12/27/09 - Scientists restore eye sight by stem cell treatment
Eye surgeons at the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI), has almost completely restored the vision of Russell Turnbull who was blinded in one eye by a chemical attack. The attack, which badly burned and scarred Russell (38) as he intervened to stop a fight, left him with permanent blurred sight and pain whenever he blinked. Now, however, his sight has been almost fully restored thanks to the new technique in which doctors regrown the outside membrane of his cornea from stem cells taken from his healthy eye. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - World's First Production Hybrid Motorcycle To Hit Market In India
"The Indian company Eko Vehicles has announced the development of the world's first production hybrid motorcycle, called the ET-120. In a short time this motorcycle will run on the Indian streets, offering about 280 miles per gallon with a top speed of 40 miles per hour." / It will return about 280 miles per gallon with a top speed of 40 miles per hour. If that top speed seems a bit on the slow side, well, that's what you get for the low, low price of $855. Eko Vehicles, a manufacturer based in Bangalore, developed the vehicle with assistance from U.S.-based Emerging Technologies. The ET-120 uses a 70cc gasoline-powered engine mated up with a small electric motor, and the company claims the machine will offer performance on par with a typical 120cc powerplant. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Senator Max Baucus Drunk / Intoxicated on Senate Floor
Senator Max Baucus, Democrat from Montana Drunk on the US Senate Floor debating National health Care. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Why Bees always have a Safe Landing
The bees' technique, which depends mostly on eyesight, may help engineers design a new generation of automated aircraft that would be undetectable to radar or sonar systems and would make perfectly gentle landings, even in outer space. When bees approach an object, according to previous work, they steadily slow down to a stop by adjusting their speed as the size of their target steadily looks larger. Srinivasan wanted to know what happens after that. Along with colleagues, he set up a platform that could be adjusted to any angle from horizontal to vertical and even upside-down. Using sugar water, the scientists trained honeybees to fly to the platform again and again. Then, the researchers turned on the high-speed camera. Their footage showed that no matter how flat or steep the surface, bees slow to a hover at 13 millimeters (about half an inch) away from wherever they're going to land. That suggests, Srinivasan said, that the insects are somehow using their eyes to measure that specific distance. If their landing surface was flat, the researchers report today in the Journal of Experimental Biology that bees simply touched down back legs first. If the platform was anywhere between vertical and upside-down, on the other hand, the insects made contact with their antennae first, by pointing them almost perpendicular to the platform. Then, the bees hauled their front legs up and finished with a flip-like maneuver to get their mid-legs and rear legs onto the surface. It's a graceful and acrobatic motion that would be well suited to aircraft design, Srinivasan said. Current landing systems use radiation-emitting systems, which are detectable and often undesirable for military applications. Existing technologies, the bee work suggests, may also be more complicated than they need to be. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Angels can't fly, scientist says
Angels depicted heralding the birth of Jesus in nativity scenes across the world are anatomically flawed, according to a scientist who claims they would never be able to fly. “Even a cursory examination of the evidence in representational arts shows that angels and cherubs cannot take off and cannot use powered flight,” said Prof Wotton. “And even if they used gliding flight, they would need to be exposed to very high wind velocities at take off - such high winds that they would be blown away and have no need for wings. But angels have normal-sized bodies and cherubs and putti are often given additional weight, portrayed as chubby babies with tiny wings. They also lack the powerful muscles which allow birds to beat their wings. Fairies come under similar scrutiny in the paper - Angels, Putti, Dragons and Fairies: Believing the Impossible - published in UCL’s Opticon magazine. They are generally shown with insect wings, often those of damselfly or butterflies. Both insects have complex flight mechanisms with major muscles in the thorax, the chest region, which power the flapping of wings. “The distortion of the thorax needed for flight in fairies with butterfly wings would be exceedingly uncomfortable,” said the academic. “For sure, fairies don’t fly.” / (They still don't get it...it's a matter of controlling gravity, we reduce it like we dim a light, less gravity equals less weight making it easy to fly as history has shown us over and over again under the guise of flying gods, angels, warriors, etc.. That's why I'M HERE to rediscover how to control gravity which will completely change all forms of transportation including space travel. - JWD) - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Revolutionary operation could 'cure' high blood pressure
