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Sunday, November 20, 2011

SHAME on the Police

UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike uses pepper spray to move Occupy UC Davis protesters blocking a walkway in the quad on Friday, 11/18/11. (photo: Wayne Tilcock/Davis Enterprise)
UC Davis Police Lt. John Pike uses pepper spray to move Occupy UC Davis protesters blocking a walkway in the quad on Friday, 11/18/11. (photo: Wayne Tilcock/Davis Enterprise)

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/316-20/8495-qchillingq-uc-davis-video-launches-investigation

This is just so shocking.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

What is the "Occupy" movement all about?

I think this article describes it very well:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/3/Honeybee-Democracy-The-Oc-by-Bruce-Toien-111109-141.html





Thursday, October 27, 2011

Deliberately Teargassing people who are going to the aid of an injured protester

So unfair...

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8110-occupy-oakland-too-big-to-fail-too-big-to-jail
(See, Youtube video of this unfortunate scene in the first item in this newsletter. The Reader Supported News is an excellent updater on the Occupy movement.)

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

"Top Earners Doubled Share of Nation's Income, Study Finds" NY Times

 
U.S.   | October 26, 2011
Top Earners Doubled Share of Nation's Income, Study Finds
By ROBERT PEAR
A new report from the Congressional Budget Office is likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over the economy.




Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I visited Occupy Boston today:
At the back of the space is a well placed rise in the ground that accommodates speakers such as this one who is reading poetry-a daily activity around 3 in the afternoon:


Here are some of the signs I read and a few other shots. I like the statue of Gandhi near the entrance; and the site is excellent, especially as it is directly in front of the Federal Reserve Bank (see below).



 Below: The Federal Reserve Bank stands across the street from the Occupy Boston encampment:

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

This is pretty serious stuff:

"How I Was Arrested at Occupy Wall Street

By Naomi Wolf, Guardian UK
19 October 11
ast night I was arrested in my home town, outside an event to which I had been invited, for standing lawfully on the sidewalk in an evening gown.
Let me explain; my partner and I were attending an event for the Huffington Post, for which I often write: Game Changers 2011, in a venue space on Hudson Street. As we entered the space, we saw that about 200 Occupy Wall Street protesters were peacefully assembled and were chanting. They wanted to address Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was going to be arriving at the event. They were using a technique that has become known as "the human mic" - by which the crowd laboriously repeats every word the speaker says - since they had been told that using real megaphones was illegal.
In my book Give Me Liberty, a blueprint for how to open up a closing civil society, I have a chapter on permits - which is a crucial subject to understand for anyone involved in protest in the US. In 70s America, protest used to be very effective, but in subsequent decades municipalities have sneakily created a web of "overpermiticisation" - requirements that were designed to stifle freedom of assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances, both of which are part of our first amendment. One of these made-up permit requirements, which are not transparent or accountable, is the megaphone restriction.
So I informed the group on Hudson Street that they had a first amendment right to use a megaphone and that the National Lawyers' Guild should appeal the issue if they got arrested. And I repeated the words of the first amendment, which the crowd repeated.
Then my partner suggested that I ask the group for their list of demands. Since we would be inside, we thought it would be helpful to take their list into the event and if I had a chance to talk with the governor I could pass the list on. That is how a democracy works, right? The people have the right to address their representatives.
We went inside, chatted with our friends, but needed to leave before the governor had arrived. I decided I would present their list to his office in the morning and write about the response. On our exit, I saw that the protesters had been cordoned off by a now-massive phalanx of NYPD cops and pinned against the far side of the street - far away from the event they sought to address.
I went up and asked them why. They replied that they had been informed that the Huffington Post event had a permit that forbade them to use the sidewalk. I knew from my investigative reporting on NYC permits that this was impossible: a private entity cannot lease the public sidewalks; even film crews must allow pedestrian traffic. I asked the police for clarification - no response.
I went over to the sidewalk at issue and identified myself as a NYC citizen and a reporter, and asked to see the permit in question or to locate the source on the police or event side that claimed it forbade citizen access to a public sidewalk. Finally a tall man, who seemed to be with the event, confessed that while it did have a permit, the permit did allow for protest so long as we did not block pedestrian passage.
I thanked him, returned to the protesters, and said: "The permit allows us to walk on the other side of the street if we don't block access. I am now going to walk on the public sidewalk and not block it. It is legal to do so. Please join me if you wish." My partner and I then returned to the event-side sidewalk and began to walk peacefully arm in arm, while about 30 or 40 people walked with us in single file, not blocking access.
Then a phalanx of perhaps 40 white-shirted senior offices descended out of seemingly nowhere and, with a megaphone (which was supposedly illegal for citizens to use), one said: "You are unlawfully creating a disruption. You are ordered to disperse." I approached him peacefully, slowly, gently and respectfully and said: "I am confused. I was told that the permit in question allows us to walk if we don't block pedestrian access and as you see we are complying with the permit."
He gave me a look of pure hate. "Are you going to back down?" he shouted. I stood, immobilised, for a moment. "Are you getting out of my way?" I did not even make a conscious decision not to "fall back" - I simply couldn't even will myself to do so, because I knew that he was not giving a lawful order and that if I stepped aside it would be not because of the law, which I was following, but as a capitulation to sheer force. In that moment's hesitation, he said, "OK," gestured, and my partner and I were surrounded by about 20 officers who pulled our hands behind our backs and cuffed us with plastic handcuffs.
We were taken in a van to the seventh precinct - the scary part about that is that the protesters and lawyers marched to the first precinct, which handles Hudson Street, but in the van the police got the message to avoid them by rerouting me. I understood later that the protesters were lied to about our whereabouts, which seemed to me to be a trickle-down of the Bush-era detention practice of unaccountable detentions.
The officers who had us in custody were very courteous, and several expressed sympathy for the movements' aims. Nonetheless, my partner and I had our possessions taken from us, our ID copied, and we were placed in separate cells for about half an hour. It was clear that by then the police knew there was scrutiny of this arrest so they handled us with great courtesy, but my phone was taken and for half an hour I was in a faeces- or blood-smeared cell, thinking at that moment the only thing that separates civil societies from barbaric states is the rule of law - that finds the prisoner, and holds the arresting officers and courts accountable.
Another scary outcome I discovered is that, when the protesters marched to the first precinct, the whole of Erickson Street was cordoned off - "frozen" they were told, "by Homeland Security". Obviously if DHS now has powers to simply take over a New York City street because of an arrest for peaceable conduct by a middle-aged writer in an evening gown, we have entered a stage of the closing of America, which is a serious departure from our days as a free republic in which municipalities are governed by police forces.
The police are now telling my supporters that the permit in question gave the event managers "control of the sidewalks". I have asked to see the permit but still haven't been provided with it - if such a category now exists, I have never heard of it; that, too, is a serious blow to an open civil society. What did I take away? Just that, unfortunately, my partner and I became exhibit A in a process that I have been warning Americans about since 2007: first they come for the "other" - the "terrorist", the brown person, the Muslim, the outsider; then they come for you - while you are standing on a sidewalk in evening dress, obeying the law."

Sunday, October 16, 2011

The Beauty of Central Utah

I never tire of the views of Capitol Reef and the Henry Mountains 
in the background, seen from the Aqueous Plateau of Boulder Mountain.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Portland's Japanese Garden....

We visited one of the best Japanese gardens in America











and the Portland Zoo:



Mike and I dug into bowls of too many crawfish, a learning experience.



- Posted from my iPad

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Injustice in America

The following is quoted from the newsletter of the Brennan Center for Justice of NYU Law School, October 10, 2011:
Anti-Immigrant Laws Keep Documented and Undocumented People Away from Courts and Justice System at Large
Grace Meng, “Immigrant Injustice,”Hill Congress Blog, October 7, 2011

Grace Meng, a researcher in the U.S. program at Human Rights Watch, writes in the Hill’s Congress blog: “I met ‘Sonia,’ a farmworker in upstate New York, in August. She and her husband had managed to scrape together $3,000 for a down payment on a house. After two years of making mortgage payments, they discovered the seller had never transferred the title to them. They are being evicted from the home they thought was their own. What would you do if you were Sonia? Hire a lawyer? Sonia and her husband tried to do just that, but as they started to seek recourse in the legal system, the seller threatened to call immigration. Sonia is an undocumented immigrant. If Sonia were in Alabama, she would be barred from seeking justice in its courts. In addition to other abusive provisions, Alabama’s new immigration law declares that its state courts will not uphold any contracts involving undocumented immigrants. But even outside of Alabama, Sonia essentially lacks access to justice. . . . Legal service providers in Raleigh, North Carolina report that undocumented immigrants face the same problem Sonia did. Since undocumented immigrants cannot get legal title to the cars or mobile homes they buy, sellers often don’t actually transfer the property to the buyers. The Latino Outreach Center in the Blue Ridge Mountains frequently receives reports from day laborers that local homeowners who hired them to rake leaves and do other small jobs have refused to pay them, knowing they can get away with it. Undocumented immigrants have long been afraid of government officials, but that fear is now translating into a fear of the justice system. Immigrants avoid going to court in communities from Fresno to Rochester, even to pay traffic tickets or to help a family member with translation, because Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents like to hang out by the courthouse. In North Carolina, a victim of domestic violence told me she would never again call the police for help after being questioned more about her immigration status than her safety the first time she called. . . . When millions of people are afraid to avail themselves of their rights under the U.S. legal system, the entire system is undermined. The injustice is not only to undocumented immigrants but to U.S. society as a whole.”


