F46[STYX]=4
(Moved)
F56[STYX]=12
(Moved)
F74[STYX]=8
(AI)
F101[STYX]=49
(Moved)
F139[STYX]=1
(Moved)
F170[STYX]=12
(Moved)
F171[STYX]=9
(Moved)
F173[STYX]=28
(Moved)
F191[STYX]=8
(Moved)
F192[STYX]=10
(Moved)
F199[STYX]=18
(Moved)
F214[STYX]=23
(Moved)
F232[STYX]=9
(Moved)
F80[MARS]=21
(Moved,At-Peace)
F91[MARS]=15
(Moved,At-Peace)
F117[MARS]=1
(AF43,At-Peace) V49:Radiant Shekel
F165[MARS]=25
(At-Peace)
F30[ICON]=34
(AF43)
F168[ICON]=1
(AF43)
F220[ICON]=20
(AF74)
(F109[MARS]-->W42
F121[DEEP]-->W223 F231[DEEP]-->W223)
W94 (8,63,86,195)
[NEON] (Metal=9,Mines=3,Population=49,Limit=83,Deaths=8,
Turns=4,P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/1)
F23[ICON]=1
(R1,At-Peace)
(F154[DOOM]-->W195)
W96 (35,42,58,129)
[OOZE] C[OOZE] (Metal=19,Mines=2,Population=10C,Limit=66,
Deaths=56C,Turns=7)
F98[NEON]=1
(Captured,Lost by [ICON],R7)
F160[NEON]=10
(Moved)
(F80[MARS]-->W42)
W97 (3,114,184) [NEON]
(Industry=2/0,Metal=3,Mines=6,Population=96,Limit=96,
Turns=2,Plunder=1/2)
(F58[IRIS]-->W114
F236[NEON]-->W184)
W98 (114,192,202)
[NEON] (Mines=3,Population=44,Limit=44,Turns=7,P-Ships=1,
Plunder=1/2)
F58[IRIS]=12
(Moved)
W99 (64,205,245)
[NEON] (Metal=43,Mines=4,Population=134,Limit=136,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/3)
(F37[NEON]-->W245
F78[DOOM]-->W64 F152[NEON]-->W245)
W101 (29,82,193) [DOOM]
(Industry=1,Metal=1,Mines=3,Population=2R,Limit=80,
Turns=4)
F162[DOOM]=1
(Moved)
(F135[IRIS]-->W29)
W102 (11,73,160,225)
[DEEP] C[DEEP] (Industry=1,Metal=14,Mines=4,
Population=41C,Limit=87,Deaths=8C,Turns=2)
F138[ICON]=1
(R1,At-Peace)
F77[]=0
V70:Plastic Moonstone
(F54[MARS]-->W73
F244[MARS]-->W160)
W103 (3,114,192,253)
[NEON] (Mines=5,Population=84,Limit=84,Turns=2,
Plunder=1/2)
(F8[IRIS]-->W192
F148[IRIS]-->W3)
W105 (69,76,177,189)
[DOOM] (Metal=15,Mines=3,Population=1R,Limit=50,Turns=5,
I-Ships=5)
(F203[IRIS]-->W76)
W107 (22,59,198,215)
[DOOM] (Industry=3,Metal=16,Mines=5,Population=82,
Limit=82,Turns=3,I-Ships=3)
V35:Titanium Lodestar
F18[IRIS]=3
(Moved)
W108 (28,106,143,238)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=3,Mines=2,Population=27,
Limit=27,Turns=1,I-Ships=3,Plunder=1/3)
W109 (149,156,205,245)
[] (Lost by [ICON],Industry=30/0,Metal=55,Mines=3,
Population=0,Limit=100)
F21[DOOM]=52
(AF222)
F26[DOOM]=42
(AF146)
F41[DOOM]=35
(Moved)
F57[DOOM]=1
(AP) V56:Blessed Sword
F61[DOOM]=1
(AP)
F66[DOOM]=1
(Moved,Cargo=1,At-Peace) V91:Platinum Sphinx
F87[DOOM]=1
(Moved)
F132[DOOM]=26
(AP)
F151[DOOM]=4
(Moved)
F153[DOOM]=1
(AP)
F197[DOOM]=4
(AP)
F37[NEON]=1
(Moved)
F95[NEON]=17
(AP)
F152[NEON]=1
(Moved)
F25[MARS]=33
(Moved,At-Peace)
F163[MARS]=3
(Moved,At-Peace)
F254[MARS]=28
(Moved,At-Peace)
F146[]=0
(Lost by [ICON])
F222[]=0
(Lost by [MARS],At-Peace)
W113 (47,86,175)
[DOOM] (Industry=1,Metal=15,Mines=3,Population=14R,Limit=70,
Turns=5,I-Ships=3)
W114 (97,98,103)
[NEON] (Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=79,Limit=79,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
(F58[IRIS]-->W98)
W115 (25,213,218)
[NEON] (Metal=4,Mines=1,Population=46,Limit=46,Turns=7,
P-Ships=1(Ambush),Plunder=1/1,CG-Unload=1)
(F6[STYX]-->W25
F234[STYX]-->W25)
W116 (28,192,202,238)
[NEON] (Industry=3/0,Mines=3,Population=81,Limit=114,
Turns=7,P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
V94:Golden Sphinx
F8[IRIS]=13
(Moved)
(F113[DOOM]-->W28)
W117 (26,127,234) []
(Lost by [STYX],Industry=3/0,Mines=2,Population=38,
Limit=103,Plunder=4/2)
F112[DOOM]=1
(Moved)
F105[IRIS]=22
(AH)
F12[NEON]=11
(Moved)
F104[NEON]=1
(Moved)
(F1[NEON]-->W234
F69[DOOM]-->W26 F137[DOOM]-->W234 F179[NEON]-->W26
F181[DOOM]-->W26
F241[IRIS]-->W234)
W121 (37,157,225)
[DEEP] C[DEEP] (Industry=1,Metal=27,Mines=4,Population=9/4C,
Limit=122,Deaths=8/3C,Turns=3)
F156[ICON]=2
(Moved) V75:Titanium Moonstone
F159[ICON]=1
(R1)
W123 (36,118,173)
[TROY] (Industry=2,Metal=11,Mines=5,Population=13R,Limit=81,
Turns=4,I-Ships=3(Ambush))
(F111[NEON]-->W173
F243[TROY]-->W173)
W124 (81,136,144,240)
[NEON] (Metal=25,Mines=4,Population=56,Limit=56,Turns=7,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/1)
F245[ICON]=12
(Moved,At-Peace) V92:Ancient Sphinx
W127 (117,131,222,224)
[DOOM] (Metal=5,Mines=4,Population=72R,Limit=94,
Turns=2,P-Ships=1)
(F1[NEON]-->W117
