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January 2008 Plenum News 2008 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2007 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2006 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2005 (enhanced) Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Entire Year (minimal, early formats) 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 You can write Comments or read the KeelyNet discussion list. Feel free to subscribe. Be aware in case any of these links don't respond, most will be available through the Wayback Machine, simply cut and paste the link to recall the 'lost' information. 01/30/08 - Seadog Wave Pump Exceeds Epectations The SEADOGTM pump captures ocean-wave energy to pump large volumes of seawater, consuming no fuel or electricity. The pump uses buoyancy to convert wave energy to mechanical energy. The main components of the pump include a buoyancy chamber (the lower cage in the picture, buoyancy block (yellow object), piston assembly (center of upper chamber), piston shaft, piston cylinder, and intake and exhaust valves. When positioned in the water the buoyancy block (filled with air) floats within the buoyancy chamber, moving up and down in relation to the ocean waves and swells. The buoyancy block is connected to the piston shaft which in-turn moves the piston assembly through the piston cylinder. As the buoyancy block moves down in the trough of a wave it draws the piston downward through the piston cylinder. The downward movement draws water into the piston cylinder through the intake valve filling the piston cylinder chamber. As the next wave lifts the buoyancy block the water within the piston cylinder is under pressure and is expelled through the exhaust valve (into the air in the picture). Each cycle of the buoyancy block rising and falling, drawing in and expelling water, is called a stroke. Each stroke of the piston causes the water to be pumped from the piston cylinder in a regular manner. - Source 01/30/08 - Drug-name mix-ups getting worse Kid given schizophrenia drug Zyprexa instead of Zyrtec for allergies. The rate of drug name mix-ups has more than doubled since 2004, the U.S. Pharmacopeia said in a report Tuesday. The group, which regulates the generic names of drugs and advises pharmaceutical companies, reviewed more than 26,000 records and identified 1,470 unique drugs involved in errors due to similar brand or generic names. "Together, these drug names contributed to more than 3,170 pairs - nearly double the 1,750 product pairs appearing on USP's 2004 list," the organization said in a statement. "According to this report's findings, 1.4 percent of the errors resulted in patient harm, including seven that may have caused or contributed to patient deaths." The top 10 drugs sold in the United States in 2006 all made the mix-up list, including cholesterol drug Lipitor, heart drugs Toprol and Norvasc, antidepressant Lexapro, stomach acid pill Nexium and asthma drug Singulair. The USP researchers said 519 facilities reported on 176,409 errors in 2006. "The percentage of harmful errors has remained above 1 percent for more than seven years," they said. - Source 01/30/08 - Unwinding the Cosmos The presence of the golden ratio as an organizing principle in torsion physics led the team of Haramein and Rauscher to arrive at a Unified Field Theory that connects black holes to the structure of an atom. Their theory proposes that an atom is formed from the pumping or "breathing" of gravity in the space vacuum between the shape of a cube (dual tetrahedrons) and an octahedron, forming the simplest possible harmonically oscillating structure. As these two shapes oscillate, they pass through an icosahedron (or its dual dodecahedron) to form a golden spiral. Space is then seen as being organized into a polarized structured vacuum, called a Schwarzchild lattice, organized into 120 tiny black holes, each in its own "cell" of the lattice. Each cell is itself organized as a 12-faced pentagonal dodecahedron (or icosahedron). The Haramein-Rauscher atomic model is then used to explain each cell as a harmonically oscillating cubeoctahedron that passes through the Schwartzchild dodecahedron in the space lattice (centered on a tiny black hole). This pumping action creates an electromagnetic Coriolis Effect and double torus identical to a miniature spiral galaxy or hurricane. From the torquing edge or "event horizon" of the black hole in each cell of the space lattice, resonant atomic structures can form depending on the number of particles or atomic weight of different atoms. Of all the known elements, one particular atom, carbon-12, is more stable and resonant than any other element, accounting for its use as the international standard for atomic weight. In fact, carbon-12 resonates so well that it easily bonds with itself and other small atoms to form polypeptide amino acid chains and DNA molecules capable of evolving into the wide variety of water crystals we know as life. From the micro to the macro, torsion physics describes everything as a double torus of orthogonal (or "right-angled") gravitational and electromagnetic forces that together spin off resonant harmonic structure at the perfectly balanced event horizon between them. Based on this theoretical model, some scientists are calling for increased funding and research to find ways of engineering the torsion field. Nicola Tesla was the first to suggest this more than a hundred years ago. In 2001, German scientist Dr. Konstantin Meyl reproduced Tesla's wireless electricity experiments using a simple demonstration kit he built consisting of a dual-coil transmitter and matching receiver. He found that as the frequency was increased on the transmitter, scalar components were produced that tunneled over to the receiver to light an LED. Sold as a simple demonstration kit to more than fifty universities, the apparatus not only proved that electricity could be transmitted wirelessly, it also showed that scalar information could not be blocked by a shielded Faraday cage. More stunning than this, Meyl found that the scalar born information traveled more than 1.5 times the speed of light, confirming Tesla's own experimental results. (via zpenergy.com) - Source 01/30/08 - Sedentary life 'speeds up ageing' A study of twins found those who were physically active during their leisure time appeared biologically younger than their sedentary peers. The researchers found key pieces of DNA called telomeres shortened more quickly in inactive people. It is thought that could signify faster cellular ageing. An active lifestyle has been linked to lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. However, the latest research suggests that inactivity not only makes people more vulnerable to disease, but may actually speed up the ageing process itself. The King's team studied 2,401 white twins, asking them to fill out questionnaires on their level of physical activity, and taking a blood sample from which DNA was extracted. They particularly focused on telomeres, the repeat sequences of DNA that sit on the ends of chromosomes, protecting them from damage. As people age, their telomeres become shorter, leaving cells more susceptible to damage and death. Examining white blood cells from the immune system in particular, the researchers found that, on average, telomeres lost 21 component parts - called nucleotides - every year. But men and women who were less physically active in their leisure time had shorter leukocyte telomeres compared to those who were more active. The average telomere length in those who took the least amount of exercise - 16 minutes of physical activity a week - was 200 nucleotides shorter than those who took the most exercise - 199 minutes of physical activity a week, such as running, tennis or aerobics. The most active people had telomeres of a length comparable to those found in inactive people who were up to 10 years' younger, on average. The researchers said: "Our results show that adults who partake in regular physical activity are biologically younger than sedentary individuals." - Source 01/30/08 - Video - $1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera A simple little trick to help you keep your camera steady: $1 Image Stabilizer. DIY pocket device to help you take sharper, steadier photos. It eliminates vertical shake and greatly reduces horizontal shake without need of hauling a klutzy tripod wherever you want to take photos. Very slick! (via j-walkblog.com) - Source 01/30/08 - 50 years of Life Tips I’m turning 50 next week. So I thought I’d take the opportunity here to list 50 things I’ve learned in 50 years-truths gleaned from experience and the words of others that guide, inspire and sometimes haunt me: 6. The most valuable thing to have is a good reputation, and it’s neither hard nor expensive to acquire one: Be fair. Be honest. Be trustworthy. Be generous. Respect others. / 14. It’s not “political correctness” that dictates that we try not to insult others’ beliefs and identities. It’s common decency. / 15. It may not feel like it, but it’s good luck when you have people at home and at work who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong. / 22. Anyone who judges you by the kind of car you drive or shoes you wear isn’t someone worth impressing. / 24. If you’re in a conversation and you’re not asking questions, then it’s not a conversation, it’s a monologue....and more! - Source 01/30/08 - Disable Windows "Unused Icons" Balloon If you're sick of Windows taskbar popup balloons prompting you about unused icons on your desktop, fear not-you can shut those down easily. The How To Geek explains that when you uncheck the "Run Desktop cleanup wizard every 60 days" box in your desktop items dialog, you're good to go with one less irritating popup stealing your attention. Remember, using the free TweakUI you can disable all taskbar balloon popups indefinitely. - Source 01/30/08 - Pill for Reversing Autism Over the past year, researchers have demonstrated several times that they can turn mice autistic by messing with brain chemistry -- and then "cure" them using the same techniques. The discoveries could lead to a scenario similar to the one in Vernor Vinge's novel A Deepness in the Sky, where people are given a brain treatment called "focusing" that essentially turns them autistic and makes them obsessive, detail-oriented workers. It might also lead to recreational autism, where people who want to take a break from having messy emotions about other people decide to unplug and enter a state where human relationships are no more important than inanimate objects. - Source 01/30/08 - The Miracle of ICE from HEAT (Jun, 1939) In actual operation, the non-mechanical refrigerator uses a coil within the refrigerating chamber. If such a refrigerator were to be manually operated, by pouring the refrigerating material into the opening to the coil, outside the refrigerator, and using air as an evaporator, it would look like Figure No. 1, in which the more common elements of alcohol and air are used. The continued evaporation within the coil would soon cool it to an extent where it would freeze ice cubes in the enclosed trays and keep the whole refrigerating chamber cool. The first step in the practical process, therefore, is to reclaim the alcohol, which is done in the commercial refrigerators by means of an absorber which washes the alcohol out of the vapor and precipitates it in a mixture of water, as in Figure 2. It has been said, however, that hydrogen is a much more efficient gas in which to do the evaporating than air. It is not as free or inexpensive as air, however, so that a closed circuit must be provided for it. In the practical refrigerator, after the alcohol has been washed out of the mixture with water, the hydrogen is re-conveyed to the start of the circuit, as shown in Figure 3. This action is automatic, because the mixture of alcohol and hydrogen is heavier than the hydrogen alone. Hence, the mixture tends to flow down into the absorber, and the released hydrogen tends to rise again to the beginning of the circuit. - Source 01/30/08 - Sound waves snuff fire In 1857, Irish scientist John Tyndall recognized that sound waves could extinguish flames. Now, scientists hope that phenomena could lead to the development of new fire extinguishers that would be useful, say, in a spacecraft or terrestrially to avoid water damage from sprinklers. First though, they need to figure out why exactly sound can snuff fire. Most likely, the sound wave causes a drop in pressure that extinguishes the flame. From Scientific American: In 2004 Dmitriy Plaks and several of his fellow students at the University of West Georgia tested whether sound waves can douse fires in hopes of using sound to extinguish flames in a spacecraft. They placed a candle in a large topless chamber with three bass speakers attached to the walls. The candle was lit and the Canadian rock band Nickelback's "How you remind me" was pumped through the subwoofers. Within roughly 10 seconds, once the song hit a low note, the flame was out, according to results published in 2005 in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. - Source 01/30/08 - Inflatable Solar Collector - July 1961 Rocketing into space in a canister the size of a teacup, a solar collector will billow out to a conical shape with a metalized Mylar reflector that is seven feet in diameter. The sun’s rays striking the reflector are focused onto a collector. These rays will be transformed into heat energy which then may be used to power various electrical and mechanical instruments in space. Under tests by the G.T. Schjeldahl Co., Northfield, Minn., the collector is held to precise dimension by a rim inflated to five pounds per square inch of pressure. / (Also shown is a modern version of an inflatable and very cheap solar cone. - JWD) - Source 01/30/08 - Brattleboro, Vermont to vote on arresting Bush, Cheney (Wouldn't it be great if EVERY state did this? - JWD) Brattleboro residents will vote at town meeting on whether President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be indicted and arrested for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice if they ever step foot in Vermont. The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 Friday to put the controversial item on the Town Meeting Day warning. Vermont is the only state Bush hasn't visited since he became president in 2001. Daims said the most grievous crime committed by Bush and Cheney was perjury - lying to Congress and U.S. citizens about the basis of a war in Iraq. He said the latest count showed a total of 600,000 people have died in the war. Daims also said he believed Bush and Cheney were also guilty of espionage for spying on American people and obstruction of justice, for the politically generated firings of U.S. attorneys. "Everybody I talked to wanted Bush to go," he said, noting that even members of the local police department supported the drive. "This is exactly what the charter envisioned as a citizen initiative," Daims said. "People want to express themselves and they want to say how they feel." He said the idea is spreading: Activists in Louisville, Ky., are spearheading a similar drive, and he said activists were also working in Montague, Mass., a Berkshires town. The article asked the town attorney to "draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities." The article goes on to say the indictments would be the "law of the town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro police ... arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro, if they are not duly impeached ..." - Source 01/30/08 - Electric Glove for Police Stuns Victims With 1,500 Volts (Sep, 1935) MORE punch than can be found in a box-glove is contained in a new electric glove invented by Cirilo Diaz of Cuba for use by police while handling rough characters or in quelling riots. Persons contacted by an officer wearing the glove receive a 1,500-volt shock, sufficient to remove all traces of fight. A half-pound battery worn on the belt supplies the power, all wiring being concealed beneath the coat. Police officials in New York where the device was first demonstrated, were favorably impressed by its effectiveness. / (This is an early version of the taser but even better, much like the electric glove effect used in the James Bond movie 'Die Another Day'. - JWD) - Source 01/30/08 - 25 Million songs free to Download After a decade fighting to stop illegal file-sharing, the music industry will give fans today what they have always wanted: an unlimited supply of free and legal songs. With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks. The service has been endorsed by the very same record companies - including EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music - that have chased file-sharers through the courts in a doomed attempt to prevent piracy. The gamble is that fans will put up with a limited amount of advertising around the Qtrax website’s jukebox in return for authorised use of almost every song available. The service will use the “peer-to-peer” network, which contains not just hit songs but rarities and live tracks from the world’s leading artists. - Source 01/30/08 - Find answers using a Decision Tree Decision Trees are excellent tools for helping you to choose between several courses of action. They provide a highly effective structure within which you can lay out options and investigate the possible outcomes of choosing those options. They also help you to form a balanced picture of the risks and rewards associated with each possible course of action. Decision trees provide an effective method of Decision Making because they: * Clearly lay out the problem so that all options can be challenged * Allow us to analyze fully the possible consequences of a decision * Provide a framework to quantify the values of outcomes and the probabilities of achieving them * Help us to make the best decisions on the basis of existing information and best guesses. As with all Decision Making methods, decision tree analysis should be used in conjunction with common sense... - Freemind Freeware - Source 01/28/08 - Cleveland death ray of 1934 REPORTED to have tremendous military possibilities, a successful death ray machine is said to have been invented, after lengthy experiments, by a Cleveland scientist. A partial description of the machine’s construction and operating principles was recently offered at a session of the National Inventors’ Congress at Omaha, Nebraska. Privileged witnesses to demonstrations of the machine declared that experiments were successful to a startling degree. Dogs, cats and rabbits were killed instantly, their blood turning to water as the ray was turned upon them. It is reported that the machine has been suppressed by the government until such time as it may be needed as a defensive weapon. - Source 01/28/08 - Bubble-busting sounds could keep chips cool Sound waves can boost the efficiency of liquid cooling techniques by nearly 150%, a feat that may help keep hardworking computer chips and other components from overheating in future. Current computer cooling solutions, such as fans and heat sinks, will have difficulty keeping more powerful microchips cool in future. But researchers in the US have shown how a relatively inefficient method - liquid cooling - can be improved dramatically with the use of sound waves. In experiments, the researchers placed an acoustic driver - essentially a speaker - sitting opposite from the heated surface, with cooling fluid in-between. They found that projecting just a small amount of sound energy, at frequencies near 1 kilohertz, across the fluid was enough to do dislodge the gathering bubbles. This increased the amount of heat that could be dissipated by as much as 147%. The best results were achieved when the distance between the acoustic driver and the heated surface was just a few millimetres, which is good news for applications in which space is a premium. "The underwater jets solution is effective, but this way is more compact, requires less power, and is, well, more elegant," Glezer says. - Source 01/28/08 - Wonderlube - Super Engine Oil Additive Using Wonderlube, your car could run without oil or water! 1. Restore engine power / 2. Save fuel up to 25% / 3. Protect metal surfaces of the engine / 4. Prolongs time between oil changes / 5. Minimizes emission of harmful gases and smoke / 6. In the even of accident, your car or cycle cold run 1 hour without lube or water / 7. Prevents overheating, maintains cooler temperature / 8. Quieter and smoother running engine. - Source 01/28/08 - Aerogas Power Injector for economical, pollution-free Motoring Filipino Scientist Victor G.Ayco has successfully invented a high tech engine device that enhances efficient engine performance; eliminates smoke belching,and requires less fuel consumption.The device called Aerogas Power Injector is the result of Ayco’s 15 years of research and experimentation.It was patented on Dec. 11, 1985,and is now available in the market through Enegy Philipines Inc,” Ayco said.Aerogas Power Injector is a chemical catalysts in an engine device that is activated chemically during air and fuel intake, harnessing the potential elements from the air to produce 98 percent to 100 percent combustion efficiecy of fuel in the combustion chamber of an engine. According to Ayco, Aerogas Power Injector as a catalyst converts ordinary nitrogen in the atmosphere(non-combustible air ) into combustible nitrogas and serves as gasoline and diesel additive and gaseous form for efficient engine combustion. When complete combustion is attained carbons are burned and converted into extra power. Fuel additive can restore fuel efficiency from 20 percent to 40 percent. Aerogas Power Injector works on the chemical process by sucking air composed of 78 percent nitrogen, 20 percent oxygen and 3 percents others, then converting it into active elements ( nitrogen base elements) which react with the elements of the