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January 2006 Plenum News 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 01/31/06 - Wyoming cloud seeding verification experiment begins A five-year, $8.8 million pilot project to examine whether seeding clouds with silver iodide produces a measurable increase in snowfall over Wyoming's Medicine Bow, Sierra Madre, and Wind River mountain ranges starts this month with intensive observations of Wyoming snow clouds. Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) designed the experiment to evaluate a technique that has been mired in controversy for decades. Microwave radiometers are capturing variations in snow-producing clouds over the target areas, including amounts and duration of water vapor and liquid water in the clouds. Instruments at selected sites are tracking precipitation rates, common meteorological variables, background air quality, and ecosystem characteristics. NCAR's partners in the observations include the University of Wyoming, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, the Desert Research Institute, and the U.S. Forest Service. Weather Modification, Inc., a private company based in Fargo, North Dakota, has been contracted to seed the target area's snow clouds. WMI is also providing a research aircraft and several ground-based instruments for this year's observations. Cloud seeding is big business. Western states spend millions each year seeding clouds with silver iodide to increase snow or rain, but studies to evaluate the method's effectiveness, at least on a large scale, have been inconclusive. The Wyoming Water Development Commission (WWDC) has funded the Wyoming Weather Modification Pilot Program to resolve whether cloud-seeding might provide Wyoming users with a low-cost source of fresh water. Even a modest 10% increase in snowpack in the project's targeted areas would provide between 130,000 and 260,000 acre-feet of water in additional runoff each spring, according to a WWDC report. Conservative estimates value the extra water between $2.4 and $4.9 million. These numbers do not include values for generating more hydroelectric power, enhancing recreation and tourism, improving water quality, and other environmental benefits. At $6.60 to $13.00 per acre-foot, the technique would be a bargain; water from Wyoming's new High Savery Dam runs $158.93 per acre-foot, according to the WWDC. "People are sometimes concerned about changing what they think is natural weather," says NCAR project scientist Dan Breed, "but studies have shown that in some areas we're already affecting clouds unintentionally through increases in airborne particulates and other pollution. If cloud seeding is shown to work," he adds, "it may help counteract the effects of air pollution as well as ease those of natural drought cycles." "The challenge is to determine whether snowfall levels would have occurred anyway, or clearly resulted from the seeding," says NCAR scientist Roelof Bruintjes. Even a 10% increase would fall within the range of natural variability of a single storm or a whole season, he adds. "To attribute cause, we need this kind of careful, objective analysis independent of the operations." 01/31/06 - Ethanol more efficient than we think Ethanol fuel is more energy-efficient than some experts had realised and it is time to start developing it as an alternative to fossil fuels, researchers say. Farrell says it is possible to put ethanol in a car and run it, but making ethanol using current technology is expensive and contributes to pollution and greenhouse gases. "[The environmental cost] comes entirely from making fertiliser, running the tractors over the farm and operating the biorefinery," Farrell says. Better methods now being investigated would use the woody parts of plants, using what is known as cellulosic technology to break down the tough fibres. "Ethanol can be, if it's made the right way with cellulosic technology, a really good fuel," says Farrell, an assistant professor of energy and resources. "At the moment, cellulosic technology is just too expensive. If that changes, and the technology is developing rapidly, then we might see cellulosic technology enter the commercial market within five years." A new facility would make a range of fuels, foods, chemicals, animal feeds, materials, heat and power. It would use biomass, a collection of renewable plant matter and biological material such as trees, grasses and agricultural crops. "We're looking at a future for biomass where we use the entire plant and produce a range of different materials from it," says Dr Charlotte Williams of Imperial's chemistry department. "Before we freeze in the dark, we must prepare to make the transition from nonrenewable carbon resources to renewable bioresources," her team writes. An oil industry expert says it is possible. "Credible studies show that with plausible technology developments, biofuels could supply some 30% of global demand in an environmentally responsible manner without affecting food production," says Professor Steven Koonin, chief scientist for BP in London, writes in a commentary. "To realise that goal, so-called advanced biofuels must be developed from dedicated energy crops, separately and distinctly from food." 01/31/06 - Clean water from Diesel Exhaust Converting Tailpipes into Water Fountains. Modified military Humvees, now in testing, turn diesel exhaust into fresh drinking water for soldiers. If the U.S. Army's LATEST field tests pan out, its future transport vehicle will be almost as self-sustaining as a space station, enabling soldiers to survive for at least three days without supply-line support. One crucial tactical advantage over an entrenched enemy would be to make drinking water out of engine exhaust. Connecticut-based Hamilton Sundstrand, manufacturer of NASA life-support systems, along with Kentucky-based company LexCarb, has just outfitted two Humvees with 500 pounds of specialized machinery that not only recovers the water vapor naturally produced as a combustion waste product, but also makes it as clean as the water you draw from your tap. At the core is a heavy-duty carbon filter bed, engineered by LexCarb, that filters toxins from the exhaust stream and delivers condensed water vapor to a five-gallon water tank at the truck's rear. 01/31/06 - Vets & Acupuncuture The ancient Chinese art of inserting fine needles into the skin at specific points to cure ailments or ease pain by stimulating "qi" (pronounced 'chee'), or vital energy, has been used on humans for 2,000 years. Now vets are catching on and using acupuncture to handle an array of ailments, from paralysis to skin disease, tumors to arthritis -- call it a new trick to treat old dogs. And it doesn't stop with acupuncture, either. At the Tin Hau Pet Hospital, veterinarian Grace Li treats her 14-year-old cocker spaniel, Lui Lui, with acupuncture for a skin disease described in traditional Chinese medicine parlance as an excess of "damp heat." In China, old charts showing acupuncture points on horses and camels is considered proof that the art was used on animals in ancient times, but not dogs or cats. A small handful of veterinarian acupuncturists are introducing it to Hong Kong, where people widely use Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, and there are literally thousands of clinics. "They take herbs and they are having acupuncture all along, but they can never connect the two things together, acupuncture and pets," Li said. Acupuncture for pets, like acupuncture for people, has its detractors who, at the extreme, consider it quackery despite studies that show it can be effective. Practitioners and pet owners who've tried it know better. Chan recalls her best success story to date, an 11-year-old Pekinese called Luen Mo, or "Curly Hair." In March, Luen Mo's owner brought him in for acupuncture as a last resort when Western vet medicine couldn't help after he became completely paralyzed after falling off a couch. For weeks, Chan stuck needles into the small pooch, and Luen Mo made gradual progress. First, he could move a bit. Then, he could scratch his ears. Finally, on June 25, the dog walked into the clinic for the first time. "It's amazing what needles can do," she said. "Seeing is believing." 01/31/06 - Cymatics demonstrated in Nano Research New experiments using 2-dimensional blupeprints, have produced material assemblies into Novel 3-dimensional nanostructures. An international team of scientists affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center has coaxed a self-assembling material into forming never-before-seen, three-dimensional nanoscale structures, with potential applications ranging from catalysis and chemical separation to semiconductor manufacturing. The result, published in the Jan. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters, demonstrates a promising strategy for building complex, 3-D nanostructures by using standard tools of the semiconductor industry, says Nealey. Those tools, particularly lithography, already allow the making of devices with dimensions substantially smaller than 100 nanometers, or a hundred-thousandth of a centimeter. But photolithography is also limited, he says, because as practiced today it is essentially a two-dimensional process. "What we've done by using self-assembling block copolymers is to extend photolithography to three dimensions," says Nealey. "And the structures we've fabricated are completely different from the same block copolymer materials in the bulk." Also important to manufacturing, the new 3-D nanostructures are stable, well defined and nearly defect-free over large areas. They also align perfectly with the underlying lithographic pattern-a key requirement for any device or application based on them. The specific structures the team produced were composed of two tightly interwoven, yet completely independent, networks of channels and passages-all at the scale of atoms. "What we have are two interpenetrating meshes, both of which are completely continuous. And yet you could travel through one from end to end without ever entering the other," says de Pablo. A gas, for example, might be introduced through the openings to react with a catalyst deposited on the walls of the network. Nanoscale materials have massive surface areas compared to their volumes; thus, catalysis would be extremely efficient. Another use would be chemical separation of substances of different sizes. "This process gives us exquisite control over the dimensions of pores," says de Pablo. "So, we could easily make membranes that are permeable to substances smaller than the length scale of the material." The researchers study specific block copolymers consisting of long chains of two different types of molecules, which alternate with each other in blocks. At high temperature, block copolymers are molten and randomly mixed. But when cooled down, the material spontaneously assembles into alternating layers of molecules. 01/31/06 - Excess Focus on Hydrogen reduces funding for Other Near Term Energy Research Experts say too much funding is going into hydrogen at the expense of near-term technologies. Moniz says there "is a huge amount" of money going into research on new technologies, especially for transportation, that use hydrogen for fuel. Yet such hydrogen technology "is a very long way into the future, if ever, whereas lots of other kinds of work that could have very profound impacts in the shorter term are not being funded." In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush proposed $1.2 billion for hydrogen research. According to Moniz, shorter-term technologies that deserve more funding include advanced internal combustion engines and new techniques for burning fossil fuels more cleanly in power plants. Advanced engines could improve fuel efficiency by 15-20%, he says, significantly easing the demand for oil, while simultaneously decreasing emissions. One promising candidate is homogeneous charge compression ignition, known as HCCI, a technology that uses sophisticated controls to combine the best elements of diesel and gasoline engines. Since the advanced controls make the engines tunable for running on different fuels, they could further decrease dependence on oil by burning ethanol, biodiesel, or even hydrogen. Green traces the funding woes back to the late 1990s, when oil prices were very low. "Almost all energy research got killed, because nothing you could do research on could possibly beat oil at $20 a barrel. The whole infrastructure of energy research was really cut dramatically." Now oil prices have more than tripled of course. And yet this hasn't translated into more actual dollars for energy research. "I've seen more interest," says Green, "but I haven't seen that big of change in what's actually getting funded." 