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April 2008 Plenum News 2008 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2007 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 04/29/08 - Gasoline to cost $10 a gallon in US soon? Translating this price into dollars and cents at the gas pump, one of our forecasters, the chairman of Houston-based Dune Energy, Alan Gaines, sees gas rising to $7-$8 a gallon. The other, a commodities tracker at Weiss Research in Jupiter, Fla., Sean Brodrick, projects a range of $8 to $10 a gallon. While $7-$10 a gallon would be ground-breaking in America, these prices would not be trendsetting internationally. For example, European drivers are already shelling out $9 a gallon (which includes a $2-a-gallon tax). Early last year, with a barrel of oil trading in the low $50s and gasoline nationally selling in a range of $2.30 to $2.50 a gallon, Mr. Gaines - in an impressive display of crystal ball gazing - accurately predicted oil was $100-bound and that gasoline would follow suit by reaching $4 a gallon. His latest prediction of $200 oil is open to question, since it would undoubtedly create considerable global economic distress. Further, just about every energy expert I talk to cautions me to expect a sizable pullback in oil prices, maybe to between $50 and $70 a barrel, especially if there's a global economic slowdown. While Mr. Gaines thinks there could be a temporary decline in the oil price, he's convinced an overall uptrend is unstoppable. In fact, he thinks his $200 forecast could be conservative, and that perhaps $250 could be reached. His reasoning: a combination of shrinking supply and increasing demand, especially from China, India, and America. - Source 04/29/08 - Space war would leave destructive legacy If war ever breaks out in space it's not the loss of individual satellites that will do the damage, but the debris this produces. It will stay in orbit and go on harming satellites for decades, according to two studies presented at the American Physical Society meeting in St Louis, Missouri, last week. "We have built up such high redundancy to space assets that we're almost invulnerable," says Geoff Forden of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who assessed the risk posed by China to the US. He found that only a few of the US's low-Eart-orbit satellites are over China at any one time, and that higher-orbiting satellites used for GPS, communications and surveillance could only be destroyed by multistage missiles, for which China has only three launch pads. Crucially, any space attack would increase debris, which can have a long-lasting effect on satellites. David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC reports that destruction of one 10-tonne spy satellite in low-Earth orbit "would double or triple the debris" in that zone. Every new collision produces even more debris, triggering a cascade of satellite break-ups with time. - Source 04/29/08 - Simple 'superlens' sharpens focusing power A simple-to-make "superlens" can focus 10 times more sharply than a conventional lens. It could shrink the size of features on computer chips, or help power gadgets without wires. No matter how powerful a conventional lens, it cannot focus light down to more than about half its wavelength, the "diffraction limit". This limits the amount of data that can be stored on a CD, and the size of features on computer chips. The new lens is a 127-micrometer-thick plate of teflon and ceramic with a copper topping. "The beauty of these is that they're planar," Grbic says, "they're easy to fabricate." The lenses can be made through a single step of photolithography, the process used to etch computer chips. By selectively etching away the copper, Grbic and colleagues created many capacitors sandwiched together. Capacitors are typically used in electronics for storing electric charge for short periods. In the lens, the capacitors instead interact directly with electromagnetic waves like light. This sets up currents in the capacitors that focus the waves passing through the lens into a point 20 times smaller than their wavelength. That is 10 times tighter than a conventional lens can achieve, hampered by the diffraction limit. The team's current prototype works on microwaves, which are easier to focus because they have longer wavelengths than visible light. Simply making capacitors of different sizes would allow the lens to focus other frequencies, including visible and infrared light, says Grbic. - Source 04/29/08 - Sound Waves get your wash clean (Jun, 1951) Sound Waves get your wash clean, claims Robert Bosch of Stuttgart, Germany. This seven-pound machine works on principle of auto horn. Hooter must sound for five minutes. Cost is $32. / (This looks like something worth digging up and marketing as a cheap, simple clothes washing method. - JWD) - Source 04/29/08 - MIT says it wants a solar 'revolution' The Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Tuesday announced a $10 million grant to develop technology to make solar power mainstream. The Chesonis Foundation donated the money for research in three areas: materials to improve conversion of light to electricity; storage; and hydrogen production from solar energy and water. Called the Solar Revolution Project, it will provide funding for 30 five-year fellowships in solar energy. The idea is to pursue "blue sky" research, in an effort to fill the void between corporate-funded applied research and the limited amount of federal money dedicated to basic science research in solar, said Ernest Moniz, the director of the MIT Energy Initiative. Although the power is free, solar electric panels are relatively expensive because of the large up-front cost. Solar power is small fraction of the overall electricity production in the U.S.--just half of one percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Researchers and solar companies are trying to develop large-scale manufacturing technologies and higher solar cell efficiency to bring costs down. "Personally, I believe that terrawatts of solar power by mid century is a very real possibility, even likely," Moniz said. The Chesonis Family Foundation was founded by Arunas Chesonis, an MIT graduate who is CEO of telecom company Paetec Holding. - Source 04/29/08 - Gas study finds nothing illegal in soaring prices A major investigation into the price of gasoline in Washington state uncovered no illegal activity, and discrepancies were explained by differences in wholesale gas prices, according to a report released Thursday by the state Attorney General's Office. The $161,000 study, by University of Washington economist Keith Leffler, found the range between the highest and lowest wholesale gas price in the state was 3.4 cents per gallon. The new 67-page report found that gas prices have doubled since May 2003, and that gas and crude-oil prices are at an all-time high. It found that from June 2000 to June 2001, retail gasoline prices varied by 11 cents; from February 2007 to September 2007, prices varied by 91 cents. Thursday, according to AAA, the average price of gas in the state was nearly $3.60. It ranged from a high of $3.66 a gallon in Bellingham to a low of $3.54 in Vancouver. - Source 04/29/08 - Astrology Proven Statistically Meaningless Astrology is a technique by which people predict outcomes and find meaning within their lives by making associations and connections to environmental stimuli - most notably astrological positioning. People practice astrology by constructing detailed natal charts to determine the influencing factors at their birth. From these charts, it should be possible to divine predicted connections between all the events that transpire in a person's life. According to a study released by London based researchers, astrology is nothing more than artistic guessing. The study began in 1958 to track the lives of 2000 infants born within minutes of each other. If astrology has merit, the scientists postulated, the lives of each infant ought to bear resemblance to one another. Fifty years later, the research concludes the individual's lives are completely unique and not a single prediction could accurately have forecast any outcome. Adding insult to injury, additional testing showed that given a birth chart and the life history of subjects, professional astrologers could not match the two for any of their subjects with any sort of accuracy better than randomly guessing. Despite studies like these having been conducted before, belief in astrology has skyrocketed. - Source 04/29/08 - Bioheat Gaining Support in the Northeast United States While conservation is an option for some, many people aren't willing to sacrifice comfort to save money. Bioheat systems may provide some relief. Bioheat systems come in many forms. They can be as simple as replacing traditional heating oil with a blend of biodiesel or bio-oil, or as complicated has having a pellet boiler installed that can take care or central heat and hot water. "In terms of bioheating, things are really expanding. There's more stoves and furnaces being sold and more schools are being powered with pellets and wood chips," Perchlik said. "We're definitely getting more requests from consumers. There's more fuel dealers carrying [bioheating products] and the state is requiring it for all new bids for projects that will be funded entirely with state money." Much of the growth in Vermont has been in pellet and other biomass markets. Currently, 30 Vermont schools are heated or powered with pellet and wood chip boilers. Renewable Energy Vermont is also looking into other feedstocks including soy beans, sunflowers, algae and hemp, but Perchlik says those sources are still in the very early stages of development. According to the National Biodiesel Board the current cost of bioheating fuels depends on the exact blend used. Fuel containing 2% biodiesel can cost around US $0.03 - $0.05 per gallon more than generic home heating oil. Bioheating fuel with 20% biodiesel may cost US $0.20 - $0.30 more per gallon. In the Northeast the cost today for one gallon of heating oil is approximately US $3.71. - Source 04/29/08 - Cross-eyes now Cured by Pictures (Feb, 1933) Curing cross-eyes is play for youthful patients at a New York eye clinic, opened recently. A child places a pair of attractive picture slides in an instrument resembling an old-fashioned stereoscope and manipulates the device to make the pictures fuse together. Thus he tries to trap a lion in a cage or catch a butterfly in a net. Through corrective exercises of this sort, a cure is often effected without recourse to a surgical operation, which hitherto was nearly always considered necessary. / (Reminds me of Dr. Bates claims that proper eye