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09/30/05 - New machine that can change almost anything into Oil
(Thanks Ross for the headsup on this, I saw this plant in operation, processing turkey parts into oil in Carthage, Missouri last year - JWD) A tall, affable entrepreneur has assembled a team of scientists, former government leaders, and deep-pocketed investors to develop and sell what he calls the thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing. Unlike other solid-to-liquid-fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water. More info at Changing World Technologies
09/30/05 - Piezoelectric film and vibration makes planes lighter
(Thanks Bert for the headsup - JWD) Qantas engineer Ian Salmon tested wing sections covered with a piezoelectric material that vibrates when a current is applied to it. When the tone of the sound was at its most effective pitch, Salmon's wing panel achieved 22 percent more lift than it would have without the piezoelectric hum. Vibrating wings could be used to make planes safer, reduce wing size and provide another element of control for pilots, Salmon said. But don't expect the wings on commercial jets to start humming away any time soon. The technique only works well on smaller planes such as light aircraft and military-style unmanned aerial vehicles like the Predator. It's all about changing the air flow from an unstable laminar flow to a turbulent flow that increases lift, Cummings said. The vibrations change the way the air behaves when it starts to break away from the wing's surface, sucking it closer.09/30/05 - Update on the LUTEC 1000 magetic motor/generator
The controlled periodic interruption of a rotating permanent magnetic field, by the temporary and precise introduction of another magnetic field, causes the secondary effect of the naturally occurring polarity flip of the permanent magnet influence, to be accessed, harnessed, and applied to assist in the rotors on-going revolution direction. And most importantly, he agrees that this flip effect is influenced by voltage rather than current, and also allows the flip back to the original polarity to naturally occur at no cost of current, so the rotor is driven onwards at a very small cost of electricity. The overall effect of all this allows the motor to run for a relatively insignificant cost of input energy compared to any other electric motor. It is what is causing the Lutec motors and generators to produce such high relative electrical output compared to input, and to run cool. In the example quoted by Jacco Van Der Worp 15 times more output than input is given. We know that we can get much bigger returns than that. In fact at present we are demonstrating 19 to 20 times more output than input, using a switching system Lou has designed. It is not solid state electronics, but may yet prove to be suitable to go into the production of a home use size electricity generator. For those technical types it actually displays a pure coefficient of performance by combining three separate field effect characteristics. So we would say that if one was using the terminology of the day, then technically it’s not a free energy machine, but a highly efficient machine with a C.O.P. of 20+ or able to produce 20 times more output than input.
09/30/05 - New way to produce hydrogen using half the energy
Scientists at North Carolina State University have discovered a nanoscale method for extracting hydrogen from water that requires only half the energy of current hydrogen production methods. The researchers discovered that “defective” carbon nanotubes make it easier to “break” water molecules and extract hydrogen. The current method for extracting hydrogen from water involves heating water molecules to 2,000 degrees Celsius. The high temperature “breaks” the molecule, and hydrogen is released. “We studied water for many months and ran many different calculations, and we ended up showing that if you want to break a water molecule, you spend a lot less energy if you do it on this defective carbon material than if you do it by simply heating the molecule until it breaks,” Buongiorno-Nardelli said. “You can reduce the energy necessary by a factor of two - you can do it at less than 1,000 degrees.”09/30/05 - Solar Chimneys - using the power of Spin
The energy released by a large hurricane can exceed the energy consumption of the human race for a whole year, and even an average tornado has a power similar to that of a large power station. If only mankind could harness that energy, rather than being at its mercy. Louis Michaud, a Canadian engineer who works at a large oil company, believes he has devised a way to do just that, by generating artificial whirlwinds that can be controlled and harnessed. He calls his invention the “atmospheric vortex engine”. His idea works on a similar principle to a solar chimney, which consists of a tall, hollow cylinder surrounded by a large greenhouse. The sun heats the air in the greenhouse, and the hot air rises. But its only escape route is via the chimney. A turbine at the base of the chimney generates electricity as the air rushes by. A small solar chimney was operated successfully in Spain in the 1980s, and EnviroMission, an Australian firm, is planning to build a 1,000-metre-high example in New South Wales. But the efficiency of such a system is proportional to the height of the chimney, notes Mr Michaud, which is limited by practical considerations. His scheme replaces the chimney with a tornado-like vortex of spinning air, which could extend several kilometres into the atmosphere. More on the Solar Chimney 1 and Solar Chimney 2.
09/30/05 - Manchester Bobber to tap ocean waves to generate electricity
The Manchester Bobber's inventive features utilise the rise and fall (or 'bobbing') of the water surface. This movement transmits energy, which is then extracted by the mechanics to drive a generator and produce electricity. The vision is to have a series of Bobbers working together to generate electricity. One concept which is currently being explored is the use of decommissioned offshore rigs as platforms for the devices. The devices unique features include: * The vulnerable mechanical and electrical components are housed in a protected environment well above sea level, which makes for ease of accessibility, * All mechanical and electrical components are readily available, resulting in high reliability compared to other devices, with a large number of more sophisticated components, * The Manchester Bobber will respond to waves from any direction without requiring adjustment, * The ability to maintain and repair specific 'Bobber' generators (independent of others in a linked group) means that generation supply to the network can continue uninterrupted.09/29/05 - Seaweed as BioFuel
(A local fellow told me Jacque Cousteau had experimented with seaweed to make biofuel with great success..I could not find anything about him involved in it, but found this. - JWD) REMEMBER the names sargassum and Sostera marina: if a group of Japanese scientists is to be believed, the fate of humanity may rest on colossal floating islands of the stuff. The team envisages 100 vast nets full of quick-growing seaweed, each measuring six miles by six miles, floating off the northeast coast of Japan. The seaweed in each net, growing to a weight of 270,000 tonnes a year, will absorb prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases and convert them to oxygen before being harvested 12 months later as a rich source of biomass energy. Dr Notoya believes that Sostera marina and sargassum, herded to the right parts of the ocean, will grow up to 40ft every year, absorbing about 36 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the process. Those seaweeds are also popular fare for a variety of fish whose stocks have dwindled. The most critical part of the plan is to then convert the seaweed into useful energy - a process that draws on technology produced by the Mitsubishi Research Institute. When blasted with superheated steam, seaweed discharges hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases that can be used to create a biofuel, which, in turn, discharges no extra carbon dioxide when burnt.
09/29/05 - Using weird science to bias/change sports wins/losses
That odd feeling of being stared at? It's not a coincidence -- lab studies of remote attention show that the human nervous system reacts when someone is looking at you (even if you're blindfolded). That's why most of us freeze in front of a crowd. We can't handle all that energy unless we're named Curt and can actually feed off negativity. The flip side is that when positive thoughts are directed at the lab subject, his EEG brain waves become more coherent and balanced. Maybe that's what 35,000 Fenway fans do for the Sox's brain waves. Then there's Dr. Wasaru Emoto's studies in Japan. His photographs document that the crystalline structure of water molecules can be changed by the directed positive thoughts of people nearby. It sounds corny, I know, but data are data (see the movie ''What the Bleep Do We Know?" for details). Remember that the human body is 65 percent water, and think again about the impact of fans' good wishes and fervent hopes on all of those Soxian water molecules on the field. As for those ''fans," it's fitting that the word is short for ''fanatic," which comes from a Latin word meaning ''possessed by a demon or a deity." So why not harness this untapped energy? That's where the research on distant prayer comes in. If so-called intercessory prayer from people hundreds of miles from the hospital can help cardiac patients recover (as at least one controlled study has shown), then what happens when the members of Red Sox Nation begin to pray at their local branch of the Church of the Carmine Hose? Maybe players' physiologies are affected as much as heart patients'; maybe batting averages are enhanced as much as electrocardiograms.09/29/05 - Shredded tires to benefit landfills
Timothy Stark, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Krishna Reddy, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently evaluated the use of shredded tires as a drainage material in waste-containment systems. Shredding tires into chips roughly 4 inches by 6 inches, they report, offers a simple and cost-effective way of providing drainage for modern landfills, remediating older landfills, and disposing of mountains of scrap tires. The drainage layer prevents water from percolating through the waste and polluting the ground water, Reddy said. Typically, the drainage layer is composed of sand or gravel, which must be purchased and transported to the landfill. "Our research shows that replacing the sand or gravel with a layer of tire chips works just as well and costs less," Stark said. "The tires must be shredded for disposal anyway, so there is fairly little expense compared to buying and hauling sand or gravel." The remediation of old landfills could consume huge quantities of scrap tires. "A drainage layer one-foot-thick covering one acre requires about 70,000 tires," Stark said. "A typical landfill covers 10 to 20 acres, and there are about 150 abandoned landfills in Illinois, alone, that are in need of some degree of remediation." Shredded tires also could be used as backfill behind retaining walls and in other locations where sand or gravel is commonly used, the researchers report.
09/29/05 - Aids and Oranges
An Australian pharmaceutical company said on Tuesday a naturally occurring chemical extracted from oranges can be used to treat HIV/AIDS, influenza, SARS and the common cold. Citrofresh International Ltd. said Europe's Retroscreen Virology Laboratory had found its Citrofresh bioflavanoid compound to be effective against the HIV-1 virus, the human influenza A virus including Avian influenza or bird flu, the Urbani SARS virus and the human rhinovirus.09/29/05 - Beneficial effects of low-level radiation
Hormesis is defined as the stimulating effect of small doses of substances, which in larger doses are inhibitory. In 1981, T.D. Luckey revived `hormesis' with reference to ionising radiation backing it up with 1250 articles. The effects observed included the growth of algae under X-irradiation, growth of peas, increase in life span of invertebrates and insects and seedling stimulation by X-rays. Luckey wrote a very interesting book titled Radiation Hormesis. In 1991, the International Commission on Radiological Protection stated: "There is some experimental evidence that radiation can act to stimulate a variety of cellular functions including proliferation and repair. Such stimulation is not necessarily beneficial. In some circumstances, radiation appears also to enhance immunological responses and to modify balance of hormones. In particular radiation may be able to stimulate the repair of prior radiation damage, thus decreasing its consequences or may be able to improve immunological surveillance, thus strengthening the body's natural mechanisms."09/29/05 - Pre-Industrial humans impacted environment with grassland burning
‘Looking at the last 2000 years, we’ve found much higher than expected levels of methane from forest and grassland fires until about 1000 years ago when these emissions began to drop dramatically,’ said the paper’s lead author, Dr Dominic Ferretti, of NIWA. ‘This tallies well with both natural climate change and human land use.’ The analysis suggests that over the period 0-1500 AD, the indigenous population of the Americas regularly burned grassland and woodland areas for agriculture and hunting. But the indigenous population plummeted after European explorers arrived, and accordingly so did the extent of the burning and its methane by-product. The results also indicate that methane emissions from wildfires are likely to be higher during warm and dry periods, such as El Niño events, and may therefore increase with future climate change.09/29/05 - Microgrids and Peer-to-Peer power networks
Microgrids are small community networks that supply electricity and heat. Microgrids, say the researchers, could easily integrate alternative energy production, such as wind or solar, into the electricity network. "This would save something like 20 to 30% of our emissions with hardly anyone knowing it," he told the BBC News website. "A microgrid is a collection of small generators for a collection of users in close proximity," explained Dr Markvart, whose research appears in the Royal Academy of Engineering's Ingenia magazine. "It supplies heat through the household, but you already have cables in the ground, so it is easy to construct an electricity network. Then you create some sort of control network." That network could be made into a smart grid using more sophisticated software and grid computing technologies. As an analogy, the microgrids could work like peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies, such as BitTorrents, where demand is split up and shared around the network of "users".
