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02/28/07 - Converting Plastic into Fuel
 A zero-pollution industrial process to convert non-biodegradable - and mostly non-recyclable - plastic waste into liquid hydrocarbons is quietly underway in the Butibori industrial estate, 25 km from Alka's home in Nagpur, the absolute central point of the country. The Zadgaonkars' Unique Waste Plastic Management & Research Company plant devours a whole range of plastic waste -- from discarded carry bags to mineral water bottles and broken buckets to PVC pipes, polyethylene eriophthalate (PET) bottles, even ABS (acrylonitrile butadine sterine) plastic material used in the making of computer monitors and TV sets, keyboards et al -- and converts it 100 percent into liquid hydrocarbon fuels (85 percent) and gases (15 percent). The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has recommended use of the Zadgaonkar liquid fuels in running agriculture pumps and boilers, as marine fuel and input feed for petro refineries, and the gaseous fuels as an in-house and industrial substitute for LPG. The world's first and so far the only continuous process industrial plant in Butibori has caught the eye of the scientific community and begun to beckon entrepreneurs to approach its close-fisted promoter with buy-up or tie-up offers. Though the small scale industrial unit has an installed capacity to consume only 25 metric tonnes (MT) of plastic waste - present consumption is 10 MT a day - that would still leave more than 50 MT of the non-biodegradable hazard to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) to dispose of. Clearly, the proven industrial process if replicated on a macro scale holds great promise for the country and the world at large. In Los Angeles, 90 percent of the underground space allocated for landfills has already been occupied. Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency, UK, has found as much as 65 percent increase in the generation of waste plastic litter globally from 1997 to 2005. Given the limits of plastic recycling (output degrades after each cycle) coupled with the fact that incineration is highly expensive and can be hazardous, emitting toxic gases if not done properly, and in view of the future energy crunch, Alka decided to try for herself what several polymer scientists in the world are already experimenting with - conversion of plastic to hydrocarbon fuels. Setting up an apparatus consisting of a cylindrical stainless steel vessel, a condensing system, a receiving flask and an outlet vent apart from a pressure gauge and a timer, Alka started experimenting with the idea way back in 1995 and saw the first signs of success only after four years of nerve-wracking perseverance. The method comprised regulated anaerobic heating of a mixture of plastic waste (90 percent) and coal (10 percent) in the presence of a catalyst. "We receive an uninterrupted supply of raw material and sell the fuel in bulk to an agent who supplies it to small industrial units in the region," says Umesh Zadgaonkar. Citing statistics of crude oil consumption of 115 million MT per annum in India, 80 percent of which has to be imported at the rate of $60 per barrel and pointing out that one litre of crude oil yields only 600 ml of hydrocarbon fuel, Umesh says plastic waste converted into liquid hydrocarbons in his plant without emitting any pollutants would be a cheaper partial substitute. It would also take care of hazardous plastic waste. Coupled with the bio-diesel revolution, the plastic-waste-to-fuel process can prove to be a double-boon for humanity.
02/28/07 - A Practical Use for Waste Methane
 A direct method of converting methane into useful chemical compounds could reduce the release of the potent greenhouse gas at isolated oil fields. About 100 billion cubic meters of natural gas are burned off or simply vented at remote oil rigs and refineries that are not connected by pipelines. The practice wastes a precious fuel and pumps methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Technologies for compressing or liquefying natural gas in order to transport it are expensive and only make sense at large oil fields. So, researchers have been looking for viable technologies to convert the natural gas found at small, isolated oil fields into compounds that are easier to transport and distribute. Researchers found a simple way to convert methane into methyl chloride, which can easily be converted into petrochemicals such as ethylene or propylene, used to make plastics. Ethylene and propylene, says Johannes Lercher, a chemistry professor at the Munich University of Technology, are far easier to transport than methane is. The technique could have one drawback, though: it uses chlorine, a toxic gas. The researchers' plan includes recycling the hydrogen chloride and repeatedly using it for the reaction. "In the vision we're playing with, the chlorine would not ever get on a boat," says Eric Strangland, a chemistry and catalysis researcher at Dow and a coauthor of the paper.
02/28/07 - What will be the Fuel of the Future?
 By the middle part of the 21st Century engineers and scientists see a shift to fully electric vehicles. Internal combustion-powered vehicles will be relegated to museums, parades and shows, much like carriages and steam engines are displayed today. As far as the auto industry is concerned there are no restrictions on the range of technologies to be considered. Any and all ideas will be investigated until proven unfeasible, and it’s possible that the "magic bullet" has yet to be discovered. However, the consensus of the industry is that no one technology will prove to be the solution to alternative energy or large gains in fuel economy in existing drivetrains. The solution will almost certainly be a number of different approaches that will cumulatively effect the change.
02/28/07 - Growing Glaciers
 Clyde “Solar Sam” Weihe has been growing three glaciers - with a fourth coming soon - for several weeks at his West Street residence. The pillars of sea-foam blue and snow-white ice jut from the ground as a backdrop to signs that read: “Man Made Glacier Cooling” and “Solar Sam R&D Glaciers.” The spectacle has attracted curious children and slow drive-bys to the neighborhood.Weihe, 89, said he first experimented with the glaciers about four years ago to create slick tubing conditions for his visiting grandchildren. The stunt crystallized into a broader plan for the businessman and 18-patent inventor when he realized its potential to fight the recession of polar ice caps. “I could almost see something similar to this up in Antarctica,” Weihe said. His backyard experiment is only the tip of the iceberg. Weihe said freezers could someday be rigged with solar-powered motors to create ice at a fast pace. He plans to experiment with the idea in his garage with a newly purchased Home Depot freezer. He has no intention of applying for another patent, but hoped his idea could be picked up by another inventor or company with enough money to inject into research and development. Stepping gingerly outside, Weihe surveyed the ice volcanoes erupting in his yard. Each one encases a PVC pipe with an attached garden hose, which sprays water 24 hours a day to form icicles and knobby outgrowths on the glaciers. Weihe said he adjusts the stream for each, allowing water to issue more freely with colder temperatures. Another pipe and hose are being prepared.
02/28/07 - Remote Controlled Pidgeons
 Chinese scientists have succeeded in implanting micro electrodes in the brain of a pigeon to remotely control the bird's flight, state media said. The micro electrodes were used to command the bird to fly right or left, and up or down. The implants stimulated different areas of the pigeon's brain according to electronic signals sent by the scientists via computer, mirroring natural signals generated by the brain, Xinhua quoted chief scientist Su Xuecheng as saying. It was the first such successful experiment on a pigeon in the world, said Su, who conducted a similar successful experiment on mice in 2005.
02/28/07 - An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New ‘Heresies’
Stewart Brand has become a heretic to environmentalism, a movement he helped found, but he doesn’t plan to be isolated for long. He expects that environmentalists will soon share his affection for nuclear power. They’ll lose their fear of population growth and start appreciating sprawling megacities. They’ll stop worrying about “frankenfoods” and embrace genetic engineering. He predicts that all this will happen in the next decade, which sounds rather improbable - or at least it would if anyone else had made the prediction. But when it comes to anticipating the zeitgeist, never underestimate Stewart Brand. He divides environmentalists into romantics and scientists, the two cultures he’s been straddling and blending since the 1960s.
02/28/07 - The Four Best Ways to Sit at Your Computer
 The problem with poor posture is that eventually over time it leads to injury. #1 - Exercise ball - Apparently very popular with the folks at Google. It's pretty tough to slouch on an exercise ball (actually you will probably fall off). #2 - Kneeling chair - It keeps your spine erect and is very comfortable to sit in. #3 - Lotus position - Sitting cross-legged is good for the hips. #4 - Treadmill. Walking while working.
02/28/07 - Experts call for restrictions on childhood imagination
The Department of Health and Human Services issued a series of guidelines Monday designed to help parents curtail their children's boundless imaginations, which child-safety advocates say have the potential to rival motor vehicle accidents and congenital diseases as a leading cause of disability and death among youths ages 3 to 14.
02/28/07 - Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril
 In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable. The sudden mysterious losses are highlighting the critical link that honeybees play in the long chain that gets fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables across the country. In a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, bees are flying off in search of pollen and nectar and simply never returning to their colonies. And nobody knows why. Researchers say the bees are presumably dying in the fields, perhaps becoming exhausted or simply disoriented and eventually falling victim to the cold. As researchers scramble to find answers to the syndrome they have decided to call “colony collapse disorder,” growers are becoming openly nervous about the capability of the commercial bee industry to meet the growing demand for bees to pollinate dozens of crops, from almonds to avocados to kiwis.
02/28/07 - Old Men Fathering Kids - not good
Long after a woman's biological clock stops ticking, most men can still father children. Yet many men say it's not just women who worry that they are too old to have kids. The physiology might allow for septuagenarians to bounce their beloved bundles on their arthritic knees, but the psychology suggests there is an age to stop bringing another baby on board. "When your kids are young, you want to be out on the soccer field running, actually practicing with them," says Mason, the co-owner of a firm that out-sources sales. "But you get to a point where you can't keep up with the younger kids." While the jury is still out on many details of the male biological clock, there is no consensus on the cutoff age for men to have kids, says Dr. Paul Turek, director of the Male Reproductive Health Center at the University of California, San Francisco. "That's a fuzzy one," Turek says, "There is some evidence that as men age, their semen quality may decline slowly, but only at 1 percent a year after age 40. It's really hard to draw a line at some age." Even though it's physically possible, are children being shortchanged by a dad bent on having kids so late in life? "After 45 to 50, it's getting a bit late" to have children, says Simran Sandhar, 19, an aviation and business student at San Jose State University, who's not yet a father. "Any older, and the kids could be 10 or 20 when the father dies." But just because a man can procreate in the winter of his years doesn't mean it's a good idea, says Jamin Favela, 24, of Hayward. He suggested men have their children by age 40. "You want to watch your kids grow up," says Favela, the general manger at Camera Cinemas 12 in San Jose. "You want to help them figure out their lives. You really can't do that if you're an incontinent 80 year old." Many dads bent on having kids aren't always weighing what's best for their children. "They are selfish," he says. "You have to think about whether you want be a sperm donor or you want to be a father."
