11/09/09 - Space Hotel On Track To Open In 2012
Space customers would spend three nights in their orbital pod room, where they could crawl around like Spiderman (or Venom) in Velcro suits. Reuters reports that guests would also enjoy an eight-week training course set on a tropical island. The space hotel, which PopSci covered when it was first announced in 2007, would start out as a single pod capable of holding four guests and two pilots. But critics remain dubious — just as Gregory Mone was in our 2007 article — that the company can meet its scheduled launch date. Still, the price tag falls far below the $35 million paid by first repeat space tourist Charles Simonyi, or the same higher amount required to book an orbital vacation aboard a surplus Soviet-era military spacecraft. Hopeful customers might also look forward to Bigelow Aerospace’s long-planned inflatable space hotel. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy
"The Telegraph reports that Professor Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books, and that there is evidence that comics increase children's vocabulary and instill a love of reading. 'A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,' says Tilley. 'But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.' Tilley says that some of the condescension toward comics as a medium may come from the connotations that the name itself evokes but that the distinct comic book aesthetic — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines, to name a few — has been co-opted by children's books, creating a hybrid format." - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Why Doesn't Exercise Lead To Weight Loss?
"The New York Times' Well blog reports that 'for some time, researchers have been finding that people who exercise don't necessarily lose weight.' A study published online in September 2009 in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest to report apparently disappointing slimming results. In the study, 58 obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised aerobic training without changing their diets. The group lost an average of a little more than seven pounds, and many lost barely half that. How can that be?" - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Japan Eyes Solar Station In Space
"By 2030 [Japan] wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves. The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades." - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - "Road Trains" Ready To Roll
"Road trains," a system linking vehicles together via wireless sensors could soon be rolled out in Europe. The system is designed primarily at cutting fuel consumption, travel time, and congestion. "Funded under the European Commission's Framework 7 research plan, Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) is aimed at commuters in cars who travel long distances to work every day but will also look at ways to involve commercial vehicles. Tom Robinson, project co-ordinator at engineering firm Ricardo, said the idea was to use off-the-shelf components to make it possible for cars, buses and trucks to join the road train." / Each road train could include up to eight separate vehicles - cars, buses and trucks will be mixed in each one. The EU hopes to cut fuel consumption, journey times and congestion by linking vehicles together. Early work on the idea suggests that fuel consumption could be cut by 20% among those cars and trucks travelling behind the lead vehicle. The lead vehicle would be handled by a professional driver who would monitor the status of the road train. Those in following vehicles could take their hands off the wheel, read a book or watch TV, while they travel along the motorway. Their vehicle would be controlled by the lead vehicle. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - US Navy Was Ordered To Listen For Martian Broadcast
"It seems that a SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) experiment happened decades before the Project Ozma occurred in 1960. The historians at the blog Letters of Note have uncovered a telegram sent in 1924 by then Chief of Naval Operations Edward W. Eberle instructing the United States Navy to listen for radio transmissions from the planet Mars." - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Warren Buffett's big railroad buy is also a huge bet on coal
If the Sage of Omaha is truly an oracle of future returns and a leading indicator for where the market is going, it's hard not to think that U.S. carbon emissions will continue to grow apace and that the budding green revolution will be more bang than bucks. Why? On Tuesday, Buffett paid a hefty 25 percent premium to acquire the remaining 77 percent interest in railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNI) that his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), did not already own. The fate of Burlington Northern is closely tied to shipments of coal. In third-quarter 2009, coal shipments accounted for roughly 25 percent of Burlington Northern's total revenue, according to Marketwatch. It shipped 604,000 carloads of coal in the quarter, more than any other single category. And Burlington Northern hauled 297 million tons of coal last year, enough to supply roughly 10 percent of the country's electrical needs. That means Buffett's bet could be viewed in one of two ways. Either he's doubling down on coal and saying to hell with global warming concerns. Or he believes that coal will continue to prosper even under the yoke of new government regulations on carbon emissions that will mandate expensive clean-up steps for smokestack emissions of utilities and other big coal-burning industries. Oh, and by the way. Berkshire also owns MidAmerican, one of the country's biggest coal-burning utilities. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Billionaire Pickens sees end of U.S. natural gas in 25 to 30 years
T. Boone Pickens, who has spent more than a year telling Americans the answer to their energy woes is natural gas, says the U.S. natural gas supply will probably dry up in about 30 years. At that point, Americans will have to find some other technology to fuel vehicles, Pickens said during a speech last week at the University of Texas at Dallas. "Natural gas is just a bridge," Pickens said. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - 'Boat tail' decreases fuel consumption trucks by 7.5 percent