- Posted from my iPad

Portland, Oregon area visit

If you like to walk in light rain and fog come visit with us. We enjoyed this view from our host's living room, a bit north of Portland.



If the drizzle, mist and fog are depressing after a time Portland is the capital of micro-brewing.



Darrow Tests the water at Seaside, Oregon:



Lower Multnomah Falls:



Mt. Hood:




-Posted from my iPad

Location:Portland, Oregon

Sunday, October 2, 2011

More About Canyon Country, Utah

Janet, near the entrance to Cohab Canyon, said to have been a place of refuge for some Mormons who sought to practice polygamy and to evade federal agents.


A rather carefully constructed cairn on the way to the "Tanks" in Capitol Gorge.


John at the "Tanks."


So, on to Oregon...



Location:Cohab Canyon, Capitol Reef

What Have Got To Show For Our Mountain Of Debt?

The New York Times reports that "a Brown University study, published in June, estimates that the United States will have spent $3.7 trillion in Afghanistan and Iraq by the time the wars are over." Maybe we would be better off had we spent this money on paying off some debt, improving our educational programs, restoring and building our infrastructure and doing research to regain first place in innovative science and technology. I think so.

Location:Oakland

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Escalante to Capitol Reef

We decided not to camp on this trip, so here we are in the bunkhouse of our Evergreen host in Boulder, Utah.




We hiked to the lovely Lower Calf Creek Falls in the desert near Boulder.


along Calf Creek on the way to the Falls:


In Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.


Pioneer graffiti in Capitol Gorge on the way to the "Tanks."


The pioneers who traveled through this canyon used water from large potholes, now called the "Tanks" high above the canyon floor.


Janet on the way to the "Tanks":


- Posted from my iPad

Location:Salt Lake City

Friday, September 30, 2011

KurzweilAI.net: An Interesting Newsletter


 Friday September 23, 2011
Weekly edition 
News and Blog Headlines

A six-sigma signal of superluminal neutrinos from OPERA
How to make movies of what the brain sees
Searching for new ideas
OPERA neutrino experiment on breaking speed of light — UPDATE #2: CERN seeks independent replication
Will super Wi-Fi live up to its name?
OPERA neutrino experiment on breaking speed of light — Update #1: Live webcast, ArXiv paper posted
Scientists turn back the clock on adult stem cells aging
Video: Goertzel presents open-source AI engine at AGI-11 conference
Electrical stimulation of brain boosts birth of new cells
UC San Diego biologists discover genes that repair nerves after injury
Marijuana could prevent post-traumatic stress symptoms
New 'smart window' switches from transparent and opaque in seconds
Longevity gene debate opens trans-atlantic rift
A knack for bashing orthodoxy
'Inexhaustible' source of hydrogen may be unlocked by salt water
Breakthrough: proton-based chips that communicate directly with living things
Technology listens as doctors keep talking
A future for drones: automated killing
Turn your smart phone into a robot remote control
Free will and quantum clones: how your choices today affect the universe at its origin
Next-generation solar cell technology
On-line gamers succeed where scientists fail, opening door to new AIDS drug design
Google Wallet official launch
China and India developing biotech drugs
Robots to reduce cost of building aircraft
Every breath you take, every move you make …
The cyborg in us all
NASA satellite expected to crash to Earth in days
Smartphone brain scanner
Amazing Earth video from the Space Station
Intel runs PC on CPU powered by solar cell
Installed cost of solar photovoltaic systems in the US declined significantly in 2010 and 2011
How to synthesize a new kind of yeast cell — or person
Scientists create first step toward creating 'inorganic life'

