Like my main one, a big 4MB beauty I found at www.fabiovisentin.com
Or this contrasting pair of African maps - colonized, and tribal
Here's a Future Map of North America, according to Gordon Michael Scallion, of matrixinstitute.com. Watch out for 2012...
Here's a clickable and zoomable map of the Moon...
Via updates in technology, we have an improved map of the Human Brain and a new 3-D map of Mars
Here's a very cool world map of Podcasters. Represent your feed!
Check out this cool map of UFO sites...
Here's a map of Central America and the Caribbean from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Univ. of Texas...
Here'a a community area map of the greater Los Angeles megacity...
From the CIA, a 1.3 MB map of Iraq, and a 1.6 MB NIMA map of Baghdad, from the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, Univ. of Texas...
Here's an 1805 allegorical map of "The Paths of Life" that outlines the different potential courses that a person's life can take...
"The United Countries of Baseball" shows the territories of the different American and National league teams...
The "Map of BCS Conferences" shows the names and locations of the college football teams that make up the different conferences, plus the Independent schools...
new map: U.S. Per-Capita CO2 Emissions
In April 08, Purdue scientists have released a high-resolution map of American per-capita carbon dioxide emissions. It shows the amount of carbon dioxide produced in 100 square kilometer regions of the United States divided by the number of residents in that area.
I'm using a much smaller version,
but you can download the full eight megabyte ultra-high-resolution file here.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 142
Geeknotes:
Brad Wilson
APP Group Feed
Two CPS Items
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
West coast bluesman Brad Wilson sent me a web page flyer with lots of links and tour dates and music. Cool..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
APP Group Feed
Simon Toon, of SlamIdol, Podcast User Magazine and APP, has been working on a group feed for all the shows on APP for almost two years, and now we have a beautiful feed using Yahoo Pipes, showing the great global diversity of our poetry podcasts...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two items from the Chicago Poetry Scene (Thanks, CJ)
The deadline for submission into Poetry Cram 2 has been
bumped up a couple of days to May 26, due to the
great response. If you would like to submit a
poem for consideration here is the link:
The Chicago City Council was gonna meet on Wed. to vote on an ordinance creating a BS "Promoters License," something Mayor Richie Daley and the alderpersons tried before in the 90s, to regulate poetry open mics and small performance spaces out of existence, well anyway, this time they want to make it more difficult and sometimes impossible for responsible concert organizers to present music at many legitimate licensed venues in Chicago. The Promoters License would cost between $500 and $2,000 every two years, you'd have to submit to fingerprinting and a criminal background check, and secure as much as $300,000 in liability insurance and be at least 21 years old, that's all.
Lot of musicians, small club owners, poets, and fans got very pissed off, protests and a nasty Council session was predicted, but on Tuesday, the measure was tabled and sent back to the committee, meaning the Mayor blinked. Cool.
Anyway, you can read all about it on Jim DeRogatis' blog on the Chicago Sun-Times, dated May 13th.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CCTV Boom has Failed to Slash UK Crime
Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. "CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There's no fear of CCTV. Why don't people fear it? [They think] the cameras are not working."
More training was needed for officers, he said. Often they do not want to find CCTV images "because it's hard work". Sometimes the police did not bother inquiring beyond local councils to find out whether CCTV cameras monitored a particular street incident.
The head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard has launched a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence. They include:
Using technology developed by the sports advertising industry to track and identify offenders.
Putting images of suspects in muggings, rape and robbery cases out on the internet, starting next month.
Building a national CCTV database, incorporating pictures of convicted offenders as well as unidentified suspects. The plans for this have been drawn up, but are on hold while the technology required to carry out automated searches is refined.
How to Locate Pinhole Cameras
Instructables has just posted its latest installment in its collection of HOWTOs inspired by my new novel Little Brother, a young adult book about hacker kids who use technology to win back their civil liberties from the Department of Homeland Security.
This week, it’s instructions for building a simple device that will let you spot hidden “pinhole” video cameras:
With one hand, hold up the toilet paper tube to your eye. With your other hand, hold up the flashlight at about eye level and point it away from you. With one eye, look through the tube and scan the room. If there are any small points of light bouncing back, inspect it further. It might be a camera.
Motion-Capture Suits Will
Spice Up Virtual Sex
No matter how beautiful the sex animations are in your favorite virtual playground, they can’t compete with the movement of your own body.
How soon will we be slipping gracefully into motion-capture suits or using 3-D cameras to capture those uniquely natural moves and engage our entire bodies in online sexual adventures, rather than limping along with keyboard and mouse? Sooner than you might think.
Kevin Alderman, who’s already infamous for the sex animations his company Strokerz Toyz creates for Second Life, is developing a wireless, consumer-level motion-capture suit that’s expected to hit shelves in 2009.
“Right now only a dozen or so sites on the web offer downloadable mocap files,” Alderman says. “You have to wait until some studio becomes benevolent enough to make the animations you want, or you have to engage them for your specific needs.”
Personal motion-capture suits will enable residents to contribute sex animations to the world of their choice — and to develop scenarios tailored to their own deepest desires, especially if they team up with others who also have the suits. It’s the bridge between today’s expensive studio mocap and the real-time avatar control of tomorrow...
Europe Recruits Astronauts
for Possible Moon Missions
By Hazel Muir
The European Space Agency has launched a lively campaign to recruit talented new astronauts for future missions to the International Space Station, the Moon and possibly beyond.
ESA hopes to inject some young blood into its astronaut corps. Currently Europe has only eight astronauts, with an average age of 50. The agency wants to recruit four more, ideally aged 27 to 37.
"If we have a Moon programme and if Europe commits to participating in that, I anticipate that one of those who we are selecting now will walk on the Moon," says Gerhard Thiele, head of ESA's astronaut corps.
On Thursday, ESA held a press conference at London's Science Museum to kick off the recruitment campaign in the UK. Alan Thirkettle, ESA's programme manager for the space station, said the "inspirational" astronaut programme aims to drive technological development and economic competitiveness across the continent.
"We want the youth of Europe to be interested in science, mathematics and engineering, and go into these careers whether it's in space or not," he said. "The astronauts are a focal point – they're icons for that inspiration."
