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July 2008 Plenum News 2008 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2007 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 07/31/08 - Startup Converts Ford F-150s Into 41 MPG Plug-in Hybrid Electric The Illinois Institute of Technology’s masters program has spun-off a start-up with big plans for our aging fleet of big trucks. The company, called Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technology (HEVT), has built a bolt-on module that will convert a standard F-150 into a 41 MPG plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). HEVT demo’d their first prototype at the Plug-In 2008 conference in San Jose earlier in the month. The suddenly attractive F-150 PHEV (which is not the 1994 model depicted above) gets 15 miles of emissions-free driving on electricity before it switches over to gas/electric hybrid mode, where it will continue to get an impressive 41 MPG for a typical day’s worth of driving. “HEVT’s solutions apply to not just smaller passenger cars and hybrids, but almost any vehicle including larger gas guzzlers,” said HEVT founder Ali Emadi. “Our laboratory simulations show that the larger the vehicle, the greater the benefits - in gas costs, particulate and greenhouse emissions, and sound pollution. For this reason we are currently focused on PSVs and will later expand to school buses as well as transit buses.” Unfortunately, if you drive more than 30 miles between charges, the straight hybrid mode drops to a paltry 21 MPG. That’s still a 31% fuel efficiency increase over the standard F-150, but HEVT is going to have to bring the price way, way down for this to be an even remote consideration for the vast majority of F-150’s out there. Prototype conversions currently cost $60,000. - Source 07/31/08 - Danish invention makes the window a solar panel The Danish company Photo Solar will start its production of windows with built-in solar cells in 2010. This will allow to transform thousands of square meters of building surface across the country into power sources, writes Berlingske Tidende. 'The solar cells are laminated into the window. Our windows give a transparency of 50 per cent. In so doing, light will still be coming into the room," says development engineer at Photo Solar Søren Jensen. A single copy of solar cell window can capture around 50 kW-hours of electricity per square meter in a year if it is located on a south faced front, explains Søren Jensen. In comparison, the market’s most common solar cells capture enough sunlight to produce approximately 100 kW-hours of electricity per square meter. The price of Photo Solar’s new window will be about Eur 800 per square meter. The solar cells have an extraction effect of 5 per cent compared with the present best collectors that convert up to 20 per cent of the sunrays into electricity. But on the solar collectors it is not possible to create a transparent surface. - Source 07/31/08 - Warp Drive Engine Would Travel Faster Than Light The warp engine is based on a design first proposed in1994 by Michael Alcubierre. The Alcubierre drive, as it's known, involves expanding the fabric of space behind a ship into a bubble and shrinking space-time in front of the ship. The ship would rest in between the expanding and shrinking space-time, essentially surfing down the side of the bubble. The tricky part is that the ship wouldn't actually move; space itself would move underneath the stationary spacecraft. A beam of light next to the ship would still zoom away, same as it always does, but a beam of light far from the ship would be left behind. That means that the ship would arrive at its destination faster than a beam of light traveling the same distance, but without violating Einstein's relativity, which says that it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate an object with mass to the speed of light, since the ship itself isn't actually moving. - Source 07/31/08 - Solar Breakthrough Offers 25% Reduction in Solar Electricity Costs After months of intensive research and experimental trials, the Day4 Energy company has developed a design and manufacturing process for its Generation II solar cells with efficiency up to 19 percent on mono-crystalline and 18 percent on multi-crystalline silicon materials. The new design constitutes a significant improvement not only in maximum efficiency but also in low cost manufacturing and lower commercialization risk. "Our first generation 14.7 percent efficiency Day4 MC module, which has been in commercial production since 2006, already places us among the industry's highest performing multi-crystalline products," said Professor Leonid Rubin, chief technology officer of Day4 Energy. "With the second generation of our proprietary solar cell designs we are taking a major step towards making solar energy cost competitive with conventional sources of electrical power generation." - Source 07/31/08 - 'Fuel battery' could take cars beyond petrol A new approach to storing electrical energy can store more energy than gasoline in the same volume, and could help extend the range of electric vehicles. But some experts say other approaches are more practical. Combining electric power with a combustion engine to make a hybrid electric vehicle sidesteps that problem. But a new take on electrical power storage that is part battery, part chemical fuel cell could ditch gasoline for good. The new design stores energy more densely than petrol, and was conceived by Stuart Licht of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and colleagues. Batteries produce electricity from a closed chemical system that is eventually exhausted. Fuel cells use a constant supply of fuel, so they are continually topped up. Licht's cell has features of each. Its negative electrode, or anode, is made from vanadium boride, which serves double-duty as a fuel too. But unlike the flowing fuel of a fuel cell, the material is held internally, like the anode material of a battery. The vanadium boride reacts with a constant stream of oxygen, as in a fuel cell, provided by the positive electrode, or cathode. This brings in a supply of air from outside. The cell has a theoretical energy capacity of 27 kilowatt hours per litre, compared to 9.7 kilowatt hours per litre for gasoline. But both approaches are limited by practical factors to smaller figures. Licht says his new system would likely have a practical energy capacity of around 5 kilowatt hours per litre. "But that's two-fold higher than the practical storage capacity of gasoline," he says... (via zpenergy.com) - Source 07/31/08 - Tiny $10 Microscope A high-resolution, lens-free microscope fits on a dime-size chip. A tiny microscope that employs the same kind of chip used in digital cameras can produce high-resolution images of cells without the expensive, space-hogging lenses that have been part of microscope design for centuries. The Caltech device uses a system of tiny fluid channels called microfluidics to direct cells and even microscopic animals over a light-sensing chip. The chip, an off-the-shelf sensor identical to those found in digital cameras, is covered with a thin layer of metal that blocks out most of the pixels. A few hundred tiny apertures punched in the metal along the fluid channel let light in. As the sample flows through the microscope, each aperture captures an image. One version of the microscope uses gravity to control the flow of the sample across the apertures. Another version, which allows for much better control, uses an electrical potential to drive the flow of cells. The 100 to 200 images are then combined using simple image-processing software. The processing power in a PDA is more than sufficient to perform the calculations, says Caltech engineer Changhuei Yang, who designed the microscope. The microscope must be illuminated from above, but sunlight is sufficient. The resolution of the microscope is similar to that of a conventional light microscope--about one micrometer--and is limited by the size of the apertures. - Source 07/31/08 - Daily pill that halts Alzheimer's It is said to be more than twice as effective as current treatments. A daily capsule of rember, as the drug is known, stops Alzheimer’s disease progressing by as much as 81 per cent, according to trial results. Patients with the brain disorder had no significant decline in their mental function over a 19-month period. ‘We appear to be bringing the worst affected parts of the brain functionally back to life,’ said Dr Claude Wischik, who led the research. It could be available to patients within four years although, in the wake of the NHS ban on the £2.50-a-day drug Aricept, there are concerns over whether it would be funded on the Health Service. They were divided into four groups, three taking different doses of rember and a fourth group taking a placebo or dummy capsule. After 50 weeks, those with both mild and moderate Alzheimer’s who were taking rember experienced 81 per cent less mental decline compared with those on the placebo. Those taking rember did not experience any significant decline in their mental function over 19 months, while those on the placebo got worse. The results suggest the drug is about two-and-a-half times more effective than existing drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors. - Source 07/31/08 - Video - the Life of Dr. Al Hubbard and his Overunity Circuit In addition to being a major proponent of LSD, earlier in life, Al Hubbard invented a device, also via divine inspiration at the age of 16, which provided enough "free energy" to power a boat around Portage Bay, on Lake Union, in Seattle, Washington. He demonstrated the device for the Seattle Post Intelligencer and potential investors on July 28, 1920. During the demonstration, the boat was said to travel at about 10 knots (~18km/h), and it was silent aside from the sound of the electric motor, which was linked to the boat's prop via a belt. The boat was said to have never slowed during trip around Lake Union. Hubbard received a patent for his device which he called the "Atmospheric Power Generator," from the United States Patent Office, number 1,723,422. Hubbard, when speaking to the press said the device generated 280A at 125V which is 35kW, or roughly equivalent to about 45HP. While claiming early on that his device drew it's energy from the atmosphere, later, Hubbard recanted, saying the device drew power from radioactive materials, rather from thin air, and that his earlier claims were subterfuge, intended to throw off anyone who might try to usurp his patent rights. If this is the case, Hubbard's device would be the most powerful nuclear battery ever created, and as early as 1919, easily making it the first. He sold 75% of the rights to his device to investors who, according to Hubbard, tried to re-reveal his device using Lester J. Hendershot as their mock inventor. This has never been substantiated. (Thanks to Jim Logue for the headsup. - JWD) / Hubbard's Coil at Rex Research - Source 07/31/08 - Thirty minutes of physical exercises a day not enough to lose weight A new study