Souping Up Ordinary Light Bulbs

"An ultra-powerful laser can turn regular incandescent light bulbs into power-sippers, say optics researchers at the University of Rochester. The process could make a light as bright as a 100-watt bulb consume less electricity than a 60-watt bulb while remaining far cheaper and radiating a more pleasant light than a fluorescent bulb can."

Personally I dislike the compact flourescent bulbs for anything but inaccessible applications. They are costly, have the wrong colour temperature, don't work with dimmers and are difficult to dispose of properly. Rehabilitating incandescent technology sounds good to me.

Viral Videos

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version. Hilarious. Watch for the army of Fonzi clones at about 2 minutes and "that angel guy" at 4:37.

Toy Story 3 Teaser Trailer. Still a year away though.

Lots more at Unruly Media.

Googling Google Using Google

Back in the 90s I used to teach a course I helped to design called "Advanced Internet Research". Pre-Google, AltaVista was the best search engine out there, but you really had to work at telling it what you wanted to find, so we taught people how to construct queries using Boolean syntax. How times change. Google dominates the search engine world. What's odd though is that people use Google today to find stuff they already have. In other words, Google has become the front end to the entire Internet-thingy.

Medical Isotopes - Crisis Or No Crisis?

When Chalk River was shut down for safety reasons two years ago, the government ordered it started up again because of the need for medical isotopes. Now the reactor may never open again and the government says it's not a problem. Crisis or no crisis?

The Toronto Star says Stephen Harper's Conservative government is either dramatically underplaying the current medical isotope crisis or wildly overplayed the last one.

‘Maker Faire’

Maker Faire, the largest festival for Do It Yourself-ers, crafters and hackers, happens this weekend in San Mateo, California. More than 80,000 people are expected to attend this year to check out what the 600 odd makers have to show, including robotics, music, crafts and food. Be sure to keep scrolling.

Discovering Itchy And Scratchy

"Drawing on the power of modern DNA sequencing technology and computational analysis, the research team from NHGRI, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the NIH Clinical Center uncovered a far more diverse collection of microbes on human skin than had been detected by traditional methods that involved growing microbial samples in the laboratory."

Why Do People Still Believe In The UN?

Robert Fulford in The National Post:

"One of the wonders of the world is the reputation of the United Nations. There are many people in many countries who believe (or claim to believe) that it can be relied on for fairness, honesty and competence. Year after year it embarrasses itself through everything from deep bureaucratic corruption to utter failure in dealing with global crises like the genocide in Darfur. Yet somehow its opinions and "facts" still carry weight."

(To this I would also add the IPCC.)

Tiananmen At Twenty

Next Thursday, June 4th is the 20th anniversary of the massacre in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

In today's National Post:

"Twenty years after hundreds, possibly thousands, of students died in Tiananmen Square, democracy is still a dream in China. In a country booming with cellphones, televisions and a growing middle class, pro-democracy rallies have been replaced by political apathy."

Opel Canadian?

BBC confirms that “Canadian-Austrian car parts maker Magna International has reached an agreement in principle to rescue GM Europe, owner of Opel and Vauxhall. The agreement was reached with General Motors, but will need to be approved by the German government, which will provide funding to the new owner.”

German-designed cars from a Canadian-owned company. What's not to like? Opel cars (and their Saturn iterations over here) are German cars in the same tradition as VW, BMW, Mercedes-Benz. That is to say solid, no-nonsense, Autobhan-derived, precision transportation. With an emphasis on no-nonsense.

I'd love to see a Canadian Opel. Maybe they could call it an Acadian. Naah. How about Manta? Opel Manta. Nice ring. Opel Magna anyone?

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription): "Canadian auto-parts supplier Magna International Inc. was selected by the German government early Saturday as a partner for General Motors Corp.'s Adam Opel unit.

The prospective deal for GM's European operations would mark a major breakthrough for Magna and its flamboyant founder, Frank Stronach."

"The Ed Wood Of Automobiles"

Robert Farago, editor of The Truth About Cars interviewed Malcolm Bricklin about his new project: automotive generators that create hydrogen to add to the intake stream replacing some gasoline.

In the comments: "He is kind of like the Ed Wood of automobiles."

Ezra Levant Praises Stephen Harper

From Ezra Levant's op-ed in today's Toronto Star:

"At its convention this Sunday, the Canadian Jewish Congress will honour Prime Minister Stephen Harper with its Saul Hayes Award. It's unusual for the CJC, many of whose members have long favoured the Liberals, to give an award to a Conservative Prime Minister. But in Harper's case, it's well-deserved."

