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August 2008 Plenum News 2008 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2007 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 08/28/08 - Man touts gas-saving device Some satisfied customers claim their gas mileage has doubled with the contraption attached to their fuel system. Others say they didn't get a significant boost in mileage, but got an instant uptick in horsepower. Robinson says the invention has been around for a long time, but began attracting attention in the mid- to late-1990s when a fellow named Stanley Meyers began putting hydrogen generators on Hummers for the U.S. military. Robinson says the generators are easy to build and assemble, and claims the only part that is unique to his generators is the metal coil. He says he won't divulge the actual metallic composition of the coil for fear that it will come into common use and become scarce and, therefore, expensive. The heart of the contraption is a decades-old technology in which an electrical current from a battery is passed through water to release hydrogen atoms. Robinson's adaptation of the technology uses distilled water and baking soda and a stainless steel coil. Susan Cloud says her six-cylinder engine drank gas at the rate of about 14 miles per gallon. With the hydrogen generator installed, she now gets as much as 27 miles per gallon. Cloud proudly displays a version of the device in her beauty salon, where she says she uses it to treat water which she drinks and uses to water her plants. Robinson sells that version of the electrolyzer for $75. The automotive version costs $150 per unit plus installation. "Big rigs can take as many as six of them," Robinson said. Truckers are the ones who need them. It can cost them $1,500 to fill a diesel tank. The HHO can save them at least a couple of hundred dollars every time they refuel." Robinson's business card reads "H20-to-Go Hydrogen on Demand from Water " and he touts a Web site at www.watersmartpower.com. - Source 08/28/08 - Antimatter Bounces off of Matter Science fiction has often relied on matter and antimatter annihilating each other as a power source. With current technology, producing anti-matter is prohibitively expensive, and most view this as the biggest hurdle for these types of power plants. Basic physics may provide another significant hurdle, however. Physical Review Focus reports that upon reanalyzing data from 12 years ago, an Italian team discovered that - contrary to popular belief - antimatter and matter may bounce off each other before they're annihilated (Original paper, subscription required). The key to this discovery was the annihilation events in their data were clustered into two groups: The first group occurred when the antiprotons interacted with the helium in their apparatus, and the second set of events (up to 25% of the total number) occurred at a later time. They determined this second set occurred because the antiprotons were reflected off of the back wall of their device to be later annihilated by the helium atmosphere, instead of either annihilating the aluminum in the walls or passing through entirely. This effect is called Rutherford scattering, and at the speeds they were working with (1 - 10 keV, or 0.14 - 0.46% of c) the antiprotons are more likely to find themselves scattered by the aluminum nuclei than they are to annihilate the nuclei. At lower speeds (500 eV, or 0.10% of c), this effect may peak with 50% of the antiprotons that make it to the back wall being reflected by it - Source 08/28/08 - Major Chaos at India’s Tata Nano Plant An Indian factory that will make the world’s cheapest cars has been besieged by 30,000 protesters, who say it was built on land taken illegally from farmers. Is the October launch date for the $2,500 car in jeopardy? Some 4,000 riot police with water cannons were on standby in case of violence. For rival automakers, Tata’s latest difficulties with the Nano, which come at the same time the company has struggled with rising prices for steel and other raw materials, will be of great interest. While still small in comparison with China, India is of growing importance to global automakers and many are rapidly expanding production in the country. On Aug. 22, Tata Chairman Ratan Tata suggested the company may move Nano production to another factory in India. “I’ve made a major investment here.…To move will be at a great cost to Tata Motors and to shareholders,” Tata told reporters in Kolkata. But “we can’t operate the plant with police protection.” - Source 08/28/08 - Human waste as fertilizer and irrigation in developing regions According to a new report, 200 million farmers use human shit as fertilizer for 49 million acres of land. The study, published by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), details how ten percent of the population, mostly in developing nations, eat grains and vegetables harvested from fields irrigated and fertilized with raw sewage. Traditional fertilizer and clean water is too expensive or simply unavailable in many places. From National Geographic: The report focused on poor urban areas, where farms in or near cities supply relatively inexpensive food. Most of these operations draw irrigation water from local rivers or lakes. Unlike developed cities, however, these areas lack advanced water-treatment facilities, and rivers effectively become sewers. When this water is used for agricultural irrigation, farmers risk absorbing disease-causing bacteria, as do consumers who eat the produce raw and unwashed. Nearly 2.2 million people die each year because of diarrhea-related diseases, including cholera, according to WHO statistics. More than 80 percent of those cases can be attributed to contact with contaminated water and a lack of proper sanitation. But Pay Drechsel, an IWMI environmental scientist, argues that the social and economic benefits of using untreated human waste to grow food outweigh the health risks.... In most cases, the excrement is used on cereal or grain crops, which are eventually cooked, minimizing the risk of transmitting water-borne pathogens and diseases, IWMI's Drechsel noted. - Source 08/28/08 - Million person Pyramid City The concept for The Ziggurat Project will be unveiled in full at the upcomig Cityspace Dubai, a business real estate convention. Being called a "sustainable city of the future", the 2.3 sq km structure is designed to house a million people. The staggered step structure allows for many units to be built on a minimal amount of land. And the plan is green, according to Managing Director of Timelinks, Ridas Matonis: Ziggurat communities can be almost totally self-sufficient energy-wise. Apart from using steam power in the building we will also employ wind turbine technology to harness natural energy resources. Other features built into the Ziggurat include biometric, facial recognition system for security and an integrated transport system, running both horizontally and vertically, which would eliminate the need for cars to get around the "city". - Source 08/28/08 - Windmills from Assam spin success Two Muslim brothers from Assam are sharing their successful invention of a lowcost windmill to lift groundwater with Gujarat farmers. Mohammed Mehtar Hussain (38) and Mushtaq Ahmad (28), residents of Darrang in Assam, have invented a low-cost alternative to pump water in fields - a simple windmill made of bamboo and tin sheets. They were invited by Grass - roots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN) to set up their windmill in Little Rann of Kutch. "We have installed two windmills in Boda village to lift groundwater for salt pans. The experiment has been quite successful . The windmill draws 3,000 litres of water an hour at wind speed of 15 km/hr. If we get an average wind speed for at least 15 hours a day, we would get about 45,000 litres of water," says Mahesh Patel, coordinator of GIAN. The bamboo version has been modified to a metallic one that will change direction with changes in wind direction. A simple mechanism has been used to make the windmill multi-directional. Blades have been given the appropriate angle so that higher wind power can be harnessed and water can be pumped from greater depth. Aluminium blades have been reinforced with wires. The cost of manufacturing a static model made of bamboo/eucalyptus is around Rs 15,000 while the multi-direction model will cost Rs 25,000, which is half the cost of a conventional windmill. - Source 08/28/08 - Ceramic Fuel Cells The first product to be powered by CFCL fuel cells will be combined heat and power (mCHP) units for homes. The product will replace a standard home heating system, using the existing natural gas network to provide high efficiency and low emission power and heat, as well as exporting excess power to the electricity network. In early July the Company presented its latest technical advances at the 8th annual European Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Forum, including: · a 50% increase in cell power density from June 2007 to June 2008; · an increase in fuel cell stack lifetime. Degradation has reduced by 35%, from 1.53% / 1000 hours reported in February 2008 to less than 1% / 1000 hours, when operating a 1kW stack in a test station at 750 o C on natural gas. These results have been achieved through advances made in cells, glass technology, interconnect metals, protective coatings on metals and contact technology. In July 2008 the Company was granted a further patent in Europe, for a way of reforming fuels for a fuel cell system. The patent is for an advanced fuel cell pre-reforming system. This system allows CFCL to control the proportion of methane and remove all higher hydrocarbons from the fuel used for the fuel cell. This invention allows CFCL to use a wide variety of fuels for its fuel cells, including liquid hydrocarbon fuels and bio-fuels, and also maintain a very high system efficiency. - Source 08/28/08 - Magic of the Tsotso Stove The tsotso stove, which is inspired by the traditional hearth fire, is a specially designed open clay pot with openings at its sides where you put little sticks of wood to make a fire. The tsotso stove helps to reduce firewood consumption than normal traditional open hearth fires. It is stable and portable; it uses small pieces of wood and saves fuel. In Shona language, tsotso literally means little sticks of firewood, and it is these little sticks that the tsotso stove employs to make a fire that can cook a meal to feed a whole family. The tsotso stove uses much less wood and has an insulated combustion chamber which helps reduce smoke while increasing the heat output and burning efficiency. The sticks, usually from thorn trees, come in a bundle and cost very little. A bundle of the sticks can potentially cook approximately six to ten meals, saving energy and labour in the process. The tsotso stove is so convenient because it can be carried from one place to the other, and can therefore be used if when it is raining. In