09/29/05 - Brain blood flow pattern reveals liars
A scientist at the Medical University of South Carolina has found that magnetic resonance imaging machines also can serve as lie detectors. The study found MRI machines, which are used to take images of the brain, are more than 90 percent accurate at detecting deception, said Dr. Mark George, a distinguished professor of psychiatry, radiology and neurosciences. The MRI images show that more blood flows to parts of the brain associated with anxiety and impulse control when people lie. More blood also flows to the part of the brain handling multitasking because it is hard for people to keep track of lies they have told.09/29/05 - Senator Dodd targets out-of-control price gougers
Now that President Bush has lectured the general public about driving habits, says Senator Christopher Dodd, he should turn his attention to his friends in the oil industry and lecture them about grabbing big profits. “This is clearly price gouging by the big oil companies, some of whom boast about increasing prices while cutting back production,” Dodd said. “These people are out of control. And they can get away with it because they've got an administration that's their pal." Dodd is co-sponsoring legislation that would end excess profits and instead provide companies with incentives for exploring alternate sources of energy.
09/29/05 - Seaweed could make junk food healthier
The highly-fibrous seaweed extract, alginate, could be used to increase the fibre content of cakes, burgers and other types of food which usually contain large amounts of fat and a low degree of healthy nutrients, say the team. They believe it will be a valuable weapon in the international battle against obesity, diabetes and heart disease and diseases such as bowel cancer. The paper shows that alginate has been proved to strengthen mucus, the body's natural protection of the gut wall, can slow digestion down, and can slow the uptake of nutrients in the body. Moreover, alginate is high in fibre and has been proved to be palatable and safe, and as such is already in widespread use by the food industry as a gelling agent, to reconstitute powdered foods, and to thicken the frothy head of premium lagers. Studies have shown that eating high-fibre diets can help reduce the incidence of diseases such as bowel cancer. Good sources of fibre are fruit and vegetables, brown bread and cereals like bran flakes.09/29/05 - What makes an idea spread in a 'viral' way
For an idea to spread, it needs to be sent and received. No one "sends" an idea unless: a. they understand it, b. they want it to spread, c. they believe that spreading it will enhance their power (reputation, income, friendships) or their peace of mind, d. the effort necessary to send the idea is less than the benefits. No one "gets" an idea unless: a. the first impression demands further investigation, b. they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea, c. they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time. Notice that ideas never spread because they are important to the originator. Notice too that a key dynamic in the spread of the idea is the capsule that contains it. If it's easy to swallow, tempting and complete, it's a lot more likely to get a good start.09/29/05 - The Implosion Researcher and buzzwords to fool the unwary
I've been reading the BBC's health website - on the importance of drinking water - and it seems we missed a very exciting discovery: "Implosion researchers have found that if water is put through a spiral, its electrical field changes and it then appears to have a potent, restorative effect on cells." This, speaking as someone who now writes for the news pages, is "news". They even have further details on the water research: "In one study, seedlings watered with spiralised water grew significantly faster, higher and stronger than those given ordinary water." So Dr Quentin Arbuthnot (FRS) inquires innocently to the BBC complaints department, with his eminently reasonable questions: "What is an implosion researcher? And what is the electrical field of water?" he begins. "How does your correspondent believe it 'changes', and how was this measured?" Too vague. Bring it back to the specifics, Quentin: "What, pray, was the 'potent restorative effect on cells' and how was this measured? And please, what is the reference for the research referred to, which shows that seedlings in this special water grow 'significantly faster, higher, and stronger'?" That was the beginning of August. Three weeks later, Quentin receives the following: "Thank you for your interesting comments. The author of this piece is getting in contact with the researchers who provided the information and will endeavour to get answers to each of your questions." That was a month ago. A clarification: this is not a cultural issue, and this is not about alternative science versus western medicine. It is about the far simpler issue of a proper media organisation presenting made-up marketing rubbish as if it was scientific fact.09/29/05 - Cow Power
"Manure is heated in that pit, methanogenic bugs create methane and it's burned in that Cat (Caterpillar brand) engine and that Cat engine is running a generator producing electricity." Two dairy farmers in Stephenson County are using the convertors to create renewable energy, not just for their farms, but for nearby homes. During an interview Wednesday Scheider told 13 News, "As we speak energy is going out on the grids." For every 5 cows, they get a kilowatt of energy. That's enough electricy for one house. Scheider says, "We're not having to burn fossil fuels to create it so that's a good thing." State Representative Jim Sacia adds, "We have this renewable energy literally coming out the back end of a cow." After the manure is burned, the leftover product is used as cow bedding, so it's a dual benefit for the farmer. And it also takes away a lot of the smell.09/29/05 - Universal Remote Codes
Universal remote controls are a dime a dozen these days, and I bought one as a backup to my other remotes. The only problem with these things is that you need to know the codes of the remotes you want to emulate, and those codes are usually in the manual. Of course I tend to lose manuals like pens, so I figured I would put the codes online where I could find them. In time the site evolved as more links were added, and here we are today.09/29/05 - Skyscraper farms
Tens of thousands of empty storage containers are stacked in towers along I-95 across from the harbor in Newark, New Jersey. They're heaped there in perpetuity, too cheap to be shipped back to Asia but too expensive to melt down. Where many might see a pile of garbage, Lior Hessel sees, of all things, an organic farm. Those storage containers would be ideal housing for miniature farms, he believes, stacked one upon another like an agricultural skyscraper, all growing fresh organic produce for millions of wealthy consumers. And since the crops would be grown with artificial lighting, servers, sensors and robots, the cost of labor would consist of a single computer technician's salary. OrganiTech can supply a complete set of robotic equipment plus greenhouse for $2 million. A system the size of a tennis court can produce 145,000 bags of lettuce leaves per year -- that's a yield similar to a 100-acre traditional farm. According to the company, it costs 27 cents to produce a single head of lettuce with its system, compared to about 18 cents per head of lettuce grown in California fields. Factor in the transportation costs and suddenly the automated greenhouse grower saves as much as 43 cents a head. Add to that the fact that OrganiTech's system is entirely free of pesticides (the greenhouses keep positive air pressure inside the structure, so few if any insects can fly in) and are grown hydroponically (without soil) so nutrients, fertilizers and water requirements are one-third to one-fifth the needs of soil-grown lettuce. That means the lettuce can be marketed as water-friendly and organic, which adds to the premium consumers are willing to pay.
09/29/05 - Freeze dried burials ecologically beneficial
Swedes will then have the chance to bury their dead according to the pioneering method, which involves freezing the body, dipping it in liquid nitrogen and gently vibrating it to shatter it into powder. This is put into a small box made of potato or corn starch and placed in a shallow grave, where it will disintegrate within six to 12 months. People are to be encouraged to plant a tree on the grave. It would feed off the compost formed from the body, to emphasise the organic cycle of life. The technique was conceived by a Swedish biologist, Susanne Wiigh-Masak, 49, who said: "Mulching was nature's original plan for us, and that's what used to happen to us at the start of humanity - we went back into the soil. "But we need to tell people in this day and age that this can once again be a dignified and comfortable option." According to Mrs Wiigh-Masak's method, which she has called "promession" - the promise to return to the earth what emerged from the earth - the dead body is frozen and dried, using liquid nitrogen. A mechanical vibration then causes the body to fall apart within 60 seconds before a vacuum removes the water. Then a metal separator picks out metals such as artificial hips and dental fillings.09/28/05 - Selling the Moon
My favorite economics professor tells a story about a group of college students that share a refrigerator. The refrigerator often runs out of food because the students are more interested in eating the food than stocking it. The dishes in the sink tend to pile up. These are classic cases of overconsumption and underinvestment when there are not exclusive property rights, a problem economists call the “Tragedy of the Commons”. The Moon has a similar problem. It is a commons. The property rights there are not exclusive. If there is one person who wants to squat on a homestead on the Moon and build a shack and another who wants to build a rocket port, who should get to? In the first-come-first-serve world of races to claim and use common property, the shack would get built if the shack builder got there first. In the property rights world, a rich shack builder who likes a view could get the shack built only if he could pay (or was not willing to take) the money offered by the rocket port developer. The land could lie fallow for years while the rocket port builder gathered the money. It might never get developed.
09/27/05 - Plasma Pencil to cut away bacteria and in future, tumors
Scientists have unveiled a 'plasma pencil', a handheld device that generates a thin plume of charged gas that can kill bacteria, and could one day etch away tumours without damaging surrounding tissue. Plasmas are soups of charged ions and electrons. They are generated anywhere that atoms are stripped of their electrons: in solar flares or around lightning bolts, for example. Their violent birth means that the ions move very quickly, so plasmas have temperatures of thousands of degrees. But Laroussi's device produces a room-temperature plasma that can be used safely on patients. "I have put my hand in the plume many times without anything happening," says Laroussi, who describes the device in the journal Applied Physics Letters1. Although the beam has no effect on skin, previous experiments in Laroussi's lab have shown that Escherichia coli bacteria are killed when the plasma breaks open their cell walls. Now the team hopes to use the pencil to clean up the plaque-generating bugs that lie in the nooks and crannies of our mouth. The five-centimetre-long plasma plume is generated when a stream of helium gas containing a trace of oxygen passes between two high-voltage copper electrodes. Helium is very difficult to ionize, but the plume's oxygen molecules break into two highly reactive oxygen atoms, which then attack the bacteria. The key to keeping the plasma pencil cool is its kilovolt electric field, which switches on and off thousands of times a second. This kicks the light electrons into high speeds, while the heavier ions are too weighty to be moved much by each zap of voltage. "It gives the electrons a lot of energy very quickly," says Laroussi. Unlike conventional chemical treatments that kill bacteria, there are no residues to wash away afterwards. "It's essentially a chemical etching process where the reactive chemicals are being generated at the flick of a switch," says Graham. The plasma pencil might eventually be used by doctors to kill off tumour cells, he adds. Surgical blades can often damage surrounding tissue, but the plasma pencil could be adapted to eat away at the cancer cells a few layers at a time.
