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June 2006 Plenum News 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 06/30/06 - Cheaper, Cleaner Combustion Researchers at Georgia Tech say their simple design -- in which fuel goes down the "straw," air mixes from a donut-shaped inlet around the straw, and combustion gases flow out of the "teacup's" sides (see image) -- slashes nitrogen oxides emissions to as low as one part per million (the best existing technologies emit nine parts per million), and also produces less carbon monoxide pollution. The reduction in emissions is done without complex and costly equipment that mixes air and fuel, or systems to cleanse pollutants from the exhaust. "If someone can show a combustor that can get to two parts per million NOx and not require [exhaust scrubbers] on the power plant, you have made a big step to save capital costs, reduce the cost of electricity, and reduce pollution," says Richard Dennis, turbine technology manager at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, WV. Essentially, the Georgia Tech design minimizes areas of very high temperatures within the combustion chamber and also minimizes so-called "back-mixing" of combustion gases with hot areas -- zones where the nitrogen oxides form. Instead of premixing fuel with air, the shape of the combustion chamber efficiently forces the air and fuel to mix and guides the combustion process. 06/30/06 - Science finds new fix for UV-damaged skin in arthritis treatment For many women, accumulated sun exposure has already permanently damaged their skin cells, causing them to overproduce pigment that shows up as unsightly dark splotches and uneven skin tone over time. But new research indicates that glucosamine - a compound best known for treating arthritis - can actually help stop the formation of new age spots, and help fade existing ones. Chronic UV exposure can damage melanocytes, cells in the skin responsible for producing melanin, in a variety of different ways. Often, this damage can lead to a loss of cellular control, and the production of chemicals that allow the cells to keep producing more and more melanin - which eventually leads to age spots and uneven discoloration. Additionally, as skin ages, cell turnover slows down and melanin "dust" - microscopic particles of melanin - can become trapped in the upper layers of skin, resulting in a duller appearance. "Pigmentation is an appearance issue that strikes an emotional chord for women, and even though we're constantly telling our patients about the importance of UV-protection, once the damage is done, we need to be able to provide them with ways to help," says Dr. Kimball. "The level of research and validation on topical cosmetic application of glucosamine will help it stand apart from other ingredients when it comes to improving tone and treating hyperpigmentation." 06/30/06 - Renewable Energy Company to Propel Wave Energy The AquaBuOY technology, which has been independently evaluated and found commercially viable, is placed to acquire a dominant market position due to its potential to generate electricity at a cost that is competitive with onshore and offshore wind farms and some fossil fuels, in the near to mid-term. Finavera Renewables' acquisition of AquaEnergy includes wave energy projects under development in Figuera da Foz (Portugal), Makah Bay (Washington), and Ucluelet (British Columbia) with planned installation dates of 2008, 2009 and 2010, respectively, for a combined power generation potential of 200 MW when at full capacity. 06/30/06 - New Process Makes Diesel Fuel & Industrial Chemicals from Sugar James Dumesic, a University of Wisconsin-Madison chemical and biological engineering professor, reports in the June 30 issue of the journal Science on a better way to make a chemical intermediate called HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural) from fructose - fruit sugar. HMF can be converted into plastics, diesel-fuel additive, or even diesel fuel itself, but is seldom used because it is costly to make. The new, patent-pending method for making HMF is a balancing act of chemistry, pressure, temperature and reactor design. After a catalyst converts fructose into HMF, the HMF moves to a solvent that carries it to a separate location, where the HMF is extracted. Although other researchers had previously converted fructose into HMF, Dumesic's research group made a series of improvements that raised the HMF output, and also made the HMF easier to extract. Once made, HMF is fairly easy to convert into plastics or diesel fuel. Although the biodiesel that has made headlines lately is made from a fat (even used cooking oil), not a sugar, both processes have similar environmental and economic benefits, Dumesic says. Instead of buying petroleum from abroad, the raw material would come from domestic agriculture. Expanding the source of raw material should also depress the price of petroleum. 06/30/06 - Gyroscopes rise upwards due to curled gravity A hydrodynamical theory of gravity based exclusively on differentiating the velocity field vector once, with respect to time, can yield more information on magnetic force than appears in a modern textbook. The totally parallel hydrodynamical theories of gravity and electromagnetism leave us to choose whether, (1)A positron is a sink in one aether, and a source in the other aether, or (2) Whether there is only one aether, and that like charges only repel when they are positive. The latter conclusion is the same as saying that gravity and negative electricity are one and the same thing. (via zpenergy.com) 06/29/06 - Gyro Wave to Energy Converter Researchers and companies have been trying for decades to capture the energy of waves to produce electric power, but the latest wave energy invention comes from an unlikely source: Aaron Goldin, a senior at San Dieguito High School Academy in Encinitas, California. In December, Goldin won the $100,000 Grand Prize scholarship from the 2004-2005 Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology, the nation's premiere high school science competition, for his invention of the "Gyro-Gen," a gyroscope that converts ocean wave energy into electricity. The spinning gyroscope, mounted in a buoy, resists the movement of the waves by exerting torque on a crank, which turns an electric generator. Goldin created his gyroscope prototypes in his garage, scavenging an old tape recorder, answering machine, and other household appliances for parts. "For many years, people have known that wave energy is very powerful, but his solution using a gyroscope is novel," he said. "We actually looked on the Web and at the patent office, and we couldn't find any work done on this." Aaron said he believed the gyroscope might generate electrical power from waves because it would automatically push back against them, enabling it to absorb wave energy. Aaron said his device is a free-floating system that is environmentally benign. Aaron's vision soon turned into the Gyro-Gen. It's a spinning gyroscope and power generator inside a floating buoy. As the buoy travels over a wave, it tilts, first one way and then the other--and this motion causes the gyro to perform a very peculiar trick, called precession. This stunt is difficult to believe until you've seen it, but basically what happens is that the gyro resists the rocking motion not by tilting in the opposite direction, but by turning along an axis that's at a 90-degree angle to the tilting force. Aaron figured the gyro's axis-shifting action could be harnessed to move a crank that turns a generator. But could the setup produce surplus electricity--more than that needed to keep the gyro spinning? He built a prototype, and it does indeed generate excess power. Aaron has applied for a patent. 06/29/06 - Stabilizing explosive elements with Nano sized Capsules Capsules only nanometers or billionths of a meter wide that stabilize extremely dangerous compounds normally prone to igniting or exploding can safely generate more than enough hydrogen gas to beat U.S. Department of Energy goals for hydrogen production for 2015 just by dropping them in water. The capsules are finding use in simplifying pharmaceutical manufacture. They could also help clean petroleum of sulfur and destroy ozone-destroying CFCs, dangerous mustard gas and organic pollutants such as PCBs. The capsules are safe and easy to handle, and after they react the only byproducts are environmentally friendly, such as sand or sodium silicate, "which is the main ingredient in toothpaste," Lefenfeld said. Sodium, potassium and other alkali metals are potentially extraordinarily useful elements because they are highly chemically reactive. However, this also makes them dangerously volatile. "If you drop sodium in water, you'll see it dance as a fireball on the surface. If you drop rubidium in water, it's like a hand grenade. And cesium is like a depth charge. It's why people have avoided using them," Lefenfeld said. He and his colleagues developed a method to enclose nanoparticles of alkali metals in porous capsules made of ceramics such as silica or alumina. These capsules soak up the loose electrons that make the alkali metals so violently unstable, while at the same time maintaining their reactivity. "If the alkali metals were not in nanoclusters, you could not achieve stabilization," Lefenfeld said. "The nice thing about our technologies is that our materials can be made through currently commercially available ingredients, processes and equipment. There's no need for specially designed or really expensive types of equipment. It can all be very simple," Lefenfeld said. One exciting possibility for these capsules is generating hydrogen gas for vehicles in the future. Combining hydrogen gas with oxygen results in energy and water, and none of the dirty mix of toxins and global warming gases burning gasoline spews forth. The cleanliness of hydrogen is in large part why government and industry support for hydrogen vehicles has reached into the billions of dollars. Scientists worldwide are experimenting with cost effective and convenient sources of hydrogen. The U.S. Department of Energy requirement for hydrogen production for 2015 is a material that can generate 8 weight percent hydrogen, "so if you put in 100 grams of a material, you're supposed to get eight grams of hydrogen back," Lefenfeld said. "Our materials currently can get up to 9 weight percent hydrogen, exceeding the 2015 requirement, with the potential of achieving 13 or 14 weight percent hydrogen which is nearly double the DoE 2015 requirement." 06/29/06 - The Simmer Stove - ingenious and simple new stove design The Simmer Stove works by lowering the cooking pot into the benchtop, significantly reducing the chances of the pot being pulled or knocked off the stove and taking the heat source well away from human hands. The safety aspects seem to pale beside the confinement of the heat source which prevents heat loss to the atmosphere and significantly reduces the energy needs of the stove. 06/29/06 - B100 Biofuel Dean Schmelter is opening a Southeast Biodiesel plant to produce low-polluting, relatively low-cost fuel by recycling vegetable oil from area restaurants. According to our recent report, Mr. Schmelter, who owns several other chemical-processing facilities in the Southeast, signed a lease with the Noisette Co. for the use of an old warehouse at the former Navy Base. He told our reporter his new enterprise was prompted by a conversation with a local mechanic, recalling: "I was complaining about the high cost of fuel, and he said, 'Well, you're a chemist. Do something about it.' " So he did, coming up with a process for producing the "B100" that now runs the turbo diesel engine in his Mercedes. The result, he explained, is a fuel that, borrowing from the Environmental Protection Agency's description, is "more biodegradeable than sugar and less toxic than salt." 06/29/06 - Gel Absorbs Water to Aid Firefighters In Southern Utah, the state has a new weapon to battle the fires. If any fire threatens homes, crews plan to use a fire-retardant gel to fight off the flames. Wildfires challenge firefighters all across the west. The fire season in Southern Utah continues to intensify. When flames roar towards homes, everyone gets nervous. But what if firefighters could pull a protective diaper over homes to fend off the flames? In a sense, that's how Thermo-gel works. Randy Crane, Utah Product Rep: "The good thing about this material is that you can spray it on and it's good for eight hours. You can spray it on and leave with some assurance you're going to be protected." Like the polymers in the baby diaper, the polymers in this foam absorb 50 times its weight in water. When you put the foam on a structure, it's like covering it with a dome of water." We tried to burn items covered with the gel, they would not light. A test wall went up in flames, while the side coated with the gel did not burn. Tracy Dunford, State Fire Manager: "We can apply this to the structures and get our firefighters out of the way, and come in after the flames have gone by. It's shown to be pretty effective." If a fire burns towards homes in Southern Utah, firefighters will spray the gel on the homes to repel the flames. Some states drop it from planes. The company says Thermo-Gel works on wildfires, tire fires, structure fires, prescribed burns, and for home protection. It washes off with water and can be used on trees and vegetation. 