Headline June 26, 2014

''' O''' O' RAIN MAN -SIR ! : 

WHAT THEN IS WORTH A GAMBLE? '''

THE TRUTH is that Technology in many ways  -rather, in ever way, has become the province of giant corporate labs and government institutions.

The Students of the world have been shut out!  But lonesome inventors are still coming up with radical ideas, like  !WOW!   -that can reshape the entire world.

Come on students, !WOW! and Sam Daily Times is determined to turn the spotlight on YOU. Let's see if in the years ahead you can forge great breakthroughs. 

1/3 OF EARTH'S SURFACE IS AT RISK OF BECOMING DESERT:

The ducks won wide acclaim and are still in the experimental purposes. But further development, Professor Salter claims was thwarted by the politicking of the nuclear industry.

It's not his only project to face rejection.

''Rusting''  in a campus yard is the  ingenious  steel dervish  -a remote-controlled mine-clearing device.

Shaped like a  tripod, the supersturdy dervish can sweep a path across rough-terrain, setting off  antipersonnel  mines as it passes with little or no damage to itself.

Professor Salter developed it in the early '90s  to a flurry of interest,  but it, too, was abandoned for lack of funding. Salter is somewhat embittered:

''The most despised  thing you can do in academic terms is actually to make things,'' he says. ''You are only expected to think.''

The idea for the  rainmaker  was  inspired by images of  Ethiopian famine victims, which got Salter interested in the geopolitics of droughts:

''The Israelis take  40 percent of their water from the occupied territories, and that means that the never give them up.'' he says.

''They couldn't have such an important resource in the hands of their enemies.''

Others parts of the developed  world, too, are heading for water problems.

''If you look at the rate at which Texas and southern California are overpumping their water, they are going to have desperate problems in about 15 years,'' Says the professor.

Despite the unquestioned need, in the age of global warming, to assert some control over the way the atmosphere distributes water around the globe, rainmaking so far has defied the best efforts of the scientists.

Seeding clouds with silver-iodide crystals or other substances can trigger a downpour, but the ration has limited value. No amount of chemicals dropped from a plane will squeeze rain from a cloudless sky.

Politics also confuses the picture. Neighbouring communities don't take kindly to cloud poaching: 

One state's artificially induced rain may be another's  drought if the cloud is drained before reaching the frontier.

Orthodox meteorologists aren't convinced that Salter has cracked the rainmaking problem.

Rainfall, they say, depends on vast interplay of different factors, many of them poorly understood. And besides, achieving a significant effect would take  vast number of turbines.

Salter concedes the latter point: a few hundred turbines would needed to make a dent in the deserts of  Israeli. Australia would require thousands. And he concedes that his machines wouldn't create torrential rainfall.

'' To get real rain -the big drops you can measure in a rain gauge  -requires a lot of things to happen,'' he says.

But he claims the turbines would still have beneficial effect, by creating a delicate dampness in the air an   ''Irish rain''  that's more like mist. In temperate climates, low-level  mist  or even a heavy dew delivers five-times as much as water as rain.

And farmers say such mist is very kind to crops. Even just  cooling the air may help by discouraging evaporation, which in dry climate can remove  70 percent of a heavy rainfall in a single day.

The benefits needn't end with blooming deserts and world peace. Professor Salter reckons that  100,000 turbines working at once could-

Lift enough seawater to lower sea levels by a meter, stemming the rise of the oceans -one of the most troublesome consequences of global warming. It may be a long shot, but for:

Billions of people who live in low-lying areas or are in need of water, Professor Stephen Salter's big idea is worth a gamble.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' Sky High '''

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless