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07/30/07 - Smart floors convert footsteps to free energy
 Researchers at MIT are working on a special floor that harnesses energy from footsteps, turning your walking into lighting above your head. The fancy, efficient floors could be used in commuter-heavy areas like airports or shopping malls, helping cut down on energy consumption and making such places more self-reliant. The floors will feel a bit different than normal floors however, depressing a bit when stepped on. The effect will feel like walking on solid sand, so we'll have to wait and see if that odd sensation will prevent people from installing it.
07/30/07 - 42.8% Efficient Solar Cell
 The University of Delaware has achieved a record-breaking combined solar cell efficiency of 42.8% from sunlight at standard terrestrial conditions. Combined with the demonstrated efficiency performance of the very high efficiency solar cells’ spectral splitting optics, which is more than 93%, these recent results put the pieces in place for a solar cell module with a net efficiency 30% greater than any previous module efficiency and twice the efficiency of state-of-the-art silicon solar cell modules. The highly efficient VHESC solar cell uses a novel lateral optical concentrating system that splits solar light into three different energy bins of high, medium and low, and directs them onto cells of various light sensitive materials to cover the solar spectrum. The system delivers variable concentrations to the different solar cell elements. The concentrator is stationary with a wide acceptance angle optical system that captures large amounts of light and eliminates the need for complicated tracking devices. Modern solar cell systems rely on the concentration of sunlight. The previous best of 40.7% efficiency was achieved with a high concentration device that requires sophisticated tracking optics and features a concentrating lens the size of a table and more than 30 centimeters, or about 1 foot, thick. The UD consortium’s devices are potentially far thinner at less than 1 centimeter.
07/30/07 - Healthcare is 'financial catastrophe' for millions
 (I saw SICKO last night, it really shows the problem as corrupt politicians and greedy HMOs. It reported 4 health care lobbyists for every congressman among other revealing points. It also highlights the French, English, Canadian and Cuban universal health care systems and how the media is being used to report terrible healthcare THERE when it is as good or better than in the US and all paid by their government. But no, we have to spend TRILLIONS in other countries on bogus wars! - JWD) SICKO, Michael Moore's new film, reveals the terrible healthcare decisions that some Americans have to make. For example, one man stitched up a gash in his own knee because professional care would be too costly. But the World Health Organization says people in poorer countries have to make similar decisions far more regularly, and the impact is often devastating. WHO researchers studied 89 national surveys of domestic spending and found that worldwide, 150 million households suffer "financial catastrophe" each year due to healthcare costs. “150 million households suffer financial catastrophe each year due to healthcare costs” The biggest impact is in Brazil and Vietnam, where 10 per cent of households each year are affected. Families in richer nations also suffer: rates for Switzerland and the US exceed 0.5 per cent (Health Affairs, DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.26.4.972). In each case the severity of the problem is linked to how much people have to pay for treatment relative to public funding.
07/30/07 - Surface Ozone Reduces Plant Growth and Add to Global Warming
Scientists from three UK research institutes-the Met Office, the University of Exeter and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology-have found that projections of increasing levels of ozone near the Earth’s surface could lead to significant reductions in regional plant production and crop yields. Their research is published online in the journal Nature. Tropospheric (near-surface) ozone has doubled since 1850 due to emissions associated with fossil fuel and biomass burning, and further increases are expected over the twenty-first century.
07/30/07 - Military researchers creating soothsaying "Crystal Ball" software
 "Deep Green" uses a variety of approaches to first gather information about what's currently happening on a battlefield, and then extrapolates the likelihood of outcomes if various actions are taken. After listening to a military planner's opinions about the current situation, and mixing that with some of his drawings, the "sketch to plan" part of the software gathers all the information about what the commanding officer would like to do. Then the "sketch to decide" module displays storyboards showing what will probably happen if each plan is carried out. The quick punch part of the software is "Blitzkrieg," which rapidly deduces what might be the best course of action, and then there's "Crystal Ball," which computes likely outcomes from thousands of possibilities, presenting the best ones to the field generals.
07/30/07 - Visible light pulses knock out viruses in blood
 (This is similar to the patented German invention to cure AIDS and other diseases. It runs live blood through a quartz tube irradiated by UV. The blood 'cold boils' and turns a bright scarlet as the viruses are killed, then it is filtered and returned to the body. - JWD) The technique destroys a virus with a pulse of light from a low-power laser. The pulse produces mechanical vibrations in the virus shell, or capsid, irreversibly damaging and disintegrating it, and so "deactivating" the virus for good. The technique might be used to kill HIV, as well as hepatitis C, say the researchers involved. Traditional methods of destroying viruses, such as UV irradiation, can cause mutations, which eventually make the micro-organisms resistant. UV light can also damage the DNA of surrounding healthy cells. Scientists have also tried using microwaves to kill viruses but this is even less promising since the water in and around a micro-organism strongly absorbs this frequency of light. Most of the energy from the microwave radiation is absorbed by the water and does not even reach the virus itself. The researchers applied pulses of purple-coloured light lasting just 100 femtoseconds (10-15 seconds) to viruses called M13 bacteriophages. It takes just a single pulse to destroy the viruses completely, say the researchers. The "power density" of the laser is just 50 megawatts per square centimetre, which is low enough to leave surrounding human cells and tissue undamaged, but high enough to produce large-amplitude vibrations in a virus's capsid. It is also too low to cause genetic mutations, meaning the virus will not build up resistant to the treatment over time. Disinfecting blood - Tsen told New Scientist that the technique could be used to disinfect blood or other biological samples in hospitals. "In addition, we believe that the method may be especially important in designing novel treatments for blood-borne viral diseases," he said. "For example blood dialysis allows us to irradiate a patient's blood outside the body and potentially cleanse it of infectious virus particles before reintroducing it into the patient. In this way, we could reduce mortality associated with diseases like hepatitis C and AIDS." The team now plans to test the efficacy of its technique in killing a wide range of deadly viruses, including HIV and hepatitis C. "We also plan to conduct further tests on the effects of the low-power visible laser on mammalian cells to determine any potential side effects and confirm that it selectively kills viruses," said Tsen. / Patent 6,113,566 - Ultraviolet light produces a rapid detoxifying effect with subsidence of toxic symptoms. Venous oxygen is increased in patients with depressed blood oxygen values. Of special interest is that a rapid rise in resistance to acute or chronic viral and bacterial infection occurs. No harmful affects have been observed with UBI therapy in thousands of cases of viral infections, hepatitis, bacterial infections, hypoxemia and many other illnesses, especially blood-related infections. The diseases successfully treated with UBI include: (1) Atypical pneumonia; (2) Poliomyelitis and polioencephalitis; (3) Hepatitis; infectious and serum; (4) Influenza; (5) common upper respiratory disease; (6) Herpes simplex; (7) Herpes zoster; (8) Mumps; (9) Mononucleosis; and (10) measles. Moreover, preliminary reports indicate that UBI may be useful in treating HIV and research is currently under way to evaluate the effects of UBI on eliminating HIV from blood and blood products. If this research is successful, it would have major implications in ensuring the safety of blood in blood banks.
07/30/07 - Illegal 'cancer drug' website shut down
"Is DCA worth trying? We absolutely think so," proclaimed a website promoting the laboratory chemical sodium dichloroacetate (DCA) as a treatment for cancer earlier this year. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearly did not agree. Last week it visited the site's owners and told them to stop making and selling DCA from a sister website, or face criminal prosecution. Jim Tassano of Sonora, California, claims to have sold DCA to more than 2000 people, with no reports of serious side effects, via his website www.buydca.com. However, on the 17 July he posted the following message on the site. "Two agents from the FDA visited us today and ordered that we stop making and selling DCA. Unfortunately, the site www.buydca.com will be shut down. It is against US government law to sell substances with the suggestion that they are cancer treatments unless they are approved by the FDA. DCA can still be obtained from pharmacies with a prescription and from chemical companies." In an interview with New Scientist, Tassano told us: "We've seen cancers where it doesn't seem to respond at all [to DCA], but a lot of people have reported improvements in their symptoms." "I'm disappointed [that the FDA has shut the website down], but not surprised. It is an unapproved cancer treatment and we have become very high profile. I guess the pressure has got to be too much for the FDA," he said.
07/30/07 - Fake ATM Receipts
 (This is just TOO funny a joke item to pass on! Can you imagine the gossip and looks you'd get from friends or at work? - JWD) When you go to the ATM, do you huddle around it protectively and then refuse a receipt because you don't want your friends to find out how broke you are? We don't. We prefer to complain about our near-empty bank accounts to anyone who will listen. If you're an ATM huddler, however, you can imagine how great it would be to "lose" an ATM receipt showing that you're fabulously wealthy in a potential partner's purse or on a blowhard co-worker's desk. But where might one find realistic-looking fake ATM receipts? That's where Custom Receipts comes in. It's a website that will make ATM receipts for you that show astronomically high bank balances (or low ones, if you're rich and need to pretend that you're broke in order to fit in). Fake receipts: $6 for four, or $15 for 52. Tricking the ladies into thinking you've got dough: priceless. (via http://blog.scifi.com)
07/30/07 - Homemade Hydropower - September 1933
 Constructed of junk parts at a total cost of $20, a homemade hydroelectric power plant is supplying current on the farm of William E. Howell, Decatur Island, Wash. The water wheel is built up on half of a rear automobile axle, and the two-foot, V-shaped buckets are constructed of cedar planks. A thousand gallons of water a minute run down a 217-foot flume from a small creek and strike the buckets after a five-foot drop, spinning a one-fourth-horsepower, thirty-two-volt motor of washing machine type which is used as a generator. The electricity thus produced by the “backyard” hydroelectric station is sufficient to light two houses, the barn and outbuildings, to operate an electric washer, sewing machine, vacuum cleaner and sheep-shearing machine, and to run the builder’s amateur radio station, with which he talks to the mainland.