06/29/06 - Odor Recorder for later Playback Imagine being able to record the smell of that perfume you liked while out shopping so you can play it back later and decide if you'll buy it. Engineers in Japan are building an odor recorder capable of doing just that. The device can analyze an object's odor and reproduce it for you using a host of non-toxic chemicals. In tests, the system has successfully recorded and reproduced smells of orange, lemon, apple, banana and melon. 06/29/06 - Integrated Grid-tie windmill becomes cheaper, easier to install The Skystream 3.7 small wind turbine system, which has been designed as a grid-tie turbine with all necessary power electronics integrated into the system. The company is calling it a "new weapon" in the fight against high electricity costs. "With no batteries, Skystream 3.7 connects directly to the home to supply power. When the wind is not blowing, the home is powered by the electric utility. Depending on the local utility, excess electricity can be sold back to the utility or used at a later date," according to a company press release. "With a typical cost of $8,000 to $10,000 to purchase and install, Skystream 3.7 can pay for itself in 5 to 12 years. This payback period will vary and can be much quicker in states with investment rebates. It's anticipated that Skystream 3.7 will save the average homeowner $500 to $800 per year, based on 4,800 to 6,600 kWh produced per year and a $.12/kWh cost of electricity." 06/29/06 - Researchers new tool to determine insect bites in children Children afflicted with insect-bite rashes are often misdiagnosed or referred for extensive and costly tests, but a new, easy-to-remember set of guidelines developed at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center should help. Called SCRATCH, the letters form a memorable acronym for symmetry, cluster, Rover, age, target/time, confused, household). It is a guide to the symptoms and features that help pediatricians and others to recognize the source of a rash. Insect-bite skin rashes mimic the symptoms of a variety of conditions, ranging from fungal infections, scabies, allergies and environmental contacts, to HIV-associated dermatoses. Reactions to a bite are often delayed, making it difficult to trace exposure. The most common misdiagnosis was scabies, a skin infection caused by a parasite that produces red, itchy lesions. Many of the children were treated repeatedly for scabies. "These guidelines are really intended to make pediatricians consider insect-bite hypersensitivity as a diagnosis and think twice before referring a child for a skin biopsy or another invasive procedure," Cohen says. Using the tool is straightforward, Cohen adds. If the rash fits the SCRATCH criteria, it's likely bug-borne. S for Symmetry / C for Clusters / R for Rover Not Required / A for Age Specific / T for Target Lesions and Time / C for Confusion / H for Household with Single Family Member Affected. 06/29/06 - Peephole Ad (This advertising gimmick is just too novel and unique to not share here. - JWD) Ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi has come up with a new version of those annoying advertising fliers that underpaid immigrants hang on your door. The new version is a STICKER placed in front of your peephole to help you visualize the use of the service advertised. 06/29/06 - Owning a thing is worse than Borrowing a thing In order to truly engage in one-planet living we have to do better than just make our current ways of life greener: we have to redesign the way we're living, increasing our quality of life while reducing its impact. One of the fundamental insights that's helping us re-imagine our lives in a brighter, greener cast is that most of the time, we don't want stuff, we want specific needs fulfilled or experiences provided; that, as Amory Lovins puts it, we don't want refrigerators, we want cold beer -- if there were a better, cheaper, cleaner way of providing cold brews, most of us wouldn't shed a tear to see our fridges go. Recognizing that this is true for nearly every product in our lives is revelation number one. The second revelation in recasting our relationship to stuff is that owning a thing can actually be worse than borrowing it. Dawn likes to remind us that there's enormous waste in the ownership of things: that, for example, the average power drill gets used for ten to twenty minutes in its entire life. Because we've been convinced that not having our own power drill at hand when we need it might lead to disaster or at least embarassment, we have made and purchased millions of power drills which will go essentially unused. This is the epitome of unsustainable waste, involving as it does mountains of mined ore, refineries full of oil, and rivers of waste used to create nothing of value. What's more, those drills sit in our homes, cluttering our spaces, gathering dust and generally making few of us much happier. In the case of drills, there is a simple solution: the tool library. They already exist in many places, and they're easy to start elsewhere. Why own a drill when you can own a library card and, with a small bit of planning (and we know that walkshed technologies are making planning like this easier every day), have the use not only of a drill but of a whole workshop full of great tools? What's true of power drills is true of nearly everything. 06/29/06 - Canadian tool can re-grow teeth and bones The researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton filed patents earlier this month in the United States for the tool based on low-intensity pulsed ultrasound technology after testing it on a dozen dental patients in Canada. "Right now, we plan to use it to fix fractured or diseased teeth, as well as asymmetric jawbones, but it may also help hockey players or children who had their tooth knocked out," Jie Chen, an engineering professor and nano-circuit design expert, told AFP. Chen helped create the tiny ultrasound machine that gently massages gums and stimulates tooth growth from the root once inserted into a person's mouth, mounted on braces or a removable plastic crown. The wireless device, smaller than a pea, must be activated for 20 minutes each day for four months to stimulate growth, he said. It can also stimulate jawbone growth to fix a person's crooked smile and may eventually allow people to grow taller by stimulating bone growth, Chen said. 06/29/06 - ACLU Files for Info on New Brain-Scan Tech "According to their website, the ACLU has filed a FOIA request seeking information on the new Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging service being made available to the government for use on suspected terrorists which can produce 'live, real-time images of people's brains as they answer questions, view images, listen to sounds, and respond to other stimuli. [...] These brain-scanning technologies are far from ready for forensic uses and if deployed will inevitably be misused and misunderstood," said Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "This technology must not be deployed until it is proven effective -- and we are a long way away from that point, according to scientists in the field,"'" 06/28/06 - Younger the mom's age at birth, the longer you live People are more likely to see their 100th birthday, research hints, if they were born to young mothers. The age at which a mother gives birth has a major impact on how long her child will live, two researchers from the University of Chicago's Center on Aging told the Chicago Actuarial Association meeting this spring. The chances of living to the ripe old age of 100 and beyond nearly double for a child born to a woman before her 25th birthday, Drs. Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Gavrilova reported. The father's age is less important to longevity, according to their research. They observed that first-born children, especially daughters, are much more likely to live to age 100. But their latest research suggests that it is the young age of the mother, rather than birth order, which is significant to longevity. 06/28/06 - Hybrids Consume More Energy Than Full-size SUVs The basic gist of the report is to calculate how much energy cars use in their lifetime, because thinking only in terms of fuel efficiency is quite short sighted. The report suggests that batteries and other parts of hybrid cars are very complicated to manufacture and recycle and in fact, the energy required to drive a hybrid is quite small in comparison to the energy required to build and recycle it (and do the research and development on a hybrid I might add). This also does not help the hybrid case: Based on the average mileage and life expectancy, there is a wide range of years that certain models will be on the road before being scrapped. This ranges from a low of 10 years to as much as 20-plus years. As segments, the lowest number of years are Hybrid models as a group (12.1 years) while the highest segment is Premium SUVs such as the Range Rover and Hummer H2 (22.2 years). The report still doesn't show actual energy inputs, only a conversion to US dollars. 06/28/06 - Think globally? Act domestically Consumers eager to slow global warming increasingly have a financial incentive to think close to home when making choices about where to invest. Efficiency-enhancing systems, from triple-paned windows to water-saving washers offer more than a boost to a home's long-term value, experts say. They also immediately slash onerous energy bills and shrink a household's "carbon footprint" - the emissions that contribute to global warming. Energy audits pinpoint the physical locations where energy is being wasted. Public utilities routinely offer such services, often through an online analysis of energy bills, free of charge. For a few hundred dollars, a qualified contractor will conduct an on-site analysis and furnish a written report highlighting the opportunity spots. The greatest potential gains often lurk in the areas of heating and cooling, which together account for 41 percent of energy usage in a typical home. That adds up to more than $600 per year in an average household which, according to the US Department of Energy, spends about $1,500 per year on energy bills. But before buying new machinery, experts say, invest - if necessary - in making the living environment airtight. Otherwise, the benefits of efficient systems slip through the cracks along with the climate-controlled air. "If you have any extra bucks, I would say, 'insulate your house,' " says Susanne Moser, a research scientist and public educator at the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment in Boulder, Colo. "We pump so much energy out into the universe by having ... badly insulated homes. That would be a huge difference you could make." 06/28/06 - The Renewal of the West If 200 years from now America will be filled with people who know and love the ideas of Jefferson and Madison -- but these people are overwhelmingly dark skinned -- will this be good or bad? Clearly, there is a rage of anti-immigrant feeling in large swaths of my political party (Republican) at the moment. I don't think, however, that it's racism that drives it. It's nostalgia. Large numbers of conservatives seem to think that they have a constitutional right to have their country look the same in their old age as it did in their childhoods. The problem of course, is that the country of their childhoods, didn't look the same as the country of their parent's childhoods. America is a highly dynamic country. In fact, dynamism is the point of it, especially racial dynamism. When the first Congress commissioned that Adams, Franklin and Jefferson create a 'great seal' which would represent the ideals of our country, the (eventual) results included the Latin words "E Pluribus Unum", From many, One. From many what? From many races. Despite waves of German immigrants, English remained our national language. Despite waves of Irish and Italian immigrants from the 1840's to the 1920's, which were proportionately far larger than our current immigration wave, America never really did become a vassal of the Pope. Immigration doesn't represent the 'death of the West' it represents its renewal. People go from places that they don't like to places that they do like. This implies that they 'buy in' to what we're about to some degree. I would argue that immigrants tend to buy in to America more fervently than those of us who are born here. By definition someone who crosses oceans and valleys to get to something has proven already that he values it. Such people are also, by nature, risk takers. We're the children of the people who left their homes (mostly in Europe) and started over. Do they change the culture? Of course, they do. Living cultures change, dead cultures don't. 06/28/06 - Planet Size Comparisons How big is Earth compared to other planets and stars? Here are a fun series of photos comparing Earth's size to that of other planets and stars. I like the way the planets are laid out on a table. 