exercises could cure eye problems. - JWD) - Source 04/29/08 - CrossLoop Tech Help - April 2008 - Week 4 There’s a new community of more than 7,000 helpers gathered on a web site called CrossLoop. Anyone who thinks they know their stuff can list Tech Support Kenny themselves. Some charge a dollar a minute and others offer help for free. You have to be willing to provide remote access to your computer to get this kind of Internet help. If you think there’s something wrong as you watch someone doing searches on your screen, you can disconnect at any time. YouTubeThe helpers on CrossLoop are rated by people who have used their expertise. You start out by downloading some software from CrossLoop.com. Then if you want help, click the “share” tab. That generates a number that you need to give to the helper. If you want to be a helper, you click an “access” tab and type in the code provided by the person seeking help. This feature can be extremely useful for people who do not want to become general helpers available to the whole world, but are simply willing to help a friend or relative with a computer problem. The site already has more than 600,000 users in over 190 countries and lots of people are using it. CrossLoop has advantages over other tech support services we have tried, such as YourTechOnline and PlumChoice. Those services are fine but they tend to focus on the most common kinds of problems, such as spyware, viruses, setting up networks, speeding up a slow computer, etc. CrossLoop has such a diversity of knowledgeable people that they can help with unusual problems, such as mechanical drafting or high-end photo editing. We think this is an optimum use of the power of the worldwide web: no matter what the problem, someone out there probably knows the answer. - Source 04/29/08 - India Launches 10 Satellites At Once "India sets a world record after launching 10 satellites in one go using its workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). All the satellites were put into their respective orbits successfully. It was the core-alone version of the launch vehicle weighing 230 tonnes with a payload of 824 kg in total. Two of the satellites were Indian satellites while the rest were from different countries. By this launch, the ISRO has proven its credibility and it is going to boost India's image in the attractive multi-billion commercial market of satellite launches. This was the 12th successful launch of the PSLV." - Source 04/29/08 - Researchers Create “Green Gasoline” Ethanol Killer From Biomass Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline in energy contant yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees. The discovery could transform the renewable fuel economy by eliminating the need to grow corn for ethanol and rescue America from importing expensive and dwindling foreign oil supplies. For their new approach, the UMass researchers rapidly heated cellulose in the presence of solid catalysts, materials that speed up reactions without sacrificing themselves in the process. They then rapidly cooled the products to create a liquid that contains many of the compounds found in gasoline. The entire process was completed in under two minutes using relatively moderate amounts of heat. The compounds that formed in that single step, like naphthalene and toluene, make up one fourth of the suite of chemicals found in gasoline. The liquid can be further treated to form the remaining fuel components or can be used "as is" for a high octane gasoline blend. "Green gasoline is an attractive alternative to bioethanol since it can be used in existing engines and does not incur the 30 percent gas mileage penalty of ethanol-based flex fuel," said John Regalbuto, who directs the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and supported this research. "In theory it requires much less energy to make than ethanol, giving it a smaller carbon footprint and making it cheaper to produce," Regalbuto said. "Making it from cellulose sources such as switchgrass or poplar trees grown as energy crops, or forest or agricultural residues such as wood chips or corn stover, solves the lifecycle greenhouse gas problem that has recently surfaced with corn ethanol and soy biodiesel." - Source 04/29/08 - Peak Water: Aquifers and Rivers Are Running Dry Water has been a serious issue in the developing world for so long that dire reports of shortages in Cairo or Karachi barely register. But the scarcity of freshwater is no longer a problem restricted to poor countries. Shortages are reaching crisis proportions in even the most highly developed regions, and they're quickly becoming commonplace in our own backyard, from the bleached-white bathtub ring around the Southwest's half-empty Lake Mead to the parched state of Georgia, where the governor prays for rain. Crops are collapsing, groundwater is disappearing, rivers are failing to reach the sea. Call it peak water, the point at which the renewable supply is forever outstripped by unquenchable demand. This is not to say the world is running out of water. The same amount exists on Earth today as millions of years ago - roughly 360 quintillion gallons. It evaporates, coalesces in clouds, falls as rain, seeps into the earth, and emerges in springs to feed rivers and lakes, an endless hydrologic cycle ordained by immutable laws of chemistry. But 97 percent of it is in the oceans, where it's useless unless the salt can be removed - a process that consumes enormous quantities of energy. Water fit for drinking, irrigation, husbandry, and other human uses can't always be found where people need it, and it's heavy and expensive to transport. Like oil, water is not equitably distributed or respectful of political boundaries; about 50 percent of the world's freshwater lies in a half-dozen lucky countries. - Source 04/29/08 - Tiny Magnets Injected to Kill Cancer Patients could soon be treated by tiny magnets injected into the body and activated by remote control. The robotic particles will target diseased cells and destroy them using heat, leaving healthy cells unharmed. "If we can get these particles to migrate to cancer cells, we can apply the light therapy and kill only the cancer cells, leaving the healthy cells unharmed. This would be a big improvement on the aggressive chemotherapies and radiotherapies we currently have to deal with." - Source 04/29/08 - Smarter ladies have worse sex BRAINY babes find it harder to have an orgasm - because they are too busy thinking, a study claims. The German survey found that the more educated a woman was, the less likely it was that she would be satisfied by sex. In the study 62 per cent of women who had completed their education said they often had problems achieving orgasm. Only 38 per cent of women with a lower educational qualification said they had such problems. The study conducted by a German lifestyle website surveyed over 2,000 women between the ages of 18 and 49. - Source 04/29/08 - Religion a Figment of Human Imagination Humans alone practice religion because they're the only creatures to have evolved imagination. That's the argument of anthropologist Maurice Bloch of the London School of Economics. Bloch challenges the popular notion that religion evolved and spread because it promoted social bonding, as has been argued by some anthropologists. Instead, he argues that first, we had to evolve the necessary brain architecture to imagine things and beings that don't physically exist, and the possibility that people somehow live on after they've died. Once we'd done that, we had access to a form of social interaction unavailable to any other creatures on the planet. - Source 04/26/08 - Halfmachine.dk and their "singing plant" "The Singing Plant is an installation that lets the audience interact with a natural plant. "When the plant is touched it gives feedback in the forms of sounds and light. The more people touch it, the more enegetically it responds. The sound gains volume and the light in the room grows from dim to bright. "People's reactions become part of the installation. We have seen people pity the plant. We have seen people caress it. And we have seen people dance enthusiastically around it. "The purpose is not to provide answers, but to question established preceptions of the relationship between man, machine and nature. "The exhibition went well in the Botanical Garden about 11,000 people came by and saw our installations. We made a video you can see it here..." / (This is an application based on the decades long research efforts of Cleve Backster into 'primary perception'. - JWD) - Source 04/26/08 - The Technics of Decentralization Believe it or not, the following article by Peter van Dresser was originally published-exactly as you see it here-in the June 1938 issue of Free America. Not a word has been changed. The piece stands as dramatic proof that-37 years ago-Mr. van Dresser was accurately predicting today's energy crunch, and outlining possible solutions that most people still haven't considered. / ...since the invention of the steam engine the amount of mechanical power available to man has increased at an unprecedented rate, until the present estimated horsepower of civilization is at least a billion and a half. The United States has such a liberal share of this flow of engine-generated horsepower that for each man, woman or child in the country there is available energy equivalent to the combined strength of fifty slaves or more. It is this enormous increase in power which is held, more than any other single factor, to have made possible modern civilization with its equally enormous increase in productivity. To a considerable extent this is true. Any economic program-such as that of the distributist-decentralist-which calls for an adaptation of the methods of modem technology must take into account the problem of the source, generation, distribution and use of the inanimate power which makes possible this technology. - Source 04/26/08 - Russian scientist create 10-hour laptop battery ‘We begin to develop and organize production of an autonomous source of current for laptops. The given battery should operate for ten hours under 20W load. That is a real scientific and market breakthrough based on domestic developments’, - said Mr. Trusov at the Second International Hydrogen Forum that opened in Moscow the other day. The new battery has been developed on the basis of the so called fuel cells, which differ from ordinary batteries by substances for electrochemical reactions to come from outside. Such a battery life is unlimited (it works till it is provided with a substance for reaction, i.e. methanol, or hydrogen) and it needs no reloading like accumulators. One of the most important constituents of fuel