01/31/06 - Artificial Intelligence engine controllers for leaner, greener vehicles An advanced controller is showing “promising results” by learning on-the-fly how to operate an engine cleaner and more efficiently, say researchers at the University of Missouri-Rolla. The researchers believe the sophisticated controller shows the most promise with exhaust gas recirculation (EGR), a technique used to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. Spark-ignition engines need both fuel and air to operate, Drallmeier says. “If, however, I can operate the engine in a situation where I can give it less fuel for the same amount of air or dilute the mixture with inert gases such as EGR, the engine will behave differently,” Drallmeier explains. “And that’s what we’re doing here.” The researchers created a neural network controller that is implemented as a software program. Artificial neural networks are adaptive systems, which “learn” based on the successful connections they make between neurons or nodes. “The neural network observer part of the controller will assess the total air and fuel in a given cylinder in a given time,” Sarangapani says. “It then sends that estimate to another neural network, which generates the fuel commands and tells the engine how much fuel to change each cycle.” Speed is a critical component, Drallmeier says. “This controller observes what an engine cycle is doing, makes measurements in that period of time, reduces that data, and decides how you need to push the engine in the next cycle,” Drallmeier explains. “It does all that before the next cycle starts. We’re talking about a matter of milliseconds.” 01/31/06 - More Bad News About Global Warming A UK govt report says that greenhouse gases may have more serious impacts that previously thought. Greenhouse gases it says, is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable. From BBC: The European Union has adopted a target of preventing a rise in global average temperature of more than two Celsius. That, according to the report, might be too high, with two degrees being enough to trigger melting of the Greenland ice sheet.... A rise of two Celsius, researchers conclude, will be enough to cause: * Decreasing crop yields in the developing and developed world * Tripling of poor harvests in Europe and Russia * Large-scale displacement of people in north Africa from desertification * Up to 2.8bn people at risk of water shortage * 97% loss of coral reefs * Total loss of summer Arctic sea ice causing extinction of the polar bear and the walrus * Spread of malaria in Africa and north America." 01/31/06 - Faster space engine stingy on fuel A new ion engine that promises to propel spacecraft faster and further is four times more fuel efficient than the best available, scientists say. They say the results of recent tests suggest the engine, the Dual Stage Four Grid Thruster (DS4G), would reduce the time for craft to reach Mars or Pluto and beyond. "The underlying technology has been around for 40 years," he says. "All we did with the DS4G is to add some extra components which basically gave it a 10-fold improvement." A standard ion engine works by using electrodes to extract ions from plasma, in this case heated xenon gas. The ions are focused into beams that accelerate through tiny holes in the electrodes and thrust metres out into space, propelling the spacecraft in the opposite direction. The standard engine has only three electrodes, capable of generating up to 5000 volts between them. Anything greater than this would cause the ion beams to miss the holes in the electrodes and hit the metal, destroying the electrodes and causing less efficient thrusting. Sutherland found a way to add another electrode to the system and boost voltage up to 30,000 volts without the ion beams hitting the electrodes. He says, given enough power, it would be possible to generate 70,000 volts over the electrodes. He says the bigger the voltage, the faster the ions in the beam accelerate, and the more efficient the propulsion. ESA reports tests on DS4G produced an ion exhaust plume that travelled at 210,000 metres per second. By contrast, he says, conventional chemical thrusters, which rely on ballistics to get the spacecraft on the right path, give the spacecraft "one big kick" and then rely on it to coast along in space until it slows down. Sutherland says the ion engine needs megawatts of power to generate the necessary voltage across the electrodes and to generate the ion-providing plasma. "This particular thruster has high performance but the cost of that high performance is it requires more power to run," he says. "People are talking about CTRs - controlled thermonuclear reactors - small plutonium chunks like, for example, the power system that just went up on the NASA mission to Pluto." 01/31/06 - 'Chronic' Deja Vu Dr Chris Moulin first encountered chronic déjà vu sufferers at a memory clinic. "We had a peculiar referral from a man who said there was no point visiting the clinic because he'd already been there, although this would have been impossible." The patient not only genuinely believed he had met Dr Moulin before, he gave specific details about the times and places of these 'remembered' meetings. Déjà vu has developed to such an extent that he had stopped watching TV - even the news - because it seemed to be a repeat, and even believed he could hear the same bird singing the same song in the same tree every time he went out. Chronic déjà vu sufferers are not only overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity for new experiences, they can provide plausible and complex justifications to support this. "When this particular patient's wife asked what was going to happen next on a TV programme he'd claimed to have already seen, he said 'how should I know? I have a memory problem!'" Dr Moulin said... "The exciting thing about these people is that they can 'recall' specific details about an event or meeting that never actually occurred. It suggests that the sensations associated with remembering are separate to the contents of memory, that there are two different systems in the brain at work." Dr Moulin believes a circuit in our temporal lobe fires up when we recall the past, creating the experience of remembering but also a 'recollective experience' - the sense of the self in the past. In a person with chronic déjà vu this circuit is either overactive or permanently switched on, creating memories where none exist. When novel events are processed, they are accompanied by a strong feeling of remembering. 01/30/06 - Hydrogen Powered Buses under test ISE Corporation of Poway, California (outside San Diego), sees the bus route starting with the current diesel and gasoline-electric hybrids, progressing to hydrogen-powered hybrid internal combustion engines (ICE) and eventually to fuel cell hybrid buses. The common electric drive and hybrid technology components make for a logical transition path according to these advocates. They currently have more than 50 units in service in the U.S., Europe and Japan. The intense use that transit vehicles are put to means the company's learning curve is quite steep, but so far has reinforced the company's belief that transit buses are the best use of hydrogen technology. Scott outlines several key advantages buses have over smaller convention vehicles when it comes to hydrogen power: · They can carry the fuel needed, often up to 60 kilograms of compressed hydrogen, providing a 500-kilometer (310-mile) range · Transit schedules make for optimal utilization of hydrogen-powered vehicles and taking advantage of their efficient operation (in transit use, vehicles often put in to up to 16 hours a day of service) · Hydrogen-powered buses create hydrogen supporters (based on rider surveys conducted so far) · City center operation of buses focuses their use in areas that need the most pollution reduction. Running at 7km/kg of hydrogen, the vehicles use turbocharged, intercooled Ford V-10 engines adapted to run on hydrogen and hybridized with a Siemens Elfa system, and add such features as regenerative braking and battery or ultracapacitor energy storage. 01/30/06 - Helium 3 the key to Lunar Exploration RUSSIA is planning to beat America back to the Moon to mine for an abundance of untapped riches. But it's not gold or diamonds they aim to bring back to Earth. It's rare and precious helium 3 (chemical symbol He3) which could provide our planet with an almost limitless source of clean energy. No Russian has ever walked on the lunar surface and the last Americans went there in Apollo 17 in 1972. Now leaders in Moscow hope to beat America's 2018 target to return, set in 2004 by President Bush, by three years. They aim to set up a permanent base and scoop up helium 3 which will transform our power supplies. There are few deposits on Earth, but it is abundant on the Moon, with estimates in millions of tons. And just 25 tons could power a country like America for a year. Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of Russia's giant Energia Space Corporation, said: "We are planning to build a permanent base on the Moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery of helium 3." Helium 3 is deposited on the Moon's powdery soil by a wind of charged particles from the sun. The scientists also estimate that the greatest amounts of helium 3 will be found on the far side of the Moon. Helium 3 is a stable and lighter version of regular helium gas. In one paper, Kulcinski estimated a total of 1,100,000 metric tons of He3 have been deposited by the solar wind on the Moon. Since the surface has been stirred up by collisions with meteorites, He3 could be found down to depths of several meters. The older soils should be better sources of helium 3 because they have been exposed to the solar wind longer and contain greater amounts of fine-grained aggregates that absorb it. Also, solar wind-implanted particles are more abundant on the far side, because the Earth shields the Moon's near side from the solar wind for part of each solar orbit. Scientists estimate that the great-est amounts of helium 3 will be found on the far side "seas," of the Moon, due to the higher solar wind. Their guess is based on analysis of rock samples brought back by the Apollo astronauts and mineralogic maps produced by the Clementine spacecraft. They expect to refine their maps with new elemental data produced by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft. To extract helium 3 from the lunar soil, the Russians would need to heat the dust to about 600C. However, to extract one ton of helium 3, it's estimated 200million tons of the Moon would have to be processed. And that's equivalent to mining the top two metres of a region 10 square kilometres in area. 01/30/06 - Earth magnetic field about to flip 180 degrees Like the plot of a sci-fi B movie, something weird is happening deep underground where the constant spin of Earth's liquid metallic core generates an invisible magnetic force field that shields our planet from harmful radiation in space. Gradually, the field is growing weaker. Could we be heading for a demagnetized doomsday that will leave us defenseless against the lethal effects of solar wind and cosmic rays? At the present rate, Earth's magnetic field could be gone within a few centuries, exposing the planet to the relentless blast of charged particles from space with unpredictable consequences for the atmosphere and life. Other possibilities: the field could stop weakening and begin to strengthen, or it could weaken to the point that it suddenly flips polarity-that is, compasses begin to point to the South Magnetic Pole. Some researchers believe we are already in the transition phase, with growing areas of magnetic anomaly-where field lines are moving the wrong way-signaling an ever weaker and chaotic state for our protective shield. 01/30/06 - A humidifier saves energy If indoor air is too dry or too humid, unhealthy microbes, mold and dust mites might thrive in your home. Using a humidifier can reduce your utility bills. By reducing the evaporation from your skin, properly humidified air can make you feel comfortable at a lower air temperature. Even though the humidifier uses some electricity and does cool the air slightly, you save by being able to set the thermostat lower. Before you invest in a humidifier, try making your home more airtight to reduce the cold, dry outdoor air leaking in. Normal activities like cooking, washing, bathing and breathing produce moisture. So reducing leakage of outside air into the house will make the humidity level rise. With one or two freestanding units, you can control when they run and at what humidity output. Evaporative humidifiers are very effective and easy to use. These use a large vertical piece of wick material with the lower end submerged in a water reservoir. A small fan draws room air in through the upper portion of the damp wick. As the air passes through the wick, it picks up moisture. Select one that has at least two fan speeds and a large reservoir so you do not have to fill it often. 