09/27/05 - High Oil Prices: Bitter, But Necessary Medicine
Oddly enough, some carmakers are even starting to take a serious interest in battery-powered cars again. Mitsubishi has accelerated its time table and plans to introduce an all-electric car by 2008, followed by Subaru. At least two Chinese carmakers also have electric cars in development. Abandoned by the larger OEMs like GM and Toyota in the late 1990s because of cost issues -- and not reliability or range, as it turns out -- electric cars using state-of-the-art battery and drive technology -- including electric motors in the wheels -- promise 200 km (125 miles) of driving range between charges for a fraction of the current cost of gasoline. Whether we like it or not, high oil prices are with us to stay and the sooner we adapt to them, the less disruptive future declines in global oil production will be. Driving 25 miles in a conventional gasoline car will cost you -- at today's price --about $2.60 for fuel. The same trip in an efficient battery car will cost you between 30-60 cents depending on local utility rates. If you drive 125 miles a week commuting to and from work, you only have to recharge the car on weekends at a total cost of around $1.50-$3.00 compared to $13.00. Batteries in the car should not need replacing for at least 100,000 miles. That's more than 15 years of driving 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. And the "electric fuel” comes from largely indigenous sources including coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric and increasingly, wind and solar.09/27/05 - Blind Item #34 - Hitachi Videocam with hard drive
(In line with an earlier post about the $800 JVC videocam that uses a 30gb hard drive for about 7 hours recording time - JWD) Hitachi is bringing out a video camera weighing less than one pound which uses a 260Mb hard disk to store video information. A very powerful chip compresses to MPEG standards giving 30 mins of better than VHS video. It can also store 3000 JPG still pictures. Costing less than 2000 dollars this camera could lead to a revolution in document storage and film production as unlike tape it gives instant access.09/27/05 - Scientists testing wind power systems in Georgia
In northwestern Georgia, an alliance of the state's electric cooperatives has erected a tower on top of Rocky Mountain near Rome, Ga., to measure wind speeds and directions. But initial results from the first two months of the study are showing the area has slow wind speeds of 6 to 10 mph. But off the coast of Savannah, Ga., the Atlanta-based Southern Co. is working with researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology on a similar study to determine the feasibility of offshore wind turbines. There, the research platforms are showing much faster wind speeds _ 16 mph _ than in the north Georgia mountains, he said. One advantage of developing wind-generated power in southeast Georgia is that it's close to population centers. Location is one problem with existing wind-energy producers, such as turbines located in the plains of west Texas. Once electricity is produced there, it's expensive to get the energy to customers, Bulpitt said.09/27/05 - Blind Item #33 - Microdot for theft prevention and recovery
Police in England are starting to sell for about $25 a solution which has 1000 microdots of information that can be painted on to computers etc. Each dot is only the size of a full stop and the information can be read with a magnifier. There has been a marked reduction of theft of equipment marked with such dots. More than 60 letters and numbers can be put on each of the identical dots.09/27/05 - Out of Gas? What can be done?
Today, I will present a specific legislative example and general legislative options available primarily at the federal level to minimize or delay the consequences that inevitably follow peak oil. I believe the scenarios that result from post peak oil range from moderate to severe depending on how coherently we act as a nation. Based on what I've seen from both the Democratic and Republican parties, I'm not optimistic. The mainstream media also seems clueless.09/27/05 - Bush urges Congress to pave the way for new refineries
"The storms have shown how fragile the balance is between supply and demand in America," Bush said. "We need more refining capacity." No new U.S. refinery has been built since 1976. U.S. gasoline demand has grown to over 9 million barrels per day (bpd) but a maze of permitting requirements and landowner objections has blocked new projects. "It's clear that the president and his allies in the House are using Katrina as cover for ramming through proposals to weaken the Clean Air Act," said Kevin Curtis, vice president of the National Environmental Trust. Democrats are also skeptical. They say oil companies are disinclined to build new plants because tight capacity keeps profits healthy. However, expanding existing plants is a less costly way to gain extra gasoline production -- and could become even cheaper if the "new source review" rule is gutted.
09/27/05 - Patent office scrutinized as lawsuits rise
(An earlier news item here had suggested a Wikipedia type patent submission system - JWD) Despite the hiring of more examiners, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office can't keep up with a rising flood of patent applications. The number of applications filed each year for new inventions has increased 85 percent over the past decade. Inventors have to wait more than two years after an application is filed to be granted a patent. Faced with this crunch, the government is granting many patents that shouldn't be granted, according to many observers. Nearly 74 percent expect to spend more money on patent litigation over the next three years. IT firms, in particular, say they have been besieged by lawsuits from patent "trolls" who have obtained patents not to develop new products, but to shake down possible patent infringers. "Left unchecked, these practices stand to disrupt the activities of true innovators, and impede their ability to deliver products and services to consumers."09/27/05 - Using TV to get rich with your inventions
Thanks to HSN's 89-million-home reach, shoppers have taken a onetime struggling single mom from an office in her dad's Deer Park body shop to this estate. This inventor turned supreme on-air seller and company president is a self-made multimillionaire. She's essentially her own archetype, because her personal backing is as important as her products. Many carry the Good Housekeeping seal, but more important, they've got woman-next-door Mangano behind them. She's on the air some 120 hours a year live at HSN, bubbling with enthusiasm for her products' every little attribute, oozing with pride at the problems they solve, demonstrating in minute detail how they'll make your life better, more organized and less time-stressed. Consider her the next generation Ron Popeil, the 1960s father of televised retailing with his Veg-O-Matic. The idea is the easy part. Getting it designed, produced and sold is the tough stuff. She can't say enough about the value of electronic retailing, pitching directly to the consumer. "You can present the product and have them understand it," she says. "My whole success stems from taking my invention on television and demonstrating it. It's a wonderful reaching-out to the American public."
09/27/05 - Risks of patents
In a little-noticed opinion this month, a federal appeals court ruled against the Crater Coupler patent holders and upheld a sweeping interpretation of the controversial "state secrets privilege" -- an executive power handed down from the English throne under common law that lets the government effectively kill civil lawsuits deemed a threat to national security, even if the state is not a party to the suit. As such, it is a potentially worrying development for inventors -- particularly those developing weapons, surveillance and anti-terror technologies for government contractors -- who may find infringement claims dismissed without a hearing under the auspices of national security. After about a year of development and testing, Lucent had good news for the inventors: The device passed all the tests, shaming a competing, clunky design that French says resembled an old thermos. But when the inventors got on the phone with Lucent's lawyers to discuss license terms, the company dropped a bomb. "Almost the first thing they said was, 'Well, we don't have to do anything, because this is under some sort of provision for military secret stuff where we don't have to pay anything,'" says French.09/27/05 - Students ride horses to school to save on gas costs
Mellissa Evans thought she had found a new way to rein in her expenses as gasoline prices escalated. The Tooele High School senior began hoofing it to school this week on her 11-year-old gelding, Nighthawk. Joined by junior Chapa Stevenson and her horse, Wink, the pair made the 30-mile trek between their homes in Rush Valley and school twice a day on horseback. But school officials told them Thursday that horses on school grounds are against the rules. In Rush Valley, Mellissa Evans' mother, Karren, is disappointed her daughter can't ride her horse to school anymore to help offset the expected price increases. "It took hours for her to get to school," she said. "But hay is much cheaper than gas."
09/27/05 - To Patent or Not to Patent?
When it comes to inventing, the very first thing you need to do is protect your idea before anyone can steal it, right? Well, if you base your decision on TV commercials or the many invention websites out there touting patent services, the answer is a resounding "Yes!" However, if you base your decision on a little business sense--and the fact that your idea is an opportunity, not just an invention--then the answer is more likely, "No--but maybe later." Before you invest thousands of dollars in securing a patent, there are steps you should take to ensure that it's a smart business move. After all, only 2 to 3 percent of all patented products ever make it to market.09/26/05 - Straka Solar Collector
Straka’s invention is a new type of solar concentrator that promises some relief from the petroleum-based energy crunch that has grown to crisis proportions since Hurricane Katrina struck two weeks ago. The faceted, trough-like design of Straka's collector focuses the sun’s rays toward a photovoltaic strip that can produce 90 watts of power from just 18 watts of solar cells. Designed for use on the large rooftops of supermarkets and shopping centers, the solar concentrator could help businesses adapt to what Straka sees as a cultural shift in how Americans view energy. “The new state and federal rebates for solar can pay up to 50 percent of the cost of the system,” said Straka. “Now is the time to look to renewable sources to provide the energy without the fuel costs. There is the initial cost up front to set up a solar system, but fuel prices are only going to go up. It’s really becoming a bite-the-bullet scenario. People have to decide whether they are going to stay tied to an energy pie that is all fossil fuels and electricity from the grid, or whether they are going to start to produce their own energy on site and diversify.”
