Tuesday, February 21, 2012

The Note's Must-Reads for Monday, February 20, 2012 (ABC News)

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The Popularity Of A Joe Rodeo Diamond Watch | The Xtreme ...

The Popularity Of A Joe Rodeo Diamond Watch | The Xtreme ?

Posted by pseudopourquoi on February 18, 2012 , No comment

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Kraus? Recreation and Leisure in Modern SocietyFocusing on ten different types of organizations ranging from nonprofit community organizations and armed forces recreation to sports management and t? Read More > ?

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Monday, February 20, 2012

3 skiers killed in Wash. avalanche; 4th survived

King County Sheriff's officers and other emergency officials work along Highway 2 near Stevens Pass ski resort in Skykomish, Wash., near where three skiers were killed in an avalanche Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012. The avalanche swept the three skiers about a quarter-mile down an out-of-bounds canyon at the popular resort. A fourth skier caught up in the slide was saved by a safety device, authorities said. (AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Erika Schultz) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; SEATTLEPI.COM OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

King County Sheriff's officers and other emergency officials work along Highway 2 near Stevens Pass ski resort in Skykomish, Wash., near where three skiers were killed in an avalanche Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012. The avalanche swept the three skiers about a quarter-mile down an out-of-bounds canyon at the popular resort. A fourth skier caught up in the slide was saved by a safety device, authorities said. (AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Erika Schultz) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; SEATTLEPI.COM OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

Ajai Sehgal, with King County Search and Rescue, works at a staging area near Stevens Pass ski resort in Skykomish, Wash., near where three skiers were killed in an avalanche Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012. The avalanche swept the three skiers about a quarter-mile down an out-of-bounds canyon at the popular resort. A fourth skier caught up in the slide was saved by a safety device, authorities said. (AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Erika Schultz) MAGS OUT; NO SALES; SEATTLEPI.COM OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

(AP) ? Well-equipped and familiar with the terrain, about a dozen expert skiers were making their way through a foot-and-a half of fresh snow when an avalanche hit them in an out-of-bounds area near a popular Washington ski resort.

Three men were killed Sunday when they were swept about a quarter-mile down a canyon, and a fourth skier caught up in the slide was saved by a safety device, authorities said. The large group had split into three smaller groups before the avalanche, but all the backcountry skiers were buried to some extent. Those who were able to free themselves rushed to dig out the victims and unsuccessfully performed CPR on the three, believed to be in their 30s and 40s.

"Most of the people involved in this were well-known to the ski community up here, especially to the ski patrol," said Deputy Chris Bedker of the King County Sheriff's search-and-rescue unit. "It was their friends who they recovered."

The Stevens Pass fatalities were part of a deadly Sunday on Washington ski slopes. A male snowboarder was killed in a separate avalanche incident at the Alpental ski area east of Seattle, authorities said.

The men who died on Stevens Pass tumbled approximately 1,500 feet down a chute in the Tunnel Creek Canyon area, King County Sheriff's Sgt. Katie Larson said.

The fourth skier who was swept down the mountain about 80 miles northeast of Seattle was a woman who appeared to avoid a similar fate because of the avalanche safety device she was wearing, Larson said.

ESPN.com identified the survivor as professional skier Elyse Saugstad, who said she used an airbag after the avalanche hit. ESPN Freeskiing editor Megan Michelson was among the skiers and was uninjured, it said.

Michelson said the initial slide was about 30 feet wide and three feet deep, but quickly grew as it swept away Saugstad and the three victims.

Saugstad said she immediately deployed the airbag from her backpack, crediting it with saving her life.

"I was completely buried except for my head and hands" after coming to a rest, she said.

Two of the victims were found nearby, while the third was carried "several hundred feet" farther down the mountain, Saugstad said.

Michelson said the remaining skiers called for help and skied the length of the avalanche track looking for victims, Michelson said.

"The debris pile at the bottom was massive," Michelson said.

Initial reports of the avalanche reached the sheriff's office just after noon, and for some time it wasn't clear whether the other skiers had also been swept up in the slide.

The Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center on Sunday issued a warning for high avalanche danger for areas above 5,000 feet, saying warmer weather could loosen surface snow and trigger a slide on steeper slopes. The elevation of the avalanche wasn't immediately clear.

At mid-afternoon, the temperature at the base of the Stevens Pass ski resort was 24 degrees, with light winds and good visibility. The temperature at the top of the mountain was 22 degrees, according to the resort's website.

John Gifford, the ski area's general manager, said Sunday that the resort had received 19 inches of snow in the past 24 hours.

He described the area as a popular backcountry skiing zone that can be easily accessed from the resort.

He said the slopes there are steeper than at the resort and lack the resort's avalanche control

"You need to be a highly skilled skier to do that," he said.

Stevens Pass is one of the most popular outdoor recreation areas in the state, with visitors flocking to the scenic site to go cross-country, back-country and downhill skiing, as well as snowshoeing and backpacking.

Across the West, there had been 13 avalanche deaths this season as of Thursday, according to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, which tracks avalanche deaths in the U.S.

Experts have said the risk of additional slides in the region could remain high all season. They attribute the dangers in part to a weak base layer of snow caused by a dry winter.

Avalanche deaths are more common in the backcountry than at ski resorts. Out of about 900 avalanche deaths nationwide since the winter of 1950-51, 32 were within terrain that was open for riding at ski resorts, according to the Utah Avalanche Center.

___

Associated Press Writer Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-02-20-Washington%20Avalanche/id-61e9c52e950b49bba24fbf03277d308d

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Sunday, February 19, 2012

Using Vintage Automotive Clip Artwork To Design Virtually Anything ...

Once we say ?classic automotive? we rapidly envision vehicles that exudes classical sophistication and images of outdated time aristocracy. This is because solely those in the upper class can afford vehicles in those times and till the production assembly made these cars cheaper and most everyone may afford to buy them, those then automobiles possessed a category that was fully of its own.

For aficionados of this bygone period, classic vehicles are actually sophistication in terms of regality. That is why a lot of them nonetheless see these time pieces as historical automotive artwork that should be return again to its former glory. For these lucky sufficient to afford classic car restoration and assortment, they?ve with them priceless artifacts of outdated time glory and they need to handle them very well.

But for the remainder who do not have the assets and funds to get themselves a classic automotive, model toy cars, posters and movies would just go well with them. Some fix their need for vintage automobiles by watching classic automobile shows and TV shows of them. But should you actually love classic vehicles, using vintage car clip artwork can help you customize anything you need and adorn them with an image of your hobby.

Principally a clip art is a readymade illustration or picture that can be electronically copied and used for various projects. They?re usually pasted on paperwork to add illustration but they can also be sued for quite a lot of things. Presently, clip arts are extensively used by many people for decoration and illustration and the classic automotive clip artwork is not any exception.

So what good is a classic automobile clip artwork? Effectively, lots, you should use them to behave as a design in your paperwork, this is able to be exceptionally good if you are a member of a classic automobile club. Putting this into your membership?s stationery would make the paperwork extra in touch along with your hobby.

Or, if you will have a celebration, and you?re a classic automobile buff, you can place them into your invitations. This will let individuals know in regards to the theme of your celebration and also can help you share your passion.

Except for paper, you may as well print out a vintage automobile clip art that you have chosen and stick it right into a coffee mug, t-shirt, handkerchief, bracelet, and virtually anything. These are nice for personalisation tasks and can be utilized as give-aways or mementos.

However beware of simply picking out any vintage automobile clip artwork and using it for any of your projects. Though a vintage automotive clip art may be simply downloaded or copied of the internet, there are nonetheless some copyright and utilization rights. So, it will be important that you simply be taught concerning the copyright and utilization proper restrictions so that you just wouldn?t have any legal issues with the classic automobile clip art that you?re about to use.

Keep in mind, if the clip art is public domain, you need to use it any manner you want to. Try to ask the owner of the positioning the place you bought the classic automobile clip art for the restrictions of their classic automobile clip art.