addition, it utilizes minimal amounts of wood which does not jeopardize the environment. All in all, the tsotso stove is highly desirable because it is fast cooking, produces less smoke and is environmentally friendly and requires very small amounts of wood fuel. - Source 08/28/08 - Venture capitalists today look far and wide for start-ups Tapping into the wealth of technology talent and research in the region surrounding the Sandia and Los Alamos federal research labs, Flywheel Ventures has invested $34 million in 19 companies in solar, biofuel and other sectors. Most of the start-ups were "born global," Loy says, with U.S. and overseas offices, employees and customers. Some venture capitalists believe that their traditional industry model needs shaking up. Over the decades, U.S. venture firms have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into thousands of young tech firms. Most died or failed to grow, while others — Intel, Apple, Amazon.com, Google — grew into business giants. Since the dot-com boom and its 2001 bust, venture investment returns in the USA have dwindled. Too many venture firms and too much capital are chasing too few prized start-ups, many say. Venture investors focus narrowly on short-term investments and what they believe to be the Next Big Thing, contends Tom Simpson, founder of Northwest Venture Associates in Seattle. Instead, they should seek steady, long-run growth in young companies. Starbucks is a prime example of a former start-up that resisted the early temptation to sell its stock until the company enjoyed steady profits and growth, says Simpson, whose firm manages $170 million in venture investments. As the economic slump drags on, venture firms are more closely scrutinizing their investments, funding only meaner-and-leaner start-ups. During the IPO frenzy of the dot-com era, tiny start-ups with barely a few million dollars in sales typically rushed to market to sell their stock. Today, though, young companies must boast seasoned management teams, strong products and tens of millions of dollars in sales. They prudently manage their cash, not recklessly burning through it. Venrock illustrates VC's shifting focus. Founded as the venture arm of the Rockefeller family to invest in aviation before World War II, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm has since poured $2.2 billion into 400 companies. Now Venrock is prowling overseas for clean-energy, technology and health care companies. Venrock and a syndicate of venture firms recently invested $24 million in British start-up Orecon, which makes a buoy-like wave-energy device that generates electricity for 1,000 homes. - Source 08/28/08 - Wind Power Boosted by Utility, Storage Invention Michael Nakhamkin, an inventor whose system is used at the only North American power plant that stores energy underground in the form of pressurized air. When electricity demand rises, the trapped air is released to turn a power turbine. The technology, which works like a battery, might widen use of renewable-energy plants because they could bank surplus power made when sunlight or wind is exceptionally strong. The venture, Energy Storage & Power LLC, will improve compressed-air technology to make low-polluting generation more efficient. PSEG will market and license the technology using patents held by Nakhamkin, who is chief technical officer of the new venture and works in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. The systems can be used to generate from 15 to 450 megawatts of power, Nakhamkin said in an interview yesterday. One megawatt is enough to power about 900 average U.S. homes. - Source 08/28/08 - Wind turbines make bat lungs explode A new study shows that the moving blades cause a drop in pressure that makes the delicate lungs of bats suddenly expand, bursting the tissue's blood vessels. This is known as a barotrauma, and is well-known to scuba divers. "While searching for bat carcasses under wind turbines, we noticed that many of the carcasses had no external injuries or no visible cause of death," says Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Canada. 90% of the bats had signs of internal haemorrhaging, but only half showed any signs of direct contact with the windmill blades. Only 8% had signs of external injuries but no internal injuries. The movement of wind-turbine blades creates a vortex of lower air pressure around the blade tips similar to the vortex at the tip of aeroplane wings. Others have suggested that this could be lethal to bats, but until now no-one had carried out necropsies to verify the theory. Baerwald and her colleagues believe that birds do not suffer the same fate as bats - the majority of birds are killed by direct contact with the blades - because their lungs are more rigid than those of bats and therefore more resistant to sudden changes in pressure. - Source 08/28/08 - T. Boone Pickens wants your water Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own. As he does it, it will be praised as a planet-friendly wind project. After he pulls it off, the media will deride it as craven capitalism. In truth, it is one the most audacious examples of politics for profit, showing how big government helps the biggest business steal from the rest of us. The plotline behind Pickens’ water-and-wind scheme is almost too rich to believe. The basic story amounts to this: Pickens, thanks to favors from state lawmakers whose campaigns he funded, has created a new government whose only voters are two of his employers; this has empowered Pickens to more cheaply pump water from an aquifer and, by use of eminent domain, seize land across 11 counties in order to pipe the water to Dallas. To win environmentalist approval of this hardly “sustainable” practice, he has piggybacked this water project onto a windmill project pitched as an alternative to oil. Pickens’ scheme is a perfect demonstration of why it’s worth asking cui bono — who benefits — from regulatory and environmental initiatives. - Source 08/28/08 - PickTheBrain The first article was published to PickTheBrain.com on November 22, 2006. Since then it has become one of the fastest growing self improvement sites on the web. PickTheBrain.com diverges from traditional “self-help” by taking a broader approach. Rather than sticking to a small set of topics, the site covers anything related to self improvement. Any information that people can use to live more prosperous, satisfying lives is a potential article. - Source 08/28/08 - 25 Must-Have Thumb Drive Apps for Geeks With traveling and use of many different computers, many geeks (and geek girls) often find a need to have a uniform set of tools handy wherever we may be. I've put together a list of 25 invaluable portable apps that can be installed on an Ipod or Thumb Drive. These are really cool! / Portable Firefox – Leaves no personal information behind on the machine - you can take along your browser/extensions/bookmarks anywhere / WS FTP32 – ftp client / # Text2Html – a text to HTML converter – converts text files into HTML format / Portable Apps Suite – this is the mac-daddy of them all – it includes Firefox, Thunderbird(email), Sunbird(calendar),ClamWin (antivirus), Pidgin(see above), Sumatra PDF Readable, KeePass Password Safe, OpenOffice, CoolPlayer (audio Player) and even a couple of games / RockXP – allows you to recover windows passwords or keys, change keys, display system password, and more – sneaky! / Infra Recorder Portable – cd and dvd burning. - Source 08/28/08 - Why Do We Get Baggy Eyes? As we age, our eyes inevitably take on a baggy look. Now scientists think they know why. Fat in the eye socket expands. "However, our study showed there is actually an increase in fat with age, and it is more likely that the fat increase causes the baggy eyelids rather than a weakened ligament," Dr. Sean Darcy said. "There have been no studies to show that the orbital septum weakens." The researchers looked at detailed MRI images of 40 subjects (17 males and 23 females) between the ages of 12 and 80. The findings showed that the lower eyelid tissue increased with age and that the largest contributor to this size increase was fat increase. - Source 08/28/08 - Bubble Wrap Could Power the Future The thin transparent material, called ETFE (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene), is segmented into 3,000 air-filled cushions that let in light but hold in heat. ETFE was developed in the 1970s for wire insulation, but it has become an important architectural element in the past two decades. The material, which is similar to Teflon, is stretched out into a large sheet, or foil, less than 250 microns thick, and then folded over and sealed to form an air-filled cushion. "What you end up with is a very thick wall that is mostly made of air," LeCuyer said. "It acts like a duvet blanket." Other plastic foils are also used for walls and roofs, but ETFE has the advantage of both being transparent and fire-safe (it won't shatter like glass or drip down onto people's heads like other polymers). Because it is non-stick, rain will wash away dirt and dust that collects on the outside. The cushions are strong enough to support the weight of a car, and if punctured, they can be repaired relatively easily. Still, an intruder could simply cut through them with a knife, so architects do not typically use them at ground level. Future projects using ETFE foil include sports stadiums, leisure parks and a giant indoor Amazonian rainforest being built in Iowa. But use in private homes is not likely. - Source 08/28/08 - The FDIC may run out of money The FDIC covers up to $100,000 per depositor when a bank fails. Which, of course, means that the government may have to bail out the insurer that bails out people who didn't bail out of their bank ahead of the crash. "I would be quite surprised if we didn't reach triple digits," he said. "Most of them are going to be relatively small institutions, but they will add up." "I fully expect the FDIC insurance fund to be depleted," Ryan added. "The FDIC is going to be one of what is going to be an increasing string of government bailouts." If that happens, ultimately taxpayers will be on the hook. The FDIC borrows money with a line of credit from the U.S. Treasury, which essentially is taxpayer money. - Source 08/28/08 - Wind Energy Bumps Into Power Grid's Limits When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing. That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands. The basic problem is that many transmission lines, and the connections between them, are simply too small for the amount of power companies would like to squeeze through them. The difficulty is most acute for long-distance transmission, but shows up at times even over distances of a few hundred miles. - Source 08/28/08 - Could $100 Oil Turn Dumps Into Plastic Mines? Prices for high quality plastics such as high-density polyethelenes (HDP) have more than doubled to between 200 and 300 pounds ($370-560) per tonne, from just above 100 pounds a year ago, according