An exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond discovered.
Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.
Continue reading… “Diamond planet discovered by astronomers”
Scented laundry products emit carcinogens
Dangerous scents abound.
Love the fresh smell of clean laundry? Be careful – you may just be snorting up carcinogens:
Analysis of the captured gases found more than 25 volatile organic compounds, including seven hazardous air pollutants, coming out of the vents. Of those, two chemicals — acetaldehyde and benzene — are classified by theEnvironmental Protection Agency as carcinogens, for which the agency has established no safe exposure level…
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Movie Trailers released exclusively via QR Code for the first time
QR Codes are being embraced by Fox Searchlight Studios.
Fox Searchlight is shunning traditional promotional opportunities for its upcoming film Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Instead, the studio is rolling out an elaborate QR code campaign for the movie, which hits theaters on October 21.
Rather than go the traditional route of releasing teasers and trailers, Fox Searchlight opted to go digital…
Continue reading… “Movie Trailers released exclusively via QR Code for the first time”
Scientists produce biofuel from recycled newspapers
Tulane University has applied for a patent for a method to produce the biofuel butanol from organic material.
Scientists have found one way that old-fashioned newspaper beats the internet. Tulane University scientists have discovered a novel bacterial strain, dubbed “TU-103,” that can use paper to produce butanol, a biofuel that can serve as a substitute for gasoline. They are currently experimenting with old editions of the Times Picayune, New Orleans’ venerable daily newspaper, with great success.
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5 local economies that have the potential to become economic powerhouses of tomorrow
North Dakota’s ticket to success is energy.
Some regions of the U.S. anticipate future prosperity even as the national economy struggles. Though unlikely to surpass powerhouses of the U.S. economy such as California’s Silicon Valley, Boston’s Route 128 corridor and North Carolina’s Research Triangle, these five cities may well give better-known up-and-comers such as Austin, Texas, Charlotte, N.C., Denver and the Sun Belt’s auto centers a run for the money.
90% of plant and animal species on Earth not yet discovered
There are approximately 8.7 million different types of plant and animal on Earth.
About 90% of the plant and animal species on Earth have yet to be discovered or classified according to scientists. Earth is estimated to be home to just under 9 million species, a study says.
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Does Facebook promote drug and alcohol abuse in teens?
Social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and others, which displayed images of teens abusing alcohol and drugs, “constitutes electronic child abuse”.
According to a new study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University suggests that teens who use social media are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
Continue reading… “Does Facebook promote drug and alcohol abuse in teens?”
DaVinci Institute announces Inventor Art Competition
Are you ready to show off your artistic prowess?
The DaVinci Institute is pleased to announce a “call for artists” for the Inventor Art Competition.
The theme of this competition is inventors and their great inventions. Inventors chosen may be contemporary or from any time in the past. They just have to show the mark of being a great inventor.
When you think of a great inventor, who do you think of? What invention did they create?
Continue reading… “DaVinci Institute announces Inventor Art Competition”
Facebook tops 1 trillion page views
Facebook also has 870 million unique users.
Social networking site Facebook reached 1,000,000,000,000 page views in June. It’s also got 870 million unique users, according to Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner. That makes it the number-one site in terms of broad reach of Internet users.
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Brazil builds $127 billion “Offshore City” to harvest oil in the deep sea
Brazil is set to start gathering oil in new places.
Want to get a feel for how crazy the post-peak oil fossil fuels industry is getting? Here’s as good an example as any: Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras is about to embark on an unprecedented oil-gathering mission. It’s about to attempt to extract 30 billion barrels of oil from reserves that are locked in deepwater sub-salt fields at least 60 miles off the coast and up to five miles underwater. In order to get at the incredibly hard-to-get oily good stuff, Brazil is spending an estimated $226 billion — and $127 billion will be spent on exploration and production alone.
The product of that venture is already taking shape: a veritable floating “offshore city” has sprung up over 100 kilometers (62 miles) off the coast of Brazil, and it will lead the effort to drill into the deep sea sub-salt…
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Going Under: What we don’t know about anesthetics
Are anesthetics as safe as we think they are?
The majority of people reading this sentence will, at some point in their lives, undergo a medical treatment that requires general anesthesia. Doctors will inject them with a drug, or have them breathe it in. For several hours, they will be unconscious. And almost all of them will wake up happy and healthy.
We know that the general anesthetics we use today are safe. But we know that because they’ve proven themselves to be safe, not because we understand the mechanisms behind how they work. The truth is, at that level, anesthetics are a big, fat question mark. And that leaves room for a lot of unknowns. What if, in the long term, our anesthetics aren’t as safe for everyone as we think they are?
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Self-Inflating bike tires promise a future free of hand pumps
The PumpTire consists of an inner tube, the tire itself, and a special uni-directional air valve that screws into the stem of the inner tube. When the pump is active, it uses the tire’s rolling motion to draw in air from the atmosphere, through the one-way valve and into a lumen that runs along the outer edge of the tire. As the tire rolls, it squishes the lumen flat, forcing air into the main tube and when the weight of the tire is removed, the lumen re-inflates before it’s rolled over again. The system automatically shuts the valve when the desired pressure is reached. The doesn’t require any special modifications or rims…
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