01/30/06 - Mobile Air Rotors (MARS) Use Wind to Generate Electricity This tethered device generates electrical energy as it rotates about a horizontal axis in response to wind. As a closed structure, the lighter-than-air Magenn Power Air Rotor System (MARS) lets the company produce wind rotors that are operable between 1 meter/sec and in excess of 28 meters/sec. The electrical energy is transferred down the tether to a transformer at a ground station and then transferred to the electricity power grid. Helium sustains the Air Rotor, which ascends to an altitude for best winds; and its rotation causes the Magnus effect, providing additional lift, stabilization, and causing it to pull up overhead rather than drift downwind on its tether. Small MARS units could be deployed in disaster areas for emergency electrical power for medical and other disaster relief situations. They can correspond to changing wind patterns, offer up to 50 percent efficiency, and make use of higher winds from 400-ft to 1,000-ft above ground level. 01/30/06 - Mexia is potential location for research-based coal plant Central Texas leaders are angling for a power plant with the power to change the way the world thinks about coal. State officials this week will explore Mexia as a potential location for the federally funded FutureGen plant, which would aim to turn coal to electricity without pollution. The billion-dollar plant would produce electricity for 275,000 houses, as well as hydrogen for industry and fuel cells. But its main purpose would be research and development for clean coal technology, including more efficient combustion and underground trapping of carbon emissions. Limestone County Judge Elenor Holmes said the project, which could employ more than 200 people including research scientists, would be her county's biggest economic development news in years. Instead of burning powdered coal in the traditional way, it would convert the coal into gas first through an existing technology called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle. The process extracts more energy out of coal and greatly reduces key pollutants, but cost and reliability concerns have limited its use in the United States. McDonald said existing technology could reduce emissions to almost zero, with the exception of carbon dioxide, which is currently unregulated but is targeted in international global warming treaties. The project would dispose of a million tons a year of carbon dioxide by injecting it more than a mile down into aquifers or salt domes, where it would remain permanently compressed, like natural gas. 01/30/06 - Airborne Wind Power Wind turbines are constantly getting taller because everyone knows the higher you get off the ground, the better the wind speeds. But building big towers is expensive, especially if you want one 15,000 feet tall. So why not ditch the tower and make the windmill fly? It seems obvious that once someone creates a workable system, it will become a huge winner, because of the sheer amount of power available up high: 1% of the jetstream's wind power could supply all US electrical demand. Also, one of the main complaints about wind power is its intermittency--the wind doesn't blow all the time, and so (according to Sky Windpower), most wind farms are only operating at their peak capacity 19-35% of the time. The wind is much steadier at altitude, so you get even more advantage over ground-based wind power. A final advantage is ad-hoc generation: devices with a reasonably simple tether-system do not have to be permanently installed in one place, they could be trucked out to any location that needed them. One flying windmill rated at 240kW with rotor diameters of 35 feet could generate power for less than two cents per kilowatt hour--that would make them the cheapest power source in the world. And they would have far better uptime than most windmills--since the jetstream never quits, they should operate at peak capacity 70-90% of the time. Output would also be less dependent on location than it is on the ground, simply because terrain doesn't matter much when you're at 35,000ft; however, since the jetstream and other "geostrophic" winds don't blow much at latitudes near the equator, it would be useful primarily for middle- and higher-latitudes. 01/30/06 - Renewable Power Provided for Remote Indian Villages The Micro Hydro Power project at Chizami, developed and owned by Chizami and Sumi Village Councils, has a capacity of 200 kW, to take care of electricity shortage in the two villages through their own electricity and mark the empowerment of villages that have shown the capability to implementing the Project. The assured power supply is expected to lead to activities that enhance self-employment and small-scale industrial opportunities in and around these two villages. The Biomass Gasifier Project at Pfutseromi village in the Phek districts has a generating capacity of 100 kW and would use locally available biomass to generate enough electricity to meet the needs of the village with assured supply of their own electricity. This would provide employment for operating the plant and create opportunities for the youth and citizens of the village. The Ministry of Non Conventional Energy Sources is providing guidance, support and financial assistance to similar initiatives across the country and is focusing on biomass, small hydro, solar and wind, as they are suitable and sustainable to the local conditions. 01/30/06 - Israeli startup turns organic waste into energy Biomass - organic waste - is generated as a by-product of many types of industry worldwide, such as forestry, and crop and livestock farming. The biomass is generally transported at great cost to a landfill to rot, or it is burned; both rotting and burning create methane, a greenhouse gas which plays a major role in global warming. However, if harnessed properly, methane can be a very valuable source of energy. Olive waste is heated and dried and then it is introduced into the reactor. Here it undergoes two processes, pyrolysis and gasification, which involve the biomass being heated to 800 degrees centigrade, at which temperature its molecules break down. A combination of high-calorie gases including methane and carbon monoxide are produced which, because they are lighter than air, flow upwards through a pipe into a standard gas turbine to generate electricity in the usual way. The other by-product is coke, which can be turned into the active type of coke that can be sold for use to power air conditioners or as filters for various substances. Genova's technology employs a novel technique, which the company prefers not to disclose, for maintaining the high temperatures needed for the process. This technique means that "only ten percent of the electricity we produce is used to power the [olive waste conversion] process," Granot told ISRAEL21c. "The process is 90% efficient. Our competitors are only 50% efficient, at best." Thus, where the cost of a kilowatt/hour is 9 cents for the company's competitors, Genova's cost is only 2 cents per kw/h. "We tested it with wine waste from the Carmel Mizrachi vineyard, and we proved it works with wine," says Granot. "For the US, we have proved that we can do it for any kind of biomass - wine, corn, sunflowers." 01/30/06 - Steam powered RC toys (more here) 01/30/06 - UN to release 7 Trillion to help resolve world problems The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today. The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned. If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment. At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit. 01/30/06 - Solar Panel Light concentrator Stellaris Corporation, an early-stage sustainable energy company, has developed Concentrating Photovoltaic Glazing (CPG), a new type of solar module technology that consists of small (6mm high) lenses that concentrate light onto narrow strips of thin film photovoltaic (PV) material. This concentration reduces the amount of PV material required in manufacturing the module by 67 percent. The company suggests that it will cost much less to manufacture and will generate roughly the same amount of electricity as existing comparable-sized modules. 01/29/06 - Claim of Home Power System Here are a couple of generator systems for a house power supply. They run on straight nitrogen-hydroxide generated from water. (Air is 78% nitrogen. - JWD) The same system on the v8 car. The generator has been running as the main supply of electricity to a house for over ten years to the best of my knowledge. Well there are no power lines where this unit is. I myself drive an old f100 Canadian engine. It's a 360 cubic inch six cylinder. I have run it on the fuel system for over four years, so far with no known ill effect except on my fuel bill round town I get about 140 miles per gallon. On a good run a lot more, but I stopped checking the mileage years ago. Because I know I cannot produce them without getting unwelcome visitors. But there are lots of them privately built in Australia; they are quite common. Even the guy that does my road-worthy certificate has one [we have to have are cars checked every year here for any mechanical faults before we can reregister the vehicle]. They are not legal but the guy doing the check has one on his car as well. So registration not really an issue. 01/29/06 - A 235 V8 engine with nitrogen hydroxide cell The system is fairly basic: It uses 316 grade stainless steel - a 100mm pipe anode and 80mm pipe for the cathode, placed inside the other. The end caps are made from perspex and sealed with rubber o-rings. The centre pipe is negatively charged, the outer positive. The setup uses the existing carby, and in this case it has been substituted with one from a briggs and stratton lawn mower. This injects a small amount of fuel to help maintain a seal on the piston rings, and prevent corrosion. It seems that having a vacuum within the gas chamber is what makes these devices so successful. Not only does it speed up the breakdown of water, it is said that with the combination of the vacuum + hydrogen + oxygen + atmospheric nitrogen, nitrogen hydroxide is created within the cell. I dont know much about chemistry, so I dont know what else to say about this. 01/29/06 - Using an Icehouse for summer cooling Since the early 1800’s the icehouse has been one of the self-sufficient, non-electric homestead’s most valuable buildings. The structure has taken many shapes and forms over the years but all have been calculated to do the same thing: exclude heat and outside air while draining water from the slowly melting ice. Icehouses are easy to build in a permafrost area: “just” dig a few feet into the continuously frozen ground. In the temperate zone where most of us live, however, it’s a somewhat different story. . . although there’s nothing complicated about the theory or construction of such a building. Some old-timers advise cutting ice off a lake or pond when the surface has frozen only about eight inches thick (because the thinner chunks are easier to handle). Others say to wait until the ice is two feet through. All seem to agree that first-frozen ice (rather than that which has been allowed to thaw and refreeze a number of times) is best . . . and the larger the cake, the slower it melts. Put down one layer of ice at a time, pack each block in sawdust and make sure it doesn’t touch its neighbors. Hold the outside blocks eight to twelve inches from the walls and-as each tier is finished-fill in and around it with sawdust and cover each layer of ice with four to six inches of the ground wood. Repeat until the ice-sawdust is stacked to within a foot of the ceiling (and finished off, of course, with a layer of sawdust). As you need ice, all you do is go in and get it . . . letting in as little of the warm outside air as possible and always remembering to leave what’s left covered with sawdust. The next winter, when you’re ready to refill the house, haul the old sawdust out to the compost heap or the garden and pack the new ice with fresh ground wood. 01/29/06 - Manta Ground Effect Aerofoil as possible Land Speeder (Add a propulsion unit and we have a novel new transport method. - JWD) 7 foot 8 inches long by 6 foot wide. It lifts 90 kg at 40 kph [21+ mph roughly] that's a seventy kilogram person [11 stone] (154lbs.), ask any aircraft engineer or pilot, they will tell you an airfoil cannot lift that much weight at that low a speed. The picture is from a video capture. This is something new with quite a bit of military capability and potential horse power. Bingo starwars speeder bike. By the way it works! The MANTA Ground Effect Aerofoil is a manta shaped wing designed to fly in ground effect, configured as shown in the accompanying illustrations. A 50 to 75 foot towline would attach the aerofoil to the tow craft with a quick release. The aerofoil will plane on its center float at 10 to 15 