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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
New Process Doubles Production of Alternative Fuel While Slashing Costs
Post Date: 2012-08-15 03:25:37 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2012) — A new discovery should make the alternative fuel butanol more attractive to the biofuel industry. University of Illinois scientist Hao Feng has found a way around the bottleneck that has frustrated producers in the past and could significantly reduce the cost of the energy involved in making it as well. "The first challenge in butanol production is that at a certain concentration the fuel being created becomes toxic to the organism used to make it (Clostridium pasteurianum and other strains), and that toxicity limits the amount of fuel that can be made in one batch. The second issue is the high energy cost of removing butanol from the ...
Long-lost Egyptian Pyramids Found on Google Earth?
Post Date: 2012-08-14 09:30:06 by Original_Intent
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A self-described "satellite archaeology researcher" has garnered widespread media attention with claims that she has found two possible pyramid complexes in Egypt using Google Earth. But experts say her pyramids are nothing more than eroded hills infused with a heavy dose of wishful thinking. Are these Egyptian desert features … Angela Micol, a North Carolina-based woman who blogs at Google Earth Anomalies, says she discovered the two clusters of mysterious, angular mounds in the Egyptian desert while surveying satellite images of the terrain using Google Earth, the virtual map program. In its coverage, Gizmodo asserts that the desert structures look as if they have ...
Corn & Fuel: C2C recap
Post Date: 2012-08-13 05:17:06 by Tatarewicz
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In the latter half, ecological biologist and advocate for alcohol-based fuel, David Blume, shared updates about the corn shortage, ethanol, and drought conditions. Even though drought has hurt this year's corn crops in the US, previous years have been bountiful and some 2+ billion bushels of corn are stored in silos, he said. Thus, the call to reduce the amount of corn to make ethanol, in order to use the corn to feed people, is unnecessary and being pushed by the "Big Ag/Oil" agenda, as well as people deluded by the media, he argued. "For years the oil companies have been saying 'it's food versus fuel; we're competing with starving African babies for the ...
Sun may soon have four poles, say researchers
Post Date: 2012-08-13 00:42:14 by farmfriend
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Sun may soon have four poles, say researchersM By SEIJI TANAKA/ Staff Writer The sun may be entering a period of reduced activity that could result in lower temperatures on Earth, according to Japanese researchers. Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century in which London’s Thames froze over and cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual in Kyoto. In that era, known as the Maunder Minimum, temperatures are estimated to have been about 2.5 degrees lower than in the second half of the 20th century. The Japanese study found that ...
Enhanced oil recovery better than hydrofracking
Post Date: 2012-08-12 07:01:08 by Tatarewicz
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Keith Schaefer launched his Oil & Gas Investments Bulletin a couple years ago, and he has quickly ramped up to the kind of teaser prominence that I’m sure a hundred other startup newsletter dudes would love — whether it’s because of the mailing lists he has access to or the hypetastic nature of his teasers or the success of his picks, I don’t know. But every time he sends out a new pitch, I get a lot of questions. What Schaefer’s pitching now is a tiny company whose technology can bring incremental improvement to the water flooding of old oil wells, thereby extending the life of those wells and producing more oil with very little extra cost. As he puts it: ...
"Battery-powered" light rail car produced in China
Post Date: 2012-08-11 02:02:48 by Tatarewicz
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Central China produces super-capacity light rail train CHANGSHA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The world's first super-capacity light rail train was completed Friday by China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation Limited (CSR) Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Co., Ltd. in Zhuzhou, central China's Hunan province. The new type of electric locomotive can be fully charged within 30 seconds during its station stops, as it has a box-type super capacitor on the roof and charge spots at the foot of every compartment, Xu Zongxiang, general manager of the company, said. The train, which can hold a maximum of 320 passengers, does not need a traditional pantograph installed on the roof to get ...
Lost Egyptian Pyramids Found?
