| VOLUME 18 2008/09 |
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FOREST FARMING |
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Trees are an essential resource that we rely upon for a multitude of everyday needs. Meeting the world’s increasing demands, while complying with conservation guidelines requires new arboriculture technology. From a computer at a sawmill, data - including desired tree length and diameter - is sent to harvesting machinery in the forest. Botanists are researching genetically manipulated (transgenic) trees to learn if they are suitable for integration into a natural environment. |
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SPRING WATER FROM THE SEA |
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Though 70% of Earth’s surface is water, only approximately 2.5% is fresh water and in some places clean drinking water is scarce. After the discovery of a fresh water spring flowing deep in the Mediterranean Sea, scientists found a way to capture and deliver that valuable resource to the surface. Without depleting or damaging the ecosystem, they were able to engineer a device to harness this precious necessity. |
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WETLAND ANIMALS - BANDED STILTS |
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The Australian outback is home to a diverse group of organisms. When conditions are right, they play host to a distant, shoreline visitor – the Banded Stilt. Though common to the country’s coasts and tidal shallows, this bird travels great distances inland in search of a particular food at its inland breeding grounds. Due to an environmental event, the mystery behind this behavior was only recently discovered and documented. Cyclone Bobby started a chain reaction by flooding a dry salt lake that, when wet, supports a variety of algae, bacteria, and the all important brine shrimp. We see how animal life, microscopic organisms and the ecosystem are interconnected for the survival of all three. |
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ARCHAEOLOGY - TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES |
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Advanced digital technology using 3D-terrain maps, laser pantographs, digital photographs and satellite data is increasing our visual understanding of architectural structures of bygone eras. The multi-faceted world of digital archaeology aids researchers by supporting data management and by making visual presentations more realistic. The ancient city of Troy is re-discovered in this engaging program that fuses complex technology to uncover the past without damaging the local ecosystem.
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5 |
METEOROLOGY - PREDICTING DANGEROUS WEATHER |
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Violent weather touches thousands of lives, homes and businesses around the world each year. Billions of dollars are spent on cleanup and reconstruction. Climatologists and meteorologists at the Meteorological Alpine Project (MAP) are using specialized computer technology to discover how hot winds in the African desert develop into a damaging hail storm in the Swiss Alps. |
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INSIDE TRACK - MERCURY... & VENUS - HOSTILE PLANET
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Baked and irradiated, Mercury is a cratered world; pock-marked by impactors that rained from space during the early development of our Solar System. With double sunrises, its day is twice as long as its year. Mercury’s orbit is now perpetually shadowed from the scorching Sun; scientists think there may be ice deposited by comets. In contrast, the un-Earthly Venus is a lifeless planet with a dense, choking atmosphere with temperatures that could melt lead. Constantly shrouded in cloud, Venus could once have been Earth’s twin with oceans and continents, even simple life, but as the Sun matured, Venus became the hottest planet in our Solar System. |
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SUN, POWERHOUSE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM & GALAXY, OUR MILKY WAY |
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It’s a nuclear reactor losing four million tons of mass every second, enough energy to keep the Sun blazing for another five billion years. Solar winds are a stream of electrically charged particles. Twists in the magnetic field trigger gigantic eruptions that change winds to storms. In five billion years time, the Sun will bloat into a red giant and die as a white dwarf. Of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the nearest star is Alpha Centauri, 4.25 light years away.
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