F12[NEON]-->W117 F20[DOOM]-->W224 F69[DOOM]-->W117
F104[NEON]-->W117
F112[DOOM]-->W117 F119[IRIS]-->W224 F127[DOOM]-->W224
F137[DOOM]-->W117
F179[NEON]-->W117 F181[DOOM]-->W117 F241[IRIS]-->W117)
W128 (40,155,177)
[DOOM] (Metal=35,Mines=5,Population=71,Limit=71,Turns=3,
P-Ships=1)
V52:Ancient Sword
(F2[IRIS]-->W177)
W130 (47,48,86,195)
[NEON] (Metal=12,Mines=2,Population=45,Limit=52,Turns=6,
Plunder=2/1)
W133 (29,149,156,168)
[DOOM] (Industry=3,Metal=9,Mines=5,Population=8R,
Limit=77,Turns=4,I-Ships=7)
(F41[DOOM]-->W149)
W135 (149,168,194)
[NEON] (Metal=30,Mines=4,Population=116,Limit=125,Turns=2,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/3)
W140 (16,40,164,176)
[DOOM] (Industry=30,Metal=151,Mines=4,Population=50R,
Limit=100,Turns=5)
V86:Blessed Stardust
F73[IRIS]=1
(F2[IRIS]-->W40
F18[IRIS]-->W16 F47[IRIS]-->W16 F94[IRIS]-->W176
F196[IRIS]-->W40
F240[IRIS]-->W40)
W141 (10,72,142,200)
[IRIS] (Captured,Lost by [STYX],Metal=3,Mines=3,
Population=3,Limit=129,Turns=1,Plunder=2,CG-Unload=1)
V37:Vegan
Lodestar
F161[IRIS]=25
(Moved)
(F85[STYX]-->W10
F131[STYX]-->W142)
W143 (45,108,164,176)
[DOOM] (Metal=11,Mines=5,Population=156,Limit=156,
Turns=3,P-Ships=1)
F70[IRIS]=38
(Moved)
W144 (67,124,241)
[NEON] C[DEEP] (Metal=14,Mines=2,Population=43/24C,Limit=43,
Turns=4,Plunder=2/1)
W149 (109,133,135,174)
[DOOM] (Industry=1,Metal=91,Mines=6,Population=5R,
Limit=83,Turns=4,I-Ships=2)
(F41[DOOM]-->W109
F66[DOOM]-->W109)
W152 (17,89,92,212) []
(Lost by [ICON],Industry=2/0,Metal=49,Mines=6,
Population=4R,Limit=75,I-Ships=0(AF92))
F92[STYX]=17
(AH)
(F124[IRIS]-->W92
F232[STYX]-->W92)
W155 (22,128,198)
[DOOM] (Metal=27,Mines=5,Population=59,Limit=59,Turns=2,
P-Ships=1)
V42:Ancient Shekel
F47[IRIS]=13
(Moved)
W156 (109,133,197,216)
[ICON] (Industry=2,Metal=15,Mines=6,Population=14R,
Limit=74,Turns=5)
F198[MARS]=1
(Gift from [ICON],At-Peace)
(F151[DOOM]-->W109
F163[MARS]-->W109)
W158 (45,164,189)
[DOOM] (Metal=17,Mines=3,Population=73,Limit=73,Turns=3,
P-Ships=1)
W162 (5,83,203) [NEON]
(Metal=1,Mines=6,Population=82,Limit=82,Turns=1,
Plunder=1/2)
W163 (146,211,219) []
(Metal=8,Mines=2,Population=53,Limit=53,Plunder=1)
V48:Arcturian
Shekel
F147[DOOM]=41
(AF195)
F169[IRIS]=9
(Moved,Cargo=4)
F65[NEON]=30
(Moved)
F110[NEON]=5
(AF75)
F149[NEON]=1
(Moved)
F75[STYX]=2
(AF110)
F225[STYX]=20
(AF110)
F247[STYX]=22
(Moved)
F251[STYX]=24
(AF110)
F195[]=0
(Lost by [STYX],AF147)
W164 (85,140,143,158)
[DOOM] (Metal=21,Mines=4,Population=82,Limit=82,Turns=4)
V81:Platinum
Stardust
W165 (16,20,44,176)
[IRIS] (Industry=1,Metal=17,Mines=5,Population=77,
Limit=77,Turns=4,I-Ships=2)
F94[IRIS]=5
(Moved)
(F70[IRIS]-->W176
F103[IRIS]-->W44)
W168 (34,133,135)
[DOOM] (Industry=3,Metal=39,Mines=6,Population=11R,
Limit=114,Turns=4)
F150[DOOM]=1
(Moved)
(F134[IRIS]-->W34)
W169 (17,207,212,218)
[DOOM] (Industry=30,Metal=130,Mines=3,Population=50R,
Limit=100,Turns=6,I-Ships=1,CG-Unload=2)
F76[IRIS]=1
F122[IRIS]=1
F187[IRIS]=1
F246[IRIS]=1
(Unload)
F3[NEON]=1
(Moved,Cargo=1)
F32[NEON]=8
(Moved,Cargo=8)
F116[NEON]=37
(Moved,Cargo=37)
(F5[NEON]-->W207
F27[NEON]-->W207 F124[IRIS]-->W17 F160[NEON]-->W207
F217[NEON]-->W17
F239[NEON]-->W17)
W173 (123,142,190,220)
[TROY] (Industry=30/0,Metal=33,Mines=4,Population=33R,
Limit=100,Turns=2,I-Ships=16)
V54:Golden Sword V85:Titanium Stardust
F111[NEON]=74
(Moved)
F144[NEON]=181
(Moved)
F189[NEON]=1
(Captured,Lost by [ZEUS],Gift to [STYX],At-Peace)
F243[NEON]=2
(Captured,Lost by [TROY],Moved)
F136[]=0
(F173[STYX]-->W190)
W174 (149,194,245)
[DOOM] (Metal=77,Mines=5,Population=87,Limit=87,Turns=3)
(F66[DOOM]-->W149)
W175 (13,82,113,222)
[DOOM] (Metal=12,Mines=4,Population=9R,Limit=100,Turns=4,
P-Ships=1)
W176 (140,143,165,238)
[DOOM] (Industry=4,Metal=10,Mines=6,Population=78,
Limit=78,Turns=4,I-Ships=8)
(F70[IRIS]-->W143
F94[IRIS]-->W165)
W177 (85,105,128)
[NEON] (Gift from [DOOM],Metal=24,Mines=5,Population=112,
Limit=112,Turns=1,P-Ships=1)
F2[IRIS]=82
(Moved)
(F203[IRIS]-->W105)
W181 (52,90,211)
[NEON] (Metal=17,Mines=3,Population=53,Limit=53,Turns=4,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1)
(F169[IRIS]-->W211)
W182 (2,88,138,153)
[STYX] (Industry=1/0,Metal=1,Mines=1,Population=32,
Limit=50,Turns=1,I-Ships=1(Ambush),Plunder=2/2)