cells is a porous membrane with a catalyst, which participates in the fuel decomposition reaction and electric current production. The narrower the membrane pores, the larger the contacting area with the catalyst, the smaller the element might be. The New block membrane has been developed by the Russian scientists using the so called gradient porous matrix nanostructures. Mr. Trusov believes the battery for a modern laptop should weigh no more than 100-150 grams. A thin multi-layer nanostructure used in the Russian scientists’ invention resolves the issue of high energy concentration density per unit volume. The specific power is 180 MW per square centimeter. Moreover, developers have done their utmost to make the battery harmless for users. - Source 04/26/08 - Power Generation and its Impact on Metals The New York Times today, April 23, 2008, has a story about the massive increase in the number of coal fired power plants now under construction, or to soon be under construction, in Europe. The story says, “European countries are expected to put into operation about fifty coal-fired plants over the next five years…” The story is deceptively titled “Europe Turns Back to Coal, Raising Climate Fears.” I say that the title is deceptive, because it shamelessly says, “In the United States, fewer new coal plants are likely [in the next five years] to begin operations…” and then goes on to define “fewer” as less than 91! The world’s current installed capacity to generate electricity makes possible not only electric lights, motors, refrigerators, stoves, electronics, and so forth but is the only way we can economically produce, each year, hundreds of millions of tons of steel, 50 million tonnes of aluminium, 15 million tonnes copper, 250 tonnes of gallium, 225 tonnes of platinum, 125 tonnes of rhenium, 30 tonnes of rhodium, all of the ferroalloys and most of the minor metals. Think what you are giving up in your daily life if you agree that no more electricity generating capacity should be built until some political or emotional agenda or fantasy technology breakthrough is achieved. - Source 04/26/08 - Israeli invention could pave way for hydrogen cars Moshe Stern, head of C.En (Clean Energy), said his company's scientists have developed a revolutionary breakthrough that will enable automobile manufacturers to produce -- and sell -- cars that use hydrogen power. While producing the hydrogen is easy enough, getting the fuel into the car and storing it in a fuel tank are some of the biggest obstacles for the technology. This, industry experts say, has traditionally been the deal-breaker for increased hydrogen use. Most hydrogen vehicles on the road use a liquid form of the material, which requires a super strong and super heavy storage tank. Liquid hydrogen is unstable and needs to be insulated from the excess shocks of bumps and potholes that are a part of everyday driving, so the tanks themselves are large and heavy, and hold about five gallons of fuel -- enough for barely 160 miles of driving. Then there's the issue of integrating the fuel into internal combustion vehicles that, for better or worse, are unlikely to be phased out anytime soon -- as well as the question of where drivers are supposed to fill up, because hydrogen stations are rare. All these are legitimate concerns that have kept hydrogen development restricted more or less to the laboratory, Stern said, and all concerns that are addressed and solved with C.En's hydrogen storage and supply solution. The difference? C.En's tank uses hydrogen gas collected from the environment (i.e., not produced from fossil fuels) and enclosed in a thin but leak-proof glass container. The best part: Drivers will be able to buy "gas" at automotive or discount stores, fueling up approximately every 370 miles. Stern said they can build a 16-gallon tank that weighs no more than 100 pounds,unlike tanks currently used for liquid hydrogen that weigh several hundred pounds. - Source 04/26/08 - Time to Invest in Food? I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food... Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster... Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax. Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year. - Source 04/26/08 - How to Find Hidden Money There's almost $33 billion in unclaimed money from old payroll checks, utility refunds, trust distributions, stocks, banking or checking accounts, certificates of deposit and the contents of safe deposit boxes, according to estimates by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. To find your hidden money, go to http://www.missingmoney.com/, an official database for the NAUPA that has records from most state unclaimed property programs. You can also link to your individual state unclaimed property program. - Source 04/26/08 - Free FengShui Advice Hi, there're ten rules for Indoor FengShui! 1. Two gates don't face to face. 2. Gate and road don't face to face. 3. Gate and telegraph pole don't face to face. 4. Gate and stairway don't face to face. 5. Gate/door and washroom don't face to face. 6. Bed and washroom don't face to face. 7. Bed and mirror don't face to face. 8. Bed and door don't face to face. 9. Electric appliances don't on the head of bed. 10. Wall clock don't above the head of bed. FengShui is an ancient Chinese practice believed to utilize the Laws of astronomy and geography, to power people by receiving positive Qi. Indoor FengShui could: 1. Improve health. 2. More good luck, less bad luck. 3. Increase fortune, power career. (via j-walkblog.com) - Source 04/26/08 - GPS Tracker Defense The GPS Tracker Defense will disable any GPS tracking device within range. It does this by disabling any GPS gadget's ability to connect with satellites -- INCLUDING YOUR OWN! Its limited, 16-foot range guarantees that trackers will be safe, while your own GPS is disabled. The GPS Tracker Defense has the exact same effect as simply turning off your GPS. (via therawfeed.com) - Source 04/26/08 - Solar Powered Microbes Manufacture Biofuels "The new cyanobacteria produce a relatively pure, gel-like form of cellulose that can be broken down easily into glucose. 'The problem with cellulose harvested from plants is that it's difficult to break down because it's highly crystalline and mixed with lignins [for structure] and other compounds,' Nobles says. He was surprised to discover that the cyanobacteria also secrete large amounts of glucose or sucrose, sugars that can be directly harvested from the organisms." - Source 04/26/08 - HOWTO kill/block an RFID The easiest way to kill an RFID, and be sure that it is dead, is to throw it in the microwave for 5 seconds. Doing this will literally melt the chip and antenna making it impossible for the chip to ever be read again. Unfortunately this method has a certain fire risk associated with it. Killing an RFID chip this way will also leave visible evidence that it has been tampered with, making it an unsuitable method for killing the RFID tag in passports. Doing this to a credit card will probably also screw with the magnetic strip on the back making it un-swipeable. The second, slightly more convert and less damaging, way to kill an RFID tag is by piercing the chip with a knife or other sharp object. This can only be done if you know exactly where the chip is located within the tag. This method also leaves visible evidence of intentional damage done to the chip, so it is unsuitable for passports. The third method is cutting the antenna very close to the chip. By doing this the chip will have no way of receiving electricity, or transmitting its signal back to the reader. This technique also leaves minimal signs of damage, so it would probably not be a good idea to use this on a passport. The last (and most covert) method for destroying a RFID tag is to hit it with a hammer. Just pick up any ordinary hammer and give the chip a few swift hard whacks. This will destroy the chip, and leave no evidence that the tag has been tampered with. This method is suitable for destroying the tags in passports, because there will be no proof that you intentionally destroyed the chip. (via lifehacker.com) - Source 04/26/08 - Trees in Your Tank? Another team of researchers has announced another technique for producing biofuel from cellulose. This bunch is also promising $1/gallon production, if they can get the efficiency up. With the price of fuel so high, one would think they wouldn't need to boost efficiency too much for the process to be profitable. This is, what, the second or third announcement of this sort we've seen in the past year? It may be a tough target, but if enough guns are shooting it's bound to get hit eventually. Anything that gets us closer to putting Achmed and his merry band of jihadists closer to a bread line is fine by me. - Source 04/26/08 - Health Benefits? Whole yak penis or sheep testicles on a bed of curry, anyone? A Beijing restaurant serves painstakingly decorated gourmet dishes for the fearless. They're supposed to increase male potency, but women should try a bite, too: Eating penis is good for the skin, apparently. "For thousands of years, Chinese medicine has used animal penises to cure kidney and erection problems," she says. But for their medicinal effect to work, the dishes have to be consumed regularly. "But if you want something that works faster, we have a wine that contains extracts of heart, penis, and blood from a deer," she explains. "That has an effect within 30 minutes." This potency cocktail has been said to be better than Viagra, and it has no side effects. - Source 04/26/08 - Meyers Motors Myers Motors drives right over four of the biggest problems in transportation today: Global Warming, Oil Addiction, Congestion, and Energy Efficiency. Global Warming Gasoline and diesel powered motor vehicles generate almost 25% of the pollutants responsible for climate change. But driving a Myers Motors' NmG means that you can reduce the amount of CO2 and greenhouse gases you emit by more than 70% per mile that you drive, and that's if you recharge on the power grid. The news gets better when you pair your NmG with a home-based renewable energy system because then you can enjoy driving without any emissions contributing to our environmental problems. Oil Addiction The U.S. imports more than 60% of its oil and most of that goes to transportation. This adds close to 30% to our national trade deficit and could leave us vulnerable since much of the oil is abundant in areas that are politically unstable. NmG stands for No more Gas because it zips along at 75 mph on electricity. Congestion The NmG is just the right size for the daily commuting needs of the 91 million Americans who go to work or school alone in vehicles designed to carry four