Archive | Earth Sciences | Armed with Science

Bio-inspired Flight for Micro Air Vehicles

Filed under Earth Sciences, Videos by jtozer on April 15, 2013 at 7:55 am {no comments}

Isn’t it fun when science and technology come together?

In this case we’re talking about biology. Biology – specifically how things already work in the natural world – can teach us how to manufacture more efficient machines. Especially machines designed for flight.

“Biology has taught us a huge amount about flight,”‘ says Kenny Breuer, professor of engineering at Brown University.

“We’re trying to understand that so we can inspire micro-air vehicles for future Air Force applications.”

So how are they doing that? By using lasers and bats, of course. Wait, what?

“The animals fly and we take their video at very high speed so we can really see the detail. At the same time we shine a laser behind them so that we can see the motion of the air that the animals make as they fly.”

I hope they call these things the Flying Bat-a-tron 6000. Because that would be cool, that’s why.

Information for this story provided by the Air Force Research Laboratory YouTube Channel

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Chasing the Winter Storm

Filed under Earth Sciences, Featured, STEM by jtozer on February 4, 2013 at 7:34 am {no comments}

When we think of storm missions, we think of tornado chasers. Hurricane hunters. People in the thick of the kind of meteorological drama that we typically only see on movie screens.

I love when the flying cow picture is applicable in one of my stories. (Photo from Twister, copyright Amblin Entertainment)

And in most cases you would be right. Because let’s face it; storm chasing is a hard job to “down play”. It’s pretty much as exciting as it sounds (I’ve spoken to a storm chaser before and he proved that).

But the funny thing about it is that the storm chasing doesn’t stop at deadly cyclones in the summer. Oh no, my fantastic science fans. Chasing storms is a year round mission.

So what do the hurricane hunters do during the hurricane off-season?

Why, chase winter storms of course.

Lieutenant Colonel Jon Talbot is the Chief Meteorologist of the 53^rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, 403^rd Wing, Air Force Reserve Command at Keesler AFB, Mississippi. Basically, he’s the man in charge of the people who chase storms.

All kinds of storms.

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Melting Arctic Ice Will Present New Challenges

Filed under Earth Sciences, STEM by jtozer on November 19, 2012 at 7:45 am {no comments}

Bright white ice reflects sunlight from the Earth’s surface. In contrast, open water is very dark, and absorbs sunlight. As sea ice melts more water is exposed, which tends to increase warming. (Photograph courtesy NOAA Photo Library)

With ice melting in the Arctic Ocean, which is bordered by countries including Canada, Russia and the United States, more sea-faring traffic will appear there and more nations with economic interest in the region will arrive to exploit the resources there, said a panel of security experts during a forum.

“[Our] area of responsibility is evolving and changing,” said Maj. Gen. Francis G. Mahon, J5, U.S. Northern Command. “The Arctic is receding … the northern coast is about to become a real coast; maybe not today, maybe not this year, but in a short time. We need to start thinking about that.”

Mahon was featured during a panel discussion regarding North American security, during the 2012 Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.

Mahon said development in the Arctic “is going to happen.”

Shell Oil, for instance, has been there conducting test drilling operations, and Conoco, he said, will be there next summer.

Increased economic interest in the region, which is bordered by Alaska, means more security concerns, potential conflict over rights to resources there, such as fishing and mineral rights, and more opportunity for the kinds of disasters that the United States might be called on to assist with.

John Stanton, director, Joint Operations Directorate, Customs and Border Protection, also sat on the panel. He said that the northern ice cap has been receding more on the Russian side than on the Canadian side.

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The Inevitable Demo Of The Great Green Fleet

Filed under Earth Sciences, Energy, STEM by jtozer on July 19, 2012 at 11:28 am {no comments}

The guided missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) receives biofuel from the Military Sealift Command’s fleet replenishment oiler USNS Henry J. Kaiser (T-AO 187) during a replenishment at sea (RAS). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Ryan J. Mayes/RELEASED)

In 2009, Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus announced five aggressive energy goals to reduce the Department of Navy’s (DON’s) consumption of energy, decrease its reliance on foreign sources of oil, and significantly increase its use of alternative energy.

The purpose of these energy goals is to improve our combat capability and to increase our energy security by addressing a significant military vulnerability: dependence on foreign oil.

One of the five energy goals is to demonstrate and then deploy a “Great Green Fleet,” a Carrier Strike Group fueled by alternative sources of energy, including nuclear power.

The Great Green Fleet is named in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, which helped usher in America as a global power on the world stage at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Prior to deploying the Great Green Fleet in 2016, the Navy conducted a demonstration during the 2012 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, the world’s largest international maritime exercise.

The demonstration illustrated and evaluated the performance of “drop-in replacement” advanced biofuel blends and certain energy efficient technologies in an operational setting.

