Find something
useful or
interesting?
Donations Appreciated!
|
May 2006 Plenum News
2006 (enhanced)
2005 (enhanced)
Entire Year (minimal, early formats)
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.
05/31/06 - Home chemistry under assault as illegal
 Chemistry kits shouldn't be a crime, but increasingly they are. Home science experimentation -- model rockets, chemistry sets and playing with explosives -- are a gateway drug to serious nerddom. But the hobby is under assault from government agencies that are terrified of terrorists, from anti-fireworks campaigns, and from the war on (some) drugs. The result is that hobbyists and those who supply them are getting investigated, raided and even jailed. Science and innovation are things that you start doing early on (Nikola Tesla invented his turbine design when he was five -- a design still in use at Niagara Falls and other power-generation stations), and penalizing those who help kids do science is a surefire way to trash the nation's competitiveness. more than 30 states have passed laws to restrict sales of chemicals and lab equipment associated with meth production, which has resulted in a decline in domestic meth labs, but makes things daunting for an amateur chemist shopping for supplies. It is illegal in Texas, for example, to buy such basic labware as Erlenmeyer flasks or three-necked beakers without first registering with the state’s Department of Public Safety to declare that they will not be used to make drugs. Among the chemicals the Portland, Oregon, police department lists online as “commonly associated with meth labs” are such scientifically useful compounds as liquid iodine, isopropyl alcohol, sulfuric acid, and hydrogen peroxide, along with chemistry glassware and pH strips. Similar lists appear on hundreds of Web sites.
05/31/06 - You Affect Climate Change
 The EU's new anti-global warming campaign, You Control Climate Change, launched Monday. The focus is on individual action ("Turn down. Switch off. Recycle. Walk."): The 50 practical tips included in the campaign range from turning off lights, recycling materials and not using cars. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the campaign highlighted individual responsibility. The campaign also targets pupils, who will be encouraged to sign a pledge to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. EU member states will be launching the campaign at national level over the next few days. It may as well get individuals to make real steps towards going climate neutral in their own lives.
05/31/06 - Light - Hue and timing determine whether beneficial or detrimental effects
 Chronic insomnia sufferer Erin Chesky now easily falls asleep by 11 p.m. Glovinsky's trick: entraining Erin's biological clock. Each morning, a special lamp delivers a half-hour of intense fluorescent light as she eats breakfast or reads. Mariana G. Figueiro of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center in nearby Troy, N.Y., uses colored light at night to aid elderly institutionalized patients. An early evening treatment from some 50 blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) coaxes a person's fractured sleep into solid, nightlong slumber. Elsewhere, researchers are experimenting with color-tuned light to perk up the body, improve visual acuity, and even reduce depression. Such techniques all stem from an emerging realization that for the body, light's role extends well beyond vision. Suspecting that the biological clock preferentially responds to select elements of the spectrum, George C. Brainard and his team at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia launched a 5-year effort to find the most-effective hues. The project tested 72 people and encompassed more than 600 person-nights of observation. Results, published 5 years ago, showed that the biological clock is most responsive to a narrow band of wavelengths from 466 to 477 nanometers (nm), which are close to the blue of a clear sky. "It's not something we would have predicted," Brainard notes, since these wavelengths aren't ones to which the eye's vision receptors-rods and cones-are most sensitive. The receptors called blue cones have a maximum sensitivity of about 430 nm. Compared with people receiving green light, those getting the same intensity of blue light became more alert and less drowsy-4.0 versus 6.5 on a 9-point sleepiness scale. Blue light also triggered brain waves suggesting that the volunteers were more awake. "[W]e have demonstrated that short-wavelength [blue] light is more effective at stimulating subjective and objective correlates of alertness and performance," Lockley's team concluded in the February Sleep.
05/31/06 - Hurricane Season - States say "You're on your own!"
 Convinced that tough tactics are needed, officials in hurricane-prone states are trumpeting dire warnings about the storm season that starts on Thursday, preaching self-reliance and prodding the public to prepare early and well. Cities are circulating storm-preparation checklists, counties are holding hurricane expositions at shopping malls and states are dangling carrots like free home inspections and tax-free storm supplies in hopes of conquering complacency. But will it work? Emergency management officials groaned this month at a poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research Inc., which found that of 1,100 adults along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, 83 percent had taken no steps to fortify their homes this year, 68 percent had no hurricane survival kits and 60 percent had no family disaster plan. At a Home Depot, Brenda and Jerry Dyche of South Fort Myers were shopping for a generator last Wednesday. With that and a new roof, they said, they had no reason to flee. "We'd just as soon be in our house," Mr. Dyche said. "Where are we going to go? I-75 is a parking lot by the time they evacuate everybody." "The very last place you would want to go is a Red Cross shelter," Mr. Lorenzo said last week at a community hurricane preparation meeting. "You're so close to the people sleeping next to you that you can feel the hair of their mustache on the side of your head." "It makes it a lot harder when people line up in their Lexuses or Mercedeses to get ice and water at a public distribution site when the Publix is open a block away," Governor Jeb Bush said. As his audience of emergency workers applauded, he added, "I don't know about you, but it sure made me feel better to get that off my chest."
05/30/06 - Peanut Milk to heal what ails you
 A cafe owner who thought up an unlikely beverage has created a `miracle' cure, writes John Glionna. Chang schemed up the unlikely beverage when his teeth, loosened by gum disease, drove him to find a painless way to consume peanuts, a favorite food since childhood. The creation had unexpected benefits, Chang says: It cured his gums and even slowed his baldness. Cooke and other regulars who flock to Chang's KK Cafe swear by peanut milk - the mystical elixir that Chang concocted in the kitchen of his storefront burger joint in San Francisco's bohemian Haight district. Cooke drinks it for energy and, she says, because it keeps her eyes clear of infection. The walls of Chang's eatery carry testimonials affirming the reputed powers of peanut milk. Although there's no hard proof of any health benefits, the beverage has spawned a cult of peanut milk fanatics. The drink, which does not contain milk, is made from peanuts, grains, herbs and spices. Fans say it strengthens patients with AIDS and cancer, reverses baldness, heals wounds faster, prevents colds, reduces symptoms of menopause and soothes psoriasis. It's also said to be a hangover cure. Some drink it at bedtime to help them sleep, others as an alternative to caffeine. Chang, 58, suggests another benefit: "More sexual stamina!" From a back-shop endeavor that started with half a kilogram of peanuts a day, Chang's company now processes 900kg a month and ships about 240,000 bottles a year. The 310-milliliter containers sell for US$1.69 (HK$13.18). The drink has the look and consistency of milk, with a definite peanut twang. Chang didn't plan to sell his invention. But soon cafe denizens began asking about it. Word spread as customers started to report their own claims of astonishing results. William Garcia Ganz, 58, who suffers from HIV and cancer, is another regular customer. One day, Chang noticed how sickly Ganz looked and began pushing peanut milk. Chang told Ganz that his older brother died from complications of AIDS in San Francisco in 1990. Ganz, a musician and conductor, was unable to pay, so Chang gave him a free daily quart. During his exhausting chemotherapy, Ganz, said, he lived solely on peanut milk, gaining weight, before his cancer went into remission. "I don't know if it was a miracle, but this drink definitely tided me over during those awful months," he said.
05/30/06 - The Science of Qi with Dr. Patrick Flanagan
 PERHAPS the grooviest scientist on the planet today is Dr Patrick Flanagan. Inventor, physicist, medical doctor, author and holder of over 300 patents, he is also among the most brilliant scientists alive. At age 11, he invented a missile detector which could track missiles being launched anywhere in the world. The Pentagon promptly bought his invention and appointed him as an adviser! At age 13, he invented a hearing device that helped many deaf people. He continued to invent so many things in so many fields that by age 17 (43 years ago), Life Magazine had already chosen him as one of the 100 most important young people in the US. As proof that he has not slowed down at all, in 1997 at age 51, he was named Scientist of The Year by the International Association of New Science. Now at age 60, he is still full of ideas, is charged with energy, and wears earrings! During Dr Flanagan’s research, he found that the Hunza Valley water contains high levels of negatively-charged hydrogen ions (each hydrogen atom having an extra electron). So drinking the water means having lots of spare electrons to neutralise free radicals without generating new ones, and also plenty of electrons to feed the energy-generation processes. These negatively-charged hydrogen ions are usually unstable, but they are abundant in Hunza water because of its content of colloidal silica mineral, which traps the ions. His brilliance is proven when he is able to duplicate nature by embedding and stabilising these ions to edible silica powder (silica hydride, also called “active hydrogen”), thus making the most powerful antioxidant known. In the lab, it has doubled the life-span of cells. According to him, the moving electrons (through the movement of hydrogen) generate qi, the universal life force. Even he acknowledges that qi is at the core of all matter and biochemical reactions. ...more info...
05/30/06 - At last, alternative energy research gets some respect
 The future of energy is bright in Said Al-Hallaj's invention lab at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and not just because of the solar window that lies in development on a table. All around the lab are advanced alternative energy projects that testify to the war on oil that's proceeding quietly at laboratories and research centers across the country. A tiny two-passenger electric car stands ready to drive 25 miles on one charge of its custom-designed pack of lithium-ion batteries, not unlike the ones that power laptops. A research assistant who's working out the kinks on an electric bicycle motors down a hallway at 20 mph, triple the speed of the hybrid fuel-cell scooter developed here. Elsewhere, Al-Hallaj and another professor are converting an SUV into a plug-in hybrid vehicle using lithium-ion cells to double the fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. And a team of students is converting a gasoline-powered lawnmower to use hydrogen as fuel. Some of the projects could be manufactured commercially right now, said Al-Hallaj, research associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering and coordinator of IIT's renewable energy program. Ethanol's potential is limited by cost and transport issues and the fact that even those seemingly endless fields of corn in the Midwest are finite. Experts say corn-based ethanol isn't ever likely to displace more than 10 percent of the gasoline supply. That's where biomass comes in. By using other crops and forest waste along with the entire corn plant, not just the kernels, the Department of Energy says enough cellulosic ethanol could be produced by 2030 to lower U.S. gasoline consumption 30 percent.
