Gargoyles of Chile

Slowly but surely others are waking up to the reality that the Chupacabra phenomenon and the medieval Gargoyle  phenomenon are plausibly one and the same as I argued some months back.  I find it noteworthy that they seem to like open desert as hunting areas so attempts to associate them with forested areas is possibly a mistake or an artifact of observation.

The mixing of the mangy dog in the South West with the known evidence is mostly evidence of scavenging on already blood drained corpses and certainly not evidence of vampirism by dogs.

The scientific question that must be properly answered is whether blood is drained from the corpse and how much is drained from the corpse.  This is not a trivial question. A downer will have all its blood quite intact and the meat will make that obvious.  It is why we expertly drain the blood from slaughtered animals immediately so as to prevent coagulated blood from causing spoilage of the meat and ruining its appearance.

My point here is that a drained carcass is only possible if the blood is drained while the heart is still pumping unless the animal is immediately hung and drained.  A large vampire bat would work as perfectly.

Thus all tales of cattle mutilation and blood removal is clear evidence of a large vampire bat and not of a lucky dog who may well have taken some of the soft tissue.

Since such a bat can fly over a vast natural range, the actual events appear to be quite far apart and unconnected.

This report describes four of the creatures and finally makes the kangaroo like legs well witnessed and explains the creature’s necessary launch equipment.  There is no particular need to run to launch and it certainly allows it to land on a victim, swiftly drain the blood and as the prey collapses, leap back into the air and take off.

The Gargoyles of Chile

Dec 21st in Cryptozoology & Featured & Modern Mysteries by Rob Morphy

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/12/the-gargoyles-of-chile/

The deep, shadow shrouded jungles of South America are rife with carnivorous predators rarely seen by the human eye, but as intimidating as the creatures lurking in the dense rain forests of this mysterious continent may be, the arid plains of northern Chile are said to harbor a colony of chillingly bizarre beasts, which are quite unlike anything supposed to be living on the Earth.

Situated in the northernmost portion of Chile, less than 12-miles away from the port city of Arica, is a sprawling swathe of red sand desert known as Pampa Acha. The only real nod to the existence of humanity in this desolate region is the Pan-American Highway, which twists through this barren wasteland like an asphalt serpent.

It was on this lonesome stretch of road that in July of 2004, an army sub-officer with the “Cazadores” regiment named Carlos Abett de la Torre, his wife Teresa, their three children and a nephew would have a harrowing encounter with a group of fantastic creatures, which seemed to jump straight out of the pages of an ancient bestiary.

THE TORRE FAMILY AND THE GARGOYLES:

At approximately 7:00 pm. on the day in question, the Torre family packed into Carlos’ pick-up truck and departed from their quarters in Fuerte Baquedano, which is located in the military community of Pozo Almonte, heading toward Arica to visit some relatives.

Knowing full well that he was in for long and monotonous drive with a car full of children, Carlos gamely threw the truck into gear and began motoring down the same highway he had been traveling for the better part of 25 years.

About two hours into their journey, Carlos was cruising at about 65-miles per hour through the Pampa Acha approximately 20-miles south of Arica. The road ahead was illuminated not only by the pick-up’s headlamps, but the bright moon that hovered above them in the cloudless sky. That was when Carlos’ eldest daughter, Carmen, noticed a pair of extraordinary entities through the back window of the vehicle. According to Carmen she was astounded to see two creatures leisurely “floating” in the skies above. In her own words:

“I was traveling in the backseat with my brothers, talking, and suddenly everything went dark. Then I told my brother what I was seeing and he told me to keep quiet, because Mom gets nervous. Later I looked through the window and saw some things that looked like birds, with dogs’ heads and back swept wings. My father said they were like gargoyles.”

Carmen later estimated that the strange airborne critters that flew over her father’s pick-up truck were at least 6-feet in length and she admitted that at first she wasn’t sure if the creatures had wings or legs, but that the appendages were angled toward the rear of the creatures.

Carmen and her brother watched as the outlandish animals paced the truck, afraid to speak, lest they panic their anxiety prone mother. But their efforts were wasted as Teresa, who sat next to Carlos in the front seat, would catch sight of the peculiar avian duo through the windshield just moments later.

From her vantage point Teresa was afforded the best view of these anomalous animals, which the press would quote her as saying resembled “dog-faced kangaroos.” She claimed that the “gargoyles” seemed to match the speed of the truck, occasionally slipping ahead, then falling back, never traveling more than 60-feet from the vehicle.

