Fans of movie technology and movies about technology will get the chance to see Alan Chan's "Postcards From The Future" short film projected in 4K in Los Angeles in September.

The film, shot with DALSA's 4K Origin camera, will screen from September 10-12 at 12:30pm and 1:45pm at the new Landmark Theatres in the Westside Pavilion, 10850 West Pico at Westwood Blvd. (directly next door to Barnes & Noble).

For the full details, visit our website: http://www.dalsa.com/dc/news/news.asp?itemID=300
Thanks for your interest,
DALSA Digital Cinema

6160 Variel Ave.
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Tel: 818 884 7000
www.dalsa.com/dc

New Globe's Gala - kindly sponsored by Esquire Magazine and Madison Avenue BID - on Monday, September 24th, to be held at the beautiful Salander-O'Reilly Galleries (22 East 71st Street) from 8-11pm. Tickets are $500 and $1000 (RSVP by the 19th), but the place will be crawling with celebrities. For more info, go to http://www.newglobe.org.

This week is the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road." In celebration, the Pacifica program "Democracy Now with Amy Goodman" features a Labor Day interview with Legendary Beat Generation Bookseller and Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books, on the Anniversary, on Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" and Poetry As Insurgent Art. That's the Sept. 3rd edition of the show, available as a podcast, at http://www.democracynow.org/.

Jail Threat Hangs Over Scientific Pioneers Marc van Roosmalen is a world-renowned primatologist whose research in the Amazon has led to the discovery of five species of monkeys and a new primate genus. But precisely because of that work, van Roosmalen was this year sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison and jailed in Manaus, Brazil. Brazil's government officials say they are merely trying to protect the nation's natural and genetic patrimony. Fears of biopiracy, loosely defined as any unauthorised acquisition or transport of genetic material or live flora and fauna, are deep and longstanding in Brazil. Nearly a century ago, for example, the Amazon rubber boom collapsed after Sir Henry Wickham, a British botanist and explorer, spirited rubber seeds out of Brazil and sent them to colonies in Ceylon and Malaya (now Sri Lanka and Malaysia), which quickly dominated the global market. And more recently, Brazilian Indian tribes have complained that samples of their blood, taken under circumstances they say were unethical, were being used in genetic research around the world. Brazil has in recent years passed legislation to curb such practices. National sentiment favours the laws, but scientists complain that they go too far, are too vague, confer too much power on authorities who have no scientific knowledge and have created a presumption that every researcher is engaged in biopiracy... Livestock Meltdown Threatens Developing World Hardy breeds of livestock vital for world food supplies are dying out across developing countries, especially in Africa, farm scientists are warning. The researchers are calling for the creation of regional gene banks to save such breeds. "There is a livestock meltdown under way across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Valuable breeds are disappearing at an alarming rate," Carlos Seré of the International Livestock Research Institute told a gathering convened by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Interlaken, Switzerland. Native breeds are increasingly being supplanted by high-yield Western farm animals, which may be less well able to adapt to their new environment in times of drought or disease, found a joint report by Seré's institute and the FAO on the diversity of farm animals in 169 countries. These breeds offer high volumes of meat, milk and eggs. But the researchers warn that the growing reliance on a handful of farm animal species is causing the loss on average of one livestock breed every month in developing countries. And over the longer term, the imported breeds may not cope with unpredictable environmental change or outbreaks of indigenous disease. He is calling for the creation of gene banks to store semen, eggs and embryos of farm animals. Seré says such gene banks have been set up in Europe, the US, China, India and parts of Latin America, but are absent from Africa...

Now Police Can Use Tasers on Children Police in the UK have been given the go-ahead to use Taser stun guns against children. The relaxing of restrictions on the use of the weapons comes despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters. Until now, Tasers - which emit a 50,000-volt electric shock - have been used only by specialist officers as a "non lethal" alternative to firearms. However, they can now be used against all potentially violent offenders even if they are unarmed. Home Office Police Minister Tony McNulty said medical assessments had confirmed the risk of death or serious injury from Tasers was "low". But he failed to mention Government advisers had also warned of a potential risk to children. Amnesty International claims Tasers have been responsible for 220 deaths in America since 2001. Many cities and police forces there have banned their use against minors. Two years ago in Chicago a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after being shot with one. Medics had to use a defibrillator four times to resuscitate him. Taser International, the American firm that makes the device, said tests on pigs suggested the weapons were safe... Battery Breakthrough? Millions of inventions pass quietly through the U.S. patent office each year. Patent No. 7,033,406 did, too, until energy insiders spotted six words in the filing that sounded like a death knell for the internal combustion engine. An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries," meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline. "It's a paradigm shift," said Ian Clifford, chief executive of Toronto-based ZENN Motor Co., which has licensed EEStor's invention. "The Achilles' heel to the electric car industry has been energy storage. By all rights, this would make internal combustion engines unnecessary." EEStor's secret ingredient is a material sandwiched between thousands of wafer-thin metal sheets, like a series of foil-and-paper gum wrappers stacked on top of each other. Charged particles stick to the metal sheets and move quickly across EEStor's proprietary material. The result is an ultracapacitor, a battery-like device that stores and releases energy quickly. Skeptics, though, fear the claims stretch the bounds of existing technology to the point of alchemy...

From
Sundown Lounge No. 113


Geeknotes:

Illinois Arts Council Under Attack
Chicago Poetry Events
Slam Idol Contest 19
Long Beach Blues Festival



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCEL TO LOSE SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS

Forwarded are two messages I received from the Illinois Arts Council:

========================

This email is to notify you of some recent action that could significantly affect you.

On August 23, 2007, the Governor issued a reduction veto that cut funding for all Illinois Arts Council programs by nearly $7,000,000. While this is a devastating cut, rest assured the board and I will move forward and do the best we can for constituents in this state.

We will continue to be guided by the statutory mandate for the Illinois Arts Council which is to keep the Governor and General Assembly advised and informed of the state and needs of the arts in Illinois .

Sincerely,
Shirley R. Madigan
Chairman

===================

The staff and I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know what is happening to the Illinois Arts Council’s grant making process. All programs of the Illinois Arts Council have been reduced by almost 30% from last year’s level. As a result of this large reduction, the IAC will have significantly less money available to award.

Since learning of this reduction, the staff and I along with the board have been working to determine the extent of these cuts to all programs. We will be communicating with you as soon as we know the ultimate effects.

The Illinois Arts Council values Illinois artists, arts organizations, and other entities providing arts programming. We sincerely regret this situation and the problems it may cause.

Sincerely,

Terry A. Scrogum
Executive Director
Illinois Arts Council



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


UPCOMING CHICAGO AREA EVENTS

**Tue Aug 28: The Cafe, 5115 N. Lincoln Ave, presents an open mic. with featured poet Mike Menges, 8 PM sharp.

**Fri Aug 31 Mercury Cafe Poetry Open Mic, 1505 W. Chicago Ave, hosted by Vito Carli, features Dave Gecic and Larry Janowski, 7 to 9 PM sharp, free.

