Birth Of Tornado

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back to life after 400 years of death

 

Bryophytes

Plants found in the Arctic and from the Little Ice Age back to life.

This plant is not typical of ordinary houseplants. This species is often called bryophytes dry all winter long last showing signs of life again after some time.

But that they could survive in a frozen glacier for 400 years is a surprise.

Researchers from the University of Alberta found that these plants originated from the Canadian Arctic glaciers, according to BBC News.

This glacier is frozen partially so scientists can see this plant. They then picked up and brought to the lab.

"When we look at the plants in detail and take it to the lab, I realized there are stalks that grow new lateral branches, and I know this is being regenerated plants in the field, and I was very surprised," said Catherine La Farge who reports their findings on BBC News.

This is not the first unique finding in the Arctic. Scientists revealed last month that they found evidence of an ancient camel there - as is now found in the Sahara desert - in Arctic Canada, 3.5 million years ago.

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Japan Tsunami

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3D Printing: Food in Space

3D Printing

NASA and a Texas company are exploring the possibility of using a "3D printer" on deep space missions in a way where the "D" would stand for dining.

NASA has awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract to Systems and Materials Research Consultancy of Austin, Texas to study the feasibility of using additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, for making food in space. Systems and Materials Research Consultancy will conduct a study for the development of a 3D printed food system for long duration space missions. Phase I SBIR proposals are very early stage concepts that may or may not mature into actual systems. This food printing technology may result in a phase II study, which still will be several years from being tested on an actual space flight.

As NASA ventures farther into space, whether redirecting an asteroid or sending astronauts to Mars, the agency will need to make improvements in life support systems, including how to feed the crew during those long deep space missions. NASA's Advanced Food Technology program is interested in developing methods that will provide food to meet safety, acceptability, variety, and nutritional stability requirements for long exploration missions, while using the least amount of spacecraft resources and crew time. The current food system wouldn't meet the nutritional needs and five-year shelf life required for a mission to Mars or other long duration missions. Because refrigeration and freezing require significant spacecraft resources, current NASA provisions consist solely of individually prepackaged shelf stable foods, processed with technologies that degrade the micronutrients in the foods.

Additionally, the current space food is selected before astronauts ever leave the ground and crew members don't have the ability to personalize recipes or really prepare foods themselves. Over long duration missions, a variety of acceptable food is critical to ensure crew members continue to eat adequate amounts of food, and consequently, get the nutrients they need to maintain their health and performance. 

NASA is funding this phase I six-month $125,000 study on 3D printing of foods to determine the capability of this technology to enable nutrient stability and provide a variety of foods from shelf stable ingredients, while minimizing crew time and waste. NASA selected this proposal because the research team, subcontractors and consultants included premier food rheology and flavor expertise that would be required for a novel product development system. The work plan for this feasibility study also was well laid out and the technology offers the potential to meet some of the food requirements using basic food components for long duration missions. 

NASA recognizes in-space and additive manufacturing offers the potential for new mission opportunities, whether "printing" food, tools or entire spacecraft. Additive manufacturing offers opportunities to get the best fit, form and delivery systems of materials for deep space travel. This's why NASA is a leading partner in the president's National Network for Manufacturing Innovation and the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative. 

3D printing is just one of the many transformation technologies that NASA is investing in to create the new knowledge and capabilities needed to enable future space missions while benefiting life here on Earth. 

Source:

www.nasa.gov

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CHARLES DARWIN

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin (February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882) was an English naturalist who gained great fame within his lifetime as well as long after his death for the development of evolutionary theory. Most of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory is contained in the book Origin of Species (1859).

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire England in 1809. He was the fifth of six children of a wealthy doctor and financier and although his family was Unitarian he attended the Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder in 1818. By 1825 he was an apprentice doctor at the University of Edinburgh Medical school but he did not like the work involved. In his second year he joined the Plinian Society, a student natural history group that engaged in discussions of radical materialism. He assisted Robert Edmund Grant in the research of marine invertebrates' anatomy and life cycle and in 1827 presented one of his own findings of black spores to the Plinian Society. Darwin also assisted collections at the University Museum. Darwin's voracious interest in natural history angered his father and he was sent to Christ's College at Cambridge in 1828 to study to become a parson but was unqualified to take anything but the ordinary degree course. At this time he took up beetle collecting under the influence of his cousin William Duncan Fox and again was noted for his discoveries and was published in Steven's Illustrations of British Entomology. He ended up doing rather well in the ordinary courses and graduated tenth in his class in 1831.

