Clean Coal...Finally?

From Ohio State University comes word of a project to deliver "clean" energy from coal. It appears that they have found a way to release the heat in a carefully controlled chemical reaction that produces no fire while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction.

After 203 hours of continuous operation, the project is now set to construct a larger scale pilot plant to test the feasibility of scaling up the technology.

Travel Photo of the Week

Trunk Bay, Jamaica

NASA's Basement Nuclear Reactor

It looks like cold fusion might be making a reappearance. NASA is working on a nuclear reactor that is the size of a home water heater. The new technology is called Lattice Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR). LENR uses weak nuclear forces, which are responsible for the decay of subatomic particles and "involves setting up the right conditions to turn these weak forces into energy."

From the Gizmag article: "The electrons in the metal lattice are made to oscillate so that "the energy applied to the electrons is concentrated into only a few of them. When they become energetic enough, the electrons are forced into the hydrogen protons to form slow neutrons. These are immediately drawn into the nickel atoms, making them unstable. This sets off a reaction in which one of the neutrons in the nickel atom splits into a proton, an electron and an antineutrino. This changes the nickel into copper, and releases energy without dangerous ionizing radiation. The trick is to configure the process so that it releases more energy than it needs to get it going."

Isn't that always the trick? Don't expect to get your own basement reactor soon. In the words of Joseph Zawody, a NASA scientist on the project, "From my perspective, this is still a physics experiment."

Portable Home

From the Dutch architectural firm Böhtlingk, comes this quite amazing portable home. No word on availability or cost. This may have been a one-off. Looks inviting, doesn't it?

FDA Approves First Bionic Eye

The seemingly inexorable desire to leave humanity behind has taken another step forward. This article from Time Magazine's Health and Family blog details the recent FDA approval of the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System, Second Sight Medical Product's new artificial eye that can be used to treat a rare type of blindness called retinitis pigmentosa.

Electrodes are surgically implanted in the eye (ouch!), and a pair of glasses with an attached camera deliver to its signal directly to the optic nerve allowing the brain to “see” images.

The company is hoping to further develop the device to be able to treat other conditions such as macular degeneration.

Fun Time! Calvin and Hobbes Creatively Placed Into Real Photographs

Here's an excellent photo essay from photographer and graphic artist Michael Den Beste. He takes photos and photoshops Calvin and Hobbes into them.

How Many Minimum Wage Hours Does It Take To Afford A Two-Bedroom Apartment In Your State?

Here's an interesting graphic. If you earn minimum wage, this is the number of hours you have to work each week to afford an apartment. This comes from The National Low Income Housing Coalition which is "dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy that assures people with the lowest incomes in the United States have affordable and decent homes."

3Doodler, The World's First 3D Printing Pen

3D printing is all the rage these days and I've already posted about several different stationary models, but this is the one I'll make the plunge with.

3Doodler is a hand-held "pen" like device that allows you to "draw" a three dimensional object. It uses both ABS and PLA plastic strands that you can get from many sources. The video below explains it much better than I will.

This is a Kickstarter project, so it's not quite available yet. The next batch ships out in November '13 and the base price is $75. I'm going for the $100 level. Happy doodling!

Travel Photo of the Week

Paris

Open States: Find And Follow Your State Capitol

Do you ask yourself just what is up in your state capital? Well wonder no more. After four years of work, the Sunlight Foundation has launched Open States, which, in their words, "is the only comprehensive database of activities from all state capitols that makes it easy to find your state lawmaker, review their votes, search for legislation, track bills and much more."

You can track any of your state legislators and see their voting records, committee assignments, campaign finance records. You're also able to choose a particular piece of legislation, check on its status, find the sponsors, break down votes, view bill text and all its supporting documents.

Just the thing to keep those pesky pols in check. Below is a short video describing the site and its tools.

Being Somewhere

Interesting things are going on in West Wales. Americans think they have the edge on building funky homes from straw and sticks, but we have nothing on these folks.