07/30/07 - Paris Buys Citizens Bikes
Paris, France has adopted an innovative, yet wonderfully simple, approach to reducing congestion and greenhouse-gas emissions in city limits. It's buying its citizens bikes. 22,000 of them. The program, paid for by an outdoor advertiser in exchange for the exclusive use of 1,628 urban billboards, allows people to rent the large gray bicycles at a rate 1 euro ($1.38) a day; a week pass costs 5 euros ($6.90) and a yearly subscription, 29 euros ($40). The fee gets you a maximum of 30 minutes' bike use at a time; ride for longer in one trip, and there's a small incremental fee. The time limit is intended to keep the bikes in circulation; however, you can use the program as many times as you like within the period for which you've bought a pass.
07/30/07 - Novel Chinese Windmill Waters Farm - October 1933
 Adapting an Oriental idea for raising water for his own needs and to irrigate his fields, a California farmer has constructed the curious apparatus shown in the accompanying photographs. Power from a windmill, transmitted through gears, revolves a spiral-shaped tube of pipe open at both ends. The outside end dips into a water-filled ditch at each revolution. Water is thus picked up, and runs by gravity around the spiral to the hub as the wheel revolves. An opening in the hub dis-charges the water into a trough four feet above the level in the ditch, giving a sufficient lift for the irrigation purposes desired.
07/30/07 - Fuel plant faces criticism, lawsuit over odor
A test plant for converting poultry byproducts into fuel oil, heralded by its owners as a new alternative energy source, is in the cross hairs of the city's mayor and a private lawsuit seeking class-action status over odors from the facility. Renewable Energy Solutions has been plagued by repeated complaints from townspeople about strong smells. Gov. Matt Blunt ordered the plant shut down in December 2005, but RES reopened three months later after spending more than $3 million for new odor-control equipment. The plant, which started operation in May 2004, uses extreme heat and pressure to turn turkey waste from nearby packing plants into oil, gas and other materials. "I'm calling it a stink - not an odor - because that's what it is," said Mayor Jim Woestman. "RES has done things that have helped, but it hasn't solved it. It can still make you lose your appetite."
07/30/07 - Toyota Unveils Plug-in Hybrid Prius - 8 Miles per charge???
 "Toyota has announced a plug-in hybrid vehicle, based on their popular Prius. So far, it will only have a range of 8 miles on the battery (13km). They are going to test this vehicle on the public roads, apparently a first for the industry. From the article: 'Unlike earlier gasoline-electric hybrids, which run on a parallel system twinning battery power and a combustion engine, plug-in cars are designed to enable short trips powered entirely by the electric motor, using a battery that can be charged through an electric socket at home. Many environmental advocates see them as the best available technology to reduce gasoline consumption and global-warming greenhouse gas emissions, but engineers say battery technology is still insufficient to store enough energy for long-distance travel.'"
07/30/07 - The Future of Putting Chips Inside Our Brains
"Researchers at the University of Florida (UF) have developed chips which someday might be inserted in the brains of people affected by epilepsy or who have lost a limb. These neuroprosthetic chips 'can interpret signals in the brain and stimulate neurons to perform correctly.' The University claims this is the future of medicine. This is maybe a little bit extreme. Just the same, the researchers are already studying these chips with rats and hope to have a prototype ready within 4 years that could be tested on humans."
07/30/07 - Divining Rod Tunes in on Ore - September 1934
 (I did a US patent search and only found a Reflex Camera in 1959 by Walter Henning of Germany. - JWD) DEVELOPED on radioactive principles, a new divining rod has been perfected to tune in on underground minerals and water. The device, invented by Walter Henning, German engineer, consists of a vertical axis and horizontal arm from which a capsule is freely suspended. Into this capsule is inserted a given substance, which is said to respond to the radiations of the mineral sought. According to the inventor, the divining rod performs as soon as it comes near to the metal sought. It will point to the ore deposit, then turn on its axis, the number of turns indicating the depth below the surface where the ore can be found.
07/30/07 - Ad Types
At Slate: There Are 12 Kinds of Ads in the World. They are: 1. Demo 2. Show the need or problem 3. Use a symbol, analogy, or exaggerated graphic to show problem 4. Comparison 5. Exemplary story 6. Benefit causes story 7. Tell it (AKA Presenter or Testimonial) 8. Ongoing characters and celebrities 9. Symbol, analogy, or exaggerated graphic 10. Associated user imagery 11. Unique personality type 12. Parody or borrowed format
07/30/07 - Prohibition politics - Looking for Revenue from Legalized Drugs
 The standard, schoolbook history of alcohol prohibition in the United States goes like this: Americans in 1920 embarked on a noble experiment to force everyone to give up drinking. Alas, despite its nobility, this experiment was too naive to work. It soon became clear that people weren't giving up drinking. Worse, it also became clear that Prohibition fueled mobsters who grew rich supplying illegal booze. So, recognizing the futility of Prohibition, Americans repealed it in 1934. Despite pleas throughout the 1920s by journalist H.L. Mencken and a tiny handful of other sensible people to end Prohibition, Congress gave no hint that it would repeal this folly. Prohibition appeared to be here to stay -- until income-tax revenues nose-dived in the early 1930s. From 1930 to 1931, income-tax revenues fell by 15 percent. In 1932 they fell another 37 percent; 1932 income-tax revenues were 46 percent lower than just two years earlier. And by 1933 they were fully 60 percent lower than in 1930. With no end of the Depression in sight, Washington got anxious for a substitute source of revenue. That source was liquor sales. So, if the history of alcohol prohibition is a guide, drug prohibition will not end merely because there are many sound, sensible and humane reasons to end it. Instead, it will end only if and when Congress gets desperate for another revenue source.
07/30/07 - Allergic to cats? Try dander under your tongue
(YECCHHH! No WAY...Get a DOG! - JWD) Cat dander is the infinitesimal bits of dried saliva that are present on your cat's skin. These flakes are the culprits that cause your allergy to flare up. / People who are allergic to cats may not have to get rid of their pets to find relief, if the findings of a new study hold up. Tolerance to cats can be built up in allergic kids by placing increasing doses of standardized cat dander extract under the tongue, according to Spanish researchers. In the medical journal Allergy, Dr. Emilio Alvarez-Cuesta of Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Madrid, and colleagues note that a first-line step for people with cat allergy is to remove cats from the home. However, this is often rejected or is not entirely effective, leaving immunotherapy as the only treatment...
07/28/07 - Molecular Chaos observed
 (Think check valve/diode to possibly entrain this force! - JWD) Molecular chaos is an assumption that the velocities of colliding particles are uncorrelated and independent of position. An example of molecular chaos is the air in any room. While the nitrogen and oxygen atoms are flying around with some average square speed because of the temperature in the room, they are not related, so the air does not spontaneously fly off in one direction of the room without some sort of external pressure change, like a window opening. The molecular chaos assumption, which is part of the kinetic theory of gases, is widely thought to be true because everything else that arises and follows from that assumption works so well. However, it has been nearly impossible to prove the assumption, until now. Olafsen, in collaboration with Dr. G. William Baxter, associate professor of physics at Pennsylvania State University - Erie, constructed two “gases,” or layers, of ball bearings. In the layer where molecular chaos held, researchers measured Maxwell Boltzmann statistics, like those that predict the mean square speed of particles in the air in the room. In the layer where the assumption of molecular chaos failed, the statistics did not obey Maxwell Boltzmann statistics. Perhaps the most interesting part, researchers said, is that the two “gases” were in contact with each other while simultaneously demonstrating their respective behavior. “The two layers can be thought of as two gases simultaneously in thermal contact, and yet, one of the gases demonstrates molecular chaos while the other does not,” Olafsen said. “It means that the particulars of how energy is injected and distributed within the two gases is important to understanding when a system will demonstrate molecular chaos.”
07/28/07 - The Electric Airplane
 Sonex Aircraft and AeroConversions Products unveiled yesterday its E-Flight Initiative," and with it, a prototype ELECTRIC AIRPLANE. The quiet new flying machine is a light sport aircraft with an unusual combination of a v-tail plus tailwheel configuration. The powerplant reveals plans to build 10 battery "safe boxes" each with 8 Li-Poly battery packs per box. / The motor, said Schaible, is more than 90 percent efficient... and the most powerful of its kind. In regard to battery power, most contemporary electric powerplants for gas-electric and pure electric cars and previous generations of RC electric vehicles utilize Lithium Ion battery technology. While much improved in power density and discharge rate over lead-acid and NiCad batteries, Li-Ion batteries still do not offer sufficient power discharge-to-weight ratio to support an electric powerplant for an aircraft based on battery power alone with market-viable endurance. Newer RC electric vehicles, cell phones, laptop computers and other mobile devices have been moving toward Lithium Polymer cells, which can safely discharge at a rate of 25 times their capacity, or "25c." The so-called "E-Flight Team" engineered and constructed 10 battery "safe boxes" to contain eight Li-Poly battery packs per box and consolidate their charge/discharge and balancing wiring into two sets of multi-pin connectors. The boxes will accommodate natural cell expansion and contraction while safely securing each cell pack and facilitating cell cooling with "cooling foam" padding. The boxes are designed to contain and safely direct fire or explosion within the box through a "blow hole" in the box connected to a small exhaust manifold. For the proof-of-concept plane, the battery boxes are removed and charged individually. Further generations of safer, more powerful Li-Poly batteries show the near-term possibility of further extended flight durations, from the current 45 minutes to one hour, while personal electronics and transportation will undoubtedly continue to push improvement of the technology in years to come. And in regard to price? "Any (final) product will be vastly less expensive than other things out there." In fact, said Schaible, the entire research and development for the project is less than the cost of a ready-to-fly LSA.
07/28/07 - Opposites Interfere
If single quantum particles can exist in two places at once, and interfere with themselves in predictable patterns, what happens when there are two quantum particles? Can they interfere with each other? Prof. Mordehai Heiblum of the Weizmann Institute’s Condensed Matter Physics Department and his research team have been experimenting with electrons fired across special semiconductor devices. Quantum mechanics predicts that two electrons can indeed cause the same sort of interference as that of a single electron - on one condition: that the two are identical to the point of being indistinguishable. Heiblum and his team showed that, because of such interference, these two particles are entangled - the actions of one are inextricably tied to the actions of the other - even though they come from completely different sources and never interact with each other. The team’s findings recently appeared in the journal Nature. Dr. Izhar Neder and Nissim Ofek, together with Drs. Yunchul Chung, Diana Mahalu, and Vladimir Umansky, fired such identical electron pairs from opposite sides of their device, toward detectors that were placed two to a side of the device. In other words, each pair of detectors could detect the two particles arriving in one of two ways: particle 1 in detector 1 and particle 2 in detector 2, or, alternatively, particle 2 in detector 1 and particle 1 in detector 2. Since these two “choices” are indistinguishable, the choices interfere with each other in the same way as the two possible paths of a single quantum particle interfere. The scientists then investigated how the choice of one particle affected the pathway taken by the other, and found strong correlations between them. These correlations could be affected by changing, for example, the length of the path taken by one particle. This is the first time an oscillating interference pattern between two identical particles has been observed, proving, once again, the success of quantum theory.
