Day: November 6, 2018

Energy drinks aren’t technically a “food.” That’s not to trash them—it’s just a fact, and an important one at that.

The Food & Drug Administration regulates all products defined as food to ensure they’re safe for human consumption. Coffee drinks and soda, for instance, aren’t allowed to be too high in caffeine lest they cause heart problems. But energy drinks are classified as supplements, which means they’re unregulated—and manufacturers are free to shove as much caffeine inside a single can as they please. They can even mix caffeine with other stimulants in such a way that could cause cardiovascular or nervous system problems.

That’s why physicians have been trying to investigate what the health effects of these caffeinated cocktails might be. A new study showing that a single drink can diminish blood vessel function is making headlines, but similar findings have been accruing for years now. The latest results are being presented at the annual American Heart Association Meeting. Back in 2015, Mayo Clinic researchers presented a study at the AHA’s Scientific Sessions demonstrating that a single beverage raised the drinker’s blood pressure and cortisol levels (a measure of stress).

A lot of the concern about these drinks comes from their high concentrations of stimulants. It’s entirely possible to overdose on caffeine alone (though it takes 5 to 10 grams of the stuff, which would be more coffee than your stomach could hold), and in combination with guarana, another stimulant, smaller amounts might have drastic effects.

But it probably mostly comes down to the basics. The World Health Organization published a meta-analysis of energy drink studies that noted “the health risks associated with energy drink consumption are primarily related to their caffeine content.” Overdosing on caffeine doesn’t necessarily result in death, but it can cause heart palpitations, nausea, vomiting, convulsions, metabolic acidosis, and hypertension. And it can kill you. The WHO study also reports that adults who consume energy drinks may be increasing their risk of hypertension and type 2 diabetes (caffeine reduces insulin sensitivity).

You may now be wondering why we don’t see all of these risks associated with coffee consumption. Depending on the type, coffee drinks can absolutely have as much caffeine as certain energy drinks, though many energy drinks contain multiple times the caffeine as a cup of joe. The problem, the WHO notes, has more to do with the speed at which you down the beverage: “Although some types of coffee can have caffeine levels comparable to energy drinks, coffee is typically consumed hot and consequently more slowly.” You’re probably not chugging your morning coffee, even if it’s an iced latte, but you may very well down an entire can of a chilled energy drink in a few minutes. That sudden spike of caffeine could trigger a heart attack, even if the total dosage is the same as a powerful cup of cold brew.

Here in the U.S., we don’t track adverse events specifically related to energy drinks—they’re all just lumped under caffeine-related events. But some countries do. Germany’s tracking system indicates that since 2002, energy drinks have caused “liver damage, kidney failure, respiratory disorders, agitation, seizures, psychotic conditions, rhabdomyolysis, tachycardia, cardiac dysrhythmias, hypertension, heart failure, and death.” Ireland and New Zealand have also each found around 15-20 serious complications from energy drink consumption over a period of about four to six years apiece (Ireland from 1999-2005, New Zealand from 2005-2009).

It’s for these reasons that several countries have tried eliminating energy drinks altogether. France even managed to ban them briefly, but companies petitioned the European Commission, arguing that there was no proof that their drinks were actively unsafe. The ban got revoked shortly after. Some German states did successfully ban Red Bull Cola after a 2008 study found small amounts of cocaine in the drink. Red Bull claimed that all active cocaine was removed from the coca plant used in their beverages, but the German bans stood. Australia, Denmark, Uruguay, and Turkey all have some form of a ban on high-caffeine beverages.

But in countries like the U.S., energy drinks are sold all over the place and are actively marketed to children and teens. A 2011 review of the health effects in the journal Pediatrics noted that young people may be particularly susceptible since safe consumption levels haven’t been established and they may have undiscovered cardiac or metabolic issues that energy drinks can exacerbate—not to mention the fact that they contain tons of sugar.