to experts in the waste industry. Leaders of the world's waste management industry are planning to come together in London in October for what is being billed as the first "global landfill mining" conference. "Once plastic is in a landfill site, it pretty much sits there doing nothing -- and the beauty of that is that you're able to go back and recapture it in the future," said Peter Mills, a director of waste and recycling company New Earth Solutions, who is scheduled to speak at the conference. Closed Loop London is one of only six similar plants around the world in Austria, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland and the United States and processes polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, used for water and drinks bottles, and high-density polyethylene (HDP). It has the capacity to recycle 35,000 tonnes each year. - Source 08/28/08 - The 2,000 mile per tank 200mph sports car This sleek machine is being hailed as the future of high-performance, eco-friendly motoring. With an engine that runs on pure biodiesel, the Trident Iceni can do 2,000 miles on one tank of fuel - enough for a return trip to Venice from London. Capable of topping 200mph, the car has been designed and manufactured by Phil Bevan, of Norwich-based firm Trident Performance Vehicles. Just 500 go on sale from next year, priced at £75,000, after the firm spent £2.3million in development. It uses a technology called 'torque multiplication' which helps keeps the revs low and thus uses less fuel and gives out less emissions. The chassis is made from stainless steel which won’t corrode and the body is built of composite which will never rust or degrade. - Source 08/26/08 - Windsor inventor says new motor will solve fuel crisis A former Chrysler Canada worker has designed and patented what he says is the "perfect solution" to the gasoline crisis -- an electromagnetic piston motor that will eliminate our dependence on oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Michael Axford, who holds a Mexican patent on the invention and is in the process of acquiring another in Canada, said his invention eliminates gas tanks, fuel lines and a vehicle's exhaust system, while retaining all the remaining service parts. "You just turn the key and away you go," said Axford. "A centre spool in the cylinder head is wrapped with copper coils. When a driver turns the key, the battery sends voltage to the coil -- which then becomes an electromagnet -- instead of to the spark plugs and the magnet drives the pistons." Axford acknowledges there are similar products in various stages of development, but says only his uses magnets of identical polarity so that the pistons are driven down into the cylinders with a pulse of magnetic energy. The pistons travel just 31/2 inches and Axford said the electromotive force is sufficient to drive them all the way through the cylinder. "And mine just uses a repelling motion to drive the pistons rather than a combination of repelling and attraction," which often causes problems in the delivery of power, said Axford. "Electromagnets are strong enough to pull trains, so there's no issue with them being strong enough to drive the pistons," said Axford, who has been working on his project since he took a buyout from Chrysler 15 months ago. Axford said "it should perform identically to existing engines. It will idle at 500 r.p.m. so once the gear is engaged, you'll have immediate roll. It won't react with a delay and a jerky motion like a golf cart. "All the blocks used in this engine will be aluminum so they're not magnetic and the cylinder head and the electromagnets will have a protective cover so they don't affect the vehicle's electronic systems," said Axford. "And because the system pulses just like a sparkplug, there's no constant drain on the battery." Axford now plans to retro-fit a motor from a Saturn once he takes delivery of some magnetic discs from a manufacturer in China. When the retrofitted prototype is complete, Axford said he'll be in a position to stage demonstrations and plans to drive the vehicle across Canada to prove its reliability. - Source 08/26/08 - Former fisherman takes on world’s energy woes Preston Verret has built two prototypes of a machine that he claims uses a simple system to self-generate electricity without a fossil-fuel engine. A regular car battery fires up a small electric boat winch – a motor about the size of a cell phone – which is attached to a bicycle chain that runs to a tire. The motor spins the tire, which turns a car alternator set above the wheel. The alternator, in turn, recharges the battery that set the whole process in motion. Verret said. “You don’t have to drill for oil and gas to make power. It’s so simple.” Another prototype is rigged up to a two-seat go-kart outside the shed. Verret pulls off a piece of plastic that protects the engine from the elements and connects the battery. The winch whines to life, and Verret flips the go-kart’s transmission through four gears, demonstrating the variable speeds. The go-kart’s wheels, elevated above the ground by a bottle jack, turn faster as Verret shifts. He has yet to put the machine to a road test and doesn’t let the tiny electric winch run too long because it might burn out. But he insists the potential for powering a vehicle using the same concept is immense, especially if hydraulic pumps are attached to the wheels to generate additional electricity by taking advantage of the motion of the wheels. Verret has set up a limited liability company to manage his invention and is in the midst of talks with engineers and scientists at LSU. - Source 08/26/08 - On the verge of Greatness Alternative fuel is all the rage at the Democratic National Convention, where a goody bag offered to reporters included a wind turbine lapel pin. But the real future of energy may not play out in Denver this week. The real future of energy may be playing out in Colorado Springs, and that future may be coal. Bob Neumann's invention, five years in the making, uses a secret chemical formula to clean up sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulates. Other inventions to clean up coal emissions have been too bulky and expensive to catch on. Neumann's invention is less than a tenth the size of competing equipment and it costs two-thirds less. City officials say early results have exceeded all expectations, and the device has outperformed anything else on the market. Congratulations to Neumann, and to the Colorado Springs Utilities for working together in an invention that could change the world. It costs the city virtually nothing to lend its plant to the project, and the utility was so confident that it invested $1 million in the project - an investment that will almost certainly pay off many times over in coming years. - Source 08/26/08 - Man submits patent for energy-saving device to Ford Motor Co. If you’re driving down the road one day with a fan on the roof of your car, you may have Ed Deets to thank for inventing the energy-saving device. Two weeks ago, Deets submitted a patent for a wind-driven generator for powered vehicles to Ford Motor Co., where the company’s engineers will hopefully review the plans and make a prototype model. In today’s hybrid electric vehicles like the Toyota Prius, a gasoline motor powers the battery that runs the electric motor of the vehicle. Deets’ invention uses a fan to harness wind power and charge the battery, eliminating the need for a engine that runs on gasoline and regular visits to filling stations. “I’m hoping to go to Florida without even stopping,” Deets said. In 2002, he bought a Toyota Prius, which runs on an electric motor and uses a small gas motor to charge the battery, with the hopes of again trying out his design. Deets eventually decided it would be easier to have someone else manufacture the generator rather than make it himself, he said, since he works full-time at his business. He registered the patent for the wind-powered generator in fall 2006, and sent it off to the Ford Motor Co. two weeks ago. Now he will wait for the company’s engineers to review the plans. - Source 08/26/08 - Betting on a hot market for syngas Take a rusting, hulking pile of scrap metal, add a few tons of construction debris, and what do you get? In the case of Ze-gen Inc., a new source of energy. Borrowing technology from the steel industry, the company turns scrap metal into a 2,800-degree metal bath and injects construction debris deep into the bubbling cauldron. The process produces a clean-burning synthesis gas, or syngas, that can replace natural gas or fuel oil. Ze-gen has been proving its technology and the quality of syngas over the past year, operating a demonstration plant here that digests about a ton of debris an hour. The company is now considering several sites, primarily in the Northeast, to develop a commercial facility that could eventually process as much as 30 tons an hour and produce enough gas to fuel a plant that could power 20,000 homes. "We're solving two problems," said Bill Davis, Ze-gen's chief executive. "We're eliminating wastes that would end up in a landfill and reducing fossil fuels." Davis said more than 300 million tons of waste end up in US landfills every year, about 15 percent of it wood waste from construction. Ze-gen's idea: Tap the waste's energy potential. The company's engineers determined that channel induction furnaces used in the steel industry provided an energy-efficient way to turn construction debris into a high-quality, clean syngas. The electricity used for the furnace offsets about 15 percent of the energy produced by the syngas, Davis said. The construction debris is first ground up, then injected deep into the molten metal with ceramic cylinders, much like dipping forks into a fondue pot. The intense heat converts the debris to gas. Heavy metals, such as lead from paint, settle to the bottom of the bath while other contaminants are trapped in crust of silica, known as slag, that forms on top. - Source 08/26/08 - Air Storage Is Explored for Energy A New Jersey company plans to announce on Tuesday that it is working on a solution to this perennial problem with wind power: using wind turbines to produce compressed air that can be stored underground or in tanks and released later to power generators during peak hours. The new company, Energy Storage and Power, will promote the use of compressed air storage technology to utilities and other power producers. More favorable locations include upstate New York, where there are depleted salt mines as well as wind farms. Old coal mines and tapped-out natural gas fields can also be converted into underground reservoirs. Roy Daniel, the chief executive of Energy Storage and Power, said that an underground reservoir the size of Giants Stadium could hold enough compressed air to power three 300-megawatt plants. (One megawatt hour can power a large hospital for an hour.) The reservoirs, which are typically more than 1,500 feet below ground, could take eight hours to fill