Category: News

You can now learn more about the upcoming Trinity Universe from Nippon Ichi, in collaboration with Idea Factor and Gust, through its newly-launched official website.
 
 
 
 

What, wait? Sony’s been churning out floppy disks all these years? And 12m were sold last year in Japan alone? I guess that’s not enough though—as Sony Japan will cease selling them March 2011. [Akihabara News] More »

Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Timothy Howe)

In The last pharaohs, J. G. Manning attempts to bring Ptolemaic Egypt, and the economic policies of the Ptolemaic state, out of isolation from other fields of ancient Mediterranean history. Often seen as “a place apart,” especially by classicists focused on Greece and Rome, Ptolemaic Egypt has entered historical conversations tangentially, as a stage for wider Roman policy, for instance, or as a counterpoint to classical, polis civilization. Here, Manning is reacting against the scholarly tendency to assess the Hellenistic experience from the perspective of Greece.1 Using a social science models, Manning suggests that Ptolemaic Egypt be seen as an intentionally constructed hybrid of Greek and Egyptian elements, wherein Ptolemaic policies encouraged a fertile interaction of cultures and ideas, an interaction that produced complex native and immigrant responses, ranging from rejection to acceptance. By examining the Ptolemaic state from an Egyptian perspective, Manning seizes an opportunity to rethink terms like “hellenization” and “Hellenistic” and demonstrate how, by adopting a native Egyptian, pharaonic mode of governance, the Ptolemies fit their institutions into long-term Egyptian history. As Manning puts it, “This book offers a new perspective on the connections between Greek and Egyptian civilization, by trying to understand Egyptian civilization in its own terms, examining the manner in which the Ptolemies established themselves within Egyptian traditions, and the dynamic interactions between the two cultures during Ptolemaic rule” (205). And such a new perspective is now possible, Manning argues, because of the material uncovered in the past 100 years.2 Because of its rich literary records, Ptolemaic Egypt is at present the only well-documented state of the ancient world that allows such a quantitative approach.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes

Eco Factor: Energy-efficient hotel complex.

Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects have won an architectural competition to design a 5-star hotel complex in Munich, which will host several sustainable features to lower the overall energy demands of the complex. The 40,000sqm complex is to be situated in the newly developed Schwabinger Tor area, along the northern part of the Leopoldstraße.

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By Marianne Lavelle

(National Geographic, April 19, 2010) When the Navy F/A-18 jet called the Green Hornet takes off over the Chesapeake Bay on Earth Day, it will aim to break a barrier that has proven far more durable than the speed of sound.  The twin-engine tactical aircraft is prepared on April 22 to make a supersonic flight on biofuel—its tanks filled 50 percent with oil refined from the crushed seeds of the flowering Camelina sativa plant. The test flight at the Naval Air Station at Patuxent River, Maryland will be a milestone in the Navy’s efforts to reduce its reliance on petroleum, and perhaps, in the elusive search for an alternative fuel for aviation.  The event is meant to showcase the Pentagon’s efforts to increase use of renewable energy, not only as a climate change initiative but to protect the military from energy price fluctuations and dependence on foreign oil. When President Obama announced his offshore drilling and energy security plan last month at Andrews Air Force Base, he used the Green Hornet as a backdrop.  Click here to read more…

(EPA, April 19, 2010) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that it has selected $78.9 million in brownfields grants to communities in 40 states, four tribes, and one U.S. Territory. This funding will be used for the assessment, cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields properties, including abandoned gas stations, old textile mills, closed smelters, and other abandoned industrial and commercial properties.  The brownfields program encourages redevelopment of America’s estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites. As of March 2010, EPA’s brownfields assistance has leveraged more than $14 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding, and 61,277 jobs in cleanup, construction, and redevelopment. These investments and jobs target local, under-served and economically disadvantaged neighborhoods – places where environmental cleanups and new jobs are most needed. Cleaning up our communities is one of EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priorities, which leads not only to health and environmental benefits but also economic development and prosperity.  Click here to read more…

SETE (the company licensed to operate the Eiffel Tower) has entrusted the firm Baudin Châteauneuf with the replacement of the hydraulic systems, press cylinders and accumulator cylinders of the west elevator of the Eiffel Tower. VERLINDE EUROBLOC VT 12.5-ton capacity hoists are used to remove the existing machinery and replace it with new equipment.