Despite the WHO’s recommendation that caffeine content be limited per beverage, energy drinks in the U.S. are still totally unregulated and will remain that way unless they get reclassified as a food. In the meantime, you should probably stop drinking them. They may not be dangerous in small quantities, but nothing about them is healthy. Switch to coffee or tea, both of which will perk you up in the morning and will be much harder to overdo it with. Or you could just go ahead and work on kicking your caffeine habit for good.

Amazon’s second headquarters will be split between two locations, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The plan would bring up to 50,000 jobs, split between the two cities. And the average salary has been promised to pay more than $100,000 annually over the next 10 to 15 years.

Amazon is still in the final stages of negotiations, the sources say, but Crystal City, Va., is expected to pick up one half of the deal, the people told NPR. Crystal City is a suburb of Washington, D.C.

New York City has been reported as a potential second location.

The surprise decision to divide the second headquarters between two cities that already have a considerable Amazon presence is an anticlimactic ending for the much-hyped, Olympic-style search. In all, 238 cities, counties and states had submitted bids hoping to woo Amazon during the fall of 2017. Amazon had narrowed the list to 20 finalists in January.

The choice of splitting the deal for so-called HQ2 was in part prompted by concerns that a single location may not be able to draw the needed 50,000 highly educated technical employees, said one person.

Dividing the new jobs between two cities could also relieve Amazon of being singularly blamed for a rapid influx of wealthy techies who could worsen traffic and increase housing prices. These urban problem have been controversial in Seattle, which is Amazon’s original headquarters. The company has grown grown to occupy more than 40 office buildings in the heart of downtown Seattle.

Local authorities at the two locations are still sure to face questions about any taxpayer-funded perks promised to Amazon. Localities across the nation have been preparing financial subsidies worth millions of dollars.

The split of the second headquarters dilutes the company’s original promise of a megadeal, which cities and counties had been chasing with stunts and gimmicks, investing thousands of dollars in websites and presentations. The contest prompted comparisons to a corporate beauty pageant or “the Olympics of the corporate world.”

For Amazon, the HQ2 fanfare has added to a year of striking growth and significant milestones. In September, the company’s stock value briefly topped $1 trillion. And before that, CEO Jeff Bezos — whose fortune is tied to his Amazon stake — became the world’s wealthiest man in recent history.

(Amazon is one of NPR’s financial supporters.)

Amazon representatives did not comment on reports of a two cities splitting the second headquarters.

They have landed in San Francisco, San Diego, Minneapolis. They have squeezed into Charlotte, North Carolina, Miami, and Phoenix. As shared, electric scooters took off some local governments panicked. Others moralized. A few shrugged their shoulders and let the people ride. But almost all of them whipped out the calculators.

A shared scooter service doesn’t work if its users can’t park the vehicles on public sidewalks. And it turns out that sidewalks aren’t free.

In Austin, officials are charging companies $100 a bike or scooter during its experimental phase, and could raise tens of thousands annually. Mobility startups operating in Santa Monica, California, have shelled out a $20,000 each for the right to operate, plus $130 per each device on the street, plus $1 per device per day for the privilege of parking on the public sidewalk. (That last charge is modeled off the way the city charges restaurants for outdoor dining.) Participants’ in Los Angeles’ soon-to-launch scooter and bike program will have a similar setup. Portland, Oregon, meanwhile, is charging the companies operating there a 25-cent per trip fee.

Cities insist this is not a bid to squeeze cash-rich companies for easy money. It’s the cost of doing business. In most places, the money goes to administering the program. City staff put real time into collecting data, purchasing software to crunch it, evaluating whether scooters and bikes actually helping people get around, and yes, impounding the ones that get in the way. San Francisco, for example, requires each of its two permitted e-scooter-share companies to pay $25,000 for an annual permit, plus $10,000 to an endowment fund for city property repair and maintenance.

Some officials, though, have added in something extra. A sprinkle of funding demands on top of the raw cost of handling scooters. And this model—charging fees per scooter to private companies that use public roads—just might be a template for other kinds of vehicles. Vehicles operated by companies like Uber and Lyft, maybe, who are now being charged per-trip taxes in places like Washington, DC, and New York City. Or private cars. Or maybe, someday, autonomous vehicles.