at night. The compressed air would be released to run generators for eight hours during the day. - Source 08/26/08 - The Claim: Manipulating Your Neck Could Lead to a Stroke Years ago neurologists noticed a strange pattern of people suffering strokes shortly after seeing chiropractors, specifically for neck adjustments. Their hypothesis was that a chiropractic technique called cervical spinal manipulation, involving a forceful twisting of the neck, could damage two major arteries that lead through the neck to the back of the brain. Strokes in people under age 45 are relatively rare, but these cervical arterial dissections are a leading cause of them. Studies that followed suggested a link. But other studies have cast doubt. One published this year examined 818 cases of stroke linked to arterial dissections at the back of the neck. Before their strokes, younger patients who saw chiropractors were more likely to have complained beforehand of head and neck pain — symptoms often preceding a stroke — suggesting they had undiagnosed dissections and had sought out chiropractors for relief, not realizing a stroke was imminent. - Source 08/26/08 - Solar Cells - Made in a Pizza Oven "The winner of several Eureka Science Awards in Australia is a crafty chick who devised a way to create solar cells cheaply using a pizza oven, nail polish and an inkjet printer. This was developed to address the high cost of cells and in particular for the world's poorest regions. She wanted to give the ~2 billion people around the world who don't have electricity the gift of light and cheap energy. This could have profound (and a good profound) implications for education and health in those in the poorest regions in the world. And it all started with her parents giving her a solar energy kit when she was 10..." / Ms Kuepper realised a new approach would be needed if affordable cells were to be made on site in poorer countries: "What started off as a brainstorming session has resulted in the iJET cell concept that uses low-cost and low-temperature processes, such as ink-jet printing and pizza ovens, to manufacture solar cells." While it could take five years to commercialise the patented technology, providing renewable energy to homes in some of the least developed countries would enable people to "read at night, keep informed about the world through radio and television and refrigerate life-saving vaccines". And it would also help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. - Source 08/26/08 - Mylar or Resonance to save Earth from asteroid attack Mary D'Souza's proposal involves using enhanced solar radiation pressure to move the threatening asteroid off its path to Earth by wrapping it with Mylar film. Mylar is sometimes used to generically refer to polyester film or plastic sheet. However, it is actually a registered trademark owned by Dupont Tejjin Films for a specific family of plastic sheet products made from the resin Polyethylene Terephthalate. The same solar reflecting material is already used on satellites. "I'm using a satellite that's orbiting the asteroid and the rotation of the asteroid itself to wrap this ribbon," Ms D'Souza explained to the AAP. Mylar film covering just half of the asteroid would change its surface from dull to reflective. "What happens then is light from the sun shines on the body [of the asteroid] so more of it is reflected ... and it actually acts to move it away from the sun and the earth." Second place was awarded to Andrew Bacon of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at the University of Bath for his paper entitled The Use of Electromechanical Resonators for the Mitigation of Earth Threatening Asteroids and Comets. Bacon’s concept involves the use of electromechanical resonators to build up waves within an asteroid or comet that would break it up. He will also present his plan at the International Astronautical Congress. - Source 08/26/08 - US judge says University can ignore Christian course credits A federal judge has told the University of California that when considering applicants, it has the constitutional right to ignore high school course work grounded in the notion that the Bible is infallible. On Friday, as reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Judge James Otero denied claims from a group of Christian high schools and Christian high school students that the 10-campus University had suppressed free speech and discriminated against religious views in rejecting such course credits. One high school course was rejected because its primary text, the Bob Jones University-published United States History for Christian Schools, "failed to adequately teach critical thinking and modern historical analytic methods." According to one professor on the UC course review committee, the text "instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events, attributes historical events to divine providence rather than analyzing human action, evaluates historical figures and their contributions based on their religious motivations or lack thereof and contains inadequate treatment of several major ethnic groups, women, and non-Christian religious groups." - Source 08/26/08 - Stationary bike designed to create electricity David Butcher designed his ingeniously simple pedal generator for maximum comfort and efficiency: As the rider pedals, a wooden flywheel drives an electric motor, which generates an electric current that flows into a bank of salvaged lead-acid batteries for storage. A buried cable connects the batteries to a set of conspicuous orange outlets (denoting the off-the-grid energy source) in Butcher's home office, where he works as a Web project manager. The orange outlets power several devices, including a computer monitor (but not the computer), cell phone chargers, a high-efficiency area light and a small Roomba robotic vacuum. Butcher's prototype bicycle was chain-driven and featured a welded steel frame. Today's version, with its simplified drivetrain and bolted frame, can be assembled with basic hand tools. When he took up his pedaling regimen two years ago, Butcher tipped the scales at 180 pounds. Today, at age 53, he weighs a lean 150 and possesses a pair of legs that wouldn't look out of place on the Olympic cycling squad. Butcher's pedaling has become so efficient that he has pretty much abandoned his car (electric, incidentally) in favor of bicycling, reducing his carbon footprint still further. Whenever people ask why he doesn't sell the pedal generator plans to gyms, Butcher's answer reflects his simple philosophy: "If you want to save energy, don't drive to the gym." The combination of these positive impacts inspired Butcher to market the plans for his invention, and to date he's sold more than 300 sets of blueprints around the world. Wires connect the motors (inexpensive units used in electric scooters) to an ultracapacitor, which modulates the electrical current. A digital meter displays the energy statistics of each workout. An inverter changes the current from DC to AC, relaying it to several electrical outlets. To see the pedal generator in action and chat with David Butcher, go to links.sfgate.com/ZEPA between 8 and 8:30 a.m. Tuesday-Friday. -- To learn more about the pedal generator or to order a set of plans so you can build your own, go to links.sfgate.com/ZEPB. The site also features a resource page for teachers: links.sfgate.com/ZEPC. - Source 08/26/08 - Cows have Animal Magnetism German scientists using satellite images posted online by the Google Earth software program have observed something that has escaped the notice of farmers, herders and hunters for thousands of years: Cattle grazing or at rest tend to orient their bodies in a north-south direction just like a compass needle. Studying photographs of 8,510 cattle in 308 herds from around the world, zoologists Sabine Begall and Hynek Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen and their colleagues found that two out of every three animals in the pictures were oriented in a direction roughly pointing to magnetic north. The resolution of the images was not sufficient to tell which ends of the cows were pointing north, however. Cows are known to align their bodies facing uphill, facing into a strong wind to minimize heat loss or broadside to the sun on cold mornings to absorb heat, but the fact that the pictures were taken at many locations, at different times of day and in generally calm weather minimized the impact of environmental factors, the researchers said. Researchers have long known that certain bacteria, birds, fish, whales and even rodents have minute organs in their brains containing particles of magnetite that can act like a compass. But the new results are the first hint that larger land-based mammals may also have such organs, said biologist Kenneth J. Lohmann of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the research. - Source 08/26/08 - Video - Solar plane makes record flight A UK-built solar-powered plane has set an unofficial world endurance record for a flight by an unmanned aircraft. The Zephyr-6, as it is known, stayed aloft for more than three days, running through the night on batteries it had recharged in sunlight. The flight was a demonstration for the US military, which is looking for new types of technology to support its troops on the ground. Craft like Zephyr might make ideal platforms for reconnaissance. They could also be used to relay battlefield communications. Chris Kelleher, from UK defence and research firm QinetiQ, said Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer advantages over traditional aircraft and even satellites. "The principal advantage is persistence - that you would be there all the time," he told BBC News. "A satellite goes over the same part of the Earth twice a day - and one of those is at night - so it's only really getting a snapshot of activity. Zephyr would be watching all day." - Source 08/26/08 - Who Owns the Moon? Within the next 10 years, the U.S., China, Israel, and a host of private companies plan to set up camp on the moon. So if and when they plant a flag, does that give them property rights? A NASA working group hosted a discussion this week to ask: who owns the moon? The answer, of course, is no one. The Outer Space Treaty, the international law signed by more than 100 countries, states that the moon and other celestial bodies are the province of all mankind. Steve Durst' group has calculated that there are about 10 billion acres on the moon, not counting crater slopes. Given that there are about 6.7 billion people on Earth, it aligns nicely with the idea of "I want my acre," he said. "It's much easier to solve this problem by thinking it through and thinking through what would most benefit the best interest of humanity...rather than doing it once it's a mess," William Marshall said. So, he said, it comes down to assigning rights in the best interest of humanity, including ensuring no monopolies and no military installations. Entities can apply for space in