Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), USA, Inc has unveiled its third-generation Prius hybrid car which has an MPG rating of 50 miles per gallon. The 2010 Toyota Prius offers better mileage with enhanced performance in comparison to its previous models. The vehicle outputs ultra-low emissions and quieter, roomier, and equipped with Toyota’s Intelligent Parking Assist (IPA). The electric motor is called a permanent magnet synchronous motor which can out put 80 horsepower with a 153 lb-ft torque. The Hybrid system net outputs 134 horsepower. The hybrid battery pack is nickel-metal hydride. Environmental Friendly and Fuel Economy The 2010 Toyota Prius has a combined mileage rating of 50 miles per gallon. It comes with a 1.8-liter Atkinson-cycle engine which will power the new Prius Hybrid with four-cylinders. The automobile makes use of an electric water pump and a new exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) system which contributes to the engine�s efficiency. The vehicle also requires no belts under the hood for better fuel economy and less potential maintenance. This is one of the reasons why this is an eco-friendly car. The driver can also receive feedback, from the multi-information display panel, which can provide help to acquire economical driving habits. […]
Human exploitation of the seas has changed them forever, writes Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at York University Imagine sitting on the cliffs of Dover contemplating the sea on a crisp spring day. Today your eye would be drawn by the crawling shapes of cargo vessels, ferries and fishing boats. Wind back the clock to the seventh century, however, and the scene would be very different. Instead of shipping, you would watch the passage of great whales on their northward migration from African wintering grounds to Arctic feeding areas. At the season’s peak, over a thousand whales might pass in a day. Today few whales are sighted in the English Channel, because we have decimated their numbers by hunting. The slaughter began in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel around the ninth century and, by the early Middle Ages these abundant animals sustained a vigorous whale fishery that was conducted from coastal bays and inlets along their migration routes. Records suggest that numbers were declining as long ago as the 12th and 14th centuries. Related Links * Killer whales face cull after finding taste for otters The depletion […]
In a report funded by NASA, NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) has issued a formal, public prediction that ‘A new active period of Earth-threatening solar storms will be the weakest since 1928 and its peak is still four years away, after a slow start last December, predicts an international panel of experts led by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Even so, Earth could get hit by a devastating solar storm at any time, with potential damages from the most severe level of storm exceeding $1 trillion. The prediction, published in a report at www.spaceweather.com, continues: ‘The panel predicts the upcoming Solar Cycle 24 will peak in May 2013 with a daily sunspot number of 90. If the prediction proves true, Solar Cycle 24 will be the weakest cycle since number 16, which peaked at 78 daily sunspots in 1928, and ninth weakest since the 1750s, when numbered cycles began. The NOAA solar panel’s predictions appear to lessen the potential risk to the high energy electrical grid system of 2012-13 Solar flares set out in a Jan. 2009 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report. According to a New Scientist article on the NAS report, ‘The […]
Growing plants to make electricity is a more efficient and environmentally sound way to power vehicles than biofuels, according to a study meant to spark a debate over energy policy. The study’s authors modeled how far different classes of cars could go based on the available energy from a unit of land and found that bioelectricity–burning biomass to make electricity–far outperforms ethanol. The paper, published on Thursday in Science, found that bioelectricity delivered 81 percent more distance per unit area of crop land than ethanol. Greenhouse gas emissions per area of land were 100 percent less than cellulosic ethanol. (Click here for PDF of results.) In one example, they found that a small truck powered by bioelectricity could travel almost 15,000 miles compared with 8,000 comparable miles for an internal combustion equivalent. Click on the image to see how bioenergy and biofuels compare for transportation. (Credit: UC Merced) Making electricity from biomass, such as switchgrass, is made by burning the plants to make steam to turn an electricity turbine. That electricity could be used to charge up a plug-in electric car. The starting point for the study is that there’s a limit to the […]
In the past, people thought birds were stupid,’ laments the aptly named scientist Christopher Bird. But in fact, some of our feathered friends are far cleverer than we might think. And one group in particular – the corvids – has astonished scientists with extraordinary feats of memory, an ability to employ complex social reasoning and, perhaps most strikingly, a remarkable aptitude for crafting and using tools. Mr Bird, who is based at the department of zoology at Cambridge University, says: ‘I would rate corvids as being as intelligent as primates in many ways.’ The corvids – a group that includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays and magpies – contain some of the most social species of birds. And some of their intelligence is played out against the backdrop of living with others, where being intelligent enough to recognize individuals, to form alliances and foster relationships is key. However, group living can also lead to deceptive behaviour – and western scrub jays ( Aphelocoma californica ) can be the sneakiest of the bird-bunch. Many corvids will hide stores of food for later consumption, especially during the cold winter months when resources are scarce, but […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