07/28/07 - Device Conduit Technologies intros new EV battery
A San Francisco-based company says it's scaling up to deliver a new, longer-lasting electric and hybrid vehicle battery pack in volume. Device Conduit Technologies says its DCT RackPack™ Massively Intermoduled Battery (MIB) pack can finally deliver 100 to 300 mile range to electric and hybrid vehicles at affordable prices. The pack uses large numbers of "ordinary batteries," the company said, without specifying their quantities or chemistries, in "new energy containers managed wirelessly so that your car can talk to you and administrate your vehicle, home and portable power." DCT says it has two issued patents and two patents pending.
07/28/07 - Capturing power of sun to electrify poor nations
 A group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate students has developed a solar energy system that generates electricity, heating, and cooling - using little more than sheet metal and car parts and $US100,000 ($A115,000) in World Bank funding. They hope to turn their invention into a viable business, under the name Promethean Power. Mr Orosz wanted to provide electric power, refrigeration and hot water to people without electricity. He and some MIT colleagues designed a set of mirrors that focus sunlight on tubes filled with coolant. The hot coolant turns to pressurised vapor, which turns a turbine to make electricity. The leftover heat can be used to warm a tank of water and to run a refrigerator, using a gas-absorption process that chills liquid ammonia by first heating it. Such a system needs pumps and coolant condensers, which may be hard to obtain and maintain in a poor country. But Mr Orosz designed his system to rely on components for cars, which are common even in poor countries. Spare parts are readily available, and so are people with skills to replace things that break. Mr Grama estimates that building one of the systems will cost about $US5000, and that the price could fall to $US3000 if the solar systems are mass-produced. Yet each would produce enough power to run a small business, such as a grocery store or restaurant. Aside from electricity to run lights, the chemical refrigerator could be used to preserve food, and the leftover heat would deliver hot water.
07/28/07 - $19.95 Inkjet Head Cleaner Software
Harvey the Headcleaner™, a computer program that will reduce, if not eliminate inkjet printer head clogging, has just come on the market. Harvey is the brainchild of Gainesville, Florida, entrepreneur and inventor Richard Hilton, and was developed by computer programmer Patrick Flahan of Odessa, Florida. Hilton, president of Hilton Images, Inc., has manufactured laser sublimation toner cartridges under the brand name SubToner™ since 1999, and recently became an authorized distributor for Sawgrass Technologies sublimation products for inkjets. Since the inception of SubToner, Hilton heard customers complain about clogged heads, which often can be deadly for an inkjet printer. If an inkjet printer is not used on a regular basis, ink dries in the printer heads and clogging may result. Harvey sends a specifically timed message from the computer to the printer, telling it to print a special page, which causes just enough ink to run through the printer to prevent clogging. Full mechanics and specifics of the clogging phenomenon and how Harvey works are available on the website, www.harveyheadcleaner.com All that Harvey requires is a computer connection to the inkjet printer and plain paper in the printer. Harvey the Headcleaner customers just go to the website, www.harveyheadcleaner.com, pay $19.95, and download and install Harvey for their specific printer. Harvey is easy to set up to meet each user’s needs. From then on, Harvey is on the job, keeping heads clog-free.
07/28/07 - Aussie Drought Busting Invention for Gardens and Lawns
 Paul O'Callaghan is a former farm hand from the Aussie outback who got so tired of carting buckets of wastewater from the bath to his parched garden that he invented a better way to do it with one trip, not twenty seven! Paul's Waterleech invention is a portable, shower/bath/washing machine water collection unit, which can keep America's gardens and lawns blooming through the drought. The unit is about to be launched in the US. The Waterleech or 'little Aussie sucker,' literally sucks up the 'grey' water from showers, baths and washing machines into a 16-gallon unit on easy-roll wheels; it can then be wheeled outside to water gardens and lawns, without using precious water resources.
The Waterleech is about the size of an upright vacuum cleaner. Twelve volt, rechargeable batteries power the whisper-quiet twin pumps. The units come with an array of sprinkler attachments, drip irrigators, lawn soakers and hoses with nozzles. The centrepiece of Paul O'Callaghan's technology is the patented but unsexy sounding 'universal plug hole collection grommet'. The 'grommet' fits over any size plughole where it sucks or collects up to 90% of the water before it wastes away down the drain. The Waterleech has the potential to recycle over 10,000 gallons per year - sufficient to keep household gardens blooming throughout the driest drought. The Waterleech is available from www.waterleech.us. It retails for around $1000 plus tax. Editor's notes: The Waterleech allows Grey Water to be used on gardens, rather than letting it go to waste and using resources to take it away to be processed or wasted elsewhere. Grey Water recyling is used extensively in Australia. Grey Water recycling will eventually become a fact of life in the US, so now is a good time to start, with each household able to save around 10,000 gallons per year.
07/28/07 - Protecting Yourself From Invention-Promotion Scams
It's a common story, yet it breaks my heart every time someone tells me their version: An aspiring inventor sends his or her product to an invention promotion company, pays a large fee (often their entire savings) and gets nothing in return. Not only have they been embarrassed, but they've also been depleted of the money they could've used to further develop their product. Be aware of a company that promises too much using these tactics: * They promise free information on how to patent and market your invention. * They claim to have special agreements with manufacturers looking to license new products or even claim to represent these manufacturers. * They require "a small initial investment" to conduct a "feasibility" or "marketability" study and patent search. * They present a flashy marketing plan that is professionally bound, with a completed patent search and conclusion that claims the enormous potential for the success of your invention. * They guarantee a successful patent -- or your money back. (Remember, most patented inventions never get to market anyway.) * They use "shills" -- people paid to give good references and testimonials about your product. * At last they need another investment to get your product to market. Many have fallen for the adage "it takes money to make money." * Once you pay, they avoid your calls and rarely return them.
07/28/07 - Pantone GEET Inventor in trouble
 (The title for this was 'Fuel Injected Lunatic' but I know Paul and he is NOT a lunatic, nice guy with an interesting technology. - JWD) The state wants Pantone competent so he can be sentenced on two charges of securities fraud, to which he pleaded guilty in October 2004. Concerns over Pantone’s ability to understand legal proceedings after his plea agreement led Hansen to commit him for evaluation Dec. 12, 2005, to the male forensic unit in the Utah State Hospital, which lies at the base of the east bench in Provo. But, because of the lack of available hospital beds, he spent the next three and a half months in Salt Lake County Jail before he was admitted. Four hospital staff evaluations found him incompetent. Related to his treatment, court documents state, “He exhibits grandiose and persecutory delusions, complicated by a personality disorder and a history of substance abuse.” This institutionally imposed silence must be frustrating to a man who, for decades, hawked inventions to a highly skeptical world. Extraordinary Technology magazine publisher Steve Elswick says Pantone’s a very accomplished inventor. He’s also, Elswick says, outspoken and egotistical. “You’ve got to be somewhat egotistical to believe you can do something everyone else says is impossible.” Not everyone. Alternative-energy obsessives scattered across the United States have long followed Pantone’s litigious battles with ex-partners and his largely undocumented claims for his 20-year-old invention, Global Environmental Energy Technology (GEET), with fascination. And then there are those seeking to get rich quick by investing in a device that Pantone claims offers, when attached to an automobile engine, not only clean exhaust, but also double or even triple the gas mileage. Along with substantial anecdotal evidence from friends, teachers, students and investors that the device does reduce emissions-within limitations-a number of Pantone’s supporters say they have witnessed a GEET-modified engine run on a little gasoline, water, cat urine, Coke and pickle juice while in a closed room for several hours without suffering from ill effects. But their claims don’t stop there. Supporters say disgruntled investors have conspired to frame Pantone with false fraud charges in order to steal his patent.
07/28/07 - DIY gadget repair with FixYa
Web site FixYa aggregates user-submitted instructions for fixing consumer electronics, from your digital camera and laptop to your dishwasher. In essence, FixYa is a glorified forum with a smart focus on finding and organizing solutions for consumer product support. If you have a problem with a product, you can ask for support on FixYa; alternately, if you know how to fix a product, you can offer your solutions (and possibly earn a few bucks for answers). FixYa is young, but it already has a fairly large base of troubleshooting questions and answers.
07/28/07 - Pay-As-You-Go Software for the Developing World
(Interesting business model, subscriptions by use. - JWD) Microsoft tries to win customers in South Africa with a subscription service for Office. In South Africa, a legal copy of the Professional version of Microsoft Office can cost more than $700. That makes the software beyond the reach of many personal-computer users, and even small businesses. So Microsoft South Africa has launched a "Pre-Paid Edition" of Office that comes bundled with new computers. A buyer can choose to pay $30 for three months of usage, and then resubscribe to the service every three months after that.
07/28/07 - Power from new wood waste energy plant
“This is truly the way to go in the state of Florida.” Progress Energy Florida said Thursday it will partner with a renewable energy company to purchase electricity produced from waste wood. Atlanta-based Biomass Gas & Electric plans to build its plant in Liberty County. It is expected to produce enough power for 46,000 homes and be on line by 2011. The partnership was announced at the governor's mansion. 'These companies have stepped up to the plate, they're doing the right thing and I couldn't be more proud of them,' said Gov. Charlie Crist, who signed orders that will require power companies to increase renewable energy use and lower carbon dioxide emissions.
