Navy Returns to Sail Power

Sails may be making a comeback on ships. Using a giant computer-controlled kite called a skysail, a cargo ship chartered by the U.S. Navy for the Military Sealift Command will move supplies and equipment around the globe. Rising 100 yards into the air, the innovative kite-sail will capture wind to help propel the 400-foot MV Beluga Skysails during long ocean transits, saving an estimated 20%–30% in fuel costs, or about $1,600 per day.

Source: U.S. European Command, www.eucom.mil.

Celebrity Trumps Beauty

Consumers make more of a connection with famous faces than beautiful ones, so marketers are looking more toward the stars to sell their products. A recent study by psychologists Carl Senior and Baldeesh Gakkal of Aston University (Birmingham, U.K.) concluded that the modern brain has become hard-wired to produce emotional reactions to celebrities and the products they endorse. Participants’ responses were measured when exposed to hypothetical ads featuring famous and nonfamous, attractive and average-looking models; fame proved more stimulating. The researchers believe that it doesn’t matter how attractive the celebrity is; consumers are simply more likely to respond to fame than to beauty.

Source: Aston University, Press Office, Aston Triangle, Birmingham B4 7ET, United Kingdom. Web site www.aston.ac.uk.

Space Research Leads to Depression Treatment

A self-guided depression-treatment program developed for astronauts could one day be used for Earthbound sufferers. NASA’s Virtual Space Station, a multimedia program for addressing problems that astronauts may encounter on long-term missions, includes a module to guide space crews through psychosocial challenges when no communication link to a psychologist is available. “While astronauts are not particularly prone to psychological problems, the environment is very demanding,” says project co-investigator and former astronaut Jay Buckey. The treatment program helps the user identify specific problems, set goals to solve them, and brainstorm the steps necessary to reach those goals. Developers believe the program might also benefit rural residents and others without immediate access to mental health care professionals or services.

Source: National Space Biomedical Research Institute, One Baylor Plaza, NA-425, Houston, Texas 77030. Web site www.nsbri.org.

Burials at Sea Benefit Coral Reefs

Cemetery plots are growing increasingly scarce and more people are seeking ways to maintain their eco-friendly lifestyles after they die. One option in the “green burial” movement is to contribute your remains to reef restoration. Eternal Reefs, a company founded by a pair of college roommates inspired during their diving adventures off the Florida Keys, entombs cremated remains in “reef balls” that are then used to help rehabilitate and restore dying reefs and provide new habitats for marine life.

Source: Eternal Reefs Inc., P.O. Box 2473, Decatur, Georgia 30031. Web site www.eternalreefs.com.

Microwaves May “Pump” Water on Moon

When future astronauts need water on the Moon or Mars, they’ll need to go only as far as an outpost where subsurface ice has been pumped out with microwave beams. Materials scientist William Kaukler of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, has devised a system for extracting water by shooting beams into the lunar or Martian surface at the poles, where ice has been shown to exist. The microwaves will penetrate and heat the soil; on the Moon, the vacuum environment would percolate the water vapor to the surface, where it would be collected on a plate as ice and then scraped off for human use, either as water or for conversion to hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis. The key advantage to such a system would be to avoid transporting water from Earth — an expensive proposition.

Source: University of Alabama, Huntsville, University Relations, SKH 321, Huntsville, Alabama 35899. Web site www.uah.edu/news.