When To Say "I love you"

At Marginal Revolution, the economists ask.

"This question applies not at the beginning of the relationship, but after a few years or more. Sure, you love the person but this is economics and we think at the margin."

The Ying & Yang Of Global Warming

Kofi Annan's think tank Global Humanitarian Forum has issued a new report on global warming:

"Climate change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to half a million by 2030."

"To avoid the worst outcomes, the report says efforts to adapt to the effects of climate change must be scaled up 100 times in developing countries. International funds pledged for this purpose amount to only $400 million, compared with an average estimated cost of $32 billion annually, it notes."

This report starts with the premise that global warming is caused by humans and then extrapolates extravagant death tolls. It then puts an enormous price tag on mitigation.

The real hard science of global warming is quite different. It contradicts warmist dogma, thus exposing a political agenda.

Update: More discussion at SmallDeadAnimals

Men In Power

Men in Power is a student organization at the University of Chicago (also on Facebook) that promises to help men get ahead professionally. As sure as night follows day, critics are charging that its premise is misogynistic and serves no purpose. Well who could have predicted that?

Founder Steve Saltarelli, the president of Men in Power:

"The group would not be against or in any way attempt to inhibit the advancement of women. We would simply advocate for men in the same manner that female groups advocate for women. Anyone with an interest in both studying and learning from men in powerful positions, as well as issues involved with reverse sexism, may become a member of MiP."

Read the comments that follow the article too. Although true misogyny is rare nowadays, sadly misandry is commonplace.

Bing Challenges Google

Search engines come and go with varying degrees of hype and usefulness. But Google is the thousand-pound sumo. No one has been able to successfully compete with Google, let alone defeat it. But Microsoft will try. Again. This time Microsoft's search challenger is called Bing.

Update: Go Bing yourself.

Female Doctors Hurt Productivity

In the National Post:

"The growing ranks of female physicians in Canada will slash medical productivity by the equivalent of at least 1,600 doctors within a decade, concludes a provocative new analysis of data indicating that female MDs work fewer hours on average than their male colleagues."

Updating The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

The latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as DSM-V, will be landing with a massive thunk on physicians', psychologists' and researchers' desktops in 2012, but until then, the American Psychiatric Association still has a lot of work to do in determining how the guide will be updated. That's because the current DSM-IV came out in 1994. And mercy how the world changes in 18 years. I doubt DSM-VI will wait until 2030.

Reversing Heart Failure With An Injection

University at Buffalo researchers have demonstrated for the first time that injecting adult bone marrow stem cells into skeletal muscle can repair cardiac tissue, reversing heart failure.

New Blood Test Sharpens Prostate Cancer Diagnosis

A new blood test - the six-gene molecular diagnostic test - used in combination with conventional prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening sharply increases the accuracy of prostate cancer diagnosis, accurately detecting prostate cancer more than 90 percent of the time.

The new test could eliminate tens of thousands of unneeded, painful, and costly prostate biopsies annually, according to a study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Earlier studies suggest that the conventional PSA test is 60-70 percent accurate in detecting cancer.

More prostate cancer links on the right sidebar.

Biocomputing - Teaching Bacteria To Count

Biomedical engineers at Boston University have taught bacteria how to count. Professor James J. Collins and colleagues have wired a new sequence of genes that allow the microbes to count discrete events, opening the door for a host of potential applications.

"These are such basic tools that it's really hard to say what thousand things they might be used for in the future," said Ari Friedland, a graduate student in Collins' lab and a co-author of the paper. "Consider computing – what does one transistor do for you? Not that much, but if you pack a few thousand onto a chip, then you really have some power. These are fundamental biocomputing devices."

Living computers in our lifetime. Imagine that.

Just For Fun - Girls Rock A Giant Piano

Sony CEO Proposes "Guardrails For the Internet"

Via SlashDot: "Micheal Lynton, the guy who said 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.' has posted an editorial at the Huffington Post titled Guardrails for the Internet, in which he defends his comment, and suggests that just as the interstate system needs guardrails, so too does the information superhighway."

Inside IMAX Cameras

There are only 26 IMAX film cameras in the world today. Mark Wilson over at Gizmodo got to see some of them and how they are built. One of them is a 3D camera that was taken into space to film the recent Hubble repair mission.