07/28/07 - Oil from shale could meet need
Technology to draw oil from rock in Rocky Mountain states and other unconventional sources is getting another look from companies and the government as the demand for energy increases and supply tightens, especially in the United States. The United States holds 60 percent of the world's shale. Shell expects to extract from 3.5 to 5 barrels for each barrel of energy used, Boak said, by heating the rocks underground for three or four years, after which the oil seeps through cracks so it can be pumped out. It's relatively efficient, he explained, because it partially refines the kerogen underground and brings it to the surface as fuels requiring little processing: naphtha, diesel and kerosene.
07/28/07 - Toxic Pollution info kept Secret
The Bush administration has proposed the first-ever rollbacks to the public’s right-to-know about toxic pollution. These rollbacks jeopardize toxic pollution information and keep communities, emergency responders and state regulators in the dark. Despite overwhelming public opposition, the administration is proceeding with its plan to allow polluters to withhold information about the toxic pollution they release into our communities and environment. Every year, factories and manufacturers release thousands of tons of dangerous pollutants, toxic metals, and poisonous fumes into our air, water and urban centers. To counter this problem, in 1987 Congress created the Toxic Release Inventory. The “TRI” program mandates full disclosure when companies release toxics into our air, land, and water, as well as report when toxic waste is treated, burned, recycled, or disposed of. Now, however, the Bush Administration is caving to powerful interests in the chemical industry by working to strip us of our right to know when companies pollute our neighborhoods by weakening the TRI regulations.
07/28/07 - Sewerage systems of the future?
 The deep green reeds, yellow water lilies and gently splashing water simply look like an attractive water feature. But in fact, this Sustainable Urban Drainage System (Suds) could be the future of sewerage management. "This is using technology and engineering to slow the water down from when it comes from the sky to when it gets into the river" says Simon Hughes, flood risk assessor from the Environment Agency. "It uses the lakes to make sure that heavy rain doesn't run into the system too quickly". Instead of going into the sewers, the water is collected, filtered and stored in tanks buried in the garden. It can then be used for flushing the loo or for washing - reducing water use by up to 50% and also helping to manage the water cycle. Building experts say these sustainable methods of managing water could be made compulsory within two years.
07/26/07 - ForTwo Plugin Electric car testing in London
 London was chosen because it is regarded as one of the least car-friendly cities in the world. Businesses in the central area not only have to cope with the £8(US$16) - a-day congestion fee, but also face high parking charges and heavy traffic density. The electric version is powered by a 40bhp motor, can go up to 70 miles before the battery goes flat and has a top speed of 70mph. Recharging is done through a standard electrical power point and costs about £1.20, producing the equivalent of 60g/km of carbon dioxide emissions at the power station, Smart says. That's a far lower figure than any petrol or diesel car in the world. A full recharge takes about eight hours, but the battery can be topped up from 80% drained to 80% charged in about three-and-a-half hours.
07/26/07 - Avoid the BioFuel Bubble
 An old Midwestern maxim deems a corn crop healthy if it’s ``knee-high by the fourth of July.’’ Yet when it comes to the expectations that corn-based ethanol will cure America’s dependence on foreign oil, the hype is way over everyone’s head. Running the numbers on how much land could be put into production for corn-based ethanol makes it clear how little of the fuel could be produced to help curb America’s energy gluttony, Bloomberg said. There isn’t enough suitable land for corn growing to make a significant dent in America’s voracious energy needs. Yet that hasn’t stopped ethanol investors or a wave of irrational exuberance from Wall Street to Brazil. You can see the ethanol frenzy at more and more gasoline stations. The number of fueling outlets providing gasoline with ``E85,’’ or gas containing 85 percent ethanol, is now more than 1,200, compared with less than 750 stations last year, to service more than 4.5 million flexible-fuel vehicles, according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition. There are 110 ethanol plants running in the US, with 73 more under construction. Say you were able to cultivate every acre of Illinois for corn-based ethanol. This is purely hypothetical as it would involve bulldozing Chicago and other cities and towns in the Prairie State. As an Illinois resident surrounded by cornfields, fleeing demolition is not my relocation fantasy. One of the potentially most productive corn-growing states on the planet would yield about 5.7 billion bushels of corn and 16 billion gallons of ethanol, according to Charles Washburn, professor emeritus at California State University in Flagstaff, Arizona. He has researched the subject over the past 45 years. The Illinois mega-crop would provide only 0.8 percent of annual US gasoline and diesel-fuel use, Washburn estimates, subtracting the energy it takes to create ethanol. Of course, US energy consumption isn’t a static beast. Washburn further projects that ``a new corn field the size of Illinois would be required to meet our transportation energy growth every seven months.’’ Even if every bushel of US corn, wheat, rice and soybean were used to produce ethanol, it would only cover about 4 percent of US energy needs on a net basis, Washburn estimates.
07/26/07 - Can U.S. Adopt Europe's Fuel-Efficient Cars?
Whether by presidential order or congressional mandate, car makers in the foreseeable future will likely have to build fleets that average about 35 miles per gallon. But what kinds of cars and trucks will gasoline-guzzling Americans drive to achieve that average? The answer would seem to lie in Europe, where fuel prices are roughly double U.S. levels amid heavy taxation and more than half of the vehicles bought have diesel-powered engines. Vehicles in Europe meet the magic average of 35 mpg. But there are aspects of the European model that, for now, make it less likely to work easily in the U.S. For one thing, cars in Europe are more expensive, pound for pound, and typically far less powerful than the vehicles Americans have come to expect. In the U.S. today, about 70% of car and truck sales sport six- or eight-cylinder engines. In Europe, 89% of vehicles sold have a four-cylinder or smaller engine, according to the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing nine auto makers from three continents. Auto makers also contend stricter mileage rules will force them to build less-safe vehicles -- the crux of the argument being that lighter vehicles fare worse in crashes. The National Academy of Sciences says technology exists to improve fuel economy without sacrificing safety but notes that high costs could motivate car makers to downsize vehicles to meet higher fuel mileage targets. Detroit's auto makers warn tougher mileage rules could be devastating at a time when they are bleeding red ink in their core North American operations. Even Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. -- models of fuel efficiency -- fear tougher rules, depending on how they are written. The mileage of a 2007 five-door European Ford Focus is 25 miles per gallon in urban driving and 42 mpg in driving outside of urban areas.
07/26/07 - Oil to hit $100 in 2008, Predicts Bank
 A "steady ascent" of crude oil prices toward $100 (U.S.) a barrel continues, but the predicted date when that level will be hit remains a moving target, according to a CIBC World Markets report Wednesday. The investment banking division of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSX: CM) predicts "new record highs of $80 a barrel this year and reaching as high as $100 a barrel by the end of 2008 as soaring oil demand outpaces growth in global supply." U.S. crude price could top $90 a barrel this autumn and hit $95 by the end of the year if OPEC keeps oil production capped at current levels, Goldman Sachs said in a report issued on Monday.
07/26/07 - HyWet Hydrogen car for sale in August
 According to the Copenhagen Post the first prototype of the Hywet car will roll out of the garage in August, powered by fuel cells running on hydrogen. The two-passenger Hywet, equiped with a 13 kW electric motor, a stack of high temperature PEM fuelcells and a Lithium Ion-battery; can accelerate surprisingly briskly to a speed of 80 km. At current prices for hydrogen the Hywet can be fuelled up for US$19.00 (€13.50), making it competitive with conventional gasoline and diesel-powered cars. The first prototype cost about DKK 1 million, but Mikael Kau of Cemtec predicted production models will go for about US$37,000 (€27,000), about the price of a traditional mid-sized car in Denmark.
07/26/07 - Quantum to Supply Transportable Hydrogen Refueling Stations to GM
 These units will be used to refuel GM's fuel cell vehicles, which are equipped with Quantum hydrogen fuel systems, at various locations, from vehicle proving grounds and public ride-and-drive events to fleet demonstrations. "Our transportable hydrogen refueling stations are designed to support our customers as they advance their hydrogen fuel cell vehicle initiatives and are helping to establish the foundation of a hydrogen refueling network," stated Alan P. Niedzwiecki, President and CEO. "The high pressure storage systems developed by Quantum, which these new refueling stations support, translate directly into a greater vehicle driving range for hydrogen fueled vehicles, a critical factor for the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles." Recently, GM announced that their Chevrolet Sequel fuel cell vehicle successfully drove a distance of 300 miles on one fill of hydrogen, from General Motors' Fuel Cell Activity Center in Honeoye Falls to Tarrytown, New York, becoming the world's first fuel cell vehicle to achieve that milestone. The Sequel is equipped with Quantum's integrated hydrogen storage system, comprised of Quantum's ultra-lightweight 10,000 psi (70 MPa) hydrogen tanks and related hydrogen regulation, metering, and safety systems.
07/26/07 - How Californians are being escheated
Escheat is a feudal concept that arose from the despotism of the Dark Ages. It stemmed from the principle that property rights depend upon the sufferance of the sovereign, and when a person dies or disappears without heirs, his property reverts to the feudal lord. California revived this medieval doctrine in 1959 and began seizing personal assets on the smarmy pretext that after a few years of account or safe-deposit box inactivity, property is obviously "lost," and the state needs to "protect" it by selling it off and depositing the proceeds into the general fund. Today in California, no one's property is safe. When a family sets aside an investment for college or retirement, it may be in for a nasty surprise just three years later. After a lifetime running a small shop, Benny and Sally Fong could have retired on their shares of Warren Buffett's holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, that had grown in value to more than $1 million. But when they tried to redeem their nest egg, they discovered the state Controller's Office had sold the shares - for just $171,000.
07/26/07 - Coal's Doubters Block New Wave Of Power Plants
 From coast to coast, plans for a new generation of coal-fired power plants are falling by the wayside as states conclude that conventional coal plants are too dirty to build and the cost of cleaner plants is too high. If significant numbers of new coal plants don't get built in the U.S. in coming years, it will put pressure on officials to clear the path for other power sources, including nuclear power, or trim the nation's electricity demand, which is expected to grow 1.8% this year. As recently as May, U.S. power companies had announced intentions to build as many as 150 new generating plants fueled by coal, which currently supplies about half the nation's electricity. One reason for the surge of interest in coal was concern over the higher price of natural gas, which has driven up electricity prices in many places. Coal appeared capable of softening the impact since the U.S. has deep coal reserves and prices are low. The coal industry is looking for ways to make its product more palatable. Earlier this week, Peabody Energy and ConocoPhillips said they are exploring the possibility of constructing a coal-gasification plant at a mine in Illinois, Indiana or Kentucky that would convert coal into 50 billion to 70 billion cubic feet of pipeline-quality synthetic gas a year. It said it would have its analysis completed in early 2008. It would be cost competitive at $5 to $6 per million British thermal units, which is less than today's prices.