**Tue Sept 4: The Cafe, 5115 N. Lincoln Ave, presents an open mic. with featured poet Joe Roarty, 8 PM sharp.

**Fri Sept 7: DvA Gallery, 2568 N. Lincoln Ave, presents a reading by The Poetry Club of Chicago, featuring Nancy Carrigan, Maureen Flannery, Chris Gallinari, Pat Gangas, Glenna Holloway, Larry Janowski, Wayne Allen Jones, Carol Kanter, C. J. Laity, William Marr, Robert Mills, Charlie Newman, Donna Pucciani, Tom Roby, and Charlie Rossiter, 8 PM sharp, free.

**Mon Sept 10: Molly Malone's, , 7652 W. Madison St., Forest Park, IL, presents an open mic. with featured poet Ron Offen, 7 PM, $3 - $5.

**Mon Sept 10: The Red Lion Pub, 2446 N. Lincoln, presents a fiction open mic, bring your stories to read, 7:30 PM.

**Tue Sept 11: The Cafe, 5115 N. Lincoln Ave, presents an open mic. with featured poet CJ Laity reading from Disco Hypnotic, 8 PM sharp.

**Mon Sept 17: Waiting 4 the Bus at Jaks Tap, 901 W. Jackson, featuring an open mic. with featured guest Nina Corwin, 7:30 PM, free.

**Thur Sept 20: Jesse Oaks Bar and Grill, 18490 W Old Gages Lake Rd, Gages Lake, IL, presents a open mic. and poetry slam featuring poetry and music by Francis Mai-Ling, 7 PM, $5 to compete, winner takes the pot.

**Fri Sept 21 Mercury Cafe Poetry Open Mic, 1505 W. Chicago Ave, hosted by Vito Carli, features Bromin Shumway , 7 to 9 PM sharp, free.

**Mon Oct 1: Waiting 4 the Bus at Jaks Tap, 901 W. Jackson, featuring an open mic. with featured guest Omniphonic with Tom and Lem Roby, 7:30 PM, free.

**Sat Oct 6: Heartland Cafe, 7000 North Glenwood, presents a fund raiser for World Bicycle Relief, featuring poetry by MARCH/Abrazo Authors, also featuring films and photography, more details to follow.

**Thur Oct 18: Jesse Oaks Bar and Grill, 18490 W Old Gages Lake Rd, Gages Lake, IL, presents a open mic. and poetry slam Capital K, 7 PM, $5 to compete, winner takes the pot.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Here's one of the video promo links to SlamIdol Podcast Contest 19, from YouTube...



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Long Beach Blues Festival

Sat 9/1 - Sun 9/2, 6PM at Cal State Long Beach, 1250 N Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA

Buddy Guy, Little Richard, and Dr. John are among the headliners at this weekend's Long Beach Blues Festival. With 20 performances, vendors, crafts and food, this is the place to get the blues!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

$100 Laptop, Meet The $100 Desktop You've heard of the $100 laptop. What about a $100 desktop? Meet Zonbu: a new computer company making desktop computers that are both extremely green and extremely cheap. Years ago, when the internet's first wave was crashing on the shores of society, there was an enormous amount of buzz about "the Network Computer", a device that would really be all about connectivity and services rather than being an isolated, standalone machine. It never really materialized, until now. The actual Zonbu box (smaller than a Mac Mini, or thereabouts) has very little inside of it -- no hard drive, no CD or DVD drive; just a motherboard and a compact flash card. (And, enough ports for any peripherals you'd want.) The Zonbu device does not have a hard disk. Instead, a 4GB compact flash (similar to what digital cameras and MP3 players use) stores the operating system and the application which have been installed. The remaining space of the compact flash is used as a cache to store local copies of files you've recently used; special software keeps these copies synchronized with the online storage servers. Since all your data is stored on the Zonbu servers, You can access the files from any Internet-connected device using the file browser — which initially works only on Windows 98, 2000, XP and Vista. Interesting... Increased Floods Due to Shrinking Plant Leaf Pores Researchers attached with the UK Met Office and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have warned that Asia, Europe and North America could experience worse flooding in the future because of carbon dioxide sensitive plants consuming less water, through a process called the Stomata Effect." Now, tiny pores, or stomata, are found on the surface of leaves and are each between a tenth and several hundredths of a millimetre across. The underside of black oak leaves can have as many as 60,000 stomata per square centimetre. The main function of stomata is to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide taken up by the plants during photosynthesis. In an earlier study, researchers analysed river flow during the 20th century to see how shrinking stomata might affect its run-off. They found that river flow had increased by three percent worldwide during the 20th century and calculated that this must be due to increased soil moisture resulting from shrinking stomata. Since the late 19th century, atmospheric CO2 has risen from 280 to 390 parts per million as a result of humans burning fossil fuels and chopping down forests. The net effect of reduced transpiration is that plants consume less water - meaning more remains in the soil and can run off into rivers. The researchers used computer models to assess the effects of global warming on river run-off, through increased rainfall and other factors. They looked at what these effects will be if CO2 levels reach 560 ppm. This is double what levels were before the industrial revolution and is expected to happen sometime in the second half of the 21st century.

Scientists' New Spin on Spider-Man Techniques A "Spiderman suit" that allows the wearer to scale walls just like the comic and film superhero could one day be a reality. Scientists have worked out how real spiders' natural skill could be adapted to allow humans to defy gravity. The key is a type of microscopic Velcro that clings to smooth surfaces, such as concrete or glass, but is still easy to detach. Insects, spiders and gecko lizards all used the same principle to scuttle effortlessly up walls. They have tiny hairs on their feet which set up weak attractions called Van der Waals forces between molecules that are very close together. Italian scientists have calculated how sufficient stickiness could be generated in the same way to support a fully grown human being's bodyweight... Parasites Sneak Entire Genome into Flies Scientists have discovered the parasitic microbe Wolbachia's entire genome—the software of life—inside that of its fruit fly host. The breakthrough suggests that movement of genes between two different species, called lateral gene transfer, happens faster and more frequently than scientists thought possible, leading them to rethink some ideas about evolution. "This is stunning evidence for increased frequency of gene transfer," said W. Ford Doolittle, a molecular biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, who was not involved in the study. A few years ago the process would have been considered "science fiction," Doolittle said. The results also have serious repercussions for genome-sequencing projects, which attempt to map out an organism's entire set of life-giving instructions, as bacteria-like DNA is often ignored when scientists assemble invertebrate genomes. Now those genes may very well be considered part of the organism’s functioning genome. "It didn't seem possible at first," says Jack Werren, a biologist at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study, detailed in the Aug. 30 issue of the journal Science. "This parasite has implanted itself inside the cells of 70 percent of the world’s invertebrates, coevolving with them."