05/30/06 - Students Develop Energy Saving Circuit
Adarsh Pakala, Bhagvan Chandra, Arun D'Souza, Chethan, the students of final electrical and electronics, NMAMIT, Nitte here under the guidance of Prof K Vasudeva Shettigar and Prof Chandramohan M S has designed a microprocessor based 'converter and inverter circuit' for electric drive (back power). The invention can help save huge power wastage in trains. Energy wasted is supplied back for use, thus conserving it. The aim of the project was to arrange converter and inverter operations in a single circuit. In both the cases the power flow is controlled by varying the firing angle of each SCR and the accurate firing angle is produced by microprocessor. Here a DC motor is used as load, which can operate in any of the four quadrants. The motor is supplied through a converter and inverter circuit. This concept is used for regenerative breaking which implies transferring the power from load to source during breaking time. For example in electric trains large amount of power is wasted during breaking, this power is converted into electric energy and fed back into the supply mains using the above concept. Around 30 to 40 per cent energy can be saved in this operation. This project won the runners up position the ICPC (Inter-Collegiate Project Competition) held at P A College of Engineering, Mangalore.
05/30/06 - Strawjet - natural building material from straw
 Developed mainly by Ward in his backyard shop and relocated to big shops in Talent last year, Strawjet Inc. produces a machine that gleans waste straw from fields, weaves it into cables, then, using a clay-cement material, binds the cables into building materials, such as blocks and beams. Ward says he began his trek as a "green" inventor after getting seriously ill from contact with building materials in his job as a construction supervisor. Finding that no modern green materials compared in strength to traditional ones, Ward decided to invent them. His central vision of using farm fiber waste came to him while driving a combine on a farm - and after 10 years of research, and using many hand-made parts, he built the first prototype. Seeing deforestation in Latin America further motivated him to find a wood alternative. The invention of the Strawjet has special significance, Palombo said, because it's a major departure from existing technology, because it creates strong building materials from abundant waste and because China and other emerging nations, needing to build millions of new homes, are looking for alternatives to scarce and expensive steel and timber. A hand-fed version of the Strawjet is likely to be in demand in disaster-prone regions, such as quake-stricken Afghanistan or the hurricane-thrashed Gulf Coast, Palombo said, adding, "There's a staggering amount of potential in China and the Mideast, where there's certainly not enough lumber, concrete or steel." The corporation has focused on straw because it's abundant, but is already exploring stronger agricultural fibers, such as hemp and "virtually indestructible" palm fronds, either substance capable of supporting a 10-story building, Palombo said.
05/30/06 - Australia might drink recycled waste water
City officials in Goulburn, Australia, are studying whether residents will concede to use recycled effluent for drinking water, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. If so, the federal government would spend $11 million to construct a $3 million recycling system. Goulburn is experiencing a severe drought, having received only 0.12 inches of rain in April, compared to almost 2 inches on average for the month. Pejar Dam -- the city's largest surface water storage area -- is dry. Treated waste water would be passed through 26 filtration barriers. It would first be used for non-drinking purposes. "If it doesn't rain it could be (used) faster, but even if it rains we will proceed with the scheme because we could be in this (water shortage) position again," Mayor Paul Stephenson told the newspaper. Last year, Frank Sartor, the former water minister, said people who wanted mass recycling of water were "hopelessly misinformed." Sartor said it was not a practical solution because people would not accept it.
05/30/06 - Heart may be home to its own stem cells
 Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury. But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa’s laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans. However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow. Leri and her colleagues have now removed tiny numbers of cardiac stem cells from people undergoing heart operations, grown them in the lab and then transplanted them into the damaged hearts of rats and mice. The results are promising, says Leri, and may eventually give better heart-healing results than bone-marrow derived stem cells. “If these cells truly do exist we would like to be able to find out what regulates their activity and whether you can simulate that mechanism to repair heart tissue without having to use cells from elsewhere,” he says.
05/30/06 - Oil much more valuable to Chemistry
(This is what Dr. Hal Puthoff was told when interviewing high ranking oil execs and presenting them with the proposition of free energy. He was told the oil was far more valuable from all the different products you can MAKE from it than just burning it. - JWD) Petroleum and natural gas reserves are getting smaller and smaller. It is thus a real waste to burn up these valuable resources for heat or transportation especially as "black gold" is also the most important starting material for the chemical industry. It is used in the production of most organic compounds, be they plastics, medicines, or solvents. We clearly need alternatives and are scouring nature in the hope that renewable plant resources will eventually provide some real competition for fossil resources. For example, the enzymatic extraction of cellulose from wood by-products produces the sugar glucose, which is then fermented to form ethanol. This ethanol can then be used as a “biological” fuel for vehicles. Under different reaction conditions, the fermentation of glucose produces glycerol. Glycerol is also a highly promising starting material for the synthesis of fuels and other organic compounds, as a team of scientists from the USA and Brazil have discovered.
05/30/06 - Paratroopers could fly 200km (125 miles) with new glider wings system
 The system, which involves the development of new modular carbon-fibre wings, will mean that aircraft can drop parachutists from 30,000 feet (9,150 metres) into an area of operations without flying into a danger zone. Trials of the modular wing are being developed by the German firm Elektroniksystem und Logistik and Draeger. They are due to finish by the end of 2006, with the entire parachute and wings combination expected to be available during 2007. Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, said the new system has been in use with the German army since 2003, but the development of the new wing means soldiers can travel much further than the current 48 kilometres. "The new wing will also reduce the impact of wind conditions on the jumper and allow operatives to travel up to 40 kilometres carrying loads of around 100 kilogrammes," Felstead said. "The system is reportedly 100 percent silent and extremely difficult to track by air on ground-based radar systems." Jane's Defence Weekly reported that the next stage of the development will utilise small turbo-jet drives, as used on unmanned aerial vehicles, allowing jumpers to be carried longer distances without jumping from such extreme heights.
05/30/06 - MATT - a test bed for auto new-fuel research
It's like a giant rolling Erector Set for engineers who really like to play around with automotive components. One day, the engineers can test how an electric motor performs with a gasoline-powered engine and a manual transmission. The next day, they can substitute an engine fueled by hydrogen. Soon they intend to place giant batteries on the MATT's rear platform to research a plug-in hybrid vehicle that could increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. The building where MATT is housed illustrates the nation's changing priorities. The structure previously was used for research into magnets necessary for use in nuclear reactors. When that work ended in the 1970s, the building sat empty for years.
Now it's devoted to the lab's Center for Transportation Research, where among other projects the staff is working to develop, test or perfect vehicles that can run on everything from ethanol to hydrogen, methanol to wood chips. Hillebrand said he's confident that the nation can move away from its dependence on foreign oil, but he said he believes the solution lies in a combination of new options, not one single answer. "We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, because we've got all the coal we want," Hillebrand said. "We're the Saudi Arabia of shale oil, tar sands, biofuels . . . solar, wind. The U.S. has got substantial carriers of fuel and energy supplies. The problem the U.S. has is they're not oil - they're in different forms. "So what our research is really focusing on is giving the U.S. alternatives to just using oil, and there are a lot of alternatives," Hillebrand continued. A standard hybrid such as the Toyota Prius uses an electric motor, a small battery and a gasoline engine. With a plug-in hybrid, the small battery is replaced by much bigger battery packs that can be recharged through a standard 120-volt outlet. With such a car, a driver could travel the first 10, 20 or even 40 miles of a trip on battery power before the vehicle would switch to the gasoline engine, Hillebrand said.
Plug-in hybrids are "inevitable," said Bradley Berman, editor of HybridCars.com, a Web site that provides consumer information about hybrid vehicles. Argonne researchers took a Prius, disconnected its small battery and used a power-processing system to simulate the larger battery used in a plug-in hybrid. The result? A car that traveled 78 miles on one gallon of gasoline.
05/29/06 - Patent Details of Russian Star Battery
 (Thanks to the ever intrepid Bob Nelson at Rex Research for the followup on this new Russian Battery technology that relies ideally on superconducting (tested with gold) nano sized metal particles dispersed in a polymer matrix to allow plasmon resonance. - JWD) Patent number: WO2005019324 - HETEROGENIC MATERIALS - Publication date: 2005-03-03 - Inventor: ZAYMIDOROGA OLEG ANTONOVICH FL (RU); SAMOILOV VALENTIN NIKOLAEVICH (RU); PROTSENKO IGOR EVGENIEVICH FLA (RU) - Heteroelectric, covered by "umbrella" patent of Russian Federation N2249277 covering 24 directions of a science and technics, allows to carry out management of a magnetic field and its transformation with the purpose of creation of devices and devices with predicted optical, electric and magnetic properties. For the ways and devices with use heteroelectric experts JINR Scientific Centre for Applied Research (SCAR) are received the following patents which are not having analogues in the world: the Amplifier electric radiation (N 2266596); the Electric condenser and not hinged elements of integrated schemes (N2266585); the Mirror (2265870); the Way of generation of coherent electromagnetic radiation and dipol nanolaser on its basis (N2249278); Optical glass (N2209785); the Photocathode (N2216815); the Heterogeneous photo cell (N 2217845); the Photo cell (N2222846). Solar Cell - proposed photocell depending for its operation on conversion of electromagnetic light flux energy into electrical energy has operating efficiency as high as 60 - 70% at resonant frequency maximum due to introduction of metal nanoparticles measuring 10-30 nm into its photosensitive layer, concentration of mentioned nanoparticles in mentioned layer being (1-10)10-2 volume fractions. EFFECT: enhanced efficiency of photocell. / Photocathode - technical result of invention lies in increase of quantum yield of photoelectrons to 60- 70% in maximum in visible region of spectrum. To achieve this technical result layer of semiconductor with p-n junction deposited on surface of glass flask of photoelectric multiplier facing vacuum was implanted with nanoparticles of metal with linear dimensions under 100 nm homogeneously distributed over its surface with concentration of mentioned nanoparticles in layer amounting to (1/5)10-2 volume fractions. EFFECT: increased quantum yield of photoelectrons. (Interesting that this wide ranging patent cites two US patents that relate; US2003032709 - Thermoelectric materials, thermoelectric device, and method for producing thermoelectric materials, US2002145132 - Composite polymers containing nanometer-sized metal particles and manufacturing method thereof AND European patent EP0488321 - Electroconductive polymer coated metal particles and method for preparing same.