As well as an unhindered appetite for natural history, Darwin was also a rampant reader and works that he devoured at this time were Paley's Natural Theology, Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative and work by John Herschel. He was fresh from studying geology with Adam Sedgewick when his mentor John Stevens Henslow recommended him to accompany Robert FitzRoy on the HMS Beagle. On the Beagle, Darwin also read Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and was impressed with his findings of geological formations over time. On the voyage, Darwin took many notes and gathered specimens, sending letters of report back to England. By the time he returned his fame was already underway and he began to work on the variety of specimens he brought back of which there were so many that there was cause for concern for how well they would keep before they were able to be studied. In 1837 he was elected to the Council of the Geological Society and all this time we was feverishly working on writing and rewriting his journal taken during his voyage and the specimens he procured were being studied at the Royal College of Surgeons under the supervision of Richard Owen who Darwin had met through his enthusiastic new friend Lyell.

Darwin's findings at this time began to reveal what would come to be his major contribution to evolutionary science. Not only did Owen find extinct creatures such as gigantic ground sloths, a hippopotamus-sized skull resembling a rodent and armor fragments from a creature not unlike the armadillo, but there was some consternation over a mixture of bird specimens that Darwin had brought back and were being studied by ornithologist, John Gould. Not only did Gould find that Darwin's initial impression that he collected a mixture of finches and blackbirds prove to be false, but that the birds were in fact twelve completely separate species of finches. Darwin went back over his notes and realized in conjunction with Gould that the twelve species could be allocated to different islands and that there was a geographical influence on perhaps just one species that augured the separation of development into twelve different species. It was at this point that Darwin began to develop his ideas on the transmutation of species that was not hierarchical in nature, but was reliant on species "to adapt and alter the race to changing world." This went against Lamarck's claim that lineages would progress to higher forms and of this Darwin said that "it is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another."

It was also in 1838 that he decided after deliberation (which is found in his notebooks in a pro/con type list) to marry his cousin Emma Wedgewood. She was strong in her Unitarian beliefs and was concerned that Darwin's developing doubts about spirituality and religion would separate them in the afterlife, however, on the whole, she accepted their differences. For the next fifteen years into their married life, Darwin would continue to work on his large theory, but in the meantime was taken up with writing about geology. He even enjoyed a return to marine invertebrates in 1846 after his third geological book was published, going over the barnacles that he had collected while on the Beagle. He continued to have issues with his health and in 1849 found that hydrotherapy was somewhat successful in easing his pains, but in 1851 he was much distressed to lose his daughter Annie.

The work on barnacles earned Darwin the Royal Society's Royal medal in 1853 as he was able to find "homologies" that extrapolated on some of his view that began to be stirred with the finches. Here he saw that body parts of the barnacles varied depending on the environment that surrounded them and that by evolution the creatures were able to adapt to their environment. He also located an intermediate stage in the evolution of sexes when he found in genera, tiny male specimens parasitic on hermaphrodites. this work cemented his stature as eminent biologist and he resumed his work on a theory of species in 1854. Darwin had yet to feel the pressure to publish the extent of his thoughts on evolutionary science within species, however. Lyell pointed out to him the similarities of what he was proposing in 1856 in Alfred Russel Wallace's paper on species and Darwin began a short paper to explicate his own ideas. It wasn't until 1858, however when it appeared that Wallace was very close to publishing a treatise on natural selection that Darwin struggled through his own illnesses and the death of a baby son to scarlet fever to get On the Origin of Species out by the end of 1859. All through this time it is important to note that Wallace and himself were friends with Wallace looking up to Darwin. They were to present jointly at the Linnean Society On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, but this occurred at the time that Darwin experienced the loss of his son.