02/27/07 - Video - Antigravity trick or real?
 (URL courtesy of Mario Garcia, thanks!) This video claims to show an Anti Gravity demonstration using with a Homemade Levitation kit of only a CELLULLAR PHONE (old style with extendible antenna), 4 batteries, a card, tape, a CD, a dime coin and a can. You can make this at home! It appears to be a more controlled version of the Hutchison Effect but it could just as well be a trick. Needs credible duplication not the yo-yos who commented on the page. If it works as claimed, it might be scaleable but its probably a hoax.
02/27/07 - Ideagora: A Marketplace for Minds
Though today's nascent ideagoras have yet to reach eBay-like proportions, companies such as InnoCentive, yet2.com, Nine Sigma, and YourEncore have planted the seeds for a sea change in innovation. They could arguably spur even more profound changes if services such as InnoCentive looked and behaved a little bit more like the open source software community. Companies seeking solutions to seemingly insoluble problems can tap the insights of hundreds of thousands of enterprising scientists without having to employ everybody full-time. This shift is rippling through Corporate America and changing the way companies invent and develop products and services. Today, some 120,000 scientists like Melcarek have registered with InnoCentive and hundreds of companies pay annual fees of roughly $80,000 to tap the talents of a global scientific community. Launched as an e-business venture by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Eli Lily in 2001, the company now provides on-demand solutions to innovation-hungry titans such as Boeing, Dow, DuPont, P&G, and Novartis. Today, these companies are pioneers among thousands of businesses that participate in what we call "ideagoras" -- places where millions of ideas and solutions change hands in something akin to an eBay for innovation.
02/27/07 - Prisoner Flight stopped with zapped leg muscles
 The Dutch Justice Ministry is planning to test a new system to ensure prisoners do not slip away from their guards while on supervised parole - a knee brace that locks legs in a bend when they try to get away. Criminals who have escaped while on supervised parole and then committed serious crimes - including murder - have plagued Dutch justice system for years. Under public pressure, parliament ordered the ministry to examine ways of keeping such prisoners under control. Other ideas studied included injecting prisoners with sedatives or using electric shocks to stop them from getting away. But the options were rejected as too intrusive, van der Weegen said. The system under development works by sending an electric impulse that cramps a prisoner's leg muscles automatically if the prisoner gets too far away from the guard.
02/27/07 - A Fool-Proof Way Around the Warrant Requirement?
DEA agents have devised a foolproof way to raid meth labs, at least according to this § 1983 decision from the Eleventh Circuit. Here’s the story, straight from that Court’s unpublished opinion: [T]he agents attempted to secure a search warrant for Glover’s residence on the suspicion that he was operating a clandestine methamphetamine lab there. The magistrate judge determined that the agents lacked sufficient evidence to merit a warrant. So the agents arranged to have a confidential source enter Glover’s house on the pretense of delivering a tank of anhydrous ammonia he had ordered. The source was wired and agents were monitoring the situation, ready to raid the alleged lab if necessary. In their affidavits, the agents state that after entering Glover’s residence, the source started coughing and complaining of chemical fumes over the wire. Glover claims that he never heard any coughing but admits that the source went upstairs to use the bathroom. Fearing the source was being exposed to noxious chemicals, the agents entered Glover’s house and made the arrest. Glover pleaded guilty to various drug charges and is presently serving his sentence, but he also filed a civil suit, claiming that the agents violated his constitutional rights during the raid. Among other things, Glover claimed that the warrantless entry into his home violated the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, and the Eleventh Circuit affirms. Regarding the Fourth Amendment search claim, the Court explains that the agents’ entry into the home was justified by the exigent circumstances doctrine, since they feared that their source’s life was in danger due to the noxious chemicals inside the house.
02/27/07 - Space blast's huge debris field
 The explosion of a Russian rocket stage in space may have created over 1,000 pieces of orbiting debris which could threaten other spacecraft. The rocket section exploded on 19 February, generating as much debris as the destruction of a satellite by China last month, if not more. This space wreckage could remain in orbit for years, experts say. The anti-satellite test conducted by China on 11 January generated 817 confirmed fragments. Only particles of about 10cm or above can be tracked using radar. But both explosions would have generated millions of smaller fragments which are difficult to detect. The space station has shields to protect it against objects under 1cm in size. Anything larger than 1cm would be perfectly capable of penetrating these shields. If a threat arises from objects of 5-10cm and above, the space station can adjust its position to avoid the debris. But that leaves a gap, objects intermediate between these two size ranges are difficult to avoid.
02/27/07 - Marketing Translation Mistakes
People forward translation and cultural mistakes to me, and I love them. I hope you enjoy these as well. Often I receive the same ones over and over. Please only send me ones that are not listed here. (Please search this page first.) Also if possible, please provide a reference with your submission. I try to research and confirm these before posting. Also, take these with a grain of salt...They may be contrived and not true, or if true, unrecognizably transformed. Check it out!
02/27/07 - 30 Years of the Future
 The authors of legendary British comic 2000AD are shocked how many of their predictions have come to pass. Imagine a society where cities blend into each other to form massive conurbations. Imagine a society where obesity is rife, mass unemployment is a fact of life and downtrodden citizens will do anything to become rich or famous. Imagine a society in the grip of such chaos and crime that it is necessary to give law enforcers the power to punish offenders on the spot without a trial and where everyone is constantly surveyed by video cameras. "There are no happy glossy futures in 2000AD. If you look on the back of the very first Judge Dredd prog [issue] there is a wonderful view of Mega City One and there are all these spy cameras everywhere. It shows in some area the present has caught up with it." Judge Dredd, for those who have never come across the helmeted lawman, was empowered to act both as police officer, jury and judge in a city where crime was rampant.
02/27/07 - DIY Server
This site is a guide to setting up and running a full featured webserver from just about any Internet connection. We cover issues on running a web server, email server, DNS server, news server, FT server, game server and more... We have tested and compiled a list of software, hardware and strategies for setting up and running your own cost-effective web server. In most cases, the software you need to run an Internet server is free...
02/26/07 - Photonic Laser Thruster
 On December 21, 2006, when Dr. Young Bae of the Bae Institute successfully demonstrated the world's first Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT). Repeated experiments since then have reconfirmed results. Dr. Franklin Mead, Senior Aerospace Engineer, and leading rocket scientist in laser and advanced propulsion at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) remarked, "I attended Dr. Bae's presentation about his PLT demonstration and measurement of photon thrust here at AFRL. It was pretty incredible stuff and to my knowledge, I don't think anyone has done this before. It has generated a lot of interest around here."
Photon particles have been considered inefficient for producing thrust because they have zero mass, and no electric charge. The PLT system overcame the inherent photonic inefficiency by bouncing photons many times between two mirrors. Using a photonic laser and a sophisticated photon beam amplification system, Dr. Bae demonstrated that photonic energy could generate amplified thrust between two spacecraft by bouncing photons many thousands of times between them. The patent-pending Bae Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) was built and monitored with off-the-shelf laboratory components at the Southern California laboratory of the Bae Institute. With an amplification factor of 3,000, the photon thrust generated from the egg-sized laser head in the PLT prototype is equivalent to the thrust that can currently only be generated by orders-of- magnitudes larger and heavier industrial or weapons-grade lasers. Although PLT can be used for a wide range of space applications, including accelerating spacecraft to near light speed, Dr. Bae has more immediate goals. He plans to include PLT in a Photon Tether Formation Flight (PTFF), another of his patent pending ideas for controlling spacecraft flying in formation with nanometer precision. By integrating PLT and space tethers, PTFF will enable the creation of large telescopes and synthetic apertures in space for high- resolution earth or space monitoring. PTFF promises precision 100,000 times greater than existing formation flying spacecraft missions, notably the Proba- 3 currently planned by European Space Agency (ESA).
02/26/07 - Cheap cold from Student Invention
(Reminds me of the old Icey Ball Ammonia refridgerators that were used long before freon cooling. - JWD) You’ve got life-saving vaccines for people in the jungles and deserts of developing countries. But those vaccines must be kept at between zero and 8 degrees Celsius (between 32 and roughly 45 degrees Fahrenheit), and there’s no way to carry heavy, bulky refrigerators. Chill. Caldwell Academy graduate Andrew Cunningham and four fellow freshmen at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., are on the case. The Fab Five of reduced energy dependence designed a hand-cranked refrigerator that can keep vaccines cold long enough to take them to where people need them. It works like this: Hand cranking generates electricity, which generates heat, which warms a holding tank of ammonia and water. The ammonia and water evaporate, then condense in a process that draws heat out of the refrigerator. (Cold is simply the absence of heat.) The mixture then follows a pipe outside the refrigerator, where the heat it has drawn from the refrigerator can be absorbed by surrounding air. Then the mixture returns to the refrigerator’s storage tank and the process starts over again. No heavy condenser. No electricity to run the condenser. Then again, there’s also no time to stand in front of the open top and wonder what you’re going to have for a snack, Cunningham says: "You’ve got to know what you want and get it quick." That means a minimum of 30 minutes of cranking time per day and 20 minutes for every time the top or door is opened.