05/29/06 - Power Generating Shock Absorber
 (Thanks to Bob Paddock for the headsup! - JWD) A conventional automotive shock absorber dampens suspension movement to produce a controlled action that keeps the tire firmly on the road. This is done by converting the kinetic energy into heat energy, which is then absorbed by the shock’s oil. The Power-Generating Shock Absorber (PGSA) converts this kinetic energy into electricity instead of heat through the use of a Linear Motion Electromagnetic System (LMES). The LMES uses a dense permanent magnet stack embedded in the main piston, a switchable series of stator coil windings, a rectifier, and an electronic control system to manage the varying electrical output and dampening load. The electricity generated by each PGSA can then be combined with electricity from other power generation systems (e.g. regenerative braking) and stored in the vehicle’s batteries. Developed as a secondary power source for hybrid/electric vehicles, the PGSA uses a Linear Motion Electromagnetic System (LMES), in which kinetic energy that would be dampened and turned into heat is instead converted into electricity. The PGSA is the same basic size and shape as a standard shock absorber or strut cartridge, and mounts in the same way. The bottom shaft of the PGSA mounts to the moving suspension member and forces the magnet stack of the LMES to reciprocate within the annular array of stator windings, producing alternating current electricity. That electricity is then converted into direct current through a full-wave rectifier and stored in the vehicle's batteries.
05/29/06 - Claims of Russian Fuel-Less power Generators for sale
(Received an email from Alex Frolov with a link claiming to sell these and cavitation vortex heater systems that are super efficient. - JWD) "Faraday Lab Ltd is dealer of Russian producer firm AKOIL, which offer fuel less power generators. This production can be exported for the Customer only after consideration and discussion. Power generators of 100kW -1000kW can be delivered by usual export contract. Power plant of more than 1000kW output power can be build for the Customer as joint venture in location of the Customer. This technology is autonomus fuel less electric power generator. Energy input is necessary only for starting of the device. Life time is more than 70 years. Warranty period 10 years (but really it is very
reliable system and it can work more than 10 years without any technical problems). The devices are produced for sale in closed safe frame and it can not be open for observation by user. Any attempt to open this device will lead to self-destruction of the device. You can order it only
for electricity production. Know how is protected and license sales are not planned."
05/29/06 - Hybrid Solar Ferry for Alcatraz tourists
 San Francisco is planning to use an Australian company's solar hybrid ferries to transport tourists to and from Alcatraz island. "Ferry operator Hornblower Cruises and Events won the contract with its bid to incorporate wind and solar power into a diesel ferry that also has electric motors," according to an article at MSNBC.com. "Hornblower has been working with Solar Sailor, an Australian company that operates a similar ferry in Sydney. Hornblower expects its first vessel will be built within two years and the second within five. The ferries could be each large enough to accommodate 600 passengers."
05/29/06 - Scientists Float Plan to Shoot Water to the Moon
A strikingly simple concept would provide efficient water provisions for human outposts and even bases on the moon. The idea is to clobber our already crater-rich neighbor repeatedly with tons of water ice - to establish an "anywhere, anytime" delivery system. SLAM needs no midcourse correction en route to the moon - nor does it need a spacecraft, for that matter. All that’s necessary is a thermal jacket for the water ice payload that’s flung by rocket booster toward any selected spot on the moon. "It appears to be entirely feasible, simple and really cheap," Stern said. A proprietary technique would be utilized to keep the water ice ball from being buried too deep on impact. At lunar impact speeds, virtually all of the ice will come to rest less than 5 feet (1.5 meters) below the surface, if properly pre-fractured. Also, work done on the concept indicates that a majority of the water ice that is slammed into the moon is retained, with only 15 percent vaporized.
05/29/06 - Green Water and Sustainable Agriculture
 Water scarcity is a major issue for rainfed agriculture, which uses 75% of all agricultural water. Rain-fed agriculture is at the mercy of two things: rain and the capacity of soil to capture and store that rain. While farmers can't do much to make it rain, they can do a lot to retain rainfall in the soil. The rainfall that infiltrates and remains in the soil--also called green water--is the largest fresh water resource and the basis of rain-fed agriculture. Green water is a very important resource for global food production. About 60% of the world staple food production relies on … green water. The entire meat production from grazing relies on green water, and so does the production of wood from forestry. Modest measures like mulching, conservation tillage, and small-scale water harvesting can increase infiltration by as much as 2-3 fold. Other methods include terracing, contouring and micro-basins that also increase green water and reduce run-off.
05/29/06 - Faster Than Light?
 The textbooks say that information can't travel faster than light, but researchers at Rochester University have uncovered tantalizing evidence that this may not be the case. Scientists sent a burst of laser light through an optical fiber that had been laced with the element erbium. As the pulse exited the laser, it was split into two. One pulse went into the erbium fiber and the second traveled along undisturbed as a reference. The peak of the pulse emerged from the other end of the fiber before the peak entered the front of the fiber, and well ahead of the peak of the reference pulse. But to find out if the pulse was truly traveling backward within the fiber, Boyd and his students had to cut back the fiber every few inches and re-measure the pulse peaks when they exited each pared-back section of the fiber. By arranging that data and playing it back in a time sequence, Boyd was able to depict that the pulse of light was moving backward within the fiber. "It's weird stuff," says Boyd. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses." "The pulse of light is shaped like a hump with a peak and long leading and trailing edges. The leading edge carries with it all the information about the pulse and enters the fiber first. By the time the peak enters the fiber, the leading edge is already well ahead, exiting. From the information in that leading edge, the fiber essentially 'reconstructs' the pulse at the far end, sending one version out the fiber, and another backward toward the beginning of the fiber." Boyd's team are already working on ways to see what will happen if they can design a pulse without a leading edge. According to Einstein, the entire faster-than-light and reverse-light phenomena will disappear. Boyd is eager to put Einstein to the test.
05/29/06 - Music can reduce 'chronic pain'
US researchers tested the effect of music on 60 patients who had endured years of chronic pain. Those who listened to music reported a cut in pain levels of up to 21%, and in associated depression of up to 25%, compared to those who did not listen. The patients who took part in the study were recruited from pain and chiropractic clinics. They had been suffering from conditions such osteoarthritis, disc problems and rheumatoid arthritis for an average of six-and-a-half years. Most said the pain affected more than one part of their body, and was continuous. Some listened to music on a headset for an hour every day for a week, while the rest did not. Among those who listened to music, half were able to chose their favourite selections, the rest had to pick from a list of five relaxing tapes provided by the researchers. "Our results show that listening to music had a statistically significant effect on the two experimental groups, reducing pain, depression and disability and increasing feelings of power." "Listening to music has already been shown to promote a number of positive benefits and this research adds to the growing body of evidence that it has an important role to play in modern healthcare." Previous research published in the same journal found listening to 45 minutes of soft music before going to bed can improve sleep by more than a third. Dr Stannard said it was possible that music simply provided a distraction which stopped people concentrating on their pain.
05/29/06 - Join a timeshare island tribe in Fiji
 Today's LA Times has a short article about Tribewanted, a project to recruit 5,000 people from around the world who want to live on an island with 100 other people for a couple of weeks and build a community. The goal: to build a sustainable eco-community and keep at bay developers with dreams of massive hotel complexes. Memberships - Nomad ($220), Hunter ($440) and Warrior ($660) - entitle members to seven, 14 or 21 days on the palm-fringed 200-acre oasis, 100 at a time. Fees cover food, lodging and local airport transfer. This is not for the five-star hotel crowd. The tribe will be roughing it, especially the early arrivals, who will have only tents and basic shower and toilet facilities. "The first job for the tribe," [co-founder Ben] Keene said, "is to build for those who come later," working alongside paid Fijian laborers to build beach huts. There's no electricity, but solar energy will provide Internet access. So far, about 400 people have signed up, ranging in age from 18 to 67. (via boingboing.com)
05/29/06 - Listening to Light
 "Human eyes have a persistence of .02 seconds, meaning any light operating at 50Hz or above is perceived to be continuously on. The ear, however, is much better at detecting changes in frequency than the eye by discerning frequencies from about 50Hz to around 18 KHz. Therefore, many forms of light that can and cannot be discerned by the human eye, such as infrared or ultraviolet, can be heard by the human ear with the aid of an electronic circuit. Normally, only people with Synaesthesia are capable of multi-modal sensory input from a single sense source. Utilizing this electronic circuit allows regular people to expand their sensory horizons, too. A similar technology was developed for the military to allow divers to 'see' in murky water by transfering the information from optical or SONAR sensors into sensations on the human tongue. Called the 'Brain Port,' even completely blind individuals were able to navigate a room, identify people in front of them and catch tossed objects."
05/29/06 - Immigration Bill Passes Senate
"For illegal immigrants, those in the country for five years could stay, keep working and eventually apply for citizenship. They would have to pay at least $3,250 in fines and fees, settle back taxes and learn English." Now, remember this is the Senate. The House, which faces more elections this fall, would make illegal immigration a felony and has no guest worker program or amnesty. (via urbansurvival.com)
Russian scientists have invented a battery that can capture energy not only from the sun, but also from the stars, the head of a research institute at the Dubna Nuclear Institute, near Moscow, said. "The scientists have successfully created a new substance," Valentin Samoilov announced, "thanks to which this battery can work on earth, independently of meteorological conditions, using solar and stellar energy. "This is a battery like no other," Samoilov, who head's the Institute's center for applied research, told the Itar-Tass news agency, explaining that it could function 24 hours a day and was twice as effective as an ordinary solar panel at converting light into electricity. Moreover, Samoilov declared, the new battery was cheaper than a solar panel.
05/28/06 - BioGas from table scraps
 Fans of the 1985 movie Back to the Future may recall that the time-travelling DeLorean ran on organic waste. As far fetched as powering your vehicle with table scraps sounds, some Europeans have been doing that for years through a process that recovers energy from organic waste. Scott MacKay held up a five pound bag of assorted table scraps during the monthly Leduc-Nisku Economic Development Authority breakfast May 16 and said,” This amount would take you two kilometers.” Kompogas -- the trade name of the technology and retail name of the fuel --is a thermophilic dry digester system. The process involves anaerobic fermentation of biogenous waste -- grass clippings, newspaper, table scraps -- at a high temperature over 15 to 20 days to produce biogas. Biogas is about 58 per cent methane, about 42 per cent carbon dioxides and less than two per cent of hydrogen sulphide.” A study on Kompogas emissions said, ” the carbon dioxide Kompogas powered vehicles release into the air is the same carbon dioxide that plants take from the air during photosynthesis.” Aside from producing fuel for vehicles, Sweden powers three trains solely on biogas, he said. Other end uses include electricity and fertilizer. Jones said agriculture is a good source of feedstock to produce green energy. Aside from outputs such as manure, Jones said, “We can pull methane from corn, the cereals and legumes.” Depending on the size of the facility, the start-up costs can be prohibitive, which opens the door for public/private partnerships.
05/28/06 - How Many Miles to the Bushel?