Seattle, the grand dame of dockless vehicle programs, is one of the places experimenting with those extra fees. Each dockless bike company operating in the city has to cough up about $50 per bike. More than half of those dollars go to administration. The rest goes to building infrastructure like protected bike lanes and bike racks. (If the city decides to allow scooters, it could use the funds to build dedicated parking “corrals” for them.) That means the mobility companies help pay for the street improvements that make their products easier and safer to use.

Plenty of other cities are using bike and scooter fees to fund bike scooter infrastructure—and to target specific neighborhoods that need help. Lawmakers in Indianapolis just voted to dedicate some of its scooter fees to improving street design. Portland, Oregon’s doing it too. And LA will lower its per-bike or -scooter fee by $91 for those deployed in areas disproportionately affected by pollution.

“I would certainly advise cities to think very carefully about the types of fees they impose on bikes and scooters, and make sure they don’t miss an opportunity to adequately manage mobility in their cities,” says Andrew Glass Hastings, who helped write Seattle’s rules as the former director of transit and mobility in the city’s department of transportation.

That means officials have to figure out what role they want scooters to play before they hit the streets. A way to connect far-flung residential areas to public transportation? A strategy to give traveling options to neighborhoods and communities with too few? Just an entertaining, recreational thing that people should be able to do safely? The answers will influence how to spend that money.

Here’s the (possibly) fun part: “What you’re seeing with bikes and scooters is setting the stage for what is to come with autonomous vehicles,” Hastings says.

Expect cities to continue to want to charge those automated vehicle companies fees to use the public street to make money, and to guide transit toward underserved communities, and maybe even to meet their climate goals. Expect a debate to ensue. But also expect some savvy officials to come into the conversation with companies knowing exactly what they want to extract from them—and how much to charge. As former Uber and Google strategist Anne Widera pointed out in Axios last month, “cities will shape the future business potential of AVs.”

This will be particularly important if shared, autonomous vehicles truly do cut down on parking fees and speeding tickets, which provide valuable revenue streams for many governments.

Some, including scooter companies themselves, are more skeptical. The problem with charging them is that other road players aren’t necessarily paying the same thing. “I do think there are benefits to operators, if we have better and safer infrastructure for micromobility,” says Regina Clewlow, CEO and founder of the transportation data and analytics startup Populus.ai. “But I think there are other sources of revenue we should be tapping.” She pauses. “Like charging vehicles.”

This is an argument that scooter and bike companies like to make, too. “Lime supports the assessment of reasonable fees to support our city partners in covering the costs of administering and enforcing bike and scooter permit programs,” Emily Warren, Lime’s senior director of policy and public affairs, said in a statement. “Currently, our transportation system tends to let cars off the hook by not charging them for their use of public space or contributions to congestion and emissions.”

Indeed, cars and trucks are responsible for a fifth of the nation’s carbon emissions. Why, critics wonder, would cities make it harder to scoot than to drive?

So governments muddle through, peeking at each others’ programs to see what the other kids are doing. Kansas City, Missouri, passed an emergency ordinance over the summer that allowed Bird and Lime to operate there, but it’s still hammering away at a more permanent pilot program. Officials are trying to figure out what its goals are—What can scooters do for us?—and what it would like from the companies operating there. Some city council members have suggested using more than $300,000 a year in scooter fees to support affordable housing in the area.

“We’re researching what other cities are doing, and working through different cost scenarios,” says Chris Hernandez, director of communications for the Kansas City. “We’ve always been a city that welcomes the entrepreneurial spirit and the tech scene.” And as any well-trained guest knows, it’s always nice to come bearing gifts.

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More Great WIRED Stories

Conventional aircraft configurations have three power options: pneumatic, electrical, and hydraulic.

To move to a solely electric aircraft, however, requires new components, including high-speed motors, power electronics, and high-voltage cabling.

In a webinar this month titled Today’s Electric Aircraft, a reader had the following question for our speaker Pascal Thalin, Chair of SAE’s Electric Aircraft Steering Group:

Do you think that solely depending on a more efficient electrical system will be enough to develop a future of electric aircraft? Do we need a rethinking of the static design of the aircraft to optimize the design at various operating points?

