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More here:

http://www.zinasaunders.com/

The best part is having leftovers today for lunch. 

Oh, wait, Cram, did you mean direct electrical power from photosynthesis?

I've never heard of that working and/or being worked on. Always thought it was science fiction.

I made curry this evening. It was SPECTACULAR.

Ingredients:

Cumin seeds
half a vidalia onion
3 cloves of garlic
olive oil
chilli powder
coriander powder
tumeric
Cayenne pepper
orange juice
chick peas
carrots
lentils
sweet corn

Method:

I fried up a handful of cumin seeds in olive oil first till they were brown, then added chopped onion and minced garlic. When these were clear and browned respectively, I threw in the coriander, cayenne, chilli, and tumeric, mixed that well, then added in the peas, corn, lentils and carrots. To make the stock, I used orange juice, but you could probably use anything you wanted, you just need a base to cook the vegetables in. After a while I added more spices to taste. Tumeric if you want it thicker, cayenne and chilli if you want it "hotter", and coriander and tumeric if you want it more earthy. Added water several times when there wasn't enough to soften the lentils. When everything was a nice consistancy, I served it over some long grain brown rice.

I definitely plan on making this again soon.

Some links to other peoples thoughts on creativity.

First, Sir Ken Robinson.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

In this TED talk he speaks of how creativity is inborn, its innate, all children are creative, but it is trained out of us by the time we are adults. He also has a great sense of humour.

Second, Stuart Kauffman talks in his book Reinventing the Sacred about how the historic idea of god should be lead towards worship of the emergent creativity in the universe. He uses scientific rational for the irreducible emergent creativity where all arrows do not point down to physics but rather up to emergent unpredictable processes.

I really suggest watching the video.

is that the grass that generates power via the sun?

I saw a guy talk about that on Colbert - said if once their project is done, if they covered the roof of every walmart in the USA with their grass contraption, they would already be producing more power than all the nuke plants in the US.






_{facts possibly misquoted due to drunkenness, human error}

Its cellulosic ethanol production from a highly tolerant genus of grasses (Panicum) that can be grown nearly anywhere. Highway centerstrips, mall roofs, farming land that is not viable for things like corn and wheat. Doesn't require anything but seeding the ground and harvesting when the plants are ready, no irrigation, no pesticides, no fertilizer.

Also, all grasses generate "power" via the sun. Its kinda what plants do. 

Today's Headlines - October 1, 2008

Machu Picchu's Far-Flung Residents
from Science News

High in Peru's Andes, the skeletons of people buried at the famous Inca site of Machu Picchu tell a tale of displacement and devoted service. A new chemical analysis of these bones supports the previously postulated idea that Inca kings used members of a special class of royal retainers from disparate parts of the empire to maintain and operate the site, which served as a royal estate.

Dramatic differences in the remains' ratios of certain chemical isotopes that collect in bone indicate that Machu Picchu's permanent residents spent their early lives in varied regions east or southeast of the site, say anthropologist Bethany Turner of Georgia State University in Atlanta and her colleagues.
Some Machu Picchu inhabitants had emigrated from spots along the central South American coast, while others hailed from valleys high in the Andes.

Inca royalty, who regularly visited the site, were not buried at Machu Picchu. They were buried at nearby Cuzco, the capital of the empire.

http://snipurl.com/3yygn


New California Academy of Sciences a Natural Wonder
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)

World-class, unparalleled, greatest, biggest, most diverse, greenest and eco-grooviest. Able to leap tall buildings in a single rave, the new state-of-the-art and state-of-the-planet incarnation of the California Academy of Sciences is generating kilowatts of excitement and kudos.

Last weekend marked the long-awaited grand reopening of the academy, which is unusual in that it houses an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum and educational programs under one roof. In commemoration of the very big deal that all of this is, several hundred butterflies were released at its Saturday debut in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, starting two days of hoopla that included music, Chinese acrobats and a Native American blessing.

But the star attraction is the building itself, designed by Pritzker Prize winner Renzo Piano ... and poised to be one of the world's greenest buildings.

http://snipurl.com/3xob6


New Birdlike Dinosaur Found in Argentina
from National Geographic News

A new predatory dinosaur with a birdlike breathing system found in Argentina may help scientists better understand the evolution of birds' lung systems. The elephant-size dinosaur Aerosteon riocoloradensis lived 85 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.

The fossil provides the first evidence of dinosaur air sacs, which pump air into the lungs and are used by modern-day birds, said Paul Sereno, the project's lead researcher and a National Geographic explorer-in-residence. 