09/26/05 - High exposure to motor oil increases chances of developing arthritis
Occupational exposure to mineral oils, in particular hydraulic or motor oil, increases the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis by 30%. In total, the study included 1419 cases and 1674 controls. Only men reported high occupational exposure to oil, mostly motor and hydraulic oil. A group of 135 men diagnosed with RA and reporting high exposure, as well as 132 matching controls, was retained for further study. Sverdrup et al.'s results show that men highly exposed to motor or hydraulic oil have a 30% higher risk of developing RA than unexposed men. Exposure only increased the risk of developing 'rheumatoid factor positive' (RF+) rheumatoid arthritis, a more severe form of RA. It didn't increase the risk of developing rheumatoid factor negative (RF-) rheumatoid arthritis. Exposure to oil is also linked to a 60% increased risk of developing 'anti-citrulline positive' (anti-CP+) rheumatoid arthritis, another type of the disease. This study confirms results found in animals - exposure to mineral oil had been shown to induce arthritis in rats - and raises questions regarding exposure to other environmental or occupational agents, such as infectious agents that contain molecules that may activate the immune system in similar ways as mineral oils, and a possible link with arthritis.09/26/05 - Thalmanns' Wind Turbine
In essence, the machine consists of four very light, one-way flaps suspended from offset booms and mounted in sets of two on a vertical shaft. The shaft, of course, is supported by bearings that allow it to revolve. As it turns, each vane swings down to offer its maximum surface to the wind during one half of every revolution . . . and up to feather itself during the other half. "My invention," Thalmann says, "is closely related to the Savonius S-rotor that MOTHER has mentioned from time to time. It is, however, an improvement over the Savonius because it allows for a much greater rotor diameter than the split oil drums commonly used on that design. In addition, my turbine's blades are very light, do not have compound curves and offer much less resistance to the wind on the return half of each revolution." Thalmann has constructed a rotor that is 12 feet in diameter which, when mounted on the roof of a building, does turn in the wind. Someone-quite possibly a technician at Canada's Brace Research Institute-has calculated that this test machine produces 64.8 foot-pounds of gross torque in an air mass moving 30 mph and 115.2 foot-pounds of gross torque in one moving 40 mph. (For a Thalmann turbine that is 16 feet in diameter, the calculated gross torque is, respectively, 115.2 foot-pounds and 204.8 foot-pounds.) Since the blades of John's rotor offer very little resistance to the wind on the return half of each revolution, the net torque seems to be about 85% to 90% of these gross figures.
09/26/05 - Shelving Technology to extend our need for oil
The price of gas is being driven up artificially for no other reason than because they can. Who are they? They are the three major oil companies that now dominate and, through collusion, nearly monopolize the oil & gas market in the U.S... They’ve watched jealously for years as people in Europe and other nations pay the equivalent of $4.00 and $5.00 a gallon for gas and they see absolutely no reason why Americans can’t. Where does the money ultimately go? Take a look at the list of OPEC countries: Algeria, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. If they truly believed we were in danger of running out of oil, they at least would be funneling some of the fortune they’re making from us into alternative technologies. They’re not. They’re paving the desert with U.S. currency and casting off a mere pittance here and there for the odd explosive vest. What are those countries going to do without our money rolling in? Those countries won’t behave until they have to. If our own gas consumption drops by fifteen, ten or even five percent, they’ll have to. The way to make these countries behave is to hit them in the pocketbook. Oil conglomerates can profit from developing technologies away from oil. They routinely buy up energy saving technology and alternative energy technology for the sole purpose of shelving it so that we can’t have it and have to instead keep buying their gas. If you’re an inventor just barely getting by and a big oil company offers you a relative fortune for your invention that enables cars to get 100 miles per gallon, of course you’re going to take the money. Let’s be realistic here. With big money at stake for a wealthy company, your refusal to play ball with them could be hazardous to your health. Now it would stand to reason that the oil companies will someday be sorry when their supply of oil runs out. Sadly, they won’t be sorry. Why? Because they have all those energy-saving and alternative energy technologies they’ve been hording all these years. You can bet your bottom dollar that they’ll do the same thing with those technologies that they’re doing to us now with oil.09/26/05 - New Coffemaker design claims to reduce home power use by 80% a week
A pensioner is in his element after being given the royal seal of approval for his latest invention. Brian Hartley (69) has caused a stir in the retail world after creating an eco-friendly kettle capable of saving 80 per cent of a household's normal use of electricity in a week! The former electrician's Eco Kettle features two chambers, one which is filled with water and the other into which exactly the right amount of water can drain. There is a button to press to say if you want one, two or three cups. It also boils up to four times quicker than a normal kettle, saving even more energy. Kettles use 3KW of power - the equivalent of a three bar electric fire. Brian's invention is now available in such well-known department and electrical stores as the Co-op, John Lewis, Curry's and Selfridges. Brian, of Chesterfield, said: "The biggest complaint my wife has is she used to fill the old kettle up to the top and do jobs, but now she complains the new kettle boils too quickly and she hasn't got the time to do her little jobs any more!" The Eco Kettle is priced at £39.99 and is available locally from Chesterfield Co-op. * For more information about Brian's inventions, visit www.hartleyinnovative.co.uk
09/26/05 - Invention to control and dissipate Hurricane formation
A new method and system for hurricane control has been invented by Herbert Uram of Long Key, Florida. The U.S. patent is still pending. An average hurricane, or typhoon, has tremendous energy which make it impractical to attempt to modify it by a brute force approach. It is therefore necessary to find a means whereby a relatively small amount of energy, if immediately inputted upon detecting the onset of a hurricane, may be effective to inhibit or at least weaken the formation of the hurricane. The present invetion is a method and system for inhibiting or weakening the formation of hurricanes, by detecting the onset of a hurricane in a region of open water and immediately cooling the surface water in the open water region. The surface water is cooled by using one or more nuclear-powered submarines to pump cooler water at a depth in the open water region to the surface of the open water region. The surface water is cooled by effecting a heat-transfer of heat between the surface water and the cooler water at a greater depth in the open water region. More particularly, the heat-transfer is effected by pumping the cooler water present at the depth of the open water region to the surface of the open water region. Optionally, the cooler water at the depth of the open water region may be further cooled as it is pumped to the surface of the open water region. The US Navy has a number of submarines, particularly nuclear-powered submarines, which have been retired from active duty and which could be modified for use to inhibit or weaken the formation of hurricanes in accordance with the present invention. Thus, the use of such submarines would enable implementation of the invention at relatively low cost and at a relatively early date.09/26/05 - Longer, hotter Arctic summer due to snow-free land heating
In a paper that shows dramatic summer warming in arctic Alaska, scientists synthesized a decade of field data from Alaska showing summer warming is occurring primarily on land, where a longer snow-free season has contributed more strongly to atmospheric heating than have changes in vegetation. Arctic climate change is usually viewed as caused by the retreat of sea ice, which reduces the high-latitude measure of the amount of sunlight reflected off a surface - a change most pronounced in winter. Two mechanisms explain the pronounced warming over land during the summer. First, the early snow melt increases the length of time the land surface can absorb heat energy. Second, the increase in snow-free ground permits increases in vegetation such shrubs and advances of treelines. "Continuation of current trends in shrub and tree expansion could further amplify this atmospheric heating 2-7 times," Chapin said. Melting Snow hastens Arctic warming - Melting snow has triggered the warmest summers across Arctic Alaska in at least 400 years, setting in motion tree and shrub growth that will accelerate warming by two to seven times as the century unfolds. Those few extra days when the sun bakes brown tundra instead of getting reflected back into space by snow produces a surprising impact, wrote University of Alaska Fairbanks ecologist Terry Chapin and 20 co-authors. They have warmed the tundra by three watts for every square meter -- as much heating as you'd get from doubling the concentration of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.09/26/05 - Bleach found to neutralize mold allergens
Researchers at National Jewish Medical and Research Center have demonstrated that dilute bleach not only kills common household mold, but may also neutralize the mold allergens that cause most mold-related health complaints. "It has long been known that bleach can kill mold. However, dead mold may remain allergenic," said lead author John Martyny, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at National Jewish. "We found that, under laboratory conditions, treating mold with bleach lowered allergic reactions to the mold in allergic patients." The researchers grew the common fungus Aspergillus fumigatus on building materials for two weeks, and then sprayed some with a dilute household bleach solution (1:16 bleach to water), some with Tilex - Mold & Mildew Remover, a cleaning product containing both bleach and detergent, and others only with distilled water as a control. They then compared the viability and the allergenicity of the treated and untreated mold. The researchers found that the use of the dilute bleach solution killed the A. fumigatus spores. When viewed using an electron microscope, the treated fungal spores appeared smaller, and lacked the surface structures present on healthy spores. In addition, surface allergens were no longer detected by ELISA antibody-binding assays, suggesting that the spores were no longer allergenic.09/26/05 - Mayo Clinic study says magnetic insoles do not provide pain relief
Magnetic shoe insoles did not effectively relieve foot pain among patients in a study, researchers report in the current issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. And the results indicate that patients who strongly believed in magnets had pain relief even if they were given false magnets to wear. Dr. Winemiller said adults with foot pain are likely to initiate self-treatment with magnets based on personal recommendations or belief systems, often without a specific diagnosis or prescription. An interesting result in the study relates to "the placebo effect." Patients in studies who are given the placebo or false treatment often report improvement in their conditions when they believe they are receiving a treatment designed to provide relief. "A moderate placebo effect was noted in participants who believed the strongest in the potential of magnets to help their pain," says Dr. Winemiller. Otherwise, the fact that magnetic and nonmagnetic insoles provided nearly identical pain relief suggests that it may have been simply the cushioning that was effective -- and not the magnets. Magnetic devices use either static or pulsed magnets. Clinically, pulsed magnets have been shown effective for treating delayed fracture healing, for reducing pain in various musculoskeletal conditions, and for decreasing edema associated with acute trauma, although other studies have shown no benefit in these situations. Externally applied static magnets generally are considered safe and have few adverse effects, but little is known about their mechanism of action. Most basic scientific research has focused on movement of tiny electrical voltages that may lead to decreased pain.
09/26/05 - Blind Item #32 - Changing a child's behaviour
Researchers have found that ignoring a child's temper tantrums or when he/she is hitting another child while dealing with the victim, such as the other child and then 20 minutes later praising the offending child when he has stopped and started behaving again can, if carried on over a couple of months lead permanently to better behaviour. Socially skilled adults may also unconsciously employ the same tactic, for example staying out of the boss's way when he is off mood but being friendly to him when he has quietened down while those who are likely to come to grief may argue when put upon.09/25/05 - Seriously Cool Insane projects
I solved these problems by feeding an automatic bubble machine a mixture of smoke from a smoke machine and helium from a party-balloon kit from Walmart. The smoke makes the bubbles look like glistening pearls and the helium can be adjusted to make the bubbles float or rise. The other photo is the magnetoplasmadynamic thruster I designed and built while I worked at the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at Edwards AFB in California. This type of rocket engine uses electric and magnetic fields to accelerate a plasma (extremely hot gas) to produce thrust. It's advantage is that it uses much less fuel than conventional engines. This type of thruster is probably the closest thing we have right now to the impulse engines on the Starship Enterprise of Star Trek fame. Lots more interesting projects on this page.