to eight passengers. It nimbly fits into very tight parking spaces and you can drive in the carpool lane without the hassel of picking up the rest of the carpool. Energy Efficiency Waste is no longer socially acceptable. The NmG offers you a smarter choice to reach your daily destination. - Source 04/26/08 - Citing environmental worries, Gov. rejects Bear Lake hydroelectric plan The Hook Canyon hydroelectric dam proposed for the east side of Bear Lake between North Eden and South Eden appears dead in the water. The action likely ends a Logan hydroelectric engineering firm's efforts to gain Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval for pumping about 21,000 acre-feet of water out of Bear Lake to generate power for sale during peak-demand hours. Symbiotics LLC, in arguing for the project, pointed to hydroelectricity's renewable energy potential and claimed the project could meet about 85 percent of Utah's current peak energy demands if used in concert with conservation efforts. But others argued the project actually would have resulted in a net loss of electricity because it would take more energy to pump the water to the storage reservoir than the falling water could produce. - Source 04/26/08 - Bugs Use Plants as Telephones Scientists have discovered the insects below and above use plants like a chemical telephone. The organic chat is a friendly one: Leaf-munching insects above ground prefer plants unoccupied by root-eaters. When a subterranean insect takes up residence below a plant, it settles in to feast on the plant's roots. In order to alert leaf-eating insects of the "no vacancy," the underground insect sends a chemical warning signal through the plant leaves, so the leafeaters are alerted that the plant is occupied. Recent studies have revealed different types of aboveground insects develop slowly if they feed on plants that harbor subterranean residents and vice versa. So the green phone lines keep insects from unintentionally competing for the same plant. - Source 04/26/08 - 'Water wars' with U.S. in our future: experts Parched U.S. states could start "water wars" in the years ahead and fight for access to Great Lakes resources as they become more desperate to meet growing needs, Canadian and American experts said yesterday at a water conference. "We will, in fact, get into major water wars," Clark said. "You will see water wars coming in every way, shape or form. In the U.S., there are some leading politicians who have said the Great Lakes do, in fact, belong (to everyone) and all water should be nationalized -- and this certainly is a concern." - Source 04/23/08 - Fire From the Dragon Harnesses Truck Energy A long line of trucks snakes its way to the San Francisco Bay, where two cargo ships wait to be loaded. One truck rumbles at about 15 miles per hour over a group of narrow plates embedded in the asphalt, and a moment later, a solar-powered shed beside the road begins to groan and rattle ominously. As the trucks power at low speeds across the plates, they compress a tank of hydraulic fluid under the road, which in turn creates a series of pumping actions that turns a generator to produce electricity. By June, Kenney projects the apparatus, which he dubbed the “Dragon Power Station,” will be producing 5,000 to 7,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each day-enough to power up to 1,750 homes. The energy produced will be sold to SSA, the Oakland terminal operator that hosts the Dragon, at a discounted rate. The electricity the machine generates will cover only 5 percent of the operator’s energy needs, but represents huge savings for the company-and a chance to jump on the green bandwagon. An estimated 2,500 trucks pass through SSA’s Oakland facility every day, filling the air with carcinogenic diesel fumes and soot, which can cause asthma and other respiratory ailments in port workers and local residents. - Source 04/23/08 - Million Dollar Meat People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a million-dollar prize for the “first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.” “In vitro” and “test-tube grown” are not ideas one usually associates with meat. The meat-substitute niche is currently occupied largely by soy in all its miraculous if slightly disappointing forms. There is every reason to change the way meat is produced, to make it more ethical, more humane. But the result of the technology that PETA hopes to reward could be the end of domesticated farm animals. This has often seemed as if it were the logical conclusion of some radical animal-rights activists: better for animals not to exist at all if there is a chance that they would suffer. - Source 04/23/08 - Scientists Figure Out How To Grow Plants In Moondust If we’re ever going to colonize the moon in any serious way, we’re going to need to terraform it. That is, we’re going to need to figure out how to grow plants up there to provide oxygen. In a big of great news on that front, it looks like scientists have figured out how to grow plants in the moon dust that covers the surface of our favorite satellite. All that they needed to do was add a special bacteria to the moon dust, one that helped transfer nutrients from the moondust to the flowers. - Source 04/23/08 - When Will Solar Achieve Grid Parity? We're Already There! I always chuckle when I read an article in the popular press - or a comment on this site - stating something like "Solar is too expensive and will never be a significant source of electric power." Invariably, these articles or comments are never documented to explain how the author reached this faulty opinion. I believe that I will prove in this article that UNSUBSIDIZED solar is ALREADY at grid parity today against UNSUBSIDIZED "conventional" power sources. The word "parity" implies "equality," and therefore, the only fair comparison is one where ALL costs are taken into account. - Source 04/23/08 - Advances In Jacks Lift your vehicle in 30 seconds without straining with an awkward, unstable jack. Simply fit the Air Jack's hose over your exhaust, position the airbag under the vehicle, and turn on your engine. The exhaust inflates the bag, lifting the vehicle to 17". A one-way valve keeps the bag inflated after the engine has been turned off. The durable Air Jack was originally designed for rugged off-road use and works in mud, snow, and uneven ground where a regular jack cannot. Has no negative effects on the engine. - Source 04/23/08 - Debut Records Video from Webcams or Your Screen Windows only: Freeware application Debut records video from any source-like your computer's webcam or your desktop-to a number of popular file formats. Once you've recorded a video, Debut makes it easy to automatically share the results over the internet via email or by uploading them to an FTP server. I'm still a big fan of previously mentioned Jing for quickly recording and sharing screencasts, but Debut's added webcam abilities add a useful new element, and it's got an impressive toolbox of features to boot. Debut is lightweight freeware, Windows only. (via lifehacker.com) - Source 04/23/08 - Raised on welfare, the 'Why Bother?' generation A "why bother?" economy has been created in Britain which has left thousands with no motivation to work, a report published today concludes. The findings by the public services think tank Reform suggest that increased welfare dependency has made it more difficult for those on the lowest incomes to do better. An education system with a "dismal record" of educating the poorest, and a complex welfare system, have together created a far more divided society than other European countries, it finds. Means-tested benefits and higher taxes have reduced the incentives available to those on low incomes to better themselves, Reform says. - Source 04/23/08 - Cellphone Missing Dot kills 2 people, puts 3 in Jail The life of 20-year-old Emine, and her 24-year-old husband Ramazan Çalçoban was pretty much the normal life of any couple in a separation process. After deciding to split up, the two kept having bitter arguments over the cellphone, sending text messages to each other until one day Ramazan wrote "you change the topic every time you run out of arguments." The surreal mistake happened because Ramazan's sent a message and Emine's cellphone didn't have an specific character from the Turkish alphabet: the letter "i" or closed i. While "i" is available in all phones in Turkey-where this happened-the closed i apparently doesn't exist in most of the terminals in that country. The use of "i" resulted in an SMS with a completely twisted meaning: instead of writing the word "sikisinca" it looked like he wrote "sikisince." Ramazan wanted to write "You change the topic every time you run out of arguments" (sounds familiar enough) but what Emine read was, "You change the topic every time they are f**king you". Emine then showed the message to her father, who-enraged-called Ramazan, accusing him of treating his daughter as a prostitute. Ramazan went to the family's home to apologize, only to be greeted by the father, Emine, two sisters and a lot of very sharp knives... - Source 04/23/08 - 'Eating Local' Has Little Effect on Warming Being a "locavore" and eating foods grown near where you live may not help the environment as much as you might think, according a new study. "In terms of the average American diet, 'food miles' are not so important as what you're eating," said study leader Christopher Weber of Carnegie Mellon University. - Source 04/23/08 - Despite Climate Worry, Europe Turns to Coal Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent. And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are slated to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades. - Source 04/23/08 - Will the Earth fry future moon astronauts? Researchers working for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission have discovered that the Earth’s magnetic tail could be harmful to future astronauts. The moon stays inside Earth’s ‘magnetotail’ for six days every month - during full moon. This can have consequences ranging from lunar ‘dust storms’ to strong electrostatic discharges, according to one researcher quoted by NASA in ‘The Moon and the Magnetotail.’ So far, this is pure speculation: no man has been on the moon when the magnetotail hits. As added the same scientist, ‘Apollo astronauts never landed on a full moon and they never experienced the magnetotail.’ - Source 04/23/08 - Chemotherapy Causes Delayed Severe Neural Damage Cancer treatment with chemotherapeutic agents is often associated with delayed adverse neurological consequences - an occurrence often referred to as "chemobrain" - that may compromise the quality of life of a proportion of cancer survivors.Little is known about the side-effects of chemotherapy on the CNS, despite their obvious clinical importance. "Multiple clinical reports have identified neurotoxicity as a complication of treatment regimens in which chemotherapeutic agents such as 5-fluorouracil are components," says Noble. "As treatments with chemotherapeutic agents will clearly remain the standard of care for cancer patients for many years to come, the need to better understand such damage is great." - Source 04/23/08 - Masturbation 'cuts cancer risk' They say cancer-causing chemicals could build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly. And they say sexual intercourse may not have the same protective effect because of the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, which could increase men's cancer risk. Australian researchers questioned over 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer and 1,250 who had not about their sexual habits. They found those who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to develop the cancer. - Source 04/23/08 - Ocean Waves Pounding Harder The pounding of storm waves on any shore creates vibrations in the Earth that can be heard by seismometers and translated into storm power. The archived seismological data now show that this wave energy has been getting stronger for decades, matching what's predicted to happen as the world's oceans and air heat up. An analysis of decades of digital seismic data at 22 seismic stations worldwide shows that the power of most powerful storm waves is on the rise in every case. For decades the seismic signals from ocean waves was considered mere noise to seismologists. But then researchers like Aster's colleagues Peter Bromirski and Dan McNamara started mining that noise for information. "We've got a really remarkable record in the seismological community," said Aster. - Source 04/23/08 - 'Outlook worse' for scalp cancer An analysis of 50,000 cases of melanoma found people with these cancers were nearly twice as likely to die as those with the disease on arms or legs. Scalp and neck cancers were often found later but there seemed to be something inherently virulent about them, the Archives of Dermatology study found. Survival rates from skin cancer are nonetheless relatively high. The five-year survival rate for patients with scalp or neck cancer was 83%, compared with 92% for those with melanomas on the face and ears and on the extremities - the arms, legs, hands and feet. - Source 04/23/08 - How Valid Are T.V. Weather Forecasts? A seven-month study of weather forecasting at Kansas City television stations was conducted over 220 days, from April 22 to November 21, 2007. The seven-day forecasts for both high temperature and P.O.P. (probability of precipitation) for each station’s 10 p.m. telecast and from the N.O.A.A. Web site were recorded. For stations that did not offer a P.O.P. in the form of percent likelihood, the best impression of percent likelihood that could be inferred from the meteorologists’ words and graphics were used. The results of Kansas City’s high temperature and rainfall as reported at the K.C.I. airport weather station - which are the data that become the official record for weather at Kansas City - were also recorded. Those results were then compared to the high temperature and P.O.P. predictions to determine forecasting accuracy for each source for each of the seven days predicted. The results were quite enlightening, as were some of the comments of the local meteorologists and their station managers. Here a few of the quotes we received: “We have no idea what’s going to happen [in the weather] beyond three days out.” - Source 04/21/08 - Leaf Log using composted leaves as biofuel A business has struck green gold, turning composted leaves into 'logs' of biofuel that can provide green energy. The Leaf Log, as the invention is known, is the brainchild of Peter Morrison, who as chief executive of BioFuels International has already developed several of his green ideas into moneyspinners. The Leaf Log is made from 70 per cent fallen leaves compressed into a 1.2kg cylinder, which can burn for two hours. And, unlike other fuel products, the Leaf Log leaves behind just a tiny amount of ash, which itself can be composted. - Source 04/21/08 - Checking false claims to scientific discoveries For Nigerians living with the HIV/AIDS virus nothing could have been more soothing than the news, in 2000, of a scientific breakthrough that suggested an eventual cure for the pandemic. With thousands dying daily, the claim by Dr Jeremiah Abalaka, an Abuja-based medical doctor, was seen as a ray of hope for the already hopeless and hapless victims. But that hope was not to last as the authorities rejected the said discovery when Abalaka refused to submit his claims for scientific verification. The team from the Federal Ministry of Health that sought to investigate Abalaka’s claims concluded that his discovery was premised on “other means rather than scientifically acceptable methods”. But hardly had the euphoria on Abalaka’s claim died out than another Nigerian scientist came up with yet another claim to a similar discovery. This time, it was Dr Jacob Abdullahi, an Abuja-based laboratory technologist who also claimed to have discovered another cure for the HIV/AIDS infection. Before peers, scientific societies and the general public could come to terms with the purported claim, a lot of people infected with the virus had surrendered themselves to be used as guinea pigs to prove the efficacy of Abdullahi’s drug. / Owing to the freedom enjoyed by Nigerian scientists claiming to have the cure for all kinds of ailments, scientists from other countries with stringent laws where such practices would have been rejected as unethical, have found a haven in Nigeria. Such people have continued to exploit the gullible members of the public. Another celebrated case was Dr Ezekiel Izuogu’s well-publicised claim to achieving a breakthrough in “Emagnetodynamics” in 2007. zuogu, who announced his discovery at a news conference, declared that his finding had proved the age-long Physics law of energy conservation wrong. At that briefing, he called on the federal government to patronise his discovery as it was capable of solving Nigeria’s energy crisis. Izuogu said that the discovery had disproved the law of conservation of energy with the invention of a self-sustaining “New Machine”. The law of conservation of energy, a very crucial law of Physics and Engineering, stipulates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Izuogu said that the New Machine would be drawing its energy from permanent magnets to function. ‘This will prove the all important law of conservation wrong,” he claimed. He explained that the invention built on the principles of “Emagnetodynamics” was premised on the foundation that permanent magnets may contain intrinsic atomic energy which can be tapped for man’s use.” While scientists continue to verify Izuogu’s claims, analysts have faulted the idea of first announcing scientific discoveries to the media. They say that there are acceptable procedures which discoveries, inventions and innovations must pass through to gain societal recognition. - Source 04/21/08 - Standing tall and saving green The SunSail project is scheduled to be completed in two or three years (pending approval from the Haifa Municipality) and will consist of 11 apartments. The building is designed with a curved façade almost entirely covered with solar panels, which will provide up to 40 percent of the residents' electricity. A passive ventilation system will allow breezes to flow in during the warmer months, possibly minimizing the need for energy-guzzling air conditioning. While the building technically has space for a twelfth apartment on the ground floor, Cory opted to leave that space open, leading out into a garden behind the building. The idea is that the garden will grow partway into the building, minimizing the building's ecological "footprint." Water, always a major issue in Israel, is another central element of the design. Rainwater collectors on the roof and basement will take advantage of precipitation, while wastewater from baths and sinks will be purified in the building's own water purification system. Cory is working on other projects, as well. One of his latest ventures, which he's working on with a friend from the aerospace faculty of the Technion, is the concept of solar balloons - balloons that are coated with photovoltaic cells. Such cells are notorious for taking up space on the ground; Cory's idea is to float them in the air instead, leaving the ground free. One application for such an invention would be to provide energy in places that don't have room for solar cells. Solar balloons adjacent to a power station for electric cars would enable the vehicles to be powered with solar energy, Cory suggests. Buildings would be able to derive much of their electricity from solar energy, he adds, since there would be almost unlimited space for many photovoltaic cells. While Cory is excited about the balloon project, he cautions that it is still in its very early stages of development and that there are still risks involved. "We have to solve the problem of wind, [and see if] the balloon is strong enough, and we have to devise the right shape for the balloons, so they'll be less resistant to changes in the wind." - Source 04/21/08 - Sea levels 'will rise 1.5 metres by 2100' Melting glaciers, disappearing ice sheets and warming water could lift sea levels by as much as 1.5 metres by the end of this century, displacing tens of millions of people. That's the conclusion of a new prediction of sea level rises that for the first time takes into account ice dynamics. The researchers said the IPCC had not accounted for ice dynamics - the more rapid movement of ice sheets due to melt water which could markedly speed up their disappearance and boost sea levels. - Source 04/21/08 - New, Ozone-safe Refrigerant Richard Maruya said his HCR188c hydrocarbon blend is designed to replace current refrigerants in air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers that contribute "greenhouse" gases to the atmosphere, and use less electricity in the bargain. Maruya said independent testing has shown the amount of HCR188c needed is so small - about half a shot glass full for a home refrigerator and two for a car's air-conditioning system - that there is little fire threat. Maruya, 59, is pushing HCR188c as a replacement for HFC-based refrigerants, which in turn were developed as a replacement for ozone-eating chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. HFCs are not ozone-depleting, but are a powerful global warming gas when released into the