Science Friday: Australian Fire Tornado | Blowfish Behind Japanese Underwater Crop Circle Mystery | Physics of Bullets

The 30 metre high tornado of FIRE that whirled around Australian outback for terrifying 40 minutes

    An astonished filmmaker is coming to grips with the moment he witnessed one of nature's rarest phenomenons - a tornado comprised entirely of fire- and lived to tell the tale.

    Chris Tangey had been out in Alice Springs, Australia, scouting locations for a new movie.

    After finishing the task, he went over to help workers at a cattle station when he was confronted by one of nature's most intimidating spectacles.

    Just 300-metres away was a 30-metre high fire swirl which 'sounded like a fighter jet' despite there being no wind in the area

    A fire tornado, also know as a fire devil, is caused when a column of warm, rising air comes into contact - or causes - a fire on the ground.

    These fire whirls are known to last for around two minutes on the very rare occasions they take place.

    But Mr Tangey found himself mesmerized by the tornado for more than 40 minutes.

    [...]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204468/Pictured-The-frightening-FIRE...


Mysterious Underwater ?Crop Circles? Discovered Off the Coast of Japan

    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration less than five percent of the world?s oceans have been explored, meaning that 95% of what lies deep underwater on Earth has yet to be seen by human eyes.

    One person who has dedicated his life to uncovering the mysteries of the deep is Japanese photographer Yoji Ookata who obtained his scuba license at the age of 21 and has since spent the last 50 years exploring and documenting his discoveries off the coast of Japan. Recently while on a dive near Amami Oshima at the southern tip of the country, Ookata spotted something he had never encountered before: rippling geometric sand patterns nearly six feet in diameter almost 80 feet below sea level. He soon returned with colleagues and a television crew from the nature program NHK to document the origins what he dubbed the ?mystery circle.?

    Here is what they found.

    [...]

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/09/mysterious-underwater-crop-circle-art-d...


Why a Modern Gun Shoots 10 Times Farther Than its 19th Century Counterpart

    Old smoothbore guns, which were loaded with bullets that looked more like balls than torpedoes, had an effective range of about sixty yards. A relatively small engineering change, which took its lead from physics, increased the range tenfold. What could make anything work that much better?

    Military guns in the Victorian era had long barrels, and were likely to jam as crud accumulated in the barrel ? but what really frustrated their owners was their range. By the time people got about sixty yards away from their target, they might as well be shooting at the ground. Frequently, they were.

    But a small change to the bullet and the barrel of the gun ? with no change in the other mechanics or loading procedure ? increased their range to six hundred yards. What did it take?

    First, it took a bullet that looked more like our modern idea of a bullet: an oblong cylinder with a rounded tip. Secondly, it took a set of grooves inside the barrel of the gun that curved like the stripes on a candy cane. This was rifling. The effect of rifling on a bullet was well-known. Even archers had twisted the feathers in their arrows to get their arrows to fly true. Early rifles, though, had a more complicated loading procedure that precluded their widespread military use. Once rifling was integrated with old designs, everything changed.

    [...]

http://io9.com/5944455/the-physics-of-bullets-why-a-modern-gun-shoots-10-time...

Source: http://sacramentofordemocracy.org/node/36429

lawrence of arabia denver nuggets orioles correspondents dinner i am legend san antonio spurs greta van susteren