02/26/07 - Vice Vaccines
 Scientists are crafting a host of vaccines that could attack drugs, nicotine, and an obesity hormone in the body. If the approach works, those addictive agents would no longer satisfy cravings in vaccinated people. Normally, the immune system doesn't recognize heroin and other drugs as foes worthy of attack. When a smoker lights up and draws the addictive drug into his or her bloodstream, antibodies glom on to individual nicotine molecules, explains Nabi scientist Henrik Rasmussen. As a result, the formerly tiny molecules morph into clumps made of nicotine and antibodies. Those clusters are far too big to cross the blood-brain barrier and stimulate the brain's feel-good centers, an action that normally cements nicotine's addictive power. Smokers still experience the typical array of withdrawal symptoms, including cravings for cigarettes. But after learning that cigarettes are no longer satisfying, Rasmussen notes, people find that their cravings quickly decline. "People can still smoke, but they don't get the rush, they don't feel good, and they don't keep the addiction. You take away the reason they smoke," he says. To produce their antiobesity vaccine, the researchers needed a molecule on which to focus the immune system's antibodies, like the nicotine or cocaine molecules targeted by vaccines against those addictions. But obesity is a complex phenomenon spurred by hundreds of different molecules in the body. Eventually, Janda's team settled on ghrelin, a hormone that spikes hunger, slows metabolism, encourages fat storage, and shifts food preferences toward diets rich in fat.
02/26/07 - Use car Exhaust to Clean Cushions
 Using the exhaust gas of the automobile to clean the upholstery is the accomplishment of a recently invented device. An aluminum attachment is fastened to the exhaust pipe and the engine is allowed to idle. As the exhaust gas passes through this device suction is created at the inlet hole. Collected by a nozzle, the dust and dirt are drawn through the hose and expelled into the air at the rear of the car. It is made in three models, for cars of different size.
02/26/07 - Yamaha in Hot Water Over Crop Dusting RC Helicopter Sales to China
 Police in Japan have raided vehicles firm Yamaha in an inquiry into possible illegal helicopter exports to China. Twenty offices and homes were targeted as part of a probe into whether the company exported pilot-less helicopters with possible military applications. Yamaha acknowledges selling nine of the aircraft to China, but says they could only be used for agricultural purposes. The Ministry of Trade and Industry says Yamaha should have sought official permission before exporting the helicopter to China, which Japan views as a possible military threat. Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said that the worry for the government was that the unmanned helicopters "could be diverted to weapons of mass destruction". Yamaha expressed surprise over the investigation and denied any wrongdoing. The company says it first sold the helicopters to China five years ago and insists they were basic models that could have no military application. The helicopter at the centre of the storm is the R-MAX, which can be flown safely by a relatively untrained operator on the ground using a laptop computer. Around 1,600 of the helicopters are currently in use in Japan, primarily by farmers for crop-spraying. However, Yamaha promotes the R-MAX for its other potential uses as well, including surveillance - and that is what appears to have got the company into trouble, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Tokyo.
02/26/07 - Utility eyes power grid to boost electric cars
 Idea would have owners charge at night, then sell excess power during day. California's biggest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., is considering a plan to charge fleets of battery-powered cars overnight with wind energy and let consumers sell back some of the stored electricity during the day. In addition to reducing oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from standard cars, the plan could help stoke production of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and give power managers more energy capacity on the grid for hot summer afternoons, speakers said at a "clean technology" investment conference in San Francisco this week. Improving battery technologies to boost energy density at lower weight and cost is a hurdle, but progress on lithium ion battery packs could help develop a bigger market for plug-in cars, Kramer said. Drivers also may have to downsize their vehicle choices. Some electric cars are likely to be small and aimed at urban dwellers who do most of their motoring in or near cities, speakers at the conference said. PG&E's LaFlash said new "smart grid" technologies such as high-tech meters that measure electricity use via remote control and give customers timing and pricing options could help drivers charge their batteries at home or parking lots and also get a bill credit for putting excess electricity back on the grid. Utilities and grid managers would limit the amount of energy uploaded from batteries, he said. Metering and billing systems would be equipped to match a car to an account.
02/26/07 - Living, self-renewing Memory Sticks
Imagine having a "living" data storage system that constantly renews itself, keeping the data safe for aeons. A team in Japan has raised the possibility by loading live bacteria with artificial DNA sequences that encode data. Because the data is passed on with the bacteria's own DNA, it will survive indefinitely provided the colony is kept alive. "Information storage using DNA will probably be robust for more than a million years," says Ohashi Yoshiaki, head of the team at Keio University in Yamagata. He and his colleagues turned the message "E = mc2 1905!" into binary code written in DNA base pairs, then inserted it into thousands of Bacillus subtilis, a common soil bacterium. For extra security, the team encoded the message in four distinct DNA sequences.
02/26/07 - Wave-Pump Technology Hits the Water
 The SEADOG ocean-wave pump captures energy from ocean swells or waves to pump seawater to a land-based holding area or water tower, where the water can be returned to the ocean through hydroelectric turbines. A new pump system designed to turn salt water into fresh water when combined with desalination systems--and produce clean renewable energy when combined with hydroelectric systems--is currently being tested in the Gulf of Mexico, off the Texas coast. To create hydroelectricity, the SEADOG ocean-wave pump captures energy from ocean swells or waves to pump seawater to a land-based holding area or water tower, where the water can be returned to the ocean through hydroelectric turbines. In addition, because the device pumps water to a reservoir, it can store salt water or desalinated fresh water in the form of potential energy to generate power on demand, even if the current wave regime during a particular period is too low to generate power. Developed by Minnesota-based energy technology company Independent Natural Resources Inc. (INRI), preliminary estimates based on SEADOG test results suggest that 1 square mile field of SEADOG pumps could generate anywhere from 50 megawatts to more than 1,500 megawatts (MW) of hydropower on average, depending on the wave regime, according to Solaraccess.com. “Our sea trial in the Gulf of Mexico has exceeded our expectations and we’re confident our engineers have developed a new proprietary technology that serves as a safe, efficient system for gathering renewable energy from ocean waves,“ said Mark A. Thomas, chief executive officer, INRI. SEADOG’s size, configuration and pumping capacity varies depending on the wave regime, height and frequency. During recent testing off the coast of Surfside, Texas, a single SEADOG pump experienced modest waves from 6 inches to 6 feet and consistently pumped a range of 15,000 to 40,000 gallons of seawater per day. “Going forward, we’re seeking actual ocean environments where we can place a wave-farm test field involving 14 to 200 SEADOG wave pumps. If the wave pump continues to perform as well as our sea tests have shown, we believe it has the potential to be a breakthrough for global energy production,“ added Thomas. According to INRI’s calculations, the company’s wave-pump technology is capable of generating an average of 755 megawatts of hydroelectric energy for every 1 square mile pump field, assuming ocean swells averaging at least 9 feet. With swells of at least 5 feet, a 1 square mile pump field could generate approximately 242 MW. The lack of sufficient fresh water is a growing concern in many regions of the world and seawater desalination is increasingly essential. The state of Texas alone has more than 100 desalination plants. Energy consumption is significant in desalination, sometimes accounting for as much as one-third of the operating cost of desalinated water. Formed in January of 2002 by Thomas, the company developed and acquired the SEADOG pump technology from its inventor, Kenneth W. Welch, Jr., and co-inventors Curtis and Harold Rothi.
02/26/07 - When God sanctions killing, people listen
 New research published in the March issue of Psychological Science may help elucidate the relationship between religious indoctrination and violence, a topic that has gained renewed notoriety in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. In the article, University of Michigan psychologist Brad Bushman and his colleagues suggest that scriptural violence sanctioned by God can increase aggression, especially in believers.
02/26/07 - Bee Problems & 2004 Crop Circles - 02/24/07
 I know this is going to sound strange/fluky/woo-woo'ish and more, but here an interesting notion: Back in June of 2004 there was a crop circle formation sighted which resembled a huge bee when viewed from the air. Now, while no one knows for sure what is causing it, a phenomena called "colony collapse syndrome" is wiping our bees by the millions - and that could have a horrific impact on crops. Presaged by a crop circle? Your guess is as good as mine. (via urbansurvival.com)
02/26/07 - Muslim Sex Spies in Malaysia
The word spy generally invokes images of men in sunglasses ferreting nuclear secrets out of a foreign country or other such acts of intrigue and international espionage. The Malaysian government in Terengganu, however, is about to embark on a different kind of espionage - spies to make sure Muslim couples don't engage in illicit sexual activity. The government hopes to recruit spies to operate in public places and watch for people who are giving off signs that they may take their relationship in a lascivious direction. The agents would then inform the morality patrols who could then move in to stop any indecorous sex from occurring. The chief official of Terengganu's Islam and Welfare Committee has insisted that these agents will not act as 'peeping toms.'
02/26/07 - Selling Homeowners a Solar Dream
 "Solar for free," it headlines. "No initial investment needed. Just monthly payments for power." Instead of making you spring for $25,000 or more in gear, Citizenre says it will loan you a complete rooftop solar power system, install it for free and sell you back the power it generates at a fixed rate below what your utility charges. The company hopes to make back its investment with those monthly payments, augmented by federal tax credits and rebates. More than 7,000 people from Maine to San Diego have already signed up for systems. And why wouldn't they? With no upfront costs -- aside from a modest security deposit -- consumers can save on their electric bill and help roll back global warming at the same time. "There's an increasing number of companies that are doing this kind of financing" for commercial customers, says Wiser. "There's certainly a market on the residential side; the difference is how do you make a profit. They will have to bear huge transaction costs to get started."
02/26/07 - Putin orders Soviet troops to protect Iran
Virtually unknown to the American peoples themselves are that their Military Leaders plans do not call for a World based upon democratic ideals, but are instead based upon the ancient Roman model of establishing American based protectorates around the Globe to insure the survival of the United States against both Russia and China, and who their Defense Secretary recently warned the US Congress: "We need the full range of military capabilities," including ground combat forces to battle large armies and nimble special operations troops to scout out terrorist threats, Gates told the House Armed Services Committee. "We don't know what's going to develop in places like Russia and China, in North Korea, in Iran and elsewhere."