By this point Carlos and the rest of his frightened brood were all stealing skyward glances and catching glimpses of these soaring evolutionary nightmares. He accelerated the truck, praying under his breath, terrified of the fate that might befall him and his family if these creatures decided to swoop down and attack their vehicle. The Torre family was in such a state of shock that none of them spoke. Carmen described the scene:

“We were speechless for some ten minutes [then] my Mom told us to react, and then we started discussing what we’d seen.”

Just when the Torre family was growing accustomed to the flying fiends above, another pair of the same species leapt in front of the truck on strong hind legs, which were shorter than their upper legs.  Carlos managed to avert a collision with these land bound “gargoyles” and increased the pick-up’s speed, eventually leaving all four of the beasts behind.

When Torre family safely arrived in Arica they told their relatives about their bizarre sightings, but swore them to secrecy, concerned that the public ridicule which might follow the unveiling of their tale would somehow damage the military career of the family’s patriarch.

Although their sojourn with their extended family was enjoyable, it goes without saying that the entire Torre clan was anxious about the trip home.

Teresa even conceded: “We were terrified to go back,” but, much like every other journey Carlos had taken through Pampa Acha, the expedition proved to be mercifully uneventful.

Once back on base in Pozo Almonte, the Torre family honored their oath of silence, but when another sub-officer, Diego Riquelme, claimed to have encountered a dinosaur-like creature on the same stretch of road a few weeks later they decided to come clean.

Needless to say it wasn’t long before the press got wind of these bizarre stories and began churning out articles about the monsters seen on the Pan-American Highway.

 Soon after the story broke Scott Corrales of the Institute of Hispanic Ufology translated the story for the English speaking world.

The usually open minded Chilean press was quick to claim that the eyewitnesses were likely seeing nothing more than ostriches, which must have escaped from a local breeder.

The fact ostriches are flightless and that none of the birds were reported missing in the area was ignored by the media.

It also seems unlikely that seven individual eyewitnesses would confuse ostriches for either on the wing gargoyles or prehistoric reptiles, regardless of how unbelievable the alternative may be. So if these observers were not bearing witness to bird refuge escapees, then the question remains…

WHAT ARE THESE THINGS?

It’s a fair question considering that the list of dog headed, bat winged, kangaroo legged and potentially reptilian creatures that stand over 6-feet tall is not a large one… In fact, nothing like that should exist, [a vampire bat should not exist but it does and evolving from that into a larger version is very plausible if not inevitable - arclein] nevertheless let’s keep an open mind and look at few of our options here. I have to admit that when I first stumbled across this report my initial thought was that the eyewitness descriptions were akin to reports of the infamous…

CHUPACABRA

For reasons difficult to discern the description of the notorious blood sucking chupacabra — it’s name is Spanish for “goat sucker,” which was initially said to be its favorite prey — has varied wildly since the first reports of these beasts emerged from Puerto Rico in the mid-1990s.

Nowadays many people believe that the mangy coy dogs so often videotaped near the Texas/Mexico border represent chupacabra, but these sickly canine creatures are nothing like the classic depictions of these ferocious fiends.

Initially chupacabra were described as being semi- reptilian beasts with Kangaroo legs, upon which it could leap astounding distances. These creatures were also said to have canine (and occasionally feline) features, large fangs and, very often, bat-like wings. A forked tongue and porcupine-like spines were also commonly seen attributes. All versions of this creature were said to live on the blood of animals.

The above description sounds a lot like the “dog faced gargoyles” described by the Torres and Riquelme. In support of this hypothesis is the fact that since 2004 there have been sporadic reports hailing from South America regarding similar varmints, some of which have been allegedly spotted near scores of bird carcasses that were discovered to be devoid of blood.

While many people are of the mind that the late blooming, so to speak, of the chupacabra phenomenon is the result of it being either of alien extraction or the product of an American genetic experiment gone terribly awry, the thought that these gargoyles might be the origin for tales of the enigmatic chupacabra is an intriguing one. It’s also worth considering the fact that these critters seem to look a helluva’ lot like the…

NEW  JERSEY DEVIL

Although it is said to have hooves rather than coiled marsupial legs, the bat winged dog-like description of these gargoyles also seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to eyewitness accounts of the New Jersey Devil.

Nevertheless, the fact that the Jersey Devil is an ostensibly supernatural rather than traditionally cryptozoological entity, combined with the lack of any significant eyewitness accounts from outside the Pine Barrens, leads me to believe that this is just a farfetched shot in the dark.

