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03/31/07 - Pond-Powered Biofuels
 Using a complex (and still expensive) photosynthetic process, breakthrough innovators have developed biodiesel and ethanol from an unlikely source that can double its output overnight and just might help give alternative energy the bump it needs: little green goo. Colorado's Solix Biofuels tackles the difficult task of harvesting algae the right way with a field of bioreactors that take a kind of painter's dropcloth (inset) to bubble CO through its system.The science is simple: Algae need water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to grow. The oil they produce can then be harvested and converted into biodiesel; the algae’s carbohydrate content can be fermented into ethanol. Both are much cleaner-burning fuels than petroleum-based diesel or gas. The reality is more complex. Trying to grow concentrations of the finicky organism is a bit like trying to balance the water in a fish tank. It’s also expensive. The water needs to be just the right temperature for algae to proliferate, and even then open ponds can become choked with invasive species. Atmospheric levels of CO2 also aren’t high enough to spur exponential growth. Solix addresses these problems by containing the algae in closed “photobioreactors”-triangular chambers made from sheets of polyethylene plastic (similar to a painter’s dropcloth)-and bubbling supplemental carbon dioxide through the system. Eventually, the source of the CO2 will be exhaust from power plants and other industrial processes, providing the added benefit of capturing a potent greenhouse gas before it reaches the atmosphere. Given the right conditions, algae can double its volume overnight. Unlike other biofuel feedstocks, such as soy or corn, it can be harvested day after day. Up to 50 percent of an alga’s body weight is comprised of oil, whereas oil-palm trees-currently the largest producer of oil to make biofuels-yield just about 20 percent of their weight in oil. Across the board, yields are already impressive: Soy produces some 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons. But algae is expected to produce 10,000 gallons per acre per year, and eventually even more.
03/31/07 - Is dark energy an illusion?
The quickening pace of our universe's expansion may not be driven by a mysterious force called dark energy after all, but paradoxically, by the collapse of matter in small regions of space. Astronomers were astonished to discover in 1998 that the expansion of the universe is happening at an ever-increasing rate. The mysterious repulsive force responsible for this was dubbed dark energy, though scientists still do not know what it is. Now, physicist Syksy Rasanen of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, says we might not need dark energy after all. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, the increasing rate of expansion might be due to the collapse of small regions of the universe under gravity, he says.
03/31/07 - Architect claims to solve pyramid secret
 A French architect claimed Friday to have uncovered the mystery about how Egypt's Great Pyramid of Khufu was built - with use of a spiral ramp to hoist huge stone blocks into place. The construction of the Great Pyramid 4,500 years ago by Khufu, a ruler also known as Cheops, has long befuddled scientists as to how its 3 million stone blocks weighing 2.5 tons each were lifted into place. Houdin said he had taken into account the copper and stone tools available at the time, the granite and limestone blocks, the location of the pyramid and the strength and knowledge of the workers. According to his theory - shown in a computer model available at http://www.3ds.com/khufu - the builders put up an outer ramp for the first 140 feet, then constructed an inner ramp in a corkscrew shape to complete the 450-foot structure. Houdin also postulated that King's Chamber was hoisted into place through a system of counterweights.
03/31/07 - The Farce that is Alternative Energy
Solar, wind, ethanol, hybrid cars…none of them is going to be our savior when the oil music stops playing. You’re wondering why? Efficiency, that’s why--energy in vs. energy out. To oil’s benefit, it took less energy to get for the energy it gave. Even at $40/barrel, it was the cheapest source of energy, with the most output, per barrel (or even BTU). Now that cheap source is destined to come to a thin trickle, if not a screeching halt. What do we have as replacements? Solar panels, made from petroleum, only provide us with about 10% of our current energy needs, and we’d have to line I-5 in California with solar panels just to make 6 megawatts of power (the standard used in today’s electric generation plants)-the golden rule used to measure the electric needs of an average U.S. city. Six megawatts equals ONE power plant. It takes 12 solar panels working constantly just to run 1 refrigerator, and we don’t live in the land of the midnight sun.
03/31/07 - Video: Army Flying Saucer
 The U.S. Army would like to have a fleet of robotic flying saucers -- and it's given a British company a contract to try to build some UFO-like prototypes. "The six-month contract is aimed at demonstrating the [machine's] ability to hover close to its control-ground station, providing a surveillance capability for convoys, security force bases and other roles," reports Defense News. “Because it has no exposed rotating parts, it can be flown through doorways and windows,” said Geoff Hatton, the technical director of Peterborough, England-based GFS Projects. “We have taken science fiction and turned it into science fact.” The British government has also kicked in some money to build the battery-powered saucers, versions of which have been built and flight-tested that are nearly four feet in diameter. The machine relies on the so-called "Coanda Effect," named after the Romanian aeronautics pioneer Henri Coanda. In the 1930s, he observed that the flow of air will follow a curved surface, rather than just continue in a straight line. That led engineers to increase the lift -- the vertical motion -- of most aircraft, which are slightly curved. But it's also inspired more than a few tinkerers to try to build a completely curved plane -- an honest-to-God flying saucer. In the 1940s, the U.S. Navy developed the Flying Flapjack, a Frisbee-looking fighter plane that could take off and land like a helicopter. By the mid-50's, the Air Force was worked on a jet-powered saucer, the Avrocar. But the service could never get it stable more than a few feet off the ground. More recently, from 1992 to 1998, the Navy experimented with a set of unmanned, 250-pound, six-foot-diameter flying saucers. In 2002, Norweigan researchers showed off plans for a circular flying robot "inspired at least partly by the design of Star Trek's USS Enterprise," New Scientist noted. A team of Russian engineers, under a Navy contract, worked for a while on a Coanda-powered, pita-shaped, stubby-winged drone. Last year, the Air Force tapped a Massachusetts firm to build a set of heavily-armed "frisbee-UAVs," or unmanned aerial vehicles. The "flight duration and payload are still limited," on GFS' saucer, the company notes. Right now, the firm "is now focused on optimising fan, motors and canopy specifications, with a view to having a commercially solid range of capabilities by 2008. Applications could range from "close quarter surveillance and intelligence gathering" to "shark watch" and "toy." In the meantime, the company has applied for patents on everything from "craft having aerofoil surface for controlling its spin" to "craft having flow-producing rotor and gyroscopic stability." And GFS has inspired a whole community of saucer-builders, at least one of which has gone through some not-inconsiderable flight testing. Here's some footage from one of those experiments.
03/30/07 - Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System - Cleaning poison water
THREE students have come up with an idea that could help save the lives of 1.2 billion poverty-stricken people. The brainy trio have designed a lightweight barrel on wheels that purifies water as it is pushed along, cleaning it to such an extent it could then be bottled and sold in the UK. "The figures given by the charity were staggering and we just couldn't get our heads round the fact that 10,000 people die every day because they don't have access to a clean water supply. "Then as we were sitting chatting in a cafe, we had the idea of making a barrel on wheels that could purify the water as it was being pushed back home. Red Button's water purifier, or Reverse Osmosis Sanitation System (ROSS) to give its proper name, will mean a family of four in poverty-stricken areas such as sub-Sahara Africa and Bangladesh will be able to collect enough water for a day's drinking, cooking, cleaning, washing and even a small amount of farming in just one trip to their nearest water source. At the moment, many African families need to make three 12-kilometre round trips to their nearest clean water well. This means children are often kept back from school and parents are stopped from working in order to make the timeconsuming but vital trips. Nicky, 23, said: "Clean water is the most basic thing any of us need to stay alive. "Having a ROSS would mean a family could use the nearest water source and free up the time normally spent trekking to wells for education and work. "We are aware that it is not a long-term solution but it could be used as an instant fix in areas where any kind of infrastructure is still five or 10 years away from being put in place. "They are so durable they could even be dropped by plane into remote areas to be used instantly by families on the ground." Nicky added: "We are also looking into the possibility of teaching local people how to make the barrels themselves from old bicycle parts and plastic containers." "That way, all we would do is supply the inner workings while, hopefully, also give the local economy a boost." The purifier would also make a huge difference to people who don't have any access to clean water wells. The simple filter device cleans even the filthiest of water of all bacteria, parasites and viruses making it completely safe to drink and use. "Having clean water makes a difference in so many other ways as well. It is, for example, vital for cleaning wounds properly. Farm produce also benefits from being irrigated with pure water." - Ross website
03/30/07 - Irrational Public Radio - Hilarious!
 "We love public radio. We love NPR, PRI, & MPR. We are fans of All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Car Talk, This American Life, Fresh Air, and Prarie Home Companion. We like the commentaries, the features, the independent member station programs. We love them all dearly. But we also think they're begging to be made fun of. So here we are." Check out the episode guide.
03/30/07 - Dept. of Energy Rejects Corn Fuel Future
"The United States' Department of Energy is stating that corn based fuel is not the future. From the article, "I'm not going to predict what the price of corn is going to do, but I will tell you the future of biofuels is not based on corn," U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said in an interview. Output of U.S. ethanol, which is mostly made from corn, is expected to jump in 2007 from 5.6 billion gallons per year to 8 billion gpy, as nearly 80 bio-refineries sprout up. In related news, Fidel Castro is blasting the production of corn fuel as a blatant waste of food that would otherwise feed 3 billion people who will die of hunger."
03/30/07 - LG Electronics launches first steam washing machine
 LG has successfully incorporated the eco-friendly steam technology used to clean clothes with less water and energy, while preventing shrinkage and extending the life cycle of the garment. The newest offering also features the Refresh Course process, which allows consumers to deal with wrinkles without ironing. The LG Steam Washing Machine features the dual spray system, which sprays steam on the laundry for 40 minutes to improve washing performance and help rid it of harmful germs. According to tests conducted by accredited testing, inspection & research institute, LG's newest offering improves washing performance by 21% over the company's conventional drum washing machines. Whereas traditional high heat washing processes waste energy in heating up the water and the chamber, the LG Steam Washing Machine utilizes steam for the same result with just half the energy. It also reduces water usage by 27%. Further, the unit utilizes steam technology to clean its interior. Compared to traditional drum washing processes, the technology reduces the time needed dramatically.