You may also have the ability to discover some classic automotive clip artwork which might be sold in batches saved in CD?s. Once you have bought them, they?re all yours and you need to use them any manner you need to.

If you want added data in regard to vintage images, drop by Maary B Rockkenspy?s web page forthwith.

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Rome Wasn't Built In A Day | Exceed Your Limits! Self Improvement ...

Rome Wasn't Built Overnight

You often hear the term ?Rome wasn?t built in a day?. Everyone has, but how many of us actually take the time to really understand this concept?

Many people in life rush through things for the purpose of achieving greatness. Time is important as we all know it. A minute can?t be gained, and a minute can?t be lost. It?s also unrealistic when we try to set out for something that will take time losing weight, saving money, building a company, and many other building aspects. ?But once again, what does it mean when it is emphasized that the term ?Rome wasn?t built in a day? and how many of us actually put the concept of this understanding into work?

When we were younger, we all had dreams. ?I wanted to be a doctor? or ?I wanted to go to space?. There is a surprising amount of things that people wanted to achieve as kids. Sooner or later, they eventually grow up and work as sales clerk, cashier, and so on. Before they know it, they turn in their mid 40?s with kids, working as a job they absolutely despise. This was all because they failed to take the concept that Rome wasn?t built in one day.

image: kai4107

Goals takes time

?

Whether you want to lose weight or get that dream jobs of yours, you don?t just go out to achieve it like that, you start slow, like each brick-by-brick slow, until a wall is built.

No one becomes a professional at anything overnight. Instead, you need to tell yourself that you will place this brick down, and place down as perfect as it can be. And you start on from there, every single day. Soon enough, a wall will be built. Soon enough, you will get to where you want to be.

Now people will question the time that it takes to build this brick wall. You may even tell yourself that out of the thousands and thousands of bricks that are needed to be laid, you will say that it?s okay to miss a single day because you worked hard yesterday, and the day before? because for every one brick that you lay out, it seems so insignificant in terms of the whole achievement.

One day of missed work isn?t going to affect my performance

But realize that in a day, there are 24 hours that can?t be gained back, meaning that it will take you another 24 hours to build Rome. Realize that the concept of ?Rome wasn?t built in a day? means that you take each and every single day to steal this opportunity to build this great empire of yours, because if you do not, then you have failed to carry on this concept.

You set out to build your greatness every single day, every single hour. Many successful people are like this, I guarantee it. They did not take breaks that were offered.

No matter how simple, or easy, or difficult a task is, they understand that for each hour given to them, they were going to act on it because they knew that that it wasn?t going to come back. They were essentially becoming Rome themselves.

Instead of thinking unrealism about any dream, turn it into a reality. All it takes is for you to act on that opportunity each and every single day, no matter how insignificant it is.

The number one itself may represent such a small dwelling quantity, but when you add another one, then another, and another? You eventually get a number that seems so unrealistic that somehow became a reality?all because you never passed down an opportunity to lay out that one simple brick.

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.

Vincent T. Lombardi

featured image: Jon Whiles

Other articles you may enjoy:

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Source: http://selfexceed.com/inspiration-motivation/rome-wasnt-built-in-a-day/

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Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Risks Of Being Obese

Friday, February 17th, 2012 at 06:26 pm

A lot of people are having problems controlling their weight.

In countries such as the United States, a huge amount of people are obese. This is disturbing news. It seems that the opposite should be true as information about health and fitness becomes so easy to find. Yet, just knowing about the causes of obesity isn?t enough to stop it from happening. It means that you have to actually do something positive with that information. Interested in an effective fitness program? Be sure to check out the Body Gospel workout from Donna Richardson and Beachbody. It is excellent.

It?s quite alarming that many children today can be defined as obese. What was once considered a problem of middle age is now something that often starts much earlier. Childhood obesity is usually attributed to the junk food diet that many kids live on, combined with a lifestyle that doesn?t include enough physical activity. This is a very treacherous combination. It is one that?s causing younger and younger people to be suffering from serious health problems. It is the responsibility of parents to see the warning signs that their children are becoming obese. Plenty of parents are now wanting schools to serve healthier lunches. Kids should be informed about how essential diet and exercise are.