Okay, so removing both the cryptozoological, paranormal and potentially ufological elements and look at some of South America’s indigenous fauna to see if we can come up with a culprit. There are a handful of options, but the character that seems to most fit the bill is…

VAMPYRUM SPECTRUM

Vampyrum Spectrum — also known as the Spectral or false vampire bat — is native to both South and Central America. This nocturnal predator ranges from Mexico to central Brazil and Peru. It is not only the largest bat found in the “New World,” but it is also the biggest carnivorous bat on the planet.

With its elongated nose and 3-foot wingspan it’s not entirely unreasonable to deduce that the Torre family spied a small group of these animals and assumed the worst. Granted the arid deserts of northern Chili are nothing like the prototypical habitat of deciduous forests and swampy areas where bunches of five Vampyrum Spectrum nest in hollow trees near bodies of water, but it is not that unusual for small colonies of creatures to occasionally stray from their usual environment for a variety of reasons.

One could also argue that a pair of gargantuan non-indigenous bats that are seen at night by young and inexperienced eyewitnesses may well appear to be larger than they are. Still, as convenient as a rogue population of bats might be in explaining away these events, they cannot account for the leaping, winged, kangaroo-like creatures that temporarily blocked the Torre’s path in full view of their truck’s headlights.

CONCLUSION:

So what is it that we are dealing with here? It seems fairly evident that if we are not contending with a mistaken identification or outright hoax, then these gargoyles must be either a variety of unknown flying mammal or perhaps a colossal species of heretofore undiscovered bat.

Strangely enough, according to both Carlos and the Carabineros — the uniformed Chilean national police force — there were no reports of strange creatures on the well traveled highway until 2004. Does this suggest a migratory pattern for these beasts or might we surmise that jungle deforestation or some other manner of likely human encroachment has forced these critters out of hiding and into the public eye?

Until one of the Chilean gargoyles is shot, captured or convincingly caught on film this mystery will no doubt endure… and if you ever find yourself traipsing around northern Chili at night, look to the skies… you never know what you’re going to see.

Layer by Layer

This is a quick update on 3D printing technology used to produce production components.  As stated, it does not lend itself to volume production needs but for now it is great for small production runs and I am sure it beats hogging out a block of metal.

I also suspect the process itself has great upside for innovation and steady improvement.

In time we can hope to have the capacity to produce almost anything this way.  Machined surfaces and the like may not be part of the mix but that has always been an engineering challenge even with castings.  That is what sleeves were invented for.

A thousand robots producing the equivalent of castings seems likely though.

Layer by Layer

With 3-D printing, manufacturers can make existing products more efficiently—and create ones that weren't possible before.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012

BY DAVID H. FREEDMAN

Buildup: GE made the aircraft engine ­component on the left by using a laser to melt metal in precise places, beginning with the single layer seen on the right. Credit: Bob O’Connor

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/39316/

The parts in jet engines have to withstand staggering forces and temperatures, and they have to be as light as possible to save on fuel. That means it's complex and costly to make them: technicians at General Electric weld together as many as 20 separate pieces of metal to achieve a shape that efficiently mixes fuel and air in a fuel injector. But for a new engine coming out next year, GE thinks it has a better way to make fuel injectors: by printing them.

To do it, a laser traces out the shape of the injector's cross-section on a bed of cobalt-chrome powder, fusing the powder into solid form to build up the injector one ultrathin layer at a time. This promises to be less expensive than traditional manufacturing methods, and it should lead to a lighter part—which is to say a better one. The first parts will go into jet engines, says Prabhjot Singh, who runs a lab at GE that focuses on improving and applying this and similar 3-D printing processes. But, he adds, "there's not a day we don't hear from one of the other divisions at GE interested in using this technology."

These innovations are at the forefront of a radical change in manufacturing technology that is especially appealing in advanced applications like aerospace and cars. The 3-D printing techniques won't just make it more efficient to produce existing parts. They will also make it possible to produce things that weren't even conceivable before—like parts with complex, scooped-out shapes that minimize weight without sacrificing strength. Unlike machining processes, which can leave up to 90 percent of the material on the floor, 3-D printing leaves virtually no waste—a huge consideration with expensive metals such as titanium. The technology could also reduce the need to store parts in inventory, because it's just as easy to print another part—or an improved version of it—10 years after the first one was made. An automobile manufacturer receiving reports of a failure in a seat belt mechanism could have a reconfigured version on its way to dealers within days.

