The World's Deepest Drill To Tickle Earth's Mantle [Drills]

The Chikyu research vessel is already the world's deepest drill, probing nearly 3000 feet beneath the ocean floor. But scientists hope to add another mile to the machine by 2013, allowing it to pierce Earth's mantle for the first time.

PopSci has a look at how the massive drill operates and what it will take to reach Earth's mantle, where scientists expect to find the elements and organisms that were present at our planet's early stages.

Transponders on the ocean floor keep the drill on target as it snakes its way down, with six computer-controlled propellers keeping it from drifting off course. Pipes are added one by one to extend the length of the drill, and synthetic mud is pumped down to the tip to keep it cool and to fortify it against the crushing pressure found at those depths. All the while, 30 foot-long samples of rock are collected and analyzed for various properties.

PopSci has more details on how the Chikyu operates and the measures researchers take to make sure it holds up under the extreme pressure and heat it encounters. It might not be quite as Jules Verne envisioned it, but, piece by piece, this crazy drill is on a journey to the center of the Earth.
[Gizmodo via PopSci]

An Underground Nuclear Reactor Powered by Bill Gates' Money [Nuclear Power]

A unit of Intellectual Ventures—the patent firm started by ex-Microsoft chief tech dude Nathan Myhrvold and funded partly by Bill Gates—called TerraPower is talking with Toshiba about using its nuclear reactor tech to build underground reactors.

Their reactor tech supposedly can 'run for decades on depleted uranium without refueling or removing spent fuel from the device.' So, these reactors are built way, way underground, without people actually working in them. Of course, these safer, cheaper and awesomer reactors are years and years away from actually being developed.

Still, Bill Gates + nuclear power sounds kind of nerdsexy, maybe more so than the nigh-mythical Bloom Box, even if you're ambivalent about what Intellectual Ventures actually does (just Google—or Bing—"Intellectual Ventures patent troll"). And, hopefully, we won't see any blue smoke screens coming out of windows in the ground.
[Gizmodo via WSJ, Image via bibliodyssey/Flickr]

Newly Discovered Hole On Moon Leads To Network Of Tubes [Space]

Images have revealed a hole on the Moon's surface that is at least 260 feet deep and may lead to an underground tunnel more than 1,200 feet wide which is part of an entire network of such winding tubes.
Scientists are hoping for clearer shots from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, but the impression so far is that such a tunnel network could provide shelter for astronauts or potential future Moon colonists.
I just plain wonder if they could combine it with the recent discovery of water for one kickass underground waterpark.
[Gizmodo via New Scientist via Pop Sci]