Latest News

A six-sigma signal of superluminal neutrinos from OPERA
September 23, 2011

A measurement has been performed on the time that muon neutrinos take to travel from their production point at CERN to the Opera detector, finding that neutrinos take a handful of nanoseconds less than if they were traveling at light speed, experimental particle physicist (CERN and Fermilab) and blogger Tommaso Dorigo reports. Neutrinos seen by … more…


How to make movies of what the brain sees
September 23, 2011

brainstorm Remember the movie Brainstorm? Imagine watching someone's dream, or tapping directly into the mind of a coma patient. University of California, Berkeley scientists claim they have finally achieved this classic futuristic movie "mind reading" trope. Sorta. They're using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, to decode and reconstructing people's dynamic visual experiences. So … more…


Searching for new ideas
September 23, 2011 Source Link: Technology Review

Google's head of research Alfred Spector explained in an interview why artificial intelligence is crucial to the search company's future. "In general, we have been using hybrid artificial intelligence, which means that we learn from our user community," Spector said, "When they label something as having a certain meaning or implication, we learn from that."


OPERA neutrino experiment on breaking speed of light — UPDATE #2: CERN seeks independent replication
September 23, 2011

GENEVA, Sept. 23, 12:30 a.m. PDT — Given the potential far-reaching consequences of the OPERA experiment — which observes a neutrino beam from CERN 730 km away at Italy's INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, indicating that the neutrinos travel at a velocity 20 parts per million above the speed of light — independent measurements are needed … more…


Will super Wi-Fi live up to its name?
September 23, 2011 Source Link: Technology Review

It's likely that a few years from now, Americans' laptops, smart phones, and other wireless devices will be able to get online using "Super Wi-Fi," a new standard that will increase capacity in places where regular Wi-Fi networks have become overcrowded. The idea of Super Wi-Fi is to make use of the vacant airwaves that … more…


OPERA neutrino experiment on breaking speed of light — Update #1: Live webcast, ArXiv paper posted
September 23, 2011

CERN to Gras Sasso neutrino beam A live Webcast from CERN is scheduled for 16:00:00 (Europe/Zurich) Friday September 23, 2011 (07:00:00 PDT Friday September 23, 2011). "If confirmed, the CERN discovery is one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all times." — CERN and University of Bologna physicist Antonino Zichichi on Italian television RAI 1, Sept. 23, 2001 A technical paper, … more…


Scientists turn back the clock on adult stem cells aging
September 22, 2011

Researchers led by the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the Georgia Institute of Technology have shown they can reverse the aging process for human adult stem cells, which are responsible for helping old or damaged tissues regenerate. The findings could lead to medical treatments that may repair a host of ailments that occur … more…


Video: Goertzel presents open-source AI engine at AGI-11 conference
September 22, 2011

Ben Goertzel at AGI11 AI researcher Ben Goertzel gave a talk about the OpenCog open source AI engine at the Fourth Conference on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI-11), held on Google's campus in Mountain View (Silicon Valley), California, on August 3–5, 2011. The video of the talk is now online at YouTube.


Electrical stimulation of brain boosts birth of new cells
September 22, 2011

Stimulating a specific region of the brain leads to the production of new brain cells that enhance memory, researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children have found. The findings show how deep brain stimulation (DBS) — a clinical intervention that delivers electrical pulses to targeted areas of the brain — may work to improve cognition. … more…


UC San Diego biologists discover genes that repair nerves after injury
September 22, 2011

12h After Injury Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have identified more than 70 genes that play a role in regenerating nerves after injury, providing biomedical researchers with a valuable set of genetic leads for use in developing therapies to repair spinal cord injuries and other common kinds of nerve damage such as stroke. While scientists … more…


Marijuana could prevent post-traumatic stress symptoms
September 22, 2011

Administering cannabinoids (synthetic marijuana) after experiencing a traumatic event blocks the development of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in rats, according to a new study conducted at the University of Haifa. The researchers exposed a group of rats to extreme stress. The rats displayed symptoms resembling PTSD in humans, such as an enhanced startle reflex, impaired … more…


New 'smart window' switches from transparent and opaque in seconds
September 22, 2011