09/25/05 - Windfall Profits Tax proposal for Greedy Oil Companies
Fed up with price gouging and federal inaction on energy, four out of five Americans - including 76 percent of Republicans - would support "a tax on the windfall profits of oil companies" if the resulting revenues were devoted to alternative energy research, according to a new Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) national opinion poll conducted for 40mpg.org (http://www.40mpg.org/) and the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute. Other key survey findings include: nine out of 10 Americans (87 percent) think that oil companies are gouging gasoline consumers Friday; four out of five adults (81 percent, including 74 percent of Republicans) say the federal government is not doing enough about high energy prices and America's over- reliance on Middle Eastern oil; almost three out of four Americans (73 percent) believe that recent gasoline price hikes now make it more important that the federal government impose higher fuel-efficiency standards; and four out of five adults say that U.S. automakers should follow the same path as Toyota, which intends that "all of its new cars going forward will use fuel- saving hybrid technology."09/25/05 - Could scientists de-intensify storms?
Scientific American Magazine outlines three different ways to kill a hurricane: As they did 40 years ago, pilots would fly above the storm, seeding it with silver iodide to 'freeze' the rain. Or the second, scientists would top the bodies of water where the storm is expected with a bio-degradable oil. This would keep the water from absorbing into the hurricane, and again keep the rain from accumulating inside the eye of the storm. The third way is an idea that is still on the drawing board and it involves sending satellites into space. The satellites would capture the energy of the sun to 'cook' the top of the hurricane, thus stabilizing it so the hurricane would collapse. “Live with it. Just learn to live with it. And we could do that. We can do that by how we live along the coastal regions. How we build our cities. How we build in levees and control of canals and so fourth,” said Wysocki. Wysocki feels money spent on these types of 'temporary' remedies should be shifted...and put toward safe house structures and evacuation processes.
09/25/05 - Blind Item #31 - Water on the Moon
Exciting news that a lake of water a few hundred yards wide and about 15ft deep has been discovered on the moon in a crater on the south pole. The crater is very deep, 8 miles, so deep that Everest upside down would fit into it and there would still be three miles more to go. At the bottom of this crater lies the ice, dicovered by radar imaging from the orbiting satellite Clementine. There will probably now follow a race to colonize the moon by the space powers - China, Russia, EEC, USA and Japan because the water will allow permanent colonies to be established there to mine and bring to earth helium 3 a catalyst for thermonuclear fusion to produce endless energy.09/25/05 - Bees use 'heat balls' to kill wasps
(Interesting that a living organism can generate this amount of heat, might be something we could replicate and use in technology - JWD) Honeybees that defend their colonies by killing wasps with body heat come within 5°C (41F) of cooking themselves in the process, according to a study in China. At least two species of honeybees there, the native Apis cerana and the introduced European honeybee, Apis mellifera, engulf a wasp in a living ball of defenders and heat the predator to death. A new study of heat balling has described a margin of safety for the defending bees, says Tan Ken of Yunnan Agricultural University in Kunming, China. At each nest, worker bees engulfed the wasp immediately. Within 5 minutes, the center of a typical bee ball had reached 45°C (113F). To check the bees' and wasps' tolerance for heat, researchers then caged each of the species in incubators and systematically cranked up the temperature. The wasps died at 45.7°C, but the Asian honeybees survived heat to 50.7°C and the European bees made it to 51.8°C (125.24F). To keep the youngsters at the right temperature in cool weather, honeybees space themselves around the nursery and shiver their powerful flight muscles to generate heat. Seeley notes, however, that the nursemaids don't raise the temperature above 36°C (96.8F), so the brood stays safe.
09/25/05 - Weatherman believes Hurricanes caused by Mafia
Since Katrina, Stevens has been in newspapers across the country where he was quoted in an Associated Press story as saying the Yakuza Mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He was a guest on Coast to Coast, a late night radio show that conducts call-in discussions on everything from bizarre weather patterns to alien abductions. On Wednesday, Stevens was interviewed by Fox News firebrand Bill O'Reilly. Although the theories espoused by Stevens - scalar weapons, global dimming - are definitely on the scientific fringe today, there are thousands of Web sites that mention such phenomena. "The Soviets boasted of their geoengineering capabilities; these impressive accomplishments must be taken at face value simply because we are observing weather events that simply have never occurred before, never!" Stevens wrote on his Web site. "The evidence of these weapons at work found within the clouds overhead is simply unmistakable. These patterns and odd geometric shapes seen in our skies, each and every day, are clear and present evidence that our weather has been stolen from us, only to be used by those whose designs for humanity are rarely in alignment with that of the common man."09/25/05 - Digital camera jammer
Shwetak Patel, a Georgia Institute of Technology computer science graduate student, says he and his fellow researchers have developed a device that can detect the presence of digital imaging devices - including camcorders and cell phone cameras - and then blur the image by using simple blasts of light. "The basic idea is that camera phones are becoming more and more ubiquitous. In Japan, it's something like 95 percent of [mobile] phones sold are camera phones," says Patel. Because people are taking pictures where they didn't used to be able to in Japan, "there are a lot of places putting up 'no photography' signs." Many museums, public security zones, locker rooms and other camera-sensitive places now try to bar or even confiscate camera equipment. But Patel and many privacy experts say such efforts aren't effective or practical against camera phones.
09/25/05 - Those living Solo skew water consumption projections
The trend towards people living alone, whose per capita water consumption is greater than a family's, was occurring faster than predicted, according to research commissioned by the Water Services Association, which represents water utilities. Urban consolidation had failed to take account of the number of widowers and widows who would continue to live in their two- and three-bedroom houses with gardens. Research found a single person in Melbourne consumed indoors an average 220 litres daily, a second person in the same household used 176 litres, and a third and subsequent householders uses 110 litres. Mr Young said that when a second person moved into a household, water was saved because "you run the dishwasher full and you don't necessarily fill the sink with any more water, and the washing machine probably runs more efficiently". Sydney's population is forecast to grow by 33 per cent between 2001 and 2031. The total number of households will increase by 51 per cent, and singles by 67 per cent. "It is incredibly important the implications of this are taken on board by water planners when projecting future water consumption," Mr Young said.09/24/05 - Fridge boom box
When their refridgerator stopped working, a choice of taking it to the landfill, repairing it or using it for a hack, guess which won? No information about frequency or sound quality, but being a resonant chamber, it should work very well. Neat thing to do with an old fridge!
09/24/05 - Blind Item #30 - Finding water
The subcontinent has been extremely lucky not to have had a drought in the last ten years. Scientists have found that striking the ground with a 7 kg hammer and analysing the returning sound waves can tell if there is any water upto a depth of 100 meters. A bigger hammer can search deeper. Finding underground water in arid areas could lead to humans settling in desert areas.09/24/05 - Prototype Load Bearing Straw Bale 'Green' House
At the head of a trend toward "green building," Alan and Maria Yankus of Redmond are building a 3,100-square-foot rye grass home in rural Crook County that will be the first load-bearing straw-bale house in Central Oregon, according to local planning officials. Straw is tough and fibrous, making it a strong building component and tremendous insulator. American farmers harvest enough straw to build about 4 million 2,000-square-foot homes a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While large-scale construction of straw homes has not occurred, the homes are catching on, one straw-house advocate at a time. The Yankus' Southwestern-style home will have three bedrooms, three bathrooms, radiated floor heating, wind and solar power, an attic ventilation system and skylights. The house sits on a cement floor, through which tubes filled with hot water supply radiant heat. Once the bales of straw are stacked on the cement foundation, steel rebar is driven through the straw walls to anchor them to the ground. Then, wood beams are attached to the top of the straw to construct the roof. The bales are compressed to prevent the house from settling that could tweak window and door frames. All wiring and plumbing runs through the bales. Once the surfaces of the straw are trimmed to make them even, a chicken-wire mesh is placed over the straw and a breathable, clay-plaster stucco is applied to seal the interior and exterior walls. The Yankuses are including entirely non-electric energy sources in their home. The house will run on 3,100 watts of solar power, 900 watts of wind power and a generator when needed, Alan Yankus said. The house also will need less energy to cool and heat it. The 2-foot-thick walls of compacted straw are better insulators than regular wood post-and-beam houses, said Andrew Kuperstein, general contractor on the project. Straw houses have an insulation performance rating of about R-40. Typical homes with 2-by-6 stud walls or plywood sheeting rate about R-19, according to Kuperstein.
09/24/05 - The End of Civilization as we know it
The supply of fossil fuels is fixed and the world economy will eventually have to wean itself from oil. The argument stretches back to a 1956 prediction by M. King Hubbert that oil production in the lower 48 U.S. states would peak in the early 1970s. He was right. The United States now imports nearly 60 percent of the oil it uses. Kenneth Deffeyes, a Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, has taken Hubbert's logic a step further and predicts the world's oil production will top out late in 2005. "It's Thanksgiving plus or minus three weeks," said Deffeyes, who grew up in the oil fields and was a researcher at Shell Oil for several years. The United States has so far avoided serious consequences from the trap by relying on imports. The country uses about 7 billion of the 30 billion barrels of oil produced annually around the globe. And it makes us rich. Oil consumption equals standard of living, experts agree. Meanwhile, other countries are beginning to clamor for oil at unprecedented rates, and therein lies the recipe for potential disaster. It's a behind-the-scenes sort of panic. The two largest economies on Earth -- China and the United States -- have already incorporated the finite nature of oil into their national security policies, Nur argues, citing policy statements from both governments reflecting the need to secure stability in oil-producing countries and a free flow of the resource. The war in Iraq, a country second only to politically unstable Saudi Arabia in oil reserves, is another clue, he said. "There is a huge conflict that might be emerging," Nur said.09/24/05 - NASA estimates $104,000,000,000.00 - 104 BILLION to return to the Moon!!!
(This appalls me, still using Rockets and blowing money like its water! I don't like this guys attitude and he needs to learn, THINGS CHANGE when they don't work! - JWD) "There will be a lot more hurricanes and a lot more other natural disasters to befall the United States and the world in that time, I hope none worse than Katrina," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said at a news conference. "But the space program is a long-term investment in our future. We must deal with our short-term problems while not sacrificing our long-term investments in our future. When we have a hurricane, we don't cancel the Air Force. We don't cancel the Navy. And we're not going to cancel NASA." If all goes well, the first crew would set off for the moon by 2018 - or 2020 at the latest, the year targeted by President Bush who proposed such an initiative last year. The same type of vessel could be used, one day, to transport astronauts to Mars. House Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., praised NASA for coming up with what appears to be "the safest, least expensive and most efficient way" of moving forward in space exploration. The only way to accelerate all this would be to spend more money, he said. The new exploration plan would allow four astronauts to stay on the moon for a week - twice as long as Apollo missions. It also would haul considerably more cargo, much of which would be left on the moon for future crews. In time, lunar stays of up to six months would be possible.
