2012. január 28., szombat


A typical onshore turbine in the UK will power over 1,000 homes each year

A typical wind turbine generates 5.3 million units of electricity each year, sufficient to:
- Meet the average annual electricity needs of 1,000 homes
- Make 170 million cups of tea
- Run a computer for 1,620 years
- Prevent the emission of 2,000 tonnes of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide – equivalent to taking 667 cars off the road.




Kaheawa Wind

2012. január 19., csütörtök

Niggaz on the sky - “Red Tails” Historical Photos Images of the Tuskegee Airmen


Red Tail Leaders

332nd Fighter Group Commanding Officer Col. Benjamin O. Davis, left, and Edward C. Gleed, the Group Operations Officer, wearing flight gear, watch the skies above the airfield at Ramitelli, Italy. The P-51D in the background, "Creamer's Dream," was generally flown by Charles L. White. Library of Congress photo

Capt. Charles B. Hall

Capt. Charles B. Hall, the first Tuskegee Airmen to shoot down an enemy plane, is congratulated by Maj. Gen. John Kenneth Cannon. U.S. Air Force photo

Escort Excellence

332nd Fighter Group pilots discuss combat flying. Their P-51 Mustangs, like the one here, were well-suited to long bomber escort missions. U.S. Air Force photo

Review of the First Class of Tuskegee Cadets

Maj. James A. Ellison returns the salute of Lt. Mac Ross as he passes down the line during review of the first class of Tuskegee cadets at the U.S. Army Air Corps basic and advanced flying school, Tuskegee, Ala., 1941. Ross, one of the first five Tuskegee Airmen to receive his wings, was the first commander of the 100th Fighter Squadron. He was killed in action during the war. The aircraft are Vultee BT-13 trainers. U.S. Air Force photo

332nd and Mud, Ramitelli, Italy

"Sunny Italy." Tuskegee Airmen leave the Quonset hut where they have geared up and negotiate the mud on the airfield at Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945. Library of Congress photo

Elite Fighter Jocks

Tuskegee Airmen with the elite all-African-American 332nd Fighter Group pose with one of the group's P-51 Mustangs at their base at Ramitelli, Italy. From left: Lt. Dempsey W. Morgan, Lt. Carrol S. Woods, Lt. Robert H. Nelson Jr., Capt. Andrew D. Turner and Lt. Clarence D. Lester. U.S. Air Force photo

Maj. George S. “Spanky” Roberts

Maj. George S. "Spanky" Roberts at the controls of a P-51B Mustang. Roberts was the first African-American accepted for U.S. Army pilot training. He later commanded the 99th Fighter Squadron and the 332nd Fighter Group. U.S. Air Force photo

Tuskegee Airmen

Tuskegee Airmen made it to the fight in the spring of 1943. They first flew P-40 Warhawks like the one shown here. U.S. Air Force photo

Red Tails

Many of the Tuskegee Airmen went on to serve in the 332nd Fighter Group. The distinctive crimson-colored tail surfaces of their aircraft, like the P-51D shown here, resulted in the nickname "Red Tails." U.S. Air Force photo

332nd Mustangs Overhead

Mustangs of the 332nd Fighter Group pass over the airfield at Ramitelli, Italy, in March 1945. Library of Congress photo

Tuskegee Airmen Mission Briefing

Pilots from the 332nd Fighter Group are briefed on what to expect as they head north from Italy. The briefer is Lt. (later Col.) Edward Gleed. U.S. Air Force photo

Loading the Guns

An armorer loads ammunition for a 332nd Fighter Group P-51’s 50-caliber machine guns. The maintainers of the group played an unsung role in the success of the Tuskegee Airmen. U.S. Air Force photo

Tuskegee Airmen Bomber Pilots

The 477th Medium Bombardment Group trained to fly B-25 Mitchell bombers, but the war ended before they saw action. Although the Tuskegee Airmen of the 477th didn't see combat, their attempt to integrate an all-white officer's club at Freeman Army Airfield, Ind., is generally considered an important step toward the integration of the armed forces. U.S. Air Force photo

Eleanor Roosevelt’s Flight With the Tuskegee Airmen

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt supported the Civilian Pilot Training Program and the War Training Service. She is pictured here in a Piper J-3 Cub trainer with Tuskegee Airman C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson. Roosevelt's inspection in March 1941 resulted in a much needed boost for the fledgling program. Upon landing she reportedly told Anderson, "Well, you can fly all right." U.S. Air Force photo























2012. január 14., szombat


Marlene Dietrich at the recording studios of Columbia Records, who were releasing most of her songs she had performed for the troops during World War II, November 1952.

Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2012/01/05/eve-arnold-21-april-1912-4-january-2012/#ixzz1hNn6KUqg

Eve Arnold—Magnum Photos
Marilyn Monroe in the Nevada desert going over her lines for a difficult scene she is about to play with Clarke Gable in the film "The Misfits" by John Huston. 1960


Read more: http://lightbox.time.com/2012/01/05/eve-arnold-21-april-1912-4-january-2012/#ixzz1hNmTiM6Z

Stephen Hawking at 70: Exclusive interview


New Scientist
When he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged just 21, Stephen Hawking was only expected to live a few years. He will be 70 this month, and in an exclusive interview with New Scientist he looks back on his life and work
What does he think about all day? <i>(Image: Science Museum/Sarah Lee)</i>
STEPHEN HAWKING is one of the world's greatest physicists, famous for his work on black holes. His condition means that he can now only communicate by twitching his cheek (see "The man who saves Stephen Hawking's voice"). His responses to the questions are followed by our own elaboration of the concepts he describes.
What has been the most exciting development in physics during the course of your career?
COBE's discovery of tiny variations in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background and the subsequent confirmation by WMAP that these are in excellent agreement with the predictions of inflation. The Planck satellite may detect the imprint of the gravitational waves predicted by inflation. This would be quantum gravity written across the sky.
New Scientist writes: The COBE and WMAP satellites measured the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the afterglow of the big bang that pervades all of space. Its temperature is almost completely uniform – a big boost to the theory of inflation, which predicts that the universe underwent a period of breakneck expansion shortly after the big bang that would have evened out its wrinkles.
If inflation did happen, it should have sent ripples through space-time –gravitational waves – that would cause variations in the CMB too subtle to have been spotted so far. The Planck satellite, the European Space Agency's mission to study the CMB even more precisely, could well see them.
Einstein referred to the cosmological constant as his "biggest blunder". What was yours?
I used to think that information was destroyed in black holes. But the AdS/CFT correspondence led me to change my mind. This was my biggest blunder, or at least my biggest blunder in science.
NS: Black holes consume everything, including information, that strays too close. But in 1975, together with the Israeli physicist Jakob Bekenstein, Hawking showed that black holes slowly emit radiation, causing them to evaporate and eventually disappear. So what happens to the information they swallow? Hawking argued for decades that it was destroyed – a major challenge to ideas of continuity, and cause and effect. In 1997, however, theorist Juan Maldacena developed a mathematical shortcut, the "Anti-de-Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence", or AdS/CFT. This links events within a contorted space-time geometry, such as in a black hole, with simpler physics at that space's boundary.
In 2004, Hawking used this to show how a black hole's information leaks back into our universe through quantum-mechanical perturbations at its boundary, or event horizon. The recantation cost Hawking a bet made with fellow theorist John Preskill a decade earlier.
What discovery would do most to revolutionise our understanding of the universe?
The discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known fundamental particles, perhaps at the Large Hadron Collider. This would be strong evidence in favour of M-theory.
NS: The search for supersymmetric particlesMovie Camera is a major goal of the LHC at CERN. The standard model of particle physics would be completed by finding the Higgs boson, but has a number of problems that would be solved if all known elementary particles had a heavier "superpartner". Evidence of supersymmetry would support M-theory, the 11-dimensional version of string theory that is the best stab so far at a "theory of everything", uniting gravity with the other forces of nature.
If you were a young physicist just starting out today, what would you study?
I would have a new idea that would open up a new field.
What do you think most about during the day?
Women. They are a complete mystery.

2012. január 11., szerda

Actor Clark Gable Served in Uniform, Flew Combat Missions in World War II

Capt. Clark Gable in 1944. Robert F. Dorr collection.



