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July 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. 07/26/08 - Video - Martin Jetpack at July 29th, Oshkosh Airshow The world's first practical jetpack makes its debut July 29 at EAA AirVenture! Here's a little more about the Martin Jetpack concept and its development. The Bell Jetpack could only fly for 26 seconds on a full tank. The Martin Jetpack can fly 100 times that, about 43 minutes. - Source 07/26/08 - Behead your Laptop This is a nice trick for breathing new life into an old laptop. [Sarc] had a tibook with a broken LCD. It was still usable with an external monitor, so he simply removed the broken LCD. The tibook (and MacBook) uses a magnetic sensor to monitor the LCD position. To put the machine in the right mode, he taped a magnet in place to make the machine think that the display was in the closed position. To really clean things up, he mounted all the hardware under the desk and used a wireless keyboard and mouse with the machine. - Source 07/26/08 - Revolutionary Electric Motor Design Cuts Energy Use in Half Electric motors consume 67 percent of the energy produced in the United States, yet their fundamental technology hasn't changed much in the past 100 years. Thor Power, a resident company in the Ben Franklin Business Incubator, is well on its way to commercializing an entirely new electric motor design that could have a dramatic impact on nearly every sector of society. Thor Power's technology uses rare earth magnets, resulting in a motor that generates twice the power at half the weight and double the efficiency. Eliminating the electromagnets lowers the weight and results in a quieter, more efficient motor -- 87 percent efficient, in fact. Testing has shown that the motor also lasts significantly longer than standard designs. "The typical AC motor has a life span of about 400 hours," says Bonner. "We stopped testing ours when it reached the 2,000-hour mark with no signs of degradation." So what might this mean for consumers? Bonner sums it up succinctly. "Our design generates twice the power at half the weight and double the efficiency of existing electric motors," he says. "This cuts the consumers' operating costs by 50 percent. This is a major technological advance, particularly in the one- to two-kilowatt power range. And it comes at an opportune time, considering this country's current energy and environmental needs." (via zpenergy.com) - Source 07/26/08 - GPS Has Caused 300,000 Car Accidents In UK A survey by Direct Line insurance conducted on behalf of the Mirror found that some 300,000 accidents in the UK have been caused by RELIANCE ON GPS, 1.5 million have "suddenly veered dangerously or illegally in busy traffic," while slavishly obeying the orders of their GPS devices, and a whopping 5 million have been sent the wrong way down one-way streets. - Source 07/26/08 - DVD Catalyst Rips DVDs to Friendly Formats in One Click Windows only: Free application DVD Catalyst Free rips videos from DVDs to device-friendly formats for your iPod, iPhone, PSP, PS3, Xbox, smartphone, and more in one simple click. Normally we prefer previously mentioned HandBrake for this job, but DVD Catalyst Free is much friendlier if a quick and simple rip is all you're looking for. Either way, DVD Catalyst Free is worth a download. If it's not quite what you're looking for, check out our five best DVD ripping tools for more great ripping tools. DVD Catalyst Free is freeware, Windows only. A shareware version of DVD Catalyst is available if you need an expanded feature set, but the free version should be plenty for most. - Source 07/26/08 - NASA Unravels Mysteries Of Northern Lights Researchers have discovered that explosions of magnetic energy a third of the way to the moon power substorms that create the Northern Lights. NASA said this week that researchers believe stressed magnetic field lines suddenly snap to a new shape, like a rubber band that's been stretched too far, during a process called magnetic reconnection. "As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field lines stretch far out into space," said David Sibeck, Themis project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth's atmosphere. They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles." The theory is that when a substorm begins, it follows a pattern that includes reconnection, rapid auroral brightening, and rapid expansion toward the Earth's poles. That, in turn, redistributes electrical currents flowing in space and around the Earth. - Source 07/26/08 - A Concrete Fix to Global Warming A Canadian company says that it has developed a way for makers of precast concrete products to take all the carbon-dioxide emissions from their factories, as well as neighboring industrial facilities, and store them in the products that they produce by exposing those products to carbon-dioxide-rich flue gases during the curing process. Industry experts say that the technology is unproven but holds great potential if it works. Robert Niven, founder of Halifax-based Carbon Sense Solutions, says that his company's process would actually allow precast concrete to store carbon dioxide. The company takes advantage of a natural process; carbon dioxide is already reabsorbed in concrete products over hundreds of years from natural chemical reactions. Freshly mixed concrete is exposed to a stream of carbon-dioxide-rich flue gas, rapidly speeding up the reactions between the gas and the calcium-containing minerals in cement (which represents about 10 to 15 percent of the concrete's volume). The technology also virtually eliminates the need for heat or steam, saving energy and emissions. The curing process can store 60 tons of carbon dioxide inside 1,000 tons of precast concrete products, such as concrete blocks, while saving energy. - Source 07/26/08 - Solar power from Saharan sun could provide Europe's electricity Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity. The capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts would meet all of Europe's energy needs. Scientists are calling for the creation of a series of huge solar farms - producing electricity either through photovoltaic cells, or by concentrating the sun's heat to boil water and drive turbines - as part of a plan to share Europe's renewable energy resources across the continent. A new supergrid, transmitting electricity along high voltage direct current cables would allow countries such as the UK and Denmark ultimately to export wind energy at times of surplus supply, as well as import from other green sources such as geothermal power in Iceland. Energy losses on DC lines are far lower than on the traditional AC ones, which make transmission of energy over long distances uneconomic. - Source 07/26/08 - Magnets Capture Cancer Cells Magnetic nanoparticles coated with a specialized targeting molecule were able to latch on to cancer cells in mice and drag them out of the body. The particles, which are just 10 nanometers or less in diameter, have cobalt-spiked magnetite at their core. Most of the time they are not magnetic, but when a magnet is present, they become strongly attracted to it. On the surface of the particles is a peptide--a small, proteinlike molecule--designed to attach to a marker that protrudes from most ovarian cancer cells. To test the new technology, the researchers injected first cancer cells and then the magnetic nanoparticles into the abdominal cavities of mice. The cancer cells were tagged with a green fluorescent marker, and the nanoparticles with a red one. When the team brought a magnet near each mouse's belly, a concentrated area of green and red glow appeared just under the skin, indicating that the nanoparticles had latched on to the cancer cells and dragged them toward the magnet. - Source 07/26/08 - More-Efficient Thermoelectrics By improving the electronic properties of a common thermoelectric material--a type of semiconductor that converts heat into electricity--researchers have doubled its performance, making it more practical for generating electricity from waste heat such as that produced in power plants and car engines. Joseph Heremans, a professor of mechanical engineering and physic at Ohio State University, added trace amounts of thallium to lead telluride, a thermoelectric material that's been generating electricity onboard deep space probes for decades. The added thallium doubled the material's ability to convert heat into electricity by increasing the voltage that it produces. Heremans says that the improved efficiency could translate into a 10 percent increase in the fuel economy of cars if the devices are used to replace alternators in automobiles by generating electricity from the heat in exhaust. One drawback to the new materials is that thallium is extremely toxic, so it would require safeguards during manufacturing and disposal. (During use, the materials are encapsulated and therefore pose less of a danger.) - Source 07/26/08 - Fossil Suggests Antarctica Much Warmer in Past A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place. The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D. Because ostracods couldn't survive in the current Antarctic climate, their presence suggests that the southern-most continent hasn't always been as frigid as it is today. While geologists theorize that the land that now makes up Antarctica was once a part of other continents closer to the equator-hundreds of millions of years ago-the warmer climate that supported the ostracods would have existed "when Antarctica was pretty much in its current location," said study co-author David Marchant of Boston University. Marchant estimated that the summer temperatures in Antarctica would have been about 30.6 degrees F (17 degrees C) warmer than they are now. - Source 07/26/08 - WaterBOB The $30 waterBOB™ is a water containment system that holds up to 100 gallons of fresh drinking water in any standard bathtub in the event of an emergency. Constructed of heavy duty food grade plastic, the waterBOB™ keeps water fresh and clean for drinking, cooking, washing and flushing. Water stored in an open bathtub, with dirt, soap film and exposure to debris will spoil and become useless. During a hurricane or tropical storm, water main breaks and storm surges can interrupt or even contaminate your water supply. It is during these conditions the waterBOB™ may be used for temporary water storage. Constructed of heavy duty plastic that is FDA compliant for food storage, the waterBOB™ keeps water fresh and clean for up to 4 weeks. The waterBOB™ is very easy to use. Simply lay the liner in any standard bathtub, attach the fill sock to the faucet and fill the bladder to capacity, which takes approximately 20 minutes. A siphon pump is included to easily dispense the water into jugs or pitchers. Never wait in line again to buy expensive bottled water! Be prepared with the waterBOB™. - Source 07/26/08 - Aging May Be Controlled by Brake and Accelerator