Latest news with #VirginiaTech
New York Times
3 hours ago
- Health
- New York Times
Do I Really Need an Air Purifier?
The air we breathe isn't always clean and refreshing. Nearly half of Americans, or roughly 156 million people, are living with unsafe levels of air pollution, the American Lung Association found in April. And about a quarter, or 81 million, have seasonal allergic reactions to pollen from trees, grasses and weeds, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Air purifiers can help in many cases. But does everyone need to have this gadget? Take a deep breath and read on. What to look for Air purifiers vary in size, from sleek desktop models to larger units that resemble portable heaters. But they all work in pretty much the same way. The machine pulls in air, which then passes through a filter. 'It's the same material that's in masks,' said Linsey C. Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech. 'The filters have very small fibers and small spaces in between them, so the particles have a tough time getting through that, and they end up getting trapped.' The most effective filters have what's called high-efficiency particulate air certification. Better known as HEPA filters, they can capture up to 99.97 percent of common particle pollutants like mold, dust, pet dander, pollen and smoke. Air purifiers are also rated by their clean air delivery rate, or CADR, which is based on how much air they can move per minute. 'The higher the CADR, the more particles the air cleaner can filter and the larger the area it can serve,' according to an air purifier guide from the Environmental Protection Agency. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Miami Herald
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Virginia Tech Football Preview 2025: Can Brent Pry Finally Make the Hokies Contenders?
It's not that the Brent Pry era has been bad, and it's not even that it's been disappointing. It's that it's been, to put it into technical terms ...Blah. Beating arch-rival Virginia two years in a row was nice - the 2022 game was cancelled due to the tragic events that ended the Cavaliers' season - and getting to bowl games over the last two years was fine, but it's possible to do so much more with this football program. X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN Virginia Tech Offense BreakdownVirginia Tech Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season It's never easy when you're trying to live up to the impossible standards of a dogging Virginia Tech in any way, but it's not Alabama, or Florida State, or Texas, or Ohio State, and yet Frank Beamer was a double-digit win machine for so long that it became Fuente was able to keep the success going for a while, but things started to slip, 2020 was a problem, and now Virginia Tech is on a run of four losing seasons in the last five years - the first such run since 1970 to 1974 - and now that's starting to seem routine. Pry has tried rebuilding, and he's doing a decent job of bringing in the talent, but there hasn't been a whole lot of luck, and there's been less early success. Virginia Tech needs to do two things. 1) Start better, and 2 beat the mid non-ACC power is now 0-6 against non-conference Power Four teams, and it's not like his guys had to deal with Michigan and Georgia, losing to Vanderbilt, Minnesota, Purdue, West Virginia, and twice to Rutgers. And because of that, the Hokies have had a hard time getting off the launching pad. It's hard to matter when you're all but out of contention for anything fun before October Hokies began last year with a 2-3 September - but to be fair, they were totally hosed in the Miami loss - started 2-3 in September of 2023, and 2-2 before October in 2022. And after that, the conference seasons haven't been much the last three seasons they're 10-13 in the ACC, the program has suffered four losing seasons in the last five, and ... Pry is trying to fix that in a big hurry. The Hokies aren't getting rocked. Five of the six regular season losses last year were by one score, they hung tough with Clemson, and a few injury issues and inconsistencies didn't close. Pry did a nice job in the transfer portal, the coaching staff has been changed up a bit, and there isn't a game on the schedule his team can't win if things start to go the right run of losing seasons will stop here, but to do more, especially in the ACC, it's time to crank up the ... Virginia Tech Offense BreakdownVirginia Tech Defense BreakdownSeason Prediction, Win Total, Keys to Season © 2025 The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
Miami Herald
8 hours ago