by the University of Pittsburgh reveals that people need to exercise a lot more than once recommended. The experiment involved 201 women who either suffered from excessive weight or wished to lose up to ten percent of their weight. Each of the test women participated in the research for two years. All the women in the group were allowed to eat up to 1,500 calories a day. The group was then split into smaller groups which varied according to the amount of calories burned during physical activities every week (1,000 versus 2,000 calories a week) and the intensity of physical exercises. After six months of the experiment, the women in each group lost about eight or ten percent of their weight. Most of the women gained weight again. When the two-year study finished, they had maintained an average weight loss of only five percent of their initial weight. There was no group that could boast of better results. As a rule, specialists recommend to exercise for 30 minutes five days a week, which makes 150 minutes of exercises in one week. When the women participating in the research exercised for 257 minutes, or 55 minutes five days a week, they were able to maintain their average weight loss. With use, muscles consume energy derived from both fat and glycogen. Due to the large size of leg muscles walking, running, and cycling are the most effective means of exercise to reduce body fat. - Source 07/31/08 - Research drives improvements in efficient biofuel processing "The process could change ethanol production in dry-grind plants so much that energy costs can be reduced by as much as one-third," said Hans van Leeuwen, an Iowa State professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering and the leader of the research project. The Iowa State project is focused on using fungi to clean up and improve the dry-grind ethanol production process. That process grinds corn kernels and adds water and enzymes. The enzymes break the starches into sugars. The sugars are fermented with yeasts to produce ethanol. The fuel is recovered by distillation, but there are about six gallons of leftovers for every gallon of fuel that's produced. Those leftovers, known as stillage, contain solids and other organic material. Most of the solids are removed by centrifugation and dried into distillers dried grains that are sold as livestock feed, primarily for cattle. The remaining liquid, known as thin stillage, still contains some solids, a variety of organic compounds from corn and fermentation as well as enzymes. Because the compounds and solids can interfere with ethanol production, only about 50percent of thin stillage can be recycled back into ethanol production. The rest is evaporated and blended with distillers dried grains to produce distillers dried grains with solubles. The researchers added a fungus, Rhizopus microsporus, to the thin stillage and found it would feed and grow. The fungus removes about 80percent of the organic material and all of the solids in the thin stillage, allowing the water and enzymes in the thin stillage to be recycled back into production. The fungus can also be harvested. It’s a food-grade organism that’s rich in protein, certain essential amino acids and other nutrients. It can be dried and sold as a livestock feed supplement. Or it can be blended with distillers dried grains to boost its value as a livestock feed and make it more suitable for feeding pigs and chickens.- Source 07/31/08 - Green leases for energy-saving buildings attractive to tenants "GREEN leases" are an Australian invention becoming more and more common in the UK. They encourage landlord and tenant to work together to create environmental policies that increase a building's efficiency by reducing energy consumption, water usage and waste production and through other environmentally focused actions. Meanwhile, European legislation has introduced the energy performance certificate (EPC), which gives information about the estimated energy consumption of a building, as opposed to the machinery and appliances inside. This allows buyers and occupiers to determine a building's green credentials at the time of purchase or lease. Green leases contain extra clauses that are intended to reduce the environmental impact of a building and improve the workplace. These provisions would typically include a restriction against the tenant from carrying out any works or alterations that reduce the environmental performance of the building, or adversely affect the ratings contained in the EPC. The tenant should be required to fit out or alter the property using materials that have been, or can be, recycled if at all practicable. Any work carried out should also be energy neutral or provide energy savings and should not compromise the building's environmental credentials. The tenant should have to give back the premises at the end of the lease with at least the same energy rating as at the beginning of the lease and should not remove any works or alterations that have achieved an energy saving. The landlord should be entitled to carry out repairs and alterations to the property to improve energy efficiency and if these create a cost saving for the tenant, then the landlord should be able to recover the cost of the work. The landlord may want to include assumptions in the rent review clause about the environmental performance of the building, to reflect the positive measures contained in the lease itself. - Source 07/31/08 - Bengay Stops Bug Bites From Itching As minor inconveniences go, itchy bug bites are the bane of the summer season. The Parent Hacks blog reader Molly offers a tip she learned in the Peace Corps: a dab of the common pain reliever cream Bengay on a bug bite goes a long way towards relieving the itch. - Source 07/31/08 - Homosexuality in Iraq Many soldiers who have served in the Middle East are familiar with the phrase, "men are for pleasure, women are for babies." Homosexual behaviors and practices seemed to pervade the society despite a strong objection to being labeled as gay. Now, being identified as gay in Iraq will likely cause one to be kidnapped and tortured if not killed outright. Perhaps the peculiar irony to the tale of gay and lesbian torture in Iraq is that the captors seem to choose homosexual sodomy for their victims - yet continue to find themselves pure. - Source 07/31/08 - 100% Recyclable Method to Produce Ultra-strong Magnets Until now, producing Samarium Cobalt has been a difficult and expensive multi-step process. Northeastern University researchers have broken new ground with an innovative invention of a rapid, high-volume and cost-effective one-step method for producing pure Samarium Cobalt rare earth permanent magnet materials. The direct chemical synthesis process is able to produce Samarium Cobalt rapidly and in large amounts, at a small fraction of the cost of the current industry method. Also, the process is environmentally friendly, with 100% recyclable chemicals, and readily scalable to large volume synthesis to meet the needs for the myriad of advanced permanent magnet applications. Samarium Cobalt magnets are superior to other classes of permanent magnetic materials for advanced high-temperature applications and the Northeastern invention goes beyond the currently known fabrication process of these nanostructured magnets. Unlike the traditional multi-step metallurgical techniques that provide limited control of the size and shape of the final magnetic particles, the Northeastern scientists’ one-step method produces air-stable “nanoblades” (elongated nanoparticles shaped like blades) that allow for a more efficient assembly that may ultimately result in smaller and lighter magnets without sacrificing performance. - Source 07/31/08 - Legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use The U.S. should stop arresting responsible marijuana users, Rep. Barney Frank said Wednesday, announcing a proposal to end federal penalties for Americans carrying fewer than 100 grams, almost a quarter-pound, of the substance. - Source 07/31/08 - The Carbon Curtain What we really need from the climate modelers is an accurate 50-year projection of global politics. Will people believe the computer's dire prophecy enough to change their lifestyles? A number of influential people in Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam say the planet is now entering a 30-year cooling period, the second half of a normal cycle driven by cyclical changes in the sun's output and currents in the Pacific Ocean. Their theory leaves true believers in carbon catastrophe livid. So does the climate computer have a real audience, or is it really just another bag lady muttering away to herself in a lonely corner of the intellectual park? - Source 07/31/08 - 50 Ways NASA changed our world Today, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration marks its first half-century of exploration and discovery. But missions to the Moon and beyond are only part of the story. Without Nasa's scientists, life on Earth would be very different indeed. 1.The hand-held vacuum cleaner 3.Firefighter breathing apparatus 7.Faster racing cars 12.Better sunglasses 18.Freeze-dried meals 29.Artificial limbs 44.Satellite television... - Source 07/31/08 - Gallery: NASA's Most Embarrassing Goofs From equipment installed backwards to problems with the metric system, NASA's failures can be as fascinating as its successes. Of course, more cynical critics might suggest that NASA's failures overshadow its successes -- but let's see you send a ship to the moon. That aside, NASA's in a difficult position: Charged with meeting America's spacefaring dreams on a shrinking budget, and perpetually judged against the magic of the moon landing, the agency is an easy target. And a few mistakes are inevitable: After all, Murphy's law was coined by an actual rocket scientist. With that in mind, let's take a look at some of NASA's most conspicuous, embarrassing (and non-fatal) gaffes. - Source 07/31/08 - Secret jetpack project blasts into reality w/video An inventor's dream is taking off - and could be yours for $100,000. Today's unveiling of the Martin Jetpack is one of the marquee events at the Experimental Aircraft Association's AirVenture, a weeklong air show that is drawing hundreds of thousands of people - and about 10,000 airplanes - to Oshkosh, Wis. Whether the Martin Jetpack technically qualifies as a jetpack is debatable. It's not the type of rocket belt that James Bond wore in "Thunderball," and it's not anything like the jet-powered, wearable wing that a Swiss daredevil cranked up to 186 mph in May. As far as the Federal Aviation Administration is concerned, what Martin has is an experimental ultralight airplane, equipped with a gas-powered, V-4 piston engine and two ducted fans that provide the lift. That puts it in a class with several other fan-powered lifters, including Trek Aerospace's Springtail, Urban Aeronautics' X-Hawk and even Moller International's flying-car prototype. But Martin believes his 250-pound ultralight, initially priced at $100,000, stands the best chance of going commercial. He sees it as a