The agency will target two key types of candidate. One is scientists and engineers; the other is pilots who fly sophisticated jet aircraft. Successful applicants must also have various personality traits, including high motivation and gregariousness.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 141
Geeknotes:
Flag Graphs
Cram Volume 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's an interesting artist installation:
“Meet the World,” a series of “flag graphs” by 25-year-old Brazilian artist Icaro Doria:
"We started to research relevant, global, and current facts and, thus, came up with the idea to put new meanings to the colours of the flags. We used real data taken from the websites of Amnesty International and the UNO."
Click the pic for an 8-flag sample.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ChicagoPoetry.com is now accepting submissions for
Cram Volume 2. Cram Volume 2 will be released
Saturday and Sunday, June 7 and 8, at the
Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Tent during the Printers
Row Book Fair. A free copy will also be given to
everyone in the audience during the Chicago Poetry
Showcase, sponsored by ChicagoPoetry.com,
happening during the book fair on Sunday, June 8,
from 3:30 to 5:30 PM. Then Cram Volume 2 will be
distributed free to the public everywhere
possible. This is a wonderful opportunity to get
your poetry into the hands of a lot of people.
This one is a first come / first included
opportunity. I will be collecting submissions
until all spots in Volume 2 are filled or until
the deadline of May 28, 2008 expires (whichever
comes first). There are still some spots
available, so don't delay.
Poetry Cram Magazine, published by
ChicagoPoetry.com Press, is a wonderful idea that
is crazy enough to work. Cram is not funded by
government grants or by corporations. It has great
karma because the people who love poetry the most,
the poets, fund it. The money that the poets chip
in goes toward the printing of Cram. The more
poets who participate, the more copies of Cram can
be printed. When more copies are printed, more
people get it for free and read it. This
guarantees that your poetry will find its way into
the hands of the people. Let's face it! People
rarely ever buy poetry books, but people love to
get free stuff. Cram is not going to sit in a box
and collect dust because we are giving it away!
Isn't that crazy?
Compare Cram to this similar competition. This
year, the Poetry Center of Chicago charged the
exact same entry fee for submission into their
Juried Reading competition. Two-hundred and fifty
people entered that competition but only eight,
that's right, eight were chosen to be included in
Dancing Girl Press's "pay-to-play" chapbook. The
rest of the entry fees were not refunded. Guess
what. If your poem is not selected for inclusion
in Cram, you get your money back! How crazy is
that?
The Café Poetry Venue
Charlie Newman, Host
Presents
OMNIPHONIC
Tom Roby, Poems
Lem Roby, Guitars
The Sounds of Poems
The Poetry of Sounds
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
(Open Mike at 8:00 PM, Feature Follows)
5115 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL
also featuring
Sandy Goldsmith's Au Revoir Party
Sandy will offer a selection of her poems for anyone who wants to read one
during the open mike set
Lem will improv guitar synthesizer backups for any open mike poet that
would like them. If you are interested, speak to him before the
performances begin
===========================
Sistas in the Arts!
presents
AquaMoon's newest two-womon show
an experiment in popular culture -
(r)evolutionary radio for the stage...
"The Show Up and Side Kick Radio Show"
U gotta show up 4 tha herb or u may b kicked 2 tha curb...herb is
knowledge, not drugs.
Join us as we introduce u 2 radio waves that r betta aligned wit yo
frequency...
Also, featured photography by India
When: Saturday, May 24
Where: Mercury Cafe (1505 W. Chicago)
Time: 8:30pm @ Mercury Cafe. 1505 W. Chicago.
Cover: $10 Cover (...but, as usual, no one is turned away)
This month we commemorate National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month and
National Mental Health Month.
==========================
RHINO POETRY WORKSHOP
and peer exchange
sponsored by RHINO/the Poetry Forum
COME AND TRY OUT YOUR NEW WORK ON US!
Evanston Public Library
Church & Orrington
1:30-4:30 -- Room 108
Past leaders and readers and all poets welcome. Drop in, have poems
critiqued, and participate in an ongoing discussion of poetry and poetics.
Sessions are free* and no registration is required.
Sunday, MAY 18th, 2008
Leader: Danielle Aquiline
Danielle graduated from the MFA program in poetry at Columbia College
Chicago. In addition to teaching writing at Columbia College, Danielle
currently teaches poetry to elementary students through the Chicago Poetry
Center's Hands on Stanzas program. She is also the editorial assistant for
College Composition and Communication. Her poetry has recently appeared or
is forthcoming in RHINO, Black Clock, Yemassee, DIAGRAM, Bellingham
Review, Bloom and Gay & Lesbian Review. She lives in Andersonville with
her partner, Sona, two cats, two hamsters and two dwarf bunnies.
Danielle’s Topic: Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant: Valuing Music,
Discovering Lies
This is all about bending the truth in poems - and looking at Richard
Hugo's "Triggering Town" essays on the topic. Is it moral? Is it a
valid poetic technique?
Bring 15 or more copies (no longer than two pages) of work you want
critiqued.
*$5 donation appreciateD
This project is partially supported by grants from the Evanston Arts
Council, a city agency supported by
the City of Evanston, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
POWELL'S NORTH READING SERIES
THURSDAY, MAY 15 (7:00 p.m.)
POWELL'S BOOKSTORE
2850 N. LINCOLN (773) 248-1444
Please join us at the next Powell's North Bookstore reading on Thursday,
May 15, 2008 at 7:00 p.m. for a reading featuring the poet Dan
Beachy-Quick. We will also hear work by emerging authors, Erin O'Neill
and Kristen Courtney Phillip, both graduate students in the Writing
Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Dan Beachy-Quick the author of three books of poetry, North True South
Bright (Alice James Books, 2003), Spell (Ahsahta Press, 2004), and
Mulberry (Tupelo Press, 2006). A Whaler's Dictionary (Milkweed Editions,
2008) and This Nest, Swift Passerine (Tupelo Press, 2009) are forthcoming.
His poems have appeared widely, in such journals as The Boston Review,
The New Republic, Fence, Poetry, VOLT, and New American Writing. His
essays and reviews have appeared in The Southern Review, Rain Taxi, The
Denver Quarterly and elsewhere. A recipient of a Lannan Foundation
Residency, Dan currently teaches at Colorado State and is the Poetry
Advisor for the literary journal A Public Space.