07/26/07 - Baby mammoth found in Siberia may be cloned
 Enthusiast scientists hope to clone the baby mammoth that was found at Yamal, Siberia, by fusing the nucleus of a mammoth cell with an elephant egg cell stripped of its DNA. The initiator of this idea is Larry Agenbroad - the director of the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota. “This mammoth does not have any defects except for its tail was bit off. In terms of the state of preservation, it is the most valuable discovery of this kind in the world”, the deputy of the director of Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Tikhonov said. Larry Agenbroad also marks that there are only 3 exemplars of little mammoths` remains in the world and that to find them in any condition is great luck.
07/26/07 - Are we falling for the great green con?
Planting a tree to 'offset' your holiday flight. Recycling the old banger for a new car. Eating organic food. Is this REALLY helping save the planet? Global warming is a terrible thing and we are all against it. So when a company offers to fight the dreaded climate change and - what's more - pay you handsomely to do so, only the most extreme cynic could surely, possibly, object. Take, for example, the latest wheeze from motor manufacturer Vauxhall. If you want to buy a new car, the company promises to give you £1,000 trade-in for your old car - regardless of its age and condition. What is more, the firm goes on to promise that your old car will then be scrapped, removing thousands of what the company calls "so-called bangers, emitting choking exhaust fumes into the atmosphere". Sound too good to be true? That's because it IS too good to be true. Vauxhall's "offer" is, in fact, no more than the latest in a growing list of climate cons - marketing ploys used by unscrupulous companies which use green propaganda to make you part with your cash. For the truth is that most, if not all, of these ploys have little to do with the environment and everything to do with profits. Of course, there's nothing wrong with profits, it's just that I wish companies would be more honest in their sales blurb. For instance, check into just about any hotel and you will be faced with signs piously asking you to help save the environment by reusing towels and not wasting water. Except, of course, the real reason is simple: the management wants you to help them cut their water and laundry bills. Sometimes, to reinforce the idea, the little card upon which the towel-plea is printed is decorated with fluffy clouds and other green icons. It would be more honest to say "Cut our costs and help the environment", but they don't. Take the issue of flying. We are now forced to feel we can assuage our guilt by buying into one of the many carbon-offset schemes on offer. The theory is simple: you can repair the damage created by your flight - in the form of emissions of carbon dioxide (the main man-made greenhouse gas) - or other profligate consumption, such as driving a gas-guzzling car, by paying an offset firm to fund the cutting of CO2 production elsewhere, for example by planting trees. British Gas seems obsessed with getting every house to buy a new boiler. They say we will save money, and also that we will save the Earth. However, they don't mention the healthy profit they will make (and the complicated carbon-calculations involved with making new gas boilers). Everywhere you go these days, you are invited to pay more to go green.
07/26/07 - Climate change already affecting rainfall
 According to a paper published in the journal Nature, climate change is bringing more precipitation to northern Europe, Canada and northern Russia but less to swathes of sub-Saharan Africa, southern India and Southeast Asia. "[The changes] may have already had significant effects on ecosystems, agriculture and human regions that are sensitive to changes in precipitation, such as the Sahel," the researchers say. Scientists have long said that global warming is bound to interfere with snow and rainfall patterns. This is because air and sea temperatures, and sea-level atmospheric pressure - the underlying forces behind these patterns - are already changing. But until now evidence for declaring that the interference is already happening existed anecdotally or in computer models, rather than from observation. Dr Francis Zwiers, a scientist with Environment Canada, Toronto, found a way around these problems by using two datasets of global rainfall pattern beginning, conservatively, in 1925 and ending in 1999. They compared these figures with 14 powerful computer models that simulate the world's climate system, and found a remarkably close fit. Over the 75 year period under study, global warming "contributed significantly" to increases in precipitation in the northern hemisphere's mid-latitudes, a region between 40 and 70° north, they say. In contrast, the northern hemisphere's tropics and subtropics, a region spanning from the equator to 30° latitude north became drier. And the southern hemisphere's tropics (equator to 30° latitude south) became wetter. The study looked at annual average rainfall on the land, not at sea. It also did not look at extreme weather events, like episodes of drought and flooding, whose frequency and severity may increase as a result of global warming. / Influence of global warming seen in changing rains - Tropical regions north of the equator, including such areas as the Sahel in Africa which borders the Sahara desert, have already begun to get even drier and will continue to do so, the data show. Regions in the far north, including Canada, Northern Europe and Russia, will get wetter, as will the southern tropics. Seager's own research has shown that, in addition to the trends shown by Zwiers' team, there will also be a significant drying of areas in the northern subtropics, including the US southwest and the Mediterranean. But aside from the overall trends, Zwiers says an important message from the combined models is that they consistently show that, for all regions, there will be a significant increase in extremes of precipitation - both floods and droughts. Thus, even desert areas that will undergo serious drying could simultaneously suffer greater risks of flash flooding.
07/26/07 - MIT Researchers work toward spark-free, fuel-efficient engines
 MIT researchers have demonstrated how ordinary spark-ignition automobile engines can, under certain driving conditions, move into a spark-free operating mode that is more fuel-efficient and just as clean. The mode-switching capability could appear in production models within a few years, improving fuel economy by several miles per gallon in millions of new cars each year. Many researchers are studying a new way of operating an internal combustion engine known as "homogeneous charge compression ignition" (HCCI). Switching a spark-ignition (SI) engine to HCCI mode pushes up its fuel efficiency. In an HCCI engine, fuel and air are mixed together and injected into the cylinder. The piston compresses the mixture until spontaneous combustion occurs. The engine thus combines fuel-and-air premixing (as in an SI engine) with spontaneous ignition (as in a diesel engine). The result is the HCCI's distinctive feature: combustion occurs simultaneously at many locations throughout the combustion chamber. That behavior has advantages. In both SI and diesel engines, the fuel must burn hot to ensure that the flame spreads rapidly through the combustion chamber before a new "charge" enters. In an HCCI engine, there is no need for a quickly spreading flame because combustion occurs throughout the combustion chamber. As a result, combustion temperatures can be lower, so emissions of nitrogen pollutants are negligible. The fuel is spread in low concentrations throughout the cylinder, so the soot emissions from fuel-rich regions in diesels are not present. The researchers estimate that the increase in fuel efficiency would be a few miles per gallon. "That may not seem like an impressive improvement," said Green. "But if all the cars in the US today improved that much, it might be worth a million barrels of oil per day--and that's a lot."
07/26/07 - Free XP 1 second Desktop Search
 Searches that used to take 90 seconds now take 1 second. I guess Microsoft started to feel a bit guilty about the lousy XP search feature, and came up with an alternative. If you use Windows XP, give it a try. If you don't like it, it's easy enough to uninstall. (via j-walkblog.com)
07/26/07 - Nursing home cat can sense death, ease passing
 (The radio station WTOP said over 20 times now this cat has sensed looming death 2 hours before it happens. Should be a way to map the brainwaves and see if there are noticeable changes, though it also be biochemical as noted in the article. On the flip side, what if the cat is CAUSING the deaths? After all, there is an old belief that cats suck the breath out of babies! - JWD) When Oscar the Cat visits residents of the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, the staff jumps into action -- Oscar can sense within hours when someone is about to die. In his two years living in Steere's end-stage dementia unit, Oscar has been at the bedside of more than 25 residents shortly before they died, according to Dr. David Dosa of Brown University in Providence. "The cat always does manage to make an appearance, and it always seems to be in the last two hours." Raised at the nursing home since he was a kitten, Oscar often checks in on residents, but when he curls up for a visit, physicians and nursing home staff know it's time to call the family."I don't think this is a psychic cat," said Teno. "I think there's probably a biochemical explanation," she said in a telephone interview.
07/26/07 - Russian Scientists To Prevent Global Warming
 Scientists from the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology claim they’ve found a way to prevent global warming, said Insitute director during a press conference. The technique involves airplanes spraying a thin layer (0.25-0.5 micrometers thick) of various sulphur containing compounds’ aerosol in the lower stratospheric layers. Sulphur drops will reflect solar radiation. Calculations show that spraying of 1 million tons of aerosol allows 0.5-1% decrease of solar radiation and 1-1.5 degree Centigrade temperature drop. The amount of sulphurous spray should be maintained, since sulphur containing compounds will fall down with time. Possible negative consequences of said technique are subject to discussion, however, the head of the Insitute mentioned that amount of sulphur compounds falling to the ground from skies would be 5000 lower than that emitted to atmosphere by industrial enteprises.
07/26/07 - Flying Saucer Designed for Greener Air Travel
 "I want to get rid of the image of a cylindrical body with wings," said Etnel Straatsma of Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands. The plane of the future, in Straatsma's vision, might be as wild as a flying saucer. She and other engineers are toying with lighter materials and some are pondering ideas as radical as returning to propeller-driven planes as an eco-friendly alternative to passenger jets. Although estimates vary, flying in a plane releases the equivalent of about 1 pound of carbon dioxide per mile per passenger, which is about the same as driving a car the same distance. Constant retooling of aircraft has helped to decrease emissions per passenger by 2 to 2.5 percent per year, said Andreas Hardeman of the industry group International Air Transport Association. But he agreed that the current paradigm may have reached the "end of the line." Radical change could mean introducing novel materials and shapes, or even reviving "old" propulsion systems.