Genes Can we tweak certain genes to stave off the aging process - or, conversely, to speed it up? New research indicates that it may one day be possible. Scientists have discovered genetic switches in roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans) - whose genetic makeup is remarkably similar to that of humans - that apparently cause the spineless critters to grow old when flicked on but, when off, may extend their lives. - Source 07/26/08 - Compound in human saliva speeds wound healing "We hope our finding is ultimately beneficial for people who suffer from non-healing wounds, such as foot ulcers and diabetic ulcers, as well as for treatment of trauma-induced wounds like burns," said Menno Oudhoff, first author of the report. Specifically, scientists found that histatin, a small protein in saliva previously only believed to kill bacteria was responsible for the healing. To come to this conclusion, the researchers used epithelial cells that line the inner cheek, and cultured in dishes until the surfaces were completely covered with cells. Then they made an artificial wound in the cell layer in each dish, by scratching a small piece of the cells away. In one dish, cells were bathed in an isotonic fluid without any additions. In the other dish, cells were bathed in human saliva. After 16 hours the scientists noticed that the saliva treated "wound" was almost completely closed. In the dish with the untreated "wound," a substantial part of the "wound" was still open. This proved that human saliva contains a factor which accelerates wound closure of oral cells. Because saliva is a complex liquid with many components, the next step was to identify which component was responsible for wound healing. Using various techniques the researchers split the saliva into its individual components, tested each in their wound model, and finally determined that histatin was responsible. - Source 07/26/08 - Breakthrough in animal spare part transplants for humans Blood vessels, tendons and bladders from animals are to be used in humans for the first time after a breakthrough in transplant surgery. Scientists have overcome the problem of rejection, which has previously prevented animal tissues from being used in patients. It opens the way for a range of new procedures using animal parts. "We can take a tissue from an animal, remove all the cells that carry the signals that trigger the immune system so just the biological scaffold is left. When this is implanted, the patient's own cells then grow in to replace the original cells we have removed. This has advantages as the transplant can then grow with the patient - something that is very important in younger patients." - Source 07/26/08 - Korea a Step Closer to Ultimate Energy Source Scientists operating Korea's next-generation nuclear fusion reactor Tuesday reported their first generation of plasma, saying it marked progress in futuristic experiments to create limitless energy for human use. The device, called KSTAR, an abbreviation for Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Reactor, generated plasma inside its inner chamber for the first time on June 13. The reactor is the second of its kind in the world to generate plasma using superconducting material. China was the first with its EAST reactor in 2006, according to Kwon Myeon, a director at the National Fusion Research Institute. In the experiments that continued through June 30, the plasma lasted for 249 milliseconds at above 100 kilo-amperes (KA) current with the maximum current reaching 133 KA, according to officials from the state-run National Fusion Research Institute. Originally, the goal for the KSTAR scientists was to maintain plasma for 100 milliseconds, or 0.1 seconds, above 100 KA. Fusion reactors generate power by the heating of hydrogen plasma, which causes hydrogen isotopes to fuse and release energy. The duration of the plasma is critical for this process and the reactors are designed with powerful magnetic chambers using superconducting magnets to contain the plasma. Nuclear fusion is regarded as one of future energy solutions that are limitless in sourcing, a key alternative to the limited and depleted sources of fossil fuels. The viability of the technology is still debated. - Source 07/23/08 - GasHole film Hints at 100mpg patent from 1946 Actor Scott D. Roberts and his filmmaking partner, Jeremy Wagener are the unlikely men behind the new documentary GasHole. Narrated by The O.C. and American Beauty actor Peter Gallagher, the film chronicles the history of oil prices and alternative fuels. It will screen for one night only at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Village 8 Theater in Louisville. This is its second stop in Louisville; a screening on July 14 sold out. The idea started 21/2 years ago when gas prices were at a then-high of $2.20 and a letter to the editor in The Modesto Bee newspaper sparked Roberts’ interest. The letter writer told of a Buick Roadmaster he saw come to the Crows Landing Naval Airfield in the 1940s that its inventor claimed was water-injected and could get 100 miles per gallon. The inventor said he became a millionaire by selling the patent to Shell Oil Co., but one of the conditions was he could not make any more. “His story was jaw-dropping,” Roberts said. So Roberts called his friend Wagener, an L.A.-based writer-director, and said he might have a great idea for a movie. The two began researching it and tracked down Kunde, who tells his story in the film. From there, the filmmakers went in search of the elusive patent sold to Shell. They found one from 1946 registered to a man who lived 20 miles outside Modesto; they thought it could be the invention in question. They brought the design to an engineer, who agreed that it might be able to improve fuel economy. From there, the documentary took off. Kunde’s story led them to find other documented cases of fuel-saving inventions that never have seen the light of day. They include Texas inventor Tom Ogle’s 100-mpg vapor fuel system and Shell’s own internal 1977 publication “Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine,” which shows that Shell engineers were able to achieve 149.95 mpg on a 1947 Studebaker. www.gasholemovie.com / (If anyone can find this patent number, please share it with everyone. Email Me. The US patent website doesn't allow searches without specific numbers before 1972, but I ran some numbers and found this one for January 1st, 1946 - 2,391,988. It's not the patent in question, but it gives a range of numbers to hunt. - JWD) - Source 07/23/08 - GM, Utilities Partner To Advance Plug-In Hybrids "General Motors is forming a team with utility companies nationwide to create a charging infrastructure for electric cars. Their goal is to improve the design of charging stations - making them weatherproof and child-proof, for example - in locations such as public garages, meters, and parking lots. They're also working on ways to avoid overwhelming the utilities during peak hours. Their goal is to have these improved charging stations implemented by 2010, when the Chevy Volt is introduced. Everyone recognizes however that a national car-charging infrastructure would be far from complete at that time." - Source 07/23/08 - $250 Freescale-Based "Green" "Cloud" Computer The CherryPal is a tiny desktop computer that its maker says will consume just 2 watts. It uses a Freescale processor that runs Linux and has no moving parts. The CherryPal has integrated software and an embedded Linux (based on Debian) that has been stripped down to support Open Office, Firefox, iTunes, instant messaging, and multimedia access locally. More applications are available in the cloud, and 50 GB of cloud storage is included. It comes without keyboard or mouse but with ports for VGA, USB, Ethernet, and built-in Wi-Fi. It's claimed that the CherryPal will boot up in 20 seconds from 4 GB of flash. They've buried Linux so that the end user doesn't see it; the entire UI is presented through Firefox. The CherryPal site says: "There's no software or upgrades to install, no risk of viruses, and no operating system to deal with and free 24/7 support." - Source 07/23/08 - One Year of Bottles gives flotation and a reason to switch to tap water Only one of the 50 entries in the KUAC Red Green River Regatta consisted of water bottles sewed into a giant Visqueen bag sealed by duct tape. As the “USS Waste H2O” floated along the Chena from Graehl landing to Pioneer Park, the occupants tried to send a message to anyone who saw them: “Drink tap water instead of buying bottled water.” They held up a sign that said “Recycle where?” on one side and “1 Year + 1 House = 1,300 bottles” on the other. Kiffiny said they began buying bottled water a year ago at the time of the last regatta to acquire the raw materials for a raft and show in the process that bottled water comes with an environmental price. So after having gone through 1,300 bottles, they have sworn off the stuff and are sticking to the tap. Their craft was surprisingly maneuverable, fast and comfortable. It looked as comfortable as a Sealy Posturpedic and had more contours than a USGS map. - Source 07/23/08 - Eco homes: Saving water Josephine Pickett-Baker lives with her seven-strong household (her parents, husband, baby Anthony, an au pair and a live-in lodger) in a large house in Peckham, south London. The handsome, Victorian villa is grade II-listed but has some distinctly 21st-century adaptations: these include a 3,300 litre rainwater storage tank buried under the driveway, a further three tanks on the roof and a rainwater harvesting system attached to her three sheds in the garden. The household, though large, uses almost no mains water to flush its three loos and even during dry summer periods the garden is watered entirely with stored rainwater. "We started with two 65-litre water butts which collect water from our garden sheds. They filled up after just two nights of rain." The household now saves over 200 litres of water a day. By using rainwater to flush the loos they are saving £365 a year, at 5 pence per flush. Despite the complex piping system that feeds the three cisterns, the house does not look like a Heath Robinson contraption. "It's fairly easy to use, you just need to remember to do little chores like clean the filters on the large tank," says Josephine. "It does require a little more work than just switching on a tap, but it feels good not to be completely reliant on a water company." Rainwater stored above the ground is only suitable for flushing loos and watering the garden; if stored in an underground tank, however, it can also be used to supply dishwashers and washing machines. On average, 150 litres of water are used by every person per day in the home, while research by Waterwise reveals that most people think they use about 50 litres. The Government's target for new homes is less than 80 litres per person per day. - Source 07/23/08 - Invention Scammers Slammed According to the