounds instantly. Contacts and a tongue- blackening stain completed the look. “Every person is a new canvas,” Nicotero says. “You go, ‘What should I do with you today? I think I’ll tear part of your face off!’ ” Things that can’t be done in-camera – removing an arm, for example – happen in post-production. But even without those tweaks, the zombies look eerily real. “Most of the actors have never dealt with this level of prosthetics,” Nicotero says. “They’ll say, ‘Can I touch that? How did you do that?’ ” — ERIN MCCARTHY

Dead ringer

ZOMBIES ACTUALLY EXIST

T E C H C U LT U R E

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Swimming with

WHITE BELUGA WHALES ARE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES, THREATENED BY

GLOBAL WARMING, WHALING AND POLLUTION. BUT ONE

CONSERVATION PROGRAMME IN RUSSIA IS ATTEMPTING TO REAR THE

ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY AND THEN RELEASE THEM BACK INTO THEIR NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: THE ICY

ARCTIC WATERS OF THE WHITE SEA. DAN BURTON AND JULIA PETRIK, TWO HIGHLY

EXPERIENCED FREE DIVERS, VISITED THE PROGRAMME AND DIPPED BELOW THE ICE TO SWIM WITH THESE MAJESTIC ANIMALS

BEFORE THEY WERE SET FREE.

[ ]OUTSIDE


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BELUGAS

BENEATH THE PACK ICE in Russia’s White Sea is a secret world. A pod of white Beluga Whales swim around like ghosts, occasionally head-butting a hole through the ice to gulp a breath before submerging once again into the icy sea. But they’re not alone. Lurking in the shadows above is a solitary free diver wrapped in rubber and desperate to make contact.

On the north Russian coast near the

isolated city of Murmansk, it’s minus 15°. The snow is thick after a fresh fall and the sea is covered with a sheet of ice up to 30 cm thick. It’s no place for a holiday, but it’s attracted a group of professional free divers who are eager to learn more about these beautiful whales by diving alongside them in sub-zero waters and capturing each moment on camera for the very fi rst time. They have come here to visit the Arctic conservation programme

STORY: CERI WATERS/TCSIMAGES: DAN BURTON/SPECIALISTSTOCK/TCS


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Above: Wearing thick neoprene wetsuits for protection from the sub-zero seawater, free divers descend into the Beluga whale enclosure in preparation for the arrival of free diving champion Julia Petrik. Below and right: Petrik, an instructor for the International Federation of Free Diving, has a close encounter with a Beluga whale beneath the pack ice in Russia’s White Sea. Bottom: A diver prepares to enter the whales’ enclosure through a hole in the ice while conservators look on.


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that has reared this pod of Beluga whales from birth, and to witness the fi nal chapter in the story as the whales are released into the open White Sea. The freezing crew huddle together for warmth, preparing their wetsuits and camera equipment ready to go into the dark waters.

Belugas, found mostly in the Arctic Ocean, are vulnerable due to the affects of climate change, pollution and whaling, but they have been known to survive for 50 years in the wild. Their milky-white colouring is an adaptation to their environ-ment: calves are born grey but grow paler as they mature. Belugas are among the most vocal of all the whale species; their whistling under water and at the surface has earned them the nickname “sea canaries”.

Divers can spend days or even weeks searching for these whales in the wild, but here they have a guaranteed chance of an encounter because they’re surrounded by a large enclosure, measuring 50 metres square, suspended from above the surface of the water. The conservators monitor the mammals very carefully, feeding them fi sh from the ice holes above and spending a great deal of time observing and docu-menting their behaviour.

The whales were transferred to this netted enclosure after being bred in an aquarium, and the programme’s aim is to slowly reintroduce them to their natural habitat by fi rst making them comfortable with their environment. The greatest con-cern for the project organisers is that the whales will be vulnerable once released and could become trapped under the pack ice or open to attack by killer whales and polar bears. As with all reintroduction programmes, success is far from guaran-teed, and the whales’ future is uncertain. In the meantime, however, they are safe in their protective enclosure.

Their behaviour towards humans is friendly, but researchers know relatively little about them, so professional free diver Julia Petrik is aware that she’s taking a leap of faith as she enters their enclosure for the fi rst time. Alongside Julia is under-water cameraman Dan Burton, who is himself no stranger to the world of free diving (he’s a former member of the British free diving team). They kit up in 7 mm-thick wetsuits, gloves, boots and fi ns, and care-fully shuffl e to the edge of the ice hole.

By defi nition, free diving is the most unobtrusive of all diving methods, so it’s perfect for this particular challenge.

It requires no bulky scuba tanks, which release bubbles that may disorient the whales. The pared-down kit also gives divers more freedom to move, allowing them to synchronise their movements with those of their subjects.

But there’s one downside, and it’s a big one: free diving in this place takes a serious toll on the human respiratory system. Beneath the pack ice, the water tempera-ture plummets to minus 2°. Due to its high salinity, the seawater freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water. At sub-zero temperatures such as these, even highly experienced free divers have a window of just 30 minutes before the cold seeps into their bodies and numbness takes over.

Julia and Dan are highly experienced, and even though they can hold their breath for up to two minutes at a time, they will still need to surface often to catch a breath. But it can’t be rushed; the divers have to wait until the whales are ready to make contact with them, or they could grow agitated and even react aggressively. Although these 5 m-long whales are accustomed to having people feeding and observing them, no one knows how they will react to divers in their domain.

It doesn’t take long before their ques-tions are answered. Out of the shadows emerges the melon-shaped head of a Beluga whale, nodding and shaking from side to side – a habit unique to this species. It swims towards Julia as if greeting a new friend. Confi dently, still holding her breath, Julia reaches out to the whale and hitches a ride on its back. Together, they glide through the water, ducking and diving, fi ns fl icking in unison. Ready with the camera, Dan clicks the shutter to capture the world’s fi rst image of a free diver alongside a Beluga whale in the White Sea. It’s a triumph.

Numbed by the icy water, adrenaline-charged hearts pumping with excitement, the divers lift themselves out of the water and sprawl on the ice shelf, peering wist-fully over the edge as their swimming companions gradually sink into the icy depths and disappear from sight. It’s a close encounter they will never forget. PM

[ ]OUTSIDE


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Our world is rapidly approaching a freshwater crisis – and we are entirely to blame. The bad news is that building more dams won’t solve the problem. In fact, as governments race to secure and manage access to clean water, they could be creating a nasty social and political head-ache for the next generation…

DEATH THE

OF

RIVERS> STORY: THE WHY FILES

[ ]FEATURE

A river of red, toxic mud pours from the damaged reservoir of the Ajka alumina factory in Kolontar, 167 km southwest of Budapest, Hungary. At least eight people died and many more suffered chemical burns in

the disaster; the damage to crops and property has yet to be measured.

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Have you seen the photos of aluminium sludge surg-ing through villages in Hungary, heading for the Danube River? With eight people dead, and new cracks appearing in the wall of a pond containing alkaline sludge, we’re left to hope that the toxic

crud is defanged by dilution before it does too much damage to the mighty Danube.

Still, the spill got us thinking about the plight of the world’s rivers. Rivers are our foremost source of freshwater, used for drinking, industry and agriculture. Th eir wetlands and fl ood-plains clarify water, temper fl oods and provide an irreplaceable habitat for countless plants and animals, many of which are the major source of protein for hundreds of millions of people.

But a new study in the journal Nature shows that the globe’s rivers are being lambasted by pollution and invasive species. Heavy burdens of artifi cial fertiliser have created dead zones at the mouth of hundreds of rivers. Rivers are being over-fi shed, channelled into barge canals, and drained for irrigation, industry and drinking water.

A new analysis of 23 threats to global water security and biodiversity shows many regions with a high cumulative level of threats. When the study assessed river health in terms of

pollution, biological change, watershed disturbance and water resource development, rivers carrying 65 per cent of the total amount of water that rivers bring to the ocean “is moderately to severely threatened on a global basis”, says study co-author Peter McIntyre, a professor of zoology and freshwater expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dam diffi cultBoth human water supplies and the natural world are endangered, McIntyre says. “One-quarter of the world’s vertebrate species lives in fresh waters, and hundreds of thousands of plants and animals are at risk because they live in places where threats are high.” In total, biodiversity is more threatened in freshwater than it is in saltwater or on land, McIntyre says; ominous declines are being seen in fi sh, turtles, mussels and plants.

Lest “biodiversity” sound frivolous, estimates suggest that the value of “ecosystem services” such as clean air and clean water exceeds the global economic output. Th e necessity of clean water is obvious, but we are also utterly reliant on plants, above and below water, to convert car-bon dioxide into oxygen – and these ecosystem services are best served by stable ecosystems.

Dams have ensured good water security, but many of the worst threats to biodiversity are in regions with good water supply. Rivers in China, India and the Middle East face severe threats in both categories. Managing fresh-water is a delicate balancing act, and some experts anti-cipate that tightening supplies will lead to disputes or even water wars later in the century.

Th e US Government says if current trends continue, “by 2025, one-third of all humans will face severe and Zs

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[ ]FEATURE


chronic water shortages”, with the first and worst problems appearing in Africa and the Middle East. Already, the Colorado River in the United States and the Yellow River in China are so thor-oughly exploited that they scarcely reach the ocean. Low flows and massive pollution plague rivers in China, India, the Middle East and Africa.

Nile denialThe Nile River supplies virtually all water in Egypt as well as major portions in Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia. The Nile is polluted by sewage and agricultural chemicals, and is failing to supply growing populations along its dry lower stretches with enough water for a good standard of living. With a watershed that includes parts of 11 nations, disputes over the Nile’s water could devolve into war.

Although pollution, invasive species and overfishing play major roles in declining freshwater biodiversity, dams and asso-ciated water diversions are a fundamental part of the tension between environment and river development. Dams are built to store and divert water, supply hydroelectric power and prevent floods. Dams, and the locks that allow ships to traverse them, remain a keystone of river management in Western Europe and the United States, which is home to an estimated 75 000 dams.

While dam construction is largely over in Europe and North America (where some dams are even being removed), the 20th century was epic for dam building, says Bradley Udall, director of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado. Udall notes that the volume of water stored behind dams has risen 350 times since 1900, to 5 000 cubic kilometres.

At the same time, Udall notes, referring to such alterations as damming, draining, levees and development, “we have destroyed one-half of wetlands worldwide, which are very important for all

kinds of ecological services, including water purification.”Dam building is booming in developing countries as an answer

to floods and shortages of water and electricity. China’s Three Gorges Dam was essentially completed in 2008, after more than 1 million people were moved away from a new lake that is expected to cover 1 036 km². With a planned electrical output equal to more than 20 large nuclear plants (about 10 times greater than Niagara Falls), Three Gorges was also intended to halt disastrous flooding on the Yangtze River.

The series of dams that China is building or planning along the Yangtze and its tributaries will generate even more electricity than Three Gorges.

Dams can raise issues in any location. As Three Gorges proved, they displace riverside villages and cities, and drown archaeologi-cal sites. As is happening at the Glen Canyon dam in the United

Above: Dams have ensured good water security (blue and green regions) but many of the worst threats to biodiversity (red) are in regions with good water supply. Rivers in China, India and the Middle East face severe threats in both categories. Right: A ship plies the upper Yangtze River before construction begins on the Three Gorges Dam.

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States, reservoirs can fill with silt, losing storage capacity and causing erosion as downstream areas are deprived of their normal silt supplies. Dams also divert money that could be used for other purposes.

Granted, dams are a critical source of usable water, but they can also be a scourge of native plants and animals. “There is defi-nitely a tension between human infrastructure and biodiversity conservation,” says Laurence Smith, a professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles, and author of a new book on environmental trends.

China has embarked on the largest water project in history, a 50-year programme to move water from the Yangtze towards pop-ulation centres in the dryer north. Designed to move 50 cubic kilometres per year, the project aims to reduce sandstorms and water shortages while bolstering sinking aquifers in North China.

Altering rivers with dams enacts fundamental changes in eco-systems, says Smith. “A lot of the most biologically diverse river-ine environments are seasonally flooded wetlands and flood plains. Biodiversity is not found in a big reservoir behind a dam… It is more the episodic flooding (of natural rivers) that gives this diverse habitat.”

Dams block the migration of important fish species, including the salmon, which is vanishing along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, where dams block the upstream spawning journey. That problem is widespread, says McIntyre.

“In the tropics, species like big catfish, and the family known as the tetras, are very intensively fished. You have regions where people depend on these migratory fish, and if you put in a dam to stop the migration – rivers are aquatic highways – you profoundly change the system. There’s a real concern that if fisheries collapse, hundreds of millions of people world-wide who get a majority of their protein from freshwater fish could go hungry.”

In the central United States, mas-sive dams and engineering projects on rivers such as the Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Wisconsin

and Ohio have also been blamed for ecosystem destruction. For example, locks and dams north of St Louis on the Mississippi stabilise the water level so large barges can traverse the river. But that stability, combined with extensive levees on the banks, has eliminated vast wetlands that once bordered the river. When the river no longer surges in the spring and subsides in the autumn, remaining flat land along the river turns to muck that can no longer support native plants and animals.

Biodiversity black holeOne reason to foster biodiversity in rivers and watersheds is this: biological systems with many interacting species tend to be more stable, and people, like other animals, have adapted to a fairly stable environment. “In experiments with bacteria, if you strip away species, you eventually hit a point where the basic properties change,” says zoologist Peter McIntyre. “It can be on a plateau of high function for a while, but there is a threshold, and we can’t predict where it occurs, and things start to fall apart.”

The classic analogy, McIntyre says, is “popping rivets on the wing of an airplane; you pop one too many, and Boom! Down

Left: A satellite view of the Three Gorges Dam and surrounds, showing the vast area affected by the project. Below: The dam cost an estimated R210 billion, consuming more than 27 million cubic metres of concrete and 463 000 tons of steel.

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[ ]FEATURE


you go. In the global river context, we are rolling the dice; we know we are losing species. The rates of extirpation and extinc-tion are highest in freshwater; that is where we are seeing the worst human impacts.”

Scientists who are looking more broadly at the health of river ecosystems are hampered by a lack of information. There are no global data sets that would support an exact measurement on the biological health of rivers around the world, says Carmen Revenga, a freshwater scientist at the Nature Conservancy in the US.

Still, new evaluations of biodiversity are delineating the diffi-culties. Revenga says a recent assessment listed 253 endemic species of freshwater fish in the Mediterranean – meaning that they are found nowhere else – and 56 per cent of these are threatened with extinction. Another survey found severe declines among 40 per cent of the 300 species of freshwater turtles, she reveals. “Nobody would have guessed it was that bad.”

The inevitable tension between environment and human water use is growing more intense in dry places such as Africa and Australia, with heavy population pressure and intense land usage. “Freshwater biodiversity has not tended to play a role in discussions about water security,” Revenga says. “Usually, there is a lot of focus on providing water that is secure and safe. Irrigation took precedence at first, and now cities take precedence, but the ecosystem hardly gets included.”

The sad, dry Aral SeaThe Aral Sea in Central Asia dried up after the rivers that fed it were diverted to irrigate vast cotton farms. And that leaves less water for ecological purposes, Revenga says. “When we calculate the amount of run-off in a basin, we assume we can tap all the water that’s available for human use. The conservation and envi-ronmental community has not interacted with the water supply community, and the environment is almost forgotten.”

Mono Lake in California, whose water was diverted to Los Angeles in the 1940s, is one example showing that cities and farms have come first in American water management. According to the Mono Lake Committee: “Unfortunately, most of those dams and aqueducts were constructed with lit-tle and often no thought to the environmental or local eco-nomic consequences of these projects. The classic example is that of LA and the Owens Valley, where a thriving agricultural area was returned to sagebrush and Owens Lake was reduced to dust.”

In recent decades, California has been pressured to allot some water to environmental purposes, part of a gradual rebalancing of water use in the dry, densely populated American Southwest. “It’s a very good strategy to protect upland forest and reduce siltation and run-off into streams, but a lot of projects don’t look at biodiversity in the river,” Revenga says. Watershed protection is rare, and in any case the ecological benefits are secondary to the need to provide clean water to cities, she adds.

As more people look to rivers to supply more water, there’s one final factor to consider: the climate. Brad Udall of the University of Colorado, an expert on the waters of the West, stresses that climate change is not just about temperature. “You could make a compelling argument that it’s about changes to water cycles; changes in the quantity, quality and timing… almost all of which are detrimental to freshwater supplies.”

In general, Udall says, studies of ancient climate show that “wet areas get wetter and dry areas get drier”. In the Colorado River basin for example, where climate change has been

Top: Rivers in the far north of the United States, such as Alaska’s Koyukuk, are far less impacted by pollution, diversion and dam-ming. Above: The Aral Sea (actually, a saltwater lake) in central Asia virtually dried up after the rivers that fed it were diverted to irrigate vast cotton farms. It was formed towards the end of the Neogene Period, which lasted from about 23 to 2,6 million years ago.

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intensely studied, “we can expect a 10 per cent to 20 per cent reduction in run-off by 2050”.

Hoover Dam and its reservoir, Lake Mead, are major factors in Western water management, but at what environmental cost? Because so many rivers in the American West are fed by melting snow, warmer winters already have a major impact, Udall says, with the earlier spring causing earlier run-off in the rivers.

Studies project that the floods could happen as much as 60 days earlier in the spring, “and we are already seeing 20-day advances, especially in lower-level snow-dominated systems, like in the Pacific Northwest”. Dry conditions in late summer also contribute to a longer wildfire season in the West.

Climate change may be even more catastrophic where drinking water comes from rivers sourced in melting glaciers, Udall warns. Large cities such as Bogotá and Lima in South America “could go from having a glacier upstream one day to not having it the next. The United States does not have that problem, but in the Andes, there is potential for very harsh consequences”.

The Ganges: river or sewer?Worshippers leave heaps of offerings along-side the Ganges River in Varanasi. It’s easy enough to hose away the dregs into the river, but that just adds more pollution to the “Mother Ganges”. As Science Daily points out, the Ganges contains “untreated sewage, cremated remains, chemicals and disease-causing microbes… Cows wade in the river. People wash their laundry in it and drink from it… The Ganges River is a major source of disease”. If this can happen to a sacred river…

Rivers collect run-off from their water-sheds, and therefore carry messages about conditions from most of the land on our planet. As the authors of the recent Nature study found, trying to assess the health of rivers around the world is not for the data-shy. Differences in economy, history, geog-raphy and culture all affect how we view rivers, and how we decide whether to use, alter or preserve them.

But most “decisions” that affect rivers, such as allowing them to be polluted with chemicals, topsoil or fertiliser, or building a dam to store water for the dry season, are made not with rivers in mind, but with another goal, such as growing more food or securing a water supply.

That old adage, “You don’t miss your water ’til your well runs dry”, pertains to rivers as well as groundwater, says Peter McIntyre, one author of the recent global river survey. “In the industrialised world, we go home at night, turn on the tap and get beautiful, clear water. It’s safe to drink and bathe; it poses no risk to us and our kids. Mass investments in engineering and infrastructure have granted us this water security.”

As developing countries, where people struggle to find water for taps, farms and factories, embark on the dam-building that was so crucial to European and American water supplies, saying “don’t do what we did” seems hypocritical at best and repugnant at worst.

And yet, experience shows that dams can damage or destroy plants and animals in rivers and their floodplains. We’ll concede that questions about biodiversity, the environment and the long term seldom interest people who are hungry or thirsty. But it’s still worth asking the relevant questions: Will a proposed dam harm an essential fishery? Will it produce benefits over the long term, or will it silt up in a decade because trees have been stripped from its watershed?

There are lessons to be learned from the water-management experience in Europe and North America, and one of the most significant is the expectation of a constant tension between human water use and biodiversity. Says McIntyre: “I am not pre-tending there is an easy answer, or that I should have the right to dictate to that person whether they build a dam or not.”● © 2010 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. PM

Above: Hoover Dam and its reser-voir, Lake Mead, are major factors in Western water management, but at what environmental cost? In August this year, Lake Mead reached its lowest level since 1956. The largest reservoir in the United States is under strain from persistent drought and increasing human demand.Left: Worshippers leave heaps of offerings alongside the Ganges River in Varanasi. It’s easy enough to hose away the dregs into the river, but that just adds more pol-lution to the “Mother Ganges”.

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[ ]FEATURE

BREAKTHROUGH AWARDS 2010

GENOMICSALTERNATIVE ENERGYSPACE EXPLORATION

TELEMEDICINEARCHITECTUREBIOCHEMISTRY

APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGYPHYSICSAVIATION

CONSUMER TECH

and the editors of PM

BY LOGAN WARD

Never before has technology advanced at such a blistering pace. And yet there’s a diff erence between the latest gadget and innovations that truly move society forward, whether that’s driving down the cost of solar power, proving the

existence of water on the Moon, designing earthquake-proof buildings or fi nding a cure for cancer. “We’re now a society that’s 100 per cent dependent on science,” says this year’s Leadership Award winner, J Craig Venter. We agree. And so we salute the human spirit behind the achievements that really matter. >

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Leadership Award

Genomics pioneer J Craig Venter admits he was a late bloomer. A half-hearted student (his 8th-grade report card shows multiple C’s and D’s), he spent his 1950s childhood jumping freight cars in the rail yards of Millbrae, California. He dug backyard tun-

nels and waged make-believe battles, igniting model planes and melting toy soldiers with lighter fl uid and matches. As a teenager, Venter surprised his father by successfully building a hydroplane using plans clipped from Popular Mechanics, a project he describes today as “my earliest foray into some type of science.”

Yet Venter looks back on what some might call a misspent youth with pride. “I was able to fulfi l my imagination,” he says, “and that is one of the best traits to carry into science.” Discipline and a hunger for knowledge help, too – qualities Venter honed while serving in the Vietnam War. As a medic, he says, “know-ledge was essential. Th at’s why I was absolutely determined, even though I hated school, to go to college after I got out of the military”.

While working at the National Institutes of Health in the early 1990s, Venter grew impatient with the snail-like pace of gene identifi cation and developed a way to rapidly discover genes by exploiting snippets of DNA called expressed sequence tags. In 1992, he founded Th e Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), and three years later, a TIGR team decoded the fi rst genome of a free-living organism, the bacterium Haemophilus infl uenzae.