The Daily Telegraph can disclose that the new procedure, which involves placing tiny burns on a nerve responsible for high blood pressure in some people, has been carried out in Britain for the first time. It is part of an international clinical trial which could lead to the new treatment being offered on the NHS. An estimated 15 million people in Britain suffer from high blood pressure, also known as hypertension - around half of them undiagnosed. The new procedure, called renal sympathetic-nerve ablation, involves inserting a wire into a blood vessel close to the kidneys to burn through nerves which carry signals that stimulate high blood pressure. It disrupts signals from the brain telling the kidneys to keep blood pressure raised. Initial tests suggest it can be effective within three months. Watched by The Daily Telegraph, the team at the London Chest Hospital carried out the painstaking procedure in just over one hour. “It is very efficient and can lower the blood pressure enough to reduce stroke mortality by 50 per cent." It was estimated the procedure could cost the NHS around £4,000 per patient, yet it could prevent significant numbers of strokes and heart attacks saving money on emergency treatment and rehabilitation. / The new procedure interferes with the signals to the kidneys by damaging the nerves carrying them. The procedure involves passing a wire into the blood vessel in the groin and up into the main artery leading into the kidneys. From there the wire is used to make a series of tiny burns on the inside of the blood vessel which damages the nerve running along the outside of it. The tiny burns just one millimetre across are the equivalent of snuffing a candle out between the fingers. A series of four or five burns are carried out in a spiral pattern along the inside of the artery to each kidney. The blood vessel itself does not sustain serious damage as the blood flowing along inside it cools the burn, like running a burned finger under a tap. But the burn is deep enough to affect the nerve on the other side of the vessel. Once the connection between the brain and kidneys is distrupted the signals to raise blood pressure should stop. - Full Article Source or you probably never heard of this from our inside network, check out Pauling/Matthias cure for Cardivascular Problems where; "The recommended dosage was 4 to 6 GRAMS of Lysine to be taken with 4 to 6 GRAMS of vitamin C. As it was explained to him, one of these substances breaks the lipoprotein from the circulation system walls, the other substance dissolves the lipoproteins so the body can easily remove them."

12/27/09 - Positive & Negative Energy Effects on Water Crystals
Research From Dr. Masaru Emoto, says that human thoughts are directed at water before it is frozen, images of the resulting water crystals will be beautiful or ugly depending upon whether the thoughts were positive or negative. Emoto claims this can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water. Since 1999 Emoto has published several volumes of a work titled Messages from Water, which contains photographs of water crystals next to essays and "words of intent". - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - China unveils 'world's fastest train link'
China on Saturday unveiled what it billed as the fastest rail link in the world -- a train connecting the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 350 kilometres (217 miles) an hour. The super-high-speed train reduces the 1,069 kilometre journey to a three hour ride and cuts the previous journey time by more than seven and a half hours, the official Xinhua news agency said. "The train can go 394.2 kilometres per hour, it's the fastest train in operation in the world," Zhang Shuguang, head of the transport bureau at the railways ministry, told Xinhua. By comparison, the average for high-speed trains in Japan was 243 kilometres per hour while in France it was 277 kilometres per hour, said Xu Fangliang, general engineer in charge of designing the link, according to Xinhua. Beijing has an ambitious rail development programme aimed at increasing the national network from the current 86,000 kilometres to 120,000 kilometres, making it the most extensive rail system outside the United States. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Demonstration of the Lotus Effect
Alf demonstrates the Lotus Effect on a leaf of "elephant's ear" in the Masca Gorge on Tenerife. / The Lotus effect refers to the very high water repellency (superhydrophobicity) exhibited by the leaves of the lotus flower (Nelumbo). Dirt particles are picked up by water droplets due to a complex micro- and nanoscopic architecture of the surface which enables minimization of adhesion. A droplet on an inclined superhydrophobic surface does not slide off; it rolls off. When the droplet rolls over a contamination, the particle is removed from the surface if the force of absorption of the particle is higher than the static friction force between the particle and the surface. Usually the force needed to remove a particle is very low due to the minimized contact area between the particle and the surface. As a result, the droplet cleans the leaf by rolling off the surface. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Furor Erupts Over Atheist Display At State Capitol
A conservative activist and Illinois comptroller candidate was escorted from the Illinois State Capitol building Wednesday when he tried to remove a sign put up by an atheist group. "It doesn't matter how we feel about the message on a display," Haupt said. "Our obligation is to protect the property within the state Capitol building, and we would do the same for any other display." But Kelly called the sign "hate speech," and said he does not believe it is appropriate for a sign that "mocks" religion to be placed next to a Christmas tree and also near a nativity scene. The sign reads:

12/27/09 - Steam-Injected, 12 Second 1/4 Mile, 75 MPG 1978 Mercury Bobcat