From
Sundown Lounge No. 112


Geeknotes:

2007 Chicago Poetry Fest



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Sat Aug 25: The 2007 Chicago Poetry Fest, at Mercury Cafe, 1505 W. Chicago Ave, 2:30 to 7:30 PM.

Poetry Fest Schedule

2:30: Award Ceremony and reading for Summer Contest, Mojdeh, Dred Sista Ren, Peace Tree D, Jose Bono

3:30: Dave Donovan, Ivan Ramos, Beth Snyder, Jeff Burd, Kathy Kubik

4:30: Dave Gecic, Carol Anderson, Joe Roarty, Kim Berez, Rusty Russell, Larry O. Dean, Vito Carli

5:30: Omniphonic with Tom and Lem Roby, Esteban Colon, Sandy Goldsmith, Buddha309, Chris Gallinari, Steven Hammond, Maureen Flannery

6:30: Dina Stengel, Jacqui Wolk, Lonna Kingsbury, Cathleen Schandelmeier, Charlie Rossiter,Charlie Newman

Free and open to the public. Hosted by C. J. Laity.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baby Talk is Universally Understood U.S. researchers found that people in a remote village in Ecuador can understand key features of English by focusing on non-verbal aspects of the language. Greg Bryant, Clark Barrett and colleagues at the University of California-Los Angeles said their research demonstrates that pitch, loudness, rate of speech and other such non-verbal language effectively communicate intentions, regardless of the language spoken. The researchers recorded native English-speaking mothers conveying four categories of messages -- approval, attention, comfort and prohibition. The mothers were recorded while they directed such messages to infants and adults, separately. When residents of a Shuar village in Ecaudor listened to the recordings, they correctly distinguished between infant-directed and adult-directed speech in 73 percent of the recordings. They were also able to correctly identify the category of messages but they made that type of distinction more accurately with the infant-directed speech than with the adult-directed speech, the researchers said. These results also provide support for the notion that vocal emotional communication manifests itself in similar ways across disparate cultures, said Bryant. The study appears in the journal Psychological Science. Comet Star Leaves Planets in Wake Astronomers have recorded a previously unknown galactic phenomenon - the first distant star with a comet-like tail powerful enough to form planets. The trail of carbon, oxygen and other cosmic matter behind the giant red star Mira, named after the Latin word for wonderful, is 13 light years long - about 20,000 times the distance from Pluto to the Sun. NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer photographed the extraordinary spectacle, providing researchers with further clues to the origins of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Christopher Martin, of the California Institute of Technology, said: "I was shocked when I first saw this completely unexpected, humungous tail trailing behind a well-known star. Mira's tail echoed, on vast, interstellar scales, a speedboat's wake." The discovery, he said, gave astronomers a unique opportunity to study how stars similar to the Sun die and eventually seed new solar systems. As Mira, which is more than 400 million miles in diameter, speeds along at 291,000mph, it sheds a massive amount of life-giving matter that can form newer stars and planets. The tail, captured by the Galaxy Explorer's powerful wide-range lens, was formed over a period of 30,000 years. The egg-shaped Mira has been a favourite subject of scientific study since its discovery by the 16th-century astronomer David Fabricius. via: Scotsman.com News Meraki's Guerilla Wi-Fi to Put a Billion More People Online There are two ways to look at the explosive growth of the Internet: One is to celebrate the fact that in the 15 years since it became commercially available, what began as an obscure military technology morphed into a global phenomenon that is regularly accessed by over a billion people. The other is to ask why the world's other five billion folks aren't online yet. So, Enter Meraki. Meraki Networks, Inc., is a three-year-old company headed by Sanjit Biswas, a polite and bespectacled Massachusetts Institute of Technology student-cum-CEO on permanent hiatus from the pursuit of a doctoral degree in computer science. Biswas says his goal, and that of Meraki, is to "connect the next billion people." Biswas and his engineers are almost exclusively programmers, yet Meraki doesn't sell software. Instead it sells Wi-Fi hardware—relatively cheap, commodity hardware built by outside vendors. The physical manifestation of the Meraki philosophy, the $50 Mini, is the size of two iPhones stacked on top of one another. It weighs just a few ounces, and if not for the enclosed antenna jutting out of one end, it would look like a basic phone charger. It contains less than $5 worth of components, including a few chips and a radio-frequency transmitter—essentially the same parts in every wireless router. It's the so-called firmware, or software embedded inside, that makes the Mini unique. Burned into a flash-memory chip, it's eight megabytes of the most refined code ever to grace the guts of a wireless transmitter. This software is so crucial to the global Meraki network that, according to Biswas, when you buy a Meraki you are also buying free firmware updates, rolled out at irregular intervals—for life.

From
Sundown Lounge No. 111


Geeknotes:

Virtual Book Tour on iTunes
Sunset Junction Street Festival



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Now that the Virtual Book Tour for my podcast novel Banjo Strings is up and running at TalkShoe, I went ahead and submitted it to iTunes, and they said 'cool,' so for those who can't log in and participate during the live production, you can catch the podcast an hour or so afterwards.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




27TH ANNUAL SUNSET JUNCTION STREET FESTIVAL
AUGUST 18 & 19, 2007
3900 TO 4300 SUNSET BLVD and
4000 TO 4200 SANTA MONICA BLVD
SAT. 10:00 AM TO 11:00 PM
SUN. 10:00 AM TO 10:00 PM



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speed of Light Broken? A pair of German physicists claims to have broken the speed of light - an achievement that would undermine our entire understanding of space and time. According to Einstein's special theory of relativity, it would require an infinite amount of energy to propel an object at more than 186,000 miles (300,000 km) per second. However, Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz, say they may have breached a key tenet of that theory. The pair says they have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons - energetic packets of light - travelled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart. Being able to travel faster than the speed of light would lead to a wide variety of bizarre consequences. For instance, an astronaut moving faster than it would theoretically arrive at a destination before leaving. Solar Sensors Could Monitor Bridges By JOHN CURRAN Steve Arms started by designing sensors that could be arthroscopically implanted to measure strain on knee ligaments. These days, Arms and his company, MicroStrain Inc., are experimenting with wireless sensing technology that could play a bigger role in assessing the condition of bridges after one in Minneapolis collapsed two weeks ago, killing at least nine people. The wireless, solar-powered sensor system can provide data on strain, seismic activity and vibrations on bridges, eliminating the need to manually replace batteries once the sensors are installed in hard-to-access places. Already in place on the Corinth Canal Bridge in Greece and an Interstate 95 bridge in New London, Conn., the sensors harvest energy from the sun using 6-by-9-inch photovoltaic panels. The panels are linked to rechargeable batteries and power microelectronic modules that record data from inside watertight enclosures. The data is transmitted to computers via wireless connections.