recreational sport vehicle that just might be in the right price range for affluent thrill-seekers. Theoretically, the jetpack can fly for 30 minutes and rise to a height of 8,000 feet. But Glenn Martin said the flight envelope will be carefully tested over the coming months. Martin is opening the order book as of today, and said 10 to 20 vehicles could be sold by the time next year's Oshkosh air show rolls around. Jetpack buyers will be required to go through about 15 hours of flight training as well as a safety screening. "If for some reason they're not coordinated enough, we'll send them their money back and give it to the next person in the queue," Martin said. As an added safety measure, each jetpack is equipped with a ballistic parachute. - Source 07/31/08 - Sharks fear Magnets MAGNETS could be used to fend off shark attacks - after tests showed the giant fish are repelled by them. Boffins found the killers immediately turned and swam away when confronted by the objects. They believe magnets disrupt the sharks’ acute sensing organs, which can detect electromagnetic fields. “They react violently to them, rapidly turning and swinging their bodies away.” At present, the magnets only have a repelling range of about 10 inches. But researchers hope they can be developed so that if worn in a diver’s belt they could prevent attacks. - Source 07/28/08 - Formula for cheaper gas: Baking soda, water, $200 Ray Warren said he installed a hydrogen generation system in his pickup using instructions he purchased off the Internet and that he has doubled his gas mileage from 15 miles per gallon in town to 30 miles per gallon. Warren claims this is no lie and that you can do it too. "If you can read a book, you can do it," he said. / Making Hydrogen with Baking Soda and Water - - Source 07/28/08 - The Hunt to Boost Mileage Here are three plausible solutions that look beyond gasoline. They center on three gases: hydrogen, nitrogen and methane - in ways you may not expect. Hydrogen - If you can't afford one of the new gas-electric hybrid cars, Bruce White, co-founder of H2 Hydrogen Technologies in East Hartford, says his fledgling company has a product in the pipeline that he claims can increase your car's gas mileage by at least 60 percent... Nitrogen - More than a quarter of the cars on the road have one or more underinflated tires, according to a recent U.S. Department of Transportation report. That's bad. Inadequate tire pressure can reduce fuel economy, cause vehicle handling problems and prematurely age tires. Experts say you should check your tires' air pressure every 30 days. But if you're strapped for time, a better solution, according to some experts, is to inflate your tires with nitrogen, an inert, nonflammable gas that makes up most of our air. For years, race cars, military vehicles and aircraft have used nitrogen to keep tires properly inflated. Unlike whole air, nitrogen is less likely to expand or contract due to temperature changes and thus more apt to maintain proper tire pressure... Methane - Say methane and you probably think of swamp gas. But methane has a much nicer name: natural gas, which is 99 percent methane. You may never be able to fill up your car with methane at the local marsh, but how about driving a car that runs on compressed natural gas? Depending on where you live, you'll pay about $2 to $3 for the natural gas equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. European carmakers have been selling passenger vehicles that run on methane for years. In the U.S., the only natural-gas-powered passenger vehicle that's available to individual consumers is the Honda Civic GX, according to Honda Motor Co. Inc., which began selling the vehicle in 2005. Although the GX has been imported in the U.S. since 1998, it was formerly only available as a fleet vehicle. The Civic GX has a 4-cylinder internal combustion engine that runs on natural gas. Filling up the tank costs $16 to $24, depending on where you live, and has a range of about 200 to 250 miles, said Chris Naughton, a spokesman for Honda Motor Co. Inc. The GX gets the equivalent of about 24 mpg city, 36 mpg highway, Naughton said... The GX costs about $25,000, including handling and destination fees. The good news is that there is a $4,000 federal alternative-fuel vehicle tax credit for the Civic. By comparison, the gas-powered Civic costs about $18,000. Filling up the tank with natural gas can be a problem, though, since there are only 1,500 natural gas filling stations in the country, Naughton said. But there's a solution: For $4,000 you can buy a home refueling appliance from FuelMaker Corp., an Ontario-based company, that can be installed in a garage or driveway and connected to existing natural gas transmission lines. There's also a $1,000 tax credit for the refueling appliance. Just hook up the car overnight, and it's refueled by morning. When the GX is fueled at home, the gallon of gas price equivalent is about $2, Naughton said. - Source 07/28/08 - Self-running BuzzSaw Gravity Wheel The BuzzSaw "Gravity Wheel" was invented around 1909 and built with heavy duty cast iron. Family members indicate that it ran by itself with overunity and generated free energy that could run a small saw mill. The wheel is referred to as BuzzSaw due to its saw blade like wheel design. The gravity wheel has an inner wheel with 16 notches and an outer wheel with 8 notches for carrying weights. Weights would shift between the inner and outer wheel with a special gear ratio and weight pattern to obtain overunity. Springs and levers were said to have been incorporated that worked with the nubs on the end of the 12 weights. / The BuzzSaw gravity wheel has two wheels supported by an axle. There is an inner wheel and outer wheel, the inner having 16 gullets and the outer having 8. The inner red wheel is attached to and drives the axle. The outer wheel has 4 black spokes on the back and rotates freely on bearings on the axle. When in motion, the weights would freely fall from one wheel to the other. The outer wheel has a cover that can be removed with screws to insert / remove weights. The original wheel had 12 weights but it is uncertain if all were used or not. The original wheel had a custom 42 tooth sprocket attached for a #60 chain. It is uncertain at this time what the gear ratio was between the two wheels and how many weights were used. There could be an odd chain gear ratio between the wheels and an odd pattern of weights could have been used. It is also unknown for certain which of the two wheels was the driver. The wheel was nicknamed "The Heathen" because it was built so heavy duty and difficult to work with when all 12 weights (174 lbs) were loaded. (Thanks to Preston S. for this update. - JWD) - Source 07/28/08 - Garuda - super-efficient car to be unveiled Students of Mechanical Engg. Department, RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, have designed and built a highly fuel efficient car, which addresses the issues of oil crisis, environmental pollution and need for green technologies. The 'Garuda', the RVCE Supermileage Super Fuel Efficient Car, will be unveiled on August 2 at the RV College of Engineering campus in Bangalore. - Source 07/28/08 - Tata Motors in India Planning Five Electric Models “These will use lithium ion batteries for high energy and power density,” a source said. It is understood that the electric car, which Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata said would be delivered by end of this financial year, would have an approximate range of 200 kilometres. Besides the electric car, the company is also developing an electric version of its mini truck Ace, primarily for exporting to the US and European markets. The sources said the electric vehicle on the Ace platform is in advanced stage of development. Tata electric cars will have a range of approx 130 miles. - Source 07/28/08 - The Abe Lincoln Savings Plan Three years ago, I made a decision that changed my relationship with money: I stopped spending, and started saving, every five-dollar bill that passed through my hands. Squirreling away each and every $5 received as change from a cash transaction didn't require any complicated savings strategy, but it has paid off, to the tune of $12,000. That's right. In three years, I have socked away $12,000 just by saving fives. - Source 07/28/08 - Xpower Saver claims to save on Electric Costs The Xpower Saver reduces the amount of power drawn from the utility by storing otherwise lost electricity caused by the inductive motors in your home. Examples of inductive motors are Air Conditioning units, refrigerators, freezers, washers, dryers, dishwashers, pool pumps, vacuum cleaners, furnace blower motors, fans etc… These inductive loads account generally for 70% of an electric bill. The Xpower Saver saves and stores wasted electricity and re-applies it back to your inductive loads, decreasing your demand from the public utility or renewable energy system. You’ve already paid for that electricity, why waste it when you can store it and reuse it again. This is called power factor optimization and in the case of solar energy systems would allow you to buy a smaller system saving thousands of dollars. What is Power Factor? Power factor is the percentage of electricity that’s delivered to your house and used effectively, compared to what is wasted. Most homes in North America today have a .77 power factor or less. This means that 77% of the electricity that is coming through your meter at your home or business is being used effectively, the other 23% is being wasted. Xpower Saver increases that power factor in most cases to .97 or .98, thus increasing the effective use of your electricity and lowering your bill or usage. The XPower Saver comes with a full 1 year limited warranty. If you're not completely satisfied, just send XPower Saver back to us within 6 months for a "no questions asked" money back guarantee (less S&H). Results may vary and are dependent upon environmental conditions. The XPower device is a capacitor which does not materially affect or reduce power usage or the cost of electricity when used. Only $250.00 - (6) Months Satisfaction Guarantee - Over 100 Satisfied Customers / (I received this in an email and thought it sounded interesting. Neither KeelyNet or I have any relationship with this company, just news you might be interested in. - JWD) - Source 07/28/08 - Iraq troop trash fuels innovation Military scientists at Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground hope so. The machine - its full name is the Tactical Garbage to Energy Refinery - combines a chute, an engine, chemical tanks and other components, giving it the appearance of a lunar rover. It's designed to turn food and waste into fuel. If it works, it could save scores of American and Iraqi lives. Among the biggest threats that soldiers face in the war in Iraq are the roadside bombs that have killed or maimed thousands since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Because some military bases lack a landfill, transporting garbage to dumps miles away in the desert has become