03/30/07 - Watch and Learn
SuTree is a knowledge community. We nurture the ultimate tree of knowledge: the world's largest index & library of free video/audio lessons, tutorials, lectures & how-to's. Our content is handpicked by our users and then examined by our team/community.
03/30/07 - Goldfish live in a deep-fat fryer
 A Japanese restaurant has combined a deep-fat fryer with a functional goldfish tank -- the boiling oil floats on the surface of the cool water, and the fish get to eat all the crumbs of batter that dribble down. Because oil floats on water, despite the massive heat (163 degrees Celsius) the goldfish simply stay away from the surface and all is well. They eat the crumbs of croquettes and other fried foods that fall to the bottom, and can live in there for 5-10 years as they happily clean away, ignorant to the fact that certain death awaits any potential escapees. (via boingboing.net)
03/30/07 - Imagine a World Without Ethics
Why do we behave ethically? Just think what life would be like if everyone did what they wanted, without regard for consequences. At the end of every talk, I ask the group, "Why should we be ethical?" Over the years, I've heard a wide range of responses, including: • To sleep better at night. • To be able to look myself in the mirror. • To be a good role model to my children. • It's the easiest way to live. • Without ethics, life would be pure chaos. • It's the right thing to do. One of the most creative answers came a few weeks ago when I was speaking to a group of human-resources managers in Cleveland: We're all going to live forever. The question is where! The answers people give are thoughtful, sincere, and often inspirational. In response to this chorus of naysayers, I propose the following Code of Ethics for the 21st century: 1. The most important thing in life is to get exactly what you want, whenever you want, and by any means necessary. Thus, you have the absolute right to do whatever you have to do to satisfy whatever desire, craving, or wish you have. 2. Tell the truth at all times, unless it's to your advantage to lie, deceive, or tell a partial truth. 3. Never take responsibility for anything. That way, you never have to worry that you may have done the wrong thing. Blame the misfortunes of the world, and in your own life, on the poor judgment of other people. 4. Keep your promises, unless something better comes along. 5. Kindness is for wimps. Let your true feelings show, no matter how unpleasant they may be. 6. Show care and compassion for your fellow human beings, unless they've hurt you. In that case, all bets are off. 7. Have little or no regard for how your actions affect other people. It's their problem, not yours, if they're offended or harmed by what you say or do. 8. Never, ever cheat, unless you can get away with it. 9. Do not, under any circumstance, report wrongdoings you observe. Don't get involved. It's none of your business. 10. Always follow the New Golden Rule: "Do unto others before they do unto you." For those who criticize the subject of this column, this code might seem like the perfect antidote: Think about yourself, and only about yourself, and you will be fine.
03/30/07 - Soil May Counteract Buckyball Danger
 The teeny, tiny carbon particles known as buckyballs did not harm healthy bacteria living in soil samples in a recent test. The result contrasts with prior studies in which buckyballs killed bacteria in lab dishes, suggesting that components ofordinary soil may counteract the potential dangers of some nanoparticles. "There was a bit of a fear it was going to have a major negative effect on soil," says environmental microbiologist Ronald Turco of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., who led the study. He says there are still many other nanoparticles to evaluate, however, including flecks of silver and other metals as well as buckyballs' carbon cousins, nanotubes, which are likely to behave in other ways.
03/30/07 - Songslide: Pick your price for Independent Music
After performing and recording independent music for years, we realized something very interesting. Every time we let our fans choose the prices they paid for our shows and CDs, we always made more money. People who wanted to pay more, paid more. And people who didn’t want to pay more were still able to contribute at lower prices. It was good for everyone. The fans were able to express how much they liked the music by showing their support in the most meaningful way. And we walked away with more money, which meant we had a better chance to continue making the music our fans loved. But the biggest thing was, it created such a great feeling between us and our fans. People really liked being in control of what they paid for our music. And we really liked giving them that control. After all, different songs have drastically different value to different people. So why not let everyone express that value when they pay for music? We started SongSlide because we believe there is a huge well of untapped generosity out there in the world of independent music. We believe that when fans are given the choice to support their favorite artists by paying more for their music, they will pay more. Why? Because it feels great to support the musicians you love. And because fans know it will make a difference to the artists.
03/30/07 - TeamViewer Remote Control of any PC on the Net - FREE
 TeamViewer Desktop with wings - Simple, Fast and Secure Desktop Sharing. Desktop sharing has never been easier: With TeamViewer you will be able to connect to the desktop of a partner anywhere on the Internet. TeamViewer also works in the other direction: Show your own desktop to a partner over the Internet and demonstrate your own software, solutions and presentations. * Remote Control without Installation. With TeamViewer you can remotely control any PC anywhere on the Internet. No installation is required, just run the application on both sides and connect - even through tight firewalls. * Remote Presentation of Products, Solutions and Services. The second TeamViewer mode allows you to present your desktop to a partner. Show your demos, products and presentations over the Internet within seconds - live from your screen.
03/30/07 - Smokers take more sick leaves than non-smokers
 Two separate studies have revealed that when compared with non-smoking colleagues, smokers’ performance at their work place is worse, and they take 8 days of additional sick leave annually. In one study, an analysis of the career progression of almost 5,500 women entering the US Navy over a period of 12 months between 1996 and 1997 revealed that compared with non-smokers, daily smokers were less likely to enlist for eight years, and they were significantly more likely to leave before they had served their full term. Non-smokers achieved the longest period of service; daily smokers achieved the shortest. Significantly fewer regular smokers re-enlisted. Regular smokers were significantly more likely than non-smokers to be discharged for medical reasons, bad behaviour, misconduct, including drug misuse, and personality disorders. On an average, non-smokers were paid significantly more than daily smokers, even after taking account of educational attainment and time in service. The performance of those who had smoked in the past or were occasional smokers typically fell somewhere in between that of people who had never smoked and daily smokers. “Cigarette smoking might simply be a ‘marker’ for other underlying factors, such as non-conformity and high risk taking, that contribute to poorer performance in the military,” the authors explained. Another study by a team analysed registry data on sickness absence among more than 14,000 workers in Sweden and revealed that non-smokers took the fewest days off sick; smokers took the most. Across the whole sample, the average number of days taken as sick leave was 25. But smokers took almost 11 extra days off sick compared with their non-smoking colleagues, equal to 43% of all sick leave taken every year among the sample, say the authors. There was little difference in the number of additional days taken as sick leave between male and female workers.
03/30/07 - Mercury in energy-saving bulbs worries scientists
The newer energy-efficient kinds contain tiny amounts of mercury, the hard part is getting rid of them when they burn out. Mercury is poisonous, but it's also a necessary part of most compact fluorescent bulbs, the kind that environmentalists and some governments are pushing as a way to cut energy use. With an estimated 150 million CFLs sold in the United States in 2006 and with Wal-Mart alone hoping to sell 100 million this year, some scientists and environmentalists are worried that most are ending up in garbage dumps. Mercury is probably best-known for its effects on the nervous system. The Mad Hatter in the classic children's book ”Alice in Wonderland” was based on 19th-century hat makers who were continually exposed to the toxin. Mercury can also damage the kidneys and liver, and in sufficient quantities can cause death. Some of the mercury emitted from landfills is in the form of vaprous methyl-mercury, which can get into the food chain more readily than inorganic elemental mercury released directly from a broken bulb or even coal-fired power plants, according to government scientist Steve Lindberg. The mercury content in the average CFL - now about 5 milligrams - would fit on the tip of a ballpoint pen, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and manufacturers have committed to cap the amount in most CFLs to 5 milligrams or 6 milligrams per bulb. The majority of Philips Lighting's bulbs contain less than 3 milligrams, and some have as little as 1.23 milligrams, said spokesman Steve Goldmacher.
03/30/07 - Mad Hatter Day October 6th
 MadHatterDay is a holiday in October. It fills the need for a second crazy day in the year, almost exactly half a year from April Fools' Day. The real spirit of MadHatterDay is turnabout: The nonsense we usually have to pretend is sane can be called madness for one day in the year; the superficially crazy things that really make sense can be called sane on MadHatterDay. MadHatterDay is 10/6. The date was chosen from the illustrations by John Tenniel in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, wherein the Mad Hatter is always seen wearing a hat bearing a slip of paper with the notation "In this style 10/6". MadHatterDay began in Boulder, CO, in 1986, among some computer folk who had nothing better to do. It was immediately recognized as valuable because they caused less damage than if they'd been doing their jobs. Your world is crazier than you think: * We travel around by taking the juice from hundred-million-year-old rotten dinosaur food and exploding it in a metal can. * A "sports fanatic" is not someone who participates in sports, but someone who sits indoors on a beautiful day, drinking beer while yelling at the picture on a little box. (Throw the ultimate football party: Forget the TV; just sit around eating and drinking with friends.) * As much as we say we like to "get away from it all", the more successful we are, the more we take it all with us when we go. (Take a vacation with all the comforts of home: Just stay home!) * We're so well-fed that we're getting food with intentionally reduced nutritional content--so we can take the trouble to eat without getting the benefit of doing so. (Enjoy the ultimate in fast-diet-food: Skip lunch.) * We've saved so much gift-giving for the Christmas season that it has entirely unbalanced the flow of cash and consumer goods through the year. So merchants decided to start the season early to have something to do the rest of the year. (There's now only one major gift-giving holiday -- but it lasts for five months. Surprise someone with a MadHatterDay present.)