The press cylinders and accumulator cylinders of the Eiffel Tower elevators have actually been in service for one hundred years, and this is the first time they will be changed. They are to be replaced with systems that are technically as similar as possible to the original equipment, as the Tower’s creator, Gustave Eiffel had wished.

Baudin Châteauneuf has installed a 17-meter gantry which enters the Tower by a “window” through the metal framework. Radio-controlled VERLINDE hoists will handle the hydraulic systems, which are 16 meters long and weigh around 20 metric tons.

“We work regularly with VERLINDE. Their product range fits our every need, from smallest to largest systems. They are a key player in the field of lifting equipment, and have been in the business virtually as long as we have”, says Mr Morelle, Technical Project Manager at Baudin Châteauneuf.

Eventually, both of the Eiffel Tower’s hydraulic elevators will be renovated in this way.

Bargteheide – More than two thirds of the energy consumed in industrial appli-cations goes into the operation of electric drive technology. Since an electric motor’s energy consumption makes up about 98% of its total cost of ownership, investment in efficient drive technology is more than worthwhile. Adding to that, there are binding standards for plant manufacturers and operators such as the IEC 60034-30 which will make compliance with the IE2 energy efficiency class mandatory for a large number of electric motors as of June 16, 2011. More in-formation on the new efficiency classes and details about international regula-tions are available at www.nord.com/IE2. The following article covers which energy efficiency measures manufacturers should consider with respect to drive technology. Energy saving potential does not stop at optimizing the consumption of individual motors. Prudent efficiency measures should also consider the complete drive system together with the application process. NORD DRIVESYSTEMS has many years of experience in developing efficient drive technology and customized energy saving concepts. Apart from optimizing materials and the design of its electric motors, NORD employs such technologies as high-frequency operation, automatic magnetization adjustment, energy recovery, and intermediate circuit coupling.
Regenerative braking
While conventional frequency inverter applications discharge the braking energy as heat, more efficient and eco-friendly drives reuse this excess energy via intermediate circuits or regenerative braking and thus reduce the power drawn from the mains supply.
Intelligent control during partial load operation
Intelligent control is another way to save energy. For asynchronous motors, frequency inverters generally maintain the magnetic flux level required for yield-ing the full torque over the whole speed range, thus causing unnecessary losses during partial load operation. NORD’s SK 200E, SK 500E, and SK 700E-type frequency inverters can save resources by automatically reducing magne-tization when the motor is operated under partial load for potential energy sav-ings of up to 30 %.
IE2 motors for energy saving drive solutions:
new standard-compliant units offer additional benefits
For its new range of IE2 motors, NORD uses more active material in the stator and higher quality sheet metal that helps reduce losses.

Article Tags: You could not make it up

A thaw of ice caps caused by global warming may trigger more volcanic eruptions in coming decades by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, research suggests. Eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in coming decades. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose. Climate chaos could also trigger volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in places such as Mount Erebus in Antarctica, the Aleutian islands of Alaska or Patagonia in South America.

Ice is heavy and exerts enormous pressure on whatever lies beneath it. Under the ice’s weight, the Earth’s crust bends and as the ice melts the crust bounces up again. Imagine a floating cork, topped with a piece of lead. Will it not pop upwards when the lead is taken off? Similarly, a shrinking ice cap reduces the pressure on the earth’s mantle, causing it to melt and creating magma. Also, this frees tectonic plates up to move against each other and cause the friction needed to initiate earthquakes. This tallies with mathematical models that suggest such processes may potentially lead to more earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.