a potentially fatal routine for U.S. troops and military contractors. The Tiger would attempt to solve two problems at once: It would sharply reduce those trash hauls and provide the military with an alternative source of fuel. The Tiger works like this: A shredder rips up waste and soaks it in water. A bioreactor metabolizes the sludge into ethanol. A pelletizer compresses undigested waste into pellets that are fed into a gasification unit, which produces composite gas. The ethanol, composite gas and a 10-percent diesel drip are injected into a diesel generator to produce electricity, according to scientists. It takes about six hours for the Tiger to power up. When it works, the device can power a 60-kilowatt generator. - Source 07/28/08 - Lower fuel use having impact on gas prices If demand goes down, then prices should go down too, even for a semi-controlled commodity like gasoline. Does the fact that people are using less gas mean people are driving less? Probably. After all, a lot of people on limited incomes simply cannot afford to pay more for gas. They may be limiting their driving to just the essentials, like getting back and forth to work. But I would think there is more at work here. There has been a surge in interest in more fuel-efficient vehicles and more people are buying them. That predictably - remember supply and demand - has resulted in lack of vehicles. We reported the other day that Ford was scouring the world for fuel efficient vehicles. Premium prices are also likely for some high-demand fuel efficient vehicles that are in short supply. Inevitably that switch to different vehicles will have some impact on fuel demand because those vehicles use less gas. One thing I would be curious about is whether something called hypermiling is having any impact. I first heard about this from a co-worker who was experimenting with it and now I am seeing more and more about it. Hypermiling involves using various driving techniques to reduce fuel use. It can be as simple as driving 65 mph instead of 75 mph on the interstate or coasting to a stop instead of braking. There can be significant fuel savings. - Source 07/28/08 - Oracles or snake-oil salesmen? T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore work separately toward the same goal - energy independence. The U.S. imports 70 percent of its oil today, compared to just 24 percent in 1970. America represents 4 percent of the Earth's population, but consumes 25 percent of the planet's oil. Pickens claims 22 percent of the nation's electricity could be generated by wind power, with the proper investments - Pickens says $1.2 trillion, not pocket change - in windmills and transmission lines. "The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power," claims Pickens. The Midwest in particular is the Middle East of tomorrow's energy supply. Gore is no less enthusiastic in his beliefs, though his proclamations come with a greater sense of desperation. He points out the insanity of the present course: "We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn ... in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change." The realists among us may say that each man makes a few points, but that the world's economy is built on a foundation of oil, and no transition to an alternative energy source is going to happen any time soon. - Source 07/28/08 - Japanese Clockspring Car Runs 40 miles per Winding (Dec, 1933) THE Japanese have never gained any notable degree of fame for their mechanical capabilities, but undoubtedly their reputations along this line will get vigorous boost by their invention of an automobile that runs by clockwork. Very little mechanical data is available on the construction of the new car, but it is said to have British car dealers doing business in Japan somewhat worried. This would indicate that the machine is more than just a freak that originated in the mind of a visionary inventor. Reports state that the car will run 40 miles at one winding. Further developments may see the invention of an eight-day machine. A Modern Mechanix and Inventions artist has caricatured the contraption. - Source 07/28/08 - Prof. says granite countertops are radioactive A physics professor at Rice University is warning of a radioactive threat found in some kitchen countertops. Some granite countertops contain levels of uranium high enough to be dangerous to humans, said Rice professor W.J. Llope. Using a spectrometer, Llope tested 25 varieties of granite bought from Houston-area dealers. In some cases, he said, he found countertops that could expose homeowners to 100 millirems of radiation in just a few months - the annual exposure limit set by the Department of Energy for visitors to nuclear labs. "There should be some oversight in this," Llope said in a story Saturday in the Houston Chronicle. "This isn't something customers should have to do, not something they should have to lay awake worrying themselves to death about." - Source 07/28/08 - How the US Government Was Overthrown In 3 Easy Steps The most powerful bankers creating a world system of financial control, dominating the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole, with secret meetings. Surely you would think Tocque has fallen under the spell of a wild conspiracy theory. But you can put away the cat in the tinfoil hat. Those are not my words. And it's not a theory. They are the words of one of the greatest, most eminent historians in modern times, the late Carroll Quigley - of Harvard, Princeton and the Georgetown Foreign School. The point is not to assert that there is a secret group who is pulling the strings of the modern world. It is far more complex. It is possible that there still exist the inner circle of "initiates." But I have no evidence for it. In fact, the evidence strongly suggest that after 1910 or so, the whole organization took on a new character. And it certainly got uglier. The point is to draw light on this hidden part of our history and the inner workings of the one percent of one percent. They love the shadows and secrecy. They control the flow of information to a horrifying extent. They have untold influence over our government in ways most people can't imagine. And they have a perilous vision for our world. Who has jurisdiction over a transnational economy. Who can regulate it? What democratic institution can even stand up to it? This is the central downfall of the globalization idea. As David Rothkopf observes in this Newsweek column, having a global economy is great for the pirates, but is devasting for democracy, sovereignty, and justice. To take our country back, we must know who exactly we are taking it back from. "The methods can be summed up under three headings: (a) a triple-front penetration in politics, education, and journalism; (b) the recruitment of men of ability (chiefly from [certain universities) and the linking of these men to the [Group] by matrimonial alliances and by gratitude for titles and positions of power; and (c) the influencing of public policy by placing members of the [Group] in positions of power shielded as much as possible from public attention. (Carroll Quigley - The Anglo American Establishment) - Source 07/28/08 - The power and the glory The world’s venture capitalists, having fed on the computing boom of the 1980s, the internet boom of the 1990s and the biotech and nanotech boomlets of the early 2000s, are now looking around for the next one. They think they have found it: energy. The idea of growing what you put in the tank of your car, rather than sucking it out of a hole in the ground, no longer looks like economic madness. Nor does the idea of throwing away the tank and plugging your car into an electric socket instead. Much of the world’s oil is in the hands of governments who have little sympathy with the rich West. (Energy is) A prize beyond the dreams of avarice. The market for energy is huge. At present, the world’s population consumes about 15 terawatts of power. (A terawatt is 1,000 gigawatts, and a gigawatt is the capacity of the largest sort of coal-fired power station.) That translates into a business worth $6 trillion a year-about a tenth of the world’s economic output-according to John Doerr, a venture capitalist who is heavily involved in the industry. And by 2050, power consumption is likely to have risen to 30 terawatts. There are lots of terawatts to play for and lots of money to be made. And if the planet happens to be saved on the way, that is all to the good. - Source 07/26/08 - Video - Martin Jetpack at July 29th, Oshkosh Airshow The world's first practical jetpack makes its debut July 29 at EAA AirVenture! Here's a little more about the Martin Jetpack concept and its development. The Bell Jetpack could only fly for 26 seconds on a full tank. The Martin Jetpack can fly 100 times that, about 43 minutes. - Source 07/26/08 - Behead your Laptop This is a nice trick for breathing new life into an old laptop. [Sarc] had a tibook with a broken LCD. It was still usable with an external monitor, so he simply removed the broken LCD. The tibook (and MacBook) uses a magnetic sensor to monitor the LCD position. To put the machine in the right mode, he taped a magnet in place to make the machine think that the display was in the closed position. To really clean things up, he mounted all the hardware under the desk and used a wireless keyboard and mouse with the machine. - Source 07/26/08 - Revolutionary Electric Motor Design Cuts Energy Use in Half Electric motors consume 67 percent of the energy produced in the United States, yet their fundamental technology hasn't changed much in the past 100 years. Thor Power, a resident company in the Ben Franklin Business Incubator, is well on its way to commercializing an entirely new electric motor design that could have a dramatic impact on nearly every sector of society. Thor Power's technology uses rare earth magnets, resulting in a motor that generates twice the power at half the weight and double the efficiency. Eliminating the electromagnets lowers the weight and results in a quieter, more efficient motor -- 87 percent efficient, in fact. Testing has shown that the motor also lasts significantly longer than standard designs. "The typical AC motor has a life span of about 400 hours," says Bonner. "We stopped testing ours when it reached the 2,000-hour mark with no signs of degradation." So what might this mean for consumers? Bonner sums it up succinctly. "Our design generates twice the power at half the weight and double the efficiency of existing electric motors," he says. "This cuts the consumers' operating costs by 50 percent. This is a major technological advance, particularly in the one- to two-kilowatt power range. And it comes at an opportune time, considering this country's current energy and environmental needs." (via zpenergy.com) - Source 07/26/08 - GPS Has Caused 300,000 Car Accidents In UK A survey by Direct Line insurance conducted on behalf of the Mirror found that some 300,000 accidents in the UK have been caused by RELIANCE ON GPS, 1.5 million have "suddenly veered dangerously or illegally in busy