Stress, like obesity, is very prevalent in the world today. It seems like these two conditions are very much associated with one another. People who suffer a great deal of stress are often overweight. Apparently, stress affects your metabolism to the point that it makes it hard to lose weight. Also, stress usually makes people want to find unhealthy foods like chips and other comforting foods. So if you?re life is stressful, you should look into ways to relax and take a more laid back attitude towards life. Both stress and being obese can lead to serious health issues. So, it is a good thing to stop these from becoming a part of your life.

In certain instances, your doctor might give you medication for your obesity problem. This is only done in serious situations. This is because using this kind of medication brings about certain side effects. Plenty of people who are overweight can eliminate their weight by eating less and exercising. If you have so much extra weight where it is harmful to your health, then you might get a recommendation for a weight loss drug. Orlistat, is a medication that hinders your belly from sucking up fat. An even more extreme choice is weight loss surgery. This has plenty of risk connected with it. This is normally used for extreme cases of obesity.

Obesity is not an easy problem to deal with. This is because it means that you must change some of the things that you have gotten used to doing. Remember that just the small things like eating less and exercising more can be enough to change your metabolism so that you can begin to drop the needed pounds. It may take effort to overcome obesity. But, the outcome is worth the price. This is because being at a healthy weight will make many things in your life much better. Last but not least, remember to check out our Body Gospel results.

Source: http://www.africanmango.me/blog/the-risks-of-being-obese/

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Concrete's Role As A Building Block In History

Copyright ? 2012 National Public Radio?. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. If you're a regular listener to this program, you know that one of my favorite topics is concrete. I know it sounds weird. It is a fascinating material, though, with a fascinating history. It's everywhere, right. We use it for buildings, bridges, dams, roads. In fact, concrete is used more than any other manmade material in the world.

Right, we all take it for granted. A few of us know about its creation and about its development. We like to watch it being poured, like to watch it, you know, being worked. But, you know, the story of concrete is one that spans thousands of years, has touched the lives of rulers, inventors and architects, both famous and infamous.

Even Thomas Edison once owned the biggest concrete plant in the world, actually makes cement. My next thought that was an important story to tell us, along with a dozen others, and hey, I couldn't agree more with him. Robert Courland is a historian and author of "Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Manmade Material." He joins us from San Francisco. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

ROBERT COURLAND: It's good to be here, thank you.

FLATOW: You know, whenever - and I corrected myself, I think - whenever I talk about concrete, and I talk to civil engineers, they say don't mix up concrete and cement. That's actually sort of a pun because you have to mix up cement to make concrete. So tell us the difference, would you?

COURLAND: Yeah, concrete is actually the binder used - I should say cement is the binder used to create concrete. It only represents perhaps a third of the total. The rest is sand, water and rocks called aggregate. And so they're mixed together, and you've got concrete as the result. So instead of referring to a cement patio, it's more properly called a concrete patio.

FLATOW: And I know how I got to be interested in the story of cement and concrete. How did you get your interest to write this book here?

COURLAND: Well, I actually began toying with the idea about five years ago, and it's so ubiquitous that it's almost invisible, and yet most of us know very little about it. So as I began researching the topic, I found all these incredible stories, and I was particularly amazed to discover that some of the most interesting figures in history were instrumental in its pioneering uses and applications, such figures as the Emperor Hadrian, Thomas Edison, who you mentioned, and - the Roman Emperor Hadrian, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and a host of others.

FLATOW: Let's talk about some - you tell some great stories in your book "Concrete Planet." Let's talk about one my favorites, which - because I've been to Kajaria, King Herod's great harbor in Judea there, Kajaria, and the story of how that was built.

COURLAND: Yeah, King Herod, in the first century BCE, wanted a harbor. He wanted to have a rich kingdom, and if you wanted to have a rich kingdom, you need a harbor like everyone else, like in Alexandria and Piraeus in Athens and so on.