06/28/06 - All-Electric Car That Accelerates Faster Than a Ferrari At least three Silicon Valley startups -- Tesla Motors of San Carlos, Wrightspeed Inc. of Woodside and battery maker Li-on Cells of Menlo Park -- are among a small cadre of companies nationwide developing electric cars or components. 'To attract consumers en masse, the price has to be low enough where they can see the break-even point,'' said Anthony Pratt, an automotive analyst at J.D. Power & Associates. ''The problem with electric vehicles is that they tend to be limited by the battery technology.'' Some major automakers are also working on electric vehicle technology, but most are focused on hybrid cars that run on a combination of gas and electricity, Pratt said. Backers of electric cars, powered by batteries charged from an electric outlet, say the country could quickly reduce its dependence on foreign oil -- as well as emissions of ''greenhouse'' gases blamed for global warming -- if more drivers went electric. In Tesla's workshop about 20 miles south of San Francisco, Eberhard and Tarpenning offered a glimpse of their first model -- a sleek two-seater called the Roadster that resembles a Lotus Elise -- but would not allow photographs. They plan to unveil it at an event for prospective buyers next month in Santa Monica. ''We're building a car for people who like to drive,'' Eberhard said. ''This is not a punishment car.'' To build the Roadster, Tesla engineers designed a sophisticated battery system with more than 8,000 lithium-ion cells and a network of computers to control them, Eberhard said. They also built an electric motor that is more than twice as powerful as earlier electric vehicles. The Roadster will be able to drive about 250 miles on a single three-hour charge, drive up to 135 miles per hour and accelerate from zero to 60 in four seconds, Eberhard said. It will cost between $85,000 and $120,000. With no doors, roof or windshield, a drive in Wrightspeed's X1 feels like a roller coaster ride and can leave passengers wind-beaten and queasy. It accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 3 seconds, making it one of the world's fastest production cars. Last year, Wright's X1 beat a Porsche and Ferrari in separate races. 06/28/06 - Verify your Anti-Virus software is REALLY working The EICAR virus test is a harmless text file that is detected as a virus by most AntiVirus vendors. You can use it to verify that your local virus scanner is working (just copy the string into a plain text file and save it), check to see if your email server scans for viruses (email yourself a copy), and test if scanners detect viruses inside archives (put it inside a zip file). 06/27/06 - Universal Battery Charger William Caldwell decided to save the money and invent something cheaper. He came up with a device that will charge any rechargeable battery, and starting Wednesday, Caldwell, a Homestead resident, will be showing it off at INPEX, the largest invention trade show in the United States. The golf cart battery charger would have cost $300, 'and I thought, `For that, I'll sell my golf cart,' '' said Caldwell, 64, a retired land surveyor. ``My invention is a lot cheaper to build then to buy a battery charger.'' It took $1.50 to build the first prototype of the invention, which resembled an extension cord. The current prototype is more sophisticated and cost about $50 to make. That's the one Caldwell will bring to Pittsburgh for the convention, which runs through Saturday. The device resembles an extension cord housed in a square, four-inch electrical box with light bulb sockets. It weighs 1 pound. Users would connect a rechargeable battery to the charger box and plug in the unit. The more light bulbs connected to the box, the more juice it provides, charging any battery up to about 170 volts. Caldwell said his invention is unique because most batteries need individual charging devices, while his charges all types. He said he has applied for a patent. He used the ''Load Controlled Battery Charging Device'' overnight to charge his golf cart battery. ''The golf cart worked pretty good the next day,'' he said. ``There's no question about it, it works.'' Caldwell said the charger can be used for appliances and gadgets as small as a cellphone to as big as a boat battery. ''You hook it up to your battery and you go have a beer,'' he said. ``It's well worth it when you want to go fishing.'' 06/27/06 - Inventor claims undetectable Noise based, Interference Free Radar (Reminds me of Professor Nunnelly's Quartz Switched system which the government suppressed because it used thousands of frequencies that completely obviated the Aurora stealth technology. - JWD) A new radar system is virtually undetectable because its signal resembles random noise, according to researchers at Ohio State University. The radar could be of use to the military and law enforcement, the scientists said today. The radar uses a very low-intensity signal across a wide range of frequencies, so a TV or radio tuned to any one frequency would interpret the radar signal as a very weak form of static. "Almost all radio receivers in the world are designed to eliminate random noise, so that they can clearly receive the signal they're looking for," said Eric Walton, who led the work. "Radio receivers could search for this radar signal and they wouldn't find it. It also won't interfere with TV, radio, or other communication signals." To put it another way, the bandwidth of the new device is thousands of times broader than the signals it might otherwise interfere with, Walton explained. Like traditional radar, the "noise" radar detects an object by bouncing a radio signal off it and detecting the rebound. The new radar can be tuned to penetrate solid walls, just as a TV signal does. The military could use it to spot enemy soldiers inside a building, or police could catch speeding drivers without setting off their radar detectors. Walton, whose team is filing for a patent on the device, said the components cost less than $100. (Thanks to Bob Nelson at Rex Research who found the patent application 20060012513 for this interesting device. - The test results demonstrated that the pseudo-noise radar system may be used to alert a moving or stationary vehicle to the presence of dangerous obstacles. The radar may operate in a frequency band where penetration of light (grass and brush) foliage is possible. Thus, the radar may see through fog, rain, snow, darkness, light foliage, and even building walls. Since the radar may use a very wide band (e.g., greater than 800 MHz) spread spectrum signal, it may be very difficult to detect and to jam. Furthermore, noise-like signals may be transmitted over bands that are otherwise licensed to other carriers because it has been shown that they do not interfere with those carriers. 06/27/06 - Brain key to Stroke Cure SCIENTISTS have discovered a new way to make the brain repair itself after a stroke, according to new research. Fewer rats that suffered an induced stroke remained paralysed after the treatment, which activated stem cells in the brain, researchers found. A team of scientists stimulated stem cells in the rats' brains after they were starved of oxygen. They used proteins to activate a receptor on the stem cells known as the notch. The receptor caused a "cascade" effect which created new brain cells after the stroke. The treatment also improved the ability of existing cells to survive the lack of oxygen. When rats were given the treatment, many recovered from the loss of movement the stroke had caused. Other treatments using embryonic stem cells have been restricted by problems experienced in working with the cells under laboratory conditions. Implanted cells come under attack from the body's immune system. The researchers wrote: "New cell therapies based on embryonic stem (ES) cells are supported by work in animal models of human disease. "They are difficult to implement, however, because it is hard to grow tissue-specific precursors in the laboratory and it is difficult to deliver them to diffuse disease sites in the body without stimulating an immune response. "The results that we present here suggest a general model of stem-cell expansion that applies to many precursor cells of clinical interest." 06/27/06 - Best way to build children’s brains: play with them Playing with your young children is the best way to make them into smart adults, researchers say-beating trendy toys, classes or music as a brain-building strategy for preschoolers. Children’s foremost need is a secure relationship with an adult who loves them, said Eric Knudsen of the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif. “It’s all about playing with your child,” he added. The authors said that working independently, they concluded that the earliest years of life forever shape an adult’s ability to learn. The capacity for change in the foundations of skill development and brain circuitry “is highest earlier in life and decreases over time,” the authors wrote. A child’s eventual ability to learn calculus or a second language, Knudsen said, starts with brain cells shaped by positive interactions with nurturing adults, well before school begins. “With all the attention currently focused on K-12 education reform and job training for adults with limited skills, this paper said that the biggest bang for the buck will come from investing in the earliest years of life,” he said. “It’s not about the toys, it’s about the human connection.” 06/27/06 - Extreme vegetarianism can lead to fatal diseases Extreme vegetarian practices among Indians can lead to hyperhomocysteinemia and high homocysteine levels resulting in diseases including strokes, heart attack, diabetes and other fatal diseases, experts have opined. "We are not advocating that everyone should eat meat but milk, eggs or green salad can be consumed to make up for deficiency of B12, folic acid and pyridoxine," stated Dr Rusom wadia, pune-based consulting physician and neurologist. "Prevalence of heart attack, diabetics and paralysis stroke has reached epidemic proportions in India. It has begun affecting 10 to 20 years younger population compared to the western world," noted Dr Talwalkar. The experts participating in the conference revealed that different parts of country showed different homocystein levels "ideal level is five to 15 micromoles per litre but the lower the level is better," they stated. It was felt that besides advising for change in lifestyle, which includes giving up smoking, including eggs or milk or green salad in diet, regular exercises, one vitamin tablet a day can reduce the homocystein level and save Indian population from being susceptible to fatal diseases. "What we are talking is just one risk factor for fatal diseases, there are various other factors. But taking care of one factor can reduce the diseases," the experts stated. 06/27/06 - 3000 electric cars to be available for business use by 2012 Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subarus, unveiled a prototype an electric vehicle that they have been developing together since last year. TEPCO says that it will use 3,000 of these cars for business use by fiscal 2012. The electric vehicle is based on Fuji Heavy’s Subaru R1 minicar and features a high-performance manganese lithium-ion battery developed with NEC Corp. It can run about 80km on a single charge with a top speed of 100 km/h (62 mph), according to the developers. A 346V battery pack powers the 40kW drive motor, and can recharge to 80% capacity in 15 minutes. The manganese Li-ion cells use lithium manganese oxide spinel (LiMn2O4) as the cathode active material. The crystalline spinel structure makes the battery resistant to overcharging and provides high thermal stability, according to NEC/Tokin. 