The ChinUp – An Innovative Exercise Device Designed To Firm Up Your Chin
ZipLS – Accelerated Learning Software Through Advanced Technology

Featured product at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
ZipLS is an educational software system that will be sold to schools and individuals. The software uses a drill and practice approach primarily aimed at rote memorization and problem solving. Current subjects include math facts, math problems, geography, spelling, and foreign language vocabulary.
Dirty Stars Make Good Solar System Hosts

Pebble density increases with time. The black regions have no pebbles, blue regions have a moderate density, and bright regions have high density of pebbles. The square represents a small part of the disk of gas and dust that surrounds the star before the planets form, referred to as the protoplanetary disk, seen from above.
Some stars are lonely behemoths, with no surrounding planets or asteroids, while others sport a skirt of attendant planetary bodies. New research published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters explains why the composition of the stars often indicates whether their light shines into deep space, or whether a small fraction shines onto orbiting planets.
‘Closed Heart Surgery’: Scientists Jump-start The Heart By Gene Transfer

Human heart.
Scientists from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota show in a research report published online in the FASEB Journal that gene therapy may be used to improve an ailing heart’s ability to contract properly. In addition to showing gene therapy’s potential for reversing the course of heart failure, it also offers a tantalizing glimpse of a day when “closed heart surgery” via gene therapy is as commonly prescribed as today’s cocktail of drugs.
Nobel In Physics: Creators Of Optical Fiber Communication And CCD Image Sensor

Above: CCD image sensor. Below: Optical fibers.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2009 with one half to Charles K. Kao, Standard Telecommunication Laboratories, Harlow, UK, and Chinese University of Hong Kong “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication”, and the other half jointly to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor”.
Acidic Clouds Nourish World’s Oceans

Water droplets in clouds generally form around dust and other particles. When clouds evaporate, as they often do naturally, the surface of the particle can become very acidic. This is especially true where the air is polluted.
Scientists at the University of Leeds have proved that acid in the atmosphere breaks down large particles of iron found in dust into small and extremely soluble iron nanoparticles, which are more readily used by plankton.
Dramatic Elephant Birth
Japanese Suit Designed To Fight Swine Flu
One Smart Suit
The company has produced 50,000 of the suits and will start selling them on Thursday, according to a company spokesman.
The suit is coated with the chemical titanium dioxide, which reacts to light to break down and kill the virus when it comes into contact with it, according to Junko Hirohata. The chemical is a common ingredient in toothpaste and cosmetics.
A ‘Vaccine’ for Cocaine
Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!!!
Katherine Harmon writes in Scientific American that pharmacology researchers are developing a drug that could diminish the pleasurable effects of cocaine. Taking the drug might help addicts detoxify with greater success:
The vaccine itself does not destroy cocaine molecules, rather it induces antibodies that bind to it, making the opiate lose its ability to pass through the blood–brain barrier—and thus unable to trigger a high…
Executive Compensation vs. The Grunt Worker World
The Reciprotating Combustion Engine From Hoyt Engine Alternative Technologies

Featured invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
The Reciprotating™ Combustion Engine is an innovative motor design that provides significant improvements in overall efficiency over the traditional internal combustion engine (Otto cycle). These improvements are described in and protected by pending domestic and international patents. The Engine creates a source of direct hydraulic pressure that can be stored and utilized to perform any engine-driven work.
Zip-Zac Pocket Towel

ZIP-ZAC Beach Towel and Pool/Spa Towel
Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase 2009
The Zip-Zac Pocket Towel is a towel with a patented innovative zippered pocket lined with water resistant nylon.
Contraceptive Injection For Men May Make Condoms History

It may be time for men to split the contraceptive burden with women, for Scottish scientists have come up with a new ‘Pill’ that drastically reduces sperm count in men. Professor Richard Anderson, from Edinburgh University, is on the look out for men willing to try the revolutionary hormone injections, containing progesterone and testosterone, to be given in the bum every two months.
The 50 ‘Competing’ States of America

It is supposed to be the United States, but the recession has turned America into 50 competing parts. As the economy bites, states across America are resorting to dirty tactics to steal business from their neighbours. At stake are business start-ups and well established firms.
Expansion Plans For Las Vegas Casinos Folds

After a six-year building frenzy that transformed this city, casino companies are shifting strategies dramatically toward slower growth, paying down debt and cutting back on spending. Many casino executives don’t expect to break ground on another major building project in Las Vegas for at least 10 years.
Will Books Be ‘Napsterized’ Like The Music Industry Was?