Now, the way you usually go about it is you take it an already existing bay or inlet, and then you extend one of the promontories to make it more sheltered, and then you start creating the jetties and the wharves and so on.

But unfortunately, ancient Judea didn't have any of those natural features, and the only way it could be build was using this relatively new substance that the Romans had, concrete. So you could create a huge wooden form and then dump the concrete in it, have it sink in place, and you've got a - the result is a giant block that, you know, no current's going to move.

And they had very strong currents, which was another problem there in Judea, right off the coast. So they - now planning such a venture is one thing, but actually doing it is quite another. The logistics that went into it were just phenomenal, comparable to the Pyramids and in some ways even more complicated. You needed to cut down something like 200,000 trees to build the huge concrete forms and also to fuel the lime kilns that were necessary to make the lime to mix the concrete with.

The trouble was at that time, the Mediterranean Basin had been mostly denuded of large trees. So where were they going to get the wood? So with the help of Rome, they found the wood in Central Europe and shipped it down the Danube to the Black Sea and then from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and on to Judea.

And that was a tremendous effort right there, but they also needed the volcanic soil, which was another important ingredient, and so to ship it from Mount Vesuvius, the area around Naples, they had to use the ancient equivalent of today's supertankers, these huge ships.

And they loaded thousands of tons of volcanic soil onto these ships and took it on to Judea, and it was an incredible engineering construction effort. In fact, the reconstructions of the harbor show a very modern-looking facility. In fact, it was state-of-the-art at its time. It had these special channels that were only open at high tide to flush out the harbor so it wouldn't silt up.

And it was the second-largest harbor in the world, the first one being Alexandria to the south.

FLATOW: And it's interesting, if you go to Israel and look at it now, you can imagine what it looked like...

COURLAND: Yeah because in that part of the Mediterranean, you've got a lot of subsidence. So it's now under about 30 meters of water. The coastline's just sunk. And there's also a major earthquake fault that runs alongside it, too. But for several hundred years, it was one of the best in the world.

FLATOW: Why is the Roman Coliseum - you call it in your book the gold standard of concrete.

COURLAND: Well, actually not necessarily the Coliseum. The use of concrete for the Coliseum was primarily as a foundation material. But the Romans - I call it the gold standard because the Romans really perfected the use of concrete. In fact, they used it for about two centuries before applying it to their major construction efforts.

So they knew what to do with it and what not to do with it, and some of these things were - we didn't wake up to until the second half of the 20th century. For instance, they would compact the concrete. They would just ram it into the forms to remove all air cavities and so on. And that made a denser material.

They also used very little water. They used only enough water to make it malleable, and that also gave it a much longer life and prevented cracking. They also realized that concrete wasn't fireproof. So they used brick to clad their concrete walls, particularly after the great fire of 64 AD, the one that took place while Nero was emperor.

So they really knew a lot about how to use it, and again, we've only woken up to these things in the last couple of decades.

FLATOW: In fact there was a whole era where concrete was sort of forgotten about. Isn't there a large (unintelligible)...?

COURLAND: Well, yeah, after the fall of the Roman Empire, dozens of technologies were lost, and one of them was how to make concrete. And so over 1,000 years would pass before people began rediscovering it. And the major progress in developing concrete was in 18th-century Britain, 19th-century Britain. And it was there that we eventually got the equivalent of modern concrete, which is called Portland cement, and that's the standard concrete we use today.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number. We're talking about concrete with Robert Courland, author of the book "Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Manmade Material." Is it possible to imagine a world today without concrete, what it might look like?

COURLAND: Sure, it would look like the 19th century. You would have more buildings built of brick and wood. There would probably be more people in the building trades. You would - the roads probably wouldn't be as good as they are today. You would have more potholes. So it would look very antiquated in our eyes, simply because concrete would be missing from the visual landscape.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to the phones, to Trevor(ph) in Redlands, California. Hi, Trevor.

