08/09/10 - Gasoline From Thin Air
"An enzyme found in the roots of soybeans could be the key to cars that run on air. If perfected, the tech could lead to cars partially powered on their own fumes. Even further into the future, vehicles could draw fuel from the air itself. Quoting: 'The new enzyme can only make two and three carbon chains, not the longer strands that make up liquid gasoline. However, Ribbe thinks he can modify the enzyme so it could produce gasoline. ... [Perfecting this process] won't happen anytime soon... "It's very, very difficult," to extract the vanadium nitrogenase, said Ribbe.' - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Time travel using Wormholes
Russian physicists seriously believe that the Large Hadron Collider can be used for time travel. However, it will only happen when it starts working at full capacity and stops breaking down. This sensational proposal was made by two doctors of physical and mathematical sciences, Professors of Institute of Mathematics named after Steklov, Irina Arefyeva and Igor Volovich. “Modern principles of theoretical mathematical physics allow the possibility of time travel,” explains Volovich, a member of RAS. “One of the admissible models of working time machine is the so-called wormhole, that is, a space-time tunnel leading to another time or space. And the probability of formation of a wormhole in the LHC is comparable to the probability of occurrence of the black hole itself, which can occur when particles collide with high energy. Since the LHC is designed, figuratively speaking, to create a part of space on Earth, then it can be used to obtain dark energy. This is also an important detail of creating the miracle machine. Another necessary condition for making the machine work is to distort space and time so it closes up in a ring. And the LHC is quite capable of that. “This phenomenon in physics is called “closed time-like curve,” explains Professor Arefyeva. “It allows, at least theoretically, returning to the past.” “Is it possible to have a paradox described by Bradbury, when a traveler caught in the past accidentally steps on a butterfly, which results in coming to power of a different president in his time? “ “We expected such issues,” says professor Volovich. “We came to this conclusion: time travel may change the course of history, but not very significantly.” To make time machine the reality, the scientists stress the need for the LHC to reach at least the design capacity (now it is working at half capacity) and stop breaking down. “So far, our biggest home is that the LHC will demonstrate the existence of wormhole. If some of the collision energy in the collider disappears, this can be explained by the creation of particles that pierce time through wormholes.” - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Patent Backlog Frustrates Inventors
New Products Could Jumpstart an Economic Recovery but U.S. Patent Office Hampered by Inability to Adjust Fees. Since the federal patent agency was created in 1790, the U.S Patent and Trademark Office has issued 7,752,677 patents. And following many of those patents are jobs, especially when the venture capital kicks in. "Every innovation comes through this agency on the way to creating a business, whether it's the light bulb, whether it's the laser, whether it's the iPod," USPTO Director David Kappos tells CBS News. However, the current wait for a patent is, on average, three years, or 36 months. The "in box" at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is stuffed with 700,000 applications awaiting review. Ultimately, only 4 out of ten applications, or 42 percent, are approved. "The backlog is indeed our biggest problem," Kappos concedes. "It represents innovations trapped in this agency that otherwise could be creating jobs." Kappos, who was appointed to his post a year ago after working 26 years at IBM, aims to cut the wait time to 20 months and the backlog in half over the next five years. But to achieve those goals, Kappos says, he needs more money to hire 1,200 additional patent examiners and upgrade the agency's computer systems. "We currently have systems that are not as capable as they need to be -- they're certainly not state of the art. As a result, our examiners are handicapped," Kappos says. Like a handful of government agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Housing Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, USPTO is self-financed. It charges $1,000 to file for a patent, but little guys like DeBelardino get a 50 percent discount, paying only $500. Patents, of course, and the licensing fees they generate, can be worth millions or even billions of dollars. "We vastly undercharge for most of the services we perform," Kappos says. Many established companies, which consider patent fees a bargain, and are frustrated by the backlog, are willing to pay more. "Several thousand dollars actually, as far as patent cost to us, is relatively immaterial," Hank Nothhaft, CEO of Tessera Technologies, tells CBS News. Congress sets the fees charged by the patent office. The legislative branch also does not permit the patent office keep all $2 billion in its annual revenue, by diverting $200 million dollars a year for other federal budget items. "We very much want that money," Kappos says. "It would be enough to begin the turnaround of the agency immediately." Legislation that would end fee diversion and empower USPTO to adjust its own fees, as well as other reforms, is working its way through Congress. A bill sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has passed his Judiciary Committee but has not come to the Senate floor for debate. The agency has secured an additional $129 million appropriation from Census money that wasn't used this year. Both the Census and USPTO are in the Commerce Department. Unless Congress acts to end fee diversion, USPTO will face a revenue shortfall next year. To lessen the backlog, the patent office is experimenting with a “fast track” review process for inventions with an environmental streak. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Unlocking the Savant Brain In All Of Us
Snyder uses magnetic stimulation to unlock savant skills in average individuals. What if you had perfect pitch, a photographic memory, and astounding artistic ability? Allan Snyder thinks you already do. Snyder is the director of the Centre for the Mind at the University of Sydney and for years he’s been studying how the mind processes information. Certain individuals, often called savants, demonstrate amazing abilities: near total recall of memories, the ability to count a large number of items simply by glancing at them (numerosity), incredible musical talent, etc. Savants display these cognitive feats while often suffering from a neural disorder like Autism. As described in his publication in The Royal Society, Snyder believes that these abilities arise as Autism (or other phenomenon) grants the individual ‘privileged access’ to data that would normally be overridden in the brain. With magnetic pulses, Snyder has even been able to temporarily ‘unlock’ savant-like abilities in average people! There’s a chance that everyone could one day have access to this kind of hidden potential in their minds. / ver several years, he and other researchers have used repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to interfere with the neurons in the left anterior temporal lobe. The bundled the rTMS device into a hat that could be worn while patients performed different tasks. Dubbed the ‘thinking cap’ by some, it effectively shut down the left hemisphere of the brain with magnetic fields. The results are interesting. Snyder has been able to induce the ability to draw as the eye sees (even without artistic training). He’s seen improved memory, better ability to notice typos/grammar mistakes, and improved numerosity. The latter has some of the clearest results (as published in Perception, 2006). Patients shown a random number of dots on a computer screen for a brief period of time are asked to give the number of dots shown. Immediately after rTMS treatment, 10 out of 12 patients saw improvements. 8 out of these 12 saw that improvement disappear an hour after rTMS stopped. In other words, savant skills seem to appear and then slowly fade away after rTMS. A placebo treatment did not induce the same results – something is clearly going on here. In 2008, the FDA approved NeuroStar from Neuronetics, a TMS treatment device for depression. Put on an electromagnet, mess with your brain for a while and you might see improvements in your mood. Sounds crazy, but it seems to work in some cases. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Slit pupils help snakes ambush their prey
Richard Shine and Francois Brischoux at the University of Sydney, Australia, scoured the literature and found that vertical pupils on most animals become round in low light. This went against the common theory that vertical pupils evolved to give animal's night vision. The slim, vertical pupil probably helps ambush hunters stalk prey at night by making objects at a distance from the snake's hideout appear sharper, says Brischoux. Just like a smaller aperture on a camera lens, a smaller pupil creates a deeper field of focus. The downside, however, is that it lets less light in. Vertical pupils are smaller in the horizontal plane only, meaning they offer a greater depth of field in the horizontal plane but still let enough light into the eye for night vision. Seeing a wide horizontal field in focus may help a snake waiting to ambush prey because it stops them having to move forward to see prey in focus – and risk giving away their position. Brischoux suggests vertical pupils might also assist with camouflage by mimicking surrounding grasses. According to Shine, the relationship between pupil shape and hunting technique is likely to apply to other animals with vertical pupils too, such as many cats and foxes. For example, the red fox is an ambush forager with vertical slit pupils, whereas the grey wolf is an active forager with round pupils. "Everyone's been comfortable with the one explanation for vertical pupils," says. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Graphene stress produces gigantic pseudo-magnetic fields
Researchers have reported the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory - just by putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene (a sheet made from a single layer of carbon atoms). "We have shown experimentally that when graphene is stretched to form nanobubbles on a platinum substrate, electrons behave as if they were subject to magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla, even though no magnetic field has actually been applied," says Michael Crommie, from Berkeley National Laboratory. "This is a completely new physical effect that has no counterpart in any other condensed matter system." Previously, it was difficult to sustain tremendously strong magnetic fields in a laboratory setting. The current record is 85 tesla for a field that lasts only thousandths of a second. When stronger fields are created, the magnets blow themselves apart. The ability to make electrons behave as if they were in magnetic fields of 300 tesla or more - just by stretching graphene - offers a new window on fundamental science made possible by graphene's electronic behavior, which is unlike any other material's. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Make Microwave Popcorn Using a Simple Brown Paper Bag
If you’ve been buying microwave popcorn because of the convenience—or a belief that the bag has special popcorn enhancing powers—you’ll want to check out this incredibly inexpensive way to make microwave popcorn at a sixth the cost of commercial bags.The writers at Squawkfox, a frugality-centered blog, were shocked when they did the math on how much they were paying for the convenience of pre-bagged popcorn. When they crunched the numbers they realized they were paying over $3.50 a pound for popcorn versus $0.50 for a raw pound of popcorn. What do you get for the extra three bucks? A whole lot of fancy packaging and a whole lot of questionable ingredients…. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - US target practice: the $57m Aussie fall guys
The Rover robots, the first such "smart targets" to be adopted for training exercises by the US military, are armoured autonomous robots that look, move and behave like real people. Australian troops are already using them for training. Teams of the robots can execute complex pre-planned scenarios and are intelligent enough to scatter and run for cover when a buddy robot is shot. The robots, which weigh 150 kilograms, are based on the Segway platform. They do not need to be controlled with a joystick and can accelerate at up to 12.6km/h. They use GPS and a scanning laser range-finder for navigation, positioning and obstacle detection and avoidance. The robots are networked so they can be monitored and given commands remotely. Rover was developed in conjunction with the Department of Defence and with support from the federal and NSW governments. Brooks would not say how much each robot costs. The robots can be used for scenarios including sniper training, hostage rescue, escalation-of-force decision-making and executive protection. The mannequin on top drops back when hit and is made from durable plastic so can withstand hundreds of shots. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Living Forever: Is It Really Worth It?
One way to define ageing is an increased chance of dying as time progresses as a result of cumulative natural changes and degradation of the body. Therefore a cure for ageing wouldn’t simply be a cure for all of the most common diseases associated with old age, such as cancer, heart disease and so on, but rather a cure for the underlying cause of the body being more susceptible to those diseases. Even if we could cure cancer or heart disease, the disease itself may not kill you, but something else would, as the body would still have accumulated years of stress and damage making it increasingly more likely to fail. Instead, a cure for ageing itself would mean prevention (and even reversal) of the ageing process, ensuring a state of perpetual youth for those that partake. The primary concern that springs to the mind of most people when the topic of curing old age is discussed is overpopulation. Already, the population is growing exponentially, even when the majority of people are dying before they reach 100. If people are living for double that amount of time and reproduction continues at its current rate, surely we will run out of room sooner than if people were dying before 100? It follows then, that we would exhaust that same amount of habitable space even quicker should life expectancy be increased further, to say 500 or in the thousands, provided that the rate of childbirth remained the same. This idea of cramped living conditions conjures up an image of Victorian style slums or today’s “High Density Living” solution to the same problem in Hong Kong, where the concept of your own space outside has almost disappeared. / Controlling Birth Rate / Equality & Prejudice / Dying Peacefully - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Candied Corpses, And 87 Other Ancient Innovations
Who knew Alexander the Great was such a sweet guy? Before the Macedonian conqueror passed away, he left detailed funeral instructions, including — among other things — that he be embalmed in honey through a process known as "mellification." This is just one of the tidbits included in classical historian Vicki Leon's new book, How to Mellify a Corpse: And Other Human Stories of Ancient Science & Superstition. Leon chronicles 88 tales of Greek genius and Roman know-how, exploring the many remedies, precautions and inventions classical people dreamed up in order to make life a little easier. As it turns out, some of those remedies have serious staying power. Take mellification, for example: "It preserves tissue very well, and in fact has some particular uses and benefits for burn victims," Leon tells NPR's Liane Hansen. The ancients came up with countless ways to use honey — Leon says that the Egyptians had at least 900 remedies involving the sticky stuff. And since Greeks and Romans had no qualms with stealing the recipes of their neighbors to the south, "they had a number of them as well." These included the method of using "mad honey" to vanquish enemies. As Leon explains, "When bees gather nectar for honey, if they happen to be in an area where there are laurel and rhododendron, the nectar — the honey — is somewhat toxic." This "mad honey" has an intoxicating effect on anyone unfortunate enough to ingest it. Several Greek armies, she says, were felled after mistakenly chowing down on the mad honey that enemies had planted in their paths. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Invention could reduce number of melanoma biopsies
Diagnosing skin cancer means cutting off a piece of skin and waiting for results. Now, a new invention could radically change how doctors find and diagnose the most common type of cancer. A machine being tested at Vanderbilt University could make skin biopsies obsolete. A laser illuminates the structure of the skin at the cellular level. "It allows us to see the different layers of the skin," said Dr. Ellis. It scans the chemical analysis of the skin and compares it to a database of known cancers. It could get a patient results in minutes, which could mean years. As many as 80 percent of biopsies come back negative, according to the American Cancer Society. Using this machine could significantly reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Why cell phone are an anti-social invention
As cell phones began to have more and more of the home computer's features, plus the inception of texting and wireless internet, the ability to isolate from others has become mobile and pernicious. Why should a person who is shopping in a supermarket care about a person's cell phone use when they, themselves never even return a stranger's smile or friendly "hello"? What would cause a person who is not friendly towards, or who does not even know the individual, have problems when the same person is using their mobile device? In other words, some people gripe if they even look 30 feet away to see a total stranger using a cell phone, and that is unreasonable. In some cases, the person without the cell phone is the antisocial entity. Some people are just difficult and cell phones are not to blame. The needy neighbor who cannot stop talking and let a person move on to do their chores; the rude and aggressive acquaintance who never fails to slip in a hurtful or nasty personal attack; the nosy and aggressive gossip who is only interested in interrogating about the latest in a person's life, are examples of people who are just asking for a cell phone to come between them and their intended victims! In the opposite direction, a person is in an unhealthy phase of obsessive and constant cell phone use. This may be caused by the newness of the device or by an emotional problem that makes them use the cell phone to isolate from others who surround them. Or, it might be that the increasing use of the cell phone by everyone else causes the person to get one of their own. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Selling fake melted food as a seat saver

- Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Court Rejects Warrantless GPS Tracking
"The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today firmly rejected government claims that federal agents have an unfettered right to install Global Positioning System (GPS) location-tracking devices on anyone's car without a search warrant. ... The court agreed that such round-the-clock surveillance required a search warrant based on probable cause. ...the court noted: 'When it comes to privacy... the whole may be more revealing than its parts.'" - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - DIY Air Quality Balloons
"A few students at Carnegie Mellon University outfitted weather balloons with air quality sensors, resulting in huge glowing balloons that respond to surrounding air quality. Their Instructables page shows that pretty much anyone can make these using a PIC, a tri-colored LED, and some off-the-shelf air quality sensors (about $10 each): 'This Instructable will show you how to make giant, super cool, glowing balloons that react to surrounding air quality. Inside each balloon is a tri-colored LED. This LED reacts to data from an air quality sensor, turning green, yellow or red based on low, average, and high values.'" - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Genetically Modified Canola Spreads To Wild Plants
"A research team conducting a survey has found that about 86% of wild canola plants in North Dakota have genetically modified genes in them, and 'two samples contained multiple genes from different species of genetically modified plants.' Canola usually has little competition when cultivated but does not fare well in the wild. The Roundup Ready and Liberty Link strains of genetically modified canola appear to be crossing over to wild plants and helping it survive. The University of Arkansas team claims that the ease in which genetically modified canola has 'escaped' into the wild should be noted by seed makers like Monsanto because this is proof that it will happen." - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Forget University — Use the Web For Education, Says Gates
"Bill Gates attended the Techonomy conference earlier this week, and had quite a bold statement to make about the future of education. He believes the Web is where people will be learning within a few years, not colleges and university. During his chat, he said, 'Five years from now on the web for free you'll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university.'" Of course, the efficacy of online learning is still in question; some studies have shown a measurable benefit to being physically present in a classroom. Still, online education can clearly reach a much wider range of students. Reader nbauman sent in a related story about MIT's OpenCourseWare, which is finding success in unexpected ways: "50% of visitors self-identified as independent learners unaffiliated with a university." The article also mentions a situation in which a pair of Haitian natives used OCW to get the electrical engineering knowledge they needed to build solar-powered lights that have been deployed in many remote towns and villages. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Virtual walkers lead the way for robots
While animated characters stroll along quite happily, they rarely look human when they do. That's because the many joints of a human body can move in multiple directions, creating a bewildering array of potential poses. Marshalling them to make a humanoid walk is no simple matter. "It's like driving a car with 50 steering wheels," says Michiel van de Panne, a computer animation researcher at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, who is one of many trying a new approach to giving robots and video game characters more realistic gaits. The process begins with a population of virtual skeletons controlled by a network of virtual nerves. Each skeleton has a slightly different network, affecting its ability to walk. Those that can walk furthest are declared "most fit" and are used to spawn the next generation, in which a subset of the nerves are slightly altered. Over several generations the skeletons automatically "evolve" into better walkers. The firm's animations appear in many computer games and movies. However, because the NaturalMotion control system self-evolves, it's not clear how it works, which might cause engineers to pause for thought before applying it to an expensive robot. - Full Article Source

