Here in Northeastern Pennsylvania, we don’t often mourn the waning days of summer. From early June to late August, our forests and fields are a stark green, blossoming with life – but the summer months in PA are also...
Author - JJ
JJ
“Intelligent” machinery threatens to take the manufacturing jobs of millions – and “experts” believe this to be a good thing
If you’ve stepped inside a modern manufacturing plant, you have probably witnessed, first-hand, the brilliance of industrial machinery. For whatever reason, it’s a million-times more pleasing to watch a machine fasten a...
How nanorobotics seek to extend the human life-span.
The field of study is known as nanorobotics. Science-fiction authors have long theorized the potential of these types of machines – i.e. microscopic yet incredibly complex – in terms of their application in modern...
Petroleum Product of the Week: Jelly Beans
Jelly beans are a pretty divisive candy. Some love them – and others just really hate the licorice ones. There are so many possible options in a freshly-opened bag of jelly beans that it almost obstructs the...
Who really invented the wheel? (And what took us so long?)
As a nation, we’ve all grown way too accustomed to the presence of the wheel. Still, it makes sense; for us, wheels are just ordinary – and while many may erroneously believe that it took the above-average craftiness of...
Top 5 Iconic Rides from modern Hollywood Films and their Famous (or infamous) Drivers
There’s been a lot of cool movies, a lot of cool cars, and a lot of cool actors driving cool cars. We’ve seen endless lists of all the classics; whether its Connery’s Aston Martin or Steve...
Pennsylvania once provided 1/3 of the world’s oil. The result? 200,000 abandoned and explosive oil wells.
In March of 1848, a Mormon merchant named Samuel Brannan confirmed the discovery of vast amounts of gold buried in the mountainous lands of Northern California to the unwitting San Francisco Bay Area public. Brannan had...
Petroleum Product of the Week: Plastic Bags
There was once a drawer in your kitchen that served a higher purpose. It held forks, knives, and spoons – or pens, wrenches, and screwdrivers: generally anything small enough to fall within its strict 4-inch height...
How old is crude oil? And where did it really come from?
Our world burns 3,570,000,000 gallons of crude oil per day. To put this in perspective, we can say that this amount could fill roughly 265,000 average-sized swimming pools. Not clear enough? Imagine the immense amount...
How America helped create the trillion-dollar Saudi Arabian Oil Industry
September 1933, a few miles inland from the Persian Gulf, near Jubail, Saudi Arabia. Two American geologists lag behind a small band of Bedouin nomads, their camels noiselessly marching along the dunes of the Eastern...