09/24/05 - Operation Wetback - Ending illegal immigration
(Personal Note - I first heard this on a radio station tonight on the George Noury talk show when a fellow named Frosty says in Eisenhowers time, to stop illegal immigration, there was severe enforcement of employment laws that sent employers of illegals to jail with heavy fines. He said this resulted in over 1,000,000 illegal immigrants having no jobs and walking back across the border. This is a link to that same idea and more. - JWD) . The public social costs of illegal settlement must be shifted to its promoters and beneficiaries. Operation Wetback in 1953 and 1954 was the United States' last, and only truly successful, effort to root out illegal immigration. Using extensive sweeps across the southwest, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) achieved the Eisenhower administration's goals. Some 2.1 million, mostly Mexican, illegal aliens were removed between 1953 and 1955. While abuses marred the effort, illegal immigration stayed under control for more than a decade. Vested interests in illegal immigration have also become more rooted in the last thirty years. Important constituencies must now be reckoned with: low-wage employers; providers of public services and education; landlords and realtors; churches; ethnic lobbies and politicians; human rights and immigrant advocates; and kinship networks.09/24/05 - Creative Uses for your PhoneCam
Your mobile phone camera can be more than a fast way to send your kitty photos to Grandma Pearl. Like a lot of people, I use mine as a ubiquitous capture device, recording ephemeral information and visual documentation wherever and whenever it’s needed.
09/24/05 - Warm surface water = evaporation = tornado/hurricane
Scientists are divided on whether climate change, induced by industrial and automotive release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, is driving these statistics. But many other climate scientists are now pointing to global warming as the culprit for increasingly ferocious hurricanes worldwide. Both scientific theory and computer modeling predict that as human activities heat the world, warmer sea-surface temperatures will fuel hurricanes, increasing wind speeds and rainfall. Now, several new studies suggest that climate change has already made hurricanes grow stronger. Hurricanes gain their destructive power from ocean moisture and heat. As the sea and atmosphere warm, more water evaporates from the ocean surface. When that moisture reaches the cool upper atmosphere, it condenses, releasing the energy that originally went into evaporating it. This "latent heat" powers the growing storm, says meteorologist Tom Knutson of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J. How warm the sea surface gets and how high into the atmosphere the evaporated water climbs set a speed limit on hurricane winds, says Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. In 1987, Emanuel predicted that with global warming, this speed limit would rise and that hurricanes would rev up their engines. "If the climate warms, hurricanes have the potential to become substantially more intense," agrees Knutson. (Side Note - there is an earlier September post about a solar concentrator tower which uses a huge tarp to channel heated desert air to a central column that drives turbines to produce some 200MWs of power, a direct correlation to the velocities possible in a column of rising heated air as seen in hurricanes and tornados. - JWD)09/24/05 - Fixed yearly Electric rate plan in England
Nearly three million British Gas, Scottish Power and Powergen customers have already signed up for a fixed deal. You pay slightly more than the standard gas or electricity price - around £30 a year extra - and in return there's no increase in the rate you pay over the term of the deal. British Gas and Scottish Power have more than a million customers on this type of deal and Powergen around 820,000. It's a gamble - if prices go up, you are quids in. If they fall you lose out, but with four energy price rises since the beginning of last year there's no sign of that happening yet. But Karen Darby of SimplySwitch is not a fan of fixed-price or "capped" deals. "They never show up in our cheapest options," she says. "Bigger savings can be made by switching to one of the new entrants to the market." British Gas offers the longest fix at today's price - until the end of March 2010. It's available on gas, electricity or both. If energy prices fall below today's rates before 2010 and customers want to quit they will have to pay a penalty of between £15 and £45. Log on to www.house.co.uk/norises or call 0845 6020185.
09/24/05 - Blind Item #29 - Plant yields doubled
Scientists have injected the gene for making haemoglobin, the molecule which takes up oxygen in animal cells. This made the tobacco plant much more efficient and doubled yields. Scientists hope to transplant this gene into rice, wheat and other plants so that yields can be increased markedly and the growing populations fed. There may be a risk that these plant/animal hybrids will use up the planet's oxygen, leaving animals gasping for breath.09/24/05 - CellPhone Hacks
Nokia Phone Hacks, Security, Mod Chips, Discussion, Cellphone ring tones and hardware! Got a cell phone? Whether you want to find your phone’s secret menus or to unlock it for another service provider, this site covers it all. Pop on over and check out the forums. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a Nokia, Ericcson, Motorola, Sprint or some other brand. The information you need is probably there.
09/24/05 - Tornados and Hurricanes
Tornado formation - Warm and cool airstreams collide / A rotating area of low pressure storm clouds form / Air within a low pressure front rises, creating a strong upward draught like a vacuum cleaner / This draws in surrounding warm air from ground level, causing it to spin faster and faster / These strong air currents can create a vortex - a spiralling funnel of wind - that can reach speeds of 300mph / Where the funnel touches the ground, it creates a path of concentrated destruction, rarely more than 250m across. Hurricane formation - By definition, a hurricane is a fierce rotating storm with an intense centre of low pressure that only happens in the tropics. In south-east Asia they're known as typhoons and in the Indian Ocean, cyclones. Air above warm tropical water rises quickly as it is heated by the sea. As the air rises it rotates or spins creating an area of low pressure, known as the eye of the storm. The eye can be clearly seen on satellite pictures, and is usually eerily calm. Once it reaches the mainland, a hurricane may cause widespread damage for a few days, but with no warm water to supply heat, they quickly die out.09/22/05 - Can this man save the world?
Joe Williams Sr. believes he has the machine that will help save the world. "It" is his Hydrogen Generating Module, or H2N-Gen for short. Smaller than a DVD player - small enough to sit comfortably under the hood of any truck or car - it could be big enough to solve the world's greenhouse gas emission problems, at least for the near future. In fact, it could make the Kyoto protocol obsolete. Basically, the H2N-Gen contains a small reservoir of distilled water and other chemicals such as potassium hydroxide. A current is run from the car battery through the liquid. This process of electrolysis creates hydrogen and oxygen gases which are then fed into the engine's intake manifold where they mix with the gasoline vapours. His product, he said, produces a more complete burn, greatly increasing efficiency and reducing fuel consumption by 10 to 40 per cent - and pollutants by up to 100 per cent. Most internal combustion engines operate at about 35 per cent efficiency. This means that only 35 per cent of the fuel is fully burned. The rest either turns to carbon corroding the engine or goes out the exhaust pipe as greenhouse gases. The H2N-Gen increases burn efficiency to at least 97 per cent, Williams said. This saves fuel and greatly reduces emissions. It also means less engine maintenance and oil changes. The only thing the vehicle owner has to do is refill the unit with distilled water once every 80 hours of engine use. It can be attached to any kind of internal combustion engine: diesel, gasoline, propane/natural gas. Also, because the H2N-Gen manufactures only enough hydrogen to feed the engine at a given time, there is no dangerous onboard storage of hydrogen gas and no hydrogen under pressure.
09/22/05 - Blind Item #28 - Turning coastal deserts green
(Though reported in another form here earlier, this might be useful for Australias current water problems - JWD) Hawaii's Big island a desert where it rains only 4 days a year is being turned into a fertile garden. Cold water at 4C is pumped up from the deep sea. At the top of a tower in pipes it cools warm surface sea water evaporating from the bottom of the plastic tower. The water vapour is helped up by a fan. Cold fresh water thus condensed out is collected and lightly sprinkled on plants. More cold sea water goes directly into the garden in underground pipes. Water condenses from the atmosphere and and is absorbed by the soil and on to the cold pipes. Plant roots seek out this sourced and yields have been very good. The difference in the temp above and below ground is thought to contribute to this good yield. Vast areas of the earth could be made productive by this technique pioneered by Dr John Craven. The cold water also via air conditioners keeps buildings cool.09/22/05 - Build your own Generator!
This generator was built using a 3 horse power Briggs and Stratton horizontal shaft motor, a GM 65 amp automotive alternator (with built in voltage regulator), a used car battery, a pulley and V-belt, a 12 volt cigarette lighter outlet box with fuse, a DC to AC power converter, a low voltage control switch, a scrap of 3/4" plywood, a few scraps of 2 x 4 lumber, 4 wheels, and two battery cables. We also used a custom designed bracket manufactured for Epicenter to make it all come together in a snap. In the photo above, we used an 8" pulley on the motor. Subsequent testing indicates that a 4" or 5" pulley is the correct size to use for this application.