F24[NEON]=3
(Moved,Cargo=1)
(F83[NEON]-->W2
F178[NEON]-->W2)
W184 (27,97,203,211)
[NEON] (Metal=10,Mines=5,Population=45,Limit=45,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
(F236[NEON]-->W211)
W185 (59,87,222)
[DOOM] (Metal=25,Mines=3,Population=7R,Limit=41,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1,CG-Unload=1)
W189 (85,105,158)
[DOOM] (Metal=18,Mines=3,Population=44,Limit=44,Turns=1,
P-Ships=1)
W192 (20,98,103,116)
[IRIS] (Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=77,Limit=77,Turns=3,
P-Ships=1)
(F8[IRIS]-->W116)
W193 (53,101,197)
[DOOM] (Metal=61,Mines=4,Population=103,Limit=103,Turns=3,
P-Ships=1)
V76:Blessed Moonstone
W194 (27,135,174)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=6,Mines=4,Population=132,
Limit=133,Turns=4,I-Ships=2,Plunder=1/2)
W195 (94,130,237,240)
[NEON] (Metal=6,Mines=1,Population=24,Limit=53,Turns=5,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/1)
F218[ICON]=4
(Moved,At-Peace) V79:Radiant Moonstone
(F154[DOOM]-->W240)
W197 (29,156,193,228)
[DOOM] (Industry=1,Metal=99,Mines=7,Population=10R,
Limit=82,Turns=4)
F118[IRIS]=12
(Moved)
(F174[IRIS]-->W228
F255[IRIS]-->W228)
W198 (16,40,107,155)
[NEON] C[DEEP] (Gift from [IRIS],Metal=6,Mines=4,
Population=125/96C,Limit=125,Turns=1,P-Ships=1)
(F47[IRIS]-->W155
F103[IRIS]-->W16)
W200 (51,76,141)
[IRIS] (Captured,Lost by [STYX],Mines=1,Population=27,
Limit=58,Plunder=3/1)
F203[IRIS]=36
(Moved,Cargo=3)
F205[IRIS]=3
(AH)
(F62[NEON]-->W51
F161[IRIS]-->W141)
W201 (35,90,129) []
(Industry=1/0,Metal=2,Mines=2,Population=0,Limit=48,
I-Ships=1)
F27[NEON]=10
(Moved)
(F93[ICON]-->W129)
W203 (3,162,184)
[NEON] (Industry=2/0,Metal=7,Mines=5,Population=63,Limit=63,
Turns=2,I-Ships=5,Plunder=1/2)
F123[IRIS]=1
(Moved) V51:Platinum Sword
W205 (32,99,109,216)
[HALO] C[HALO] (Industry=3/0,Population=78C,Limit=78,
CG-Unload=1)
V83:Silver Stardust
(F25[MARS]-->W109
F78[DOOM]-->W99 F87[DOOM]-->W109 F254[MARS]-->W109)
W207 (35,52,90,169)
[DOOM] (Industry=3,Metal=3,Mines=3,Population=10R,
Limit=74,Turns=4,I-Ships=7)
(F5[NEON]-->W90
F27[NEON]-->W90 F160[NEON]-->W35)
W211 (25,163,181,184)
[NEON] (Metal=14,Mines=3,Population=47,Limit=47,Turns=6,
P-Ships=2,Plunder=1)
F236[NEON]=83
(Moved)
(F65[NEON]-->W163
F149[NEON]-->W163 F169[IRIS]-->W163)
W212 (2,88,152,169)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=11,Mines=8,Population=5,
Limit=85,Turns=5,I-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
F79[DOOM]=1
(Moved,Cargo=1)
F10[NEON]=32
(Moved)
(F232[STYX]-->W152)
W214 (15,59,87,215)
[NEON] (Mines=6,Population=94,Limit=107,Turns=1,P-Ships=1,
Plunder=1/2,CG-Unload=1)
V44:Golden Shekel
(F11[IRIS]-->W15)
W215 (16,44,107,214)
[IRIS] (Industry=1,Metal=13,Mines=7,Population=74,
Limit=74,Turns=4,I-Ships=1)
F193[IRIS]=6
(Moved)
(F18[IRIS]-->W107)
W216 (60,156,205,228)
[MARS] (Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=6,Limit=62,Deaths=56,
Turns=7,CG-Unload=1)
F16[ICON]=1
(R7)
(F87[DOOM]-->W205
F163[MARS]-->W156)
W218 (52,88,115,169)
[NEON] (Mines=6,Population=82,Limit=82,Turns=2,P-Ships=1,
Plunder=1/2)
(F3[NEON]-->W169
F32[NEON]-->W169 F116[NEON]-->W169)
W220 (36,91,172,173)
[TROY] (Industry=4,Metal=5,Mines=5,Population=7R,
Limit=86,Turns=6,I-Ships=13)
(F144[NEON]-->W173)
W222 (77,127,175,185)
[DOOM] (Industry=1,Metal=7,Mines=3,Population=6R,
Limit=88,Turns=3,I-Ships=1)
V11:Platinum Crown
(F241[IRIS]-->W127)
W224 (39,127,236)
[STYX] (Industry=6/0,Mines=3,Population=57,Limit=90,Turns=4,
I-Ships=3(Ambush),Plunder=3/3)
F20[DOOM]=8
(Moved)
F119[IRIS]=4
(Moved,Cargo=8)
F127[]=0
(Lost by [DOOM],Moved)
W225 (64,102,121,251)
[DEEP] C[DEEP] (Metal=28,Mines=3,Population=3C,
Limit=114,Turns=5)
F51[NEON]=8
(AF156)
(F156[ICON]-->W121)
W228 (43,53,197,216)
[CRAY] (Metal=115,Mines=8,Population=117,Limit=158,
Deaths=40,Turns=3,CG-Unload=1)
V59:Radiant Sword
F185[DOOM]=8
(AF237)
F174[IRIS]=5
(Moved,Cargo=2)
F255[IRIS]=23
(Moved,Cargo=2)
F237[ICON]=1
(R5,At-Peace)
F67[]=0
F143[]=0
W234 (54,117,243)
[STYX] (Industry=5/0,Metal=4,Mines=4,Population=8,Limit=72,
Turns=5,Plunder=1)
F137[DOOM]=1
(Moved) V60:Plastic Sepulchre
F241[IRIS]=20
(Moved)
F1[NEON]=155
(Moved)
F210[STYX]=48
(Moved)
W238 (20,108,116,176)