geostational orbit and receive a slot on a first come, first serve basis, according to Marshall. That's an interesting model, he said, because it does that without granting ownership and allows access by less prosperous nations. - Source 08/26/08 - Lawsuit on grounds Obama not constitutionally eligible for Presidency Prominent Philadelphia attorney and Hillary Clinton supporter Phillip Berg filed suit yesterday afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States. Even if Sen. Obama can prove his U.S. citizenship, Berg stated, citing the senator's use of a birth certificate from the state of Hawaii verified as a forgery by three independent document forensic experts, the issue of "multi-citizenship with responsibilities owed to and allegiance to other countries" remains on the table. In the lawsuit, Berg states that Sen. Obama was born in Kenya, and not in Hawaii as the senator maintains. Before giving birth, according to the lawsuit, Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." As Sen. Obama's own paternal grandmother, half-brother and half-sister have also claimed, Berg maintains that Stanley Ann Dunham--Obama's mother--gave birth to little Barack in Kenya and subsequently flew to Hawaii to register the birth. - Source 08/26/08 - Video - Under the Light… Nothing Seems Scary This great Thai commercial just goes to show that even something as boring as light bulbs can be made into an awesome and funny advertisement. - Source 08/26/08 - Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell The Equinox is essentially an electric car that runs on a hydrogen fuel cell, which is basically a reverse battery that makes its own electricity. You can go about 170 miles on a full tank, I’ve found, versus 225 in a gas car. With 170 miles I can go anywhere I want to go and if I come back home I’m never more than 15 miles from a hydrogen station so it’s not bad. I don’t find myself planning – but I wouldn’t drive it to San Francisco. A fill-up from empty takes about 25 to 30 minutes. But that’s not the car’s fault. That’s the infrastructure’s fault. As soon as tanks are in place that can fill the cell to a pressure of 10,000psi quicker, that time will drop. The chassis, I think, is purpose-built. I don’t think it’s adapted from anything. These cars are something like $800,000 apiece because they’re prototypes. - Source 08/26/08 - Wind turbine brings chaos to Leeds sports centre RUGBY players may be forced to pull training at a Leeds sports ground after a giant wind turbine put the wind in their sails. Hunslet Hawks Rugby League Club say they are "finished" as the aerodynamics created by the giant structure will cause problems with training and matches. "It affects the aerodynamics by creating an artificial force within the stadium so kicking a rugby ball, going for goal kicks, the ball will be out of play. We are finished. We won't be able to play rugby at the stadium." - Source 08/24/08 - Thai Hydrogen Reactor Powers Car with Water Thai engineers yesterday launched their latest invention, the "Reactor 1" device, which extracts hydrogen from water to power a car, as the fruit of 30 years of study and labour that could be an alternative energy idea. The conference did not reveal the cost of invention or its commercial use. Sumit said the reactor - a 12inch wide and 10inch high metal box installed inside the car's trunk - used electricity to extract two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen from water. It needed direct current (DC) from a 12voltage battery to extract hydrogen for the car engine's combustion, he said. This device extracted hydrogen for each use without having to store the gas in a tank, Sumit said. He said the "Reactor 1" could also control the heat produced from the hydrogen extraction to a safe level. The result was clean energy. Sumit said he continued to improve on the safety of the "Reactor 2" model by designing an electrical circuit to detect any abnormality in the whole system. The circuit would work with a "Micro Controller" to control the reactor and the engine to save the battery and have just the right amount of hydrogen produced for the car's engine usage. - Source 08/24/08 - the Zeitgeist Pharmacy The doctrine of signatures is an ancient European philosophy that held that plants bearing parts that resembled human body parts, animals, or other objects, had useful relevancy to those parts, animals or objects. And... It's been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish. all before making a human. He made and provided what we'd need before we were born. A few examples: * A Sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye...and science shows that carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes. * A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds are on the nut just like the neo-cortex. We now know that walnuts help develop over 3 dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function. * Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. - Source. And this one for more connections Eat Well - Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the Human kidneys. A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart is red and has four Chambers. All of the research shows tomatoes are indeed pure heart and blood food. Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics. Grapefruits, Oranges, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts. 08/24/08 - Will US Solar Businesses Weather the Coming Storm? With just over 120 days left before federal incentives expire, solar businesses in the U.S. are taking action to protect their core business. Layoffs, announced and unannounced, have started. Construction projects are being canceled or postponed and new sales have dropped dramatically. Uncertainty is forcing our solar businesses into difficult decisions -- not if, but when to cut and, how deep to cut. The coming loss of talented people and companies should be viewed as a loss of our country's intellectual property -- and a national tragedy. Solar distributors will be hard hit as many of the under-capitalized small and medium solar installation companies they serve will disappear overnight. If they are unable to sell the PV modules they have committed to, those modules will be sent to other countries, severely impacting revenues. The worse case, the idea that we will have to take a giant step backwards and then rebuild, is coming true. Our people have worked tirelessly to move our fledgling industry ahead and gain momentum against enormous inertia and countless barriers. It is beyond my comprehension how 535 people in congress and 1 in the White House could let partisanship rule at a time when the right decision for the country is so obvious. - Source 08/24/08 - Sex and the Olympic city I am often asked if the Olympic village - the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hosts the world's top athletes for the duration of the Games - is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be. My answer is always the same: too right it is. I played my first Games in Barcelona in 1992 and got laid more often in those two and a half weeks than in the rest of my life up to that point. That is to say twice, which may not sound a lot, but for a 21-year-old undergraduate with crooked teeth, it was a minor miracle. Barcelona was, for many of us Olympic virgins, as much about sex as it was about sport. There were the gorgeous hostesses - there to assist the athletes - in their bright yellow shirts and black skirts; there were the indigenous lovelies who came to watch the competitions. And then there were the female athletes - literally thousands of them - strutting, shimmying, sashaying and jogging around the village, clad in Lycra and exposing yard upon yard of shiny, toned, rippling and unimaginably exotic flesh. Women from all the countries of the world: muscular, virile, athletic and oozing oestrogen. I spent so much time in a state of lust that I could have passed out. Indeed, for all I knew I did pass out - in a place like that how was one to tell the difference between dreamland and reality? But, once we were eliminated from our respective competitions, we lunged at each other like suicidal fencers. There may have been a fair amount of gay sex going on, too - but given the notorious homophobia in sport it was rather more covert. The old “what goes on tour stays on tour” mantra is still alive and kicking, not just in sport but beyond. There is something deepseated in humanity that leads us to play by different rules whenever we leave town, a phenomenon that has caused instances of terrible inhumanity. When it comes to sex, it simply means that those in relationships no longer recognise, or at least ignore, the boundaries of fidelity and honesty that underpin human monogamy. - Source 08/24/08 - Green Cars Are Too Quiet For anyone who has ridden in a hybrid, there's something a little weird about the first time you sit idling at a stop light. The sound of silence when the engine turns itself off in lieu of the electric motors can be disconcerting. There is a hidden danger to the handicapped, however - specifically the blind. Without the sound of an engine, the blind apparently step out into traffic believing the coast to be clear, whereupon they endure a green mauling. The problem has occurred enough that California, America's leading state of car oppression, is introducing a bill mandating cars create a minimum level of noise so the visually impaired will know they are present. - Source 08/24/08 - Save Money And Stay Cooler with a Whole-House Fan A whole-house fan is a large fan you install in the ceiling of the uppermost floor of your home. When turned on the fan draws a enormous amount of air up and out of your home. In short, a whole-house fan is the super-charged version of opening the windows at night to let the cold air in and closing them in the morning to trap the colder night air inside. A whole house fan is also extremely energy efficient compared to an air conditioning unit. Dulley writes: Depending upon its size, a whole-house fan uses only 10% to 20% as much electricity as a central air conditioner. Also, it uses significantly less electricity than a window air conditioner, yet it keeps the entire house more comfortable, not just one room. Installing one generally provides a good payback on the investment. - Source 08/24/08 - Sloshing Inside Earth Changes Protective Magnetic Field Something beneath the surface is changing Earth's protective magnetic field, which may leave satellites and other space assets vulnerable to high-energy radiation. The gradual weakening of the overall magnetic field can take hundreds and even thousands of years. But smaller, more rapid fluctuations within months may leave satellites unprotected and catch scientists off guard, new research finds. A new model uses satellite data from the past nine years to show how sudden fluid motions within the Earth's core can alter the magnetic envelope around our planet. The Earth's magnetic field extends