Federal Trade Commission, the defendants charged up to $12,000 to evaluate and promote consumers’ inventions. They enticed their victims with false claims about product promotion, their track record in turning inventions into profitable products and their relationships with manufacturers. They also deceptively claimed that their income came from sharing royalties with inventors, rather than from the fees consumers paid, the FTC said. The defendants are Davison Design and Development, Inc., formerly known as Davison & Associates, Inc., and its principal, George M. Davison III; Manufacturer’s Support Services, Inc. and its principal, Gordon M. Davison, and his wife, Barbra M. Davison; and relief defendant Barbara L. Davison, who is George M. Davison’s wife. The owners have agreed to return the $10 million in cash and property to its victims. - Source 07/23/08 - Greener TV screens Building the pixels of flat-panel displays like tiny telescopes could make them much more power efficient, or make screens easier to read in direct sunlight. Today's dominant display technology is the thin, cheap and durable liquid crystal display panel (LCD). But the bulk of the light created by a screen's backlight is wasted, and never reaches the viewer. Each circular pixel has a thin metal mirror 100 microns facing back towards the display's backlight, with a 40 micron hole in the center. A second mirror is positioned below and is slightly larger than the hole. When a telescopic pixel is dark, the main mirror is flat. Both mirrors bounce light back to the backlight, away from the viewer. But when a voltage is applied to the main mirror it bends into a parabolic shape, focusing light onto the second mirror and out through the hole. To the viewer the pixel appears lit up. Telescopic pixels can let 36% of a backlight's output pass, compared to the puny amount allowed past by the crystals of an LCD. - Source 07/23/08 - Skyward oil stokes a coal-fired future Der Spiegel, the German newsmagazine, explained earlier this month why the Persian Gulf states are switching to coal. “[They] may be sitting atop massive oil reserves,” the magazine said. “But with prices for crude skyrocketing, it makes more sense to sell it than to use it. Instead, the Gulf states are turning to coal for their own energy needs - to the detriment of the climate.” And these states are not alone. “Demand for coal plants,” the magazine says, “is growing rapidly across the globe.” Abu Dhabi (largest of the seven UAE emirates) has announced that it will switch to coal-fired power plants. Dubai (the second largest) is already building four of them - with a combined output of 4,000 megawatts - as a first-phase investment in coal. Apart from the United Arab Emirates, Oman (widely regarded as “the next Dubai”) has signed a contract with South Korea for the construction of several coal-fired plants. Beyond the Gulf, Egypt proposes to build its first coal-fired plant on the shores of the Red Sea. Russia has announced plans to build more than 30 coal-fired plants by 2011. - Source 07/23/08 - New knife with exploding tip that freezes victims' organs w/video Police in London are on the lookout for £200 frozen-gas knives designed to kill bears and sharks, according to the never-inflammatory Daily Mail. The manufacturer describes [the Wasp Knife] as perfect for downed pilots, soldiers and security guards and boasts that it will "drop many of the world's largest land predators". It can snap-freeze all tissue and organs in the area surrounding the blast. A source close to West Midlands Police said: "The Met is obviously concerned about this and that is why they have circulated the information. "This knife will almost certainly kill and the Met must have intelligence that they are in circulation. "I think it is only a matter of time before one of these is used because the internet makes it much easier to find and buy weapons like this." / As divers, we all know what the effects of compressed gas are underwater. Our training teaches us that our lungs would burst from over-inflation if we held our breath and rose to the surface. This principle is key to the effectiveness of the WASP Injection System. This weapon injects a freezing cold ball of compressed gas, approximately the size of a basketball, at 800psi nearly instantly. The effects of this injection will drop many of the world's largest land predators. The effects of the compressed gas not only cause over-inflation during ascent when used underwater, but also freezes all tissues and organs surrounding the point of injection on land or at sea. When used underwater, the injected gas carries the predator to the surface BEFORE blood is released into the water. Thus giving the diver added protection by diverting other potential predators to the surface. - Source 07/23/08 - Mideast Facing Choice Between Crops and Water Global food shortages have placed the Middle East and North Africa in a quandary, as they are forced to choose between growing more crops to feed an expanding population or preserving their already scant supply of water. For decades nations in this region have drained aquifers, sucked the salt from seawater and diverted the mighty Nile to make the deserts bloom. But those projects were so costly and used so much water that it remained far more practical to import food than to produce it. Today, some countries import 90 percent or more of their staples. Now, the worldwide food crisis is making many countries in this politically volatile region rethink that math. The population of the region has more than quadrupled since 1950, to 364 million, and is expected to reach nearly 600 million by 2050. By that time, the amount of fresh water available for each person, already scarce, will be cut in half, and declining resources could inflame political tensions further. - Source 07/23/08 - US food groups plan hefty price rises US food companies are preparing another round of hefty price increases as soaring commodity costs force them to pass on rises to consumers. Sara Lee, maker of meat products such as Jimmy Dean sausages, said costs would compel it to push up prices on meat lines by up to a fifth later this year. “We will be taking price increases on the vast majority of the protein products in this calendar year,” said C.J. Fraleigh, Sara Lee’s chief operating officer for North America, in a recent interview. “Price increases vary a lot by type of products but the increases will be as low as zero and some products we will decrease on and other increases [will be] in excess of 20 per cent.” Kraft Foods, Kellogg’s, ConAgra and Tyson are also pushing through increases, which are expected to contribute to inflationary pressures in the US. - Source 07/23/08 - Video - Cellphone Karma Cell Phone Karma is real. Kyocera Wireless reminds you to dial responsibly. - Source 07/23/08 - Cops Target Photographers With camera in hand, Momoko Sudo headed from her Schenley Park home to the Biltmore Hotel gym for her morning workout. It was June 10, and the sun was bursting through the clouds after an early-morning shower. The demure 39-year-old Japanese artist paid particular attention to the raindrops on the leaves. She planned to photograph them. Drawn by the picturesque entry into Coral Gables via Coral Way, she crossed Red Road and strolled along a sidewalk until she spotted a police officer sitting on his motorcycle talking on a cell phone. Thinking it a good image, she snapped a photo and continued walking. "Come here!" Ofcr. Nelson Rodriguez barked. Then he demanded her camera. Soon he deleted more than 150 photos. He ripped out the memory card and slammed it on the sidewalk. "I was very upset," says Sudo, who stands five feet two inches tall and considers herself a passive person. "But I didn't want to say anything because he was very big and angry." The incident is one of at least four that have occurred in Miami-Dade County over the past year in which photographers have ended up arrested, handcuffed, threatened, intimidated, or accused of being a terrorist. - Source 07/23/08 - Scientists solve riddle of toxic algae blooms By pumping various pollutants into Lake 227, a small pristine lake in the Experimental Lakes region of northern Ontario, they were able to pin down which chemical nutrients were key to triggering the blooms. "Phosphorous really is the key," says Schindler, whose study is highlighted in the U.S.-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. "Here in Alberta, it is especially important because the phosphorous content in the soil is naturally high, so you don't have to add a lot to create a serious problem." Scientist Stephen Carpenter said global expansion of aquatic "dead zones" caused by algae blooms is rising rapidly. There are now 146 coastal regions in the world in which fish and bottom-feeding life forms have been entirely eliminated because of a lack of oxygen. One dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is about the size of the city of New Jersey and growing. Schindler's latest series of long-term experiments shows that nitrogen removal completely fails to control blue-green algae blooms. He proved this by manipulating nitrogen and phosphorus levels on Lake 227 for 37 years. Nitrogen control, he found, only encouraged algae blooms. - Source 07/23/08 - A dash of lime may cut CO2 levels back to pre-industrial levels Adding lime to seawater increases alkalinity, boosting seawater's ability to absorb CO2 from air and reducing the tendency to release it back again. However, the idea, which has been bandied about for years, was thought unworkable because of the expense of obtaining lime from limestone and the amount of CO2 released in the process. Tim Kruger, a management consultant at London firm Corven is the brains behind the plan to resurrect the lime process. He argues that it could be made workable by locating it in regions that have a combination of low-cost 'stranded' energy considered too remote to be economically viable to exploit - like flared natural gas or solar energy in deserts - and that are rich in limestone, making it feasible for calcination to take place on site. The process of making lime generates CO2, but adding the lime to seawater absorbs almost twice as much CO2. The overall process is therefore 'carbon negative'. 