TREVOR: Hi there. Great subject. I share your passion. Both my brother and I designed and built our houses out of concrete, and, you know, the walls, the floors, kitchen counters, everything. It's an amazingly versatile product, and we have very different style houses. You know, and you wouldn't even know they're all built out of concrete necessarily.

FLATOW: So it doesn't look like there's a fortress, that you're living in, a fortress of concrete?

TREVOR: No, not at all. My house is very modern-looking house and his is - looks like a castle, actually. It's quite beautiful - something you might find in the Mediterranean or something. And there's also a lot of great ways, I know now, to help make it a little bit more green building material, like using fly ash in it. I even read an article a while back about using the waste from power plants to mix the raw materials to make cement. I'm wondering if you know anything about that.

COURLAND: Yes, use of fly ash is very important. The - one of the problems with concrete today is that it generates a tremendous amount of CO2. And that comes from these huge blast furnaces that are used to kiln the limestone to create lime. And also, the limestone itself gives off carbon dioxide as it's being cooked. And so it's second only - I think it's third only to power plants and automobiles in its production of CO2. Now with fly ash, you've got something that's already there. And it's wonderful material because you can use it to substitute not only the - you mix it with the cement and - so you don't need as much lime, and also you don't need to use as much sand in the material as well. It's really wonderful. They're working, right now, on even better concretes that should be out in the next few years.

FLATOW: Good luck, Trevor. There's a new...

COURLAND: And some of these are even carbon negative.

FLATOW: There's a new project.

TREVOR: Great. Thanks.

FLATOW: Yeah, thanks for calling. 1-800-989-8255. Let's go to Brandon in Ann Arbor. Hi, Brandon.

BRANDON: Hey, how are you there?

FLATOW: Hey there.

BRANDON: I'm a tester in Ann Arbor area, or one of the concrete testers. We check the air pressure, take cylinders and mold them and put them in the laboratory and test them. It's pretty entertaining. It's quality control, quality assurance type of job.

FLATOW: Testing concrete did you say?

COURLAND: Yeah.

BRANDON: Yeah. We test concrete, usually on the side of the interstates or wherever it may be. And I get in, get out, take the test and tell the contractor and the concrete company what they got.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

COURLAND: Yeah, that was...

FLATOW: Have you ever tested any old concrete that's still around?

BRANDON: Old concrete, yeah. I mean, you can do a coring in...

FLATOW: Like Roman roads and things?

BRANDON: ...get some old concrete. Roman roads - well, I was going to say, you know, these Roman roads are a lot better than the ones we even have right now. They're crumbling after, you know, 10, 20, years, I believe, with salt on them.

COURLAND: That's right.

FLATOW: Yeah. Thanks for calling. 1-800-989-8255. When do they start first reinforcing all this rebar and stuff inside the concrete?

COURLAND: Well, they did experiments in France back in the early 19th century, but it really didn't take off until a contractor here in San Francisco, by the name of Ernest Ransome, who invented modern rebar, and it was much superior to what they were using before, which was something called barrel bands. Barrel bands were made by the million feet every year to - encase the wooden barrels, used for everything from wine to nails and what have you. So there was lots of it around, but it wasn't as good as a rebar, and that's Ernest Ransom's big contribution.

FLATOW: 1-800-989-8255 is our number. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow here, talking with the author of "Concrete Planet," Robert Courland. And we're going to bring in another guest now, because the cement, as we've said, is an ingredient in concrete. And during production, cement emits billions of tons of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, as Robert was talking about. Researchers around the world are trying to create a greener form of concrete. Dr. Peter Stemmerman, a mineralogist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany - he is one of the investors of Celitement, described in the environmentally - to be environmentally compatible. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY. Tell us, why are more environmentally compatible.

DR. PETER STEMMERMAN: Well, hello, Ira. It's - our - Celitement is produced with just about one-third of limestone. And the limestone and conventional cement production and in our product is calcined. And from the calcination of the limestone, the CO2 is emitted. And over the whole process, would just emit about 50 percent of CO2 and just made about 50 percent of the energy too.

