GEN H-4

Ok, "This is one of the strangest things I've seen on the net today!" you are probably thinking to yourself, but what is it you ask?

It's the "GEN H-4." The world's smallest co-axial helicopter ever made!

This is a Japanese designed and manufactured ultralight one-man helicopter. The total empty weight of this helicopter is only 155 lb.

Yes, you're right it is a quite interesting contraption! It is true that there is not much to see on the outside. The frame is 2 inch aluminum pipe bent and welded, with a fiberglass backpack and funny looking wheels. The controls are direct, like many gyrocopters. In front of the pilot attached to the control bar is the control panel with the throttle (altitude control), tachometer, ignition power, starter and yaw switches. The tools necessary for flight do not seem like much because they aren't. This is not only the lightest helicopter in the world, but it is the easiest to fly!

If you look closely at the power pack (on top of the air craft) you will find four astonishingly small twin cylinder engines feeding into a central transmission with two sets of rotors turning in opposite directions. Wow, you say? That's nuts!.

A Nevada-based aviation company is exploring a creative way to utilize gravity as a power source to produce an aircraft concept which might one day take people and cargo great distances without the need for fuel. The project is called the GravityPlane.The idea sprung from the brain of Robert D. Hunt, a theoretical physicist. It uses a cycle of climbing and descending to maintain its lift and forward speed, mimicking the behavior of the bodies of warm and cold air which make up the weather.

For the GravityPlane to become airborne, gas bags inside a pair of rigid, zeppelin-like structures are filled with helium from storage tanks inside the vehicle. Overall weight by releasing the stored air which acts as ballast. Once the craft reaches the altitude where the helium is no longer lighter than the surrounding air– theoretically as high as ten miles up– it is unable to climb any further. Some of the stored compressed air is then expanded into the dirigible areas, decreasing the buoyancy effect of the helium and starting the aircraft's descent phase.As gravity pulls the plane towards the earth, the long wings are moved to the swept-back position to reduce wind drag, and air turbines mounted on the top of the craft capture some of the forward momentum and use it to drive air pumps which can refill the on-board compressed air storage tanks. In this gliding mode, the aircraft achieves aerodynamic lift for a gradual descent at high speeds, and can travel in this configuration for about 400 to 600 miles. At the end of the gliding phase, the wings are redeployed. If the concept ever leaves the drawing board and becomes a prototype, it will be massive. But hypothetically, this design could allow the aircraft to travel practically any distance with no fuel. It would expel no polluting gasses, and it would be virtually silent. It would also have some interesting features for such a large craft, including vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), and the ability to set down on land or at sea. Additionally, its buoyancy would allow it to hover in the air if needed, even in the event of total power loss.

FUTURE MOBIL

During the 1950s, much of the world was quivering with anticipation over the exciting prospects of nuclear power. It seemed that there was no energy problem too large or too small for the mighty atom to tackle during the glorious and modern Atomic Age.

It was during this period in 1957 that the Ford Motor Company unveiled the most ambitious project in their history: a concept vehicle which had a sleek futuristic look, emitted no harmful vapors, and offered incredible fuel mileage far beyond that of the most efficient cars ever built. This automobile-of-the-future was called the Ford Nucleon, named for its highly unique design feature… a pint-size atomic fission reactor in the trunk. It was designed to use uranium fission to heat a steam generator, rapidly converting stored water into high-pressure steam which could then be used to drive a set of turbines. One steam turbine would provide the torque to propel the car while another would drive an electrical generator. Steam would then be condensed back into water in a cooling loop, and sent back to the steam generator to be reused. Such a closed system would allow the reactor to produce power as long as fissile material remained.Designers anticipated that a typical Nucleon would travel about 5,000 miles per charge.
It seemed inevitable that the internal combustion engine would fade into obscurity, becoming a quaint relic of a pre-atomic past. But the Nucleon's design hinged on the assumption that smaller nuclear reactors would soon be developed, as well as lighter shielding materials. When those innovations failed to appear, the project was scrapped ; the bulky apparatus and heavy lead shielding didn't allow for a safe and efficient car-sized package.
The Ford Nucleon sans tail finsFord never produced a working prototype, nevertheless the Nucleon remains an icon of the Atomic Age. Their reckless optimism demonstrates that one shouldn't consider a task impossible just because nobody has tried it yet– some ideas need to be debunked on their own merit. With today's looming energy crisis and slow migration to alternative fuel sources, we may not have seen the last of the atomic automobile concept. Perhaps one day fossil fuels will wither under the radioactive glare of the mighty atom, and our highways will hum with the steam turbines of mobile Chernobyls. It could be a real blast.

Advancement in DNA Computing

Strands of DNA used to perform calculations has mastered the game tic-tac-toe. MAYA-II, developed at Columbia University and the University of New Mexico in the US, uses a system of DNA logic gates to calculate its moves for tic-tac-toe.

A DNA logic gate consists of a strand of DNA which binds to another specific input sequence. This binding causes a region of the strand to work as an enzyme, modifying yet another short DNA sequence into an output string.Scientists have already developed DNA computers capable of various similar simple calculations. But the researchers behind MAYA-II say their design should prove particularly useful for exploring ways to identify the genetic markers associated with certain diseases.