Powell's North is sponsored by the Writing Program at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago and Powell's Bookstore. Each reading pairs an
established poet, fiction, or non-fiction writer from around the nation
with one or two emerging writers in an event that exposes the community to
a dynamic variety of work from writers at different stages in their
career.
Please join us on Monday June 9th for a reading featuring Nam Le, author
of The Boat (Knopf: Borzoi). Nam will be introduced by Eula Biss, author
of The Balloonist (Hanging Loose Press). Emerging authors will be Devin
Bustin and Sarah Rosenblum. A review of The Boat can be found in the
April/May issue of Bookforum
(http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_01/2262)
Last year, Brave New Foundation remembered and honored the origins of Mother's Day in this short online video. Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." In 1870 Howe was the first to proclaim Mother's Day, with her Mother's Day Proclamation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Survey: Women are Better Managers
Women make better business leaders than men in all but two areas of management but men have the upper hand when it comes to focusing on the bottom line, according to an Australian survey released on Monday.
Data collected from 1,800 Australian female and male chief executive officers and managers found women exhibit more strategic drive, risk taking, people skills and innovation and equalled men in the area of emotional stability.
But men came out on top when it came to command and control of management operations and focusing on financial returns...
Laser May Boost Search
For Earthlike Planets
Scientists at the University of Konstanz in Germany and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated an ultrafast laser that offers a record combination of high speed, short pulses and high average power. The same NIST group also has shown that this type of laser, when used as a frequency comb—an ultraprecise technique for measuring different colors of light—could boost the sensitivity of astronomical tools searching for other Earthlike planets as much as 100 fold.
The dime-sized laser, to be described Thursday, May 8, at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics,* emits 10 billion pulses per second, each lasting about 40 femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second), with an average power of 650 milliwatts. For comparison, the new laser produces pulses 10 times more often than a standard NIST frequency comb while producing much shorter pulses than other lasers operating at comparable speeds. The new laser is also 100 to 1000 times more powerful than typical high-speed lasers, producing clearer signals in experiments. The laser was built by Albrecht Bartels at the Center for Applied Photonics of the University of Konstanz.
Perfecting An Artificial Pancreas
Prick finger. Test blood. Inject insulin. For millions of people around the world, this painful and tedious cycle is all that stands between relative health and the ravages of diabetes, a disease known to cause blindness, kidney failure, and death. Joseph P. Kennedy hopes that a specially coated metal tube, no larger than a cigarette, will someday put an end to all that.
Courtesy of Joseph Kennedy
Kennedy, a professor of chemistry and polymer science at the University of Akron, in Ohio, calls the device a bioartificial pancreas. He spoke about its construction during a presentation in the Division of Polymer Chemistry at the American Chemical Society national meeting in New Orleans last month.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 180 million people worldwide have diabetes, and that number is expected to double by 2030. An artificial pancreas, Kennedy says, "would have immense socioeconomic significance..."
California: Veggie Oil-Powered
“Grease Car” Owners Are Scofflaws
Californians who converted their cars to run on vegetable oil pride themselves for saving gas money, as well as promoting alternative or “greener” fuels. Unfortunately, they are also learning that no good deeds go unpunished, especially by the gub’ment:
Dave Eck, a Half Moon Bay mechanic, had attracted a media spotlight with his fleet of vehicles fueled by used fryer grease from a local chowder house. So when Sacramento called, he figured officials wanted advice on promoting alternative fuels. Not at all. The government rang to notify Eck that he was a tax cheat.
He was scolded for failing to get a “diesel fuel supplier’s license,” reporting quarterly how many gallons of grease he burns, and paying a tax on each gallon. The regulations are so burdensome that even Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, trying to set an example for Californians by driving a Hummer that burns cooking oil he buys at Costco, had not complied. The governor's staff says it is working on making it easier to drive using vegetable oil without being an outlaw.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 140
Geeknotes:
ReelWork May Day Labor Film Festival
Two Men Kissing, A Film by Waide Riddle
The Other Clinton Terrorist Clemency Scandal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7th Annual ReelWork 2008 May Day Labor Film Festival
The Reel Work May Day Labor Film Festival takes place in California's central coast communities in and around Santa Cruz each year during the week of May 1st.
Reel Work presents cultural events, bringing together award-winning documentary film producers, workers, activists, students, and the public with the goal of increasing community awareness of the central role of work in our lives, to discuss economic and global justice issues, and to bring alive the history and culture of the labor movement in the US and abroad. They highlight how workers and community members band together in united effort for mutual benefit to achieve justice and dignity in the streets, fields, and workshops.
Cinematic representations of labor each year include local and international works, world premieres as well as classics. They inspire festival participants to join in the struggle for worker rights locally, nationally and globally to achieve social justice and international solidarity.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From Waide Riddle:
In 1995 I wrote a poem,"Two Men Kissing". It went on to win 2 North American poetry awards in 1996 & 1997. It was my hope and intension to one day adapt it to screen.
Fast forward...
On December 15th, I shot my 8 minute film in a matter of 12 hours on HD Video: 3 p.m.- 3 a.m.
Fast forward... Today...
My film "Two Men Kissing" has been selected for screening at:
International Festival of Film: South Africa 2008
International Festival of Film: Cairo, Egypt 2009
Palm Springs International Festival of Short Film 2008
Cannes Film Festival: Short Film Corner 2008
I will leave for Cannes, France on May 11th to represent my film for buyers and screenings for approx. a week. I will be in the American Pavilion during the day light hours- it is a 'hot zone' for the internet, so e- mail if you'd like.
To access my films page via Cannes, www.shortfilmcorner.com, click the 'flag' icon at top of page for English, then click 'films', then for catalog, type in my name or the film title and it will take you directly there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Other Clinton Terrorist Clemency Scandal
A sneak preview of what Republicans will say about Hillary Clinton in the fall, if she wins the Democratic nomination.
An examination of the controversial clemency granted to convicted terrorists in the waning days of the B. Clinton Presidency, and the early days of the H. Clinton New York Senate campaign.
From "Hillary: The Movie," featuring Dick Morris, who was the Clinton's pollster & chief strategist immediately prior to Mark Penn.
This clip is also notable in that it includes an image of Sen. Clinton wearing a very large Puerto Rican flag pin while neglecting to wear an American flag pin of any size. It's impossible to imagine the GOP making an issue of something like that, isn't it?