The devices can be used for short-term monitoring - identifying problem spots - or on a permanent basis, as in the case of the Greek span, which is prone to seismic activity. "There are a handful of technologies that are promising to take the field of bridge engineering from where it is to a different plateau, and one of them is wireless sensing," said Drexel University engineering professor A. Emin Aktan. The specialist in bridge and infrastructure monitoring has used MicroStrain's products in research for the Federal Highway Administration. Microfluidics: Like Computer Chips With Plumbing By Aaron Rowe Microfluidic devices are a lot like computer chips with plumbing. They will likely become an integral part of all sorts of medical technology -- once all of the physics problems are worked out. On Monday at the 3rd International Conference on Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore, David Weitz of the department of physics at Harvard University showed that he and his team can make microfluidic devices that do all sorts of tricks. They can sort tiny drops of liquid, split them apart, combine them, and even make remarkably identical drops inside of drops. One of his students even founded a startup company, RainDance Technologies, to commercialize chips as research tools. The Weitz team's devices can sort, combine, and split drops so fast that he describes the operations they perform in kilohertz. The rapid evolution of microfluidics technology feels like the beginning of personal computing all over again. It kinda looks like it too. The many videos that he showed during his presentation bore a funny resemblance to classic video games like Pac Man and Bubble Bobble (see the resemblance after the jump). Many engineers have designed microfluidic chips for medical diagnosis. They can pop cells open, purify the DNA, copy the DNA, and then check for individual genes. Akonni Biosystems has developed a rapid tuberculosis test that uses this technology. Weitz has worked on systems that can screen thousands of chemicals per second. With his devices, drug companies could screen drug candidates with unprecedented speed. If researchers want to find a catalyst that can facilitate a particular chemical reaction, this technology will allow them to test thousands of them in a matter of minutes.

From
Sundown Lounge No. 110


Geeknotes:

Big Summer Poetry Contest Winners
Skid Row Gentrification and a Poem from the Streets



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




ChicagoPoetry.com is proud to announce the winners of the 2007 Big Summer Poetry Contest. Out of all the entries, twenty-three poems were selected as finalists to be included in this online anthology; out of these twenty-three finalists, five poets in each category were selected to receive Honorable Mentions and three poets were chosen to win the cash prizes!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Here's the flyer link from LA CAN, the Los Angeles Community Action Network,
456 S. Main, 213-228-0024

http://www.cangress.org




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Here's the poem by Bill shaw:




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scientists Reveal The Secret Of Levitation Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported this week by physicists. In a report that sounds like it comes out of a Harry Potter book, the University of St Andrews team has created an 'incredible levitation effects’ by engineering the force of nature which normally causes objects to stick together. Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts. Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person. [If you bring two flat, parallel metal plates close to one another, you will find that they are pulled together or pushed apart -- that is, the exert equal and opposite forces on each other. If the plates are not at the same electrostatic potential, charges on the surfaces (charges in a conductor always go to the surface) will either attract or repel one another depending on whether the plates are oppositely or similarly charged. This electric force is usually a strong one, and varies relatively slowly with the distance between the plates. - found at www.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/casimir.htm] Weed Gave up Sex Long Ago The ability of plants to self-pollinate – a big factor in the spread of weeds – is much older than previously thought in one widely studied species, leading biologists say. The findings show that at least in plant evolution, sex with others may be more trouble than it’s worth. The mustard-like plant Arabidopsis thaliana lost interest in sex and started self-pollinating at least a million years ago, said plant geneticists led by Magnus Nordborg, associate professor of molecular and computational biology at USC. The results contradict a 2004 estimate from North Carolina State University that A. thaliana began self-pollinating in the last 400,000 years. “We can rule out a very recent change to self-fertilization,” said Chris Toomajian, USC research associate in molecular and computational biology and co-author of two new papers on A. thaliana in Science Express and Nature Genetics. Self-pollination, or selfing, confers a major advantage to weedy species. A selfing plant can invade new territory by itself and colonize it alone. The potential downside -- a nasty case of inbreeding depression -- is averted by rare sexual breeding. According to an older study, 1 percent of all A. thaliana have received pollen from other plants of the species. “A little sex goes a long way,” Nordborg said.

Hack Your Way Into Space Here are a few ingredients needed to get to space on the cheap: Balloons, but big ones. Ping-pong balls. Off-the-shelf kayak paddles. And naturally, all the foam core construction material you can get your hands on. Hacking, for a certain brand of space enthusiast, isn't just for computers. Ralph Bruckschen, a data visualization expert from the Supercomputing Center of the Max Planck Society in Garching, is one of these. Speaking at the Chaos Communication Camp in Germany [this week], he outlined the vision of cheap space launches using lighter-than-air vehicles – essentially balloons built specifically to carry light payloads to the stratosphere, from which a larger space-going vehicle could be launched. It's a strikingly low-tech idea in an era when even the private sector space projects springing up are using rockets and expensive airplane-launched rockets. But the first steps have already been taken by an organization called JP Aerospace, where Bruckschen served as volunteer for several years. JP Aerospace's full vision is to build a three-part system ultimately capable of launching a craft out of orbit into space. A first stage would use a lighter-than-air ascent vehicle to reach a stationary craft hovering above the earth at about 140,000 feet. At that height, it becomes a suborbital station. Cool. So far, the group has launched dozens of test missions with balloons and payloads of 30 pounds or so, carrying cameras, GPS trackers and experiments built inside ping-pong balls. The most successful have been brought to nearly 100,000 feet and back, with some great photography as a result. Worth keeping an eye on... Fossils Could Force Rethink of Human Evolution Long before humans and Neanderthals lived side by side in Europe, two other species of early humans were coexisting in Africa, a controversial new study claims. Researchers working in Kenya have found evidence that Homo habilis survived hundreds of thousands of years longer than previously thought and coexisted with another early human species, Homo erectus. "There was more than one species of early man for an extended period of time in East Africa," said study team member Frank Brown of the University of Utah. Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said the new fossils support existing evidence that more than one species of Homo, the genus to which our species belong, inhabited Africa about 1.5 million years ago. "This is definitely evidence for two coexisting lineages," said Tattersall, who was not involved in the study. The discoveries, detailed in the Aug. 9 issue of the journal Nature, could force scientists to rethink the evolutionary relationship between the two species. But some scientists are skeptical of the new claims [though the article didn't name any]. H. habilis is the earliest known member of the genus Homo. And H. erectus was the first human ancestor to resemble modern humans. Due to the many overlaps in their anatomy, it was previously thought that H. erectus was descended from H. habilis. While that might still be the case, the new findings open the possibility that the H. habilis and H. erectus once shared a common ancestor from whom they split.