08/09/10 - Highly Directional Terahertz Laser Demonstrated
"A new paper published this week in the journal Nature Materials announces a successful demonstration of highly directional terahertz semiconductor lasers. You might not think it's a big deal that some Harvard and University of Leeds researchers (funded partially by the US Air Force) figured out how to better direct lasers; but this means the ability to see what's in someone's pockets and clothing, at a distance of possibly hundreds of meters, or farther. The big benefit is that they are lower in energy than X-Rays and are less invasive, since they cannot pass through water or metal. Coming soon to an airport near you or buzzing around on board a drone in civilian airspace?" - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Eliot's famous resident never took credit for his inventions
Inventor Moses G. Farmer, who is a household name throughout the region and whose legacy lives in the memories of many of the town's citizens. "He's an icon that Eliot people like to brag about," said former girls basketball coach Bob Perham, standing outside of his house, which he says once was used by Farmer. "It was his carriage shed and workshop," Perham said. "This is where he invented the light bulb." "Edison took credit for (the light bulb) because Moses Farmer worked for him," Perham said. Farmer also invented the Boston fire alarm — the one where you break the glass — and the self-exciting dynamo, an electrical generator which was used on street cars, Perham said.

08/06/10 - Is There An Ether? (Jun, 1930)
The word “ether” comes down to us from the Greeks, but with their concept we have little interest. The “divine ether” to which Prometheus made his impassioned appeal was merely the rarefied upper air. The ether of physics dates from the time of Newton, who, like all the natural philosophers of his day, was greatly-puzzled by the fact of apparent action at a distance. The full force of this was first felt when Newton showed that the earth’s gravitative action extended to the distance of the moon. The question then presented itself: “Can a body act where it is not?” And the universal answer was: “No; it is unthinkable. There must be some connecting medium.” IN common opinion Einstein perhaps bears the blame for doing away with the ether. It is true that he asserts that there is no force of gravitation between the earth and the sun, and therefore it would seem that there need be no medium to serve as the physical basis for such an attraction; but the circular orbit of the earth must be accounted for,... Schrodinger assumes a filling material in space, a universal electric plenum which in vibration constitutes matter. Here we see again our old friend the ether in a new disguise. There is no escaping it. Scientific thought demands it and inventiveness supplies the demand under a different form suitable to the changed times. The ether is indeed protean in its properties, all things to all men. From the vague, imponderable medium of Newton’s day we have come by way of the tenuous jelly of the 19th Century to the curved space of Einstein and the universal electric plenum of Schrodinger. In one form or another the ether will last as long as human thinking requires it. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Giant insect rover works for us
ATHLETE, or the All Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra Terrestrial Explorer, looks pretty cool. This Hexapod is actually a pair of 3 legged robots that have joined together to haul some cargo off the top of stationary module. While this time-lapse shows it going pretty slowly, you get a hint at the end that it isn’t required to be quite so lethargic. One of the really cool things about this robot is the fact that the legs are multi purpose. It has a “tool belt” from which it can pull different attachments for its feet. There are many more videos available on their site. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Rewriting gravity over a tuna roll
Erik Verlinde's big idea is that gravity is not fundamental at all. It's just an emergent property, or side effect, of something else that's happening. Just as an elastic band will contract if it is stretched from its normal length, Verlinde reckons the universe has been pushed out of equilibrium, and that gravity is the result of it shifting back to a stable state. He published his ideas in a preprint in January (covered by New Scientist at the time), but an article on his work recently published in the New York Times has now turned Verlinde into something of a science celebrity. What pushed the universe out of equilibrium? Well, Verlinde believes that the big bang is an illusion too, and that (if I have understood correctly) the universe's expansion is just another sign of space-time returning to its stable state. And in a steady-state universe that lasts forever, such spontaneous jumps away from equilibrium are bound to occur eventually (this is a bit like the argument that says that if a table were to exist for an infinite amount of time, eventually there is bound to occur a chance event in which all of its atoms jump into the air at once). So far all this is just an "intuition", Verlinde says. Now he needs to find the mathematics to prove it. Then he shrugs and says perfectly matter-of-factly that this was how Einstein started out too. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Floating Wind Farms
The Wind Lens has the potential to triple the amount of electricity produced by offshore turbines according to experiments. Kyushu University professor Yuji Ohya spoke of the merits of the 112-meter diameter structures being able to increase energy output “two or three fold”, as well as being about to reduce the dreaded noise pollution so often associated with wind turbines, and improve safety too. The Wind Lens focuses the power of the wind to the centre of the hoop, intensifying the power in a similar way a magnifying glass does with the sun’s rays. With their unique floating hexagonal bases, the Wind Lens might also win over the many detractors of wind turbines who claim they are an ugly blight on the landscape. Ohya added: “Despite its merits, even if this technology does enter the market in Japan, it may not be easily adopted by other countries, due to differing intensities and directions of wind conditions.” - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - China to build ginormous buses that cars can drive under
The idea is to make use of the space between regular-size cars and bridges, thus saving construction costs as well as minimizing congestion impact by allowing cars to drive underneath these jumbo buses. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Solar cheaper than Nuclear
In North Carolina, nuclear energy costs 16 cents per kilowatt hour (the energy required to run 10 100-watt light bulbs for an hour), whereas solar is now going for 14 cents per kWh — a rate that continues to fall. In regions with more annual sunlight, the price gap is almost certainly even more pronounced. The data also analyzed only conventional photovoltaic power, not the concentrating technologies of troughs and reflectors, which also bring costs down. The study was developed in response to aggressive lobbying by the nuclear industry, which has tried to position itself as the most affordable way to reduce carbon emissions. The study factors in governmental subsidies for both power sources, but found that even if all subsidies were removed, solar power would still be cheaper within a decade. Read more: Solar Power Is Cheaper Than Nuclear for the First Time | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - 11 Must-see Mirror Pranks
In the minds of the most devious tricksters, even a simple mirror can become the focal point of a great prank. These hilarious videos showcase some of the best mirror-based pranks on the internet. Whether you are looking to gear up for April Fool’s Day, prank your roommate, or just make a funny YouTube video of your own, these clips are sure to inspire you. Be careful, though…breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck! - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Experiment: Can You Mine Gold From Old Motherboards?
The computer industry uses several hundred tons of gold (318 tons in 2003, for example) every year. The precious metal is found in almost all computer components--processors, motherboards, extension cards, memory DIMMs, and so on. Of course, the amounts used in each part are infinitesimal. But with the price of gold skyrocketing in recent years, it’s becoming more and more economically-viable to recover gold from old electronic and computer components than to mine it. That’s why specialized companies have sprung up to do just that. Today, we're going to show you how we recovered the gold from old motherboards using do-it-yourself methods. Please note: The chemicals used in this demonstration are extremely dangerous, especially in the concentrations used. Therefore, we strongly discourage you from attempting to reproduce this experiment at home. (Currently $1,194.01 per troy ounce) - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - How One Man Reinvented The Wheel
Seeing a Lexus with its rear tires steeply cambered by an overladen trunk, John Scott, a Wisconsin car enthusiast, had a brilliant idea. Now his concept for negatively cambered tires may literally reinvent the wheel. Scott's idea — he calls it the Camber Tire, which he submitted for patent approval in 1998 and which was approved in 1999 — is a tire built with an outer sidewall that's slightly taller than the inside sidewall. That results in a continuing decrease in the diameter across the tread surface and allows for compensation for a negatively cambered alignment setting to the wheel. When mounted on a vehicle with independent negatively cambered suspension or negatively cambered non-driven axles, his research indicates that the Camber Tire can deliver substantially improved handling, ride quality, tread wear and fuel economy. But the tires aren't just for the track. Automobile's Don Sherman, wrote for the New York Times that he drove a Lancer GSR equipped with Scott's tires and found the CamberTire-equipped Mitsubishi demonstrated shorter stopping distances, higher cornering speeds and a markedly improved ride. The tires' breakaway at the ragged edge of adhesion was more progressive and predictable than the Mitsubishi's original-equipment Yokohama radials. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Human hive-mind beats Computer
This insight comes courtesy of a game called Foldit, described as "a game a bit reminiscent of Tetris", in which players fold protein molecules - see the vid above. Proteins being the building blocks of life itself, they are very important to science - but their complex 3D structure is hard to analyse and, it now turns out, human brains can open up a can of whup-ass on the many powerful supercomputers - and distributed clusters - at work in this field. According to the researchers, humans were able to beat computers in protein problems calling for "intuitive leaps or major shifts in strategy". "It's a new kind of collective intelligence, as opposed to individual intelligence, that we want to study," according to Popovi?. "We're opening eyes in terms of how people think about human intelligence and group intelligence, and what the possibilities are when you get huge numbers of people together to solve a very hard problem.” The Foldit human hive-mind worked in cooperation with a distributed-contributed computing project, Rosetta@home. Boffins hope that by analysing Foldit players' success, they may be able to teach Rosetta how to perform the same tricks. In future, if humanity and its computer assistants can truly master the art of protein origami, it may be possible to produce such things as remedies for flu or other deadly viruses, or even more exotic technologies such as new means of energy generation, cures for cancer etc. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Mrs Brin's Medicine Show deceived customers
Companies selling DNA kits have been deceiving customers with "fictitious" and "misleading" medical advice, an undercover sting operation by Congressional watchdog the GAO has discovered. One of the companies, 23andMe, was co-founded by Mrs Sergey Brin - Anne Wojowcki - and boasts veteran Silicon Valley socialite Esther Dyson as a director. All the companies investigated have been referred to the Food and Drugs Administration and the Federal Trade Commission for "appropriate action". The GAO investigation [summary - text] titled Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Tests: Misleading Test Results Are Further Complicated by Deceptive Marketing and Other Questionable Practices sent DNA samples to four companies, and followed up with undercover calls for medical advice. The results ranged from misleading, to what the GAO found as "horrifying". Two of the companies claimed to "repair damaged DNA". The GAO castigates the companies for implying that their advice that is diagnostic. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - You can't win...

