New Florence. New Renaissance.

What's next in Car Safety

Consumer Reports on what's showing up in cars

Computer Vision, Thermal Cameras, Radar-based motion detection, adaptive driving beam headlights, driver monitoring systems and more

Here is Mercedes latest version of its ESF (Experimental Safety Vehicle)

 

Bird Watching took flight during the pandemic

eBird, which allows birders to note which species they’ve spotted—and where—had a more than 40 percent increase in sightings in April 2020 over the previous year. That’s more than double the app’s normal annual growth, according to data provided by Farnsworth. This February, 140,000 users logged on, to date the greatest number of users in a single month and a 50 percent increase over last February. Now, there are over a billion entries.

Farnsworth says this citizen data is crucial. Scientists can monitor migration using weather surveillance radar, and they’re experimenting with acoustic sensing that uses microphones to record bird calls. (Machine learning can identify which species are migrating, based on the captured songs.) But there are still no devices that can replace in-person observation. “We actually really want humans involved,” he says. “Going out and using your ears and eyes, and your own sensory abilities—we want people doing that because it engenders a much, much closer relationship with what’s happening around you.”

But this flood of new data presents a conundrum: Scientists can’t always tell whether changes in the data are due to animal behavior or just an increase in the amount of information available. Take the data about how many birds are injured or die after flying into buildings. Twice a year, millions of songbirds, raptors, hummingbirds, and shorebirds travel through New York City along the Atlantic Flyway, from their summer homes in Canada and the northeast to their winter habitats in Florida and the Caribbean. They can get disoriented by bright lights or by window glass, which they often can’t perceive as a barrier. Last year, the count of dead and injured birds in New York rose precipitously during the fall—but so did the number of bird-watchers.

Wired

This video discusses the analog way - birding books - that many enthusiasts use

The God of Silence

According to the U.S. National Park Service’s Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division, which has sent researchers to measure the acoustics of more than 600 outdoor American sites for the past 15 years, noise pollution is growing faster than the U.S. population and is more than doubling every 30 years. One writer’s calculations even show that more than 145 million Americans—roughly 44 percent of the population—are exposed to noise exceeding the recommended limits. Anything over 85 decibels can harm a person’s ears, like lawn mowers (90 decibels), trains (90 to 115 decibels), the wail of a siren (120 to 140 decibels), and loud concerts, at around 110 to 120 decibels. All told, more than 97 percent of the U.S. population is constantly exposed to noise from planes and highways at around 50 decibels—comparable to the buzz of a humming refrigerator—but the loudest sounds appear most frequently in low-income neighborhoods.

Though noise really is all around us, from rustling leaves (20 to 30 decibels) to a thunderclap (120 decibels), it is this man-made noise that affects human health, leading to hypertension, stress, and heart disease. Alarmingly, according to Hempton, there are now fewer than 10 places in the U.S. where you can avoid noise pollution for longer than 15 minutes.

Afar

 

 

Soviet decadence revisited

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the decadent Georgia spa town of Tskaltubo fell off the map. Once an elegant Soviet destination that attracted the elites of the Communist Party, including Joseph Stalin himself, for its natural springs, Tskaltubo is now an array of crumbling hotels, bath houses, and sanitoriums—ornamental health resorts designed for both rest and medical treatments. But 30 years after the resort town’s closure, photographs of these abandoned buildings are attracting new travelers.

Conde Nast Traveler

 

More West Coast on East Coast

Recent Instagram galleries (with 10 photos each) of recent weekend trips along the West Coast of Florida

Ballast Point, Tampa Pier, Yacht Club, Equestrian 

Lutz Train depot, car show

Pine Island Weeki Wachee mermaids

Florida Polytechnic U newest state school, STEM focused, gorgeous campus 

Tarpon Springs sponge docks, Fred Howard park

Tampa Riverwalk Armature Works, public art

Lakeland public art

The next US National Park?

A sprinkling of ancient earthen mounds dot the undulating hills of central Georgia, and soon, this historic expanse could be placed in the national spotlight. Ocmulgee Mounds, a forested park in Macon with 17,000 years of human history, is well on its way to becoming the country’s next national park—and the first one in Georgia—a feat that could happen as soon as 2022.