03/30/07 - Climate science was doctored
THE Bush administration diluted scientific evidence of global warming, one of its former high-ranking officials has admitted. Philip Cooney, an oil industry lobbyist now working for Exxon Mobil, conceded during a congressional hearing yesterday that while he was chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality he watered down reports on the adverse effects of man-made emissions on the planet's climate. "My sole loyalty was to the President and advancing the policies of his administration," Mr Cooney told the house government reform committee. Documents released by Democrats yesterday revealed that in 2003 Bush administration officials made at least 181 changes to a plan to deal with climate change that were aimed at playing down the scientific consensus on global warming. There were another 113 changes that made less of the human causes of climate change, and even changes made to herald potential benefits to higher temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency was so against Mr Cooney's alterations - saying they were "poorly representing the science" - that it chose to leave the entire section on climate control out of its 2003 State of the Environment report. Committee chairman Henry Waxman said Mr Cooney's testimony was proof that there was a "concerted White House effort to inject uncertainty into the climate debate. It would be a serious abuse if senior White House officials deliberately tried to defuse calls for action by ensuring that the public heard a distorted message about the risks of climate change," Mr Waxman said. "Scientific press releases were going to the White House for editing," he said. "It's very unfortunate that we developed this politicisation of science. The public relations office should be staffed by expert appointees. Otherwise they become offices of propaganda."
03/29/07 - Video - 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' Hits YouTube
 Director Martin Durkin's 75-minute production combines interviews with distinguished scientists, a sober narrative, and damning graphs and statistics to challenge the core claims of global warming theory. The film also alleges that government funding for climate change research is perverting science and fueling a political agenda of massive state intervention in local economies. The fierce response to the film suggests it has struck a nerve not only with establishment opinion, but also with an audience weary of being hectored by media elites and environmental activists. "A detailed look at recent climate change reveals that the temperature rose prior to 1940," explains paleoclimatologist Ian Clark, "but unexpectedly dropped in the post-war economic boom, when carbon dioxide emissions rose dramatically." Just the opposite, in other words, of what global warming theory predicts. The film notes that much more carbon dioxide is produced by natural means than by industrial emissions: Volcanic emissions, carbon dioxide from animals, bacteria, decaying vegetation, and the oceans "outweigh our own production several times over." Durkin's team of climatologists and astrophysicists point to evidence suggesting that as radiation from the sun varies--measured, for example, by sun-spot activity--the earth tends to heat up or cool down. "Solar activity," the film alleges, "very precisely matches the plot of temperature change over the last 100 years." A heliocentric theory for climate change? The documentary has sent scientific authorities and activists into attack mode. The counter-charges mostly evade the issues raised by Durkin's film: that humans produce miniscule amounts of carbon emissions; that carbon samples from polar ice sheets contradict global warming predictions; and that solar activity corresponds closely to temperature change. Moreover, some of the solutions--insisting on solar energy for developing nations, switching to low-wattage light bulbs--appear ludicrous. - View It (8 parts)
03/29/07 - Chinese Biofuels Expansion Threatens Ecological Balance
According to the agreement, signed by China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) and the oil company PetroChina in January, the parties will join efforts in developing two Jatropha curcas plantation bases in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, with biofuel production capacities of 10,000-30,000 tons each and a combined area of more than 40,000 hectares, according to China Green Times. Jatropha, a hardy oilseed bush with seeds containing over 30 percent oil, is regarded as an ideal raw material for biodiesel production. The Chinese government has since embraced additional biofuels expansion. On February 7, an SFA spokesman told the press that the country was ready to devote more than 13 million hectares of forestlands to biofuels production, Xinhua News Agency reported. And several local governments have embarked on or are planning ambitious long-term oilseed plantation projects. According to blueprints from the Yunnan Provincial Forestry Department, the province will construct 1.27 million hectares of biofuels plantations and aims to become China's biggest biofuels base by 2015, achieving an annual production capacity of 4 million tons of ethanol and 600,000 tons of biodiesel. Forty counties in the province have begun to develop biofuels plantations. Ever-rising demand to fuel the country's motor vehicle fleet is driving these developments. A recent study by the National Bureau of Statistics reports that private vehicle ownership in China reached 29.25 million by the end of 2006, a 23.7 percent increase over 2005. Blessed with a favorable geographic location and unique landscapes, natural forests in southwestern China have long been a paradise for flora and fauna, home to more than 6,000 plant species and over 1,000 animal species. Nibbled away by plantations of jatropha and other biofuels plantations, the future of those species appears startling bleak.
03/29/07 - Spaceport America Takes Off
 "Spaceport America, being built north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, is finally becoming a reality and is set to become the world's first commercial spaceport. Governor Bill Richardson recently secured 33 million dollars from the state legislature for the final design, and a proposed 0.25% sales tax increase in Dona Ana County, where the facility is to be constructed, is expected to bring an additional 6.5 million dollars per year (if approved by voters next week). Richard Branson, the head of upstart Virgin Galactic, on Monday agreed to lease the facility for 27.5 million dollars over twenty years. If all continues to go as planned, SpaceShipTwo will make its first suborbital joy ride in two to three years."
03/29/07 - US No Longer Technology King
According to a recent report from the World Economic Forum the US has lost the leading spot for technology innovation. The new reigning champ is now apparently Denmark with other Nordic neighbors Sweden, Finland and Norway all claiming top spots as well. "Countries were judged on technological advancements in general business, the infrastructure available and the extent to which government policy creates a framework necessary for economic development and increased competitiveness."
03/29/07 - Hydrogen cars offer no real answer to global warming
 The reason hydrogen-powered cars would produce more carbon dioxide emissions than regular cars starts with the fact that it takes energy to create hydrogen. One way to produce hydrogen is to extract it directly from fossil fuels; indeed, a 2004 National Academy of Sciences study predicted that fossil fuels would be the main source of hydrogen for "several decades." The other way is to split water molecules using electricity. Naturally, BMW talks up this approach, envisioning electricity that would ultimately be supplied by renewable sources. BMW brochures feature the Hydrogen 7 parked in front of wind turbines and shiny photovoltaic arrays. But renewable sources furnish only 2 percent of the world's electricity (not counting hydropower's 16 percent). Coal, by contrast, supplies 39 percent--and is the worst emitter of carbon dioxide, watt for watt. Clearly, a great use for renewable power is to replace coal power. But is it worthwhile to divert even a small part of it to the task of manufacturing hydrogen? According to Romm's analysis, the math for hydrogen cars simply doesn't work out. Burning coal to generate one megawatt-hour of electricity produces about 2,100 pounds of carbon dioxide. It follows that one megawatt-hour of renewable power can avert those emissions. Using that electricity to make hydrogen would yield enough fuel for a fuel-cell car to travel about 1,000 miles, Romm says. But driving those 1,000 miles in a gasoline-powered car that gets 40 miles per gallon would produce just 485 pounds of carbon dioxide. In this sense, Romm says, a vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells would indirectly create four times the carbon dioxide emissions of today's most efficient gasoline cars.
03/29/07 - Pulsing light could suppress Epilepsy and Parkinson's
Epilepsy and Parkinson's disease often must be treated by removing neurons that fire incorrectly. The new MIT research could lead to the development of optical brain prosthetics to control neurons, eliminating the need for irreversible surgery. The work takes advantage of a gene called halorhodopsin found in a bacterium that grows in extremely salty water, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. In the bacterium, Natronomas pharaonis, the gene codes for a protein that serves as a light-activated chloride pump, which helps the bacterium make energy. When neurons are engineered to express the halorhodopsin gene, the researchers can inhibit their activity by shining yellow light on them. Light activates the chloride pumps, which drive chloride ions into the neurons, lowering their voltage and silencing their firing. That inhibitory effect may be extremely useful in dealing with diseases caused by out-of-control neuron firing, said Boyden. "In such diseases, inhibition is more direct than excitation, because you can shut down neural circuits that are behaving erratically," he said. Many epilepsy patients have implanted electrodes that periodically give their brains an electric jolt, acting as a defibrillator to shut down overactive neurons. This new research opens up the possibility of an optical implant that could do the same thing, using light instead of electricity. The Media Lab neuroengineering group plans to start studying such devies in transgenic mice this year.
03/29/07 - Power plug ID labels
 Stick one of these ID Pilot Wire Identification Labels on each plug. Each sticker has a drawing of each kind of gadget you've got (with a number, too, so for Monitor #1 and Monitor #2). Packages come in the "Office," "Household" and "Electronics" themes along with appropriate gadget labels. Sure you could make your own boring text labels that wrap around the plug (so the monitor plug reads "ONIT"), but this $6 investment seems like the finishing touch to your perfect cord management solution.
03/29/07 - San Francisco to ban plastic grocery bags
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to become the first U.S. city to ban plastic bags from large supermarkets to help promote recycling. Under the legislation, beginning in six months large supermarkets and drugstores will not be allowed to offer plastic bags made from petroleum products.
03/29/07 - Why an ebook reader won't displace books
 First of all, if overlooks the point that publishers don't manufacture ebook readers; the consumer electronics industry does. And the consumer electronics industry will not cut off its own nose to spite its face by producing an ebook reader for $20, if it can produce one with extra bells and whistles that sells for $350. We've had the tech for a $20 (or $50, anyway) ebook reader for a decade; it would resemble a grey-scale palm pilot, albeit without even the PDA functionality. But the parts are dirt cheap these days! If a manufacturer thought they could sell the beast, they'd be churning them out by the bucketload - and it's perfectly possible to read ebooks on a 160x160 green screen. Secondly, and more devastatingly for the sky-is-falling promoters of the "pirate ebooks will doom the publishing industry" theory, until ebook readers cost no more than a hardback, 90% of readers will ignore them. We might see such a device (at $200) take off in the book club market. Imagine you join the e-book club. Your first sign-up gets you an ebook reader loaded with five titles for $20. Then you have to buy a book a month for the next year before you can leave, and you're paying $20 a pop. After a year you've got 17 novels and an ebook reader, and you're out $240 for a $200 reader. Most abook-clubbable people will stay in (they're set up for the club and they've already got a small bookshelf on their reader) and over the next year the club can make the profits to pay for that first year's loss-leader. But 80% of readers don't do book clubs.
