Turning The Tide To A Well Lit Tomorrow on the Highway

As far as practical renewable energy concepts go, these wind-powered highway lights are pretty elegant. And from my layman’s perspective, they seem to be practical and realistic. I like ‘em!

Bodywork could one day double as a car’s battery
Parts of a car’s bodywork could one day double up as its battery, according to the scientists behind a new €3.4 million project announced today.
Researchers from Imperial College London, UK, and their European partners, including Volvo Car Corporation, are developing a prototype material which can store and [...]

If you’re stealing a car these days, there’s a good chance you’re not bothering to actually pick the locks, but if you are, your job is about to get a little easier. A device called the Electronic Key Impressioner is inserted into a car door and scans the position of the tumblers inside. ..

Try living in the mountains to lose weight
Obese people should try living in the mountains if they want to lose weight, according to scientists.  Fat is much easier to burn off where the air is thin, researchers said, a phenomenon that could lead to tents that mimic the atmosphere of countries like Tibet and Argentina.
 

My entire life, the ketchup packet has remained a constant. Its saw-tooth edge and slightly bulbous form, enclosing not nearly enough ketchup, is something that, like a grand oak of food package design, you expected never to change. Well, my friends, Heinz has taken the extraordinary step of replacing a product everyone has been satisfied [...]

No matter how often some people workout they still don’t feel any fitter
Spent hours sweating it out in the gym but don’t feel any fitter? Blame your parents.  One in five of us has inherited ‘unfitness genes’ that mean no matter how often we pound the treadmill, we’ll still be out of puff.
 

A small but significant proportion of morbidly obese people are missing a section of their DNA, according to new research.
A small but significant proportion of morbidly obese people are missing a section of their DNA, according to research published February 3 in Nature. The authors of the study, from Imperial College London and ten other [...]

The answers that proved a road accident victim was not in a ‘vegetative state’
If it’s true that some brain damaged patients are actually capable of communicating with their brains, even though there are no movements made by their bodies, wouldn’t that make “right to die” issues so much more complicated?  But I’m jumping ahead here… [...]

Hubble has discovered a mysterious X-shaped object traveling at 11,000mph. NASA says that P/2010-A2 may be a comet, product of the collision between two asteroids. Or a Klingon Bird of Prey. Either way, UCLA investigator David Jewitt is excited:
 

 In PART 1 of this series, we saw the first round of what seems to be turning into a dastardly trend. Now, Brian Krebs continues to scare the pants off of us with his ongoing series on sophisticated ATM skimmers (devices that capture your card number, working with a hidden camera to catch your PIN). [...]

Did you know that the PS3 was military ordnance? The Air Force Research Laboratory has been given a $2 million to build a Playstation 3 cluster out of about 2,000 PS3s. Their goal? To create a Neuromorphic system designed to find examples of images stored in a massive database using systems that “mimic human nervous [...]

When you strap on a typical running shoe, you may be fighting evolution.

Modern-day running shoes have changed the way people run, altering our gait from that of barefoot running — the manner by which people ran for thousands of years before the arrival of the cushioned shoes found on store shelves today — a new [...]

Leonardo DaVinci’s resume
Before he was famous, before he painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, before he invented the helicopter, before he drew the most famous image of man, before he was all of these things, Leonardo da Vinci was an artificer, an armorer, a maker of things that go “boom”.
 

Ten Word Wiki describes itself as “an encyclopedia for the ADD generation.” The site is like Wikipedia, but all entries are limited to ten words. Since there aren’t that many entries yet, you may want to browse the “recent changes” tab and then take a stab at some entries of your own!
Here is the entry [...]

A ceramic head found in a newly discovered Mayan tomb.
Mexican archaeologists have found an 1,100-year-old tomb from the twilight of the Maya civilization that they hope may shed light on what happened to the once-glorious culture.

Taking a coffee break aids memory
Scientists have always known that sleeping helps consolidate memory by allowing your mind to sift through recently gained knowledge and file it in the brain.   But this new research suggests that even a short rest or break while conscious could help it sort and retain information.
 

A micrograph shows the surface of a light-activated catalyst that disinfects water even in the dark.
Getting access to clean drinking water is an ongoing problem for people in developing countries. And even cities that have good water-treatment systems are looking for better ways to deliver safer, cleaner water. Now an international research team has developed [...]

Scientists have found a striking similarity in the DNA that enables some bats and dolphins to echolocate.
A key gene that gives their ears the ability to detect high-frequency sound has produced the exact same amino acid changes over time in both creatures.
The researchers report their findings in the journal Current Biology.
It may be the first [...]

Scientists keep discovering extinct species that hardly seem possible outside of cartoons. If they were still around, we might not be! Web Urbanist shows us some of the biggest, fiercest, and weirdest of animals that are no more. For instance, the whorl shark had its own “jaw saw”!
Whorl Sharkswere similar to their modern cousins despite [...]

Did HAARP cause the damage? Hugo says so.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a ‘tectonic weapon’ to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.
President Chavez said the US was “playing God” by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish [...]

Rovers may have been able to endure life on Mars longer than anyone expected, but things could be more tricky for any sort of long-term exploration, where dust could cause equipment to grind to a halt or even pose a risk to human explorers. Some researchers from the University of Vermont now say they might [...]

Here’s how it works. Air is pumped into the columns and beams that support the structure, which are made of heavy material like that found in inflatable lifeboats. Air is also pumped into walls and roofs made of two layers of nylon about 18 inches apart when inflated. The air gives them stiffness and insulating [...]

A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The word “mushroom” can also be used for a wide variety of gilled fungi, with or without stems, and the term is used even more generally, to describe both the fleshy fruiting bodies [...]

Driving hinders talking on a cell phone
It is well known that having a conversation (for example on a cell phone) impairs one’s driving. A new study indicates the reverse is also true: Driving reduces one’s ability to comprehend and use language.
 

A fresh ferry concept.

A Japanese shipbuilding company named IHI Marine United is developing a ship that can be powered entirely by rechargeable lithium batteries. It will be able to travel 80 km while carrying 800 passengers:
Its Zero Emission Electric Propulsion Ship will use batteries that can be recharged at charging stations in ports it visits. [...]