fuel (hydrocarbons ) during air intake process. When these elements reacted with the hydrocarbons of the fuel , 98 percent to 100 percent comstion is made possible. Aerogas Power Injector , an advanced engineering design can increase engine power from 60 percent , increase mileage from 2 to 4 kilometers a liter. It cuts down maintenance costs by 50 percent by prolonging the lifespan of spark/glow plugs, as well as decreasing frequency on tune-ups and change oil. - Source 01/28/08 - Flexible Waterproof Compact Keyboard This is a full-size PC keyboard made from some kind of synthetic rubber or soft plastic. You can roll it up and tuck it into your knapsack. It is unaffected by spills, and you can wash it off under the faucet. Twist it, roll it, fold it, soak it. The all new Flexible Full Sized Keyboard from Adesso is a revolutionary approach to truly taking PC computing anywhere! It’s water resistant, flexible, and dust and contaminant proof. The keyboard is great for use in industrial environments, hospitals, libraries, and marine and boating applicationsThe silicon based material is impervious to almost anything and, it’s fun to use! - Source 01/28/08 - Lip-Reading Computer Interface In the Works Scientists from England's University of East Anglia's School of Computing Sciences and Surrey University are working on software that can translate face and lip movements into words. They've already built the software for tracking face and lip movements. Now all they need is a complete database of all possible combinations, and what they mean. A working prototype of their LIP-READING COMPUTER could be ready in two years. The interface could be used for giving commands to a computer even in noisy environments. - Source 01/28/08 - Gadgets That Listen and Obey "Vlingo's service lets people talk naturally, rather than making them use a limited number of set phrases. Dave Grannan, the company's chief executive, demonstrated the Vlingo Find application by asking his phone for a song by Mississippi John Hurt (try typing that with your thumbs), for the location of a local bakery and for a Web search for a consumer product. It was all fast and efficient. Vlingo is designed to adapt to the voice of its primary user, but I was also able to use Mr. Grannan's phone to find an address. The Find application is in the beta test phase at AT&T and Sprint. Consumers who use certain cellphones from those companies can download the application from vlingo.com." - Source 01/28/08 - Microchips Everywhere: A Vision of the Future Here are three visions of the not-so-distant future: 1.) Microchips with antennas will be embedded in virtually everything you buy, wear, drive and read, allowing retailers and law enforcement to track consumer items - and, by extension, consumers - wherever they go, from a distance. 2.) A seamless, global network of electronic "sniffers" will scan radio tags in myriad public settings, identifying people and their tastes instantly so that customized ads, "live spam," may be beamed at them. 3.) In "Smart Homes," sensors built into walls, floors and appliances will inventory possessions, record eating habits, monitor medicine cabinets - all the while, silently reporting data to marketers eager for a peek into the occupants' private lives. - Source 01/28/08 - Multitasking is Destroying Our Ability to Focus "Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires - the constant switching and pivoting - energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we're supposed to be concentrating on... studies find that multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to atrophy." - Source 01/28/08 - Alzheimer's IR helmet therapy hope An experimental helmet is being tested by scientists as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. It delivers low levels of infra-red light, which researchers at the University of Sunderland, believe may stimulate the growth of brain cells. Tests in mice showed it improved learning ability and a study in humans is due to begin in the summer. Current treatments for Alzheimer's delay progression of the disease but cannot reverse memory loss. The infra-red therapy was first developed to treat cold sores. But when researchers studied how it worked, they found it stimulated growth of cells and may have applications in other conditions. In tests in people with dementia using infra-red lasers, eight out of nine people showed some improvement, said Dr Gordon Dougal, a GP and director of Virulite, a medical research company based in County Durham. However, in order to safely deliver the treatment through the scalp, he developed a helmet which bathes the brain in low levels of infra-red light and would only need to be worn for 10 minutes a day. - Source 01/28/08 - An octopus wants to eat the West What’s 3,500 feet wide, 6,055 miles long and 2.9 million acres big? That’s wider than Hoover Dam, bigger than Yellowstone National Park and almost three times as long as the Mississippi River. This behemoth goes by the name of the West-Wide Energy Corridor, and if you live in the West it could soon devour a landscape near you. This huge new system of energy corridors was mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. You remember 2005: That was when newly re-elected President Bush claimed a “mandate” and Congress was controlled by Republicans. Section 368 of the law directed the Secretaries of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy and Interior to designate corridors on federal land in 11 Western states for oil, gas and hydrogen pipelines and electrical power lines. These agencies have now released the federal West-wide Energy Corridor Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, a three-volume document totaling well over 1,000 pages. These new energy corridors - averaging six-tenths of a mile wide - will fracture a landscape that is already a maze of hairline cracks - the lines made by highways, railroads and the current, comparatively delicate energy rights-of-way. These existing corridors have been enough to severely fragment habitat in the West, interfering with the movements of pronghorn, elk and bison, denying undisturbed wild areas to wolves and grizzly bears, and weakening the ecological health of deserts, grasslands and forests. The West-Wide Energy Corridor, if enacted, would be a death sentence for many wildlife populations. The corridors it outllnes would cross national wildlife refuges, national recreation areas, national monuments and national parks. One tentacle would split the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming; another would run the length of California1s Owens Valley between Sequoia and Death Valley national parks; another would cut from Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado to Bandelier National Monument near Santa Fe. - Source 01/28/08 - GM's breakthrough to make Cellulosic Ethanol Coskata's process goes way beyond using switch grass. It can use any kind of agricultural waste. Even more importantly, it can use a lot of municipal waste, i.e., most the stuff we're dumping into landfills. In fact, it can use anything that has carbon in it, including used tires. For every unit of energy used to make this ethanol, it will generate up to 7.7 times that amount of energy. On a well-to-wheel analysis, it reduces CO2 emissions by up to 84% compared with gasoline. Coskata's process also uses less than a gallon of water to make a gallon of ethanol compared to three gallons or more for other processes. And here's the best news of all. GM and Coskata say they can produce a gallon of this ethanol for less than $1 a gallon. They'll have a pilot plant up and running by the end of the year, and the plan is to go into mass production by 2011. - Source 01/28/08 - Shopping with Humor HEMA is a Dutch department store. Take a look at HEMA's product page. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch but . . . just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer. - Source 01/28/08 - Bug Labs - the Lego of Gadgets BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any gadget you can imagine. Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (ex: a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc). You decide which functions to include and BUG takes care of the rest letting you try out different combinations quickly and easily. With BUG and the integrated programming environment/web community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program and share innovative devices and applications. We don't define the final products - you do. BUG makes it fun and easy to build any gadget you can imagine. Build familiar things like digital cameras and GPS locators or create new devices like a LoCamMotion or a GeoPhotoShooter or an Accel-o-Mailer or ... the list is endless! - Source 01/28/08 - Stores can't set credit card minimum There are many convenience stores that charge small fees for using a debit or credit card when customers do not spend a certain dollar amount. For example, one store said they would charge me $0.75 if I used my Visa debit card to buy a soda, because I did not spend enough. I told the store clerk that she cannot impose a minimum purchase requirement when I used my Visa card and she simply laughed at me. Or was I wrong? - Keiko C. / You are correct. Merchants accepting Visa or MasterCard credit or debit cards are not allowed to set a minimum amount for using the card; that is a violation of the merchant agreement. - Source 01/26/08 - A Cure for Wall Warts You can flip off your widescreen TV with the remote control. Power down your computer to standby. Unplug your cellphone from its charger. But as you leave the room, the "wall warts" -- those small boxes plugged into the wall sockets that power your electronics -- stare with glowing diode eyes in accusation: You are still using power. In homes and offices everywhere, the power drained by idle electronics adds up to what Andy Williams says is a substantial waste. Williams is vice president of a company called On Semiconductor. Using more efficient components and design, his company and others make devices that sharply cut the energy appetite of the "wall warts," both on standby and in use. He sees this as a key path to the future that will cut energy use and help curb global warming by ingenious use of technology. "We're talking about the exact same principle as replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones," he said from Phoenix. "If our products were built into all consumer electronics -- computers, flat-screen TVs, cellphones -- we could save 800 million pounds of carbon emissions." - Source 01/26/08 - Rain is latest source of power Jean-Jacques Chaillot and his colleagues at France's Atomic Energy Commission in Grenoble are working on ways to harness the energy of rainfall using materials that generate electricity when subjected to a mechanical force. Domestically, these materials provide the spark in piezoelectric gas lighters. Mr Chaillot and his group dripped water droplets on to a