08/06/10 - A Quicker Test for Hybrid Batteries
A new way to test lithium-ion batteries could cut that time to a few weeks instead of a few years, eliminating a key bottleneck that's keeping battery costs high and storage capacities low. By accurately measuring how efficiently experimental batteries store and deliver an electrical charge, Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University can predict how many times battery cells can be charged and discharged--known as the cycle life of the battery. Dahn, a professor of physics and chemistry, is also trying to demonstrate that the method can predict how long a battery will last on the shelf--known as calendar life. Together, cycle life and calendar life determine how long a battery will be useful. They're essential for determining, for example, how big the battery pack needs to be to store the advertised amount of energy throughout the life of the car. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Filtered Water In 2 Minutes with New UV Light Bottle Invention
Most portable water filters use carbon filters, special membranes with microscopic openings, or chemicals like chlorine or iodine to clean the water and make it save for drinking. However, one of the best systems for purifying water is actually with ultraviolet light. But how do you get an ultraviolet light purification system into a small portable water bottle that can be used anywhere? Timothy Whitehead, a graduate from Loughborough University, came up with the idea for the bottle while travelling in Zambia. Rather than using chlorine or iodine tabs which take half an hour to work and leave a gross taste in the water, this new bottle first filters particles four microns or larger from the water, then uses ultraviolet light (powered by wind-up) to kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses. All within two minutes and all without altering the taste. The Pure bottle is already quite advanced in the development process, including an "original filter designed which filters any soiled water down to 4 micron in particle size (fully scientifically proven); a wind-up Ultra violet light system has been produced, including a custom designed PCB to monitor winding frequency and to give user feedback when the water is sterile. The casing has been designed for both prototype production and manufacture." - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Scientist says U.S. ignores terror patent
A New Mexico computer scientist says his invention would have stopped the Christmas Day bomber in Detroit but he can't get anybody interested in it. Rob Pecherer of Santa Fe says he has a patent on a system to integrate databases, solving the so-called connect-the-dots problem with identifying terrorists, The (Santa Fe) New Mexican reported Tuesday. Counterterrorism officials have expressed skepticism about Pecherer's system, saying the problem isn't connecting databases but rather wading through the massive amounts of data they contain to identify real from false threats. The Department of Homeland Security, the National Counterterrorism Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Santa Fe Institute have declined to talk about Pecherer's invention, the New Mexican said. "It's not that we didn't have the information," one spokeswoman said of the Abdulmutallab case. "We did. We just had so much information it got drowned in just the deluge of information." - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Saskatchewan Inventor Creates Revolutionary Wind Turbine
Glen Lux is making national headlines for designing a wind turbine that costs less that anything currently on the market. Now, what was once a pleasant pastime could become big business if Lux can attract the dollars he needs to take his innovation to the next level. In the familiar wind turbines that presently dot many hillsides, the axis of the generator is turned horizontally by an airplane-like propeller. In contrast, vertical turbines turn the axle vertically and look like an egg beater with the handle stuck in the ground. While horizontal turbines have the generator and gearbox at the top of the mast behind the propeller and rely on a computer-controlled motor to keep them turned into the wind, vertical turbines can turn in wind from any direction and house the generator and gearbox at the bottom where they are much easier and cheaper to maintain. Vertical turbines have been all but abandoned, however, because of problems inherent in the design. The blades spend half their time turning against the wind, decreasing efficiency and making for a choppy spin which wears away at the structure of the turbine. Another problem is the central mast causes turbulence for the blades downwind, resulting in further stress. Lux’s design adds additional blades for a smoother spin and replaces the central mast with a web of ultra-thin cables that keep the blades in place. That innovation is the real breakthrough, reducing cost and substantially cleaning up the airflow. “It is a very inexpensive way of extracting power from wind,” said Lux. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - FBI claims no-one may publish its seal
The FBI ordered wikipedia to remove its seal from the article there about the bureau. It threatened to litigate. Unfortunately for the FBI, the law it cited is the one that forbids making counterfeit badges, and Wikimedia's lawyers mocked them in its response. John Schwartz in the NYT: "Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal. Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau's lawyers had misquoted the law. 'While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version' that the F.B.I. had provided." The part that's hard to understand is why the FBI would seek to abuse the law in such petulant fashion, knowing that it will be subject to public ridicule for its actions. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - There I Fixed It
ThereIFixedit.com is an amusing site full of makeshift remedies to common problems. Here are some examples.