06/27/06 - Less than Zero Point Energy For many years now, scientists have known that a vacuum is in fact not empty, and is actually teeming with particles and energy. Some have even come to the conclusion that the presence of these quantum particles can produce energy for nothing. The possibility of vacuum energy created from "nothing" represents a foot in the physics lab door by those seeking to create perpetual motion machines, and, like any vacuum salesman, they're not going to be easily dissuaded. To cut a long (and complex) story short, Heisenberg proved that the subatomic world has particles constantly popping in and out of existence. Physicists refer to the energy that a quantum vacuum produces as zero-point energy. Physicist Charles Seife defines zero-point energy as: "The energy caused by the spontaneous creation and destruction of subatomic particles, even in the deepest vacuum. It is a prime suspect for the cause of the cosmological constant." "There exists a background sea of quantum light filling the universe and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object," explains physicist Dr. Bernhard Haisch. "That is why matter seems to be solid, stable stuff that we, and the world, are made of. So maybe matter resists acceleration not because it possesses some innate thing called mass as Newton proposed and we all believed, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place." The late Dr. Eugene Mallove said, "Basically, aether energy is at the root of everything. The aether is responsible for the creation and destruction of matter, it is responsible for life itself," said Mallove in his last interview in 2004, just prior to his death. You can take or leave the term aether (and since nobody knows the entire composition of the universe, I guess he's entitled to call it anything he liked), but Mallove's hypothesis may have some resonance with those who ascribe to wave theory (where all matter is comprised of waves rather than particles). "All particles are made of aether, they are not little hard things, they are - the things that we call particles today, electrons and protons and so forth - are nothing but special geometries of the mass free aether that are in a form that makes them have an inertial quality. In other words, makes them have mass," said Mallove in the interview. (My favorite quote, "The place of the material world in the universe is that of an exquisitely beautiful precipitate or varied cloud-work in the universal aether, determined by a geometrical necessity..." - Professor John G. MacVicar 1870 / JWD) 06/27/06 - Germans invent shield for cellphone radiation Faced with tough global competition, German yarn manufacturer Zimmermann has developed a special cloth that shields the body from cellphone radiation. Nobody knows exactly what effect cellphone radiation has on a person's body. Yet concern about possible health effects among millions of cellphone users is omnipresent and Zimmermann is bent on solving the problem. The company based in Simmerberg in Bavaria's Allgaeu region has developed a cloth called "eblocker" that shields almost completely from mobile phone radiation. At first glance, eblocker looks exactly like any other cloth except that in tests, it barred 99,9999 percent of electromagnetic radiation. The crucial component is silver - wafer thin pieces of which have been wound into the thread thus functioning as a barrier. The first idea for using it was self-evident - mobile phone pockets in clothing. The small piece of cloth for a mobile phone pocket in a jacket or blazer costs around $1,28 (about R8). The material is sewn onto the inside of a bag. There would be no reception, if a mobile phone was wrapped entirely in eblocker. The high protection factor means the cloth is suitable for entire body suits, for example, to do maintenance on antennae which cannot be switched off and whose high electromagnetic radiation would cause people serious damage. The silver seam in the eblocker cloth is protected by a circle of cloth and the material can be washed and ironed, says Dehmer. 06/27/06 - Feng shui creates better websites? Chinese feng shui and the ancient Indian science of vaastu shastra can boost business by helping web designers create better pages, say experts who are marrying traditional philosophies with the internet. Believers in vaastu shastra say the system seeks to create harmony between people, objects and the five elements of earth, fire, water, air and space. They say it can be directly applied to the web, just as it is to home design. "Just as the world comprises of the five basic elements, each web site has five elements and these need to be in balance with one another," says Dr Smita Narang, author of Web Vaastu. "Earth is the layout, fire is the colour, air is the HTML, space is name of the web site, and water is the font and graphics," says Narang. He says each must be chosen carefully to strike a balance with the other. Narang, a vaastu expert who has spent four years analysing around 500 sites, says a web site that disregards vaastu rules will have few hits and business will suffer. An essential element of feng shui is the idea that unnecessary objects allow free flow of energy, followers say. They say this principle can also be applied to making better websites and generating more visits. A Web site where the colours hurt your eyes, the music offends your ears or has too much information is probably too cluttered and does not give a positive flow of ch'i," says Vikram Narayan, a Mumbai-based feng shui practitioner. The trick, Narayan says, is to remove items on your web site that serve no purpose, and keep the things that serve you well. 06/27/06 - Radioactive Scorpion Venom as Cancer Treatment? Scientists say they have helped establish the safety of a bizarre new treatment for an aggressive, essentially incurable cancer called high-grade brain glioma. More than 17,000 cases are diagnosed in the United States every year. The treatment is based on findings that the venom in the yellow Israeli scorpion contains a molecule that attaches itself selectively to the tumor cells. Health physicists in a study used a compound called TM-601, a synthetic version of the molecule. The molecule, a protein, was bound to a radioactive substance called I-131 believed to kill glioma cells. When injected into the blood, if things work as hoped, the radioactive venom protein travels to the brain and attaches to the glioma cells, and the I-131 releases radiation that kills them. Patients could safely return home several hours after the procedure, according to Jackson, and their families would be exposed to no more radiation than is typical with a thyroid cancer patient going home after treatment. Patients showed no evidence of adverse reactions, Jackson reports, adding that 54 patients nationwide are currently in investigational trials for the therapy. 06/27/06 - Interactive Water Three interactive water displays: a tantalizing fountain that withdraws when a hand comes near, a musical harp with water "strings," and a liquid touchscreen. The displays apply emerging sensing technologies to the medium of water. In each case, the electro-optic properties of the water itself are exploited to make the water a fundamental element of the sensing system. To show, somewhat whimsically, how emerging sensing technologies can be applied in unusual ways. The core technical innovation is the use of capacitive and optical sensing techniques in which the fluid itself serves as the sensing element. 06/26/06 - Fake Meat with taste and texture As manufacturers race to develop a good-tasting meat substitute or additive with a believable texture, Solae LLC is introducing what it considers a breakthrough technology. The patent-pending technology, called SoleCina, can be used with both animal and vegetarian products and delivers the "mouth feel" of whole-muscle meat and poultry. The invention, which includes a process and ingredients, is a result of more than 10 years of closely guarded research and development. 06/26/06 - All work and no play: virtue is regretted more than vice The older we get, the more we regret not having more fun, says new study in the September issue of the Journal of Consumer Research. Researchers from Columbia University show that choosing work over play leads to regrets about having missed out on the pleasures of life. Over time, these regrets intensify, while guilt about indulging tends to fade. As with many mid-life (and quarter-life) crises, we tend to experience especially strong regret if pleasure is constantly delayed. According to the study - one of the first to compare indulgence regret to self-control regret - the greater temporal perspective gleaned with age helps us let go of guilt for, say, transgressions at a long-ago spring break. Instead, we begin to experience wistful feelings for delayed pleasures - for not taking that around-the-world trip sooner or for constantly dieting and not eating dessert. 06/26/06 - Hot freezes faster than Cold "We take the properties of water for granted. Yet scientists assure us that we have a lot to learn about our biologically essential old friend. Research supporting the counterintuitive claim that hot water freezes faster than cold illustrates this point. The claim made news in 1969 when Erasto Mpemba, a Tanzanian schoolboy, said that his ice cream mixture froze faster when it started out hot than when it started out cold. Never mind that others have reported this strange behavior of water for centuries. Skeptics scoffed. The boy's teacher spoke derisively of 'Mpemba's physics.' It's time to rethink the derision. Jonathan Katz at Washington University has studied the 'Mpemba effect' and finds the claim valid. Reviewing the physics of water in Science two years ago, Yan Zubavicus and Michael Grurze at the University of Heidelberg in Germany explained why 'liquid water is one of the most mysterious substances in our world.'" 06/26/06 - Clean living may Make us Sick "Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick. The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people's immune systems aren't being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body's natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen. The new studies, one of which was published Friday in the peer reviewed Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, found significant differences in the immune systems between euthanized wild and lab rodents." 06/26/06 - Invention removes excess Nutrients Too much of those nutrients can mean too much algae, which can hamper the life of other tiny species, which in turn, reduces the prospects for insects, birds and fish. Bad as it was, it got Kania thinking. Wasn't there some way to get those excess nutrients out of the water? Five years later, Kania is perfecting his solution and selling it on the world market: floating, man-made islands, teeming with life and possibilities. The islands, acting as a sort of floating filter, are designed to improve water quality with plants that suck up excess nutrients. They also create wildlife habitat, function as small-scale wetlands and add a little visual spice to waterways. Prices start at around $29 per square foot. The islands are made differently because they're meant to be versatile and functional nearly anywhere on the planet where there's water. Kania, whose company employs six people, has identified 26 possible markets for the islands -- including livestock waste ponds, golf courses and bird habitat -- and expects that number to double soon. The idea of the synthetic islands is relatively simple. The core of each island is a cushiony polymer batting, made from recycled material, that's stacked in layers that are buoyant and can be shaped and customized. Plants are then inserted into pre-cut pockets. The layers allow the plants' roots to reach the water. As the plants grow and tiny microbes begin clinging to the island, they take excess nutrients out of the water. The plants convert them into stems, leaves and other plant parts. Sucking out the contaminants helps restore the biodiversity of the waterways, Kania said. Meanwhile, the islands offer shade, protection and food for fish and great spots for birds, he said. 06/26/06 - Invention firms steal Thousands with bogus promises (To date, I have received 4 emails from this Davison company offering to assist me with getting products manufactured and marketed. - JWD) "There are a lot of shysters in that arena; they outweigh the good guys 100-to-1," said Jeffrey Dobkin, a marketing consultant and a director of the Philadelphia-based American Society of Inventors. "We had one guy who spent $23,000 with a patenting-scheme company," and wound up with nothing to show for it, Dobkin said. Tracking the industry is inexact since many of the companies open and close quickly. But there are dozens, if not hundreds of them, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office estimated in 2002 that consumers lost $200 million a year to the schemes. Experts say it's likely gone up since then. Dobkin said that after an inventor calls seeking help with his creation, the companies ensnare their prey using a combination of sweet talk and escalating financial commitment. "They keep fleecing you until you're out of money," he said. Invent-Tech, as the company is also known, is one of the top gripe-getters on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online forum for complaints against such firms. Erica Johnson, inventor-relations team lead for the company, said the firm treats its clients fairly. "In the documentation our inventors must sign, it's clearly stated this is not an overnight-success industry, it is speculative." Pittsburgh-based Davison & Associates Inc., now doing business as Davison Design & Development, also draws many complaints, according to the Federal Trade Commission. 