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Virginia Tech Football Preview 2025: Hokies Season Prediction, Win Total Projection, Top Players
Virginia Tech Hokies Key to the Season Block did this already in the offensive section, but it really is Hokies struggled way too much to consistently get the passing game going, the third-down conversions weren't there, and the time of possession battle wasn't a plus. That all came from the problems with pass protection and tackles for loss allowed. So ... X CFN, Fiu | CFN Facebook | Bluesky Fiu, CFN2025 Virginia Tech PreviewVirginia Tech Offense BreakdownVirginia Tech Defense Breakdown Virginia Tech Hokies Key Player Lucas Austin, OT someone to dominate at a tackle spot. Xavier Chaplin was one of the top players in the transfer portal - more on that in a moment - and he needs to be replaced at left tackle. It'll take fall camp to figure it out, but if Austin plays like he's supposed to after coming over from West Virginia, this becomes a far easier puzzle to put together, helped by ... Virginia Tech Hokies Top Transfer, Biggest Transfer Loss Top Transfer In: Thomas Rimac, OG be way too basic about it, Virginia Tech horked a slew of good West Virginia linemen who took off rather than be a part of the Rich Rodriguez offensive style. Also, the Hokies had an offensive line that needed fixing. The 6-6, 317-pound Rimac is a two-time All-Big 12 Honorable Mention guard who'll step right Transfer Out: Xavier Chaplin, OT was sort of an odd thing. The Virginia Tech pass protection wasn't good, the running game wasn't strong enough, but the line had a few star talents to work around. The 6-7, 338-pound Chaplin was an all-star at left tackle with the NFL size and skills. Now he'll be a key part of the Auburn offense. Virginia Tech Hokies Key Game at North Carolina State, Sept. 27Virginia Tech beat NC State 11-6 early in the 1902 season, and overall, it's been able to take its share of wins, but the Wolfpack have won the last two in 2022 and 2023. This year it's the ACC opener, and with nasty road games ahead against Georgia Tech and Florida State, picking off an away date right away is a must.- 2025 Virginia Tech Schedule Breakdown Virginia Tech Hokies Top 10 Players 1. Jaden Keller, LB Sr.2. Kyron Drones, QB Sr.3. Caleb Woodson, LB Jr.4. Ben Bell, DE Sr.5. Terion Stewart, RB Sr.6. Kyle Altuner, C RFr.7. Ayden Greene, WR Jr.8. Arias Nash, DT Sr.9. Thomas Rimac, OG Sr.10. Christian Ellis, S Sr. Virginia Tech Hokies 2024 Fun Stats - Total Offense: Virginia Tech 4,781 yards, Opponents 4,719 yards- 4th Quarter Scoring: Virginia Tech 120, Opponents 63- Rushing Yards Per Carry: Virginia Tech 4.7, Opponents 3.9 Virginia Tech Hokies 2025 Season Prediction, Win Total, What Will Happen It's not a totally unmanageable schedule, but it'll take several big breaks to come up with something SMU, Pitt, and a don't-laugh-but-really nasty Duke off the slate. It's not right in any way that the Wolfpack don't play North Caroline, but that's for another time. The Hokies also miss the Notre Dame part-time ACC thing, if Florida State and NC State play like they did last season, the road games are a relative breeze with three of the four in the ACC against teams that finished with losing records, and the other against Georgia Tech. But NC State will be better, and so will Florida State. However, the Hokies only leave Virginia once after October 11th, the opener against South Carolina is in Atlanta, the Vanderbilt game is at home, and there isn't any one date on the slate that's a 100% sure-thing no-chance least for now, though, there are too many 50/50 games that lean loss. It'll be a bowl season, but everything has to work perfectly for anything The Virginia Tech Win Total At … 6.5Likely Wins: Old Dominion, Wofford50/50 Games: Cal, at Florida State, at Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, at NC State, South Carolina (in Atlanta), Vanderbilt, at Virginia, Wake ForestLikely Losses: No Projected Sure-Thing Losses 2025 Virginia Tech PreviewVirginia Tech Offense BreakdownVirginia Tech Defense Breakdown © 2025 The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
Forbes
2 days ago
- Climate
- Forbes
OTUS Project Collects Critical Surface Wind Data Inside Of Tornadoes