On the Origin of Species was wildly popular and heavily debated from the moment of its release in 1859. Darwin was careful to speak of common descent and not evolution, but controversy ensued all the same. Darwin continued to work and published even more after the success of his great tome broaching heredity, the animality of humans as well as psychology. He died in 1882 at Down House his last words being to his dear wife Emma, "I am not the least afraid of death - Remember what a good wife you have been to me - Tell all my children to remember how good they have been to me." Darwin had expected to be buried in the nearby st Mary's churchyard at Downe, but his colleagues had something rather different in mind. the president of the Royal Society, William Spottiswoode, arranged a state funeral for Darwin and he is buried in Westminster Abbey, perceived a national hero.

First Sketch of the theory of evolution 1842

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HISTORY OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION

the theory of evolution

HISTORY OF the theory of evolution, by DARWIN
Charles Darwin was an English naturalist who proposed the theory of evolution and the origin of organism. This theory became the basis for modern evolutionary theory and the principle of the same lineage (Common Descent) with natural selection mechanism. Darwin's theory is an integral component biology. Darwin selection suggests that nature is a major cause of evolutionary agents. Darwin (and Wallace) concluded selection of the principles put forward by Malthus that any such populations tend geometrically increasing in number, and as a result, sooner or later be afoot clash between members of resource utilization especially when its availability is limited. Only a portion, often a small part, of the other big live. While last offspring eliminated. While immemorial man has always questioned the origin of life and himself. While the answer that question, there are three alternatives, namely the creation, transformation, or evolutionary biology. 

Definition of biological evolution varies from that in the biological aspects of the review. Some common definitions include: the evolution of living things is the changes in the natural living things slowly over a period of time and at lower, so that over time can form new species. Evolution is the change in gene frequency in a population over time. Idea of ​​biological evolution has long been a human thought. However among the various theory of evolution who ever in are proposing, seems theory of evolution by Darwin who most can be his theory. Darwin (1858) proposed two basic theories, the species living today are descended from previously lived species, and evolution occurs through natural selection. The development of the theory of evolution is very interesting to follow. Darwin argued that based on the pattern of evolution is gradual, based on the direction of adaptation is divergent and based on the results themselves are always in the starting formation of the new variant.

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WAS FOUND HEAVEN SITES GREEK WERE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS YEARS OLD

Illustration of Neanderthal Primordial man

ATHENA - Anthropologists find sites beach "paradise" Greek who once inhabited by Neanderthal humans approximately 100,000 years ago. These findings reveal a population derived from Kalamakia Middle Paleolithic cave site in Mani peninsula, southern Greece.

Neandhertal believed to be extinct about 30 thousand years ago. Researchers also believe that Greece become Neandhertal protection areas, where early humans tend to be on the site approximately 40 thousand years ago.

So, this site dubbed "paradise" for early humans who inhabit the waterfront in Mani peninsula, southern Greece. Various kind of food sources, like a hunted animal and plants found in this location.

Katerina Harvati, chief investigator Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironments, University of Tubingen said, researchers studying the remains and identify some Neanderthal who represented children, adolescents and adult men and women.

"The site is very close to the sea. During glacial time’s lower sea level, so there will likely be open coastal plains. These would be ideal habitat for wildlife species that are hunted man," said Harvati, as quoted by Discovery, Thursday (23/5 / 2013).

Several types of deer and the Pyrenean ibex hunting target Neanderthals. Researchers also revealed that these early humans to consume turtle meat, shells and manufacture tooling through the shell.

Researchers also believe that Neandhertal inhabits caves along the coast of Mani Peninsula. "Identification of bones and teeth Neandhertal represent many individuals in the cave Kalamakia that supports the emergence of the human species in southern Greece," said Eric Delson of Lehman College of the City University, New York. (FMH)

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OKLAHOMA TORNADO

Oklahoma Tornado

On May 20, 2013, NASA and NOAA satellites observed the system that generated severe weather in the south central United States and spawned the Moore, Okla., tornado.