atmosphere. Davies called HFCs "a perfect greenhouse gas" because of their durability and heat-trapping properties. Hydrocarbons, like those in Maruya's blend, have zero ozone-depletion potential and very low global warming potential. "At first I was just fooling around. ... It wasn't easy. It took me a while to figure this out," Maruya said. What he hit upon was a blend of eight hydrocarbons that produce a refrigerant "where you use less, much less, and the flammability level is much lower," he said. When he developed his mixture to the point where he needed only a third of the usual amount of refrigerant required for cooling, Maruya decided to take his invention to the next level by hiring a professional "blender" in California to achieve a more precise mix. With tweaking, the result was a 25 percent "charge," meaning an HFC-based refrigerant could be replaced with only a quarter of the usual amount using Maruya's HCR188c. After filing an EPA application, he submitted his hydrocarbon blend to the international testing firm Intertek, bringing even more good news. Among the test findings were that use of the smaller amounts of HCR188c in a refrigerator led to energy savings of 5 percent to 10 percent. Intertek scientists initially were "shocked" by the results, Maruya said, but now use one of the HCR188c test appliances as their employee fridge. - Source 04/21/08 - Law targeting patent 'trolls' looks set to fail A bill going through the US Senate that would have slashed the damages inventors receive when patents are infringed. The US Patent Reform Bill, backed by Microsoft, Apple and Intel, aims to reduce incentives for patent "trolls", who file patents without any intention of developing them. It sets damages in proportion to the contribution an invention makes to a product, rather than the full value of the product. Inventors say the bill would encourage infringement. On 10 April, a Senate Judiciary Committee failed to reach a consensus on the bill, which has already been passed by the House, leaving little time for a vote before attention shifts to the congressional elections in November. - Source 04/21/08 - Fatal Diseases Attack Our Planet International think-tank claims that fatal diseases rapidly spread across the world. Last 50 years showed quadrupling of fatal diseases; moreover, 60% of dangerous viruses, infecting humans, have animal origin. American scientists analyzed 335 diseases, which appeared between 1940 and 2004, and compared results with population density and biological variability of wildlife on our planet. New infections are serious hazard for developing countries, while population of developed countries suffers from pathogenic viruses, resistant to antibiotics, and new diseases, caused by chemically treated food products. - Source 04/21/08 - New Gold Extraction Technique Developed Researchers from Siberian branch of Russian Academy of Sciences developed an original technique for extracting gold and silver from multi-component solutions. This technology avoids cyanide, a toxic reagent, which is widely used for extracting gold from ores and recoverable materials. Suggested alternative is much less toxic thiocyanate. Cyanide enters lakes and rivers, causing massive deaths of plants and animals. - Source 04/21/08 - Women Give Up Passwords for Chocolate Women are four times more likely than men to give you their passwords in exchange for chocolate, according to a "study" by Infosecurity Europe conducted on the streets of London. Nearly half -- 45 percent -- of women targeted were willing to give up their passwords to strangers in exchange for a BAR OF CHOCOLATE. - Source 04/21/08 - Lack of bridges, roads holds Russia back The van moves only a few feet every 15 seconds. Gear teeth sound as if they're being ground into bumps. With every lurch forward, passengers inside tighten their grips on seat cushions, an armrest, a spare tire, anything bolted down and within reach. The Russian-made UAZ 412 lists like an ocean-bound dinghy as its traverses the frozen Mezen River, rumbling over shards of ice and foot-deep slush warmed by the morning sun. Here, just 48 miles below the Arctic Circle, the anxious souls who routinely make this harrowing, 45-minute crossing are hardly the thrill-seeking type. They're everyday Russians, making the trip to Kamenka the only way they can — across a river without a bridge but still covered with ice thick enough to cross by vehicle. Having no bridge has meant bankruptcy for the town's major employer, a sawmill. Virtually no one in town works. - Source 04/21/08 - How the rich starved the world The irony is extraordinary. At a time when world leaders are expressing grave concern about diminishing food stocks and a coming global food crisis, our government brings into force measures to increase the use of biofuels - a policy that will further increase food prices, and further worsen the plight of the world's poor. What biofuels do is undeniable: they take food out of the mouths of starving people and divert them to be burned as fuel in the car engines of the world's rich consumers. This is, in the words of the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, nothing less than a "crime against humanity". It is a crime the UK government seems determined to play its part in abetting. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), introduced on 15 April, mandates petrol retailers to mix 2.5 per cent biofuels into fuel sold to motorists. This will rise to 5.75 per cent by 2010, in line with European Union policy. The message could not have been clearer if the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, had personally put a torch to a pyre of corn and rice in Parliament Square: even as you take to the streets to protest your empty bellies and hungry children, we will burn your food in our cars. The UK is not uniquely implicated in this scandal: the EU, the United States, India, Brazil and China all have targets to increase biofuels use. But a look at the raw data confirms today's dire situation. According to the World Bank, global maize production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that time, biofuels use in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million tonnes, soaking up almost the entire global increase. - Source 04/21/08 - 25 leading-edge IT research projects While universities don't tend to shout as loudly about their latest tech innovations as do Google, Cisco and other big vendors, their results are no less impressive in what they could mean for faster, more secure and more useful networking. Here's a roundup, in no particular order, of some of the most amazing and colorful projects in the works. - Source 04/19/08 - Man’s life threatened; Cure for AIDS in his hands A Yemeni cleric claiming to cure HIV/AIDS patients claims to have been threatened with assassination if he reveals the secrets of his “invention.” The cleric said that if he dies, a good group of friends whom he trusts will continue to rescue the world from this fatal disease. “Even if I get assassinated, the secrets will be with the group,” Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zandani told a gathering of doctors, journalists and followers about curing through the words of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. He said it would be a very profitable idea if a company started to manufacture his invention, and expressed fears and concerns about making his medicine known and available to the world. “A patient will take about one or two years until he is cured and maybe after this, I may be told that it’s not mine, but rather someone else’s,” he said, expressing his unwillingness to apply for a patent for trust reasons. Although he stressed that his invention is “a drug, not a prayer”, he said that non-Muslim professors and researchers in the west would appreciate his medicine only if they understand the Prophet Mohammed’s hadiths (oral traditions of the Prophet). He said he started his research in Mecca about 20 years ago but he started his experiments only five years ago in scientific laboratories in Egypt, Jordan, and in what he called “reference laboratories” in Germany. A total of 23 AIDS patients were allegedly recovered from a group of 38 patients who came to him for treatment. A total of 10 people recovered during six-month treatments from the first group which included 13 patients. A total of 13 were recovered also during six months of the second group which included 25 patients, Sheikh al-Zandani said. - Source 04/19/08 - A new Invention: Earth resistance solution, Benz Fill A Cameroonian Electro-mechanical engineer, Dr. Benz Enow Bate, has invented an earth resistance solution capable of considerably improving the protection of electrical installations. The earth resistance-reducing paste has been named Benz Fill, after its inventor. Benz Fill reduces the earth’s resistance to less than 0.5ohms, a value believed to be very appropriate for conducting excess or faulty current into the soil. This technology, the inventor says, shall greatly reduced electricity related fire hazards. The earth’s resistance is reduced by injecting Benz Fill into the soil surrounding an earth electrode. Dr. Benz's solution has been described as a breakthrough. If the procedure is vulgarised technicians shall abandon the traditional charcoal and salt mixture. A practise which Dr.Benz Enow says has its limitations because the corrosive characteristic of salt always ended up rusting the earth cables, and destroyed the earthing mechanism. His new solution is not easily washable and will not corrode metals but ensures that the earth is not resistant to faulty or excess current. - Source 04/19/08 - Solar Windows Could Slash Energy Loss from Buildings A team of academics at Queensland University of Technology has teamed up with Dyesol to develop transparent dye-infused solar cells that would significantly reduce building energy costs, and could even allow windows to generate surplus energy to be either stored or sold. Dyesol’s solar cells use innovative technology called "artificial photosynthesis," where a dye works in much the same way as chlorophyll to absorb light and produce electricity. Panels are made up of “an electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and toothpaste), and ruthenium dye sandwiched between glass. Light striking the dye excites electrons, which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current.” Since they don’t require expensive raw materials, and require less energy, dye solar cells are much cheaper to manufacture than silicon cells. Dyesol says the panels will be available over the next two years. - Source 04/19/08 - PayPal considers blocking browsers Most controversial is the idea of blocking "unsafe" browsers, or browsers that do not currently include antiphishing tools. PayPal says it would first notify users when they log in if they are using an unsafe browser. Later, PayPal would simply block the use of the browser entirely. PayPal is interested in enforcing new Extended Verification SSL certificates used by Internet Explorer 7 and the upcoming Mozilla Firefox 3. EV SSL highlights the address bar in green when the site has been certified. Other browsers, such as Apple Safari and Opera, do not currently include these protections. Browsers not on the desktop could also be barred. - Source 04/19/08 - Water Is the Next Oil Biofuels are enormous consumers of water, says Jim Matheson, a general partner at Flagship Ventures, a venture capital firm in Cambridge, MA. And water is not always abundant where it's most needed. "So, increasingly you're going to see water as a scarce resource. I think it's going to drive not just economics but also a lot of geopolitical dynamics. So, we're trying to find technologies that can allow us to plug into this enormous value chain." He's interested, for example, in membranes and other water-treatment technologies that will allow biofuel-makers and others to reuse water. But he says there's a big challenge to making these new technologies successful. There has to be a way to scale them up to bring down costs. "The problem is that water is like the Internet. People love it and they use it all the time, but they don't want to pay for it," he says. "So the question is, how do you come up with a business model that actually works?" One option, he says, is to develop technologies that can both clean up wastewater and extract energy from the waste, effectively adding value to the water. - Source 04/19/08 - Collecting the DNA of Everyone The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency in a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people. Expanding the DNA database, known as CODIS, raises civil liberties questions about the potential for misuse of such personal information, such as family ties and genetic conditions. Ablin said the DNA collection would be subject to the same privacy laws applied to current DNA sampling. That means none of it would be used for identifying genetic traits, diseases or disorders. - Source 04/19/08 - Brainwave-Reading Headphones A lightweight battery-free headset can continuously monitor human brainwaves, and is powered by body heat and sunlight. The portable electroencephalogram (EEG) device resembles a set of headphones. It could provide wireless monitoring of patients at risk of seizures, have cars or other machinery respond to stressed users, or provide new ways to interact with computer games. It generates some power using thermoelectric materials which turn heat gradients into electrical energy, using the difference between a warm human head and the cooler surrounding air. The new headset can generate at least 1 milliWatt of power in most circumstances. That is more than the 0.8mW needed to detect electrical activity observed in the brain, and transmit it over wifi to a computer. “If your body can provide the basic power, then there are a myriad number of devices, ranging from brain stimulation to glucose monitoring systems, that become much more practical for long term, continuous use,” DiMartino says. - Source 04/19/08 - Lockheed Martin Tests New Spacecraft Prototype Lockheed Martin is using Spaceport America to test a new prototype spacecraft. The prototype is only about one-fifth the size of the projected production model which promises to deliver satellites into orbit at a cheaper cost. "It looks a bit like the space shuttle and would fly to space and return the same way. But even the big version would not carry people, just satellites. The goal is to get to orbit faster and cheaper thanks to an automated reusable spacecraft run by its own computers and just a handful of people for a launch crew." - Source 04/19/08 - HotKeyBind Sets Keyboard Shortcuts for Any Windows Task Windows only: Free, open source application HotKeyBind creates keyboard shortcuts for common Windows actions, from launching applications and opening files to searching the web and shutting down your computer. HotKeyBind is even useful for Windows actions that already have shortcuts of their own or can be assigned shortcuts, because HotKeyBind provides a universal interface for creating and managing all your custom keyboard shortcuts and existing Windows shortcuts across your system. HotKeyBind is impressively robust on features, including text-replacement. (via lifehacker.com) - Source 04/19/08 - Big Oil seems slick as U.S. turns to diesel cars It's high time for the big oil companies to explain one of life's great mysteries; exactly how they fix the price of fuel at the filling station. The public has heard all sorts of explanations -- market forces, regional instability, refinery issues and so on -- but the logic behind the ups and downs (mostly ups) of gas prices is about as transparent as an IRS tax form. This topic is a burning concern not just because of costlier gasoline, which is, of course, a major drag on the U.S. economy and which affects all of our lives. It is also pertinent when it comes to diesel fuel, which, for no apparent reason, recently leapt up in price, well above the level of gasoline. Perversely, this has occurred just as consumer interest in fuel-efficient diesel vehicles is on the rise and as several major automakers are launching a new wave of advanced, clean diesel models. - Source 04/19/08 - 10 Common Travel Scams I thought I had advanced street smarts when coming to South America, but then I got pick pocketed on my third day. Here’s a list of popular scams I’ve learned about... Even if you know every travel scam, you will still be defenseless against a mugger with a knife or gun, or someone who randomly karate kicks you in the head. This usually happens at night where you are not carrying things like passport, jewelry, credit cards, or your Canon digital SLR camera. It’s best to give up the goods when attacked unless you have a weapon of your own and want to battle. - Source 04/19/08 - Why Things Cost $19.95 One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most enduring bits of cinematic comedy is the auction scene in the espionage thriller North by Northwest. Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a businessman who has been mistaken for a CIA agent by the ruthless Phillip Vandamm. At a critical juncture, Thornhill is cornered by his enemies inside a Chicago auction house, and the only way he can escape is by drawing attention to himself. When the bidding on an antique reaches $2,250, Thornhill yells out, “Fifteen hundred!” When the auctioneer gently chides him, he loudly changes his bid: “Twelve hundred!” When the bidding on a Louis XIV chaise longue reaches $1,200, Thornhill blurts outs, “Thirteen dollars!” The genteel crowd is outraged, but Thornhill gets precisely what he wants: the auctioneer summons the police, who “escort” him past Vandamm’s henchmen to safety. Clever thinking and good comedy. It is funny for a lot of reasons, and one is that Thornhill violates every psychological “rule” for how we negotiate price and value with one another. So much of life involves “auctions,” whether it is buying a used car or making health care choices or even choosing a mate. But, unlike Roger Thornhill, most of us are motivated by the desire for a fair deal, and we employ some sophisticated cognitive tools to weigh offers, fashion responses, and so forth-all the to-and-fro in getting to an agreement. But how does life’s dickering play out in the brain? And is it a trustworthy tool for getting what we want? Psychologists have been studying cognitive bartering for some time, and several basics are well established. For example, an opening “bid” of any sort is usually perceived as a mental anchor, a starting point for the psychological jockeying to follow. If we perceive an opening bid as fundamentally inaccurate or unfair, we reject it by countering with something in another ballpark altogether. But what about less dramatic counter offers? What makes us settle on a response? - Source 04/19/08 - Analog to Digital TV Patent Troll Ambush A small Pennsylvania company's patent lawsuits could hamstring the government's $1.5 billion effort to make the transition to digital television easier on consumers' wallets. Rembrandt Inc. owns a patent on technology that it says is part of the digital television broadcasting standard used by the TV networks. Rembrandt is suing 14 companies, including Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, CBS Corp. and News Corp.'s Fox Broadcasting for patent infringement and wants millions of dollars in royalties. Rembrandt says on its Web site that it "identifies and acquires patents that hold great market potential" and "pursues and secures revenue from these innovations as established by the U.S. Constitution." Rembrandt acquired the patent in question in 2004 from Paradyne Corp., a spinoff from AT&T Inc., which developed the technology and obtained the patent in the 1990s. To its critics, Rembrandt is a "patent troll," a term for companies that purchase patents from inventors and then seek to enforce them in court. "They make money from litigation, not innovation," Balto said. Balto and Richard Wolfram, an antitrust attorney based in New York who also helped prepare the AAI's petition, have previously worked for some of the companies sued by Rembrandt. By getting the patent after it became part of a technology standard and then demanding exorbitant fees, Rembrandt is illegally abusing its monopoly, the AAI said. The FTC has cracked down on similar practices, what lawyers call "patent ambushes." In January, it blocked Negotiated Data Solutions LLC, based in Chicago, from seeking higher royalties on patents related to the ethernet computer networking technology. And last year, the commission required Rambus Inc. to license certain memory chip technologies to other companies and set maximum royalty rates. That case is on appeal. - Source 04/19/08 - Cars Deserve Only Half the Blame for CO2 It's not surprising that the home counties of Houston, Los Angeles and Chicago (in that order) produce the greatest amount of carbon dioxide in the U.S. But a new study from Purdue University, which essentially creates an inventory of carbon-dioxide, has some surprises. Among the top-20 cities that emit CO2, would you have guessed that San Juan, N.M., Camden, ALA.., Titus, TX. or Valparaiso, IND. would be on the list? If the study is to be believed, industry shares a larger amount of the blame for carbon emissions than is commonly accepted. As global warming increases and emissions become