piezoelectric plastic and obtained tiny but useable amounts of electricity. Although the output is puny compared with that of solar panels, they point out that rain power works in the dark and could supplement solar-powered devices. The researchers think their invention could be used for self-powered environmental sensors. One application could be to detect limescale build-up inside the cooling towers of nuclear power stations. The sensors would be powered by electricity generated when the steam, vented up the chimney, condensed. Another could be a rain detector for a car's windscreen wipers. - Source 01/26/08 - High Tech Mapping Starts to Redefine International Borders A virtually unknown bunch of scientists are working to make the United States grow by 386,000 square miles, and the oil, gas, and other resources contained in that area could be worth about $1.3 trillion. For centuries, nations marked what they owned at sea by measuring out from their shoreline. But in 1994, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea took effect. It stated that countries can move their boundary lines to the edge of their continental shelf - this can give them more territory but is difficult to determine. Today, as sea ice thaws and undersea mapping technology improves, countries are rushing to assert their ownership over potentially lucrative chunks of extra turf. To assert sovereignty over its submerged continental shelf, a nation has to map multiple off-shore points. Among them: the area where the ocean depth drops to 2,500 meters, and the place where a country's land mass drops off to become seafloor, a spot called the foot of the continental slope. If these points are farther out than current boundaries, there may be a case for extending the oceanic property line. - Source 01/26/08 - Solar Engine Whips Waste Heat Into Power A new engine with no moving parts has been shown to convert waste heat and concentrated solar energy into electricity better than conventional solar panels. The invention could lead to electricity generators ranging in size from the very large, such as those used by utility companies, to the very small -- such as those that tap body heat to generate power for personal electronics. Because the conversion rate is so high, the technology could make solar energy cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels. Nuclear engineer Lonnie Johnson, founder of Johnson Research and Development and Johnson Electro-mechanical Systems, both in Atlanta. Johnson is funding his research with money he made by inventing the super soaker squirt gun. His new, somewhat less cavalier, invention is called the Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Conversion System. The original goal, in part, was to address a common problem with energy: When it's generated -- by gas, coal, battery, or other means -- much is wasted into thin air. In fact, in the United States alone, the amount of energy lost is more than the energy consumed by the entire country of Japan. Johnson's engine captures that heat and turns it into useful power. It's called an engine because it's based on thermodynamic principals that exist in mechanical engines, such as those that power automobiles. In a car engine, moving pistons and rods compress gas at low temperatures and expand it at high temperatures to convert heat energy to mechanical energy to drive the vehicle. - Source 01/26/08 - Lead Acid Batteries on Steroids for Hybrid Cars Researchers in Australia have created what could be called a lead-acid battery on steroids, capable of performing as well as the nickel-metal hydride systems found in most hybrid cars but at a fraction of the cost. The so-called UltraBattery combines 150-year-old lead-acid technology with supercapacitors, electronic devices that can quickly absorb and release large bursts of energy over millions of cycles without significant degradation. As a result, the new battery lasts at least four times longer than conventional lead-acid batteries, and its creators say that it can be manufactured at one-quarter the cost of existing hybrid-electric battery packs. In the United Kingdom last week, a Honda Insight hybrid powered by the UltraBattery system surpassed 100,000 miles on a test track. In the late 1990s, for example, David Lamb helped design two hybrid cars that used a 60-volt lead-acid pack and a separate 150-volt supercapacitor pack. The lead-acid system allowed the vehicles to drive in all-electric mode in the city, while the supercapacitors gave the cars the jolt that was needed for acceleration and the ability to quickly absorb energy from braking. Lamb's team decided to eliminate the need for all external electronics and instead build the supercapacitors directly into the battery. Essentially, one of the plates (the negative electrode) in the lead-acid battery was made half of lead and half of carbon, turning the battery into a supercapacitor-lead-acid hybrid. - Source 01/26/08 - Too Much Cola Can Cause Kidney Problems Colas contain high levels of phosphoric acid, which has been linked to kidney stones and other renal problems. Much of this conclusion stems from anecdotal and circumstantial evidence. So last year, a team of scientists at the National Institutes of Health took a closer look. In a study published in the journal Epidemiology, the team compared the dietary habits of 465 people with chronic kidney disease and 467 healthy people. After controlling for various factors, the team found that drinking two or more colas a day - whether artificially sweetened or regular - was linked to a twofold risk of chronic kidney disease. But drinking two or more noncola carbonated drinks a day, they found, did not increase the risk. The authors of the study say more research is needed, but their findings support the long-held notion that something about cola - the phosphoric acid, for example, or the ability of cola to pull calcium from bones - seems to increase the risk of kidney stones, renal failure and other conditions affecting the kidneys. The bottom line is that there is good evidence that cola beverages can increase the risk of kidney problems, more so than noncola sodas. - Source 01/26/08 - Toyota cars to monitor driver's eyes for safety Toyota will start building a safety system into some of its cars this year that monitors if a driver is clearly watching the road during situations when a crash may occur. The system is based around a camera that watches the driver's upper and lower eye lids to evaluate how attentive he or she is to the road ahead. It builds on a current system that measures the driver's head direction when driving. The car's safety system continuously monitors the road ahead using a radar system, and if it determines a crash may be possible, it matches this with the driver evaluation gathered from the camera. If the driver doesn't appear to be paying attention it sounds a buzzer and warning light. If things progress and a crash becomes probable then it also tries to gain attention of the driver by quickly applying and releasing the brakes. At this point the car's pre-crash brake assist system is also readied. When a crash is judged to be unavoidable the safety system engages the brakes and seatbelts for the collision. - Source 01/26/08 - Alfven waves increase Sun temp 100s of times Powerful magnetic waves have been confirmed for the first time as major players in the process that makes the sun's atmosphere strangely hundreds of times hotter than its already superhot surface. The magnetic waves - called Alfven waves - can carry enough energy from the sun's active surface to heat its atmosphere, or corona. Scientists have speculated that Alfven waves act as energy conveyor belts to heat the sun's atmosphere, but lacked the observational evidence to prove their theories. De Pontieu and his colleagues changed that by using the Japanese orbiting solar observatory Hinode to peer at the region sandwiched between the sun's surface and corona, called the chromosphere. Not only did they spot many Alfven waves, but they also estimated the waves carried more than enough energy to sustain the corona's temperatures as well as to power the solar wind (charged particles that constantly stream out from the sun) to speeds of nearly 1 million mph. - Source 01/26/08 - Power plant waste used to make cookies An Austin company called Skyonic, is racing to make history and maybe change it. They're one of many company's searching for the best way to strip carbon dioxide from power plants exhaust. Skyonic taps a little exhaust off the plant and basically mixes it with salt and water. When the exhaust goes back, they say, the carbon dioxide is gone. "It looks like a very cookbook chemistry," said Jones. The process creates some interesting by-products: hydrogen, which is a clean fuel; chlorine, an industrial chemical; and baking soda, where all the carbon dioxide is locked up. What may impress the energy industry even more is that the process actually makes money. Skyonic says selling the hydrogen and chlorine will raise more money than it costs to build the whole system. As for the baking soda - it turns out the world already has plenty of it. So, Skyonic's plan calls for burying the baking soda and carbon dioxide back in the hole where the coal came from. - Source 01/26/08 - World's Most Powerful Rail Gun Delivered to Navy Instead of relying on chemical propellants -- such as gunpowder -- a rail gun uses magnetic "rails" to launch a solid, nonexplosive projectile at incredible speed. Theoretically, rail guns would be able to precisely strike targets at extreme ranges, and would negate the risks associated with carrying around tons of explosive ammo. More to the point, they're cool-sounding, just like lasers. The Navy’s electrically propelled DDG 100 Destroyer, Chaboki says, is a prime candidate for the final 64-megajoule system. Around 72 megawatts (MW) of the vessel's power can be used for propulsion. But during combat, the destroyer's speed could be brought down, freeing up energy for a rail gun. Chaboki calculates that firing the 64-megajoule weapon six times per minute would require 16 MW of power, which would be supplied by either onboard capacitors or pulsed alternators. The more daunting challenge is the force of the rail gun itself: A few shots can dislodge the conducting rails -- or even damage the barrel of the gun. While the 32-MJ LRG should start firing soon, it could take another 13 years for a 64-megajoule system to be built and deployed on a ship. The Marines, in particular, are interested in the potential for rail guns to deliver supporting fire from up to 220 miles away -- around 10 times further than standard ship-mounted cannons -- with rounds landing more quickly and with less advance warning than a volley of Tomahawk cruise missiles. - Source 01/26/08 - Lonely people more likely to believe in God Humans have evolved as social creatures, so loneliness cuts to the quick. Living in groups was critical to the survival and safety of our ancient ancestors, and "complete isolation