Advanced Biofuel Blends

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Tracked Raindrops Falling On Our Heads

Filed under Earth Sciences, Featured, STEM by jtozer on July 15, 2012 at 7:19 am {no comments}

The image was obtained as a deep convective cloud system passed over the vertically pointed radar on August 27, 2010. (Graphics image designed by DR. Jerome Schmidt and Ms. Cynthia Karengin)

Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientists are leading a multi-agency study which reveals that a very high-resolution Doppler radar has the unique capacity to detect individual cloud hydrometeors in the free atmosphere.

This study will improve scientists’ understanding of the dynamics and structure of cloud systems.

This Doppler radar was previously used to track small debris shed from the NASA space shuttle missions during launch. Similar to the traces left behind on film by sub-atomic particles, researchers observed larger cloud particles leaving well-defined, nearly linear, radar reflectivity “streaks” which could be analyzed to infer their underlying properties.

Scientists could detect the individual particles because of a combination of the radar’s 3MW power, narrow 0.22 degree beamwidth, and an unprecedented range resolution as fine as 0.5m. This combination of radar attributes allows researchers to sample a volume of cloud about the size of a small bus (roughly 14 m³) when operating at a range of 2 km.

With such small pulse volumes, it becomes possible to measure the properties of individual raindrops greater than 0.5mm in diameter due to the low concentration of such drops in naturally occurring cloud systems and the overwhelming dominance such drops have on the measured radar reflectivity when present in a field comprised of smaller particles.

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Sunrise To Sunset: Observatory Looks To The Sky

Filed under Earth Sciences, Space, STEM by jtozer on June 20, 2012 at 7:44 am {no comments}

Senior Airman Erin O’Connell, a solar analyst, uses a white light board to observe the size of solar spots on the sun at the Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., solar observatory. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Daniel E. Liddicoet/Released)

The sun.

While it supplies life and energy for the people and plants that call the Earth home, also has the power to seriously disrupt humanity’s way of life.

Periodically, the sun releases massive quantities of solar matter and electromagnetic radiation into space, known as a coronal mass ejection, which can cause a geomagnetic storm that could potentially disrupt radio transmissions, damage satellites, and lead to long-lasting power outages.

To help Holloman AFB combat negative effects CMEs could have on the base’s mission, the solar analysts of the Detachment 4, 2nd Weather Squadron Solar Observatory here monitor the sun and its activities daily.

“We analyze the sun for features that may affect communications systems, satellites, and aircraft that are flying in higher elevations,” said Senior Airman Erin O’Connell, Det. 4, 2nd WS solar analyst. “Right now, the sun is very active and has been since early last year.”

The sun is active, O’Connell said, because we are currently in the solar maximum or solar max, which is the period of greatest solar activity in the sun’s solar cycle. During the solar max, large numbers of sunspots appear because the sun’s magnetic field lines are the most distorted due to the magnetic field on the solar equator rotating at a slightly faster pace than at the solar poles.

“If you imagine a bell curve, we are ramping up to a solar max right now, so we’re seeing a lot of flares and not only are they increasing in frequency, but the intensity of the flares are also increasing,” said Master Sgt. Shane Siebert, Det. 4, 2nd WS detachment chief. “The solar max and solar min, or solar minimum, cycles through every 11 years. Our solar min was in 2010, so just to put it in perspective, from 2010 to 2011 we saw a 300 percent increase in solar activity. We can expect the sun to stay active for the next three years, and then slowly decline for the next eight leading back to the solar min.”

Because solar activity can cause navigation systems anomalies, targeting systems errors, and disrupt the base’s communication assets, the solar analysts monitor the sun from sunrise to sunset.

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Planting Trees for a Cleaner Chesapeake Bay

Filed under Earth Sciences, Videos by jtozer on June 6, 2012 at 7:00 am {no comments}

“Changing the environment becomes a need that all creatures should aspire to meet. The better the the planet lives, the better it is for us to flourish in it. It’s a symbiosis that we’re all a part of; improvement is transcendent.” ~ HJT

The Naval Research Laboratory‘s Environmental Branch planted 100 seedlings on the NRL Chesapeake Bay Detachment facility. These trees, planted around a storm water pond, can help to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

ONR Researcher Tapped for Role in National Materials Genome Initiative

Filed under Earth Sciences by jtozer on May 26, 2012 at 7:31 am {one comment}

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has selected an Office of Naval Research (ONR) director to serve as co-deputy chair of an interagency subcommittee tasked with speeding the advancement of new materials.

Dr. Julie Christodoulou, division director of naval materials in ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons department, became one of three co-deputy chairs of the National Science and Technology Council’s Subcommittee for the Materials Genome Initiative. The subcommittee is supporting the Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness (MGI), part of President Obama’s plan to accelerate the standard decades-long process to discover, mature and manufacture new materials.

Just as the Human Genome Project rejuvenated and spurred the growth of biological sciences by decoding the fundamental building blocks of human genetics, MGI is a national effort to build a materials innovation infrastructure that will accelerate the discovery and incorporation of materials in half the time and at a reduced cost of traditional approaches.

It took nearly 40 years for lithium-ion batteries to go from material discovery and development to mass market consumption.

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