Model Airplanes

According to a new study, the answer is the microbiome — the community of bacteria found in homes, offices and aircraft cabins. Believed to be the first to comprehensively assess the microbiome of aircraft, the study found that the bacterial communities accompanying airline passengers at 30,000 feet have much in common with the bacterial communities surrounding people in their homes and offices.

Using advanced sequencing technology, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University studied the bacteria found on three components of an airliner cabin that are commonly touched by passengers: tray tables, seat belt buckles and the handles of lavatory doors. They swabbed those items before and after 10 transcontinental flights and also sampled air in the rear of the cabin during flight.

What they found was surprisingly unexciting.

“Airline passengers should not be frightened by sensational stories about germs on a plane,” said Vicki Stover Hertzberg, a professor in Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing and a co-author of the study. “They should recognize that microbes are everywhere and that an airplane is no better and no worse than an office building, a subway car, home or a classroom. These environments all have microbiomes that look like places occupied by people.”

The results of the FlyHealthy™ study are reported June 6, 2018, in the journal Microbial Ecology. In March, the researchers reported on a separate part of the study that examined potential routes for transmitting certain respiratory viruses — such as the flu — on commercial flights.

Given the

Article source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180607100957.htm

Fresh doubts have been cast on the future of the world’s largest passenger plane after a German leasing company said it plans to break up two A380s that nobody wants.

Singapore Airlines returned two 11-year-old “superjumbos” – among the very first to enter service – to the Dortmund-based Dr Peters Group in November. However, despite efforts to lease them to a new carrier – BA was among those approached – they will now be stripped and sold for parts.

“After extensive as well as intensive negotiations with various airlines, such as British Airways, HiFly and IranAir, Dr Peters Group has decided to sell the aircraft components and will recommend this approach to its investors,” the company said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

The process will see the two jets – currently in storage at Tarbes Lourdes Pyrénées Airport in France, one of Europe’s biggest repositories for unwanted aircraft – combed for valuable items such as electronics and landing gears, a Dr Peters Group official said. Their engines had already been removed and leased back to Rolls-Royce.

The travails of the A380 have become something on an aviation soap opera in recent years. The model was launched to much fanfare in 2005 with commentators declaring it the future of air travel. But airlines were harder to convince and sales slowly ground to a halt. Just two new orders were received in 2015 and none in either 2016 or 2017. Last year it looked like the production line could be shut down as

Article source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/a380s-stripped-and-sold-for-parts/

Caravans of exotic cars will blast through Oregon this summer on their annual migration to places with good weather, dry roads and prestigious classic car shows.

Some of these pieces of art on wheels will be hidden inside customized trailers to be discreetly transported from a private showroom-like garage to a one-day display. Others will be out in the open, part of organized car club rallies, gracefully taking the curves on country roads or speeding by on Interstate 5.

But before you can ask, “What is that?” the car that stands out among SUVs is gone in a flash.

Fortunately, people visiting the Portland Art Museum will have a chance to stop and study 17 handmade automobiles and two one-of-a-kind motorcycles that have earned a spot among the world’s most important rides.

The museum’s exhibition “The Shape of Speed: Streamlined Automobiles and Motorcycles, 1930-1942,” which runs June 16 through Sept. 16, spotlights a never-before-assembled collection of revolutionary machines, masterfully pared down to cut through the air.

Even the most devoted car enthusiasts have seen many of these vehicles only in photos.

The exhibition will allow people to have the time to “pause, look and appreciate great design,” says museum director Brian Ferriso.

Rolling sculpture

Visitors will be able to examine the horizontal lines, low rooflines, angled windshields, rounded front ends and other sleek styling that make these vehicles, even when stationary, look as if they’re battling the wind and winning.

Other elements will catch your eye. That’s because, from polished headlights to shiny bumpers and all the luxurious

Article source: http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2018/06/pam_car_speed_exhibit_2018_ken.html

SAP has rebranded its customer relationship management (CRM) offering in an attempt to take on the established market leader, Salesforce.

The new product, called C/4HANA, is actually a suite of CRM solutions for marketing, sales, customer service and commerce and is a clear cloud-first play, marking another move from the German software maker into the world of software-as-a-service (SaaS).

The full C/4HANA portfolio closely resembles that of the cloud CRM market leader: Salesforce. It consists of: SAP Marketing Cloud, SAP Commerce Cloud, SAP Service Cloud, SAP Customer Data Cloud (following the Gigya acquisition) and SAP Sales Cloud (following the CallidusCloud acquisition). SAP Hybris has also been rebranded as SAP Customer Experience as a result.

In a press release today SAP stated: “Following the completed acquisitions of market leaders Hybris, Gigya and CallidusCloud, SAP now ties together solutions to support all front-office functions, such as consumer data protection, marketing, commerce, sales and customer service.”

Speaking on stage at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, Florida, president of SAP Customer Experience Alex Atzberger said: “Ultimately it’s no longer about efficiency but driving effectiveness and that comes from intelligence and integration.

“Those five clouds make up SAP C/4HANA, but what makes it a suite is that it has one data model. Number two is that it has one extension framework with a microservices based ecosystem called SAP Cloud Platform. Number three, it has better intelligence through SAP Leonardo, and number four is that beautiful user experience from campaign to billing.”

Fresh doubts have been cast on the future of the world’s largest passenger plane after a German leasing company said it plans to break up two A380s that nobody wants.

Singapore Airlines returned two 11-year-old “superjumbos” – among the very first to enter service – to the Dortmund-based Dr Peters Group in November. However, despite efforts to lease them to a new carrier – BA was among those approached – they will now be stripped and sold for parts.

“After extensive as well as intensive negotiations with various airlines, such as British Airways, HiFly and IranAir, Dr Peters Group has decided to sell the aircraft components and will recommend this approach to its investors,” the company said in a statement emailed to Reuters.

The process will see the two jets – currently in storage at Tarbes Lourdes Pyrénées Airport in France, one of Europe’s biggest repositories for unwanted aircraft – combed for valuable items such as electronics and landing gears, a Dr Peters Group official said. Their engines had already been removed and leased back to Rolls-Royce.

The travails of the A380 have become something on an aviation soap opera in recent years. The model was launched to much fanfare in 2005 with commentators declaring it the future of air travel. But airlines were harder to convince and sales slowly ground to a halt. Just two new orders were received in 2015 and none in either 2016 or 2017. Last year it looked like the production line could be shut down as

Article source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/a380s-stripped-and-sold-for-parts/