Th at led to Venter’s best-known breakthrough, mapping the human genome. Last May, he wowed the world again by creating the fi rst synthetic cell. His ultimate goal is to design new organisms that will benefi t humanity. To that end, he has entered into a deal with Exxon Mobil to develop a biofuel alternative to petro-leum. And he’s working with healthcare giant Novartis to produce more eff ective vaccines.

When PM caught up with Venter, he was aboard his sailboat – Sorcerer II, moored in Ostia, Italy – preparing to join the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition for a month-long Mediterranean journey. Unlike another famous scientist who sailed the seas collecting specimens, Venter was after an invisible quarry: microbes that would be shipped back to the J Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, for DNA sequencing.

Q: I hear barking in the background. Is that your dog? What’s its name? Darwin. He’s a miniature poodle puppy. He’s becoming a boat dog for the summer. I mean, Darwin had to have a ship, right?Q: Much of your life’s work seems to revolve around apply-ing scientifi c discoveries to the task of problem solving. Will this expedition have specifi c applications?

Pioneering NEW LIFE

Innovator: J Craig VenterBrilliant Idea: develop methods of quickly decoding genes to under-stand the basic building blocks of life, then use that knowledge to design organisms that can address global challenges.

J Craig Venter has worked with teams to sequence hundreds of genomes, including his own. In the future, he says, such genetic information will provide valuable insights into issues such as ageing and disease.

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[ ]FEATURE

G E N O M I C S

It ultimately will. Organisms in the ocean provide over 40 per cent of the oxygen we breathe, and they’re the major sink for capturing all the carbon dioxide we constantly release into the atmosphere. I’ve described the 40 million genes my team has discovered to date as design components for the future. When we’re designing organisms for the purposes of producing food and fuel and chemicals – all the things we need for daily life – those components get more and more important. Right now we’re at a primitive stage. Th ere’s not a direct link between dis-coveries we’re making in the ocean and something we’re doing in the lab, but there’s certainly an intellectual link to the future. Q: How might one of these future organisms function?Our project with Exxon Mobil is to try to use algae cells that capture carbon dioxide and convert it to long-chain hydrocarbons – basically, creating a biocrude that can go into refi neries to make (petrol), diesel and jet fuel. We’re talking about facilities that will have to be multiple square miles, producing billions of gallons a year, to have any eff ect at all. Th ose are huge challenges. Th e research pro-gramme is to push the science and engineering. If that works, it could have a huge impact. Q: Did this desire to fi nd new and useful technology also inspire your quest to create synthetic life?No, that began by asking incredibly

basic questions about life: what is the minimal life form you could have for a self-replicating organism? We decided the only way we could answer that was to make a chromosome synthetically, so we could alter the gene content to get down to what would be the minimal gene set for life. Having a clear defi nition of which genes are essential is going to be important for future design projects. As the population goes from 6,8 billion people to more than 9 bil-lion over the next 40 years, we’re going to need a lot more food, clean water, medicine and fuel to power all these things. We’re now a society that’s 100 per cent dependent on science for our survival. It’s not a gentleman’s sport. We think this is one of the most powerful tools – at least on the biology side – that we can apply to all these critical needs. Q: How did a former surf bum, as some have called you, make the transition to genomics pioneer? I’m not sure I was ever a surf bum! I was a surf bum wannabe. I left home at age 17 and moved to Southern California to try to take up surfi ng as a vocation, but this was in 1964 and there was this nasty little thing called the Vietnam War. As a result, I got drafted. I ended up in the Navy Medical Corps, and that was a rough education that totally changed my view of where I was going and how I was going to get there.Q: Had you been interested in science up to that point?I was such a horrible student, I fi gured my chances of ending up a scientist were pretty low. Th e Vietnam War totally turned my life around. Some people’s lives were eliminated or destroyed by the experience. I was one of the fortunate few who came out better off . Q: Why did you decide to pursue genetics?Genetics didn’t come until much later in my career, when I was working as a biochemist. I had become a section chief and a lab chief at the National Institutes of Health. I had a large budget and could work on anything I wanted, so I stopped everything I was doing and taught myself and my lab how to do the new fi eld of molecular biology. It was clear those were the only tools to really make dramatic headway in the kind of science I was inter-

ested in. All the discoveries that I’m known for came shortly after that moment.Q: Is it useful to think of cells as biological machines?I use the term “machine” quite loosely. Biology is much more dynamic than the diesel engine here in my boat. Our parts are constantly being remade from our information system. I think that’s the most important thing for people to think about for the synthetic cell. It shows what life really is. Th e only reason you’re alive and I’m alive right now is that our DNA is being read in every one of our tril-lions of cells on a second-by-second basis, making new

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Venter conducting algae biofuel research in a La Jolla, California, greenhouse.

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protein molecules to replace the ones that are decaying. It would be like having a self-repairing diesel engine: Every time there’s a little decay on the piston, it would repair itself. Q: What role do you think the federal government should play in promoting science and technology?As I said, we’re a society 100 per cent dependent on science for our future, so the government can’t just sit back and hope that somebody will do something in the private sector. People in the government need to think intelligently about how to stimulate new areas. Things like putting a tax on carbon so that renewable fuels are an option and working on diseases that are below the radar of the pharmaceutical industry. Q: Some people contend that genes from living organisms aren’t inventions and therefore cannot be patented. How do you feel about that?We’re a country of laws and rules, and the Supreme Court has ruled that life forms are patentable entities. Intellectual property is a key aspect for economic development. Something has to drive investment. We have investors putting up tens of millions of dollars – in the case of Exxon, $300 million – and they need to know that they won’t lose that money because somebody else owns the intellectual property. Q: Do you plan to patent your synthetic cell?We’ve been patenting all the new tools we’ve developed along the way. The synthetic cell has no commercial value itself – it’s just proving that something is possible. Patents are basically rights to try to develop a commercial product. It’s a contract that our government makes with its citizen inventors that encourag-es them to publish and disseminate information about their inventions so that other people can get to the next stage. People equate patents to secrecy; that secrecy is what patents were designed to overcome. That’s why the formula for Coca-Cola was never patented. They kept it as a trade secret, and they’ve out-lasted patent laws by 80 years or more.Q: How do you feel about the pace of genomics-based personalised medicine since your team first sequenced the human genome 10 years ago?It’s been moving substantially slower than I like to see things move. Not much happened with government funding in the decade that followed. Private industry has invested a tremendous amount, and there are some pretty exciting new technologies. In fact, it’s amazing something that cost $3 billion to $5 billion a decade ago can now be done by an individual scientist using a single machine in a very short period of time. Q: So you’re optimistic about the next 10 years?We have 100 trillion human cells, along with 200 trillion microbes associated with us. That’s a lot of complexity to sort out. I don’t want to underestimate the scope of the problem – of understanding all this information and have it affect our under-standing of human disease. It’s a huge challenge. Q: One final question: Did your hydroplane work?Absolutely! It was an 8-foot hydroplane with pontoons. Because I had no money, I built it totally with hand tools out of marine plywood. I was given a junked 1948 outboard motor. I had to learn how outboard motors worked by taking it apart and rebuilding it from scratch. I took it out on the San Francisco Bay, got it up to 25 or 30 miles per hour. It was a real thrill.

J CRAIG VENTER’S AMAZING DECADE2000 President Bill Clinton declares a tie in the race to map the human genome, giving credit to both Venter and his publicly funded rival, Francis Collins. Far from being finished, Venter considers it “the starting line” for the future of medicine.

2001 The Institute for Genomic Research, founded by Venter, helps sequence the genome of the anthrax strain mailed in the attacks that killed five people – evidence that eventually leads the FBI to the source.

2004 Sorcerer II, Venter’s 29-metre sailboat, leaves Halifax, in Canada’s Nova Scotia, on a two-year circum-navigation of the globe in search of new microbial species for DNA sequencing.

2005 Venter starts the for-profit Synthetic Genomics Inc (SGI) to work on solving global problems, such as fossil-fuel dependence, environmental degradation and disease epidemics.

2007 He establishes another first by mapping the 6-billion-letter code of his own “diploid” genome (DNA from both chromosome pairs, one from each parent), discovering a genetic predisposition for blue eyes, antisocial behaviour and heart disease.

2008 Using a computer code and four bottles of chemicals, Venter’s lab creates the largest man-made DNA structure by synthesising and assembling the 582 970-base-pair genome of a bacterium.

2009 He announces SGI will receive R2 billion from Exxon Mobil to engineer algae cells that turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into biofuel.

2010 Venter’s team uses a synthetic genome to boot up the world’s first man-made bacterial cell. Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 becomes the first living organism to have its own website encoded in its chromosomes.

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ON THE WEB > Visit www.popularmechanics.co.za to: 1) Find out more about the self-replicating synthetic bacterial cell constructed at the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI); 2) Watch a video of the JCVI researchers revealing their achievement to the public at a press conference on 20 May 2010.

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1 2 3

Particles scatter the rest of the

light until 90 per cent is absorbed.

Cross-section of a silicon microwire array.

Silicon micro-wires take in some sun directly.

A LT E R N A T I V E E N E R G Y

More affordable solarInnovators: Harry Atwater, Michael Kelzenberg, Nathan Lewis, California Institute of TechnologyBrilliant idea: a solar cell that requires only a fraction of the silicon used in standard PV.

Chemist Harry Atwater’s gift for manipulating light has led to some eye-opening innovations, including an “invisibility cloak”. His most recent feat: reinventing the solar cell.

More than half of the silicon acting as a semi-conductor in standard photovoltaic (PV) panels – made of wafers – winds up as shavings on the factory fl oor. Atwater’s team at Caltech wastes virtually nothing, instead growing silicon micro-wires using vapour deposition. (Picture a tiny bed of nails growing out of a cloud of silicon-rich gas.) Researchers coat the microwires with a light-absorbing material, then embed them, along with light-scattering particles, in a clear polymer that has a refl ective backing. As light pours in, it bounces around until 90 per cent has been absorbed.

Th e wire arrays require only 1 per cent of the silicon – which accounts for roughly half of the manufacturing costs – of standard PV. Th e fi rst tests of the technology at scale converted light into electricity at a rate of 8 per cent, which the team is convinced it can double (standard PV has 20 per cent effi ciency). Plus, the cells are fl exible enough to be applied to roof tiles or curtain walls. “Th ey have the photovoltaic properties of conven-tional solar cells, but the mechanical properties of a plastic bag,” Atwater says.


MOON MISSIONInnovators: Daniel Andrews, Anthony Colaprete, Nasa’s Ames Research Centre; Stephen Carman, Craig Elder, Northrop GrummanBrilliant idea: Sending a spacecraft made from off -the-shelf parts careering into the Moon at 2,5 kilometres per second to fi nd water ice.

1. Shepherding spacecraftRather than commission expensive new devices for the shepherding spacecraft, the team beefed up non-aerospace technology, including near-infrared spectrometers designed for carpet recycling and Nascar engine-block thermal-imaging equipment.

2. CentaurThe Atlas V’s empty upper fuel stage, called Centaur, smashed into the permanently dark Cabeus Crater on October 9, 2009, blasting a swimming-pool-size hole and ejecting a 10-kilometre-high plume of vapour and dust that had not seen sunlight for more than a billion years.

3. Moon dustLRO spacecraft analysed the ejecta, as did Hubble and Earth-based telescopes. Before crash-ing into the Moon itself, LCROSS’s shepherding spacecraft relayed the most intriguing data: evi-dence of water ice, which may have been deposited by the impact of an ancient comet.

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S P A C E E X P L O R A T I O NT E L E M E D I C I N E

Cellphone-enabled healthcareInnovator: Aydogan Ozcan, University of California, Los Angeles Brilliant idea: A cellphone microscope that can diagnose disease cheaply and eff ectively anywhere in the world.

Aydogan Ozcan hopes to make microscope lenses obsolete. “Microscopes are ana-logue technology,” says the 31-year-old electrical engineer. Bulky and expensive, they rely on fi nely polished curved glass to refract and focus light. By hacking a cellphone’s software to perform the same function, Ozcan has brought an invention with Renaissance-era origins into the 21st century.

Ozcan’s cellphone microscope focuses LED light on a slide positioned over the camera’s image sensor. Th e sensor converts light bouncing off and around a sample of, say, blood cells into electrons and records them as a digital hologram. Image-processing software analyses the hologram once it’s uploaded to a computer. One application, which will be fi eld-tested in Brazil this year, identifi es red blood cells misshaped by the malaria parasite – the same thing a technician searches for using a standard microscope. Unlike a scan by a trained human eye, however, software analysis is instantaneous. Future apps could screen for disease-causing parasites in drinking water and help monitor the health of HIV patients by counting T-cell levels in their blood.

“Th e key to everything is the cellphone,” Ozcan says. In 1990, fewer than 12,5 million people worldwide had them; today, 4,6 billion do. While conventional lens-based microscopy has essentially plateaued, fi erce competition causes cellphone-camera technology to advance rapidly even as prices plummet. Eventually, Ozcan believes, point-of-care facilities in the US will begin replacing expensive and time-consuming lab procedures with cellphone-based diagnostic tools. “Once insurance companies start to accept this,” he says, “we will have better, more aff ordable healthcare and better quality of life.”

It’s hard to decide what’s more impressive: the confi rmation of water ice on the Moon, or the scrappy way that a team of sci-entists and engineers pulled off the mission – by slamming two tons of equipment otherwise destined to become space junk into the Moon’s south pole and then analysing the dust plume it kicked up.

Yet the Lunar Crater Obser-vation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, mission began as an afterthought. When the leaders of NASA’s R3,3 billion Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) found themselves with an extra 1 000 kilograms of payload capacity, they sent out a call for shoestring proposals for a com-panion mission. Led by principal investigator Anthony Colaprete, a team from Nasa’s Ames Research Centre proposed using the Atlas V launch rocket’s empty upper fuel stage to impact the Moon. Northrop Grumman would turn the rocket’s hot-tub-size payload ring into a makeshift spacecraft that would trail in the stage’s path, gather-ing data via instruments bolted to its six satellite ports.

Th e team came in under its R540 million budget – and the mission was a headline-scream-ing success. Essentially, says Colaprete, “we reached out and touched the water”. Th e space-craft calculated a 4 per cent moisture concentration in the plume, double that of the Sahara. “We take that for granted here on Earth, but 1 to 2 per cent water on the Moon or an aster-oid is potentially a lifeline,” he says. “From an exploration standpoint, we realise there are a wealth of resources that we can take advantage of. Suddenly, the Moon is a more interesting and active place.”

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A R C H I T E C T U R E

EARTHQUAKEPROOF BUILDINGSInnovators: Gregory Deierlein, Stanford Univer-sity; Jerome F Hajjar, Northeastern UniversityBrilliant idea: A replaceable, building-wide system to help hospitals, apartment build-ings and offi ce towers sur-vive severe seismic shaking.

For decades, the goal of seis-mic engineers has seemed straightforward: prevent building collapse. And so they add steel braces to a skyscrap-er’s skeleton or beefi er rein-forcing to concrete shear walls. After absorbing the brunt of seismic shaking, however, often the compro-mised structures must be demolished. “Th e building, in a sense, sacrifi ces itself to save the occupants,” says Gregory Deierlein, a Stanford University civil and environ-mental engineer. A team Deierlein led with Jerry

Hajjar, a Northeastern University engineer, hopes to change that, designing a system that protects both people and the structures they live and work in.

Th e engineers successfully tested an 8-metre three-storey steel-framed building outfi tted with the new system, built atop the E-Defence shake table – the world’s largest earthquake simulator – in Miki City, Japan. Steel “fuses”, not structural ele-ments, absorbed the shock of an earthquake greater than magnitude 7, and

cables pulled the building back into plumb once the shaking stopped. After an earthquake of that scale, the deformed fuses could be replaced in about four days – while the building remained occupied. Jim Malley of the San Francisco fi rm Degenkolb Engineers calls the system the next step in the evolution of green building. “As structural engineers,” he says, “our sus-tainable design is the ability not to have to tear buildings down after earthquakes, but to use them for hundreds of years.”

Elastic high-strength steel cables run down the centre of the sys-tem’s frame. The cables control the rocking of the building and, when the earthquake is over, pull it back into proper alignment.

A steel frame situated around a building’s core or along exterior walls offers structural support. The frame’s columns, however, are free to rock up and down within steel shoes secured at the base.

Steel fuses (in blue) at the frame’s centre twist and contort to absorb seismic energy. Like electrical fuses, when they “blow out” they can be replaced, restoring the structural system to pre-earthquake conditions.

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Curing cancer painlesslyInnovators: Karen Brewer, Brenda Winkel, Virginia Tech; Roger Dumoulin-White, Th eralase Technologies Brilliant idea: Light-activated compounds that cause deep-seated, fast-growing cancer cells to self-destruct.

Two Virginia Tech scientists may have invented the future of cancer treatment – a way to eradicate tumours without the harmful side-eff ects of chemotherapy, radia-tion or a surgeon’s scalpel. Th ey’ve built what chemist Karen Brewer calls a “molecu-lar machine” that seeks out fast-replicating cancer cells and becomes lethal only when exposed to light.

Other photodynamic therapies rely on drugs that grab oxygen molecules from nearby tissue, so they are powerless against dense, fast-growing cancers – such as breast, brain, lung and prostate – with hypoxic, or oxygen-free, cores. “I really wanted to come up with something completely diff erent, a light-activated drug that would not require oxygen,” says Brewer, an expert at building light-triggered on/off switches for chemical compounds. Biologist Brenda Winkel helped

develop a DNA-targeting compound to attach to the trigger. Th en, Toronto-based Th eralase Technologies licensed it for use with its own deep-penetrating super-pulsed laser. “Th is shows promise in terms of getting deeper-seated tissue,” says National Cancer Institute programme manager Rosemary Wong. “It would allow you to address a number of diff erent cancers.”

Th e new therapy has recently begun Phase II trials, part of a seven-year road map for Food and Drug Administration approval. “Cancer is really just cells that have lost the ability to die,” says Th eralase president Roger Dumoulin-White. “With the help of a compound and a light source, we’re granting that cell the ability to bow out gracefully. We’re fi xing what’s really broken versus trying to cut it out.”

By combining the expertise of their respective labs, chemist Karen Brewer

(left) and biologist Brenda Winkel created a cancer-fi ghting “supramolecule” com-

posed of three smaller molecules: one binds to the DNA of cancer cells, a second absorbs light, and a third delivers a drug

that cleaves the DNA.


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Next Generation Award

A P P R O P R I A T E T E C H N O L O G Y

The power of play

Innovators: Jessica Lin, Jessica Matthews, Julia Silverman, Hemali Th akkar, Harvard UniversityBrilliant idea: A soccer ball that can power an LED light, providing clean energy in developing countries.

Small-scale, hand-cranked generators that power lights and radios are practical in places where there’s no electricity. But they’re not a whole lot of fun. Four undergraduate students at Harvard University decided to harvest the kinetic energy of soccer, the world’s most popular sport, instead. After just 15 minutes of play, their sOccket ball could provide families in sub-Saharan Africa – where less than a quarter of the population has access to reliable electricity – with 3 hours of LED light, a clean, effi cient alternative to paraffi n lamps.

Th e mechanics are straightforward: When the sOccket rolls, a magnetic slug slides back and forth inside an inductive coil in the ball, generating power that is stored in a capacitor. Field-tested in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup, sOccket 2.0 has an embedded DC jack and weighs only 140 grams more than a FIFA-regulated ball. A future version should hold enough juice – 3,7 volts at a capacity of 600 milliamps per hour – to charge a basic cellphone. Th e women partnered with a manufacturer in Cape Town and hope to subsi-dise developing-world discounts with sales in the US.

[ ]FEATURE

Julia Silverman, Jessica Lin and Jessica Matthews (left to right). “We’re not expecting these soccer balls to light an entire city,” Matthews says. “But when a kid sees what happens when he plays with one, he might start to rethink things other than soccer. He might rethink the way his village gets energy.”

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P H Y S I C S

A V I A T I O N

Redefi ning magnetism

Larry Fullerton set out to invent a self-assembling magnetic toy that would fuel his grandchildren’s passion for science. Instead, he invented a way to manipu-late magnetic fi elds that redefi nes one of the fundamental forces of Nature.

Fullerton’s breakthrough tramples the long-held assumption that magnets have two opposing poles, one on each side. He found that, if he used heat to erase a magnetic fi eld, he could then reprogram material to have multiple north and south poles of diff ering strengths. “People look at magnets as having a north pole and a south pole. Th at limits your thinking,” he says. “I came along from the fi eld of radar and said, ‘Hey, that’s not a magnet – it’s a vector fi eld!’”

To program the magnets, Fullerton invented a device – picture a printer whose head emits 200 000-amp bursts of electricity rather than ink – that creates mag-netic pixels he calls “maxels”. Using the printer and some vector maths, Fullerton is now learning how to produce magnets that exhibit diff erent behaviours. Th e practical applications appear limitless: from precision switches and a new genera-tion of fasteners to robots that can scale walls without touching them.

Innovator: Larry Fullerton, Correlated Magnetics Research Brilliant idea: Magnets printed with multiple poles, opening the door to myriad applications.

Snowboard bindingsTwo magnets tightly attract when aligned, but repel when twisted more than 45 degrees, easily clicking on and off. Other apps: cycling cleats, pick-proof locks, standard prosthetic-limb fi ttings.

Spinal implantsMagnetic discs attract and repel simultaneously, offering friction-free cushioning for bones of the spine. Other apps: bearings for energy-storing fl y-wheels, assembly-line arms.

Idiot-proof assemblyMagnets on the joints of furni-ture or toys click together only when correctly aligned, making Christmas Eve easier for dads everywhere. Other apps: car parts, aircraft machinery.

FUTURE FLIGHTInnovators: Mark Drela, Edward Greitzer, MIT; Jeremy Hollman, Aurora Flight Sciences; Wesley Lord, Pratt & Whitney Brilliant idea: A cleaner, quieter craft with a radical new design, setting the stage for a fundamental shift in aviation.