'This process has the potential to reverse the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. It would be possible to reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels,' Kruger says. - Source 07/23/08 - Victor's Earphone Makes Sound Deeper in Ear Victor Company of Japan will release the industry's first sound-isolating earphone whose driver unit is located in its sound channel (the part that enters an earhole). The company will release the earphone, "HP-FXC50," in Japan in early August 2008. The driver unit of the HP-FXC50 is longer and thinner (5.8mm in diameter) than the existing model so that it can be installed in the sound channel. Also, the distance between the driver unit and a drum membrane is shorter, reducing both external sound and sound leakage. The frequency range of the HP-FXC50 is from 10 to 24000Hz, its response (output sound pressure level) is 103dB/1mW and its maximum permissible input is 150mW. The earphone does not have a suggested retail price, but the price is expected to be about ¥4,000 (? US$37.6). - Source 07/23/08 - Big Brother tightens his grip on the web Last week, a New York judge ordered Google to hand over a staggering 12 terabytes of YouTube user data to broadcaster Viacom. Naturally, the American broadcaster, which is losing young television viewers daily, needs all this data to prevent its younger audience from posting clips of its programming on the net's most thriving community where, shock horror, a fan base may form to discuss, discover and share their opinions about Viacom's TV shows, music videos and movie trailers. Yes, this is a case of copyright infringement, but if you're unable to pick out the real crime here you are not alone. On Tuesday, the European Parliament approved sweeping amendments to a package of telecoms laws that could essentially stifle the next Skype or Firefox, and make it simpler for France's three-strikes-and-you're-out file-sharing rules to become the law throughout Europe. Critics such as the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure are calling it "Soviet-style" censorship. As Benjamin Henrion of FFII ominously warns, "Tomorrow, popular software applications like Skype or even Firefox might be declared illegal in Europe if they are not certified by an administrative authority. This is compromising the whole open development of the internet as we know it today. Once the Soviet Union required the registration of all typewriters and printing devices with the authorities." The FFII also fears this legislation, known as the Telecoms Packet, will legalise mass spying on net users across Europe by jittery telcos, copyright hawks and panicky politicians. - Source 07/23/08 - Prostrate Cancer Wonder Pill Trials of a new pill have shown that it can shrink tumours in up to 80 per cent of cases, and end the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The drug, abiraterone, was discovered by researchers at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South-West London. Their leader, Dr Johann de Bono, said patients there had been able to control the disease with just four pills a day and very few side-effects. Prostate cancer is Britain's most common cancer among men and the second highest killer, after lung cancer. Some 35,000 people a year are diagnosed with it - and 12,000 die. There are two types, aggressive and non-aggressive, which are often called 'tiger' and 'pussycat'. Men with pussycat cancer can often lead a healthy life, but the tiger variety - a third of cases - is usually fatal within 18 months. Prostate cancer is associated with ageing, and over the next 25 years it is estimated there will be a 60 per cent increase in the number of men over 65. This means there will be more cases of the cancer and abiraterone could save many thousands of lives. Its side-effects can include loss of libido, breathlessness, fatigue, fluid retention and weight gain. Some men may be left impotent, but the effects are far less than with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. - Source 07/23/08 - Who owns rain? Does saving rainwater violate state law? Technically, rain that falls on your roof isn't yours for the taking. It's a resource of the state, which regulates the use of public waters through an allocation process that can take years to navigate. The state has long allowed people to collect a small amount of rain without asking. Although no one wants to police homeowners harvesting a few hundred gallons for a backyard garden, the state hasn't defined where that regulatory threshold lies. Someone collecting rain in larger quantities to irrigate a farm or wash laundry in a new condo building without a state water right could be breaking the rarely enforced law. "We're not going to start issuing permits for a pickle barrel in the backyard. But what if it's four pickle barrels or a system that has 20,000 gallons of storage?" said Brian Walsh, a manager in the Department of Ecology's water resources program. In urban areas, though, some cities and developers promoting green building practices simply ignored the issue. The rainwater collection system used to flush toilets in Seattle City Hall likely violated state law when it was built five years ago. That's why the city of Seattle recently obtained a citywide water-right permit, which makes it legal to collect rain from rooftops in most areas of the city. But there still are a few neighborhoods - including most areas north of 85th Street - that aren't covered. That's because stormwater there drains into creeks and streams and lakes rather than sewer pipes. Builders there would not enjoy the same legal protection. "Most people just blow it off and nobody's going to go after them, at least not yet," said Michael Broili, who designs rainwater-collection systems. "But water is a huge, huge issue that is just below the surface of the radar and in the next ... years, especially if global warming becomes a reality, it's even going to become more of one." - Source 07/21/08 - Tata Motors to introduce Air Car - Is it the next big thing? India’s largest automaker Tata Motors is set to start producing the world’s first commercial air-powered vehicle. The Air Car, developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre for Luxembourg-based MDI, uses compressed air, as opposed to the gas-and-oxygen explosions of internal-combustion models, to push its engine’s pistons. Some 6000 zero-emissions Air Cars are scheduled to hit Indian streets in August of 2008. The Air Car, called the MiniCAT could cost around Rs. 3,50,000 ($ 8177) in India and would have a range of around 300 km between refuels. The cost of a refill would be about Rs. 85 ($ 2). Tata motors also plans to launch the world’s cheapest car, Tata Nano priced famously at One lakh rupees by October. Microcontrollers are used in every device in the car, so one tiny radio transmitter sends instructions to the lights, indicators etc. There are no keys - just an access card which can be read by the car from your pocket. According to the designers, it costs less than 50 rupees per 100Km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or 10 hours of driving), a factor which makes a perfect choice in cities where the 80% of motorists drive at less than 60Km. The car has a top speed of 105 kmph. Refilling the car will, once the market develops, take place at adapted petrol stations to administer compressed air. In two or three minutes, and at a cost of approximately 100 rupees, the car will be ready to go another 200-300 kilometers. As a viable alternative, the car carries a small compressor which can be connected to the mains (220V or 380V) and refill the tank in 3-4 hours. - Source 07/21/08 - Making Strides Toward Low-Cost LED Lighting "You all know that incandescent bulbs are pretty inefficient, converting only 10% of electricity into light - and 90% into heat. Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, could soon replace incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs in our homes. They are more efficient and environmentally friendly. But LED lights are currently too expensive because they are using a sapphire-based technology. Now, Purdue University researchers have found a way to build low-cost and bright LEDs for home lighting. According to the researchers, the LED lights now on the market cost about $100 while LED lights based on their new technology could be commercially available within a couple of years for a cost of about $5. It would also help to cut our electricity bill by about 10%." - Source 07/21/08 - Web-Crawling Program Spots Disease Outbreaks "There is a story at Discovery Channel's site about a new utility for mapping disease. The premise is to have bots crawl the web looking for stories about disease outbreaks and log them onto a map. '"We were originally thinking about how we could expand disease surveillance and pick up outbreaks earlier than traditional methods," said John Brownstein of Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston, who created HealthMap in September of 2006 with Clark Friefeld, a software developer at Harvard Medical School.' But then it was noticed by Google.org and has since grown into its own website, HealthMap Global disease alert map, and claims to be able to identify 95% of all disease outbreaks, some of them before WHO or CDC." - Source 07/21/08 - WindWings beat Wind Turbines The WindWing dispenses with propellers in favor of parallel panels that look like stacked WWI plane wings stuck up on a pole. The panels work similarly by lifting and lowering with the wind. Gene Kelley, Founder and CEO of W2 Energy Development Corp., recently turned his hand to improving the efficiency of turning wind into energy with his WindWings invention. Basically, it is a series of six to twelve horizontal parallel blades that move up and down in the wind. Here is his explanation for how it works: Have you ever stuck your hand out a car window? Then you know how the WindWing works. Your hand tilts up as it is pushed up by the wind and down as the wind pushes it down; all you have to do is direct it. Sensors behind the panels adjust the WindWing according to wind direction and strength. Once the series of panels are adjusted, the wind pushes them up and down collecting the energy through its stem and storing it in a box at the base. That energy can be converted into electricity, compressed air or put through a water pump. Since the WindWing works more efficiently than a traditional wind turbine, it costs one tenth the price. One WindWing can also replace about twelve propeller wind turbines depending on the surface area and needs of the community. - Source 07/21/08 - Energy from Water - Genepax MEA According to QED, or general quantum mechanics, the uncertainty at micro worlds dominates. If we take water, H2O is an average phenomena, and there is no certain locations or bond angles as to measure. A high voltage can easily "stress" covalent apparent bonding of H2O; thus in theory it is possible to stress the polarized H2O to a level which equalizes the bonding strength with only voltage (no current or amperage). The bond breakage can acutely happen, thus the dielectric characteristic of water (distilled) suddenly diminishes (catastrophic dielectric failure) which is a point where large amount of H2 and O2 exits. This is not exactly Faraday electrolysis and the resultant gas quantities can well exceed 300+ times more than Faraday’s expectations. An exotic observation here is the gas is produced between the two electrodes (commonly stainless steel plates) and not as expected at the electrodes. About the recent water car from Genepax, Japan, we had the exclusive opportunity to do some poking with the invention through our fellow researcher in Tokyo. Their cell is up to the claims, but their demonstration (car running in streets by Reuters) was not so genuine. It was running on the batteries, thus the energy unit was just loaded doing nothing significant. However, the water fuel cell truly produced 300W of power consuming water. They use ruthenium, platinum and some corral sands (probably to make the porosity of the membrane) in Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA). Researchers are currently studying their two filled patents, which describes the catalytic disassociation of water. - Source 07/21/08 - Texas To Build $4.93B Wind-Power Project "The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running. 