09/22/05 - Chinese warships cruise near gas field claimed by Japan
Five Chinese naval ships, including a guided-missile destroyer, were spotted on Sept. 9 near the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea - the site of a fierce Sino-Japan territorial dispute, Tokyo military officials said. The move comes amid rising bilateral tensions after a Chinese consortium said in August it could begin drilling for natural gas in the Chunxiao gas field as early as this month despite Japan's protests. Japan imports all of its oil, and because much of it passes through the seas surrounding Taiwan, feels its survival depends on keeping those seas stable. Mainland China's control over Taiwan could hurt Japan's access to oil, Tokyo officials fear.09/22/05 - Blind Item #27 - Papp has dubious History
For those who might have heard of the Joseph Papp engine which uses a mix of noble gases, exploded to provide tremendous thrust and the story about the man who was killed in a demonstration when an engine exploded, check this earlier claim out in a book - [008787] Papp, Josef. 300 MPH - The Fastest Submarine. New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, 1967. 1st PB Printing. Mass Market Paperback. Good Printed in Canada. 189p, 16p of B&W photos. Some cover wear, stain on top of front cover, water stain on outer edge of photo section. In Montreal Josef Papp began work on a submarine that, so he claimed, used a novel principle of propulsion that allowed it to reach speeds of 300 mph. In August 1966 he disappeared and showed up a few days later off the coast of France, claiming that he had crossed the ocean in thirteen hours in his submarine. The submarine, of course, had sunk. Authorities were immediately suspicious. There was the small fact that a submarine going almost as fast as an airplane sounded a little far-fetched. But also, a man resembling Papp had been seen in Montreal boarding a flight to Paris just about the time Papp disappeared. Papp's transatlantic adventure is documented in this book. $99.95
09/22/05 - Snopes listings on gravity control coil
I was watching an interesting documentry on real life UFO's the other day and one thing that caught my attention that I hadn't seen before was one of the potential methods of causing a craft to hover. A man on the show demonstrated that if you coiled bare lead wiring in a certain way and ran a high current and voltage through it (as opposed to just a high voltage) it would actually hover, although it would glow red hot. The surface he did this on was non-conductive and he said there was currently no scientific explanation for this effect. He then went on to suggest that the US military have experimented using this effect as a form of propellant and gave an example of an incident in Florida where loads of people caught supposed UFO's on tape and they featured a glowing ring on the underside, much like the coil.09/22/05 - JVC pioneers with Camcorder hard drive instead of videotape
EVERY now and then, humanity wakes up, looks at itself in the mirror and realizes that it's been wasting a lot of effort doing things the old way just for the sake of tradition. JVC had just such a moment when it looked at how people were using camcorders. "Let us get this straight," the corporate entity said (I'm paraphrasing here). "People buy tapes to put into their camcorders. They fill up a tape, then rewind it and play it into a computer - which takes a whole hour per tape - so that they can edit it and burn a DVD. Or maybe they buy one of those camcorders that record directly onto miniature DVD's, which are very expensive, hold only 20 minutes of video and can't easily be edited on a computer." The "Aha!" moment came when JVC looked at the iPod. Why, JVC wondered, are we still recording onto tapes and discs, if we can record directly onto a tiny little hard drive like the iPod's? The camcorder could hold hours and hours of video, and you'd never have to buy another tape or specialized blank DVD. The hard drive holds five or seven hours of video at top quality - easily a vacation's worth. The transfer is about four times as fast, because the computer files are copied rather than played in real time. The camcorder connects to the computer using a USB 2 cable; it doesn't require a FireWire card, as most digital camcorders do.
09/22/05 - Blind Item #26 - Antimatter trap
Dr. Bita Ghaffari of Rice University has succeeded in making a trap for anitmatter which is 50 times more efficient. Antimatter particles given off by radioactive decay are sent spiralling down a metal tube surrounded by electrical and magnetic fields which keep them repelled off the walls. By putting a high eletrical voltage at the entrance she ensured that the antiparticles would need high energy to start the travel and this according to chaos theory helps them to stay confined. She can get 50% of antimatter particles generated to stay trapped. These stores could become the power source of future ships - as was seen in Star Trek's anti matter engines.09/22/05 - New trigonometry is a sign of the times
"Generations of students have struggled with classical trigonometry because the framework is wrong," says Wildberger, whose book is titled Divine Proportions: Rational Trigonometry to Universal Geometry (Wild Egg books). Dr Wildberger has replaced traditional ideas of angles and distance with new concepts called "spread" and "quadrance". These new concepts mean that trigonometric problems can be done with algebra," says Wildberger, an associate professor of mathematics at UNSW. "Rational trigonometry replaces sines, cosines, tangents and a host of other trigonometric functions with elementary arithmetic." "For the past two thousand years we have relied on the false assumptions that distance is the best way to measure the separation of two points, and that angle is the best way to measure the separation of two lines. "So teachers have resigned themselves to teaching students about circles and pi and complicated trigonometric functions that relate circular arc lengths to x and y projections - all in order to analyse triangles. No wonder students are left scratching their heads," he says. "Now there is a better way. Once you learn the five main rules of rational trigonometry and how to simply apply them, you realise that classical trigonometry represents a misunderstanding of geometry."
09/22/05 - Various ways to use Hydrogen once we can make it efficiently
"Starting in 1979, BMW has produced a number of research vehicles running on hydrogen. In May 2000, BMW produced a fleet of 15 executive cars, using internal combustion engines running on liquid hydrogen. The vehicles went on a world tour and clocked up 100,000 miles." The only problem so far has been finding a way of generating hydrogen without burning more of the greenhouse gas-causing fossil fuels that it is supposed to replace. But, as technology improves, this situation is also evolving. What's more, the scientists even claim that hydrogen can be treated like a battery and used to store up power generated from renewable sources of energy, such as wind farms. This has the potential to revolutionise "sustainable" energy as we know it, because the "sporadic" nature of renewable energy could ultimately yield a consistent supply. "If effective ways of producing hydrogen from renewable energy can be found, then the benefits of this will be rich. "When the renewable technology is producing more electricity than needed, the spare is used to produce hydrogen, which can then be stored and used when the renewable technology is inactive due to the changeable nature of the elements. "It is a long way off, but there is also a vision of a hydrogen economy, where individual generators on homes could be used to produce hydrogen. This could power the home in times of need and be used to fill up your hydrogen fuel cell- powered car." "For the past two years, three buses in London have been run on hydrogen, and each of them have cost in the region of £1m a year to operate. "But, in the future, costs will come down - particularly as the cost of petrol and diesel continues to rise due to global shortages.09/22/05 - Tremors may mean 'Big One' on its way - Vancouver Island moves
A silent tectonic event, so powerful it has shifted southern Vancouver Island out to sea, but so subtle nobody has felt a thing, is slowly unfolding on the West Coast. Scientists who are tracking the event with sensitive seismographs and earth orbiting satellites warn it could be a trigger for a massive earthquake -- some time, maybe soon.09/22/05 - Fishhook condom to foil rapists
(Note this is from thespoof.com ! - JWD) According to designer Sonnette Ehlers, "Nothing has ever been done to help a woman so that she does not get raped and I thought it was time those friggin' engineers got to work." Early prototypes more resembled chastity belts, and were rejected said Ehlers, 57. The "Mister Meany, "a female condom worn like a tampon has sparked controversy in a country used to daily reports of violent crime. "Unlike a condom, which requires you roll it on, this is, well, more complex, she admitted." Ehlers said the "MisterMeany's barbs hook onto the rapist's ding-a-ling, allowing the victim time to escape and helping to identify perpetrators. "You see a man running down the street playing "Jingle Bells, well, there's your suspect." The device, made of latex and held firm by shafts of sharp barbs, can only be removed by surgery which will alert hospital staff, and ultimately, the police. South Africa has more people with HIV/AIDS than any other country, with one in nine of its 45 million population infected.
09/22/05 - Find-a-Human database gets you to a live operator
The Find-a-Human database is a collection of touch-tone recipes that get you through big companies' voice-jail systems and through to a live operator.
Astoria Federal Savings 800-ASTORIA When you hear the womans voice press zero. Will transfer right away to a human.
Bank of America 800-900-9000 Hit zero twice, after menu choices play
Bank One 877-226-5663 Press 0 thru the options to get a live person
Chase 800-CHASE24 Hit five, pause, then hit one, four, star, zero
CIBC 800-465-2422 Enter card# and pin, then press 0
CitiBank 800-374-9700 Zero09/22/05 - Warning with extreme details about RFID cracks making it unreliable
This paper, "Analysis of the Texas Instruments DST RFID," is a thoroughgoing description of the vulnerabilities in commond RFID tag technology. In a series of related videos, the authors snoop on mobile phones, hotwire a car, and steal gas from a pump-payment system, all using breaks to the RFID. Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a general term for small, wireless devices that emit unique identifiers upon interrogation by RFID readers. Ambitious deployment plans by Wal-mart and other large organizations over the next couple of years have prompted intense commercial and scientific interest in RFID. The form of RFID device likely to see the broadest use, particularly in commercial supply chains, is known as an EPC (Electronic Product Code) tag.
09/22/05 - Hazards of space travel
To preserve the dignity of their returning astronauts, Nasa scoops them out from shuttle spacecraft with mechanical movers, curtained off so no one can see the wrecked astronauts barely able to stand. In fact, many are ferried away in wheelchairs. Forget about the Dan Dare adventures, space travel seriously damages your health. Astronauts can be wrecked by long spells in space: muscles shrivelled, bones weakened, heart strained, lungs struggling. Humans were never designed for zero-G. We evolved to thrive, where muscles and skeleton, working against the Earth's gravity, makes them grow strong. Even with rigorous exercise, cosmonauts on the Mir space station lost 1-2% of their bone mass each month. The risk of breaking a bone during a three-year mission to Mars has been calculated at around 30%, with horrific consequences. Blood feels the lack of gravity, too. When we're standing on Earth, blood sinks to the feet and leaves the brain lighter, creating a gradient of blood pressure through the body. But in space, the pressure gradient disappears and the body thinks it's in trouble and makes less blood, which spells trouble for the heart. "If you have less blood, then your heart doesn't need to pump as hard; it's going to atrophy," explains Victor Schneider, research medical officer at Nasa. "It's a classic case of 'use it or lose it'." Bone recovery is the biggest problem and, after a six month space flight, it can take up to three years to repair the damage, if the bones fully recover at all.09/22/05 - 1 Billion = $1,000,000,000,000.00 - Signify!
The current federal debt is rapidly approaching eight trillion dollars. The current deficit forecast for this year was $333 billion before Katrina hit. Now the deficit estimates will have to be revised by $200-300 billion. The national debt will likely increase $600 billion within a year. Where is this money coming from? Most of it has come from foreign investors, such as the central banks of China and Japan. They buy U.S. bonds because they have an excess of dollars from the current account deficit, also known as the "trade deficit," which is, quite ironically, about $600 billion. Right now the U.S. is borrowing $320 billion a year just to pay the interest on the national debt. ( 8 trillion times 4 percent ). When you find yourself borrowing just to pay the interest on your debt then you are bankrupt. If interest rates ( and bond rates ) rise one percent the government will need an additional $80 billion. Most Americans doubt that we will ever pay off that huge debt, which comes to more than $26,000 per man, woman and child or more than $60,000 per full-time worker. 1.7 trillion of this debt is held by the Social Security Trust fund. The fund is already gone. Current recipients are getting their checks from foreign nations' purchase of U.S. bonds. Why do foreigners buy U.S. bonds? Because the U.S. is sitting on 10 trillion dollars of Iraqi oil. That's a conservative estimate using the figure of 200 billion barrels times $50 a barrel. Oil is now over $60 a barrel and the estimates of Iraqi reserves go as high as 300 billion barrels, which could mean that the U.S. is sitting on 18 trillion dollars of oil. Regardless of how much "window dressing" America puts on the Iraq situation, other nations know that the United States is the real government of Iraq. Without the presence of the U.S. military the current regime would fall within a week. We are terrorizing the world into giving us more money to cover our increasing debts. All of this is unnecessary. What's needed is a massive international initiative to develop alternative energy sources, such as synthetic fuels ( made from coal ), ethanol, bio diesel fuels produced by algae or renewable crops, wind power, hydroelectric, solar and a host of other alternative energy sources which have already been proven as viable alternatives to oil. The international backlash from our foreign policy of military aggression and economic hegemony is brewing and it's going to be a hell of a disastrous storm when it reaches the coast. It has the potential to cause the greatest depression America has ever seen, perhaps even total economic collapse.