The tornado that struck Moore on the afternoon of Monday, May 20, was an F-4 tornado on the enhanced Fujita scale, according to the National Weather Service. F-4 tornadoes have sustained winds from 166 to 200 mph. This tornado was about twice as wide as the tornado that struck Moore on May 3, 1999. Moore is located 10 miles south of Oklahoma City. 

Before, during and after the tornado, satellites provided imagery and data to forecasters. The first tornado warning was issued around 2:40 p.m. CDT (local time). By 3:01 p.m. CDT a tornado emergency was issued for Moore, and 35 minutes later at 3:36 p.m. CDT, the tornado spun down and dissipated.

NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible-light image that provided a detailed look at the supercell thunderstorm. NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provided continuously updated satellite imagery depicting the storm's movement. After the tornado, the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite's lightning observations showed that the thunderstorm complex was still active after nightfall.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provided forecasters with images of the storm system every 15 minutes. One GOES-13 satellite image was captured at 19:55 UTC (2:55 p.m. CDT) as the tornado began its deadly swath. The tornado was generated near the bottom of a line of clouds resembling an exclamation mark. The GOES-13 satellite imagery from the entire day was assembled into an animation by the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 

Four minutes after the tornado dissipated (19:40 UTC / 3:40 p.m. EDT), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured a visible image of the supercell thunderstorm that spawned the Moore tornado. That image was created by the NASA Goddard MODIS Rapid Response Team and Adam Voiland, NASA Earth Observatory. 

Later as the storm system continued through the region, another satellite captured an image of the storm at night that showed it was still powerful. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite aboard Suomi NPP observed lightning in a nighttime image on May 21 at 07:27 UTC (3:27 a.m. EDT). Lightning appeared as rectangular shapes in the image. The VIIRS imagery showed the city lights in the Oklahoma City area, but there was reduced light output in Moore as a result of tornado damage.

The Suomi NPP satellite carries an instrument so sensitive to low light levels that it can detect lightning in the middle of the night. The Day/Night band on Suomi NPP produces nighttime visible imagery using illumination from natural (the moon, forest fires) and man-made sources (city lights). The data were captured by the direct broadcast antenna at University of Wisconsin.

Source:
www.nasa.gov

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James Watt

James Watt

James Watt was born in 1736 in Greenock, Scotland. James was a thin, weakly child who suffered from migraines and toothaches. He enjoyed mathematics in grammar school, and also learned carpentry from his father. His father was a carpenter by training, and built anything from furniture to ships, but primarily worked in shipbuilding. Watt learned about the navigational aids on ships: quadrants, compasses, telescopes. By his midteens he knew he wanted to become an instrument maker. Watt's father had just lost a substantial investment due to a shipwreck, and he could see the benefits of another occupation, so was supportive of Watt's ambitions. Unfortunately, there were no opportunities for instrument training in Greenock.

In 1754 Watt went to Glasgow, Scotland and became acquainted with Robert Dick through a relative who worked at the University of Glasgow. Robert Dick, a University scientist, was impressed with Watt's basic skills at instrument making, but recognized the need for special training. Dick encouraged Watt to go to London for training. Watt spent two weeks in London looking for an apprenticeship opportunity. However the instrument makers protected their trade by rules of a body known as the Worshipful Company of Clock-makers. The only employment was for fully-trained instrument makers or trainees serving seven-year apprenticeships!

John Morgan, an instrument maker in the heart of London, did not always follow the rules, and agreed to take Watt as an apprentice on the conditions of little pay! Morgan recognized the capabilities of Watt, and agreed to shorten the apprenticeship to a period of one year. Watt took the offer in 1755. Within two months, Watt's abilities surpassed those of Morgan's official apprentice, who had been there two years. Watt was eager to cram several years of training into one, and worked 10 hour days in the cold workshop. After hours, he worked for a small amount of cash, and his father sent him a little, but he maintained long hours on little food, and his health declined. During this time, Britain was at war with France, and the military would force into service any able-bodied man. Watt avoided the streets for this reason, which may have affected his health further. Watt finished his apprenticeship year successfully, but his health collapsed almost immediately afterwards.