08/06/10 - Human Tests of Mind-Controlled Artificial Arm To Begin
"The world's first human testing of a mind-controlled artificial limb is ready to begin. A joint project between the Pentagon and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Modular Prosthetic Limb will be fully controlled by sensors implanted in the brain, and will even restore the sense of touch by sending electrical impulses from the limb back to the sensory cortex. Last week APL announced it had been awarded a $34.5M contract with DARPA, which will allow researchers to test the neural prosthetic in five individuals over the next two years." - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Giant Balloons Could Solve Space Junk Problem
"More than 100,000 objects bigger than a centimeter wide hover around our planet, accounting for 4 million pounds of junk that befouls our atmosphere and threatens the expensive satellites we actually want in orbit. Dr. Kristen Gates, of Global Aerospace Corporation, proposes that we can clear the skies by attaching a football field-sized balloon to dead satellites, which would increase the orbital drag, eventually bringing a satellite down into the atmosphere where it would burn up. The GOLD — or Gossamer Orbit Lowering Device — unit is easily inflated in space, and best of all, if the deployed GOLD balloon collides with space junk, it won't deflate or break the junk into smaller, less manageable bits." - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Brazil: Snow?
Does it snow in Brazil? Yes, as much as it is scorching hot in Moscow. National stereotypes mean nothing these days with sky-rocketing temperatures in Russia and negative, snow-bound, freezing scenes in…sunny Brazil? Not so sunny. Brazil spans the equator and the southern hemisphere and right now it is the depth of winter in the southern states. This week, at least 33 cities in the south of Brazil suffered snowstorms. In the photo, the city of Urubici, in the mountains of the Southern state of Santa Catarina. The minimum temperature today was minus 3.6 Celsius in Cambará do Sul (Santa Catarina) and minus 3C in Bom Jesus, Rio Grande do Sul. In Urubici, the local authorities had to provide shelters for the homeless. Rio Grande do Sul’s first snowfall occurred on Monday night. This is not special in Southern Brazil, where there is a large German-speaking population (among others) and where many mountain ranges appear more like Swiss cantons, while many people in this region speak German as a first language and Portuguese as the second language. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - The Second Age of Airships
"It's a new vehicle. It's a hybrid because we're combining helium lift, aerodynamic lift, a hovercraft landing system, and vectored thrust... If you can get beyond the word airship — because that has a lot of history — people think about them differently." - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Churchill feared panic over UFO encounter
Winston Churchill was accused of ordering a cover-up of a Second World War encounter between a UFO and a RAF bomber because he feared public "panic" and loss of faith in religion, newly released secret files disclose. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - The wonderful world of blob launching videos
What is a blob? It's a giant plastic bag filled with air, placed in a lake. What do you do with the blob? One person sits on one end the end of the blob. Another person climbs a tower and jumps onto the other end of the blob, launching the sitter into the air. What happens when two beefy guys jump onto a blob at the same time? The sitter gets launched very high in the air. - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - SpaceX Unveils Heavy-Lift Rocket Designs
"At the recent Joint Propulsion Conference, SpaceX's rocket development facility director Tom Markusic unveiled conceptual plans for how its current Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 commercial rockets can be evolved into heavy-lift rockets, ranging from a Falcon X capable of lifting 38,000kg to orbit, up to a 140,000kg Falcon XX (more than either the Saturn V or the 75,000kg shuttle-derived rocket Congress currently plans on having NASA spend >$13B building). SpaceX presentations also discuss a new Merlin 2 heavy-lift engine, solar-electric cargo tugs, adapting their current engines for descent/ascent vehicles fueled by Mars-derived methane, and a desire for the government to take the lead on in-space nuclear thermal propulsion while commercial focuses on launchers. In a recent interview, SpaceX CEO/CTO Elon Musk expressed his goal of lowering the price of Mars transportation enough to enable early colonization in 20 years, and his own plans for retiring to Mars." - Full Article Source