Additive manufacturing, as 3-D printing is also known, emerged in the mid-1980s after Charles Hull invented what he called stereo­lithography, in which the top layer of a pool of resin is hardened by an ultraviolet laser. Various methods of 3-D printing have become popular with engineers who want to create prototypes of new designs or make a few highly customized parts: they can make a 3-D blueprint of a part in a computer-assisted design program and then get a printer to spit it out hours later. This process avoids the up-front costs, long lead times, and design constraints of conventional high-volume manufacturing techniques like injection molding, casting, and stamping. But the technology has been adapted to only a limited set of materials, and there have been questions about quality control. Building parts this way has also been slow—it can take a day or more to do what traditional manufacturing can accomplish in minutes or hours.

For these reasons, 3-D printing hasn't been used for very large runs of production parts.

But now the technology is advancing far enough for production runs in niche markets such as medical devices. And it's poised to break into several larger applications over the next several years. "We've come to the point when enough critical advances are happening to make the technology truly useful in manufacturing end-use parts," says Tim Gornet, who runs the Rapid Prototyping Center at the University of Louisville. 

Pressing print: This photo shows an array of metal jet-engine components printed at GE. Credit: Bob O’Connor

MAKING INROADS

Several techniques can be used to "print" a solid object layer by layer. In sintering, a thin layer of powdered metal or thermoplastic is exposed to a laser or electron beam that fuses the material into a solid in designated areas; then a new coating of powder is laid on top and the process repeated. Parts can also be built up with heated plastic or metal extruded or squirted through a nozzle that moves to create the shape of one layer, after which another layer is deposited directly on top, and so forth. In another 3-D printing method, glue is used to bind powders.

Aerospace companies are at the forefront of adopting the technology, because airplanes often need parts with complex geometries to meet tricky airflow and cooling requirements in jammed compartments. About 20,000 parts made by laser sintering are already flying in military and commercial aircraft made by Boeing, including 32 different components for its 787 Dreamliner planes, according to Terry Wohlers, a manufacturing consultant who specializes in additive processes. These aren't items that have to be mass-produced; Boeing might make a few hundred of them all year. They're also not critical to flight; among them are elaborately shaped air ducts needed for cooling, which previously had to be manufactured in multiple pieces. "Now we can optimize the design of these parts for weight, and we save material and labor," says Mike Vander Wel, director of Boeing's manufacturing technology strategy group. "In theory, this is the ultimate manufacturing method for us." Though the speed limitations of 3-D printing might keep it from ever producing the majority of Boeing's parts, Vander Wel says, the approach is likely to be used in a growing proportion of them.

Boeing's main rival, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), is using the technology to make titanium parts in satellites and hopes to use it for parts it makes in higher volume for Airbus planes. "We don't yet know what the extent of our use of additive-layer manufacturing there will be yet, but we don't see any show stoppers," says Jon Meyer, who heads research on 3-D printing at EADS's Innovation Works division in England. 

Smaller scale: Seen here is a microprinter that GE uses to test new ways of building things out of ceramic materials. Researchers are using the machine to print the transducers used as probes in ultrasound machines; they believe it might save time and money while improving design. Credit: Bob O’Connor

GE's jet engine division may be closer than anyone else to bringing 3-D-printed parts into large-scale commercial production. In addition to the fuel injector, GE is also laser-sintering titanium into complex shapes for four-foot-long strips bonded onto the leading edge of fan blades. These strips deflect debris and create more efficient airflow. Until now, each one has required tens of hours of forging and machining, during which 50 percent of the titanium was lost. By switching to 3-D printing, the company will save about $25,000 in labor and material in each engine, estimates Todd Rockstroh, the GE consulting engineer who heads the effort. The blade edge and the fuel injector will start appearing in engines as early as 2013, and they will be integrated into full-scale production runs in the thousands by about 2016.

Meanwhile, says Rockstroh, the company hopes to gain design flexibility by using 3-D printing for more parts. When it recently discovered that a stem in the fuel injector was subjected to excessive levels of heat stress, a redesigned version came out of the printer within a week. "Before, we would have had to redesign 20 different parts, with all the associated tooling," says Rockstroh. "It might not have even been possible." And using 3-D printing to corrugate the insides of some parts can reduce their weight by up to 70 percent, which can save an airline millions of gallons of fuel every year. That prospect has GE looking for ways to print everything from gearbox housings to control mechanisms. "We're going on a major weight-reduction scavenger hunt next year," Rockstroh says.

Automobiles could similarly benefit from lighter parts, and the University of Louisville's Gornet notes that printing processes could cut the weight of valves, pistons, and fuel injectors by at least half. Some manufacturers of ultraluxury and high-performance cars, including Bentley and BMW, are already using 3-D printing for parts with production runs in the hundreds. 