mph and become airborne at 20 to 30 mph. With a wingspan of approximately 10 feet, the aerofoil will reach a height of 1 to 3 feet above the waters surface. To use the MANTA G.E.A., a person would lie on the upper central body of the aerofoil and grasp the handrails; the rider would control the aerofoil by shifting his/her weight. Should any problem arise, the rider would only have to release the towline or let go and slide safely into the water. Design Parameters and an updated Manta site with Better Images courtesy of Automorrow on the Interact discussion list. 01/29/06 - Laws prevent effective off-grid power Solar Generated Steam can be used to run power generators as one method of making your own power. At some installations, the hot exhaust from micro-turbine engines can be used to produce saturated steam. This steam can also be superheated and expanded in small steam engines that drive electrical generation equipment. Heat in the exhaust steam may be used to heat buildings during cool weather. The overall energy efficiency of modern small-scale power systems could exceed 50%. Modern computer technology allows these systems to be automated and groups of these smal, co-generative power stations can be monitored and controlled from a single remote location via the internet. But don't even think about sharing your excess power with your neighbor. Power regulators in many jurisdictions forbid private power lines from being connected across property lines. This prohibition has discouraged investment in Distributed Generation (DG) systems that are more efficient, less expensive than supplies from the grid. New technological advances have been developed in the field of small scale, on-site distributed power generation(DG). The cost of small-scale power generation technology has been steadily dropping, while the efficiency of energy conversion has steadily been rising. Advances have occurred in such areas as solar thermal energy conversion, solar photovoltaics, wind energy, fuel cell technology, thermo-acoustic engine technology, Stirling engine technology and various types of small engines. New types of small gas turbine engines of under 100-Kw output that can operate on a wide variety of fuels have appeared. Some of these new turbine engines use turbine blades made from high-temperature ceramics such as silicon-nitride and silicon carbide that allow these engines to operate at higher combustion temperatures and at higher thermal efficiency. On-site power generation is appearing in privately owned off-grid homes as well as at commercial and industrial locations. As far back as the mid-1990’s, a few commercial power users have installed natural gas powered truck engines (up to 300-Kw) on their premises to generate power and supply heat during winter (co-generation). 01/29/06 - Experiments to define ZPE coupling Quantum theory states that in the void is definitely a ‘something’. It is a seething mass of ‘virtual’ particles that fleetingly appear into and then disappear from our observable universe. This activity, known as quantum fluctuations, corresponds to an intrinsic energy of the void, the ‘zero-point energy’, which, if the void were a continuum, would be infinite. It is generally believed that there is a smallest piece of void, which makes the zero-point energy finite but still colossal beyond the imagination. Each cubic millimetre of empty space contains more than enough zero-point energy to create a new universe. A useful analogy is to consider our observable universe as a mass of waves on top of an ocean, whose depth is immaterial. Our senses and all our instruments can only directly detect the waves so it seems that trying to probe whatever lies beneath, the void itself, is hopeless. The force has only been measured in very simple geometries such as flat parallel plates. More recent calculations show that the force is sensitive to geometry and by changing the materials and the shape of the cavity you can alter the magnitude of the Casimir force and possibly even reverse it. This would be a ground-breaking discovery as the Casimir force is a fundamental property of the void and reversing it is akin to reversing gravity. The new instrumentation to be installed soon following the srif3 investment will enable researchers to extend the measurements to yet more complex shapes and, for the first time, to search for a way to reverse the Casimir force. This new wave of measurements will enable an unprecedented level of probing of the void and will provide important information on new theories of gravity and with sufficient precision will even put limits on the true number of spatial dimensions. Knowing how zero-point energy varies with the shape of an enclosure may also give clues to the origin of so-called ‘dark energy’, discovered recently. 01/28/06 - Flying car mystery deepens! (I still think it was a wreck in progress. One guy emailed me saying it could be 3 balloons whose images were blurred to make the car shape, but I don't think that explains it better than a car in flight during an accident, it lands and throws dirt onto the highway as in the photos. - JWD) The list included: * A hoax * Two cars parked next to each other * Hole in the ground * Trailer * Bus shelter * Water tower * Tent * Car on a pole * Harry Potter on holiday. Well, we can discount a lot of those right now, because we have secured the first on-the-spot photographic evidence of the area in question, courtesy of flag-waving Aussie Mark Zed. There is a complete lack of any sort of structure viz bus shelter (there is no bus route along this road anyway), nor a gazebo nor rotunda nor information booth etc etc. No evidence of excavations beyond natural rain-water run off... given the steep escarpment (down into water) to the right, no work of any substantial degree could occur without significant re-enforcement or collapse of the escarpment also as there are no buildings to service there are no utilities running down this side of the road. Anyone who may have visited this area in the past may remember information booths dotted along the way giving summarised accounts of pre & post settlement history, note however that the last of these is in fact at least 400 meters away to the south. 01/28/06 - $7000 Chinese eco-car for city driving Innovech may sound more like a manufacturer of computer parts than automobiles, but its new MyCar design may presage a radical shift in both the European microcar market and how we think about global economic cooperation. The MyCar is a direct competitor to the Smart -- a microcar that trades power, room and speed for extraordinary mileage, low cost and ease-of-use. The MyCar will come in both a gasoline or diesel version (the fuel used is unclear -- the MyCar website refers to it as an "explosion-engine version") and an electric version, and will sell for €6,500, or about US$7,000. The low costs come from Chinese manufacture and the use of light-weight plastics in its production. This is a tiny car by any definition, measuring about 4' wide and less than 8' long. For the "explosion-engine" version, the engine options range from 50cc to 250cc, and even the most powerful model can't go faster than 85 km/hour, or around 50 mph; there are no details on fuel consumption (at least none that I could find), but given the light weight and low power engine, mileage is likely to be quite high, in the 60-90 miles per gallon range. The electric models range from 4 kilowatts to 15 kilowatts in power, but there are even fewer details available about performance and range than for the gas/diesel model. 01/28/06 - New sonofusion experiment produces results without external neutron source By bombarding a special mixture of acetone and benzene with oscillating sound waves, the researchers caused bubbles in the mixture to expand and then violently collapse. This technique, which has been dubbed "sonofusion," produces a shock wave that has the potential to fuse nuclei together, according to the team. The telltale sign that fusion has occurred is the production of neutrons. Earlier experiments were criticized because the researchers used an external neutron source to produce the bubbles, and some have suggested that the neutrons detected as evidence of fusion might have been left over from this external source. In the new setup, the researchers dissolved natural uranium in the solution, which produces bubbles through radioactive decay. "This completely obviates the need to use an external neutron source, resolving any lingering confusion associated with the possible influence of external neutrons," says Robert Block, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at Rensselaer and also an author of the paper. The experiment was specifically designed to address a fundamental research question, not to make a device that would be capable of producing energy, Block says. At this stage the new device uses much more energy than it releases, but it could prove to be an inexpensive and portable source of neutrons for sensing and imaging applications. To verify the presence of fusion, the researchers used three independent neutron detectors and one gamma ray detector. All four detectors produced the same results: a statistically significant increase in the amount of nuclear emissions due to sonofusion when compared to background levels. 01/28/06 - Machines Pluck Cash From Trash With Americans recycling more and more every day, many municipalities have begun using advanced, multimillion-dollar machines to sort through the deluge of soup cans, beer bottles and newspapers. These giant, next-generation trash sorters utilize everything from magnets and sifting screens to optical sensors and weight detectors to make sure that all the waste goes where it's intended. "When you give people the option and make it easier on them, you find that people will recycle on a much higher level," says Lynn Brown, Waste Management's vice president of corporate communications. "Convenience is really the key here." It's fairly easy for a machine to pick pieces of wood and cardboard out of a mountain of paper. However, only the most advanced computer-controlled sorting machines are capable of separating plastic from glass. Until recently, only the largest municipalities were willing to invest the necessary cash to get these programs up and running. "We would have a very hard time keeping up without the new machines," says Patrick Collins of the Monroe County Department of Environmental Services. "On one station we've been able to reduce the number of workers from six down to three." Indeed, it appears that the major downside to increased recycling efficiency is the loss of jobs. Intelligent trash-sorting machines and single-stream recycling may spell the end of the good old garbage man. 01/28/06 - Water Vapor builds the heat in Europe Water vapour rather than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the main reason why Europe's climate is warming, according to a new study. The scientists say that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are increasing humidity, which in turn amplifies the temperature rise. Researchers calculated that the temperature increase is partly down to higher concentrations of the gases such as carbon dioxide which are often described as causing the "man-made greenhouse effect"; but increased water vapour appears to have a larger effect, accounting for about 70% of the observed temperature rise. Not all regions of Europe are affected equally. Between 1995 and 2002, Eastern states appear to have warmed by a rate equivalent to about 2C per decade - considerably faster than their western counterparts. An increased concentration of water vapour is just one of the feedback mechanisms which could change or amplify the progress of human-induced global warming. 01/28/06 - Historical Data shows Sea level rise 'is accelerating' Australian researchers found that sea levels rose by 19.5cm between 1870 and 2004, with accelerated rates in the final 50 years of that period. In an attempt to reduce the scale of uncertainty in this projection, the Australian researchers have analysed tidal records dating back to 1870. The data was obtained from locations throughout the globe, although the number of tidal gauges increased and their locations changed over the 130-year period. These records show that the sea level has risen, and suggest that the rate of rise is increasing. Over the entire period from 1870 the average rate of rise was 1.44mm per year. Over the 20th Century it averaged 1.7mm per year; while the figure for the period since 1950 is 1.75mm per year. Although climate models predict that sea level rise should have accelerated, the scientists behind this study say they are the first to verify the trend using historical data. If the acceleration continues at the current rate, the scientists warn that sea levels could rise during this century by between 28 and 34cm. "It means there will be increased flooding of low-lying areas when there are storm surges," he told the Associated Press. "It means increased coastal erosion on sandy beaches; we're going to see increased flooding on island nations." Increased temperatures can lead to higher sea-levels through several mechanisms including the melting of glaciers and thermal expansion of sea water. 