about 36,000 miles (58,000 km) into space, generated from the spinning effect of the electrically-conductive core that acts something like a giant electromagnet. The field creates a tear-drop shaped bubble that has constantly shielded life on Earth against much of the high-energy radiation flowing from the sun. The last major change in the field took place some 780,000 years ago during a magnetic reversal, although such reversals seem to occur more often on average. A flip in the north and south poles typically involves a weakening in the magnetic field, followed by a period of rapid recovery and reorganization of opposite polarity. The rapid weakening of the magnetic field in the South Atlantic Anomaly region could signal future troubles for such satellites. Radiation storms from the sun could fry electronic equipment on satellites that suddenly lacked the protective cover of a rapidly changing magnetic field. "For satellites, this could be a problem," Mandea told SPACE.com. "If there are magnetic storms and high-energy particles coming from the sun, the satellites could be affected and their connections could be lost." - Source 08/24/08 - FixYourOwnPrinter.com Offers Hacks and Fixes from Fellow Printer Owners One of the few guarantees the computer world offers is that, at some point, your printer will report that it's out of ink when it isn't, mangle pages because of a small break in a plastic part, or otherwise make even the geekiest of users pull their hair out. FixYourOwnPrinter.com hosts an active forum of users who share their tips on managing the money-grubbing machines, with tips like placing black electrical tape over the ink sensor to make a Brother printer finish out its toner (as one Slate writer found) and button combinations that can reset a unit's wayward sensors. A little smart Googling, of course, can net you some DIY fix-it schemes, but FixYourOwnPrinter.com's search is a good place to start and explore, and the site itself might just have the part you're looking for. - Source 08/24/08 - Solar Concentrator Is A Flying Power Plant The concentrators weigh just 20 pounds and, tethered to lightweight aluminum towers, seem to float 20 feet off the ground gathering solar energy. Able to withstand winds up to 125 mph, the 8-foot-wide Mylar balloons are reflective on one side, and each one has its own lightweight tether. Ultimately, the company would like to get the cost down to $1 per watt, and with each balloon generating up to 500 watts, more than enough to run your 50-inch plasma TV. The average home uses between 1 and 2 kilowatts keeping your beer cold, your water hot and your Guitar Hero performances lukewarm, so if you had a big enough backyard and forgiving neighbors, you could run your home off just a few balloons. - Source 08/24/08 - Parents beware of "digital drugs" We all know that music can alter your mood. Sad songs can make you cry. Upbeat songs may give you an energy boost. But can music create the same effects as illegal drugs? This seems like a ridiculous question. But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects. All your child needs is a music player and headphones. For binaural beats to work, you must use headphones. Different sounds are played in each ear. The sounds combine in your brain to create a new frequency. This frequency corresponds to brain wave frequencies. There are different brain wave frequencies. These frequencies are related to different states like relaxation and alertness. Digital drugs supposedly synchronize your brain waves with the sound. Hence, they allegedly alter your mental state. Many are skeptical about the effects of digital drugs. Few scientific studies have been conducted on binaural beats. However, a Duke University study suggests that they can affect mood and motor performance. Dr. Nicholas Theodore, a brain surgeon at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, said there is no real evidence that idosers work. But he noted that musical preference is indicative of emotional vulnerability. Trying idosers could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs and other dangerous behavior. (via hackaday.com) - Source 08/24/08 - Nanomagnet Cancer Treatment In nanomagnetic cancer treatment, blue fluid with therapeutic nanomagnets targets tumor cells (right). But the nanomagnets leave healthy cells (left) alone. In “Nanoparticles that cancer cells can’t resist,” the magazine writes that the basic idea is to use magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles encased in a biocompatible material. When these nanoparticles are injected in the body, they gather around cancer cells, turning them into minuscule magnets that are easily captured by other magnets encased in the tips of biopsy needles. Here is how New Scientist summarizes the concept. “The idea is to use magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles encased in a biocompatible material. These in turn can be coated with antibodies that bind to chemicals found only in cancerous cells. When injected into the body, thousands of the particles stick to cancer cells, turning them into miniature magnets. The cells can then be drawn towards magnets encased in the tip of a biopsy needle.” But will it work? “A mathematical model of the system confirmed that significant numbers of cancer cells, laden with nanoparticles, could be attracted to a needle within two or three minutes. In the lab, the researchers showed that a magnetised needle could attract leukaemia cells surrounded by nanoparticles and suspended in blood or other synthetic materials designed to mimic bodily fluids. Nanoparticles have been used before to destroy diseased cells but this is the first time they have actually retrieved cells.” - Source 08/24/08 - Sky Serpents for More Wind Power Massive, city-sized wind farms produce immense power, but the materials and energy required to produce and transport 30-story-tall monster blades can be costly and tricky. But one California inventor believes the answer lies in thinking smaller. Doug Selsam suggests that putting several (anywhere from two to dozens) smaller rotors on the same shaft linked to the same generator could produce the same amount of power with fewer raw materials. But the physics behind the invention - called The Sky Serpent - is no cake walk. To increase efficiency, each rotor needs to catch its own wind flow, not just the wind kicked out from the next rotor up the line. To do this, Selsam needed to figure out the precision angling of the shaft in relation to the other rotors plus the optimal spacing between each rotor. If that sounds confusing and complicated, that’s because it is. In 2003, the California Energy Commission awarded him a $75,000 grant to develop a 3000-watt turbine. Turns out “lucky seven” isn’t just a superstition – it’s the magic number of blades needed to provide that amount of wattage. According to his statistics, Selsam’s invention uses just one-tenth of the blade material required to produce today’s enormous turbines. He’s even moving into the residential market; Selsam has built and sold more than 20 dual-rotor turbines to homeowners. In the not-too-distant future, Selsam envisions strings of wind rotors stretching across the sky. “The wind-turbine designs out there are a thousand years old,” he told Popular Science (who honored his invention as one of 2007’s best). “More rotors equals more power.” - Source 08/24/08 - Wind Power car attempts to smash landspeed record Stroud-based Eco-businessman Dale Vince OBE and engineer Richard Jenkins hope to smash the current record of 116.7mph on their wind-powered craft The Greenbird out on the salt flats of Australia's Lake Lefroy. The duo describe The Greenbird as "a highly-evolved vehicle" that uses a combination of technology found on aircraft and Formula 1 cars to achieve "staggering" speeds without engine power. The chosen name is a nod to Donald Campbell's Bluebird, a fuel-powered car which achieved record speeds in the 60s. The vehicle arrived at Lake LeFroy for testing on Friday. The team will go on record standby towards the end of this month and start of next month. The current world wind powered speed record of 116.7mph was achieved on March 20 1999 in Prim, Nevada, USA, by Bob Schumacher in Iron Duck. - Source 08/24/08 - The fall and rise of America’s small-town business model At every transformation, more energy was needed. In the narrow Mohawk Valley, it’s still possible to see a barge pulled by two horses carrying 200 tons at four miles an hour, burning calories from hay, with the oil-guzzling truck traffic speeding by on the interstate. But the move from water to road also meant that port towns with compact downtowns, main streets and walkable neighbourhoods were succeeded by strip malls and car-dependent sprawl. This was the price of creative destruction – “the transformation that accompanies radical innovation.” When an omelette gets made, eggs get cracked. Whole communities get written off, and their assets, once built for the ages, are surpassed by the next wave of invention. What was once a world centre of invention and intellectual ferment was beaten down and often abandoned. Business and opportunity moved literally down the road to the sunny states of the south, where the young and ambitious have migrated. The way of life that is coming to end isn’t that created by the Erie Canal. Rather, it’s the life dependent on the high consumption of cheap energy and cheap money. The life along the interstates. While it’s inconceivable that these concrete and asphalt corridors will ever decay in ways that the canal and its communities have, I’m sure that’s what those who built the canal thought. More optimistically, there are signs of regeneration. - Source 08/24/08 - Cedar Fish For the past two weeks I've been cooking fish about every other day on my gas BBQ using a cedar plank to smoke the fish. (See my previous post: Homemade Smoked Salmon.) You heat up the BBQ, place the plank on the grill, give it 5 minutes to heat up, put the fish on the plank, turn the heat down a bit and keep the cover closed for 15 minutes. It cooks the fish perfectly every time, the best fish I've ever had. - Source 08/24/08 - TheReligionofPeace This list, of over 10,000 terrorist attacks committed by Muslims since 9/11/01 (a rate of about three or four a day), is incomplete because only a small percentage of attacks were picked up by international news sources, even those resulting in multiple loss of life. These are not incidents involving nominal Muslims killing for money or personal pride. We include attacks that can reasonably be determined to have been committed by Muslims out of religious duty - as interpreted by the perpetrator. We usually list only attacks that result in loss of life (with a handful of exceptions). In several cases, the victims are undercounted because deaths from trauma caused by the Islamists may occur in later days, despite the best efforts of medical personnel to keep the victims alive. Unfortunately, this list of Muslim