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Leaf cutter ants produce laughing gas

15.01.2019

The impact of agriculture on the environment is often underestimated. At first glance, it seems that what a cow peacefully grazing in a meadow or a chicken pecking at grain can do with nature compared to smoky factory chimneys? One chicken, of course, will not bring noticeable harm. But a medium-sized poultry farm, where the number of such chickens is estimated in tens of thousands, can already become a large source of ammonia, which is released from chicken manure.

Therefore, in order not to poison the neighborhood with poisonous gas, special ammonia collection and disposal systems are installed on poultry farms, and the chickens themselves are fed with special feeds that reduce the “ammonia content” of their droppings.

However, agriculture is not limited to humans. One of the most advanced farmers who launched active activities long before the appearance of man is leaf-cutting ants. Representatives of two ant genera, Atta and Acromyrmex, have learned to cultivate mushrooms, supplying them with a nutrient substrate - chewed leaves. Mushrooms eat leaves, ants eat mushrooms, and they all seem to be fine. But like us, ants have a waste problem. All that remains from highly organized activity, and these are mostly leaves that have begun to decompose, are thrown by ants into a kind of trash cans, in which the biomass is already completely rotting.

It turned out that such compost heaps are capable of releasing large amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O), known as laughing gas, into the atmosphere. The intensity of emissions of this gas from ant landfills can be several orders of magnitude higher than the average from rainforest soil.

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Supersonic train project 23.08.2013

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk unveiled a project for a Hyperloop bullet train that will move in a tunnel with rarefied air.

The new train will be able to accelerate to speeds of over 1100 km/h, while perfect aerodynamics and a rarefied air tunnel will reduce the resistance to movement so much that only 134 hp will be needed to maintain supersonic speed. (100 kW), the resistance force in this case will be only 320 newtons. To achieve these characteristics, new technologies are used that turn the Hyperloop into a completely new type of transport.

The train will be accelerated using a magnetic field, while the stators are planned to be placed in the tunnel, and the rotors on the passenger capsule car. A distance of 2 cm will be maintained between these parts throughout the entire journey, and the train itself will be separated from the walls of the tunnel by an air cushion. The pressure in the tunnel will be very low, about 100 Pa (as at an altitude of 45 km) - this is necessary to reduce drag. However, even this low pressure creates too much drag at supersonic speeds - the train, like a syringe piston, will move all the air in the tunnel in front of it and suck in the air behind. To solve this problem, a fan will be installed in the nose of the train, pumping air from the bow of the train to the stern and creating an air cushion that replaces the wheels of the train. The tunnels will be located on concrete supports equipped with a seismic activity compensation system.

The passenger capsule is planned to be made in two versions: for the transportation of people and for the transportation of people and cars. The time interval between departures of passenger capsules should be no more than 2 minutes. One 2,5-ton passenger capsule will be able to carry at least 28 passengers, and the maximum overload on the route will not exceed 1 g. Thus, on the route Los Angeles - San Francisco Hyperloop will be able to carry 840 passengers per hour. The train will be able to cover a distance of 550 km in just 35 minutes, which is faster than a modern airliner, especially considering the time it takes for the aircraft to prepare for departure and its dependence on weather conditions.

The safety of the train is ensured by a number of "smart" systems that stop the passenger capsule in the event of a dangerous depressurization of the cabin or tunnel. Even if the external power is completely cut off, the fan at the front of the train will continue to operate and maintain the air cushion, since it is powered by batteries located at the rear of the train. Perhaps the heavy fan in the nose of the train and the battery in the tail are the only controversial point - the passenger compartment in the event of an impact could be between a "hammer and a hard place."

The cost of the Hyperloop project at first glance is high, but in fact, Elon Musk offers a really inexpensive mode of transport. Thus, the cost of a passenger capsule is estimated at only $255, and the cost of the entire 550-km road - at $6 billion, or about $11 million per 1 km of the road, plus the passenger capsules themselves. For comparison, 1 km of the much slower prospective Moscow-Kazan railway is now valued at more than $34 million (excluding train costs). At the same time, the planned cost of a ticket for the Hyperloop train will be about $20 - several times lower than for the Sapsan.

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