09/22/05 - Global warming 'past the point of no return'
Global warming is melting Arctic ice so rapidly that the region is beginning to absorb more heat from the sun, causing the ice to melt still further and so reinforcing a vicious cycle of melting and heating.09/22/05 - BioDiesel runs coconut oil without the need for pre-processing
Unlike with many biofuels, coconut oil doesn't need to be transesterized - mixed with sodium hydroxide and alcohol to change its chemical composition - to run in a diesel engine. Filtered and warmed to temperatures about 25C, coconut oil is a better than satisfactory substitute for "mineral diesel" - it burns more slowly, which produces more even pressure on engine pistons, reducing engine wear, and lubricates the engine more effectively. Deamer runs most of his vehicles on a mixture of 85% coconut oil and 15% kerosene, but has demonstrated that modified diesel engines run filtered coconut oil quite happily.
09/22/05 - Scientists says Hurricanes can't be modified
It sounds like a great idea: Let's just blast hurricanes like Rita and Katrina out of the sky before they hurt more people. Or, at least weaken the storms and steer them away from cities. For cloud seeding to be successful, clouds must contain sufficient supercooled water that is still liquid even though it is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Raindrops form when the artificial nuclei and the supercooled water combine. But scientists also learned that hurricanes contain less supercooled water than other storm clouds, so seeding was unreliable. And, hurricanes grow and dissipate all on their own, even forming new walls of clouds called "concentric eyewall circles." This made it impossible to determine whether storm reductions were the result of human intervention. Project Stormfury was abandoned in the 1980s after spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Other storm modification methods that have been suggested include cooling the tropical ocean with icebergs and spreading particles or films over the ocean surface to inhibit storms from evaporating heat from the sea. Occasionally, somebody suggests detonating a nuclear weapon to shatter a storm. Researchers say hurricanes would dwarf such measures. For example, Hurricane Rita measures about 3,500 miles in circumference and 350 miles across.09/22/05 - Meyers Motors electric car in production
OK, so maybe it looks like something out of a kids cartoon, but that’s not the only reason to put a big cheery grin on your face. The MM 1.0 could get you up to 70mph (113 kph) during it’s 20-40 mile (32-64 km) long electrically powered journey. Come 15 October 2005, the MM 1.0 (once known as the Sparrow) is due to move from prototype to fully fledged production vehicle. According to research by Myers Motors, of Ohio, 65% of all vehicle miles travelled have just one person in the vehicle and daily trips are less than 30 miles total, so they reckon the MM 1.0 will suit many urbanites. And in these days of high petroleum pump prices they might just be right, as they figure you get 60 miles for every $1 worth of electricity. Although classified as a motorbike in some US states, it has a full enclosed canopy, which protects not only the occupant from the elements, but houses the AM/FM radio & CD stereo, plus heater and defroster. We failed to locate the price anywhere on their site, but as they are handmade, in a staggering range of 13 colours, we don’t expect them to be cheap.
As of 09/20/05, the KeelyNet website and emails had been down since 09/16/05 due to a T1 service connection problem which is now resolved
thanks to the herculean efforts of Dan York. Thanks Dan!09/16/05 - September 22 - World CarFree Day
World Carfree Network uses the term "carfree movement" rather broadly, to refer to: * those promoting alternatives to car dependence and car culture, including alternative modes such as cycling, walking and public transport; * those promoting carfree lifestyle choices, within either a car-dependent, car-lite* or carfree local context; * those promoting the building of (usually mixed-use) carfree environments on either brownfield or greenfield sites (usually sited to ensure easy access to a variety of non-automotive transport modes); * those promoting carfree days, using the events as tools to bring about long-term on-the-ground change in infrastructure and priorities (example: Bogota); and * those promoting the transformation of existing villages, towns and cities (or parts of them) into carfree environments. Each year on September 22, people from around the world gather to celebrate World Carfree Day and to show alternatives to the automobile. The 'official' carfree day is September 22, but many cities hold activites all week or on another more convenient day (such as on the weekend). With the ever-expanding EU-sponsored European Mobility Week (which isn't just European anymore, with 1,544 cities in 40 countries participating this year), the idea of dedicating at least one day a year to promoting alternatives to car use seem to be catching on.
09/16/05 - Blind Item #25 - Living Underground
This is becoming popular as the temperature is at a constant 21C just a few feet below the ground so there is no need to heat or cool buildings. Ventilation shafts can be built to supply air. Solar panels can pump up deep water. Even food can be grown with extremely high yields underground from light piped from the surface with reflectors. Large areas of rocky deserts in South Asia could become prime estate areas. Once the caves / homes are dug out of rocks maintainence is minimal. In Australia such dwellings have been used by miners in the desert - 3 bedroom homes for over 50 years and are becoming ever more popular. If an extra bedroom is needed you just start digging ...
09/16/05 - Invest in car or house for energy savings?
If someone spends $25,000 for a new car with a higher MPG rating, they might actually find a better return on that $25,000 by investing in solar or wind generation for their home, or in other energy efficient home improvements. For about the same cost as a new fuel efficient car, it's possible to outfit a house to produce most or all of the energy it uses. The savings in the electric and heating bills will probably be more significant for most people than the savings in gasoline with a more efficient car. I feel like it's worth calling out since there is a tendency to look at the immediate problem (high gasoline cost) and not consider that the money required to address that problem might actually be able to create more savings if it's invested elsewhere. Don't forget that the cost of natural gas and heating oil is going up right along with the cost of gasoline. Most people just won't notice it until winter.09/16/05 - Fuel cell to electronic devices
A fuel cell unit the size of a pack of chewing gum can power a flash-memory-based player for about 35 hours on a single charge. The new fuel cell units have an output power of 100mW and 300mW and have been applied to a flash-memory-based digital audio player and an HDD-based digital audio player, respectively. The 100mW unit, similar in shape and size to a pack of gum at a compact W23mm x L75mm x D10mm, can power the flash-based player for approximately 35 hours on a single 3.5ml charge of highly concentrated methanol, the fuel that drives the electricity producing chemical reaction in the fuel cell. The 300mW unit is W60mm x L75mm x D10mm and delivers enough power to keep an HDD-based audio player running for approximately 60 hours on a single 10ml charge. Toshiba's DMFC features a passive fuel supply system that is suited to smaller fuel cells and use with a highly concentrated methanol solution. Fuel cells usually mix methane with water in a concentration of less than 30%, a dilution that supports generating efficiency but which requires a fuel tank that is much too big for portable equipment.
09/16/05 - Blind Item #24 - Iron promotes life in oceans
Scientists have reported to have cried when they saw the results of seeding a few sq miles of ocean with half a tonne of iron - about that contained in two rusting cars. There was such profusion of plankton and other sea life that the water was like 'pea soup'. Within a year tests will be scaled up to cover 800 or so sq miles of ocean around the Marshall Islands. The oceans except for a small strip around the coasts are barren of life because of lack of iron in the surface waters. Adding iron could make South Asian and other countries free of food shortages as fish proliferate. It must be remembered that seas are three dimensional so that even from the top mile of ocean water (the average depth is five miles) there could be layers and layers of food production enough to satisfy needs for hundreds of years. The prescence of iron may be the reason why iron shipwrecks are so full of sea life. More details on tomorrow's world web site at www.bbc.co.uk09/16/05 - Gasoline demand plummets in response to inflated prices
By Monday, oil and gasoline futures prices had given up all of the gain they'd experienced since Katrina. Today we learned that U.S. gasoline demand has plummeted. Both developments were pretty surprising, but are surely related. U.S. gasoline demand had been above the values of the previous year for all of June and July. But the August price hikes brought use back in line with the 2004 values. The post-Katrina price hikes and shortages sent it plummeting for the week ended September 9 to a value more than 6% below where it had been for the week ending September 10, 2004. Is this tremendous drop in gasoline use just an anomaly? Perhaps. But the rising gasoline demand of the first two months of the summer in the face of rising prices seems a bit anomalous itself. A case could be made that U.S. consumers are finally responding in a significant way to price incentives.
09/16/05 - DIY DNA tests in Russia
British company DNA Solutions is opening an office in Russia to provide DNA kits to customers so they can determine 'Whose your Daddy?' for themselves. For $200, the test will show the relationship between a father and child with an accuracy of 99.9 percent, marketing manager Daniell Leigh told the St. Petersburg Times. It takes about 10 to 15 days to get the results from the samples, which will be sent to DNA Solutions laboratories in Britain. Parenthood DNA testing has been performed at state clinics in Russia for several years, at a cost of about $30. However, most often the tests are done only if a court orders them, the newspaper said.09/16/05 - Different Cheese influences types of dreams
It`s unclear where the cheese and nightmares myth originated, although it has been linked to the Charles Dickens` character, Scrooge, who blamed 'a crumb of cheese' on his night-time visitations in 'A Christmas Carol.' The British Cheese Board had 200 volunteers eat a 20-gram piece of various cheeses 30 minutes before retiring for seven consecutive nights, Sky News said. In total, 72 percent of the volunteers said they slept very well every night and 67 percent remembered their dreams. Nobody reported bad dreams, but the study found the type of cheese seemed to have an effect on the type of dreams the volunteers recorded in their diaries. Of those who ate Cheddar, 65 percent of volunteers reported dreaming about celebrities, including Johnny Depp. Stilton caused the craziest dreams, with 75 percent of men and 85 percent of women eating Stilton recalling odd and vivid dreams.
09/16/05 - Blind Item #23 - MicroCredit
Mohammed Yunus, a brilliant Bangladeshi Professor of Economics came up with the idea of microcredit, which has been proven to work extremely well in lifting the poorest of the poor out of poverty. Women are leant a small sum of money as little as $20, at a slight positive rate of interest, without security. They pay this back over one to three years in monthl