TOO often, discussions of alternative energy take place in an alternative universe where prices do not matter," Popular Mechanics reports. there was not one automobile that could handle all types of fuel, the magazine tried to match the cars as closely as possible in size and weight. And the price it used for gasoline - $2.34 a gallon - is about 20 percent less than most people are now paying at the pump. Still, the results in the cover article by Mike Allen are intriguing and surprising. The cheapest fuel was electricity. About one ton of coal would be needed to produce the requisite energy. Cost to drive coast to coast: $60. Using compressed natural gas would set a driver back $110. And biodiesel, made of used vegetable oil in the magazine's example, would cost $231. Gasoline, as it turns out, figured in the middle of the pack. It would take 4.5 barrels of crude oil to produce the 91 gallons of gasoline necessary to get a Honda Civic coast to coast. The cost would be $213. On the high end were E85/ethanol, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, at $425, and M85/methanol, 85 percent methanol and 15 percent gasoline, at $619. And then there was hydrogen. It would require 16,000 cubic feet of hydrogen to power General Motors' Hy-wire concept car: $804. One acre of soybeans can produce 50 gallons of biodiesel fuel. There are 427 million arable acres in the United States. The average American driver uses 464 gallons of gasoline a year and there are 198 million drivers in the United States. All of which means: "Arable acres needed to make enough biodiesel: 1.8 billion." Would annexing Canada be a possibility?
05/28/06 - On having an Open Mind
Catholic writer Mark Shea tells an anecdote about a college bull session among students at Central Washington University over The Da Vinci Code. “Even if it’s just fiction,” a student opined, “it’s still interesting to think about.” To which another student replied: “Your mother’s a whore.” And then, to the first student’s stunned incredulity, he added, “And even if that’s just fiction, it’s still interesting to think about.”
05/28/06 - Croatia apologizes to Tesla for not recognizing his talent
 Zagreb's city councillors have delivered a posthumous apology to their compatriot Nikola Tesla, one of the pioneers of modern electrical engineering, for failing to recognise his genius, officials said Thursday. The city council met on Wednesday, exactly 114 years after Tesla presented Zagreb's then mayor with the idea of introducing electric street lighting to the city. The city authorities told the young inventor they did not understand his vision and turned down his project, before introduced electric lighting 15 years later. "He was forced to go abroad, but still he did not forget his country," said Tatjana Holjevac, head of municipal council. Zagreb mayor Milan Bandic said the capital remembered Tesla with pride as he marked the 150th anniversary of the inventor's birth by unveiling a statue of him. At the age of 28, the scientist moved to the United States where his genius blossomed as he churned out a vast of array inventions, the most famous of which was the alternating current (AC) motor, used the world over today. Croatia and neighbouring Serbia are marking the anniversary of Tesla, an ethnic Serb born in a Croatian province of the old Austro-Hungarian empire, with series of events.
05/28/06 - The Science that is Magick - TET technology
 (Found this fascinating page about Egyptian images that indicate electrical devices, if you have a few minutes, give it a read! Note the concept of transmissions with hands on long arms as capable of affecting mass at a distance. - JWD) Was the modern battery, prototyped by this voltaic pile, derived directly from the ancient Egyptian battery without them being credited, at a time when Egyptian art and architecture was also being borrowed by America's founders? Nikola Tesla, the prodigal master inventor, spoke himself of his electrical and wireless electrical arts being centuries old. The endless lists of significant proportions and measurements and placements that seem to have been involved truly are remarkable. People like Graham Hancock, Robert Beauval, and John Anthony West are doing a fine job filling in other missing pieces, and pyramid energy has been covered with great skill, competence and often strong credibility by bona-fide scientists like Patrick Flanagan and Christopher Hills; wonderful collections of threads and ideas include the classic works on Egyptian and Mexican pyramids by Bird and Thompkins. Richard Hoagland is also producing fabulous work relating the Sphinx and ancient knowledge to the ancient "Face on Mars". What "real" scientists seem to discover about them is wild enough on it’s own; Science (yes, "the", hard-boiled, skeptical and straight-laced Science magazine. Drop by any public library and look for yourself how "New Age" it’s not) once published some studies detailing cosmic ray readings at the Pyramids... they still don’t seem to be able to explain the results they got. There are also devices to be found in Egyptian artwork, normally without too much digging, that depict strikingly vaccuum-tube like devices- more weight to Nikola Tesla's statements that his art of wireless electricity and radio was an ancient one. One of Allen and Sally Landsburg's books delves into the peculiar recorded longevity of certain ancient middle eastern rulers. Their ages are written as numbers like 60, 000 and 70,000 years. They go so far as to speculate that these ancients took perhaps the kind of batteries that are found in archaeological sites in the middle east, and connected them to their endocrines to achieve this effect. As bizarre, or even Frankensteinian, as this may sound, not only with a wireless contrivance such as a tet could they have a reasonable chance of existing in such a fashion without the encumbrance of being perpetually physically wired to a machine, but some of the vignettes of the tet as an old man certainly encourage even more speculation along these lines. There are also scenes of various persons on thrones, sometimes Osiris, where the cut-away view shows these thrones to have layers of material very similar to the tet. They are literally, with wry humor, "seats of power".
05/28/06 - Tracking you and your kids
 The right phone is one that can use a GPS tracking service. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, so if you and your friends, your kin or co-workers have the right phone and service, it will tell you where they are, and tell them where you are. A tracking service from Nextel costs $10 a month, but there's a Web service called Mologogo (www.mologogo.com) that does it for $6 a month. Not a big price difference, but Mologogo will sell you a phone and the proper locating software for $99 as a package deal. The phone is from Boost Mobile phone, a subsidiary of Sprint/Nextel, and is available from many retailers. If you go to the Web site www.boostmobile.com, you can get a list of nearby outlets. The key here is that the phones are GPS-enabled, which is what you need to find out where another user is located. GPS is a natural addition to cell phones, and it's likely there will be a number of special services that will spring up to use it. Already, one called CatTrax (www.kidssafegps.com) not only tracks the location of a phone registered with its service, but also alerts parents if the carrier of that phone is in an area that houses a registered sex offender. (Laws in many states require convicted sex offenders to register with the police wherever they live.) The charge for this service is $20 a month.
05/28/06 - Technique speeds up detecting, treating wound bacteria
"The flora of wound infections is very complex," he said. "At times there can be 12 or more organisms present, and most clinical laboratories are not proficient in isolating and identifying anaerobes, which often predominate." Using DNA detection methods though a technique called real-time polymerase chain reaction, the physician-researcher from the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center can drastically cut the time it takes for lab personnel to figure out just what bacteria they're dealing with. "The big advantage of real-time PCR is that we get quantitative information and accurate identification on the organisms in five hours or so, whereas the current procedure--culturing and identifying organisms by biochemical activity, etc.--can take one to several days and sometimes weeks, depending on the organism," he said. His technique is also useful in detecting flora that can't easily be grown in culture because no one's been able to determine just what the bacteria like in the way of nutrients and environmental conditions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, antibiotic resistance is a growing threat to the general population, as well as the military. In fact, more than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause hospital-acquired infections are resistant to at least one of the drugs most commonly used to treat them. So far Finegold and his colleagues have been able use real-time PCR to detect 20 of the most common bacteria found in wounds.
05/28/06 - UK Online Store Sells Caffeinated Pantyhose
 An online store in the UK called TightsPlease is selling CAFFEINATED PANTYHOSE called Palmers Slim Fit 20 designed for weight loss. And, no, I'm not making this up. According to the site, "Body temperature causes the release of caffeine microcapsules into the skin increasing the metabolic rate and the burning of fat. This can reduce the circumference of thighs, cellulite and the "orange peel" effect. They take 1-4 weeks to work and come in a 3 pair value pack."
05/28/06 - Nature offers guidance on organising dynamic networks
Today, for many, computer networks are an indispensable infrastructure that interconnects people, places and organisations. But increasingly they are beginning to creak as their complexity grows. Biological systems through years of evolution can offer clues on how to cope, as a research project has demonstrated. "Even a minor perturbation on a network can cause major problems," says Dr Ozalp Babaoglu at the University of Bologna. "Simply adding a computer or installing an operating system can suddenly mean that the printer stops working or you can't access your files." The problem is caused by complex systems, where a large number a simple elements interact. And networking can be complex. Millions of interconnected nodes create inherent complexity and a growing sophistication of interactions between devices means complexity exists even when the number of devices is modest. Enter the BISON project funded under the European Commission's Future and Emerging Technologies initiative. BISON is inspired by Complex Adaptive Systems like ants, fireflies and even single cells. "The load balancing protocol was inspired by negative chemotaxis," says Babaoglu. Chemotaxis is a process where single cells or multicellular organisms move towards a chemical stimulus. Negative chemotaxis in the digital world prompts data to spontaneously disperse, effectively balancing the data load across the network. It used Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO), a computing scheme inspired by the way ants leave and follow paths to find the shortest route to food. In the computing paradigm, tiny packets of data, called ants, are sent out to find the most efficient routing choice based on the twin needs of connectivity and power management. BISON also developed a synchronicity protocol inspired by fireflies. Synchronicity is important to time the execution of certain functions in a network. Fireflies very quickly synchronise their light emission, rather like clapping in an audience, and Babaoglu says it could become the basis for developing a heartbeat on the internet.
05/28/06 - Multiple 'body clocks' backup DIM MAK/QI claims
 (Dim Mak is healing or curing with a touch. Simply put, acupressure and acupuncture are ways to aid the circulation of qi throughout the body. This energy cycles endlessly through the body along fourteen channels, called meridians. "Twelve run to different organs and different parts of the body, plus there are two special meridians" says Lam. Acupuncture and acupressure points are points where the meridians are accessible to outside stimulation. The belief does exist that there is a correlation between specific pressure points and specific times of day. According to Lam, the flow of qi through the body is quite regular and cyclical. It reaches certain points at certain times of the day. "If you strike and block a pressure point at a time of day when the energy is supposed to flow through it," says Lam, "the blockage is very severe." Dim Mak is the dark side of acupressure. Instead of helping the body use its own resources, Dim Mak in effect turns the body against itself, shutting down vital energy flow--numbing, paralyzing, even killing. Many of the claims made for it--masters who could strike their opponents and weeks later, watch them drop dead, right ON SCHEDULE; masters who didn't even need to touch their enemies--are dismissed as outlandish. - JWD) Research conducted at Oregon Health & Science University suggests that contrary to popular belief, the body has more than one "body clock." The previously known master body clock resides in a part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Researchers at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) have now revealed the existence of a secondary clock-like mechanism associated with the adrenal gland. The research also suggests a high likelihood that additional clocks exist in the body. "Our latest research suggests that a separate but likely related clock resides in the adrenal gland. The adrenal gland is involved in several important body functions, such as body temperature regulation, metabolism, mood, stress response and reproduction. The research also suggests that other peripheral clocks reside throughout the body and that these clocks are perhaps interconnected." This research provides important new information regarding the complex, rhythmic, 24-hour functions of the body. The research may also impact current therapies for a variety of diseases. For instance, data gathered in this study and future studies may suggest that certain therapies be delivered at certain times to synchronize with normal body functions controlled by body clocks. "One example is testosterone replacement, a common treatment for certain disorders in males such as sexual dysfunction and depression," explained Urbanski. "Patients receiving testosterone late in the day often complain of sleep loss. This is likely due to the fact that in healthy people, testosterone levels are lower in the afternoon and evening. As more data is gathered about body clock functions in our lab and others, we will likely learn of a specific window of time during the day where testosterone therapy is effective, but less disruptive for patients."