Click source to read more about the “effect being the cause”, it is little wonder why the so called mathematical models do NOT work.

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Read in full with comments »   

By Martin LaMonica

(CNET, April 19, 2010) Biofuel company Amyris Biotechnologies said it plans to raise $100 million through an initial public offering, one of a number of energy start-ups now seeking to tap the stock market for capital.  The Emeryville, Calif., company on Friday filed its S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which it laid out its plans to tap sugar cane from Brazil, now used for producing ethanol, to make different chemical products, including diesel fuel.   A source for diesel or jet fuel–Brazilian sugar cane.  (Credit: Amyris Biotechnologies) The S-1 also spelled out the many risks that the Amyris faces, including the high costs of building biorefineries and the potential backlash against using genetically modified organisms to make its products.  Amyris manipulates micro-organisms, primarily yeasts, so that they consume sugar and produce a desired product, which could be diesel, jet fuel, or other chemical products. The company founders had originally received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to use its process for an antimalaria drug. Then, funded by venture capital companies including Khosla Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, they set out to also make liquid fuels using the same basic process.  Click here to read more…

Compiled By: Kent Hoover

(New Mexico Business Weekly, April 23, 2010) Congress extended higher government guarantees and reduced fees on U.S. Small Business Administration loans through May 31, but the SBA wants a longer extension.  The economic stimulus bill increased the guarantee on the SBA’s flagship 7(a) loan program from the usual 75 percent to 90 percent, and reduced or eliminated fees for borrowers and lenders. These enhancements sparked a rebound in SBA lending by making the loans less risky for lenders and more affordable for borrowers.  Through April 12, 7(a) lending this fiscal year — which began Oct. 1 — totaled $7.9 billion, up 112 percent from the same period a year earlier. The first two quarters of this fiscal year were the best opening quarters ever for the 7(a) program, according to the SBA.  The stimulus provisions also brought 1,200 lenders back to the SBA.  “These programs have been successful in helping jump-start our economy, which is why we will continue to work with Congress on a longer-term extension of the increased guarantee and reduced fees,” said SBA Administrator Karen Mills.  Click here to read more…

(ScienceDaily, April 23, 2010) — Aydogan Ozcan, whose invention of a novel lensless imaging technology for use in telemedicine could radically transform global health care, has now taken his work a step further ― or tinier: The UCLA engineer has created a miniature microscope, the world’s smallest and lightest for telemedicine applications.  The microscope, unveiled in a paper published online in the journal Lab on a Chip, builds on imaging technology known as LUCAS (Lensless Ultra-wide-field Cell Monitoring Array platform based on Shadow imaging), which was developed by Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and a researcher at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute.  Instead of using a lens to magnify objects, LUCAS generates holographic images of microparticles or cells by employing a light-emitting diode to illuminate the objects and a digital sensor array to capture their images. The technology can be used to image blood samples or other fluids, even in Third World countries.  “This is a very capable and yet cost-effective microscope, shrunk into a very small package,” Ozcan said. “Our goal with this project was to develop a device that can be used to improve health outcomes in resource-limited settings.”  Click here to read more…

Eco Factor: Solar installation to power all bases of Israeli Air Force.

The Israeli Air Force is planning an array of solar installations to generate renewable electricity for all of its bases. According to the Globes, the IAF is expected to publish a tender to supply and install small photovoltaic systems (up to 50KW) for electricity production at its bases.

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We have written about Star Wars iPhone cases before, so I guess the ones they released back in November were such a hit that they had to come out with some more. The Stormtropper Half Helmet and Darth Vader Half Helmet Hard Cases for the iPhone are basically the same as the original versions – they just look a bit more menacing, since it only features half of the helmets. These cases will fit both 3G and 3GS iPhones and they retail for $29.95 each.