06/25/06 - The Dynamic Combustion Chamber - burning hydrogen in a vacuum Smog, a world scourge, is mostly emissions from motor vehicles, industrial facilities and electric utilities. It is created when oxygen from air is burned. The combustion creates nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gasses. Alas, a basic step in humankind's energy-making recipe is flawed. The consequences imperil Earth. Back to the classroom. The science teacher filled a Coke bottle with water, stuck it upside down in a bowl of water, ran in electrodes and gave the water a jolt. The electrical zap separated the water into its "H2O" parts: two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. Sticking his thumb over the Coke bottle, the teacher carried it to a flame. When he took his thumb off the bottle, foof! the gases went up in a quick ball of flame. Heat - energy - was produced, but no tailpipe byproducts. Only water residue. Energy without smog. Without oil or greenhouse gasses. Or to put it another way, no glaciers were melted in the making of this production. Stockton's invention, the Dynamic Combustion Chamber, recreates this process in a vacuum in a closed tank and translates the heat to say, steam power. "What makes this invention so unique is its removal from the atmosphere," Stockton said. "The whole process occurs within the vessel." The science and technology is not new, Stockton says, but nobody thought of it, or at least patented it, because nobody thought past the natural use of atmosphere in combustion. If Stockton's invention works, and it catches on, there's only one word for its potential: Wow. Factories, power plants, ships, trucks, cars, heaters, coolers - all these and more things could be powered without pollution. Does it work? UC Davis thinks it does; its scientists have partnered with Stockton as researchers. "We are extremely interested," Paul A. Eric, head of the university's Hydrogen Production and Utilization Laboratory, wrote Stockton on Thursday. There are technical obstacles. Hydrogen requires big storage tanks or intense compression, for instance. But, "Based on our discussions with you, we think ... (the idea) is feasible ... and may enable ubiquitous use of hydrogen in the near-term," Eric wrote. By "ubiquitous," Eric seems to imply Stockton's invention not only works but is practical and reliable enough to transform the energy marketplace. Stockton thinks so. 06/25/06 - Life After the Oil Crash Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, and investment bankers in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil." Oil is increasingly plentiful on the upslope of the bell curve, increasingly scarce and expensive on the down slope. The peak of the curve coincides with the point at which the endowment of oil has been 50 percent depleted. Once the peak is passed, oil production begins to go down while cost begins to go up. In practical and considerably oversimplified terms, this means that if 2000 was the year of global Peak Oil, worldwide oil production in the year 2020 will be the same as it was in 1980. However, the world’s population in 2020 will be both much larger (approximately twice) and much more industrialized (oil-dependent) than it was in 1980. Consequently, worldwide demand for oil will outpace worldwide production of oil by a significant margin. As a result, the price will skyrocket, oil-dependant economies will crumble, and resource wars will explode. 06/25/06 - High fuel cost may change the way Americans vacation A recent National Retail Federation survey found that 37 percent of consumers plan to cut back on their travel plans because of the high cost of fuel. With experts expecting gas prices to remain high this summer, even resilient vacationers may need to cut down in other areas to make up for the increased fuel expense. Before you give up on your dreams of a family vacation, take the time to sit down and develop a plan. Create a budget. Plan out your trip. Drive sensibly. Stay closer to home. With a little planning and compromise, you can have a relaxing vacation and come back without the stress and burden of debt. 06/25/06 - Executive Order: Protecting the Property Rights of the American People - Think Again Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken. An email sent to urbansurvival.com notes; "Read it closely. It isn't what is said to be. The executive order that Bush signed is called "Protecting the Property Rights of the American People" but in fact it does exactly the opposite. It allows "limiting taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public". Basically this one executive order does away with the Constitution and allows the Federal Government to come in and take your food stores, ammo, guns, cars and precious metals any time it pleases "for the purpose of benefiting the general public." 06/25/06 - Heard on a radio news show - A woman farmer was told by the government she had to pay $8 per chicken to have trackable RFID chips implanted for 'bird flu' tracking. She told them it was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard, the chickens only SELL for $2 each! 06/25/06 - Channeling Tides for Power Production Rudi Visket dreams of clean energy harnessed from the methodical rising and falling of the ocean tides. The former engineer hopes to see the completion of one of two projects that he designed with his South Salem neighbor, Darren Hendren. The pair are fighting something akin to a riptide, however. Most Oregon researchers looking for ways to tap energy from the sea are focused instead on wave energy. Oregon State University, for example, is leading national efforts to capture the power of the gradual up-and-down swells. Researchers already have three prototypes. Annette von Jouanne, an electrical engineer at Oregon State University, said that research is focused on waves because there are no large tides here. In Canada, for example, the difference between high and low tides can be 25 feet. In Oregon, it typically is 7 to 10 feet, she said. Hendren and Visket's system harnesses the ocean's power from land. Their idea is to direct ocean water to flow into a channel where it passes by several water wheels before it enters a natural or manmade reservoir. As the waterwheels turn with the tide, the design uses several simple mechanical conversions to produce continuous electrical energy. The system works the same way as the tide goes out; the water wheels simply turn the other way. "This is all old-fashioned stuff," Visket said. "If you have a paddle and you put water under it, it has to turn. There are no two ways about it." The design team worked hard to address any potential problems. For example, the water wheels are several feet higher than the floor of the channel to allow fish passage, and the system doesn't need oil or other possible contaminants. "We have a truly non-polluting system," he said. 06/25/06 - We are Speeding down Two Paths To Ultimate Destruction We are now in a situation where technology has developed to the point where we have the ability to destroy ourselves, together with much other life that shares this planet. For the first time in history, we have the ability to wipe ourselves out. Currently, there are two paths to annihilation. The first is climate change. Biodiversity is dropping at a rate not seen since the last ice age. The world has already witnessed its first climate change refugees, and many thousands of people have already lost their lives due to climate change-related disasters. The scientific consensus is that enhanced global warming is happening, it is due to human activity and it does potentially hold catastrophic consequences for us all. The second path is through nuclear weapons. The US nuclear stockpile alone consists of nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons, 5,735 of which are active or operational. A single nuclear bomb has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Parts of Chernobyl remain uninhabitable to this day. But there is never just ‘a single nuclear bomb'. 06/25/06 - India's 'Grancrete' stronger than Concrete An Indian-American researcher has helped develop a tough new ceramic material that is almost twice as strong as concrete and may be the key to providing high-quality, low-cost housing throughout the developing world. "I was asked to create a material that could safely encase nuclear waste so that the waste did not get into ground water," said Wagh. The substance Wagh developed combined magnesium oxide and potassium phosphate with water and ashes. The promising new technology may lead to affordable housing for the world's poorest. Houses can be built by spraying grancrete on to a simple frame of Styrofoam and it hardens quickly and will not crack easily. Experiments have proved that grancrete is stronger than concrete, is fire resistant and can withstand both tropical and sub-freezing temperatures, making it ideal for a broad range of geographic locations. It insulates so well that it keeps dwellings in arid regions cool and those in frigid regions warm. "Grancrete is 50 percent sand or sandy soil, 25 percent ash and 25 percent binding material," Wagh said. "Binding material is composed of magnesium oxide and potassium phosphate, the latter of which is a biodegradable element in fertilizer. So even if grancrete were to decompose, it would revitalize the soil," said the scientist. "For every tonne of conventional concrete, you get a tonne of greenhouse gases. With one tonne of grancrete, you get one-tenth of the greenhouse gases." According to an estimate by Casa Grande, the company that is collaborating with Argonne in making grancrete, the cost of building a grancrete home is about $6,000. Grancrete is so versatile that Wagh even paints using it. "It becomes like a paste and you can add any colour to it... It is a little more difficult to use than oil paint. According to Jim Paul, president of Casa Grande, workers need only two days of training to learn how to calibrate the machinery. Casa Grande typically assembles a team of five people who can start in the morning and create a home that residents can move into that evening. Grancrete cures in 15 minutes, while conventional concrete can take hours, or even days, to dry. 06/24/06 - Meerut youngsters claim to have invented new source of energy Three friends belonging to varying backgrounds in Meerut have claimed to invent a novel source of energy that could provide an alternative to the power generated by high cost intensive big dams or nuclear and thermal power plants in future. The new concept is based on gravitational force used as a mode of energy and, in their opinion, is very much cost effective. The concept's working is based on three basic principles of gravitational pull on Earth, the Archimedes principle of floating and the magnetic force that are available at no cost. Financially and ecologically, our system is profitable and safe. "Out of the different energies, we have chosen gravitational energy as the main source. Our system of harnessing gravitational energy doesn't need water or air. It can be used in any place since gravitational force is present everywhere. Even this can be set up in a room. Based on ourconcept and the designed system, gravitational energy is converted into electrical energy", said Vivek Kumar Bhutani, one of the inventors. This new system provides promising, excellent and revolutionary solution for an eco-friendly energy generation, at almost no cost. An additional advantage is that the working of the generation system is possible anywhere and at any time. "You have to invest money only once in coal and diesel and after that there is no need for any investment. It runs automatically. The environment is not affected in anyway by this system. Above all, no large space is needed to assemble this system," said Pradeep Kumar Singh, a student pursuing Masters in Bio Technology from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani. While facing a lot of problems in arranging material and input of their choice, initially, the trio could not produce a complete working unit. But later, they proved their theoretical principle by making suitable changes in the assembly of their pilot project with the available sources. 06/24/06 - Scientist finds intense lightning activity around a hurricane's eye "Generally there's not a lot of lightning in the hurricane eye-wall region. So when people detect a lot of lightning in a hurricane, they perk up -- they say, okay, something's happening." In 2005, scientists did perk up, because a very strong Hurricane Emily had some of the most lightning activity ever seen in a hurricane. Scientists are now trying to determine if the frequency of lightning is connected to the hurricane's strength. Hurricane Emily was one of three named storms (the others were Hurricane Dennis and Tropical Storm Gert) observed during the TCSP field experiment. Scientists flew NASA's ER-2 high-altitude weather plane above Emily, where they recorded some of the most powerful lightning activity ever seen in a hurricane's eye-wall. Emily was one of the largest, most violent hurricanes ever to be documented by the ER-2 plane. During the flights, scientists detected both cloud-to-ground lightning strokes and cloud-to-cloud lightning in the thunderstorms surrounding Emily's eye. They also found that the "electric fields," or areas of the atmosphere that contained electricity above Hurricane Emily, were some the strongest ever recorded. "We observed steady fields in excess of 8 kilovolts (8,000 volts) per meter (3.2 feet)," says Blakeslee. "That is huge--and comparable to the strongest fields we would expect to find over a large land-based thunderstorm." 