From
Sundown Lounge No. 109


Geeknotes:

Authors Den
Chicago Cops Bust Up Poetry Event - Again



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




A few days ago, I placed my podcast novel and poetry books at Authors Den. The novel has received a fair number of hits, but "Erzulie," my book of erotic and romantic poems has really taken off, making it into the "Popular Books" listing. Very interesting. Maybe readers like my brand of what I consider "broadcast-quality erotica." Anyway, let's see if it generates any sales...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The stalwart Chicago cops have busted up another poetry event, this time it was the Printers Ball in Bridgeport on July 20th. America's ninety-year-old legend, Poetry Magazine, was hosting.

As a good literary time was being had by the folks, a swarm of police wearing bulletproof vests with badges on ropes around their necks like characters from The Shield illegally storm in, bum rush the DJ and make him announce EVERYONE MUST LEAVE THE PREMISES.

The last time something like this happened I was still in Chicago when The 8th Annual Chicago Poetry Video Festival was similarly turned out by the cops, who went way overboard, on purpose. You can find that story at About.com.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Fingerprint Technology A new fingerprinting technique could potentially detect the diet, race and sex of a suspected criminal. The team, led by Professor Sergei Kazarian from Imperial College London’s Department of Chemical Engineering, has devised a technique which collects fingerprints along with their chemical residue and keeps them intact for future reference. Imperial scientists found that the use of gel tapes, commercial gelatine based tape, provides a simple method for collection and transportation of prints for chemical imaging analysis. The information is then processed by an infrared array detector, originally developed by the U.S. military in smart missile technology. The array detector chemically maps the residue. This process builds up a picture, or chemical photograph, and allows for the most comprehensive information obtained from a fingerprint. Like whether the person is a vegetarian or meat eater, for example... First Armed Robots on Patrol in Iraq Robots have been roaming the streets of Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time -- the first time in any warzone -- the machines are carrying guns. After years of development, three "special weapons observation remote reconnaissance direct action system" (SWORDS) robots have deployed to Iraq, armed with M249 machine guns. The 'bots "haven't fired their weapons yet," Michael Zecca, the SWORDS program manager, tells DANGER ROOM. "But that'll be happening soon."

The SWORDS -- modified versions of bomb-disposal robots used throughout Iraq -- were first declared ready for duty back in 2004. But concerns about safety kept the robots from being sent over the the battlefield. The machines had a tendency to spin out of control from time to time. So they retooled, boosting the signal capacity, and ADDING a KILL SWITCH (oh really, didn't have room for it before?) As initially reported in National Defense magazine, only three of the robots are currently in Iraq. Zecca says he's ready to send more, "but we don't have the money. It's not a priority for the Army, yet." He believes that'll change, once the robots begin getting into firefights. If you're looking for some robo war porn, on the Wired page you get a video... New Planet Found Near Red Giant A planet was discovered by a team led by U.S. astronomer Alex Wolszczan, who in 1992 discovered the first planets found outside the solar system. The newly discovered planet is orbiting a giant red star that is 10 times larger than the sun. The planet circles the giant star every 360 days and is about 300 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Perseus. The planet is the first discovered by Penn State astronomers using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which is operated by the University of Texas at Austin at the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas, for several universities, including Pennsylvania State University. "After astronomers have spent more than 10 years searching for planets around sun-like stars and discovering over 250 planets elsewhere in our galactic neighborhood, we still do not know whether our solar system's properties -- including life-supporting conditions on our planet -- are typical or exceptional among solar systems throughout the galaxy," said Wolszczan. The discovery is to be reported in a November issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

From
Sundown Lounge No. 108


Geeknotes:

CinqTroisDecaLa Rhyme Contest
"Disco Hypnotic"
"Erzulie Freda" CD Goes Global



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From JPiC Forum for Writers:

Call For Submissions for our sister-site Poetry-Defined.com. The form CinqTroisDecaLa Rhyme is one of my favorite forms. Invented by Laura Lamarca, it is a rather simplistic form that consists of one ten-line stanza. The rhyme scheme for the CinqTroisDecaLa Rhyme is AABBCCCABC - each line should consist of fifteen (15) syllables.

The call for CinqTroisDecaLa Rhyme closes near August 20, 2007. Please refer to the NEW Poetic Type Published Rules & Guidelines for more info on the rules and guidelines for submitting poetry.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From CJ in Chi-town:

Finally! I am finished with my 145,000 word non-fiction book DISCO HYPNOTIC. I have literally spent eight to ten hours a day, seven days a week, for the last four months straight writing this book, often getting up at 5 AM and writing until 3 PM, and I've just completed an oral copy edit and have fine tuned the language to my satisfaction.

This is definitely the most creative thing I have ever written; it is a major piece of work.

I still won't be reading from it in the open mics, first of all because it is not poetry, but also because I created this groovy technical writing to be a piece of commercial literature with publication in mind, and am presently submitting query letters to literary agents with my fingers crossed. I'm going to give that a chance and see what happens for a while.

I'm going to go pop a cork now; see ya.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




My CD of adult poems, "Erzulie Freda" is now available
in record stores across the globe, for example:

Handa Wanda - Tokyo
Megaphon - Berlin
Next Level Records - Sydney
Sounds of the Universe - London
Walboomers - Amsterdam

Tell the stores they can order it through Super D One-Stop.

Sleep Patterns Affects Teen Behavior A preference for nighttime over daytime activities may be associated with antisocial behaviour in adolescences, even in children as young as 8-years-old, according to a new study. Those who prefer later bedtimes appear to exhibit more antisocial behaviour than those who like to wake early and participate in daytime recreational activities, researchers report. Study co-author Elizabeth J Susman, of Pennsylvania State University, said, staying up late "contributes to lack of sleep and this, in turn, causes problems such as lack of control and attention regulation, which are associated with antisocial behaviour and substance use." Susman and her team investigated the relationship between a preference for morning versus evening activities and antisocial behaviour in 111 subjects between 8- to 13-years-old. They also correlated morning to afternoon cortisol levels with behaviour and noted the age at which the subjects reached puberty. The researchers found a number of factors were related to antisocial behaviours in the study group, particularly in the boys who tended to exhibit more rule-breaking behaviours than did their peers. The findings are published in the Developmental Psychology journal.... Newly Declassified Window Film Keeps Out Hackers, Phone Calls, EMPs When a Boeing 757 struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, a blastproof film on its windows prevented them from shattering into a swarm of flying shards. Now, a version of that same film promises to block not only projectiles but also the collective electromagnetic chatter generated by our increasingly wireless society. Once manufactured under an exclusive contract with the U.S. government, this recently declassified window film is now available to the public. But don't expect to see it on store shelves anytime soon. Currently, it's only available directly from the manufacturer, and at prices that will likely make it prohibitive for all but the wealthiest home owners. The coating, which in its thinnest incarnation is only two one thousandths of an inch thick, can block Wi-Fi signals, cell phone transmissions, even the near-infrared, yet is almost transparent, making it no more intrusive than conventional window treatments. It can keep signals in (preventing attempts to spy on electronic communications) or out, minimizing radio interference and even the fabled electronics-destroying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear blast. CPFilms, Inc., in Martinsville, Va., manufacturers the protective covering dubbed LLumar Signal Defense Security Film. The film has already been plastered across the windows of more than 200 government buildings, including structures operated by the departments of Defense and the Treasury, as well as in the homes of high-level members of the current administration...