This is a Mercury Bobcat; quite a find in this day and age. I start snapping away. And then the owner shows up and tops it all: he’s converted this Bobcat to a steam injection system of his own invention, and it’s going to pull twelves in the quarter mile and get 75 mpg. Incredible! The fact that he’s using a 1978 Bobcat as the basis of his rolling experiment alone deserves attention. It also makes it easier to imagine what kind of stereotypical personality this inventor is. Why didn’t I ask him to pose with his car? Before you think this is all some BS hype to jack up our stats or some old recycled April 1 post, I did take pictures of his steam injection system from a photo in his album, and we popped the hood to confirm evidence of his currently partially-dismantled set up. There’s the steam “distributor”, copper lines, kaneuter valves, etc…this is not just some glorified water injection system; the “steam” will be 500 degrees hot, and rapidly expand in the cylinder. Damn; in all my excitement, I forgot to ask him how he was going to heat it up, without using a boiler of some sort. I’m sure he’s got it covered though. He showed me detailed drawings and photos of numerous valves, manifolds and other components worthy of an overly complicated home hot-water heating system. And I heard his sad story of living on disability income; how he was using food money to try to finish building the components so that he could qualify for a $270k DOE grant or something like that. And he assured me that when (if) the Bobcat was completed, twelve-second quarter miles and 75 mpg economy were a slam dunk. Sure, I see no problem; but he might consider some bigger rubber on the rear wheels before he sets out to prove his claim on the drag strip and vaporizes those little 13? tires. It didn’t exactly have to be a Bobcat, just any of the millions of the Ford vehicles that used the 2.3 OHC Pinto-derived engine, which still powered Rangers until quite recently. The later versions of that engine had a twin-plug setup, and held the key to fitting the steam injectors, which are clearly visible in the picture. His engine came from one of these Rangers, but because its fuel injection system was not suitable to the inventor, he went to considerable length to convert it back to a carburetor set up. Steam injection: good; fuel injection: not. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Patent Protection For Sale
RPX makes a good case that its goal is to help companies, many of them in the tech industry, make the best of the bad situation that is the U.S. patent system. The fact that patent holders and lawyers will end up with money they don't deserve reflects nothing about RPX but a lot about a system filled with rot. If you think patents protect plucky innovators and their groundbreaking inventions, you haven't been paying attention. Patents have evolved into an extortion scheme that hurts real inventors far more than it helps them. It works like this: Patents can be bought or sold as property. Patent shoppers usually want them not to make a product but to create an infringement lawsuit. A huge percentage of these suits end up in eastern Texas, where plaintiff attorneys have the reputation for playing off the regional and class prejudices of undereducated jurors leading hardscrabble lives. It's hardly surprising that many companies would rather pay to settle a patent claim than risk the exposure and expense of a trial. So patent claims have soared in recent years. Roughly 80% are entirely without merit. The entrepreneurial insight at the heart of the company is simplicity itself. Start a for-profit company that buys up patents and then charge other companies a yearly fee for being a client. In return for a set annual payment, which tops at $4.9 million for the biggest outfit, you're protected from being sued for any of the patents RPX holds. Like most tech business plans that attract venture capitalists, it's all a matter of scale. Given enough clients, RPX can have the resources to take all problematic patents off the market. Twenty companies have already signed up, including ibm, Cisco ( CSCO - news - people ), hp and Samsung--though RPX admits some of them got a break for getting on board early. Amster's message is that rather than get angry about the decline of the American patent system, RPX is doing something about it via a system that demonstrably reduces patent-litigation-related expenses for companies. The fact that undeserving patent owners might get rich as a result can't be helped. RPX wants to be seen as a trusted partner by its clients. But one of the publicity problems it faces is a history of enterprises that start by making high-minded claims about patents and end up making life even more miserable for real inventors and entrepreneurs. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Early man may have taken up agriculture to get high on booze
In a new research, a team of archaeologists has identified traces of alcohol in prehistoric sites, which suggests that the thirst for a brew was an incentive for Neolithic man to start growing crops. According to a report in Spiegel Online, as early as around 9,000 years ago, long before the invention of the wheel, inhabitants of the Neolithic village Jiahu in China were brewing a type of mead with an alcohol content of 10%, archaeologist Patrick McGovern discovered recently. It appears that prehistoric humans in China combined fruit and honey into an intoxicating brew. Lacking any knowledge of chemistry, prehistoric humans eager for the intoxicating effects of alcohol apparently mixed clumps of rice with saliva in their mouths to break down the starches in the grain and convert them into malt sugar. These pioneering brewers would then spit the chewed up rice into their brew. Husks and yeasty foam floated on top of the liquid, so they used long straws to drink from narrow necked jugs. McGovern sees this early fermentation process as a clever survival strategy. "Consuming high energy sugar and alcohol was a fabulous solution for surviving in a hostile environment with few natural resources," he explained. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - A Green Message From the Land of Rice and Curry