02/25/07 - Cellphone Wristwatch ships next month
 The Australian company SMS Technology plans to ship in Australia next month its $510 M300, a tri-band GSM/GPRS Bluetooth WRISTWATCH PHONE. The watch phone has a one-inch LCD, 64 MB of RAM, and plays MP3 and MPEG 4 media files. The company plans to ship the watch April 25 in Europe. The company also plans to unveil later this year a wristwatch cell phone called the M700, which syncs with desktop applications like Microsoft Outlook and other Office applications.
02/25/07 - Software Deletes Files to Defend Against Piracy
"Back in 2004, we discussed a program that deleted your home directory on entry of a pirated serial number. Now, a new developer is using the same method to protect his software, aptly named Display Eater. In the developers's own words, 'There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something. I don't know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop.'"
02/25/07 - Trapped Sun For Unlimited Hot Water
 The idea of heating water by means of solar radiation isn`t, of course, a new one. Painted black water tanks with self-made shower can be seen near almost every summer cottage. During summer these tanks provide warm shower for their owners, who haven`t got a gas or electric water heater. The drawback of such tanks is that water inside them remains quite cool even in a very hot summer day and cannot be used to heat the house. The problem is that solar radiation is very difficult to be collected and stored. Ordinary items, like water tank or a bench located at the sunny side of a pond, absorb energy of visible light, which warms them. Then they emit heat to the surrounding space almost immediately in the form of infrared radiation and convection. In order to raise effectiveness of solar radiation absorbance scientists use original selective multi-layer coating, with titanium carbide as a main component. Its external side is dark to absorb light better. But the coating hardly emits heating energy after it has been heated. Thus, given coating allows collecting solar energy of visible and near infrared spectral regions, which contain 90% of solar energy, and at the same time storing energy of the heating radiation without emitting it. Trapped heat is transmitted to water, which runs along copper pipes, embedded in aluminum profiles covered with said coating. These pipes form so-called absorber. However, water can be replaced with any other heat-carrying agent, but water is the cheapest one. Absorbers are covered with special plastic cases, which reduce heat losses due to convection. These cases are made of polycarbonate with honeycomb structure. Theses cells are hollow, that`s why the air inside them is motionless, which allows perfect storing of heat. Polycarbonate transmits light, cannot be heated and gives no shaded, thus doesn`t hamper unit operation. Thus, a single 2 sq. m collector is able to heat up to 150 liters of water up to 60-70 degrees Centigrade. Water can even be boiled, if necessary. Several units can provide hot water and heating for a small cottage. In Moscow region, known for its moderate climate, for example, these units can work in case of long warm season - early spring to late autumn. They won`t work in Russia in winter, even if their effectiveness would reach 100%. In mild climate of Europe these units will work all the year round. In a short while a house with described heating system will be built in the city of Sochi, situated in the south of Russia, in a humid subtropical zone. Its facade will be decorated with solar absorbing panels, which look very picturesque. This house will have hot water supply all the year round.
02/25/07 - Pendulum Swinging Toward Privacy
"The New York Times reports this morning on a gathering movement to remove Social Security numbers from online public records. While justifiable, given the reality of and concerns about identity theft, it also doesn't take much to imagine how such concerns will be abused by public officials who are strapped for cash and/or ethically challenged."
02/25/07 - Light Water Production Launched
 Natural light water is found in mountain rivers and melting glaciers. Scientists designed rectifying columns for water fractional distillation and derived water free from its heavy components. Light water normalizes any pathology found in an organism. It also improves body resistance to harmful effects of physical, chemical and biological origin. Clinical trials revealed light water's ability to dissolve higher concentrations of various substances and to penetrate membranes easier than ordinary water. Light water showed anti-inflammatory effect and eliminated tissue puffiness. Recently developed "Langway" water is already available at the US market. Tests proved its potential to refine cell metabolic processes through accumulating energy inside a cell. Light water is highly recommended for skin regeneration stimulation. "Langway" tones the skin, reduces its greasiness, narrows skin pores, slows ageing and helps skin to resist negative environmental impact. Light water also regulates excretion of toxins, salts of heavy metals, cellular debris and infectious germs. Another positive aspect is that such water lowers blood sugar and cholesterol, thus it can be recommended for patients, suffering from diabetes, atherosclerosis, obesity and hypertension.
02/25/07 - Fuel Efficient Five-Gear Rocket Engine Designed
 "Georgia Tech researchers have had a brilliant idea. Rocket engines used today to launch satellites run at maximum exhaust velocity until they reach orbit. For a car, this would be analog to stay all the time in first gear. So they have designed a new space rocket which works as it has a five-gear transmission system. This rocket engine uses 40 percent less fuel than current ones by running on solar power while in space and by fine-tuning exhaust velocity. But as it was designed with funds from the U.S. Air Force, military applications will be ready before civilian ones. Here is how this new rocket engine works."
02/25/07 - Boeing's New Klingon Battle Cruiser/Stealth/Blended wing
 (Courtesy of Jack Veach! - JWD) Boeing to take on Airbus with (1000 seat) giant 797 Blended Wing plane Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet that could reshape the Air travel industry for the next 100 years. The radical Blended Wing design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Center. The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747's 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide. The new 797 is in direct response to the Airbus A380 which has racked up 159 orders, but has not yet flown any passengers. Boeing decide to kill its 747X stretched super jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown by airline companies, but has continued to develop the ultimate Airbus crusher 797 for years at its Phantom Works research facility in Long Beach, Calif. The Airbus A380 has been in the works since 1999 and has accumulated $13 billion in development costs, which gives Boeing a huge advantage now that Airbus has committed to the older style tubular aircraft for decades to come. There are several big advantages to the blended wing design, the most important being the lift to drag ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50%, with overall weight reduced by 25%, making it an estimated 33% more efficient than the A380, and making Airbus's $13 billion dollar investment look pretty shaky. High body rigidity is another key factor in blended wing aircraft, It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the air frame which adds to efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 8800 nautical mile range with its 1000 passengers flying comfortably at mach .88 or 654 mph (+-1046km/h) cruising speed another advantage over the Airbus tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 mph (912 km/h) The exact date for
introduction is unclear, yet the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for civilian air supremacy.
02/25/07 - Russian Scientists Use Rubbish To Get Electric Energy
 Scientists from the Russian city of Ekaterinburg have developed an economic way of transforming heat energy to electric energy - the unit is called "Triode". Press service of the science foundation announced the efficiency coefficient of "Triode" units exceeds 80%, which saves fuel significantly. "Triode" units are able to work on any fuel types: gaseous, liquid and solid fuels, as well as on heat energy of waste gases of metallurgic furnaces. Even heat energy of dumps is suitable for said units.
02/25/07 - SparkFun for Experimenters
 This website has many novel kits for your projects at reasonable prices. Some cool items; 1) The new GPS Logger v2.4 comes with the EM406 with embedded antenna and can log up to 1gig worth of GPS coordinates. Let us know where your cat goes. / 2) 125 RF Channel nRF24L01 based transceiver is meant to couple to the 'MOD' connector on many of the new Olimex boards. While it's just like our MiRF and MiRF v2 products, it does have some good information and example code that users can utilize. / 3) 1-5WATT white, green or royal blue LEDs / 4) The SCP1000 is a MEMs based altimeter that claims to resolve down to 9cm of precision. / 5) The AD7746 capacitive touch sensor board. It's like a switch you don't even have to touch! / 6) Digitally controlled 2A switch.
02/25/07 - Robot builds itself for special tasks
 Researchers built small identical robots that can sense and latch onto each other to self-configure a giant specimen with no center of command. Looking sort of like a train or a swarm of bees, swarm-bots can assemble themselves up to any finite size, the scientists predict. “As components of many living systems, the s-bots of our system can self-organize,” co-author Roderich Groß told PhysOrg.com. “Each individual robot module, called an ‘s-bot,’ interacts only with other s-bots in its immediate vicinity. Failures that occur in one or a few s-bots are therefore unlikely to have any significant impact on the performance of the entire system. Also, the system does not require any supplementary equipment such as global communication channels. We make use of a design approach based on swarm intelligence and evolutionary computation principles, as it helps shape the control to be both reliable and effective even if large numbers of s-bots are involved.” Although a single s-bot is rather complex, the mechanisms used to create and control swarm-bots are fairly straightforward. The s-bots are 19 cm (7.5 in) high and weigh 700 g (1.5 lbs). They currently run on lithium ion batteries, with a lifetime of two hours. Around the center of an s-bot’s cylindrical body is a connection ring, which carries a claw-like gripper that can open and close around the rings of other s-bots. A loose grip enables some mobility, while a tight grip can enable lifting of the grasped s-bot.
With a camera and eight colored LEDs, the s-bots can “communicate” with each other on their status. For example, blue lights mean that an s-bot is not connected, while a red light signifies that the s-bot has gripped another s-bot (or a passive object) and tells other s-bots to approach and latch on. A mobility system of tracks and wheels, or “treels,” enables the s-bots to navigate on rough terrain, and gives them good steering abilities. “Swarm-bot combines the advantages of multi-robot and modular robot systems,” said Groß of the robot’s intelligence. “The component modules of swarm-bot, the s-bots, are fully autonomous and mobile, and they choose whether to assemble into a bigger entity to perform a task.”
02/25/07 - Nano Structure formation in Space
Studies of materials, which spent a long time - up to 1500 days - on "Mir" and "Salut" space stations showed that their surface has changed - it became covered with a layer of condensed nanostructural substance. Russian scientists have discovered such layer on various materials - aluminum foil, polymer composite materials, inorganic glass. Film's structure and composition depend on the original material. Carbon plastic materials are covered with a fine-fibered nanofilm, and materials containing aluminum foil show round coating zones. Multi-layered film was detected on the protective glass cover of solar battery parts - its particles contain mainly silicon atoms. Researchers have come up with several hypotheses of condensed nanostructural films, but still no final explanation is given to this fact.