Post Date: 2012-08-11 01:35:11 by farmfriend
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Lost Egyptian Pyramids Found? Analysis by Rossella Lorenzi Two possible pyramid complexes might have been found in Egypt, according to a Google Earth satellite imagery survey. Located about 90 miles apart, the sites contain unusual grouping of mounds with intriguing features and orientations, said satellite archaeology researcher Angela Micol of Maiden, N.C. One site in Upper Egypt, just 12 miles from the city of Abu Sidhum along the Nile, features four mounds each with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau. The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width. ~snip~ Click for Full Text!
Domestic Spying: Mini-Drone Can Watch Neighbors From Above
Post Date: 2012-08-10 19:40:34 by Buzzard
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Your neighbors’ fences are no longer tall enough. While President Obama takes flack for the US’s use of unmanned drone attacks abroad, there is a smaller, smartphone-controlled drone hovering above urban rooftops and suburban backyards: The Parrot AR Drone 2.0. The Parrot AR Drone 2.0, listed on Amazon just below $300, is the best way to live out one’s fantasy of being a spy. The miniature drone is controlled through your iPhone or iPad and features multiple sensors, including a hi-definition front-facing 720-pixel camera and a vertical camera looking straight down from the bottom of the miniature quadricopter (four propellers). The 2.0 model – the first version was ...
Lather up your weekend with the Perseid meteor shower
Post Date: 2012-08-09 19:35:46 by Buzzard
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How do you watch a meteor shower? Step one: Find yourself a clear, dark sky late in the evening. Two, pour a cool, summer beverage. Three, find a lawn chair, sit and drink aforementioned beverage. And finally, look up. Not only do we get fireworks on the Fourth of July, we get nature’s own fireworks in mid August. Check out the Perseid (pronounced PURR-see-id) meteor shower on the night of August 11-12. While the Perseids loiter around our heavens from July 25 through Aug. 20, these shooting stars peak this weekend. You can start looking up late Saturday night and if you are lucky, you’ll observe a handful of meteors dart across the cosmos. Likely, you’ll see more after ...
Attack of the Robot Dinosaurs
Post Date: 2012-08-09 06:40:23 by Tatarewicz
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I often extol the virtues of taking things into your own hands. My garden this year has provided squash, beans, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and more for not only my household... but for relatives, neighbors, and coworkers as well. Those plants were sustained on water I collected from roof run-off. I did all the plumbing for that system. I crafted the entire chickenwire fence around the garden and a lattice system for vine vegetables as well. Many meals I've had this summer came entirely from invested sweat equity. Even the proteins were my own doing – some from self-caught and cleaned fish, frozen wild game from last hunting season, or beef from the family farm in ...
Using Wastewater as Fertilizer
Post Date: 2012-08-09 06:08:25 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2012) — Sewage sludge, wastewater and liquid manure are valuable sources of fertilizer for food production. Fraunhofer researchers have now developed a chemical-free, eco-friendly process that enables the recovered salts to be converted directly into organic food for crop plants. Phosphorus is a vital element not only for plants but also for all living organisms. In recent times, however, farmers have been faced with a growing shortage of this essential mineral, and the price of phosphate-based fertilizers has been steadily increasing. It is therefore high time to start looking for alternatives. This is not an easy task, because phosphorus cannot be replaced by ...
Touch Your Philodendron and Control Your Computer: Technology Turns Any Plant Into an Interactive Device
Post Date: 2012-08-07 02:22:20 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2012) — A yucca plant might make your office desk look nice, but with a new technology developed at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, that little shrub could possibly control your computer. And the jade plant nearby? Put your hand close to it and your iPod could start playing your favorite tunes. Any houseplant -- real or artificial -- could control a computer or any digital device with this technology, called Botanicus Interactus. Once a single wire is placed anywhere in the plant's soil, the technology can detect if and where a plant is touched, or even if someone gets near the plant. Disney researchers will demonstrate an interactive garden of real and ...