Boeing’s 737 is the best-selling jet airliner in history: Today, it carries 29 per cent of all US domestic air traffi c and is responsible for a quarter of the industry’s fuel use. A reinven-tion of this commercial work-horse, called the D series, could burn 70 per cent less fuel, emit 75 per cent less nitrogen oxide and dampen noise from take-off s and landings. In short, it could transform air travel into a more environmentally benign

practice. Signifi cant tweaks to the

737’s basic tube-and-wing design add up “like compound interest” on the craft, says MIT aeronautics and astronau-tics professor Edward Greitzer. Th e MIT-led team, which includes two commercial part-ners, developed the D series in response to a R14 million Nasa research programme challeng-ing engineers to design aircraft for 2035, by which time air

travel is expected to have dou-bled. Th e team is one of only two in negotiations with Nasa for Phase II funding. “How can the airline industry grow and, at worst, remain neutral in its

impact on the environment?” asks project manager Ruben Del Rosario of Nasa’s Glenn Research Centre. “We’re trying to invest in technology that can decrease its impact.”

Instead of a single-fuselage cylinder, the D series melds two partial cylinders into a distinctive “double-bubble” shape. This adds to the lift and allows for longer, skinnier wings and a smaller tail, reducing drag.

The engines sit at the top rear of the fuselage, where they draw in slower-moving air that passes over the plane, using less fuel for the same amount of thrust – a technique known as boundary layer ingestion. To mitigate the engine stress this creates, the plane would travel about 10 per cent slower than a 737; the researchers anticipate making up this time through quicker loading and unloading via the plane’s second aisle.

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THE YEAR’S 10 MOST TRANSFORMATIVE PRODUCTS

[ ]FEATURE

It’s an EV early adopter’s worst nightmare: running out of juice, a long way from the nearest charging station. With the Volt, Chevrolet is intent on squelching those fears. When the 16-kilo-watt-hour battery pack becomes depleted, the car automatically switches to a petrol engine – a transition that is remarkably smooth (it’s nearly impossible to discern on the road). And although the Volt may not be as much fun to drive in the con-ventional sense as, say, a Corvette, there’s still a sense of occasion behind the wheel. It is smoother and quieter than a Cadillac, plus in-dash screens add the gee-whiz element of revealing the car’s inner workings. For a plug-in series hybrid, there’s a lot of hard-

ware – a petrol engine, a large battery and electric motors – and clever ideas under the bonnet, pushing the price in the USA to R375 000 (nearly R30 000 after the government subsidy), a princely sum for a small car. But the Volt is more than the sum of its cutting-edge parts: It’s a dramatic reinvention of the great American car, without sacrifi cing the great American road trip.

Chevrolet VoltBrilliant idea: A series hybrid that augments a battery pack with an onboard petrol engine, easing range anxiety and paving the way for EV adoption.

AERODYNAMIC DESIGNExtending the EV’s range means minimising drag, which can lead to bland shapes. “We didn’t want the automotive equivalent of Brussels sprouts,” says Bob Boniface, the Volt’s lead designer. So engineers added details such as a gently sloping rear hatch, a fl at bottom and small creases and fi ns that manage airfl ow. The result is GM’s mostaero-effi cient car since the EV1.

POWERTRAINWhen the Volt’s battery pack is discharged, the 1,4-litre petrol-powered four-cylinder engine kicks on to spin the 55-kW generator. The engine doesn’t top off the battery, but simply runs long enough to maintain performance. The generator and 111-kW traction motor are connected to the wheels via a planetary gearset in a way that’s similar to the Toyota Prius’s transmission. This arrangement allows both motors to power the wheels, a strategy that keeps each motor in its most effi cient – and most refi ned – operating range.

USER INTERFACETwo 18-cm WVGA displays (one of which is a touch-screen) provide access to basic functions, vehicle infor-mation and a graphical effi ciency coach. A smartphone app allows users to schedule charging and precondition the cabin while the car is plugged in.

BATTERY PACKThe 300-volt lithium-ion battery pack is composed of 288 cells, grouped vertically like fi les in a drawer. To extend battery life, the pack never fully charges or depletes. A 250-micron-thick, sponge-like membrane separates the plates and holds the organic carbonate electrolyte through which the charged lithium ions fl ow. A dedi-cated liquid-cooling circuit maintains the pack’s temperature to within a degree.

T R A N S P O R T A T I O N

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WHILE MANY GREAT INNOVATIONS MAY LANGUISH IN LABS, A SMALL NUMBER MAKE THAT CRITICAL LEAP INTO CONSUMER PRODUCTS THAT WE USE EVERY DAY. WITH THIS YEAR’S BREAKTHROUGH PRODUCT WINNERS, WE CELEBRATE THOSE EQUALLY MEANINGFUL ACHIEVEMENTS, STARTING WITH TWO CARS POISED TO CHANGE PERCEPTIONS.

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Nissan LeafBrilliant idea: A pure EV with space for fi ve, a moderate price and enough range for most tasks – plus, an operating cost that’s irresistibly low.

It’s not the fi rst pure EV, but the Leaf is hitting the mainstream like none of its predecessors. At a US price of R230 000 (R178 000 after the government rebate), the Leaf costs the same as an aver-age car and off ers a 160-kilometre range – enough to cover the needs of the vast majority of commuters and errand runners. More than 13 000 US buyers have already plunked down $99 (about R675) deposits, and Nissan hopes to soon move 150 000 units a year worldwide. Th e car is eerily quiet to drive. “Th e vehicle is equipped with a sound generator just so people can hear it coming,” says Paul Hawson, product planner for the Leaf. But the real triumph lies in its family-car practicality and normality. And since electricity is cheaper than petrol, the Leaf delivers lower operating costs. A rational EV that doesn’t drive like a science project? About time.

USER INTERFACEThe Leaf’s digital display and navigation system plot the most effi cient routes and suggest ways to extend range – for example, by reducing the a/c. Drivers will also be able to track their performance online and compare themselves with other Leaf owners.

BATTERY PACKWith no petrol-engine backup, the Leaf’s 24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack is both larger and uses a greater percentage of its capacity than the Volt’s pack does. Although both companies are tight-lipped about details, the Leaf’s 192 cells have a slightly different chemistry. They’re also stacked horizontally, like books on a table, to form a compact pallet under the fl oor, freeing up interior space for fi ve passengers.

TORQUEWhile the Leaf’s electric motor produces only 80 kW, it offers a peak 280 N.m of torque at 0 r/min. In other words: unlike a petrol car, it can pop off the line with an immediate and steady stream of power. While braking, the motor also charges the battery.

CHARGINGTwo plugs are located in the nose: a standard Level II 220-volt charger that fi lls the batteries in about 8 hours and a Level III quick charger that hits 80 per cent in half an hour. The juice needed for 160 kilometres runs about R20 in the US – less than half of the cost of petrol for the same trip.

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B I O M E D I C A L E N G I N E E R I N G

Innovators: Department of Energy Artifi cial Retina Project team, led by Mark Humayun, University of Southern California; Second Sight Medical Products.Brilliant idea: An artifi cial retina that transforms a camera feed into electric pulses that stimulate the optic nerve, providing rudimentary vision for millions of people with degenerative retinal diseases.

Barbara Campbell is going to see Waiting for Godot. A lifelong New York City resident, she loves the theatre and has been attending Broadway shows for nearly 40 years, ever since she was a teenager growing up in the borough of Queens. During that time, her

vision has steadily deteriorated. At fi rst, she could distinguish the actors onstage without a problem. Th en, the details began to blur, so she started using a small telescope to see their faces. Eventually, about 10 years ago, she realised that a production of Fosse had faded into a solid whitish blur, which is all she sees when she’s facing a stage or walking up a street or getting a plate of fettuccine at an Italian restaurant, as she is now.

“Th is looks delicious!” Barbara says, in an unmistakable New York accent, as the waiter sets her food on the table. Barbara, now 57, still thinks and talks in the language of the sighted, which is important for the clinical trial she’s about to embark on tomorrow. She needs to be able to articulate exactly what she’s seeing, if she sees anything, once she becomes the 25th person in the world to receive the Argus II artifi cial retina.

In a healthy human eye, 125 million photoreceptors at the back of the retina act like the world’s most sophisticated digital camera, functioning in a range of light conditions separated by 10 to 12 orders of magnitude. For example, when navigating through the woods on a moonless night, the eye’s rods can pick up a single photon, damping the “noise” of surrounding cells to amplify it. And when gazing down the beach on a dazzling sum-mer day, the eye’s colour-sensitive cones rapidly adapt to a fl ood

of sunlight. Barbara has retinitis pig-mentosa, a disease caused by any one of 100 diff erent gene defects that trig-ger the deterioration of those photo receptors and interrupt the complex sequence of image processing that follows.

“My sixth grade teacher fi rst noticed it,” Barbara tells me – as a child, she

had trouble fi lling in the bubbles next to answers on standard-ised tests. “I don’t think either of my parents really understood what it meant. Every few years it would get a little worse and a little worse and a little worse.” In her 30s, Barbara fi nally started using a white cane – but only after she’d fallen down an open manhole. You tripped over it? I asked. “No, I went into it. Th ere was a ladder so I was able to climb out,” she says. “It was right next to a restaurant that had tables on the sidewalk. Everybody was like, Oh my God, she just went down the hole! Th ey thought I just wasn’t paying attention.” She gets around the city perfectly well now – she took two subways and walked several blocks to meet me at the restaurant – but when she learned about the Argus II clinical trial, she enthusiastically applied.

In the morning, a surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital will make an incision in Barbara’s left eye and lift the clingwrap-like membrane that covers it, called the conjunctiva. He’ll then suture a small electronics package, about the size of a watch bat-tery, to the outside wall of the eye and secure it with a piece of sili-cone rubber that wraps around the eye’s equator. Next, he’ll thread a thin cable through an incision in the wall; the cable connects the electronics to an array of 60 electrodes. After removing the vitre-ous humor that fi lls the inside of the eye – a material that’s essen-tially jelly, minus the sugar and food colouring – the surgeon refi lls the eye with fl uid so that he can manipulate the array on to the retina, tacking it in place with what is perhaps the world’s tiniest pushpin. Th e whole procedure will take 4 to 5 hours.

Barbara seems unperturbed. In fact, she’s looking forward to it. As a rehabilitation counsellor for the New York State Commission for the Blind, she understands the artifi cial retina won’t magically give her perfect eyesight. But what it will do is astounding nonetheless: send electric pulses that bypass the retina’s damaged rods and cones to jump-start cells that are still viable. Th e eye, after all, is a small, delicate organ. It’s warm and salty – a corrosive environment – and its tissue is extremely sensitive to temperature variation. Plus, the eye moves, and it moves briskly. Successfully implanting complex, wireless, bio-compatible electronics in the eye is an extraordinary achievement. Bringing even rudimentary vision to someone who’s completely blind is historic.

“I really have nothing to lose,” Barbara says, looking slightly above and beyond my right shoulder. She leans forward and feels for the edge of her plate. We’ve met only 20 minutes ago, but she off ers me some of her pasta, which I readily accept – it is delicious. “I feel I’m very prepared for this,” she says matter-of-

Left: Mark Humayun’s grandmother lost her vision, changing the course of his career. “I ended up going into ophthalmology to do this project, to restore sight to the blind.”

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Digital sight for THE BLIND

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TRANSMITTER

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factly. “I understand I’m not going to be seeing with my eye, I’m going to be seeing with electronics. Th ere’s no way it will look like whatever I saw before.”

Th e Argus II implant that Barbara will be receiving is the second generation of the device; the fi rst had only 16 electrodes. Information gleaned from this clinical trial will be used to improve the 60-electrode version, which will be commercialised, fi rst in Europe, as early as December. But even as the trial con-tinues, a much larger eff ort, involving six national labs, four universities and a commercial partner, Second Sight Medical Products, is developing technologies that will enable third- and fourth-generation models using as many as 1 024 electrodes – which could provide enough detail to read 24-point font and recognise faces. Th ere are 100 000 people in the US with retinitis pigmentosa and 10 million with degenerative retinal diseases. “I’m optimistic,” Barbara tells me. “Whatever happens, somebody will benefi t.”

Two weeks later, I meet Barbara in front of her apartment on New York’s Upper East Side. We’re travelling together to her fi rst weekly appointment at Lighthouse Interna-tional, a nonprofi t that conducts research to benefi t people with low vision. On the train, she tells me the surgery was long, but painless, and that the doctors seem pleased. As we emerge from the station, I pause, uncertain. “Bloomingdale’s should be behind us,” she says. “Pottery Barn is on the right. Lighthouse is about a third of the way up the street.”

Th e main goal of today’s appointment is to confi rm which of the array’s electrodes are working properly. Inside the dimmed offi ce, a Second Sight technician hands Barbara a battery-powered microprocessor about the size and heft of a fi rst-generation iPod. It will take information from a camera mounted on sun-glasses and convert it to a signal, which is beamed wirelessly to a receiver in the electronics package on Barbara’s eye. Th e receiver then sends a corresponding pattern of electric pulses to the electrode array.

Typically, when light passes through the transparent tissue of the retina and strikes photoreceptors, they initiate electrochemical signals that propagate forward through a layer of bipolar cells to ganglion cells. Millions of nerve fi bres running from the ganglion cells dive through the eye’s “blind spot” and form the optic nerve that carries impulses to the brain. Th e electronic array sits like a postage stamp on the ganglion layer, stimulating the cells directly with a small amount of electricity. Th is produces phosphenes, the same sensation of light created by rubbing one’s eyes.

Th e technician touches the keyboard of a laptop – today it will be standing in for the camera, sending information to stimulate specifi c electrodes – and it emits a loud bloop. “Can you see that?” she asks Barbara. “Yes, it was like a fl ash,” Barbara responds.

Eighteen years ago, a blind patient saw a similar fl ash of light when Mark Humayun, an ophthalmologist and biomedical engi-neer at the University of Southern California’s Doheny Eye Institute, placed an electrode directly on the person’s retina during surgery. Until that moment, no one knew whether an

A camera mounted on a pair of glasses captures video and sends this information through a cable to an external microprocessor.

The microprocessor converts the information to a corresponding pattern of signals for electrical stimulation, which travel back through the cable to a radio-frequency transmitter on the glasses.

The transmitter wirelessly beams the data and power to a receiver in an electronics package on the eye. A tiny cable carries the stimulation signals through the wall of the eye to the electrode array.

Electrodes implanted on the ganglion cell layer of the retina fi re. Electric impulses then travel through the optic nerve to the brain for interpretation.

HOW THE ARGUS II WORKS

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[ ]FEATURE


optic nerve that had gone unstimulated for decades could still carry a signal to the brain. “The mantra was, if you don’t use it, you lose it,” Humayun says. His discovery made the eye a candi-date for neural prosthetics – devices that interface with the nervous system to restore function lost to disease or injury. At the time, another neural prosthetic was just gaining traction: cochlear implants, which bypass damaged cells in the inner ear to directly stimulate the auditory nerve.

Stimulating the optic nerve, however, is much more complex. Besides involving millions of points that create a picture, synapses that communicate across each layer of the retina play an important role in honing and sharpening images – a step the electronic array skips. “You have to recreate that processing,” Humayun says. “Each electrode can’t just ping the spot.” Software in the external microprocessor converts the visual feed into signals that should convey the correct shape – a doorway, say, or a lamppost. But each subject must also train to better interpret that information. “If you’ve been blind, your brain doesn’t just sit there twiddling its thumbs,” Humayun says. “It ends up tak-ing over functions such as hearing and maybe even touch. When you replace that lost function to the brain, those areas have to regroup, reorganise and begin to relearn.”

Four months after Barbara’s surgery, we’re back at Lighthouse International for an appointment in which she will try to identify letters of the alphabet. Barbara uses the camera now; it’s embedded discreetly in a pair of sunglasses. Her face is lit by the glow of an LCD screen in the darkened room, and I can see a white, 25-cm “L” reflected in the lenses. Barbara scans her head methodically, left and right, up and down, because the visual feed is coming from her glasses, not her eyes. “This could be an ‘L,’” she says tentatively.

“That is an ‘L’! Wow, very nice,” responds Aries Arditi, a principal investigator and senior fellow in vision science at Lighthouse. Barbara laughs: “Beginner’s luck.”

After a few more letters, Arditi has her take a timed test. It’s a control, with the device turned off. Barbara rattles off 10 letters at random as they appear on the screen, sometimes a beat before that, and gets them all wrong. Now, the real test: “Take as much time as you want,” Arditi says. Barbara spends a few minutes studying each letter. Her answers gradually get more confident, and she misses only three out of 10. “I only got three wrong?” Barbara asks. “Whoa! I’m impressed!”

The following week she gets them all correct. “Barbara’s big advantage is Barbara,” Arditi tells me later. “She is really very good at exploiting what very minimal information she does have. The fact that she can recognise letters is astounding. She’s not going to be reading the newspaper anytime soon, but any bit of visual information you get is helpful.”

As a sighted person, I still don’t understand exactly what Barbara sees through the artificial retina, so on my next trip to California I drop by Caltech to visit theoretical physicist Wolfgang Fink (now at the University of Arizona). He seats me in front of a 37-cm MacBook Pro in a windowless basement lab. The image displayed by the laptop’s camera is me, sort of. It is a 4 x 4 array of fat, square pixels in a mosaic of black, gray and white; I’m the black blocks on the left-hand side. “Current retinal implants have orders of magnitude less (pixels) than what a camera delivers,” he says. “Therefore, one of the first tasks of image processing is to sample the hi-res image to make the low-res image out of it.”

Fink changes the view from 16 pixels to 64, roughly the equiv-

alent of Barbara’s implant. Now, when I pass my hand in front of the camera, grey blocks shim-mer diagonally across the array. “The levels of bright-ness the camera takes in are translated to levels of visual stimulation – strong phos-phenes versus weaker ones,” Fink says. Then he loads a 32 x 32–pixel array, or 1 024 electrodes, the goal. The image sharpens to graphics akin to an old Atari game. I can pick out the check of my shirt, my hair, even the general contours of my face.

Now Fink begins to manipulate the image with an Artificial Vision Support System (AVS2): He turns on a contrast enhance-ment filter, which makes the dark and light pixels starker; when he activates edge detection I can see the outline of my hand, and adding image blur causes it to become more avatar-like. Each layer of processing improves the utility of the otherwise limited arrays. “We’d like to make sure we can give the blind subject as many image-processing filters in real time as possible to choose from to make their visual experience better,” Fink says.

He cautions me that what I’m seeing, however, is still through the filter of my own healthy retina, so it’s an ideal image. Fink leads me to a National Science Foundation-funded project: a rover about the size of a large Tonka truck with a camera gim-balled at the front centre. Loaded with the AVS2, the rover, called Cyclops, can navigate around a room using only the number of pixels a researcher gives it, providing a much better approximation of what the blind might see. (Two of Barbara’s electrodes, for example, turned out to be disabled.) Plus, researchers can use it 24/7, allowing them to home in on opti-mal image processing for different environments, sparing test subjects exhausting groundwork.

During one of Barbara’s checkups at the hospital, her surgeon showed me a scan of her eye with the Argus II implant. The eye looked like a celestial orb – Mars with dust storms swirl-ing across its surface – and the electrode array resembled the aerial view of a well-lit alien city. Under a microscope in a clean room at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, the array appears much more clinical. This is the third generation of the device – the Argus III, in preclinical testing now – and so instead of 60 electrodes, 240 are packed onto the array. Imperceptibly fine traces of gold form a narrow racetrack leading from each electrode to a silicon chip where the electronics package will eventually be mounted.

“You can see it’s already pretty tight in that area,” says Satinderpall Pannu, a mechanical engineer in Livermore’s Centre for Micro- and Nanotechnologies. “So you increase the density by a factor of four, and that’s a challenge.” He’s referring – through a face mask, since we’re both dressed in sterile garments from head to toe – to the 1 024 electrodes that an interdisciplinary Department of Energy team hopes to eventually squeeze onto the device. “One of the interesting scientific questions is: if you increase the density, how do the electric fields overlap with each other?” Pannu says.

A researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is currently mapping those electric fields in order to arrive at an effective design. Scientists elsewhere are developing more advanced radio-frequency electronics and a biocompatible film that could coat Pi

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the device, reducing its size. “We all had a unique piece of the puzzle needed to develop these implants,” Pannu says. “This was a great vehicle to push all these different technologies along.”

For its part, the team at Lawrence Livermore applies microfab-rication techniques common to the semiconductor industry, such as photolithography, to manufacture the array. Pannu shows me a 10-cm-diameter silicon wafer with 10 of the thin-film devices, shaped like elegant hockey sticks, layered onto the surface. The same process is used to manufacture inertial sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes, which now appear in products from cars and Wii controllers to critical components in aircraft.

“We have somewhere between 100 and 125 million photore-ceptors in our eye,” Pannu says. “And so if I were losing vision, I’d want to have roughly that same resolution after I put my device in. So the real question is, how do we go from a thousand electrodes to a million or 100 million?” Though that feat could easily be decades away, the researchers have already begun to think about how to put an integrated circuit directly on the retina.

The engineering being perfected with the Argus device could also improve other neural implants. For example, microfabrication could make cochlear implants, pacemakers and deep-brain stim-ulators for treating Parkinson’s disease smaller and less invasive. The tiny, lightweight camera could be used in applications rang-ing from security to endoscopy. And the implant’s hermetic packaging could protect environmental sensors, especially ones used in underwater locations such as the Gulf of Mexico.

At Christmastime, Barbara is able to string the lights on her tree unassisted – and know for herself that they are evenly spaced. A month later, she’s become very good at identifying the bus stop and can see the light at the entrance to her apartment building from up the block. By spring, she can distinguish the white line representing the crosswalk as she approaches the

street, a milestone she calls “huge”. And a year after she received her artificial retina, she wears it to Disneyland, where the lights fly by her in Space Mountain.

The 30 subjects in the clinical trial appreciate the Argus II for varied reasons, according to Second Sight’s vice president of business development, Brian Mech. “Barbara talks about bump-ing into a lot fewer things when she wears it outside,” he says. “For other people, it’s being able to see their grandchildren, even if they can’t recognise them – being able to see the Moon or fire-works. They feel more connected to their environment. They value things they can do with the device, but they value a reduc-tion in isolation even more.”