Chips: High Tech Aids or Tracking Tools? Demonstrators prepare to march against microchip implants planned for Alzheimer's patients, in front of the Alzheimer's Community Care Headquarters in West Palm Beach, Fla., May 12, 2007. March organizer Katherine Albrecht, left, said a payer before starting the march. (AP Photo/Gary I. Rothstein) By TODD LEWAN CityWatcher.com, a provider of surveillance equipment, attracted little notice itself - until a year ago, when two of its employees had glass-encapsulated microchips with miniature antennas embedded in their forearms. The "chipping" of two workers with RFIDs - radio frequency identification tags as long as two grains of rice, as thick as a toothpick - was merely a way of restricting access to vaults that held sensitive data and images for police departments, a layer of security beyond key cards and clearance codes, the company said. "To protect high-end secure data, you use more sophisticated techniques," Sean Darks, chief executive of the Cincinnati-based company, said. He compared chip implants to retina scans or fingerprinting. "There's a reader outside the door; you walk up to the reader, put your arm under it, and it opens the door." Innocuous? Maybe. But the news that Americans had, for the first time, been injected with electronic identifiers to perform their jobs fired up a debate over the proliferation of ever-more-precise tracking technologies and their ability to erode privacy in the digital age. To some, the microchip was a wondrous invention - a high-tech helper that could increase security at nuclear plants and military bases, help authorities identify wandering Alzheimer's patients, allow consumers to buy their groceries, literally, with the wave of a chipped hand. To others, the notion of tagging people was Orwellian, a departure from centuries of history and tradition in which people had the right to go and do as they pleased, without being tracked, unless they were harming someone else. Chipping, these critics said, might start with Alzheimer's patients or Army Rangers, but would eventually be suggested for convicts, then parolees, then sex offenders, then illegal aliens - until one day, a majority of Americans, falling into one category or another, would find themselves electronically tagged. The concept of making all things traceable isn't alien to Americans. Thirty years ago, the first electronic tags were fixed to the ears of cattle, to permit ranchers to track a herd's reproductive and eating habits. In the 1990s, millions of chips were implanted in livestock, fish, dogs, cats, even racehorses. Microchips are now fixed to car windshields as toll-paying devices, on "contactless" payment cards (Chase's "Blink," or MasterCard's "PayPass"). They're embedded in Michelin tires, library books, passports, work uniforms, luggage, and, unbeknownst to many consumers, on a host of individual items, from Hewlett Packard printers to Sanyo TVs, at Wal-Mart and Best Buy. But CityWatcher.com employees weren't appliances or pets: They were people made scannable. "It was scary that a government contractor that specialized in putting surveillance cameras on city streets was the first to incorporate this technology in the workplace," says Liz McIntyre, co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID..."

From
Sundown Lounge No. 107


Geeknotes:

2007 Chicago Poetry Fest
"Banjo Strings" Reaches 5000 Hits
The Trouble With Book Reviews



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Hello Chicago Poetry Scene,

The 2007 Chicago Poetry Fest is now booked and I
am no longer considering replies to the open call.
I am still busy on the final rewrite of my book,
so I will not have the time to organize a day two
for the poetry fest; but "day one" is going to
poetically rock and I mean hard. There are still
two slots open for the poetry fest; they will be
given to the winners of ChicagoPoetry.com's Summer
Contest. See ChicagoPoetry.com for details.

Here's the local poetry scoop:

========================================

TONIGHT AT THE GUILD COMPLEX

Palabra Pura Tonight
PALABRA PURA, Wednesday, July 18
SUZANNE FRISCHKORN and COYA PAZ
California Clipper, 1002 N. California (California at Augusta)
Bar opens at 8:00 PM. Reading begins at 8:30 PM.
21 and over. I.d. required. Free admission.

This is the Printers Ball version of Palabra Pura.
Raul Nino, Carlos Cumpian, Paul Martinez Pompa and
Francisco Aragon will read on the open mic. We're
honoring presses that publish and support Latino/a
and Chicano/a writers including Momotombo Press,
March/Abrazo Press, Tia Chucha Press,
contratiempo, University of Arizona Press and
Tianguis Books.

SUZANNE FRISCHKORN is the author of a number of
chapbooks including Spring Tide (Aldrich
Contemporary Art Museum, 2005) which Mary Oliver
selected for the Aldrich Poetry Award, and Red
Paper Flower (Little Poem Press, 2005). Her work
has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies.
She was a finalist for the 2001 Allen Ginsberg
Poetry Award.

COYA PAZ is the cofounder of Teatro Luna,
Chicago’s first and only all-Latina theater
company. Paz was raised in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Columbia, and Brazil, and moved permanently to the
United States in the late 1980’s. She is a
Doctoral Candidate in the Department of
Performance Studies at Northwestern University,
where she also holds her MA. In 2006-2007, she was
the Artist-In-Residence at the University of
Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Politics,
and Culture. She has appeared in numerous
independent film and performance projects, and
enjoys singing in the shower. A contributor to the
Oxford University Encyclopedia of Latino/as in the
United States, her artistic work has been featured
in The New York Times, American Theater Magazine,
Theater Journal, and the Chicago Tribune, among
others. She was named one of UR Magazine’s 30
Under 30 in 2004. In addition to her performance
and academic work, Paz is one half of the positive
sexuality project I Heart My Clit and i s
committed to using performance as a strategy for
social and individual change.

