DeakinUniversity
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Researchers create magic sponge to clean up oil spills
Researchers at Australia's Deakin University claim to have developed a new material that's capable of cleaning up large oil spills in a flash. A team, led by Professor Ying Chen, has created a new method that uses boron nitride powder as the building block for a sponge that can absorb oil separate from water. Since you couldn't just sprinkle the substance onto the area around a crashed oil tanker, it had to be built into a porous 3D structure. In doing so, the team has been able to increase the surface area per gram to roughly five and a half tennis courts.
Universal Motion Simulator: real enough to evoke panic (video)
A fighter sim just isn't realistic unless it makes you throw up and scream for your mother, which is why the sadistic folks at Australia's Deakin University created the Universal Motion Simulator. It's a barebones cockpit attached to the end of a seven-meter robotic arm that can pull up to six Gs -- indeed it's uncomfortable enough to mimic external disturbances, mechanical failures and crash scenarios as well as normal flying. The system also monitors a pilot's brainwaves, pulse and other bodily functions to discover if they have necessary nerve. Check out the video after the break and then imagine combining it with a 360-degree viewing dome for utter perfection.