FLATOW: So it's - so when you say the word - it's Celite. It's light in carbon, Celitement is how you've - is how you let it know. And how available is it?

STEMMERMAN: We are producing it now in a pilot plant in Germany, but it's - I think about three to four years away from the market.

FLATOW: And you think it will be - make a real dent, because there's a lot of concrete and - don't the Chinese make most of the concrete or the cement in the world?

STEMMERMAN: Yes. In fact, we have about 54 percent of the cement production nowadays in China. And, yes, it's a long way to go, as you, for example, have to do standardization, which takes five to 10 years if you want to be in the mass market. You have to start somewhere. And I think in about 10 years maybe, we're really deep inside the market and we will change the scene.

FLATOW: Mm-hmm. Well, we wish you good luck. And thank you for taking time to join us today.

STEMMERMAN: Thank you.

FLATOW: That was Dr. Peter Stemmerman. He's a mineralogist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. What do you think about the Celitement, Robert?

COURLAND: Well, it's very interesting. First, you've got to make it, you know, commercially interesting. And since this cement requires less energy to manufacture, then it's theoretically possible to produce a low-carbon cement at a competitive price. And so I'm very encouraged by that. They're also working on cements in England and in California here, from Culcalera(ph). And these actually produce less CO2. It emits less CO2. Or actually, it takes less CO2 than it actually generates, and so it's carbon negative. And, again, it's not on the market yet, but they say that within a few years it will be.

FLATOW: We're going to take a break and come back and talk lots more about one of my favorite topics, concrete, with the author of "Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Man-Made Material" Robert Courland. When we come back, we'll talk about - why did Thomas Edison own the biggest cement factory in the world? I mean, he's got the light bulb, you know, right? He's got the recording machines. He's got all that kind of stuff. What is he doing with cement? Interesting story. We'll be back with the answers, so stay with us. I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: You're listening to SCIENCE Friday. I'm Ira Flatow. We're talking with Robert Courland, author of "Concrete Planet." And a lot of people have questions about the mythology, about concrete. I want to get to them in the few remaining minutes that we have. Let's talk about first - Robert, let's talk about some mythology that concrete cannot be - cannot catch fire or be burned.

COURLAND: Well, it can't. It's fire resistant. It's very fire resistant. Try to ignite a block of concrete and you'll have a lot of problems. But the myth was that concrete is fireproof. And that was - the early concrete industry, the first half of the 20th century really promoted concrete a lot, saying that it was fireproof, and it's not. When it's exposed to high temperatures, it begins to defoliate. That means it begins to crumble away. And that's why traditional bread and pizza ovens are made of brick and not concrete. If they're made of concrete, they'd fall apart.

So the myth that concrete was fireproof was pretty much exploded by the second half of the 20th century. It should have been realized much earlier, after the 1906 earthquake and fire, but since concrete advocates dominated the engineering commissions that were formed to look into the damage caused by that disaster, they fudged the data to make it look like concrete had done very well in the fire, when in fact, it performed horribly.

FLATOW: And let's go to another question here, and it comes in: we have concrete roads that are 2,000 years old, but why has not reinforced concrete stood up to the test of time?

COURLAND: Well, the steel that's in reinforced concrete, which gives it its tensile strength, also dooms the material to a very short lifespan. Steel-reinforced structures, particularly those exposed to the elements, like I say, for instance, a freeway bridge are - will eventually corrode. The rebar will eventually rust, and as it rusts, its diameter expands by something like four or five fold. And then it destroys the concrete around it while it is being destroyed by the rust. And so that's why concrete structures only last between, say, 50 and 125 years because of rebar corrosion.

We've got substitute rebars that have been developed recently. Some are made of fiberglass, reinforced polymer, some carbon fiber - are really good - a very interesting rebar that was recently developed is made of bronze-aluminum. Now bronze-aluminum is about the same strength as the mild steel used in most rebar today. And it's - it doesn't have any corrosion issues. So technically - theoretically...

FLATOW: Mm-hmm.