traffic," while slavishly obeying the orders of their GPS devices, and a whopping 5 million have been sent the wrong way down one-way streets. - Source 07/26/08 - DVD Catalyst Rips DVDs to Friendly Formats in One Click Windows only: Free application DVD Catalyst Free rips videos from DVDs to device-friendly formats for your iPod, iPhone, PSP, PS3, Xbox, smartphone, and more in one simple click. Normally we prefer previously mentioned HandBrake for this job, but DVD Catalyst Free is much friendlier if a quick and simple rip is all you're looking for. Either way, DVD Catalyst Free is worth a download. If it's not quite what you're looking for, check out our five best DVD ripping tools for more great ripping tools. DVD Catalyst Free is freeware, Windows only. A shareware version of DVD Catalyst is available if you need an expanded feature set, but the free version should be plenty for most. - Source 07/26/08 - NASA Unravels Mysteries Of Northern Lights Researchers have discovered that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power substorms that create the Northern Lights. NASA said this week that researchers believe stressed magnetic field lines suddenly snap to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far, during a process called magnetic reconnection. "As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field lines stretch far out into space," said David Sibeck, Themis project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth's atmosphere. They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles." The theory is that when a substorm begins, it follows a pattern that includes reconnection, rapid auroral brightening, and rapid expansion toward the Earth's poles. That, in turn, redistributes electrical currents flowing in space and around the Earth. - Source 07/26/08 - A Concrete Fix to Global Warming A Canadian company says that it has developed a way for makers of precast concrete products to take all the carbon-dioxide emissions from their factories, as well as neighboring industrial facilities, and store them in the products that they produce by exposing those products to carbon-dioxide-rich flue gases during the curing process. Industry experts say that the technology is unproven but holds great potential if it works. Robert Niven, founder of Halifax-based Carbon Sense Solutions, says that his company's process would actually allow precast concrete to store carbon dioxide. The company takes advantage of a natural process; carbon dioxide is already reabsorbed in concrete products over hundreds of years from natural chemical reactions. Freshly mixed concrete is exposed to a stream of carbon-dioxide-rich flue gas, rapidly speeding up the reactions between the gas and the calcium-containing minerals in cement (which represents about 10 to 15 percent of the concrete's volume). The technology also virtually eliminates the need for heat or steam, saving energy and emissions. The curing process can store 60 tons of carbon dioxide inside 1,000 tons of precast concrete products, such as concrete blocks, while saving energy. - Source 07/26/08 - Solar power from Saharan sun could provide Europe's electricity Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity. The capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts would meet all of Europe's energy needs. Scientists are calling for the creation of a series of huge solar farms - producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat to boil water and drive turbines - as part of a plan to share Europe's renewable energy resources across the continent. A new supergrid, transmitting electricity along high voltage direct current cables would allow countries such as the UK and Denmark ultimately to export wind energy at times of surplus supply, as well as import from other green sources such as geothermal power in Iceland. Energy losses on DC lines are far lower than on the traditional AC ones, which make transmission of energy over long distances uneconomic. - Source 07/26/08 - Magnets Capture Cancer Cells Magnetic nanoparticles coated with a specialized targeting molecule were able to latch on to cancer cells in mice and drag them out of the body. The particles, which are just 10 nanometers or less in diameter, have cobalt-spiked magnetite at their core. Most of the time they are not magnetic, but when a magnet is present, they become strongly attracted to it. On the surface of the particles is a peptide--a small, proteinlike molecule--designed to attach to a marker that protrudes from most ovarian cancer cells. To test the new technology, the researchers injected first cancer cells and then the magnetic nanoparticles into the abdominal cavities of mice. The cancer cells were tagged with a green fluorescent marker, and the nanoparticles with a red one. When the team brought a magnet near each mouse's belly, a concentrated area of green and red glow appeared just under the skin, indicating that the nanoparticles had latched on to the cancer cells and dragged them toward the magnet. - Source 07/26/08 - More-Efficient Thermoelectrics By improving the electronic properties of a common thermoelectric material--a type of semiconductor that converts heat into electricity--researchers have doubled its performance, making it more practical for generating electricity from waste heat such as that produced in power plants and car engines. Joseph Heremans, a professor of mechanical engineering and physic at Ohio State University, added trace amounts of thallium to lead telluride, a thermoelectric material that's been generating electricity onboard deep space probes for decades. The added thallium doubled the material's ability to convert heat into electricity by increasing the voltage that it produces. Heremans says that the improved efficiency could translate into a 10 percent increase in the fuel economy of cars if the devices are used to replace alternators in automobiles by generating electricity from the heat in exhaust. One drawback to the new materials is that thallium is extremely toxic, so it would require safeguards during manufacturing and disposal. (During use, the materials are encapsulated and therefore pose less of a danger.) - Source 07/26/08 - Fossil Suggests Antarctica Much Warmer in Past A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place. The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D. Because ostracods couldn't survive in the current Antarctic climate, their presence suggests that the southern-most continent hasn't always been as frigid as it is today. While geologists theorize that the land that now makes up Antarctica was once a part of other continents closer to the equator-hundreds of millions of years ago-the warmer climate that supported the ostracods would have existed "when Antarctica was pretty much in its current location," said study co-author David Marchant of Boston University. Marchant estimated that the summer temperatures in Antarctica would have been about 30.6 degrees F (17 degrees C) warmer than they are now. - Source 07/26/08 - WaterBOB The $30 waterBOB™ is a water containment system that holds up to 100 gallons of fresh drinking water in any standard bathtub in the event of an emergency. Constructed of heavy duty food grade plastic, the waterBOB™ keeps water fresh and clean for drinking, cooking, washing and flushing. Water stored in an open bathtub, with dirt, soap film and exposure to debris will spoil and become useless. During a hurricane or tropical storm, water main breaks and storm surges can interrupt or even contaminate your water supply. It is during these conditions the waterBOB™ may be used for temporary water storage. Constructed of heavy duty plastic that is FDA compliant for food storage, the waterBOB™ keeps water fresh and clean for up to 4 weeks. The waterBOB™ is very easy to use. Simply lay the liner in any standard bathtub, attach the fill sock to the faucet and fill the bladder to capacity, which takes approximately 20 minutes. A siphon pump is included to easily dispense the water into jugs or pitchers. Never wait in line again to buy expensive bottled water! Be prepared with the waterBOB™. - Source 07/26/08 - Aging May Be Controlled by Brake and Accelerator Genes Can we tweak certain genes to stave off the aging process - or, conversely, to speed it up? New research indicates that it may one day be possible. Scientists have discovered genetic switches in roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans) - whose genetic makeup is remarkably similar to that of humans - that apparently cause the spineless critters to grow old when flicked on but, when off, may extend their lives. - Source 07/26/08 - Compound in human saliva speeds wound healing "We hope our finding is ultimately beneficial for people who suffer from non-healing wounds, such as foot ulcers and diabetic ulcers, as well as for treatment of trauma-induced wounds like burns," said Menno Oudhoff, first author of the report. Specifically, scientists found that histatin, a small protein in saliva previously only believed to kill bacteria was responsible for the healing. To come to this conclusion, the researchers used epithelial cells that line the inner cheek, and cultured in dishes until the surfaces were completely covered with cells. Then they made an artificial wound in the cell layer in each dish, by scratching a small piece of the cells away. In one dish, cells were bathed in an isotonic fluid without any additions. In the other dish, cells were bathed in human saliva. After 16 hours the scientists noticed that the saliva treated "wound" was almost completely closed. In the dish with the untreated "wound," a substantial part of the "wound" was still open. This proved that human saliva contains a factor which accelerates wound closure of oral cells. Because saliva is a complex liquid with many components, the next step was to identify which component was responsible for wound healing. Using various techniques the researchers split the saliva into its individual components, tested each in their wound model, and finally determined that histatin was responsible. - Source 07/26/08 - Breakthrough in animal spare part transplants for humans Blood vessels, tendons and bladders from animals are to be used in humans for the first time after a breakthrough in transplant surgery. Scientists have overcome the problem of rejection, which has previously prevented animal tissues from being used in patients. It opens the way for a range of new procedures using animal parts. "We can take a tissue from an animal, remove all the cells that carry the signals that trigger the immune system so just the biological scaffold is left. When this is implanted, the patient's own cells then grow in to replace the original cells we have removed. This has advantages as the transplant can then grow with the patient - something that is very important in younger patients." - Source 07/26/08 - Korea a Step Closer to Ultimate Energy Source Scientists operating Korea's next-generation nuclear fusion reactor Tuesday reported their first generation of plasma, saying it marked progress