A handful of other teams, in Germany, Australia and elsewhere in America, have begun to develop retinal implants as well, though currently none of the devices is in a US clinical trial. In recent years, scientists have grown new retinal cells from stem cells and shown progress in developing an effective gene therapy. Each approach brings its own challenges. But someday all of them could offer a valid treatment for retinitis pigmentosa as well as for age-related macular degeneration, which gradually destroys photoreceptors in the centre of the retina and is the leading cause of blindness in adults over age 55.

The Argus II represents a concrete step in that direction. I meet Barbara one autumn evening for a screening of The Wizard of Oz in Central Park. As we take our seats on the bleachers she pulls her glasses out of a black padded case and plugs the cord into the micro-processor, which she slings over her arm. Speakers surround us, but when the movie starts, she turns her head to the left, toward the screen. “How tall would you say that is?” she asks. About 15 metres, I say. “That’s what I thought!” To her, the structure looks like a giant block of white pixels that dim and brighten depending on whether Dorothy is skipping through the Haunted Forest or toward the Emerald City. “Oh, this looks so awesome!” she says. PM

Barbara Campbell trains to identify letters using the artificial retina with Aries Arditi at Lighthouse International. “I refer to it as a device, but I feel it’s really part of me,” she says. “It’s on me all the time.”

BD

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Energy-saving showcaseWhether it’s energy-saving commercial and

industrial applications for mines and fac-tories, or power-saving ideas for lower-income areas and homeowners, South Africans’ boundless ingenuity in fi nding energy-effi cient solutions has once again raised the bar for the 2010 Eskom eta Awards.

Now in its 21st year, the eta Awards attracted hundreds of entries from South Africans who are keen to share their energy-saving measures and innovations.

South Africa’s energy savers come in many forms: learners wanting to make a difference, householders cutting costs, engineers and large companies working hard to reduce their use of electricity and save vital resources.

The eta Awards, sponsored by Eskom and endorsed by the Department of Energy, recog-nise those individuals and companies who are truly making a difference in terms of using energy effi ciently. “Over the years we have been impressed by the range and ages of

Hundreds of entries pour in for 21st eta Awards

2010 eta WINNERSCommercialShared Energy Management won for achiev-ing savings of R4,2 million in the fi rst year and a total of 55 700 MWh since 2006 at the SABC facility in Auckland Park.

Beka/Osram won a special award in this category for their highly innovative lighting solution for the 408-m arch at the new Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban.

IndustrialThe Magnet/Energywise partnership won for their signifi cant energy cuts at Sappi’s Tugela river plant. The installation has managed to save a massive 2 MW and 1 MW in the evening and morning peaks respectively, as well as saving an average of 0,5 MW, without introducing any new peaks in the system. Even more impressive is the payback period of less than two years.

Residential The Geyserwise intelligent energy control system digitally programs, monitors and controls a geyser’s energy consumption. With 80 000 units installed over the past 24 months, savings vary between 17 and 50 per cent in both peak shifting and lower energy consumption.

Young Designers The passion of the Proteus High School from Atlantis in the Western Cape impressed the judges. The group of kids tackled the issue of energy-guzzling refrigerators, and

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Innovation The Pick n Pay Longmeadow and Hurling-

ham projects are fl agships for the retail industry and serve as a role model to be emulated by all retailers as an holistic approach to energy effi ciency.

Shield Technologies developed a system that saves shielding gas consumption for welding by up to 90 per cent – a world fi rst.

Jana Jordaan from Parys High School combined a turbine ventilator and an evapo-rative cooling unit, achieving a temperature reduction of 8° in a three-storey life-size building without using electricity.

Woman in CommunityMahlodi Letswalo and Lehlohonolo Phala from Tshwane University of Technology developed a sustainable low-cost house concept in Soshanguve, which has created high interest and buy-in from that community.

Woman in IndustryLouise van Tonder from Klerksdorp has developed a unique low-cost solar water heater made entirely of plastic. It uses only gravity and solar energy to heat the water.

Power FitnessNhlanhla Sikosana from Unisa spearheaded a very comprehensive awareness campaign for Unisa staff at the main campus in Pretoria as well as the other hubs and campuses – impacting on some 4 000 people.

To fi nd out more about how your company can enter the eta Awards, visit www.eta-awards.co.za

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South Africans who are prepared to give up their time and apply their minds to the problem of saving energy. All entrants show a high degree of innovation in producing practical solutions to everyday energy problems,” says Dr Steve Lennon, Divisional Executive (Corporate Services) at Eskom.

Top: Beka/Osram won a special Commercial category award for their innovative lighting solution for the 408-m arch at the new Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban.Middle: The Geyserwise intelligent energy control system (winner: Residential) digitally programs, monitors and controls a geyser’s energy consumption. Bottom: Young Designers runner-up, Welkom schoolgirl Carrie-Ann Urquhart, devised a simple water purifying solution for rural communities, based on seeing how condensation appeared in an empty plastic water bottle that had been left in a car - and how contestants on TV’s Survivor purifi ed water.

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[ ]TECH

Eye spy – with an electronic hawk eyeStellenbosch University’s UAV project takes aim at food security

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SPECIALIST MILITARY UNITS get to play with lots of cool toys. Remote-controlled model aircraft, for instance. Only, the military types call them UAVs – unmanned aerial vehicles. However, the security forces’ stranglehold on the use of these high-tech birds as weapons of war is about to change.

Instead of using autonomous fliers to monitor conflict zones, pinpoint the bad guys and then blast them to smithereens – from the safety of a base perhaps thou-sands of kilometres away – researchers at Stellenbosch University suggest something much more peaceful. They envisage a day in the not too distant future when UAVs will provide a low-cost, high-tech solution for monitoring agricultural land to help boost local food production. Talk about beating swords into ploughshares.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, in developing countries alone nearly a billion people go

to bed hungry every night. Statistics like this make for a pretty harrowing read, not to mention driving home the point that more needs to be done to eradicate endemic poverty and hunger. Well, Stellen-bosch University’s multi-disciplinary Food Security Initiative – combining leading researchers from their health sciences, agr-isciences, science, arts and social sciences and engineering faculties – is a compre-hensive attempt to do just that.

As part of this initiative, the university’s department of electrical and electronic engineering has taken its long-standing military research on UAVs and adapted to suit a more civilian, and distinctly humane, application. “This is the fourth helicopter we have automated, and two of them were made possible with military funding; all we’ve really done here is take our research and apply it to a more socially responsible avenue,” says research leader professor Thomas Jones. “That said, we believe that the potential civilian applica-tions for UAVs far outweigh their military applications.”

Potential uses include measuring the water content of soil and the chlorophyll content of plants (by analysing the different colour bands in photographs), monitoring soil erosion, dam levels and fencing, as well as counting livestock. Besides having a huge potential for agriculture, UAVs could also be utilised in other areas such as forestry, conservation, policing and even for monitoring environmental disasters such as oil spills.

The main reason autonomous aircraft hold such promise for the civilian sector

is their low running costs. Jones explains: “Large profitable farms can afford to hire a helicopter or small fixed-wing aircraft to monitor or photograph their crops, pasturage and dams. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for less affluent farmers. A manned helicopter costs between R4 000 and R8 000 an hour, excluding photo-graphy, and a fixed-wing costs anything from R2 000 to R5 000. An autonomous aircraft will cut these costs to around R1 300 an hour. And there is much less risk involved.”

Although Jones’s department works on both fixed-wing and rotor-wing autono-mous systems, he has found that the extreme mechanical and operational complexity of helicopters makes them ideal research platforms for his post-grad stu-dents. “In a fixed-wing aircraft, once the pilot has set the trim it will pretty much fly itself, and it always performs the same way when it flies,” he says. “Helicopters, though, can do strange things. For example, sometimes when you apply torque to roll to the left, they will actually pitch the nose up or down. Basically, as soon as you take your hands off the stick, they want to fall out of the sky. Plus, when a helicopter hovers, it works completely differently to when in forward flight.”

Other than having to concentrate extremely hard, helicopter pilots rarely notice these quirks because their flight controls have been specifically designed to cater for them. The same can’t be said for automated choppers.

When you want computers to take control, there are a number of factors

Main image: Stellenbosch University’s Ruan de Hart, Prof. Thomas Jones and Rudi Gaum with their UAV helicopter that they expect to become commercially available within the next two years. Bottom left: pressure sensors (both stat-ic and dynamic) protrude from the helicopter’s nose. The static sensor provides altitude infor-mation, and the dynamic senor indicates the UAV’s forward air speed. Bottom middle: The avionics box that makes autonomous flight possible. Bottom right: The German-made Vario XLV helicopter was chosen because it was the largest high-end chopper kit the university could buy off the shelf and still afford.

STORY AND PICTURES BY SEAN WOODS

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[ ]TECH

that need to be considered. First off, there are a number of mathematical principles that need to be fully understood, including gyroscopic effects and advanced ratio (or more specifically, the forward speed of the helicopter vs the speed of all the main rotor blades). Different operational characteristics come into play during hovering and for-ward flight. Then there’s the mechanical complexity, namely the main rotor (with multiple moving parts and pitching blades) and the tail rotor. Finally, there’s the aero-dynamic complexity of it all (because of the gyroscopic forces at play, roll and pitch interchange with each other). Oh yes, and then someone needs to write all the “code” to make everything work.

In fact, automated helicopter flight is a hot topic internationally. “There are maybe two or three companies in the world that have successfully managed to get their unmanned helicopters to reliably take-off and land autonomously, and they guard their secrets very closely,” says Jones.

payload – in this case, all the necessary avionics and a video camera pod.

The avionics box holds an onboard computer, inertial measurement unit, GPS and pressure sensors (both static and dynamic). In addition to this there’s a magnetometer (for attitude orientation); a servo board to control all the helicopter’s actuators; a communications link that allows the ground station and UAV to “talk” to each other in real time; autopilot; and various stability controls.

The video camera pod, manufactured by Gauteng-based Tower35, is both mechanic-ally and electronically stabilised. Rotational movement is managed via small solid-state gyros, mounted on the camera itself. A position sensor between the camera and its carbon fibre protective shell provides information for the shell to follow the lens, without any direct coupling. Both features combined create an electronic eye that mimics the smooth combined movements

of the human eye and head when follow-ing a moving object. The big difference: this eye comes with a 12x optical zoom. The camera can also be operated independently from the ground station’s flight controls by means of a joystick linked to a laptop, allowing one person to concentrate on the image and another on flying the bird.

Because their “technology demonstrator” is irreplaceable (the chopper itself cost about R150 000 and to date has had about 15 000 man-hours of work put into it), students conducting research for their master’s degrees are not allowed anywhere near it before their work is considered “mature” enough to enter the real world. Instead, the UAV is closely guarded by the faculty’s resident developmental engineers Rudi Gaum and Ruan de Hart, who, inci-dentally, both completed their master’s degrees on automated flight systems in the same department. “Our main roles are to support current students, test their

Main image: Ruan de Hart, one of the develop-ment engineers in the university’s electrical and engineering faculty, demonstrates how easily the UAV’s mechanically and electronically stabilised camera can be remotely manipulated in real time by means of a joystick linked to a laptop. Below left and right: Because digesting flight information in graph form is difficult for anyone other than engineers, master’s students developed a more user-friendly interface (right) for ground station operators. Both screens are displaying the same information.

“You just can’t buy this stuff off the shelf. However, we are not just looking at the technology itself. We are also investigating various payloads, the use of larger air-frames, the transfer of mature technologies and then how to make it useful and more affordable. But hey, if it were easy we wouldn’t be bothering with it!”

When shopping around for a platform to demonstrate their technology, Jones and his team settled on the German-made Vario XLV helicopter with a rotor diameter of 2,5 metres. It was chosen because it’s about the largest high-end chopper that they could buy off the shelf and still afford. With a full payload it can safely fly at up to 1 000 metres above sea level at speeds of about 60 km/h, and has a flying range of about 8 km from the ground station (a limit imposed by the off-the-shelf video link). It can remain airborne for up to three-quarters of an hour on just two litres of fuel. It’s also large enough to carry a decent

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ADVERTISEMENT

There are perfectly practical reasons for deciding on the Hyundai Santa Fe. Granted, you could – on the basis that nothing says life has to be all about practicality – choose the Santa Fe simply because of its muscular good looks.

Fortunately, that’s as impractical as it gets.

The Hyundai Santa Fe is not only a head-turner; it’s a thoroughly compe-tent yet refined sport-utility with a welcome breadth of abilities and an enviable array of standard luxury

features. And it gets even better: for 2011 the Santa Fe has been restyled inside and out, with new “surprise and delight” features. For those who want more, there’s more power, more torque and an extra gear. Those who prefer less, on the other hand, will be equally delighted: the Santa Fe not only consumes less fuel on average than its predecessors – it also pumps out significantly less of those harmful emissions.

Under the bonnet, the new DOHC turbodiesel engine churns out peak outputs of 145 kW and 436 N.m. Yet, despite this impressive brawn, it sips a miserly 8,3 litres/100 km and emits a modest (for an SUV) 220 g/km of CO2. The power reaches the wheels via a new 6-speed automatic trans-mission with sequential mode, and all-wheel-drive with a centre differen-tial lock as standard.

Practical performance it has, then in abundance – but the new Santa Fe is also about comfort, convenience and safety, with the upgrade including:● Keyless access via “smart-key” remote, along with stop/start button.● Reversing camera, sunroof, electric front seats and dual-zone climate control.● Six airbags, stability/traction control, and all-disc braking with full electronic/hydraulic assistance.

All good practical stuff. And on that subject, it’s worth noting that Hyundai Automotive South Africa, the local arm of the world’s fourth-biggest motor manufacturer, has established a network of over 80 dealerships in Southern Africa. That network includes Namibia, Swaziland and Botswana, so should the unthinkable happen and your vehicle needs attention, you’re never far from qualified assistance – even way off the beaten track.

“The second-generation Santa Fe was at the forefront of Hyundai’s renaissance and established the philosophy that the brand can go toe to toe with its rivals for quality and overall value rather than just price,” says Hyundai SA’s marketing director, Stanley Anderson. “With the major changes taking effect with this ver-sion, it will continue to offer a highly appealing package in the full-sized recreational SUV segment.”

It’s a package, incidentally, that includes a 5 year/150 000 km manu-facturer’s warranty, 5 year/150 000 km roadside assistance and 5-year/ 90 000 km service contract in the price of R399 900 (5-seater) and R409 900 (7-seater).

That practical enough for you?

Let’s get practicalMore power, more torque – and more efficiency – for the Hyundai Santa Fe

Top to bottom: Rear-view camera (image shows in mirror); auto box now has 6 ratios; Keyless Go standard.

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[ ]TECH


projects to assess their maturity levels and to safeguard the department’s assets,” says Gaum. “Because we’ve both been through the motions before, we can offer construc-tive advice and guidance to students.”

Each student sticks to a particular field of expertise. For example, they could work on automated flight, build electronic packs, concentrate on auto take-off and landing systems or generate the software for ground command stations. And, because accidents happen, they use smaller choppers with 1,5 metre-diameter rotors that can be repaired if need be. Once their two-year research stint is up, they then hand over their findings to the department so new students can begin working on improved versions.

The entire ongoing process continues until both Gaum and De Hart are happy that each project is mature enough to be incor-porated into the UAV. Once that decision has been taken, hundreds of simulated flight hours are run in the lab before committing to field implementation. This is

It’s taken nine years, but now Jones’s team can successfully manipulate their UAV to hover, fly and follow GPS waypoints to complete a pre-determined course at will via their ground station. The only thing left for them to iron out is auto take-off and landings, which they expect to have finalised by the end of this year. “At this point, autonomous take-off and landings work on our test bed,” says Jones. “We have gone through the sensors to check they give the correct outputs. Now it’s just a matter of preparing for a test flight and pressing a button, really.”

Real-life outdoors test flights take place at the Helderberg Radio Flyers Club near Somerset West. When they fly they always make sure their standby radio-control pilot, the club’s chairman Michael Basson, is nearby. “If the automation fails or needs

to be turned off, Michael can immediately take over the controls,” explains De Hart. “We can’t afford to crash every time we make a mistake.” In any case, the auto-pilots need to be tested properly over time before they can be really trusted, he adds.

One other thing: the “pilots” never let their charge fly out of visual range. “The Civil Aviation Authority tends to get a bit nervous when these things disappear over the horizon,” jokes Jones.

Fortunately, though, the authorities are currently in the process of developing the appropriate regulations for UAVs. That comes not a moment too soon, especially when you consider that Jones expects this autonomous flying machine to be com-mercially available within the next two years.

Main image: Master’s student AM de Jager with the small helicopter he uses to test his automated landing research. Because GPSs are not accurate enough to be solely relied on for landings, he uses a camera to help the UAV “see” the helipad while the autopilot guides it to the ground. Bottom left: The camera pod, manufactured by Gauteng-based Tower35, features a 12x optical zoom and mimics the smooth combined movements of the human eye and head when following moving objects. Bottom right: Because accidents happen, antennas on the UAV’s skids provide a con-ventional radio-controlled link to the ground just in case the automation fails or needs to be suddenly turned off.

achieved by linking the chopper to a simu-lation PC, then simulating the atmosphere, aerodynamics and gravity data before feed-ing this fake sensor data to the UAV sitting sedately on their workbench. Actuator inputs are then fed back to the simulation PC from the UAV’s autopilot, indicating how the chopper is reacting while undergoing its virtual flight.

“In the real world every actuator input has a certain reaction, causing the aircraft to respond in a specific way,” explains De Hart. “That motion gets measured by on-board sensors, which the autopilot interprets, producing actuator outputs to manipulate the throttle, tail and main rotors. We can even simulate what happens when, for example, the tail rotor fails. And the on-board avionics unit has no idea that it’s not flying a real vehicle.” PM

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Wireless controller

Battery pack

Wi-Fi antenna

Video glasses

[ ]DIYTECH

The Xbox Backpack hack attackTWO EDITORS’ CRAZED QUEST TO TURN MICROSOFT’S HOME CONSOLE INTO A PORTABLE GAMING SYSTEM. > B Y G L E N N D E R E N E A N D A N T H O N Y V E R D U C C I


Our Xbox 360 backpack, along with its custom-built battery pack, weighs

in at 12 ¼ kilograms.

Before we discuss the wonder that is the Xbox Backpack, let’s go through the reasons why such an invention isn’t at all necessary. First, there are already two respectable portable video-game platforms: Sony’s PlayStation Portable (PSP) and Nintendo’s DS (with the 3DS coming out soon). These are lightweight, pocket-size, affordable and more than adequate for on-the-fl y fun.

Second, the Xbox 360 was never intended to be portable. It is, in fact, distinctly non-portable. When you combine the main unit with its big honkin’ power supply,

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PARTS LIST

the combo weighs 4 kilograms. The power requirements for this beast are formidable; ours draws almost 200 watts of power (the newest version draws less) – nearly three times the load of an Apple MacBook laptop. The power supply converts AC mains current into two separate voltages of DC power, and the plug into the Xbox is totally proprietary. Unsurprisingly, no battery on the market can power it.

Add to that a delicate, spinning optical

drive, the lack of an integrated display and a massive heat exhaust that requires active ventilation, and you’ve pretty much out-lined the engineering challenges we set for ourselves when we stubbornly insisted on building this thing into a backpack.

Why bother? Oh, come on, you know why – because it’s there, because it’s dif-ficult and because no portable gaming system is as cool as the Xbox 360. Plus, we’re pretty sure no one else is walking

around with a dual-display, battery-pow-ered Xbox that allows you to play Halo: Reach while camping – and we crave that kind of geek credibility.

Yet we also know our limitations. We were pretty sure we could build an Xbox 360 into a backpack with X-Acto blades, screwdrivers, electrical tape and – for the stubborn parts – a Dremel angle grinder. Yet we were also pretty sure we were going to need to hit up some outside

The Frankenpack

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Mainboard

To fit the guts of the Xbox inside our backpack, we removed the system’s outer plastic casing, then bolted its internal metal cage to the shell of the backpack. To maintain airflow, we drilled intake and exhaust holes in the pack.

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Drives

Like most of the Xbox’s working parts, the hard drive is hidden within the confines of the back-pack. But to load games, we needed the optical drive to eject out the side. So we mounted the Xbox faceplate and the DVD drive to the outside of the pack.

3

Wireless

What’s better than a portable, battery-powered Xbox 360? A portable, battery-powered, completely networked Xbox 360! We kluged up the connec-tivity with an Xbox wireless net-working adapter and a 3G hotspot.

4

Displays

Not one, but two displays! Our 17-cm portable TV had its own internal battery and was mount-ed to the back of the pack. For forward-facing action on the go, we also rigged up Myvu Crystal video glasses (prices start at around R2 000).

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POWER PACK

12-cell lithium- polymer battery

AC to DC converter

Voltage regulator

Xbox 360 power connector

expertise on the battery pack. So we contacted Xbox peripheral manufacturer Performance Designed Products, and beg-ged for some help (see right for details).

Start with a strong bagChoosing our backpack wasn’t easy. We needed something with structure, but a true hard shell was going to be difficult to work with. After a bit of searching, we found the Boblbee Amphib Pro 30, a bright-orange, lightweight, ultra-modern-looking dry-bag/backpack combo constructed of ballistic nylon with foam backing (see boblbee.com). Strong, yet easy to cut holes into, the Amphib Pro was also just big enough to fit an Xbox – in other words, barely big enough to fit anything else, including our hands. As you can imagine, it’s fairly difficult to work in such tight quarters, so all of the constituent com-ponents, the wiring and the assembly sequence had to be decided upon and planned out before we hard-mounted anything inside the pack.

We knew we could get the Xbox into the backpack, but what good is an Xbox without a screen? (That’s a rhetorical question – you need a screen.) At first, we took the easy route and bought a battery-powered 17 cm Viore portable TV (South African equivalents go for around R1 100). This el cheapo set lacks hi-def inputs – sporting only a composite video minijack – but hi-def is a rarity at this screen size. Plus, the Viore has a built-in tuner for on-the-road TV watching as well. More important-ly, it was small enough to be installed in one of the few crevices of unused space in the pack, so we cut a screen-sized hole in the back of the pack to fit it in.