Scientists have known dinosaurs used the pumplike apparatus to breathe, but the new find cements the connection between dinosaur and avian evolution, said Sereno, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago.

http://snipurl.com/3yxtm


The 'Secret Jews' of San Luis Valley
from Smithsonian Magazine

One September day in 2001, Teresa Castellano, Lisa Mullineaux, Jeffrey Shaw and Lisen Axell were having lunch in Denver. Genetic counselors from nearby hospitals and specialists in inherited cancers, the four would get together periodically to talk shop. That day they surprised one another: they'd each documented a case or two of Hispanic women with aggressive breast cancer linked to a particular genetic mutation. The women had roots in southern Colorado, near the New Mexico border.

... Curiously, the genetic mutation that caused the virulent breast cancer had previously been found primarily in Jewish people whose ancestral home was Central or Eastern Europe. Yet all of these new patients were Hispanic Catholics.

... As a result, families in this remote high-desert community have had to come to grips with a kind of knowledge that more and more of us are likely to face. For the story of this wayward gene is the story of modern genetics, a science that increasingly has the power both to predict the future and to illuminate the past in unsettling ways.

http://snipurl.com/3yy8p


Liquid Lenses Promise Picture-Perfect Phone Cam Photos
from Scientific American

TROY, N.Y.—Despite their ubiquity, cell phones are not known for their ability to take picture-perfect photos. But budding "liquid lens" technology promises to change that by providing phone photogs with the autofocus capabilities lacking in today's cellular optics.

The latest advance in this area comes from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, here, where researchers have developed a liquid lens by placing a few drops of water into a cylindrical hole drilled in a Teflon surface and using a small speaker (that plays a high-frequency sound) to provide the resonance needed to move the water back and forth, changing the focus of the lens.

Light passing through the droplets transforms them into a mini camera lens, which is capped on both sides with plastic or glass. The experiment, led by Amir Hirsa ..., used the liquid lens to capture 250 images per second.

http://snipurl.com/3yymg


Searching for Clarity: A Primer on Medical Studies
from the New York Times (Registration Required)

Everyone, it seemed, from the general public to many scientists, was enthralled by the idea that beta carotene would protect against cancer. In the early 1990s, the evidence seemed compelling that this chemical, an antioxidant found in fruit and vegetables and converted by the body to vitamin A, was a key to good health.

There were laboratory studies showing how beta carotene would work. There were animal studies confirming that it was protective against cancer. There were observational studies showing that the more fruit and vegetables people ate, the lower their cancer risk. So convinced were some scientists that they themselves were taking beta carotene supplements.

Then came three large, rigorous clinical trials that randomly assigned people to take beta carotene pills or a placebo. And the beta carotene hypothesis crumbled.

http://snipurl.com/3yysj


Carbon Sale Raises $40 Million
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

NEW YORK, Sept. 29—The country's first cap-and-trade auction for greenhouse gas reduction raised nearly $40 million for Northeastern states to spend on renewable energy technologies and energy-efficiency programs, officials of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which ran the auction, said Monday.

In the absence of a federal government program to cap the amount of carbon dioxide that power plants pump out of their smokestacks, 10 Northeastern states established the initiative to set their own limits and force all fossil fuel plants to buy allowances to cover excess emissions.

The initiative is being closely watched nationally as a model for efforts to reduce emissions and stem global warming. In the sealed online auction Thursday, energy, financial and environmental organizations paid $3.07 per ton of excess emissions, and all 12.5 million carbon allowances were sold, the initiative reported. Most of the bidders were power generators.

http://snipurl.com/3yyz0


What Can You Do with a 12-Million-Digit Prime Number?
from the Christian Science Monitor

The scientific world is abuzz this week with news that researchers at UCLA have discovered a prime number with more than 10 million digits. The find qualifies them for a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and undeniable geek cred, but a decidedly unscientific survey of comments from around the web concludes that the overall response to the announcement is: So what?

... The hunt for large primes requires massive computing power—the production of which is prohibitively expensive for a single organization. Distributive computing—the same kind UCLA used to find their megaprime—makes a supercomputer out of many smaller individual machines, using the web to stitch all that power together.

The EFF Cooperative Computing Awards provide an incentive for everyday Internet users to contribute to solving great scientific problems. The method is the message.

http://snipurl.com/3yzdv


Report: Everglades in Decline as Restoration Lags
from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Registration Required)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.—A multibillion-dollar effort to restore Florida's Everglades has made little progress amid funding shortfalls, bureaucratic red tape and disagreements, according to a congressionally mandated report that warns the vast wetland is in peril.

The National Research Council, in findings Monday, warned that degradation of the Everglades could become irreversible if action isn't taken quickly.