01/28/06 - Disposable camera hack to kill RFID transmitters With a little work, a disposable camera can be turned into a low-cost device for disabling the tracking bugs in many products and ID cards. Radio Frequency ID tags (RFIDs) are tiny bugs that can be embedded in products and ID cards, enabling them to be read at a distance. US passports and London's tube-cards are beginning to incorporate these. Nominally, they can only be read at a few centimeters' distance, but security researchers have demonstrated that they can be read by attackers at 15 or more meters away. With goods, it's hard to tell if you've got an RFID embedded in them and hard to kill them (though you can put them in the microwave and kill them). Many times, intrusions into privacy like this are excused on the basis that they offer discounts in exchange for your personal information. This is true with the Oyster card, too: a single ride on the tube costs £3 now if you use a paper ticket, but with an Oyster card the journey is as little as £1.30. The thing is, before they ramped up Oyster card use on January 1, the cost of a paper single was also as little as £1.10 -- in other words, they nearly tripled the cost of an anonymous journey and then told everyone that you got a great discount if you used the privacy-surrendering means. It generates a strong electromagnetic field with a coil, which should be placed as near to the target RFID-Tag as possible. The RFID-Tag then will receive a strong shock of energy comparable with an EMP and some part of it will blow, thus deactivating the chip forever. To keep the costs of the RFID-Zapper as low as possible, we decided to modify the electric component of a singe-use-camera with flash, as can be found almost everywhere. (via boingboing.com) 01/28/06 - Danger of food for fuel Innovative energy companies are now converting food plants into biological diesel oils and ethanol alcohol, in order to supply the world with a replacement fuel for dwindling oil reserves. If this growing trend continues, food crops will compete with petroleum products on the speculative world commodity market. Food prices will spiral upward, out of control, as energy-producing crops replace food crops. The world's food supplies are already decreasing due to low rainfall, over-pumping of fresh water rivers, lakes and underground aquifers. Irresponsible use of food crops as a source of fuel will result in some people dying of hunger, so that others can live in comfort. The moral consequence of converting food crops into fuel will become a danger when hungry people line-up along busy highways and at the front doors of multinational companies begging for food. The world consumption of oil is well over 31 billion barrels per year and this does not include the future requirements of China and India. The current volume of oil consumption can never be replaced by using biofuels, whether it is called ethanol, biodiesel or something else. We live in a time of freedom, which carries the responsibility to make ethical choices. The freedom of companies and governments to redirect food supplies to feed oil consuming machines, does not mean it is the responsibility of the people to accept this. For anyone who still feels a sense of morality; food should never be used as a fuel. 01/28/06 - Dance games to lose weight, improve health The BBC (linked in today’s Morning news roundup) and the AP are reporting that all West Virginia middle schools (and eventually all 753 public schools) will be using the popular video game “Dance Dance Revolution” to whip their students into shape. Let’s be honest - what geek hasn’t been enthralled by the idea of getting in shape while playing video games? Are there any readers out there who have turned over their primary source of exercise to their gaming systems (aside from all of you with Superman-esque thumbs)? (via lifehacker.com) 01/28/06 - Shovelglove, easy excercise I remembered reading something in some French novel about coal shovelers having the best abdominal muscles of anyone the author had ever seen. I started making shoveling motions. I went to the local hardware store, and after some experimenting, I wound up with something that worked: a sledgehammer with an old sweater wrapped around it. It had the right shape, just enough weight, and the requisite softness. And it was pleasingly simple. 14 minute duration for these excercises is a significant number. Yet it is just long enough to give some aerobic benefit. Yes, half an hour would be better. An hour would be even better. But guess what? You won't do it. You might do it for 3 weeks, or maybe even 3 months, but you'll start to resent it and you'll quit. Do it for 14 minutes and you'll do it for a lifetime. Sledgehammers do come in a number of different sizes (mine is 12 pounds, I've seen them from 8 to 20), so you can upgrade to a bigger one after a while, but I'd be very cautious about doing so. If you can't not upgrade, you're inevitably going to downgrade -- to nothing. I used my original 12 pounder for a solid year before permitting myself to move up to 16 pounder, and I still go back to it now and then. But whatever you do, keep the 14 minutes sacred. The story has a happy ending -- so far. Shovelglove actually seems to work, for me, at least. I've been doing it for over three years now and have gotten terrifically strong and lean, by ordinary non-professional-athlete standards. (via lifehacker.com) 01/27/06 - Solar Powered Carport Patagonia's new solar PV carport project will produce energy as well as provide shade for employees' cars during working hours. The 66.6 kW Sharp Solar system incorporates 360 185-watt Sharp panels on three custom-built carports erected in the parking lot. The eye-catching structure produces an amount of energy equivalent to the energy used in approximately 60 California homes during peak usage periods and also shades cars during the day, according to the project's designers. "Our new solar system proves energy independence can be aesthetically pleasing," said Jill Dumain, Patagonia. "Patagonia believes in using business to inspire solutions to the environmental crisis, and our solar solution is just one example of our commitment to that belief." Patagonia uses various forms of renewable energy, including solar electricity and wind power, for its facilities worldwide. In 1996, Patagonia incorporated a 5-kW solar system into its Reno, Nevada distribution center. Realizing that solar is the most viable form of renewable energy when it comes to supporting its corporate energy efficiency goals, Patagonia plans to expand the system at the Reno facility to produce more energy. "This system will provide twelve percent of the power for its headquarters, while the carports will provide much-appreciated sheltered parking for employees." 01/27/06 - Where our tax dollars go! Ever wonder exactly what happens to your tax dollars? This fantastic graphical chart gives a proportionally displayed breakdown of pretty much everything the US government spent money on in 2004. Not suprisingly, the department of defense gobbles up the lion's share. It's an interesting and rather illuminating picture! 01/27/06 - First London Homes Utilize Geothermal Energy The Energy Savings Trust is reporting on a new housing development in London that will utilise geothermal energy to help reduce carbon emissions. The new apartments, being built in Norbury by Bob Harris of Earthdome, will have geothermal hot water and heating and form part of the Mayor of London's renewable energy strategy. Each home will rely on the earth as a heat source, using a system of underground pipes that will transfer heat from the earth to the building and provide underfloor heating and hot water as well as reducing annual household energy bills. Steve Mills of A1 Lofts is retaining one apartment as a showcase to encourage others to adopt sustainable building practices. "Bob has the rare talent of not only being practical and positive, but able to grasp the wider implications of the building and its relationship to the natural environment. Through his teaching he is able to inspire others in the art and craft of sustainable building," said Mr Mills. 01/27/06 - Interesting Stereo Note! Test the speakers, wires, and polarity all in one step! If you are wiring a car stereo or home stereo and have the wires plugged into the speakers but at the other end do not know which wires go to which port? Rather than trace each wire seperately, grab a 9volt battery, hold one wire on a terminal, tap the other wire on the other terminal, and it will make the speaker pop. Now know which speaker is connected to that wire. Also, if wired correctly +/- the cone will pop OUT; if it sucks in, you have the polarity backwards. Too steps solved in one. You want all of the speakers to pop out with the +/-. This will make your stereo, home or car sound much fuller. If it sounds hollow or lacking bass, you may have just one speaker wired backwards. 01/27/06 - Scammer pays FedEx to send him a box of Rottweiler excrement (Just HAD TO POST THIS since we all get those idiot Nigerian scam spams. - JWD) Here's a satisfying story of revenge: a guy was selling his used video camera on Amazon, and some small-time sleazeball sent the seller a bogus sale confirmation email that appeared to originate from amazon.com. Instead of receiving a valuable video camera, the scammer ended up paying FEDEX shipping charges to Nigeria for a box of dog shit. 01/26/06 - Body Electric locking system Soon, all you will need is your index finger to press the car door which recognises your fingerprint immediately, to open the door. Technology that transmits data from the skin to electronic systems is far advanced and in some cases already a reality. Modern car keys are already small electronic marvels. Owners of the new Audi A8 have the choice of an advanced key that includes a pulse generator whose signal is registered by a proximity sensor in the door that recognised the driver within a range of 1.5 metres. If the signal is accepted, the doors are unlocked as soon as the driver operates the button on the door handle and he/she need only press the start button to start the engine. The key of the BMW 7-Series memorises driver settings such as the seat and steering wheel positions. It includes a panic alarm and other anti-theft devices. The Bavarian firm Ident Technology has now developed a system whereby the driver need only carry a signal in his/her pocket with the difference that the data is not transmitted by radio wave but through the skin as soon as it touches the door handle. Ident Technology argues that this system is superior to other data transfer systems such as Bluetooth because it does not interfere with other electronic systems and does not require expensive radio frequency licenses. Key information is transferred through body contact. The Dutch manufacturer Inalfa will this year become the first producer to use the technology for sunroofs. If a finger or hand touches the frame, the closing procedure is automatically stopped using only skin sensors. Researchers are working on applying the skin technology for numerous other functions in the car. The micro systems are becoming smaller and cheaper and are expected to be an everyday reality in the motor car seven to 10 years from now. 01/26/06 - Extracting Water from the Air Without water, humans cannot live. Since time began, we have lived by the water and vast tracts of waterless land have been abandoned as too difficult to inhabit. A new machine which extracts water from air could change that … One evening 20 years ago, James J Reidy checked on his new dehumidifier and as he poured the contents down the drain, he reflected on how pure it looked. AirWater machines will be sold in many sizes, producing from 20 litres (AUD$1300 inc GST) to 5,000 litres per day (AUD$160,000 inc), with the option to run machines greater than 50 litres a day capacity from solar power. The 5,000 litre machine with solar power costs AUD$250,000 but the only things it requires are sun and air, and they are both free, so running costs amount to maintenance and capital expenses. Obtaining water from the atmosphere is nothing new - since the beginning of time, nature’s continuous cycle of evaporation and condensation in the form of rain or snow (the Hydrologic Cycle) has been the sole source and means of regenerating wholesome water for all forms of life on earth. At any given moment, the earth’s atmosphere contains 4,000 cubic miles of water, which is just .000012% of the 344 million cubic miles of water on earth. Nature maintains this ratio via evaporation and condensation, irrespective of the activities of man. The availability of drinking water is a global problem - there is a global US$15 billion bottled water market, a US$100 billion point-of-use water treatment industry, and wherever practical, expensive desalination plants with huge infrastructures and severe geographical restrictions. All of these methods require traditional sources of water and each has inherent weaknesses and disadvantages. In spite of the above there exists a pent-up, insatiable, world-wide need for new sources of drinking water. AirWater machines could be the answer as they offer an inexhaustible source of safe sterilized drinking water. 