This is due to dramatically-improved aerodynamics, as shown by road tests conducted by the PART (Platform for Aerodynamic Road Transport) public-private partnership platform. A boat tail is a tapering protrusion about two metres in length mounted on the rear of a truck. The boat tail had already proved itself during wind tunnel experiments and computer simulations, both conducted at TU Delft, in theory and using small-scale models. Now an articulated lorry fitted with a boat tail has also undergone extensive testing on public highways. An articulated lorry was driven for a period of one year with a boat tail (of varying length) and one year without a boat tail. The improved aerodynamics, depending on the length of the boat tail, resulted in reduced fuel consumption (and emissions!) of up to 7.5 percent. The optimum boat tail length proved to be two metres. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - China's first dynamic energy-saving power supply unit for light sources
MacMic's dynamic energy-saving power supply unit for light sources leverages the latest research results in the international power electronics sector and utilizes integrated and modular technologies to vastly reduce the amount of energy expended while expanding safety and protecting the environment in connection with the use of light sources. The device makes use of a new power semiconductor module based on proprietary patented technology (a high power, high-frequency electronic appliance), enabling high-frequency AC chopper stepless voltage regulation; as well as making use of proprietary embedded software, which can dynamically distribute electricity and adjust the amount of energy used quickly and accurately. This enables advanced logistical control and high-level smart management, so that abnormal events can be spontaneously detected and adjusted for, greatly extending the working life of any kind of light source. Compared with existing energy-saving electromagnetic power supplies for light sources, the product can not only achieve a higher power saving rate, but automatically optimize the lighting effect given the environment and adjust the level of light for high-power lighting on urban roads as well as in factories and supermarkets. By adjusting the lighting according to every possible level of need; the device can not only achieve high-efficiency power savings, but effectively provide a guarantee for the life of the light source. The power supply unit can be used in any situation requiring a reduction in energy usage across a wide array of locales, including roads, supermarkets, stations and loading docks, positioning itself to become the next-generation green and efficient energy- saving power supply unit for light sources. Currently, more than 20 cities in China have completed a trial installation of the MacMic power supply unit. Locations having completed a large-scale installation include Guangdong, Guangxi and Jiangsu provinces. The unit has been used in Changzhou National Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone's overall road lighting energy saving reconstruction efforts for nearly one year, achieving significant energy savings of 20-40%. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Recycled Train Car Homes, Offices & Hotels
Railroad cars are big, heavy, and cumbersome. They’re notoriously hard to move into new locations off of their tracks, and because of their odd shape most people wouldn’t think of using them for anything else anyway. But in the spirit of recycling, green construction and shipping container homes, some enterprising people are recycling old train cars into homes, offices and even hotels. Like shipping containers, it’s relatively easy to do the conversion yourself, provided you have the resources to get the car to its new location. Cabooses seem to be the most popular choice for train car homes, but there are plenty of dining and sleeping cars being converted as well. If you’re able to shell out between $8000 and $45,000 for an old car, another several thousand to transport the car and put it into place on your property, and whatever it takes in material and labor to transform it, you can have a home for much less than a conventional house would cost. And best of all, it will be completely unique and as green as you want it to be. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - The Chevy Volt's unanswered questions
While General Motors continues to define itself post-bankruptcy, it is pushing ahead with one of its key pre-bankruptcy projects: developing the Chevy Volt. This week, a team of GM vehicle engineers is testing eight battery-powered Volts on a three-day, 1,200-mile drive from southeast Michigan to Pittsburgh. Also under scrutiny is GM's oft-repeated assertion that the Volt will have an all-electric range of 40 miles. Critics point out that the car needs ideal conditions to do that. For one thing, the 40-mile range depends on ambient temperatures of 60 degrees to 65 degrees. When the temperature drops below 60, the batteries become less efficient. And if it gets hotter than 65, the air conditioner can impose an additional load on the Volt's batteries. Either way, the range diminishes. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - 6 Real People Who Turned Their Homes Into Death Traps
There's nothing wrong with home security, but if you find your "protection" involves shotguns hidden in cereal boxes and electrocuting microwaves, you've probably crossed a line somewhere. That would be the line between "safety conscious" and "deranged lunatic." / Dethy decided that, in the event that he got evicted from his house, whoever moved in was in for a festival of firearms. As a last-ditch revenge plot against his family, he rigged more than a dozen shotguns all over his house: a crate of beer that would trigger a shotgun when enough bottles were removed, a trunk full of money in the attic rigged to blow your head off, the television had a shotgun rigged to it and even the water tank had more shotgun. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Chrysler drops three electric vehicles despite bailout cash