"The Everglades ecosystem is continuing to decline. It's our estimate that we're losing the battle to save this thing," said William Graf, the report's committee chairman and head of the department of geography at the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

http://snipurl.com/3yzq6


Experts Say Herd Mentality Rules in Financial Crisis
from the San Diego Union-Tribune (Registration Required)

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Herd mentality rules during a financial crisis because people are wired to follow the crowd when times are uncertain, experts say.

Brain and behavior studies clearly show that when information is scarce and threats seem imminent, people often stop listening to their own logic and look to see what others are doing.

"People are afraid, and the reason they are afraid is there is tremendous uncertainty right now in the markets," Gregory Berns, a neuroeconomist at Emory University in Atlanta who studies the biology of economic behavior, said in a telephone interview. Berns puts people in magnetic resonance imaging or MRI scanners while he tests their responses to various scenarios, and studies patterns of their brain activation.

http://snipurl.com/3yzyg

 

I've known about the algae oil since phycology in sophmore year of undergrad.

My money is on switchgrass.

It can be healthy if you do construction!

Or need to gain weight.

I should try this.

you guys are missing the obvious point about electric vehicles.

WHERE IS THE FUCKING ELECTRICITY COMING FROM?

OH, THAT'S RIGHT. PROBABLY OIL OR COAL. BUT AT LEAST YOU'LL GET TO HAVE A FALSE SENSE OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY AND AN OVERWHELMING AND UNJUSTIFIED SMUGNESS.

I was actually going to post this when I first saw this thread, but I thought everyone was gonna come down on me about the wonders of nuclear, or hydro, or wind, all of which have flaws.

Its coal, btw. Oil only gets used for electricity on very small scale generators. Most large scale electrical powerplants are coal burning. Oil is so expensive as a resource and uses almost completely for transport. And yeah, electricity from coal, not exactly environmentally friendly.

The only thing thats gonna make any difference is people changing their lifestyles and we don't even need to talk about that seriously because its not going to happen.

That's basically perfect.

I always thought so. I've had a copy of A Sand County Almanac since high school.

As Aldo Leopold put it:

"The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little is known about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?' If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

from A Sand County Almanac

Not sure what to look for in the article, because my chem is pretty weak, but here ya go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

I know how the carbonate species work, so I understood it rather well. I also read the possible impacts section, and there are ambiguous data. I'm not sure who to believe on this, any of it really. I know evolution is a fact from my own work and research in biology, but I don't know enough about this other stuff to make any educated predictions.

I was reading something from The Immense Journey by Loren Eisley last night. Its the chapter where Eisley goes on and on about the abyss, the deep ocean, and how it was only secondarily colonized. this was back in the 40s or 50s when Eisley wrote it. He said that scientists used to think life developed and came from the deep but now we know that wasn't true.

30-50 years later, Hydrothermal vent ecosystems based entirely on chemosynthetic bacteria that oxidize sulfur were discovered and now the hypothesis is that life likely developed in places like that. Yet Eisley, a rather good scientist and physical anthropologist, an intelligent person, was so sure that life couldn't have originated down there.

We didn't have all the information, we still don't have all the information.

I understand the data is limited, the data is always limited.  Another example would be that the data available for studying evolution is limited, but do biologists doubt that?  Do you doubt that?  Sure, hypothetically tomorrow a genuine rabbit fossil could be found in the precambrian, but the odds of it are insignificant.

I guess the questions here are, does anybody doubt that CO₂ absorbs electromagnetic radiation?  Does anybody doubt that humans have released a hell of a lot of it into the atmosphere? (do I really have to post the chemical equation for the oxidation of hydrocarbons?)

Now, let's say I'm completely wrong and carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming.  CO₂ is also responsible for other environmental harm.  Carbon dioxide reacts with water to form carbonic acid.  This is what makes acid rain acidic.  Do I really have to post some of the effects of acid rain?  Is everyone here familiar with what acid can do?  This reaction also has a nasty effect in the oceans, actually, the same effect.  At the current rate of CO₂ emissions the pH of the oceans will drop 0.5 units by 2100 (note: pH is a logarithmic scale).  This is an unprecedented rate of change (link).  I don't know what the full effects would be, but I do know that it's a fucking huge change in the global environment.

A hydrologist would say that there is always carbonic acid in rain. Its a natural part of coming in contact with CO2 in the atmosphere whether we create it or not, and I don't see the overal concentrations of C02 changing in the atmosphere. Still at 387 ppm on average. They might suggest that nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides are a much more potent agent for acid rain, as carbonic acid is relatively weak. Its what makes limestone caves, and that sort of thing has been going on for a long time.

As for the pH change in the oceans, I need a citation on that. Its possible, but it might just be caused by NOx and SOx.