COURLAND: ...you could build a concrete structure - reinforced concrete structure with bronze-aluminum rebar. And it should last a very, very long time.

FLATOW: Is that - are these new materials actually being used, or are we just talking about them?

COURLAND: Bronze-aluminum right now, they are doing experiments with it, and it looks - based on the experimental evidence, it looks very, very good.

FLATOW: What about fiberglass or...

COURLAND: Fiberglass - yeah, fiberglass, reinforced polymer rebar is now being used, and it shows wonderful promise. And so we really need to stop building with steel reinforced concrete, because we just have to demolish and rebuild the structure every 75 - 100 years. And, you know, it's ridiculous. We could build buildings that last as long as the Romans, but we're not going to be able to do it with steel as part of the element.

FLATOW: Interesting. Let's go to the phones. Bradley in Nashville. Hi, Bradley.

BRADLEY: Hi, Ira. You may have touched on this because I tuned it late. Would you ask Mr. Courland if he could comment on the composition and construction of the dome of the Pantheon, which was designed and constructed by Hadrian in 135 A.D.

FLATOW: Yeah, he talked about that.

COURLAND: Yes. The Pantheon is...

BRADLEY: OK. Sorry. I didn't hear...

FLATOW: No. He hasn't talked about it yet. Go - well, we'll hear it now. Go ahead, please, Robert.

COURLAND: Yeah. The Pantheon is an amazing structure, and, unlike the Parthenon in Athens, the Pantheon in Rome is still in good shape. It's been in continual use for 1,900 years. And it was probably designed by the Emperor Hadrian who was one of the most brilliant emperors ever to rule during the empire. And he was always fascinated by domes.

And when he was a young man, before he became emperor, a famed architect by the name of Apollodorus made fun of his fascination for domes, which Apollodorus called pumpkins.

So when Hadrian came to power, he decided to, you know, design a building with a pumpkin, the likes of which would amaze the world. And he did that with Pantheon. It's so incredible that when people visit it for the first time, they often assume that the portico, the part of the temple, the front part, is Roman, but that the rotunda and the dome were added in the 19th or 20th centuries because it's too modern looking. It's vast. Its 143 feet across and it still remains the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world. And it could have only been done with concrete because of the plastic qualities of concrete, the ability to, you know, form it into any shape you want.

FLATOW: And you're saying that if it has been done with reinforced concrete like today, it would've been gone in 100 years.

COURLAND: If it has been built of reinforced concrete, it wouldn't have survived the empire that build it.

FLATOW: Could we still build roads without reinforcing in them today? You mentioned about the other materials. Could you still build that.

COURLAND: And that's very interesting because concrete, by itself, has tremendous compressive strength. So assuming that a, you know, road is well-bedded, so you're not going to have any lateral displacements if cracking occurs, you should be able to do it without reinforcement. And there's a - the oldest concrete street in the world is in Bellefontaine, Ohio, is built, I think, around 1890 and it's in wonderful shape and it was built of unreinforced concrete.

They turned it into a pedestrian zone because they wanted to preserve the original concrete surface, but it's - not only has it stood up well after well over a century, but it also has required far less maintenance that the other nearby roads. So we have an example of unreinforced - and the Romans, too, you know? They used unreinforced concrete and their creations are still with us today, like the Aileen(ph) Bridge in Rome. It bears the traffic of cars, not just oxcarts and people as it originally did, but, you know, it holds up pretty good loads.

FLATOW: All is this fascinating stuff, and I personally wanted to talk about concrete and cement all the time. Concrete ? cement and water, I mean, which get together, you know, to make concrete. So two substances are my favorite stuff to talk about, and this book is terrific to read "Concrete Planet: The Strange and Fascinating Story of the World's Most Common Man-made Material" Robert Courland, thank you for taking time to be with us today and...

COURLAND: Oh, thank you.

FLATOW: ...we'll look forward to those new concrete products you talked about. Take care.

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Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/02/17/147047553/concretes-role-as-a-building-block-in-history?ft=1&f=1007

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