Interesting Reading…

Swiss ‘Fusion Man’ Flies Over the Alps With Jet-Propelled Wings - “Known as Switzerland’s “Fusion Man,” Rossy in November 2006 became the first man in the world to fly with wings and four jet engines strapped to his body; on Wednesday he displayed that talent to the world…”

Doug Selsam invents a scalable mini wind turbine - “An entirely new mini turbine system has been created that looks like a long stick full of propellers. The rod that holds that propellers can vary in length as can the size and number of the propellers. One of the unique features of this wind turbine system is that it is light enough to be hand held on the ground and still produce energy…”

Welcome to trapster - “When you see a speed trap, report it by pressing a button on your phone, or calling a toll free number. Other user’s phones will alert them as they approach the trap. Trapster® learns the credibility of traps based on how many users agree. It also learns the credibility of each user, over time…”

RISC vs. CISC in the mobile era - “Unlike 1998, though, RISC vs. CISC actually matters, now. A close look at the design of Intel’s newest mobile architecture, officially named Atom, will show why the decades-old “RISC vs. CISC” debate is suddenly interesting again, and in some entirely new ways. In this article, I’ll talk about the penalty that Intel’s new Atom ultramobile processor pays for its CISC legacy, and how Intel plans to reduce the impact of that penalty with simultaneous multithreading.”

Rochester’s Omega Laser, One of the World’s Most Powerful, Receives 50-Fold Power Increase to Become ‘Petawatt’ Laser - “The original Omega laser fires multi-trillion watt bursts of energy—more powerful than the entire electrical generating capacity of the United States—making it among the three most powerful lasers in the world. Yet Omega will become approximately 50 times more powerful still with the inclusion of Omega EP. Such incredible intensities are necessary because creating electricity from fusion means heating the target fuel to a high temperature and confining it long enough so that more energy is released than is supplied to sustain the reaction. To release energy at a level required for electricity production, the fusion fuel must be heated to about 100 million degrees, more than six times hotter than the interior of the Sun…”

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower - “I work at colleges of last resort. For many of my students, college was not a goal they spent years preparing for, but a place they landed in. Those I teach don’t come up in the debates about adolescent overachievers and cutthroat college admissions. Mine are the students whose applications show indifferent grades and have blank spaces where the extracurricular activities would go. They chose their college based not on the U.S. News & World Report rankings but on MapQuest; in their ideal academic geometry, college is located at a convenient spot between work and home. I can relate, for it was exactly this line of thinking that dictated where I sent my teaching résumé…”

Spider tattoo

Sturgeons’ strange behavior at Bonneville Dam surprises biologists - “What they found below the spillways in February was not a giant pile of rock at all, but a humongous pile of thousands upon thousands of sturgeon - some of them 14 feet long or longer - lounging together in frigid water at the bottom of the river…”

The computer model that once explained the British economy - “It is 2 metres (7ft) tall, 1.5 metres wide and a metre deep. It runs on water and most of the time it is screened off at the back of a lecture room in Cambridge. But when the nine members of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee announce their latest decision on interest rates today they will owe a debt of gratitude to the computer built in a garage in south Croydon by Bill Phillips - an engineer turned economist from New Zealand - almost 60 years ago…”

Pickens’ Panhandle wind project to order 667 turbines - “A renewable energy company founded by billionaire Boone Pickens said today it’s buying 667 wind turbines from General Electric to start what it expects will be the world’s largest wind energy project in the Texas Panhandle…”

New class of AIDS drugs? - “Researchers have developed what they believe is the first new mechanism in nearly 20 years for inhibiting a common target used to treat all HIV patients, which could eventually lead to a new class of AIDS drugs. Researchers at the University of Michigan used computer models to develop the inhibiting compound, and then confirmed in the lab that the compound does indeed inhibit HIV protease, which is an established target for AIDS treatment. The protease is necessary to replicate the virus, says Heather Carlson, U-M professor of medicinal chemistry and principal investigator of the study…”

Amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius allowed to compete in Beijing - “A ban on Pistorius, 21, competing against able-bodied athletes, because it was feared that he might gain an advantage from running on his carbon-fibre blades, was thrown out by an historic legal decision that marked the end of a long quest for acceptance by the South African…”

Cell Phone Security: Using your Phone to Monitor your Home - “today, we’re taking on a different kind of underused force in your phone: its ability to keep your family safer. We’ve seen how cell phones can be used to let other people spy on you. This trick, though, turns the tables and lets you watch them…”

Less fat, less cancer - “Scientists with UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and the Department of Urology have showed that lowering intake of the type of fat common in a Western diet helps prevent prostate cancer in mice, the first finding of its kind in a mouse model that closely mimics human cancer, researchers said…”

When It Comes To Living Longer, It’s Better To Go Hungry Than Go Running - “A study investigating aging in mice has found that hormonal changes that occur when mice eat significantly less may help explain an already established phenomenon: a low calorie diet can extend the lifespan of rodents, a benefit that even regular exercise does not achieve…”

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