Watt returned to Glasgow in 1756, now a trained instrument maker. His University of Glasgow acquaintances learned of his return, and gave him some work. Watt set up his shop, but found that other instrument makers shunned his credentials and training. He was an outsider in Glasgow, after being trained in London. The University professors recognized his abilities, and did not need to abide by the traditions of the instrument makers. They arranged for permission to set up a shop for Watt on University grounds and created the position "Mathematical Instrument Maker to the University".

Even with the new position, Watt still had trouble finding enough work since the other instrument makers were somewhat hostile. He started making musical instruments to avoid competition. His musical instruments were improvements over existing models and business began to grow. In 1758, an architect gave him backing to open a new shop in the heart of Glasgow. His business and reputation grew steadily and by 1763 he had apprentices of his own, but he was not out of debt.

The job that changed history

Watt always had work from the University scientists, so he maintained through the years his shop on the University property. Professor John Anderson was the older brother of a grammar school companion, Andrew. One day in 1763, Professor John Anderson brought Watt a new problem. The University had a lab-scale model of the Newcomen pump to investigate why the full-scale pumps required so much steam. The model suffered a problem. It would stall after a few strokes. Watt recognized that the flaw was due to an undersized boiler that couldn't provide enough steam to reheat the cylinder after a few strokes. (See Newcomen pump details).

During troubleshooting of the lab-scale model, Watt discovered the main reason the full-sized engines consumed such vast quantities of steam. However, implementation of the solution did not come easily. The Newcomen pumps required such vast quantities of steam since they were cooled during every stroke, then reheated. Watt needed a way to condense the steam without cooling the cylinder. Watt turned over the problem in his head for months and performed many experiments. He learned much about steam properties, and independently discovered latent heat of vaporization in his experiments. He also tabulated the vapor pressure of water at various temperatures before the work of Clapeyron. One of his University friends was Professor Black, who had discovered latent heat previously and had been lecturing on it without Watt's knowledge. They shared many interesting conversations after Watt told Professor Black of his "discovery". The concept for the breakthrough to improve the Newcomen engine came in May of 1765, over two years after Watt began to study the engine. Watt later described the moment of inspiration:

"I had gone to take a walk on a fine Sabbath afternoon, early in 1765. I had entered the green by the gate at the foot of Charlotte Street and had passed the old washing-house. I was thinking upon the engine at the time, and had gone as far as the herd's house, when the idea came into my mind that as steam was an elastic body it would rush into a vacuum, and if a communication were made between the cylinder and an exhausted vessel it would rush into it, and might be there condensed without cooling the cylinder. I then saw that I must get rid of the condensed steam and injection-water if I used a jet as in Newcomen's engine. Two ways of doing this occurred to me. First, the water might be run off by a descending pipe, if an offlet could be got at the depth of thirty-five or thirty-six feet, and any air might be extracted by a small pump. The second was to make the pump large enough to extract both water and air. . . . I had not walked farther than the golf-house when the whole thing was arranged in my mind."

With a separate condenser, the condensation process could take place constantly and the steam cylinder could be pulled to a vacuum while remaining hot. The vapor would rush into the condenser.

Watt would not work on the Sunday, as was the custom of the day. He controlled his impatience, but first thing Monday morning he was in his shop. He crafted a makeshift piston and condenser using a brass syringe. He filled the syringe with steam. He pumped the air out of his makeshift condenser, and cooled it. It worked! (Read more details on Watt's experiment).

Watt was 29 in 1765 when he discovered his idea would work. Yet it would be 11 years before he saw his invention in practice! He was modest, goodhearted, and shy. He once wrote to his business partner, Boulton, many years later, "I would rather face a loaded cannon than settle a disputed account or make a bargain." He also understood the significance of his development. "I can think of nothing but this engine", he said.