05/28/06 - Quake Kills over 3,000 in Indonesia (Comet related?)
 A powerful earthquake flattened homes and hotels in central Indonesia on Saturday as people slept, killing at least 3,000 and injuring thousands more in the nation's worst disaster since the 2004 tsunami. The magnitude-6.2 quake struck at 5:54 a.m. near the ancient city of Yogyakarta, 250 miles east of the capital, Jakarta. The quake's epicenter was 50 miles south of the rumbling Mount Merapi volcano, and activity increased soon after the temblor. Yogyakarta is about 18 miles from the sea. In the chaos that followed the quake, false rumors of an impending tsunami sent thousands of people fleeing to higher ground in cars and on motorbikes.
05/27/06 - 800 Billion Barrels of Oil Shale
 The United States has 800 Billion Barrels of Oil Shale locked up in Wyoming and Colorado, that’s enough to supply the whole World for 60 years, and inventor Byron Merrell has developed a method of Oil shale recovery that can extract oil for $33 dollars a barrel. His Petrosix process is next going to be tried in a plant that can produce 1,000 barrels a day. If successful larger projects could whittle the price down to under $20 a barrel. Merrell spent five years "mentally" designing an oil shale "retort," in which pulverized rock is baked, and vaporized oil extracted. He built his first prototype in 1993, buying shale from an abandoned mine to experiment with. Getting oil out of the rocks is not the problem. Any junior-high school kid can do that with a Bunsen burner. "Every retort that's ever been built has made oil. To make it economically is another trick," Merrell says. And that's the trick that, so far, has eluded almost everyone who's tried. If the price of oil stays high enough, if the retorting process can be made cheap enough, and if environmental concerns can be satisfied, there's a lot of oil to be had here. Crushed oil shale is dumped into the top of the retort, then heated to about 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its way down, until the organic material inside is vaporized. It takes about a ton of rock to produce a barrel of oil. When it's operating, this handmade prototype can make 24 barrels a day. (via newtechspy.com)
05/27/06 - MultiSpectral Cell Analysis
 The method, which works by analyzing many separate colors in an object or surface, has been applied to the field of "flow cytometry," or analyzing cells that are contained in a liquid flowing past a laser beam. The new technique enables researchers to study 32 colors from a single cell flowing past a laser beam in a fraction of a second, promising to yield a wealth of data about cells for applications ranging from medicine to homeland security. In flow cytometry, a liquid treated with fluorescent dyes called "markers" flows past a laser beam at the rate of 10 meters per second. "So, a single particle or cell is in front of the laser beam for about one ten-thousandth of a second as it flows by," Robinson said. "You couldn't blink your eye that fast. We are now able to make a full fluorescence profile of a single cell in that brief amount of time, meaning we can define vast numbers of properties of a cell." Different markers automatically bind to specific cells, and the colored dyes glow when exposed to the laser beam. Analyzing a single particle or cell in 32 separate colors provides a "spectral signature" that enables researchers to diagnose disease or detect biological and chemical agents. "Different diseases will be reflected by different proportions of certain types of cells," said Robinson, whose research is based at the Bindley Bioscience Center at Purdue's Discovery Park, the university's hub for interdisciplinary research. The technique borrows complex computer algorithms developed decades ago by David Landgrebe, a Purdue emeritus professor of electrical and computer engineering. Multispectral analysis uses a single mirror to direct light into a "holographic filter" that separates each of the 32 wavelengths and then into a detector that picks up each wavelength. Satellites use multispectral analysis by viewing the same location on Earth with numerous filters to look at individual colors. "You can determine the nature of a material by its spectral signature," Robinson said. "You can tell the difference between healthy wheat crops and wheat that has a fungus on it. You can tell the difference between land containing iron and land containing zinc because it has a different signature, and so on.
05/27/06 - The Tropics May be Expanding This map of the Earth shows areas of particularly strong warming of the lower atmosphere in yellow, orange and reddish colors. Note the enhanced warming of midlatitude regions north and south of the equator, indicating the expansion of the tropics. The map also shows pronounced warming at Arctic latitudes. Atmospheric temperature measurements by U.S. weather satellites indicate Earth’s hot, tropical zone has expanded farther from the equator since 1979, says a study by scientists from the University of Utah and University of Washington. Researchers say the apparent north-south widening of the tropics amounts to 2 degrees of latitude or 140 miles. But they do not know yet if the tropical expansion was triggered by natural climate variation or by human-caused phenomena such as depletion of the atmosphere’s ozone layer or global warming due to the greenhouse effect. “It’s a big deal. The tropics may be expanding and getting larger,” says study co-author Thomas Reichler, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Utah. “If this is true, it also would mean that subtropical deserts are expanding into heavily populated midlatitude regions.”
05/27/06 - Lasers Used to Break Molecular Bonds
 A team of U.S. researchers say they've achieved a long-sought scientific goal of using laser light to break specific molecular bonds. The process, developed by Philip Cohen at the University of Minnesota, uses laser light, instead of heat, to strip hydrogen atoms from silicon surfaces. That's a key step in the manufacture of computer chips and solar cells, so the achievement could reduce the cost and improve the quality of a wide variety of semiconductor devices. We live in the silicon age, said Tolk. The fact that we have figured out how to remove hydrogen with a laser raises the possibility that we will be able to grow silicon devices at very low temperatures, close to room temperature. One application that we intend to examine is the use of this technique to manufacture field effect transistors that operate at speeds about 40 percent faster than ordinary transistors, said Cohen.
05/27/06 - Space Elevator An Impossible Dream?
 The idea of a space elevator was popularized in science fiction, where writers envisioned a 100,000-kilometre-long cable stretching straight up from the Earth's surface and fixed in a geosynchronous orbit. Payloads, or tourists, would simply ascend the cable into low-Earth orbit, eliminating the need for rocket launches. "Three months ago, the dreams of a space elevator finally seemed to be coming true after a successful test. An article in Nature, however, suggests that there's reason to be pessimistic. Ever since carbon nanotubes were discovered, many have been hoping that this discovery would turn the dream into reality. Pugno, however, argues that inevitable defects in the nanotubes mean that such a cable simply wouldn't be strong enough. Even if flawless nanotubes could be made for the space elevator, damage from micrometeorites and even erosion by oxygen atoms would render them weak. It would seem that sci-fi will never be anything other than what it is: a fiction."
05/27/06 - Invention IDs Computer Users By Typing Patterns
“I remembered, as a kid, reading about Thomas Edison - who among other things, was a telegraph operator - and that good telegraph operators could tell who was on the other side of the wire based on his exact patterns of dots and dashes,” Brown recalled. That early lesson in Morse code, in combination with some research Brown was exposed to while in graduate school at Texas A&M University, and others’ comments about recognizing individual typists based on their keyboard’s sounds, sparked the idea. “All of these were sort of grist for the mill,” Brown said. The invention enables any typical computer workstation, using a standard keyboard, to distinguish a computer user by the way they type their name. “If you typed my name at a computer running my invention, the computer would be able to determine that you are not me,” Brown said. An obvious application for the technology is to improve information security. “Rather than replace passwords, this technology would probably best be used to add another layer of authentication,” Brown said. “It could reduce the need for measures such as changing your password every six weeks.” Brown and Rogers trained a neural network, a type of computer program which “learns” by example, using the precise time that each key is pressed and released by its user. Measured precisely enough, each person’s typing pattern is a “fingerprint” of sorts, unique to them.
05/27/06 - Simple, Cheap Fly trap cuts blindness
 (Thanks to Jorge Galante for this related link to the flytraps preventing illness and infection. - JWD) A cheap trap made from plastic pop bottles and dung has significantly cut the number of cases of trachoma - a major cause of blindness. Trachoma affects approximately 14m people world-wide, mainly in developing countries. It is thought to be spread from person to person by the thousands of flies which swarm in certain regions. In Africa's Rift Valley, for example, there could be as many as 32,000 flies gathered in just one house. Professor David Morley developed a fly trap which can be built simply from two transparent plastic bottles, based on his observation that flies, following feeding, tend to fly upwards towards the light. The lower bottle is plastered with mud to make it dark inside, and then filled with a mixture of goat droppings and cow urine - guaranteed to prove irresistible to flies. After a fine meal, the flies pass up a plastic tube into a second bottle, left transparent to lure them. Here they die from exhaustion and exposure to UV light. The bottle went on trial in 300 Masai homes in Kenya over a year. The fly population was reduced by an estimated 40%, and more importantly, the number of trachoma cases fell by more than a third. Professor Morley told New Scientist magazine: "Local children have been making the traps at school - the teacher made it part of the homework." Trachoma is the leading single cause of preventable blindness in the world. It is caused not by just one infection, but the legacy of repeated infections over the years. These cause inflammation on each occasion, and eventually the cumulative damage causes the eyelid to tighten and bend in on itself, prodding the eye with its own lashes and scarring the cornea.
05/27/06 - Deserts Expanding With Jet Stream Shift
Deserts in the American Southwest and around the globe are creeping toward heavily populated areas as the jet streams shift, researchers reported Thursday. The result: Areas already stressed by drought may get even drier. As the atmosphere warms, it bulges out at the altitudes where the northern and southern jet streams slip past like swift and massive rivers of air. That bulging has pushed both jet streams about 70 miles closer to the Earth's poles. Since the jet streams mark the edge of the tropics, in essence framing the hot zone that hugs the equator, their outward movement has allowed the tropics to grow wider by about 140 miles. That means the relatively drier subtropics move as well, pushing closer to places like Salt Lake City, where Thomas Reichler, co-author of the new study, teaches meteorology. The movement has allowed the subtropics to edge toward populated areas, including the American Southwest, southern Australia and the Mediterranean basin. In those places, the lack of precipitation already is a worry. Additional creep could move Africa's Sahara Desert farther north, worsening drought conditions that are already a serious problem on that continent and bringing drier weather to the countries that ring the Mediterranean Sea. Moving the jet streams farther from the equator could disrupt storm patterns, as well as intensify individual storms on the poleward side of the jet streams, said lead author Qiang Fu, a University of Washington atmospheric scientist. In Europe, for example, that shift could mean less snow falling on the Alps in winter. That would be bad news for skiers, as well as for farmers and others who rely on rivers fed by snowmelt.