03/29/07 - Greaseball Challenge Race uses Biofuel
The first ever Greaseball Challenge charity car rally will take place in April when five teams will drive from the U.S. to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama in under four weeks promoting biofuels and green adventure travel. Designed to show that you can use locally-available fuels as viable alternatives to petroleum fuels, the participating Greaseballers are out to have a good time and promote a great cause. The rules are simple: * Teams must acquire a diesel vehicle on a shoestring budget (under $200) by resourcefulness, sponsorship or mechanical ingenuity. * Teams are on their own! (i.e. unsupported for the duration of the rally). * Vehicles are powered using alternative fuels - biodiesel, vegetable oil, waste grease, or any renewable fuel source. * All vehicles are donated in the destination countries to benefit local environmental projects. The 2007 Challenge is a pilot run with plans to expand the event in 2008 to include 100+ teams participating in cars, buses, and trucks. This time around though, teams will be driving diesel vehicles including two vintage Mercedes and a 72-seater school bus, running on biodiesel, waste grease and vegetable oil sourced from biodiesel producers, diners, fast-food outlets, markets, factories and farmers. Along the way, teams will be stopping by biofuel projects to meet biofuels producers, distributors, farmers, community cooperatives, entrepreneurs and NGOs actively working in this field. At the end of the run, all the vehicles and funds raised will be donated to biofuel-related projects in the destination country.
03/28/07 - Green Race Car Virtually Grown from Seed
 University of Warwick WMG (innovative industry solutions provider) researchers managed to make an environment-friendly race car. Eco One runs on bio-fuels and bio-lubricants, has tyres made of potatoes and brake pads made of cashew nut shells. The car can run with a speed up to 150mph (241km/h) and will be shown at the Sexy Green Car Show (Eden Project in Cornwall). Ben Wood the project manager said they aim to make a race car that is 95% biodegradable or recyclable mentioning that all the plastic parts can be made from plants and steel for the chassis is recyclable. / "Almost everything on the car can be made out of biodegradable or recyclable materials. "All the plastic components can be made from plants and, although the chassis has to be made from steel for strength, steel is a very recyclable material. "We already have the shell, brake pads, fuel and tyres sorted. "My aim is to end up with a race car that's 95 per cent biodegradable or recyclable.
03/28/07 - Tecumseh's Curse
 The story of the so-called Tecumseh curse, although known in the world, is part of the American culture and is taught in schools in history classes. How else to explain the horrifying sequence of seven American presidents who did not live to see the end of their mandates in the strict periods of 20 years. Death to the elected on zero year. According to folklore, the curse also known as the Tippecanoe Curse, the President Curse or the Curse of the Zero Year arose after the victory over American Indians in the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. The famous Indian chief Tecumseh and his army was then defeated by the Americans led by General William Henry Harrison, a future presidential candidate. Tecumseh then cursed the American people. According to another version, his brother Tenskwatawa, also known as The Prophet, made the curse. Whoever passed the curse, it went like this: Harrison will die, I tell you. After his every big chief (meaning U.S. presidents) elected in the space of 20 years on the year ending with a zero will die during his term. And each time they die let them remember my people. Since U.S. presidential elections take place every four years, every 20 years an election takes place on the year ending with a zero. To confirm that this was not a fluke, 20 years had to go by and the election for a new president. It was Abraham Lincoln, elected for the first time in 1860. At the beginning of his first mandate he was killed by southern sympathiser John Wilkes Booth. James Garfield was elected in 1880 and lived through only four months of his term. He was shot dead by the mentally unstable Charles J. Guiteau. William McKinley was elected in 1900 for his second term as president. After a year and a half he was killed by Leon F. Czolgosz who claimed to be the antichrist. He confessed to the murder, saying that McKinley was the “enemy of the people”. After World War II the Americans were tired of Wilson and in 1920 elections voted for his total opposite, the decisive Warren G. Harding. He is considered one of the worst American presidents. During his tour Travels to Understand People of America he was struck by a heart attack in San Francisco. He died in his room at the Palace Hotel. One of the most popular American presidents who was elected as many as four times was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1940 he was elected the third time. He died from a brain aneurism soon after he was elected a president the fourth time. Since he was elected as president in the zero year, 1940, his death is also considered to be part of the Tecumseh curse. The youngest American president John F. Kennedy became president in 1960 in the narrowest presidential race to date. On November 22 1963 he was shot in Dallas. Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of the assassination by the Warren Commission. Many still believe that Oswald was just a scapegoat for one of the most famous conspiracies in the 20th century. The first president who might have broken the curse was Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980. But, opinions about this case differ. John Hinckley shot him 69 days after he took up office. The wound was severe and doctors said it was touch-and-go. Many say credit for this went to his wife Nancy who was, it was widely known, obsessed by the curse.But, has the curse been broken will be known on January 20, 2009 when president George W Bush, elected in 2000, should hand over his seat to another president. He survived the assassination in Georgia during his speech. Vladimir Arutinian threw a hand grenade at 20 metres, but because it was faulty, it did not explode. Doctors say that the president is of good health, so the chances of him dying from a health problem in the next two years are slim.
03/28/07 - Future of weaponry unveiled
 Star Wars-style ray guns and plastic ice-slicks could be the future of weaponry, according to the U.S. Department of Defence. DARPA, the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, envisions fleeing Iraqi insurgents slipping on artificial ice sprayed on the road and an angry mob in Afghanistan dispersed by non-lethal ray gun blasts. The artificial black ice is one of its newest projects. DARPA recently called for proposals from scientists to develop a polymer-based material that acts like the sheer ice that forms on roads in cold temperatures, sending unwitting drivers spinning out of control. But the agency wanted polymer ice because it could be used against enemies in any climate, including hot, arid ones like Iraq and Afghanistan where U.S. troops are currently fighting. The idea is to lay down the ice to cause adversaries to slip, while U.S. troops would make use of a to-be-developed 'reversal agent' - something to be incorporated into their boots and tyres - that would allow them to gain traction on the 'ice'. Closer to development is a ray gun that DARPA unveiled last week, a so-called active denial system (ADS): a weapon that emits a beam of energy that makes the target feel a strong burning sensation on their skin, repelling them without causing genuine injury. Mounted on a trailer, ADS is a parabolic antenna-like unit that shoots out a focussed radio-frequency beam more than 500 metres, giving it a much greater range than current crowd-control devices like rubber bullets or water cannons. When they hit their target, the beams penetrate the skin to about 0.4 millimetres, causing a sensation that makes people think their clothes are on fire. This could be used to scare off a menacing mob without causing real injury, according to DARPA. DARPA stresses that ADS is not a laser, nor does it use more dangerous microwave energy.
03/28/07 - Smart cameras spot shady behavior
 The next generation of surveillance cameras will be able to tell if you're up to no good and, developers hope, spot crimes and misdemeanors before they happen. Normally it is down to the judgment of a security guard watching a bank of monitors to decide if something looks suspicious on one of their screens. However, with an average of over 100 monitors for each security guard to keep an eye on, it is practically an impossible task. There is also the loss in attention that naturally occurs when people are sitting watching screens nonstop. Industry experts suggest that after 12 minutes of continuous video monitoring an operator will miss up to 45 percent of screen activity. That rises to up to 95 percent after 22 minutes. It sounds simple enough, but the task of creating a computer program that can filter out all the normal background goings on of a situation, be it on a train station platform or high street, has proved to be extremely complex. Rather than going down the route of face recognition technology, the program tries to keep it simple by comparing any number of situations and actions that would be captured by a camera with an empty background. By using an algorithm to tell the normal from the abnormal, the software is able to alert a security guard if it deems something to be out of the ordinary. A person standing close to the edge of a train platform might not necessarily be an immediate suicide risk, but the program is able to track that person and evaluate the amount of time they've been there and so constantly monitor the situation. "We remove the background furniture of a picture and just highlight the new people and objects. This is moving on from things like a medium motion sensor. That's fine for things like a prison fence, but not for the London Underground or a busy shopping street where you constantly have movement," said Velastin. In the UK there is approximately one surveillance camera for every 14 people and issues of invading civil liberties surround ever new development in our surveillance society. One advantage of the new technology is that it is less invasive than face recognition software. Civil liberties groups have criticized technology that searches for particular people as it brings with it fears of profiling and of being watched regardless of whether anything illegal was being committed or not. / More Watching - Automated analysis of how and where people are walking or otherwise moving, and what objects they carry or leave behind, flags the attention of security staff. This is meant to preempt a crime and make suspects identifiable even by gait. The technology is of questionable public benefit since street crime has not decreased despite the presence of CCTV. 'An airport camera can be programmed to know what a departure hall should look like, with thousands of separate movements. A single suitcase left for any length of time would trigger an alarm. This technology was developed for use in hotels to alert staff to a breakfast tray left outside a room. Soon, it will be coming to a street near you. Why not go the whole hog and have microphones attached to cameras or embedded in street lights?'"
03/28/07 - Researchers link human skull size and climate
Humans grew bigger brains as the climate they lived in got cooler, according to researchers at the University at Albany, New York. The researchers concluded that humans got brainier because they had to adapt to a more challenging environment. They base this assertion on a plot of cranial capacity of 109 fossilised human skulls against the corresponding paleontological record of two million years of changing climate. As well as a relationship between a cooling earth and growing skulls, the researchers report that where the skulls were found matters, too, because the further you get from the Equator, the more varied the weather becomes. Lower temperatures and seasonal variations threw up new challenges for the early human, such as fluctuations in the availability of food and the need for fire and clothes to keep warm, the researchers argue. More co-operation would have been needed to find, preserve, and store food; and the people would have needed more complex tools. Along with that, more intricate social structures would have evolved, which in turn would have required more grey matter. The researchers suggest that having to adapt to the impact of lower temperatures could account for as much as 50 per cent of the increase in the size of our skulls.
03/28/07 - Old age memory loss explained
The reduced capacity of older people to learn and remember may be caused by stem cells in the brain dividing less frequently, rather than a shortage of neural stem cells as was previously thought. The findings suggest it may be possible to treat degenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, dementia and depression, by stimulating the stem cells' ability to divide and produce new nerve cells. The researchers found that stem cells in ageing brains are not reduced in number - instead they divide less frequently, resulting in dramatic reductions in the number of new neurons added to the hippocampus. The team is now searching for ways to stimulate the brain to replace its own cells in order to improve learning and memory function in the elderly. One approach being explored is to treat older rats with drugs designed to mimic the action of compounds called neurogenic factors, which encourage stem cells in the brain to divide, said co-author Ashok Shetty, also of Duke University. The researchers are also grafting neural stem cells grown in culture dishes into the hippocampus, to stimulate those already present. Additional approaches include using behavioural modification techniques - such as physical exercise and exposure to an enriching environment - that are known to stimulate proliferation of stem cells.
