Efficient Solar ‘Antenna’ to Tune in to the Sun
March 8th, 2013Via: Solar Power Today:
If it’s up to Brian Willis, we will soon quite literally be tuning in to the sun. The University of Connecticut professor has patented a technique to manufacture nanosized antenna arrays that have the capability to efficiently convert sunlight into usable electric power.
In theory, these very small antenna arrays can harvest over 70 percent of the sun’s electromagnetic radiation and convert it into electric power. These are called “rectennas” due to their ability to absorb the alternating current induced by sunlight and directly rectify it to direct current. In contrast to existing solar silicon solar panels which mainly work within a specified band gap, rectennas can be tuned to harvest sunlight in the whole solar spectrum which makes it very efficient.
F-35 Blind Spot Will Get It ‘Gunned Every Time’
March 8th, 2013Via: Wired:
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s expensive main warplane of the future, has a huge blind spot directly behind it. Pilots say that could get them shot down in close-quarters combat, where the flier with the better visibility has the killing advantage.
“Aft visibility could turn out to be a significant problem for all F-35 pilots in the future,” the Pentagon acknowledged in a report (.pdf) obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C. watchdog group.
That admission should not come as a surprise to observers of the Joint Strike Fighter program. Critics of the delayed, over-budget F-35 — which is built in three versions for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — have been trying for years to draw attention to the plane’s blind spot, only to be dismissed by the government and Lockheed Martin, the Joint Strike Fighter’s primary builder.
‘The Coming Surveillance Dystopia’
March 8th, 2013I wasn’t going to post this. You know all of this, or, at least you should, if you’ve been hanging out here for any length of time.
But, Holder, “Dressed like Elvis and surrounded by the Real Housewives of Orange County,” won me over.
Must share.
Via: The Verge:
Assuming that some degree of privacy is still possible, most people don’t seem to think it’s worth the effort. The cypherpunks and their ilk fought to keep things like the PGP encryption program legal — and we don’t use them. We know Facebook and Google leak our personal online habits like a sieve and we don’t make much effort to cover our tracks. Perhaps some of us buy the good citizen cliché that if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about, but most of us are just opting for convenience. We’ve got enough to deal with day to day without engaging in a privacy regimen. Occasionally, some slacker may lose his job because he posted a photo of himself cradling his bong or the like, but as with civil liberties more generally, as long as the daily outrages against individuals don’t reach epic proportions, we rubberneck in horror and then return to our daily activities.
Beneath this complacent surface lies a disquieting and mostly unexamined question. To what degree is the ubiquity of state surveillance a form of intimidation, a way to keep people away from social movements or from directly communicating their views?
Do you hesitate before liking WikiLeaks on Facebook?
Throughout its entire history, the FBI has used secret intelligence operations to spy on, disrupt, and otherwise target activists and groups it considered subversive (mostly on the political left). The most notorious incidents occurred between 1956 and 1971, under the umbrella of COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program). When the FBI’s activities were revealed first in 1971 and later, more fully by the 1976 Church Committee, no politically astute person shrugged it off. It was understood without question that mega surveillance of political activists was an act of suppression period, full stop.
Part of the shock of the COINTELPRO revelations was the FBI’s engagement in illegal activities to destroy political organizations. The government’s violation of its own surveillance laws even trumped the desire to punish the “symbolic bombings” of the Weather Underground. Since the FBI used illegal breaking and entering surveillance in an attempt to destroy the radical group, the leaders received light sentences when they emerged from underground. The same FBI techniques, once illegal, are undoubtedly so legal now under anti-terrorism laws that US Attorney General Holder could conduct the searches personally, dressed like Elvis and surrounded by the Real Housewives of Orange County in front of the cameras on a popular reality show.
We have, perhaps, already let the surveillance culture slide too long.
It’s not as though the spirit of COINTELPRO has left us. Jacob Appelbaum, who has never been accused of any crime, has been subjected to relentless harassment, starting in the summer of 2010, when he was held up at Newark Airport where he was frisked, his laptop was inspected, and his three mobile phones were taken. He was then passed along to US Army officials for four hours of questioning. One army interrogator told him, menacingly, “You don’t look like you’re going to do so well in prison.” Several contacts found on the confiscated cell phones were then also given a hard time at airports and border crossings. In December of that year he was — along with other WikiLeaks activists — one of the subjects of a court order that compelled Twitter to let the feds snoop inside his account. (He only knows this because Twitter won a petition to be able to inform the subjects.) He has since been continually harassed by airport security and has been detained at the US border twelve times.
That this harassment is happening to someone who hasn’t been charged with a crime is particularly frightening.
Japan: 26 Generations of Clones from Single Mouse
March 8th, 2013Via: AFP:
Japanese scientists have produced 26 generations of clones from a single mouse, the lead researcher said Friday, possibly paving the way for the mass replication of valuable livestock.
