Tuesday, November 22, 2005

more news, I can't help myself


THEY SHOULD MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND.... INLAND..... OR FIGURE OUT HOW TO FLOAT THE BUILDINGS..... THIS PLAN TOO IS DOOMED TO FAILURE.  The last idea they came up with was an incredibly complicated series of inflatable flood gates attached to the sea floor that were supposed to guide and deflect rising waters and tides.  Historicly, venice has moved with the tides and the shoreline, slowly moving away from the water when it encroached and towards the water when it receded.  why change that now? oh, one last thing, did you know that putting water into dry sand will often cause it to flow away from points of pressure, creating dimples in the ground.....:
New plan to 'lift' sinking Venice
By Mark Duff 
BBC News, northern Italy

Italian experts are proposing a dramatic new solution to the watery threat facing the city of Venice.  Rather than battling to keep the sea out - they want to use it to help raise the sinking island-city.  The scheme would involve pumping huge quantities of sea water into the ground beneath Venice down 12 pipes each of which would be 700m (765 yards) long.  The sea water would make the sand beneath the city expand lifting Venice by 30cm (11.8 inches) in 10 years.

http://tinyurl.com/825wm



AWESOME!

Big window to the sea

A symphony of fish at world's largest indoor aquarium

By Peggy Mihelich
 CNN.com

Monday, November 21, 2005; Posted: 11:28 p.m. EST (04:28 GMT)

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Behind a massive acrylic window, golden trevally move in sync, a sawfish pokes through the sand and a whale shark glides slowly and steadily overhead -- an aquatic ballet set to music.



cool tool:
The Nadachair and Slouchbuster are based on the ropes that Tibetan monks use to sit upright for hours on end when meditating. The monks use these ropes between their knees and back to help them stay upright. The Slouchbuster is a small, much more elegant version than ropes. The Nadachair is a larger version.



Google Unveils Tool to Map Shopping Trips
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

The Associated Press
 Tuesday, November 22, 2005; 12:22 AM

SAN FRANCISCO -- Joining the herd of Web sites jostling to cash in on the holiday shopping season, online search engine leader Google Inc. is adding a tool designed to make it easier for consumers to map out their local trips to the mall.  The feature, to be unveiled Tuesday at Google's Froogle shopping site, will pinpoint the merchants selling a specific item within a designated ZIP code. Besides displaying a map showing all the local stores carrying the merchandise, Froogle also will list price differences.

http://tinyurl.com/cf3dq



Herzog okays 350 new homes in Ma'aleh Adumim neighborhood

By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent

Outgoing Housing and Construction Minister Yitzhak Herzog (Labor) is to publish tenders on Thursday for the construction of 350 housing units in the West Bank settlement city of Ma'aleh Adumim.
 Herzog made the decision with the approval of newly elected Labor leader Amir Peretz.
 MK Ran Cohen (Meretz) slammed Herzog for this decision and said that it violates Israel's promise to freeze construction in settlements under the roadmap.

http://tinyurl.com/czopm



INTERESTING:

Lifelong benefits of cuddling your baby
by JULIE WHELDON, Daily Mail
09:39am 22nd November 2005
It may come as no surprise to parents, but cuddling your baby provides them with social benefits for years afterwards, according to scientists.
They found a clear link between love and attention in the early years and healthy emotional responses in later life.
Children who have been deprived of physical contact as babies have lower levels of social-bonding hormones, the researchers found.



'Bad experiment' has promise for medical research
Science: A U. professor has found that isotopes may offer clues about cancer and other illnesses
The same technology that can help identify where counterfeit cash's cotton fiber was grown could one day play a role in detecting cancer and studying obesity in humans.  Scientists can analyze tiny quantities of water in objects to uncover differences in where something was grown or manufactured.  University of Utah scientists hope to one day turn that technology inward to focus on water found in human cells. Details of the research were published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  The research stems from what U. chemist Eric Hegg feared was an experimental flop.  "We had some data that didn't seem to make sense," said Hegg, lead author on the paper.  Hegg was growing bacteria to study certain molecules that cells excrete. The researcher placed the bacteria in an environment with water that was made only of oxygen 18, a rare isotope.