A screen mounted to the pack is nice to have, but it didn’t seem like the optimal solution. After all, you’d need to take off the backpack to play a game. Our quest for a truly mobile game-playing experience led us to the unwieldy piles of neglected gadgets in our lab, where a quick dig revealed an additional option – the Myvu Crystal personal media viewer. Essentially a pair of opaque glasses with tiny, built-in 640 x 480-pixel screens, the Myvu display had always seemed to us like a technology in search of a practical application. Now, combined with our completely impractical creation, it sort of makes sense. (At least, it does until one of us walks into a bus while playing Gears of War.)

When in doubt, use VelcroAs you might expect, it took many hours of trial and error and a few emergency trips to a nearby home centre and elec-

tronics supplier to wire, bolt, Velcro and tape it all together. We had to make some compromises: our 5-kg battery pack was too big to fit inside, so we strapped it to the exterior, making our high-tech bag resemble a World War II radio back-pack. And at 12 ¼ kilograms total, the backpack is no picnic to carry around. Yet, astoundingly, it works.

We’ll end with a note of warning and a surprising bit of encouragement to

anyone who dares attempt a mobile Xbox system: first, prepare your extensor muscles – your lower back is not going to thank you for this project. Second, if you are willing to lug this thing around, you really can take a fully networked enter-tainment system with you. We were able to play games as well as watch movies and even TV outside. It felt like being in a living room made of dirt. At least until the battery died. PM

Custom-designed juice box

The new Xbox 360 is a model of efficiency, specced to a maximum power draw of 135 watts. Our build, however, used an older model rated for 175 watts. The only off-the-shelf battery we could think of that could handle that kind of load was a gel-cell battery of the sort used to power scooters and electric wheel-chairs. But even that wouldn’t have worked, since the Xbox requires DC power at dual voltages (12-volt and 5-volt). We were in over

our heads, engineering-wise, so we called up Performance Designed Products (pdp.com), which designs accessories for game systems such as the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii, to enlist the expertise of the company’s battery experts. They tested the Xbox’s power profile, then designed a 12-cell lithium-polymer battery stack with a step-up circuit and voltage regu-lator tuned to the Xbox 360’s power require-ments. It powers our Xbox backpack for 2 to 3 hours per charge. According to PDP product developer Gerry Block, a talented DIYer could put one together, but at a US cost of R24 000, he probably wouldn’t want to.

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Customer Contact Centre 0860 726 786. www.samsung.com/za

Samsung introduces its most advanced monitor yet.

The new Samsung LED 70 Series. With eRGB that recognises

the original picture quality and corrects your screen

accordingly as well as Magic Lux which decreases eye fatigue,

you won’t want to take your eyes off it.

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[ ]FEATURE

At fi rst, the news that our red-eye fl ight had been delayed was mildly irritating. (For some, make that intensely irritating.) Compensatory breakfast vouchers helped stave

off the hunger pangs, but did nothing for missed appointments.Th en, a not entirely unexpected thing happened: laptops were

hauled out of briefcases and backpacks. Smartphones clicked, fl icked and slid open. Heads hunched over netbooks and e-readers.

Dead time had become Liquid Time.And nearly everybody is doing it. Research fi ndings show that

half those surveyed would feel lost without their mobile device – and an astonishing nine out of every 10 actually get a kick out of using their devices to perform the little tasks that grease the wheels of everyday existence. You know, like Facebook and Mxit.

Th anks to the ready availability of good on-the-go broadband connections, whether by free Wi-Fi or the cellphone network, today’s urban warriors are seldom far from their virtual work-place. Technology has kept pace with the hunger for constant connectivity, with a proliferation of compact, and extremely smart, devices capable of keeping up with the world via Facebook, Twitter, and webmail.

It’s all become part of everyday, ordinary life. Says Zinhle Modiselle, the South and sub-Saharan Africa spokesman for the world’s leading PC chipmaker, Intel: “Constantly on the move, you quickly check Facebook, briefl y scan Twitter, take a call, work on a spreadsheet, dash to a meeting, phone day care, make

Go with the flowMicro-tasking, whenever and wherever it

happens to be convenient, is becoming an

increasingly important part of effective

modern living. It’s been dubbed Liquid Time.

> B Y A N T H O N Y D O M A N

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a doctor’s appointment, and write an e-mail to a colleague, all the while planning for dinner tonight and preparing for tomor-row’s presentation. Welcome to Liquid Time.”

As the world becomes more connected, as computers, cellphones and eBook readers become a way of life, as communication and collaboration reaches new heights, the demands placed on our human brains increase exponentially, Modiselle says.

Now here’s a situation developing: we spend so much time “busy” with these devices that the very act of using them assumes more importance than what they actually do for us. We become gadget-junkies, addicted to organising and connecting with our virtual world, while real-world tasks mount up.

“Th at some of these new avenues of communication and col-laboration can be seen as time-wasters is telling in itself. Many are somewhat ‘addictive’, demanding our time and attention, even as real-world tasks continue to mount: balancing and some-times diff erentiating work and leisure is arguably more diffi cult than ever before,” says Modiselle.

Yet, somehow we’ve developed a coping mechanism – in many, it seems an innate ability – that Intel has dubbed Liquid Time.

“Liquid time is how we make optimal use of our available minutes and seconds,” Modiselle explains “We do this through micro-tasking – doing small things in between larger ones. Th ere is no longer necessarily a tightly delineated timeframe for indi-vidual tasks, tasks are mixed and matched, in no particular order.”

Th ink of micro-tasking as that time when you naturally fi t in some of your smaller tasks while doing something else. Th e next time you dash off a text message while waiting for a traffi c light to change, you’re making use of Liquid Time (you’re also doing something both risky and illegal, but we won’t go there now.)

And this is not just a handy theory. It’s borne out by an Intel-backed study of how people are coping in the modern connected world. Redshift Research quizzed more than 6 000 people in 14 EMEA countries (including South Africa) to see how they use their time.

Th e headline results:● 89 per cent consider themselves to be busy in life.● 91 per cent said that they fi nd task-switching enjoyable, stimulating or natural.● 93 per cent state that they achieve lots of useful little tasks within their day thanks to their mobile device.● 91 per cent see their device as a communication tool.● 88 per cent use their device to develop and maintain relationships.● 87 per cent would notice a diff erence to their lives without their mobile device.● 52 per cent would actually feel isolated without their device.● 79 per cent state that it’s important for them to be connected to online communities and interest groups on a daily basis.● 77 per cent state that the most common use for Liquid Time is e-mail.

Are these just a bunch of pathetic time-wasting losers who, unable to deal with actual real, live, people immerse themselves in the minutiae of the process instead of the big picture of human relations? It turns out they’re actually smart individuals with a head start on being truly productive, who put even the smallest pockets of time to good use.

I checked my own recent activities against some typical scenarios that Modiselle sketched.

“Stuck in a queue? Out comes the smartphone to catch the news and update social media.” Er… guilty as charged.

“Waiting for the plane to taxi? A quick instant message and SMS to friends or family.” Noooo… that person alongside must have been peeping over my shoulder.

“Meeting running late? Check the latest fi nancial indicators and fi re off an e-mail to a colleague.” Aha! Not the fi nancial indi-cators. Er… I was actually checking the weather forecast for tomorrow morning’s run.

In a way, it’s an intriguing thought that micro-tasking is not simply arbitrary, unconnected activities. Nor is it (in the main) time-wasting. As devices proliferate and get smarter, and we ourselves get smarter about using Liquid Time, it’s becoming more intertwined with our lives, more and more a de facto way we operate.

Which makes Liquid Time, says Modiselle, rather an appropriate term for this approach to the frenetic modern way of life. “With Liquid Time, you tend to go with the fl ow. To get the most out of your day, it isn’t strictly planned. Liquid Time arguably gives the mind the freedom of fl exibility, innovation with time use and – with the aid of the smartphones and other gadgets we’ve taken to carrying with us – the ability to make the most of every minute.”

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go shopping. I don’t actually need to buy anything, but waiting in those interminable checkout queues gives me plenty of time for catching up on my e-mails. PM

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> B Y S E T H P O R G E S

D I G I T A L C L I N I C Q+A

A Maybe it’s the Muzak, or the endless hold times, or the countless options.

But there are few things as dehumanising as finding yourself in phone limbo while a company fetches a tech-support or cus-tomer-service rep. Fortunately, with a few tricks – and a little assist from technology – you can shorten your wait.

First step is to make sure you’re calling the best possible number. The number published prominently on the website is more likely to lead you into a Kafkaesque labyrinth than toward a human voice. In the rather more customer-oriented USA, the Web site GetHuman.com helps find the best number to call for just about any company. The site will also give company-specific tips for getting a person on the line. LucyPhone.com takes it even further – not only does the site include a data-

if you’re feeling particularly salty and aren’t around any children, yell curse words. If the system thinks you are partic-ularly PO’d, it will send you to an operator rather than let you smoulder. So view it as therapy: The angrier you sound, the better service you’ll receive.

Another trick: If you are asked to “press 1” for English or “2” for another language, press “2”. The wait for non-English oper-ators is usually far shorter, and they are almost always bilingual, in case somebody accidentally presses the wrong button. Lastly, there may be few things on earth more frustrating than waiting on hold for an hour, only to have your call dropped the minute you finally get somebody on the line. So give the operator your phone number and tell them to call you back if you get disconnected. It could save you a lot of agitation.

KINECT COMPATIBLE Q I was at a store and saw one of

those slimmer, new black Xbox 360 systems. On the box, it said it was “Kinect Ready”. Does that mean my older Xbox 360 won’t work with the Kinect gesture-controlled interface?

A Microsoft’s Kinect interface – which trades out physical controllers for

flailing limbs – may be new, but there’s no need to toss out your old Xbox 360 just yet. A quick call to Microsoft confirmed that all existing Xbox 360s – whether they rolled off the assembly line in 2005 or in 2010 – can handle the add-on. The newer black consoles, however, still offer some advantages over the older machines – they use less power than their ancestors and take up less shelf space.

DRAG, DROP, SAVEQ I heard that Gmail now offers the

ability to save attachments by drag-ging and dropping them from my Web browser. I tried this, and it didn’t work. What could be going wrong?

A I love Gmail’s new drag-and-drop feature, which allows you to save

e-mail attachments just by clicking the file, then dragging it from the Web browser into a desktop folder. Problem is, at least for now, it works only in Google’s Chrome Web browser. So if the feature doesn’t seem to be working, you’re probably using Firefox or Safari. This is a noted contrast to a similar feature Google added to Gmail back in April – the ability to add attachments to e-mails by drag-ging and dropping them into the Web browser – which works across multiple browsers. PM

So you want to get a human on the line?Q

I hate, hate, hate waiting on hold for tech support and customer service. Any tips for getting past those incredibly annoying delays?

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base of company contact numbers, but it actually does the waiting for you. When you select the company you want to call and enter your number on the site, it makes the call, then rings you back when it finally gets somebody on the line, allowing you to jump in at the last minute. Maybe some day South Africa will catch up...

Once you’ve discovered the best number, the next step is to reach a real person. Repeatedly bashing the “0” but-ton often gets the job done, as does pressing nothing at all (this tricks the system into thinking you have a rotary phone – remember those? – and often causes it to bump you to an operator. If you’re dealing with a voice-controlled phone system, you can also repeatedly say “representative” or “operator” or,

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> B Y J A Y L E N O

> P I C T U R E B Y J O H N L A M M

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From one Hollywood icon to another: Leno in a Doble once owned by Howard Hughes.

One of my heroes was a guy named Abner Doble, an engineering genius and a perfectionist, who built his

fi rst steam car when he was in high school. Later, as an MIT student in 1911, Abner built a steamer with a condenser that turned vapour into reusable water; not even the Stanley Steamer had that range-extending feature.

Some years later, Abner, with assistance from his three brothers, founded the Doble Steam Motors Corporation. But he was a much better engineer than business-man; his outfi t built just 36 cars from 1922 to 1931. I own two of them, both 1925 Model Es. One is a sedan, chassis No. 18. The other car, a roadster with

chassis No. 20, was once owned by Howard Hughes.

My Dobles are only two cars apart, but they are vastly different because Abner constantly tinkered with the car’s design and mechanics. They say this incessant re-engineering meant that each model cost over R370 000 to develop. At a time when a Model T sold for the equivalent of R1 750, the Doble cost about R135 000, which would be roughly R1,7 million today. And that was a big problem, even for what was, by 1925, the best steam car on the road.

Plus, Abner was doggedly pursuing steam propulsion when all signs pointed to the internal combustion engine as the powerplant of the future. He was, in

Magnificent obsession: the Doble steam car

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J A Y L E N O ’ S G A R A G E

S T E A M D R E A M S


effect, perfecting the VHS tape when DVDs had just been released.

Abner could indulge himself because money wasn’t initially an issue. His grandfather made a fortune selling tools to gold miners and his father perfected a power-generating water turbine. Financial troubles, however, eventually dogged the company. The brothers bick-ered and sued each other. Abner was convicted and then acquitted on appeal in a stock manipulation scandal. I think he was a lot like Preston Tucker. He sin-cerely wanted to build a good car, but some of his practices were questionable.

At least Doble’s customers got an incredibly sophisticated automobile for their money. Superheated steam from an 80-bar front-mounted boiler drives a four-cylinder double-compound engine, which in turn powers the rear axle via a set of spur gears. The engine’s high- and low-pressure cylinders reuse steam as it goes between the cylinder pairs, maxim-ising effi ciency. There are also complex water and oil pumps, a powerful 1-kilo-watt electrical system to run the 0,6 kW blower, pumps, lights and ignition, and a number of quartz rods that automatically regulate the steam temperature.

Unlike a Stanley, where you need a match or some other fl ame to fi re up the boiler, the Doble self-ignites. The starting process begins by turning the key and pulling up the fl oor-mounted water-pump knob. There’s a ticktickticktick from the water pump as it pressurises the coils and pushes out air bubbles, generating 20 to 35 bar in seconds. Push the water-pump knob back down, turn on the ignition: zzzzoooouuuuu! Now you have fi re, which can be fed by a variety of fuels, usually paraffi n.

Tubes coiled inside the fi rebox hold about four litres of water and provide a lot of surface area for quick heat transfer. That, combined with about 2 million kilo-joules of heat, quickly builds up steam, and you can pull away within a minute.

Since the crankshaft drives the rear wheels, there’s no transmission and therefore no shifting. Open the hand throttle and acceleration from a dead stop is smooth and continuous. The Doble just continues to pull all the way. It only has about 110 kW, but the torque output is huge: 3 000 N.m at the rear

wheels. If you’re on a hill, you just keep your fi nger on the throttle lever and it holds the car right there. Once it’s up and cooking, the fuel is burned almost completely, like a propane torch, so when it’s running, visible emissions are minimal.

Care and maintenance are very labour-intensive, but as the owner’s manual states, “Your man can do that.”

My roadster came from the Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, California. The late JB Nethercutt paid 10 guys for two years to restore it to exactly what Abner intended. I’d had my eye on it for 20 years. Dobles are like any other rare artwork. You say you’re interested, and decades go by. And you either get a phone call or you don’t.

Hughes’s old car came very complete, so there have been just a few fi ttings to replace. Dobles have to be surgically clean and airtight to eliminate power losses through leaks; they need to hold a vacuum so the water returns to the boiler when everything cools down.

I’ve driven this car more miles than it’s been driven in many years, and it pulls away faster than you’d ever think possible in an 85-year-old car. But its steering is slow and heavy. We’re trying different lubricants, and we think the steering box will loosen up. And like most cars of its era, it didn’t come with front brakes. I call the Doble’s binders the antistop brakes: they slow the car a little, but since there’s no engine braking, they’re scary. I’m going to install front brakes.

The smoothness and force of the acceler-ation, however, never fail to amaze me – it’s like the Hand of God pushing you along. I was running at nearly 140 km/h the other day, and there was more to go. It’s dead silent on the road, just wooooooooshhhhhh!!! Back in the day, Hughes was clocked at 213 km/h on a Texas highway, faster than anything with an internal combustion engine. It proves what I’ve always believed: the last days of an old technology are almost always better than the fi rst days of a new technology. PM

Below: Among the Doble’s many innovative features was a primitive turbocharger that augmented the electrically driven blower.

Right: The piston steam engine.

VIDEO > Visit www.popularmechanics.co.za for a closer look at Jay Leno’s 1925 Doble Series E Steam Car.

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The new Samsung RV510

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There’s more to the Samsung RV510 that meets the eye. With a

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ONE-DAY PROJECT


Rip this bench

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[ ]HOME

Carver: Jim BarnesChainsaws used:

Jonsered 2159, Husqvarna 142

Pro chain-saw carver Jim Barnes builds benches like this at fairs,

festivals – anywhere people appreciate raw, two-stroke artistry. ‘It

really is quite simple,’ Barnes says. ‘You’re releasing it from the log.’

MILL SEAT SLABS

➜ 1 “For me, it’s easier to stand the log on end to make vertical cuts,” Barnes says. He sinks a 1,8-metre log into a shal-low hole and uses a chain saw to mill two 75 mm slabs for use as a back and seat. To guide the cut, Barnes marks a line or follows a straight plank. Products such as the Accutech Micro Mill (accu-techinnovations.com), the Beam Machine (beammachine.com) or the Alaskan Chainsaw Mill (granberg.com) help control the tool. “Keep the tip of the

saw through the log,” Barnes says, to keep sawn faces smooth and avoid kick-back. He uses fi ve different saws. For deep cuts, he breaks out a big 86 cm3 Jonsered with a 60 cm bar. For detail work, Barnes has a petite 42 cm3 Husqvarna with a 30 cm “dime-tip” carv-ing bar (dinamark.co.za) and 6 mm chain.

CUT BENCH ENDS

➜ 2 Barnes makes a pair of bench ends by crosscutting the remainder of a 1,8-metre log half into two equal sections.

“The seat height should be 450 mm in front and 445 mm in back, to give a slight angle, which makes the bench more comfortable,” Barnes says. The seat meets the ends at their midpoints, making an armrest and a coaster big enough for a pitcher.

CARVE MORTISES AND TENONS

➜ 3 Barnes attaches the slabs to the ends with a fastener-free mortise and tenon. He marks and cuts horizontal and diago-nal slots, aka mortises, on the bench’s ends, to accept the slabs for the seat and back. He measures the mortises and carves corresponding pegs, or tenons, into the seat and back slabs’ ends. The tenons are stout – Barnes saws and chisels away only about 10 mm of material, leaving the slabs more than 50 mm thick. When the tenons slide tightly into the mortised ends, the bench is fi nished – “held together with gravity and friction,” Barnes says. PMC

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[ ]NEW BLOCK> Headl ines f rom around the automot ive wor ld >>>

ON THE


BLUE IS THE NEW GREEN2011 VW TOUAREGThe launch of the new Touareg, in V6 turbodiesel form, coincides with the South African introduction of BlueMotion technology, VW’s “green” programme.

That programme involves, among other things, thermal energy management (essentially, a fancy term for disconnect-ing the water pump), start-stop technol-ogy, longer gearing and brake energy regeneration.

The Touareg will be followed in the first quarter of next year by similarly equipped models of the VW Polo, Golf and Tiguan. In fact, the BlueMotion ver-sion of the Polo, when it’s introduced here soon, will be the vehicle with the lowest carbon emissions – 89 g/km – avail-able new in South Africa. Incidentally, with the V6 diesel VW recommend using exclusively 50 ppm diesel fuel. A hybrid version is under consideration; it’s likely to see the light of day some time in 2011.

Such matters are hardly likely to be uppermost in the minds of

Touareg buyers. The large SUV seg-ment, home to

the likes of the

Mercedes ML, Mitsubishi Pajero and BMW X5, is heavily traded. When the Touareg was launched in 2004, there was a choice of 16 large SUVs; by the last quarter of 2010, this number had doubled.

The new Touareg brings a fresh, more chiselled appearance that reflects the VW “family” look. Oddly, it looks more com-pact than before, though it’s a little longer, wider and lower than its predecessor, with a bigger wheelbase. Overall weight has been slashed; quite remarkably, the original’s body weight alone has been trimmed by more than a quarter, and even more has been pared off the axles and drivetrain.

Performance is, no surprise, brisk, whether in V6 or V8 guise. (There will not be a V10 in this market, we were told.) Although the transmission is now 8-speed, ratios 7 and 8 are essentially overdrive; top speed is achieved in 6th gear, and there is a rear-wheel-drive bias. Off-road, tweaks include reduced acceler-ator travel (to 20 per cent of normal) when using downhill traction aids, to avoid accidentally stamping on the pedal, provoking jerkiness.

The ABS braking, optimised for off-road conditions, allows wheels to lock by letting a wedge build up in front of the wheels on soft ground, aiding stopping. Additional brake tech features rain brake support (the pads are automatically applied gently, “wiping” the discs dry) and fading brake support. To help prevent a roll-over, in hard cornering the outer wheels are locked to promote a skid that counters the roll movement.

Interior fitments and features are well in line with a premium SUV though, oddly, sat-nav is optional. There is no 7-seater at present, based on low demand in the past. Clever touches include programmable tail-gate opening height and optional “cargo management system” for the rear load area. The new panoramic tilt window in the roof was described as being “noiseless up to 300 km/h”. We decided against try-ing this out. Views from the car’s four cameras are combined to provide virtual bird’s-eye view to help aim it while park-ing; you can actually reverse right under a trailer’s tow-hitch.

V6 models start at R562 600; V8 prices were not available at launch time.

COMPILED BY ANTHONY DOMAN [email protected]

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MIND CHANGER2011 CADILLAC CTS-V

FREE* IPAD2011 HYUNDAI EQUUSAs Hyundai’s entry to the full-size luxury car market, the Equus (*with a likely US base price in the R375k ballpark) is the first – and so far only – car to include an iPad as standard fare. The Apple tablet is pre-loaded with an app that incorporates the car owner’s manual, which you’ll use to guide yourself through the operation of a lengthy amenities list highlighted by a massaging driver’s seat, adaptive cruise control and a 608-watt, 17-speaker Lexicon 7.1 audio surround system with HD radio. And that’s just the base model. Step up to the Ultimate trim level, and you get a reclining and massaging rear seat, a 20-cm LCD TV screen and a refrigerator. The rear wheels of the Equus are motivated by a 4,6-litre V8 engine producing 287 kW and 451 N.m on premium fuel. If you can pry yourself out of the rear seat, you’ll see that, in Sport mode, the Equus still feels more like a Lexus LS than a BMW 7 Series. But it’s in very good company. – Basem Wasef

VERSATILE TWIN2010 HONDA NT700VThe practical Honda NT700V is one sport-touring model that can be ridden daily. Its good-natured sus-pension damps out freeway irregularities with ease and the movable windscreen can be easily adjusted from the saddle.