Read Thalin’s edited response below.

Pascal Thalin: It’s a very good question. When we’re talking about electric aircraft including propulsion: With today’s conventional aircraft shapes, like aircraft with twin engines, we have kind of reached an upper limit in terms of bypass ratios.

If you consider a turbofan engine: Basically, whenever you improve your fuel efficiency, you’re going upwards in terms of bypass ratio. If you do that, you will be dealing with larger-diameter fans. If you don’t change the aircraft design, you will end up having a very large engine that you won’t be able to install under a wing because of the ground clearance you need. That shows the limit there.

You should, overall, optimize the aerodynamics. In my presentation, we saw that when we changed the aerodynamics using, for instance, boundary layer ingestion, or changing the shape of the aircraft, we can [achieve] a bypass ratio of up to 20:1, whereas the most recent turbofan engine tops out at 12.

It’s not enough to just change components and replace given components without changing the shape and aerodynamics of the aircraft.

What do you think? Share your comments and questions below.

Nikola

Motor Company has been working on its hydrogen-powered semi trucks for years now, starting with the

Nikola One

with a sleeper cab, and a day-cab version called the

Nikola Two

, with plans to build out a

hydrogen

network to support them. Now, Nikola has announced a third fuel-cell semi designed with Europe in mind. Called the

Nikola Tre

(meaning “Three” in Norwegian), it’s Nikola’s answer to Europe’s call for sustainable trucking.

The Tre is similar in power — if not in exterior design — to its American siblings. It’ll offer from 500 up to 1,000 horsepower, with up to 2,000 pound-feet of torque. It’ll be available in 6×4 or 6×2 configurations. Driving range between fill-ups will be between about 310 to

745

miles, depending on how it’s configured.

Nikola Motor Company Founder and CEO Trevor Milton said of the Nikola Tre:

“This truck is a real stunner and long overdue for Europe. It will be the first European zero-emission commercial truck to be delivered with redundant braking, redundant steering, redundant 800V DC batteries and a redundant 120-kW hydrogen fuel cell, all necessary for true Level 5 autonomy. Expect our production to begin around the same time as our USA version in 2022-2023.”

Nikola plans to offer a “Complete Leasing and Purchasing” program, which will cover the

costs of ownership

under a set monthly price, including hydrogen fuel,

warranty

and scheduled maintenance. Customers can

trade in

for a

new vehicle

every seven years. Whie the price hasn’t been set, Nikola is currently taking reservations

at its website

. It says it will also offer the Tre tuck in Asia and

Australia

.

Nikola says it will begin testing the Tre in Norway around 2020. The company plans to have European hydrogen stations go into service in 2022, with a network covering most of that market by 2030.

The Tre will be officially unveiled to the public at Nikola World in Pheonix, Ariz. on April 16, 2019.

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BEIJING — Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely said on Tuesday it signed an agreement with China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) to jointly develop “supersonic trains” in the country.

The strategic framework agreement aims to combine two technologies — magnetic levitation to eliminate ground friction, and vacuum tubes to reduce air resistance — to achieve a “hypersonic” mode of transportation, Geely said in a statement.

China runs the world’s longest high-speed rail line and is looking to build its own supersonic transport network.

State-owned CASIC, one of China’s major space contractors, has said it is working on a system that can shuttle trains at a maximum speed of 1,000 kph (620 mph) and studying technologies that could go as fast at 4,000 kph in the future.

Hangzhou-based Geely and CASIC will “pool their capabilities,”\ the statement said, but it did not give details on their investment in the joint effort or a timeframe.

“Technologies developed through the realization of supersonic trains will help Geely Holding advance the fields of new energy vehicles, automotive safety, and new material science,” the statement said.

The agreement was signed at an aerospace industry show in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai.

Geely Holding is one of China’s five biggest automakers. It holds a major stake in Germany’s Daimler and owns Sweden’s Volvo Cars, as well as the company that makes London’s black cabs.

Reporting by Norihiko Shirouzu

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