Category: Family

Filed under: Government/Legal, Safety

New rules could be coming for America’s coaches and large buses, as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has proposed standards that have been influenced by those of the European Union.

The new standards would demand that large buses undergo tests that would see the vehicles tipped off of a platform and onto a hard surface, with a particular focus on the way an impact affected its structure. According to NHTSA, the new standards would also force manufacturers to batten down the emergency doors so they’d stay shut during a rollover, and reinforce the attachments for the seats and overhead storage racks, again, so they’d stay in place.

To be fair, these all sound like fairly reasonable changes in the name of safety. They are, however, not going to be terribly cheap. NHTSA is expecting costs to manufacturers to rise between $5 and $13 million each year, with each new bus requiring an extra $282 to $507 for the changes. Other tradeoffs, including some weight gains and fuel efficiency penalties, also seem worth the benefit of two lives saved per year and four serious injuries prevented.

The blow should be softened for current coach operators, though, as only newly built buses will need to conform to the rollover standard at present. That could change, although according to The Detroit News, NHTSA said it "believes that major structural changes to the vehicle’s entire sidewall and roof structure would be needed for some existing buses to meet the rollover structural integrity requirements." It scarcely needs mentioning, but NHTSA thinks that’s an overly expensive proposition.

Still, NHTSA is looking at the "feasibility, benefits, and costs of any potential requirement to retrofit existing buses with stronger emergency exit mechanisms and enhanced structural integrity to increase side window glazing retention to afford a similar level of anti-ejection protection for passengers riding in existing buses." Future regulations may include the requirement of stability control.

Municipalities, meanwhile, need not fret, as school buses and public transit buses won’t be required to make the changes. Nor are airport shuttle or prison buses included, as these regulations are meant for the kinds of buses that schlep people from city to city on regular routes and tourists to popular destinations.

Continue reading NHTSA proposes new bus rollover standards

NHTSA proposes new bus rollover standards originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 03 Aug 2014 15:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some GameStop stores in Philadelphia are now requiring that people who trade in games provide a fingerprint scan for "certain transactions," CBS Philadelphia reports today based on conversations with the retailer, local government, police, and shoppers.

According to GameStop, it is following a local law that says the retailer is allowed to collect thumbprints. These scans eventually make their way into a database that helps law enforcement nab thieves who seek to use GameStop as a pawn shop of sorts to unload their goods.

Philadelphia city solicitor Shelley Smith says that GameStop is not required to collect the thumbprints to abide by the city’s pawnbroker order. "What GameStop does doesn’t meet any of the elements of the definition in the code, so the pawnbreaker ordinance doesn’t apply to GameStop," she said.

The Philadelphia Police Department, on the other hand, tells CBS Philadelphia that GameStop is being proactive by obtaining customer fingerprints and uploading them to a database known as LeadsOnline.

Still, GameStop shoppers outside of a store in Philadelphia’s Center City district are not too pleased about the new policy. "I really don’t appreciate it," one person said. "You fingerprinted me like I’m in a police district. No, I’m at a game store." Another shopper said, "I think it’s an overreach. It’s going too far."

GameStop’s fingerprinting initiative is currently only underway in Philadelphia itself, but not the suburbs. We have reached out to GameStop for further clarification about this new policy for Philadelphia and will update this story with anything we hear back.

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A smaller crazy ant (left) fights a fire ant.

Lawrence Gilbert / Science

There are not many creatures that can stand up to fire ants, nor their famously painful sting. Besides causing discomfort in mammals like humans (I’ve been stung, and it doesn’t feel great), this venom has potent insect-killing powers, with the ability to knock out many of its ant rivals and other six-legged prey. But the venom is not effective against tawny crazy ants, a new invader spreading in areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast that can outcompete fire ants (Solenopsis invicta).

But how? Recent research has shown that the crazies can neutralize fire ant venom by mixing it with the formic acid that they excrete. 

And that’s not all. The fire ants’ venom contains toxic alkaloids, which are chemically basic (as opposed to acidic). When the crazy ants (Nylanderia fulva) neutralize these chemicals with their own acid, it forms a viscous, greasy-looking substance. Upon closer inspection, this byproduct of ant-on-ant warfare is actually a very special substance called an ionic liquid, which has never before been observed in nature. 

An ionic liquid is basically a liquid salt; in fact, they used to be called "molten salts." If you heat up table salt to 1,474 degrees Fahrenheit, for example, you’d get a type of ionic liquid. But they can also exist at much lower temperatures, and sometimes the term "ionic liquid" is restricted (somewhat arbitrarily) to chemicals that are liquid near room temperature. In any case, humans have created many, many different kinds of ionic liquids, which are used for all sorts of industrial processes, for example in batteries, electrolytes, sealants, and solvents.

But they hadn’t been found in nature before, an absence described by the authors of the current study as "puzzling." Their research, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie (German for "applied chemistry") suggests that there may be more ionic liquids in nature and that they can have important biological functions.

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