Polished: A transducer made in GE’s microprinter (top) and the same transducer after being refined and finished in other machines (bottom). Credit: Bob O’Connor

CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME

If it weren't for the limitations of the technology, 3-D printing would already be much more broadly used. "Speeds are atrociously slow right now," says GE's Singh. Todd Grimm, who heads an additive-­manufacturing consultancy in Edgewood, Kentucky, estimates that the time it takes to produce a part will have to improve as much as a hundredfold if 3-D printing is to compete directly with conventional manufacturing techniques in most applications. That won't happen in the next few years.

Another problem: for now, only a handful of plastic and metal compounds can be used in 3-D printing. In laser sintering, for example, the material must be able to form a powder that will melt neatly when it is hit with a laser, and then solidify quickly. The compounds that meet the necessary criteria can cost 50 to 100 times as much by weight as the raw materials used in conventional manufacturing processes, partly because they're in such low demand that they're available only from small specialty suppliers.

As demand increases with new applications, however, supplier competition should pull prices down dramatically. And the list of available materials is slowly expanding. GE is trying to use ceramics, which would open up new possibilities in engines and medical devices, among other areas.

Simple experience, too, will do much to improve the technology. So far, manufacturers don't have enough data to predict exactly how a part will turn out and how it will hold up, or how production variables—including temperature, choice of material, part shape, and cooling time—affect the results. That can be frustrating, says Singh: "3-D printing often ends up being a black art. A part is made out of thousands of layers, and each layer is a potential failure mode. We still don't understand why a part comes out slightly differently on one machine than it does on another, or even on the same machine on a different day." For example, the layering process tends to build up interlayer stresses in unpredictable ways, so that some parts end up distorted. Porosity can vary within parts as well, leading to concerns about fatigue or brittleness. That could be a big problem in aircraft engines or wing struts. "We know how to make the metals strong enough," says Boeing's Vander Wel. "But we worry about the unpredictability. Can we repeat a result to get 100 parts that are exactly the same? We're not sure yet."

Even with these challenges, time is on the side of 3-D printing, says Vander Wel, and not just because the processes are improving. Engineers are understandably reluctant to embrace a new technology for critical parts when their deadlines and reputations, not to mention the lives of people in airplanes, are at stake. "But younger designers are adapting more quickly," he says. "They're not so quick to say, 'It can't be built this way.'"

David H. Freedman, a science journalist based in Boston, wrote about opto­genetics in the November/December 2010 issue of TR. His latest book is Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us.

No White Christmas For Canadians

The past two winters in Canada have been somewhat odd.  Last winter we had a pretty ordinary winter while south of us the US got blasted in a way that one has to go far back in the record books to find comparables.  It was almost as if we were on different continents.  This year, as this article makes clear we have had no snow across the country.

What I find curious here is that this means that a not so low probability event in Vancouver has been repeated in the Prairies and in Ontario and Quebec and the Maritimes and even Newfoundland.  If we were to assign a probability of one four to each of them save BC at say ¾, all of which is super conservative but overcomes any geographic linkage and dependency, then the probability of this happening is around once per millennium.  Obviously some factor is making it more likely than it appears.

In the meantime, the US is having a pretty ordinary winter and perhaps a repeat of some recent past decent winters.

Another thing to think about regarding Canadian cities.  Their internal density has been steadily increasing and this has increased the heat island effect of the cities themselves.  If heat output is measured on a per capita basis, then the rising population in the cities is also combined with greater heat output as few now do without sufficient warm living space or all the add-ons.

No white Christmas for Canadians in 2011

by Staff Writers

Ottawa (AFP) Dec 21, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/No_white_Christmas_for_Canadians_in_2011_999.html

Most Canadians will not wake up to a white Christmas on December 25 for the first time since Canada's weather office began recording snowfalls in 1955, the government agency said Wednesday.

With just days before the Christian holiday, Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips told AFP he has never seen so little snowpack in Canada's cities.

And the forecast for the coming days is sunny and very mild.

"A white Christmas is usually a sure thing in Canada, but not this year," Phillips said.

"We are usually the snowiest country in the world," he said. "But this year, like no other since we've been monitoring in 56 years, there will be many Canadians just dreaming of a white Christmas and not getting one."

For a city to qualify as having a white Christmas, Environment Canada must note at least two centimeters (0.79 inches) of snow on the ground at 7 am on December 25.