Investors Bet on Global Warming

02:00 AM Nov. 22, 2005 PT  The Earth is warming up, and many people see this as a very serious threat to the planet and its inhabitants. Among the short list of side effects: melting glaciers, rising seas, scorching summer heat waves and a spike in severe storms.  For investors -- particularly those fond of waterfront property and carbon-emitting fossil-fuel guzzlers -- climate change is also a factor worthy of weighty consideration in assembling a portfolio.



Star-trek style scanning a LOT closer than I expected:
from engadget:

Handheld DNA scanners coming sooner than expected

Posted Nov 22, 2005, 8:30 AM ET by Thomas Ricker
 Related entries: Misc. Gadgets
Looks like the 2015 timetable for a handheld DNA scanner has just been accelerated. A company called Thermal Gradient is demonstrating a prototype device which can replicate large amounts of DNA from just a few individual strands such as those found in a drop of blood. What used to require cumbersome lab equipment has been squeezed down to a device half the size of a paperclip capable of processing samples at “unprecedented rates.” Oh goodie, let the pre-boarding swab-fest begin!
AND SLASHDOT:
Faster DNA Testing
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Tuesday November 22, @07:29AM
from the sorry-sir-i-need-to-stick-you-again dept.
tkjtkj writes "Physorg.com is reporting that a Rochester,NY, company, 'Thermal Gradients, Inc' has produced a new method of DNA analysis that can reduce the required time from hours to minutes that the usual 'Polymerase Chain Reacion' (PCR) takes to produce the large quantity of sample DNA needed to identify the donor. This could,conceivably, make "Instant DNA Identification" a reality! Will air travel now require one to arrive at the airport 5 minutes earlier than usual, to provide a skin-swab sample before boarding the plane?"



YET ANOTHER HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE FOR GEEKS:



Skype goes retail with RadioShack, adds Moto Bluetooth headset

Posted Nov 21, 2005, 12:20 PM ET by Marc Perton
 Related entries: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals
If one of eBay’s goals in handing over $4 billion to pick up Skype earlier this year was to make the popular VoIP service more mainstream, it looks like they’re starting to make it happen. Skype hardware, including a new Motorola Bluetooth headset (pictured), will soon be available in a mall near you, thanks to a deal just inked between Skype and RadioShack. Beginning Monday, RadioShack stores will feature Skype kiosks, where customers will be able to try out Skype-specific accessories, including starter kits that will bundle a basic headset with a 30-minute SkypeOut calling card for just $5. The Moto headset, the H500, will come bundled with a USB adapter, at a price of about $100.



This next story from slashdot has great implications on the transition from electron driven computers to light/laser driven computers.  It also has big things in store for the lab-on-a-chip industry.

First Silicon Laser
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 21, @06:41PM
from the shiny-happy-scientists dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Since the creation of the first working laser, scientists have fashioned them from substances ranging from neon to sapphire. Silicon was not considered a candidate, because its structure wouldn't allow for the proper line-up of electrons needed to get this semiconductor to emit light. That has now changed thanks to three researchers at Brown University who have created the first directly pumped silicon laser by drilling billions of holes in a small bit of silicon using a nanoscale template."
AND
The Impossible Is Possible: Laser Light from Silicon

Silicon has made its way into everything from computers to cameras. But a silicon laser? Physically impossible – until now. A Brown University research team led by Jimmy Xu has engineered the first directly pumped silicon laser by changing the structure of the silicon crystal through a novel nanoscale technique. Results appear in an advanced online publication of Nature Materials.

http://tinyurl.com/866b6





YET ANOTHER smart guy telling people it has to be done his way..... never mind the money he will make, his way is better for 'others':
New Pedestrian Mobility System Makes Downtown Satellite Parking Feasible

(link to this article)

November 22, 2005 Architect, urban planner and inventor John Alt today challenged the parking industry to license and implement new mobility technology that will increase pedestrian access throughout central business districts and make downtown "satellite" parking facilities feasible for the first time.