[NEON] (Metal=2,Mines=3,Population=57,Limit=57,Turns=2,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
W240 (48,124,195,226)
[NEON] (Industry=1/0,Metal=6,Mines=3,Population=43,
Limit=43,Turns=3,I-Ships=2,P-Ships=1,Plunder=1/2)
F154[DOOM]=11
(Moved)
W241 (136,144,251)
[NEON] (Industry=2/0,Metal=26,Mines=5,Population=82,
Limit=89,Turns=3,I-Ships=6,P-Ships=9,Plunder=1/2)
W242 (18,27,81) [NEON]
(Industry=6/0,Mines=4,Population=54,Limit=54,Turns=5,
I-Ships=9,Plunder=1/2)
W245 (99,109,174)
[NEON] (Metal=59,Mines=6,Population=86,Limit=86,Turns=2,
P-Ships=1,Plunder=2/2)
V31:Platinum Lodestar
(F37[NEON]-->W109
F152[NEON]-->W109)
W253 (5,20,44,103)
[IRIS] (Industry=1,Metal=7,Mines=7,Population=94,Limit=94,
Turns=4)
(F148[IRIS]-->W103)
W254 (42,58,150,223)
[DEEP] C[DEEP] (Metal=5,Mines=5,Population=16C,Limit=97,
Deaths=72C,Turns=4)
F217[NEON]=4
(Moved)
F22[ICON]=4
(Moved)
F164[ICON]=1
(R9)
F129[]=0
(Lost by [DEEP],At-Peace) V19:Radiant Crown
(F35[ICON]-->W58
F91[MARS]-->W223 F231[DEEP]-->W150)
Players you can see
this turn: [CRAY] [OOZE] [TROY] [STYX] [ICON]
[ZEUS]
[DEEP] [MARS] [HALO]
Their scores (not
necessarily in order): 720 1846 2444 7922 9075
9505
9884
9927 10671
Final Results --
Victory-point limit was 9750
(1) Jack Fulmer
[ZEUS]:
Merchant (Score=10671,Keys=2,Ships=40,Artifacts=2)
[STYX]:
Pirate (Score=9884,Worlds=62,Keys=56,Ships=684,Industry=128,
Mines=226,People=1754,Artifacts=12)
[TROY]:
Berserker (Score=9927,Worlds=18,Keys=21,Ships=125,Industry=79,
Mines=78,Robots=141,Artifacts=10)
(2) Gary
Schaefers
[MARS]:
Merchant (Score=7922,Worlds=3,Keys=17,Ships=203,Mines=14,
People=105,Artifacts=2)
[DEEP]:
Apostle (Score=9075,Worlds=41,Keys=7,Ships=82,Industry=57,
Mines=182,People=379,Converts=891,Artifacts=12)
[ICON]:
Berserker (Score=9505,Worlds=11,Keys=39,Ships=333,Industry=40,
Mines=48,People=7,Robots=94,Artifacts=11)
(3) Sven Hassel
[DOOM]:
Berserker (Score=3555,Worlds=38,Keys=31,Ships=436,Industry=130,
Mines=167,People=1288,Robots=374,Artifacts=17)
[IRIS]:
Merchant (Score=7641,Worlds=8,Keys=37,Ships=483,Industry=39,
Mines=34,People=528,Artifacts=5)
[NEON]:
Pirate (Score=3569,Worlds=47,Keys=36,Ships=1009,Industry=54,
Mines=190,People=3331,Artifacts=17)
(4) Maurice
McLey
[NOVA]:
Merchant (Score=90)
[OOZE]:
Apostle (Score=2444,Worlds=2,Ships=1,Mines=4,People=24,
Converts=12)
[EROS]:
Berserker (Score=220)
(5) Ocie Hudson
[LENS]:
Merchant
[CRAY]:
Berserker (Score=720,Worlds=1,Mines=8,People=117,Artifacts=1)
[HALO]:
Apostle (Score=1846,Worlds=2,Industry=3,Mines=4,Converts=207,
Artifacts=2)
Orders=231 <errors
and comments in angle-brackets>:
====================
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Documents/Basics
of Diesel Engines.doc 1
The basics of
diesel engines and diesel fuels
The
diesel engine has been the engine of choice for heavy-duty applications in
agriculture,
construction, industrial, and on-highway transport for over 50 years. Its early
popularity
could be attributed to its ability to use the portion of the petroleum crude
oil
that
had previously been considered a waste product from the refining of gasoline.
Later,
the
diesel’s durability, high torque capacity, and fuel efficiency assured its role
in the
most
demanding applications. While diesels have not been widely used in passenger
cars
in
the United States (less than 1%), they have achieved widespread acceptance in
Europe
with
over 33% of the total market [1].
In
the United States, on-highway diesel engines now consume over 30 billion
gallons of
diesel
fuel per year and virtually all of this is in trucks [2]. At the present time,
only a
minute
fraction of this fuel is biodiesel. However, as petroleum becomes more
expensive
to
locate and extract, and environmental concerns about diesel exhaust emissions
and
global
warming increase, biodiesel is likely
to emerge as one of several potential
alternative
diesel fuels.
In
order to understand the requirements of a diesel fuel and how biodiesel can be
considered
a desirable substitute, it is important to understand the basic operating
principles
of the diesel engine. This chapter describes these principles, particularly in
light
of the fuel used and the ways in which biodiesel provides advantages over
conventional
petroleum-based fuels.