This month has been on average six to seven degrees (Celsius) warmer than normal and most snow that has fallen has melted soon after hitting the ground.

Gander, Newfoundland -- usually "the snowiest place in Canada" -- only has a trace of snow on the ground today, Phillips noted.

Winnipeg, Manitoba -- once ranked the coldest metropolis on Earth -- usually has a 98 percent chance of snow at Christmas. But temperatures in the west of the country are expected to hover just above freezing in the coming days.

Other cities in the east like Saint John's, Newfoundland have a few centimeters of snow on the ground but rain is forecast.

Phillips said Canadian winters are generally becoming milder, and starting later, and so the idea of a white Christmas may be something of the past.

He pointed to a combination of climate change and an "urban heat island effect" created by Canada's growing cities. High energy use generates heat that is retained by materials in urban developments, resulting in areas that are consistently hotter than surrounding rural areas.

Self Healing Electronics Demonstrated

You only need to know that flat screen monitors had a typical seventy percent failure rate to appreciate the importance of this methodology.  It wa the primary reason that the initial cost was so high and I am sure it remains a major cost factor.

It that loss factor can be slashed; we will quickly see the large dimension screens drop in price while also making the holodeck wall almost practical.  A three D space is soon going to be a technically credible target.

Beyond that it makes physically robust circuits possible as they are needed and the change out option is not quite so important although it imposed a discipline to engineering that I think is and was valuble.

Self-healing electronics could work longer and reduce waste

by Liz Ahlberg, Physical Sciences Editor for University of Illinois

Champaign IL (SPX) Dec 23, 2011

Self-healing electronics. Microcapsules full of liquid metal sit atop a gold circuit. When the circuit is broken, the microcapsules rupture, filling in the crack and restoring the circuit. Graphic by Scott White. 

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Self_healing_electronics_could_work_longer_and_reduce_waste_999.html

When one tiny circuit within an integrated chip cracks or fails, the whole chip - or even the whole device - is a loss. But what if it could fix itself, and fix itself so fast that the user never knew there was a problem?

A team of University of Illinois engineers has developed a self-healing system that restores electrical conductivity to a cracked circuit in less time than it takes to blink. Led by aerospace engineering professor Scott White and materials science and engineering professor Nancy Sottos, the researchers published their results in the journal Advanced Materials.

"It simplifies the system," said chemistry professor Jeffrey Moore, a co-author of the paper. "Rather than having to build in redundancies or to build in a sensory diagnostics system, this material is designed to take care of the problem itself."

As electronic devices are evolving to perform more sophisticated tasks, manufacturers are packing as much density onto a chip as possible. However, such density compounds reliability problems, such as failure stemming from fluctuating temperature cycles as the device operates or fatigue. A failure at any point in the circuit can shut down the whole device.

"In general there's not much avenue for manual repair," Sottos said. "Sometimes you just can't get to the inside. In a multilayer integrated circuit, there's no opening it up. Normally you just replace the whole chip. It's true for a battery too. You can't pull a battery apart and try to find the source of the failure."

Most consumer devices are meant to be replaced with some frequency, adding to electronic waste issues, but in many important applications - such as instruments or vehicles for space or military functions - electrical failures cannot be replaced or repaired.

The Illinois team previously developed a system for self-healing polymer materials and decided to adapt their technique for conductive systems.

They dispersed tiny microcapsules, as small as 10 microns in diameter, on top of a gold line functioning as a circuit. As a crack propagates, the microcapsules break open and release the liquid metal contained inside. The liquid metal fills in the gap in the circuit, restoring electrical flow.

"What's really cool about this paper is it's the first example of taking the microcapsule-based healing approach and applying it to a new function," White said.

"Everything prior to this has been on structural repair. This is on conductivity restoration. It shows the concept translates to other things as well."

A failure interrupts current for mere microseconds as the liquid metal immediately fills the crack. The researchers demonstrated that 90 percent of their samples healed to 99 percent of original conductivity, even with a small amount of microcapsules.

The self-healing system also has the advantages of being localized and autonomous. Only the microcapsules that a crack intercepts are opened, so repair only takes place at the point of damage.

Furthermore, it requires no human intervention or diagnostics, a boon for applications where accessing a break for repair is impossible, such as a battery, or finding the source of a failure is difficult, such as an air- or spacecraft.

"In an aircraft, especially a defense-based aircraft, there are miles and miles of conductive wire," Sottos said. "You don't often know where the break occurs. The autonomous part is nice - it knows where it broke, even if we don't."