05/26/06 - Growing glowing nanowires to light up the nanoworld
 Nanowires made of semiconductor materials are being used to make prototype lasers and light-emitting diodes with emission apertures roughly 100 nm in diameter--about 50 times narrower than conventional counterparts. Nanolight sources may have many applications, including "lab on a chip" devices for identifying chemicals and biological agents, scanning-probe microscope tips for imaging objects smaller than is currently possible, or ultra-precise tools for laser surgery and electronics manufacturing. he wires are grown under high vacuum by depositing atoms layer by layer on a silicon crystal. NIST is one of few laboratories capable of growing such semiconductor nanowires without using metal catalysts, an approach believed to enhance luminescence and flexibility in crystal design. The wires are generally between 30 and 500 nanometers (nm) in diameter and up to 12 micrometers long. When excited with a laser or electric current, the wires emit an intense glow in the ultraviolet or visible parts of the spectrum, depending on the alloy composition.
05/26/06 - Tips for Preventing or Catching Identity Theft
Identity theft may be a growing problem that affected 9.3 million Americans last year, according to Javelin Strategy and Research. But consumer advocates say a few precautions can lessen the chances of becoming a victim, even for people whose personal information has been stolen. The first thing to do if you think your Social Security number, birth date or other sensitive data has fallen into the wrong hands is to place an initial fraud alert on your credit reports. There are three major credit reporting agencies, but a call to one -- for instance, Equifax at 800-525-6285 -- will ensure the other two are notified.
05/26/06 - Brain Waves Control Robot
 (Remember the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie FireFox? The Russian jet he was stealing was controlled by thought alone and he had to think in Russian for it to respond correctly. - JWD) In a step toward linking a person's thoughts to machines, Japanese automaker Honda said it has developed a technology that uses brain signals to control a robot's very simple moves. In a video demonstration in Tokyo, brain signals detected by a magnetic resonance imaging scanner were relayed to a robotic hand. A person in the MRI machine made a fist, spread his fingers and then made a V-sign. Several seconds later, a robotic hand mimicked the movements. Further research would be needed to decode more complex movements. What Honda calls a "brain-machine interface" is an improvement over past approaches, such as those that required surgery to connect wires.
05/26/06 - Ditch the Laptop for A USB Key
 Nowadays, whenever someone plans a long distance trip, staying in touch with the world is a major priority. Bringing a laptop, with all its weight, bulk, and potential for theft is often viewed as a necessary evil. Most people simply cannot be without their email, and access to their personal travelogues. In the past, keeping all the relevant information on a laptop was the only solution to connectivity on the road. With the availability of cheap USB keys and hard drives, though, the world traveler has a few more options. Now, they can carry an entire computer's worth of software everywhere they go, and keep a personal mini computer stored on a usb key, accessible through almost any computer in the world. Thanks to the hard work of sites such as www.portableapps.com and Open Source, the software is all free and easily accessable. Word processors, web browsers, even entire office suites are available for free download.
05/26/06 - Free Portable Applications for travelers
A portable app is a computer program that you can carry around with you on a portable device and use on any Windows computer. When your USB flash drive, portable hard drive, iPod or other portable device is plugged in, you have access to your software and personal data just as you would on your own PC. And when you unplug, none of your personal data is left behind.
05/26/06 - Global warming may boost oil industry
 A top level report on artic climate change spurred by global warming has outlined possible oil industry benefits, but also many potential pitfalls. It points to possible benefits for oil exploration, extraction and shipping with possible energy industry advances for the artic "sub region", including Alaska and western Canada. Their report says: "Extensive oil and gas reserves have been discovered in Alaska along the Beaufort sea coast and ... offshore oil exploration and production are likely to benefit from less extensive and thinner ice." The Canadian "northwest passage" is likely to offer opportunities for oil and commodity shipping. "The costs and benefits of a longer shipping season in the Canadian arctic areas are likely to be significant." The report draws less than positive conclusions about global warming and its effects on the artic wilderness. Rather than assuming a positive note, much of the effects of increased access to oil deposits are in fact negative. Oil spills will increase and access by land may be harder. Infrastructure, including oil pipelines, rigs and associated buildings are going to falter and fail as the ground underneath them starts to melt. "Coastal erosion will pose increasing problems for some ports, tanker terminals and other industrial facilities. Some towns and industrial facilities are already facing severe damage and some are facing relocation as warming begins to take its toll." Even if the oil industry can benefit from increased sea borne access, it may well find the benefits are outweighed by the costly collapse of its land facilities.
05/26/06 - How to NOT achieve your Goals
#5. Don’t Do - Talk - Because talk is easier than action, this step one of the easiest steps for you to take. Try to fill up as much of your day with socializing as possible. Talk about all the things you will do someday or that you were gonna do. Just make sure you don’t mess it up by doing anything productive. Action is your enemy. Embrace your excuses!
05/26/06 - 'Alien message' sparks tsunami panic
 A website warning of a tsunami has spread panic in Morocco, despite the government's assertion that the alert was merely rumour - and the dubious nature of its source. The Ufological Research Centre said on its website last week that a tsunami could hit the Atlantic after a comet passes close to earth on Thursday, May 25. Eric Julien, author of La Science Des Extraterrestres (Science of Aliens), claimed that the impact of a comet fragment would trigger powerful volcanoes in the Atlantic and generate a giant tsunami that would be destructive across the coasts of several countries, including Morocco. The alert caused fear and panic among Moroccan citizens, though the Moroccan meteorological office dismissed it on Monday as insignificant. The Moroccan news agency MAP quoted Mustafa Janah, the head of the Meteorological Office, as saying the comet would pass earth at a distance of about 10 million kilometres. Citing the US space agency, Nasa, he ruled out any risk of a tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean. Janah also said that "the Ufological Research Centre does not have technical means" to observe this kind of phenomenon. But despite all the assurances, many Moroccan coastal residents have abandoned their homes and moved to higher ground, anxiously awaiting May 25.
05/25/06 - UofL Researcher Says Water Powered Cars Possible, But Impractical
Denny Klein's water powered car wows just about everyone who travels to his Clearwater, Florida research lab to see it.
"You just drive it like a regular car," Klein told an economic development team during a demonstration last week. "The infrastructure is already in place to get it serviced, so we don't have to reinvent the wheel." Kinne says Klein's invention lacks real-world applications. "I don't ever see hydrogen catching up with existing fuel storage technologies," she said. Kinne says UofL has received a federal grant to research ways to extract hydrogen from water, using solar energy, which she says would be much more efficient. But Kinne says that wouldn't work for Klein's car, because the solar panel would be bigger than the car.
05/25/06 - Tiny, self-powered sensor for future hydrogen economy
 Hydrogen has been called “the fuel of the future.” But the gas is invisible, odorless and explosive at high concentrations, posing a safety problem for hydrogen-powered cars, filling stations and other aspects of the so-called hydrogen economy. A team of more than a dozen University of Florida engineering faculty and graduate students has found a way to jump that hurdle: a tiny, inexpensive sensor device that can detect hydrogen leaks and sound the alarm by wireless communication. The cool part? The device, called a sensor node because it is designed to work in tandem with dozens or hundreds more like it, has the ability to draw its power from a tiny internal power source that harvests energy from small vibrations. The materials and chemical researchers came up with the sensor, which is based on zinc oxide nanorods - what Pearton called “whiskers” of zinc oxide through which pass an extremely tiny electrical current. The more hydrogen surrounding these whiskers, the more conductive they become, providing a way to measure the ambient hydrogen in the air. The electrical engineering researchers figured out how to amplify the signal enough to make it readable by a microcontroller. They also developed a tiny wireless transmitter to send the information to a central base station. The electrical engineers further found ways to power the device either through conventional solar cells or a “piezo-electric vibrational energy harvesting system” that draws on energy from vibrations produced by a variety of mechanical and electrical equipment. Laboratory tests of the node, attached and energized by the vibrations of a mechanical shaker, showed that it could detect hydrogen concentrations of as little as 10 parts per million and successfully transmit the information as far as 20 meters, or about 65 feet. Ten parts per million is well below the level at which hydrogen becomes explosive.
05/25/06 - Molding your face for anti-aging
 A "beautifying" brace that fixes faces instead of teeth has been launched in the UK. The device fits in the mouth and places a load on the facial muscles, improving tone and circulation. Wearers have reported remarkable anti-ageing effects, including reduced lines and eye bags, more prominent cheekbones, smoother skin, and a firmer jaw line. The "Oralift" brace is even said to improve hair quality and increase fullness of the lips. The technique emerged from work inventor Dr Nick Mohindra carried out over 5 years while pioneering the "dental facelift" which involves altering the height of the teeth. A research paper published in the British Dental Journal in 2002 showed that 80 per cent of patients given the "facelift" were judged to look between five and 20 years younger. The tailor-made device is designed to increase the gap between the upper and lower teeth - known as the "free-way space" - which is usually no more than three millimetres. Separating the teeth with the Oralift forces the facial muscles to adapt to a new "free way space". This sets off a series of responses, including boosting the flow of blood and oxygen to the muscles of the face and neck, and triggering healing processes. "It's funny to think of the Oralift as a brace that beautifies, but that's what it is. Here we have a simple device, worn in the mouth, that can turn an ugly duckling into a swan. "People spend a fortune on cosmetic surgery, which doesn't always have the desired result and can occasionally prove disastrous. Oralift sculpts the face without the need of a scalpel, using the body's own natural healing processes, and is completely safe." The appliance can be worn only at night, when it works passively, or during the day and while eating, said Dr Mohindra. Daytime use involves "active exercise" and loads the facial muscles even more. Other forms of active facial exercise include talking, laughing, grimacing and chewing. At £2,500, the Oralift is not cheap, though it is said to last a lifetime. ...More info...