03/28/07 - HP Dishonors Warranty If You Load Linux
A very Linux-unfriendly policy at HP. A woman bought a Compaq laptop and loaded Ubuntu on it. Some time later, still well inside the 1-year hardware warranty, the keyboard started acting up. An HP support rep told her, "Sorry, we do not honor our hardware warranty when you run Linux." Gateway and Dell refused to comment to the reporter on what they would do in a similar situation.
03/28/07 - The First Evolving Hardware?
 "A Norwegian team has made the first piece of hardware that uses evolution to change its design at runtime to solve the problem at hand in the most effective way. By turning on and off its 'genes' it can change the way it works, and it can go through 20,000 - 30,000 generations in just a few seconds. That same number of generations took humans 800,000 - 900,000 years." / The team first started to use evolution back in 2004 when they made the chicken robot “Henriette”, yes a chicken. The chicken robot used evolution, this time software based to learn how to walk on its own. Evolution solves a lot of problems that programmers cant solve, a programmer can’t think of every problem that might occur if say a robot was sent to Mars and fell into a hole, through evolution that robot could learn how to climb out of the hole without the interference of humans. The team now wants to make a robot designed to help in the installation of oil pipes and other oil related equipment at 2.000 metres depth, these depths make it almost impossible to communicate with a robot, you’ll either have to have 2-3 kilometres of wires or communicate through echo signals which in turn will give a multi second delay. An evolution-based robot could find the solution to any problem at hand within seconds without human intervention.
03/28/07 - New biomass method may fuel future cars
 A new process that runs on biomass and renewable energy could produce enough fuel to power all cars in America, say the U.S. scientists who proposed it today. The method, enough to fuel the needs of other forms of transport too, recycles all the carbon dioxide (CO2) usually wasted in the production of biofuels, making it far more efficient than previous techniques. The new process, proposed by chemical engineers led by Rakesh Agrawal of Purdue University in Indiana in a paper published in this week's edition the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is unique because it uses hydrogen from renewable energy sources to trap all the CO2 produced when making biofuel. Agrawal’s method differs from current biodiesel production by reacting the wasted CO2 with hydrogen, creating more diesel fuel. The hydrogen for this part of the reaction could be gleaned from water molecules using energy from non-fossil energy sources such as solar or nuclear power. The gains in efficiency are so great that the same volume of biomass, previously predicted to satisfy only 30 per cent of yearly U.S. transport needs (1.239 billion tonnes), might now be enough to satisfy the entire industry, wrote the researchers. That amount of biofuel could be produced on an area covering 10 per cent of the U.S. landmass, they said. Though running cars on diesel fuel would still generate CO2 emissions, that CO2 could effectively be reabsorbed from the atmosphere by growing more biomass - essentially creating a balanced CO2 cycle.
03/27/07 - The Purpose Project
 Discovering our purpose in life means asking and answering the essential question, “What makes me want to get out of bed in the morning?” Why is our answer important? Because purpose dramatically affects aging! We are born with a purpose. Some of us never question our purpose and so it remains unspoken our whole lives. But it is there. Our purpose is the reason we are alive. Purpose is not a job or a role. It is a cradle-to-grave, round-the-clock unifying principle in our daily lives. It is our reason for getting up in the morning and every one of us needs a reason to get up in the morning. Purpose is that deepest belief within us where we have a profound sense of who we are, where we came from, and where we’re going. It is the quality or thread we choose to shape our lives around. It is a source of deep meaning and vitality. Why is Purpose Important? Purpose has a dramatic affect on aging and retirement. Science is beginning to validate what many people have known intuitively all along. When it comes to the transitions and challenges of aging, purpose is essential. Purpose gives us the will to live. Without purpose we die. With purpose we live with meaning and dignity. It is the one thing that cannot be taken away from us. ( via alfin2100.blogspot.com )
03/27/07 - Organ death countdown
 We often think that the clock stops when we die. But when one clock stops, another one starts ticking. I'm thinking specifically of the countdown until organs are no longer salvageable. Once donors die, doctors must act quickly to remove the life-saving organs. (Wait too long and the organ quality plummets.) But how fast is too fast? And how do we define death? These questions will be coming to a hospital near you, thanks to a trend reported by the Washington Post. Instead of waiting until a patient is brain dead to harvest organs, doctors are instead beginning this process when the patient no longer has a pulse. This "cardiac death" can precede brain death by several minutes. "The number of these donations is on the rise. It has more than doubled from 268 in 2003 to at least 605 in 2006, enabling surgeons to transplant more than 1,200 additional kidneys, livers, lungs, hearts and other organs," - The Washington Post The trend - which we reported in August 2006 - is escalating due to a worldwide shortage in available organs. A dead brain does not show any steady electrical activity and will deteriorate over time if the patient is left on life support. Still, Van Norman and others feel concerned about the trend towards harvesting organs from donors within seconds rather than minutes of cardiac death. While doing so might improve the quality of organ transplants, Van Norman says that this hastened process compromises the experience of death for the patient. Experts worry that reports of this trend will put people off from becoming organ donors.
03/27/07 - Double Output from Microbial Fuel Cells
 Researchers at Penn State have developed a new graphite brush anode, consisting of graphite fibers wound around a conductive, but noncorrosive metal core, for use in a microbial fuel cell (MFC). Use of the new anode more than doubles the power output of fuel cells using earlier generations of electrodes. A new membrane-tube air cathode, adapted from existing wastewater treatment equipment, completes the circuit.
03/27/07 - Nissan Skyline, 1,000 kilometers on one tank of fuel
 Nissan V6 Skyline Delivers 38 MPG in Road Test. Nissan engineers set out to prove a point - that the new Skyline sedan could go 1,000 kilometers on one tank of fuel. The challenge - that this would be accomplished on real roads with unpredictable traffic and weather conditions and with different drivers. The so-called 'eco-driving challenge was conducted by a team of product development experts on the roads from Tochigi to Kanagawa. The 2.5-liter Skyline model driven was powered by the VQ25HR V6 engine, capable of generating 225 horsepower and 26.8kgm of torque. The team succeeded in covering a distance of 1,024.4 kilometers with an average fuel consumption rate of 16.3km-per-liter. The main objective of the eco-driving challenge was to promote greater awareness of Nissan's advanced fuel-economy technology as well as demonstrate the efficiency of the new VQ engine under real-world driving conditions.
03/27/07 - 'Biofuel cell' produces electricity from hydrogen in plain air
Fraser Armstrong, Ph.D., described how his research group at Oxford University built the biofuel cell with hydrogenases - enzymes from naturally occurring bacteria that use or oxidize hydrogen in their metabolism. The cell consists of two electrodes coated with the enzymes placed inside a container of ordinary air with 3 percent added hydrogen. That is just below the 4 percent danger level at which hydrogen becomes an explosion hazard. The research established for the first time that it is possible to generate electricity from such low levels of hydrogen in air, Armstrong said. Prototype versions of the cell produced enough electricity to power a wristwatch and other electronic devices. The biofuel cell uses enzymes from Ralstonia metallidurans (R. metallidurans), an ancient bacterium believed to have been one of the first forms of life on Earth. It evolved 2.5 billion years ago, when there was no oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, and survived by metabolizing hydrogen.
03/27/07 - Riches await as Earth's icy north melts
 The latest report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the ice cap is warming faster than the rest of the planet and ice is receding, partly due to greenhouse gases. It's a catastrophic scenario for the Arctic ecosystem, for polar bears and other wildlife, and for Inuit populations whose ancient cultures depend on frozen waters. But some see a lucrative silver lining of riches waiting to be snatched from the deep, and the prospect of timesaving sea lanes that could transform the shipping industry the way the Suez Canal did in the 19th century. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic has as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas. Moscow reportedly sees the potential of minerals in its slice of the Arctic sector approaching $2 trillion. All this has pushed governments and businesses into a scramble for sovereignty over these suddenly priceless seas. It could open the North Pole region to easy navigation for five months a year, according to the latest Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, an intergovernmental group. That could cut sailing time from Germany to Alaska by 60 percent, going through Russia's Arctic instead of the Panama Canal. Or the Northwest Passage could open through the channels of Canada's Arctic islands and shorten the voyage from Europe to the Far East.
03/27/07 - 1040 Form and Instructions in 1913
1. Taxes were only paid on income above $20,000, equivalent to $407,000 in today's dollars, at the initial rate of only 1%. 2. The highest marginal tax rate in 1913 was 6%, which applied to income above $500,000, equivalent in today's dollars to about $10 million. The entire 1040 tax form in 1913, including all forms and instructions, was only 4 pages, click here to view. All instructions in 1913 were contained on a single page, compared to the 2006 1040 Instructions, which run 143 pages long, without any forms.
03/27/07 - Seeing Color in the Night
 "In 'Things that show color in the night,' the Boston Globe reports that a company named Tenebraex is helping color blind people to travel. But it's also developing goggles to help soldiers and physicians to see all colors at night, and not only the green color of current night vision systems. These goggles, which should become available this summer, will be sold for about $6,000 to the Army. But as states one of the founders of the company, with monochrome night vision, 'blood is the same color as water.' So these expensive night vision devices might be more targeted to Army physicians than to regular soldiers."