in futuristic experiments to create limitless energy for human use. The device, called KSTAR, an abbreviation for Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Reactor, generated plasma inside its inner chamber for the first time on June 13. The reactor is the second of its kind in the world to generate plasma using superconducting material. China was the first with its EAST reactor in 2006, according to Kwon Myeon, a director at the National Fusion Research Institute. In the experiments that continued through June 30, the plasma lasted for 249 milliseconds at above 100 kilo-amperes (KA) current with the maximum current reaching 133 KA, according to officials from the state-run National Fusion Research Institute. Originally, the goal for the KSTAR scientists was to maintain plasma for 100 milliseconds, or 0.1 seconds, above 100 KA. Fusion reactors generate power by the heating of hydrogen plasma, which causes hydrogen isotopes to fuse and release energy. The duration of the plasma is critical for this process and the reactors are designed with powerful magnetic chambers using superconducting magnets to contain the plasma. Nuclear fusion is regarded as one of future energy solutions that are limitless in sourcing, a key alternative to the limited and depleted sources of fossil fuels. The viability of the technology is still debated. - Source 07/23/08 - GasHole film Hints at 100mpg patent from 1946 Actor Scott D. Roberts and his filmmaking partner, Jeremy Wagener are the unlikely men behind the new documentary GasHole. Narrated by The O.C. and American Beauty actor Peter Gallagher, the film chronicles the history of oil prices and alternative fuels. It will screen for one night only at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Village 8 Theater in Louisville. This is its second stop in Louisville; a screening on July 14 sold out. The idea started 21/2 years ago when gas prices were at a then-high of $2.20 and a letter to the editor in The Modesto Bee newspaper sparked Roberts’ interest. The letter writer told of a Buick Roadmaster he saw come to the Crows Landing Naval Airfield in the 1940s that its inventor claimed was water-injected and could get 100 miles per gallon. The inventor said he became a millionaire by selling the patent to Shell Oil Co., but one of the conditions was he could not make any more. “His story was jaw-dropping,” Roberts said. So Roberts called his friend Wagener, an L.A.-based writer-director, and said he might have a great idea for a movie. The two began researching it and tracked down Kunde, who tells his story in the film. From there, the filmmakers went in search of the elusive patent sold to Shell. They found one from 1946 registered to a man who lived 20 miles outside Modesto; they thought it could be the invention in question. They brought the design to an engineer, who agreed that it might be able to improve fuel economy. From there, the documentary took off. Kunde’s story led them to find other documented cases of fuel-saving inventions that never have seen the light of day. They include Texas inventor Tom Ogle’s 100-mpg vapor fuel system and Shell’s own internal 1977 publication “Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine,” which shows that Shell engineers were able to achieve 149.95 mpg on a 1947 Studebaker. www.gasholemovie.com / (If anyone can find this patent number, please share it with everyone. Email Me. The US patent website doesn't allow searches without specific numbers before 1972, but I ran some numbers and found this one for January 1st, 1946 - 2,391,988. It's not the patent in question, but it gives a range of numbers to hunt. - JWD) - Source 07/23/08 - GM, Utilities Partner To Advance Plug-In Hybrids "General Motors is forming a team with utility companies nationwide to create a charging infrastructure for electric cars. Their goal is to improve the design of charging stations - making them weatherproof and child-proof, for example - in locations such as public garages, meters, and parking lots. They're also working on ways to avoid overwhelming the utilities during peak hours. Their goal is to have these improved charging stations implemented by 2010, when the Chevy Volt is introduced. Everyone recognizes however that a national car-charging infrastructure would be far from complete at that time." - Source 07/23/08 - $250 Freescale-Based "Green" "Cloud" Computer The CherryPal is a tiny desktop computer that its maker says will consume just 2 watts. It uses a Freescale processor that runs Linux and has no moving parts. The CherryPal has integrated software and an embedded Linux (based on Debian) that has been stripped down to support Open Office, Firefox, iTunes, instant messaging, and multimedia access locally. More applications are available in the cloud, and 50 GB of cloud storage is included. It comes without keyboard or mouse but with ports for VGA, USB, Ethernet, and built-in Wi-Fi. It's claimed that the CherryPal will boot up in 20 seconds from 4 GB of flash. They've buried Linux so that the end user doesn't see it; the entire UI is presented through Firefox. The CherryPal site says: "There's no software or upgrades to install, no risk of viruses, and no operating system to deal with and free 24/7 support." - Source 07/23/08 - One Year of Bottles gives flotation and a reason to switch to tap water Only one of the 50 entries in the KUAC Red Green River Regatta consisted of water bottles sewed into a giant Visqueen bag sealed by duct tape. As the “USS Waste H2O” floated along the Chena from Graehl landing to Pioneer Park, the occupants tried to send a message to anyone who saw them: “Drink tap water instead of buying bottled water.” They held up a sign that said “Recycle where?” on one side and “1 Year + 1 House = 1,300 bottles” on the other. Kiffiny said they began buying bottled water a year ago at the time of the last regatta to acquire the raw materials for a raft and show in the process that bottled water comes with an environmental price. So after having gone through 1,300 bottles, they have sworn off the stuff and are sticking to the tap. Their craft was surprisingly maneuverable, fast and comfortable. It looked as comfortable as a Sealy Posturpedic and had more contours than a USGS map. - Source 07/23/08 - Eco homes: Saving water Josephine Pickett-Baker lives with her seven-strong household (her parents, husband, baby Anthony, an au pair and a live-in lodger) in a large house in Peckham, south London. The handsome, Victorian villa is grade II-listed but has some distinctly 21st-century adaptations: these include a 3,300 litre rainwater storage tank buried under the driveway, a further three tanks on the roof and a rainwater harvesting system attached to her three sheds in the garden. The household, though large, uses almost no mains water to flush its three loos and even during dry summer periods the garden is watered entirely with stored rainwater. "We started with two 65-litre water butts which collect water from our garden sheds. They filled up after just two nights of rain." The household now saves over 200 litres of water a day. By using rainwater to flush the loos they are saving £365 a year, at 5 pence per flush. Despite the complex piping system that feeds the three cisterns, the house does not look like a Heath Robinson contraption. "It's fairly easy to use, you just need to remember to do little chores like clean the filters on the large tank," says Josephine. "It does require a little more work than just switching on a tap, but it feels good not to be completely reliant on a water company." Rainwater stored above the ground is only suitable for flushing loos and watering the garden; if stored in an underground tank, however, it can also be used to supply dishwashers and washing machines. On average, 150 litres of water are used by every person per day in the home, while research by Waterwise reveals that most people think they use about 50 litres. The Government's target for new homes is less than 80 litres per person per day. - Source 07/23/08 - Invention Scammers Slammed According to the Federal Trade Commission, the defendants charged up to $12,000 to evaluate and promote consumers’ inventions. They enticed their victims with false claims about product promotion, their track record in turning inventions into profitable products and their relationships with manufacturers. They also deceptively claimed that their income came from sharing royalties with inventors, rather than from the fees consumers paid, the FTC said. The defendants are Davison Design and Development, Inc., formerly known as Davison & Associates, Inc., and its principal, George M. Davison III; Manufacturer’s Support Services, Inc. and its principal, Gordon M. Davison, and his wife, Barbra M. Davison; and relief defendant Barbara L. Davison, who is George M. Davison’s wife. The owners have agreed to return the $10 million in cash and property to its victims. - Source 07/23/08 - Greener TV screens Building the pixels of flat-panel displays like tiny telescopes could make them much more power efficient, or make screens easier to read in direct sunlight. Today's dominant display technology is the thin, cheap and durable liquid crystal display panel (LCD). But the bulk of the light created by a screen's backlight is wasted, and never reaches the viewer. Each circular pixel has a thin metal mirror 100 microns facing back towards the display's backlight, with a 40 micron hole in the center. A second mirror is positioned below and is slightly larger than the hole. When a telescopic pixel is dark, the main mirror is flat. Both mirrors bounce light back to the backlight, away from the viewer. But when a voltage is applied to the main mirror it bends into a parabolic shape, focusing light onto the second mirror and out through the hole. To the viewer the pixel appears lit up. Telescopic pixels can let 36% of a backlight's output pass, compared to the puny amount allowed past by the crystals of an LCD. - Source 07/23/08 - Skyward oil stokes a coal-fired future Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, explained earlier this month why the Persian Gulf states are switching to coal. “[They] may be sitting atop massive oil reserves,” the magazine said. “But with prices for crude skyrocketing, it makes more sense to sell it than to use it. Instead, the Gulf states are turning to coal for their own energy needs - to the detriment of the climate.” And these states are not alone. “Demand for coal plants,” the magazine says, “is growing rapidly across the globe.” Abu Dhabi (largest of the seven UAE emirates) has announced that it will switch to coal-fired power plants. Dubai (the second largest) is already building four of them - with a combined output of 4,000 megawatts - as a first-phase investment in coal. Apart from the United Arab Emirates, Oman (widely regarded as “the next Dubai”) has signed a contract with South Korea for the construction of several coal-fired plants. Beyond the Gulf, Egypt proposes to build its first coal-fired plant on the shores of the Red Sea. Russia has announced plans to