The waiting

Watt's University friends introduced him to John Roebuck, a industrialist who held leases on coal deposits. Roebuck agreed to back the development of a full-scale engine after he saw the model work. Watt devoted much time to troubleshooting and developing a full-scale model. Roebuck did not employ machinists with the experience that Watt's project required. Watt himself was a first rate instrument maker, but he was ill-suited to manage the work crew to operate the pump. Over the next four years, Watt was consumed with making an engine work. The experiments were slow and costly. The greatest difficulty was maintaining the seal on the large piston. In the Newcomen engine, the piston and cylinder were made up cast iron, and the fit was of very poor quality. However, since the entire cylinder was to be cooled, the piston was sealed by maintaining water on top of the piston in the open cylinder. Any leakage in the Newcomen engine simply sucked some water into the cylinder without defeating the driving force for the movement. Such a solution was unacceptable with Watt's design where the piston was to be maintained hot.

Although a full-scale working engine was constructed at Roebuck's coal mine, the effort was taxing on energy as well as finances. Andrew Carnegie writes in his biography of Watt:

The monster new engine, upon which so much depended, was ready for trial at last in September, 1769. About six months had been spent in its construction. Its success was indifferent. Watt had declared it to be a "clumsy job." The new pipe-condenser did not work well, the cylinder was almost useless, having been badly cast, and the old difficulty in keeping the piston-packing tight remained. Many things were tried for packing-cork, oiled rags, old hats (felt probably), paper, horse dung, etc., etc. Still the steam escaped, even after a thorough overhauling. The second experiment also failed. So great is the gap between the small toy model and the practical work-performing giant, a rock upon which many sanguine theoretical inventors have been wrecked! Had Watt been one of that class, he could never have succeeded. Here we have another proof of the soundness of the contention that Watt, the mechanic, was almost as important as Watt the inventor. (Carnegie, Andrew James Watt, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, May, 1905.)

Roebuck was supportive of Watt and encouraged him to keep working on the pump. Watt was able to get a large engine to work well enough to apply for a patent, and Roebuck financed the engine patent that was granted in 1769. In exchange, Roebuck agreed to pay off all of Watt debts for his instrument shops but would take two-thirds of the money the invention made. Watt found this agreement acceptable because the large experiments were slow and costly. The invention was far from being ready for production. Then, Roebuck did another thing that helped Watt. He indirectly introduced Watt to Matthew Boulton of Birmingham, England. This last introduction was the one that helped the invention create the steam engine revolution -- but the revolution didn't come easily or fast!

Boulton recognized that the engine had potential applications for much more than pumping water! Boulton was an industrialist with an extraordinary vision to have all craftsmen work in a common building -- a "manufactory" (later shorted to "factory"). Previously, craftsmen had all maintained individual shops. Further, Boulton had the desire to furnish the manufactory with the best equipment and finest craftsmen. Boulton was certain that he could sell the engine.

Unfortunately, Boulton could not work out a deal with Roebuck who had majority control of the patent. Disheartened and in need of cash himself, Watt left the instrument making business in 1771, and took up surveying. In March 1773, Roebuck was in desperate need of cash. Boulton acquired Roebuck's rights to the engine in 1773, four years after the engine was patented, and nine years after Watt first discovered the separate condenser. Boulton was convinced the problems could be solved.

A Perfect Partnership

Boulton and Watt's personalities complemented each other and they got along well. Boulton's assembly of accomplished craftsmen provided the much-needed expertise that Watt had lacked in his collaboration with Roebuck. As soon as Watt finished his obligations for surveying, he moved to Birmingham to join Boulton's shop. Watt maintained work on the engine as well as other tasks. In November, 1774 he wrote to his father,

"The business I am here about has turned out rather successful; that is to say, the fire engine I have invented is now going, and answers much better than any other that has yet been made."

His letter was a modest statement of his true enthusiasm, for his concepts were developing into a fantastic engine. Boulton's desire to hire the best craftsmen had enabled the success.

Success at Last

In March 1776 the Bentley Mining Company started their newest piece of equipment, a Boulton-Watt engine. The Bentley Mining Company had taken a substantial risk by abandoning a half-built Newcomen engine and replacing it with the Boulton-Watt engine. The day the engine started a newspaper reporter was present:

"From the first Moment of its setting to Work, it made about 14 to 15 Strokes per Minute, and emptied the Engine Pit (which is about 90 Feet deep and stood 57 Feet high in Water) in less than an hour". From "Aris's Birmingham Gazette, March 11, 1776.
(Technical note: water can be drawn by suction less than 33 feet, so the pumps were placed within that distance of the bottom.)