03/27/07 - Magnets could be key to surgery without scars
The idea of using magnets to manipulate the instruments in the abdominal cavity was formulated after Dr. Cadeddu watched a television show featuring teens who used magnets to hold studs on their lips to avoid getting their lips pierced. The new technique, which is still in the developmental stage, allows for magnetically maneuvering laparoscopic surgical tools inserted into the abdominal cavity through the bellybutton or throat. The challenge remains, however, to design the new instruments and determine just how to move them once they’re inside the human body. The system uses a stack of magnets outside the abdomen to attract other magnets attached to laparoscopic instruments inside the abdomen. Surgeons can then move the outside magnets to position an internal camera at the best spot for seeing or to move a retractor or other surgical instrument. Once optimally positioned, the instruments can be locked in place. That allows a much greater range of maneuverability and the surgical team can more easily reposition the camera or instrument, said Dr. Cadeddu. “The current state of the art for laparoscopic surgery requires four or five holes. The question behind this is, can we do the surgery through only one hole and can we hide the hole in a cosmetically advantageous or less painful location,” Dr. Cadeddu said. Study researchers concluded that “the ability to reduce the number of trocars (holes) necessary for laparoscopic surgery has the potential to revolutionize surgical practice,” but noted that there will be a learning curve for the new system and that because of the expanded maneuverability, surgeons will likely need to develop new techniques.
03/27/07 - Chemists turn to sugar to fuel batteries
 Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have cooked up biodegradable fuel cell batteries that they say can run on just about any sugar source and that can last three or four times longer per charge than typical lithium ion batteries. Commercial versions could be ready in three to five years, the researchers say. A prototype of the stamp-sized battery runs a calculator, but future applications could include powering computers and recharging cellphones. Tree sap, soda and drink mixes have been used to power the batteries so far. "This study shows that renewable fuels can be directly employed in batteries at room temperature to lead to more energy-efficient battery technology than metal-based approaches," said study leader Shelley Minteer. Like other fuel cells, the sugar battery contains enzymes that convert fuel - in this case, sugar - into electricity, leaving behind water as a main byproduct. But unlike other fuel cells, all of the materials used to build the sugar battery are biodegradable.
03/27/07 - Average cost of driving remains at 52.2 cents/mile
According to the AAA, it costs an average of 52.2 cents/mile to operate a new vehicle, which is about the same it was last year. On average, the association figures you'll be spending $7,823 to drive 15,000 miles. While you may have noticed that gas prices have been a little lower lately, any savings at the pump are offset by higher insurance rates and the increase of financing when buying a new vehicle. The AAA also breaks it down by vehicle type, so where a small car may cost you $6,219 a year to drive, a large sedan would force $9,373 out of your wallet. A minivan demands $8,639 a year, while the SUV remains the consuming king, gobbling up $9,997 per year. Ownership expenses that fit into the calculation include fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance, license, registration, taxes, depreciation and finance charges. What, no car washes? [Source: Detroit News]
03/27/07 - Government Gone Mad
 The Framers of our beloved Constitution (and Bill of Rights) had a pretty good handle on how "absolute power corrupts absolutely" issue. That's why - at least in the beginning - our Constitution was a cherished bastion against forces that would hijack government and twist it to their own power-tripping ends. If you doubt for a minute that we've now crossed some almost invisible line - where government rules far more of your personal life that the Framers intended, and you doubt the excessive powers of the misnamed Patriot Acts, then consider how Big Government's local arms are also jumping onboard the trend to more intrusive governance. My case in point is a headline every American ought to be aware of: "Florida: City to Seize Homes Over a $5 Parking Ticket." If you read the story, you'll see how the idea is to charge people a $250 "appeal fee" in order to seek redress - and even then, the process starts off without a judge. Thought you were in the Land of the Brave, Home of the Free? Not so fast, pard. And if that doesn't get your blood pressure up even without a jolt of Monday juice, try Michael Hodges "Federal Government Spending" report. Among his assertions: "New data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis confirm that the average federal civilian worker earns $106,579 a year in total compensation, or twice the $53,289 in wages and benefits for the typical private worker." Don't get me wrong: There is a proper role for government. But what the Framers had in mind was a group of strong United States with a central government strong enough to defend borders and there was even a direct prohibition on federal taxes which would be a direct capitation on the whole country - to keep central government from getting too big. Alas, as one reader points out in a Pogo-like "We have seen the enemy, and he is us" sort of way, Since the Russians brought down their walls in 1989, we seem to have suspiciously traded places with them. Our country has gone wild on government. Here's one that ought to comfort you: There are now reportedly 435,000 Americans in the so-called "terrorist database". I wonder if that somehow relates to the headline that the Department of Homeland Security has plans for the new HQ in a lunatic asylum?
03/26/07 - Unifying principle said to govern all galaxies
 Astronomers have found a mathematical principle that they say surprisingly fits all galaxies, from the stately spiral-shaped ones to the messy “train wrecks.” All galaxies, they said, follow a consistent relationship between their mass, or weight, and the velocities of the stars and gas clouds that compose them. “We were truly surprised at how well” the pattern fits a dizzying array of galaxy types. Galaxies fall into three basic types: spiral or disk-like ones such as our own Milky Way; those shaped like roundish clouds, known as elliptical galaxies; and messy, bashed-up or oddball galaxies. These are usually thought to be remnants of galaxy collisions, and sometimes dubbed “train wrecks.” Astronomers noted years ago that for spirals and ellipticals, there were specific relationships between their masses and the velocities of their constituent stars. These rules are called the Tully-Fisher and the Faber-Jackson relations, respectively. The researchers devised a new measure of the components’ total velocity, which they called a “speed indicator.” It combines both the orderly rotation velocity and the random or disordered motion. This property turns out to be strictly related to the mass of galactic components, said Susan Kassin, a postdoctoral researcher at the university and the study’s lead author. “Surprisingly, if you use this new speed indicator to measure the motions of stars and gas in a galaxy, you can predict the mass in stars the galaxy has with pretty high accuracy.” Galaxies like our Milky Way consist of billions of stars formed into a spiral disk along with some gas. Our galaxy also spins like a pinwheel at a few hundred kilometers (miles) per second. The new findings in essence show that the mixed-up and orderly velocities are somehow related, said Ben Weiner of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz., another co-author of the study. “The mixed-up velocities may settle down to orderly rotation over time as the universe ages,” he proposed.
03/26/07 - Bolt-on 'superlens' gives microscope nanoscale vision
 A "superlens" that refracts light in unconventional ways to let an optical microscope see beyond the normal limit of its vision has been created by US researchers. They hope to develop a cheaper, mass-produced version that could upgrade the microscopes used in research laboratories worldwide. Optical lenses can only resolve details down to those that are half the wavelength of light in size - a few hundred nanometres. Light waves carrying information about these tiny features do not travel more than a few hundred nanometres because of interference and diffraction. The lens is made from an arrangement of concentric plastic rings, spaced about 500 nanometres apart, on top of a gold surface. In experiments, this surface was used to image a pattern of plastic dots, deposited in the centre of all the rings like a bull's-eye. The dots are too small and too close together to be distinguished with an optical microscope, but the superlens makes it possible. A laser was shone onto the dots, exciting electrons from the gold surface into waves called plasmons. These waves ripple through electrons on the surface at the speed of light and, when they reach the concentric plastic rings, the waves are refracted. "But they don't experience it like a normal lens," Smolyaninov explains. "They are refracted the opposite way to usual." As a result, the plasmon rays reflected by the central, nanoscopic dots diverge, which effectively magnifies the image they carry. Since the electrons in the plasmon wave also emit light, the resulting image can then be observed on the outer rings by a conventional optical microscope. Using this method Smolyaninov and colleagues achieved a resolution of 70nm, or one-seventh the wavelength of the light used. This is four times better than would be possible with light alone. / Robert Nelson at Rex Research found the two patents for this; US2005185186 and US2003227662. Thanks Robert!
03/26/07 - US fudging of climate science - details revealed
The Bush administration has again been charged with interfering with federal climate science, in order to underplay the significance of global warming. Documents "appear to portray a systematic White House effort to minimise the significance of climate change", said a memo released by the committee. The committee also heard a former White House aide defending his editing of government reports on climate change, to put them in line with the views of the Bush administration. Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) from 2001 to 2005, said this editing was part of the normal review process between agencies. Before he joined the White House, Cooney was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, and he now works for the oil giant ExxonMobil. In a 10-year policy plan, Cooney and Brian Hannegan, also at CEQ, made at least 181 edits to emphasise scientific uncertainty regarding the effects of climate change and 113 changes to minimise the importance of human contributions to global warming, according to the committee's memo. For example, Cooney replaced "will" with "may" in the sentence: "Warming temperatures will also affect Arctic land areas." He also deleted this sentence: "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." The Bush administration is not the only one to have exerted political pressure in this field of research, according to one witness. Meteorologist John Spencer, who said his position is that humanity's role in climate change is not fully understood, said he felt political pressure much earlier - under the Clinton administration. Spencer, also a proponent of intelligent design, resigned from NASA in 2001 after a 14-year career.
03/26/07 - “Youth” pills, hawked online, win over top scientists
 A Harvard Medical School biologist who is a leading expert on aging takes them daily, persuaded by his own research that they may work, according to people familiar with his activities. The capsules in question are called Longevinex (longevinex.com). The Harvard researcher, David Sinclair, has said in interviews that he takes supplements containing the ingredient, called resveratrol. Grapes and red wine also contain resveratrol (see chart), but far too little for these products to confer the dramatic lifespan boost seen in animal studies, researchers say. Nonetheless, even moderate alcohol drinking is tied to slightly higher lifespan in humans, according to a study in the Dec. 11-25 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. But pills may have much more resveratrol, so some people want them-though their effects are little studied, and how the substance works is still debated. Last November, Loew said in an online forum that Sinclair had emailed him: “I take 4 pills of longevinex with bfast and 4 at dinner, but I don’t recommend anyone else take any resveratrol pills until we know more.” (Note: late last month, the manufacturer raised the amount of resveratrol per capsule, so Sinclair’s reported eight pills would be equivalent to 3.2 now. Either way, his reported regimen amounts to about 320 mg daily. Three pills daily would cost about $3.50 a day currently.) Resveratrol has been tied to both greater lifespan and vigor in animals. Since 2003, it has been found to extend lifespan in worms and flies by nearly 30 percent; fish and yeast by almost 60 percent; and obese mice by an estimated 15 percent, though that study, by Sinclair and colleagues, is unfinished. Ninety-nine percent of genes are similar in mice and humans. As far as ill effects, researchers say the jury is out, but nothing has raised alarms yet. “About 10,000 people in this country take this product with no apparent side effects,” the Harvard Gazette article quoted Sinclair saying. Compared to what Sinclair reportedly takes, fish and mice in the longevity studies got doses roughly five to seven times higher-adjusting for their weight-with no reported problems. In rat studies, researchers found that they had to multiply those higher doses again, by somewhere between 10 and 30, for harmful effects to become evident. But no long-term safety studies have been done in humans, or with specific commercial products. Sardi recommends that his not be taken by growing children or pregnant women, or simultaneously with other medications.