05/25/06 - Grow a square Melon
 (Along with the article about facemolding, remember that Japanese girls wore tight wooden shoes so their feet would grow small and petite, and this interesting article about shaping a melon to a square form. One other item is the insertion of an inflatable tube up the nose which is then inflated and causes restructuring of the bones in the head. I don't remember the name of this procedure but the claims were improved thinking, better looks, etc.. - JWD) Grow a square watermelon by putting it into a box. If my wife and I have another baby, we'll see if we can grow a square kid. (via boingboing.com)
05/25/06 - Low vitamin D intake could affect lung
Jane Burns at the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston and other researchers studied 2,112 adolescents aged between 16 and 19, according to Newswise wire. They found that 35 percent who had a low dietary intake of Vitamin D as per International Unit (IU) or less per day had significantly lower lung function compared with teens who consumed more. They did not find any difference between girls and boys. The recommended amount of Vitamin D is 200 IU for this age group. Vitamin D is found in fortified dairy products, egg yolks, saltwater fish and liver. Some calcium supplements have Vitamin D added. "It may be that we should be promoting dietary Vitamin D intake at recommended levels to ensure optimal lung function as well as to form and maintain healthy bones," she said. While vitamin D's exact role in lung health is not yet known, the nutrient is known to have an effect on the immune system, added Burns. "We don't know by which mechanism Vitamin D affects pulmonary function. It is an area that needs to be explored."
05/25/06 - Selling with Self Downloads
 Web service PayLoadz sells your digital goods via PayPal, by hosting your files, accepting payment from customers and redirecting them to a download page good for 48 hours to pick up their purchase. This seems like a great solution for those of you who want to sell your ebook, font face, software, podcast, song, ringtone, photograph - or any digital creation - via PayPal. PayLoadz offers a free account for under 50MB of file storage and $100 worth of transactions, going up from there (to $70/month for $2500 in transactions.) Author Kevin Kelly uses PayLoadz to sell his ebook, and heartily recommends it: Customers download the books anytime, and the money flows into my Paypal account. I do nothing. Yet when all is accounted for my total profit from a digital file is equal to the total profit from selling the equivalent paper book - with about 1/100th the trouble. (via lifehacker.com)
05/25/06 - The Eight Most Dangerous Search Terms
Don't try this at home--not if you want to have a working computer. Search for "Free Screensavers," we're told, and 64% of the sites you'll find are the kinds that can gum up your machine with spyware or a computer virus. Even if you search for something as harmless as "I love you," they report, 19.7% of the links they found on Google were ones they would rate as "red" or "yellow" on their scale of riskiness for malware of some sort or another. Here's their list of the eight most dangerous search terms: 1. Free screensavers 2. Bearshare 3. Screensavers 4. Winmx 5. Limewire 6. Download Yahoo Messenger
7. Lime wire 8. Free ringtones. If you follow your own common sense--keep your antivirus software up to date, don't download software offered by a weird site you don't know--you'll probably be fine.
05/25/06 - DIY Mosquito Trap
 1. The items needed. 2. Cut the top of the bottle as shown. 3. Put 200ml hot water in the bottle, stir with 50gram brown sugar. Put the sugar water in cold water to cool it down til 40C (temperature) using a thermometer. 4. After cooling down, put the sugar water in the bottle then add the yeast. No need to mix the yeast with the sugar water. When yeast ferments, it creates carbon dioxide. 5. When you cut the bottle, dont throw the top part away because where you see they put the top upside down to fit into the bottle. Carbon dioxide will be released from where we drink the bottle so make sure to seal the edge. 6. Put black paper around the bottle since mosquitos like dark places and carbon dioxide. This mosquito trap will then start working. 7. Mosquitos fly around the corner, so the best place to place the trap is at some dark corner. 8. TIPS: Put the trap in some dark and humid place for 2 weeks, you’ll see the effect. You’ll have to replace the sugar water + yeast solution every 2 weeks.
05/25/06 - New Super-Efficient Plug-in Hybrid Unveiled
Trinity is a 2006 model Chevy Equinox SUV powered by electric motors and a small internal combustion engine that can run on gasoline or ethanol. The electric motors and batteries provide power for driving at low speeds and for a range of up to 40 miles, and the gas engine supplies additional power for longer journeys and highway driving. "This is a car that is completely sustainable with no oil at all," said Andy Frank, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at UC Davis, who advises the team. Trinity does all the things a conventional model of the vehicle can do with higher performance, Frank said. Unlike hybrids currently on the market such as the Toyota Prius, Trinity's batteries can be recharged from a domestic power supply, allowing the vehicle to be powered by cheap off-peak electricity. This reduces fuel consumption and emissions and allows the vehicle to run exclusively on electric power for most short trips around town. Computer models run by the team show that Trinity's average gas consumption in everyday use could reach about 200 miles per gallon, assuming an all-electric range of 40 miles, said graduate student Peter English, outreach coordinator for the team.
05/24/06 - Star Trek Remote Scanner technology is here!
 Argonne engineers have successfully performed the first-ever remote detection of chemicals and identification of unique explosives spectra using a spectroscopic technique that uses the properties of the millimeter/terahertz frequencies between microwave and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum. The researchers used this technique to detect spectral "fingerprints" that uniquely identify explosives and chemicals. The Argonne-developed technology was demonstrated in tests that accomplished three important goals: * Detected and measured poison gas precursors 60 meters away in the Nevada Test Site to an accuracy of 10 parts per million using active sensing. * Identified chemicals related to defense applications, including nuclear weapons, from 600 meters away using passive sensing at the Nevada Test Site. * Built a system to identify the spectral fingerprints of trace levels of explosives, including DNT, TNT, PETN, RDX and plastics explosives semtex and C-4. The millimeter/terahertz technology detects the energy levels of a molecule as it rotates. The frequency distribution of this energy provides a unique and reproducible spectral pattern - its "fingerprint" - that identifies the material. The technology can also be used in its imaging modality - ranging from concealed weapons to medical applications such as tumor detection.
05/24/06 - Plaster casts of ant nests
 (Just too neat not to post. - JWD) Walter R. Tschinkel, from the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University pours orthodontal plaster down ant holes, and creates perfect molds of the topology of the inside of an ant-colony. These are lovely sculptural pieces -- someone should mass produce them. (via boingboing.com)
05/24/06 - Hopes for Nation's first solar/hydrogen-powered home
 Mike Strizki plans to use 10 tanks to store hydrogen fuel for his prototype solar/hydrogen powered home in East Amwell and hopes to help usher in the high-tech future of renewable energy by having the nation's first solar/hydrogen-powered home on his 12-acre property in the Sourland Mountains. All that stands between the 49-year-old engineer and his goal is a building permit. Strizki says local and state officials have held up his project unnecessarily. That project, which is being paid in part with a $225,000 grant from the state Board of Public Utilities, would enable him to produce and store enough renewable energy to completely power his home. It also would provide pollution-free fuel for the prototype car in his garage that runs off a hydrogen fuel cell. The aim: Strizki wants to show it's possible to produce all the electricity and fuel a family could need, without polluting, and without having to pay a power company or oil company a dime. Strizki's solar/hydrogen system works, at least in theory, like this: On sunny days, solar panels on the roof of Strizki's garage would generate more than enough electricity to power his home. Instead of sending the excess energy back into the main power grid, Strizki wants to send it to a $75,000 device called an electrolyzer. The device holds water that would then be broken down into its elements: oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen would be released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen would be stored at a low pressure in 10 1,000-gallon propane tanks on his property. The tanks would hold enough hydrogen to power a fuel cell for 3 1/2 months. In the winter, when the days aren't as long and solar panels aren't as effective, any extra power Strizki's home requires would be supplied by the stored hydrogen and an $18,000 hydrogen fuel cell. The hydrogen also would be used to power the New Jersey Genesis, a zero-emissions car Strizki helped design and now maintains for the state Department of Transportation.
05/24/06 - DIY Stereo Video Microscope
 The Field Sequential method of 3D works only on TV screens that use cathode ray tubes (CRT) for the display. It utilizes the two interlaced fields used to display the picture. The TV picture is made up of 525 scanned lines. The screen is scanned twice, once for the odd numbered lines and again for the even numbered lines. These two fields can be separated and one used for the right eye and the other for the left eye of a 3D picture pair. The system requires a pair of 3D shutter glasses to alternate the video images for production of the stereo 3D effect.
05/24/06 - 100 Items To Disappear
First In A Panic
#1. Generators (Good ones cost dearly. Gas storage, risky. Noisy.. target of thieves; maintenance, etc.) #2. Water Filters/Purifiers (Shipping delays increasing.) #3. Portable Toilets (Increasing in price every twomonths.) #4. Seasoned Firewood (About $100 per cord; wood takes 6 - 12 mos. to become dried, for home uses.) #5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If scarce, stockpile ANY!) #6. Coleman Fuel (URGENT $2.69-$3.99/gal. Impossible to stockpile too much.) #7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats & Slingshots #8. Hand-Can openers & hand egg beaters, whisks (Life savers!) #9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugars #10. Rice - Beans - Wheat (White rice is now $12.95 - 50# bag. Sam's Club, stock depleted often.) #11. Vegetable oil (for cooking) (Without it food burns/must be boiled, etc.) #12. Charcoal & Lighter fluid (Will become scarce suddenly.) #13. Water containers (Urgent Item to obtain. An size. Small: HARD CLEAR PLASTIC ONLY) #14. Mini Heater head (Propane) (Without this item, propane won't heat a room.) #15. Grain Grinder (Non-electric) #16. Propane Cylinders (Urgent: Definite shortages will occur by September, 1999.) #17. Michael Hyatt's Y2K Survival Guide (BEST single y2k handbook for sound advice/tips.) #18. Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc. (Without this item, longer-term lighting is difficult.) #19. Baby Supplies: Diapers/formula/ointments/aspirin, etc. #20. Washboards, Mop Bucket w/wringer (for Laundry)
05/24/06 - Sunglasses that relieve Stress?
 The love of your life stood you up. You were passed over for a promotion. Your sports car was towed from a no-parking zone. A professor flunked you. You are angry. The adrenaline is pumping. Your teeth are grinding. You want revenge. You are out of control. Hold on. Science might have found a way to help. The secret could be in a new sunglasses design that is said to bring calm and rationality within minutes of wearing them. Marketed as NeuView ( www.neuviewglasses.com ) for $72 a pair, the glasses direct light at an angle to the optic nerve. The result is said to activate the more rational left side of the brain to balance the emotional right brain that is inflamed during stressful moments. They’re called lateral glasses, and the idea was researched and developed for psychotherapy by Fredric Schiffer of the Harvard Medical School. Veteran psychotherapist Robert Buck, in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., modified the glasses and obtained a patent. Buck compares the process to turning on the light in a dark room so that you can see the entire room. When a man whose car had been towed came to his office several days after the incident threatening to flatten tires where he was parked, Buck gave him the glasses. Within seconds, he was able to say, “I don’t have to do that.” The glasses have been used by experienced golfers, before putting, to activate the right side of the brain as a balance to the over-active strategizing left side.
