Making the Red Planet Green By Rachel Metz
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/
0,1282,69502,00.html
02:00 AM Nov. 15, 2005 PT
Inside a chamber about the size of a small fridge in Greenville,
Indiana, scientists are taking the first steps toward creating human
settlements on Mars.
The chamber, called the Martian Environment Simulator, was put
together by scientific engineering company SHOT and NASA's Institute
for Advanced Concepts. Scientists are using it to determine how to
grow plants in greenhouses on other planets, and hope it will
eventually aid people living and working on Mars, as well as provide
insight to the evolution of planetary life.
Not bad for a company whose start was inspired by a high school
science fair project. One of SHOT's founders, John Vellinger, won an
Indiana science fair in the early 1980s with a project on
accommodating chicken embryos in space. This later led him to team up
with Kentucky Fried Chicken engineer Mark Deuser on similar space
shuttle experiments. Eventually, Vellinger and Deuser set out on
their own with SHOT, which stands for space hardware optimization
technology.
Since then, the company has worked with NASA on various vessels for
space exploration, leading up to their current project on sustaining
life in Mars.
http://tinyurl.com/9cf2j
MORE FOR THOSE HEATING THEIR HOMES:
Biodiesel Keeps Home Fire Burning By Gretchen Cuda
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,69524,00.html
02:00 AM Nov. 11, 2005 PT
Biodiesel, the vegetable-oil alternative to diesel that sparked a
small, grass-roots movement, is exploding onto the commercial
marketplace and rapidly gaining widespread acceptance. But not as an
alternative to gasoline, as many had envisioned. This clean-burning,
renewable fuel is making its way into a growing number of American
homes as a substitute for residential heating oil.
Biodiesel previously was overlooked as a heating fuel because heating
oil was cheaper. But prices for conventional heating oil have doubled
since 2001. And events like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the war
in Iraq have pushed the nation's precarious relationship with foreign
oil to the forefront of the normally energy-blind American
consciousness.
The combination of price-gap reduction and increased public awareness
opened the door for advocates who recognized an opportunity to grow
the biodiesel market.
http://tinyurl.com/akv5n
AND BECAUSE WE WERE DISCUSSING HYDROGEN:
Scientists Offer Hydrogen Fix By David Shiga
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/
0,1282,69456,00.html
02:00 AM Nov. 11, 2005 PT
Two scientists say they have come up with a way to make hydrogen fuel
cheap enough to compete with gasoline, by combining nuclear and wind
power.
In the system envisioned by Alistair Miller and Romney Duffey of
Atomic Energy of Canada, nuclear power plants would be paired with
wind turbines to power electrolysis cells, which make hydrogen by
passing an electric current through water.
Wind on its own is too variable, Miller says, leaving electrolysis
equipment frequently idle and driving up costs. "The economics just
don't work," he says. "It produces very expensive hydrogen."
http://tinyurl.com/9k3x9
IF ONLY I HAD ACCESS TO THIS:
Imagine, Make It Real in Fab Lab Associated Press
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/
0,1282,69495,00.html
02:00 PM Nov. 06, 2005 PT
BOSTON -- When Makeda Stephenson compared flight simulator games sold
in computer stores and didn't find anything she liked, she didn't
stop there.
The 13-year-old used a set of computer-controlled manufacturing tools
at a community center to make her own simulator -- one that lets her
"fly" an airplane of her design over an alien planet born of her
imagination.
In a room filled with computers and tabletop-sized manufacturing
equipment, Stephenson created a pilot's control yoke with motion
sensors she fashioned from a melange of old electronic toys and
parts. A computer program Stephenson wrote with help from a
Massachusetts Institute of Technology student guides the plane's
movements on her computer screen.
She did it all through a teen learning program at one of seven so-
called Fabrication Labs that MIT has established in places as distant
as Norway and Ghana. Each lab has tool sets that, costing about
$25,000, would be out of the reach of most fledgling inventors.
http://tinyurl.com/c2bs4
ITS SAFE, LETS ALL GET HIGH!:
Peyote Won't Rot Your Brain By Randy Dotinga
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,69477,00.html
02:00 AM Nov. 04, 2005 PT
In the first study of its kind, researchers have found that peyote --
for now, the only legal hallucinogenic drug in the United States --
doesn't rob regular users of brain power over time.
While the findings don't directly indicate anything about the safety
of psychedelic drugs like LSD and mushrooms, they do suggest that at
least one hallucinogen is OK to use for months or even years.
"We really weren't able to find any (mental) deficits," said Dr. John
Halpern, associate director of substance abuse research at McLean
Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and co-author of the study,
released today in the Nov. 4 issue of the journal Biological
Psychiatry. Hallucinogenic drugs have long fascinated researchers,
who are now studying whether they hold the potential to treat mental
illnesses like depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
http://tinyurl.com/e2xav
NEVER WANTED ONE ANYWAY:
Fatal Flaw Weakens RFID Passports By Bruce Schneier
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,69453,00.html
02:00 AM Nov. 03, 2005 PT
In 2004, when the U.S. State Department first started talking about
embedding RFID chips in passports, the outcry from privacy advocates
was huge. When the State Department issued its draft regulation in
February, it got 2,335 comments, 98.5 percent negative. In response,
the final State Department regulations, issued last week, contain two
features that attempt to address security and privacy concerns. But
one serious problem remains.
http://tinyurl.com/axt6c
VERY COOL SEARCH THINGY FOR VIDEO ON USENET.... WARNING, MAY NOT BE
WORK SAFE.... depend son what you search for:
http://www.guba.com/
THE IPOD NANO CAN NOW DO VIDEO:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000960068202/
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