03/26/07 - Virtual actors take to the stage
 Actors working in real time from remote locations have been beamed onto a stage where they performed with live, in-the-flesh actors, US researchers say. The broadband-enabled experience allowed the audience to watch a seamless, 3D performance, according to the University of Central Florida. The technology could mean future theatergoers might attend plays where one or more actors are working outside the venue, even in a different country, or from their own homes. "We are not talking about holograms yet or the kind of imagery that requires funky glasses," says Professor John Shafer, a member of the cast. Shafer was hooked to a receiving and transmitting broadband-connected computer that can pull 130 megabytes of data in an instant. Although he performed in Florida, his body was 'beamed' onto a stage at Bradley University in Illinois, where he performed 'with' live actors there, as well as with actors beamed in from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Both 3D and 2D sets consisting of multiple screens and special-effects lighting that helped to give the impression that all the actors, remote or not, existed in a single space. To further link the performances, the actual live actors were also sometimes featured on screens. At one point, a virtual actor even appeared to hand a live actor a cigarette. Shafer and his team next plan to present Alice Experiments in Wonderland, a play that will beam actors simultaneously onto three live stages in different locations.
03/26/07 - Worms Live Longer on Fortified Steak and Chicken
Experiments with worms suggest humans might one day be able to eat themselves to a longer and healthier life. The new approach differs from previous studies which extended life in non-human animals by keeping food consumption to a bare minimum, a technique called caloric restriction. Researchers led by Mikhail Shchepinov, formerly of Oxford University, fed nematode worms, Caenorhabditis elegans, bits of steak and chicken reinforced with variations of certain atoms, called “isotopes,” of elements like hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Isotopes have the same number of protons as their natural counterparts but different numbers of neutrons. Carbon, for example, usually has 6 protons and 6 neutrons. An isotope of carbon, called C13, has 6 protons and 7 neutrons. Worms on the specialized diet lived about 10 percent longer on average. Assuming people will one day routinely live to 100, a similar approach in humans could add an extra 10 years to a person’s life, the researchers say. The researchers think eating isotope-reinforced foods reduces molecular damage incurred by rouge molecules that roam the body called “free radicals,” which have highly reactive, unpaired electrons. Many scientists think free-radical damage is one of the reasons why organisms age.
03/26/07 - Washington State To Try RFID Drivers Licenses
 The state of Washington has approved a program to issue RFID-equipped drivers licenses to facilitate cross-border traffic. The idea is to load the drivers license with information proving citizenship, so that (with Department of Homeland Security approval) the bearer doesn't need to carry a passport - which otherwise will be required to re-enter the US from Canada beginning in 2009. The "enhanced" licenses will require applicants to submit to an in-person interview and to show proof of citizenship. A pilot program in Washington begins January 2008. Officials hope for DHS approval of the program before the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 causes a spike in cross-border traffic.
03/26/07 - Engineering Bacteria to Harvest Light
A set of genes found in marine microorganisms can endow common bacteria with the ability to generate energy from light. Some bacteria, such as cyanobacteria, use photosynthesis to make sugars, just as plants do. But others have a newly discovered ability to harvest light through a different mechanism: using light-activated proteins known as proteorhodopsins, which are similar to proteins found in our retinas. When the protein is bound to a light-sensitive molecule called retinal and hit with light, it pumps positively charged protons across the cell membrane. That creates an electrical gradient that acts as a source of energy, much like the voltage, or electromotive force, supplied by batteries. Intrigued by the prospect that a single piece of DNA is really all an organism needs to harvest energy from light, the researchers inserted it into E. coli. They found that the microorganisms synthesized all the necessary components and assembled them in the cell membrane, using the system to generate energy. "All it takes to derive energy from sunlight is that bit of DNA," saysEd Delong, professor of biological engineering at MIT and author of the study. A paper published last month by Jan Liphardt and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, showed that E. coli engineered to have a proteorhodopsin pump can easily switch between energy sources: when bacteria are starved of their regular energy supply, they use light energy to drive their flagellar motor, a rotating tail that bacteria use to swim. The more light there is, the faster the motor goes. "It's sort of like creating a hybrid car," says MIT's Delong. "Instead of supplementing gas with energy stored in a battery, cells can supplement their energy metabolism with light."
03/26/07 - Why the Greeks could hear plays from the back row
 The wonderful acoustics for which the ancient Greek theatre of Epidaurus is renowned may come from exploiting complex acoustic physics, new research shows. The theatre, discovered under a layer of earth on the Peloponnese peninsula in 1881 and excavated, has the classic semicircular shape of a Greek amphitheatre, with 34 rows of stone seats (to which the Romans added a further 21). Its acoustics are extraordinary: a performer standing on the open-air stage can be heard in the back rows almost 60 metres away. Architects and archaeologists have long speculated about what makes the sound transmit so well.
03/26/07 - 'Convincing' Atheists
(An excellent, well thought out page. - JWD) Ask any believer what would convince him he was mistaken and persuade him to leave his religion and become an atheist, and if you get a response, it will almost invariably be, "Nothing - I have faith in my god." Although such people may well exist, I personally have yet to meet a theist who would acknowledge even the possibility that his belief was in error. Many theists, by their own admission, structure their beliefs so that no evidence could possibly disprove them. In short, they are closed-minded, and have been taught to be closed-minded. In light of this, it is ironic that atheists are often accused of being the closed-minded ones. / More at Imaginary.
03/25/07 - Using Steam from Nuclear Power Plants for Ethanol Production
 Researchers and engineers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy are suggesting using the steam from existing nuclear power plants in the Corn Belt to reduce the costs of producing ethanol from corn and other biomass. While current corn-to-ethanol plants provide the near-term market for nuclear steam, future cellulose-to-ethanol plants represent a much larger and longer-term market for nuclear steam. The ethanol market could require hundreds of gigawatts of thermal energy and thus may become the dominant cogeneration market for nuclear heat. Steam provided by the reactor would be condensed at the ethanol plant, and warm water would be returned to the nuclear power plant. Almost all of the heat required by the production process could come from condensing the steam. Modern steam systems would allow more than a mile of separation between the reactor and the ethanol plant. Based on the price of electricity, the cost of low temperature steam from a nuclear power plant is about half the cost of steam from natural gas.
03/25/07 - Mosquito Swallow
 Summer is upon us, so time to stop potential mosquito breeding in its tracks. Dancy said neighbors seemed comfortable blaming nearby Shoal Creek for the multitudes of mosquitoes. After clearing intrusive, non-indigenous bamboo in his backyard, Dancy discovered something that amazed him. "I got down to the creek, there were no mosquitoes. None. That's when I started to think: If they are not originating down in the creek, where we all thought they were coming from, then where are they breeding in such abundance?" Climbing up the creek's banks to the house, Dancy re-entered the thick, haze of vicious mosquitoes. Pondering what attracted droves of cantankerous mosquitoes to his home, started his research. Thumbing through countless books at the library, Dancy was introduced to the Asian tiger mosquito. He learned that there were more than 2,500 mosquito species, more than 160 of which are in the United States. The research he found was primarily done because of the mosquitoes' role in the transmission of diseases: malaria, yellow fever, West Nile virus, dengue fever and encephalitis. Dancy noted that the Asian tiger mosquito is more aggressive than the indigenous Texas mosquitoes. He learned that the Asian tigers were believed to have been stowaways in water-filled tires that were shipped into the Port of Houston in the mid-1980s. And since then, they have been found east of the Rockies. Dancy figured out that these mosquitoes with bad attitudes were the same variety as the ones in his backyard. Dancy's trap is designed to be an ideal breeding spot for the Asian tiger and other container- or tree-hole-breeders. When the eggs hatch, the larvae and pupae will not escape. The trap itself is small, unobtrusive and easy to manage. The trap requires a little water each week and the addition of a few dead leaves occasionally, and homeowners must be cognizant of other breeding areas around the home. Dancy's trap has a patent pending and sells for $34.95 online at MosquitoSwallow.com. It will be released in some Austin-area garden centers in the coming months. The Web site also offers helpful information for homeowners to minimize the mosquito swarms this summer. "You have to take steps to get rid of breeding sites around your home. That's when this trap will make a difference. It's a part of a holistic approach, not a silver bullet," Dancy says. Mosquito Swallow
03/25/07 - Water gate: An invention that can dam a river
 They set out to dam the San Jacinto River and flat stop it just to prove they could. They’re calling their product water gate, but water wall is more like it. It’s an emergency dam, the creation of Daniel Dery, a French-Canadian who flew down for the demonstration. It was as if they’d turned off the faucet below the dam. Kevin Hosler with the Needham Fire Department watched as the riverbed went dry.
“I think it’s pretty amazing,” Hosler said. “Basically, it shut this creek down in 30 minutes, maybe less.” The audience was mostly hazmat or emergency management directors from city, county and state agencies near Conroe. “We didn’t think they could do it, but they did,” Oliver said. “We were impressed.” Oliver, like others, envisioned using it to stop chemical spills or contain the runoff from highway accidents. For this demonstration, they’d brought a 38-inch wall, and in about 45 minutes the rising water was nearing the top. “We have 2 meters in stock, but we go up to 5 meters,” Dery said. That’s 18 feet. This water was just three high, and still as it rushed across the creek bed, it served as a reminder of the force and the speed of rising water. Which made the polyester-reinforced PVC dam just that much more impressive. The only question left was just how much “amazing” would cost.