08/06/10 - Three examples why everyone should have a Cellphone w/camera

- Part of an eMail From my Niece

08/06/10 - Elena Kagan tied to obama's birth certificate
Just when you thought there couldn't be any more players in the ongoing soap opera over the hunt for obama's original birth certificate and his constitutional eligibility for office, there comes yet another name: Elena Kagan. Yes, the same Elena Kagan nominated by the commander in chief to be the next justice on the U.S. Supreme Court has actually been playing a role for some time in the dispute over whether obama is legally qualified to be in the White House. Here's the connection. Kagan served as solicitor general of the United States from March 2009 until May of this year. In that role, she legally represented the U.S. government in numerous cases coming before the Supreme Court. A simple search of the high court's own website reveals Kagan's name coming up at least nine times on dockets involving obama eligibility issues. The fact Kagan handled these cases and is now obama's first choice for the high court is raising some eyebrows. "She was the solicitor general for all the suits against him filed with the Supreme Court to show proof of natural-born citizenship," notes WND reader Carl Jorgensen of Farmingdale, N.J. "He owes her big time." "All of the requests were denied of course," Jorgensen continued. "They were never heard. It just keeps getting deeper and deeper, doesn't it? The American people mean nothing any longer. It's all about payback time for those that compromised themselves to elect someone that really has no true right to even be there. We should be getting so sick of all of this nonsense. The USA has finally become the laughing stock of the world. God help and deliver us." - (Just like the drug 'wars'..make drugs legal in both Mexico and the USA, all the wars stop. Are we all too stupid to learn from Prohibition??? And to finally put to rest the birth eligibility question, obama should just open all his sealed records and provide a copy of a legit birth certificate that matches others from that time. It would resolve it once and for all. - JWD) - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - This is simply HILARIOUS!
On riding buses here in Mexico, it is a sheer study in inertia! It always reminds me of the cartoon showing a ramshackle bus with people and animals hanging out of the doors and windows, bouncing around and careening round curves and up grades. Now comes this video and I can see it in a robot that is instructed to do something it cannot, maybe the old 'You cannot lie' followed by 'You just told a lie' quandary. Just watch the video, it will crack you up...JWD - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Shields up! Force fields could protect Mars missions
NASA is nervous about sending astronauts to Mars - and understandably so. Six months' exposure to the wind of high-energy particles streaming from the sun could indeed prove deadly. But a team of researchers at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) near Oxford, UK, has hit upon a phenomenon that might just solve the problem. They have shown that a magnet no wider than your thumb can deflect a stream of charged particles like those in the solar wind. It gives new life to an old idea about shielding spacecraft, and might just usher in a new era of space travel. "Space radiation has been called the only showstopper for the crewed exploration of space," says Ruth Bamford of RAL. "Our experiment demonstrates there may be a way the show can go on." The inspiration behind the idea is as old as the Earth. Life thrives on our planet because its core is a churning cauldron of molten iron. The result is our magnetosphere, the magnetic field that wraps itself around the Earth and deflects the solar wind. Without this shield some of the particles spat out by the sun would charge through our bodies, shattering the machinery of our cells. In the absence of our protective magnetic field, complex life on Earth would probably be unsustainable. Without Earth's magnetic shield, particles from the sun would shatter the machinery of our cells. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Every black hole may hold a hidden universe
WE COULD be living inside a black hole. This head-spinning idea is one cosmologist's conclusion based on a modification of Einstein's equations of general relativity that changes our picture of what happens at the core of a black hole. In an analysis of the motion of particles entering a black hole, published in March, Nikodem Poplawski of Indiana University in Bloomington showed that inside each black hole there could exist another universe (Physics Letters B, DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2010.03.029). "Maybe the huge black holes at the centre of the Milky Way and other galaxies are bridges to different universes," Poplawski says. If that is correct - and it's a big "if" - there is nothing to rule out our universe itself being inside a black hole. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - FBI access to e-mail, Web data raises privacy fear
Federal law requires communications providers to produce records in counterintelligence investigations to the FBI, which doesn't need a judge's approval and court order to get them. They can be obtained merely with the signature of a special agent in charge of any FBI field office and there is no need even for a suspicion of wrongdoing, merely that the records would be relevant in a counterintelligence or counterterrorism investigation. The person whose records the government wants doesn't even need to be a suspect. The critics say the proposed change would allow the FBI to remove federal judges and courts from scrutiny of its requests for sensitive information. "The implications of the proposal are that no court is deciding whether even that low standard of `relevance' is met," said Nojeim. "The FBI uses national security letters to find not just who the target of an investigation e-mailed, but also who those people e-mailed and who e-mailed them." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Treasure Seeker Shoes
These Treasure Seekers have the appearance of regular beach or summer wear, but have a nifty pack that straps to your leg and beeps every time your feet pass over a priceless Roman coin. There are three LEDs on the unit - green for normal (nothing detected), yellow for the slightest hint of something that might be worth digging for, and red for full-on 'pass me that spade, I'm rich beyond my wildest dreams' mode. Alternatively, if the squall of the beeping alarm is too much for you, you can always set it to vibrate instead. In truth, being discreet may well buy you precious seconds while you unearth your next treasure. When you've detected all you want to detect, you can simply unplug the detector pack and use them as normal sandals. Made of chunky black plastic, these foot-bound money-makers are durable and comfortable as well as a potential ticket to a goldmine. The actual control box stays on your calf thanks to an elasticated band, and the box itself is no more obtrusive than, say, a walkie talkie (though you'd be mad to strap a walkie talkie to your leg unless you were a contortionist). Anyway, the point is that the Treasure Seekers are a great deal easier to use than the traditional metal detectors and, if you want them to be, they'll be very discreet. Now you can combine your country walks and strolls in the surf with discovering treasure! Price: 29.99 GBP=47.6127 USD - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - GM's electric Lemon
G.M.’s vision turned into a car that costs $41,000 before relevant tax breaks ... but after billions of dollars of government loans and grants for the Volt’s development and production. And instead of the sleek coupe of 2007, it looks suspiciously similar to a Toyota Prius. It also requires premium gasoline, seats only four people (the battery runs down the center of the car, preventing a rear bench) and has less head and leg room than the $17,000 Chevrolet Cruze, which is more or less the non-electric version of the Volt. In short, the Volt appears to be exactly the kind of green-at-all-costs car that some opponents of the bailout feared the government might order G.M. to build. Unfortunately for this theory, G.M. was already committed to the Volt when it entered bankruptcy. Instead of following Toyota’s model, G.M. decided to make the Volt more affordable by offering a $350-a-month lease over 36 months. But that offer allows only 12,000 miles per year, or about 33 miles per day. Assuming you charged your Volt every evening, giving you 40 miles of battery power, and wanted to keep below the mileage limit, you would rarely use its expensive range-extending gas engine. No wonder the Volt’s main competition, the Nissan Leaf, forgoes the additional combustion engine — and ends up costing $8,000 less as a result. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - This IS His Grandfather's Bug, But Now It's Electric
With help from his father, Ashton installed nine golf cart batteries in the car and connected a single motorized shaft to the Beetle's transmission. He estimates the car can travel about 45 miles on a full charge at about 45 mph. He says the electric conversion can be applied to other cars, too. "You can convert almost any lightweight vehicle to electric," Ashton says. "VWs and Porsches work the best for electric, though." His grandfather's old Beetle holds special significance. "My grandpa would be incredibly proud of something like this." Ashton won't be able to drive his new electric Beetle for a few more days; he turns 15 today and will take the test for his learner's permit Monday. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Poor Kids More Immune to Germs (Nov, 1932)
SURPRISING facts about the numbers of Canadian school children who get germ diseases such as measles and scarlet fever were reported to the Canadian Public Health Associations. Contrary to what might have been expected, children from the better districts of the city, a survey disclosed, were found to have had more cases of the germ diseases classed as communicable than children from poorer neighborhoods. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Growing Organs and Helping Wounds Heal
A stretchy new fabric made by linking together the proteins found in muscle tissue could provide a scaffold for growing new organs. It could also be used as a coating for bandages to help wounds heal quickly and with less scarring. The fabric was made in the laboratory of Kevin Kit Parker, a professor at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Science. When the body grows new tissue, cells secrete fibronectin--a strong, stretchy type of protein that acts as a supportive scaffold. The shape and structure that fibronectin adopts directs the subsequent growth of new cells, giving the resulting tissue the correct form. Parker's team creates the fabric by depositing fibronectin molecules on top of a water-repelling polymer surface. This causes the proteins, which are normally bundled up, to unravel. Next, the protein layer is stamped onto a dissolvable, water-attracting polymer sheet on top of a piece of glass. Adding water and warming the mixture to room temperature makes the proteins link together to form the fabric. It also dissolves the polymer so that the fabric can be peeled away and collected. The team made swatches of material 10 nanometers thick and about 2.5 centimeters wide. The researchers can control the architecture and mechanical characteristics of the fabric by using different proteins, or changing the way they are aligned. Different research groups are developing ways to grow replacement tissue in the lab, but a big challenge is providing the right direction for the growth of new cells. Researchers have previously made cellular scaffolds by flushing the living cells from harvested livers and hearts, and by creating cellular skeletons made from polymers. By building the new scaffold from the protein up, Parker's team can program direction cues into the architecture of the scaffold, and thus direct the growth of cells in the desired direction. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Saw Dust Stove, a New Innovation for Farmers
One of the advantages of the saw dust stove is that once popularised, it can help reduce dependency on charcoal as a source of energy. Charcoal burning poses a danger to the environment in that it is a major contributor to deforestation which can lead to desertification as those involved often go for indigenous trees thereby depleting them. One of the farmers who experienced the benefits of the saw dust stove is Mr Moses Chiluba of Mabel and Moses Farm in Ndeke Township. "My wife cooked beans and heated water for bathing using the new stove so its efficiency cannot be doubted ," Mr Chiluba said. The saw dust which is usually the end product of wood mostly generated in saw mills has proved to be essential to some farms which are still not electrified and especially for those users who are familiar with the technology. So instead of discarding the saw dust as a waste product, it can be used as a cheaper source of energy. In Europe saw dust is compacted into briquettes and used as a source of heat energy in homes. Back home, the new technology can comprise of a used five litre tin of paint which should have a four centimetre diameter hole drilled at the bottom. Then a pipe or used exhaust pipe should be inserted in the middle to create a hole which should also act a chimney while the tin is filled with saw dust and compacted neatly for better results as well as to avoid smoking. Then the stove should be placed on a stand to allow for oxygen flow while the fire is lit at the bottom using a paraffin douched cloth until the flame glows all the way up to the top. After that a pot of water or whatever is to be cooked can be placed on top of the dust stove. This should be done out-doors rather than indoors as a safety measure. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Artificial life DNA fab to open withing 6 months