This Bentley Mining Company engine used a cylinder crafted by the best ironmaster in Britain, John Wilkinson, who had recently developed a technique for boring cylinders (cannons) and had adopted the technique to the steam cylinder of the Boulton-Watt engine. The valves, piping, and fittings were manufactured at the Soho Manufactory - a factory 2 miles from Birmingham partnered by Boulton and Watt. The new engine used 1/4 of the steam that the Newcomen engines had required! (See Watt Engine)

The new Boulton-Watt engine was a great success. Watt became very busy maintaining business at Cornwall mines and setting up new pumps for the mines in the Cornwall region.

More than Pumps

Boulton recognized the potential of the device for doing much more than pumping water. He also recognized the limited market for the device to drive pumps. In June 1781 he wrote to Watt:

"The people in London, Manchester and Birmingham are steam mill mad. I don't mean to hurry you, but I think in the course of a month or two, we should determine to take out a patent for certain methods of producing rotative motion…There is no other Cornwall to be found, and the most likely line for the consumption of our engines is the application of them to mills which is certainly an extensive field" (Sproule, Ann James Watt, Exley Publications, Herts, UK, 1992)

Watt answered this call, too. At age 45, Watt developed his next great invention -- a method to convert reciprocating motion of the piston to rotating motion. The invention was the sun and planet gear system. This invention was better than a crankshaft which was already patented (an idea Watt said was stolen from him). The sun and planet gear system permitted the rotative wheel to turn more than once per stroke of the piston! Since the piston moved slowly, this was an major improvement! An engine patented in 1782 by Boulton and Watt had another major improvement -- the steam cylinder used valves above and below the piston to connect independently to the boiler or the condenser; the piston performed work on both the upward and downward stroke! This evened out the stroking of the piston, performing equal work on each movement. Watt had another great improvement on this engine. He had devised a mechanism to match the rocking motion of the beam (which traces an arc) with the linear motion of the piston. This was known as the "parallel motion" device, and was necessary to enable the piston to push the beam on the upward stroke; the chains used in the previous single-acting engines didn't transfer work on the upward stroke. He once told his son that this was the invention of which he was most proud.(See Double-acting Engine)

In 1782 a sawmill ordered an engine that was to replace 12 horses. Watt used data from a sawmill to determine that a horse could lift 33,000 pounds the distance of one foot in one minute -- and thus developed the units of hp.

Other major contributions developed by Watt include the steam throttling valve and the mechanism to connect the throttle to the engine governor. Used together, these devices regulated steam flow into the piston and kept a constant engine speed.

By 1800, 84 British cotton mills used Boulton and Watt engines. So did wool mills and flour mills! In his later years, Watt enjoyed the success and fame he deserved.

Today, it is appropriate to recognize Watt's contributions when we used the British (and American Engineering) units for power, hp, and the SI units for power, the Watt.

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First Shuttle Launch

A new era in space flight began on April 12, 1981, when Space Shuttle Columbia, or STS-1, soared into orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Astronaut John Young, a veteran of four previous spaceflights including a walk on the moon in 1972, commanded the mission. Navy test pilot Bob Crippen piloted the mission and would go on to command three future shuttle missions. The shuttle was humankind's first re-usable spacecraft. The orbiter would launch like a rocket and land like a plane. The two solid rocket boosters that helped push them into space would also be re-used, after being recovered in the ocean. Only the massive external fuel tank would burn up as it fell back to Earth. It was all known as the Space Transportation System.

Twenty years prior to the historic launch, on April 12, 1961, the era of human spaceflight began when Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in his Vostock I spacecraft. The flight lasted 108 minutes.

Pictured here: a timed exposure of STS-1, at Launch Pad A, Complex 39, turns the space vehicle and support facilities into a night- time fantasy of light. Structures to the left of the shuttle are the fixed and the rotating service structure.

Image Credit: NASA

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