02/25/07 - Sonic Vibrations to dispel Hail with Video
 "We're trying to see when the weather pattern is coming up, the cells that are in it, if they're dense enough to create hail,” says Diepersloot. One hail storm and John can lose an entire crop of fruit and endure a cataclysmic chain reaction. "If I lose, yeah it's my ranch. If they lose it's their livelihood,” he says. "I believe in WWI or WWII they were seeing them in the war when the Howitzers were shooting up at each other. And when they were shooting there was no hail,” he says. John wants to turn destructive hail into a gentle rain with a hail cannon. "What comes out of the top of this thing? It's a vibrational sonic boom,” he says. "When it hits the clouds it's a little bit of vibration doesn't allow the ice to form.”
02/25/07 - Homeland Security Funding 'Pork' Under Fire
In 2005, Kentucky won a $36,300 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to protect bingo halls from terrorist infiltration, and last year, the federal government granted $46,908 in homeland security funds to protect a limo and bus service that transports New Yorkers to the affluent Hamptons region in Long Island. In 2004, five days before Christmas, the government announced a $153 million homeland security grant to provide food and shelter for the homeless, and in the last fiscal year, $15.7 million in homeland security funds went for enforcement of child labor laws. While spending government money on questionable projects isn't especially unusual in Washington, some government watchdogs and other groups say homeland security money should be off limits for pork barrel spending.
02/24/07 - Innovative Fuel Cell Project
 The technology is designed for use in large fuel cells that can generate 100 kilowatts of power, which is enough for a car, a home or a remote power station. Most power generators come with an unwanted side effect: heat. For a car, excess heat is handled by running coolant from the radiator through the engine block. To date, attempts to use a similar cooling technology with most fuel cells have been unsuccessful. "Even though a fuel cell operates at a higher efficiency than a car engine, it still puts out a considerable amount of heat," said Gervasio. "For a long time people thought that a room temperature fuel cell would be ideal for automobiles, but it turns out that if you power an automobile using a fuel cell operating at room temperature, you need a radiator as big as the car." By designing a membrane that operates at high temperatures (a medium oven setting of 250 F, or 120 C), Gervasio and colleagues want to reduce both the amount of heat management needed to operate the fuel cell and its overall size, weight and costs. A hydrogen powered fuel cell has positive and negative ends just like a battery. It works by splitting hydrogen gas into its component protons and electrons at the negative electrode, which react with oxygen from air at the positive electrode. This produces electricity while leaving only water as a byproduct. The 'cheese' of the fuel cell stack, the fuel cell membrane, completes the electrical circuit by funneling protons through the membrane from one electrode to the other. Just as importantly, it also forces energized electrons to move across a circuit outside the membrane, producing an electron current to power devices such as a light bulb or electric motor. Currently, high temperature fuel cell systems use phosphoric acid in a polymer matrix as the membrane electrolyte, but the voltage generated is about half what could theoretically be achieved. One of the protic ionic liquids that Angell and his fellow researchers have experimented with has generated electric potentials approaching the theoretical limit, but has not yet been able to maintain the voltage at higher currents. One protic ionic mixture being tested uses the combination of two ammonium salts, ammonium nitrate and ammonium bisulfate. "These are some of the cheapest chemicals on the market, and they work like a charm," said Angell. "The whole point of the membrane is to get protons across as fast as possible," said Yarger. "If they are getting stuck in the membrane we want to be able to see where they are getting stuck and find a way to fix it." Yarger and his team can measure how quickly the protons move across the membrane, which will aid in membrane design. "From a practical engineering perspective you'd want the membrane to be as solid as possible, but from a proton diffusion perspective you want the membrane to be as liquid as possible," said Yarger.
02/24/07 - Global warming: It's all about energy
 But global warming is not an environmental roblem in the same sense as these others - it is an energy problem, first and foremost. Finally, after years of effort by dedicated scientists and activists like Al Gore, the issue of global warming has begun to receive the international attention it desperately needs. But while there is a growing consensus on humanity’s responsibility for global warming, policymakers have yet to come to terms with its principal cause: our unrelenting consumption of fossil fuels. In Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” it is generally characterized as an environmental problem, akin to water pollution, air pollution, pesticide abuse, and so on. This implies that it can be addressed - like those other problems - through a concerted effort to “clean up” our resource-utilization behavior, by substituting “green” products for ordinary ones, by restricting the release of toxic substances, and so on. But global warming is not an “environmental” problem in the same sense as these others - it is an energy problem, first and foremost. Almost 90% of the world’s energy is supplied through the combustion of fossil fuels, and every time we burn these fuels to make energy we release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; carbon dioxide, in turn, is the principal component of the “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) that are responsible for warming the planet. Energy use and climate change are two sides of the same coin. Many political and business leaders wish to deny this fundamental reality. They may claim to accept the conclusions of the IPCC report. They will admit that vigorous action is needed to stem the buildup of greenhouse gases. But they will nevertheless seek to shield energy policy from fundamental change. Global warming is an energy problem, and we cannot have both an increase in conventional fossil fuel use and a habitable planet. It’s one or the other. We must devise a future energy path that will meet our basic (not profligate) energy needs and also rescue the climate while there’s still time. The technology to do so is potentially available to us, but only if we make the decision to develop it swiftly and on a very large scale.
02/24/07 - Virtual Parking
A teenager who has set up a website so people can rent out their driveways or garages to commuters is expanding his business to his native south Wales. Tom Page, 18, set up youcanpark.com, which matches the spaces with motorists struggling to find parking. A trial in Bath and Bristol saw 60 residents sign up to let their unused space either five or seven days a week. Mr Page, originally from Church Village near Pontypridd, said premium spaces in Cardiff could earn up to £250 a month. "I had to park three miles away and walk into work" he said.
"I was walking back one day and saw lots of spare driveways. That was my eureka moment. "They were wasted space and I would have loved to have parked on those driveways so close to work."
Residents advertise their space on the site for free, but pay a commission. Users then search for a parking place in their chosen area, apply and, once approved, can rent it. Mr Page said: "We fully manage it like a letting company does. We collect payment and pay the person who owns the space."
02/24/07 - Use energy toward realistic problems
 I would remind these folks that, while the free exchange of ideas is something our nation champions, obsession takes over eventually and reduces their contribution to society or any type of movement. For every single Web site and blog that trumpets 9/11 conspiracy theories, there are far many more reputable sources of information that discredit those theories. The determination of these conspiracy theorists is futile and they are typically nauseating in their redundancy. After all, if the U.S. government is the secret source of all of the worlds' ills, then wouldn't it be possible that there is a conspiracy behind the conspiracy? Where do the coincidences end?
I politely suggest that these folks contribute to their local communities by volunteering and coming up with new and fresh ideas for solving the problems of Vermont. Problems at hand include, but are not limited to: lack of affordable housing and the fact that Burlington has become a New England trading post for dangerous illicit drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine. Let's put away the conspiracy books, get together and work together to solve the realistic, not speculative, problems of our state and nation.
02/24/07 - NASA procedure for nuts in space
Space station medical kits contain tranquilizers and anti-depression, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medications. Shuttle medical kits have anti-psychotic medication but not antidepressants, since they take several weeks to be effective and shuttle flights last less than two weeks. The checklist says astronauts can be restrained and then offered oral Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug used to treat agitation and mania, and Valium. If the astronaut will not cooperate, the drugs can be forcibly given with a shot to the arm. Crew members are instructed to stay with the tied-up astronaut to monitor vital signs. Space station astronauts talk weekly via long-distance hookup to a flight surgeon and every two weeks to a psychologist, so any psychiatric disorder would probably be detected before it became so serious that the astronaut had to be brought home, (NASA spokesperson James) Hartsfield said...
U.S. astronauts at the space station keep a journal for a study by a researcher. But (former NASA psychiatrist Dr. Patricia) Santy said the diaries will not help detect mental illness. "What astronaut is going to tell you they're feeling homicidal?" she asked. "They're very conscious that if they say the wrong thing they could get grounded."
02/24/07 - Islanders tap geothermal energy - the heat beneath their feet
 Geothermal energy provided by heat absorbed in the earth from the sun offers them a free, clean, renewable energy source for heating, cooling, and water heating in their homes and businesses. About 6 to 10 feet underground below the frost line, the temperature remains at an average of about 50 degrees year-round. A geothermal or ground source heat pump system uses that constant temperature to heat, or cool, a building, depending on which way the system is run. Heat is absorbed or discharged through a series of looped pipes buried in the ground nearby. The only electricity needed is for moving the heat between a building and the ground. Geothermal systems work well in below-zero temperatures, and are efficient in both northern and southern climates. The systems are clean, odorless, and use little electricity. There are no moving parts, other than the pump. Two types of geothermal systems are water-based and direct-exchange, Mr. Nelson said. The decision on which one to use depends on soil conditions, space constraints, and other properties at the site, Mr. Nelson said. Water-based systems use a black plastic pipe below the frost line containing a water/antifreeze mixture pumped by a circulator to and from the ground to the building. This heated liquid is then sent to a heat pump inside where a refrigerant loop moves the heat from the liquid into the building. In summer, this process is reversed. A direct-exchange system uses copper tubing containing refrigerant in the ground outside the building. A heat pump inside the building sends the refrigerant into the loops outside in the ground to collect or discharge the heat, then sends it back inside to heat or cool the building. About one square foot of ground heats one square foot in the house, Mr. Nelson said. The specially coated tubing, designed to last at least 50 years, was laid in a carefully configured looped grid pattern horizontally along the bottom of the pit and then buried. A geothermal system can be adapted for use in any size building, Mr. Nelson said. He estimated a five-ton system would be good for a 3,000-square-foot house, at a cost of about $25,000. "It would pay for itself in about five years, and then you'll be getting your energy for about a quarter of the cost," Mr. Nelson said.