The International Open Facility Advancing Biotechnology (BIOFAB) says they will be open for business within 6 months. BIOFAB is a project to produce thousands of standardized genetic 'parts' for researchers to use in pioneering research in synthetic life. The world's very first parts store for speeding the development of useful new forms of synthetic life. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Broadway Musicians Replaced With Synthesizers
"Sophisticated synthesizers and computer-manipulated recordings are increasingly taking over orchestras. Sounding almost like real players, while costing much less, they're especially popular with provincial or touring companies. But until mid-July — when 'West Side Story's' producers announced that a synthesizer was replacing three live violinists and two cellists, or half the orchestra's string section — staff violinist Paul Woodiel thought that at least the classics would be immune to the trend. There are computer programs able to read and play back music scores — a boon to composers who can now hear their work as they write — and software allowing conductors to control the tempo of the machine, in the same way that they direct live players." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Microsoft Tech Can Deblur Images Automatically (watch photo blur)
"At the annual SIGGRAPH show, Microsoft Research showed new technology that can remove the blur from images on your camera or phone using on-board sensors — the same sensors currently added to the iPhone 4. No more blurry low light photos!" / Our approach uses a combination of inexpensive gyroscopes and accelerometers in an energy optimization framework to estimate a blur function from the camera’s acceleration and angular velocity during an exposure. We solve for the camera motion at a high sampling rate during an exposure and infer the latent image using a joint optimization. Our method is completely automatic, handles per-pixel, spatially-varying blur, and out-performs the current leading image-based methods. Our experiments show that it handles large kernels – up to at least 100 pixels, with a typical size of 30 pixels. We also present a method to perform “ground-truth” measurements of camera motion blur. We use this method to validate our hardware and deconvolution approach. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work that uses 6 DOF inertial sensors for dense, per-pixel spatially-varying image deblurring and the first work to gather dense ground-truth measurements for camera-shake blur. - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - 'I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!' v2.0
"Remember those old Lifecall commercials? Well, you've come a long way, Grandma! The NY Times reports on a raft of new technology that's making it possible for adult children to remotely monitor to a stunningly precise degree the daily movements and habits of their aging parents. The purpose is to provide enough supervision to allow elderly people to stay in their homes rather than move to an assisted-living facility or nursing home. Systems like GrandCare, BeClose, QuietCare, and MedMinder allow families to keep tabs on Mom and Dad's whereabouts, and make sure they take their meds. Perhaps Zynga can make a game out of all this — GeriatricVille?" - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Reading Terrorists' Minds About Imminent Attack
"Imagine technology that allows you to get inside the mind of a terrorist to know how, when, and where the next attack will occur. In the Northwestern study, when researchers knew in advance specifics of the planned attacks by the make-believe 'terrorists,' they were able to correlate P300 brain waves to guilty knowledge with 100 percent accuracy in the lab, said J. Peter Rosenfeld, professor of psychology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Should Professors Be Required To Teach With Tech?
"Are professors who don't update their teaching methods like doctors who fail to keep up with the latest ways to treat disease? Or are professors better off teaching old-school? From the article: 'It is tough to measure how many professors teach with technology or try other techniques the report recommends, such as group activities and hands-on exercises. (Technology isn't the only way to improve teaching, of course, and some argue that it can hinder it.) Though most colleges can point to several cutting-edge teaching experiments on their campuses, a recent national assessment called the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement suggests that old-school instruction remains the norm. Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using 'clickers,' or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously. The one technology that most teachers use regularly — course-management systems — focuses mostly on housekeeping tasks like handing out assignments or keeping track of student grades.'" - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - How to Turn Your Backyard into a Bird Refuge
If you'd like to see more wildlife of the feathered kind in your backyard but had written off attracting birds as too time-consuming, expensive, or complicated, this simple guide will help you get started without much fuss or cost. You don't need to spend lots of money, effort, and time to attract birds to your yard, as a bird can hardly tell the difference between $5 DIY bird feeder and a $75 sculpted copper one. This guide will help you get started quickly and inexpensively, and you can decide later if you want to open a bird hotel with heated baths and a rotating buffet of handmade treats. A few notes: Nearly every tip in this guide applies to apartment dwellers who have a balcony or permission of their landlord to put bird feeders outside. Also, for ease of use when referring to things related to bird size (types of feeders, types of housing, etc.), we'll be using common birds for reference. (This is a great article with many types of feeders..if you like birds like I do, check it out! - JWD) - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Antarctic Experiment Finds Puzzling Distribution of Cosmic Rays
"A puzzling pattern in the cosmic rays bombarding Earth from space has been discovered by an experiment buried deep under the ice of Antarctica. ... It turns out these particles are not arriving uniformly from all directions. The new study detected an overabundance of cosmic rays coming from one part of the sky, and a lack of cosmic rays coming from another." / Previous studies have found a similar lopsidedness (called anisotropy) in the sky over the Northern Hemisphere, but this was the first time scientists saw that the pattern extended to the southern sky visible from Antarctica. "At the beginning, we didn't know what to expect," Abbasi said. "To see this anisotropy extending to the Southern Hemisphere sky is an additional piece of the puzzle around this enigmatic effect — whether it's due to the magnetic field surrounding us or to the effect of a nearby supernova remnant, we don't know." One idea to explain the asymmetry is that a star may have recently died in a supernova explosion relatively nearby, and its remnant may be pouring out loads of cosmic rays that would dominate the signals we receive. Scientists think that the shells around dead stars, made of puffed-out layers of gas that were expelled by the star before it exploded, contain strong magnetic fields that may act as cosmic particle accelerators, speeding up particles to close to the speed of light. The photo description; "This "skymap," generated in 2009 from data collected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, shows the relative intensity of cosmic rays directed toward the Earth's Southern Hemisphere. Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and elsewhere identified an unusual pattern of cosmic rays, with an excess (warmer colors) detected in one part of the sky and a deficit (cooler colors) in another." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - First Membrane Controlled By Light Developed
"A new membrane developed at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics blocks gas from flowing through it when one color of light is shined on its surface, and permits gas to flow through when another color of light is used. It is the first time that scientists have developed a membrane that can be controlled in this way by light." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Having a good education lower your dementia risk
Professor Carol Brayne and Dr Hannah Keage of the University of Cambridge explained there new research in this way. 'Previous research has shown that there is not a one-to-one relationship between being diagnosed with dementia during life and changes seen in the brain at death,' said Dr Keage. 'One person may show lots of pathology in their brain while another shows very little, yet both may have had dementia. Our study shows education in early life appears to enable some people to cope with a lot of changes in their brain before showing dementia symptoms.' The researchers analyzed a large body of data from the EClipSE collaboration, which combines the three European population-based longitudinal studies of ageing (the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study, the Cambridge City Over-75s Cohort Study and Vantaa 85, a Finnish study). - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Electric Car Subsidies As Handouts For the Rich
"Charles Lane, writing for Slate, argues that subsidies for electric cars are an example of 'limousine liberalism' — a lavish gift for well-off Americans to buy expensive cars for the sake of appearing green. From the article: 'How rarefied is the electric-car demographic? When Deloitte Consulting interviewed industry experts and 2,000 potential buyers, it found that from now until 2020, only "young, very high income individuals" — from households making more than $200,000 a year — would even be interested in plug-in hybrids or all-electric cars.' Lane also takes issue with the billions of dollars in subsidies offered to automakers for the manufacture of batteries, arguing that research (warning, PDF) concludes that the money will not help in jump-starting the economies of scale that will drive down prices. At least, not as much or as quickly as the President has argued." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Time to stop this primitive practice as a Default
Miles Hastwick is a former corporate scientist who now heads the Museum of Genital Integrity on a small island surrounded by San Diego's famous beaches. Unbeknownst to the public, Miles is also Foreskin Man, an intactivist superhero who rescues innocent boys from the world's cleverest and most dangerous circumcisers... Not safe for work. (He's right, its a purely religious tradition that has no sound bearing in health or sanity. - JWD) - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Stanford's New Solar Tech Harnesses Heat, Light
"Stanford engineers have figured out how to simultaneously use the light and heat of the sun to generate electricity in a way that could make solar power production more than twice as efficient as existing methods and potentially cheap enough to compete with oil. Unlike photovoltaic technology currently used in solar panels — which becomes less efficient as the temperature rises — the new process excels at higher temperatures. ... 'This is really a conceptual breakthrough, a new energy conversion procoss, not just a new material or a slightly different tweak,' said Nick Melosh, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research group. 'It is actually something fundamentally different about how you can harvest energy.' And the materials needed to build a device to make the process work are cheap and easily available, meaning the power that comes from it will be affordable." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - Boeing's Hybrid Electric Airliner of the Future
"Borne out of the same NASA research program that gave birth to MIT's D 'double bubble,' Boeing's Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) Volt concept is a twin-engine aircraft design notable for its trussed, elongated wings and electric battery gas turbine hybrid propulsion system — a system designed to reduce fuel burn by more than 70 percent and total energy use by 55 percent. The goal of the NASA supersonic research program is to find aircraft designs that will significantly reduce noise, nitrogen oxide emissions, fuel burn and air traffic congestion by the year 2035." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - $200B Lost To Counterfeiting? Back It Up
"Over the weekend, the NY Times ran a story about how the recession has impacted product counterfeiters. In it, the reporter regurgitates the oft-repeated claim that counterfeiting 'costs American businesses an estimated $200 billion a year.' Techdirt's Mike Masnick asks the Times reporter to back up that assertion, noting two recent reports (by the GAO and the OECD) that suggest the actual number is much lower, and quoting two reporters who have actually looked at the numbers and found (a) the real number is probably less than $5 billion, and (b) the $200 billion number can be traced back to a totally unsourced (read: made-up) magazine claim from two decades ago." - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - barack obama Voters...
Where are they NOW?!!! What's Next? What's Next? What's Next? - Full Article Source

