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According to a new study coauthored by Stanford researcher Mark Z. Jacobson, we could accomplish all that by converting the world to clean, renewable energy sources and forgoing fossil fuels.

“Based on our findings, there are no technological or economic barriers to converting the entire world to clean, renewable energy sources,” said Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “It is a question of whether we have the societal and political will.”

He and Mark Delucchi, of the University of California-Davis, have written a two-part paper in Energy Policy in which they assess the costs, technology and material requirements of converting the planet, using a plan they developed.

The world they envision would run largely on electricity. Their plan calls for using wind, water and solar energy to generate power, with wind and solar power contributing 90 percent of the needed energy.

Geothermal and hydroelectric sources would each contribute about 4 percent in their plan (70 percent of the hydroelectric is already in place), with the remaining 2 percent from wave and tidal power.

Vehicles, ships and trains would be powered by electricity and hydrogen fuel cells. Aircraft would run on liquid hydrogen. Homes would be cooled and warmed with electric heaters – no more natural gas or coal – and water would be preheated by the sun.

Commercial processes would be powered by electricity and hydrogen. In all cases, the hydrogen would be produced from electricity. Thus, wind, water and sun would power the world.

But now there’s a new solution: cameras to watch the cameras.

One is already in place, and Prince George’s County Police Maj. Robert V. Liberati hopes to have up to a dozen more before the end of the year.

“It’s not worth going to jail over a $40 ticket or an arson or destruction of property charge,” says Liberati.

Liberati is the Commander of the Automated Enforcement Section, which covers speed and red-light cameras.

American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.

The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.

Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts.

According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and “lockdown”, under which movement is severely restricted.

Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy’s security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely.

Eight Americans, some from the military, were wounded in the attack which claimed the lives of Mr Stevens, Sean Smith, an information officer, and two US Marines. All staff from Benghazi have now been moved to the capital, Tripoli, and those whose work is deemed to be non-essential may be flown out of Libya.

The Fed said it will buy $40 billion of mortgages per month in an attempt to foster a nascent recovery in the real estate market. The purchases will be open-ended, meaning that they will continue until the Fed is satisfied that economic conditions, primarily in unemployment, improve.

The FISA Amendments Act, (.pdf) which is expiring at year’s end, allows the government to electronically eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and e-mails without a probable-cause warrant so long as one of the parties to the communication is believed outside the United States. The communications may be intercepted “to acquire foreign intelligence information.”

Windsor Regional Hospital oncologist Dr. Caroline Hamm admitted there wasn’t much she could for her chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) patient after rounds of chemotherapy.

The “little old lady” replied she’d “take care of it herself” with some dandelion root tea, and spread the word to another patient in the waiting room.

To Dr. Hamm’s surprise, the patients’ conditions improved, and one patient is still in remission 3 years after a steady diet of dandelion tea.

These results inspired Dr. Hamm to contact Dr. Siyaram Pandey, professor of biochemistry at the University of Windsor.

“I was very pessimistic,” says Dr. Pandey. “Two people doesn’t mean anything scientifically, but… I was surprised to find that simple aqueous extract of this root had pretty good activity in inducing cell suicide in cancer cells.”

Cell suicide, called apoptosis, is a process taking place in our body all the time. If cells are not needed or have damaged DNA, they effectively commit suicide.

“Cancer cells are the ones who evade this process… become resistant to cell death,” explains Dr. Pandey. His research looks to see if dandelion root extract can ‘remind’ the cancer cells to commit suicide, without killing off the healthy cells.

However, Dr. Pandey’s research suggested the amount of extract obtained from boiling the tea was not sufficient, and so his team started increasing the efficiency of extraction with actual dandelion root obtained from farmers.

“We have increased the potency of the extract,” he explains. “We are excited about it because it is a very simple natural extract, so it’s like you buying the vegetable and cooking it, basically, it is as simple as that, because we are not interfering with any chemicals.”

Preliminary research thus far involved collecting leukemia blood cells from the disposable tissue of nine patients (with their consent). It’s called an ex-vivo study, and took place in a culture dish with the dandelion extract of higher potency described by Dr. Pandey.

“All nine blood samples gave a good response that cancer cells committed suicide,” said Dr. Pandey. “In 48 hours, more than 70 per cent were committing suicide. If those cultures were kept for longer, all of them will die—this is our prediction.”

Dr. Pandey donated his own cells as a “healthy” comparison, and showed there was no toxicity and very few cells dying from the healthy blood sample. He explains they have already studied dandelion extract in animals, and found no apparent toxicity and no tissue malfunction.

Human trials

These findings were so encouraging, they have now applied for clinical approval from Health Canada to begin trials in people, which may take between 6 months to a year. Dr. Pandey says the University of Windsor trial will aim to include 24 patients.

While dandelion extracts have been documented as treatments for leukemia and breast cancer in traditional Native American Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Dr. Pandey is investigating other potential areas the extract could work. So far dandelion root extract has been shown to be active against pancreatic cancer cells, colon cancer cells and melanoma (in cultures, not in patients).

In addition to the potential to kill multiple types of cancer cells, dandelion root extract may have an advantage over other chemotherapy treatments in terms of toxicity.

Taxol is one of the most commonly used drugs for chemotherapy with a $5-billion market at present, according to Dr. Pandey. It’s also a natural product coming from the bark of the yew tree, but unlike dandelion root extract, Taxol is very damaging to normal cells.

After nearly two years and $86 million worth of noisy and disruptive construction, the West Wing has emerged from its visual seclusion remarkably unchanged. And deep underground, whatever has been built there remains shrouded in mystery.

Not only are these Americans more vulnerable to high fees and interest rates, but they are also cut off from credit to buy a car or a home or pay for college, the report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said.