These Aerial Super Tankers Drown Forest Fires With 20,000-Gallon Waterfalls from the Sky [Monster Machines]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5810842/these-aerial-super-tankers-drown-forest-fires-with-20000+gallon-waterfalls-from-the-sky

389,000 acres. That's how much of Arizona the Wallow fire has consumed since May 29th. With the blaze 0% contained, authorities have called in some of the largest air tankers in the world to help.

Aerial firefighting employs airplanes and helicopters to combat wildfires from above. Originally developed from WWII bombers, air tankers are built in a variety of capacities; from the single-seat 800-gallon Air Tractor AT-802F to the gargantuan Evergreen Super Tanker—a converted Boeing 747 that holds over 20,000 gallons. Firefighting helicopters, based on the S-64 Skycrane and Bell UH-1 Iroquois designs, have also been in service since the early 1990s.

The two largest air tankers currently operating in the US are the Evergreen Super Tanker and a converted McDonnell Douglas DC-10 with the call-sign, Tanker 910. Both are stationed at the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, CA, about 20 miles North of San Bernardino. Tanker 910 can drop 12,000 gallons of water from its three underbelly-mounted storage tanks in as little as eight seconds. It can also spread that same load over an area 300 feet wide and one mile long from as low as 300-500 feet.

The Evergreen 747 Super Tanker is the Big Daddy of aerial firefighting. With a 20,500 gallon capacity, it is the single largest Air Tanker in the world, and represents the next-generation of Super Tankers. Development of the $40 million project began in 2002, spurred by the crashes of both a Lockheed C-130A Hercules and a Consolidated PB4Y-2 that year. The plane made its maiden voyage in 2004 and was in service by 2009. The Evergreen can dispense either water or fire-retardant gel and foam. Its advanced release system allows the pilot to control the rate of dispersal; as gently as natural rain to an overwhelming, near immediate evacuation under high pressure. Its able to lay down a path of fire retardant three miles long and 160 feet wide.

[Evergreen 747 Wiki - Tanker 910 Wiki - Air Tanker Wiki - 10 Tanker Airlines - Evergreen Airlines - Top Image Courtesy: Getty Images - Side Image Courtesy: AP Images]

Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.

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There Is Too Much Electricity in the Northwest [Power]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5811818/there-is-too-much-electricity-in-the-northwest

After this long winter, spring's warmth has begun to melt all that pesky snow. In the Northwest, the resulting runoff helps power everyday life. Only this year there's too much power for them to handle.

The waters that came with spring went on to overwhelm the Federal Columbia River Power System, creating so much electricity that it's threatening service and rates for the millions of customers in the region. So what did the Bonneville Power Administration, power provider to a full third of the Northwest, do? They cut wind power, deciding it was the easiest and safest way to solve the overgeneration problem.

Wind power advocates are pissed, as the disruption of wind power hurts their bottom line:

Since May 18, the decision has disrupted operations at 35 wind farms with more than 2,000 turbines stalled almost daily in the Columbia Gorge along the border of Oregon and Washington. Those generators have contracts with BPA to transmit wind power. Now, they are tallying ongoing losses already in the millions.

They argue that BPA's policy, even in the midst of a bad situation, only stands to benefit. What's more, rural communities suffer from the loss of revenue from wind farms. Even salmon are harmed by excess water being allowed to flow over dams.

Both sides are still at loggerheads on how to solve the issue. It seems the federal government will soon have to step in. [The Atlantic, Image via Shutterstock]

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More Evidence For an iPad 3 Retina Display [Apple]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5811993/more-evidence-for-an-ipad-3-retina-display

Twitter made its way into iOS 5 and its code may have inadvertently coughed up information about the next generation iPad.

This rumor was started when someone was poking around the SDK and found images in the Twitter.framework that have a retina-like resolution of 1,536 x 2,048. This is far from a confirmation, but we have seen that resolution tossed around before.

Apple may be secretive about a retina display, but its rival and supplier Samsung is embracing the technology. The Korean company recently introduced a retina display for tablets with a 2560x1600 resolution and it looks fantastic. [Techunwrapped via MacRumors]

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How Are 20% of Human Genes Patented? [Factoid]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5811899/how-are-20-of-human-genes-patented

John Sulston, along with Sarah Chan and John Harris, write that scientific process is being stymied due to excessive ownership of scientific intellectual property. One of the more troubling statistics? Private companies have patented nearly 20% of human genes.

For example, it is estimated that some 20% of individual human genes have been patented already or have been filed for patenting. As a result, research on certain genes is largely restricted to the companies that hold the patents, and tests involving them are marketed at prohibitive prices. We believe that this poses a very real danger to the development of science for the public good.

Essentially, if any group wants to conduct research on certain types of genes, they have to pay the patent holder to formally carry out the experiment. And then, of course, there are the pharmaceutical companies, who will buy up expiring patents to prevent potential competitors from infringing on the market territory of their status quo drug.

All of this, according to Sulston and co., means we're limiting the best possible scientific breakthroughs. Instead, we're stuck waiting for the ones which prove most profitable. That sucks. [Guardian via Open Science]

Image via Shutterstock

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Hackers Broke Into Citigroup and It Was Easy [Security]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5811949/why-hacking-citigroup-was-a-cinch

In one of the ballsiest bank break-ins in recent memory, a team of hackers based in Eastern Europe managed to crack open Citigroup's massive store of their customers' personal financial data. Just by hacking Citi's customer website.

The hackers broke in by impersonating legitimate credit card holders on the Citibank website:

Once inside, they leapfrogged between the accounts of different Citi customers by inserting vari-ous account numbers into a string of text located in the browser's address bar. The hackers' code systems automatically repeated this exercise tens of thousands of times - allowing them to capture the confidential private data.

As per usual, it's not clear just how much damage the hackers did. Citi is resolute in stating that the mess was "rectified immediately." However, what is know is that the ill-gotten credit card information was most likely taken from one of the many illegal "online bazaars" that have risen in Eastern Europe. In hacker communities like HackZone.ru, cyber criminals broker for stolen credit cards to buy merchandise and rake in profits. A Citi security expert even confirmed the breach originated in the region.

The demand for stolen credit card information is also on the rise, resulting in in thieves getting bolder in the search for new accounts. Banks will have to improve their security practices, if only to keep up. [NYT, Image via Shutterstock]

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