build more than 30 coal-fired plants by 2011. - Source 07/23/08 - New knife with exploding tip that freezes victims' organs w/video Police in London are on the lookout for £200 frozen-gas knives designed to kill bears and sharks, according to the never-inflammatory Daily Mail. The manufacturer describes [the Wasp Knife] as perfect for downed pilots, soldiers and security guards and boasts that it will "drop many of the world's largest land predators". It can snap-freeze all tissue and organs in the area surrounding the blast. A source close to West Midlands Police said: "The Met is obviously concerned about this and that is why they have circulated the information. "This knife will almost certainly kill and the Met must have intelligence that they are in circulation. "I think it is only a matter of time before one of these is used because the internet makes it much easier to find and buy weapons like this." / As divers, we all know what the effects of compressed gas are underwater. Our training teaches us that our lungs would burst from over-inflation if we held our breath and rose to the surface. This principle is key to the effectiveness of the WASP Injection System. This weapon injects a freezing cold ball of compressed gas, approximately the size of a basketball, at 800psi nearly instantly. The effects of this injection will drop many of the world's largest land predators. The effects of the compressed gas not only cause over-inflation during ascent when used underwater, but also freezes all tissues and organs surrounding the point of injection on land or at sea. When used underwater, the injected gas carries the predator to the surface BEFORE blood is released into the water. Thus giving the diver added protection by diverting other potential predators to the surface. - Source 07/23/08 - Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water Global food shortages have placed the Middle East and North Africa in a quandary, as they are forced to choose between growing more crops to feed an expanding population or preserving their already scant supply of water. For decades nations in this region have drained aquifers, sucked the salt from seawater and diverted the mighty Nile to make the deserts bloom. But those projects were so costly and used so much water that it remained far more practical to import food than to produce it. Today, some countries import 90 percent or more of their staples. Now, the worldwide food crisis is making many countries in this politically volatile region rethink that math. The population of the region has more than quadrupled since 1950, to 364 million, and is expected to reach nearly 600 million by 2050. By that time, the amount of fresh water available for each person, already scarce, will be cut in half, and declining resources could inflame political tensions further. - Source 07/23/08 - US food groups plan hefty price rises US food companies are preparing another round of hefty price increases as soaring commodity costs force them to pass on rises to consumers. Sara Lee, maker of meat products such as Jimmy Dean sausages, said costs would compel it to push up prices on meat lines by up to a fifth later this year. “We will be taking price increases on the vast majority of the protein products in this calendar year,” said C.J. Fraleigh, Sara Lee’s chief operating officer for North America, in a recent interview. “Price increases vary a lot by type of products but the increases will be as low as zero and some products we will decrease on and other increases [will be] in excess of 20 per cent.” Kraft Foods, Kellogg’s, ConAgra and Tyson are also pushing through increases, which are expected to contribute to inflationary pressures in the US. - Source 07/23/08 - Video - Cellphone Karma Cell Phone Karma is real. Kyocera Wireless reminds you to dial responsibly. - Source 07/23/08 - Cops Target Photographers With camera in hand, Momoko Sudo headed from her Schenley Park home to the Biltmore Hotel gym for her morning workout. It was June 10, and the sun was bursting through the clouds after an early-morning shower. The demure 39-year-old Japanese artist paid particular attention to the raindrops on the leaves. She planned to photograph them. Drawn by the picturesque entry into Coral Gables via Coral Way, she crossed Red Road and strolled along a sidewalk until she spotted a police officer sitting on his motorcycle talking on a cell phone. Thinking it a good image, she snapped a photo and continued walking. "Come here!" Ofcr. Nelson Rodriguez barked. Then he demanded her camera. Soon he deleted more than 150 photos. He ripped out the memory card and slammed it on the sidewalk. "I was very upset," says Sudo, who stands five feet two inches tall and considers herself a passive person. "But I didn't want to say anything because he was very big and angry." The incident is one of at least four that have occurred in Miami-Dade County over the past year in which photographers have ended up arrested, handcuffed, threatened, intimidated, or accused of being a terrorist. - Source 07/23/08 - Scientists solve riddle of toxic algae blooms By pumping various pollutants into Lake 227, a small pristine lake in the Experimental Lakes region of northern Ontario, they were able to pin down which chemical nutrients were key to triggering the blooms. "Phosphorous really is the key," says Schindler, whose study is highlighted in the U.S.-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. "Here in Alberta, it is especially important because the phosphorous content in the soil is naturally high, so you don't have to add a lot to create a serious problem." Scientist Stephen Carpenter said global expansion of aquatic "dead zones" caused by algae blooms is rising rapidly. There are now 146 coastal regions in the world in which fish and bottom-feeding life forms have been entirely eliminated because of a lack of oxygen. One dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is about the size of the city of New Jersey and growing. Schindler's latest series of long-term experiments shows that nitrogen removal completely fails to control blue-green algae blooms. He proved this by manipulating nitrogen and phosphorus levels on Lake 227 for 37 years. Nitrogen control, he found, only encouraged algae blooms. - Source 07/23/08 - A dash of lime may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels Adding lime to seawater increases alkalinity, boosting seawater's ability to absorb CO2 from air and reducing the tendency to release it back again. However, the idea, which has been bandied about for years, was thought unworkable because of the expense of obtaining lime from limestone and the amount of CO2 released in the process. Tim Kruger, a management consultant at London firm Corven is the brains behind the plan to resurrect the lime process. He argues that it could be made workable by locating it in regions that have a combination of low-cost 'stranded' energy considered too remote to be economically viable to exploit - like flared natural gas or solar energy in deserts - and that are rich in limestone, making it feasible for calcination to take place on site. The process of making lime generates CO2, but adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO2. The overall process is therefore 'carbon negative'. 'This process has the potential to reverse the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. It would be possible to reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels,' Kruger says. - Source 07/23/08 - Victor's Earphone Makes Sound Deeper in Ear Victor Company of Japan will release the industry's first sound-isolating earphone whose driver unit is located in its sound channel (the part that enters an earhole). The company will release the earphone, "HP-FXC50," in Japan in early August 2008. The driver unit of the HP-FXC50 is longer and thinner (5.8mm in diameter) than the existing model so that it can be installed in the sound channel. Also, the distance between the driver unit and a drum membrane is shorter, reducing both external sound and sound leakage. The frequency range of the HP-FXC50 is from 10 to 24000Hz, its response (output sound pressure level) is 103dB/1mW and its maximum permissible input is 150mW. The earphone does not have a suggested retail price, but the price is expected to be about ¥4,000 (? US$37.6). - Source 07/23/08 - Big Brother tightens his grip on the web Last week, a New York judge ordered Google to hand over a staggering 12 terabytes of YouTube user data to broadcaster Viacom. Naturally, the American broadcaster, which is losing young television viewers daily, needs all this data to prevent its younger audience from posting clips of its programming on the net's most thriving community where, shock horror, a fan base may form to discuss, discover and share their opinions about Viacom's TV shows, music videos and movie trailers. Yes, this is a case of copyright infringement, but if you're unable to pick out the real crime here you are not alone. On Tuesday, the European Parliament approved sweeping amendments to a package of telecoms laws that could essentially stifle the next Skype or Firefox, and make it simpler for France's three-strikes-and-you're-out file-sharing rules to become the law throughout Europe. Critics such as the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure are calling it "Soviet-style" censorship. As Benjamin Henrion of FFII ominously warns, "Tomorrow, popular software applications like Skype or even Firefox might be declared illegal in Europe if they are not certified by an administrative authority. This is compromising the whole open development of the internet as we know it today. Once the Soviet Union required the registration of all typewriters and printing devices with the authorities." The FFII also fears this legislation, known as the Telecoms Packet, will legalise mass spying on net users across Europe by jittery telcos, copyright hawks and panicky politicians. - Source 07/23/08 - Prostrate Cancer Wonder Pill Trials of a new pill have shown that it can shrink tumours in up to 80 per cent of cases, and end the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The drug, abiraterone, was discovered by researchers at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South-West London. Their leader, Dr Johann de Bono, said patients there had been able to control the disease with just four pills a day and very few side-effects. Prostate cancer is Britain's most common cancer among men and the second highest killer, after lung cancer. Some 35,000 people a year are diagnosed with it - and 12,000 die. There are two types, aggressive and non-aggressive, which are often called 'tiger' and 'pussycat'. Men with pussycat cancer can often lead a healthy life, but the tiger variety - a third of cases - is usually fatal within 18 months. Prostate cancer is associated with ageing, and over the next 25 years it is estimated there will be a 60 per cent increase in the number of men over 65. This means there will be more cases of the cancer and abiraterone could save many thousands of lives. Its