Conference Board Climb-down

"The Conference Board of Canada admits that its publicly funded, plagiarized, biased copyright "research" is junk."

Chrysler Dealer? Republican? Bye.

InstaPundit links to this story from the Washington Examiner:

"Evidence appears to be mounting that the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans."

It turns out Obama's “car czar” Steven Rattner, who is advising the White House on the Chrysler closures, is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party.

Gee, Mo... I don't suppose you'd have a list or something would you?

Update: A big roundup of blogospheric reaction from Secrets of Vancouver.

Another Update: What if it turns out that almost all US auto dealers are Republican? Does that blunt the charge of political profiling? The Examiner piece cited above has been amended with new argument and discussion. Glenn Reynolds cautions: "So don’t get carried away just yet."

I don't get it. If ensuring the viability and profitability of Chrysler is uppermost, why are they closing dealers?

Yet Another Update: Glenn Reynolds: "these charges were certainly plausible. But the evidence doesn’t seem to be there."

Yes, We'll Get Right On That Now

The UK Telegraph reports that Professor Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary and President Obama's energy adviser has suggested all the world's roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming. He said lightening roofs and roads in urban environments would offset the global warming effects of all the cars in the world for 11 years.

And he seems to be serious.

Honestly. You just can't make this stuff up. From the Telegraph's comments:

"I wonder if Secretary Chu has worked out the global warming footprint of (a) creating all of that paint; and (b) getting all of that paint to the work sites; and (c) hiring all of the labor to do all of this painting; and (d) getting all of the laborers to the worksite in their gas-guzzling trucks."

Not to mention resurfacing all the roads. And parking lots. And airports. And then there's the VOCs. Sheesh.

Altruistic Aliens Saved Earth In 1908

Awesomely awesome. Did a UFO deliberately crash into a meteor to save Earth in 1908? That's what one Russian scientist is claiming. Lots more here. (I'll bet you didn't know there is a Macedonian International News Agency). Be sure to check out the comments.

Chalk River Reactor Update - 3 Months

Crews have found the source of a heavy water leak at the Chalk River reactor in eastern Ontario, but more inspections will be needed before a repair plan can be worked out, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. said.

"We now believe that the NRU reactor will be out of service for at least three months."

The Chalk River reactor produces most of the radioactive istopes used in medical procedures in North America. Thousands of medical scans and treatments have been postponed.

Update: Greg Weston in today's Ottawa Sun:

"Canada's only medical isotope reactor will be out of service for the rest of the year and possibly forever, leaving thousands of desperate cancer and heart patients across the country with a shortage of nuclear scans and treatments."
"As one government official puts it, "that reactor has a cancer of its own -- spreading corrosion."

What Happened To Freedom Of Religion?

A pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home.

"If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?"

What about the First Amendment to the United States Constitution?

What Brand Of Leadership Is This?

I have avoided blogging about Nancy Pelosi (like the plague) but I can't let this Pelosi quote pass:

"We have so much room for improvement," she said. "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

What's she on about? Global warming. Where did she make this statement? Beijing.

I guess she figured the Chinese would understand the need to subject every aspect of one's life to an inventory. I wonder who she proposes to conduct these "inventories"?

Too Bad They're Canadian, Eh?

In the Wall Street Journal, Jim Fusilli writes: "The Tragically Hip has everything you'd want in a rock band: smart, distinctive songs; a sound to call its own; a live show that jolts the audience from its seats; and, in Gordon Downie, a front man who's been compared to Mick Jagger and Michael Stipe. The Hip's only problem: The band is Canadian."

Today's Top News Story

Riverdale rocked! After 65 years, Archie Andrews has proposed to Veronica Lodge.

In The Year Of 1941 The War Had Just Begun

The famous German battleship Bismarck was sunk 68 years ago today. Let's pick up the story with this mashup of vintage Kriegsmarine propaganda film and shots from the 1960 classic film "Sink The Bismarck!" all cut to the eponymous Johnny Horton hit.



Some of the model shots in the 1960 movie are pretty good. Others not so much now. Fifty years on, movie special effects are in a different universe. No CGI in those days. They did it all in front of the camera.

Excellent Bismarck history here at Wired.

Wargaming the NorKs

"Even the hawks say there’s not much America can do in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. military isn’t prepping for a war with the Kim Jong-Il regime, just in case."

Hmm. Could this be part of the reason why the North Koreans are so paranoid?