or ostracism has been tantamount to a death sentence," said University of Chicago researcher Nicholas Epley, who led the study. While group living isn't critical to survival in the modern world, feeling socially connected is. Feeling isolated and lonely is a very painful emotional state for people, Epley said, and can lead to ill health, both physically and mentally. "We found that inducing people to feel lonely made them more religious essentially," Epley told LiveScience, though he notes it won't cause any sudden conversions. Owning pets and religious beliefs and practices are both known to increase a person's sense of well-being, but why exactly that is isn’t well known, Epley said. Epley and his colleagues plan to probe the issue further to see if anthropomorphizing pets or believing in anthropomorphized supernatural agents is what is responsible for alleviating feelings of loneliness. If it is, it could provide alternate means for people to feel socially connected when connecting to humans isn't an option. - Source 01/26/08 - Obesity operation may cure diabetes in many Patients who had surgery to reduce the size of their stomachs were five times more likely to see their diabetes disappear over the next two years than were patients who had standard diabetes care, according to Australian researchers. Most of the surgery patients were able to stop taking diabetes drugs and achieve normal blood tests. The patients had stomach band surgery, a procedure more common in Australia than in the United States, where gastric bypass surgery, or stomach stapling, predominates. Gastric bypass is even more effective against diabetes, achieving remission in a matter of days or a month, said Dr. David Cummings, who wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal but was not involved in the study. In the Australian study, all the patients were obese and had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes during the past two years. Their average age was 47. Half the patients underwent a type of surgery called laparoscopic gastric banding, where an adjustable silicone cuff is installed around the upper stomach, limiting how much a person can eat. Both groups lost weight over two years; the surgery patients lost 46 pounds on average, while the standard-care patients lost an average of 3 pounds. Blood tests showed diabetes remission in 22 of the 29 surgery patients after two years. In the standard-care group, only four of the 26 patients achieved that goal. The patients who lost the most weight were the most likely to eliminate their diabetes. Both patient groups learned about low-fat, high-fiber diets and were encouraged to exercise. Both groups could meet with a health professional every six weeks for two years. The death rate for stomach band surgery, which can cost $17,000 to $20,000, is about 1 in 1,000. There were only minor complications in the study. Stomach stapling has a 2 percent death rate and costs $20,000 to $30,000. - Source 01/26/08 - Double amputee walks again due to Bluetooth Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bleill lost both his legs above the knees when a bomb exploded under his Humvee while on patrol in Iraq on October 15, 2006. He has 32 pins in his hip and a 6-inch screw holding his pelvis together. Bleill, 30, is one of two Iraq war veterans, both double leg amputees, to use the Bluetooth prosthetics. Computer chips in each leg send signals to motors in the artificial joints so the knees and ankles move in a coordinated fashion. Bleill's set of prosthetics have Bluetooth receivers strapped to the ankle area. The Bluetooth device on each leg tells the other leg what it's doing, how it's moving, whether walking, standing or climbing steps, for example. "They mimic each other, so for stride length, for amount of force coming up, going uphill, downhill and such, they can vary speed and then to stop them again," Bleill told CNN from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he's undergoing rehab. - Source 01/26/08 - Smartphones, seat belts, searches, and the Fourth Amendment When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone as a "revolutionary" device, he probably wasn't thinking of its effect on the Fourth Amendment. But a new paper by Adam Gershowitz, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, argues that unless courts or legislators make significant changes to the rules governing law enforcement searches, the increasing ubiquity of devices like Apple's übergadget will permit police to routinely gather massive amounts of citizens' sensitive personal data without a warrant. / The Fourth Amendment guarantees that Americans will not be subject to "unreasonable searches and seizures." Normally, this means police must show a judge that there is "probable cause" to believe a search will uncover evidence of a crime before tapping our phones or digging through our papers. With the proliferation of iPhone-like devices, the officer digging through your coat pocket suddenly has access to gigabytes worth of potentially sensitive e-mail, videos, photographs, browsing histories, and other documents. If you're in the habit of keeping your passwords saved, they may even be able to reach bank statements, file servers, and that Nerve Personals account you opened "just for fun." Though the underlying rationale for searches incident to arrest is officer safety, courts have adopted a "bright line" rule permitting an arresting officer to search any object in a suspect's possession, such as a cigarette pack, even if it unlikely to conceal a miniature Glock. And since the Supreme Court has ruled that police have broad authority to arrest people for even trivial infractions, such as failure to wear a seat belt, the current rule gives law enforcement officers broad discretion to transform a routine traffic stop into a highly intrusive excavation of your digital life. - Source 01/24/08 - Video - Generator powered by sugar and yeast The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight. Basically we have two chambers on either end of the rotating (pivoted) rod. The arrangement of the chambers is such that on either side of the rod, one chamber sits on top of the other (this is important). At the beginning of this operation, I fill the bottom chamber on each side with a yeast sugar solution. Each bottom chamber is always locked under pressure by special valves. Due to pressure the solution starts moving from a bottom chamber into its respective top chamber. Note that by moving upwards, the fluid’s center of gravity shifts, resulting in a mass imbalance which causes the wobbling. - Source 01/24/08 - Seattle police receive spanking for taking photographer's camera Apparently the City of Seattle settled with amateur photographer Bogdan Mohora after the ACLU helped him file a claim over a false arrest when Seattle cops James Pitts and David Toner arrested Mohara for taking their photograph during the arrest. Bogdan was awarded $8,000 and the officers were disciplined. Just another friendly reminder that photography is not a crime, even if the police tell you it is. - Source 01/24/08 - A study in Coupon Magic Take the coupon section out of the Sunday paper and put it aside for four weeks - don’t even bother to look at it. Four weeks later, open it up and clip everything that’s even remotely of interest, whether you’d buy it normally or not. At that point, take the wad of coupons to the store and just look at the shelves. Magically, most of those coupons you have will sync up very well with stuff that’s already on sale on the shelves. When you combine the sale price and the coupon, you’ll usually be able to get items for next to nothing. Why does this work? Coupons in the newspaper are usually the first wave of a product push from large companies. They’ll put out coupons to start bumping up the sales, then they’ll move onto sale prices later on in the promotion. The reason for doing these in waves is so that the overall product sales trend looks solidly positive and not just a big spike with a fall-off. Plus, coupon users who use the product, like it, return to the store, and notice the item on sale are often willing to buy the item again. - Source 01/24/08 - The Drink Bandit The Drink Bandit is a color-coded bracelet that pulls apart to create two bands -- one goes on the wrist, and the other matching colored band goes on the drink. Once in place, The Drink Bandit helps the children easily identify their own drink container. Children will no longer abandon drinks, creating waste, or drink from someone else's container, which spreads germs. The Drink Bandit comes in a package of 10 stretchable bracelets -- 20 once pulled apart -- in 10 bright colors, and is available at www.TheDrinkBandit.com. The bracelets are disposable, but they are easily washed with soap and water and can be reused. McManigal aims to sell the product at large retailers, grocery stores and party supply stores. She is also developing a larger Drink Bandit version to market to the adult segment. "It's a common scenario," McManigal said. "You go to a party and everyone has the same drink. A lot of people accidentally grab the wrong can, cup, or bottle. You won't die from it, but you'd rather not sip off someone else's drink." - Source 01/24/08 - New Sleep Mask, Blindfold and Eye Cover Designed to Block All Light This new room darkening mask has a unique design that completely blocks out all light in a room at night and also the bright light of the sun during daytime. This unique Weber No Light mask is made of a laminate of two different thicknesses of black foam material that make sleeping in complete darkness possible. On the outside of the mask is a thin (1/8 thick") but strong molded foam material. On the inside is another layer of sponge-like 1/2" thick foam where there are two large (1-3/4") circular cutouts placed directly in front of the wearer's eyes. These cutouts provide an opening so the wearer's eyes can blink, open or close without ever touching the foam. There is a 1/4" wide elastic strap to hold the mask on the wearer's head. The wearer can easily adjust the tension of the strap by making it longer or shorter for the most comfortable fit. Another unique feature of the mask is a washable cloth liner fastened on the inside of the mask (with Velcro). The easy to remove washable liner is placed in a position between the foam of the mask and skin of the wearer's face. When necessary, this liner is removed, washed and then air-dried. The twofold purpose of the liner is to keep the mask clean, fresh and sanitary at all times as well as to dramatically extend the useful life of the mask. This highly efficient no light mask has many practical uses. For example, use it as: a blindfold for games at parties, in sleep clinics, for travel, quick short naps, during time in the hospital, during yoga classes, for sensory testing of students, and since there is no metal in the mask, it can also be used during MRI and radiology examinations. The Weber No Light Sleep Mask is priced at $10.95 each (plus $2.00 s/h) For more information, or to order, write to: Originals By Weber, Attention: Terry Weber, 338-C Alabama Avenue, Toms River, New Jersey 08753, or go to the website for complete details: http://www.yrret.stirsite.com/page/page/3888721.htm . - Source 01/24/08 - Raser Technologies 155 MW Geothermal Financing Program Raser Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: RZ) announced that it has entered into an agreement with Merrill Lynch for the structuring and financing of up to 155 megawatts (MW) of Raser’s geothermal power plants, including a commitment letter from Merrill Lynch to provide funding for the construction of Raser’s first geothermal power plant. The plant, using PureCycle® geothermal technology from UTC Power, a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX) company, is designed to produce 10.5 MW of electrical power with zero emissions. The organic Rankine cycle-based power system is an advanced binary cycle system that is driven by a simple evaporation process and is entirely enclosed, which means it produces no emissions. The only byproduct is electricity, and the system’s “fuel” -- geothermal hot water -- is a renewable resource. - Source 01/24/08 - UltraBattery Sets New Standard for HEVs The odometer of a low emission hybrid electric test vehicle reached 100,000 miles as the car circled a track in the UK using the power of an advanced CSIRO battery system. The UltraBattery combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery in a single unit, creating a hybrid car battery that lasts longer, costs less and is more powerful than current technologies used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). “Previous tests show the UltraBattery has a life cycle that is at least four times longer and produces 50 per cent more power than conventional battery systems. It’s also about 70 per cent cheaper than the batteries currently used in HEVs,” said David Lamb, Low Emissions Transport Leader, Energy Transformed Flagship, CISRO, Australia. - Source 01/24/08 - How UFOs and Bigfoot Could Save Earth Many New Agers and believers in the mysterious and paranormal have long incorporated environmentalism into their beliefs. Among people who claim to have been abducted or contacted by space aliens, messages about world peace and warnings of impending environmental disaster are common. One popular belief is that UFO sightings are simply glimpses of the benevolent aliens watching over us, monitoring our destructive ways. We should work to save the planet, the thinking goes, but if we can't, our savior space brothers will intervene just before the world destroys itself, either through environmental pollution or global nuclear war. Once that happens, we Earthlings will see the error of our ways, ushering in a new era of peace, love, and global consciousness. This bleak notion that humans inherently (and inevitably) destroy everything is common in New Age circles. However, though humans can destroy, we can also build and protect. The revival of animals from the brink of extinction (such as bald eagles in North America and elephants in Africa) are but two of many examples. Mankind may or may not be marching blithely on the path to ecological self-destruction, but if Bigfoot or aliens help encourage people to reduce, reuse, and recycle, so much the better. That's why they call them "little green men." - Source 01/24/08 - A Possible Answer to Flyby Anomalies Strange things are happening to our robotic space explorers. Also known as the "Pioneer effect" (the unexpected and sudden alterations to Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 trajectories measured as they continue their journey into the outer solar system), similar anomalies are being seen in flybys by modern space probes. Earth flybys by Galileo, Rosetta, NEAR and Cassini have all experienced a sudden boost in speed. After cancelling out all possible explanations, including leakage of fuel and velocity measurement error, a new study suggests the answer may lie in a bizarre characteristic of universal physics. A recent study by Magic McCulloch suggests that "Unruh radiation" may be the culprit. The Unruh effect, put simply, suggests that accelerating bodies experience a type of electromagnetic radiation. At very low acceleration, the wavelength emitted will be so large that a whole wavelength will be longer than the dimensions of the Universe (otherwise known as the Hubble Distance). Low acceleration would therefore generate waves that have no effect on the body. However, should the accelerating body (i.e. Galileo getting accelerated by Earth's gravity during the 1990 flyby) slowly exceed an acceleration threshold, the Unruh radiation will decrease in wavelength (smaller than the Hubble Distance), causing a tiny, but measurable "boost" to its increasing velocity. - Source 01/24/08 - Arcologists Dream: 7 Proposed Futuristic Sky Cities As the world’s population continues to boom so does density in major conurbations. This increase in density is actually increasing around the world as an influx of people move to the cities in search of jobs and the (often hollow) promise of a better life. This leaves the world’s major cities with a conundrum: how do you accommodate more people in the same space? For many the answer lies in the architectural philosophies of Paolo Soleri, an Italian-American visionary accredited as the father of arcology. If you have ever played Sim City 2000 you may or may not already be acquainted with the arcology, a structure of mammoth proportions created to accommodate large populations in sync with the surrounding environment. - Source 01/24/08 - Slower boats to China as ship owners save fuel The world's first commercial ship powered partly by a giant kite sets off on a maiden voyage from Bremen to Venezuela on Tuesday, in an experiment which inventor Stephan Wrage hopes can wipe 20 percent, or $1,600, from the ship's daily fuel bill. "We aim to prove it pays to protect the environment," Wrage told Reuters. "Showing that ecology and economics are not contradictions motivates us all." The 10,000-tonne 'MS Beluga SkySails' -- which will use a computer-guided kite to harness powerful ocean winds far above the surface and support the engine -- combines modern technology with know-how that has been in use for millennia. The world's 50,000 merchant ships, which carry 90 percent of traded goods from oil, gas, coal, and grains to electronic goods, emit 800 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. That's about 5 percent of the world's total. Also, their fuel costs rose by as much as 70 percent last year. That dramatic increase has ship owners clambering onto a bandwagon to reduce speed as a way to save fuel and cut the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, said Hermann Klein, an executive at Germanischer Lloyd classification society. "Slowing down by 10 percent can lead to a 25 percent reduction in fuel use. Just last week a big Japanese container liner gave notice of its intention to slow down," he added. - Source 01/24/08 - Israel Eyes Thinking Machines to Fight 'Doomsday' Missile Strikes Israeli military leaders have begun early planning for a new, robotic defense system, armed with enough artificial intelligence that it "could take over completely" from flesh-and-blood operators. "It will be designed for... autonomous operations,' Brig. Gen. Daniel Milo, commander of Israel's air defense forces, tells Defense News' Barbara Opall-Rome. And in the event of a "doomsday" strike, Opall-Rome notes, the system could handle "attacks that exceed physiological limits of human command." Israel already uses a blend of Arrow and Patriot interceptors to handle incoming rockets and missiles. This new command-and-control program would be "superimposed over all those defenses" -- and over new ones to come. In the future, and “under very complex scenarios,” Milo said, the envisioned super system would be able to generate a level of supreme situational awareness and snap intuitive capabilities that could surpass the very best wartime commanders. “We’re talking about something that sees everything and calculates everything and makes decisions that can only be made through a real revolution in BMC4ISR [Battle Management/Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance],” he said. “We’re not there yet, and it could take a decade. But this is our vision and we’re running in that direction.” - Source 01/24/08 - Jesus Hates Public Prayer I wonder why so many Christians ignore the advice of Jesus? "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward." "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." - Matthew 6:5-6 - Source 01/22/08 - The Brickley Engine The Brickley engine configuration is projected to improve fuel mileage 15-20%. CO2 emissions are cut as well by 15-20%. This accomplishment is made through reducing engine friction: turning energy normally lost in heat into useful work. With petroleum prices increasing and global warming on the rise, there is an urgent need for us to provide a more efficient, less polluting internal combustion engine. By changing how the pistons connect to each other and how they connect to the crankshaft, a great deal of friction can be eliminated. The configuration employs a combination of pinned linkages to determine the paths of the pistons to within a few thousandths of an inch of linearity, and thus basically eliminates the need for piston skirts. It connects the pistons efficiently to each other and to the crankshaft at a fraction of the losses incurred in a typical configuration. The top end of the engine remains basically the same and uses the technology available in current engines. - Source 01/22/08 - Flash Face Revisited An oldie, but still a goodie: Ultimate Flash Face. A very easy to use interface lets you create police-sketch type faces. It's amazing how making one small change can have such a huge impact on the face. (via j-walkblog.com) - Source 01/22/08 - V-Shaped Bed Cradles Body for More Restful Sleep - Jan 1932 A V-SHAPED bed recently invented supports the body perfectly at every point and thus promotes better rest. When unused the bed is straight like every other bed. However, one pull on a chain at the side of the bed immediately changes it to a V-shape. Another advantage claimed for the bed is that the covers are held substantially away from the person, thereby allowing the free circulation of air to the body. (This might be an interesting thing to try as opposed to sleeping on a flat bed. - JWD) - Source 01/22/08 - Is this the end of cheap food? The Guardian reports that food prices are rising, which is coming as a surprise to "UK shoppers aged under 50 [who] have so far never experienced food-price inflation. The article cites four reasons for the price increase: 1. Oil prices: "$100 a barrel means food that is four-times as expensive to plant, irrigate, harvest and transport as it was six years ago. Some commodities brokers are now betting on oil going to $200 a barrel within a decade." 