Diesel Combustion
The
operating principles of diesel engines are significantly different from those
of the
spark-ignited
engines that dominate the U.S. passenger car market. In a spark-ignited
engine,
fuel and air that are close to the chemically correct, or stoichiometric, mixture are
inducted
into the engine cylinder, compressed, and then ignited by a spark. The power of
the
engine is controlled by limiting the quantity of fuel-air mixture that enters
the
cylinder
using a flow-restricting valve called a throttle.
In a diesel engine, also known as
a
compression-ignited engine, only air
enters the cylinder through the intake system. This
air
is compressed to a high temperature and pressure and then finely atomized fuel
is
sprayed
into the air at high velocity. When it contacts the high temperature air, the
fuel
vaporizes
quickly, mixes with the air, and undergoes a series of spontaneous chemical
reactions
that result in a self-ignition or autoignition.
No spark plug is required, although
some
diesel engines are equipped with electrically heated glow plugs to assist with
starting
the engine under cold conditions. The power of the engine is controlled by
varying the volume of
fuel injected into the cylinder, so there is no need for
Six nights a week, Guo Bairong takes
the stage at the Xanadu Lounge at the Sands Macau casino. As players place
their bets at nearby tables, he opens with a popular love song in Mandarin,
closing his eyes as he sways with the music. Slipping into Cantonese, he
launches into another number.
Crowds gather not only to hear his
singing but also to gape: Guo Bairong is also known as Barry Cox, a Caucasian
former waiter and supermarket cashier from Liverpool, England, whose only
formal study of Cantonese was at a British community center.
Mr. Cox's act, sandwiched between
cabaret dance performances like the scantily clad Glamour Girls and authentic
Chinese crooners such as Hua D, is among the spectacles on Macau's emerging
entertainment scene.
Macau's clutch of casinos has quickly
outpaced the Las Vegas Strip in gambling revenue, taking in around $10 billion
last year, compared to almost $7 billion on the Strip. But the former
Portuguese colony has to up its game -- particularly its entertainment roster
-- to compete with its American counterpart as an all-around tourism
destination.
Feb. 23: African-blues singer Cesária
Évora at the Macau Cultural Center Grand Auditorium.
March 15: Canadian singer Céline Dion
at the Venetian Arena.
Until May 11: Chinese acrobatic show
the Four Seasons at the Roman Amphitheater, Fisherman's Wharf.
Summer: Cirque de Soleil, in 10
performances a week at a new theater at the Venetian.
A few years ago, Macau was a sleepy
coastal town. Visitors came for the Portuguese wine, cobblestone streets and
musty antique shops -- and for the gambling. The city became a special
administrative zone when it was returned to China in 1999, making it the only
place in China where casinos are legal.
Within a few years, the Beijing-backed
Macau government ended local tycoon Stanley Ho's monopoly on the territory's
gambling industry, issuing licenses to other companies, including Wynn Resorts,
MGM Mirage and Australia's Crown. About 10.5 million Chinese mainland visitors
came to Macau in 2005 and nearly 15 million are expected next year, according
to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, a trade group.
When the new casinos began opening in
2004, the prevailing logic among casino executives was that the Chinese
visitors mostly come to gamble. Some operators are still unsure what
entertainment to offer, especially performances that guests would have to pay
to see.
Entertainer Barry Cox
"This is a very new market,"
says a Wynn Macau spokeswoman. "No one really knows what people are
looking for here," says Jennifer Welker, the local author of travel guide
"The New Macau." "They're still in that testing phase."
There are now more than 25 casinos,
and many have a mix of gambling, hotel rooms and restaurants. Wynn casino's
current entertainment options are limited to a five-minute water and light show
set to music. At the Crown Macau, there's a spa and eight restaurants, but
there are no live performances. It's a different story at Grand Lisboa, where
there are two shows: a free, daily "Crazy Paris" performance -- a
can-can-style dance act -- and "Tokyo Nights," performed by a troupe
of Japanese dancers.
Strict rules against advertising by
casinos in mainland China make it difficult to promote events there, and a taxi
shortage means travelers arriving on the ferry from Hong Kong often have to
wait in long lines.
Still, many big-name acts are choosing
to play in Macau rather than Hong Kong. Last October, the National Basketball
Association's Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers and the China Men's
National Team played at the Venetian Arena, the 15,000-seat stadium at the
Venetian resort and casino. The Police performed there in early February, and
Celine Dion arrives next month for a one-night-only show as part of her world
tour.
This summer, the Venetian plans to
bring Cirque du Soleil, the acrobatic show that's a fixture in Las Vegas, to
Macau as a permanent show. Cirque will perform in a 1,800-seat theater that is
still under construction.
Outsourcing Wombs to India
A growing number of women in India are
making it their jobs to help others create a family — literally. At a clinic in
Anand, they carry and deliver children from infertile couples around the world.
The clinic matches infertile couples
with local women, cares for the women during pregnancy and delivery, and
counsels them afterward. Surrogacy in the U.S. is nothing new, but the article
suggests outsourcing it could become more common for the same reasons
outsourcing in other industries has been successful: a wide labor pool working
for relatively low rates.
The women’s doctor, Nayna Patel,
defends her work. She says, “There is this one woman who desperately needs a
baby and cannot have her own child without the help of a surrogate. And at the
other end there is this woman who badly wants to help her [own] family,” Patel
is quoted as saying. One young surrogate mother says she will buy a house with
the $4,500 she receives from the British couple whose child she’s carrying;
another says she’ll use the money for her own daughters’ education.
Critics say the couples are exploiting
poor women in India. They fear the practice could change from a medical
necessity for infertile women to a convenience for the rich who want to avoid
the discomfort and risks of pregnancy and childbirth.
As fertility-treatment costs soar --
and more women seek treatment at an older age -- a growing number of Americans
are heading abroad to try to get pregnant.
The Internet has made it easier for
women to connect with fertility clinics in diverse locales such as the Czech
Republic, Israel, Canada and Thailand. And specialized travel services have
sprung up to help people arrange accommodations, set up medical appointments
and even plan sightseeing tours.
The cost of in-vitro fertilization in
many foreign countries is a fraction of that in the U.S., even after factoring
in expenses for travel and accommodations. And some women say they have been
able to get treatment abroad after having been turned away by a U.S. clinic
because of their age.
[photo]
In-vitro fertilization at the Jetanin
Institute in Bangkok.
There are some downsides. Treatments
can take four or five weeks -- too long for many couples to take a break from
their regular lives. It might not be possible to find medical practitioners who
speak fluent English, though some of the travel firms also provide translation
services. And while medical standards are high in many countries, regulations
can vary, including rules for screening egg donors, leaving it to patients to
do due diligence. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration regulates
egg-donor screening, though some states set stricter standards.