terrorist attacks barely scratches the surface of atrocities committed in the name of Islam that occur world-wide each day. For that reason, we don't tally up the dead and dismembered, except on a weekly and monthly basis. - Source 08/24/08 - Air-purifying church windows used early nanotechnology Stained glass windows that are painted with gold purify the air when they are lit up by sunlight, a team of Queensland University of Technology experts have discovered. Associate Professor Zhu Huai Yong, from QUT's School of Physical and Chemical Sciences said that glaziers in medieval forges were the first nanotechnologists who produced colours with gold nanoparticles of different sizes. In modern language, photocatalytic air purifier with nanostructured gold catalyst," Professor Zhu said. He said tiny particles of gold, energised by the sun, were able to destroy air-borne pollutants like volatile organic chemical (VOCs), which may often come from new furniture, carpets and paint in good condition. "These VOCs create that 'new' smell as they are slowly released from walls and furniture, but they, along with methanol and carbon monoxide, are not good for your health, even in small amounts," he said. "Gold, when in very small particles, becomes very active under sunlight. "The electromagnetic field of the sunlight can couple with the oscillations of the electrons in the gold particles and creates a resonance. "The magnetic field on the surface of the gold nanoparticles can be enhanced by up to hundred times, which breaks apart the pollutant molecules in the air." Professor Zhu said the by-product was carbon dioxide, which was comparatively safe, particularly in the small amounts that would be created through this process. He said the use of gold nanoparticles to drive chemical reactions opened up exciting possibilities for scientific research. "This technology is solar-powered, and is very energy efficient, because only the particles of gold heat up," he said. - Source 08/24/08 - Amethyst Initiative: Rethink the drinking age Launched in July 2008, the Amethyst Initiative is made up of chancellors and presidents of universities and colleges across the United States. These higher education leaders have signed their names to a public statement that the 21 year-old drinking age is not working, and, specifically, that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses. The Amethyst Initiative supports informed and unimpeded debate on the 21 year-old drinking age. Amethyst Initiative presidents and chancellors call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use. - Source 08/24/08 - Dinosaurs Helping to build Pyramids, right... Far from becoming extinct 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs actually co-existed with early humans, and even helped in the construction of the pyramids. This is the word of Vince Fenech, Evangelist pastor and director of a fully licensed, State-approved Creationist institution which admits children aged between four and 18. “Of course the ‘dinoceros’ existed (as Fenech pronounces the word). It is mentioned in the Book of Job. They were used to help build the pyramids,” he says, adding that this latter observation is only “his personal belief”, and that it does not form part of the school’s curriculum. But the curriculum of the Accelerated Christian Academy in Mosta is not exactly free of such fanciful reinventions of history. Fenech reiterates the basic Evangelist tenet that the entire universe was created in 4004 BC… and this time, he also supplies “proof”. - Source 08/24/08 - As of October, FBI To Allow Warrantless Investigations "Attorney General Michael Mukasey has agreed to allow Congressional hearings, but not to delay, the implementation of new FBI regulations that would allow them to spy on American citizens who are not suspected of any crime. As an editorial in the New York Times points out, this is a power that has a history of abuse. In times past, it was used to wiretap Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and to spy on other civil rights and anti-war protesters." As Dekortage points out, "Several senators have formally complained that citizens could be investigated 'without any basis for suspicion,' which the Justice Department denies." - Source 08/24/08 - How RFID Tags Could Be Used to Track Unsuspecting People * Radio-frequency identi­fication (RFID) tags are embedded in a growing number of personal items and identity documents. * Because the tags were designed to be powerful tracking devices and they typically incorporate little security, people wearing or carrying them are vulnerable to surreptitious surveillance and profiling. * Worldwide, legislators have done little to address those risks to citizens. If you live in a state bordering Canada or Mexico, you may soon be given an opportunity to carry a very high tech item: a remotely readable driver’s license. Designed to identify U.S. citizens as they approach the nation’s borders, the cards are being promoted by the Department of Homeland Security as a way to save time and simplify border crossings. But if you care about your safety and privacy as much as convenience, you might want to think twice before signing up. - Source 08/24/08 - Human Tracking Chip Created By Xega The Xega Company has created an injectable chip, which is the size and shape of a rice kernel. It can be injected into the client’s body using a syringe. The chip sends out signals from the person’s body and one could locate and pinpoint the location of someone in distress. The chip costs about $4000 and comes with an annual fee of $2,200. This may mean we won’t see any more kidnappings and persons going missing. - Source 08/21/08 - Interesting Cleanup tip for Painters I was having drinks with a fellow North American and a Mexican friend. We were also talking with a couple of painters at the bar who had plenty of paint on their hands and arms. They said it was common here to use turpentine to remove paint but it left the skin chapped and sore. My Mexican friend told them to use VASELINE. Rub it in and leave it alone for about a minute and the paint will just wipe off the skin, leaving it soft, undamaged and clean. Hadn't heard that before but it is a neat tip to pass along. When I worked at 3 factories, we used GoJo gel to clean grease and such off our hands but had never thought of plain old vaseline. So tell your painter friends and make their lives easier! - Source - Bar gossip 08/21/08 - Fuel Saving Device Can Change the Way We Use Fuel Driving Our Car Using the momentum of your car will reduce your fuel consumption; The U.S. Patent Office issued a Patent for Moment-O-Meter. GREEN TECHNOLOGY MFG manufactures the long awaited Moment-O-Meter, a consumer friendly device that helps to reduce fuel consumption (patent # 7,411,140). It takes only a few seconds to stick Moment-O-Meter to your windshield and plug it in your cigarette lighter to upgrade your car to a fuel efficient car. "Moment-O-Meter was developed and tested during the last three years, and we now manufacture it in Clearwater, Florida," added Delor, a retired ex-aeronautical engineer who co-invented this device to help his school teacher daughter to save gas. "It all started with my daughter and I'm always looking for a good reason to spend some time in my workshop," added Delor. As Speed-O-Meter indicates the speed of a vehicle, Moment-O-Meter indicates its inherent momentum allowing users to coast by, moving their car effortlessly by force of the inertial mass generated. Green light indicates you can coast, red light indicates you need to use fuel to maintain the car's speed. It's like a personal trainer telling you what to do. "Every driver can take advantage of their car's momentum to drastically increase their fuel efficiency if they are shown how," the inventor said. "You will save 20% to 50% gas the very first time you use it. To make it work for everyone, it had to be simple and visual. Moment-O-Meter is very simple; just react to the device's lights to save gas. I personally save 50% but my wife saves only 32% ... It still depends on the driver's skills, but improvement is expected as driving efficiently will become second nature," concluded Delor. - Source 08/21/08 - How To Fix The World A popular comic book series called HowToons, designed to help kids think like inventors and, with Massachusetts Institute of Technology pal Eric Wilhelm, a Web site called Instructables, created to spur collaborative invention among adults. For inventor Saul Griffith, these are civilization-saving projects. The more people realize they can create and maintain their own objects around them, he believes, the less likely they will be to squander increasingly scarce resources on cheap and transient goods. "There are 2 million people in America who work on their cars every weekend," says Griffith. "That could be the greatest R&D ever for the electric car." The Instructables Web site, with 350,000 registered users and 860,000 unique visitors a month, according to ComScore, attempts to build a collaborative community where people share and learn how to complete fanciful and pragmatic inventions. Recent examples include a concrete light bulb wall hook, a wind turbine made from a potato chip can and a mini-robot. The site was originally intended to become a place where various inventors could create projects together and improve on one another's work, much the way the open-source software movement has created a wealth of free computer programs. But it has instead become an explosion of DIY showmanship. HowToons has sold 20,000 copies since its publication last October and also appears in father-in-law Tim O'Reilly's Make magazine (see "Making Future Headlines"). One popular cartoon teaches the kids to make a marshmallow blowgun from plastic pipe. Griffith will go almost anywhere to talk up the HowToons make-anything ethos to kids at science fairs and museums. "Get them then, and you get them for life," he says. Adults? "Sorry, but for most of them it is too late." Web sites like Instructables and kids' books like HowToons are "about 1%" of what's needed. Too many inventors, he says, hope they'll get rich by single-handedly patenting a great idea. "Usually invention is a group effort, but they don't see that," he says. The real payoff comes from notoriety. When you get known as a great tinkerer and craftsman, "it's how you get your next great job." - Source 08/21/08 - Vanadium Boride Fuel Cell Battery energy beats petroleum Previously batteries have only been used in small-scale applications and even modern lithium-ion batteries cannot boast the energy storage capacity of diesel and petroleum. However, scientists from the University of Massachusetts may soon change all that with a combination of half a battery and half a chemical fuel cell. According to The Green Optimistic, the battery’s negative electrode, or cathode, is made from vanadium boride. This effectively serves double duty as fuel too - unlike the flowing fuel of a fuel cell, material is