A 200-pound man will burn off at least 2,000 calories a day even if he stays in bed the whole time and watches food commercials or football. He consumes most of those 2,000 calories simply to keep his eyes open, breathe, and otherwise keep his body functioning. If he leaps up to scream at the screen when the other side does something untoward, he will burn even more calories. In the same way, most of what is fed to farmed animals in those crowded, filthy sheds is burned off, simply because animals have to breathe, stand, blink, and?because of the throat-burning ammonia vapors rising from the waste accumulating beneath them?cough and choke. It's bizarre, really: In order to eat meat and drink packaged milk, we take a crop like soybeans, oats, corn, or wheat, which are all rich in protein, fiber, and complex carbohydrates?the things we need?and totally devoid of cholesterol and artery-clogging saturated fat?the things we don't need and shouldn't have. We feed it to a chicken or pig to create a product with no fiber or complex carbohydrates at all but with megadoses of cholesterol and saturated fat! All bad for us and bad for the Earth and bad for animals. It makes about as much sense as taking a glass of sparkling Evian, running it through a sewer, and then drinking it. Here are some more facts: It takes about 6 to 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of animal flesh. If we have to grow massive amounts of vegetable matter?with all the tilling, irrigation, and herbicides and pesticides and other chemicals that are now used?transport all that grain and soybeans to factory-style farms and dairies, feed it to all the land animals raised for food, transport those animals to automated slaughter facilities and dairies, take the dead animals to processing centers, run the processing and packaging machines, and then take the packaged meat to food outlets and butchers' stalls?well, there's a lot of energy being used up at each one of those stages. And in case anyone is saying, "But they don't slaughter dairy cows," dream on! There is no retirement home for the millions upon millions of cows kept for milk, butter, and cheese. If all this energy is being used, all these fossil fuels are being burned, and all this manure is being produced, then we're talking serious air pollution. - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Scientists Create First Functional Molecular Transistor
"Nearly 62 years after researchers at Bell Labs demonstrated the first functional transistor, scientists say they have made another major breakthrough. Researchers showed the first functional transistor made from a single molecule. The transistor, which has a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts, could behave just like a silicon transistor. The molecule's different energy states can be manipulated by varying the voltage applied to it through the contacts. And by manipulating the energy states, researchers were able to control the current passing through it." - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Real-World Synthehol In Development
"Researchers at the Imperial College London have announced development of an alcohol substitute that has many of the same properties as the Synthehol from the series Star Trek, in that one will get a buzz from it but will not end up with a hangover. In addition you will have the option of getting immediately sober if you so desire it. Let's hope this is not the typical vaporware. It is not that I really want a drink of Synthehol, but with its release I assume Romulan Ale won't be far behind." - Full Article Source

12/27/09 - Patrolling the US Border Via Webcam
The BBC features a story today on a controversial effort to patrol the border between Mexico and Texas by means of 21 hidden cameras, the output of which is streamed online for viewers at home, who can then report suspected illegal border crossings; more than 130,000 people have registered to observe the streams, from as far afield as "Australia, Mexico, Colombia, Israel, New Zealand and the UK." - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - 12 myths about electric vehicles
Everything you thought you knew about plug-in hybrids and battery cars is probably wrong. / Americans drive an average of 40 miles per day, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Most new battery electrics have a range of at least double that and can be charged at any ordinary electrical outlet (120V) or publicly accessible station with a faster charger. At present, all it takes is planning for EV owners, who can travel up to 120 miles on a single charge, to use their cars on heavy travel days. / Most charging will be done at home, so public charging isn’t a necessity. And at least seven companies are competing to dominate the public-charging-station market and a trade group representing the nation’s electric utilities has pledged to “aggressively” create the infrastructure to support “full-scale commercialization and deployment” of plug-ins. / Ninety-nine percent of batteries in conventional cars are recycled, according to the EPA. The metals in newer batteries are more valuable and recycling programs are already being developed for them. Utilities plan to use batteries for energy storage once they are no longer viable in a vehicle. / The battery is the priciest part of a plug-in, but costs will drop as production increases and the auto industry is expected to be purchasing up to $25 billion in advanced batteries annually by 2015. Some car makers plan to lease their batteries, so replacement won’t be an issue...and more... - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - New Artificial Larynx Helps People Sound Like Humans, Not Robots