You can buy “The Lost Symbol,” by Dan Brown, as an e-book for $9.99 at Amazon.com. Or you can don a pirate’s cap and snatch a free copy from another online user at RapidShare, Megaupload, Hotfile and other file-storage sites.
China Is The World’s Third Largest Economy

China contributed 19.2 percent of the world economic growth in 2007, up from 2.3 percent in 1978, a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said. It said China tops the world in contribution to the global economic growth.
IMF Gets New Role Helping The G-20

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is using the IMF’s annual meeting here to campaign for turning the fund into a kind of global central bank with at least $1 trillion for lending developing nations in a crisis.
Investors Racing Back Into The Bond Markets

The swift rally in stock markets this year caught everyone’s attention. But with far less fanfare, a frenzy has been taking place in the market for corporate bonds. When credit markets practically shut down last year, businesses had to pay huge premiums to raise money from investors, offering returns of 10 to 20 percent to anyone who would buy a company’s debt. Now, investors are the ones paying higher prices as they race back into the bond markets, where companies and governments go to raise money for new projects and mergers, and to finance their daily operations.
Air India Pilots and Crew Slug It Out At 30,000 Feet

The Maharaja witnessed his first in-flight Mughal-e-Azam at 30,000 feet above sea level on Saturday, as two members of the cabin crew—one male and one female—slugged it out with the pilot and co-pilot. Endangering the lives of 106 passengers and grossly violating safety norms, the airline staffers came to blows in the cockpit and galley of the Indian Airlines Airbus A-320 as the aircraft cruised over Pakistan en route to Delhi via Lucknow from Sharjah. (Video)
Loss Of Top Predators Causing Surge In Smaller Predators, Ecosystem Collapse

In this image, the extermination of wolves may allow coyote populations to surge, which in turn can suppress feral cat populations, leading to more rodents, etc.
The catastrophic decline around the world of “apex” predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller “mesopredators” that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.
Ancient Earth’s Magnetic Field Was Structured Like Today’s Two-pole Model

The well-exposed layering of basalt flows in formations near Lake Superior is aiding scientific understanding of the geomagnetic field in ancient times. Nicholas Swanson-Hysell, a Princeton graduate student, examines the details of the top of a lava flow.
Princeton University scientists have shown that, in ancient times, the Earth’s magnetic field was structured like the two-pole model of today, suggesting that the methods geoscientists use to reconstruct the geography of early land masses on the globe are accurate. The findings may lead to a better understanding of historical continental movement, which relates to changes in climate.
Fish-Killing Toxin Could Kill Cancer Cells

A powerful fish-killing toxin that has caused major losses in commercial ponds of catfish, striped bass and tilapia may also have cancer-killing properties.
A powerful fish-killing toxin could have cancer-killing properties as well, according to collaborative research led by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) microbiologist Paul V. Zimba and chemist Peter Moeller of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The toxin, called euglenophycin, has a molecular structure similar to that of solenopsin, an alkaloid from fire ant venom known to inhibit tumor development.
Aspirin Misuse Behind Huge Death Toll in 1918-1919 Flu Pandemic

High doses of aspirin were used to treat patients during the 1918-1919 pandemic
The high death toll during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic might be attributed to the misuse of aspirin, says an article.
Report: Woman Paralyzed By E. Coli-Tainted Hamburger
She was in a coma for nine weeks (that’s her, hospitalized, in the photo above), and can now no longer walk. “Ground beef is not a completely safe product,” one food safety expert in the article is quoted. Well, no shit. Snip from an extensive investigative report in Sunday’s New York Times…