Simon and Jasmine Dale have created a little hand built paradise for themselves and their two kids. Very concerned about living a life in harmony with the land, they started ten years ago building a tiny shack they called the Hobbit Hole. Since then they've moved on, buying seven acres in the Lammas eco village project.

As they write in their blog:

"Only three generations ago most of us had ancestors living in the countryside and were skilled in woodwork, plants, craft, weaving and so on. Like many people, we wished to reclaim these ways and return to having a direct relationship to the land, do things for ourselves, enjoy a high standard of living and have fun."

Sounds good to me. Here's a link to their blog, Being Somewhere.

China's Radical New Space Drive

Chinese scientists have been working on a new, propellantless propulsion technology for spacecraft. Although the trust produced isn't enough to launch your cellphone off the desk, it could revolutionize the way satellites move around in space.

The work is not without controversy. It seems that as soon as a paper was published by a British scientist on his efforts in this field, it was instantly attacked by many who dismissed it out of hand. Then a Chinese scientist took up the cause and achieved measurable results. 72 grams of trust. Not much, but in space, constant trust adds up.

Here's a link to the article in Wired about this and here's a link to the Chinese paper. I hope you read Chinese.

Fun Time! Action Figures Of U.S. Presidents As Monsters

Action figures of our Presidents as classic Universal Monsters. Be still my heart!

Baumraum’s Froschköenig Treehouse

This treehouse by German designer, Baumraum, is as much fun for you as it is for the kids. For more pictures, here's a link to Inhabitots.

Food Is The New Oil. Land Is The New Gold.

Although most American have not noticed, the world is in transition. In the last ten years grain reserves have fallen by a third, world food prices have doubled and there is a worldwide land rush as people try to raise more food on less arable land.

In America, we spend about 10% of our incomes on food. In the developing world that number jumps to about 80%. We should ask ourselves what happens when those numbers double again if these trends continue. Civilizations have collapsed because of these pressures.

I've written a lot about food on my blog and I've given some attention to the struggles we face as populations grow and arable land shrinks.  Although the US might not suffer much from having food prices double, other regions would not be so fortunate. It's been said that much our the world's instability is due to food shortages and prices. I firmly agree.

I am not the only one concerned about this. Here is an excellent article from the news agency Inter Press Service that gives more background on this underreported issue.

Travel Photo of the Week

NYC, NY

Cheap, Last Minute Flights

Got some spare time in the next month? Want to take a quick vacation? Don't really care too much where you go as long as it's not here?

As a prelude to tomorrow's Travel Photo of the Week, today I offer Nowcation. Nowcation offers cheap hotel/flight packages for last minute getaways.

Select the city you're flying out of and Nowcation offers you a variety of U.S. destinations. Just book within the month and you're off.

How to Memorize A Shuffled Deck Of Cards In Less Than 60 Seconds

This comes from Tim Ferriss' blog.

It seems that there is a nifty technique for memorizing sequences of cards, numbers and the like. To memorize cards, you convert the 52 cards into 52 celebrities. The suits become personalities. The cards become professions. Then in the words of memory grand master, Ed Cooke, who devised the system....

“Having chosen 13 professions/categories and four personalities—just 17 things to learn—you can use your existent knowledge and opinions to fill out a 52-card matrix. The ace of diamonds, on my scheme, is a sports- man (ace) who got rich (diamonds)—OK, Michael Jordan. The jack of spades on my scheme would be a religious figure who’s amusing—the Dalai Lama has a good sense of humor. The six of spades, a humorously controversial woman—Lady Gaga, no question.

“Using this method, it should take less than an hour to fill the matrix out and come to be able to slowly recall the people who now correspond to the 52 cards. Once you have your cast of card-people, go through shuffled decks and practice translating the cards to their images until it’s automatic. This might take another hour to begin to master.”

So, to memorize a deck of cards, I have to learn an entire system of classification and then memorize that first?

If I want to gamble, I think I'll just buy a lottery ticket. I think I can remember how to do that.