This item came from a random seach engine query on the term "cold plasma," and this timely article, published this week, appeared:
At the forefront of cold plasma research is Dr. Mounir Laroussi, director of the Laser and Plasma Engineering Institute at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Laroussi has developed a "plasma pencil," a handheld device which produces a small two inch plume of helium plasma at one end.
The effective heat dissipation of the helium keeps the plasma cool and stable, allowing it's application to sensitive surfaces such as skin. Although the pencil won't destroy mammalian skin cells, it has been shown to effectively kill E. coli and salmonella, among other harmful bacteria.
The plasma pencil could provide a safe new medical technology for easily disinfecting wounds, and in the future could be developed to remove plaque, or kill cancerous skin cells...
CSI 2.0: Faster than DNA
"Federal researchers say they've developed a human identification test that's faster and possibly cheaper than DNA testing," according to the AP. "It would be a handy new weapon in the arsenal for detectives, forensic experts and the military, though no one expects it to replace DNA analysis — and its promoters say it is not intended to."
The new method analyzes antibodies. Each person has a unique antibody bar code that can be gleaned from blood, saliva or other bodily fluids. Antibodies are proteins used by the body to fend off viruses or perform routine physiological housekeeping.
"DNA is a physical code that describes you ... and in many ways so are your antibodies," said Dr. Vicki Thompson (right), a chemical engineer at the Idaho National Laboratory who's been working with other researchers to perfect the test for the past 10 years. The scientists say an antibody profile can yield results faster and more cheaply and be performed in the field with minimal training.
However, a major drawback for now is the lack of a national antibody database...
Engineers find 'missing link' of electronics
Nanoscale circuits based on molecules used in sunscreen lotion have led to the discovery of the "missing link" of electronics engineering – a previously mythical device known as a "memristor".
First predicted in 1971, the memristor could help develop denser memory chips or even electronic circuits that mimic the synapses of the human brain, says Stan Williams who made the discovery with colleagues at Hewlett-Packard's lab in Palo Alto, California.
In 1971, a young circuit designer called Leon Chua at the University of California, Berkeley, was toying with the non-linear mathematics that describes how the four variables in a circuit – voltage, current, charge and flux – behave in the three basic elements. His calculations showed there should be a fourth device to directly link flux and charge.
Chua showed that his predicted device could remember the last voltage applied to it, and how long it had been applied. He dubbed the property "memristance" but the memristor was quietly forgotten because it was unclear how it could ever be built.
But Williams' team has now done just that, using nanoscale circuits including molecules of the active ingredient of sunscreen – titanium dioxide...
Simple brain exercise can boost IQ
Can mental training improve your intelligence? No video game or mental puzzle has convincingly been shown to work. But now a group of neuropsychologists claims it has found a task that can add points to a person's IQ – and the harder you train, they say, the more you gain.
So-called "fluid intelligence", or Gf, is the ability to reason, solve new problems and think in the abstract. It correlates with professional and educational success and it appears to be largely genetic.
Past attempts to boost Gf have suggested that, although by training you can achieve great gains on the specific training task itself, those gains don't transfer to other tasks.
Now Susanne Jaeggi at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, US, and her colleagues say that is not true. They invited 70 healthy adults to participate in a challenging training exercise known as the "dual n-back" task.
Jaeggi's volunteers were trained daily for about 20 minutes for either 8, 12, 17 or 19 days (with weekends off). They were given IQ tests both before and after the training.
The researchers found that the IQ of trained individuals increased significantly more than controls – and that the more training people got, the higher the score.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 139
Geeknotes:
StudioTraxx.com
N Carolina GOP's Anti-Obama Ad
How Hillary Can Still Win
Father Michael Pfleger Pwns Fox News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A little bit about us... Featured in Mix Magazine,
StudioTraxx.com is revolutionizing the studio musician-for-hire
industry with a unique online "collaboration and commerce"
business model. Our mission is simple - unite those who
need music services with those that provide music services.
Over 2,000 high quality musicians have made StudioTraxx.com
their online studio home and are offering "virtual" services
in every genre and skillset. These services range from full
arrangement backing tracks to engineering to cello to drum
programming and filmscore composition. Musicians and studios
can now offer their skills as "virtual" services to a global
client base!
If you are a working musician seeking broader opportunities, we
encourage you to sign up! Likewise, if you need quality studio
musicians for your next project, look no further!
There are no costs to join the site. Creating an account is FREE!
For more information, please visit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
N Carolina GOP's Anti-Obama Ad
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How Hillary Can Still Win
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Father Michael Pfleger Pwns Fox News
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Low Carbon Diet
This Earth Day, Bon Appetit proposed a challenge to every one of us to reduce our carbon “foodprints” by 25 percent, because just our foodprints — all the energy it takes to grow, process, transport and prepare food — are responsible for ONE-THIRD of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Bon Appetit is serious about its challenge and it has started its campaign by giving us some help: a Low Carbon Diet calculator!
Bon Appetit, a food service corporation, challenged other members of the food and restaurant industry, as well, to reducing their carbon foodprints by 25 percent. At its own cafes, Bon Appetit will introduce Low Carbon meals next week that are designed to have the greatest impact on climate change. Low Carbon menus will feature a preference for local and seasonable foods, with reduction in meat and cheeses, tropical fruits, and a reduction of food and packaging waste. By 2009, Bon Appetit will eliminate all air-freighted seafood.
These are the important tips to reduce carbon foodprints from Bon Appetit:
Top 5 Low Carbon Diet Tips
1. You Bought It, You Eat It - Don’t Waste Food
When you waste food, you waste the energy used to grow, transport and cook it. In landfills, food waste releases methane gas, a highly potent greenhouse gas. Buy and prepare only the food you expect to eat. If you don’t finish it all in one sitting, save the leftovers.
2. Make “Seasonal and Regional” Your Food Mantra
Foods that are in season in your region are generally lower in carbon. Those should be your first choice. Be careful not to buy produce grown in greenhouses or hot-houses heated with non-renewable energy even if they’re close to you.
3. Moooove Away From Beef and Cheese
Livestock creates 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. If you eat meat and cheese, consider reducing portion sizes, selecting these items less frequently, and eating only those products you REALLY love.
4. Stop Flying Fish and Fruit - Don’t Buy Air-Freighted Food
For seafood and out of season produce, “fresh” often means “air-flown” which is 10 times more emission-intensive than transporting products by ship. The best quality seafood is usually ‘processed and frozen at sea’ and local produce tastes better.