'The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable for wind generation. The lack of transmission has been a fundamental issue in Texas, and it's becoming more and more of an issue elsewhere,' said Vanessa Kellogg, the Southwest regional development director for Horizon Wind Energy, which operates the Lone Star Wind Farm in West Texas and has more wind generation under development. 'This is a great step in the right direction.'" - Source 07/21/08 - Walking Helps Seniors Take Aging in Stride Study Shows Older Americans Can Increase Physical Function, Reduce Risk of Disability by Walking. A new study by researchers at the University of Georgia shows that older folks who kept up with a walking program for four months had "significant" health improvements over a group that didn't walk. The participants were randomly split into two groups, the walkers and a control group, which attended nutrition education classes. The walkers met three times a week for four months. At first, they walked for 10 minutes straight. It was increased to 40 minutes, with 10 minutes of warm-up and cool-down stretching. Both groups were given a battery of tests to assess aerobic capacity and physical function, which included how well the participants performed simple daily living tasks such as putting on a jacket or carrying a bag of groceries. Both groups had baseline testing at the beginning and end of the study. After just four months, the walking group fared much better in all levels of fitness. Results: * Physical function scores increased by 25% for the walking group, but decreased by 8.3% in the other group. The walking group's disability risk decreased by 41%. * Peak aerobic capacity increased 19% for the walkers. * Peak aerobic capacity declined 9% for the control group. "Aerobic capacity is really the engine that we draw upon for doing the things we want to do, whether it's cleaning up around the house or running a marathon," Cress says. "By increasing their aerobic capacity, the walking group was better able to perform their daily tasks and had more energy left over for recreational activities, like going out dancing." - Source 07/21/08 - Serendipity and the 'Eureka' Moment We’ve come to realize that inside most people is an entrepreneur - or at least the desire to create or do something that will solve a problem, change the way we live or at least make money. That’s human nature. It’s the old "Why didn’t I think of that?" phenomenon. There are lots of ideas, and, interestingly enough, the people who have them often didn’t start out with that idea in mind. It just happened. That led me to think about some of the most famous innovations that we enjoy today and how they came about almost by accident. Of course, one of the most famous is penicillin, which was the result of a 1928 laboratory experiment mistakenly left out on a table. It grew a fungus that later became the treatment for a wide range of life-threatening infections. It actually took the scientist, Alexander Fleming, many years to convince the medical community of the power of his discovery. It wasn’t until 1945 that it was produced on an industrial scale to be available to large segments of the population. And many more fascinating accidental discoveries at the link... - Source 07/21/08 - AGBM Instant Cooker This cooker cuts 70% of fuel (like LPG, electricity, coal, wood, etc.), cuts 70% of the cost and cuts 70% off the cooking time. This invention relates to the technique of cooking food, at low cost of fuel consumption. The present device is designed in such a manner that the food particles are cooked from all sides i.e. lower, upper and side including the middle of vessels. The main objective of the present invention is to reduce the consumption of the liquid petroleum gas (LPG). The oven is a double layered container, in which small jets are fitted on regular intervals. A gas pipeline is attached at one end which runs through all the small jets circulating the gas throughout the surface area of the oven. The inner container is detachable and designed to contain food stuffs for cooking. An orifice is made on the outer container which keeps a constant air flow for burning of the gas inside the vessel. Top of the vessel or oven is made up of heavy metal with double layers which is detachable and could be fixed with the help of hinge and lock. The body of the oven is such designed as it serves as an insulator for the inner container. Hence once the burners are switched one for a considerable time the heat is trapped for a long period in the vessel or oven and the food is cooked accordingly. The device such invented can solve many problems relating to gas consumption; it can save the gas by 70-80 % as in comparison to the conventional method of cooking. - Source 07/21/08 - An interview with serial inventor Bob Dean Q. What are you working on now? A. I’m working on two projects. One is called drop blast bubble implosion fusion (DBBIF), which is, theoretically, a method of creating fusion by harnessing the energy of a liquid bubble as it collapses, thus increasing the pressure (by thousands of atmospheres) at which its temperature reaches extreme values. My other proto-venture relates to process technology for more cost-effective conversion of nonfood biomass to fuel. - Source 07/21/08 - Companies Coming Around To Piracy's Upside? "The Economist has an article detailing how numerous companies are finding piracy's silver lining: 'Statistics about the traffic on file-sharing networks can be useful. They can reveal, for example, the countries where a new singer is most popular, even before his album has been released there. Having initially been reluctant to be seen exploiting this information, record companies are now making use of it. This month BigChampagne, the main music-data analyser, is extending its monitoring service to pirated video, too.' The kicker is Microsoft's tacit endorsement of Windows piracy in developing markets, namely China. The big man himself, Bill Gates, says it best in an interview with Fortune last year: 'It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not.'" - Source 07/21/08 - Liquid Metal CPU Heatsink Beats Water Cooling "Bios Magazine is reporting that the world's first commercially available liquid-metal based CPU cooler is about to ship. Danamics, a Danish company, claims that its LM-10 outperforms standard air-cooled heatsinks and most watercooled systems with a mere 1W power draw. 'The liquid metal is a key component in Danamics cooling systems. Liquid metal has two major advantages when cooling high power density heat sources: Firstly it has superior thermo physical properties that decrease temperature - and temperature non-uniformity - on die and across chips. Secondly, the electrical properties of the liquid metal enables efficient, reliable and ultra compact electromagnetic pumping without the use of moving parts, shafts, seals, etc.'" - Source 07/21/08 - Electricity-starved Iraq turns to the sun to boost security In a city with constant electricity shortages but no lack of sunshine, the new buzz is solar energy. Teams of engineers have appeared along major Baghdad roadways, bolting panels and bulbs to rows of towering steel poles to make solar-powered streetlights. "We are lighting up the city with solar power," Sajad Hussein declared when queried by curious residents. "People say it is a gift from God." But Iraq's decision to embrace clean energy has little to do with cost cutting or the environment: Iraqi policy makers want to improve security, and the national grid doesn't supply enough electricity to illuminate city streets. For Iraqis, the lack of reliable power has been one of the biggest frustrations of the war. The US government has committed $4.91 billion to repairing the ravaged electricity infrastructure and bringing new generating units online. But most Iraqis can count on just a few hours of power a day. - Source 07/21/08 - A Musical Score for Disease When set to music, colon cancer sounds kind of eerie. That's the finding of Gil Alterovitz, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School who is developing a computer program that translates protein and gene expression into music. In his acoustic translation, harmony represents good health, and discord indicates disease. The first step in the gene-to-sound conversion was to pare down multiple measurements to a few fundamental signals, each of which could be represented by a different note. Together, the notes would form a harmonic chord in normal, healthy states and become increasingly out of tune as key physiological signs go awry, signaling disease. Alterovitz employed mathematical modeling to determine relationships between physiological signals. Much like the various systems in an automobile, many physiological signs work in synchrony to keep a body healthy. "These signals [are] not isolated parts," says Alterovitz. "Like in a car, one gear is working with other gears to control, for example, power steering. Similarly, there are lots of correlations between physiological variables. If heart rate is higher, other variables will move together in response, and you can simplify that redundancy and information." - Source 07/21/08 - HHS wants to define contraception as abortion In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services. Up until now, the federal government followed the definition of pregnancy accepted by the American Medical Association and our nation's pregnancy experts, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which is: pregnancy begins at implantation. With this proposal, however, HHS is dismissing medical experts and opting instead to accept a definition of pregnancy based on polling data. It now claims that pregnancy begins at some biologically unknowable moment (there's no test to determine if a woman's egg has been fertilized). Under these new standards there would be no way for a woman to prove she's not pregnant. Thus, any woman could be denied contraception under HHS' new science. - Source 07/21/08 - Planning smart for your food supply Why store? The world we live in today is fast moving, ever changing and full of surprises. On top of this, there has never been a time when the average family has had less food in their homes than now. A hundred years ago, people generally didn’t go to the store very often. As a rule, America was much more agrarian than it is today, with people growing the majority of the plants and animals they ate. Today, many of us would be at our rope’s end after just a couple of days of not being able to go to the grocery store. So why not be ready for it? If you were the mayor of a small town during a time of disaster, wouldn’t it be a great relief if 1/2 of the inhabitants of your town had a three day supply of emergency supplies. A month supply? And wouldn’t it be great to know not only you, but all the neighbors on your street had an emergency supply of food and other items? One thing is for sure: When an actual emergency arises, the time of preparation is past. One of the greatest advantages that can come to you from this type of preparation is peace of mind. Whatever you choose to believe, it is a good idea to put something away for ‘that rainy day.’ Basic rules for home storage:... - Source 07/21/08 - Surgeons removing donor kidneys through single bellybutton incision The first 10 recipients and donors whose transplants used the single-incision navel procedure have done well, according to the researchers. Preliminary data from the first nine donors who had the bellybutton procedure showed they recovered in about just under a month, while donors who underwent the standard laparoscopic procedure with four to six "key hole" incisions took just longer than three months to recover. The clinic says the return to work time for single-point donors is about 17 days, versus 51 for traditional multi-incision laparoscopic procedure. Patients of the new procedure were on pain pills less than four days on average, compared with 26 days for laparoscopic patients. The procedure involves making a three-quarter inch incision in the interior of the bellybutton and inserting a tube-like port with several round entry points for inserting a camera and other tools into the belly. The belly is inflated with carbon dioxide to provide maneuvering room. The kidney is then freed from connecting tissue, wrapped in a plastic bag and removed through the navel when the blood supply is cut, shrinking the organ's fist-like size. The incision is expanded to about 1 1/2 inches to extract the kidney after the port is removed. The procedure would not be appropriate for those who have had multiple major abdominal surgeries or who are obese. Both conditions would limit the ability to look around the abdomen and move about instruments. - Source 07/21/08 - 10 Banks That Could Be Next To Go Under IndyMac bank going under probably has you wondering, is my bank next? Various analysts are predicting that hundreds of small and regional banks could collapse in the next year. Here's the top 10 list of the nation's most troubled banks... The list is determined by dividing the bank's non-performing loans by the sum of its tangible equity capital and loan loss reserves, what is termed the "Texas-ratio." Any bank with a ratio higher than 100 means they have more bad loans on the books than money to pay for them. The good news is that all the banks are FDIC-insured which means that up to the first $100,000 of your deposits are guaranteed by the federal government. - Source 07/21/08 - Pigeons: The Next Step in Local Eating When you look at a pigeon, you might see a dirty, rat-like bird that fouls anything it touches with feathers or feces, but I see a waste-scavenging, protein-generating biomachine. Numbering in the hundreds of millions, they could be a new source of guilt-free protein for locavores in urban centers. Instead, we're still trying to kill off our species' former pet birds, which (as any city-dweller can attest) doesn't work. "Killing makes no sense at all," Daniel Haag-Wackernagel, a biologist at the University of Basel, told Der Spiegel. "The birds have an enormous reproduction capacity and they'll just come back. There is a linear relationship between the bird population and the amount of food available." Of course, the obvious objection is that pigeons carry disease, but some evidence suggests that they aren't particularly susceptible to avian flu. As for the meat itself, I called up the FDA's food safety line to ask how pigeon compared, safety-wise, to your average factory-farmed pig or chicken, but after one-and-a-half hours on hold, the office closed down and I gave up. Really, all pigeons need is a re-branding. Just as the spurned Patagonian toothfish became the majestic Chilean sea bass and the silly Chinese gooseberry became the beloved kiwifruit, pigeons can merely reclaim their previous sufficiently arugula-sounding name: squab. The term squab now refers to the meat of the baby pigeon, but it can also mean pigeons in general, so we can simply extend the brand back to its historical proportions. - Source 07/21/08 - StumbleAudio StumbleAudio is a social music discovery site with a mission is to help you find music by new and exciting artists that you would like, rather than play or sell you the hits by known artists that you are “expected” to love. Our catalog has over 2,000,000 tracks by over 120,000 artists ready to be played in full length, high quality, free of charge. - Source 07/21/08 - Los Angeles is home to new rush of oil drilling Beverly Hills is one of the most fertile oil fields in Los Angeles, producing nearly a million barrels a year. Many wells are camouflaged or hidden inside buildings. One on the property of Beverly Hills High School is covered in quilt-like floral blankets. Not far from here, in Wilmington, they churn out far more oil - in fact, the Department of Energy calls Wilmington the third largest oil field in the 48 contiguous states. Who knew? With oil prices so high, all over Los Angeles people are digging, or restarting, wells - even ones that only turn out 10 barrels a day. The state turns out 660,000 barrels a day, but that's down nearly half from the peak in 1985. Still, conservative estimates are that California is sitting on three billion barrels of accessible oil. Talk about a gold rush. - Source 07/18/08 - Groundbreaking invention to Power your Car Thushara, a 25-year-old from Athurugiriya, is the inventor of what could be a ground-breaking technology of powering a car by water, using an extremely low amount of electricity. According to the the young inventor, the generator he has designed is capable of running a motor car for 80 kilometres using only one litre of water, without any danger to life or any impact on the environment. The energy required to power the vehicle is produced by the splitting off of H2O (water) into separate Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules, of which the former is burnt according to a specified ratio to produce the energy needed to power the engine. The specialty of my invention is its ability to produce this energy from water with a minimal electric current of barely 0.5 amperes, which was not possible earlier,” Thushara says. A product of Christ King College, Pannipitiya, Thushara, on his test run of the water-powered car, has travelled all the way to Anuradhapura and back on mere three litres of water, a journey that would have cost several thousand rupees on a petrol or diesel vehicle. ”This generator could be fixed to any petrol or diesel vehicle with suitable adjustments depending on their cylinder capacity. While Hydrogen is 1000 times faster than petrol, the exhausts of water-powered vehicles consisting of water vapour are also entirely eco-friendly. Using water as opposed to oil that react with lubricating oil would also extend the life of the vehicle,” he adds. - Source 07/18/08 - Abandoned Farmlands Are Key To Sustainable Bioenergy Biofuels can be a sustainable part of the world's energy future, especially if bioenergy agriculture is developed on currently abandoned or degraded agricultural lands, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University. Using these lands for energy crops, instead of converting existing croplands or clearing new land, avoids competition with food production and preserves carbon-storing forests needed to mitigate climate change. Sustainable bioenergy is likely to satisfy no more than 10% of the demand in the energy-intensive economies of North America, Europe, and Asia. But for some developing countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa, the potential exists to supply many times their current energy needs without compromising food supply or destroying forests. The researchers estimate that globally up to 4.7 million square kilometers (approximately 1.8 million square miles) of abandoned lands could be available for growing energy crops. Researchers estimate that the worldwide harvestable dry biomass could amount to as much as 2.1 billion tons, with a total energy content of about 41 exajoules. While this is a significant amount of energy (one exajoule is a billion billion joules, equivalent to about 170 million barrels of oil), at best it would satisfy only about 8% of worldwide energy demand. - Source 07/18/08 - “Nanosculpture” for New Types of Heat Pumps and Energy Converters Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered how to direct the growth of nanorods made up of two single crystals using a biomolecular surfactant. The researchers were also able to create “branched” structures by carefully controlling the temperature, time, and amount of surfactant used during synthesis. “Our work is the first to demonstrate the synthesis of composite nanorods with branching, wherein each nanorod consists of two materials - a single-crystal bismuth telluride nanorod core encased in a hollow cylindrical shell of single-crystal bismuth sulfide,” said G. Ramanath, professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer... “Our discovery enables the realization of two very important attributes for heat dissipation and power generation from heat,” Ramanath said. “First, the core-shell junctions in the nanorods are conducive for heat removal upon application of an electrical voltage, or generating electrical power from heat. Second, the branched structures open up the possibility of fabricating miniaturized conduits for heat removal alongside nanowire interconnects in future device architectures.” - Source 07/18/08 - Electricity May Supplant Nets in Taking Fish (Mar, 1931) Catching fish by shocking them with electricity is an experiment being tried by the Australian State Fishery Station, at Sydney Bay. A fishing boat has been fitted with charged electrical grids or electrodes of copper that are submerged in the water. Powerful electric generators force a current through the water between the electrodes, shocking all near-by fish, which then float to the surface and are picked up alive in large nets. Large-scale application of the method may be possible. Fishing boats might go out singly or in pairs, to fish electrically. Single boats would have electrodes at bow and stern. If two boats operate together, each