By JB Sanders<\/p>\n
Woo! Fall!<\/p>\n
Alien Landscape on Earth<\/a> <\/strong> The Nerd-Fu is Strong With This One<\/a> <\/strong> Loudest Known Sound<\/a> <\/strong> Plum Island for Sale<\/a> <\/strong> For some background, the Wikipedia view of Plum Island<\/a>:<\/p>\n Brain Surgery & 3D Printing<\/a> <\/strong> Postcards from the Great Exhibition<\/a> <\/strong> Cheap and Easy Hydrogen Production<\/a> <\/strong> Don\u2019t Screw With the Swiss<\/a> <\/strong>
\nBecause it\u2019s very isolated, the biome of Socotra island (off the coast of Yemen) is unique on Earth. And looks it.<\/p>\n
\nSo, your typical person looks at a box of crayons, and thinks: \u201cI can make art with these!\u201d This guy? He doesn\u2019t draw an elaborate picture with the crayons. He carves the crayons. Into scifi nerdy sculptures.<\/p>\n
\nThe loudest sound known to have occurred, on Earth mind you, was the eruption\/explosion of Krakatoa. How bad was it? People 100 miles away suffered permanent hearing loss.<\/p>\n
\nIf you aren\u2019t aware of Plum Island\u2019s reputation, you\u2019re in for a treat. It\u2019s long been rumored to be the site of the US Government\u2019s biological warfare research, or something even more sinister and oddball. Officially, it\u2019s been the Plum Island Animal Disease Center since 1954. But now it\u2019s for sale, and if isn\u2019t going to be the source of the zombie\/plague apocalypse, then it\u2019d be a swell place to survive one of those. It has it\u2019s own power plant, and water treatment facility. Plus tons of other interesting features.<\/p>\n
\nFor some particularly difficult brain surgery procedures, doctors have started taking very high-resolution scans of the patient, printing a replica of their brain in a semi-solid medium, and testing the procedure ahead of time. They even print the blood vessels in a different color medium. How wild is that?<\/p>\n
\nIf you\u2019re not familiar with it, the Great Exhibition was the first world\u2019s fair, encompassing 13,000 exhibits under a purpose-built structure called the Crystal Palace. It\u2019s a popular destination for time travelers, since it was easy to blend into the crowd of almost 6 million visitors, and everyone went. The engravings are themselves beautiful examples of High Victorian art.<\/p>\n
\nOne of the downsides of renewable forms of energy is that if you don\u2019t use it when it\u2019s produced, it\u2019s gone. And there aren\u2019t any good storage solutions, to hold onto that energy for later use. In comes hydrogen. If you can use the renewable energy to extract hydrogen from common sources (like from water), you can store up the volatile gas for later use \u2014 either burned directly, or combined with other elements to produce electricity directly. Some scientists have found a way to produce hydrogen far more easily than was previously possible.<\/p>\n
\nI think they invented the term \u201cruthlessly neutral\u201d. Here\u2019s a primer on why it\u2019s never worth it to invade, despite their strategic deposits of chocolate.<\/p>\n