NASA Curiosity Rover Successfully Lands on Mars
Post Date: 2012-08-06 15:16:13 by X-15
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August 6, 2012 - NASA's most advanced, 1-ton rover, Curiosity, touched down on Mars on Sunday at 10:32 p.m. PDT, concluding a 36-week flight and kicking off a two-year investigation of the planet's conditions for microbial life. "The wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars," commented NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. Curiosity, the most sophisticated rover ever built, is now on the surface of the Red Planet, where it will seek to answer age-old questions about whether life ever existed on Mars - or if the planet can sustain life in the future." Confirmation of Curiosity's successful landing came in communications relayed ...
Moon Dust, Rocket Engines, and NASA
Post Date: 2012-08-04 10:07:34 by Ada
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At 12:31 a.m. central time August 6 NASA will bless us with its latest extravaganza, a multi-billion-dollar, decade-long effort to launch a six-wheel rover dubbed ‘Curiosity’ on the red planet 154 million miles from home. Reading the newspaper one morning, I was amused to learn about the Rube Goldberg "braking" system invented to control landing on Mars. A huge parachute is supposed to slow the craft despite an atmosphere only one percent of the earth’s, followed by freefall, then eight rocket engines ignite and lurch the craft out of the path of the trailing parachute somehow previously jettisoned, followed by a second freefall episode beginning at 66 feet ...
Most dangerous drug in the world can block free will, wipe memory - Was it involved in Batman shooting?
Post Date: 2012-08-03 11:26:56 by Ada
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(NaturalNews) The borrachero tree, which is marked by beautiful white and yellow blossoms that droop ever so innocuously from the plant's slender branches, holds a secret that few people outside northern South America know about. The tree's seeds, flowers, and pollen possess hallucinogenic chemical substances that, when inhaled or consumed, are capable of eliminating a person's free will, and turning him or her into a mindless zombie that can be fully controlled without any inhibitions. Back in May, the U.K.'s Daily Mail ran a report on the borrachero tree, also known as the "drunken binge" tree, explaining how a substance derived from it, scopolamine, blocks a ...
UFO Sightings LAPD Police Helicopter Surveys UFOs! July 12 2012
Post Date: 2012-08-02 17:59:20 by FormerLurker
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Never Again a Flat Battery: Early Warning System for Vehicle Batteries Developed
Post Date: 2012-08-02 06:56:36 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (July 31, 2012) — A new battery management system frequently checks the age, state of charge and operational reliability of the battery. A flat battery can turn an unsuspecting car driver into an unintentional pedestrian. The fact that vehicle batteries go flat all of a sudden is a well-known problem, but one that can also be avoided in future. Scientists from the RUB working group for Energy Systems Technology and Power Mechatronics headed by Professor Dr. Constantinos Sourkounis and Philip Dost have now developed an effective early warning system together with the Isabellenhütte Heusler GmbH & Co. KG. Means of avoiding threatened total breakdown The new ...
Artificial Butter Flavoring Ingredient Linked to Key Alzheimer's Disease Process
Post Date: 2012-08-02 06:39:45 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2012) — A new study raises concern about chronic exposure of workers in industry to a food flavoring ingredient used to produce the distinctive buttery flavor and aroma of microwave popcorn, margarines, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods and other products. It found evidence that the ingredient, diacetyl (DA), intensifies the damaging effects of an abnormal brain protein linked to Alzheimer's disease. The study appears in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. Robert Vince and colleagues Swati More and Ashish Vartak explain that DA has been the focus of much research recently because it is linked to respiratory and other problems in ...
Brain Imaging Can Predict How Intelligent You Are: 'Global Brain Connectivity' Explains 10 Percent of Variance in Individual Intelligence
Post Date: 2012-08-02 06:25:49 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2012) — When it comes to intelligence, what factors distinguish the brains of exceptionally smart humans from those of average humans? As science has long suspected, overall brain size matters somewhat, accounting for about 6.7 percent of individual variation in intelligence. More recent research has pinpointed the brain's lateral prefrontal cortex, a region just behind the temple, as a critical hub for high-level mental processing, with activity levels there predicting another 5 percent of variation in individual intelligence. Now, new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that another 10 percent of individual differences in ...