02/24/07 - Speedheat Electric Radiant Floor Heating
 Although the concept of radiant heating has been around since Roman times, Speedheat® has taken this technology to the highest level with their energy efficient systems that are installed directly under virtually any flooring material. Speedheat's Generation4™ underfloor heating systems can help improve indoor air quality by reducing the levels of dust, pollen, mold, allergens and other pollutants spread by conventional forced air heating systems. The Department of Energy also says that radiant heating can be advantageous to people with severe allergies due to the lack of moving air.
Additionally, Speedheat's Generation4™ systems provide optimum thermal comfort at lower temperatures than conventional forced air heating systems. Lower air temperatures contain a lesser amount of moisture, which helps prevent the growth of mold and reduces the level of other air pollutants, thereby creating a healthier environment.
02/24/07 - Engine on a Chip - the Dream of the Personal Turbine
 The new turbine engine will allow the creation of smaller and more powerful batteries than anything currently in existence. It might also serve as the basis for tiny powerful motors with applications ranging from micro UAVs to children's toys. In the more distant future huge arrays of hydrogen fueled millimeter turbine engines could even be the basis for clean, quiet and cost effective power plants. The millimeter turbine technology is based on semiconductor manufacturing techniques. This enables the fabrication of complex micro parts and assemblies - devices with dimensions in the 1-10,000 micron size range with submicron precision. Such parts are produced with photolithographically-defined features and many can be made simultaneously, offering the promise of low production costs in large-scale production. The millimeter size turbine has many possible applications ranging from military to civilian and industrial. The millimeter turbine project in MIT is currently funded by the U.S. military which sees a great potential for this upcoming technology. Anything from small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to a soldier night scope can be operated by a tiny refuelable turbine powered by a small protected hydrogen fuel cartridge. Another interesting possible use of the millimeter turbine engine is the exoskeleton, a technology currently under development which will enable future soldiers to carry tremendous weights across great distances with little effort. On the commercial market, millimeter engines could also have a large variety of applications ranging from refuelable batteries for consumer products such as laptops, digital cameras and cell phones, to cheap micro engines which could be used for agriculture, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS), sensors and even toys.
02/24/07 - Kinetic powered mobile phone patented
 While most handset manufacturers are concentrating on improving battery life by creating more efficient versions of the current battery cells an inventor has been thinking outside the box and has patented a phone powered by kinetic energy. Famous devices including the Everlite Kinetic Torch and Seiko Kinetic wristwatch have attracted attention in the past but this is the first time we have seen the technology considered for a mobile phone. The Everlite torch needs just a 30 second shaking to give 1 hours light. The kinetic technology powers the phone and charges the battery while the phone is being kept moving so an office worker wouldn't get much power during the day. We can see manual workers in the developing world being one of the main target markets for this sort of invention.
02/24/07 - Making Martial Law easier
 A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law. The provision, signed into law in October, weakens two obscure but important bulwarks of liberty. One is the doctrine that bars military forces, including a federalized National Guard, from engaging in law enforcement. Called posse comitatus, it was enshrined in law after the Civil War to preserve the line between civil government and the military. The other is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which provides the major exemptions to posse comitatus. It essentially limits a president’s use of the military in law enforcement to putting down lawlessness, insurrection and rebellion, where a state is violating federal law or depriving people of constitutional rights. The newly enacted provisions upset this careful balance. They shift the focus from making sure that federal laws are enforced to restoring public order. Beyond cases of actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or to any “other condition.” These new presidential powers were slipped into the law without hearings or public debate. The president made no mention of the changes when he signed the measure, and neither the White House nor Congress consulted in advance with the nation’s governors. There is a bipartisan bill, introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Christopher Bond, Republican of Missouri, and backed unanimously by the nation’s governors, that would repeal the stealthy revisions. Congress should pass it. If changes of this kind are proposed in the future, they must get a full and open debate.
02/24/07 - Psychics 'hired to find Bin Laden'
 Psychics were recruited by the Ministry of Defence to locate Osama Bin Laden's secret lair, it was claimed yesterday. Newly declassified documents revealed that the MoD conducted an experiment to see if volunteers could 'see' objects hidden inside an envelope. However, after running up a bill of £18,000 of taxpayers' money, defence chiefs concluded there was 'little value' in using psychic powers in the defence of the nation and the research was taken no further. The MoD tried to recruit 12 'known' psychics who advertised their abilities on the Internet, but when they all refused they were forced to use 'novice' volunteers. The report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shows 28 per cent of those tested managed to guess the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife, Mother Teresa and an 'Asian individual'. But most subjects, who were holed up in a secret location for the study, were hopelessly off the mark. One even fell asleep while he tried to focus on the envelope's content.
02/24/07 - Canada refuses entry to US citizens for minor US offenses
Some minor offenses were over 20 years old. One was possibly refused entry for having a medical marijuana card. All a result of US and Canada sharing criminal data. ... The Smart Border Action Plan, as it is known, combines Canadian intelligence with extensive U.S. Homeland Security information. The partnership began in 2002, but it wasn't until recently that the system was refined. "They can call up anything that your state trooper in Iowa can,'' ... "As Canadians and Americans have begun cooperating, all those indiscretions from the '60s are going to come back and haunt us.'' ... if you must travel to Canada, you should apply for "a Minister's Approval of Rehabilitation" to wipe the record clear. Oh, and by the way, ... it is just a matter of time before agreements are signed with governments in destinations like Japan, Indonesia and Europe.
02/23/07 - Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half
 Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels. Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day - not so far off - when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid. The secret? Mr Sethi lovingly cradles a piece of dark polymer foil, as thin a sheet of paper. It is 200 times lighter than the normal glass-based solar materials, which require expensive substrates and roof support. Indeed, it is so light it can be stuck to the sides of buildings. Rather than being manufactured laboriously piece by piece, it can be mass-produced in cheap rolls like packaging - in any colour. Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade. It is based on a CIGS (CuInGaSe2) semiconductor compound that absorbs light by freeing electrons. This is then embedded on the polymer base. It will be ready commercially in late 2009. "It'll even work on a cold, grey, cloudy day in England, which still produces 25pc to 30pc of the optimal light level. That is enough, if you cover half the roof," he said. His ultra-light technology, based on a copper indium compound, can power mobile phones and laptop computers with a sliver of foil. Cell conversion efficiency and economies of scale are galloping ahead so fast that the cost will be down to 70 US cents by 2010, with a target of 30 or 40 cents in a decade. "We think solar power can provide 20pc of all the incremental energy needed worldwide by 2040," he said.
02/23/07 - Researchers make hydrogen from waste
 Researchers have found that waste-water treatment facilities such as Toronto's Ashbridges Bay plant could produce significant amounts of hydrogen by fermenting dried-sludge pellets in a mixture of "primary" sludge - an organic cocktail of feces, rotting fruits and vegetables, textiles and paper. The idea of producing hydrogen from municipal waste water isn't new, but controlling the amount of hydrogen produced has proven tricky. One problem is that sludge contains bacteria that produce hydrogen and bacteria that consume it, so the net yield tends to be much lower than its potential. "In order to maximize production you need to kill all micro-organisms that consume hydrogen," said Youssouf Kalogo, a researcher at Hamilton-based environmental consulting firm Hydromantis Inc. Doing this, however, means boiling the sludge - an energy-intensive process that proves uneconomic. Kalogo, along with former University of Toronto professor David Bagley, who now teaches civil engineering at the University of Wyoming, realized that another option was to spike the primary sludge with dried sludge pellets. It turns out that the process of making the sludge pellets kills off the bad microbes and preserves the good ones. The two scientists conducted an experiment, the results of which will soon be published in the peer-reviewed journal Bioresource Technology, which showed that pellets obtained from Ashbridges Bay were an inexpensive, practical, and renewable source of microbes for generating hydrogen from sludge. "This is general research that can be applied to any waste-water treatment plant, and it's a totally new approach," Kalogo told the Toronto Star. "We know that the pellets already exist in plants, so why can't we use the pellets directly as a source of micro-organisms?" The hydrogen that's produced could be used in a fuel cell to produce electricity and heat for the treatment facility, with any surplus power being sold back into the grid. "These municipalities have to manage the solids they're producing, and this is a very good way of doing it."
02/23/07 - Russian Atmospheric Tornado based on Schauberger
 Referring to the 02/19/07 post about the Atmospheric Vortex Engine, reader Harlow Short sent this Russian URL which I had read long ago and didn't recall for this. Check it out as it has many interesting items about Victor Schauberger's research. (Thanks Harlow!) / From the site; The author of the article gives a brief description of the real design of aircraft engine. Probably, this design is not similar to Schauberger's one. However the very appearance of some ideas is rather interesting. Different people in different places and time come to the same conclusions. Whether people think in a common way, or Nature laws are the same. Could you believe that the author of the article has never read or heard about Schauberger's works (I mean his engine, which operates on environment energy and has levitation properties)? But by accident (thanks to Internet) when come upon the description of designs, I was surprised to find so much in common between Shauberger's ideas and my suppositions.
02/23/07 - Capturing CO2 with E. coli enzymes
 A Quebec City-based company called CO2 Solution has developed a bioreactor for capturing CO2 from power plants and industrial facilities. At the heart of the reactor is an enzyme -- extracted from genetically engineered E. coli but also present in all animals -- that can absorb CO2 and convert it into bicarbonate. The bicarbonate-rich solution is then removed and the bicarbonate ions can be extracted for making everything from baking powder (sodium bicarbonate) to calcium carbonate (limestone). Alternatively, concentrated CO2 can be taken out of the solution and pumped into geological storage.
