data – Australian Science

Talking Cars

Kelly Burnes — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 00:20:23 +0000

ITS in action, via ETSI at http://www.etsi.org/

The automobile. If you have one, it is the largest computer you own. When you think about the rate of changes made from the Model T to the present day 4-door family sedan, the evolutionary rate of development has been extraordinary. It’s data and computers and sensors that inform what’s running right with your car, from the fuel consumption to the brakes. And it’s data and technology that continue to make cars more efficient, durable and safer.

Intelligent Transport Systems

The idea behind Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is to increase safety and mobility: allowing you and I to get where we need to quicker and safer. How’s this possible? One component of ITS is IEEE 802.11p, a variant of Wi-Fi, or Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC). This technology is responsible for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications; basically cars can talk to each other and to buildings. An Australian company, Cohda Wireless, is at the forefront of this new frontier.

Cohda is part of a pilot project sponsored by the US Department of Transportation. The $15 million grant equips 3,000 cars with Wi-Fi based transmitters for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. It works like this: each car is outfitted with a GPS receiver and DSRC radio, which exchanges speed and position data with other vehicles nearby. A computer integrates the vehicle-to-vehicle information with onboard data to determine how drivers respond to warnings, such as lane-change and collision avoidance. Of course, it is ultimately up to the person in the driver’s seat to react in time, and correctly, to avoid an incident.

Other Options

And if it’s incidents we want to avoid, why not just have robotic cars? Perhaps you’ll recall the Google driverless car. With over $200,000 worth of equipment in the vehicle, it’s unlikely these will be parked in family garages any time soon.

The other reason robotic cars may not catch on is for the basic fact that people love to drive. Many of us long for the open road with the wind in our face as we chase down new adventures. For many rural and small towns and suburbia, driving is a way of life. A subway system or light rail facility is either a dream or a nightmare, if it were to happen, for many municipalities.

But if you are in the big city, then public transit systems are in many ways ‘driverless’ – in that when you step on board, you don’t have to worry about the driving.

Given the number of train derailments occurring in the past few weeks (with incidents in the United States, Canada, France, and most recently, Spain), we may want to think about equipping our commuter trains with IEEE 802.11p. If this technology could identify debris on the tracks, or misaligned tracks up ahead, or signals that are not responding to its sensors, or if a train is approaching a curve with too great a speed, it could very well minimize train derailments and incidents; resulting in far fewer fatalities, property damage and disruption to transportation networks. (Note: there is GSM-R, (Global System for Mobile Communications – Railway) technology in operation in Europe, China, Africa and Australia. This technology is a voice and data communications platform reliant on humans to signal a warning.)

After 120 years on the road and over 200 years on the tracks, we still don’t have this commuting problem worked out; and it will likely never be perfect. If we utilise ITS in more projects, both on the road and the rails, we may near that safer, more mobile level of transport we all desire.

Cite this article:
Burnes K (2013-07-30 00:20:23). Talking Cars. Australian Science. Retrieved: Apr 28, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/news/talking-cars/

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Weekly Science Picks

Kelly Burnes — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 00:03:19 +0000

Light waves, shown evolving in time in this simulation, create a cloaking effect at the middle where the light intensity goes to zero. via Nature.com

Happy June! Happy World Oceans Day! Hard to believe it is June already. I finally have some time on my hands and caught up on some reading this week. So you’ll see two articles below that are from April. It’s a little bit of everything… so grab your coffee, tea or chocolate milk, head to the sofa or venture out to the veranda if it’s nice weather, and enjoy this edition of Weekly Science Picks!

Cyber security, data breaches, governments listening in on the phone calls of their citizens (oh wait, the U.S. claims it’s just unique identifiers…), are all hot topics in this age of data immersion that we found ourselves. Well, read about the ‘time hole’. Engineers are doing some pretty cool things in this realm.

Temporal cloak erases data from history by Zeeya Merali

Electrical engineers have used lasers to create a cloak that can hide communications in a ‘time hole’, so that it seems as if they were never sent.

Brain games are everywhere lately, whole startup companies are devoted to trying to entertain your neurons and increase your brain elasticity. I admit, I like a good competition of Words With Friends, but I’m pleased to see some research has been done on this topic.

Brain Games Versus Nature Documentaries by Rachel Kaufman

It seems brain-training games—online tests, quizzes, games, or flash cards designed to improve attention, memory, creativity, and concentration—are everywhere. But do they work? A recent study published in the journal PLoS ONE says … maybe not.