By placing a device called a palatometer under the tongue, users can try to speak as normal and have their words synthesized on a speaker. The South African artificial larynx can provide inflection, ending the dreaded monotone and providing the means to indicate you are asking a question. With proper calibration, researchers claim greater than 94% accuracy. That’s good news to those who want to regain a normal speaking voice. The palatometer, which measures tongue/mouth movements with 118+ pressure sensors, is an older device developed at BYU and produced by Complete Speech. It is most often used by speech therapists in instructing their patients and retails for around $200-$300. University of Witwatersrand’s innovation comes in developing a selective way of using the mouth movement data to generate toned speech. After cataloging tongue motions, and using predictive-analysis, the team has taught their system to recognize around 50 words with high accuracy. About 18% of the time, however, the new artificial larynx has to skip words it can’t recognize. It also has a 0.3 second delay, leaving users appearing something like a poorly dubbed Godzilla movie. Still, because the palatometer is not an implant (users simply place it in the mouth), it can be easily upgraded as needed. Future versions are likely to improve the accuracy, the vocabulary, and the speed. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - The sinister powers of crowdsourcing
When an ad hoc team of 5000 people who assembled in just two hours found 10 weather balloons hidden across the US by the Pentagon's research agency earlier this month, it was just another demonstration of the power of crowdsourcing – solving a task by appealing to a large undefined group of web users to each do a small chunk of it. So far crowdsourcing has been associated with well-meaning altruism, such as the creation and maintenance of Wikipedia or searching for lost aviators. But crowdsourcing of a different flavour has started to emerge. Law enforcement officials in Texas have installed a network of CCTV cameras to monitor key areas along that state's 1900-kilometre-long border with Mexico. To help screen the footage, a website lets anyone log in to watch a live feed from a border camera and report suspicious activity. A similar system called Internet Eyes, which pays online viewers to spot shoplifters from in-store camera feeds, is set to launch in the UK in 2010. An Iranian website is offering rewards for identifying people in photos taken during protests over June's elections. Some people have declared those examples chilling. Now Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard University law professor and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, says the next step may be for such efforts to get web users to help out covertly. In a recent talk, "Minds for Sale", at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, he pointed out that this could be done right away, using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, a service that provides a platform for anyone to farm out simple tasks. In a speculative example, Zittrain has calculated that, assuming a population in Iran of around 72 million people, it would cost around $17,000 for the government to use Mechanical Turk to identify any arbitrary person's picture, without the users that are doing it realising the cause they have enlisted in. The scheme would show "Turkers" a photo of a protest, or just faces extracted from one, along with five randomly chosen photos from the country's ID card database, and asked to say whether or not there is any match. Users would receive a few cents each time they contribute. Furthermore, Zittrain says that such a task might be made into an addictive game, similar to Google's image labeller. "The people making the identifications in India or the US, idly doing this on their lunch hour instead of Minesweeper, would have no idea of the implications of what they are doing," Zittrain said in the talk. "I think people ought to know how their work is being used," he told New Scientist. Crowdsourcing's power to compartmentalise and abstract away the true meaning of tasks turns human intelligence into a commodity. Zittrain's thought experiment shows how it could potentially entice people into participating in a project that they otherwise wouldn't support. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - Do-it-yourself bed-bug detector
After trying some 50 arrangements of household objects, researchers have come up with a new low-cost, homemade bed-bug detector. To lure the bugs out of hiding, Wan-Tien Tsai of Rutgers University in New Brunswick put dry ice into an insulated, one-third-gallon jug, the kind available at sports or camping stores. Adding 2.5 pounds of dry ice pellets and not quite closing the pour hole allowed carbon dioxide to leak out at a bug-teasing rate for some 11 hours at room temperature, she said. She stood the jug in a plastic cat food dish with a piece of paper taped on the outside of the dish as a ramp up to the rim. The bowl’s steep, slippery inside, with an added dusting of talcum powder, kept bugs from crawling out again. The parts, including the dry ice, cost $15 and don’t require any special skills for assembly. “Everyone can do it,” she said. These days a growing number of people might want to. The tiny, night-crawling bugs that draw blood and can leave itching welts had dwindled to rarity in North America during most of the last century. But since the 1990s, outbreaks have surged. The bugs flatten themselves into crevices in furniture, fabric and even electrical devices, and can prove difficult to eradicate. Many of today’s bed bugs are resistant to pyrethroid insecticides, which account for much of indoor pest treatments. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - Using Menu Psychology to Entice Diners
Pounded by the recession, many restaurants around the country are hoping that some magic combination of prices, adjectives, fonts, type sizes, ink colors and placement on the page can coax diners into spending a little more money. “There is constant tinkering going on right now with menus and menu pricing,” said Sheryl E. Kimes, a professor of hospitality management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. “A lot of creative things are going on because the restaurants are trying to hold on for dear life to make sure they get through this.” For the operators of most high-end restaurants, the menu psychology is usually drawn from instinct and experience. Mr. Meyer, for example, said he had developed most of his theories through trial and error. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - Is Neurostim Becoming a Reality?
"There is a current mass market for 'cognitive enhancement' products — and arguments about the black market potential for neurostim. 'The same neurostim device that uses electric impulses from a brain implant to treat people with Parkinson's Disease can be tweaked by a few millimeters and pulse rates to make cocaine addicts feel like they are high all the time... Mix the glamour of surgical self-improvement with the geekiness of high-tech gadget fetishism and you have a niche cosmetic neurostim market waiting to be tapped...'" / The hardware for the neurostim platform is ultimately cheap and automating the procedure is feasible. The applications could enhance memory, intelligence, and mind-to-mind communication. Automating the neural surgery is not impossible — it just takes research grant money and investors. This may seem like science fiction, but in twenty years it may be considered essential consumer technology. It all depends on how the market plays out. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - Row over “undeserved” Nobel in Physics
Former colleagues at Bell Labs are now involved in a bitter row over who deserved this year’s Nobel Prize for inventing the CCD matrix, the heart of modern digital imaging. The Nobel Committee honored Willard Boyle and George Smith for the scientific advance they did back in the 1960s. However, not everyone seems to agree, Canada's Globe and Mail reported on Tuesday. The two men’s former colleagues Eugene Gordon and Mike Tompsett have challenged the decision. They point to the fact that Boyle and Smith came up with the concept of the device, but neither built it in silicon and metal, nor even saw it as an image capturing technology. The Charge-Coupled Device was meant for information storage, not imaging, Gordon stressed. Some observers believe that the committee should review its procedures by allowing more collaborators to be awarded each year. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - Transparent truck system could save lives
Russian design studio Art Lebedev calls this simple invention--a camera that takes images from the front of a truck to show it on screens in the back--Transparentius. A video signal is delivered from the camera mounted in the head of the truck to the back door panels through a projector. I wish the technology was so cheap that this could be implemented for real, because I'm sure being able to see what's in the blind zone before switching lanes would save a lot of lives on the road. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - Aerodynamic tail makes Geo Metro even cooler
[MetroMPG], an environmentally friendly car enthusiast from Ontario, added a tail to his car to increase gas mileage. This 1998 Pontiac Firefly is a sibling of the cheap and popular Geo Metro. He had already done some work to cover a portion of the rear wheel wells to reduce drag. Using cardboard, duct tape, and an aluminum frame he extended the rear of the car by around six feet. The results are pretty impressive. His extensive testing can be seen in the video after the break and reveals a Miles Per Gallon increase of 15.1% at 90 km/h to get to 64 MPG. The tail is removable but we’re thinking it’s a pain to keep relocating the tail lights from the original body to the removable one. Now we’re wondering if someone is doing this to our Smurf-blue Metro that we sold to the junk man for $100 back in 2001. It ran great, if you weren’t caught in the cloud of blue smoke coming out the back. - Full Article Source

12/26/09 - You’re not seeing double: RGB Christmas trees
[mrpackethead], created this monster of a tree. As shown in the video, it’s capable of showing animations, patterns, and potentially video. The 6m tall creation is studded with 2000 waterproof RGB LED modules. Software for the tree was written in Apple’s own Quartz Composer and integrated into Madrix, a piece of software designed with the purpose of controlling LEDs. The 600W system is 100% Arduino-free and costs less than the equivalent of 0.04USD per hour to run in New Zealand. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - Singapore experiments with energy saving home for the tropics
Singapore - From outside Singapore's Zero Energy Home it looks like the garden has been extended onto the building's facade. A thick layer of small green plants cover the houses' walls, held there by wire mesh. This is not a home for a wood goblin but Singapore's first home that attempts to produce at least as much energy as it consumes. The south-east Asian city is trying anything the energy saving market has for tropical countries plus a few ideas it has come up with itself. Singapore has been forced to be inventive. "Most energy saving homes were developed in the West. Insulation to preserve warmth is the main focus there but that's not what we need in tropical countries," says project manager Alice Goh. In regions that have cold winters it makes sense to use insulation as 80 per cent of the energy used in private households is for heating. That does not apply to homes in the tropics however. Instead of keeping warmth in, the goal is to keep heat out. Instead of directing the sun's power inside a home, tropical energy saving homes aim to stay cool. "The plants on the walls are an additional form of thermal insulation," says Goh. The plants prevent the rays from the hot tropical sun heating the walls and Singapore's housing authority HDB has already decided to cover the roofs of its high-rise buildings with plants. The Zero Energy Home is also being used to test double glazed windows that have blinds between the panes of glass. Depending on the sun's strength the blinds descend, covering the windows with a foil that blocks heat. There are also mirrored shafts that cleverly direct the sun's light inside the house as well as "light shelves" - horizontal mirrors attached to the windows that both create shadow and direct light inside. There is also a Singapore air conditioning invention of two jets that blow cool air precisely where it's needed at an area where people sit and work. One room is used to simulate a school gym and has been equipped with ventilation chimneys; large metal pipes in the roof expel warm air outside while drawing cool air into the room through side windows. The sun collectors on the roof come from Japan while the heart of the solar electricity generation plant was made by the German firm SMA: an inverter that connects the solar module to the electricity network. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - Turkish firm invents more efficient fuel with boron