Hotmail to be replaced by Outlook.com in Microsoft switch
Post Date: 2012-08-01 05:12:19 by Tatarewicz
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Microsoft is overhauling its free webmail service, dropping the Hotmail brand it has used since acquiring the product in 1998, and adopting the name Outlook.com. The revamped service will help sort messages as they arrive and allow users to make internet calls on Skype. It said the move would help tackle the problem of "cluttered" inboxes. The action may also be designed to win over users of Google's rival Gmail service. Microsoft said that in many cases email had become a "chore" because its users accounts had become "overloaded" with material. Its solution is to automatically sort messages into different areas to distinguish between emails from ...
Brains Are Different in People With Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory
Post Date: 2012-07-31 04:45:57 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (July 30, 2012) — UC Irvine scientists have discovered intriguing differences in the brains and mental processes of an extraordinary group of people who can effortlessly recall every moment of their lives since about age 10. The phenomenon of highly superior autobiographical memory -- first documented in 2006 by UCI neurobiologist James McGaugh and colleagues in a woman identified as "AJ" -- has been profiled on CBS's "60 Minutes" and in hundreds of other media outlets. But a new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Neurobiology of Learning & Memory's July issue offers the first scientific findings about nearly a dozen people with this ...
New rocket engine passes test and revs up China's space hopes
Post Date: 2012-07-30 01:04:36 by Tatarewicz
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A next-generation engine, that will pave the way for lunar exploration, was successfully tested on Sunday. The engine, with a 120-ton-thrust using liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene, will enable the Long March 5 carrier rocket - which is expected to make its maiden voyage in 2014 - to place a 25-ton payload into near-Earth orbit, or place a 14-ton payload into geostationary orbit, experts said. The tests, which included seeing how the engine would respond to rotational speeds of nearly 20,000 revolutions per minute and temperatures of 3,000 C for 200 seconds, were held in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province. "The successful tests confirm the reliability of China's LOX/kerosene ...
Lucid Dreamers Help Scientists Locate the Seat of Meta-Consciousness in the Brain
Post Date: 2012-07-28 06:28:47 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (July 27, 2012) — Studies of lucid dreamers show which centers of the brain become active when we become aware of ourselves in dreams. Which areas of the brain help us to perceive our world in a self-reflective manner is difficult to measure. During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not. But there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep. Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid ...
Scientists Use Microbes to Make 'Clean' Methane
Post Date: 2012-07-28 06:01:06 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (July 27, 2012) — Microbes that convert electricity into methane gas could become an important source of renewable energy, according to scientists from Stanford and Pennsylvania State universities. Researchers at both campuses are raising colonies of microorganisms, called methanogens, which have the remarkable ability to turn electrical energy into pure methane -- the key ingredient in natural gas. The scientists' goal is to create large microbial factories that will transform clean electricity from solar, wind or nuclear power into renewable methane fuel and other valuable chemical compounds for industry. "Most of today's methane is derived from natural ...
Apple Just Got a Patent for a Dimension that Doesn’t Even Exist Yet
Post Date: 2012-07-28 03:25:49 by Tatarewicz
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Apple has just been granted a patent for 5D technology. Wait, what the hell? Has it traveled to the future and come back with something we don't know about yet? What advanced life forms are the suits in Cupertino communicating with? Turns out 5D is essentially an agressive marketing ploy for a patent that has gigantic range of applications for watching TV, gaming, and more. Like a Disneyland ride on steroids, the system Apple proposes harnesses gesture-controlled gaming in the style of Kinect or Wii, video-conferencing, and virtual reality gloves for what could be a super-immersive home entertainment experience. The gloves, as described, could change their resistances to ...
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