Next, the researchers plan to further refine their system and explore other possibilities for using microcapsules to control conductivity. They are particularly interested in applying the microcapsule-based self-healing system to batteries, improving their safety and longevity.

This research was supported as part of the Center for Electrical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Moore, Sottos and White are also affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I. Co-authors of the paper included postdoctoral researchers Benjamin Blaiszik and Sharlotte Kramer and graduate students Martha Grady and David McIlroy.

Space Ball Falls in Namibia

Here is another oddity that begs an explanation.  I wish when ‘tests’ are done, the folks could be more forthcoming in describing what was done.

There is really little reason for a metal ball to exist.  It is even an open question whether such an item could survive entering the atmosphere somehow if we were to ask the question.  The tough spherical surface certainly argues for the possibility.  Since others are reported to exist, where are the reports?

The last item suggests that it is a titanium pressure tank that likely held hydrazine once.  This means that the best possible test would be for titanium and probably someone was too cheap.  In the meantime, it is likely man made space junk.  And yes a titanium balloon would surely make it down.

The fact that it has occurred before suggests that titanium pressure tanks holding hydrazine is standard fare in space work.  That makes sense of course as it is the best and lightest and most naturally compact fuel you could ask for so long as you are not working on Earth with it.

"Space ball" drops on Namibia

AFP – Thu, 22 Dec, 2011

A photo provided by the National Forensic Science Institute shows a giant metallic …

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/space-ball-drops-namibia-133326985.html

A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency.

The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.

Locals had heard several small explosions a few days beforehand, he said.

With a diameter of 35 centimetres (14 inches), the ball has a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together".

It was made of a "metal alloy known to man" and weighed six kilogrammes (13 pounds), said Ludik.

It was found 18 metres from its landing spot, a hole 33 centimetres deep and 3.8 meters wide.

Several such balls have dropped in southern Africa, Australia and Latin America in the past twenty years, authorities found in an Internet search.

The sphere was discovered mid-November, but authorities first did tests before announcing the find.

Police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka concluded the sphere did not pose any danger.

"It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first," he said.

Most DM readers will by now have recognised it as one of the ATK 80194-1 Monolithic Titanium Pressurant Tanks fitted to the Orbiting Solar Observatory series of satellites, launched between 1963 and 1975 to record radiation over an 11-year sunspot cycle. One was shot down by the USAF in 1985 (to prove that they could), one never made it into orbit, and three are recorded as re-entering in 1974, '81 and '82. The remaining four satellites have been dead for over thirty years and have probably all re-entered the atmosphere sometime since. My guess is that this indicates the homecoming of the last of them. It could well be the hydrazine tank from OSO4, which had a troubled launch in 1967 and ended up with an elliptical orbit through the Van Allen Belt, rather messing up the radiation recordings. The titanium could be worth a couple of hundred quid scrap, but if there is any hydrazine left (which is quite possible) then best steer clear, it's nasty stuff.

Chinese Wines Win Blind Tasting

It appears that another wine friendly locale has been identified.  Ningxia is beyond the wall and somewhat emote for anything but the conditions sound similar to BC’s Okanagan in particular.  It is always pleasant to cheer on another success in the wine industry.  While some may regret the expansion of the industry, the truth is simply that there are few locales world wide that produce seriously good wine.  Step away from those and the problems quickly mount.

With the global economy nicely optimizing it is more than fair to say that few new prime locales remain to be discovered at all.  The obvious temperate regions were tackled quite early and we are now picking off the natural refugia type locales.  The Okanagan is a great example of just that.

This development will certainly help wine go mainstream in China and create a powerful lobby internal to China that will protect quality for all.

Chinese wines beat Bordeaux in blind tasting

by Staff Writers

Beijing (AFP) Dec 14, 2011

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Chinese_wines_beat_Bordeaux_in_blind_tasting_999.html

A remote region of northern China that began growing grapes for fine wine just a decade ago has beaten the centuries-old French wine-producing region of Bordeaux in a blind tasting held in Beijing.

A group of wine experts -- five French and five Chinese -- ranked the bottles from the remote and sparsely populated Ningxia region above those from Bordeaux at the tasting, held on Wednesday in Beijing.

The jury sampled five wines from each region, selecting a cabernet sauvignon from the Grace Vineyard in Ningxia as the top-scoring bottle -- a shock result echoing a 1976 contest that saw the classics humbled by New World wines.

Wines from Ningxia took the four top slots in the contest and a 2009 Medoc from the Lafite vineyard in Bordeaux was the highest-scoring French wine, in fifth place.