08/03/10 - obama says his father served in World War II
Somebody doesn't know how to do their math very well... *Does he even know the difference between truth and fabrication? *Now Barack's father served in WW ll It must be true as Barack said it in a speech! Is he a compulsive liar? Were there no reporters who double checked these statements and called the party on this? They did for everyone else. Why not him?

KeelyNet BBS Files w/bonus PDF of 'Keely and his Discoveries'
Finally, I've gotten around to compiling all the files (almost 1,000 - about 20MB and lots of work doing it) from the original KeelyNet BBS into a form you can easily navigate and read using your browser, ideally Firefox but it does work with IE. Most of these files are extremely targeted, interesting and informative, I had forgotten just how much but now you can have the complete organized, categorized set, not just sprinklings from around the web. They will keep you reading for weeks if not longer and give you clues and insights into many subjects and new ideas for investigation and research. IN ADDITION, I am including as a bonus gift, the book (in PDF form) that started it all for me, 'Keely and his Discoveries - Aerial Navigation' which includes the analysis of Keely's discoveries by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton. This 407 page eBook alone is worth the price of the KeelyNet BBS CD but it will give you some degree of understanding about what all Keely accomplished which is just now being rediscovered, but of course, without recognizing Keely as the original discoverer. Chapters include; Vibratory Sympathetic and Polar Flows, Vibratory Physics, Latent Force in Interstitial Spaces and much more. To give some idea of how Keely's discoveries are being slowly rediscovered in modern times, check out this Keely History. These two excellent bodies of information will be sent to you on CD. If alternative science intrigues and fascinates you, this CD is what you've been looking for... - Full Article Source

'The Evolution of Matter' and 'The Evolution of Forces' on CD
Years ago, I had been told by several people, that the US government frequently removes books they deem dangerous or 'sensitive' from libraries. Some are replaced with sections removed or rewritten so as to 'contain' information that should not be available to the public despite the authors intent. A key example was during the Manhattan Project when the US was trying to finalize research into atomic bombs. They removed any books that dealt with the subject and two of them were by Dr. Gustave Le Bon since they dealt with both energy and matter including radioactivity. I had been looking for these two books for many years and fortunately stumbled across two copies for which I paid about $40.00 each. I couldn't put down the books once I started reading them. Such a wealth of original discoveries, many not known or remembered today. / Page 88 - Without the ether there could be neither gravity, nor light, nor electricity, nor heat, nor anything, in a word, of which we have knowledge. The universe would be silent and dead, or would reveal itself in a form which we cannot even foresee. If one could construct a glass chamber from which the ether were to be entirely eliminated, heat and light could not pass through it. It would be absolutely dark, and probably gravitation would no longer act on the bodies within it. They would then have lost their weight. / Page 96-97 - A material vortex may be formed by any fluid, liquid or gaseous, turning round an axis, and by the fact of its rotation it describes spirals. The study of these vortices has been the object of important researches by different scholars, notably by Bjerkness and Weyher. They have shown that by them can be produced all the attractions and repulsions recognized in electricity, the deviations of the magnetic needle by currents, etc. These vortices are produced by the rapid rotation of a central rod furnished with pallets, or, more simply, of a sphere. Round this sphere gaseous currents are established, dissymetrical with regard to its equatorial plane, and the result is the attraction or repulsion of bodies brought near to it, according to the position given to them. It is even possible, as Weyher has proved, to compel these bodies to turn round the sphere as do the satellites of a planet without touching it. / Page 149 - "The problem of sending a pencil of parallel Hertzian waves to a distance possesses more than a theoretical interest. It is allowable to say that its solution would change the course of our civilization by rendering war impossible. The first physicist who realizes this discovery will be able to avail himself of the presence of an enemy's ironclads gathered together in a harbour to blow them up in a few minutes, from a distance of several kilometres, simply by directing on them a sheaf of electric radiations. On reaching the metal wires with which these vessels are nowadays honeycombed, this will excite an atmosphere of sparks which will at once explode the shells and torpedoes stored in their holds. With the same reflector, giving a pencil of parallel radiations, it would not be much more difficult to cause the explosion of the stores of powder and shells contained in a fortress, or in the artillery sparks of an army corps, and finally the metal cartridges of the soldiers. Science, which at first rendered wars so deadly, would then at length have rendered them impossible, and the relations between nations would have to be established on new bases." - Full Article Source

High Voltage & Free Energy Devices Handbook
This wonderfully informative ebook provides many simple experiments you can do, including hydrogen generation and electrostatic repulsion as well as the keys to EV Gray's Fuelless Engine. One of the most comprehensive compilations of information yet detailing the effects of high voltage repulsion as a driving force. Ed Gray's engine produced in excess of 300HP and he claimed to be able to 'split the positive' energy of electricity to produce a self-running motor/generator for use as an engine. Schematics and tons of photos of the original machines and more! Excellent gift for your technical friends or for that budding scientist! If you are an experimenter or know someone who investigates such matters, this would make an excellent addition to your library or as an unforgettable gift. The downloadable HVFE eBook pdf file is almost 11MB in size and contains many experiments, photos, diagrams and technical details. Buy a copy and learn all about hydrogen generation, its uses and how to produce electrostatic repulsion. - 121 pages - $15.00 - Full Article Source

Hypnosis CD - 3 eBooks with How To Techniques and Many Cases
If you have a few minutes, you might want to read my page on hypnosis and all the amazing things associated with its application. Included is an experience I had when I hypnotized a neighbor kid when I was about 14. As well the hypnotic gaze of snakes, the discovery of 'eyebeams' which can be detected electronically, the Italian Hypnotist Robber who was caught on tape with his eyes glowing as cashiers handed over their money and remembered nothing, glamour and clouding the mind of others, several methods of trance induction and many odd cases, animal catatonia, healing, psychic phenomena, party/stage stunts, including my favorite of negative hallucination where you make your subject NOT see something...much more...if nothing else, its might be a hoot to read. - Full Article Source

14 Ways to Save Money on Fuel Costs
This eBook is the result of years of research into various methods to increase mileage, reduce pollution and most importantly, reduce overall fuel costs. It starts out with the simplest methods and offers progressively more detailed technologies that have been shown to reduce fuel costs. As a bonus to readers, I have salted the pages with free interesting BONUS items that correlate to the relevant page. Just filling up with one tank of gas using this or other methods explained here will pay for this eBook. Of course, many more methods are out there but I provided only the ones which I think are practical and can be studied by the average person who is looking for a way to immediately reduce their fuel costs. I am currently using two of the easier methods in my own vehicle which normally gets 18-22 mpg and now gets between 28 and 32 mpg depending on driving conditions. A tank of gas for my 1996 Ford Ranger costs about $45.00 here so I am saving around $15-$20 PER TANK, without hurting my engine and with 'greener' emissions due to a cleaner burn! The techniques provided in this ebook begin with simple things you can do NOW to improve your mileage and lower your gas costs. - $15 eBook Download / Full Article Source to Buy

New Vanguard Sciences eBooks - Save a Tree! eBooks make great gifts!
Shape Power - Dan Davidson's analysis of the mysterious pyramid energies, Keely's aether force, Reich's orgone energy, Schauberger's diamagnetic energy, plus a host of others, and shows how shape and materials interact with the universal aether to modify the aether into electromagnetic, gravitic, and various healing energies... - Shape Power Youtube

The Physics of the Primary State of Matter - published in the 1930s, Karl Schappeller described his Prime Mover, a 10-inch steel sphere with quarter-inch copper tubing coils. These were filled with a material not named specifically, but which is said to have hardened under the influence of direct current and a magnetic field [electro-rheological fluid]. With such polarization, it might be guessed to act like a dielectric capacitor and as a diode...

$5 Alt Science MP3s to listen while working/driving/jogging
No time to sit back and watch videos? Here are 15 interesting presentations you can download for just $5 each and listen to while driving, working, jogging, etc. An easy way to learn some fascinating new things that you will find of use. Easy, cheap and simple, better than eBooks or Videos. Roughly 50MB per MP3. - Full Article Source

15 New Alternative Science DVDs & 15 MP3s
An assortment of alternative science videos that provide many insights and inside information from various experimenters. Also MP3s extracted from these DVDs that you can listen to while working or driving. Reference links for these lectures and workshops by Bill Beaty of Amateur Science on the Dark Side of Amateur Science, Peter Lindemann on the World of Free Energy, Norman Wootan on the History of the EV Gray motor, Dan Davidson on Shape Power and Gravity Wave Phenomena, Lee Crock on a Method for Stimulating Energy, Doug Konzen on the Konzen Pulse Motor, George Wiseman on the Water Torch and Jerry Decker on Aether, ZPE and Dielectric Nano Arrays. Your purchase of these products helps support KeelyNet, thanks! - Full Article Source to Buy