06/24/06 - NYC to add more hybrid taxis to streets The city soon will have more cabs running on alternative fuel. The number of hybrid-electric taxis and taxis powered by compressed natural gas is increasing more than tenfold to 281 after the city's first major auction for permits to operate them. Hybrid taxis can get double the gas mileage of traditional cabs and generate less pollution. The agency has approved nine different hybrid models for use as taxis, from the tiny Toyota Prius to the luxe Lexus RX 400h. The taxi commission gives medallion owners the sole right to pick up passengers hailing cabs on the city's streets. 06/24/06 - Synchronising the Swarm (Critical Mass - Directly applicable to tapping aether/zpe and other forms of 'chaotic' energies. - JWD) Oxford zoologists have described in the journal Science how they employed a mathematical model to reveal the densities at which the swarms first fix upon one direction of migration. Dr David Sumpter, from the Zoology Department, said: ‘The key to the control of these swarms is better understanding how they form. We showed that at a critical density these insects will spontaneously adopt a common direction of travel. This transition to ordered motion could explain the often sudden emergence of hopper bands in Africa.’ The zoologist and his colleagues discovered that when a swarm contains between 25 and 74 locusts per square metre, the locusts are almost always aligned but exhibit rapid and spontaneous changes in direction. There were almost no directional changes above that range of densities. ‘By drawing a parallel between locusts and the behaviour of physical systems, we showed that the complex dynamics of moving animal groups can be captured by a very simple mathematical model. ‘The model, which was based on the alignment of ‘self-propelled particles’ (SPPs), predicted unstable switching of group direction. We observed such switching in the laboratory, possibly explaining the highly unpredictable collective motion of locusts in the field.' 06/24/06 - Teasing out "stem cells" from a bag of blood Simply give some blood and two weeks later it will be turned into cells from other tissues, such as brain, liver or pancreas - at least, that's the idea. IT WOULD be the ultimate in tissue therapy. Simply supply a bag of your blood and come back two weeks later to find it turned into cells from other tissues, ranging from brain and liver cells to the insulin-producing beta islet cells of the pancreas. The idea is to revert a patient's blood cells to the stem cell stage and then chemically nudge them to re-specialise into particular tissue types that can be implanted to heal damaged tissue. A huge advantage over using donated tissue is that the transplant would be "autologous" - made of the patient's own cells, thus avoiding immune rejection. "It's autologous, we don't need to worry about rejection of tissue, and immunosuppression," says Glenn Winnier of Pharmafrontiers, a company in Woodland, Texas. It now claims to have refined a way to produce stem cells from white blood cells called monocytes and develop them into many different ... 06/24/06 - Frequency Maps for the Brain (Keely referred to the 3 tones in the brain and how acoustic manipulation could remove the 'knots' in the convolutions of the brain which produced mental and neural problems. - JWD) The brain filters what we hear. It can do this in part because particular groups of neurons react to specific frequencies of sound. Neurobiologists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen have now created a "frequency map" for numerous areas of the brain. They used magnetic resonance imaging to identify which neuronal fields are activated by single frequencies and by mixtures of frequencies (PLoS Biology, June 20, 2006). In interpreting our environment it is important for the brain to separate sound into its constituent frequencies. That means that particular sound frequencies best activate certain groups of neurons in the auditory cortex. Scientists have used electrophysiological and anatomical studies to determine which areas of the brain are responsible for certain frequencies - but mainly in animals, like those of the macaque monkey. In the new fMRI study, scientists went beyond identifying individual auditory cortex fields (ACFs); earlier studies had predicted those findings. The researchers also created frequency maps for most of these fields. At first, they mapped several ACFs, then a total of eleven, organised like a mosaic on the surface of the brain. They observed a periodic pattern: a topographic preference for certain frequencies, that either increases or decreases as one progresses across a field. In certain neighbouring fields, the frequency develops in the exact opposite way revealing many mirror reversals of the mosaic pattern. Each sound frequency can thus be found in each ACF. Petkov explains that "in the context of such similar organization for so many fields, certainly different fields have different tasks, but we are only beginning to understand what those differences are." Each ACF is responsible for a different sound signal. Three of these fields, which together create a kind of "core" for the auditory cortex, react to individual frequencies in simple sounds like tones. The other eight - including newly described ones - respond better to sounds that are a mixture of different frequencies, like many of the sounds in our environment. These ACFs enclose the three core fields like a belt, and seem to be eight in number. The pitch pattern in each individual ACF was not as differentiated as, for example, on a piano keyboard. The organisation of the topography could be best observed when sounds lay four octaves apart from one another. Petkov explains that "this is due to the conditions necessary for the imaging technique." In order to see clear signals at all with fMRI, the scientists presented tones that were louder than the soft test tones that are commonly used in electrophysiological studies. "Larger and larger areas of the auditory cortex become active when we do this, but our challenge was to preserve the broad topography by not presenting sounds too loudly," Petkov explains. This was an interesting observation for the Max Planck researchers because noise affects the auditory cortex, leading to hearing loss, which also probably disrupts such organised patterns of the brain. 06/24/06 - Chinese Satellites can't be jammed The Chinese may be planning to put GPS satellites in orbit, and use a DIRTY TRICK they learned from the French: They're reportedly going to make the network's signal frequency so close to the American GPS system's that one can't be jammed without also jamming the other. Another dirty trick: The Chinese were allowed to participate in the development of Europe's Galileo GPS system based on the belief that the technology would be used only for civilian purposes, but China used what they learned from the Europeans to develop a system that guides nuclear missiles to U.S. targets. Gee, thanks, Europe. When will the West learn that CHINA STEALS TECHNOLOGY? 06/23/06 - From Campfire To Gas Tank, Mesquite Harvested For Ethanol The dense mesquite-covered mid-section of Texas could provide fuel for about 400 small ethanol plants, according to one Texas Agricultural Experiment Station researcher. The industry would be based on the harvest and use of rangeland woody plants, such as mesquite and red berry juniper, as an energy source. The vision is to build as many as 400 refineries around the state based on mesquite wood. If other woods are considered, the number could go as high as 1,000, he said. Working with an Aberdeen, Miss. company, Ansley is studying the supply, harvest technologies, ethanol conversion rates and ecological effects of mesquite-to-ethanol production. One ton of mesquite wood will yield about 200 gallons of ethanol, he said. An acre of the densely populated mesquite standing 10 to 12 feet tall will yield about 8 to 10 tons of wood. A commercial refinery producing 5 million gallons of ethanol per year will require about 30,000 acres to sustain it, an approximate four- to five-mile radius if the refinery is located near the middle of the mesquite stand, Ansley said. Ranchers have long been looking for a way to utilize the mesquite growing wild on their pasturelands, but until now, nothing has looked economical, Ansley said. Mesquite could be used in a wood-fired power plant, but "we think there's much greater potential with ethanol." A patented process to convert the wood into ethanol is being tested in a prototype plant in Mississippi, Ansley said. In Texas, the prime area to harvest mesquite is the middle third of the state: a band bordered on the west by a line from Childress to Del Rio and on the east from Decatur to Austin. "We're talking small travel distance from wood source to these refineries, about 4 to 5 miles," Ansley said. "They would process about 5 million gallons per year of ethanol, which would require about 30,000 acres. Only about 10 percent would be harvested each year, with about 10 years needed for regrowth." 06/23/06 - New hydraulic hybrid trucks roll off The new system replaces a truck's transmission with hydraulics and that, combined with a low-emission diesel engine, yields a 60 percent to 70 percent saving on fuel use. Delivery trucks pile up the hours and miles with city driving. They were among the most likely to benefit from a drivetrain that transfers the energy lost in braking into a series of fluid and air pumps that in turn power acceleration. The EPA estimates it will take UPS less than three years to recover the $7,000 cost of outfitting each of its trucks with the new hydraulic system by saving money on fuel and reducing brake wear. The truck already has a big fan in driver Dave Schuler, who took it for a spin in front of the EPA offices in Washington. "You'd be surprised how it drives because it makes no noise," he said. "You wouldn't think it would have the power for a truck this size." 06/23/06 - Switchgrass Burn Test Proves Hopeful Switchgrass is often cited as one of the most promising crops that could be grown in the U.S. for a variety of biomass processes, particularly directed combustion or as a feedstock for a cellulosic-ethanol processing project. For all its hype, there are few actual examples of its use. This week, however, brought news of a successful and promising application of switchgrass crops co-fired with coal. The three-month test burn: -- Delivered, processed, and burned 31,568 bales of locally grown switchgrass totaling 15,647 tons as renewable fuel for generating electricity at Ottumwa Generating Station (OGS). -- Generated 19,607,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity from the renewable switchgrass fuel. That is enough electricity to provide 100% of the electricity needs for an entire year for more than 1,874 average Iowa homes. This is a world record for electricity generation from switchgrass... 06/23/06 - No Quick Fixes Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, for quick fix solutions that will cure all our energy ills. We'll suspend the federal gas tax. We can plant oil wells in the Arctic wilderness and off our coasts, assuring us years of worry-free guzzling. Did we mention the $100 rebate? Like a traveling medicine show, members of Congress are scurrying from press conference to press conference to show the folks back home that they're doing something about high gasoline prices, and by gum, they really mean it this time. What a farce. The time that lawmakers spend promoting showy gimmicks is time that should be used on a long-range strategy for moving our country off its dangerous addiction to oil. Time is not in our favor. Rising gasoline prices are not a transitory market hiccup but an ominous sign that the energy system on which we depend is dangerously unstable. 06/23/06 - How to protect solar energy collectors from the wind FLOATING rafts of solar energy collectors could provide cheaper electrical power than their landlubber cousins. Standard collectors use lenses to track the position of the sun and concentrate sunlight onto solar cells. To withstand the damaging forces of strong winds, they need to be made from tough materials such as steel, which makes them expensive. Phil Connor of Sunengy in Mount Kuring-gai, New South Wales, Australia, believes a better idea would be to float arrays of solar collectors on lakes. Wind sensors connected to the rafts would allow the lenses to be lowered beneath the water to protect them if the wind speeds exceeded 50 to 60 kilometres per hour. The arrays could then be made of cheaper plastics rather than steel. 