If you believed all the talk from Chrysler about how our tax dollars would help finance its fast-track electric-vehicle future, you're in for a big disappointment. Chrysler has disbanded the engineering team that was trying to bring three electric models to market as a rush job, Automotive News reports today. Chrysler cited its devotion to electric vehicles as one of the key reasons why the Obama administration and Congress needed to give it $12.5 billion in bailout money, the News points out. - (So GIVE THE MONEY BACK, YOU LIARS! - JWD) - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Are doctors getting slower or are patients getting sicker?
People are going to the doctor's office more often - and for longer visits than nine years before. So, has care improved or do people just need more medical attention? It's likely the latter, conclude the authors of a new paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine, published online Monday. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Phone-Jack Powered Lamp Rips Off Telcos
A lamp this cheap and ugly would never usually get a mention here at the Lab, but as you will have guessed, there is a clever twist. Instead of hooking up to the mains or even a USB port to get its power, this 8-LED reading light plugs into the telephone socket. Yes, at last you have a use for your abandoned landline socket, something for the person whose phone never rings. The cord ends with an RJ11 jack and takes power from the phone company, the supplier of the trickle of electricity to your phone. And remember, this power stays on even when your regular power is out. The price? An almost-free €3.18 ($4.73US). - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Proposed wind farm site is too windy
A wind-power company says a western Maine site it's been looking at is too windy for turbines. First Wind's Matthew Kearns told a public meeting in Rumford on Thursday that its proposed Longfellow wind farm on Black Mountain and North and South Twin mountains may not be viable. The Sun Journal of Lewiston quotes Kearns as saying First Wind's studies so far show that gusts atop Black Mountain are too strong for turbine engineering to handle, and that's a problem for wind turbine bearings. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Russian Ellipse Wing Aircraft
In Belarus they use planes with ellipse wings. They say it has a few benefits comparing to the simple one or double winged planes, like the wing can be less in size, it’s more firm because the ellipse form is self sustaining, also there are now air vortexes by the sides of the wings which gives up to 30% increase in power compared to the traditional planes. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Kudzu-eating pest found in northeast Georgia
Researchers from the University of Georgia and Dow AgroSciences have identified a kudzu-eating pest in northeast Georgia that has never been found in the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, the bug also eats legume crops, especially soybeans. Suiter says the pest’s populations are, for now, contained to northeast Georgia. It’s an “invasive species feeding on an invasive species.” Introduced to the U.S. in 1876 from Japan, kudzu was planted in the 1930s to control soil erosion. It now tops the nation’s invasive species list. “We have no idea what the long-term impact on kudzu will be, but we also have to consider the fact that it feeds on crops, too,” he said. “It’s kind of a double-edged sword. It eats kudzu, which is good, but it also stinks and gets on homes. And the ominous threat is that it eats soybeans and other legume crops.” - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Doomed Dome: The Future That Never Was
Winooski and its 7,000 people lie just north of Burlington, Vermont and next to Lake Champlain. Vermont, the saying goes, is nine months of winter and three months of bad skiing. Winooski’s January lows are -20 Fahrenheit or lower, and winters see 75 or more inches of snow. One night in 1979 a group of its creative young city planners went to dinner and Mark Tigan, then the city’s 32-year-old director of community development and planning, decided that not enough attention was being paid to energy conservation. Then, in the way that only a few glasses of wine can facilitate brainstorming, someone said, half tongue-in-cheek, they should put a dome over the city. The next morning it still seemed like a good idea -- or, at least, not necessarily completely absurd. The city’s request for $55,000 for a feasibility study went to Washington, and enthusiasts pushed it up through channels. A deputy assistant secretary at HUD named Bob Embrey said he would fund it. Tigan contracted with John Anderson, a Vermont conceptual architect, to produce drawings of the Dome. Anderson’s vision was not a hemispheric shape, but more like the top half of a hamburger bun. He colored it whiteish yellow and eschewed any inside support structures. Anderson’s picture was the first tangible view of the Dome. Thinking ahead, he envisioned a vinyl-like material attached over a network of metal cables, ranging from transparent (on the southern side, to allow in sunlight) to opaque on the northern side. Air would be brought inside by large fans and heated or cooled as necessary. The Dome would be held up by air pressure just slightly above atmospheric pressure. Entrances and exits would consist of double doors, akin to an airlock. The homes inside would require no individual heating or cooling -- “you could grow tomatoes all year-round” he said. If the Dome were punctured it would come down slowly, allowing for ample warning. Anderson now recalls it as a “totally fun” project, though he did occasionally get insulted in restaurants by some local residents. “What will happen to our children?” they asked. After Ronald Reagan won the autumn election, money for such projects dried up very quickly. Peck, the reporter who broke the story and who is now a realtor in Vermont, called it “wonderful publicity for the town, but it was a great idea that would never work.” - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Oil Shale Research - 100,000 barrels of oil for 1.2 Gigawatts
Questions about the feasibility of commercial oil shale development:

11/09/09 - Steam Viper – Innovative Windshield Wiper System
The Steam Viper was invented by 15 year old Philip Hartman from Loveland, CO. The Steam Viper will be the very first windshield cleaning/deicing wiper system to utilize the power of steam. Because of the enhanced cleaning abilities of the Steam Viper it is now safer then ever to travel by vehicle. - Full Article Source

11/09/09 - Mill's prescription for health and happiness
The state shouldn't dictate the choices of informed adults, but it must protect children and guard against misinformation. In the US quackery is largely unregulated. The 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act dramatically limited the ability of the US food and drug administration to regulate dietary supplements – herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines and the like. After its passage, sales of such supplements nearly doubled. I do not believe that such products or practices should be prohibited by law. If people want to consume quack medicines or bogus therapies – or if they want to take part in extreme sports or use recreational drugs – that is their business. When it comes to legal paternalism I follow Mill: the state legitimately restricts individual liberty to prevent individuals from harming others; it may not impose restrictions on the choices of rational, informed adults to prevent them from harming themselves. Where individuals are incapable of rational deliberation and informed consent, paternalism is warranted. - 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 - Source

DVD - the Physics of Crystals, Pyramids and Tetrahedrons
This is a wonderful 2 hour DVD which presents one man's lifelong study of pyramids, crystals and their effects. Several of his original and very creative experiments are explained and diagramed out for experimenters. These experiments include; 1) transmutation of zinc to lower elements using a tetrahedron, 2) energy extraction from a pyramid, 3) determining mathematic ratios of nature in a simple experiment, 4) accelerating the growth of food, 5) increasing the abundance of food, 6) how crystals amplify, focus and defocus energy, 7) using crystals to assist natural healing, 8) how the universe uses spirals and vortexes to produce free energy and MORE... - $20 DVD + S&H / Source to Buy and Youtube Clip

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 / Source to Buy

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. These two excellent bodies of information will be sent to you on CD. To give some idea of how Keely's discoveries are being slowly rediscovered in modern times, check out this Keely History. If alternative science intrigues and fascinates you, this CD is what you've been looking for... - Source

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...

'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." - Source

$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. - 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! - Source to Buy

Six Ways to Support Keelynet