=====================================

THIS SUNDAY AT MYOPIC BOOKS

MYOPIC POETRY SERIES -- a weekly series of
readings and occasional poets' talks

Myopic Books in Chicago -- Sundays at 7:00 / 1564
N. Milwaukee Avenue,
2nd Floor

http://www.myopicbookstore.com/poetry.html

THIS SUNDAY AT MYOPIC BOOKS

Sunday July 22 – Gene Tanta & Evan Willner

(Note. Gene Tanta will present a roundtable discussion on contemporary poetry.)
Evan Willner is the author of "homemade traps for new world Brians"
(BlazeVOX [books]), a 7450-syllable worksome of whose poems have been
published recently in 6x6 and Jubilat. Having recently
completed/survived a Ph.D. in English at Boston University, he now
teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gene Tanta was born in Timisoara, Romania in 1974, and immigrated to
Chicago in 1984 with family. He earned his MFA in Poetry from the Iowa
's Writers' Workshop in 2000. He also translates contemporary Romanian
poetry and makes visual art with found materials. Mr. Tanta's
Publications include: Epoch, Ploughshares, Circumference Magazine,
Exquisite Corpse, Watchword, and Columbia Poetry Review. Currently,
he is a Ph.D. student in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of
Wisconsin at Milwaukee where he is also the Art Editor for Cream City



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Banjo Strings," my Horror / Sci-Fi / Fantasy novel, just achieved 5000 hits!

Here's the numbers:




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


[As I'm currently seeking a review of my book, i came across this very insightful article...]

The Trouble With Book Reviews By Vel Nirtist

To judge by a flyer from the just-inaugurated New York Center for Independent Publishing, book reviewers are in trouble. “SAVE OUR BOOK REVIEWS!” pleads its headline. “Over the past five years, one by one, newspapers have begun to forsake books and their readers. At dozens of papers, book coverage has been cut back or slashed altogether, puffed up with wire copy, or generally treated as expendable. The Board of the National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to try to combat these changes.”

Assuming that the freefall needs to be stopped – what should be done?

When any industry is hit by a malaise, it helps to do three things. First of all, just to stave off precipitous decline, it makes sense to assure investors of the overall viability of the enterprise, and ask them to advance additional funds to help restore its profitability. Book reviews being hardly a strong profit earner, it would be less then realistic to put much hope into this step.

Of far greater importance is the second step to be taken – expanding customer base to increase the value of the enterprise. Usually, this cannot be effectively done without first implementing the third step – that of changing enterprise’ entire business model.

In fact, book reviewers need to completely re-orient themselves, switching to an altogether different set of customers.

At present, reviewers are servants of big publishers. Rather than sifting through the mass of newly-published books in search of interesting and original ideas to present to the public, and acting as referees of merit, today’s book reviewers earn their bread by hyping up books published by big houses, and turning them into “bestsellers.” Some book-covers are just plastered with admiring quotes from reviews, with ecstatic “oh!”s, “ah!”s, and “how great!”s spilling from the covers to the first few pages of the text itself, while other books earn not a single review. Are the former adorned with superlatives because their merits were obvious to every reviewer in the country, while the latter were found, upon being read by the same reviewers, sadly devoid of merit? Not at all. The difference is due solely to the respective publishers’ connections, the former being able to push their wares to reviewers’ desks, while the latter having no such long arm.

A couple of years ago a novel called “The Memory of Running” was sold to a big publisher for around two million dollars – after fifteen years of having been rejected as junk. The lucky break came after the author came into contact with Stephen King while making an audio book for him. A nod from Mr. King did the alchemical trick of turning trash into gold – and, when time came to hype the book into bestsellership, every major reviewer published an opinion – an opinion of a book which would never have reached his desk had the author published it himself – since major reviewers have a stated policy of not considering author-published books for review. “The Memory of Running” made it not because of what was in it – that never changed since its trash years – but because it was published by people who were in a position to make book reviewers jump.

About half a year ago, during a panel discussion by the New York Times book review staff, I had a more direct confirmation that this is how book reviewers operate. I was eager to ask a simple question – “if all review submissions were made anonymously, leaving no clue as to the identity of author or publisher, wouldn’t an altogether different set of books be chosen for review?” My turn to ask the question never came, but I buttonholed two members of the panel as they mixed with the crowd. Each one answered in the affirmative, even suggesting that this might be a vastly superior way of doing things, and confiding that a recent novel by a household-name novelist would have never been reviewed under such selection policy.

Interestingly, this is precisely how book reviewers used to work in the past. In early 1900s it was possible for a book anonymously published by its author to get some half dozen magazine reviews simply on the merit of its provocative ideas. (Far later, “What is Man?” proved to have been written by Mark Twain.) In the current book review climate, however, this would be inconceivable, reviews being an exclusive prerogative of publishing establishment, and having nothing whatsoever to do with book’s quality and merit.

Perhaps, to save their industry, book reviewers should seriously consider extricating themselves from the far-too-close embrace of big publishers, and of choosing as customers the public, instead of the publishers – by basing their selection, just as it used to be a hundred years ago, only on merit, and completely ignoring irrelevances such as the identity of author and of publisher.

The public would be grateful to book reviewers for worthwhile ideas brought to its attention, the fellow-journalists would respect reviewers for pursuing newsworthy material, and the management would see that book reviews are an asset, and not a liability.

Which is, to think of it, the only reasonable way for book reviews to flourish, rather than wither.

© Vel Nirtist 2007

Vel Nirtist writes on the role of religion in fostering terrorism. He is author of “The Pitfall of Truth: Holy War, its Rationale and Folly.” His blog is at http://www.rootoutterrorism.com


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carbon Nanotubes Strengthen Artificial Muscles The discovery that nanotubes keep bouncing back after being compressed repeatedly means this exotic form of carbon may be just the thing to give artificial muscles some extra strength. Engineers want to build artificial muscles - actuators that change length in response to a stimulus - because they create a smoother, more human-like motion than jerky electric motors or pneumatic devices. Such muscles would be used to power robots, prosthetic limbs and artificial tissue for implantation. Today's most promising artificial muscles are based on electroactive polymers (EAPs) - plastics that change shape when activated electrically or with chemicals. But they lack mechanical robustness and as a result soon succumb to fatigue and fail. Now engineers led by Victor Pushparaj at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, say that carbon nanotubes could toughen up artificial muscles. The springiness, and the discovery that it remains even after hundreds of thousands of compressions, is similar to real muscles' ability to return to their original shapes over a lifetime of perpetual extension and contraction. As a result, the researchers are now combining nanotubes with various EAPs - which control when an artificial muscle gets stretched - to improve their resistance to fatigue. Yoseph Bar-Cohen, an artificial muscle engineer at NASA in Pasadena, California, agrees that nanotubes' long fatigue life is "an important property"... World's First Hydrogen-Powered Racecar Debuts Alternative engine technologies face several challenges in the battle to be viewed as a serious alternative to the internal combustion engine - and a key hurdle is the perception that they can't deliver enough power and performance to compete with their fossil-fuel burning counterparts. How better to dispel such fears than to race a hydrogen-powered car against petrol-powered competitors? The first hydrogen-powered race car will take to the track this weekend in the worldwide Formula Student category, and if the notion of green car racing catches on, we can look forward to watching the ingenuity of the racing community making some significant contributions to the development of emission-free consumer cars in the near future. A £5,000 grant from the Royal Society of Chemistry has made it possible for John Goddard and James Waters, two PhD students in the University of Hertfordshire’s new Sustainable Energy Technologies Centre to convert a Formula Student racing car into a hydrogen-powered vehicle. Formula Student is a worldwide challenge for engineering students to design and build small, single-seat racing cars. It forms part of their academic studies and culminates in a competition to be held this weekend where teams from all over the world test the strength of their designs in the racing arena. This is the first time that a hydrogen-powered racing car has been developed anywhere in the world. It will produce zero CO2 emissions, run on ‘green’ hydrogen produced from farm waste and is expected to be equally as fast as a petrol-fueled car.