2. Climate: "drought, hurricanes and floods around the world last year made for terrible harvests - from Australia to the Caribbean and the United Kingdom." 3. Market speculation and use of crops for fuel: "Since George Bush announced a rush to corn-based ethanol it's done well for American corn farmers - 20 per cent of whose harvest, subsidised by the government, went into fuel tanks rather than flour mills this year." 4. Economic boom in China and India: "Around the world, and through history, people have eaten more meat as they have become richer. This is called the nutrition transition and it's now happening, very quickly, in the two most populous nations on the planet." Jacques Diouf, head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, spoke recently of a 'very serious crisis' brought about by the rise in food prices and the rise in the oil price. Various global economic bodies are forecasting rises of between 10 per cent and 50 per cent over the next decade. - Source 01/22/08 - Inventor hopes solar hat is a hot seller In November Tommie Nellon received a patent for a ‘‘combined solar-powered fan and hat for maximizing airflow through the hat.’’ Nellon said he expects to start making the hats soon and to sell them for $29.95 each. He said potential customers could range from farmworkers to amusement park visitors. Nellon has made dozens of the hats already, and his workers use them on the job with his company Unlimited Energy Inc. in Fresno. As for the hat? It’s broad-brimmed and made of light straw. Nellon said he found the right type by visiting rural stores where, a few years ago, they sold for $3. Now they’re $9. In the front, a small - and very light - plastic fan is mounted,nd to power fans, lights, radios and laptops. Patent materials note that Nellon’s hat is different. Unlike many others, which direct the air to the wearer’s face, his design blows air across the top of the head. Patent documents say it ‘‘reduces the incidence of heat exhaustion (and) heatstroke.’’ - Source 01/22/08 - CuePrompter.com -- Online teleprompter/autocue service CuePrompter takes any chunk of text (up to 2000 characters at a time) and displays it TelePrompTer-style in an auto-scrolling, high-contrast window. You can adjust the TelePrompTer speed, text size, and display mode (normal or mirrored, if you are actually going to set it up with a reflective glass for full-on TelePrompTer duties...CuePrompter claims to be Windows and IE only, but I had no problem using it on a Mac in Firefox (display mirroring was the only feature that was IE-only). Also works in Firefox/Windows; requires Javascript. - Source 01/22/08 - Projector creates 80-inch image from three inches away Sanyo's PLC-XL50 is the "world's shortest throw distance projector", offering horizontal or vertical placement and a projection distance of just 3-inches (80-inch projection). This 3LCD projector features "true XGA" resolution and is rated at 2000-lumens. Practical uses include: billboards, shopping malls, amusement parks, and floors/walls. Video after the break. - Source 01/22/08 - 10 Incredible Old Computer Ads ..."80 MB for under $12,000" (1977) / ..."What the Heck is Electronic Mail?" (1981) / "The New 16K RAM card..." (circa 1977) / Click these and the other seven print advertisements to view at larger size. - Source 01/22/08 - The World’s Coolest Solar Collecting Building? Sanyo in Japan has constructed an amazing solar-collecting building that embodies both clean-energy ideals and awesome architectural design strategies. The so-called Solar Ark has over 5,000 active solar panels generating over 500,000 KWh of environmentally friendly energy. Nearly 500 multi-colored lighting units placed between the various solar panels can be activated to create a variety of shapes and letters on the sides of this enormous structure. As a working example of the potential of solar energy, the structure contains a solar museum with interactive exhibits as well as a solar lab and various meeting rooms for global environmental programs. The curved form is designed to take maximum benefit from as well as to graphically reflect the path of the sun and its energy. An elaborate truss system allows dizzying cantelevers to span out from the center of the structure and rise toward the sky. - Source 01/22/08 - How China Loses the Coming Space War A year ago to the day, China knocked a weather satellite out of orbit, and threw the international community into panic. Some figured the satellite-killer test was the harbinger of a future war in space -- the kind of conflict that could cripple a tech-dependent United States military. For years, the American armed forces have worried about an attack on US satellites... The United States military has become increasingly dependent on space. It uses photo-reconnaissance satellites to observe potential adversaries, GPS satellites to guide munitions with pin-point accuracy, communications satellites to handle the flow of information into and out of a theater of operations, and early warning satellites to detect and track enemy missile launches to name just a few of the better known applications. Because of this increasing dependence, many analysts have worried that the US is most vulnerable to asymmetric attacks against its space assets; in their view US satellites are “sitting ducks” without any sort of defense and their destruction would cripple the US military. China’s test of a sophisticated anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon a year ago, Friday -- 11 January 2007, when it shot down its own obsolete weather satellite -- has only increased these concerns. - Source 01/22/08 - Digital Tools Help Users Save Energy The results of the research project by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of the Energy Department, released Wednesday, suggest that if households have digital tools to set temperature and price preferences, the peak loads on utility grids could be trimmed by up to 15 percent a year. Over a 20-year period, this could save $70 billion on spending for power plants and infrastructure, and avoid the need to build the equivalent of 30 large coal-fired plants, say scientists at the federal laboratory. The demonstration project was as much a test of consumer behavior as it was of new technology. Scientists wanted to find out if the ability to monitor consumption constantly would cause people to save energy - just as studies have shown that people walk more if they wear pedometers to count their steps. In the Olympic Peninsula, west of Seattle, 112 homes were equipped with digital thermostats, and computer controllers were attached to water heaters and clothes dryers. These controls were connected to the Internet. The homeowners could go to a Web site to set their ideal home temperature and how many degrees they were willing to have that temperature move above or below the target. They also indicated their level of tolerance for fluctuating electricity prices. In effect, the homeowners were asked to decide the trade-off they wanted to make between cost savings and comfort. The households, it turned out, soon became active participants in managing the load on the utility grid and their own bills. - Source 01/22/08 - Unplug and go It looks something like a regular car, but the Zenn micro automobile is powered from a household electric outlet rather than a tank of gasoline. As early as next Tuesday, an ordinance could be introduced in Milwaukee that would allow the use of Zenns and other neighborhood electric vehicles on city streets. Only about 35 Wisconsin municipalities have such ordinances. Even in Janesville, where Wisconsin's first Zenn dealership is located, the little cars can't be legally operated on city streets. "Right now, we can't drive our cars off of the dealership lot," said Tim Thompson, owner of Green Autos, in Janesville. The $12,700 Zenn can go about 35 miles on a single charge of its lead-acid batteries. Smaller than a BMW Mini Cooper, it has a top speed of just 25 mph and can carry two passengers and a load of groceries in 13 cubic feet of storage space. The Zenn - short for zero emissions, no noise - plugs into a standard household electric outlet and can be 80% recharged in four hours or fully charged in about eight hours. Based on current electricity prices, the annual driving cost would be about $200 a year, according to a Journal Sentinel estimate based on energy sources. There's no tailpipe, and there aren't any emissions of carbon dioxide. - Source 01/22/08 - Sun Cycle 24 Predicted to be 50 Percent Larger than C-23 There has been ongoing debate whether Cycle 24 began on July 1st 2006, or began January 4th 2008. What determines a new solar cycle is when the first sunspot distributes a 'reverse' magnetic field. Over the last several months, the sunspot and solar activity have been extremely mild. This is known as 'solar minimum'. From this point on, solar activity will begin to ramp up with more significant activity becoming noticeable by the end of this year. Cycle 23 introduced us to the largest solar flare "ever recorded". On November 4th 2003 a solar flare coming from just around the western limb of the Sun exploded. It was measured as an X-40. Until this moment, nothing had measured past an X-9. (at least since instruments were developed to measure). In addition to this, Cycle 23 showed us dozens of X-class flares, and even more numbers of M-class. Also note Cycle 24's 'apex' (maximum) occurs between 2011 and 2012. I suggest our Mayan elders knew of this all along and is in association with Mayan prophecy and calendar. Solar Storm Warning: You Have One Year or Less to Prepare. The federal government now predicts a new cycle of solar storms will begin to intensify by spring 2008. By this time we will start to see larger and possibility of dangerous consequences. The new set of storms are expected to peak around the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012. That's the conclusion of some scientists at NASA and NOAA. On November 4th 2003 a solar flare and following CME (coronal mass ejection) exploded just as it began rotating over the western limb of the Sun. If it had been just 48 to 72 hours earlier, the flare would have been Earth directed and we would have experienced a direct hit. The strength of this event measured an X-40, of which such strength had never been witnessed or anticipated. Even to this day we can only speculate the damage it would have caused to our power grids, satellites, GPS, and any number of devices which depend on communication or directional satellites. - Source 01/22/08 - Prostate cancer treatment draws fire U.S. medical tourists are headed to Latin American health clinics to receive a controversial prostate cancer treatment not approved in the United States. High-intensity focused ultrasound, or HIFU therapy, uses isolated bursts of near-boiling temperatures to attack cancerous tissues in the prostate through a rectal probe. U.S. HIFU, a company touting the treatment at international clinics, said