More On The Vaccine - Autism Flim Flam

Last week I blogged about profitable but false fear mongering that links measles vaccine with autism. Here's more:

"A report released by PLoS Biology traces the history of the vaccine-autism scare in the US, and suggests that both historic accident and poor public relations efforts on behalf of medical authorities have left a significant chunk of the US trusting personal anecdote instead of scientific analysis."

The Morality Of Animals

Professor Marc Bekoff of the University of Colorado Boulder, believes that morality is ‘hard-wired’ into the brains of mammals.

Berkoff, who presented his case in new book, Wild Justice, said morality provides the ‘social glue’ that allows often aggressive and competitive animals to live together in groups.

Is this why dolphins save humans from sharks?

Blogs: The Future Of News?

In his groundbreaking book An Army Of Davids, Glenn Reynolds wrote about how an army of individuals with mobile phones, portable cameras, and blogs would compete with traditional media and become a reliable and wide-ranging source of information.

In this report, Chris Willis and Shayne Bowman explain their concept of citizen journalism and how this bottom-up distribution approach could be the future of news.

Overfishing Driving Cod Evolution?

Over-fishing is causing cod to evolve faster than anyone had suspected it could, fisheries scientists in Iceland have discovered. This turbo-"Evolution" may be why the world's biggest cod fishery, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, crashed in the early 1990s and has yet to recover.

The Icelandic cod fishery, almost the only large cod fishery left anywhere in the world, is about to go the same way unless urgent conservation measures are applied, the scientists warn.

Coming from Newfoundland, I wish them luck.

How IBM Plans to Win Jeopardy!

IBM hopes to advance toward this objective with Watson, a computer system that will play Jeopardy!, the popular TV trivia game show, against human contestants. Demonstrations of the system are expected this year, with a final televised matchup--complete with hosting by the show's Alex Trebek--sometime next year.

Confabulatory Hypermnesia

Boing Boing links to a fascinating look at confabulatory hypermnesia, a rare disorder in which people with various kinds of amnesia (including amnesia resulting from alcoholism and Vitamin B1 deficiencies) invent a continuous stream of detailed, fictitious events to fill in the gaps in their memory.

I've met people like this. But I don't believe they had amnesia, though. Just the confabulatory bit.

General Motors Prepares To Founder

Robert Farago at The Truth About Cars has been insistently predicting this. And Friday, he says, it will happen.

What? No A/C Or Cupholders?

Everybody including me thought the Tata Nano, cheapest car in the world at US$2600 would fly off, er drive off the lots. Not so much. And it's not the economy. It's because the bottom of the line Nano is too hair shirty for even the newest of aspiring car owners. What's actually selling? Fully 50% of Nanos are upmarket version with air conditioning and cup holders. It appears even the masses want more than just a car for the masses. The Truth About Cars links to the New York Times (free login required).

"Peddlers Of Garbage"

The online edition of the London Times featured an essay yesterday titled "Climate change is the cholera of our era". The essay springs from a recent article in British medical journal The Lancet.

The response was quick. World renowned infectious disease expert Dr. Paul Reiter said "these peddlers of garbage quote a 1998 model by two activists whose work is ridiculed by those of us who work in this field."

Strong reaction indeed. And yet the cholera = global warming story made it into The Lancet and The Times. Via Tom Nelson.

Is Al Gore Here?

Did I miss something? Is Al Gore in St. John's? (Bill Clinton's here on Thursday.)

Last Friday I posted a photo of the early cherry blossoms in our garden. This shows the poor cherry blossoms this morning. Those blurry grey spots? Snow flakes.

The forecast for St. John's for today calls for snow flurries, rain, rain showers, cloudy periods, sunny periods, fog and it will be a bit windy. See? When people say you can have four seasons in one day in St. John's, it's true!

Reverse Credentialism

In the Wall Street Journal: "Securing work in a tight economy means more job seekers might find themselves applying for positions below their qualifications. Many unemployed professionals are willing to take paycuts for the promise of a paycheck. But to get a foot in the door, candidates are gearing down their résumés by hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles, shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and accolades."

This is sad. Also, that recruiter who is so worried about professionals "jumping ship" clearly shows little understanding of the job market that is causing these professionals to "dumb down" their hard-won credentials in the first place. They won't "jump ship" until the economy improves substantially.

Snowing In Newfoundland On May 26

St. John's Newfoundland 8AM EST May 26, 2009.
No Bermuda Shorts here. Nice RX-7, though.