A 680-cm3 52-degree fuel-injected V-twin paired to a five-speed gearbox routes 45 kW to the rear wheel via a maintenance-free shaft drive. The transmission and clutch take little effort to master, and thanks to the thrifty V-twin, the NT700V delivers great econo-my; we got 4,5 litres/100 km on a freeway cruise from the coast to the desert and back. The fuel tank holds 20 litres, with a 3,5-litre reserve – plenty for more than 300 blissful kilometres. – Ben Stewart

Cadillac wants to share shop-ping-list space with BMW and Mercedes, and what better way to achieve that than by spreading around a 415-kW V8? The 6,2-litre super-charged motor is available in the CTS-V sedan, wagon and

now this stunning coupé. Hooked to a six-speed trans-mission – manual or auto – the stout engine whips the two-door to 100 km/h in just 4 seconds and all the way to 305 km/h. That’s called serv-ing schnitzel to the Germans.

As fast as it is, the CTS-V coupé is sophisticated too, with adjustable shocks that remove the sting from hard-edged bumps and provide sure-footed handling. Thankfully, massive Brembo brakes are part of the recipe,

and they proved indefatiga-ble on Monticello Motor Club’s 6,6-kilometre road course in the USA. It’s a bit tight inside, especially the back seat, but high style doesn’t come cheap. – Mike Allen

[ ]WHEELS

POPULARMECHANICS.CO.ZA • NOVEMBER 2010 75

ON THE WEB > Download wallpaper images of a selection of these awesome cars at www.popularmechanics.co.za

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ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT2010 VOLVO S60 Thumping music, “Truth or Dare” games, tyre-smoking stunt drivers – yeah, this must be the… Volvo launch?

Can the archetypal sensible-shoes brand really be the automotive equiv-alent of the adrenaline rush? Frankly, the idea of luge pilots queuing up to take a drive in a Volvo seems unlikely. Changing lanes without indicating – that’s extreme sport in a Volvo.

But here’s the interesting thing: Volvo really can make cars that raise the hairs on your forearms, get your heart thumping faster and leave your throat a little dry. It’s made them for ages. Only now, it’s making more of them. And it’s making more of a song and dance about them.

The new S60, launched this week in George, looks sensational. There’s more of a fl ow to the coupé-like lines, more of a poised ready-for-action attitude, less of the chunky, sculpted rock-like look of the previous S60. And oh, does it go. Heading inland over the Robinson Pass from Mossel Bay, the 3-litre 224 kW/440 N.m T6 did the luxury sports express thing to a tee. One moment it’s a refi ned whoooosh; prod the right pedal, and there’s a delicious snarl as it despatches slow-moving traffi c. The ride is fi rm – even in the optional adaptable suspension’s Comfort mode (Sport and Advanced are the other settings) – without being noisy, and the car always feels thoroughly planted. The 5-cylinder diesel isn’t nearly as responsive, but once you’ve accustomed yourself to its meaty torque delivery it just simply fl ows up mountain passes at a superbly relaxed gait.

What really impressed, though, was

the 2-litre turbocharged Four, which develops 149 kW and 300 N.m. In nor-mal driving, you hardly miss the extra oomph of the Six. Volvo seems to have got the balance of this one just right.

Two chassis options are available; South African versions get the new dynamic chassis (the North American-spec comfort chassis involves differ-ences to dampers and front and rear subframes, with a softer setting for a smoother ride on poorer road surfaces).

Prices: from R355 500 (2,0 T manual) to R464 000 (T6 Geartronic).

Safety fi rst. Besides the attitude adjustment, the other big news with the S60 is the implementation of Pedestrian Detection with full auto brake. This world-fi rst technology is a development of the company’s radar-based City Safety auto-braking system, standard on the S60. City Safety avoids low-speed rear-enders by stopping the

car if the driver hasn’t reacted to an obstacle up ahead. The new Pedestrian Detection uses a combination of a radar unit in the grille and a camera fi tted near the interior rear-view mirror. The radar detects obstacles up ahead; the camera image helps the central processor determine what that obstacle is – and can activate full braking power to bring the car to a stop, at up to 35 km/h, if the driver doesn’t respond in time. Being wide-angle, the radar can even pick up a pedestrian (even a child) stepping off the kerb. Programmed into the technology is the ability to recognise a pedestrian’s pattern of movement and the likeli-hood of stepping into the road in front of the car.

Added to the range later will be a 176 kW/320 N.m T5, turbocharged 1,6-litre Fours, and two more lower-powered diesels.


Pedestrian Detection spots obstacle ahead, determines if it’s a pedestrian – and whether it’s likely to step in to your path.

[ ]WHEELS

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TIME FOR A CHANGE2010 SUBARU PETROL AND DIESEL ENGINESThe fi rst new-generation boxer petrol engine in more than two decades from Fuji Heavy Industries will be introduced on the Forester before being rolled out to the rest of the range. The last all-new design from Subaru’s parent company was back in 1989, when its second-generation boxer engine was introduced in the then-new Legacy. Horizontally opposed engines have become a Subaru characteristic since the Subaru 1000 in 1966.

Like the current horizontally opposed Four, the new unit will form the basis of Subaru engine strategy. Subaru claims improvements in both fuel effi ciency (about 10 per cent), dynamic performance across all speed ranges, and environ-ment friendliness. The engine has been designed with future “expandability” and upgrades in mind, particularly in regard to environmental measures.

The new design offers a signifi cantly longer stroke than the existing version, in 2,5-litre and 2,0-litre confi gurations. According to Subaru, the combination of compact combustion chamber and long stroke was diffi cult to achieve previously due to chassis mounting conditions in boxer petrol engines. Stated advantages of the new design include high combustion effi ciency and good mid-low speed torque with improved fuel effi ciency and practicality. Engine tech features aimed specifi cally at fuel effi ciency include optimised intake port confi guration, the use of partitions inside ports, TGV (Tumble Generated Valve), and an EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) cooler. AVCS (Active Valve Control System) is used on both intake and exhaust valves. For the intake side in particular, an intermediate lock system allows valve timing to be advanced or delayed for precise control over intake and exhaust valve timing, allowing maximum engine performance in output, fuel effi ciency and exhaust emission.

Lightweight moving parts, such as pistons and connecting rods, in conjunction with a more effi cient and compact oil pump, cut friction losses by about 30 per cent and improve responsiveness. Separate cooling circuitry for block and head also aids engine effi ciency.

And now… the diesel. The 2,0-litre common rail diesel used in the Subaru Outback 2.0D is described as the fi rst horizontally opposed compression-ignition powerplant designed specifi cally for passenger car use. Peak outputs are 110 kW at 3 600 r/min and 350 N.m, and CO2 emissions of 167 g/km. Overall fuel con-sumption is 6,3 litres/100 km.

The Outback 2.0D’s comprehensive luxury specifi cation ranges from full leather upholstery to dual-zone climate control with rear ventilation, steering satellite controls and Bluetooth-enabled audio system. Safety features include stability control, front, side and curtain airbags, front seatbelts with pre-tensioners and load-limiters, and ISOFIX child seat securing points.

Besides the now familiar all-wheel drive – standard on Subarus – the Outback features stability control, four-sensor/four-channel ABS, EBD, Brake-assist and self-levelling rear suspension. Towing capacity is 1,7 tons. Price: R399 000.


From top: New signature “double wave” accent lines stretch from nose to tail-lights; new sports seats with extra side support are standard and rear knee space is 30 mm better; optional cameras front and rear display on split-screen; City Safety can prevent rear-enders.

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It’s not just a Nokia Car Kit CK-200.

It’s a great conversationthat goes on for miles.

nokia.com/accessoriesAvailable at your local car fitment centre

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Pirelli-clad 19-inch black alloy wheels and C stripes aren’t the only extras on the 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302, which will hit US show-rooms next spring in limited numbers. Engineers overhauled the Mustang GT’s normally aspirated 5,0-litre engine with a freer-fl ow-ing intake and quad exhausts to make a very loud 328 kW. It should reach 100 km/h in the mid-four-second range and top 250 km/h. Along with engine mods, the Boss gets adjustable shocks, stiffer springs and beefi er Brembo brakes. A limited-slip differential and Recaro seats are optional, or standard on the even-more-limited Laguna Seca edition, which swaps out its rear seats for a crossbrace, among other track tweaks. “It’s basically a race car with a licence plate,” says Dave Pericak, Mustang’s chief engineer. – G E Anderson

THE BOSS IS BACK2012 FORD MUSTANG BOSS 302 PREVIEW

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NO HOLDING BACK2010 HYUNDAI SONATA


[ ]WHEELS

There’s no mistaking the steel that’s beginning to characterise Hyundai’s approach. And the thing is, it has every right to be assertive: as the world’s fourth-biggest car maker, Hyundai cer-tainly has the numbers to back up its claim to major-league status. What it has in addition to that now is a blend of quality and cosmopolitan style that, amazingly enough, has taken less than a decade to emerge. It’s no better illustrated than in the new Sonata.

The Sonata was always a solid middle-class citizen, content to mix it up with the Toyota Camrys of this world. Suddenly, it’s making a play for something greater. It’s not quite there, but this car could mark a turning point for Hyundai in the premium sedan area.

Just to look at it, you can’t fail to be impressed. This is one serious hunk of automotive real estate. The bold, flowing lines characteristic of new models such as the iX35 suggest a coupé; where previous Sonatas struggled to hide the flab, this one makes a virtue of bulk. Like we said, assertive.

Although bigger than its predecessor, it uses less fuel and produces fewer emissions. And, as well as being unmistakably bigger on the outside, the new Sonata offers out-standing roominess on the inside.

If the interior seems spacious to start off with, it feels positively cavernous when the new twin sunroof (standard on Executive models) is slid back. That’s all part of a classy trim package that blends piano black finishes with discreet alumini-um-style accents and dark leather. That’s beside, of course, the expected luxury and convenience features you’d expect, from climate control to power seat adjustment and

premium sound system.The new 2,4-litre Theta

II engine provides ample power for a car this size, though there’s no denying that a six-cylinder snarl would add a touch of class. That said, the ultra-refined Four wafts the Sonata along effortlessly – with just a distinctive rasp under hard acceler-ation. Peak outputs are 131 kW and 228 N.m, and CO2 emissions are 195g/km. The new 6-speed transmission (developed in-house), offers either fully automatic or sequential shifts via the shift lever or pad-dles mounted behind the steering wheel in the range-topping Executive variant. The interesting bit is what you don’t see: the new transmission has a unique flat torque-converter that helps keep it smaller and lighter, yet with three planetary gearsets and four pinion differentials it’s designed for durability, too. A hydraulic pressure control unit with multiple adjusting points is factory preset to compensate for minute manufacturing variations from one solenoid valve to the next, avoiding fluctuations in the quality of the shift itself.

The cosseting ride, floatier than some of the European competition, is managed by an all-inde-pendent set-up with coil struts in front and an all-aluminium multilink rear axle, with Amplitude

Selective Dampers – special shock absorbers that vary in stiffness or compliance depending on road conditions and dynamic requirements. Stability control with Brake Assist is standard, and there’s a total of six airbags. Prices: R279 900 (GLS) and R299 900 (Exec), which includes a 5 year/150 000 km warranty and Roadside Assistance plan and 5 year/ 90 000 km service plan.

Planet-friendly tech. The Eco Coach gives drivers fuel economy feedback via the dashboard’s LED information screen. In addition to this, an Intelligent Alternator System (AMS) decouples the alternator depending on battery charge state, saving fuel.

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0866-704-101

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[email protected]

Box 596, Howard Place, 7450

This price offer is valid until 31 December 2010 and for South African subscribers only. To receive our FREE weekly e-newsletter please log on to www.popularmechanics.co.za and subscribe. For foreign rates and other great offers please visit www.magsathome.co.za

To subscribe for twelve months at only R180 and be entered into the BioFire competition, contact us with this code: 10/12/SP/PM

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It’s the time of year for giving. So – we’re giving you 6 FREE issues of POPULAR MECHANICS magazine with every 6 issues you purchase – that’s a massive saving of R179! So treat everyone you know to a gift that gives all year – and don’t forget yourself! This is a treat you can’t afford to miss out on!

PLUS all subscribers to this offer will automatically be entered to WIN one of 2 Wallfi res (including 12 litres of Biofuel) valued at R6 480 each, or one of seven Mini Orbit BioFires (including 4 litres of Biofuel) valued at R1 795 each!

BioFires stylishly compliment room décor and provide supplementary heating for any room or patio. The Wallfi res are fi xed, wall-mounted, ventless fi replaces. The glass cylinder housing of the Mini Orbits makes these portable. They both house a dancing fl ame which creates a beautifully warm focus point in any home. Biofi res are environmentally friendly, using BioFuel, which is an eco-friendly fuel derived from cultivated crops and burns a bright fl ame that does not produce any smoke, fumes or odour.

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When it comes to traversing great distances at highway speeds, the diesel engine’s higher compression ratios and lean-burn combustion provide an effi -ciency that no petrol engine can cur-rently match – at least not without a major assist from an expensive hybrid system. Over the diesel’s operating range, the average thermodynamic effi -ciency – how much work the engine produces from the fuel – is in the mid 30 per cent range, at least 15 per cent better than a petrol engine. Not even close, right?

The reality is that this lead is shrinking. As emissions regulations stiffen, diesels are slowly losing their edge; the same pricey after-treatment systems that scrub diesel exhausts also happen to crimp effi ciency. Meanwhile, petrol engines continue to improve.

“There is certainly a convergence in effi ciency levels between petrol and diesel engines,” says Uwe Grebe, GM’s director of global advanced engineering. “While diesels will always maintain a slight advantage, the gap will nearly close in as little as 10 years.”

Over the past decade, once-exotic effi ciency-enhancing hardware such as variable camshaft timing, direct fuel injection and turbochargers have become commonplace on spark-ignited engines. Certainly, these technologies aren’t new, but incremental improve-ments in electronics and materials have pulled them into the mainstream. And there’s more on the way, such as lean-

burn combustion and homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI), a petrol-combustion technology that blurs the line between petrol and diesel engine cycles. Ricardo is working on a turbo-charged engine that uses E85, a lofty compression ratio and high boost levels to achieve diesel-like effi ciency. Rod Beazley, Ricardo’s VP of spark-ignited engines, boasts that “our ethanol-boosted concept engine achieves thermal effi ciency in the low 40 per cent range”.

But don’t expect the diesel engine to lie down and play dead. “We’ll continue to see incremental improvements in diesel effi ciency,” says Marc Trahan, Audi’s North American director of quality and technology. “It won’t be as large as going from sequential port fuel injection to direct injection, but there are still more gains to be made.” Trahan says these smaller gains will come from hardware such as variable valve timing and independent cylinder combustion control, as well as improved after-treat-ment systems.

Moreover, there are other factors in play. As GM’s Grebe points out, diesel fuel contains about 14 per cent more energy by volume than petrol. This gives compression-ignition engines a signifi cant edge in fuel economy, as opposed to thermal effi ciency. Of course, everything will change if and when spark-ignited engines switch to more energy-dense fuels. This race is far from over.

WINE without ice?

Whoever made that rule

is probably freezing his

hooves off in Europe.

We live in Africa guys.

It’s hot out here. If your

wine is too, chill it.

A different take on wine.

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ENGINE WARS: PETROL VS DIESELTHE DIESEL ENGINE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MOST EFFICIENT INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE AVAILABLE, BUT THANKS TO NEW TECHNOLOGY, THE PETROL ENGINE IS QUICKLY CATCHING UP. By Rex Roy


Audi 2,0-Litre diesel engine

Ford EcoBoost petrol engine

vs

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A different take on wine.

356/cs/eWHY should wine be

left to mature? Surely

wine should be ready to

drink whenever you’re

ready to drink?

How hot can a hatch get before it has to wear a health warning? Wringing 184 kW and 340 N.m out of a two-litre turbo engine, the Mégane RS is the latest in a range of scorching small per-formance cars from Renault. It comes with either a standard Sport chassis or the more race-oriented Cup chassis with limited slip diff.

The RS is based on the Coupé version of the popular hatchback, with huge 19-inch wheels in Cup trim (18-inch in standard).

Its in-your-face exterior is paired with an equally striking interior, which has dark carbon trim, “Sport Yellow” detail-ing, aluminium accents and Renault Sport leather seats (Recaro seats with integral side airbags and competition harness slots on the Cup).

The RS engine is an update of the powerplant employed in the previous Mégane F1 Team R26. Key differences include a twin-scroll turbocharger for better low-rev response, continuously variable valve timing and revised fuel injection mapping. A 6-seed manual gearbox is standard.

Quoted performance figures are 0-100 km/h in 6,1 seconds, standing kilo-metre in 25,7 seconds and a top speed limited to 250 km/h. With all that, the Mégane RS returns combined fuel con-sumption of 8,4 l/100 km and CO2 exhaust emissions of 195 g/km.

The Sport chassis is 10 mm lower than the standard Coupé’s, with uprated damper and spring ratings. The Cup chassis improves on the Sport’s roll stiff-ness by 15 per cent-up: it has a thicker front anti-roll bar, stiffer rear settings and, of course, a limited slip differential plus those 19-inch wheels for better traction.

The go-faster brigade will probably be captivated by the Renault Sport Monitor, which displays real-time data that includes power, torque and turbo pres-sure, transverse and longitudinal acceler-ation, as well as a stopwatch with a lap timer, and key performance figures such as 0-100 km/h, 400-metre and 1-km standing start times. It also allows the driver to modify the car’s responses electronically. Prices: R349 900 (Sport) and R399 900 (Cup).

PREPARE TO BE SCORCHED RENAULT MÉGANE RS

REFINED HAULER 2011 HONDA ODYSSEYThe new fourth- generation Odyssey is a buffed version of the outgoing edition, which was already the best handling and driving minivan. As before, it rides on a 3-metre wheelbase, but it’s a touch shorter and 53 mm wider. The suspension’s controlled ride motions and superb steering feel remain the Odyssey’s greatest assets – it’s sometimes hard to believe this is a van. Honda’s Variable Cylinder Management (VCM) is now

standard on every model’s 185-kW 3,5-litre V6. The Touring grade gets a new six-speed automatic, which helps boost fuel econ-

omy to 12,5/8,4 litres per 100 km – the best of the line-up. There isn’t a bad seat in the Odyssey

house. Each of the eight passengers gets a comfortable perch and cup holder, and there’s a range of entertainment options. Prices shouldn’t differ much from 2010’s. – John Pearley Huffman PM


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PICTURE BY JAMES WORRELL

T R E A C H E R O U S

WATERSBY KALEE THOMPSON

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U N A C C E P TA B L E R I S KA P O P U L A R M E C H A N I C S I N V E S T I G AT I O N

YEAR AFTER YEAR, COMMERCIAL FISHING RANKS AS AMERICA’S MOST LETHAL JOB. BUT DESPITE THE SPECTACULAR SCENES CAUGHT

ON TV, THE REAL CATCH DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DEADLY.

IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT ON 22 OCTOBER 2008 when lifelong Alaska fi sherman Guy Schroder was woken up in his bunk on board the F/V Katmai. “Guy, we’ve got problems,” crewman Carlos Zabala told the 50-year-old deck boss. “We’ve lost steering.”

Schroder rushed up to the wheelhouse of the 22 m factory cod boat, a vessel he had been working on for just a few months. The captain was at the helm, struggling to control the con-verted shrimp trawler in 10 m seas. Outside, the wind was blowing close to 160 km/h. Schroder noticed that a watertight door at the ship’s stern had been left open, allowing crashing

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seawater to flood into the ship’s processing space. He could tell that the motors were already under water.

As the captain issued the order to aban-don ship, Schroder scrambled to pull on a full-body neoprene survival suit and to help launch one of the Katmai’s two life rafts. By the time the vessel capsized just minutes later, seven of the ship’s 11 crew members had made it inside Schroder’s raft, a circular, tent-like shelter that had been manufactured almost three decades earlier.

“Then, ka-whoom!” the fisherman later recounted for Coast Guard investigators. “Everybody got knocked and thrown in all directions. It was pitch black – and ka-blam! Another wave came, and it flipped the raft upside down.” All seven men ended up submerged in the 6° ocean, fighting to make their way back to the overturned raft. “Now you can’t see the raft’s light,” Schroder recalled. “All you can hear is screaming, and crying for help.”

The dangers of commercial fishing are the stuff of modern legend. Fans of the blockbuster book and film, The Perfect Storm, and popular reality-TV shows such as Deadliest Catch and Swords: Life on the Line would hardly be surprised by the fact that nearly every year, America’s Bureau of Labour Statistics ranks commercial fishing as that country’s most lethal job. Adjusted to the size of the workforce, the 2008 fatality rate for US fishermen was five times that of truck drivers, eight times that of police officers and 19 times that of firefighters.

Tragedies at sea are often viewed as uncontrollable acts of God. Until a couple of decades ago, marine-supply stores offered steel-soled boots as standard gear: inevitable death at sea was so ingrained in many fishermen’s attitudes that, when the worst happened, they just wanted to sink quickly to the bottom. The truth is that – except in the popular imagination – an “angry ocean” is almost never the primary cause of fatal accidents.

Instead, the industry’s high mortality rate is the result of an unromantic but entirely preventable mix of flawed decision-mak-ing, inadequate survival training, poorly maintained safety equipment and a lack of government oversight that allows US

fishing boats to sink at the rate of one every three days.

Between 1992 and 2007, a staggering 1 903 American commercial fishing vessels sank, according to a comprehensive US Coast Guard report. As a direct result, 507 people died, accounting for more than half of the 934 commercial fishing deaths during that 16-year period. Most of the remaining fatalities were due to falls overboard or a variety of grisly equipment-related accidents.