"Money was a factor" for
Robyn Bova, 47 years old, in deciding with her husband to travel to the Clinic
of Reproductive Medicine and Gynecology in Zlin, a college town in the Czech
Republic, for IVF treatment in May and again in November after their first
attempt failed. Though initially concerned about everything from the health of
the egg donors to the medical standards, Ms. Bova researched the clinic and
contacted other American women who'd gone there. "I thought, if we get
there and it's horrible, we don't have to go through with it," she says.
Ms. Bova says she was pleased with the
treatment she received and is now 17 weeks pregnant. And during their time in
Eastern Europe, "we had the most incredible trips you could imagine."
Ms. Bova says the total price tag for both trips, including travel, hotels,
food and treatments, was $22,000, or roughly the cost of one round of in-vitro
fertilization in the U.S.
The Bovas booked their overseas
treatment through IVFVacation.com, which was started by Craig and Marcela Fite.
The Ohio couple had traveled to Marcela's native Czech Republic for their own
IVF treatments and decided to serve as middlemen for Americans wishing to do
the same. The couple charge between $1,500 and $2,500 for their services, which
include arranging appointments at the clinic and providing on-site assistance
for driving and translations.
Other such service providers include
IVFThailand.com, a Web site that helps arrange treatments at a fertility clinic
in Thailand. And the CHEN Patient Fertility Association
(www.amotatchen.org/english/homepage/homepage.htm1), an Israeli fertility group
that promotes fertility treatments along with sightseeing tours around the Holy
Land.
"We're just now starting to see
foreign clinics market themselves to U.S. patients," says Barbara Collura,
executive director of Resolve: The National Infertility Association.
U.S. fertility doctors say that while
IVF isn't a high-risk medical procedure, patients going abroad should consider
several things, including the reputation and number of procedures performed,
and the success and complication rates of a clinic -- information the clinic
should be able to provide. Also worth considering: liability and patients'
rights to take legal action if something goes wrong. "There are great and
good hospitals in many countries," says Zev Rosenwaks, director of the
Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at New York Weill Cornell
Center. "One has to look at the overall medical standards and I think it's
much harder to judge from far away."
While Americans have increasingly gone
abroad in recent years for medical procedures ranging from hip replacements to
face lifts, fertility treatments have largely remained an outlier. Concerns
about medical standards and the strong emotions that often surround infertility
have persuaded many people seeking IVF treatment to stick close to home.
But outsize costs and relatively
sparse insurance coverage at home are driving more Americans to seek treatments
abroad. The cost of fertility treatments in the U.S. varies by region and
depends on the procedures needed. A single round of IVF with a woman's own
eggs, including medications, costs on average about $12,000, according to
Resolve, but can run much higher. For IVF using donor eggs, the cost can add as
much as $5,000 to $15,000. Prices have risen steadily in recent years as
more-advanced technology and additional options have emerged.
The in-vitro fertilization process
involves stimulating a woman's ovaries with hormone treatments, extracting eggs
for fertilization, and then implanting embryos in her uterus. Alternatively, a
donor's eggs are used to create an embryo. Insurance plans sometimes cover
aspects of the process, such as the drug treatments, or they might cover a
single round. Only a handful of states, including Massachusetts, require some
form of IVF coverage.
It can be difficult to compare success
rates of women getting pregnant from IVF treatments because of the different
ways statistics are collected. In the U.S., the rate of live single births from
IVF transfer was 40.5% in women under 35, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention 2005 Assisted Reproductive Technology Report. That fell
to 13.1% in women ages 41 to 42. In Europe, 18.6% of IVF transfers resulted in
pregnancies, according to 2003 statistics from the European Society of Human
Reproduction and Embryology, which doesn't break out data by age.
Age restrictions for fertility
treatments vary in the U.S. by clinic and by the individual health of the
patients. For women using their own eggs, the age cutoff is usually early 40s;
if using donor eggs, it's usually late 40s to 50.
Kathy Jackson, a 43-year-old
Minneapolis resident, says she was turned away by local fertility clinics
because they require a woman to be no older than 43 at the time of a birth.
Instead, she has gone twice to the Markham Fertility Centre near Toronto for
IVF. The cost, at about $6,000 for a single treatment using her own eggs, was
half what it is in her area, not including medications, she says.
Ms. Jackson says her Canadian doctor
"was brutally honest with me about my chances, to the point where I cried
after." She says she was told that with her age and medical history, her
chances of getting pregnant were 3% to 5%. Ms. Jackson returned to the Canadian
clinic for her final attempt last month, and just learned that she is not
pregnant.
Rupert Polson and Jennifer Rosendale,
with Olivia and Alliyah, born after IVF treatment in Eastern Europe.
Ofra Balaban of Holon, Israel, founded
the Chen Patient Fertility Association seven years ago following her own
experience with assisted reproductive therapy. She promotes tour packages: A
one-week trip is $7,000, including the $2,500 cost of one round of IVF. But
women need to do some initial preparation, including hormone treatment, in
their own country.
Fertility treatments are cheaper in
many foreign countries, partly because of nationalized health plans. In the
Czech Republic, for instance, citizens up to the age of 39 can get three IVF
treatments for roughly $750 each. Visiting Americans must pay for the service,
but it is still cheaper than in the U.S. http://louis-j-sheehan.com/page1.aspx
When Jennifer Rosendale, 33, and her
husband decided to start a family, she says they were told that IVF near their
home in Shelton, Wash., would cost them roughly $25,000. The hormone-boosting
drugs would cost $3,000 to $5,000 alone, and none of the costs would be covered
by insurance.
Ms. Rosendale at first began looking
online to see if she could purchase the medications more cheaply overseas. But
then she came upon IVFVacation. A year ago, she and her husband traveled to the
Czech Republic. They stayed for five weeks, mixing their fertility treatments
with trips to Prague and Vienna. The price tag for their entire stay: $12,000.
And at the end of October, Ms. Rosendale gave birth to twin girls.
Surgery for a painful, common back
condition known as spinal stenosis resulted in significantly reduced back pain
and better physical function than treatment with drugs and physical therapy,
according to the latest findings from a large federally funded research effort.
The results from the Spine Patient
Outcomes Research Trial, or Sport, echo findings it reported last April
involving degenerative spondylolisthesis, another common spinal problem. A
separate, earlier report from the same study found nonsurgical treatment for
herniated disks worked nearly as well as surgery.