would use a single electrode and an electric cable would connect them. A Swedish engineer named Moiler devised this electric fishing, after making good hauls with an electrified rowboat. The drawing on this page, based on cabled reports of his system, shows how it might be applied on a large wooden-hulled fishing ship. A metal hull could not be used, as it would short-circuit the current. - Source 07/18/08 - Psychic Nearly Destroys Family What happens when the psychic lies to the client (or is wrong), telling her information that is not true about something with real-world consequences? On May 30, Colleen Leduc left her daughter Victoria at her elementary school. Leduc was soon called back to the school urgently, and confronted by the principal, Victoria's teacher, and a teacher's aide (educational assistant, or EA). Puzzled and alarmed, Leduc asked what was going on. The group told her that they believed that Victoria was being sexually abused. They had contacted the Children's Aid Society, a case file had been opened, and her daughter might be taken from her "for her own safety." Leduc was shocked by the explanation: "The teacher looked at me and said: 'We have to tell you that Victoria's EA went to see a psychic and the psychic asked her if she works with a little girl with the initial V. When the EA said yes, the psychic said, 'Well, you need to know that this girl is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'" The EA reported it to the teacher, who then went to the principal, and so on. Because Victoria is autistic, the child couldn't speak for herself about the alleged abuse. (For more on this, see www.WhatsTheHarm.net, a web site the tracks the damage done by psychics.) - Source 07/18/08 - Nerve Zapper to Reverse Obesity The device is implanted under the skin in the abdomen and is regulated by patients through a switch. It emits a low-level electrical charge that blocks the vagal nerve, which signals a person when to eat. This blocking causes obese patients to feel full after a normal-sized meal rather than to continue eating. The device is being touted as a less invasive alternative to bariatric surgery, in which the stomach is surgically decreased in size or removed. It is reversible, unlike the surgery, and can be shut off by patients during the night. According to researchers, there is no damage to the vagal nerves or stomach. In the study, 31 obese patients who wore the device over six months in three medical centres lost an average of almost 15 per cent of their weight. The researchers are working on a followup double-blinded study involving 300 patients. - Source 07/18/08 - Bank Error A few weeks ago I bought a banjo, and the seller requested that I pay via a direct wire transfer. I wasn't able to do it online, so I went to the bank (Chase), and filled out a form and the money was sent. They charged me $25 for the transaction. When I got back from Hawaii, there was a fax waiting for me. Apparently, the woman who did the transaction gave me the signed copy, which she should have kept. I called her. She wanted me to come to the bank and make a trade. Or, she could send her copy to me by mail and I would mail my copy back. I told her that my fee for either one of those services would be $25. She laughed, as if I weren't serious. I eventually hung up on her, after she refused to waive the absurd $25 fee. She kept saying that I would have to talk to her manager. Coincidentally, my fee for that is also $25. Should I charge a fee to correct a bank error? It makes perfect sense to me. - Source 07/18/08 - Farms in the Sky gain New Interest What if skyscrapers grew off the grid, as verdant, self-sustaining towers where city slickers cultivated their own food? Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, hopes to make these zucchini-in-the-sky visions a reality. Despommier's pet project is the "vertical farm," a concept he created in 1999 with graduate students in his class on medical ecology, the study of how the environment and human health interact. Despommier estimates that it would cost $20 million to $30 million to make a prototype of a vertical farm, but hundreds of millions to build one of the 30-story towers that he suggests could feed 50,000 people. He says his ideas are supported by hydroponic vegetable research done by NASA and are made more feasible by the potential to use sun, wind and wastewater as energy sources. "If I were to set myself as a certifier of vertical farms, I would begin with security," he said. "How do you keep insects and bacteria from invading your crops?" He says growing food in climate-controlled skyscrapers would also protect against hail and other weather-related hazards, ensuring a higher quality food supply for a city, without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. Architects' renderings of vertical farms - hybrids of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Biosphere 2 with SimCity appeal - seem to be stirring interest. - Source 07/18/08 - End Bike theft with 'The Honeybike Project' Bike thieves suck, so I decided to get even. Why not track and, if you'd like, shock these most egregious of folk? With a $40 pay-as-you-go cell phone, stun gun, and some basic electronic components, you can teach bike thieves a lesson and, hopefully, foster a small social change through individual action:) - Source 07/18/08 - Gas Extracted from Clover by Inexpensive Process Claimed to be commercially practical, a process for extracting gas from roadside clover has been discovered by two Minnesota chemists. After manufacturing gas in their plant for several months, the chemists announced that 3,000 acres of clover would be sufficient for making a year’s supply of gas for St. Paul’s domestic and industrial users. - Source And this article, Making Gas from Prairie Grasses - "We actually get more energy from an acre of land growing prairie grasses [and] mixtures of prairie grasses and converting them into ethanol or into synthetic gas and diesel than you would by growing corn and soybeans and converting them into ethanol or biodiesel," says David Tilman. Tilman's team grew plots mixing 16 types of prairie grasses, including lupine, turkey foot, blazing star, and prairie clover. The plots with the most varieties produced the most biomass and produced more potential energy than corn and soybeans. And the multigrass plots did something else. Like all plants, grasses capture and use carbon dioxide from the air. When a plant or a plant-fuel is burned, the CO2 goes back into the air. That's not good if you're worried about climate change. But Tilman's prairie grasses bury much of that CO2 in the soil and in their deep, permanent roots. So a good deal of the CO2 stays in the ground after the harvest. 07/18/08 - Bees sent to attack crows Tokyo conservationists are using honeybees to fend off crows attacking vulnerable seabirds nesting near the international airport. The nonprofit Little Tern Project has installed hives of honeybees on the roof of the watertower where several thousand of the seabirds nest during migration. The bees came from the Ginza Bee Project, another nonprofit that teaches people about agriculture and beekeeping. From National Geographic: "We spoke to an expert and learned that honeybees in the wild have the natural response of attacking a black object that comes near to their hive," (Ginza Bee Project chair Kazuo) Takayasu said. "There have been tests with black and white balloons, and the bees always attack the black balloon." It is believed that the bees' reaction is linked to the color of bears' fur. The insects apparently attack dark-colored creatures to protect their hives from plunder. "We noticed that the bees swarmed around crows that were taking offerings from white plates left on the outdoor altar of a shrine in Ginza," Takayasu added. - Source 07/18/08 - Exerciser Rights Faulty Posture (Sep, 1930) BUSINESS men and women who by necessity must lead sedentary lives will find the exercising device shown at the left an excellent corrective for the stooping posture developed by such a manner of living. The device can be hung up in a doorway or in the attic for a few minutes exercise each day. Muscles of the shoulders, arms and neck are given a strenuous workout by the pulling movement of the arms and the stretching motion to the neck. (Using of this technique could be very useful for office workers, computer users and others whose work contributes to bad posture. Some company should make and sell these things, though from the picture, it looks like it would be very easy to construct for yourself. - JWD) - Source 07/18/08 - 'Run Your Car On Water' Scheme Could Leave Consumers All Wet These widely-advertised devices, known variously as a "hydrogen generator" or "hydrogen booster," claim to be able to use electricity from your car battery to split water into its components of oxygen and hydrogen. This supposedly forms what is called "Browns Gas." Perhaps the most notorious Web site promoting the concept is Water4Gas.com. Created by a gentleman who calls himself Ozzie Freedom, the site is a 12,000-word sales pitch for two electronic books advertised at $97.00. Doing a Web search for "water4gas" or "Ozzie Freedom" brings up page after page of search results and advertisements with headlines such as, "Is Water4Gas a Scam?" or "Water4Gas Reviewed," not to mention a wealth of videos that claim to show the device in action. It doesn't take long to realize that the "articles" and "reviews" appear to be sales pitches masquerading as unbiased reviews. Some sites present themselves as mechanics giving free advice to motorists. "All of these device/schemes seem to promote adding hydrogen to improve the combustion process. There is no way it can improve fuel economy by 50%, or even 5%," said Dr. Robert Sawyer, Professor of Energy Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. When we showed the instructions and claims to Dr. Andrew A. Frank, he had difficulty holding back the laughter. "It shows the desperation people feel!" said Frank, Professor of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering at the University of California, Davis.The Water4Gas site specifically says that you shouldn't listen to "experts." Instead, Mr. Freedom says that you should just order his books. - Source 07/18/08 - China Could Beat US in Moon Race More bad news for NASA: even their administrator thinks China could beat the US to the Moon. Speaking with the BBC today, Michael Griffin shared his views about the Chinese space aspirations, pointing out that the super-state could, if they wanted to, send a manned mission to the lunar surface within a decade. NASA's return mission to the Moon is planned to launch, at the earliest, in 2020, so this news is bound to knock the wind out of the US space agency's hopes to continue where it left off in 1972… - Source 07/18/08 - Public Photography Equals Perversion A father of three was photographing his three children enjoying a slide was accused by