Currently classified as a national historic park, the landmark is basically a 2,000-acre time capsule—it's home to one of the National Park Service’s (NPS) largest archaeological collections with thousands of ancient finds dating back to the area’s earliest inhabitants of the last Ice Age, millennia before Egyptians erected the Giza pyramids.

Conde Nast Traveler

 

We all fly

Since the inaugural issue of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine in April 1986, we have published more than 200 short personal accounts of flying experiences. Here you’ll find some of our favorites. Taken together, they show how varied a life the airplane has led since its birth 118 years ago, and how its cousins—the balloons, gliders, and yes, the rocket belt—have contributed to the richness of aviation history.

But even these gems from our archive can’t tell the complete story of flight. That’s why we asked you, the Air & Space readers, to share some of your best memories of flying. More than 400 of you responded, with tales ranging from the suspenseful to the humorous. Find them here.

Air and Space Magazine

The National Air and Space Museum is the largest and most visited of the Smithsonian Institution’s 19 museums and this new gallery is part of the museum’s ongoing transformation of all its galleries at the flagship building in Washington, D.C.

The Thomas W. Haas Foundation founded what will become the “Thomas W. Haas We All Fly” gallery with a $10 million gift. “We All Fly” will include examples of different forms of general aviation, from business aircraft to gliders, and it will be among the first of the new galleries in the museum’s West End to open in 2022.

At the entrance of this new gallery will be Sean D. Tucker’s Oracle Challenger III high-performance aerobatic flight aircraft, according to the museum. Also featured in the gallery will be a Cessna 180, Gates Lear Jet and a Cirrus SR22. The exhibition will feature new educational interactive technology and engaging videos that will explore the valuable impact of general aviation on society and encourage the public to join in.

Newswire

Chicago's beauty

Chicago doesn't ordinarily get a lot of attention for its beauty, but the ranking (as 2nd most beautiful city in the world and 1st in the US) makes sense when you consider our abundance of public parkland, stunning architecture and famously clean streets (thanks alleys!), plus our proximity to the glittering shores of Lake Michigan.

For proof, look no further than beautiful gardens tucked away in Jackson Park and the South Shore Cultural Center, or the many lovely vantage points to check out views of the skyline or even our most stunning restaurant spaces. It's like our adopted hometown architect Frank Lloyd Wright once said: "Eventually, I think Chicago will be the most beautiful great city left in the world."

TimeOut

The Beirut-Damascus Railroad

Inaugurated on August 4, 1895, the Beirut-Damascus railroad became the first major railway in the Levant, preceding the more famous Hijaz Railway by 13 years. The winding, 147-kilometer route took the steam engines just nine hours.

The builders addressed the challenge of the mountains by laying narrow-gauge tracks 1,050 millimeters apart. Where the track became too steep for the iron wheels to keep their grip, they laid a third, toothed rail in the center, with which the locomotive’s rack-and-pinion cog system could mesh and provide mechanical traction.

The civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s brought a halt to the traffic and the track and rolling stock has been neglected since.

In a region that has seen more conflict than stability in the past half century, restoring a historical railroad could seem superfluous. Yet following the August 2020 Beirut port catastrophe, discussions about the railroad may have a new chance.

“There is now an opportunity to rebuild the port of Beirut in a better way,” says Yarob Badr, Regional Advisor for Transport and Logistics at the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. “There is a need to consider railway connectivity in the port of Beirut which is now missing.”

AramcoWorld

Solar Home on wheels

As electric cars catch people's interest more and more every passing day, a team of students from Eindhoven University is taking a big leap into the future and embarking on a Euro trip in a solar-powered vehicle. What makes the project even more interesting is the fact that this vehicle is a full-fledge home with a living area, shower, cooking range, and even an infotainment system.

Dubbed Stella Vita, this mobile home is designed by the Solar Team, a team of ambitious students from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands who, according to their website, "innovate without preconceptions and pressure of market demands".

Interesting Engineering