Technology

DOES the UK quit when the going

gets tough? That’s how it looks to

scientists across the world.

Last week the UK Science and

Technology Facilities Council

(STFC) horrified scientists when it

announced cuts in contributions

to a range of major collaborations

after an £80 million squeeze in

its physics budget. Among the

casualties is the International

Linear Collider – a $6.7 billion

particle smasher intended to

probe dark matter and search for

extra dimensions. The UK was to

be a major partner along with the

US, Japan and Germany and has

already invested £30 million. It

will now withdraw its support.

“We know this is damaging

to our international reputation,”

says Keith Mason, chief executive

of STFC. The U-turn could stymie

its ambitions to host major

international physics facilities.

SHELL is to become the first major

oil company to produce diesel

fuel from marine algae.

Algae are a climate-friendly

way to make fuel from carbon

dioxide. They produce an oil that

can readily be converted to diesel,

and can be fed CO2 directly from

smokestacks . Unlike biofuels

such as corn, they don’t use up

soil or water that could otherwise

60 years ago, on 16 December

1947, John Bardeen and Walter

Brattain of Bell Labs built the

world’s first transistor

Vilified as big and dangerous, sports

utility vehicles are not the worst threats

to life and limb on the road. It is the

sports car that kills the most people

per crash, and crashes the most often.

SUVs get picked on for good reason:

their blunt, chest-high bodywork can

crush pedestrians in collisions, and their

high centre of gravity increases the risk

of rolling . A study in 2005 also showed

that while SUV drivers run the same risk

of injury as other drivers, they are more

likely to injure others ( Accident Analysis

and Prevention, vol 37, p 479) .

Despite this, driving a sports car still

poses the greatest overall risk of injury.

Michael Keall of Monash University in

Melbourne, Australia, and Stuart

Newstead of Otago University in

Wellington, New Zealand, analysed data

on 17,000 crashes involving vans, sports

cars, saloon cars and SUVs that occurred

in New Zealand in 2005 and 2006. They

didn’t tease apart whether it was

drivers or others that got hurt more, but

they found that the chance of injury to

vehicle occupants, pedestrians and

cyclists overall was 40 per cent higher

in a crash involving a sports car than in

one involving an SUV. They also found

that sports cars were more likely to

crash than other vehicles ( Accident

Analysis and Prevention, in press ).

The pair speculate that the ability

to drive and accelerate faster in a sports

car is to blame, but Duncan Vernon of

the UK’s Royal Society for the Prevention

of Accidents reckons it is a red herring.

He says the types of cars people buy

reflect their attitudes to driving: “The

focus should be on reducing dangerous

driving behaviour in all types of car.”

SPORTS CAR CRASHES HURT MORE

be used to grow food, which can

pump up food prices.

The US government

abandoned research on algal

biofuel in the 1990s because of the

low cost of crude oil . But as oil and

food prices began to rise, small

algal fuel producers sprang up.

Shell plans to begin

construction on a pilot plant in

Hawaii immediately, which it

expects will produce 15 times as

much oil for a given area as other

biofuel crops, thanks to the

efficiency of algal photosynthesis.

A snake robot that can slither down corridors and turn corners without bumping

into walls has been built at the Foundation for Research and Technology in Heraklion,

Greece. Two pairs of infrared sensors on its head allow it to judge the distance to

surrounding walls and adjust its position to maintain equal space on either side of

it. Teams of snakebots in a simulation were also able avoid bumping into each other.

The terrifying prospect of military powers that fry their enemies from above using

high-energy lasers is a step closer. The US air force and Boeing have attached a 5-tonne

chemical laser to a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft . The plan is to test its ability to

destroy ground targets such as tanks. The only visible sign that the plane is carrying

the weapon is a small mirrored turret beneath the fuselage that directs the laser.

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THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

Online and cellphone software are predicted to

be the fastest growers in the games market

Coined by online gamers, this expression of triumph was named “word of the year” on 11 December by US dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, which asked

readers to vote on a list of words commonly searched for online. Meaning “yay!”, it is short for “we owned the other team!” (Slashdot.org, 12 December)

“w00t!”

–It could be worse–

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UK cuts collider

contributions

Green light for

marine algae

www.newscientist.com 22/29 December 2007 | NewScientist | 29