nearby parents of being a pervert. When one mother in particular began to harass him about not taking pictures of her children, the man was flabbergasted. Even after showing the complaining parents the images on his camera were only of his children, he continued to be harassed. A nearby police officer sided with the father, indicating there was no improper behavior at play. Even if the man had captured other children in the background of his photos, the legal precedent around public areas protects his activities. Has western society gone too far with privacy accusations or do such parents have a legitimate complaint? - Source 07/18/08 - Child locator a hot seller The device sold out within 48 hours of the ad's first airing on television. There's now a waiting list for the $190 device on the company's Web site tulsaworld.com/brickhouse. The BrickHouse child locator is one in a slew of pocket-size tracking gadgets that are flooding the market, offering peace of mind to worried parents or a way to track down your dog if he keeps getting out. BrickHouse's locator comes with chips, or tags, that can be hidden in a child's shoe or pocket, attached to a dog's collar or hidden in valuables. If something wearing one of the tags goes missing, you can turn on the locator, and it will beep and vibrate as you get closer to the missing tagged child or item. You can also set it up to beep warnings as something wearing one of the tags gets too far away, setting up a safety perimeter of up to 600 feet around your house. - Source 07/18/08 - Recurrent Taps into Hudson Clean Energy Partners San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, which leases the rooftops of industrial buildings for its solar arrays, today announced a $75 million financing partnership with Hudson Clean Energy Partners. The partnership is meant to help Recurrent expand its business of providing solar power as a service to commercial and industrial properties, as well as utility and government markets. Recurrent Energy develops, owns, and operates distributed solar power systems, selling clean energy to large-scale energy users at competitive rates via a power purchase agreements. Instead of incurring the upfront cost themselves, the customer or its landlord leases its rooftops to Recurrent, who installs a solar array and leases the generated power to the customer. - Source 07/18/08 - Humans and machines will merge in future Transhumanists, according to Bostrom, anticipate a coming era where biotechnology, molecular nanotechnologies, artificial intelligence and other new types of cognitive tools will be used to amplify our intellectual capacity, improve our physical capabilities and even enhance our emotional well-being. The end result would be a new form of "posthuman" life with beings that possess qualities and skills so exceedingly advanced they no longer can be classified simply as humans. - Source 07/15/08 - Man claims fuel system gets 463 miles per gallon w/video John Weston's 1992 Geo Storm doesn't look like much on the outside. But there are some people that say it's what's under a car's hood that matters. "Since I changed the fuel system unit, it's drastically different. I disconnected the fuel line from the injector so no liquid goes to the engine," said Weston. Weston showed NBC2 a version of his air vapor flow system where instead of liquid fuel, only vapors go to the engine. "They used to say, 'Hey I'm running on empty. I'm running on fumes.' Well, this is actually running on fumes," he said. Weston says the system burns cleaner and also made a bold claim about fuel efficiency from a one-time test. "It came up to 463 miles a gallon if we had driven in the same manner - a gallon," said Weston. "I drove from here to Fort Myers, and I'm up there keeping up with traffic running 80 mph." Now, the backyard mechanic is looking for investors so he can eventually take his invention public. In the meantime, he says you might see his car on the highway. - Source 07/15/08 - Tankless task pays off: that's AC, not DC In Gaza City, where gasoline is the rarest of commodities, Wassim Khazendar, electrical engineer, replaced the petrol engine in his Peugeot 205 four months ago with an electric motor. "I think I am the first person in the world to have been able to convert a car that runs on petrol, to one that runs on electricity," he says. Now it costs him about 50 cents to charge the car's 34 batteries, compared with the $425 he would have to spend to fill the tank with fuel. On full charge the Peugeot can cover about 180 kilometres at a top speed of 105 km/h, more than enough to get around the tiny Palestinian territory several times over. "I have attached the electric motor to the drive shaft, and that drives the car like a petrol engine," he says. "The manual gears work like normal. The only difference is that it costs nothing to get around, and here in Gaza, that means a lot." The secret, Mr Khazendar explains, is that he has found a way to use an alternating current electric motor instead of the heavier, direct current motors used in other electric cars. "For a car designed to run on a petrol engine, a direct current motor was too heavy, so when we tried it, it just didn't work properly." Sounding more like someone who could win a segment on the ABC's New Inventors program, Mr Khazendar says there is a secret box underneath the car that will protect his invention from imitators. In need of a patent attorney to ensure his invention was protected, Mr Khazendar looked up the office of a reputable Tel Aviv firm. "They said yes straight away - a very good Israeli patent attorney," he said. - Source 07/15/08 - 100,000+ Web Proxies to Bypass Internet Censorship in the U.S. The proxy acts as a buffer allowing the user to gain access to blocked web pages quickly and easily. This method is preferred because it only requires the typing in of a URL into a browser window. Unfortunately, once the proxy is found by the filtering company it will be blocked and no longer allow access by the user. Solution - Google is said to be a hacker's favorite weapon. It is no different in this case. By using Boolean searches you can find TONS of new web-based proxies. Googlebot updates its list daily and it is constantly expanding. Use this search term: +"include form" +"remove scripts" +"accept cookies" +"show images" This search will look for all CgiProxy/PhpProxy web sites that have been set to default or have not been drastically altered. There are thousands of these sites out there on the Internet, and many new ones that come online each day. The filtering companies use search terms like these to find new proxy sites and block them. / By using all of those key words in one long Boolean term, we can eliminate approximately 20,000 web pages from Google's list and get better results. +"Include Form" +"Remove Scripts" +"Accept Cookies" +"Show Images" +"Show Referer" +"Rotate13" +"Base64" +"Strip Meta" +"Strip Title" +"Session Cookies" +"New Window" Click on the link for additional details to filter your hits... - Source 07/15/08 - Wireless Spy Sunglasses WSC-827 Wireless Spy Camera sunglasses system contains the latest in miniaturized wireless video technology - squeezing double full color video cameras, microphone, power source and a 2.4GHz transmitter inside a pair of smart luxury sunglasses. It hides two wireless mini cameras inside both legs of sunglasses, offering your choice to observe the object both from right and left view; and you no need to stare at the object directly for surveillance, which makes it ultra discreet! Just press the power switch on the right leg of glasses; it begins transmitting high quality color video with sound to the supplied receiver--2.4GHz Wireless MPEG-4 recorder DVR. Press the camera switch button, you can choose right or left camera for surveillance. No need any cable or any other equipment, you can directly view and record exactly what you see and hear in our supplied wireless 2.5' LCD color monitor recorder DVR. The transmitting range is up to 300 feet! System components: 1)2.4GHz Wireless Spy Camera Sunglasses(WS-602) 2)2.4GHz Wireless MPEG-4 Recorder DVR(JS-928) 3)Solar charger System advantages: 1) Wireless transmission makes the DVR receiver can be separately carried;thus not any evidence can be suspected or detected from sunglasses wearer, which assures important safety for spy work. 2) Tiny pinhole camera lens safely hidden inside the cool looking sunglasses(makes it ultra-discreet) 3) Two cameras available for your choice to observe both right and left side view; no need to start at objects directly. 4)4 channels available for choice. 5)Long continuous operating time for camera sunglasses is up to 1 hour. 6)Solar charger guarantees long time power supply for transmitter up to 9 hours. - Source 07/15/08 - Flying fuelled by the sun Jai Reddy has invented a solar-powered gyrocopter. Reddy, from Plumstead, has lodged international patents for his helicopter's electrical propulsion system. He hopes to have a prototype in the air within eight months. The traditional gyrocopter, which runs on unleaded petrol, has a myriad uses, including tourism, crop spraying, aerial photography, geological surveys, fire control, in the film industry, military, police and emergency services. Reddy's gyrocopter does not contribute to emissions and runs quietly. "The power plant system harnesses renewable energy without creating pollutants," he said. Reddy spent three years and his life savings researching and developing a way to feed his passion for flying and conserve the environment. He has no scientific, avionic or design training but nevertheless built a scale version of the gyrocopter to test the concept. - Source 07/15/08 - Unique water system inspired by hurricanes Water quality has long been a serious issue and source of frustration for Naples area residents who depend on a well for their domestic water. Problems include hardness, taste and the notorious “rotten egg smell” of sulfur. Steve DelleCave and Frank Scherer have worked for years on water treatment issues. Ozone treatment is at the heart of the purification system, according to Scherer, vice president of engineering for the company. “The process of injecting ozone into the water is the key to the high water quality the system produces. It removes all the sulfur gas -- that rotten egg smell -- iron, and tannins, which are present in most wells in Florida.” As an additional benefit, it also kills bacteria that may be present in the water. Ozone is a naturally occurring form of oxygen, created when lightning strikes, and is responsible for the fresh smell noticeable after a thunderstorm. Very reactive by nature, ozone combines readily with a wide array of contaminants in water, allowing them to be removed, and converts back to pure oxygen, leaving no residue behind. Patents are pending for the new system, called the Water-One. You don’t have to live with smelly water, or the feeling of your skin crawling when you take a sho