07/26/07 - Jetson-Like Flying Car in Production
 (Since 1983!!! That would be nearly 25 years touting these things with models that never come to production but bring investors? Fans on a tether don't excite me, but independent, safe flight would. - JWD) A flying car resembling what the Jetsons drove could show up soon at a dealership near you. Flying an estimated 10 feet off the ground, which allows it to avoid regulation by the FAA, the M200G takes to the air with the help of eight Rotapower rotary engines. According to the company, flight times, once airborne, could last between 45 minutes and 90 minutes, depending on the vehicle's speed. It's expected to zip through the air as fast as 50 mph, said Bruce Calkins, general manager of Moller International. The car is designed to hold up to 250 pounds, including the driver and any cargo. / Video - M200X model and Video - M400 SkyCar model - both on a tether, big whoopee! Just waiting for a wind gust to flip! With this kind of 'technology', its a money pit by any definition. With gravity control, winds don't matter! / (What I think is a better option - The Lab Project - no fancy business plan with BS promises while asking for tens of millions for startup. Simply lean and focused. - JWD)
07/26/07 - Iron and copper relationship is studied
 (This is an interesting tie-in to recent claims about breathing through a copper mesh screen to improve health. - JWD) U.S. scientists studying the relationship of iron and copper in the body have found when iron absorption by cells decreases, copper absorption increases. Researchers at the University of Buffalo's School of Public Health and Health Professionals, led by Assistant Professor James Collins, found iron is only half of an all-important duo of trace minerals -- the other being copper -- that work in tandem to maintain proper iron balance, or homeostasis. "Iron or copper deficiency causes anemia, and abnormal intestinal iron transport is associated with several common human pathologies, including anemia of chronic disease (or ACD) and hereditary hemochromatosis, different forms of which result from several common genetic defects," said Collins. Hereditary hemochromatosis is an inherited metabolic disorder characterized by abnormally high absorption of dietary iron, which is deposited in body tissues and organs, where it may become toxic. ACD is a blood disorder caused by low body iron levels resulting from any medical condition that affects the production and lifespan of red blood cells, such as chronic infection. / Copper for Life - Few people understand the multiple roles that copper plays in regulating life processes. Too little copper can be lethal, whereas excess amounts can cause serious disease. Copper is required for bone strength, blood cell maturation, iron transport, glucose metabolism, heart muscle contraction, host defense mechanisms and brain development. The dilemma is that while ingesting large amounts of copper is unsafe, avoiding copper deficiency is a must. Here, balance and education are key.
07/26/07 - Recycling Urine
 Your toilet is wrecking the planet. The problem with urine is that it is the main source of some of the chemical nutrients that have to be removed In sewage treatment plants if they are not to wreck ecosystems downstream. Despite making up only 1 per cent of the volume of waste water, urine contributes about 80 per cent of the nitrogen and 45 per cent of all the phosphate. Peeing into the pan immediately dilutes these chemicals with vast quantities of water, making the removal process unnecessarily inefficient. in continental Europe where you can find a future must-have eco-accessory: the urine separation toilet. These devices divert urine away from the main sewage stream, allowing the nutrients to be recycled rather than treated as waste. They could solve all the environmental problems associated with urine and even turn sewage plants into net producers of green, clean energy. Known in the business as "yellow water", urine enters the sewage system and mixes with solid waste ("black water"), "grey water" from household sinks and baths, and sometimes rainwater. It eventually arrives at a treatment plant, where it must be cleaned up enough to be discharged into a river. So what to do with the urine? The answer is, recycle it indirectly - in other words, extract the nutrients and turn them into fertiliser. In the Netherlands, Grontmij trucks the stored urine to a special treatment plant where the phosphate is precipitated out as a mineral called struvite (ammonium magnesium phosphate). This is a useful fertiliser and can help reduce demand for mined phosphate, which can only be a good thing: phosphate rocks are often contaminated with heavy metals, and mining and refining them generates waste and uses lots of energy. Some estimates suggest the world's phosphate mines will be exhausted in 100 years. Yet at the moment we literally pour tonnes and tonnes of perfectly good phosphate down the drain. The other nutrients in urine can also be turned into fertiliser. Novaquatis, a branch of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) on the outskirts of Zürich, is experimenting with extracting nitrogen and potassium in forms that can be sprayed directly onto crops. Once the urine is treated it is clean enough to go directly into a river. Crucially, these methods of extracting nutrients directly from urine consume much less energy than dealing with its vastly diluted form in general waste water. There's an extra energy cost from trucking the urine in, but Wilsenach says it's minuscule compared with the savings. If all these benefits weren't enough, using a NoMix toilet saves water too. According to research done by EAWAG, it reduces your use of flush water by 80 per cent, cutting the average household's overall water use by about 25 per cent. Bear in mind that the water that fills up the toilet cistern is clean enough to drink: "We use good quality drinking water to flush away urine," says Wilsenach.
07/26/07 -
Russia stakes claim under North Pole, it's Just not Big Enough
 (At nearly 6.6 million square miles (17 million sq km), Russia is the largest country in the world in geographic size, occupying more than one-ninth of the world's total land area. It is just slightly less than 1.8 times the size of the United States. Russia has a population of nearly 145 million.) - Russia is sending a mini-submarine to explore the ocean floor below the North Pole and find evidence to support its claims to Arctic territory. Russia's claim to a vast swathe of territory in the Arctic, thought to contain oil, gas and mineral reserves, has been challenged by other powers, including the US. Moscow argued before a UN commission in 2001 that waters off its northern coast were in fact an extension of its maritime territory. The claim was based on the argument that an underwater feature, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, was an extension of its continental territory. The UN has yet to rule upon the claim. The Law of the Sea Convention allows states an economic zone of 200 nautical miles, which can sometimes be expanded. To extend the zone, a state has to prove that the structure of the continental shelf is similar to the geological structure within its territory. At the moment, nobody's shelf extends up to the North Pole, so there is an international area around the Pole administered by the International Seabed Authority.
07/26/07 - Single Guys Live in LA, Single Girls in NYC
This map might explain why ‘Sex and the City’ is set in New York, and not in Los Angeles. And why there’s so much gang violence in LA. So why can’t all those single guys from LA and those thousands upon thousands of single girls from NYC meet up somewhere in the middle?
07/24/07 - Plug-In Hybrids Get Green Grades
Overall, plug-in cars are a plus for the environment, despite the fact that they would increase the demand for electricity. Plug-in hybrids, which use electricity from the grid to replace gasoline for daily driving, would cut gas consumption and save commuters from high fuel prices. But some experts have been concerned that switching from gas to electricity, much of which is generated from fossil fuels, would actually significantly increase pollution in some parts of the country, as opposed to decreasing it. A study released last week by the environmental group National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the largely utility-funded Electric Power Research Institute shows that plug-ins, once they're on the market, will significantly cut greenhouse gases. Across the country, the vehicles will on average also decrease other pollutants, but the impact in local areas will depend on the source of electricity. In plug-in hybrids, a large battery pack that is recharged by plugging it in stores enough energy to power a car entirely, or almost entirely, with electricity for the first 40 miles or so of driving. For longer trips, the car reverts to conventional hybrid operation, relying largely on gasoline for power but improving efficiency: by storing energy from braking in the battery and using it for acceleration, for example.
07/24/07 - Federal Science Gets More Politicized
A group of scientists is making to call attention to Executive Order 13422, going into effect today, that gives political appointees final say regarding science-based federal agency regulations. The Union of Concerned Scientists wrote a letter to two Senate committee chairs urging that questions about this executive order be asked at the confirmation hearings for the nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget. "UCS urged the Senate committee to ask [the nominee] Mr. Nussle how he would ensure that political appointees would not interfere with the work of agency scientists." Late last month the House voted to prohibit the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from spending federal money on Executive Order 13422. Democrats called the order a "power grab."
07/24/07 - Is this the proof that spirits DO exist?
 Professor Klaus Heinemann, a researcher for NASA, the U.S. space agency, was studying a collection of photographs his wife had taken at a gathering of spiritual healers when he noticed that many of them featured the same pale but clearly defined circle of light, like a miniature moon, hovering above some of the subjects. Like most rational people, he assumed that the pictures were faulty. 'I presumed the circles were due to dust particles, flash anomalies, water particles and so on,' says Prof Heinemann. As a scientist with considerable experience in sophisticated microscope techniques - examining matter down to atomic levels of optical resolution - his methods were nothing if not rigorous. Still puzzled, Heinemann set out to discover what else might have caused the mysterious circles. He and his wife began taking hundreds of digital photographs at random events to see whether they could recreate the mysterious effect. The answer was that they could make these shimmering 'orbs' appear again, but only - absurd as it may sound - if they 'asked' the apparitions to make themselves visible to the camera. And they found this method worked particularly well when the couple photographed spiritual gatherings. Heinemann set up dozens of experiments using two cameras on static tripods under controlled conditions. His early experiments found that orbs can move very fast, up to 500mph or more. Heinemann also found that during his numerous dual camera experiments, when he used twin cameras to capture an object from two different angles, a single orb shape would often appear - but only in one of the two images taken simultaneously. It was as if the orbs somehow chose which camera to appear on, or whether to appear at all. Professor William Tiller, a theoretical physicist who spent 35 years researching consciousness and matter at Stanford University in California, reminded the conference that what we see with our physical eyes comprises less then 10 per cent of the known universe. 'They come in all sizes, ranging from a few inches to several feet across,' he says. 'Sometimes they appear alone, and at other times hundreds of them, in colours ranging from white to blue, green, rose and even gold. 'Over time, I realised that a flash seemed to be essential to capture them, even in daylight. I believe this is because we can see the orbs only through the process in physics known as fluorescence. The camera flash sparks this fluorescence process, making the orbs visible to the camera.'
07/24/07 - Unique Material May Allow Capacitors to Store More Energy
Imagine an electric car with the same acceleration capability as a gas-powered sports car, or ultrafast rechargeable 'batteries' that can be recharged a thousand times more than existing conventional batteries. According to physicists at North Carolina State University, all of these things are possible, thanks to their research on a polymer - or plastic material - that when used as a dielectric in capacitors may allow the capacitors to store up to seven times more energy than those currently in use.