5. If It’s Processed and Packaged, Skip It
Snack foods, most juices, even veggie burgers (prepared, boxed, frozen and transported) consume a lot of energy. We eat this stuff mindlessly. When you need a treat or an “easy grab,” choose fresh local fruit, small quantities of nuts, and delicious homemade alternatives.
Interesting stuff! And you can learn a lot more by visiting the Bon Appetit website and using the Low Carbon Diet calculator.
Thirst Aid – On-The-Fly Water Purification
The human body is surprisingly intolerant when you let hydration levels drop too far and you’d be surprised how quickly a disaster can rob you of what you take for granted. Flooding is a common phenomena, as are hurricanes, earthquakes, bushfires, war and throw in a few rarer pestolences and natural disasters like global pandemics and tsunamis, and sometimes it’s worth assessing what you might need when the world goes pear shaped.
The first thing you need is access to clean water - without it, you won’t last long in any environment. Floods can contaminate everything you have, including your water supply.
Accordingly, Pure Hydration’s Thirst Aid begins to make a lot of sense. If you’re ever inclined to go adventuring, particularly where the water is dodgy or outright dangerous, the robust pouch is light and does the job on the spot - just pour in the dirty water, wait a while, and then squeeze out the clean water. Good for 300 litres.
Scientists Figure Out How To Grow Plants In Moondust
If we’re ever going to colonize the moon in any serious way, we’re going to need to terraform it. That is, we’re going to need to figure out how to grow plants up there to provide oxygen. In a bit of great news on that front, it looks like scientists have figured out how to grow plants in the moon dust that covers the surface of our favorite satellite.
All that they needed to do was add a special bacteria to the moon dust, one that helped transfer nutrients from the moondust to the flowers. Now when our planet gets too polluted and disgusting for us to live on anymore, we can go tend gardens on the moon. Sign me up!
Nurture Over Nature:
Certain Genes Are Turned On Or Off
By Geography And Lifestyle,
Study Suggests
Score one for the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate, as North Carolina State University geneticists have shown that environmental factors such as lifestyle and geography play a large role in whether certain genes are turned on or off.
By studying gene expression of white blood cells in 46 Moroccan Amazighs, or Berbers – including desert nomads, mountain agrarians and coastal urban dwellers – the NC State researchers and collaborators in Morocco and the United States showed that up to one-third of genes are differentially expressed due to where and how the Moroccan Amazighs live.
The team uncovered specific genes and pathways that are affected by lifestyle and geography. For example, they found respiratory genes were upregulated, or turned on, more frequently in the urban population than in the nomadic or agrarian populations.
This makes sense, as urban dwellers deal with greater amounts of pollution in the city and encounter more difficulties with diseases like asthma and bronchitis. So it stands to reason that certain respiratory genes in city dwellers go into overdrive while staying quiet in rural and nomadic populations, he adds.
The NC State researchers are Youssef Idaghdour, an NC State graduate student in genetics and a Fulbright scholar, and Dr. Greg Gibson, currently a faculty member at the University of Queensland in Australia.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 138
Geeknotes:
Pilcrow Lit Fest
Poetry Bomb
20 Poems for National Poetry Month
Belinda Subraman Presents features Maurya Simon
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COMING SOON: PILCROW LIT FEST
MAY 22-25th, 2008
For four days in May, Pilcrow Lit Fest will bring authors, writers, poets, librarians, booksellers, and publishers from around the country together in support of small presses and independent media through small workshops, panel discussions, lectures and author readings. Check back often for frequent updates, and subscribe to RSS feeds on our blog.
If you will be traveling to the area for the festival, know that the entire festival centers near the intersection of Belmont & Sheffield in the Lakeview neighborhood, and red, brown and purple train lines serve this area only a few blocks away. Parking is notoriously difficult in this area, but it is theoretically possible if you don't mind walking a few blocks or using a pay lot.
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On April 20th at 3:30pm, poetry shows will be going on simultaneously throughout the Chicagoland area. A list of all the shows will be posted on the MySpace page.
ChicagoPoetry.com will be participating in the "Cloud Gate" bomb at the bean in millennium park. Just be at the bean at 3:30 PM this Sunday. Bring a jacket because the weather is going to be 60 degrees but it is cooler by the lake. For more info:
Two items from Association of Poetry Podcasting members:
Don from Classic Poetry Aloud, has mp3s of 20 classic poems for National Poetry Month, available at Open Culture
The latest Belinda Subraman Presents features Maurya Simon, poet and nominee for a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award.
Maurya Simon is the author of The Enchanted Room and Days of Awe
(Copper Canyon Press, 1986, 1989), Speaking in Tongues (Gibbs Smith,
1990), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and The Golden
Labyrinth (University of Missouri Press, 1995). A fifth volume, A
Brief History of Punctuation, was published in a limited edition by
the fine letter-press book publisher, Sutton Hoo Press, in 2002.
Simon's sixth volume, Ghost Orchid (Red Hen Press, 2004) was
nominated for a 2004 National Book Award in Poetry. A new, limited
edition, letter-press collection of ekphrastic poems, WEAVERS, based
on the paintings of Los Angeles artist Baila Goldenthal, was
published by Blackbird Press in October 2005, and Simon's eighth
volume of poems, Cartographies, was published 2007.
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Scientists Take Drugs to Boost Brain Power
Twenty percent of scientists admit to using performance-enhancing prescription drugs for non-medical reasons, according to a survey released Wednesday by Nature, Britain’s top science journal. The overwhelming majority of these med-taking brainiacs said they indulged in order to “improve concentration,” and 60 percent said they did so on a daily or weekly basis.
The 1,427 respondents — most of them in the United States — completed an informal, online survey posted on the “Nature Network” Web forum, a discussion site for scientists operated by the Nature Publishing Group.
More than a third said that they would feel pressure to give their children such drugs if they knew other kids at school were also taking them.
“These are academics working in scientific institutions,” Ruth Francis, who handles press relations for the group, told AFP.
The survey focused on three drugs widely available by prescription or via the Internet.
Ritalin, a trade name for methylphenidate, is a stimulant normally used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, especially in children. Modafinil — marketed at Provigil — is prescribed to treat sleep disorders, but is also effective against general fatigue and jet lag.