The new fuel is currently only being used as an ingredient of the gas or diesel used in fuel tanks but Arvas is hopeful that it will replace these carbon-based fuels once compatible engines are produced. “We are so happy that we have managed to put boron into fuel tanks after 20 years of research and development studies. Our company is also carrying out studies to develop boron-compatible vehicles,” Arvas said. Speaking to the Anatolia news agency on Wednesday, Arvas also said the storage problems related to hydrogen, which is known as a clean and environmentally friendly fuel, prompted scientists to look for an alternative product, finally managing to invent what the company is marketing in Turkey and Europe as “Bor Power Nanofuel.” Arvas said vehicles using fuel containing boron would be able to travel 1,300 kilometers on the same amount of gas that a car using ordinary fuel would need in order to travel 1,000 kilometers. A reduction in pollution is another benefit of the new boron product, he added. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - Panasonic Plans To Market Storage Battery For Home Use In 2011
Panasonic Corp., which recently made a successful takeover bid for Sanyo Electric Co., plans to market a lithium-ion storage cell for home use around fiscal 2011. “We’ll be the first to bring to the market a storage battery for home use, which can store sufficient electricity for about one week of use,” said Fumio Otsubo, president of Panasonic, in a recent interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun. Stressing that Panasonic and Sanyo have already test-manufactured a storage battery for home use, Otsubo said, “We’re positioned closest [among firms] to realizing CO2 emission-free daily life.” By making Sanyo its subsidiary, Panasonic plans to accelerate the development of the storage battery, while planning to sell it together with a system that will enable households to check electricity usage on a home-based TV display. Solar batteries for home use and fuel cells can generate power but cannot store electricity, making the development of a storage battery an urgent task for related businesses. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - A couple of Inventions from Novgorod
In addition to a great historical and cultural heritage, the Nizhny Novgorod region is a key center for Russian industry, renowned for engineering and scientific innovation. Mars 2000 is no normal boat. Able to move on water, land, snow and even ice, this dream machine would be fit for James Bond himself. Inside, one can find all the usual features of a car, but it's made from the same material as a helicopter and moves on water like a boat – this invention from experts in Nizhny Novgorod is something special. This hovercraft is able to take on all kinds of weather and all kinds of surfaces – all thanks to the ability to manually change the pressure of the balloon floats outside, meaning bumps, slopes and even mounds of snow pose no problem. According to Sergey Italyantsev, director general of Aks shipbuilding company, the hovercraft is used for sea patrol, transportation around oil rigs and by coastal units – and not only in Russia. / The Obereg is small and unassuming, this machine has three sensors, along with an infrared night camera, and can get around obstacles with ease, giving it a huge advantage when it comes to saving lives. “The robot can search for humans trapped by avalanches, earthquakes and other emergency situations by detecting the electromagnetic signal given off by their watch or mobile phone. It doesn’t need any human help, and can pick up the signal through steel, cement, ice, mud etc,” inventor Alexey Budanin, who is also a student of radio technical college, says. This signal is then sent to a computer to be analyzed. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - Honey Reduces Aggression and Prolongs Life
Fructose and glucose, components of honey, are simple carbohydrates and therefore, are easy to digest. Honey is also rich in vitamins ? 2, ??, ?, ? 6, ? and ?, pantothenic and folic acids and biotin that improve condition of skin, hair, and nails. It also contains calcium, sodium, magnesium, ferrum, iodine, and other minerals. Many of the minerals contained in honey correspond with those in human blood, which allows 100% digestion. Honey is a strong antimicrobial substance, and it has been used as a natural antiseptic to treat wounds, abscesses, skin and respiratory diseases since ancient times. Honey is also good for the cardio-vascular system since glucose is a necessary component for the cardiac muscle. Honey strengthens the nervous and immune systems and raises hemoglobin level. Pythagoras, a Greek mathematician, confessed that his longevity was attributed to regular consumption of honey. Arabic doctor and poet Avicenna also recommended honey for people over 45. Greek philosopher Demokrit who lived to be over 100 years old also recommended honey for everyone. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - USA Spends Trillion of Dollars to Make Terrorist War Last Forever
The US has spent over one trillion dollars on the struggle against terrorism since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Iraq has taken the lion’s share of the amount - $748 billion. The spending on anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan is 2.5 times less. Expert Sergey Golubev believes that the level of the terrorist threat in the world has grown because of the US-led anti-terrorist efforts. “They spent a trillion dollars to add more fuel to the fire of the terrorist war. The Americans crushed Iraq and Afghanistan . There are too many people in these two countries who lost their homes, jobs and loved ones because of the USA, and those people are ready to do anything to harm the Americans. Washington will have to pay for this politics. As for the situation in other countries, one may say that there is no country in the world that can defend itself against terrorist attacks. Recent attacks in India’s Mumbai prove that,” the expert said. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - A Blueprint for a Quantum Propulsion Machine