held internally much like the anode material of a battery. The vanadium boride reacts with oxygen bringing in a supply of air from the outside. A chemical reaction occurs and the cell has a theoretical energy capacity of 27kWh per litre, compared to 9.7kWh per litre of petroleum. However, both figures are limited by practicalities to smaller figures - yet the new system should have a usable energy capacity of around 5kWh, which is still almost double that of petroleum. Other designs may yield even higher energy densities than the vanadium boride system: a lithium-air cell should give twice the energy density of a vanadium boride-air cell. - Source 08/21/08 - Cambridge Formula 1 secret out of the bag For years, the mysterious "J-Damper", a vehicle suspension device described as the F1 technical innovation of the year, was carefully codenamed and concealed to prevent it from being copied by rivals. The term "J-Damper" itself was merely a codename to keep the technology secret from potential competitors for as long as possible. Its proper name is an inerter. Although they are currently being used to improve mechanical grip, inerters have a wide range of potential advantages, many of which are still being explored. Broadly, they offer greater flexibility in a vehicle's suspension system. Standard suspension systems are based around two components - springs and shock absorbers (dampers). Together, these contribute to the car's ride and handling: they keep vehicle occupants comfortable even though the vehicle is traversing an uneven road surface and is subjected to acceleration and cornering. The inerter looks superficially like a conventional shock absorber, with an attachment point at each end. For example, one end may be attached to the car body and the other to the wheel assembly. A plunger slides in and out of the main body of the inerter as the car moves up and down. This causes the rotation of a flywheel inside the device in proportion to the relative displacement between the attachment points. The result is that the flywheel stores rotational energy as it spins. In combination with the springs and dampers, the inerter reduces the effect of the oscillations and thus helps the car to retain a better grip on the road. - Source 08/21/08 - Tax Incentive Program Funds Six Oregon State Research Projects Launched in October, 2007, the University Venture Development Fund University Venture Development Fund , or UVDF, offers Oregon residents a 60 percent state tax credit for gifts to the fund, with the goal of helping move university research to the marketplace. As part of the project, the state legislature authorized eight Oregon universities to receive a total of $14 million in tax credit-eligible gifts. • A small-scale water pasteurization system • "Hua Cat,” a new organic compound to improve drug production • Wood-adhesive from all renewable materials • Inkjet printed Thin-film solar cells • The "Ping Meter" is a handheld tool equipped with GPS that can easily, instantly and non-destructively determine the chlorophyll, nitrogen and water content of plant leaves, and show the results in a color-coded map. • A major advance in mass spectrometry. - Source 08/21/08 - Safer and Cheaper nuclear power plants Intellectual Ventures, founded by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, has begun to reveal details of what Myhrvold calls the firm’s “most ambitious project” — a new type of safer and cheaper nuclear reactor. Intellectual Ventures’ reactor model would need a small amount of enriched uranium at startup, but could then run on natural, unenriched uranium or depleted uranium, the waste product of enrichment, meaning it could draw on a much more abundant and potentially cheaper supply of fuel. The firm is also investigating thorium as a reactor fuel source. Thorium, a radioactive metal, has the advantage of being more plentiful than uranium. By reducing the need for uranium processing and transport, this reactor technology would, in theory, lower the risk of nuclear accidents and weapons proliferation. Enriched uranium for atomic weapons can be made in the very same kinds of facilities that produce enriched uranium for nuclear power plant fuel. - Source 08/21/08 - Bigfoot Hoaxers Still On the Lam Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the Georgia men who claimed to have found a Bigfoot body, were being sought by Tom Biscardi, whose money they absconded with once the frozen "corpse" was revealed to be a hoax. "We have a contract with these people," Biscardi, a former Las Vegas promoter now based in Menlo Park, Calif., told Fox News Wednesday morning. "We paid them the money the night before [the press conference.]" Asked to confirm rumors that he'd given Dyer and Whitton a $50,000 advance on future earnings from the bogus Bigfoot, Biscardi would say only that "it was a substantial amount of money" numbering in the thousands which came from unnamed "investors." Biscardi told Fox's Megyn Kelly, who'd previously been invited to view the specimen herself, that the rubber Halloween suit had been stuffed full of, well, organic material. "It was the most macabre thing you've ever seen in your life," he said. "There's body parts of other animals in there — bones, eyes, tongues, cheeks. It's just incredible." Asked how he could have been fooled, Biscardi argued that it was hard to tell when the thing was encased in a block of ice. - Source 08/21/08 - Top 10 YouTube Hacks 7. Download audio from videos. There are a lot of great live performances lurking around YouTube, many of which have never seen the light of day in the recorded audio realm. To jump those jams into your playlist, use a web-based converter like VidToMP3, or follow one intrepid LH reader's guide to recording and converting YouTube vids into MP3. It may take a few more steps, but Matt's guide will still work, while many web-based hacks end up on the pile of dead-end links. / 1. Make videos easy to download. If you want to stash a YouTube clip away for editing or watching without the net, you've definitely got options. Internet Explorer users might appreciate YouTube File Hack, which grabs FLV files for you. The Better YouTube Firefox extension, crafted by our own site editor, adds a simple "Download this video" link to any YouTube page, and the All-In-One Video Bookmarklet is a nice cross-browser conversion tool. If you're away from your own setup, Vixy.net and Viddownloader are your go-to sites for downloading clips. As for watching FLV files, we like and use the cross-platform VLC player. - Source 08/21/08 - Australian "hot rocks" offer 26,000 yrs of power To produce power from geothermal energy, water is pumped below ground where it is heated and the heat energy used to generate power. Geoscience Australia has mapped the nation's geothermal energy, using temperature recordings from decades of drilling by energy and exploration firms, sometimes to a depth of five kms (three miles). A total of 5,722 petroleum and mineral boreholes across Australia were used to generate the map. Geoscience's Anthony Budd said "hot rocks" needed to be 150 degrees Celsius to produce electricity, which was achievable at a depth of one to five kms, noting temperature rose deeper into the earth's crust. - Source 08/21/08 - FTC Bans Prerecorded Telemarketing Drivel "In the ongoing battle to let us eat dinner in peace without being interrupted by amazingly annoying telemarketer blather, and in this case the even more infuriating recorded telemarketing drivel, the Federal Trade Commission today basically outlawed recorded telemarketing calls. Specifically, the FTC changed its venerable Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) to prohibit, as of Sept. 2009, telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages, unless a consumer has agreed to accept such calls from a given caller/seller. Between now and 2009, telemarketers must provide an obvious, easy and quick way for consumers to opt-out of any call, the FTC said. Such an opt-out mechanism needs to be in place by December 1, 2008." - Source 08/21/08 - Bloomberg wants wind turbines on NYC bridges, skyscrapers In a plan that would drastically remake New York City's skyline and shores, the report said Bloomberg said he would ask private companies and investors to study how windmills can be built across the city. The aim is weaning the city off the nation's overtaxed power grid, which has produced several crippling blackouts during the past decade. The report said Bloomberg did not specify which skyscrapers and bridges would be candidates for windmills. He said city officials would work with property owners to identify the buildings that would best be able to hold the equipment. - Source 08/21/08 - Low-Cost Non-noble Metal Catalyst for Hydrogen Production from Biofuels Researchers at Ohio State University (OSU) have developed a new cobalt-based catalyst for the steam reforming of bio-derived liquids into hydrogen with 90% yield, at 350°C (660°F), and without the use of precious metals such as platinum or rhodium. Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at OSU, and her colleagues presented the research today at the American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia. Ozkan said that their catalyst costs around $9/kg ($0.25/ounce), while rhodium costs around $9,000/ounce ($317,466/kg). The catalyst is made from cerium oxide and calcium, covered with small particles of cobalt. To produce power from geothermal energy, water is pumped below ground where it is heated and the heat energy used to generate power. Geoscience Australia has mapped the nation's geothermal energy, using temperature recordings from decades of drilling by energy and exploration firms, sometimes to a depth of five kms (three miles). A total of 5,722 petroleum and mineral boreholes across Australia were used to generate the map. - Source 08/21/08 - The Smell of Cancer Skin-cancer tumors give off a characteristic odor profile that could be used for early detection. "We found two chemicals in particular that were significantly different when you compared a cancer patient with a healthy subject," Michelle Gallagher says. Both compounds were present in the healthy volunteers, but one compound was at a higher concentration and the other at a lower concentration above the tumors in the cancer patients. - Source 08/21/08 - Video - Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated. She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness. Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films started with a video of an employee talking. They then broke down down the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a 'control system'. The team at Image Metrics - which produced the animation for the Grand Theft Auto computer game - then recreated the gestures, movement by movement, in a model. The aim was to overcome the traditional difficulties of animating a human face, for instance that the skin looks too shiny, or that the movements are too symmetrical. - Source 08/21/0