I attended SkeptiCal 2010 on Saturday, a conference on science and skepticism organized by Bay Area Skeptics. The conference sold out all 200 slots, and the audience is a pretty lively bunch. I was invited here to speak at a breakout session in the afternoon on “Myths and Facts about the LHC” which I trust was entertaining, given all the media attention to the possibility that the LHC will destroy the world by producing a black hole, that the Higgs boson is coming back from the future to prevent its discovery, and the various notions about CERN in Angels and Demons such as that the lab is using the LHC to create an antimatter superweapon. All relatively standard topics for the skeptics…

The opening talk, but Eugenie Scott, addressed the rather deep question of how skepticism relates to science: is one included in the other? Do they overlap? Her conclusion, arrived at with humor, grace, and thoughtful examples, was that science is contained within skepticism, that the general approach to knowing we call skepticism is applied in the case of science to understanding the natural world. As a physicist, I need to continually put myself in the mindset of the (mostly) non-physicists in the audience. Skepticism is to a physicist as natural as breathing…this is not true of everyone in the world!

David Morrison, senior scientist at NASA Ames’ Astrobiology institute, gave a truly mind-boggling talk about the rapidly increasing end-of-the-world-in-2012 phenomenon. It all started with Nibiru, the planet that the Zetas told a Wisconsin woman, Nancy Lieder, would crash into the earth round about then. Of course the thing snowballed and led to the movie 2012 (actually the movie appropriated the 2012 meme a few years into prouction). Morrison has received over 3500 emails about the phenomenon, ranging from death threats against him (because, natch, NASA is covering it all up) to suicide threats (who wants to live to see the end of the world?) and everything in between. He made a youtube video trying to allay fears of the world’s imminent demise. (Of course I told my session that the LHC was scheduled to resume at full energy on Dec. 21, 2012, the particular date in question.)

I had a difficult choice of parallel sessions to attend, but chose the one on psychics by Karen Stollznow. And, of all things, I learned something very interesting about quantum physics that I had been blissfully unaware of. Watch for a future post once I read up on that.

In the afternoon, Brian Dunning, creator and host of Skeptoid.com, delivered a devastating blow to the myth of the origins of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the most pervasive symbol of Catholicism in Mexico. What becomes clear is that this was another example of the Catholic church appropriating the symbols of the indigenous population it was attempting (ultimately successfully) to convert. In the beginning, though, he lamented the failure of the skeptical movement as a movement. He pointed out that all that skepticism can offer is negative: we kill sacred cows and remove the scales from peoples’ eyes. But how will we save critical thinking?

All in all I found the conference quite eye-opening, and I have realized that we have a long way to go to counter the rising tide of ignorance of science and what it means to adopt a skeptical world view. Even once-respectable types like Bill Nye and Michio Kaku are starting to fall to the dark side. Too many think of skepticism as simply disbelief, when all it means is to place rationality at the base of our intellectual foundation. Help!

I rarely buy natural beauty products anymore, as I get plenty of samples to review. Recently, I found myself out of face cream and resorted to purchasing one of my old favorites: Dr. Hauschka Rose Day Cream.

A rich, luxurious daily moisturizer. Soothing rose ingredients nurture and renew sensitive, dry and weather-damaged skin. Protects skin against dryness and soothes red, irritated skin and conditions of couperose.

• Protects the delicate outer layer of the skin against dryness and irritation
• Extracts of rose petal, rose hip and avocado soothe and renew red, irritated, sensitive skin
• Seals in moisture to prevent dryness
• Thirty rose flowers go into each tube of Rose Day Cream

Although I don’t have any “irritated skin conditions”, I like how this cream is thick and nourishing, but it doesn’t feel heavy and oily. I do spend a lot of time in the sun gardening, so I like the soothing qualities of the rose cream.

Eco Factor: Environmentally-friendly camcorder powered by solar energy.

Jetyo has unveiled its new HDV-T900 camcorder that is powered by onboard solar panels. The 720p30 model records your holiday memories to SDHC memory cards using a fixed-zoom lens. With no optical zoom, the camcorder promises an 8x digital zoom.

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