All the wines in the contest were produced in 2008 or 2009, and all were priced between 200 and 400 yuan ($30-$60) in China -- putting the Bordeaux at a disadvantage because China levies a punishing 48 percentimport tax on wine.

Nonetheless, Bordeaux expert Nathalie Sibille said the Chinese wines had "performed very, very well", adding, "this region (Ningxia) has enormous potential".

China has enjoyed a huge wine-drinking boom in recent years and is now Bordeaux's largest export client. Analysts have predicted it will overtake the United States to become the largest wine-consuming nation within 20 years.

Most of the wine made there is mass-produced and of low quality, but experts say there are now some good Chinese wines being produced -- notably from Ningxia.

Moet Hennessy, the wine and spirits arm of France's LVMH luxury group, said this year it was planting its first Chinese vineyard in Ningxia to produce sparkling wine.

And a Ningxia vintage was named best Bordeaux-style wine over 10 pounds ($15) at the Decanter World Wine Awards in London this year -- prompting Wednesday's event.

The tasting came 35 years after British wine merchant Steven Spurrier organised a blind tasting that pitted some of France's finest wines against lesser-known names from California.

The American bottles came out on top, shocking the wine establishment, which had always considered Old World vintages to be superior.

"Wine is not a new thing in China, but we are at the very start of China's fine wine story," said the organiser of Wednesday's event, Jim Boyce, who runs the China wine blog www.grapewallofchina.com.

"The very good ones are mostly being made in Ningxia. For me, the link is that a lot of the winemakers there have been trained in Bordeaux."

For judge Fiona Sun, editor of the Chinese edition of a French wine magazine, the results of the contest mean that "people should change their minds about Chinese wine".

Ningxia Travel Guide

'Ning' is the colloquial term for the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Find it on the map in northwest China and into the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. It is bordered by Gansu to the south, Shaanxi to the east, and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the north, and is one of the five ethnic minority autonomous regions in China. Ningxia covers a total area of 66,000 square kilometers (about 25,484 square miles) and has a population of 5.62 million; one third of who are Hui minority people. It has a temperate continental climate of long, cold winters and short, hot summers with the temperature being lowest in January, averaging from -10C to -7C and highest in July, averaging from 17C to 24C. Annual rainfall averages from 190 - 700 millimeters.

 History

Ningxia, a region as culturally rich as the entire area south of the Yangtze River, continues to be admired for its resplendent cultural heritage garnered from the long river of history. During the time of the Tang and Han Dynasties (206 BC - 907 AD) Ningxia was the main place for trade and transportation between the eastern and western regions of ancient China. Ruins of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty can be found in east Ningxia.

A unique landscape, unique local customs and habits, and ancient history, all add up to make Ningxia an interesting tourist area for those wishing to discover a rich and diverse region.

Yinchuan City (also called 'Phoenix City') is the capital of the region situated in the remote northwest of China. The 1000-year-old city is a famous cultural city beyond the Great Wall. The old sector of Yinchuan City to the west is green and peaceful, and contains all the places of interest. It includes the 1500-year-oldHaibao Pagoda; the famous Buddhist architecture from the West Xia Kingdom Chengtiansi Pagoda; and theWest Xia Imperial Tombs known as the 'Pyramids of China'. One can also find there the mystic Helan Mountain Cliff Painting, created by the ancient nomads who dwelled in the regions of the Helan Mountains in northwest Ningxia. They used a bold and descriptive chiseling and drawing technique, to which they added dazzling colors, to depict the history of a splendid Chinese civilization.

Liupan Mountain is located in south Ningxia. This is an area famous for its picturesque scenery and it certainly lives up to its reputation as the 'green islet'.

Sand Lake Scenic Resort is the national tourist trump card for those looking for a place with a lake, sand dunes, reeds, birds and fish. During the May-September period, the lake becomes a veritable paradise for a dozen or so varieties of precious bird species, such as swans, white and grey cranes, black storks, and wild geese.

Shapotou on the southern rim of the Tengger Desert: There one will find the Desert Research Centre, established in 1956 to find ways of preventing the sands from encroaching onto the railways, and one of China's four singing sand dunes. Sliding down the sand dune gives one the ethereal feeling of descending from the sky. The peculiar geological structure of the place causes the sand to emit a resonance that reverberates like the tolling of a huge bell or the beating of a big drum. Limpid water flows gently in a knee-deep stream at the foot of the dune.

Ningxia is the home of Chinese Muslems. When you go, please be respectful of the unique local customs and habits of the Hui people.