02/23/07 - Electromagnetic Recycler runs many days
 Notice of this came from the discussion list at overunity.com. Others seem to have replicated it and had similar results. / "The old 7 reed relay circut worked exactly as described. EXACTLY. only problem was relays welding shut and short circuiting, Igors 4pole relay should not do that." / "R1 and R1 are resistors of equal value. A printer port controls the relays (1-7) and the step time is 2 milliseconds. One cycle is ABCBCB and repeat. Current is drained from the battery for 2 milliseconds every 12 milliseconds. When small light bulbs are used to replace R1 and R2, R2 glowed for a few seconds as R1 lit up. It then ran with R1 bright and R2 dark. It ran until it stopped over a period of many days. Question: How can R1 become warm while R2 stays cool?"
02/23/07 - Casimir Effect affected by heat as predicted
 For the first time, a group led by Nobel laureate Eric Cornell at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado in Boulder has confirmed a 1955 prediction, by physicist Evgeny Lifschitz, that temperature affects the Casimir force, the attraction between two objects when they come to within 5 millionths of a meter (approximately 1/5,000 of an inch) of each other or less. These efforts heighten the understanding of the force and enable future experiments to better account for its effects. The Colorado group sent ultracold rubidium atoms to within a few microns of a glass surface. Doubling the temperature of the glass to 600 degrees Kelvin while keeping the surroundings near room temperature caused the glass to increase its attractive force threefold, confirming theoretical predictions recently made by the group's theorist co-authors in Trento, Italy. What was happening here? The Casimir force arises from effects of the vacuum (empty space). According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum contains fleeting electromagnetic waves, in turn consisting of electric and magnetic fields. The electric fields can slightly rearrange the charge in atoms. Such "polarized" atoms can then feel a force from an electric field. The vacuum's electric fields are altered by the presence of the glass, creating a region of maximum electric field that attracts the atoms. In addition, heat inside the glass also drives the fleeting electromagnetic waves, some of which leak onto the surface as "evanescent waves." These evanescent waves have a maximum electric field on the surface and further attract the atoms. Electromagnetic waves from heat in the rest of the environment would usually cancel out the thermal attraction from the glass surface. However, dialing up the temperature on the glass tilts the playing field in favor of glass's thermal force and heightens the attraction between the wall and the atoms.
02/23/07 - Bacteria Could Steady Buildings Against Earthquakes
Soil bacteria could be used to help steady buildings against earthquakes, according to researchers at UC Davis. The microbes can literally convert loose, sandy soil into rock. When a major earthquake strikes, deep, sandy soils can turn to liquid, with disastrous consequences for buildings sitting on them. Currently, civil engineers can inject chemicals into the soil to bind loose grains together. But these epoxy chemicals may have toxic effects on soil and water, said Jason DeJong, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis. The new process, so far tested only at a laboratory scale, takes advantage of a natural soil bacterium, Bacillus pasteurii. The microbe causes calcite (calcium carbonate) to be deposited around sand grains, cementing them together. By injecting bacterial cultures, additional nutrients and oxygen, DeJong and his colleagues found that they could turn loose, liquefiable sand into a solid cylinder. "Starting from a sand pile, you turn it back into sandstone," DeJong said.
02/23/07 - LapDawg: cool, in-bed laptop holder
 This portable laptop desk is the most comfortable way I've found to use a laptop in bed. It's a bit pricey compared to the homemade stuff you can find online, but less expensive than similar products like the LapGenie and Laidback, which can go for up to $150. The LapDawg, which is lighter than the Laidback, is also made of wood, which makes it human friendly and gives it a warm touch. It's very simple to put together and fits my 17" notebook perfectly. LapDawg allows you to recline. Interacting with your laptop at a comfortable typing angle, right in front of you without feeling the weight and heat you would otherwise feel on your lap is very refreshing. The LapDawg is not the perfect travel solution, but if you have a big enough bag, it doesn't take up too much space and it weighs less than two pounds. Being able to lie flat on my back and use a laptop comfortably is worth making room.
02/23/07 - A Unique Perspective on a 'Game-Related' Tragedy
"Penny Arcade has a letter from the stepmother of one of the kids who was recently charged with killing a homeless man. Her article is an extremely sobering tale of the problems dealing with troubled teen. She explains how, in this situation, the parents did everything they possibly could. And, in a refreshing twist, she absolves the games industry of any blame for the tragedy these kids perpetrated. From her missive: 'Video games DID NOT make this kid who he was, and it's unfortunate that the correlation is there. The thing that really gets me with this whole thing is that the kid knows full well that by equating what he's done to a video game, that he will generate controversy and media coverage. It makes me sick that the media is jumping all over this, because that is exactly the result that he wants. The only good thing (if there is such a thing) that has come out of this whole ordeal is that the kid is behind bars. That is exactly where he needs to be.'"
02/23/07 - Physics Crackpottery: Electromagnetic Gravity
 From the blazelabs.com site; This paper aims at providing a satisfying theory for the yet unkown mechanism for gravity. High frequency electromagnetic waves sourced by the fixed energetic core of the universe, referred to as Kolob, sometimes also referred to as zero point energy, is predicted from a steady state universe in oscillatory motion and pervades all space. Radiation pressure (Poynting vector) imbalance of such highly penetrating extragalactic incoming radiation, acting through all matter is held responsible for pushing matter together. / What Engineer Borg is on about is his revolution of physics. The central idea of his theory is that relativity is wrong - sort of. That is, on the one hand, he frequently cites relativistic effects as being valid and correct; but on the other hand, the fundamental idea of his theory is that all motion in the universe consists of orbits within orbits within orbits, all eventually centered on a fixed, unmoving body at the exact center of the universe. This is, of course, fundamentally gibberish... Relativity is fundamentally based, mathematically, on a particular kind of symmetry - and what that symmetry means is there is no preferred frame of reference. Take that away, and relativity falls apart. But Engineer Borg doesn't let that concern him. After all, he's got a whole new version of physics, and so he probably has his own version of relativity too.
02/23/07 - Need Help finding a book?
 Are you looking for a book but can't remember the title or author? Founded by former Google Answers Researcher "Juggler," Whatsthatbook.com is a FREE service that can help you find your book! Categories; # Children's Books Juvenile fiction and non-fiction, teens, etc. # Fiction General fiction, literature, mystery, etc. # Non-fiction Health, business, history, cooking, science, reference, etc. # Science Fiction & Fantasy Sci-Fi and fantasy literature.
02/23/07 - Pay-per-use electricity in Dallas/Fort-Worth airport
 Yesterday on a stop-over at Dallas/Fort-Worth airport, I spotted these $2-per-use electrical outlets aimed at business travellers who wanted to get some electricity for their laptops. I found non-paying outlets throughout the airport, but wasn't sure if security would try to shut me down if I plugged into them (I was on the run and didn't get to take out my computer and check). DFW is a hub for people flying cross-country, but it's not the only one. Free electricity and a laptop-friendly atmosphere are a good reason to choose to fly through Chicago's O'Hare instead of Dallas -- though Dallas does have a killer BBQ restaurant that beats the food court in Chicago hands-down.
02/22/07 - Bubble Fusion Vindicated
 Reports that the bubble had burst for a form of cheap, table-top nuclear fusion may have been premature. Rusi Taleyarkhan, the physicist at the centre of a furore surrounding so-called bubble fusion, was last week cleared of scientific misconduct. In 2002, Taleyarkhan, then at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and now at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, published a paper in Science claiming that bombarding a solvent with neutrons and sound waves produced tiny bubbles that triggered nuclear fusion reactions. Then in March 2006, Purdue began investigating allegations of misconduct against Taleyarkhan, amid accusations that the evidence of fusion he reported was actually caused by a radioactive isotope of californium. However, on 7 February, Purdue absolved Taleyarkhan's group of any misconduct. The verdict follows independent verification of Taleyarkhan's results by Edward Forringer of LeTourneau University in Texas and his colleagues last November (Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, vol 95, p 736).
02/22/07 - If Cells Renew, how Old am I? - Age of Body Parts
 (Some of the most advanced work on formation and rejuvenation of body parts as a result of 'Fields of Life', was done by Dr. Harold Saxton Burr and Leonard Ravitz. Dr. Robert Becker has taken on part of the work in modern times. - JWD) About a century ago, scientists discovered that most of our brain cells formed during fetal development persist throughout life. But this discovery stimulated other scientists to discover the age of cells throughout the human body. If we look at the adult human body at age 40 from head to toe, the list goes something like this: * Brain cells of the cerebral cortex (the grey matter) are with you from birth. * Brain cells of the visual cortex (the array of cells in the front of the brain used for vision) are with you from birth. * Brain cells of the cerebellum (the structures at the base of the brain) are slightly younger than you are. * Intercostal muscle cells are about 15.1 years old. * Gut lining cells are about 5 days old. * Gut cells other than the lining are about 15.9 years old. * Skin cells are about 14 days old. * Red blood cells are about 120 days old. * Bone cells are about 10 years old. We do not know precisely the average ages of eye-lens cells, heart cells, liver cells, pancreas cells, fat cells, and bone marrow cells.
02/22/07 - Biologically Inspired Vision Systems
 A computer model of the brain has learned to detect and classify objects. Neuroscientists at MIT have developed a computer model that mimics the human vision system to accurately detect and recognize objects in a busy street scene, such as cars and motorcycles. Such biologically inspired vision systems could soon be used in surveillance systems, or in smart sensors that can warn drivers of pedestrians and other obstacles. "You want to be able to recognize an object anywhere in the field of vision, irrespective of where it is and irrespective of its size," says Serre. Yet if you analyze images just by their patterns of light and dark pixels, then two portrait images of different people can end up looking more similar than two images of the same person taken from different angles. The most effective method for getting around such problems is to train a learning algorithm on a set of images and allow it to extract the features they have in common; two wheels aligned with the road could signal a car, for example. The computer model is comprised of 10 million computational units, each designed to behave like clusters of neurons in the visual cortex. Just as in the cortex, the clusters are organized into layers. When the model first learns to "see," some of the cell-like units extract rudimentary features from the scene, such as oriented edges, by analyzing very small groups of pixels. "These neurons are typically like pinholes that look at a small portion of the visual field," says Serre. More-complex units are able to take in a larger portion of the image and recognize features regardless of their size or position. For example, if the simple units detect vertical and horizontal edges, a more complex unit could use that information to detect a corner. With each successive layer, increasingly complex features are extracted from the image. So are relationships between features, such as the distance between two parts of an object or the different angles at which the two parts are oriented. This information allows the system to recognize the same object at different angles.