side-effects can include loss of libido, breathlessness, fatigue, fluid retention and weight gain. Some men may be left impotent, but the effects are far less than with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. - Source 07/23/08 - Who owns rain? Does saving rainwater violate state law? Technically, rain that falls on your roof isn't yours for the taking. It's a resource of the state, which regulates the use of public waters through an allocation process that can take years to navigate. The state has long allowed people to collect a small amount of rain without asking. Although no one wants to police homeowners harvesting a few hundred gallons for a backyard garden, the state hasn't defined where that regulatory threshold lies. Someone collecting rain in larger quantities to irrigate a farm or wash laundry in a new condo building without a state water right could be breaking the rarely enforced law. "We're not going to start issuing permits for a pickle barrel in the backyard. But what if it's four pickle barrels or a system that has 20,000 gallons of storage?" said Brian Walsh, a manager in the Department of Ecology's water resources program. In urban areas, though, some cities and developers promoting green building practices simply ignored the issue. The rainwater collection system used to flush toilets in Seattle City Hall likely violated state law when it was built five years ago. That's why the city of Seattle recently obtained a citywide water-right permit, which makes it legal to collect rain from rooftops in most areas of the city. But there still are a few neighborhoods - including most areas north of 85th Street - that aren't covered. That's because stormwater there drains into creeks and streams and lakes rather than sewer pipes. Builders there would not enjoy the same legal protection. "Most people just blow it off and nobody's going to go after them, at least not yet," said Michael Broili, who designs rainwater-collection systems. "But water is a huge, huge issue that is just below the surface of the radar and in the next ... years, especially if global warming becomes a reality, it's even going to become more of one." - Source 07/21/08 - Tata Motors to introduce Air Car - Is it the next big thing? India’s largest automaker Tata Motors is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008. The Air Car, called the MiniCAT could cost around Rs. 3,50,000 ($ 8177) in India and would have a range of around 300 km between refuels. The cost of a refill would be about Rs. 85 ($ 2). Tata motors also plans to launch the world’s cheapest car, Tata Nano priced famously at One lakh rupees by October. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators etc. There are no keys - just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket. According to the designers, it costs less than 50 rupees per 100Km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or 10 hours of driving), a factor which makes a perfect choice in cities where the 80% of motorists drive at less than 60Km. The car has a top speed of 105 kmph. Refilling the car will, once the market develops, take place at adapted petrol stations to administer compressed air. In two or three minutes, and at a cost of approximately 100 rupees, the car will be ready to go another 200-300 kilometers. As a viable alternative, the car carries a small compressor which can be connected to the mains (220V or 380V) and refill the tank in 3-4 hours. - Source 07/21/08 - Making Strides Toward Low-Cost LED Lighting "You all know that incandescent bulbs are pretty inefficient, converting only 10% of electricity into light - and 90% into heat. Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, could soon replace incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs in our homes. They are more efficient and environmentally friendly. But LED lights are currently too expensive because they are using a sapphire-based technology. Now, Purdue University researchers have found a way to build low-cost and bright LEDs for home lighting. According to the researchers, the LED lights now on the market cost about $100 while LED lights based on their new technology could be commercially available within a couple of years for a cost of about $5. It would also help to cut our electricity bill by about 10%." - Source 07/21/08 - Web-Crawling Program Spots Disease Outbreaks "There is a story at Discovery Channel's site about a new utility for mapping disease. The premise is to have bots crawl the web looking for stories about disease outbreaks and log them onto a map. '"We were originally thinking about how we could expand disease surveillance and pick up outbreaks earlier than traditional methods," said John Brownstein of Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston, who created HealthMap in September of 2006 with Clark Friefeld, a software developer at Harvard Medical School.' But then it was noticed by Google.org and has since grown into its own website, HealthMap Global disease alert map, and claims to be able to identify 95% of all disease outbreaks, some of them before WHO or CDC." - Source 07/21/08 - WindWings beat Wind Turbines The WindWing dispenses with propellers in favor of parallel panels that look like stacked WWI plane wings stuck up on a pole. The panels work similarly by lifting and lowering with the wind. Gene Kelley, Founder and CEO of W2 Energy Development Corp., recently turned his hand to improving the efficiency of turning wind into energy with his WindWings invention. Basically, it is a series of six to twelve horizontal parallel blades that move up and down in the wind. Here is his explanation for how it works: Have you ever stuck your hand out a car window? Then you know how the WindWing works. Your hand tilts up as it is pushed up by the wind and down as the wind pushes it down; all you have to do is direct it. Sensors behind the panels adjust the WindWing according to wind direction and strength. Once the series of panels are adjusted, the wind pushes them up and down collecting the energy through its stem and storing it in a box at the base. That energy can be converted into electricity, compressed air or put through a water pump. Since the WindWing works more efficiently than a traditional wind turbine, it costs one tenth the price. One WindWing can also replace about twelve propeller wind turbines depending on the surface area and needs of the community. - Source 07/21/08 - Energy from Water - Genepax MEA According to QED, or general quantum mechanics, the uncertainty at micro worlds dominates. If we take water, H2O is an average phenomena, and there is no certain locations or bond angles as to measure. A high voltage can easily "stress" covalent apparent bonding of H2O; thus in theory it is possible to stress the polarized H2O to a level which equalizes the bonding strength with only voltage (no current or amperage). The bond breakage can acutely happen, thus the dielectric characteristic of water (distilled) suddenly diminishes (catastrophic dielectric failure) which is a point where large amount of H2 and O2 exits. This is not exactly Faraday electrolysis and the resultant gas quantities can well exceed 300+ times more than Faraday’s expectations. An exotic observation here is the gas is produced between the two electrodes (commonly stainless steel plates) and not as expected at the electrodes. About the recent water car from Genepax, Japan, we had the exclusive opportunity to do some poking with the invention through our fellow researcher in Tokyo. Their cell is up to the claims, but their demonstration (car running in streets by Reuters) was not so genuine. It was running on the batteries, thus the energy unit was just loaded doing nothing significant. However, the water fuel cell truly produced 300W of power consuming water. They use ruthenium, platinum and some corral sands (probably to make the porosity of the membrane) in Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA). Researchers are currently studying their two filled patents, which describes the catalytic disassociation of water. - Source 07/21/08 - Texas To Build $4.93B Wind-Power Project "The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running. 'The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable for wind generation. The lack of transmission has been a fundamental issue in Texas, and it's becoming more and more of an issue elsewhere,' said Vanessa Kellogg, the Southwest regional development director for Horizon Wind Energy, which operates the Lone Star Wind Farm in West Texas and has more wind generation under development. 'This is a great step in the right direction.'" - Source 07/21/08 - Walking Helps Seniors Take Aging in Stride Study Shows Older Americans Can Increase Physical Function, Reduce Risk of Disability by Walking. A new study by researchers at the University of Georgia shows that older folks who kept up with a walking program for four months had "significant" health improvements over a group that didn't walk. The participants were randomly split into two groups, the walkers and a control group, which attended nutrition education classes. The walkers met three times a week for four months. At first, they walked for 10 minutes straight. It was increased to 40 minutes, with 10 minutes of warm-up and cool-down stretching. Both groups were given a battery of tests to assess aerobic capacity and physical function, which included how well the participants performed simple daily living tasks such as putting on a jacket or carrying a bag of groceries. Both groups had baseline testing at the beginning and end of the study. After just four months, the walking group fared much better in all levels of fitness. Results: * Physical function scores increased by 25% for the walking group, but decreased by 8.3% in the other group. The walking group's disability risk decreased by 41%. * Peak aerobic capacity increased 19% for the walkers. * Peak aerobic capacity declined 9% for the control group. "Aerobic capacity is really the engine that we draw upon for doing the things we want to do, whether it's cleaning up around the house or running a marathon," Cress says. "By increasing their aerobic capacity, the walking group was better able to perform their daily tasks and had more energy left over for recreational activities, like going out dancing." - Source 07/21/08 - Serendipity and the 'Eureka' Moment We’ve come to realize that inside most people is an entrepreneur - or at least the desire to create or do something that will solve a problem, change the way we live or at least make money. That’s human nature. It’s the old "Why didn’t I think of that?" phenomenon. There are lots of ideas, and, interestingly enough, the people who have them often didn’t start out with that idea in mind. It just happened. That led me to think about some of the most famous innovations that we enjoy today and how they came about almost by accident. Of course, one of the most famous is penicillin, which was the result of a 1928 laboratory experiment mistakenly left out on a table. It grew a fungus that later becam