The Sport study, which started in
2000, set out to compare surgical and nonsurgical treatments for several common
back ailments. Paid for by the National Institutes of Health, the trial
involved about 2,500 patients at 13 treatment centers around the country.
Patients were initially divided into surgery and nonsurgery groups, but during
the various related studies, many people randomly assigned to get nonsurgical
treatments decided to get surgery instead, which has led to criticisms of the
studies.
Lead researcher James N. Weinstein,
surgeon and chairman of orthopedics at the Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover,
N.H., said, "I still believe we have too much spine surgery overall,"
but this study shows that where there is a "specific diagnosis of
stenosis, spine surgery will bring a benefit."
The study is likely to be welcomed by
back surgeons who have been stung by questions about the value of back surgery.
Earlier this month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a
report that showed that despite a 73% increase in spending on back problems in
the U.S. from 1997 through 2005, complaints about back pain continued to rise.
Spinal stenosis involves a narrowing
of a passage in the spine through which nerves pass, and it can result in
debilitating pain in the lower back, hips and legs. The surgical solution
involves enlarging the opening to relieve the pressure on the nerves, in an
operation called a laminectomy that costs $10,000 to $12,000. It is among the
most common operations performed in the U.S.
In the new study, which is being
published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, Sport followed 803
patients, of whom 398 ended up getting surgery. After two years, of those who
had surgery, 63% said they had a major improvement in their condition, compared
with 29% among those who got nonsurgical treatment.
In terms of self-reported pain and
physical function, both groups improved over the two-year period, though the
final scores for patients who had surgery were in the 60-point range, while
scores for those who stuck with nonsurgical treatments, such as physical
therapy, were in the low 40s. Dr. Weinstein said that the new study attempts to
answer some of the criticisms of the earlier study by separating out the
patients who stuck with their random assignment to surgery or nonsurgery
options. He said those randomized patients' results were very similar to those
of patients who selected one course or the other.
Hospitals, schools, public utilities
and other institutions that have issued auction-rate securities to raise cash
are scrambling to get out of this troubled corner of the credit market.
Valley Medical Center, in Renton,
Wash., moved to retire $170 million in auction-rate securities by issuing
tax-exempt, 30-year bonds that will price today.
The Long Island Power Authority, or
LIPA, is looking to get out of all of its $993 million in auction-rate debt
during the next several months, possibly replacing at least some of it with
long-term, fixed-rate bonds. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center also
stepped up efforts to exit the market with the help of funding from local
banks.
Other issuers, including the Port
Authority of New York & New Jersey, New York's Battery Park City Authority
and Brazos Higher Education Corp., said they were evaluating their options.
"We're looking to address this as
quickly as we can," LIPA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth McCarthy said
in an interview. "You've got to deal with the fact that the market seems
to be pretty much going away."
Auction-rate securities are long-term
bonds that behave like short-term debt. The interest rates are reset in
auctions conducted by Wall Street dealers regularly, from daily to every 35
days.
The securities often are tax-exempt
and are issued by municipalities, museums, student-loan providers and others to
raise cash to fund projects or operations. In normal times, they get to pay
lower interest rates than they would on long-term debt.
The $330 billion auction-rate market
became the latest casualty of the global credit crunch last week when dozens of
auctions on such debt failed to generate enough investor interest, causing
interest rates to soar.
Auctions failed on between $80 billion
and $85 billion of such debt last week, according to J.P. Morgan Securities
analyst Alex Roever. About half of the market, or $100 billion to $150 billion
of such securities, will be restructured in coming months as issuers seek
alternative methods of financing, he said.
Demand has collapsed because many
auction-rate securities are insured by troubled bond insurers. Investors fear
the bond insurance is no longer good, making the auction-rate securities
riskier, even though many issuers of this debt are healthy institutions with
strong credit ratings on their own.
The path of interest rates after
auctions fail can vary, depending on how issuers structured the debt at the
outset. Some rates are capped, or tied to the low London interbank offered
rate. While some rates soared to 20%, others barely budged.
For municipal issuers, the average
interest rate after failed auctions between Feb. 12 and Feb. 15 was 7.3%, up
from between 4.25% and 4.7% in January, J.P. Morgan said. For issuers raising
money to fund student lending, the average rate jumped to 6.3% compared with
last months' average of about 4.75%.
Regulators have worried about problems
in this market before. In May 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission
fined 15 Wall Street firms for improperly propping up demand for these auctions
and thereby painting an artificially rosy picture of how smoothly the market
functioned.
Valley Medical Center, otherwise known
in the auction-rate market as Public Hospital District #1 of King County, WA,
saw interest rates on some of its securities soar to 15% from 3.75% last week,
said Jeannine Grinnell, the hospital's vice president of finance and treasurer.
The hospital was already planning to
issue long-term debt before the market turmoil, and it decided to increase the
amount by $105 million to raise enough cash to retire its volatile auction-rate
securities. Ms. Grinnell said she expects to pay 5.25% on the new bonds, which
will be underwritten by Morgan Stanley.
University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center has offered to buy back $230 million of its debt. The rates on its
various auctions shot up from about 3.9% a month ago to as high as 17.3% last
week, threatening the fast-growing system with an extra weekly interest bill of
more than $600,000.
Those rates came down to 5.4%
yesterday, according to Talbot Heppenstall, the system's treasurer.
The Long Island Power Authority had
its first auction failure Feb. 12. Interest rates on some of its debt, formerly
about 3.4% on average, rose to 4.1% on average, with some moving as high as
4.7%, LIPA said.
The authority started taking action
before then. When its bond insurer, XL Capital, was downgraded by Fitch Ratings
in January, it faced the prospect of soaring rates in an auction failure. As a
result, it filed a notice to redeem $200 million of its $993 million in
auction-rate debt.
Now, it is looking to convert the rest
of its auction-rate securities into other securities, like fixed-rate bonds, in
the next few months.
Higher rates have also affected such
widely known institutions as Deerfield Academy, Georgetown University, Carnegie
Hall and mutual funds run by money managers including BlackRock Inc., Nuveen
Investments Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co.
Carnegie Hall, the New York fine-arts
performance center, saw its seven-day auctions fail. All of its $41.6 million
of borrowing raised to build Zankel Hall, one of Carnegie Hall's three
performance venues, was raised in the auction-rate market.
Its cost of borrowing increased from
3.2% on Jan. 23 to 3.5%, this week. Spokeswoman Synneve Carlino said that
according to the legal documents associated with its auction-rate program, its
interest costs can't go beyond 3.5%. It doesn't plan to refinance.