The engineers are very optimistic about the car’s chances in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) Formula Student Race when it races on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 July at Silverstone. This particular car, before the hydrogen conversion, won the Best UK Car category in the competition in 2005. The car will also be a key feature of the Royal Society of Chemistry Week which will take place from 3-11 Nov. Check out the Royal Society of Chemistry website for more info. Evolution Occurs in the Blink of an Eye A population of butterflies has evolved in a flash on a South Pacific island to fend off a deadly parasite. The proportion of male Blue Moon butterflies dropped to a precarious 1 percent as the parasite targeted males. Then, within the span of a mere 10 generations, the males evolved an immunity that allowed their population share to soar to nearly 40 percent—all in less than a year. “We usually think of natural selection as acting slowly, over hundreds or thousands of years," said study team member Gregory Hurst, an evolutionary geneticist at the University College London. "But the example in this study happened in a blink of the eye, in terms of evolutionary time." The scientists think the males developed genes that hold a male-killing microbial parasite, called Wolbachia, at bay. The results, detailed in the July 13 issue of the journal Science, illustrate the power of positive natural selection on “suppressor” genes that thwart the lethal bacteria, allowing the male butterflies to bounce back. Sylvain Charlat of the University of California, Berkeley, and the University College London, along with colleagues, are the team dong the research. Cool. The Secret to More Useful Robots: Tai Chi Training The dream of helpful household robots is one that's been long deferred. Problem is, robots tend to be clumsy. So train them in tai chi. The 7-year-old humanoid robot ASIMO made by Honda can walk, run and greets passersby. However, it cannot yet perform useful tasks in a complex world in real time as humans can. When humans perform tasks, they often assume postures that minimize discomfort and effort. For instance, when taking a sip from a hot cup of coffee, most people naturally hold their forearm at about a 45-degree angle, not up near their ear or down by their side. Humans start learning which movements and positions to use and avoid from infancy. To get robots to perform multiple tasks smoothly and simultaneously, roboticist Oussama Khatib at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in California and his colleagues wanted to see if machines could employ the same energy minimization strategy humans learn. [This is also what you still have to deal with until those artifical muscles made of nanotubes become available...]

From
Sundown Lounge No. 106


Geeknotes:

Jared Smith leaving Chicago
Chicago Poetry Fest
Brother Love Fan Club



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


From CJ in Chi...

The word around the Chicago Poetry Scene is that
the author of Lake Michigan and Other Poems, Jared
Smith, will soon be moving away from the Windy
City. I contacted Jared to confirm this, and this
is what he has to say:

"My wife has had increasing difficulty with
asthma, and the only part of the country she
doesn't seem to have it in is Colorado. So...we
have been scouting potential cities to move to out
there. This summer we settled on Boulder, which is
near a very rustic (read that as non-winterized
and with no modern conveniences) cabin we have up
in the mountains. We'll be putting our house on
the market sometime this fall. I have a lot of
good friends in Chicago, and I'm sorry about
leaving. My writing has thrived here, and I've
certainly done the best work of my life. But I
love the mountains too. Thank goodness, there is
the Internet these days and I'll be able to stay
in touch with all the good poets here. And I plan
to continue doing road trips and readings, so I
hope that I'll be invited back regularly. Maybe
we'll even be able to strengthen a
Chicago-Colorado link. I hope to have a place
where I can put up Chicago poets who are passing
through at the very least.


Also:

I am now booking Day One of the 2007 Chicago
Poetry Fest.

The 2007 Chicago Poetry Fest Day One will happen on

Saturday, August 25, from 3 until 7:30 PM at
Mercury Cafe, 1505 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago.

The rear of the cafe will be available to display
and sell your books. There will be some tables
available, and if you want to make sure you have a
table you can bring your own folding table to
display your books on. Poets / publisher need to
RSVP in advance if they are planning to display books, please.

I am looking for about 25 poets to feature during
Day One of the Chicago Poetry Fest.

I do not have any details about a Day Two worked
out yet, nor can I promise that there will be a
Day Two, so if you want to secure your spot in the
2007 Chicago Poetry Fest, reply to this email.

If you have never worked with me (C. J. Laity)
before, please include a cover letter letting me
know who you are and a sample poem. Keep in mind
I probably will get more than 25 responses to
this, so I can't guarantee everyone a spot in this
event. I will collect replies to this open call
for a few days and then I will select 25 poets out of them.

The 2007 Chicago Poetry Fest will be absolutely
free and open to the public.

Thought this is not a requirement to feature, I am
particularly interested in poets who can bring
musical accompaniment with them to liven the show
up this year. So if you can bring a percussionist
or guitarist or saxophonist or whatever with you,
let me know when you reply.

Each poet will get somewhere between 7 and 10
minutes at the mic; I'll let the features know the
exact time limit after I have the event booked.

Please make sure you will be available to read on
Saturday, August 25, between 3 and 7:30 PM before
you reserve your spot.




Join the Brother Love fan club now and receive an autographed pre-released version of the new album "TURN IT UP!" featuring **SoccerGirl** (plus a signed photo print and sticker).

This CD is not available anywhere else.

"TURN IT UP" is the follow up to "Album of the Year" with his smash hit "Summertime".

As we grow the Fan Club, your membership will also give you access to special downloads and other VIP treatment.

Brother Love is an unsigned artist. 100% of your membership fee goes directly to him. Your support helps him record new music, videos, and go on tour.

Upcoming tour dates:

Syracuse NY (July 14th)
Toronto Canada with Keith and the Girl (July 15th)

Spread the love! Join the Fan Club today.

Thanks so much, see ya in Toronto!

Brolo

Hey! Visit my store:




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Microholography and the 500 GB Disc A group of scientists working together with the Institute of Optics and Optical Technologies at the Technical University of Berlin claim to have discovered a way to store 500GB worth of data on DVD-sized discs. The scientists are members of the Microholas Project, coordinated by Dr. Susanna Orlic, which plans to double the storage capacity to 1TB by 2010. The Project aims to implement a microholographic recording techniques which record data to nanostructures in the recording process. By combining multilayer storage and holographic multiplexing, "microholography" allows data to be stored in three dimensions. The technology works by replacing the two-dimensional pit-land structures curre