01/26/06 - Freeze-Framer helps you train your own physiology The Freeze-Framer software and hardware package from Heartmath Institute which has created an interactive program that measures stress levels and their effect on your physiology to help better manage your emotional and physical performance and facilitate heart-brain synchronisation. HeartMath research has shown that emotions are reflected in our heart rhythm patterns. The analysis of Heart Rate Variability (HRV), or heart rhythms, is recognized as a powerful, non-invasive measure that reflects heart-brain interactions and autonomic nervous system dynamics, which are particularly sensitive to changes in the emotional state. New clinical research identifies HRV as a key indicator of preventable stress and shows correlation with a broad range of related health problems. This complete system consists of an easy-to-use finger sensor and software that displays your heart rhythms (HRV), offers games, a tutorial and much more. The Freeze-Framer has been specially designed to teach you how to bring your emotions, mind and body into greater coherence. With your Freeze-Framer you can see your heart rhythm patterns in real time on the computer screen. When you apply the Quick Coherence tool you can see the changes in your heart rhythm (HRV) patterns. By correlating the patterns on the screen with a calm internal feeling, you learn to find and maintain physiological coherence. 01/26/06 - Free phone calls using FireFox The Zoep Firefox extension allows VOIPSter the ability to make phone calls using the Mozilla Firefox internet browser. Zoep is a plugin with Firefox which allows users to make free telephone calls and chat directly from the Firefox browser. The Zoep extension provides users of Firefox with a clear voice experience without having to switch between applications. Users will now be able to communicate with any other VoIP user on the open source based OpenZoep platform, so in addition to being able to communicate with other Zoep users using Firefox, they can also communicate with users on the Jabber platform including, sometime in the future, those using Google Talk. Firefox is growing by popular demand, as the browser has adopted security features already that are not available yet in Microsoft IE (until version IE 7). If you haven't tried Firefox, give a spin. It's fast, easy, and offers auto-updates on any new security fixes to block malware and other malicious software. You can download a free copy at the top of the keelynet.com webpage. (I also recommend Mozilla's free Thunderbird email software.) 01/26/06 - Improvement patents extend inventor's rights Once a patent expires, the invention covered by that patent enters the public domain and anyone can make and sell it, local attorneys say. But Scott Stevens, a partner at Woodard, Emhardt, Moriarty, McNett & Henry, suggests that if you continue to make improvements on your original invention, you may be able to apply for patents on those improvements. "As long as your improvements cover something that people want, improvement patents can effectively extend your patent coverage monopoly," Stevens said. Stevens also noted that other people can also make improvements to a basic patented invention and file for patents on those improvements. However, the improved products cannot be sold without first getting a license from you for the basic product. The Patent and Trademark Office will extend the term of your patent if its issuance was delayed due to examination and processing delays. You can also get an extension if the sale of a product covered by the patent was delayed due to government regulatory review. This occurs most often with drug manufacturers' patents, whose products are often held up in FDA reviews and approvals. 01/26/06 - Light transmitting concrete for free lighting 29-year-old entrepreneur Aron Losonczi said he had designed his LiTraCon concrete by mixing extra optical fibers with the basic material. The final component is translucent yet as solid as a traditional concrete. Time magazine has described his innovation as one of the most significant inventions of 2004. Responding to an article in the New York Times last summer noting that the concrete would be too expensive, Losonczi told MTI that 60-70 percent of the costs had to be spent on purchasing the optical fibers, and it was indeed an up-market product. But he insisted there was a market for his invention nevertheless. Any future mass production would achieve economies of scale and bring down the final cost, he added. 01/26/06 - Firm offers robots to care for aged & work as receptionists People Staff Co. said Wednesday it will begin offering the use of robots to care for residents of homes for the aged or work as receptionists at offices, beginning in February. The service is the first of its kind by a staffing service company, according to the Nagoya-based firm. 01/26/06 - Titania Nanotube Arrays Harness Solar Energy Penn State University researchers are finding new ways to harness the power of the sun using highly-ordered arrays of titania nanotubes for hydrogen production and increased solar cell efficiency. “Basically we are talking about taking sunlight and putting water on top of this material, and the sunlight turns the water into hydrogen and oxygen. With the highly-ordered titanium nanotube arrays, under UV illumination you have a photoconversion efficiency of 13.1%. Which means, in a nutshell, you get a lot of hydrogen out of the system per photon you put in. If we could successfully shift its bandgap into the visible spectrum we would have a commercially practical means of generating hydrogen by solar energy. It beats fighting wars over middle-eastern oil.” 01/26/06 - Moon's gravity dragging continents west Someday not so soon Washington, D.C., may find itself about where San Francisco is now. According to a recent study, Earth's surface may be slipping slowly westward, dragged by the same lunar forces that produce tides. As the Earth spins eastward beneath the moon, they say, the moon's gravity ever so slightly holds the Earth's surface layer back. This "lunar drag" causes the crust to slip slowly backward, like a loose handgrip on a bicycle handlebar. 01/25/06 - Jamison Energizer - the 200,000 mile car (Kudos and Thanks to Robert Nelson of Rex Research who recently discovered this 'lost' Jamison patent application! - JWD) San Francisco Examiner (Sat., January 3, 1981), p. A6 - A Mississippi mechanic claims he has invented an electric car that will run 200,000 miles without gasoline, oil, water or even recharging. Larry Jamison calls the motor “the Jamison Energizer”. The 65-year old Nettleton, Mississippi man commutes to Memphis seven days a week to labor on his invention, housed in his one-room shop. He says he can wire the dozen or so cylindrical-shaped motors and energizers into virtually any truck or car --- at a cost of about $6,000. “The difference between this motor and all the other electrical cars on the market is that mine never needs to be recharged”, he said. “It produces more electricity than it uses and stores it in batteries. “Also, those other cars don’t have any real power. I’ve got a motor that will outdo your Cadillacs and your Lincolns. When we get into production, I’ll guarantee the motor for 200,000 miles”. Jamison Thursday displayed a 1977 Ford Courier pickup equipped with a Jamison Energizer. He admits it has a couple of “small bugs”. Jamison’s secret is a shiny metal cylinder a little mor than a foot long and about 10 inches in diameter. He won’t discuss what makes it work. Jamison says he’s been contacted by major firms in Germany, France, and the US, but doesn’t plan to make a deal. “But I ain’t going to let nobody have it”, he said. “I want to manufacture it myself”. European Patent Application EP 0 067 755 - An energy producing system is provided which produces energy for use, for example, in an electric vehicle or in a home power plant. The system includes an electrical energizer including a double wound rotor and a double wound stator, for producing electrical energy which is stored in the system, e.g., in a battery storage arrangement, which provides initial energization of the system. The stored energy is supplied to an electrical motor which drives the energizer to thereby create additional energy. The energizer is able to supply the needs of the system as well as to power a load. In a specific preferred embodiment, the motor described is a 48 volt, 412 horsepower motor (412 X 760 watts = 313,120 Watts) (313,120 watts / 48 volts = 6,523AMPS), having a top operating speed of 7,000 rpm. 01/25/06 - Google Earth catches flying car (Could just be a car wreck in progress, need sequential photos of the entire process. - JWD) According to our Oz photo interpretation bureau (Clinton Bird), the vehicle in question is at an altitude of three of four metres and doing about 80 knots (92mph). Which rules out a rocket-powered project, and we can see no evidence of the Wankel-powered turbofan outrigger engines favoured by the Moller Corporation. Which leaves just one possible explantion: the Aussies have developed a gravity-busting hyperdrive, have bolted it into a second-hand Holden, and are seen here in the split second before their X-Motor made the transdimensional leap to hyper light speed. For those of you still doing it by hand, try Honour Avenue, Point Walter, Perth. 01/25/06 - Does free energy couple at 400hz? (Interesting that military devices often use 440hz. - JWD) Just like a photon, Teslion is a corpuscular form of "matter state", expressed in our Unity as a stable object of order 9, with a quite real rest mass: m0 = 1.1*10- 49 kg. Wave form of the same object, named Tesla waves, have compton wavelength of lc=2*107 [m], i.e. frequency of 14.8 Hz. As we know, frequency of 11.47 Hz is already known as a Tesla's frequency. This fact was a basic reason for naming "stable-object-9" a TESLION. Peak energy level of a K9-object, whose wave form of "space-time-matter" entity we called Tesla waves, is l = lc * (1-v2/vmax2)1/2 = 20.04*106*0.037 = 741480 m, which corresponds to frequency of 404.59 Hz. As we know, most of "zero point", "free energy", and all different kinds of "overunity" devices (Thomas Moray Radiant device, Floyd Sweet VTA,...,Michel Mace Solid state energy converter etc.) provide maximal output energy with current whose frequency is about 400 Hz! Amazingly, "Earth - radius - resonant - length" is Rp = 6.38*106 * 3.14 = 2.004*107 m, which is almost equal to Tesla-waves compton wavelength:lc=2*107 [m]. 01/25/06 - Notes on the Black Box Patent US Patent # 2,482,773 - Detection of Emanations from Materials & Measurement of the Volumes Thereof - September 27, 1949 - Thomas G. Hieronymous. Each of the tissues of the body give off a characteristic frequency of radiation by which it can be identified and the virility or vitality of the tissue may be determined by noting the intensity of the radiation. Each disease entity gives off a characteristic emanation by which its presence in the body and something of its virility may be determined. Just as a photograph can hold the emanation of the object photographed, so can a specimen, an article of clothing, a drop of blood, urine or perspiration carry the emanations of the person from whence it came. Wen the operators mind and the emanations from the tuner are in resonance, the detector indicates this mode.There is a change in tactile characteristic in the top of the detector, and this is detected by lightly rubbing the fingertips on the surface of the detector plate, while turning the vernier dial of the prism.When this resonance is established, by the position of the dial, ad the thought held in the mind of the operator, a note is made of the prism angle. Direct transfer of data to the operator mind and more is then possble, thru sympathetic resonance, that has no distance barriers. In 1958, more than 80% of the rocket and guided missle scientists & engineers at the White Sands Proving Grounds, who tried the device, built by G. Harry Stine, a full time engineer, employed by the U.S. Naval Ordinance Missle Test Center, got a response using his version of the "blackbox". The most interesting response came from Dr. Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered Pluto. He reported: " The change in touch sensation on the plate is there, but to me it is just at the threshold of sensation, much like seeing fine details on a planetary surface." Approx. 80-90% of the people who try it get a response they can detect. Dr. Hieronymous has established numbers which correlate with the known chemical elements, and their combinations. When the Fine Media is properly influenced, it can be caused to coalesce to the point where material units such as electrons, protons, and neutrons are formed. When these units are desired to be grouped together, a still further manifestation of the Fine Media takes the form of the cohesive force necessary to form the units into elements such as helium, iron, gold, and uranium. A still further manifestation of the cohesive force is necessary to form elements into compound or complex groups. When such units are formed into elements or compounds, there is a stress field, or aura, around or radiating from such elements and complex groups. This field or aura has a frequency that is characteristic for each nuclear and molecular combination. 01/25/06 - A new way to help computers recognize patterns Researchers at Ohio State University have found a way to boost the development of pattern recognition software by taking a different approach from that used by most experts in the field. The majority of pattern recognition algorithms in science and engineering today are derived from the same basic equation and employ the same methods, collectively called linear feature extraction, Martinez said. Martinez and Zhu tested machine vision algorithms using two databases, one of objects such as apples and pears, and another database of faces with different expressions. The two tasks -- sorting objects and identifying expressions -- are sufficiently different that an algorithm could potentially be good at doing one but not at the other. The test rates algorithms on a scale from zero to one. The closer the score is to zero, the better the algorithm. The test worked: An algorithm that received a score of 0.2 for sorting faces was right 98 percent of the time. That same algorithm scored 0.34 for sorting objects, and was right only 70 percent of the time when performing that task. Another algorithm scored 0.68 and sorted objects correctly only 33 percent of the time. "So a score like 0.68 means 'don't waste your time,'" Martinez said. "You don't have to go to the trouble to run it and find out that it's wrong two-thirds of the time." He hopes that researchers across a broad range of disciplines will try out this new test. His team has already started using it to optimize the algorithms they use to study language and cancer genetics. 01/25/06 - Cellphone Powered by Urine Physicists in Singapore have developed a battery that can be powered by human urine. Led by Dr Ki Bang Lee, a team at Singapore's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology developed a paper battery which is designed to be cheap to produce, and use urine as its power charge source. Using 0.2 ml of urine, the team were able to generate a voltage of around 1.5 Volts with a corresponding maximum power of 1.5 mW. Battery performance can also be adjusted by using different construction materials. The battery is made from a layer of paper that is soaked in copper chloride (CuCl) and then sandwiched between strips of magnesium and copper. The final product has dimensions of 6cm x 3cm, and a thickness of just 1 mm. 01/25/06 - Women gradually take the world under their control Women are being elected presidents in different countries. "I wonder if anybody could imagine a female president in Chile some 20 years or 10 years ago, even 5 years ago," said Chile's new president Michelle Bachelet shortly after being sworn in. It is worthy of note that Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was inaugurated also this week as a new president of Liberia. She became the first woman who became head of state in the history of Africa. Few analysts doubt that Tarja Halonen will win in a runoff of the presidential election in Finland. The importance of a physical force is gradually decreasing. A rational analysis that is a characteristic of the male seems less important these days than intuition, a female quality. A person of the past was supposed to concentrate on one important business (suitable for men). Nowadays it is essential that a person be able to keep several projects going. Making decisions on a 'friend or foe' basis was an important requirement of the past. Today you should carefully build interpersonal relations in order to succeed. I am not talking about politics only. The role of women in managing various institutions can only grow bigger. Thus far the majority of female politicians, the so-called 'iron ladies, have displayed men's qualities.' I believe soon those ladies will be replaced by female politicians that will do men's job in a female way. Yulia Tymoshenko is one of the most flagrant examples. 01/25/06 - Breakthrough with VTA replication? I have now been working on a public replication of the Floyd Sweet VTA for nearly 12 months. On the 29-12-05 I posted an update with a real break through in the theory on the working of the VTA. This explains cold energy collection. I have had a lot of help from a lot of very good people and together we have made this theory solid and it not only fits with the current model but introduces new possibilities and they will be very exciting when this technology becomes main stream. If this is right, which I am 100% confident that it is, the scientific community has a lot of work in front of them. We do to. I wont mention any names but many brilliant Scientific minds have helped me. Thanks to them and remember it is a public project. You can help too. Details to date (via zpenergy.com) 01/25/06 - Political bias affects brain activity, study finds Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows. And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view. A brain-scan technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, revealed a consistent pattern. Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate. "The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen said."We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." With their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained. The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Westen said. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones." 01/24/06 - Magnetricity NeoGen PM Dynamo (Thanks to Patrick Bailey of INE for this headsup. He recommends you save the pages on this site. - JWD) Based on the late Bill Mullers' work with super magnets in a motor/generator design, this site describes Rex Hebert's ongoing research into developing a self-running permanent magnet dynamo. CONICAL WINDING as described by Peter Lindermann ... at Keelynet Convergence 2001 - A unique zero resistance core design where an increase in the current required by the load results in no resistance to the magnet motion past the coil core, the design for a normal solenoidal coil has the wire wound from top to bottom and as the magnet passes the coil, the resistance to its passage increases as the load current requirements increase (remember the old army hand cranked telephone field generator - the more load you hook to it, the harder it is to turn the handle), This new design has a core where the winding begins roughly 1/3 to 1/2 down the length of the core and the windings increase in turns as it approaches the bottom of the core, taking the form of a cone with the apex pointing up, This is quite similar to the HomoPolar motor which does not experience any resistance no matter how much current is extracted by the load devices. PERPETUAL MOTION : The Inevitable Question * How this notion haunts us all ... our primary ridicule from the shortsighted * Let me be absolutely clear on this point, this is NOT, in any way, a Perpetual Motion Device. Thank you. * Perpetual Motion implies eternity. Nothing manmade is eternal. Neither will this device run forever. This is the way of all technology. * Eventually, some component will breakdown or wear physically or fail electrically resulting in enough down time to replace or repair the component. Afterwards, the device may be restarted and run until the next failure. * HOWEVER, the recent availability of affordable Rare-Earth Neodymium Iron Boron permanent magnets brings us closer than ever to achieving such a device. * My main goal is to maximize energy output and RUN time and minimize the DOWN time by minimizing energy losses wherever possible such as heat, wear, friction, drag, vibration, etc. and by choice of materials for extended life. The usefulness of such a device in rural or desolate areas of the world should be obvious to anyone. 01/24/06 - MPG geothermal generator in 2nd phase In Phase Two, the Encore/ThermaSource venture proposes to engineer, build and demonstrate a larger-scale MPG, designed to be installed on a geothermal well-bore, connected to heat exchangers in a closed-loop for converting the "free fuel" of geothermal heat into a valuable new source of electricity. ThermaSource has received a conditional commitment letter from a major geothermal facility in The Geysers geothermal field in Northern California to test the Phase Two MPG geothermal heat recovery unit. 01/24/06 - Used cooking oil heats a diner (Thanks to Dwayne Phillips for the headsup! - JWD) The owner of Deluxe Town Diner found a way to slash his fuel bill for heating and hot water to $0 during some weeks this winter: a new system that runs on the 30 or 40 gallons of vegetable oil he uses every week for cooking fries, plus oil he collects from a nearby pizzeria and a pair of Chinese restaurants. Using 100 percent vegetable oil as Levy does requires a special boiler. A blend of fossil fuel and vegetable oil can be used in a conventional boiler. Over the last two years, several hundred homeowners and many businesses in Massachusetts have begun buying so-called bioheat fuels. These fuels typically blend 80 percent conventional fuel oil and 20 percent vegetable oil or 90 percent conventional and 10 percent vegetable fuel, and usually cost 10 to 20 cents a gallon more than fossil fuel. 01/24/06 - Australia PMs climate plan could 'lift temperatures 4C' Environment group World Wide Fund for Nature said yesterday the plan by the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to ease global warming would see greenhouse emissions more than double in its six member nations. At the first APP meeting in Sydney last week, government advisory body the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics predicted the partnership's plans would leave greenhouse gas emissions 23per cent lower than they would otherwise have been by 2050. Those plans include the creation of a low-emissions technology fund and eight taskforces charged with reducing greenhouse emissions in industry sectors and accelerating the development and deployment of low- and zero-emissions technology. But WWF warned that the ABARE scenario condemns Australia to catastrophic climate change, including species extinction, a 148per cent rise in bushfires, increased storm damage and the deterioration of areas such as Kakadu National Park and the Great Barrier Reef. WWF Australian chief executive Greg Bourne said: "The Australian Government is willing to sacrifice public health and safety, the lifestyles of millions of Australians and our most treasured natural icons to pursue a business as usual energy path." 01/24/06 - Hyperdrive Motor for superfast space travel (Thanks to Bert Pool for the headsup! - JWD) Last year's winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There's just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious? Burkhard Heim began to explore the hyperdrive propulsion concept in the 1950s as a spin-off from his attempts to heal the biggest divide in physics: the rift between quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity. In Heim's view of space and time, he claimed it is possible to convert electromagnetic energy into gravitational and back again, and speculated that a rotating magnetic field could reduce the influence of gravity on a spacecraft enough for it to take off. In its present design, Dröscher and Häuser's experiment requires a magnetic coil several metres in diameter capable of sustaining an enormous current density. Most engineers say that this is not feasible with existing materials and technology, but Roger Lenard, a space propulsion researcher at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico thinks it might just be possible. Sandia runs an X-ray generator known as the Z machine which "could probably generate the necessary field intensities and gradients". 