The first flight simulator

The term Link Trainer is commonly used to refer to a series of flight simulators produced between the early 1930s and early 1950s by Edwin Albert Link, based on technology he pioneered in 1929 at his family's business in Binghamton, NY. These simulators became famous during World War II, when they were used as a key pilot training aid by almost every combatant nation.

Barany chair

The Bárány chair, named for the Austrian physiologist Robert Bárány, is a device used for aerospace physiology training, particularly for student pilots. The subject is placed in the chair, blindfolded, then spun rapidly about the vertical axis while keeping his head upright or tilted forward or to the side. The subject is then asked to perform tasks such as determine his direction of rotation while blindfolded, or rapidly change the orientation of his head, or attempt to point at a stationary object without blindfold after the chair is stopped. The chair is used to demonstrate spatial disorientation effects, proving that the vestibular system is not to be trusted in flight. Pilots are taught that they should instead rely on their flight instruments.

Vertical treadmill to improve workouts in space

"By changing how strongly runners' feet are pulled towards the treadmill, called the Standalone Zero Gravity Locomotion Simulator, researchers can simulate microgravity conditions on the space station as well as the Moon's gravity, which is one-sixth as strong as Earth's."

Vomit ejector

Patients who overdose on drugs or alcohol can easily drown on their own vomit because they are too intoxicated to cough. Doctors must dread the thought of giving mouth-to-mouth to such a patient in an emergency.

So inventor John Perrier from Queensland, Australia, has come up with an ultrasonic device that promises to make anyone cough, no matter how ill or sedated they are.

The handheld device, which resembles a rechargeable torch, has a curved section at the front that fits over a patient's throat. This section contains a transducer that generates ultrasound pulses at frequencies above 20 kilohertz.

When the device is pushed firmly against the patient's neck, the ultrasound penetrates the walls of the pharynx and excites the tiny hairs, called cilia, which line it.

Exciting the hairs causes such intense tickling that the patient's cough reflex is stimulated and their throat cleared. The device could also help people who are choking on dust or smoke to breathe again, the patent suggests.

Read the full patent here.

Acceleration and the Human Body

a (g)	event
2.9	sneeze
3.5	cough
3.6	crowd jostle
4.1	slap on back
8.1	hop off step
10.1	plop down in chair
60	chest acceleration limit during car crash at 48 km/h with airbag

Instructions for Vomiting

Step One

Find a spot to vomit. The bathroom is your best bet, but if you need to throw up because of an emergency situation, then simply induce vomiting and point your mouth away from other people.

Step Two

Take an emetic, like syrup of ipecac, if you have one on hand. Emetics are ingestible substances that induce vomiting. Adults should take 1 to 2 teaspoons of syrup of ipecac and then 1 cup of water. The syrup is safe if you take the proper amount.

Step Three

Find the constrictor muscle at the back of your throat if you don’t have an emetic. The constrictor muscle is behind the dangling bit of tissue called the uvula.

Step Four

Stimulate the constrictor muscle with a finger. Basically, just stick your finger down your throat and tickle it. Once you start to heave, take your finger out.

Step Five

Place your head lower than your hips to reduce the possibility of vomit entering your lungs. Stand up and bend over to vomit rather than kneel down.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2044918_induce-vomiting.html

Sickening — worst sound in the world announced

Vomiting is officially the most horrible sound ever, according to over a million votes cast worldwide in a mass online science experiment.

International visitors to the BadVibes website (www.sound101.org) — a research project from the University of Salford — listened to sounds such as a dentist's drill, fingernails scraping down a blackboard and aircraft flying past, before rating them in terms of their unpleasantness.

Although fingernails scraping down a blackboard is said to be the worst sound by many people, the actual recording of this sound only came 16th out of 34 sounds auditioned. Microphone feedback came a close second in the 'horribleness ranking', with many babies crying coming joint third with a horrible scrapping sound.

Over 1.1m votes were statistically analysed by Professor Trevor Cox of the University's Acoustic Research Centre, who conducted the experiment in order to explore the public's perceptions of unpleasant sounds and help inform the acoustics industry.

He said: "I am driven by a scientific curiosity about why people shudder at certain sounds and not others. We are pre-programmed to be repulsed by horrible things such as vomiting, as it is fundamental to staying alive to avoid nasty stuff but, interestingly, the voting patterns from the sound did not match expectation for a pure 'disgust' reaction.

"Similarly, the sound of fingernails down a blackboard has been compared to the warning cries of monkeys — again, something that humans might instinctively respond to because of our ancestry. So we examined whether the voting patterns for the scraping sounds were consistent with an evolved response. But only for the worst scraping sound were the results consistent with the hypothesis of an evolved response."

One of Trevor's discoveries was that females rated 25 out of the 34 sounds more horrible than males. However, baby cries were one of the few sounds males found worse than females. He said: "This may be because women play a role in protecting both themselves and their offspring from attack. It could be that females have become habituated to the sound of babies crying."

Trevor, who is now planning a similar experiment to rate the most pleasant sound in the world, is hoping to use the results of the BadVibes project to help inform industry about how to engineer sounds which are more pleasant.

He said: "This research has been fascinating in gaining an insight into why people are repulsed by certain sounds — and how this differs by gender, age and nationality. This is so important because noise significantly affects our quality of life."

www.sound101.org/