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Fastest H2-powered car
GERMAN carmaker BMW unveiled the world’s fastest hydrogen-powered car at the Paris auto show last week. Dubbed the H2R, the car is capable of exceeding 300km per hour.
“Our drive toward the future is called hydrogen,” BMW management board member Burkhard Goeschel said before the tarp slowly slipped off the teardrop-shaped body of the sleek race car.
Goeschel, responsible for technology and development at BMW, said the streamlined rocket car sprints from 0 to 100 kmh in about six seconds and reached a top speed of 302.4 kmh on BMW’s test track at Miramas, France.
“It’s called the H2R — ‘R’ as in record,” Goeschel said, visibly proud of the company’s breakthrough achievement in the field of zero emissions.
Unlike most hydrogen-powered vehicles, the H2R doesn’t operate on a fuel cell but rather uses a modified 6-litre, 12-cylinder combustion engine for its propulsion that essentially emits nothing but steam.
An advantage of the higher combustion pressure of the hydrogen-air mixture is its higher degree of efficiency, BMW added.
The company cautioned, however, that while the cars don’t pollute, production of hydrogen as a fuel does entail pollution.
Hydrogen is obtained either from fossil fuels such as natural gas or by applying electrical power to water molecules. Ecologically, the problem of finding a regenerating source of primary energy remains.
While BMW is developing fuel-cell driven cars as well, it says it is concentrating on the combustion engine because the sum total of its features and characteristics offers the largest number of advantages and benefits all in one.
Heart regenerated
Infusing patients with bone marrow cells can reinvigorate their dying hearts and grow tiny new arteries and heart muscle tissue, a treatment that may one day make many heart transplants unnecessary, Brazilian researchers said on Friday.
Dr. Hans Fernando Dohmann, coordinator of the research carried out at the Pro-Cardiac Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, told Reuters four patients out of the five studied no longer needed transplants after being treated with stem cells.
“It was the first time we saw that stem cells actually generate new arterioles, although we have indirectly observed that before via tests. That eliminated the need for transplants in four patients who had had indisputable transplant indications,” he said.
The experiment, to be detailed to a weekend meeting of heart researchers and submitted to the journal Circulation, adds to a growing body of research that suggests such treatments can someday avoid the need for many transplants.
When one patient died of a stroke after 11 months of treatment, Dohmann’s team was able to do an autopsy and actually look at what had happened to his heart. They could see the tiny new arteries in the treated area and also saw what looked like new muscle tissue.
“This is the first documented development of cardiac muscle tissue in humans ... while the accepted concept is that cardiac muscle cells, just like nerve cells, do not regenerate,” Dohmann said.
He said his team would continue testing other patients.
“But this one leaves us quite convinced, as we have real proof that is a human heart,” he said.
Dohmann’s team treated 14 patients with bone marrow cells between December 2001 and late 2003. Seven other patients in the control group were treated with conventional methods, and doctors said their recovery was not as good.
During the period, two deaths occurred in the stem cell group and one death in the smaller control group, which did not receive the stem-cell treatment.
The research was carried out jointly with the Texas Heart Institute, which designed the stem cell injector, and with the Rio de Janeiro Federal University.
Commercial space flights
British entrepreneur Richard Branson said on Monday that his company plans to launch commercial space flights over the next few years.
Branson’s Virgin transport, entertainment and communications group has signed an agreement with pioneering aviation designer Burt Rutan to build an aircraft based on Rutan’s SpaceShipOne vessel, Branson said.
SpaceShipOne cracked the barrier to manned commercial space flight in June by flying 328,491 feet, or about 62 miles, above Earth — about 400 feet above the distance scientists widely consider to be the boundary of space. The flight lasted 90 minutes.
The company said it planned to begin construction of the first vessel, VSS Enterprise, next year, and would invest about $108 million in spaceships and ground infrastructure for the venture.
“Virgin has been in talks with Paul Allen and Bert throughout this year and in the early hours of Saturday signed a historical deal to license SpaceShipOne’s technology to build the world’s first private spaceship to go into commercial operating service,” Branson told a news conference.
The new service will be called Virgin Galactic and expects to fly 3,000 new astronauts in its first five years. Fares will start at $208,000 for a suborbital flight, including three days’ training.
“Virgin Galactic will be run as a business, but a business with the sole purpose of making space travel more and more affordable,” Branson said.
“Those privileged space pioneers who can afford to take our first flights will not only have the most awesome experience of their lives, but by stepping up to the plate first they will bring the dream of space travel for many millions closer to reality.” — Sci-tech World Report
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