Mining News To Predict The Future

Mark Twain famously said that "the past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes," and it looks like someone is set to take advantage of that notion.

Kira Radinsky of Technion–Israel Institute of Technology and Eric Horvitz of Microsoft Research are researching the notion that the internet can be used to predict the future.

The basic idea is that news reports can be used to "make real-time predictions about the likelihoods of future human and natural events of interest." In the paper they describe how they can "learn to predict the future by generalizing sets of specific transitions in sequences of reported news events, extracted from a news archive spanning the years 1986 to 2008."

I find the most intriguing idea implied by this paper to be the notion that events can be "massaged" or even averted, if one knows they are about to occur.

Fun Time! Why Transhumanism Sucks.

Bacteria Found To Thrive On Gold

According to Scientific American, the next gold rush may be held in a Petri dish.

Frank Reith, an environmental microbiologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia, found convincing evidence that bacteria thrive on gold particles about ten years ago. The bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans detoxifies dissolved gold by accumulating it in inert nanoparticles inside their cells.

The researchers involved in the study also found a second species of bacterium, Delftia acidovarans, that was somehow creating gold particles outside its cell wall, instead of inside as C. metallidurans does.

Delftibactin could be used to produce gold-nanoparticle catalysts for many chemical reactions, or to precipitate gold from waste water produced at mines. “The idea could be to use a bacterium or metabolite to seed these waste-drop piles, leave them standing for years, and see if bigger particles form,” says Reith.

But he emphasizes that he is most interested in understanding the metabolite's chemical properties. “I wish I could say we’re up here in Canada growing kilos of gold everyday.”

Planter/Tray For Your Balcony

Here's a neat little planter/tray for your apartment balcony. A bit pricey (about $200) but very functional and attractive.

The German, on-line shop, Rephorm, has many other botanically useful items for your balcony. I especially liked the Plantenna, a combined bird feeder and trellis.

Travel Photo of the Week

Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

Cloudy House: A Geodesic Paper Cloud Installation

By Tomás Saraceno. From thisiscolossal.com.

"Out of matte, white paper Saraceno has constructed light geometrical structures resembling those white plumes in the sky. Some of the polyhedronic structures are suspended individually by nylon wires, floating above the viewer’s head, others group together in an efficient structural integrity under the ceiling."

Mini Moog Sofa

I want one of these. It's only $2000.

John Cage Speaks (for six hours)

I've been fascinated by the life and work of John Cage ever since I discovered him during my college years. I have a copy of his book Silence that I treasure.

Here's a link to Diary: How To Improve The World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse) by Cage that was recorded in June, 1991 at Powerplay Recording Studios, Maur, Switzerland.

His gentle voice is a wonderful music and at almost six hours, this is probably enough Cage for almost anyone.

Betty Hoover Bragg 1928 - 2013

There's no fun time today. Funerals aren't much fun,  especially when it's your mother's.

My mom lived a rich and full life. Although she didn't write any books or run for president or sail the seven seas, she did the things she enjoyed and she was a really good mom. How does it get any better than that?

I got my love of music and art from her, although I took them both really seriously and made them my career. She also taught me how to sew, which is very handy when you make puppets.

She had been having a hard time getting around and had started to use her cane more. She'd been ill and was in the hospital when it happened. The doctor was ready to discharge her and she just sat down and died. We think it was a stroke.

Family is gathering and our son is flying in to be a pallbearer. At the viewing last night I saw folks I'd not seen in years. The grandchildren were hit really hard.

I lost my dad in 1984 and at the time, I had no idea how much that would affect me. I have no idea how this is going to affect me either.

 Mom, I love you and I will miss you forever. To everything, turn, turn, turn.

Explore The Grand Canyon From The Comfort Of Your...Whatever

Do you want to explore the Grand Canyon, but don't have the time or money for a vacation? Maybe a touch of vertigo or fear of heights are making you procrastinate about booking the trip?

Lament no more. Google maps has done a walkthrough. Here ya' go.......