the treatment provides an alternative to more conventional treatment without the sexual or urinary side-effects of other treatments. The director of the U.S. HIFU, Dr. George M. Suarez, told the Times the treatment's $25,000 price tag is justified and claimed the treatment is an alternative to surgery or radiation with fewer side effects. - Source 01/22/08 - Algae has potential as a source of oil Common algae from ponds and waste-water treatment plants may produce vast amounts of burnable oil, say researchers at the University of Minnesota. Algae produces 5,000 gallons of oil per acre. Corn, by comparison, produces 18 gallons. Soybean yields 48 gallons. An acre of palm trees yields 635 gallons. Researchers Roger Ruan and Paul Chen will start with 200 gallons of waste water, but see the potential as enormous, the Star Tribune reported. They also predict the steep price of production, $20 per gallon, will drop significantly as the technology improves and catches on. The production process can take advantage of excess heat, nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus produced by coal-burning plants and waste-water incinerators, making algae pond farms a possibility for northern and southern states. - Source 01/22/08 - Let the End Times Roll With global warming hogging the limelight, and Nostradamus predicting our impending demise, This excerpt from Radar Magazine's February issue explores the other apocalyptic scenarios threatening to do us in. From transgenic experiments destined to go awry to the imminent culmination of the Mayan calendar's 13th baktun cycle, we'll have to dodge a hell of a lot of bullets to make it to the next century. In a cold panic, Radar sifted through mountains of data, interviewed the world's top experts, and prayed to several long-forgotten deities in an attempt to assemble a list of the planet's most pressing doomsday scenarios and, more important, your best bets for staying alive. - Source 01/20/08 - Aquaduct Mobile Filtration Vehicle The Aquaduct is a pedal powered vehicle that transports, filters, and stores water for the developing world. A peristaltic pump attached to the pedal crank draws water from a large tank, through a filter, to a smaller clean tank. The clean tank is removable and closed for contamination-free home storage and use. A clutch engages and disengages the drive belt from the pedal crank, enabling the rider to filter the water while travelling or while stationary. An average family uses 20 gallons of water a day. - Source 01/20/08 - Save a buck a gallon with next-generation ethanol A west suburban company plans to turn municipal garbage into next-generation ethanol for a production cost of under $1 per gallon. That translates into a pump cost of 50 cents to $1 under current gasoline prices, according to company estimates. But the best part is that the seemingly limitless supply of municipal garbage promises an energy source that could potentially eliminate America's dependence on foreign oil. “It’s here. It’s not about five years. It’s about now. We’re not waiting. It’s sitting in front of us today,” said Wes Bolsen, vice president of business development at Warrenville-based Coskata Inc. The process turns wood chips, garden waste - even old tires - into ethanol in two minutes flat. There are no byproducts except water, which is recycled. One ton of dry input yields 100 gallons of ethanol, which is much more efficient that any other means of producing ethanol. The company will include agricultural byproducts such as corn stalks as part of the raw material. In addition, the Coskata process produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than gasoline production, and uses 89 percent less fossil fuel, according to May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. The process involves a unique hybrid of technologies that have been around for years. At the front end is a gasification process that heats materials to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, turning them into carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, collectively known as “syngas.” This gas is then fed to a hungry breed of engineered organisms that eat carbon monoxide and hydrogen and produce ethanol as a byproduct. Bolsen likened the unique appetite of the organisms to kids who eat French fries and broccoli at the same time. The resulting mixture of ethanol and water is separated in the next step and then the water is recycled. Altogether, less than one gallon of water is used to produce each gallon of ethanol, compared with 3-4 gallons of water used in corn ethanol production and 44 gallons consumed in gasoline production. The process requires about 50 percent of the overall energy used in traditional methods of ethanol production. “There’s no invention here. This is innovation,” Bolsen said. “We’ve taken the best pieces from multiple different areas.” In the best-case scenario, the process yields nearly eight units of energy for every unit of non-renewable energy put into the system, according to studies done at Argonne National Laboratory. Using a “well-to-wheels” analysis, researchers at Argonne took into account all aspects of fuel production, including fossil fuel input, crop production, electricity and natural gas. By comparison, gasoline production only yields about 0.84 units of energy for every unit of non-renewable energy input. In other words, it takes more energy to make it than you get from it. Wood chips, agricultural waste, even old tires can be converted into ethanol using the Coskata process. - Source 01/20/08 - Cheap Tsunami Detector Hashem al-Ghaili, a university student in Sana’a, and his brother, Mohammed, recently developed a device with the potential to save millions of lives. Its design is simple, but its ramifications are anything but. Utilizing a radio transmitter and a pressure gauge, al-Ghaili hopes his device could provide a low-cost solution for warning the world of imminent tsunamis. “I started to think of a system that could warn people of a tsunami before it struck,” he explained, and he began brainstorming with his brother. “Most tsunami alert systems now are very complex and require a lot of money and resources, including satellites. Ours is cheap and simple.” “Satellites can detect tsunamis by detecting anomalies in pictures of the ocean, but a tsunami is nothing more than a blast of energy,” he explained. His device, a pressure sensor, can be placed in any ocean. When it detects a large disturbance in the energy patterns of the water that surrounds it, radio signals are broadcast to receivers on the shore. Tsunamis are a result of earthquakes at the bottom of the ocean. When the tectonic plates that comprise the earth’s crust shift due to pressure, enormous waves are propelled across the ocean at speeds up to five hundred miles per hour. “When the waves exert pressure on our device, it sends out magnetic waves similar to those that bring music to your radio. The receiver translates the message from the device in the ocean, and emits a sound and projects a color according to the current danger level. When a tsunami is coming, you will quickly determine its magnitude by the message our device sends out.” Al-Ghaili tested the tool in a spring in his village. By placing the device into different water pressures, he was able to calibrate it into something useful. After developing a working model, he and his brother petitioned the Ministry of Higher Education to financially back the development and implementation of their invention. - Source 01/20/08 - Good Career or Sweet Home? Sociologists worry about growing amount of career-looped people, who imagine nothing but career rise in their life. Scientists have announced results of their recent research, in which over three thousand people from various Russian cities took part. Each respondent answered what was more important to him - his work or private life. Poll results were not surprising, though quite sad, since majority of respondents would have gladly changed friends and family for career ascents. About 46% of poll participants are ready to devote 60% of their time to business, and the remaining time (40%) can be spent with family, friends and spared for hobbies. One third of respondents dreams of “the happy medium”, which is distributed the following way: half of life for career and half for themselves and relatives. About 10% appear to be true career climbers, who get lost in work without paying attention to anything else. Their family-oriented antipodes close the research with 5%. - Source 01/20/08 - Audio Modulated Solid State Tesla Coil Lolly from Germany is a creator of one of the Tesla coils that was featured in the Musical Tesla Coil Collection article last week. Lolly has now created a video that walks through the technology he used to build his device. “Overview and demonstration of my SSTC Setup. The RF is generated with a Class-E MOSFET stage with controllable Frequency. The sound is modulated on the gate signal of the MOSFET via PWM. The sound is then emitted by the arc itself. Excitation and PWM Frequencies are set with DDS generators controlled via a Microcontroller board with USB interface.” - Source 01/20/08 - DIY Vacuum Press Vacuum forming is simply heating up sheets of plastic until they are soft and stretchy then placing it over a positive form and using a vacuum to suck the plastic tightly onto the form. I have gotten very good detail with my machine, even pore texture from life casts! I had seen more elaborate machines with tanks, vacuum pumps, check valves etc. I just wanted to test the process and it worked so well that I have been using it ever since. In fact you may have seen pieces made on my machine on The tv show Angel and music videos on MTV. - Source 01/20/08 - Battery Beach Burnout to Promote 'Green' Electric Vehicle Technologies The Florida Electric Auto Association (FLEAA), in conjunction with Vectrix and AC Propulsion, will be hosting the 3rd Annual "Battery Beach Burnout", an alternative fuel / electric vehicle competition, in Miami, FL at Countyline Dragway January 25th and 26th. The free event consists of multiple competitions involving electric vehicles (EV), including a drag race, auto-cross, scooter-cross and a show 'n shine event. The drag race will be Friday evening from 7pm to 1am, and the EV auto-cross, scooter-cross and show 'n shine will be Saturday from 9am to 4pm at Countyline Dragway. Saturday, visitors will be able to ride in several of the cars on display in a ride and drive area. Visitors will also be able to participate and vote for their favorite car in the show 'n shine competition. - Source 01/20/08 - Harnessing Waste Heat for Electricity Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) at Berkeley. The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE's hydrogen fuel cell-powered "Freedom CAR," and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices. The researchers describe a unique "electroless etching" method by which arrays of silicon nanowires are synthesize