Both medications are common currency on college campuses, used as “study aids” to sharpen performance and wakefulness.
“It doesn’t seem to be causing too much trouble since most [students] use the drugs not to get high but to function better,” Brian Doyle, a clinical pyschiatrist at Georgetown University Medical Centre, told a US newspaper last month. “When exams are over, they go back to normal and stop abusing the drugs.”
Other experts expressed more concern about what the survey revealed.
“It alerted us to the fact that scientists, like others, are looking for short cuts,” Wilson Compton, director of epidemiology and prevention research at the US National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), told AFP.
Laser Triggers Artificial Lightning
A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time, according to a new paper in the latest issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society's (OSA) open-access journal. They did this by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm.
At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity akin to Benjamin Franklin's silk kite string. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves.
"This was an important first step toward triggering lightning strikes with laser beams," says Jérôme Kasparian of the University of Lyon in France. "It was the first time we generated lighting precursors in a thundercloud." The next step of generating full-blown lightning strikes may come, he adds, after the team reprograms their lasers to use more sophisticated pulse sequences that will make longer-lived filaments to further conduct the lightning during storms.
Triggering lightning strikes is an important tool for basic and applied research because it enables researchers to study the mechanisms underlying lightning strikes. Moreover, triggered lightning strikes will allow engineers to evaluate and test the lightning-sensitivity of airplanes and critical infrastructure such as power lines.
Pulsed lasers represent a potentially very powerful technology for triggering lightning because they can form a large number of plasma filaments -- ionized channels of molecules in the air that act like conducting wires extending into the thundercloud. This is such a simple concept that the idea of using lasers to trigger lightning strikes was first suggested more than 30 years ago. But scientists have not been able to accomplish this to date because previous lasers have not been powerful enough to generate long plasma channels. The current generation of more powerful lasers, like the one developed by Kasparian's team, may change that.
Curious Cloud Formations Linked to Quakes
By Lynn Dicks
Can unusual clouds signal the possibility of an impending earthquake? That's the question being asked following the discovery of distinctive cloud formations above an active fault in Iran before each of two large earthquakes occurred.
Geophysicists Guangmeng Guo and Bin Wang of Nanyang Normal University in Henan, China, noticed a gap in the clouds in satellite images from December 2004 that precisely matched the location of the main fault in southern Iran. It stretched for hundreds of kilometres, was visible for several hours and remained in the same place, although the clouds around it were moving. At the same time, thermal images of the ground showed that the temperature was higher along the fault. Sixty-nine days later, on 22 February 2005, an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 hit the area, killing more than 600 people.
In December 2005, a similar formation again appeared in the clouds for a few hours. Sixty-four days later, an earthquake of magnitude 6 shook the region (International Journal of Remote Sensing, vol 29, p 1921).
Guo and Wang suggest that an eruption of hot gases from inside the fault could have caused water in the clouds to evaporate. Another idea is that ionisation may be involved: Friedemann Freund at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, recently demonstrated that when rocks are squeezed, positively charged ions form in the air above. The trouble is that ions usually help to form clouds, not dissipate them.
The authors say that if recognisable cloud formations precede large quakes, they could be used for prediction, but other seismologists are sceptical. "There is no physical model that explains why something would suddenly occur two months before an earthquake, and then shut off and not occur again," says Mike Blanpied of the US Geological Survey's Earthquake Hazards Program.
Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back
By Catherine Brahic
What does a coral reef look like 50 years after being nuked? Not so bad, it seems. Coconuts growing on Bikini Atoll haven't fared so well, however.
Three islands of Bikini Atoll were vapourised by the Bravo hydrogen bomb in 1954, which shook islands 200 kilometres away. Instead of finding a bare underwater moonscape, ecologists who have dived it have given the 2-kilometre-wide crater a clean bill of health.
"It was fascinating – I’ve never seen corals growing like trees outside of the Marshall Islands," says Zoe Richards of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia.
Richards and colleagues report a thriving ecosystem of 183 species of coral, some of which were 8 metres high. They estimate that the diversity of species represents about 65% of what was present before the atomic tests.
The ecologists think the nearby Rongelap Atoll is seeding the Bikini Atoll, and the lack of human disturbance is helping its recovery. Although the ambient radiation is low, people have remained at bay.
"Apart from occasional forays of illegal shark, tuna and Napoleon Wrasse fishing, the reef is almost completely undisturbed to this day," says Maria Beger of the University of Queensland in Australia. "There are very few local inhabitants and the divers who visit dive on shipwrecks, like the USS Saratoga, and not on the reef."
Beger took a Geiger counter with her on dives and says that the background levels were similar to that at any Australian city. The same could not be said of coconuts growing on the islands.
"When I put the Geiger counter near a coconut, which accumulates radioactive material from the soil, it went berserk," says Beger.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 137
Geeknotes:
Reinstate Randi
John McCain's Bottom 10
Chicago Poetry News
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Reinstate Randi
April 3, 2008
We the undersigned Air America listeners respectfully request the immediate reinstatement without prejudice or penalty of host Randi Rhodes. Her suspension comes at a time when progressive America cannot afford to be deprived of a single voice of passionate reason, even at the expense of political ego.
Her comments in San Francisco prompting her suspension did not violate FCC regulations. Though blunt and abrasive, the derogatory remarks about Senator Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro were neither literal nor delivered in such a way as to be expected to be interpreted as such. Air America's suspension of Ms. Rhodes adds considerable weight to comments delivered in a light and comedic fashion.
In these times, we treasure Air America as a beacon of truth, free from the corporate mood lights intended to color us with their agendas. The decision to suspend Randi, while perhaps valid per the terms of her contract as an Air America host, is at best a formality and not the will of her listeners. At worst, it is a discretionary action that alienates your listeners in order to smooth corporate and political feathers . We, your loyal listeners, support Randi and her decision to speak freely and we ask that you do not deny us her voice.
America for Randi
BREAKING NEWS: Randi Rhodes will appear on CNN’s “Larry King Live” tonight (Thu, 4/10) – 9pm Eastern/6pm Pacific!
Today, Randi Rhodes, who was suspended by Air America Radio (AAR) last week, will start broadcasting with NovaMradio starting Monday, April 12, in the same 3-6 PM EST time slot she was in at AAR.