02/22/07 - Lab-grown ligaments may help injured sports stars
 US scientists bio-engineered anterior cruciate ligaments and used them to repair knee joints in rabbits. Eventually, the researchers hope to treat humans who suffer ruptured ligaments using the technique. The anterior cruciate ligament sits behind the kneecap and can tear when placed under excessive strain, making it a common sports injury. Each year, an estimated 200,000 people suffer this type of injury in the US alone. Since the ligament heals poorly on its own, patients sometimes receive ligament transplants from other parts of their own body or from donors. But only so much can be taken without damaging other joints and donated ligaments are in limited supply. Cato Laurencin at the University of Virginia, US, and colleagues grew ligament tissue after first weaving together strands of biodegradable polyester using a machine originally designed for textile production. This material, called polylactide, naturally dissolves in the body over time. Laurencin's team seeded the woven polylactide structure with cells taken from rabbits' anterior cruciate ligaments and cultured them in a dish for two days. Finally, they surgically replaced whole anterior cruciate ligaments in another group of rabbits with the polylactide scaffold material, attaching it to the joint in the same way as a normal ligament. Twenty-four hours later, the rabbits could already bear their own weight on their knees, and showed fairly normal mobility. After 12 weeks, researchers removed the engineered structure from the animals' knees for further testing. They found that it could withstand 50% more force than normal transplant tissue can withstand after 30 weeks. This is nevertheless only about one-third as strong as a normal, healthy rabbit ligament.
02/22/07 - Video - Monkey feeds self with brain-controlled robot arm
 (This might seem cruel but I think its a fairly benign way to 'induce' the monkey to learn to operate the arm if it wants to be fed, within limits of course. - JWD) Here's a video of a monkey controlling a robotic arm with its brain. It uses the arm to feed itself. The idea is cool and has a lot of potential for disabled people but the video is disturbing, because the monkey is locked in a plastic box.
02/22/07 - Paralyzing Stroboscopic Floodlight
 (We used to hunt rabbits at night and they would freeze when a bright light was shone on them, as do deer. It didn't last but a few seconds but enough time to shoot them. - JWD) The US Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) plans to demonstrate the use of a 7.5 million candlepower strobe floodlight system mounted on board an unmanned air vehicle as a non-lethal crowd-control system. The project will see a Peak Beam Systems searchlight adapted to operate as a strobe capable of inducing physical effects, such as short-term paralysis, in humans. The system uses a xenon-based searchlight that "can be pulsed with a unique modulation [strobe] effect that results in immobilisation to those within the beam. This effort will transition the lamp from a handheld/vehicle mounted system to an airborne platform.
02/22/07 - Hypnotizing Animals
 (I note this with my parrot when I give him no way out, he just freezes and won't move until I urge him to go. - JWD) Q. Can animals be hypnotized? - A. "Tonic immobility" is the term for this, where you rub the abdomen of a rabbit or hold a chicken on its back and cover its eyes for a minute, and then it will lie still for some time, says Cornell animal behavior veterinarian Katherine Houpt. Or you can swing the chicken back and forth with its head beneath its wing. Other techniques seem to bring on a trance-like state, such as stroking the tentacles of an octopus or the stomach of an alligator or crocodile -- if you have the courage, adds University of Sydney, New South Wales, veterinary anatomist Michael Bryden. "In each case, the animal might just lie motionless, and permit simple procedures to be done on it." This has also been used by fishermen, who grab the tip of a shark's tail and bend it over, rendering the accidentally netted catch "immediately unresponsive, almost catatonic for 30-90 seconds," reports Diver magazine. The hook can then be removed and the shark let free -- and saved. "I've observed alpacas and llamas 'calmed' into a state of relaxation by gently rubbing the upper gum just beneath the cleft in the upper lip. The animals stop resisting being held, and stop vocalizing. / Hypnotizing Chickens - It has been demonstrated that chickens can be hypnotized by holding them still and drawing a chalk line on the ground away from the beak. One explanation given (Experimentum mirabile de imaginatione gallinae Kircher) for this was that the birds imagined that they imagined themselves to be held fast by the chalk line, as by an unbreakable fetter.
The chalk line has subsequently been found to be totally unnecessary. The best way to hypnotize a chicken is to hold it firmly on its side on a flat surface for around thirty seconds. Although the bird will struggle initially, it will suddenly become completely still, the muscles may become stiff and assume a waxy flexibility - remaining in any position you care to place them. This immobility can last from one minute to up to two or more hours with the bird lying inert, until suddenly it will give a few little squawking sounds before rising to its feet and running away. H B Gibson, in his book Hypnosis - its Nature and Therapeutic Uses - states that the record period for a chicken remaining in hypnosis is 3 hours 47 minutes. When the chicken's eyes are closed it is likely to remain hypnotized for a longer time length.
02/22/07 - Is the moon really moving away from the earth?
 It's counterintuitive, but the moon's orbit is getting larger. It's not a big effect -- about 1.5 inches per year (and the moon's orbit has a radius of 239,000 miles) -- but it's definitely there! The moon and the earth are not quite perfectly synchronized as they turn, and the effect of the moon going around the earth making these tides is a sort of "kneading" of the earth, as if it were a big ball of dough. This kneading reduces the earth rotation speed. (A similar kneading of the moon is what caused the moon to end up -- more or less -- always having the same side facing us.) Now for the trickiest part. As the earth's spin slows down, the moon has to move outward to keep something called "angular momentum" constant. We have a similar situation with a twirling skater who slows herself down by putting her arms out. If you think of the moon here as the skater's hands and the earth as her body you get the idea. Where does the energy come from to push the moon outward? Well, the earth is slowing down so it's losing energy. Some of the energy lost goes into heat (friction from the "kneading") and some goes into pushing the moon away.
02/22/07 - Video - All's Fair at the Fair
 Max Fleischer's 1938 cartoon "All's Fair at the Fair" is a retro-futuristic look at the marvels coming to the 1939 New York World's Fair (home of the Futurama, an enormous ride-through diorama of a futuristic city with armchair ride-vehicles). The Fleischer toon shows us the fair through the eyes of a hayseed couple -- one is literally chewing on a stalk of the stuff -- and it has moments of genuine physical mixed in with the funny-strange look at the future past.
02/22/07 - Anti-Terror cases falsely inflated
 Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday. Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated. Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005 were accurate, the audit found. Responding, a Justice spokesman pointed to figures showing that prosecutors in the department's headquarters for the most part either accurately or underreported their data - underscoring what he called efforts to avoid pumping up federal terror statistics. The numbers, used to monitor the department's progress in battling terrorists, are reported to Congress and the public and help, in part, shape the department's budget. Much of the problem stemmed from how that office defines anti-terrorism cases. A November 2001 federal crackdown on security breaches at airports, for example, yielded arrests on immigration and false document charges, but no evidence of terrorist activity. Nonetheless, the attorneys' office lumped them in with other anti-terror cases since they were investigated by federal Joint Terrorism Task Forces or with other counterterror measures. Other examples, according to the audit, included: _Charges against a marriage-broker for being paid to arrange six fraudulent marriages between Tunisians and U.S. citizens. _Prosecution of a Mexican citizen who falsely identified himself as another person in a passport application. _Charges against a suspect for dealing firearms without a license. The prosecutor handling the case told auditors it should not have been labeled as anti-terrorism. "We do not agree that law enforcement efforts such as these should be counted as anti-terrorism," the audit concluded. Even if those cases were not taken into account, the audit said, the U.S. attorneys' office had overstated statistics in all other categories it reported.
02/22/07 - Fear Mongering Red Cross
 The bulletin board above is legit, and documents one of a number of billboard ads for the Greater Buffalo, NY chapter of the American Red Cross. What's creepy about the ad campaign is that they've pegged the date of a future "terrorist attack" at November 9th 2009, and predicted that the incident will be a bio-chemical attack.
02/22/07 - Sexlessness - a good or bad thing?
 (I've noticed over the years that many people who are nervous, uptight, anal retentive and/or sickly, usually don't have sexual relations or much, if any physical contact with others. Reich and his 'orgonotic theory' is right on the money about sex and health, both physical and mental. One guy here told me its been 4 years since he has had sex and he is nervous, never content with anything and overly preoccupied with his diet. Just bounces around like an untethered balloon. - JWD) Dr. Kunio Kitamura: I doubt whether the word "sexless" was publicly aired as much as it was during the past year. It was written up in newspapers and magazines and talked about on radio and TV. I can't recall how many times I was asked to define sexlessness: a lack of consensual intercourse or sexual activity (kissing, petting or lying naked in bed) for at least one month without a special reason for not doing so. In 2001, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper polled 1,000 couples and found 28 percent were sexless. When we surveyed couples in 2004 as part of our research on the health and labor situation, we found 32 percent of couples were sexless. In December last year, a men's magazine discovered that 40 percent of Japanese couples were not having sex. Sexlessness is on the rise and the most frightening thing is the trend is not just confined to married couples. Putting things simply, I'd hazard a guess to say the problem is the rapid decline in the ability to communicate between the sexes. When you consider the wooing process involved in talking somebody into the sack, sex clearly takes a |
