For soccer fans (or football in Europe!) The Qatar World Cup Games don’t start for almost a decade, but officials are still kicking the ball around over the irrational choice of tiny, wealthy, overweight Qatar as host nation for 2022 FIFA World Cup. With summer temperatures in Qatar reaching as high as 50°C (122°F), African and Arab teams might cope, but European athletes would be competing in temperatures double to those they’re accustomed to.
World Cup 2022 in Qatar and the Energy Debate Over Artificial Clouds
Why Teen Drivers Should Listen to Barry Manilow When Driving
In countries like Saudi Arabia where the dangerous and fatal “sport” of drifting cars into crowds of people is considered a past-time, we wonder – can music be to be blame? According to a new study from Israel teens who are listening to their favorite songs while driving are more likely to make errors while driving. Males, are most at risk, the study points out.
The Ben Gurion University study looked at 85 young drivers accompanied by a researcher or driving instructor. Each driver took six challenging 40-minute trips; two with music from their own playlists; two with background music designed to increase driver safety (easy listening, soft rock, light jazz), and two additional trips without any music.
The study was conducted by BGU Director of Music Science Research Warren Brodsky and researcher Zack Slor to assess distraction by measuring driver deficiencies (miscalculation, inaccuracy, aggressiveness, and violations) as well as decreased vehicle performance.
When the teen drivers listened to their preferred music, virtually all (98 percent) demonstrated an average of three deficient driving behaviors in at least one of the trips.
Nearly a third of those (32 percent) required a a sudden verbal warning or command for action, and 20 percent needed an assisted steering or braking maneuver to prevent an imminent accident. These errors included speeding, tailgating, careless lane switching, passing vehicles and one-handed driving.
Without any music, 92 percent of the young drivers made errors. However, when driving with an alternative music background designed by Brodsky and Israeli music composer Micha Kisner deficient driving behaviors decreased by 20 percent.
“Most drivers worldwide prefer to listen to music in a car and those between ages 16 to 30 choose driving to pop, rock, dance, hip-hop and rap,” Brodsky explains. “Young drivers also tend to play this highly energetic, fast-paced music very loudly – approximately 120 to 130 decibels.”
“Drivers in general are not aware that as they get drawn-in by a song, they move from an extra-personal space involving driving tasks, to a more personal space of active music listening.”
Image of teens driving from Shutterstock
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SkyTran: World’s First Levitating Transit System Heads to Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv will be the first city to install a magnetic levitating transit system (maglev) designed by NASA and SkyTran, and the electric train in the sky will be almost entirely solar-powered.
The SkyTran Personal Rapid Transit system first proposed by inventor Douglas Malewicki in 1990 is currently under construction at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California, Designboom reports.
Instead of relying on wheels and axles, the SkyTran consists of a series of levitating pods that are magnetically levitated from suspended rails lifted roughly 20 feet off the ground. Solar panels attached to the modular guideways will eventually power almost the entire system.
Passengers can call up a pod on their smartphones using mobile apps and get dropped off wherever they need to go.
Stations are simple with just a platform and a stairway every quarter of a mile or so, reducing the kind of infrastructure necessary to expand railway transportation and therefore mitigating public transportation’s overall environmental impact.
As an antidote to the Mediterranean city’s chronic traffic congestion and pollution, which also results in decreased productivity and sanity, Tel Aviv has appointed US consultancy Jenkins Gales & Martinez to bring the maglev system to Israel.
The pods have the ability to travel as fast as 150mph, but in Tel Aviv, they should transport passengers at a speed no faster than 100mph. And there won’t be any traffic jams at stations since a sidetrack will allow other pods to pass.
SkyTran CEO Jerry Sanders says that a standard SkyTran trip will be more expensive than a bus ride, but faster, and cheaper than a taxi ride. Other cities in Israel are also considering importing this futuristic transportation system.
In the meantime, 14 percent of Tel Aviv’s residents have taken up cycling in order to reduce their carbon footprint and avoid traffic.
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Masdar Aims to Detect Red Algae Before Coral and Desalination Damage
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Photoflow Generates Energy and Captures Rainwater with One Elegant Unit
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