Smart windows that can reversibly alternate between extreme optical characteristics via clicking counteranions of different hydration energies were developed on glass substrates through the facile spray-casting of poly[2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyltrimethylammonium chloride-co-3-(trimethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate]. The optical transmittance was either 90.9% or 0% over the whole spectral range when alternately immersed in solutions containing thiocyanate (SCN–) or bis(trifluoromethane)sulfonimide (TFSI–) ions, respectively. The extreme optical transitions were attributed to formation of microporous structures via the molecular aggregation of polyelectrolyte chains bearing TFSI– ions in methanol. Because the smart windows were either highly transparent toward or completely blocking of incident light upon direct counterion exchange, this kind of nanotechnology may provide a new platform for efficiently conserving on energy usage in the interior of buildings (credit: ACS) A new "smart" window system that can inexpensively change from summer to winter modes, darkening to save air conditioning costs on scorching days and returning to crystal clarity in the winter to capture free heat from the sun, scientists from Soongsil University, Seoul report. "Smart" windows that reflect sunlight away from buildings in summer and … more…


Longevity gene debate opens trans-atlantic rift
September 22, 2011 Source Link: New York Times

A trans-Atlantic dispute has opened up between two camps of researchers pursuing a gene that could lead to drugs that enhance longevity. British scientists say the longevity gene is "nearing the end of its life," but the Americans whose work is under attack say the approach remains as promising as ever. The dispute concerns genes … more…


A knack for bashing orthodoxy
September 21, 2011 Source Link: New York Times

"It's highly plausible that in the universe there are God-like creatures," says evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, but belief in the supernatural strikes him as incurious, which is perhaps the worst insult he can imagine. "Religion teaches you to be satisfied with nonanswers," he says. "It's a sort of crime against childhood." His first children's book, … more…


'Inexhaustible' source of hydrogen may be unlocked by salt water
September 21, 2011

Bacterial-Hydrolysis A grain of salt or two may be all that microbial electrolysis cells need to produce hydrogen from wastewater or organic byproducts, without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere or using grid electricity, according to Penn State engineers. "This system could produce hydrogen anyplace that there is wastewater near sea water," said Bruce E. Logan, … more…


Technology listens as doctors keep talking
September 21, 2011 Source Link: Technology Review

Medical dictation software company Nuance Communications is developing what it calls Clinical Language Understanding. It's designed to automatically extract information from a doctor's dictated narrative description of a patient and use it to fill out electronic records. Clinical Language Understanding has been developed with the IBM researchers who created Watson, the computer system that was … more…


A future for drones: automated killing
September 21, 2011 Source Link: Washington Post

An exercise in autonomous robotics with two model-size planes could presage the future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not decisions made by humans. The automated, unpiloted planes worked on their own, with no human guidance, no hand on … more…


Turn your smart phone into a robot remote control
September 21, 2011

Technology Review blogger David Zax reports two ways to turn your iPhone/Android into a remote controller: Orbotix is developing an smartphone-controlled ball called the Sphero, and BirdBrain Technologies' Brainlink system lets you hack your old Roomba or other household robot and turn it into something more like a remote-controlled car.


Free will and quantum clones: how your choices today affect the universe at its origin
September 20, 2011

Do we have autonomy, or are our choices preordained? Computer scientist Scott Aaronson has proposed a variation on the Turing Test that he calls the Envelope Argument or Prediction Game to address the question of free will, Scientific American blogger George Musser reports. Someone poses questions to you and to a computer model of your brain, … more…


Next-generation solar cell technology
September 20, 2011

The "most efficient colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solar cell ever" has been created by researchers from the University of Toronto (U of T), King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) and Pennsylvania State University. Quantum dots are nanoscale semiconductors that capture light and convert it into electrical energy. Because of their small scale, the … more…


On-line gamers succeed where scientists fail, opening door to new AIDS drug design
September 20, 2011

Fold It Online gamers have solved the structure of a retrovirus enzyme whose configuration had stymied scientists, biochemist Firas Khatib of the University of Washington (UW) reports. The players were adept at a computer game, Foldit, that allows players to collaborate and compete in predicting the structure of protein molecules. After scientists repeatedly failed to piece together the … more…


Google Wallet official launch
September 20, 2011

Google Wallet Google released Monday the first version of its Google Wallet app to Sprint. With Google Wallet, you can tap, pay and save using your phone and near field communication (NFC). Google is now rolling out Google Wallet to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones through an over-the-air update, with a $10 free bonus to the Google … more…


China and India developing biotech drugs
September 20, 2011 Source Link: New York Times

Chinese and Indian drug makers have taken over much of the global trade in medicines and now manufacture more than 80 percent of the active ingredients in drugs sold worldwide. But they had never been able to copy the complex and expensive biotech medicines increasingly used to treat cancer, diabetes and other diseases in rich … more…