more politicized, the blame game between the auto industry and everything else with a smokestack will only increase. - Source 04/19/08 - Electrocuting Astronauts At full moon, our favorite satellite is whipped by Earth's magnetotail, causing lunar dust storms and discharges of static electricity. This new finding, announced this week by NASA, is important to future lunar explorers: Astronauts may find themselves "crackling with electricity like a sock pulled out of a hot dryer," according to an agency statement. At full moon, the moon passes through a huge "plasma sheet" - hot charged particles trapped in the tail. The lightest and most mobile of these particles, electrons, pepper the moon's surface and give the moon a negative charge, the researchers explained. On the moon's dayside this effect is counteracted somewhat by sunlight: Photons knock electrons back off the surface, lessening the negative charge. But on the night side, electrons accumulate and the charge can climb to thousands of volts. - Source 04/17/08 - Laser Used to Trigger Lightning in a Thunderstorm A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves up to several meters long. - Source 04/17/08 - Using Viruses to Kill Bacteria Scientists in Scotland have come up with an alternative to antibiotics, which may effectively stop bacteria in its tracks. Janice Spencer and a team of researchers at the University of Strathclyde are developing nylon sutures coated with bacteriophages--viruses, found naturally in water, that eat bacteria while leaving human cells intact. New research by the Scottish team found that phage-coated sutures effectively stemmed infection in live rats. The team chemically bound bacteriophages to microscopic polymer beads by first breaking the surface of the polymer. Then the researchers added a linker molecule to the polymer's surface, which in turn binds to bacteriophages and keeps them from falling apart. To test the virus's virulence, the team first made small incisions in live rats, then infected them with Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), one of the most resistant strains of bacteria found in hospitals. Half of the rats were stitched up with sutures that were coated with polymer-bound bacteriophages. The other rats were closed up with untreated sutures. Spencer and her colleagues found that the wounds dressed with the treated sutures appeared to have no infection, while those stitched with regular sutures became inflamed, with large sores and "abundant pus." - Source 04/17/08 - Audi Snook, The One-Wheeled Car With A Brain Here comes the one-wheeled Audi Snook. Maybe this auto-stabilized monowheel design concept isn't such a bad idea, though, because it won German student Tilmann Schlootz a Michelin Challenge Design Award 2008 at this year's Detroit Auto Show. How the heck does this lightbulb-shaped vehicle with a trackball wheel underneath stay upright? "Agility through instability, controlled by artificial intelligence, that is my formal issue," answers designer Schlootz. Looks like a carnival ride to us. Let's hope that artificial intelligence does the driving, too. / (Reminds me of the Jetsons 'Uniblab' robot. - JWD) - Source 04/17/08 - New Ways to Store Solar Energy for Nighttime and Cloudy Days The difficulty is that electricity is hard to store. Batteries are not up to efficiently storing energy on a large scale. A different approach being tried by the solar power industry could eliminate the problem. The idea is to capture the sun’s heat. Heat, unlike electric current, is something that industry knows how to store cost-effectively. For example, a coffee thermos and a laptop computer’s battery store about the same amount of energy, said John S. O’Donnell, executive vice president of a company in the solar thermal business, Ausra. The thermos costs about $5 and the laptop battery $150, he said, and “that’s why solar thermal is going to be the dominant form.” Solar thermal systems are built to gather heat from the sun, boil water into steam, spin a turbine and make power, as existing solar thermal power plants do - but not immediately. The heat would be stored for hours or even days, like water behind a dam. “You take the energy the sun is putting into the earth that day, store it and capture it, put it into the reservoir, and use it on demand,” said Terry Murphy, president and chief executive of SolarReserve, a company backed in part by United Technologies, the Hartford conglomerate. Power plants are typically designed with a heat production system matched to their electric generators. Mr. Murphy sees no reason why his should. His design is for a power tower that can supply 540 megawatts of heat. At the high temperatures it could achieve, that would produce 250 megawatts of electricity, enough to run a fair-size city. It might make more sense to produce a smaller quantity and run well into the evening or around the clock or for several days when it is cloudy, he said. - Source 04/17/08 - World doomed to hunger and wars UN experts warn: long-standing conflicts set off by higher food prices are in store for the world. “Imminent wars will break out due to worsening living conditions in poor countries,” Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food said. Within the past two months prices on rice increased by 52 percent, while grain prices soared by 84 percent. As a result, several countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America were hit by mass riots and revolts of the hungry. - Source 04/17/08 - Heating Plug-in Hybrids One of the leading candidates for an alternative heating/cooling system is based on thermoelectrics, semiconductor devices that can provide either heat or cooling, depending on the direction the electric current is flowing. Major automakers, such as GM and Ford, are now developing systems based on existing thermoelectric semiconductors, and experimental materials that use nanotechnology promise to make such systems even more appealing. The first plug-in hybrids--cars that can be recharged by plugging them into an electrical socket, but have small gasoline engines to extend their range--will make use of electric heaters. Plug-in hybrids, which run mostly or entirely on electricity for local driving, don't generate such quantities of waste heat. So, heat has to be generated using power from the battery, draining thousands of watts that could otherwise have been used to propel the vehicles. When they start appearing from major automakers near the end of 2010, they'll cost thousands more than conventional cars, so automakers are looking for ways to make them less expensive to broaden their appeal. One way to do so is to find more-efficient systems of heating and cooling, which make it possible to use smaller, less expensive batteries. As a result, thermoelectric systems could start appearing in cars in 2012. - Source 04/17/08 - End of the Internet's Tax-Free Ride? "Two bills are pending in Congress that would allow tax collectors to target out-of-state Internet and mail-order retailers, and their supporters are optimistic about their political prospects... Meanwhile, pro-tax states are trying their own ways to circumvent a long-standing rule saying a retailer must have physical presence before it can be forced to collect taxes. One effort came from New York state, where legislators recently approved a measure requiring Amazon and other online retailers (that lack a physical presence in the state) to collect sales tax on New Yorkers' purchases... This is not exactly a new debate... But now, with a Democratic Congress and a potentially Democratic administration next year, the arguments may gain more political traction." - Source 04/17/08 - Build a Responsible Budget with the 60% Solution Despite the content of his site, financial blogger J.D. Roth isn't a budgeter-opting instead to follow what he calls a "spending plan." But in the wake of some financial changes, he's decided it's time to build his first budget. His choice and suggestion for anyone looking to set up their first real budget is called the 60% solution, which allocates the lion's share of your gross monthly income to committed expenses (like rent and car insurance), then divvies up the remaining 40% equally to retirement, irregular expenses, long-term savings, and "fun money." The 60% solution, as Roth points out, is intended for recent college grads, but it should also work well as a starting point if you're on your first budget. If you've already got a tried-and-true budgeting plan, share what works for you in the comments. (via lifehacker.com) - Source 04/17/08 - Why the US is collapsing (worth the read!) This is the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party explaining how the US went bankrupt in 1971, and has been covering it up through an accelerating whack-a-mole borrowing frenzy that is bursting right now. It has been paying rapidly growing VISA bills using MasterCard and vice versa for 37 years. The creditors are catching up, and the US is about to go extinct as a superpower. Become irrelevant. It is not yet on its death bed, it is still walking, breathing and capable of entertaining a conversation in public. But there are ominous bloodstains on its hands used to cover the painful coughing. - Source 04/17/08 - The technology that will save humanity One of oldest forms of energy used by humans -- sunlight concentrated by mirrors -- is poised to make an astonishing comeback. I believe it will be the most important form of carbon-free power in the 21st century. That's because it's the only form of clean electricity that can meet all the demanding requirements of this century. Certainly we will need many different technologies to stop global warming. They include electric cars and plug-in hybrids, wind turbines and solar photovoltaics, which use sunlight to make electricity from solid-state materials like silicon semiconductors. Yet after speaking with energy experts and seeing countless presentations on all forms of clean power, I believe the one technology closest to being a silver bullet for global warming is the other solar power: solar thermal electric, which concentrates the sun's rays to heat a fluid that drives an electric generator. - Source 04/17/08 - Ten Facts Credit Card Companies Don’t Want You to Know The idea of a credit card is a peculiar notion that has only come about in the last fifty years. Instead of paying for purchases with wealth that we already have, we are now borrowing money for every day purchases, even things as quick trip to McDonalds or a bottle of pop from a vending machine. Debt has become a societal norm and it’s here to stay. There’s nothing inherently wrong with debt, however when debt is misused, it can become a major financial