07/24/07 - Faster File Flow
 Aria, a new product from California-based startup FastSoft, speeds up the transfer of any large file over the Internet, without requiring hardware or software on the receiving end. According to Dan Henderson, FastSoft's vice president of product and market development, a 700-megabyte movie file that takes 50 minutes to download regionally via a cable-modem connection can be downloaded in 34 minutes if the sender uses Aria. Overseas transfers show a bigger difference, with the same 700-megabyte movie taking nearly eight hours to download from Asia via a cable modem, and about 45 minutes with Aria. The company has seen files that normally take a day to download go through in a couple of hours. Harris says that he was attracted to Aria in part because only the sender needs to own hardware, and recipients don't need to know anything about Aria to get their files faster. All the sender has to do is connect the Aria appliance to his or her server.
07/24/07 - Don't Break the Chain
Comedian Jerry Seinfield has a gem of a leverage technique he uses on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself - even when you don't feel like it. He then revealed a unique calendar system he was using pressure himself to write. Here's how it worked. He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain." "Don't break the chain." He said again for emphasis. Over the years I've used his technique in many different areas. I've used it for exercise, to learn programming, to learn network administration, to build successful websites and build successful businesses. It works because it isn't the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard "inch by inch anything's a cinch." Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day. Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don't break the chain, you'll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn't. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides "compounding interest." Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next.
07/24/07 - Convert video, audio, and images with DivXMachine Shell Integrated
 Windows only: Freeware media transcoder DivXMachine Shell Integrated converts pictures, audio, and video to and from a variety of formats through the Windows right-click context menu. After you install DMSI and its dependencies (there are a fair amount), just right-click on any file you want to convert-video, audio, or image-and navigate through DMSI's option tree to choose exactly what you want to convert the file to. Transcoding media (especially video) used to be territory for the pros, but simple tools like DMSI are making the process easier every day. DivXMachine Shell Integrated is freeware, Windows only.
07/24/07 - The Ethanol Backlash is Here!
Any rapidly growing, paradigm-shifting industry is bound to engender both enthusiasm and resistance in roughly equal amounts. And the prospect of using grains, which have generally been cheap in this country, as a replacement for fossil fuels, was bound to excite hope and ruffle feathers. After all, while farmers and ethanol-plant investors will profit, companies and industries that rely on cheap grains, or that produce and distribute fossil fuels, face serious disruption. And so, before it has even emerged as anything more than a marginal contributor to supply-ethanol accounted for about 1.25 percent of gasoline use last year-a full-fledged ethanol backlash is underway. The squawks of protest arise not just from oil companies. They're coming from economists, environmentalists, poverty fighters, and science nerds. Meet the ethanol-skeptics.
07/24/07 - Secret list of buildings you can't photograph
The DHS says that it's against the law to photograph "sensitive" government buildings, but they won't publish a list of these buildings, so it's impossible to comply with the law. The rub is that if you get caught breaking the law, you'll get shaken down, have your name and personal information taken, and go into a file, presumably forever. The bottom line is that McCammon was caught in a classic logical trap. If he had only known the building was off-limits to photographers, he would have avoided it. But he was not allowed to know that fact. "Reasonable, law-abiding people tend to avoid these types of things when it can be helped," McCammon wrote. "Thus, my request for a list of locations within Arlington County that are unmarked, but at which photography is either prohibited or discouraged according to some (public or private) policy. Of course, such a list does not exist. Catch-22." (via boingboing.net)
07/24/07 - All types of Soda Bad
Drinking more than one soft drink daily -- whether it's regular or diet -- may be associated with an increase in the risk factors for heart disease, Framingham researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. "In those who drink one or more soft drinks daily, there was an association of an increased risk of developing the metabolic syndrome." Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors including excess waist circumference, high blood pressure, elevated triglycerides, low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL "good" cholesterol) and high fasting glucose levels. The presence of three or more of the factors increases a person's risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
07/22/07 - Box Converts Car Fumes into Biofuel
 The invention consists of a box which the inventors say can be fixed underneath a car in place of the exhaust to trap the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming - including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide - and emit mostly water vapour. The captured gases can be processed to create a biofuel using genetically modified algae. Dubbed “Greenbox”, the technology developed by organic chemist Derek Palmer and engineers Ian Houston and John Jones could, they say, be used for cars, buses, lorries and eventually buildings and heavy industry, including power plants. “We've managed to develop a way to successfully capture a majority of the emissions from the dirtiest motor we could find,” Palmer, who has consulted for organizations including the World Health Organisation and GlaxoSmithKline, said. The three, who stumbled across the idea while experimenting with carbon dioxide to help boost algae growth for fish farming, have set up a company called Maes Anturio Limited, which translates from Welsh as Field Adventure. Although the box the men currently use for demonstration is about the size of a bar stool, they say they can build one small enough to replace a car exhaust that will last for a full tank of petrol. The crucial aspect of the technology is that the carbon dioxide is captured and held in a secure state, said Houston. Other carbon capture technologies are much more cumbersome or energy-intensive, for example using miles of pipeline to transport the gas. “The carbon dioxide, held in its safe, inert state, can be handled, transported and released into a controlled environment with ease and a minimal amount of energy required,” Houston said at a demonstration using a diesel-powered generator at a certified UK Ministry of Transportation emissions test centre. More than 130 tests carried out over two years at several testing centres have, the three say, yielded a capture rate between 85 and 95%. They showed the box to David Hansen, a Labour MP for Delyn, North Wales, who is now helping them. "Based on the information, there is a clear reduction in emissions," Hansen said.
07/22/07 -
Supposed perpetual motion machine attracts interest (not Steorn BS)
 The two "country boys" from Unionville who claim to have developed a vehicle that runs on no fuel have teamed up with another inventor to file a patent for their technology. Their innovation is beginning to attract interest. Randy Nichols and Andrew Lamb contacted the Times-Gazette last month and demonstrated their device: a Nissan 4x4 truck that apparently runs with no internal combustion engine or fossil fuels. Until their patent is put into "pending" status, they will give no new demonstrations of the vehicle. In the meantime, the inventors are fine tuning their device, trying to get more speed out of it, Lamb told the T-G Thursday. Lamb said they now have four working prototype vehicles, which they have hidden for security reasons. An attorney has also been hired to deal with the patent and other legal issues. He claims to have developed the same system independently in 1992. After the pair from Unionville spoke to Tyler, Lamb said "we didn't realize all the possibilities with this thing." Lamb also said the device could be used as a generator large enough to power a house. The invention works by using a hydraulic pump to force fluid to a hydraulic motor, which turns the flywheel of the Nissan truck. From the flywheel to the rear of the vehicle, nothing has been modified, according to Lamb. After removing the gas engine, the pair from Unionville installed a tiny DC motor on the flywheel, which powers the transmission and the vehicle. Lamb said the truck also has a complete charging system, which was the hardest part of the design, taking them about eight months to perfect. It is powered on a 24-volt system and when this reporter interviewed them in June, the pair were reluctant to give away any more secrets, mainly due to the fact they had not patented their invention yet. The trio now plans to have the group New Energy Congress take a look at the device to validate their claims. The group is an association put together "for the purpose of reviewing the most promising claims to up-and-coming clean, renewable, affordable, reliable energy technologies, in order to come up with a weighted list of recommendations of the best technologies," according to their Website. Due to legal issues, the device itself won't be put on display until the paperwork for the patent is put in "pending" status. However, after that step, the three plan to put the vehicle on display and "on nationwide news" after the paperwork goes through, Lamb said.
07/22/07 - Toyota asks Permission to Road Test Plug-in Prius
Toyota Motor Co. will obtain permission from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport by the end of July for the testing of a prototype plug-in Prius on public roads. Toyota will be the first car maker to obtain permission for a plug-in hybrid test in Japan. After completing the road tests, Toyota will start building a way to market the model by leasing them to public (government and municipal) offices.
07/22/07 - 'Saudi Arabia of renewable energy' off Scotland's coast
 IT HAS been described as the "greatest untapped source of energy Scotland has ever had", capable of generating enough electricity for every home and business in the country several times over. But while the Pentland Firth has been too deep and too dangerous to exploit, the race is now on to develop machines that will harness this "underwater hurricane" and fundamentally change Scotland. Not only could it provide endless supplies of electricity for Scotland and beyond, but spare energy could be used to convert rubbish into environmentally friendly biofuel for cars, trains and airplanes, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and ridding the country of landfill sites. In August, the world's largest tidal-current generator will be installed on Northern Ireland's Strangford Lough and, next year, ScottishPower will start testing an underwater turbine in the Pentland Firth itself.
ScottishPower believes its system could generate up to a gigawatt (GW) of electricity - equivalent to all of Scotland's wind farms put together, or the power produced by the Hunterston B nuclear power station. But Professor Stephen Salter, who wrote an energy review for the SNP extolling the potential of the Pentland Firth, believes the actual amount of energy could be as high as ten to 20GW. Prof Salter, of Edinburgh University, has developed a form of cylindrical turbine which he believes would be able to go deeper than ever before, where the Pentland Firth's most powerful currents are found. The water in the fastest- moving channels is about 70 metres deep. His machines operate down to 50m, while seabed-based turbines could be used in the bottom 20m. The Firth would generate energy in four regular tidal pulses a day, often generating large amounts of power in the middle of the night. Fuel cells or large industrial batteries could be used to store spare electricity, but Prof Salter said it could be used for a process which can turn waste into gas or liquid fuel. How could we use the excess power? Electricity can be stored in large industrial batteries or used to split water, H2O, into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen can be used in fuel cells to power vehicles or turned back into electricity when needed. It could be used to pump upwards into hydro-electric reservoirs, which can provide electricity at short notice to cope with sudden peaks in demand. A cryogenic process can turn almost any waste into gas or "super-clean diesel" for vehicles and aircraft.