05/24/06 - Pill 'reverses' vegetative state
(Could cymatics be used to 'change the shape' of these receptors? - JWD) A sleeping pill can temporarily revive people in a permanent vegetative state to the point where they can have conversations, a study finds. Zolpidem is usually used to treat insomnia. South African researchers, writing in the NeuroRehabilitation, looked at the effects on three patients of using the drug for up to six years. A person in a vegetative state will appear to be awake and may have their eyes open, but will show no awareness of their surroundings. They will not be able to interact with other people, and will show no responses to sounds or things that happen around them. But they will show signs of movement, and cycles of sleep and may be able to breathe on their own. Each of the three patients studied was given the drug every morning. An improvement was seen within 20 minutes of taking the drug and wore off after four hours, when the patients restored to their permanent vegetative state. Patient L had been in a vegetative state for three years, showing no response to touch and no reaction to his family. After he was given Zolpidem, he was able to talk to them, answering simple questions. Patient G was also able to answer simple questions and catch a basketball. Patient N had been "constantly screaming", but stopped after being given the drug when he started watching TV and responding to his family. Drugs like Zolpidem activate receptors for a chemical called GABA in nerve cells in the brain. When brain damage occurs, these receptors appear to change shape, so they cannot behave as normal. He said the drug appeared to cause the receptors in these dormant areas to change back to their normal shape, triggering nerve cell activity.
05/24/06 - The Ethical Dilemmas of Immortality
"When you save a life, you are simply postponing death to another point," Harris told LiveScience. "Thus, we are committed to extending life indefinitely if we can, for the same reasons that we are committed to life-saving." One of several ethical and moral arguments that have cropped up in recent years as labs around the world aim at the dream of immortality, or at least to extend lives well beyond the century mark. Among other debates: * Will everyone have an equal chance to drink from a fountain of youth? * If people live longer but are miserable for decades, will views on suicide and euthanasia change? * In an immortal society, how do you make room for new generations? The life expectancy for the average American is 77.6 years. Extending life spans will be an incremental process, most experts say. But there is great promise. "It is one thing to ask, 'Should we make people immortal?' and answer in the negative. It is quite another to ask whether we should make people immune to heart disease, cancer, dementia, and many other diseases and decide that we should not,” Harris contends. Most scientists and ethicists agree that life-extension technology will likely be very expensive when first developed, so only a small number of wealthy individuals will be able to afford it. Existing social disparities between rich and poor could become even more pronounced. The fortunate few who could afford the therapy would not only have significantly longer lives, but more opportunities to amass wealth or political power and to gain control of economic or even cultural institutions, critics say. Immortality will not mean invincibility. Diseases and wars will still kill, strokes will still maim and depression will still be around to blunt the joys of living. The question of when, if ever, is it okay for someone to end their own life or to have someone else end it for them is already a topic of fierce debate. An answer will become even more essential if by telling someone they must live, we condemn them to not just years, but decades or centuries of torment. Also, Earth can support only so many people. If everyone lived longer, generations would have to be born farther apart to avoid overcrowding.
05/24/06 - The Guilt of Flying
 The giant Airbus A380 on to British soil this week was drowned out by the scream of its Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines as it passed overhead. Just to repeat, then: this plane has the lowest fuel consumption per passenger of any large commercial airliner yet built. It requires less than three litres of fuel per passenger per 100km travelled, making it more fuel-efficient than even the latest hybrid cars. It also creates half the departure noise of its rival Boeing 747-400 while carrying 35% more passengers - up to 555 in a traditional three-class configuration, or a rather unsettling 853 passengers if everyone squeezes into economy. Although the figures seemed to vary, the general consensus was that aviation currently contributes about 4% of global CO2 emissions (no one raised the issue of "radiative forcing" which means that contrails left at 30,000ft act to further magnify a plane's climate change impact). A French air traffic controller drew some sharp intakes of breath from the audience by showing a real-time sequence of all the planes flying over France at one moment. The screen was a tangle of lines. He commented that every single day 2.5m people now fly through the airspace directly over metropolitan Paris - equivalent to about a quarter of its population. Similarly, a representative from the US Federal Aviation Administration showed an extraordinary map of current flightpaths etched over one another on the world's surface. The only places on Earth that are now not scarred by routes are a triangle of air space over the central Pacific, as well as much of the southern Atlantic and Antarctica. Currently, the only real alternative is "synthetic" kerosene made not from oil but natural gas, biogas or coal. It has the major advantage of working within current aircraft and therefore does not need new costly infrastructure. In fact, there are already planes flying in South Africa fuelled on this technology - but made from coal and therefore not offering any significant emissions advantage over kerosene. The bottom line, he said, is that kerosene will be the preferred fuel for the next 30 years.
05/24/06 - A123's Super Batteries
A123 has now built a battery pack that could make hybrid vehicles cheaper and more convenient, while maintaining or improving performance. The new hybrid battery pack was unveiled this week at the Advanced Automotive Battery and Ultracapacitor Conference in Baltimore. It could be appearing in vehicles within three years. The pack weighs about as much as a small laptop computer, yet fits into a case smaller than a carton of cigarettes. Ten of them would replace the 45-kilogram battery in the Prius and if one failed, the consumer could continue to drive the car using the remaining batteries, then replace the faulty one as easily as changing the battery on a rechargeable. Probably more important than ease of replacement, though, is the potential for cost savings and increased safety. Because the advanced lithium-ion batteries put a lot of power into a small, light package, a much smaller battery is needed to power the car, which could reduce hybrid prices. As a result, a variety of cars in a fleet could come with a hybrid option that costs about as much as the option for an automatic transmission.
05/24/06 - Solar Power to run greenhouse and farm pumps
 A grant from the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program will allow Kuebler to use solar power to irrigate his farmland and sustain his crops. Kuebler owns The Salad Garden, an Ashland farm that grows about 40 kinds of vegetables. He has used the city’s water for as long as his farm has been operating. Soon he will install a solar-powered pump system so he can use water from a pond on his land. The system will use solar panels to harness energy from the sun and push his water uphill. Kuebler hopes to save money on both electricity and water. The solar pump will push the water from his pond uphill to a reservoir, which will then use a very small electric pump to distribute the water to his crops. In addition, he plans to channel water runoff from the roof of his barn to the pond, reducing erosion and helping refill the pond.
05/24/06 - Iranian Wind Power Plant to Generate 112,000 MWh of Power
Twenty electricity generating wind turbines are currently operational at Dizbad Wind Power Plant located near Neishabur. In addition to the existing electricity generating wind turbines, 23 more electricity-producing units are also expected to be installed in the region and become operational in the current year -- Iranian year ends March 20 -- the project manager said. ... The 28.4-megawatt turbines are slated to generate 112,000 megawatts of electricity per hour and are expected to supply the annual electricity requirements of 78,000 home subscribers in this northeastern part of the country. A wind atlas of the nation's appropriately zoned sites for the installation of new wind power plants is being provided by the related agencies, the official also announced.
05/24/06 - DIY yellow jacket trap
 The Alaska Outdoor Journal publishes instructions on making a yellow jacket trap out of soapy water, a few sticks and a piece of raw fish. This method is NON-TOXIC and for the most part pet and wildlife friendly due to the harmless components that are used to build the “system.” There are quite a few commercial products on the market to eliminate yellow jackets but this one doesn’t cost anything and I can guarantee its an extremely effective way to rid your yard or campsite of the yellow hoards in just a day or two. How It Works: The yellow jackets love fish and will begin to cut off small pieces to take back to the nest. In their "excitement" of buzzing around the bait a few will occasionally hit the water. The soap in the water breaks the surface tension of the waterproof coating on the yellow jacket and it instantly sinks in the water and drowns in a few seconds. Some yellow jackets will successfully haul a piece of meat back to the nest and tell all the other gatherers in the nest where this great food source is. Soon all the wasps from the nest will be working on this fish and over a period of time, all will eventually make mistakes and either fall off the fish and into the water or bump other wasps flying around and knock themselves in the drink, then its curtains for them too. It only takes a day or two to wipe out nearly every yellow jacket in your area. Put the trap on a table or other high area outside so that kids and pets will not be able to get close to it. A piece of fish with vertical sides works best for having the insects fall off easier. (via boingboing.com)
05/24/06 - U.S. military-industrial complex creating phantom enemies
(The answer to all this meddling and mischief making from all sides, FREE ENERGY. - JWD) In order to sell more weapons, the United States needs to create phantom enemies for countries targeted as markets. This is definitely the case in regard to the tiny Arab states on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf. U.S. officials are seeking ways to recapture the petrodollars amassed by these countries as a result of high oil prices over the past few years. Thus, an imaginary enemy is needed, and Iran is currently the best available imaginary enemy. The U.S. is currently attempting to convince the tiny Persian Gulf states that they must buy U.S. arms to counter the imaginary threat posed by Iran in order to create jobs in the United States and to partly compensate for the cost of the war in Iraq. On Thursday, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kohler said Iran's neighbors -- including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates -- are talking to the United States about ways to bolster their defenses. In a Reuters interview, Kohler claimed a refusal by Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment has "awakened some major concerns" among all its neighbors. The Los Angeles Times reported in its Saturday edition that the United States has begun developing what it called a “containment strategy” with Iran's Persian Gulf neighbors that aims to spread missile defense systems across the region and interdict ships suspected of carrying nuclear technology. Opinion polls show that Arabs have a positive view of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its peaceful nuclear program. Likewise, most Arabs have a negative view of the U.S. and regard Washington as their enemy. Thus, when it is said that Arabs hate the United States, it is not merely sensational rhetoric but what opinion polls suggest. So, as far as the United States, Israel, and Iran are concerned, the Arab world surely knows which country is a threat to the region.
05/23/06 - Nanotubes Produce Desalination Breakthrough
Scientists have developed a carbon-nanotube membrane that could possibly be used to inexpensively desalinate water. According to researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, such membranes could offset energy costs of desalination by as much as 75 percent. Olgica Bakajin, Lawrence Livermore's lead scientist on the project, explains, "This is like having a garden hose that can deliver as much water i |
| |