Robots to reduce cost of building aircraft
September 20, 2011

Plastic Gripper Fraunhofer researchers have come up with a concept for a flexible assembly-line concept using robots to build future aircraft more flexibly and economically. The aircraft will be machined and assembled by small industrial robots, as in the automotive sector. The key element of the assembly line is a versatile component gripper made of lightweight CFRP … more…


The cyborg in us all
September 19, 2011 Source Link: New York Times

Electrocorticographic (ECoG) implant (credit: Albany Medical College) Gerwin Schalk studies Albany Medical Center patients who have become some of the world's first cyborgs, with brain implants. Schalk transforms the brain signals emitted by their thoughts into software commands. He is, in effect, designing a button that the mind could push. He dreams of letting people speak with their neurons, issuing silent commands to … more…


NASA satellite expected to crash to Earth in days
September 19, 2011

NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite is expected to crash to Earth Sept. 23, plus or minus a day, as of the latest NASA update, Sept. 18. NASA says the 35-foot-long satellite will crash somewhere between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south latitude — a projected crash zone that covers most of the planet. Although … more…


Smartphone brain scanner
September 19, 2011

Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark have demonstrated a fully functional smartphone brain scanner — consisting of a low-cost 14-channel EEG headset with a wireless connection to a smartphone (Nokia N900) — enabling minimally invasive EEG monitoring in real-world settings. The system provides a fully portable EEG based real-time functional brain scanner, sensors, data … more…


Amazing Earth video from the Space Station
September 19, 2011

The Earth from the Space Station Science educator James Drake built this amazing timelapse video from the perspective of the International Space Station as it flew over North and South America, created it by downloading a series of 600 photographs, Universe Today reports.


Intel runs PC on CPU powered by solar cell
September 19, 2011 Source Link: Computerworld

Intel has developed an experimental low-power Pentium processor (code-named Claremont) the size of a postage stamp that could run PCs on solar power, by dropping energy consumption to under 10 milliwatts. The company's goal is to deliver a 300-fold improvement in energy efficiency in high-performance computing over 10 years.


Installed cost of solar photovoltaic systems in the US declined significantly in 2010 and 2011
September 19, 2011

The U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has released the latest edition of an annual solar photovoltaic (PV) cost tracking report, showing that the installed cost of PV power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2010 and the first half of 2011. The average installed cost of residential and … more…


Scientists create first step toward creating 'inorganic life'
September 17, 2011

Inorganic Life University of Glasgow scientists have taken their first tentative steps towards creating "life" from inorganic chemical cells (iCHELLS), potentially defining the new area of "inorganic biology." "What we are trying do is create self-replicating, evolving inorganic cells that would essentially be alive. You could call it inorganic biology," said Professor Lee Cronin, University of Glagow … more…

New BLOG POSTS

Breakthrough: proton-based chips that communicate directly with living things
September 21, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

University of Washington scientists have just crossed another major threshold between humans and machines: they've built a transistor that uses protons instead of electrons. Their ultimate goal: create devices that can communicate directly with living things certain biological functions that involve protons — eventually even control them — a "first step toward 'bionanoprotonics'." Yes, there … more…


Every breath you take, every move you make …
September 19, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

breath_detector Those University of Utah engineers who built wireless networks that see through walls are now taking it a step further: detecting if surgery patients, adults with sleep apnea, and babies at risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) have stopped breathing. This thing freaks me out a bit. Think what Homeland Security could do with … more…


How to synthesize a new kind of yeast cell — or person
September 19, 2011 by Amara D. Angelica

Dr._Moreau Scientists, in theory, could one day create whole new lifeforms, going way beyond simple cloning, new research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine suggests. The scientists have now replaced the DNA in a yeast chromosome with computer-designed, synthetically produced DNA (structurally distinct from its original DNA), producing a healthy yeast cell. So perhaps one … more…

New EVENTS

longphoto_mechanicrawl_2011  Mechanicrawl 02011

Dates: Sep 24, 2011 – Jan ,
Location: San Francisco, California

more...


burrillcompany  The Annual Burrill Personalized Medicine Meeting

Dates: Oct 3 – 4, 2011
Location: Burlingame, California

more...


App Conference and Hackathon  App Conference and Hackathon

Dates: Oct 26 – 27, 2011
Location: Santa Clara, California

more...


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