City mouse, country mouse; city bird, country bird. Lately, there appears to be a slate of ‘unique’ research going on in the Animal Kingdom. A lot of it has been appearing on BBC News. Perhaps this research will lead to some exciting new developments in city health technologies.

Biological clocks ‘beat quicker’ in cities by BBC News

City living could have a major impact on the biological clocks of humans and animals, a new study has found.

An ever greater number of people are able to ‘climb’ to the top of Mt. Everest and it is wreaking havoc on the conservation of that area. The terms have changed because the technology and the gear has improved to make it to the summit. Is there a solution? Not without putting some infrastructure and some hard policies in place.

Nepal Himalayas: ‘Decentralising’ mountaineering remains uphill task by Navin Singh Khadka

Figures from Nepal’s ministry of tourism figures show that the peaks Ama Dablam and Everest, both in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal, see the largest number of expeditions, more than 30 every year.

Another story involving hidden data, only this time it’s the kind that we would like to have out in the open and be able to access.

A Hidden Victim of Somali Pirates: Science by Paul Salopek

Scientists from around the globe, specializing in subjects as diverse as plate tectonics, plankton evolution, oceanography, and climate change, are decrying a growing void of research that has spread across hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa—an immense, watery “data hole” swept clean of scientific research by the threat of Somali buccaneering.

Something a little different to close out Weekly Science Picks – watch the video.

The Lego House is going to be Lego paradise by Rob Bricken

Stay thirsty for knowledge my friends. Stay thirsty.

Cite this article:
Burnes K (2013-06-09 00:03:19). Weekly Science Picks. Australian Science. Retrieved: Apr 28, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/news/weekly-science-picks-34/

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Weekly Science Picks

Kelly Burnes — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:29:34 +0000

DNA

This edition of weekly science picks is going to be a little different… it’s a smorgasbord of intriguing facts ranging from corporate ownership of our DNA to recycling building materials. Let’s get started.

This first story represents the line between scientific research and corporate profits that sometimes leaves the ethical, human components as an afterthought. Hopefully on Monday, 15 April, the US Supreme Court rectifies this when they hear oral arguments on a case concerning the patent of human genes.

The Supreme Court should invalidate the patent on human DNA by Jeffrey A. Rosenfeld and Christopher E. Mason

Today, Salk would be shocked to find that your DNA belongs not to you but rather to many companies and institutions that have patents on the DNA from your cells. Forty-one percent of the genes in your genome are not legally yours, according to a long list of gene patents that have been granted since the 1980s. These patents cover thousands of human genes and restrict a doctor’s ability to look at your DNA and plan your medical treatment. These patent claims contradict an intuitive sense that your DNA is no less yours than your lungs or kidneys.

As if Google wasn’t involved in our daily lives enough, they want to be their in death too. Don’t get me wrong, Google is great, I use their products every day. Although this story is a little creepy to think about, where to store or what happens with all that data we create while alive and breathing, is important.

Google Lets You Manage Your Digital Life From Beyond the Grave by Roberto Baldwin

Google announced today that users of its myriad digital services can control how their data is handled while they’re taking a dirt nap.

If you’re fascinated by buildings and building materials, you’ll enjoy this next story I came across on Arup’s website. Arup is a design, planning, and engineering firm with offices around the globe. (They designed and engineered the Sydney Opera House.)

Resources / The hidden assets of building by Mark Bowers

Take glass, for example. Glass from buildings is not widely recycled because it’s not as straightforward as taking empty bottles to the bottle bank. There are issues such as contamination from silicone sealants to consider, for example. But when Arup worked on refurbishing the Lloyd’s of London building, we showed it could be done.

And the last pick for this week is an update on another legal case soon to be heard in The Hague. The UN Court will hear oral arguments from representatives of both Australia and Japan over the Japanese whale research programme in Antarctica. The case is scheduled for 26 June to 16 July.

Australia to face Japan over whaling in UN Court by BBC News

“Australia will now have its day in court to establish, once and for all, that Japan’s whaling hunt is not for scientific purposes and is against international law,” Australia’s attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, said.

Cite this article:
Burnes K (2013-04-14 16:29:34). Weekly Science Picks. Australian Science. Retrieved: Apr 28, 2024, from http://australianscience.com.au/news/weekly-science-picks-26/

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