Beer is good for you...version 3.x

Apparently this article is talking about beer preventing osteoporosis and providing dietary silicon and....wait, what? Silicon? Should my diet include CPU's? I'm way behind on my healthy eating knowledge...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208091922.htm

Carl Sagan / Stephen Hawking auto-tune Tribute

There's no argument with Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking being giants of our age, in the understanding and explanation of our universe. But that their thoughts and speech could be turned into a song tribute to their work like this just kind of makes me giddy. That said, whoever did this definitely has too much time on their hands...and thank goodness.

Scramjet... It Makes Me Happy.

Next-Gen jet engine technology has been getting lip service for awhile now, but I think the scramjet technology is the real deal. Here's to hoping...

The Foundation In Movie-Form?

This is great/horrible news! I would love to see one of my favorite literary sequences of all time on celluloid; but I am equally worried that they will destroy it with idiocy and rank ignorance of the points Asimov was trying to get at. Very worrisome. BUT...I am sufficiently excited by the possibilities that I will wait with barely contained excitement for news of the release...

I'm All Wet...But My Martini Is Still Dry

Well it's about time... this will make commuting to my underwater lair *so* much easier...
It's actually a pretty legit piece of hardware, check it out.

What's the Plural for Alien Fetus?

Ummmm...I'll take two, please. Deep fried.

Pretty funny page about creating your own pet alien fetus.

Artificial Blood Growth

Really interesting article about growing artificial blood vessels...

Girls Are Evil

Green Speedsters

Wired has an interesting article talking about alternative-fueled fast cars. Pretty interesting collection overall, although this one has definitely caught my interest...

Where do they come up with this stuff?

Like velcro, Tang, and carbon fiber before it, these crazy spin-offs from the space program and military industrial complex have far-reaching effects in government, military, and civilian/commercial applications. I just can't wait for the hip hop artists to start wearing pieces of it...

Evolution vs Religion

You know, with all the anger and conflict involved in the evolution vs intelligent design battle, it’s refreshing to see someone step outside the battle lines a little bit with a fascinating take on the difficulty many people have with accepting the concept of evolution.

And besides that, it’s a fascinating article in other respects, of purely mathematical and statistical interest…

Robot Warriors

I dunno, this kind of development is basically inevitable given the money available to the military-industrial complex; but that doesn’t mean that we should feel comfortable with it. I mean, especially when there are plenty of instances of automated systems going “crazy” and uncontrollably firing.

 

Of course, none of this is helped by the Terminator movies, the horrible Will-Smith version of “I, Robot”, or whatever robot-killing-spree movie is next on the docket. And it’s not like humans don’t have enough murderous urges to eclipse these robots’ minor damages. But the reality is that humans (for better or worse) are not going to be curbing these killing urges any time soon, and the robot weapons are a more emotionally removed method of killing by proxy, thereby further reducing the emotional impact of murder. As usual, there’s no real good answer for a way forward; the best we can hope for is that we as individuals put our shoulders behind the legislative force of self-improvement and do a little nation-building here in North America before we involve ourselves in every other country’s business…

NExt-Generation Wind Power

I love seeing developments like this, because it just shows what can be done by allowing your mind to free itself from constraints of traditional thinking. Although I’m sure there are a lot of kinks to be worked out, you have to give credit where credit’s due…it’s a fascinating tech

Admiral Bowman Interview

ADM Bowman was the head of the Navy Nuclear Power program for a number of years (including when I interviewed for acceptance…with him), and has since retired and taken on the role as CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI). This interview with him covers a few of the touchy subjects regarding Commercial Nuclear Power in the US (although is by no means adversarial) and provide some insight in to the current state of the Nuclear Industry.

SimCity- sponsored by British Petroleum?

Well…I’ll admit that I’m fascinated. Interested. Curious, even. The outcome of this game could very easily spell a paradigm shift in the way that corporations interact with entertainment media. Instead of simply applying the advertising model in different environments, they’re actually shaping the game in much more subtle ways. Very interesting…

Now I’m actually pretty positive on BP in general, since they’ve put so much effort into the alternative energy disciplines. But they are nonetheless a huge petroleum company, with a definite vested interest in prolonging the oil-based economy. So I will play this game. And I will try to divine the real measure of propaganda and reality that are being doled out through the consultancy role of BP.

To be continued…

Space Habitat

Interesting article on an Australian proposal supposed to yield a 90% efficient closed-cycle habitat for astronauts. Nothing too crazy, most of it building on what appears to be incremental improvements of technologies and practices already available; but the combination of that skill-set into a working habitat is entirely a different thing, so I’m very curious to see how it goes. With that level of efficiency, it’s almost to suggest we could actually make semi-permanent bases on the moon and/or mars practicable.

I think it’s a great idea…

Ig Nobel Awards: A Real Gay Bomb

Yeah. A gay bomb. Let’s hear it for the Air Force…

So the Ig Nobel Awards are great, and I feel like scientists should always have a little bit of a sense of humor about their work, especially if it involves rats on Viagra, or the mathematics of a wrinkled bedsheet….

Damn the Mathematics, Full Speed Ahead!

<sigh>
Having found this website, I will probably never leave the interweb.

Startships...

Dan, this is all you, man

you've probably already seen it, but damn...

http://www.merzo.net/

Solar Power 2007

Well, I'm most of the way through this year's Solar Power 2007 Conference and Exposition, and am overall pretty impressed with the offerings and the attendance. Apparently there was something like 8,000 attendees pre-registered, and another 1,000 or so that came without registration (don't quote me on those figures, that's what they announced).
There were all sorts of exhibits and booths, run by the various companies that are trying to gain a foothold in the burgeoning US solar industry; the really interesting thing was that unlike a lot of the exhibitions that get run on US soil, there was a very large contingent of foreign participation. Germany and Spain are really the big solar power markets right now, with Germany's industrial base installing something like 40% of the world's solar energy production last year. However in the long run, the US is in a far better natural position to take advantage of solar power:
As you can tell, the southwest US is an excellent area; we're just faced with lots of challenges as far as distribution (transmission), regulation, carbon-tax and/or renewable energy incentives, high capital costs, and a myriad of other issues plaguing the US solar industry. Most of these issues are being addressed actively by literally hundreds of companies from a dozen countries; so it's nobody fault but ours if the US doesn't get its piece of the pie from the get-go.