Cool. I read on a blog that she was pointing toward a breach of contract. I couldn't be happier for her. The chat with Larry King should be fun...
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10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don’t):
1. John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.
2. According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”
3. His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.
4. McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”
5. The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.
6. He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.
7. Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
8. McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.
9. McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”
10. He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.
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Chicago Poetry News
"YOU CAN TAKE MY GUN FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS." – Charlton Heston
In remembrance of Charlton Heston, the
ChicagoPoetry.com Drive-In Theatre presents the
full, uncut version of SOYLENT GREEN:
You are invited
to a reading and book-signing featuring
Susan Spaeth Cherry, author of the new poetry book
I AM THE POOL'S PERIMETER:
Musings About Mothering
and Sandy Goldsmith, author of
IMAGING CENTER
Sunday, April 27, 2008
4:30 P.M.
Women and Children First
5233 N. Clark St.
Chicago
(773) 796-9299
==============
RED ROVER RED ROVER
Red Rover Series
{readings that play with reading}
3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY with NEW LOCATION
at the Division Street Dance Loft
735 W. Division St, 3rd floor
(Division @ Halsted
enter parking lot off of Halsted St) http://www.rtgdance.com/teach_schedule.htm
7PM SATURDAY, APRIL 19th
Experiment #20:
A Sing Economy
guest curated by Matthew Klane
Featuring:
Tawrin Baker
Jaye Bartell
Barrett Gordon
Jennifer Karmin
Laura Sims
Kevin Thurston
THE internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
Computers on the grid can also transmit data at lightning speed. This will allow researchers facing heavy processing tasks to call on the assistance of thousands of other computers around the world. The aim is to eliminate the dreaded “frozen screen” experienced by internet users who ask their machine to handle too much information.
The real goal of the grid is, however, to work with the LHC in tracking down nature’s most elusive particle, the Higgs boson. Predicted in theory but never yet found, the Higgs is supposed to be what gives matter mass...
Spy Camera Sunglasses
We all remember seeing those incredible ads for x-ray specs in the back of comic books and some of us probably even mailed in the $3 to a PO Box in New Jersey for rush delivery. "Surprise your friends with amazing x-ray vision" the ads would read. Yeah, someone is going to be surprised but it's not going to be your friends.
These camera sunglasses certainly aren't x-ray specs, but they do capture 1.3 megapixel still images (at a resolution of 1280x1024). The included RF remote-control is ideal for easy, stealth-style photo shooting. High-quality lightweight frame material and UV400 polarized flip-up lens. A polymer li-ion rechargeable battery provides a battery life of up to 9 hours (shooting 1 photo/minute). USB 2.0 interface via a standard Mini USB port for data upload and download & re-charging the battery.
The sunglasses also allow you to enjoy your music via MP3 playback. Built-in earbuds provide super convenient listen capability and can be hooked out of the way when not in use...
The combination of SanDisk USB Drive with distinct digital camera brand that utilize the functionality of the USB Drive. The idea of blending a drive with a Leica digital camera speaks to the concept of photographers and their need to always have their Leica.
Politicians now have a new reason to worry - a technology that can determine if they are lying… from a distance.
Our skin may contain millions of tiny “antennas” in the form of microscopic sweat ducts, say researchers in Israel. In experiments, they found evidence that signals produced by bouncing electromagnetic waves off the tiny tubes might reveal a person’s physical and emotional state from a distance.
The research might eventually result in lie detectors that require no physical contact with the subject.
Human skin contains millions of sweat glands, which are connected to pores at the surface by tiny ducts. These ducts were originally thought of as straight tubes, but detailed images produced in recent years have revealed that they are actually helical.
“When you look at this through the eyes of an electrical engineer, it is very familiar,” says Aharon Agranat of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “It immediately ignited the thinking that perhaps they also behave as helical antenna.”
To function in this way, the ducts would need to conduct a current. And since the ducts are filled with sweat, they do indeed conduct when hit with an electromagnetic wave, although not at the very high frequencies needed.
And yet, experiments performed by the Israeli researchers suggest that they do somehow work as antennas.
Initially, the experiments were carried out in contact with the subjects’ hands, to reduce diffraction effects. But even at a distance of 22 centimetres, the researchers found a strong correlation between subjects’ blood pressure and pulse rate, and the frequency response of their skin.
Agranat emphasises that the research is at an early stage, but recognises potential applications. “You could make a lie detector that does not require any connections to the person being tested,” he says.
From
Sundown Lounge No. 136
Geeknotes:
NaPoWriMo
Charles Bernstein on NaPoMo
Democrats.com Picnic
MLK
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This week marks the start not only of Nat'l Poetry Month, but also some craziness called NaPoWriMo, Nat'l Poetry Writing Month, where the goal is to write a poem a day for April. Having done two NaNoWriMo's, I admire those brave poets, but no friggin way am I gonna do this. Anyway, I tip my hat to Will Brown of 'Cloudy Day Art' for taking the challenge. He has a blog all about it...
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Speaking of NaPoMo, I found an interesting essay on this spring ritual written by Charles Bernstein, against NaPoMo, written back in 1999. The entire essay is here, but let's have a taste:
Against National Poetry Month As Such, by Charles Bernstein
"April is the cruelest month for poetry.
As part of the spring ritual of National Poetry Month, poets are symbolically dragged into the public square in order to be humiliated with the claim that their product has not achieved sufficient market penetration and must be revived by the Artificial Resuscitation Foundation (ARF) lest the art form collapse from its own incompetence, irrelevance, and as a result of the general disinterest among the broad masses of the American People.
The motto of ARF's National Poetry Month is: "Poetry's not so bad, really."
National Poetry Month is sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, an organization that uses its mainstream status to exclude from its promotional activities much of the formally innovative and "otherstream" poetries that form the inchoate heart of the art of poetry. The Academy's activities on behalf of National Poetry Month tend to focus on the most conventional of contemporary poetry; perhaps a more accurate name for the project might be National Mainstream Poetry Month. Then perhaps we could designate August as National Unpopular Poetry Month..."
TO ALL PROGRESSIVE GROUPS: JOIN US FOR A RARE
?MEET & GREET/THANK YOU? SPRING PARTY/PICNIC!
WHO THANKS US FOR ALL WE DO? LET?S THANK EACH OTHER!