Bermuda Shorts

In honour of Bermuda Day, Hemming's Auto Blogs salutes cars named for islands with some great vintage artwork. (You just know there's gotta be a Pontiac in here don't you.)

Smile, You're On Somebody's Camera

Zooming around in gigapixel images has got me thinking about the people who show up in these pictures. They are not necessarily the subjects but they have no idea they are being photographed. At least in urban settings it's likely that if you go outdoors at all you are on camera somewhere. Britain for example has eyes everywhere.

Gigapixel Photos

Here is a stunning 13 gigapixel - yes gigapixel - panorama of Harlem, NY. Be sure to use the zoom controls. Also be sure to check the link to Gerard Maynard's work as well. I have some more of these I'll post later.

Update: As promised: Mega Machu Picchu. This is a picture of a man taking a picture. Oh and some other stuff too.

And here's more from Gerard Maynard.

Some Good Economic News

"The world economy has avoided "utter catastrophe" and industrialized countries could register growth this year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said [today]."

Here Be Dragons

Villagers who lived for generations alongside the world's largest lizard were not afraid — until the dragons started to attack.

Diesel Drummers

Sweet Georgia Brown with diesel accompaniment has been around for awhile, but you probably have not seen Ole Hemmingssonn's er, trio. Rock-solid idle speeds make for perfect rhythm from these old oilers.

We Come In Peace... Bzzzzt.

Have Mars landers been destroying signs of life? Instead of identifying chemicals that could point to life, NASA's robot explorers may have been toasting them by mistake.

North Korea Nuke Test

No sooner than I post about the rise of Japanese militarism, this comes over the wire:

"SEOUL, May 24, 2009 (Reuters) — North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a ruling party official as saying.

YTN Television quoted the South Korean weather agency as saying it detected a tremor indicating a test at 0054 GMT (8:54 p.m. EDT)"

No wonder the Japanese are restive.

Japanese Militarism Awakens

From Reuters via News Daily: A Japanese ruling party panel is to propose that pre-emptive strikes against enemy bases be allowed despite the country's pacifist constitution.

"Japan should have the ability to strike enemy bases within the scope of its defense-oriented policy, in order not to sit and wait for death."

Where Have They Been Hiding?

"The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification ... report that 18,516 species new to science were discovered and described in 2007."

I take this as good news indeed.

Awesome Extreme Biking

Has to be seen to be believed. From the YouTube Info panel:

"Filmed over the period of a few months in and around Edinburgh by Dave Sowerby, this video of Inspired Bicycles team rider Danny MacAskill features probably the best collection of street/street trials riding ever seen. There's some huge riding, but also some of the most technically difficult and imaginative lines you will ever see. Without a doubt, this video pushes the envelope of what is perceived as possible on a trials bike."

Why Socialism Fails - Every Time

A short but illustrative parable from psychiatrist and columnist Michael Hurd.

The Price Of Stuff 40 Years Ago

Bill Shrink: "Much has changed since the legendary summer of 1969, both socially and economically. To analyze the variance in purchasing power between then and now, we have compared a number of popular consumer products by price that are still relevant today."

(By the way, people ask me why I don't have comments on my blog. A glance at the comments for this post should give you some insight.)

Indianapolis 500 Runs Today

Sports Illustrated is live-blogging the Indy 500.

Update: Emotional Castroneves scores 500 hat-trick

Vitamin D Good For Men's Brains

"University of Manchester scientists in collaboration with colleagues from other European centres have shown that higher levels of vitamin D – primarily synthesised in the skin following sun exposure but also found in certain foods such as oily fish – are associated with improved cognitive function in middle-aged and older men."

Good news for guys. And women?

“Previous studies exploring the relationship between vitamin D and cognitive performance in adults have produced inconsistent findings but we observed a significant, independent association between a slower information processing speed and lower levels of vitamin D.”

Should be good for women too.

Assisted Suicide - Almost

From the BBC: A passerby climbed up to a man threatening to jump off a bridge in Guangzhou Southern China. To say hello? No. To talk him down? No. What then? Why to toss him off the bridge for disrupting traffic, silly. Harsh, though.

Global Warming: Alarmed Or Dismissive Or In Between?

An interesting breakdown of global warming opinion in the US.

So Easy A Kid Could Do It

There's got to be a great commercial in this somewhere. A three-year old girl goes online and using her mother's auto logins buys a $15000 Kobelco power shovel.