The team have so far produced 598 mice that are genetic copies of one original creature in an experiment that has so far been going for seven years, said Teruhiko Wakayama of the Riken Center for Developmental Biology.
“This is by far the largest cloning project using a mammal,” he told AFP.
“By applying our study, mass reproduction of prized animals should become possible even after the original animals die,” he said.
Reliable methods for cloning over an extended number of generations could be a boon to farmers who have, for example, a cow that produces a lot of milk, or an animal that is expected to produce particularly high-quality meat.
Natural breeding does not guarantee that an animal’s offspring will have the same qualities, but a clone is an exact copy.
Wakayama has significantly improved on existing capabilities that had a low success rate and tended only to last for a few generations.
House Orders Pentagon to Disclose Domestic Drone Use
March 8th, 2013Via: Cnet:
The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to require the Defense Department to disclose whether military drones are being operated domestically to conduct surveillance on American citizens.
A requirement buried in a lengthy appropriations bill calls on newly confirmed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to disclose to Congress what “policies and procedures” are in place “governing the use” of military drones or other unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) domestically. The report is due no later than 90 days after the bill is signed into law.
Moon Mining Race Under Way
March 8th, 2013Via: BBC:
Space exploration has long been about reaching far off destinations but now there is a race to exploit new frontiers by mining their minerals.
Google has offered a $20m grand prize to the first privately-funded company to land a robot on the moon and explore the surface by moving at least 500 metres and send high definition video back to Earth by 2015.
A second-placed team stands to win $5m for completing the same mission, with bonus prizes for travelling more than 5km, finding water and discovering any traces of man’s past on the moon, such as the Apollo site.
Alastair Leithead visited the test laboratory of Moon Express, one of 25 companies vying to win the prize.
Scientists Enhance Intelligence of Mice with Human Brain Cells
March 8th, 2013😯
Via: io9:
It’s not quite Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but it may not be too far off, either. By grafting human glial cells into the brains of mice, neuroscientists were able to “sharply enhance” their cognitive capacities. These improvements included augmentations to memory, learning, and adaptive conditioning. It’s a breakthrough that could yield important insights into the treatment of human brain disorders.
To conduct the experiment, the scientists created human chimeric mice — mice that were endowed with human glial cells.
Some Farmers Fed Up with Paying Premium Prices for GM Seeds that Result in Increased Pest Resistance and Crop Failures
March 8th, 2013It would be nice to know a bit more detail about what “some U.S. farmers” means.
Via: Farmers Weekly:
Some US farmers are considering returning to conventional seed after increased pest resistance and crop failures meant GM crops saw smaller yields globally than their non-GM counterparts.
Farmers in the USA pay about an extra $100 per acre for GM seed, and many are questioning whether they will continue to see benefits from using GMs.
“It’s all about cost benefit analysis,” said economist Dan Basse, president of American agricultural research company AgResource.
“Farmers are paying extra for the technology but have seen yields which are no better than 10 years ago. They’re starting to wonder why they’re spending extra money on the technology.”
Research Credit: almaverdad2
Operation Condor
March 8th, 2013Via: Democracy Now:
A historic trial underway in Argentina is set to reveal new details about how Latin American countries coordinated with each other in the 1970s and ’80s to eliminate political dissidents. The campaign known as “Operation Condor” involved military dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. They worked together to track down, kidnap and kill people they labeled as terrorists: leftist activists, labor organizers, students, priests, journalists, guerrilla fighters and their families. The campaign was launched by the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and evidence shows the CIA and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were complicit from its outset. We’re joined by John Dinges, author of “The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents.” The book brings together interviews and declassified intelligence records to reconstruct the once-secret events.
Research Credit: ottilie
Maine Town Declares Food Sovereignty
March 8th, 2013Via: Food Renegade:
Sedgwick, Maine has done what no other town in the United States has done. The town unanimously passed an ordinance giving its citizens the right “to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing.” This includes raw milk, locally slaughtered meats, and just about anything else you can imagine. It’s also a decided bucking of state and federal laws.
From David Gumpert’s coverage:
This isn’t just a declaration of preference. The proposed warrant added, “It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” In other words, no state licensing requirements prohibiting certain farms from selling dairy products or producing their own chickens for sale to other citizens in the town.
What about potential legal liability and state or federal inspections? It’s all up to the seller and buyer to negotiate. “Patrons purchasing food for home consumption may enter into private agreements with those producers or processors of local foods to waive any liability for the consumption of that food. Producers or processors of local foods shall be exempt from licensure and inspection requirements for that food as long as those agreements are in effect.” Imagine that–buyer and seller can agree to cut out the lawyers. That’s almost un-American, isn’t it?
I applaud the residents of Sedgwick for making such a bold stand. Three other Maine towns are also slotted to vote on a similar ordinance in the coming weeks.