Separately, Massachusetts's top
securities regulator asked nine financial-service firms yesterday for
information on their closed-end funds in the wake of woes in the auction-rate
securities market. Secretary of State William Galvin's office is concerned
about failed auctions that have left some investors in certain
"auction-rate" shares issued by closed-end funds unable to sell
because no one is bidding for their funds.
From the Jetsons to James Bond, flying via jet pack has become an icon of the futuristic way to travel. But jet propulsion is actually older than the Flintstones. It's a standard means of locomotion for jellyfish, the earliest animals to swim the seas using muscles. Jellies have been jet-propelling for at least 550 million years, yet only recently have scientists begun to understand how the challenges of moving in fluid have shaped jellyfish evolution.
This Scyphozoan jellyfish, with its
UFO-shaped bell, moves to a slower rhythm than its smaller, rocket-shaped
relatives. New studies link jellyfish means of locomotion to body size and
shape.
iStockphoto
Jellyfish invented muscle-powered
movement, a feat that allowed them to diversify into a number of ecological
nooks and crannies. But jelly muscles are relatively meager and the jet-pack
method of motion requires serious strength. That has presented a mystery about
how some species of jellyfish can get so big. New studies have begun to explain
how enormous gelatinous creatures muster the strength to swim. The answers may
lead to novel designs for underwater vehicles and are prompting scientists to
rethink how to harness energy from wind currents.
If you've seen a jellyfish washed up
on the beach, its brawn probably wasn't the first thing that struck you. Their
bell-shaped bodies are mostly gelatinous goo, surrounded by a network of nerves
and a paper-thin layer of tissue. But on the interior wall of the bell is a
layer of muscle. Contracting this muscle ejects water from the opening at the
base of the bell, propelling the animal on its path.
"There's probably no source of
locomotion that's easier to evolve—it's a pipe with a muscle around it,"
says biomechanics expert Steven Vogel of Duke University in Durham, N.C.
In fact, jet propulsion appears again
and again in animal evolution, Vogel says. Dragonfly larvae make use of an anal
jet, and some squid can blast themselves to speeds of 25 miles an hour. But
while the jet pack allows for a speedy escape, it is inefficient energetically,
releasing a lot of kinetic energy into the water that can't be recovered, says
John Dabiri, an expert in fluid dynamics at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena. He points to more efficient swimmers such as dolphins
or tuna, which glide through the water without a lot of disturbance.
STEADY AS SHE GOES. The spotted
jellyfish, Mastigias papua, uses a combination of jet and paddle to swim.
A. Migotto
And jet propulsion is not the best
strategy for bigger beasts. A large jellyfish must expel a large volume of
water behind it to move forward. Such an expulsion requires brute strength.
Jellyfish don't have those muscular
capabilities. The muscle that lines their interiors is a mere one cell-layer
thick. Making it bigger would take more than calisthenics—it would take a
circulatory system that could supply those muscles with oxygen and nutrients.
"As you get bigger, you have less
and less wiggle room evolutionarily," says Vogel. "Jet propulsion is
fabulous when you are a micron in size and fabulously bad when you are
big."
Yet jellyfish do get big—some, such as
the well-named giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai), can grow to almost 8 feet
across and weigh in at 400 pounds. But when Dabiri modeled the forces required
for jet propulsion and did the math, the numbers said that jellyfish much
bigger than a softball shouldn't even exist.
Then Dabiri took closer notice of a relationship
between the size of a jellyfish and the shape of its bell. The smaller
jellyfish tend to look like thimbles or little rockets, their bells always
taller than wide. http://louis2j2sheehan.us/page1.aspx
The larger jellies had bells shaped
more like UFOs—wider than they were tall. To investigate, he ordered some
crystal jellies, Aequorea victoria, little thimble-shaped creatures small
enough to swim comfortably in a petri dish. As a jellyfish explored its
surroundings, Dabiri's colleagues Sean Colin and John Costello squirted a bit
of harmless fluorescent dye behind the animal, to better see the water's
motion. The small, thimble-shaped jelly zipped around jet-pack style, and the
dye revealed the lost kinetic energy swirling in its wake.
Then the research team filmed some
broad, UFO-shaped jellies known as moon jellyfish, or Aurelia aurita, in
shallow waters of the Adriatic Sea and in a saltwater lake on the Adriatic
island of Mljet. Again, the scientists used dye to visualize the animals'
wakes. The researchers immediately noticed that these jellies didn't zip to and
fro, but meandered, using a leisurely half-jet, half-paddle approach. Like
their rocket-shaped relatives, these broader, flatter jellies moved by
contracting their meager muscles, squeezing water from their bells into a
swirling vortex behind them. But when a moon jellyfish relaxed, postsqueeze,
and water rushed in to refill its bell, the dye revealed a second vortex
forming at the bell's edge. Dabiri realized that this second vortex was
swirling in the opposite direction of that of the first, like water swirling
inward at the edge of a bowl pushed down into a basin of water. The collision
of these opposing, swirling masses of water was providing enough thrust to
propel the moon jellyfish forward.
CONTRAST IN CADENCE. A jellyfish with
a broader bell, left, propels itself by creating two opposing vortices of
water—the first results from a jet thrust, the second forms after the jelly
relaxes in a paddlelike stroke. Rocket-shaped jellies, right, use a purely
jet-pack approach.
R. Rogge
Dabiri crunched the numbers again,
incorporating bell dimensions and the force of the second vortex into his
equations. His new model, published with Colin and Costello in the June 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology, suggests that broad jellies, no matter how
big, should be able to generate enough force to swim, albeit via a gentle, slow
paddle, not a jet. And because of the superior elasticity of a jelly's gooey
cellular matrix, the critter doesn't use extra energy to generate the second
vortex. It's like a spring that's been compressed and wants to recoil, says
Dabiri. "The relaxation phase is essentially for free."
Dabiri is impressed by the fancy
footwork of these broad jellies and by how they've managed with the hand (or
tentacles) that they've been dealt.
"We think of them as blobs on the
beach that don't have the capabilities of complex swimmers," Dabiri says.
In fact, the signature move of the broader jellies, the jet-paddle, is
sophisticated enough to inspire Dabiri to rethink the constraints faced by
underwater vehicles. His graduate student Lydia Trevino is working on modifying
propellers in such a way that they could generate enough force to move an
otherwise cumbersome machine more efficiently in the fluid environment of the
sea.