Push on the electromagnetic fields in the quantum vacuum and you should get an equal and opposite force. According to quantum mechanics, any vacuum will be filled with electromagnetic waves leaping in and out of existence. It turns out that these waves can have various measurable effects, such as the Casimir-Polder force. The new approach focuses on the momentum associated with these electromagnetic fields rather than the force they exert. The question is whether it is possible to modify this momentum because, if you can, you should receive an equal and opposite kick. That's what rocket scientists call propulsion. Today, Alex Feigel at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center, a government lab in Yavne Israel, suggests an entirely new way to modify the momentum of the quantum vacuum and how this can be exploited to generate propulsion. Feigel's approach combines two well-established ideas. The first is the Lorentz force experienced by a charged particle in electric and magnetic fields that are crossed. The second is the magnetoelectric effect--the phenomenon in which an external magnetic field induces a polarised internal electric field in certain materials and vice versa. The question that Feigel asks is in what circumstances the electromagnetic fields in a quantum vacuum can exert a Lorentz force. The answer is that the quantum vacuum constantly interacts with magnetoelectric materials generating Lorentz forces. Most of the time, however, these forces sum to zero. Hwever, Feigel says there are four cases in which the forces do not sum to zero. Two of these are already known, for example confining the quantum field between two plates, which excludes longer wavelength waves. But Feigel says the two others offer entirely new ways to exploit the quantum vacuum using magnetoelectric nanoparticles to interact with the electromagnetic fields it contains. The first method is to rapidly aggregate a number of magnetoelectric nanoparticles, a process which influences the boundary conditions for higher frequency electromagnetic waves, generating a force. The second is simply to rotate a group of magnetoelectric nanoparticles, which also generates a Lorentz force. Either way, the result is a change in velocity. As Feigel puts it: "mechanical action of quantum vacuum on magneto-electric objects may be observable and have a significant value." The beauty of Feigel's idea is that it can be easily tested. He suggests building an addressable array of magnetoelectric nanoparticles, perhaps made of a material such as FeGaO3 which has a magnetoelectric constant of 10^-4 in a weak magnetic field. These nanoparticles simply have to be rotated in the required way to generate a force. Feigel calls it a magnetoelectric quantum wheel. - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - Rosemary Ainslie Circuit - COP>17
Over six years ago, the Rosemary Ainslie Circuit was originally reported by several witnesses and was independently Verified to have shown a Coefficient Of Performance greater than "17" (known as "COP>17"); specifically electrical energy efficiency in the heating of a resistive element. Meaning in this case; the circuit when properly built and tuned could show over "17 times" the heating efficiency that could be expected compared to a "conventional" device such as an electric "space heater" or "baseboard heater". So if a conventional household heater was rated at "1,700 Watts", a Rosemary Ainslie Circuit or similar concept-based device could produce the same amount of heat for only "100 Watts" of actual expended power... Something of great significance not only for vastly cheaper and more ecologically sound Home Heating for folks all over the planet... but for ushering in new understandings of electrical energy in general: Such "Nearly Free Energy" devices of great efficiency will eventually force the changing of conventional Physics theory to account for them; disproving current scientific dogma regarding mainstream "electromagnetic theory". (via zpenergy.com) - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - Gravity Ruled Out as the Cause of the Pioneer Anomaly
The Pioneer anomaly is an unexplained deceleration of the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft that seems to be acting on them as they head out of the Solar System. This deceleration is tiny: just (8.74±1.33)×10^?10 ms^?2. The big question is where does it come from. One possibility is that the deceleration is the result of some long range gravitational force that is not observed on Earth. But if that's the case, then this force should act on all of the many objects in the outer Solar System. Now Lorenzo Iorio, at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Pisa, Italy, has analysed these orbits and concludes that a Pioneer-like force cannot be acting on Triton, Nereid and Proteus because the resulting anomalous perturbations would be too large to have escaped detection. "The possibility that the Pioneer anomaly may be an exotic gravitational phenomenon seems to be challenged," says Iorio. This work is part of a growing body of evidence that the Pioneer anomaly is not a gravitational effect. That's a puzzle. If not gravitational in origin, what kind of force is acting on the Pioneer spacecraft? - Full Article Source

12/24/09 - A Review Of The Best Robots of 2009
In 2009 robots continued their advance towards world domination with several impressive breakouts in areas such as walking, automation, and agility, while still lacking in adaptability and reasoning ability. It will be several years until robots can gain the artificial intelligence that will truly make them remarkable, but in the meantime they are still pretty awesome. Move over Lucy, you bees out of a job! - 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