It’s no coincidence that the number of lost boats and lives is far higher for fishing than for any other type of waterborne industry. Passenger ferries, cargo ships and virtually all other commercial boats are held to much higher regulatory standards. All but the largest factory-style fishing vessels remain uninspected, which means that ensuring a boat’s seaworthiness – including the strength of its hull, the sta-bility of its design and the integrity of its watertight compartments – is solely up to the ship’s owners. The only federal law governing fishing-boat safety mandates survival equipment for what should happen after an accident occurs.

“The level of fishing vessel safety stand-ards is analogous to requiring parachutes for an aircraft crew, but only marketing voluntary measures to encourage a mech-anically sound aircraft and a competent pilot and crew,” wrote the authors of a 1999 Coast Guard-commissioned report on fishing fatalities. “It’s tragic,” says Richard Hiscock, a fishing- policy expert and former fisherman. “We’ve been trying to get fishing vessels inspected since the 1940s. If you stop to think about how many families would not have been torn apart had we done that, it’s mind-boggling.”

Hiscock helped to draft legislation, now languishing in Congressional committee, that is crucial to lowering fishing’s unaccept-able death toll. If the bill passes, the new regulations would require Coast Guard inspections for all fishing boats of more than 15,2 m, as well as stronger construc-tion requirements for new boats, more stringent regulations for officer licencing, and mandatory crew training. Meanwhile, boats keep sinking.

In March 2009, the 21,6 m scalloper Lady Mary sank 105 km off the New Jersey

coast, taking the lives of six of the seven men on board. Although the Coast Guard investigative report has yet to be released, it’s evident that, as in the majority of vessel losses, a cascade of human errors and events contributed to the death toll on the scalloper, which was part of a fleet that – along with the northeast ground-fishery, the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery and the Dungeness crab fleet in Oregon – has recently proven even more deadly than the infamous Alaskan fisheries.

“One of the biggest commonalities comes down to just being lazy with your operations,” says Coast Guard Commander Kyle McAvoy. Take the case of the Alaska Ranger, a 56 m trawler that sank in the Bering Sea in 2008. The ship flooded from the bottom up, and when the rising water shorted out the electrical system, the massive boat shifted into reverse.

Although it was possible to kill the engines from the wheelhouse, the ship’s officers weren’t trained to do so. As a result, the crew was forced to enter the life rafts from a moving vessel. More than half failed – and five ultimately died.

Operator error also played a significant

The 22 m Katmai in Seattle’s Ballard Locks. On 22 October 2008, a series of human and structural failures caused the factory cod boat to flood and sink in the Bering Sea.

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I N D U S T R Y S A F E T Y : H O W T O I M P R O V E T H E O D D S

Problem: By the time the general alarm sounded on the Alaska Ranger in March 2008, flood-ing that started in the rudder room had spread to the trawler’s second level. The crew quickly realised it was too late to control it, and abandoned ship. Of the 47 people on board, 42 sur-vived. As in many deadly sinkings, the Alaska Ranger was doomed in part by its lack of watertight integrity.

Problem: Seas were calm on the night in July 2009 that a crew member on board the 18 m Texas shrimper Wylie Milam discovered that 47-year-old Juan Lara was missing. A 51-hour Coast Guard search that covered 7 000 square kilometres failed to find him. Lara was one of 155 US fishermen who died after fall-ing off their vessels between 2000 and 2009 – more than half were alone on deck at the time.

Problem: When Yasumi Abe got tangled in a net and was pulled overboard from the Bering Sea ground-fish trawler Alaska Warrior in July 2009, he was not wearing a personal flotation device (PFD). In fact, not one of the 155 man-overboard deaths in the past decade involved a PFD. The crew spotted Abe, cling-ing to the net, but he quickly vanished. The shock of cold seas often causes victims to suck in water and sink.

Solution:Quick-closing watertight doors – dogged with a sin-gle turn of a wheel or push of a lever – would be a life-saving upgrade from the cumber-some models on many ships. Proper maintenance and training is critical. According to surviving Alaska Ranger crew members, there was a company culture of leaving watertight doors open at sea. Wheel- house alarms that alert officers to doors left ajar can act as an important backup.

Solution: A handful of marine-supply companies now manufacture com-pact, wireless sen-sors designed to be worn in a pocket or clipped to work gear. The sensors activate automati-cally if submerged in seawater and set off an alarm in the wheelhouse, alerting crew mates to the emergency. For a solo sailor, some models will kill a boat’s engine after a fall into water – often a fisherman’s only hope of getting back on board and out of the ocean alive.

Solution: With adequate flo-tation, most people can survive at least an hour, even in the coldest waters. For a recent field study, more than 250 fishermen tested modern PFDs. The winners? The Mustang Survival Inflatable Work Vest, which blows up automatically with water pressure, and the Regatta Fisher-man’s Oilskins, a European-made rain-gear brand with foam built into the bib of the coveralls. Both were deemed easy to get on, easy to clean and unob-trusive to wear.

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seas more than two days before the disas-ter, he delayed the decision to head for shelter. The onboard weather fax that would have delivered regular updates and satellite images of the worsening conditions was down. It was out of ink and set to a frequency in Hawaii, the captain later told investigators.

Although the Katmai had watertight doors, they were not in good condition, and the crew often left them open at sea. A crack in the hull had been repaired improperly. That breach, the Coast Guard investigation determined, might have been the source of the initial flooding.

Like dozens of other boats now decaying on the ocean floor, the Katmai had been converted for a new type of fishing with-out an updated stability report, prepared by a qualified marine architect, that would have advised the crew on how to safely load the boat. (For boats of less than 24 m, there is no requirement for such a report, though there should be.) The ship’s final report dated back two conversions, to 1996, and assumed a maximum 27 000 kg of fish in the hold. At the time of the sinking, there were more than 54 000 kg of cod on board and at least 7 000 kg of cod pots on deck.

“There was guidance on board for the captain to follow,” says Coast Guard Commander Malcolm McLellan, whose report on the Katmai disaster recommend-ed that captains be licenced and that they be required to undergo stability training. “He knew he exceeded that. He doubled it. As they say, fishing was good, and they just put it in the hold.”

The second wave that hit Guy Schroder’s life raft took the roof with it. Several men were thrown right through the protective covering, which also serves as a beacon to searchers above. Although the lost canopy had been bright orange, the rest of the raft was grey and black, making it even more difficult for the ejected fishermen to find their way back to the shelter as they fought through raging, three-storey waves.

“You got these huge, breaking seas that are just taking everything out with them,” Schroder recalls. “Our raft had little or no ballast bags. We were getting thrown out of it all night and somehow finding it again in the pitch dark. I’m not just talking

about three or four flips; I’m talking about all night long, for hours and hours.”

Despite the obvious shortcomings of the Katmai’s survival gear, the equipment was perfectly acceptable by legal standards. “It’s crazy,” says Jennifer Lincoln, an injury epidemiologist and commercial fishing safety expert with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. “A 1980 life raft should not be able to be

1. Wear a life jacket. US Coast Guard studies show that nine out of 10 drowning victims weren’t wearing a personal flotation device. Of those who drowned with a jacket on, many wore models that didn’t keep their heads out of the water.

2. Invest in a marine radio. A cell-phone isn’t reliable at sea. A quality radio is affordable, provides weather updates, can be synced to your boat’s GPS, and has a button that lets you send an automatic mayday call.

3. File a float plan. Be sure to let some-one know where you are headed and when you’ll return – then stick to it.

4. Stay sober. Excessive drinking impairs judgment and depth perception, leading to 16 per cent of all fatal boat accidents.

Some of the hazards that make commercial fishing so dangerous can also prove deadly

to anyone who spends time on the water. More than 700 Americans died in recreational boating accidents last year – many of them preventable.

role in the loss of the Big Valley, an Alaskan crab boat that went down in 3° seas in January 2005. Although the Coast Guard had a mandatory dockside inspection pro-gramme for Bering Sea crabbers, the Big Valley’s captain dodged his examination and left port with almost twice as many pots piled on deck as his ship could safely carry, which left the boat top-heavy and unstable. It capsized and sank. Just one of the six men on board survived – a crew member who had chosen to sleep with his own personal survival suit stowed safely by his bed.

As for the New Jersey scalloper Lady Mary, survivor testimony and examination of the wreck indicate that flooding started in the stern and spread quickly, most likely as a result of compromised watertight boundaries in the vessel. “Once you get progressive flooding, you’re in trouble,” McAvoy says. “What would prevent that? It’s training, maintaining your watertight hatches, the crew knowing to keep water-tight doors shut in certain conditions – somebody making sure they’re keeping them shut.”

Though further Coast Guard oversight of fishing fleets could eliminate many of the egregious structural and mechanical problems that sink a lot of ships, improving the attitudes, traditions and safety culture among fishing-boat officers and their crews is just as critical. After the Lady Mary dis-aster, lawyers for the ship’s owner (whose two sons, one of them the boat’s captain, died when it sank) argued that a passing cargo ship hit the vessel.

No obvious physical evidence of such a collision has been found. But even if another vessel was involved, it’s hard to explain how an alert captain or watch stander would not have spotted an approaching container ship in time to make an adequate mayday call. That is, until you consider that autopsy reports found both the captain and his brother had marijuana in their systems when they died.

An inexorable progression of errors doomed the Katmai, the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation found. Any one of them would have placed the ship and its crew in harm’s way; together, they were a death sentence. Although the Katmai’s captain had received a weather forecast of hurricane-force winds and 7 m

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northern seas. The suits need expiry dates, Lincoln argues. They should also be equip-ped with small but powerful strobe lights and personal locator beacons with GPS.

And life rafts? They should meet the standards set by the international Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) treaty, meaning large ballast pockets, a reliable sea anchor and doorway ramps to help people board the raft from the water.

Then there’s training. “Fishermen have to know how to use their equipment,” says Lincoln, who has found an association between survivors and those who have completed formal safety courses. “If you are going to go fish, at a minimum you should have an 8-hour marine-safety class on cold-water survival.”

Sixteen harrowing hours passed before an HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter spotted the life raft with Guy Schroder and just three other fishermen remaining inside. Coast Guard rescuers airlifted the men from the mangled raft, which by then had also lost its floor and resembled a giant, battered black inner tube. It had drifted 56 km from where the Katmai went down.

A couple of hours earlier, the rescue crew had found a body in the waves, still out-fitted in a neoprene survival suit. Two good Samaritan fishing vessels eventually recovered four other men – also with no vital signs. The four fishermen in Schroder’s raft were the only members of the 11-per-son crew to make it out of the Bering Sea alive.

“I told them, if you lose the raft, you’re out of the pool,” Schroder says of the men who were thrown into the sea and never found their way back, including his friend Carlos Zabala. “You only have a few hours in those conditions. You’re swallowing a bunch of big greeners. There’s no way you can breathe,” he says. “You just can’t. You can’t do it.”

Unless, that is, your life raft is, in fact, a sturdy, reliable shelter. Or, better yet, the regulatory and cultural safeguards are in place to ensure your boat never sinks in the first place. PM

Commander Malcolm McLellan, a US Coast Guard investigator, examines the strobe light on a neoprene suit recovered from the Katmai. Issuing fishermen with personal survival suits would ensure a good fit, reducing exposure to fatally cold water.

impact. After its implementation in the early 1990s, the death rate among shipwrecked crewmen fell by close to 50 per cent.

Still, the law contains significant blind spots. Many of the survival suits ships carry today are the same ones owners bought when the 1988 law went into effect. Neo-prene stiffens and deteriorates as it ages, becoming prone to rips, holes and split seams – any of which can be fatal in frigid

used in 2008 and meet regulations.”That single federal law governing com-

mercial fishing boats – the Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988 – mandates that ships carry life rafts, fire extinguishers, signal flares and a registered emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB). In cold waters, a full-body neoprene survival suit is required for every person on board. Modest as it is, the law has had a big

Kalee Thompson wrote about the Alaska Ranger in her book Deadliest Sea: The Untold Story Behind the Greatest Rescue in Coast Guard History, published in June.

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Stash laptops securelyLaptops are designed to be portable, but that doesn’t mean that you’re compelled to cart them around all of the time. The Mascot Digital Electronic Laptop safe (model MD-45L) provides a secure stash spot for your mobile PC while you’re away on holiday or trying to get a life. This battery-operated safe features a digital electronic lock, LED display, low battery-level alert func-tion, a manual override key and master/management override function. Its carpet-lined innards measure 190 mm high x 440 mm wide x 350 mm deep to accommodate laptops easily. It comes with predrilled holes on its base and back, making installing it a breeze (sturdy mounting bolts are included). Price: about R1 300, excluding delivery. Contact Saunderson Security on 0800 204 563 or visit www.saundersonsecurity.co.za

Non-lethal defenderNo reasonable individual would resort to violence as a fi rst option. However, there are times that reasonableness has to give way to the very practical consideration of defending oneself with maximum effect. In these kinds of situations, the Duel Black Piece pepper pistol makes a great non-lethal solution. This 10-shot CO2-powered semi-automatic pistol features an all-metal body, rear cocking knob, removable magazine, tournament-style velocity adjuster, quick change CO2 compartment, sight rail and contoured rubber grips.

It shoots pepper, scent and solid rubber rounds up to distances of 20 metres at a maximum velocity of 116 metres per second. The pepper balls are said to be capable of total-ly incapacitating an individual for up to an hour, and the scent balls help police dogs stay on track for a

number of hours (even after the target has taken a vigorous shower). The solid rubber balls are capable of cracking ribs at distances under 10 metres. Intruders wouldn’t know what hit them. Price: about R2 000. Contact Dad’s Toys on 021-551 3471 or visit www.dadstoys.co.za

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Just lock up and goPassive high-tech security solutions are all very well, but there’s nothing quite like a sturdy physical barrier to make you feel really safe and secure, or to protect your hard-earned assets while you’re out of town.

If you would like your freestanding suburban home to have the same lock-up-and-go conven-ience as a townhouse, then Maxidor’s Maxishutter domestic roller shutter doors are worth a closer look. They’re suitable for many home applications, from simple patio enclosures to electrically operated inscape doors. In fact, Maxidor is so confi dent that their barrier can withstand a malicious attack that the company will buy back any product that has been successfully breached for up to ten years after installation.

Working much like those shop-front roller security barriers you fi nd in high-crime areas, but decidedly better-looking, they consist essentially of a curtain of interlocking slats that form a continuous hinge along their entire length. Curtains are raised or lowered via a spring-loaded barrel mounted on to steel support brackets. The curtain’s bottom rail strengthens the barrier and allows for the fi tment of handles and locking devices. In addition to this, the curtain is prevented from moving sideways by side channels, and the rolling mechanism is taste-fully enclosed in a canopy hood.

The curtains, made out of aluminium or steel, come in three different styles; solid, perforated and window slat. You can choose between hand, chain, gear or motor operating mechanisms. There’s a choice of three standard colours (white, brown or oyster white), but it’s possible to request a specifi c colour of your choice.

Because each installation is unique and there are a number of options available, it’s hard to provide any prices. Best is to call ahead for a quote on 0860 131 131 or visit www.maxidor.co.za

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Open-and-shut caseIf you’re looking for a more personalised, convenient access control solution than off-the-shelf remote controls, why not take advantage of the device that nearly everybody seems to have these days – the Bluetooth-enabled cellphone?

The BlueGuard VK Bluetooth virtual keypad controller turns any Bluetooth-enabled cell-phone into a universal remote control. It allows you to switch almost anything on or off around your home up to 10 metres away. Yes, that includes opening and closing gates and garage doors, and arming or disarming your home alarm. The beauty of this system is that you don’t require any special software for your phone.

The unit’s weatherproof PVC housing can be used indoors or out and comes with multiple mounting options, making it possible to easily connect it to items such as electric gate motors or electrical junction boxes. And, once you have selected your unique PIN code (it can be changed at any stage), an unlimited number of mobile phones can be used – no more multiple remotes and the potential security risks.

Price: about R1 900. Contact distributors Cyber Vault on 076 200 8787 or visit www.blue toothwireless.co.za


Prowler checks out the house, notices nobody’s home, spots some attractive goodies and decides it’s worth breaking in. Setting off the alarm is no problem. He’ll have enough time to make his escape before armed response arrives.

But what’s this… smoke?Suddenly, he’s in the middle of

a choking cloud. He can’t see a thing. He’s just been zapped by a smoke cannon. Cue screeching tyres, wailing sirens…

We’ve all seen the fake fog effect used to add atmosphere to live shows. The Protect Smoke Cannon works the same way. The “smoke” itself consists of dipropylene glycol, which is harmless to humans and animals – and, of course, electron-ics and furniture. Pumping a water/glycol mix through a heater creates vapour: the fl uid becomes a dry, white impenetrable cloud, similar to white smoke.

Smoke cannons come in various sizes to suit everything from a warehouse to a suburban home. The model pictured, the P600, is the smallest in the range: it can fi ll 600m³ with a neutrally buoyant, opaque smoke in just one minute. (The mixture ratio is designed to allow the fog to distribute itself

throughout the entire room, upwards and downwards.) It leaves no moisture residue, though venti-lation is recommended afterwards.

The smoke cannon is compatible with conventional alarm systems and is triggered when the alarm is set off. The cannon itself can be adjusted for different times and with or without a pulse effect. Styled to fi t in with domestic envi-ronments, it can be installed in a ceiling or behind a wall.

Once installed, it’s fuss-free. It uses less electricity than an electric bulb (there is battery back-up) and needs no maintenance other than dusting. It’s also designed to oper-ate in systems that make use of fi re alarms.

To fi nd out more, contact the distributors, Norbain SA, at +27 11 887 1546 or e-mail Jacques Botha at [email protected]

Now you’re smokin’

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You can’t touch this Electric fencing is a great perimeter protector – when it works properly. Apart from being extremely fi ckle performers in bad weather, electric fences require constant maintenance.

Their high false alarm rate (everything from squirrels to short circuits) also has the potential of causing security com-panies to respond less than enthusiastically to alarm signals after a run of unnecessary callouts. Even worse, as a conse-quence of false alarms, homeowners turn the damn things off, effectively leaving their properties defenceless.

Smart fencing is another story altogether. Star Walls rotating spikes are designed to keep the bad guys where they belong: outside. The tough spikes, made out of glass fi bre-reinforced nylon, rotate on galvanised tubing to prevent anyone from gaining a handhold while attempting to scale the wall.

The rotating spikes alone make a great physical deterrent for potential intruders. But, when coupled with the optional fi bre optic detection system, it creates a smart fencing solu-tion in which both components combine to create a stable and decidedly high-tech security solution. This is how it works: the fi bre optic cable is threaded through the tubing to form a circuit. Light is propagated through the fi bre installa-tion and, when this light pattern is disturbed (such as when someone tries to climb over or saw through the tubing), it raises an alarm. This alarm can be linked to a normal domes-tic alarm and security company. It can also switch on lights, send SMS messages and sound a buzzer or alarm.

Here’s a signifi cant plus factor for the fi bre optic system: it’s not subject to the same kind of disruption as a conventional electrical installation. Simply, criminals have not yet fi gured out ways to attack it undetected.

The rotating spikes can be fi tted on all types of walling, including precast, and are suitable for DIY installation. Cost is about R80 a running metre. Because each installation is unique, it’s hard to put a price to the fi bre optic detection system, which requires trained, accredited installers. As a guide, though, expect to pay more than you would for electric fencing. Contact Star Walls on 0861 114 109 or visit www.starwalls.co.za PM

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Our Universe explored

ESO, the European Southern Observatory, is the foremost inter-governmental astronomy organisation in Europe and arguably the world’s most productive astronomical observat-ory. Its primary mission is to provide the most advanced research facilities to astronomers and astrophysicists, allowing them to conduct front-line science in the best conditions. In these pages, we showcase some of ESO’s spectacular space images, captured by a variety of telescopes.

FORCE OF ATTRACTIONUsing ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), European astronomers have for the first time demonstrated that a magnetar – an unusual type of neutron star – was formed from a star with at least 40 times as much mass as the Sun. The result presents great challenges to current theories of how stars evolve, as a star as massive as this was expected to become a black hole, not a magnetar. This now raises a fun-damental question: just how massive does a star really have to be to become a black hole?

To reach their conclusions, the astronomers looked in detail at the extraordinary star cluster Westerlund 1, located 16 000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Ara (the Altar). From previous studies, the astronomers knew that Westerlund 1 was the closest super star cluster known, containing hundreds of very massive stars, some shining with a brilliance of almost one million suns and some two thousand times the diameter of the Sun (as large as the orbit of Saturn).

Says Ben Ritchie, lead author of the paper reporting these results: “If the Sun were located at the heart of this remarkable cluster, our night sky would be full of hundreds of stars as bright as the full Moon.” A magnetar is a type of neutron star with an incredibly strong magnetic field – a million billion times stronger than that of the Earth, which is formed when certain stars undergo supernova explosions.

[ ]SCIENCE


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P M

S K Y W A T C H I N G

STELLAR NURSERY

This magnificent view of the region around the star R Coronae Australis was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile. R Coronae Australis lies at the heart of a nearby star-forming region and is surrounded by a delicate bluish reflection nebula embedded in a huge dust cloud. The image reveals surprising new details in this dramatic area of sky.

This image shows a section of sky that spans roughly the width of the full Moon. This is equivalent to about four light-

years at the distance of the nebula, which is located some 420 light-years away in the small constellation of Corona Australis (the Southern Crown). The intense radiation given off by these hot young stars interacts with the gas surround-ing them and is either reflected or re-emitted at a different wavelength. These complex processes, determined by the physics of the interstellar medium and the properties of the stars, are responsible for the magnificent colours of nebulae.


ON THE WEB > Visit www.popularmechanics.co.za to: 1) Download wallpaper images of some of ESO’s spectacular space images; 2) Watch the associated videos, which zoom in on the various stars and regions.

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WAY BACK WHEN...A European team of astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has measured the distance to the most remote galaxy so far. By carefully analysing the very faint glow of the galaxy, they have found that they are seeing it when the Universe was only about 600 million years old (a redshift of 8,6). These are the first confirmed observations of a galaxy whose light is clearing the opaque hydrogen fog that filled the cosmos at this early time.