http://tinyurl.com/abht2



Sixty years ago the US hired Nazi scientists to lead pioneering projects, such as the race to conquer space. These men provided the US with cutting-edge technology which still leads the way today, but at a cost.  The end of World War II saw an intense scramble for Nazi Germany's many technological secrets. The Allies vied to plunder as much equipment and expertise as possible from the rubble of the Thousand Year Reich for themselves, while preventing others from doing the same.  The range of Germany's technical achievement astounded Allied scientific intelligence experts accompanying the invading forces in 1945.

http://tinyurl.com/bpyfh



INTERESTING PATENTS:

http://tinyurl.com/7k8w2



University of Capetown's Disposable Solar Panel

November 22, 2005 08:25 AM - John Laumer, Philadelphia

Researchers at the University of Cape Town SA have developed a protoytpe method for printing solar panels on paper. We wish we had a photograph of their working prototype SPV panel on display, but none yet seem to exist. However, our 'concept bait' picture does fairly represent the designers' intent of producing electricity affordable by the poorest of rural families. The method seems to involve printing with modified color printers, using three or four separate print runs with black, blue, yellow and magenta inks containing tiny silicon particles. They print the metal contacts, then the semiconductor structure, then more contacts. The voltage and power output of the solar cell is determined by the size of the poster. An "A2-sized poster" will deliver up to 100W of power, enough to charge a cellphone, power a radio or provide five hours of lighting, according Prof David Britton. News coverage from SA outlets mentions that 'Shops could stock rolls of solar panel posters, and cut it to meet a customer's needs. The poster could be mounted behind a window or attached to a cabinet'.

http://tinyurl.com/bc96v



A CLAIM THAT E-INK STYLE MATERIAL TO HIT THE MARKET NEXT YEAR:

http://tinyurl.com/bn79j

New plastic electrochromic devices
The NANOEFFECT “Nanocomposites with High Colouration Efficiency for Electrochromic Smart Plastic Devices” project, led by the Fraunhofer-Institut Silicatforschung (ISC), is designing new electrochromic devices that are totally plastic and flexible, capable of changing colour on the simple application of an electric current. The main result of the project will be a new nanohybrid material with great electrochromic efficiency, to be integrated into plastic electrochromic devices with excellent characteristics in terms of cost, durability and range of colours. The end applications of these new electrochromic devices will be electrochromic spectacles as well as various applications in the textile and automotive sectors.

The project consortium includes companies from various sectors that will use its results such as ESSILOR, SOLVIONIC, FECSA, VUOS and MASER, the last being a Basque Country-based enterprise. Amongst the technology bodies figure CIDETEC-IK4, ISC (Germany), INSTM (Italy), ICMCB (France), IREQ (Canada) and UM (Portugal). The role of CIDETEC-IK4 in the project is the synthesis of new nanostructured electroactive polymers and the preparation of totally plastic electrochromic devices based on these nanomaterials.



Does Google have a VC fund for early-stage companies? John Battelle said so yesterday, and then posted a subsequent update saying sources inside the company deny it. So, which is it?
The correct answer: Yes, of course Google does. It's just that rather than buying some of the equity of early-stage, pre-revenue companies, in typical venture fashion, Google's always buys all the equity. It is a de facto and targeted form of financing for many companies, albeit narrowly available, but let's still call it what it is: venture capital.



Study shows value of innovation to manufacturers as outsourcing's impact continues

Manufacturing competition

A new study of nearly 650 Georgia manufacturing companies underscores the importance of innovation as a competitive strategy – at a time when international outsourcing continues to impact Georgia's manufacturing community.
The 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey shows that companies basing their competitive strategies on the development of innovative products or processes enjoy higher returns on sales, pay better wages and have less to fear from outsourcing than do manufacturers relying on other competitive strategies.
Georgia manufacturers that rely on innovation for their competitive edge reported returns on sales 50 percent higher than companies that compete by providing low cost products – a gap that grew substantially since the last survey in 2002. Innovative companies paid workers a third more than the average Georgia manufacturer and were 40 percent less likely to lose work to outsourcing than were companies competing on low cost.
The survey of Georgia manufacturers, part of a periodic study begun more than a decade ago, was conducted by the Office of Economic Development and Technology Ventures and the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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