01/24/06 - New Device to Detect Skin Cancer From A Picture? (Thanks to Bob Paddock for the headsup! - JWD) News.com is reporting on a new machine that can tell you all about your skin's unique features (excessive oil, UV damage, etc.) using an image scan and software to analyze it. Its inventors plan on developing a version that can even detect skin cancer." From the article: "Apart from numbers, the technology, called Clarity Pro, can depict the depth and severity of wrinkles in a 3D chart, show the extent of bacteria-filled pores in a graph, or represent UV damage in purple dots scattered about your face in a white-light image. It can also calculate how long a person can be exposed to the sun, in minutes or hours a day, before incurring more UV damage." 01/24/06 - Pollution-busting plants to clean up contaminated land Decades of military activity have resulted in pollution of land and groundwater by explosives resistant to biological degradation. Large tracts of land used for military training, particularly in the USA, are contaminated by RDX, one of the most widely-used explosives, which is both highly toxic and carcinogenic. The six-strong CNAP team has isolated a bacterial micro-organism in the soil in contaminated land that can utilise the explosives as a source of nitrogen for growth. But, because RDX is so mobile in soil, the bacteria present are not degrading it quickly enough to stop the contamination of land and ground water. So the York team has redeployed the enzyme in the bacteria into plants, giving them the ability to biodegrade the pollutant more efficiently. Professor Bruce said: "We have taken that activity from the bacteria and put it in plants with large amounts of biomass. A tree, for instance, is effectively a big pump, seeking out water, and if we can redeploy the enzyme which degrades the explosive making it harmless, it combines the capabilities of soil bacteria with the high biomass and uptake properties in plants. The CNAP team are now extending the technique to robust plants species such as trees, including aspen and poplar, and perennial grasses. The technique can also be used to modify plants to resist other organic pollutants. 01/23/06 - Tinkerers build dual fuel diesel generator Jones, who describes himself as just a hands-on ranch kid, and Ritter, an electrician by trade, developed and patented their gaseous-fuel-delivery dual-fuel system three years ago and have been working to get the devices into the methane fields since then. Their company, TGI, which stands for Terry Greg Inc., has been testing and tweaking the systems since 2002 on some of the 180 generators owned by Northland Industrial, another company owned by Jones. The dual-fuel systems mix natural gas into the air intake of diesel engines, increasing the combustibility of the air and reducing the amount of diesel needed by as much as 90 percent, although 50 percent to 75 percent is more typical. One of the major advantages for methane companies is that the natural gas can come directly from the wellhead. Major benefits of the system include reduced fuel costs and lower emission levels than straight diesel generators, Jones said. And the diesel engine makes the machinery more reliable than systems that use natural gas only, Jones said. Natural gas can freeze, but diesel won't, a concern that Paul McElvery, a water resources engineer with Bill Barrett Corp., said his company had with the devices. Running electrical lines out to wells is expensive, and having a system that can power itself would make economic sense for natural gas companies, McElvery said. "Run it right off the wellhead with some sort of pretax benefit on the natural gas," he said. "I love the idea." Ritter said that the idea has been well received by people in the methane industry, many of whom refused to comment, citing company policies. However, there is still concern that the dual-fuel systems could ruin engines and void warranties. Jones and Ritter currently rent the devices to companies for $200 to $400 per month, depending on the size of the generator. But soon they'll begin marketing the product on its own, with versions costing between $2,500 and $15,000. In a market where a new diesel generator costs anywhere from $5,000 to $50,000, the rental fee seems minuscule because, as Jones points out, the device can bring old generators into compliance with new federal regulations on diesel engine emissions. There have been many attempts at putting together such a system, and Terry said one of the keys to their success was keeping it simple. To look at a finished system, one could easily mistake it for an Erector set, maybe even a robot sans joints. The hoses and gauges and piping are held up like a hobby horse by two triangular pieces of steel that can be attached to the top of generators in less than an hour. Once on, the devices can monitor engine load and oxygen output to regulate the amount of natural gas that is being used and measure the level of pollution in the air. When businesses have decided they don't need the devices anymore, they can be taken off in about two minutes, Jones said. A little more refinement could mean the devices being used on generators, trucks, trains and maybe even airplanes, Ritter said. 01/23/06 - Cat parasite alters human behavior Some scientists believe that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Parasitologist Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague administered psychological questionnaires to people infected with Toxoplasma and controls. Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious. (via boingboing.com) 01/23/06 - 'The UK Times' on Changing America 01/23/06 - Remote non-contact Lie Detector The US Department of Defense has revealed plans to develop a lie detector that can be used without the subject knowing they are being assessed. The Remote Personnel Assessment (RPA) device will also be used to pinpoint fighters hiding in a combat zone, or even to spot signs of stress that might mark someone out as a terrorist or suicide bomber. In a call for proposals on a DoD website, contractors are being given until 13 January to suggest ways to develop the RPA, which will use microwave or laser beams reflected off a subject's skin to assess various physiological parameters without the need for wires or skin contacts. The device will train a beam on "moving and non-cooperative subjects", the DoD proposal says, and use the reflected signal to calculate their pulse, respiration rate and changes in electrical conductance, known as the "galvanic skin response". "Active combatants will in general have heart, respiratory and galvanic skin responses that are outside the norm," the website says. Because these parameters are the same as those assessed by a polygraph lie detector, the DoD claims the RPA will also indicate the subject's psychological state: if they are agitated or stressed because they are lying, for example. So it will be used as a "remote or concealed lie detector during prisoner interrogation". But finding ways to fulfil the DoD's brief will pose a practical challenge, says Robert Prance, an electrical engineer at the University of Sussex, UK, who specialises in non-invasive sensors. "They might capture breathing rate with an infrared laser that senses chest vibration, but how they will measure a pulse through clothes, for instance, is a very big question." 01/23/06 - New technique for multiplying adult stem cells 30 fold Researchers in the lab of Whitehead Institute Member and MIT professor of biology Harvey Lodish have discovered a way to multiply an adult stem cell 30-fold, an expansion that offers tremendous promise for treatments such as bone marrow transplants and perhaps even gene therapy. "A 30-fold increase is ten times higher than anyone's achieved before," says Lodish, senior author on the paper, which will be published January 22 online in Nature Medicine. Unlike embryonic stem cells, adult stem cells are generally tissue-specific, each one destined to develop into several kinds of cells. Chengcheng Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher in the Lodish lab, was determined to develop a way to multiply adult stem cells once they've been isolated from tissue. Achieving this goal required some intricate laboratory sleuthing. 01/23/06 - St. Joseph the flying comic book hero Joseph of Copertino, a Franciscan priest renowned for his ability to levitate, will join the world of costumed crusaders next week when a new graphic novel is published in Britain and America. The Flying Friar, by Rich Johnston and Thomas Nachlik, is based on one of the Church’s most extraordinary saints who, although canonised for his extreme modesty and patience, is more remarkable for his apparent ability to fly and demonstrate supernatural strength. Only after being admitted as a novice to a Franciscan order in Grottella did he begin to display his powers, which were witnessed by people of unchallenged integrity, according to the Vatican. Joseph’s most spectacular feats were his ability to soar high over the chapel’s altars and, on one occasion, to help workmen to erect a Calvary Cross 36ft high by levitating himself and lifting the heavy cross “as if it were straw”. Until now he has found fame as the patron saint of pilots and air stewards, but next week The Flying Friar will arrive in comic bookshops across Britain. 01/23/06 - Wealthy 'Cryonauts' Freezing Assets Along with Their Bodies Several wealthy 'cryonauts,' who freeze their bodies after death in the hope of someday being revived, are exploring ways to hold onto their wealth in the frosty hereafter -- in effect, leaving their money to themselves. At least a dozen wealthy American and foreign businessmen are testing unfamiliar legal territory by creating so-called personal revival trusts designed to allow them to reclaim their riches hundreds, or even thousands, of years into the future. To serve clients who plan on being frozen, attorneys are tweaking so-called dynasty trusts that can legally endure hundreds of years, or even indefinitely. Such trusts, once widely prohibited, are now allowed by more than 20 states -- including Arizona, Illinois and New Jersey -- and typically are used to shield assets from estate taxes. They pay out funds to a person's children, grandchildren and future generations. People interested in cryonics are mostly male, frequently single, and typically have a strong interest in technology and predicting future events. And yet it's hard to know just how wide-spread the phenomenon of personal revival trusts is, since some wealthy individuals may fear ridicule if their hopes for immortality became known. 01/23/06 - Free B&W photo Recoloring Software Software Recolored makes colorizing your black and white photos a relatively simple task. To add color to a photo, all you have to do is add markings to the different regions of the image, indicating how it should be colorized. Then click the Colorize button and let the software do the rest. Recolored looks pretty awesome, though I’m not sure just how difficult it is to use. The video tutorial certainly makes it look very easy (though Bob Ross makes painting look easy, so who knows?). Recolored is free for non-commercial use, Windows only. (via lifehacker.com) 01/23/06 - Is something worse going on with Iran? Ahmadinejad called for more than wiping Israel off the face of the earth. It wasn't just a world without Zionism and Israel that Ahmadinejad and his friends in Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups were envisioning. It was a world without the United States of America. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, it is literally true. Examine for yourself the photos published here of Ahmadinejad addressing the Tehran conference Oct. 26, 2005. Yes, that is a ball representing the USA cracked at the bottom of that hourglass - with another representing Israel falling later. It wasn't just the imagery of the conference that was overlooked, ignored, unreported and underplayed by the world press. It was also the anti-American substance of Ahmadinejad's speech. "Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism?" he asked. "But you had best know that this slogan and this goal are attainable, and surely can be achieved." Iran has developed a strategic "war preparation plan" for what it calls the "destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization." 01/23/06 - Kuwait oil reserves only half official estimate Kuwait's actual oil reserves, which are officially stated at around 99 billion barrels, or close to 10 percent of the global total, are a good deal lower, according to internal Kuwaiti records," the weekly PIW reported on Friday. It said that according to data circulated in Kuwait Oil Co. (KOC), the upstream arm of state Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Kuwait's remaining proven and non-proven oil reserves are about 48 billion barrels. 01/23/06 - Experts warn of $100 U.S. a barrel oil with Iran conflict Nervous investors look on as conflict rages in several strategic areas