03/25/07 - Zimbabwe: 'Funding Not a Necessity for Invention'
IS money an important vehicle for invention and innovation in science and technology research? There are no easy answers to this question. I've received numerous calls and e-mails from scientists and other readers asking why most scientists and institutions have almost turned into "crybabies" demanding money for everything to happen. The readers had a point. Of course, scientists will not agree with me when I say lack of money has no direct bearing on invention and innovation. Balancing the need to adequately fund research without unfairly compromising invention and innovation is why money is such a complicated component of any scientific and technological development. Most scientists and research institutions I have talked to, continue bemoaning lack of funding as the basic reason why research is not progressing well enough to answer most of Zimbabwe's pressing problems. But some critical readers of this column say money or lack of resources is not a good excuse for scientists and research institutions to fail to come up with inventions and innovations needed for Zimbabwe to secure its position in the global knowledge economy. An electrical engineer argues that the most prolific researchers in the past century and before did not require much in terms of physical resources. "Newton recreated the scientific world as we know it with his development of calculus, and the classical theory of mechanics and all this without a computer or even electricity, just pen and paper," he said. "Albert Einstein developed the theory of relativity and other theories all without a computer. As you might have gathered by now, I could go on listing theoretical and applied science endeavours that were developed without the computer. And so when our focus is on not having computers I believe that we have missed the point," he argued. "Money is not a necessity for innovation and invention to take place. Look at all the inventions that were made in the previous centuries; it was out of necessity, done by people searching to improve the quality of their lives and not crying out for dollars," he said. "My comment here to the practising scientist is that if your research is relevant then the market will pay for it. By the market I include private companies (domestic and international), Government agencies and other (local/foreign) universities or research centres," he said.
03/25/07 - Hurricanes inspire winning invention
 On Thursday in Delray Beach, Nevils, 37, proudly unveiled the emergency water storage product that she and husband Michael Nevils, 44, developed after South Florida was hit by hurricanes two years in a row. The Fort Lauderdale residents' product is a solution for the homeowner to keep up to 65 gallons of emergency water supply in the bathtub or sink, avoiding the prehurricane scramble for bottled water. "When you see those palm trees starting to bend, you fill it up," Nevils said, demonstrating how the plastic storage bags are filled with tap water and secured.
03/25/07 - New hope of reopening mines
ABANDONED coal mines across the nation could become a source of wealth for the Welsh economy if an invention lives up to its promise. Ten years of work by Metal Innovations has culminated in the unveiling of the Celtic Miner. The hydraulically-powered, tank-like machine, can access narrow seams and bore tunnels. Built at workshops in Ogmore Vale, near Bridgend, the Celtic Miner is the idea of Gareth Thomas, an engineer and mine owner, who has spent time at the coal-face as well as running his own design and build consultancy. The Celtic Miner - and the prospect of disused mines reopening - has excited attention in the Welsh investment community.
03/25/07 - SONO water filter inventor wins $1Million Prize
 Professor Abul Hussam, who teaches chemistry and biochemistry at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., won the Grainger Challenge Gold Award for Sustainability for inventing the filter, which consists of two polyurethane buckets lined with sand, brick, wood and iron composites that eliminate arsenic, which can cause organ failure and death. Hussam and his brother, Dr. Abul Munir, a physician, established a laboratory in Bangladesh that they called SONO. The filter was invented there after Hussam spent two years developing procedures to effectively measure arsenic levels in water. He introduced the filter in 1999. "This is amazing," said George Mason President Alan Merten. "Having access to clean water is a basic human right. If you don't have clean water, the rest are irrelevant." The filters are inexpensive to produce and easy to use. Once water is drawn from a well, it is poured directly into the SONO filter. The clean water is then collected by a bucket attached to the filter, which can produce 20 liters of arsenic-free water per hour. Hussam says tainted drinking water affects many poor residents of Bangladesh. Since he developed the filter, he has distributed 30,000 of them, most for free. His brother runs the SONO laboratory and works to spread the word on the filters. Part of the challenge is educating people to change their ways and use the filters on a regular basis, Hussam said. "We've learned how to popularize the filter. Basically what were doing is changing people's habits," Hussam said. For about US $35 they can last at least 5 years without presenting a toxic waste disposal hazard. New models are developed for community scale use with flow rate exceeding 100 L per hour. The filters are made from indigenous materials.
03/25/07 - Pope: Europe losing hope in its Future
"One must unfortunately note that Europe seems to be going down a road which could lead it to take its leave from history," the pontiff told bishops in Rome for ceremonies to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, a major step toward the creation of today's European Union. Benedict said he was concerned about Europe's "demographic profile"-though he did not describe the trends that have alarmed the continent for decades. In countries like Italy, where many married couples have one or no children, the population is expected to shrink dramatically in a generation or two unless fertility rates quickly increase. Benedict expressed concern that Europe's population trends, "besides putting economic growth at risk, can also cause enormous difficulties for social cohesion, and, above all, favor dangerous individualism, careless about the consequences for the future." "You could almost think that the European continent is in fact losing faith in its own future," Benedict said. A recent Eurostat survey showed Poland's fertility rate to be the lowest in the EU, at 1.23 children per woman. A rate of 2.1 children per woman is considered the minimum necessary to keep a population from shrinking.
03/25/07 - Solar plane to fly continuously around Mars
 Sky-Sailor, the working dream of a solar-powered, autonomously-controlled microairplane, has exciting implications in two areas: one on the technological advances of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs); and another on exploring the lower atmosphere of Mars. Scientists André Noth, Walter Engel and Roland Siegwart of the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems in Switzerland believe that Sky-Sailor will reach the inner orbit of Mars within a decade or two, depending on advancements in technology. In order for Sky-Sailor to navigate Mars, the group demonstrates, the plane must satisfy that planet’s flight conditions: a low atmospheric density, decreased solar energy, variable winds and below-freezing temperatures. At an altitude of 1500 m and an average velocity of 30 km/hr, Sky-Sailor’s top priorities include a low-weight structure to minimize energy needs, and a small enough volume to fit inside the shell which will transport the plane to Mars.
03/25/07 - AIDS groups condemn Gambian president's 'miracle cure'
The president announced his discovery in January, and by the end of the month ten HIV-positive patients had enrolled to receive the treatment, a statement from the umbrella organisation said. All participants were ordered to give up their antiretroviral drugs. In February, UN envoy Fadzai Gwaradzimba was expelled from Gambia after expressing doubts over Jammeh's miracle cure, suggesting it could lead to irresponsible sexual behaviour.
03/24/07 - Flexible Battery Charges in a Minute
 Scientists at Japan's Waseda University have developed a new new polymer-based battery, which not only charges in less than a minute, but also lasts for up to 1,000 recharges. The cool thing about the superthin (200nm-thick to be exact) battery is that unlike previous polymer-based batteries, this one won't won't self-discharge. The battery - which consists of a redox-active organic polymer film around 200 nanometres thick. Nitroxide radical groups are attached, which act as charge carriers. Because of its high radical density, the battery has a high charge/discharge capacity. This is just one of many advantages the ‘organic radical’ battery has over other organic based materials according to the researchers. The power rate performance is strikingly high - it only takes one minute to fully charge the battery and it has a long cycle life, often exceeding 1,000 cycles. The team made the thin polymer film by a solution-processable method - a soluble polymer with the radical groups attached is “spin-coated” onto a surface. After UV irradiation, the polymer then becomes crosslinked with the help of a bisazide crosslinking agent.
03/24/07 - The At-Home Conception Kit
 The Conceivex Conception Kit is the first comprehensive reproductive healthcare system designed for couples and was this week granted 510K clearance by the U.S. FDA. The Conception Kit contains fertility prediction tools, semen collectors and the only FDA-cleared home-use cervical cap for conception, which are designed to be used together for up to three months in order to enhance the couple’s chance of becoming pregnant. The cornerstone of the US$300 kit is the Conception Cap, which brings the semen in direct contact with the cervix for four to six hours, increasing the opportunity for sperm to move into the uterine cavity and fertilize an egg at the most opportune time. The Conception Kit contains the following fertility tools and medical device to enhance conception: Conception Caps, non-latex semen collectors, sperm-friendly intimate moisturizers, ovulation predictors, timing wheels, pregnancy tests, and a journal to record progress. The Conception Kit is available through a healthcare provider or purchased online with a valid prescription.
03/24/07 - National debt load is a fiscal time bomb
 Let's say someone is spending about 11 percent of his or her paycheck to cover interest on outstanding debt. Erica Sandberg, a spokeswoman for Consumer Credit Counseling Service of San Francisco, says she'd immediately advise that person to seek help. "This is a huge amount of a person's paycheck just to make ends meet," Sandberg said. "That's never smart. If you're borrowing that much, you might feel good for the short term. But over the long haul, you're going to be in real trouble." Unfortunately, the person she's talking about is you -- and everybody you know. As the national debt approaches a staggering $9 trillion, roughly $240 billion will be spent this year paying interest on the half that's held by public creditors (of which Japan and China are the largest). That translates to about 11 percent of projected tax revenue. In other words, we're spending more on interest for our national credit card bill than was spent last year in discretionary funds for the Education, Veterans Affairs and Justice departments combined.
03/24/07 - Ministry Watch: Revealing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
(An interesting site for those who have seen naive people tapped to near financial destruction by these people. - JWD) MinistryWatch.com calls upon donors to prayerfully consider withholding contributions to Benny Hinn Ministries/World Outreach Church (BHM) in response to facts and allegations regarding reports that Hinn: • Lives a lavish lifestyle with funds intended for charitable purposes; • Preaches a self-serving prosperity theology message; • Manipulates individuals at “healing crusades” for personal gain; • Makes unsubstantiated claims of healings; • Is nontransparent and lacks independent board oversight. An outstanding website that leads potential religious donors away from phony scumballs like Benny Hinn, the Trinity Network, and the Christian Children's Fund and instead to the Ministries that actually do something good with their money.
03/24/07 - Adopting Ubuntu | Linux switch can be painless, free
 Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'Humanity to others', or 'I am what I |