Studying these first galaxies is extremely difficult. By the time their initially brilliant light gets to Earth, they appear very faint and small. Furthermore, this dim light falls mostly in the infrared part of the spectrum because its wavelength has been stretched by the expansion of the Universe – an effect known as redshift. To make matters worse, at this early time, less than a billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was not fully transparent and much of it was filled with a hydrogen fog that absorbed the fierce ultraviolet light from young galaxies.

HOW TO GROW A GALAXYNew observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope have, for the first time, provided direct evidence that young galaxies can grow by sucking in the cool gas around them and using it as fuel for the formation of many new stars. In the first few billion years after the Big Bang, the mass of a typical galaxy increased dramatically, and understanding why this happened is one of the hottest problems in modern astrophysics.

The first galaxies formed well before the Universe was one billion years old and were much smaller than the giant systems – including the Milky Way – that we see today. Somehow, the average galaxy size has increased as the Universe has evolved. Galaxies often collide and then merge to form larger systems, and this process is certainly an important growth mechanism. However, an additional, gentler way has been proposed.

Says astronomy team leader Giovanni Cresci: “The new results from the VLT are the first direct evidence that the accretion of pristine gas really happened, and was enough to fuel vigorous star formation and the growth of massive galaxies in the young Universe.” The dis-covery will have a major impact on our understanding of the evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang to the present day. Theories of galaxy formation and evolution may have to be re-written.

[ ]SCIENCE

WHAT GOES AROUND...A spectacular new image of NGC 300, a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way, located in the nearby Sculptor Group of galaxies. Taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, this 50-hour exposure reveals the structure of the galaxy in exquisite detail. NGC 300 lies about six mil-lion light-years away and appears to be about two thirds the size of the full Moon on the sky.

ESO astronomers recently discovered the most dis-tant and one of the most massive stellar-mass black holes yet found in this galaxy, as the partner of a hot and luminous Wolf–Rayet star in a binary system. NGC 300 and another galaxy, NGC 55, are slowly spinning around and towards each other in the early stages of a lengthy merging process.


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READER COMPETITION READER COMPETITION READER COMPETITION READER COMPETITION

Rules: 1. Entry is open to anyone except employees (and their immediate families) of Ramsay Media, CAT and associated agencies. 2. Only one online entry per person. You may enter via SMS as many times as you like (SMS charged at R2). 3. Competition runs until 31 December 2010. 4. We will draw the winner(s) on 10 January 2011. 5. The prize is not redeemable for cash. 6. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. 7. Regrettably, only South African residents are eligible for prizes. 8. Prizes not claimed within 3 months will be forfeited.


one of 21 watches valued at R1195 each!

To enter, answer the following question:How old is the Caterpillar brand name?

SMS: CAT followed by the answer, your name and e-mail address to 34419 (R2 per SMS) or visit our Web site at

www.popularmechanics.co.za. Competition closes 31 December 2010.

WINPrizes● 9 x PI14921137 models worth R1195Stainless steel case, 100 m water-resistant, multifunction and branded rubber strap

● 12 x R514121117 models worth R1195Stainless steel case, 100 m water-resistant, date and branded rubber strap

For more information, contact Tel: +27 372-6000, Fax: +27 86 523-6811 or www.sbacher.co.za

The Caterpillar brand name dates back to 1904. Based in Peoria, Illinois, in the USA, CAT is one of the largest manufacturers of construction and mining equipment.

CAT Timekeeping Equipment reinvents and contextualises the heritage and authenticity of CAT’s core know-how. The CAT look is clean and urban and translates this through its use of highly engineered stainless steel, durable canvas and tough-ened rubber combined with technically advanced movements. CAT consumers are aware of the durability of the brand, and love the idea of fashion coupled with a sense of invincibility.

All winners will receive CAT backpacks worth

R100 each+

< PI14921137 R514121117 >

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COSMIC COCOONAstronomers have obtained the first image of a dusty disc closely encircling a massive baby star, providing direct evidence that massive stars form in the same way as their smaller brethren. The team looked at an object known by the cryptic name of IRAS 13481-6124. About 20 times the mass of our Sun and five times its radius, the young central star, which is still surrounded by its pre-natal cocoon, is located in the con-stellation of Centaurus, about 10 000 light-years away.

Circumstellar discs are an essential ingredient in the formation process of low-mass stars such as our Sun. However, it is not known whether such discs are also present during the formation of stars more massive than about 10 solar masses, where the strong light emitted might prevent mass falling on to the star. For instance, it has been proposed that mas-sive stars might form when smaller stars merge.

INFRARED BEAUTYA new infrared image from ESO’s Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) reveals an extraordinary landscape of glowing tendrils of gas, dark clouds and young stars with-in the constellation of Monoceros (the Unicorn). This star-forming region, known as Monoceros R2, is embedded within a huge dark cloud. The region is almost completely obscured by inter-stellar dust when viewed in visible light, but is spectacular in the infrared.

Although it appears close in the sky to the more familiar Orion Nebula, it is actually almost twice as far from Earth, at a distance of about 2 700 light-years. In visible light, a grouping of massive hot stars creates a beautiful collection of reflection nebulae where the bluish starlight is scattered from parts of the dark, foggy outer layers of the molecular cloud. However, most of the new-born massive stars remain hidden as the thick interstellar dust strongly absorbs their ultraviolet and visible light.

This striking infrared image from ESO’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile penetrates the dark curtain of cosmic dust and reveals in astonishing detail the folds, loops and filaments sculpted from the dusty interstellar matter by intense particle winds and the radiation emitted by hot young stars. PM

[ ]SCIENCE


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R E A D E R C O M P E T I T I O N S R E A D E R C O M P E T I T I O N S R E A D E R C O M P E T I T I O N S

WINone of 3 Razor E300 electric scooters valued at R3 000

the HP Probook 4520s laptop computer! Valued at R10 000.

Rules: 1. Entry is open to anyone except employees (and their immediate fami-lies) of Ramsay Media, HP and asso-ciated agencies. 2. Only one online entry per person. You may enter via SMS as many times as you like (SMS charged at R2). 3. Competition runs until 31 December 2010. 4. We will draw the winner(s) on 10 January 2011. 5. The prize is not redeemable for cash. 6. The judges’ decision is fi nal and no correspondence will be entered into. 7. Regrettably, only South African residents are eligible for prizes. 8. Prizes not claimed with-in 3 months will be forfeited.

Razor, the world’s number one ride-on brand, is now available in South Africa. You get to choose from the E-Series electric scooters (E100 for youngsters and E300 for tweens, teens and young-at-heart adults); the Spark Scooter – a kick scooter with a step-on spark bar – the Pro Model trick scooter for aspiring freestyle riders; the patented Sole Skate (a “seriously stealth ride”); and the Ripstik Air Pro – a twist on the world- renowned casterboard, the Ripstik.

Razor will soon have hip and happening kids of all ages scooting around on some of the world’s most innovative gizmos… whether self- or battery-powered. The Razor range is available from Game, Makro, Sportsmans Warehouse and Toys R Us.

To enter, answer the following question:How many electric scooters is Razor giving away?

SMS: Tevo followed by the answer, your name and e-mail address to 34419 (R2 per SMS) or visit our Web site at www.popularmechanics.co.za. Competition closes 31 December 2010.

Rules: 1. Entry is open to anyone except employees (and their immediate families) of Ramsay Media, Tevo and associat-ed agencies. 2. Only one online entry per person. You may enter via SMS as many times as you like (SMS charged at R2). 3. Competition runs until 31 December 2010. 4. We will draw the winner(s) on 10 January 2011. 5. The prize is not redeemable for cash. 6. The judges’ decision is fi nal and no correspondence will be entered into. 7. Regrettably, only South African residents are eligible for prizes. 8. Prizes not claimed within 3 months will be forfeited.

Being an on-the-go professional, it’s important for you to remain con-nected. Axiz and HP are giving you the opportunity to win an offi ce-ready HP Probook 4520s laptop computer and carry case. This stylish notebook has a 39,6 cm diagonal HD (1366 x 768) reso-lution display, a spill-resistant keyboard and numeric keypad, and extensive wireless connectivity options for the mobile individual (embedded 3G includ-ed). The powerful and energy-effi cient Intel® Core™ i5 processor provides extra performance when you need it most, while the 3 GB 1 333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM provides a high-functioning memory platform. Enjoy connecting with friends and family remotely via the 2MP Webcam.

WIN

For more information, contact Johann Toerien on 011 237 7000/011 237 7138 or visit www.axiz.co.za

For more information, contact Tevo on 0861 77 88 88 or www.razor.za.com


To enter, answer the following question:Does the HP Probook 4520 laptop computer feature embedded 3G?

SMS: HP followed by the answer, your name and e-mail address to 34419 (R2 per SMS) or visit our Web site at www.popularmechanics.co.za. Competition closes 31 December 2010.

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Paint and add new hardware

D I Y H O M E> B Y R O Y B E R E N D S O H N


[ ]HOME

Q+A

A If it were my kitchen, I wouldn’t put up with ugly cabinets for two or

three years. There’s no need to. With today’s paints and tools, you can achieve a far better-looking kitchen in a couple of weekends while spending a manageable amount.

Begin by removing the doors and drawers or drawer fronts and taking off all door handles, drawer pulls, knobs and hinges. Many older cabinet doors have handles or knobs centred along the side edge of the panel, a dead giveaway of an outdated kitchen. After you remove

Remove hardware

the hardware, fill the holes. When the painting is done, you can relocate the handles lower on the door for a more contemporary look.

Thoroughly clean the door and drawer surfaces with a cleaner-degreaser and do the same to any face frames and cabinet sides. Be particularly fastidious about cleaning cabinet surfaces that are near the kitchen range, because these will have more grease and dirt than surfaces farther away.

Next, sand the surfaces to remove or reduce dents and scratches and to degloss the paint. After sanding, use a moist cloth or a tack cloth to thoroughly wipe off sanding dust.

Support the doors and drawer fronts on blocks of wood or small plastic wedges. Pi

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Sand smooth and prime

We were thinking of repainting our kitchen cabinets – but only if we get better results than the paint job that’s on them now, which has drips and thin spots where you can see another colour under-neath. Should we bother? We plan on replacing the kitchen in another two or three years.

Painting cabinetsQ

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Apply a primer. Primer not only improves topcoat adhesion; its uniform porosity and film thickness contribute to paint holdout – the ability of the paint to flow smoothly over the surface and cure to a uniform gloss and thickness. Prime all surfaces, front and back, and sand the primer if necessary to remove roller or brush marks. Wipe off sanding dust.

Next, apply the topcoat. To achieve a finish that’s nearly as good as one that’s sprayed, you should consider laying aside your paintbrush and using some of the new paint rollers available, particularly velour or foam varieties. Check with the paint store, though. Some paints are dif-ficult to apply with these rollers, causing the roller to slide, for example. In other cases, the paint won’t flow out, and you’ll be left with a dimpled surface.

Other paints can be brushed or rolled, though rolling the paint will usually leave a smoother surface. Some paints are specifically formulated to provide an extremely smooth surface when applied with a foam roller or when using a fine-bristle synthetic paintbrush. Apply two topcoats of whatever paint you choose.

Finally, reinstall the doors and drawers using new pulls, handles and knobs. You’ll be surprised at the results when you’re done. It’s one of the best invest-ments of your DIY rand.

ROTTEN TO THE COREQ I know you’ve covered concrete

steps, but what about wood? Four out of five stringers have rotted on my front steps. I have only beginner-level carpentry skills, so I was thinking of replacing them with precut pressure-treated stair stringers sold at a home centre. Will those be any good?

A Sure. It’s perfectly okay to use precut stair stringers – but they may not

fit your space. For example, if the stairs have been built to land on the centre of a concrete pad, and the precut stringers don’t have exactly the same dimensions as those of the existing stairs, then they obviously won’t land where you want them to. You also have very little control over the height of precut stringers – maybe a fraction of a centimetre or so.

When you cut stair stringers yourself, you have complete control over their height, horizontal run and the angle at which they meet the house. This ensures that you will end up with stairs in which the height of each step is the same and the stairs land where they should (the centre of the pad).

That sounds daunting to the beginner

carpenter, but it’s really pretty simple in this case. For one thing, if the existing stairs have been built correctly (equal riser heights, comfortable and level treads and a horizontal run that lands the stairs properly), then you can carefully demolish them and actually use one of the stringers as a pattern. You can also go to popular mechanics.com and see our article “How to build your own stairs in 3 easy steps.”

If you can use a circular saw, a hammer, a tape measure, a square and a drill driver, you can handle this project – and leave the precut stringers for folks who don’t read PM.

LOWDOWN ON THE LOW FLOW

Q I live in a rural area, and my water is supplied by a well. I have such

low flow that my instantaneous water heater doesn’t work properly, and I can’t take a decent shower. My pump is set for 3 to 5 bar (the pressure for the cut-in and cut-off pressures), if that makes a difference. The system works reliably, other than the low flow. Any ideas?

A The fact that your pump’s pressure is set so high (3 to 5 bar) indicates

that your water system is designed more for pressure than volume. Pressure settings of 2 to 3 or 2,75 to 4 are more typical. When well-pump pressure is high, volume tends to be low, because a well pump can’t produce both characteristics to the same degree.

First, you need to get a well contractor out to your place to look things over. The contractor will investigate whether the pump you have is adequately sized and whether dirt or mineral buildup any-where in the well system or in your home’s plumbing is interfering with the well’s flow.

Assuming everything checks out okay, one solution is to augment the existing well pump with a sophisticated two-part setup like the AquaBoost II by Goulds Pumps (goulds.com). The first part of this system consists of a storage tank at atmospheric pressure. It acts as a reser-voir and is kept filled by the existing well pump. A float sensor in the tank triggers the pump when water in the tank drops below a predetermined level.

The other half of the system is a booster pump and its related components, includ-ing a transducer that converts water pressure to an electrical signal and a con-troller-rectifier. When someone in the home uses water, a transducer tells the pump controller-rectifier what the water-system pressure is.

The controller-rectifier has two functions. First, it turns on and operates the pump’s variable-speed motor. Second, it rectifies the home’s single-phase electrical current and turns it into three-phase. This type of current is far more electrically and mechanically efficient for operating motors, since the peak voltage of each phase is closer to the one next to it than in standard residential single-phase power.

The variable-speed motor and pump run constantly, as long as water is being drawn. The motor’s variable speed adapts automatically to the demand, keeping water pressure constant. The greater the demand, the faster the motor spins and the bigger the booster pump’s output. PM


MYSTERY MICROWAVE

Q We’ve had two microwave ovens fail in our four-year-old house

since it was built. The magnetron went on one, and we’re not sure why its replacement has quit. Can a wiring problem be to blame?

A Anything’s possible. Given that you haven’t reported additional

electrical issues (dimming lights, other erratic appliances, circuit breakers that frequently trip or problems that popped up after a lightning strike), I’d reason that the grid’s power quality or electrical glitches inside the house are not to blame here. Still, any electrician or mechanically experienced person can check for under- or overvoltage and current flow on the 16-amp dedicated small-appliance circuit. This should be easy to do, especially in a new house in which the wiring hasn’t been tink-ered with. One caveat applies, howev-er. Because checking this requires working on an energised circuit, it’s no task for anyone who’s uncomfort-able with this kind of work.

My hunch is that you’ve had two unrelated component failures. The first was the magnetron. As to the second, my vote would be a circuit-board problem – all appliance compo-nents are the focus of relentless cost cutting these days, it seems, and circuit boards are no exception.

I’ve seen more than my share of them with solder blobs, burns and broken parts. That’s just what’s visible – who knows what you’d find on these bad boards when you subject them to electrical testing.

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[ ]THIS IS MY JOB


AEROSPACE physiologistName: ELLIS GAYLESLocation: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIAAge: 44Years on job: 9

Navy Lieutenant-Commander Ellis Gayles is charged with keeping US mili-tary flight crews in optimal health while they’re in the air – or, in the worst-case scenario, the water. To train aviators to survive a crash into the ocean, he and his staff employ the helo-dunker, a mock helicopter pod. Students climb into the dunker in full flight gear. The pod is lifted above a pool. Then it drops, hits the water, sinks and rolls – and the air-crew members practice escaping a chaotic and deadly environment. “You may swim well, but put on a flight suit, a survival vest, a helmet and steel-toed boots, and it’s a whole different ball-game,” Gayles says. “You wouldn’t want the first time you realised it’s hard to move in that to be during a crash.” – KALEE THOMPSON

How to escape a downed chopper

1. Open the hatches It takes heavy training to develop the trigger-fast responses needed to eject aircraft windows and open doors in the seconds before the chopper hits. “It’s the presence of mind to think, okay, we trained on this, I know what to do,“ Gayles says. (Most helicopter windows can be popped out underwater, but it takes much more effort.)

2. Breathe deeply Each flight-crew member carries a soft drink-bottle-size scuba tank in his or her flight vest. The one-kilogram SEBD, or supplemental-egress breathing device, provides up to 3 minutes of air. And the regulator works no matter what direction it’s placed in the mouth.

3. Get a grip Gayles teaches students to keep constant contact with a reference point inside the aircraft, and to pull themselves out, hand over hand. Let go, and they can lose all sense of direction – and any hope of escape. They’re also drilled not to kick, which can result in getting caught up in gear or injuring someone else: “Get a steel-toed boot to the chops when you’re submerged and you’re likely to suck in water,“ he says.

4. Conquer the dark Once Gayles’s students can escape from the helo-dunker smoothly with their air tanks, they put on blacked-out swim goggles and repeat the sequence. The final dunk simulates the most difficult scenario: no light and no supplemental air. “The training forces you to figure out what you need to be doing to get out of there,” Gayles says. “Just talking about it isn’t the same.” PMPi

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BUYER'SGUIDE For Buyer’s Guide advertising rates call Patrick Kennedy at (011) 301-4465. Fax: (011) 783-0451.


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Web: www.kregsa.co.za Email: [email protected]

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RESERVATION OF COPYRIGHTThe publishers of POPULAR MECHANICS reserve all rights of reproduction or broadcasting of feature articles and factual data appearing in this journal under Section 12 (7) of the Copyright Act, 1978. Such reproduction or broadcasting may be authorised only by the publishers of POPULAR MECHANICS. Published by RamsayMedia Pty Ltd for the Proprietors, POPULAR MECHANICS (SA) Pty Ltd, Uitvlugt, Howard Drive, Pinelands, Western Cape. Distributed by RNA, 12 Nobel St, Industria West, Johannesburg, and printed Web offset litho by CTP Printers, Parow, Western Cape. Apple Mac support: Project 3 tel 021 674-5000.

Useful, clever and downright diabolical tips for your home, workshop and garden that will save you time and money, and generally make life a little easier


[ ]DO IT YOUR WAY

DIY guttersFollowing the discussion on gutter toppers in your October issue, I would like to pass on an idea I applied to our mountain holiday hut, where we are 100 per cent dependent on rain water, and to an extension of our property in Gauteng. Instead of using a normal gutter, I opted for a 110 mm drain pipe with a slit cut out lengthwise, the width of the slit being equivalent to the roof thickness (in my case, 45 mm IBR sheeting). Use a saw or angle grinder to cut the slit, then slip the tube over the edge of the roof, fastening it in place with binding wire every metre or so. If you are feeling really lazy, you can use cable ties. For downpipes, bends and joints, use regular plumbing fi ttings. Oh, and be sure to use UV stabilised PVC pipes.

CLEM ECCLESPRETORIA

SEND US YOUR HINT – AND WIN

Send us your best home, garage, work-shop and general DIY hints – and win! This month’s prize is a Bosch PSR 18 Li 2 cordless drill/driver complete with custom tool box, valued at R2 499. This useful tool can drive 300 screws with a diameter of 8 mm into softwood on a single battery charge, its two-speed planetary gearbox (with 25 torque settings) ensuring plenty of power at low speeds and convenient drilling at high speeds. For more infor-mation, contact Bosch on 011-651 9600 or visit www.bosch-pt.com/za/en

Send your tips to: PM Do It Your Way, Box 180, Howard Place 7450, or e-mail [email protected]. Please include your name, address and contact number. Regrettably, only South African residents are eligible for the prize. Prizes not claimed within 60 days will be forfeited.

WINNING TIP

their job without a hitch. (Warning: don’t lick the scissors; you may cut your tongue.)

CLEM STEYN (82)PRETORIA

On refl ection…Every DIY person should keep a mirror in their toolbox – it’s indispensable for con-necting cables to the back of hi-fi equip-ment, and working inside kitchen cupboards or under a dashboard. However, glass mirrors tend to break and are often the wrong size. Try this: buy a plastic mirror (Midas sells a replacement car mirror kit for about R30), cut it to size if necessary and use duct tape to attach it to the end of a dowel.

GEOFF LINEVIA E-MAIL

No stain, no gainFor a number of years, I have been using left-over wine and port rather than branded products to stain new woodwork projects. I collect the dregs from bottles of red wine or port and test it on various types of wood to see which gives the required colour, after which I seal or varnish the wood in the normal way. My home-made stain is much cheaper than the commercial variety and produces some interesting outcomes.

GORDON SMITHRONDEBOSCH

I beg to differContrary to popular legend, a liberal dose of salt is not the best way to treat a red wine spill on your carpet. In fact, the salt may actually change the colour of the fi bres. Instead, use paper towels to blot the spilled wine, then treat the spot with carpet shampoo.

TONY BARNARDTAMBOERS KLOOF

No bugs, to bootIt’s likely that many PM readers own Wellington boots, and equally probable that they store these boots in their garages or tool sheds, where they tend to attract all manner of creepy things in search of a home. My solution: put aside two plastic bread bags (of the kind used

for sliced loaves) and slip them over the tops of the boots.

ROBERT COWLEYBELLVILLE

All stuck up?Ever tried cutting very sticky double-sided tape with a pair of scissors, only to end up with a ball of chewing gum? My advice – simply apply a little saliva to the scissors with your fi nger, and the scissors will do PM

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Popular Mechanics South Africa 2010-12

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Transcript of Popular Mechanics South Africa 2010-12