SUNDAY, APRIL 6, FROM 1:00 TO 4:00 PM
FIESTA HALL, PLUMMER PARK, WEST HOLLYWOOD (7377 Santa Monica Blvd.)
? WHO IS YOUR GROUP?
? WHAT ARE ITS GOALS?
YOU?ll HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO TELL ABOUT IT.
MAYBE WE?LL EVEN TALK A LITTLE ?IMPEACHMENT?
SOCIALIZING, NETWORKING, NEW GROUPS ? WAYS FOR PROGRESSIVES TO
?? W-H-A-A-A-T?? ?? WORK TOWARD SOME COMMON GOALS??
? NEW SCHTICK FROM BILLIONAIRES FOR BUSH
¦ LIGHT REFRESHMENTS (Bring goodies to share, if you like)
SPECIAL INVITATIONS TO:
PDLA, CODE PINK, SoCalADA, VETERANS FOR PEACE, COMMON CAUSE, ACLU, DEMOCRACY FOR AMERICA, CDP PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS, WORLD CANT WAIT-LA, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS, CALIFORNIA CLEAN MONEY, PROGRESSIVE DEMS OF SANTA MONICA, WESTSIDE PROGRESSIVES, VALLEY DEMOCRATS UNITED --
all groups and people working to promote the common good, or fight the common evil!
LOOKING FORWARD TO MEETING YOU and YOUR FRIENDS!
Picnic Grounds/tables (No Cooking), Tennis & Basketball Courts (1st Come 1st Served)
Best to Park at North Lot off Vista Ave.
RSVPs Nice but Not Necessary ? Donations accepted, but not required.
HOSTED BY THE LOS ANGELES IMPEACHMENT CENTER (FORMERLY THE LANIC GROUP).
CONTACT TOBI DRAGERT AT TDRAGERT@GMAIL.COM TO GET FIVE MINUTES ON THE AGENDA!
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Reverend Martin Luther King responds
to Malcolm X's criticisms of his philosophy:
Scientists are working on making teeth regrow the crystals that make up dentin and enamel. This process could eliminate drilling and filling to combat tooth decay. Sally Marshall, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, is looking for a way to catch decay early and cause teeth to start “remineralizing”.
Marshall’s newest work, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Structural Biology, focuses on regrowing dentin in damaged teeth with the help of a calcium-containing solution of ions (electrically charged particles).
By putting a layer of the solution on individual test teeth, Marshall has already been able to remineralize some parts of the teeth. The challenge is to get the crystals to regrow throughout the dentin.
To heal properly, the crystals need to form from the bottom of the tooth up to the enamel. Marshall isn’t sure whether that’s happening yet, but she is confident that she’ll find a way to restore dentin functionality over the next few years.
The Lynx - Rocket For Two
[This week] in Los Angeles, a private space company unveiled the latest entrant in the race to send paying passengers into suborbital space.
The Lynx, in development by XCOR Aerospace, is envisioned as a two-seat vehicle that will allow a paying passenger to ride up front with the pilot to experience weightlessness and see the Earth from space.
“From the beginning we worked towards a vehicle which is fully reusable, will fly often enough, economically enough and safely enough to succeed in what we expect will be a robust, competitive market place,” said XCOR president Jeff Greason at a press conference today.
XCOR’s been quietly working on liquid fueled rocket engines of all sizes and types in Mojave, California since 1999. The engines range from a diminutive alcohol-fueled “tea-cart” rocket suitable for showing off in hotel ballrooms (and attracting investors), to a methane-powered 7,500-pound-thrust engine completed last year for NASA.
Along the way, the company’s engineers have also hotrodded a homebuilt Long-EZ airplane with an alcohol-fueled rocket engine, picked up contracts from the Department of Defense to build novel rocket fuel pumps for cheaper operation of high powered rockets, and teamed with the Rocket Racing League to build the X Racer, a rocket-powered raceplane that XCOR chief test pilot and former Space Shuttle commander Rick Searfoss is now flight testing.
Daisies can Lower Triglycerides
Last week, in the Journal of Natural Products, Masayuki Yoshikawa explained how he and his colleagues discovered the fat-fighting chemicals. At Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, they extracted a mixture of molecules from Albanian-grown flowers. When mice drank some of the herbal extract and then chased it with olive oil, a source of vegetable fat, their triglycerides remained pretty low -- even though they should have increased substantially.
To narrow down their search for the medicinal substance, the Japanese researchers used high performance liquid chromatography to separate individual chemicals out from the mixture. Next, they used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and mass spectrometry to identify each of the purified compounds. Seven of them were previously undiscovered, but each belongs to a well-known family of substances called saponins. When the scientists tested two of the newly-discovered molecules on mice, both worked like a charm.
In the introduction of his paper, Yoshikawa explained that the plant has been used as a folk remedy for bruises, bleeding, muscular pain, purulent skin diseases, and rheumatism. He also mentioned that it is sometimes included in salads. If its fat-fighting abilities work on humans, we may find ourselves chowing down on plates of the healthy flowers.
Photo: Bill Hails / flickr
Yuri's Night at NASA Ames Lab
By Aaron Rowe
On April 12th, NASA Ames Research Center will hold an incredible celebration of space exploration. Last year, the Yuri's Night event was utterly amazing. In a hangar decorated with neon lights, Anousheh Ansari, space tourist and founder of the X Prize that bears her name, gave the keynote address. Thousands of people stayed to watch science demonstrations, scientific lectures, and women dancing with glowing hula hoops. Wired compared the event to burning man.
This year, the organizers tell us that it will be much more like the Maker Faire. Visionary Stewart Brand will make some remarks and SIMS creator Will Wright will lead the plenary session. Other luminaries will lead salons about a host of scholarly topics. Lots of sculptures and technical projects will be on display. Of course, there will also be performances by The Flaming Lotus Girls, Capacitor, and new band that includes Phil Lesh of The Greatful Dead.
Many other cities will hold Yuri's Night parties, but we expect the one at NASA Ames to be the best.
Update: Since this post went live, several people have written to me to point out that there will be a tremendous number of technical exhibits including:
* 2008 Tesla Roadster
* Ames Amateur Radio Club
* Brainwave-reading technology for consumer applications
* CalCars.org — Bringing Plug-In Hybrids to Mass Production