07/22/07 - Tornado Power
 Inventor Louis Michaud has formed a company called AVEtec Energy, filed and obtained patents, and has partnered up with the University of Western Ontario's wind-tunnel lab to study small prototypes and do computer simulations of his "vortex engine" process. Heat rises when you've got a certain temperature differential, and as it rises it swirls -- kind of the reverse of what you see when water goes down a drain. AVEtec's pitch might raise eyebrows, but many are taking it seriously. Michaud envisions building a large cylindrical building 200 metres in diameter and about 50 meters high, and this structure would have an open top. Heated waste water from a power plant that would normally go to a cooling tower would instead be diverted to the vortex building and into 10 or more strategically located cooling cells, where fans would blow so the air could pick up the heat energy from the water. The hot air from the 10+ intake ducts are then pushed at an angle into the cylindrical building, where you see the beginnings of a whirlwind. As the hot air rises it gathers energy and creates a vortex that reaches higher and higher into the atmosphere. At a certain point the fans pushing the hot air into the vortex are turned off. The vortex, now hungry for more heated air, begins to suck in the air on its own. Suddenly, what were fans now become turbines that spin as the air is drawn in. The turbines are connected to generators that produce clean electricity as long as a constant source of waste heat is provided to feed the vortex, which at this point is a full-fledged tornado stretching into the troposphere. Michaud calculates it would cost $60 million to build such a plant. But because it would be replacing the function of a cooling tower, that figure would be offset by up to $20 million. The end result, assuming it works and is safe, would be a 200 megawatt power station producing clean energy at less than half the cost of a coal plant. Speaking of outside the box, Michaud says his vortex engines could help us directly manage climate change. He says there's no reason hundreds of his vortex engines couldn't be stationed in the ocean along the equator, where ocean water is warm enough to provide energy for creating a tornado. Why do this? Well, the greenhouse effect prevents heat that hits the earth's surface from radiating back into space, so Michaud argues that his vortex network would act like air conditioners that suck the hot air high into the atmosphere where the heat can more easily escape. All I can say is.... Wow!
07/22/07 - Energy Efficient Ultrasonic dish dryer
 With an eye to improving the environmental footprint of its dishwashers, the German engineering company Bosch has devised a new way to dry dishes. The conventional method is to heat the dishes while they are being washes. The dishes retain thermal energy which heats any leftover water so that it evaporates quickly once the wash is over. Bosch says that zapping the dishes with ultrasound instead could be a far more energy efficient way of drying them off. The sound waves make surface water vibrate, causing it to break up into droplets. The waves also reduce the cohesion of the droplets so they roll off dishes more quickly. Sound alone is unlikely to dry your dishes completely but Bosch hopes that combining the technique with minimal heating or fan drying will make dishwashers far more energy efficient.
07/22/07 - Safest place on the Plane
 A look at real-world crash stats suggests that the farther back you sit, the better your odds of survival. Passengers near the tail of a plane are about 40 percent more likely to survive a crash than those in the first few rows up front. That's the conclusion of an exclusive Popular Mechanics study that examined every commercial jet crash in the United States, since 1971, that had both fatalities and survivors.
07/22/07 - Harry Potter and the Devil
 A Mexican exorcist/priest warns: Potter may help the devil. The leading exorcist of Mexico's main archdiocese said the popular Harry Potter book and film series could allow the devil to enter children's minds, and does ''a lot of damage.'' The Reverend Pedro Mendoza, a Roman Catholic priest and exorcist coordinator of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, made the comments at the end of a five-day exorcism conference in Mexico City. ''If you put all these ideas in a child's head, that he can become a wizard, the child believes that, and that is opening an avenue through which the devil can get in." Rather, you should teach your children that an invisible being sent his only son to earth to suffer and die for your child's sins. And if you don't believe it, the invisible being will punish you and make you spend eternity in Hell. (via j-walkblog.com)
07/22/07 - 'Energy crops' plan to fuel power stations in Scotland
MORE than 250,000 tonnes of "energy crops" will be used to fuel power stations in Scotland, it was announced yesterday. ScottishPower said the crops would be used in a bid to cut carbon emissions. It plans to grow enough to fuel the country's two coal-fired power stations at Cockenzie and Longannet. Farmers will be contracted at competitive rates to grow the green fuel. Burning of the specially-produced plants will begin in 2009 and, by 2013, ScottishPower hopes they will have replaced five per cent of the coal they currently use. The firm said planting would have a minimal effect on land used for food crops. The project will use about 12 per cent of Scotland's agricultural land - around 35,000 hectares. Energy crops should provide a carbon-neutral fuel as the carbon dioxide released on burning is equal to what is captured as the plant grows. Frank Mitchell, generation director at ScottishPower, said: "This [will] ultimately displace 300,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year." (via scotsman.com)
07/22/07 - Ancient Darfur lake 'is dried up'
 (Refill it from the Mediterranean. - JWD) A vast underground lake that scientists hoped could help to end violence in Sudan's Darfur region probably dried up thousands of years ago, an expert says. Alain Gachet, who used satellite images and radar in his research, said the area received too little rain and had the wrong rock types for water storage. But the French geologist said there was enough water elsewhere in Darfur to end the fighting and rebuild the economy. Analysts say competition for resources such as water is behind the unrest. Radar studies had revealed a depression the size of Lake Erie in North America - the 10th largest lake in the world. But Mr Gachet, who has worked on mineral and water exploration in Africa for 20 years, said the depression identified by the Boston researchers was probably full of water 5,000 to 25,000 years ago. "This lake was at the bottom of a broad watershed feeding the Nile above Khartoum," he said. Earlier in the week Hafiz Muhamad, from the lobby group Justice Africa, told the BBC the "root cause" of the conflict was lack of resources. He said "drought and desertification" in North Darfur had led the Arab nomads to move south, where they came into conflict with black African farmers.
07/22/07 - Cell Phone DTMF Controlled Door Latch
 (This has tons of hacking applications. - JWD) I’m sure you’ve noticed that when you press the keys on a standard telephone keypad, an audible ‘beep’ is generated. These beeps are actually the combination of two distinct frequencies. For example, the tone you hear when you press the number ‘9’ on a telephone, is actually a combination of a 1447 Hz and 852 Hz signal. In a telephone exchange, these signals are decoded by a computer which finally connects the dialer to the designated phone line. For example, the tone of 1447 Hz and 852 Hz will be decoded as binary ‘1001’. In this project, I have designed a simple DTMF decoder circuit which allows me to control appliances in my house from any place on Earth using a telephone. The second part of this project was to build a DTMF decoder circuit. I used a CM8870PI tone decoder IC for doing this. The circuit I have built is fairly simple, and can be used for controlling up to four devices. If you want to control more than four devices, check out this circuit. I had a Nokia 1100 cell phone lying around with a hands-free accessory which was rarely used. So, I hacked its hands-free accessory and connected it to the circuit (I just cut the wires which went into the earpiece). That’s about it! To control things in the house, you just dial into the base station and the Nokia 1100 auto-answers the phone call. Each function is just a matter of pressing the appropriate number on the phone and the DTMF chip decodes it and sends output to a transistor which controls a relay. To open my door, I just dial the phone, enter the magic code and voila - Alohomora! Watch the video above. :) (via hackaday.com)
07/22/07 - Custom Trojan Creation Tool Sold Online
"Net Security.org is reporting on the surprisingly sophisticated 'virus in a can' software called Pinch. Pinch is a tool sold on several online forums and designed to create Trojans. It allows attackers to specify the data that Trojans steal. One of the interface tabs, PWD, allows malicious users to select the type of password to be stolen by the Trojan: from email passwords to passwords kept by the system tools. It is possible to order the Trojan to encrypt this data when sending it, so that nobody else can read it. 'Pinch also lets users carry out other actions: turn infected computers into zombie computers, pack Trojans to make detection more difficult, and kill certain system processes, particularly those of security solutions.'"
07/22/07 - Bionic hand makes life easier for amputees
 A BIONIC hand invented in Scotland will help millions of amputees around the world. The i-LIMB's launch follows the success of trials involving people in the UK, Europe and the US. Patients who have benefited include soldiers wounded in the Iraq war, accident victims and people born without hands. The i-LIMB looks and behaves like the real thing. And it is the first prosthetic device with five individually powered digits to be made widely available. It can carry out delicate and precise movements such as holding a glass of water and turning a key in a lock. Previously, amputees had to use artificial hands which only used a thumb and two fingers to produce a claw-like grip. The i-LIMB is controlled by the muscles in the remaining part of the user's limb. Electrodes on the skin surface pick up the muscle signals to open and close the life-like fingers. The hands, which will cost between £3000-£8000 depending on the technical features included, will be manufactured in Scotland. It is hoped further products, including bionic shoulders, arms and individual fingers, will be produced in the future.
07/22/07 - DIY iBook/Powerbook External Battery
 I wanted to power my iBook G4 for a long period of time away from an outlet. The idea was to be able to use the laptop during the ~13 hr flight from Sydney, Aus to Los Angeles in coach where there are no power jacks (getting the whole thing through airport security going to the United States was really... fun..... This is actually pretty simple. The idea here is to have a large battery pack, a regulator to keep the voltage constant at 24V (should be able to handle at least 1.5A continuously), and a male 2.5mm stereo headphone connector (same as the typical cell phone hands-free connector), which fits the proprietary Apple power connector (it just won't have the metal shield). The pack had 20 D-cell alkaline batteries in series, providing nearly 36V when fresh (under load). A heatsinked LM317 regulated the voltage to 24V. Using a multimeter I found that usually my iBook drew 600-700mA with no disc in the optical drive and a full internal battery (not charging). The current fluttered about as the hard drive and cpu activity went up and down, and charging brought the current to over an amp. So typically a 12" iBook G4 will consume 15 to 20 watts. Obviously the LM317 design loses a lot of energy to heat, since the LM317 is a linear regulator and just turns the excess energy into heat, so if you build this, use a VERY VERY BIG HEATSINK!!! If you are replicating this, just build the thing below and it should work, piece of cake, though you might want to put a switch in there between the batteries and the circuit, so you can switch it on and off. (via hackaday.com)
07/22/07 - Software Protection Racket
If you need any more evidence that Symantec is a bunch of crooks. Ed Bott writes: Norton's latest entry in the protection racket. Would you pay your antivirus software company $29.95 a year over and above your existing subscription fee for "an extra layer of protection against Web robot attacks"? Me neither. Isn't this what Norton AntiVirus is supposed to do? Ed Quotes Ryan Naraine: It has to be the biggest con job in IT to convince consumers that they should pay a separate subscription for each of the above "protection" products. So you pay for virus protection, then pay a bit more for spyware protection, and if those don't work, buy an anti-rootkit package and if your PC still falls into a botnet, here's your $29.95 anti-botnet tool. Spreading fear isn't just for politics any more. (via j-walkblog.com)
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