06/23/06 - Earth hottest it's been in 400 years, humans responsible There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, retreating glaciers, and other "proxies" to say with confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new National Research Council report. There is less confidence in reconstructions of surface temperatures from 1600 back to A.D. 900, and very little confidence in findings on average temperatures before then. Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century. This is shown in boreholes, retreating glaciers and other evidence found in nature, said Gerald North, a geosciences professor at Texas A&M University who chaired the academy's panel. The report was requested in November by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-New York, to address naysayers who question whether global warming is a major threat. 06/22/06 - Roads & Paved Parks as Giant Solar Panels A DUTCH businessman on holiday in the Highlands noticed how sheep liked to lie on roads warmed by the day's sunshine. From that simple observation 15 years ago, a heating system has been developed that allows car parks and roads to act as solar panels, storing energy in aquifers - layers of water-bearing permeable rock. The result is a use of renewable energy that means buildings can be heated or cooled, while roads and airport runways could be kept free from ice and snow without tonnes of salt. Its inventors claim the method reduces the carbon dioxide emissions of conventional heating systems by up to 90% and doubles the life expectancy of tarmac by halving road maintenance. Henk Verweijmeren, whose holiday led to his founding IHS in 1995, yesterday said there would be enough energy to heat their 1000 square metre offices and two other offices of the same size. He said the system was highly efficient. Although one square metre of solar panel would generate twice the power, it would cost £400 compared with £30 for one square metre of road or car park. "There was a report which said that if they built this into every road in Holland, they would be able to heat every building in the land." 06/22/06 - Japan kick-starts biofuel transport Japan plans to have 40 per cent of cars running on biofuels within five years in a bid to slash greenhouse gas emissions and foreign oil dependence. Vehicles account for about 20 per cent of energy consumption in Japan, which is nearly entirely dependent on the Middle East for oil. The Environment Ministry would launch a project to boost the production of ethanol made from sugar cane produced on Miyako island in Japan's southern island chain of Okinawa, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily revealed. 06/22/06 - "Ice gun" will help to fight riotous crowds Dissatisfaction leads to demonstrations and protests. When demonstrants become very agresive the government has to use its power. However the power should be used in its most harmless way. For such purposes military scientists invent special kinds of weapons that can stop mass disturbances and not to injure their participants. Instead of quelling riotous crowds with tear gas or rubber bullets, peacekeepers may soon be sliming them. A portable device worn like a Ghostbuster backpack allows the wearer to cover the ground in goo so slippery it's almost impossible for a person to maintain their footing. "It's like walking on ice," said Errol Brigance, a senior research engineer at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. Brigance and his colleague Rolf Glauser filed for a patent on the anti-traction method earlier this year. The technology, developed in partnership with the U.S. Marine Corps, offers another non-lethal weapon to the military's crowd control arsenal. The backpack system weighs less than 75 pounds and consists of three tanks: one containing compressed air, another filled with five gallons of water, and a third containing powder made from an acrylic polymer. The compressed air works to independently pump the water and powder out two nozzles, mixing the substances mid-air into a honey-thick goo too viscous to be dispensed any other way. The nozzles can shoot the non-toxic material up to 25 feet, enough leeway to slime the ground in front of a maddening mob. Vehicles won't have much luck gaining traction either. 06/22/06 - What can a magnet tell you about rain patterns? In the June issue of the respected journal Nature Physics, he and J. David Neelin, UCLA professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, report that the onset of intense tropical rain and magnetism share the same underlying physics. Peters and Neelin analyzed statistical properties of the relationship between water vapor in the atmosphere in the tropics and rainfall, using remote sensing from a satellite over the tropical oceans. "We studied properties of that relationship that are also observed in equivalent quantities for systems with 'continuous-phase transitions' like magnets," said Peters, a research scientist with UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and a visiting scientist at the Santa Fe Institute. "The atmosphere has a tendency to move to a critical point in water vapor where the likelihood of rain dramatically increases. The system reaches a point where it's just about to rain; it's highly susceptible. Any additional water vapor can produce a large response." How does a critical threshold point work? Consider a pile of rice, Peters said. You can add a single grain of rice and measure its effect on the pile. After slowly adding rice grains, at some point you eventually trigger an avalanche; the release is very fast. A similar principle is behind the coin machines you can find in casinos, where it looks as if dropping in one or two quarters will create an avalanche of coins that will come crashing down for you. In fact, it is much more likely that it only looks like the system is at a critical point; you are more likely to lose your quarter. Imagine that you add one raindrop into a cloud. Like the pile of rice, where adding a single grain can produce an avalanche or nothing at all, or like the coin machine, the one additional raindrop could trigger a huge downpour, but most of the time produces nothing. You can heat a magnet to a point where it loses its magnetization; it no longer has a north and south direction. "When a magnet is near the critical temperature, a slight perturbation can cause it to switch north and south," Peters said. "When the system reaches the critical point and is so susceptible, a slight change -- one more grain of rice, one more coin -- can produce a massive response of the system. This phenomenon can be studied using statistical mechanics and critical phenomena." Peters began studying "avalanche distributions" in 2002, measuring how much rain falls in one storm. This led him to make predictions about the functional relationship between water vapor and rainfall. "It's a self-organized critical system, from which we can make predictions," said Peters, who described physics as "beautiful." 06/22/06 - New Software predicts Song potential success or failure It will come as no surprise to anyone with an ear for music, but Abba's Eurovision-winning song Waterloo has all the characteristics of a surefire hit while this year's winner, Hard Rock Hallelujah by the outlandish Finnish band Lordi, doesn't. The verdict was delivered by a computer running software developed for record companies to help them predict which songs will be hits and which will flop. And it seems to work. Last week, Hard Rock Hallelujah was at number 25 on the British charts; Waterloo went to number one in 1974. The developers claim the software can identify a potential Top 30 hit within 20 seconds and has an accuracy rate of at least 80 per cent. The program analyses 30 criteria including melody, beat, tempo, chord progression and cadence, and cross-refers them to a database of three million songs. It spots mathematical similarities even though songs might not sound the same or even be from the same genre. It gives each piece of music a hit grading from zero to 1000. A score of 700 or more indicates the song falls into a cluster of existing hits on the database and, theoretically, has got what it takes to succeed. The software is also capable of scoring a new song on its longevity -- its "classic grade". The catchy Waterloo generated a hit rating of 722 and a classic grade of 764, justifying its enduring popularity. The software placed it in the same hit cluster as Keane's Is It Any Wonder? and Elton John's I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues. 06/22/06 - Device burns fuel with almost zero emissions Georgia Tech researchers have created a new combustor (combustion chamber where fuel is burned to power an engine or gas turbine) designed to burn fuel in a wide range of devices - with next to no emission of nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO), two of the primary causes of air pollution. The device has a simpler design than existing state-of-the-art combustors and could be manufactured and maintained at a much lower cost, making it more affordable in everything from jet engines and power plants to home water heaters. "We must burn fuel to power aircrafts and generate electricity for our homes. The combustion community is working very hard to find ways to burn the fuel completely and derive all of its energy while minimizing emissions," said Dr. Ben Zinn, Regents' professor, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in Georgia Tech's Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and a key collaborator on the project. "Our combustor has an unbelievably simple design, and it would be inexpensive to make and inexpensive to maintain." Called the Stagnation Point Reverse Flow Combustor, the Georgia Tech device significantly reduces NOx and CO emissions in a variety of aircraft engines and gas turbines that burn gaseous or liquid fuels. It burns fuel with NOx emissions below 1 parts per million (ppm) and CO emissions lower than 10 ppm, significantly lower than emissions produced by other combustors. The combustor burns fuel in low temperature reactions that occur over a large portion of the combustor. By eliminating all high temperature pockets through better control of the flow of the reactants and combustion products within the combustor, the device produces far lower levels of NOx and CO and avoids acoustic instabilities that are problematic in current low emissions combustors. To reduce emissions in existing combustors, fuel is premixed with a large amount of swirling air flow prior to injection into the combustor. This requires complex and expensive designs, and the combustion process often excites instabilities that damage the system. But Georgia Tech's design eliminates the complexity associated with premixing the fuel and air by injecting the fuel and air separately into the combustor while its shape forces them to mix with one another and with combustion products before ignition occurs. 06/22/06 - Nanocrystals' 'self-purification' mechanisms explained by energetics Doping semiconductor nanocrystals will likely provide a basis for a wide variety of nano applications. But since the tiny nanocrystals tend to repel impurities, scientists must first find a way to overcome nanocrystals’ “self-purification” mechanisms and exploit them for doping. In 2005, scientists (Erwin et al.) proposed that the difficulties in doping nanocrystals could be explained by the crystals’ surface topology and how easily impurities could bind to the surface. For these reasons, these scientists determined that the smaller the size of a nanocrystal, the less binding energy, and the more difficult doping becomes. “Suppose you have two different systems that create levels in the gap, and one is deeper than the other,” said Dalpian. “If you want to populate these levels (put electrons on them), it will cost more energy to populate the one that is deeper. That is why it costs more energy to put impurities in the small nanocrystals than the larger ones: the level created in the gap is filled and is deeper for smaller nanocrystals.” 