Featured Post
  • Written by:  on August 11, 2010
  • Capt. Clark Gable in 1944. Robert F. Dorr collection.
Clark Gable was a Hollywood star and among the most famous figures in the world when two events altered his life. First, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, hurtling the United States into World War II. Then, the following month, Gable’s beloved wife Carole Lombard was killed in the crash of a DC-3 airliner returning from a war bonds tour.
Devastated, patriotic, and at age 40 a bit old for military service, Gable didn’t feel that the work he and Lombard had been doing to raise money through war bonds was enough of a contribution. He sent a telegram to President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for a role in the war effort. The president replied, “STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”
Gable didn’t. He volunteered for the Army Air Forces, went to the 13-week Officer Candidate School, and was trained as a photographer and aerial gunner. Because of his Hollywood connection, he was made a part of the First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU) located at what troops called  “Fort Roach” – the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, Calif. FMPU was commanded by producer Jack Warner, who was recruited as a lieutenant colonel. Flight operations were commanded by “Hollywood Pilot” Paul Mantz, famous for his stunt flying in films, who became a major. Other FMPU stalwarts included Alan Ladd, Ronald Reagan and Van Heflin.
Few of them went overseas, but Gable was assigned to go to Britain to film Combat America, a propaganda movie about air gunners.
Capt. Clark Gable (third from right) prepares for a combat mission with the crew of a bomber named "Jennie." Robert F. Dorr collection.
When the 351st Bombardment Group, equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses, was formed at Biggs Army Air Field, Tex., in 1942, clerk Corp. Calvert P’Pool wrote to his parents: “Today, Clark Gable is supposed to arrive to be assigned to our group. They tell us he is the same as any other soldier-officer (1st Lt). But they had a carpenter build a special luggage rack in a bomber here and the bomber has gone to Los Angeles for him and is to return this afternoon. He will be a top gunner in a bomber.” P’Pool wrote that the 351st would become “a pretty nice outfit with me and Clark Gable. Tell the boys hello and tell ‘em me and Clark Gable are putting this 351st outfit in shape.”
Former Technical Sgt. Ralph Cowley recalled events after the 351st arrived at Polebrook, England, and began flying bombing missions over the Third Reich:
This portrait of a B-17G Flying Fortress of the 351st Bombardment Group was taken by Capt. Clark Gable. Robert F. Dorr collection.
“Gable was assigned to our squadron but not to a particular crew,” said Cowley. “The group controlled his assignments. They wanted him to have an outer-wing aircraft with a clear view of the skies for his air-to-air photography, He stayed with us right up from 1942 to 1945 and I can tell you, they didn’t put him on the milk runs. He took a lot of pictures of flak bursting beside his aircraft.” Records indicate that Gable flew five combat missions but Cowley and other veterans remember that he flew many more.
“They were very real missions in which he could have been wounded or killed,” said Chrystopher J. Spicer, an Australian scholar who has scrutinized Gable’s career. “His film Combat America makes a valuable contribution to our historical knowledge of the war from the flyer’s perspective these days.”
According to lore, Germany’s Hermann Goering offered a sizeable cash reward to anyone who could capture Clark Gable.
By the fall of 1943 Gable’s crew had exposed 50,000 feet of film.
Gable and a cameramen and sound engineer followed the crew of a B-17, named “Ain’t It Gruesome,” through 24 missions, including one where the aircraft was shot up by German Focke Wulf Fw 190 fighters and lost an engine, with the crew eventually bailing over a field in England when fog closed in. Gable’s combat missions including one over Gelsenkirchen where he was nearly hit when antiaircraft fire damaged the airplane. At least one of his missions was aboard another B-17, “Delta Rebel 2″ of the 91st Bomb Group, where ball turret gunner Sgt. Steve Perri remembered him as “a great friend of the enlisted men as well as a great all-around guy.”
Interviews with veterans debunk the myth that Gable wanted to die because of his grief over losing Lombard. They describe him as a sturdy man with unnaturally large hands who took his duties seriously, maintained a military posture, but was willing to party when appropriate.
Clark Gable posed with the left waist gun of a B-17 Flying Fortress on June 6, 1943. Robert F. Dorr collection.
Promoted to first lieutenant before reaching England and to captain soon after, Gable followed up his filming ofCombat America by returning to Fort Roach in October 1943 to edit the movie.
Unfortunately, the 63-minute Combat America was released at the same time as, and completely overshadowed by William Wyler’s Memphis Belle, another saga of a B-17 crew in combat.
The FMPU eventually completed 300 training and propaganda films and was responsible for 3,000,000 feet of combat footage. Reagan, who went on to become president, called the film office “an important contribution to the war effort.”
Gable was relieved from active duty as a major on June 12, 1944 at his request, since he was over-age for combat. Because his motion picture production schedule made it impossible for him to fulfill Reserve officer duties, he resigned his commission on Sept. 26, 1947, a week after the Air Force became an independent service branch.
Gable’s postwar motion picture career, including a film appearance with Marilyn Monroe, drew mixed reactions from critics. He died on Nov. 16, 1960.