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News Briefs 28-05-2004

Sorry for the delay. I have no cats in my chimney, nor am I moving, but I did not have electricity for four hours while the thunderstorms rolled across north Texas. Conspiracy, synchronicity, offending the gods, bad luck?

  • An intriguing theory now permeating oil company research staffs suggests that crude oil may actually be a natural inorganic product, not resulting from dead dinosaurs or other organic degradation. Mark my word, folks, this could change the world.
  • Not only is the universe wider than we thought, it also looks like the Eiffel Tower topped with a never-ending spire. Will you be surprised when we discover a restaurant at the very top?
  • Engineers are working on a quieter sky by developing silent aircraft.
  • Puzzling ancient Greeks by apparently sweating blood was always a favorite hippopotamus pastime, but now we know it’s just sunblock.
  • Tiny genetic changes between chimpanzee and human DNA are helping to explain how people and apes can be so close, yet so far apart.
  • The first use of genetic testing to study dolphin social behavior shows males are not the homebodies that researchers once thought.
  • A giant mushroom baffles the experts. I like them baffled.
  • Weeping Marys in southwest Brisbane have inspired a statue-buying frenzy.
  • Two inventors have come up with a simple technique for harvesting energy from waste heat.
  • DNA analysis of Bronze Age bones will answer an ancient question.
  • Biophysicist W. C. Levengood’s Crop Circle Reports are available for first time on the Internet. Somehow, those two drunks Doug and Dave microwaved the wheat stems while making the crop formations, I suppose.
  • Scientists explain that the scenarios depicted in the movie Day After Tomorrow are not possible. Why didn’t scientists have to explain that Godzilla was fiction when he destroyed New York and Tokyo?
  • Tiny bacteria, perhaps millions of years old, have been retrieved from a glacial deep freeze. Man, I hope these guys are being careful.
  • Humans resemble molecules?
  • A bears’ hibernation may hold the key to longer space travel. I’ve always thought that bears knew more than they were letting on.
  • First, the movie, now scientists prepare to turn fiction into fact with the first full-face transplant.
  • Scientists look at the moon to shed light on Earth’s climate.
  • Scientists have discovered more than 100 species of bacteria living in a toxic, radioactive environment that most would have thought inhospitable to all forms of life. Bacteria are tough, man.
  • The Earth may be brightening up. Yeah, last week they told us it was getting darker.
  • The Big Bang Theory is busted by 33-top scientists.
  • California’s Mojave Desert will become the home of a new spaceport.
  • Venus is about to begin a trek across the face of the Sun.
  • One of the Mars rovers will begin a deep sleep mode. Sweet dreams, Opportunity.
  • The raw ingredients for life have been detected in planetary construction zones.
  • NASA’s Spitzer telescope finds evidence for a young planet around a distant star that may be less than one-million years old.
  • The new Vision for Space Exploration calls for first stops on the Moon and Mars, continuing on to go where no whatever has gone before.

Thanks Marlin.

Quote of the Day:

Now, my suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose… I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, in any philosophy.

J.B.S. Haldane

  1. OI !
    Hi,

    Carbo-hydrates are abundant in the universe therefore oil’s anorganic origin must come as no surprise to anyone. Rotting organic matter produces gas and contributes, it certainly contributed to the misconception that it was solely responsible. Capilair activity will refill old wells but at what speed, i doubt we humans have the luxury of waiting for it. Demand is growing and will continue to do so, therefor it’s inevitable that alternative energy sources must be developped. All this apart from the fact that burning of fuel-[lets leave out the allitarating fossil] pollutes our atmosphere and conributes to global warning. Interesting that a conference on these matters was scrapped, politically inconvenient perhaps- lessening the reasons to stamp around iraq- in any case with all the emphasis on oil these days, it would have created a big stir, and so mr KerRy or Kohn, there’s a positive stick to hit your opponent with.

    BIG BANG BEEF

    Now then i’ve come out in favor of a plasma universe years ago. There have been many scientists these past decades, big names too. Yet somehow the cosmologists cardinals have prevented any seriously funded research. The scene is full of ‘hawasses’. It’s even worse, they’ve twisted and turned and have come up with ever more rediculous explanations and models, what a waste of energy. Thank you misters einstein and hawking, you’ve succesfully lead a campaign of disinformation. Attacking the softhearted, the weak ? That’s right, no preferential treatment on that basis ! [too late] Remember if one wants to mislead, one needs plenty of thruths in the story.
    Back to the article, i’m afraid these people are barking at the moon, the whole system has been rigged by negative forces, that will end not only your professional life, if need be.

    ” Fear accomplishes nothing but destruction. Fear is the greatest enemy of all that exists on Planet Earth. Fear is bondage, fear is not freedom”

    1. Not fossil fuel
      An alternative energy source must either be a fuel or something that can produce electricity. Electrical energy production from dams, coal and oil fired generators, and reactors can be used as it is made for power and some mass transportation systems. But energy- storage problems become awkward for most transportations. Solar in not efficient and reliable in a only a few places, windmills are dangerous, noisy, and kill birds, and tides-generation is limited by geography. Did I leave anything out?

      It’s hard to beat the energy bang-for-the-buck that petroleum offers except with nuclear fision. But the tree-huggers have made it near-impossible to build a new reactor.

      Fuel-from-water is attractive; it has been that for 100-years. But hydrogen produced by electrolysis looses its allure if the electrical source is petroleum. Hydrogen does offer the ability to make a vehicle that can do 0-to-60mph in less than 4.5 seconds. I wouldn’t buy a vehicle that couldn’t.

      Zero-point energy and cold fusion are exciting, but elusive.

      Pollution from petroleum has decreased tremendously. The air-quality in the US is better than it was 10-years ago due to more efficient combustion. This trend will continue. Global Warming due to carbon dioxide is a non-event. Ironically, the movie The Day After Tomorrow is being denounced by so many climate-experts that Global Warming may join Godzilla in the bad-science threat category.

      The refilling wells are incidental. If wells are refilling by capillary action then it is the sources that becomes important. If petroleum is an inorganic substance formed deep within the planet, not fermenting dinosaur juice at near-surface levels, the near-surface fields in the Middle East and other fields may be anomalies. The sources could dwarf the near-surface anomalies. If this is true, global politics would turn upside down.

      Source-access may be located in completely different areas on the planet than are the near-surface oil fields. Present exploration and drilling techniques are suitable for near-surface cavities; the deepest wells are around 7,500 feet (~2,300 meters). It may be that an abundance of oil is available at 20-miles or more. This type of drilling would require completely different technologies than are presently employed. R&D monies would be better spent on extremely deep-well exploration and drilling than alternatives.

      Bill

  2. Face transplant
    Nominees for full face transplant:

    1. Michael Jackson
    2. Janet Reno
    3. Al Gore (graft on the back of his head, so it’s easier to be two-faced.

    Peace.

  3. Brighter Earth? If only it were true..
    Methinks there is more moonshine here than Earthshine. I live in New Jersey, and believe me, the Oit ain’t gettin’ any brighter here.

    Peace

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