Footage filmed by an OTUS drone as it nears the cone of a tornado near Arnett, Oklahoma, May 18, 2025. Photo courtesy of OTUS As any seasoned storm chaser or meteorologist will tell you, the business of predicting tornadoes, while better than in the past, is still largely hit or miss. Supercells, the massive cloud structures that produce twisters, can have all of the traditional weather ingredients required to drop a tornado, but it doesn't happen. At other times, conditions may be less than perfect, and a tornado will suddenly appear. This anomaly, of course, makes it difficult to, in a timely manner, send tornado warnings out to alert the public as to when to shelter. Part of the problem, says Louis Tucker, a recent business/engineering graduate of Virginia Tech, is that tornadic winds close to the ground are difficult to measure, and therefore aren't fully understood. Radar can measure fairly accurately wind speed and direction higher up, say, above 200 hundred feet. But that doesn't tell the story of what's going on at the surface, the area of a tornado that's most damaging to humans and their dwellings. What to do? With brother Nelson, Louis devised a system whereby special drones with three-dimensional wind sensors can be flown near, or even into, the cones of tornadoes to take such critical measurements close to the ground. Louis Tucker piloting his OTUS drone near Higgins, Oklahoma, May 18, 2025. Courtesy of OTUS Louis is a crack drone racer. He won the National Collegiate Drone Racing Championship in 2023. Brother Nelson is a tornado fanatic studying meteorology at Millersville University in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who can recite the history of epic twisters going all the way back to the early 1900s - the locations of, and the damage they've done. Put the two siblings together and voila, you have OTUS, Observation Of Tornadoes By UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) Systems. With the help of veteran storm chaser Erik Fox, and aerospace engineer Tanner Beard, OTUS was born in 2024. The group chased with their special drones for two weeks last May with the goal of intercepting a twister or two to prove their concept, and to secure funding. They did penetrate a twister in Duke, Oklahoma, gathering valuable data, and, as a result score some initial public funding. But recent budget cuts to NOAA and government weather services took away most of that. Undaunted, this past spring the group found and penetrated a half-dozen tornadoes. One, the Spiritwood, North Dakota, wedge earlier this month, was rated at least EF-3 (ratings go from EF-o to EF-5), quite a monster. Speaking of ratings, another benefit to Tucker's research is to help revamp the controversial EF system. Today, a rating is based on damage a tornado does versus its actual wind speeds. So you can have a violent tornado rated less than it should be just because it travels through a non-populated area - and vice versa. The ability to measure surface wind speeds will help with that. The OTUS team (L-R): Erik Fox, Louis Tucker, Tanner Beard, Nelson Tucker. Courtesy of OTUS Tucker estimates that his group has put more than $25,000 of their own money into OTUS. A documentary filmed this past spring, produced by Paradigm Films, is in the works and due out next year. And a detailed report on OTUS surface wind data gathered this year, now being calculated and reviewed, will be out this summer. Hopefully, the report and documentary will help attract more private and public funding, Tucker says. By the way, the video footage OTUS has amassed from near and inside of funnels is stunning (links below), something never seen before. As such, we're going to keep an eye on Tucker and his crew, perhaps even chase with them for an immersive experience. So stay tuned. This is Part 1 of a multi-part series.
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Patriots make decision to cut rookie ahead of training camp
The New England Patriots announced their decision to release undrafted rookie defensive tackle Wilfried Pene on Thursday. It's a move that comes a little under a month before the players are scheduled to report to training camp. Pene, a former defensive player for Virginia Tech, was part of the NFL's International Player Pathway program. He participated in OTAs and minicamp for the Patriots over the spring. During his run with the Hokies, he tallied 73 total tackles and five sacks over a span of 47 games. He appeared in 13 games and finished with 33 tackles and 3.5 sacks in his final year at Virginia Tech. The Patriots have improved significantly along the defensive front with the team signing Milton Williams and Khyiris Tonga in free agency. They also spent a fourth-round pick on Florida State defensive tackle Joshua Farmer in the 2025 NFL draft. Making the roster was always going to be an uphill battle for Pene, who will now have an opportunity to land on his feet elsewhere. Follow Patriots Wire on Twitter and Facebook.