06/22/06 - Zapper brings relief to Migraine sufferers THE debilitating pain caused by migraines, the splitting headaches suffered by millions of people, can be eliminated using a handheld device that “zaps” the condition as it kicks in, a study suggests. Patients treated with the experimental device, which is held against the back of the head and emits a quick magnetic pulse, have reported significant improvements. The pulse has been found to trigger an electric current in neurons in the brain, preventing the initial “electrical storm” from developing into a full-blown migraine. The device, which is activated by a switch, sends a strong electric current through a metal coil, creating an intense magnetic field for about one millisecond. When held against a person’s head, this magnetic pulse creates an electric current in the neurons that blocks the aura before the onset of a throbbing headache. The device, which is made by a Californian company called Neuralieve, is designed to interrupt the aura phase of the migraine, the initial period of electrical activity in the brain, before it leads to headaches. Sufferers of such severe headaches often describe seeing showers of shooting stars, zigzagging lines and flashing lights, and experiencing loss of vision, weakness, tingling or confusion. These initial symptoms are typically followed by an intense throbbing head pain, nausea and vomiting. About one in eight people in the UK suffers from migraines, which are twice as common in women as they are in men, and are estimated to cost the health service £1 billion annually. 06/22/06 - Organ Clock Theory & the flow of Qi In our daily routine, when our every act is time bound, did you know that our vital organs too are time bound..? The 12 organs in our body are owning 2 hours in a day according to the relevant time of the organ clock. In traditional Chinese medicine, diagnosis and the treatment are based on the dynamic theory of energy flow. This energy flow is continuous in our body in definite path. This vital energy is termed as ‘Qi’, which has three levels that is superficial, deep and intermediate. It is possible to cause changes in the body by influencing this Qi flow at the superficial level, which is called ‘Acupuncture Therapy’. 3 am to 5 am - Lungs / 5 am to 7 am -Large Intestine / 7 am to 9 am - Stomach / 9 am to 11 am - Spleen / 11 am to 1 pm - Heart / 1pm to 3 pm -Small Intestine / 3 pm to 5 pm - Urinary Bladder / 5 pm to 7 pm - Kidney / 7 pm to 9 pm - Pericardium / 9 pm to 11 pm - Endocrine System / 11 pm to 1 am - Gallbladder. Again, the day starts, cyclic flow to complete the 24 hours for 12 organs. Man has to stick to nature for better living. Biological clocks govern every living thing, in motion, rest, sleep, chemical composition, excretion, regulation of tissue fluids, glands and organs. The circulation is repeated for every twenty four hours which is called as circadian rhythm. 06/22/06 - Invest in Coastal property at your own risk The NYT has a great article today on how climate change and rising seas could destroy at least a quarter of all US beachfront homes by 2060, but little is being done to check the destruction. Though most of the country's ocean beaches are eroding, few coastal jurisdictions consider sea level rise in their coastal planning, and still fewer incorporate the fact that the rise is accelerating. Instead, they are sticking with policies that geologists say may help them in the short term but will be untenable or even destructive in the future. ... Few coastal residents want to see their towns walled off and surrounded by water. And few want to elevate their houses by 20 feet or more, as flooding experts are beginning to recommend in some coastal areas. The approach favored by many scientists, a gradual retreat from the coast, is a perennial nonstarter among real estate interests and their political allies. The politics of rising seas are already nasty, obviously, and they'll only get nastier, I'd bet. But ultimately, the destruction even of a quarter (or even all) of the nation's waterfront homes is comparatively small potatoes in the total sweep of potential futures we're committing ourselves to by failing to take action to stop climate change. 06/22/06 - Tomatoes help in blood clot battle Eating tomatoes can help prevent deep vein thrombosis. Researchers have found that the yellow fluid around tomato seeds has anti-clotting properties. Aspirin can prevent the potentially fatal condition by thinning the blood but can also cause bleeding in the stomach. The new research shows tomatoes contain a unique chemical that similarly thins blood but without causing any harm. 06/22/06 - No cash? No card? Just insert your finger Customers can pay with cash, plastic or their index finger at a new Coast to Coast Family Convenience store here. Taking a big step beyond the ease of the Mobil SpeedPass, Coast to Coast has installed what's claimed as Florida's first biometric payment system. There are no cards or PIN numbers to remember. Just stick your finger in the scanner and be on your way. While applications are available to process credit and store loyalty card transactions by fingerprint, this one is limited to processing only debit account transactions. "People either love it or think it's a sign of the coming apocalypse,'' said Amer Hawatmeh, owner of the new convenience store at 110 E Bearss Ave. who signed up a few hundred customers for Pay By Touch. "But to me, it's the wave of the future.'' The Pay By Touch computer records a multitude of point-to-point measurements and stores them in an encrypted form in an IBM data center. Images of both index fingers are kept in case a shopper's trigger finger is hidden by a bandage. To create an account, you must let the store get a fix on you and your bank account by scanning in a sample check and a driver's license. You can also apply online and be assigned a PIN number. The number is keyed in the first time you buy something to link your fingerprint to the personal account information. The shopper needs neither a card nor a PIN number after that. Just place a finger on the scanner. 06/22/06 - 'Thirst for Knowledge' May be Addictive A U.S. scientist says he believes there's a simple explanation for the pleasure of grasping a new concept: The brain is getting its fix. Neuroscience Professor Irving Biederman of the University of Southern California says the click of comprehension triggers a biochemical cascade that rewards the brain with a shot of natural opium-like substances. While you're trying to understand a difficult theorem, it's not fun, said Biederman. But once you get it, you just feel fabulous. He says the brain's craving for a fix motivates humans to maximize the rate at which they absorb knowledge. I think we're exquisitely tuned to this as if we're junkies, second by second, said Biederman. 06/21/06 - Toyota gives in to plug-in hybrid pressure Toyota's previous comments with respect to the whole plug-in hybrid movement have bordered on hostile. The company, no surprise, has tried to downplay the potential by pointing to technical challenges, criticizing Prius hackers, and claiming that car owners don't want to be burdened with having to plug their car into an electrical socket. But public pressure seems to have Toyota singing a different tune these days, making it the latest (and arguably most important) big car manufacturer to reveal that, yes, it's working on plug-in hybrids behind the scenes. On June 13 Toyota issued this release outlining its improved efforts to create environmentally sound and sustainable vehicles. Among a list of impressive initiatives under way, Toyoto Motor Corp. (TMC) made the following statement: "TMC will advance its research and development of plug-in hybrid vehicles (which can be charged from an external power source and provide electricity) and is currently working on a next-generation vehicle that can extend the distance traveled by the electric motor alone and that is expected to have a significant effect on reducing C02 and helping to abate atmospheric pollution." Whether this is open acknowledgement of a serious R&D program that will lead to commercialization of plug-in hybrids, or simply a marketing stunt to appease the plug-in hybrid movement, who knows... I think Toyota, like other car manufacturers, realize that some huge advancements in battery technology are just around the corner and could soon unlock the potential of plug-in hybrids and EVs in general. 06/21/06 - Ultra-sensitive Ammeter measures Electron flow in Attoamps Physicists at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed the world's most sensitive ammeter yet. The device allows current to be measured at the attoampere level and is expected to be of use in nanoelectronics, calibration devices, quantum computation and biology. 06/21/06 - California’s Global Warming Pollution Up 85% Since 1960 Global warming pollution in California jumped 85% between 1960 and 2001, according to The Carbon Boom, a new analysis of government data released today by Environment California. Increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the combustion of oil, primarily for transportation, and natural gas, primarily for electricity and heating, were responsible for 61% and 38% of this increase, respectively. “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, advocate with Environment California. “To protect future generations from the effects of global warming and to spur clean energy solutions, we need to stop this trend of increasing pollution.” The early effects of global warming are evident in California and worldwide. According to NASA, 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded. Left unchecked, global warming threatens to cause serious future water shortages in California as Sierra snowpack-fed rivers and streams dry up and as sea levels rise, threatening the coast. “This study shows us that despite public perceptions that we are cleaning up our air, our CO2 emissions are increasing not decreasing,” said Assemblyman Mark Leno. 06/21/06 - Nanowires make 4 times faster Circuits "Advances in nanowires have shown that they may be the future in cheap, high-performance electronics. Researchers at Harvard have shown that nanowire transistors are are least four times faster than existing silicon ones. These nanowires show promise in being able to be embedded in plastics, and could lead to devices such as flexible displays that process information in the screen itself." (via slashdot.com) 06/21/06 - Smithsonian removes electric-car exhibit coincident with Electric Car movie Just weeks before the release of a movie about the death of the electric car from the 1990s, the Smithsonian Institution has removed its EV1 electric sedan from display. The upcoming film "Who Killed the Electric Car?" questions why General Motors created the battery-powered vehicles and then crushed the program a few years later. The film opens June 30th. GM happens to be one of the Smithsonian's biggest contributors. But museum and GM officials say that had nothing to do with the removal of the EV1 from display. 06/21/06 - Sunscreens don't completely protect you from Cancer Sunscreens generally do a good job filtering out the ultraviolet rays that cause sunburn - UVB rays. But with sunburn protection, many people get a false sense of security that keeps them under the harsh sun much longer. That adds to the risk of eventual skin cancer - both deadly melanoma and the more common and less-threatening basal and squamous cell cancers. And most sunscreens don't defend nearly as well against the UVA rays that penetrate deep into the skin and are more likely to cause skin cancer and wrinkles. That's true even for some products labeled "broad-spectrum UVA/UVB protection." Experts say the best protection against UVA is a sunscreen that includes zinc oxide, titanium dioxide or avobenzone. Consumers should also look for those that are water-resistant and have an SPF of 30 or better, indicating strong protection against UVB rays, and apply liberally and often. More important, limit time in the sun, particularly from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and cover up, including wearing a hat and sunglasses. "I don't think people understand they're only getting protection from part of the spectrum," said Dr. Sandra Read, a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Dermatology. "You're accumulating this damage and you don't know it." Research has shown heavy sunscreen use lowers risk of squamous skin cell cancer, which has a high cure rate if caught early. Another study found heavy sunscreen use in children reduces the number of moles, which can turn cancerous later, Weinstock noted. 06/21/06 - Farmer’s hail cannons spark storm The cannon is a shock wave generator that is supposed to disrupt the formation of hailstones. An explosive charge of acetylene gas and air is fired in the lower chamber of the machine. As the energy passes through the neck and into the cone of the cannon, it develops into a force that becomes a shock wave. The shock wave then travels at the speed of sound into and through the clouds. This is said to disrupt the growth of the hailstones. The cannon is fired every four seconds as the storm approaches. It affects a 500-meter radius. His iceberg lettuce is still tiny, but healthy, with leaves sprouting whole and unmarred. They’ll hopefully stay that way, Smith says, thanks to the eight hail cannons stationed across his 3,800-acre Southern Colorado Farms, aimed at the sky and poised to fire off sound waves that supposedly stop the nasty ice pe