STAY AWAY FROM THOSE CONTAINERS !

Memory Lane

Some experiences are hard to forget, like perhaps your first kiss.

But how does a person hold onto these personal movies?

Using brain-imaging techniques, scientists are unraveling the mechanism responsible for creating and storing memories.

They are finding that the hippocampus, within the brain's gray matter, could act as a memory box.

But this storage area isn't so discriminatory. It turns out that both true and false memories activate similar brain regions.

To pull out the real memory, some researchers ask a subject to recall the memory in context, something that's much more difficult when the event didn't actually occur

/Live Science

AMAZING TREES !

"No Depression, Major Recession" : Bill Gates

No depression, major recession, from US finance crisis: Bill Gates
The richest man in America, Bill Gates, said in a television interview broadcast Sunday that the US financial crisis does not spell the end of capitalism and will not lead to a depression.
"It's a very interesting crisis," Microsoft founder told CNN, discussing the US Congress's 700-billion dollar bailout bill for Wall Street which was passed Friday to stem economic jitters spreading around the world.
The slump triggered by the collapse of the subprime housing market requires "some type of correction," Gates added, "but fundamentally ... companies' willingness to invest, right now we haven't seen a huge disruption in that."
"It looks like the economy may go down somewhat, but nothing like a big recession or a depression," he added.
On some experts' misgivings about the US bailout plan, Gates said: "it doesn't look like fixing these problems is going to derail the economy in some dramatic way."
Gates, who last month topped Forbes magazine's list of the richest men in the United States with an estimated 57 billion dollar fortune, said the future of the US and the global economies lies in the resilience and innovative spirit of businessmen and scientists around the world.
"The amount of innovation taking place, the amount of investment is actually greater today than ever," Gates said.
"Because you not only have more American companies with more scientists and engineers and innovators, but now you have ... people from all over, including lots of people in India and China, now contributing to new drug design, new software design, new energy generation design."
Gates said on CNN that the quest for new technologies to increase food production and reduce global warming through cheaper and cleaner energy sources "will deliver those advances" to push the world economy forward.
Gates retired from Microsoft in June to focus on running the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, aimed at fighting disease, reducing poverty, and improving education around the world.
He remains Microsoft's largest single shareholder and chairman of company's board of directors.

Art with Eggs

Our Solar System born in "Little Bang"

By SPACE.com Staff :
First there was the theoretical Big Bang that got the universe going. Several billion years passed. Then a Little Bang birthed our solar system.
At least scientists have long thought that's how it went, and now they have a computer model to back up the idea that our sun is the product of an explosive event. The new modeling finds that a supernova, or exploding star, could indeed have triggered birth of our sun in a dense cloud of gas and dust, the researchers say.
Stars are born when a cloud of material collapses. Exactly what triggers the collapse is not entirely known. One idea is that most stars, including perhaps our sun, were created in dense starbirth regions when another very massive star explodes, putting intense pressure on surrounding clouds.
"We've had chemical evidence from meteorites that points to a supernova triggering our solar system's formation since the 1970s," said theorist Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution. "But the devil has been in the details. Until this study, scientists have not been able to work out a self-consistent scenario, where collapse is triggered at the same time that newly created isotopes from the supernova are injected into the collapsing cloud."
Short-lived radioactive isotopes -- versions of elements with the same number of protons, but a different number of neutrons -- found in very old meteorites decay on time scales of millions of years and turn into different (so-called daughter) elements. Finding the daughter elements in primitive meteorites implies that the parent short-lived radioisotopes must have been created only a million or so years before the meteorites themselves were formed.
"One of these parent isotopes, iron-60, can be made in significant amounts only in the potent nuclear furnaces of massive or evolved stars," Boss today. "Iron-60 decays into nickel-60, and nickel-60 has been found in primitive meteorites. So we've known where and when the parent isotope was made, but not how it got here."
Previous models by Boss and former DTM Fellow Prudence Foster showed that the isotopes could be deposited into a pre-solar cloud if a shock wave from a supernova explosion slowed to 6 to 25 miles per second and the wave and cloud had a constant temperature of -440 degrees Fahrenheit (10 K).
"Those models didn't work if the material was heated by compression and cooled by radiation, and this conundrum has left serious doubts in the community about whether a supernova shock started these events over four billion years ago or not," said Harri Vanhala, who found the negative result in his Ph.D. thesis work at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 1997.
In several runs on the computer, the shock front was made to strike a pre-solar cloud of material with the mass of our sun, consisting of dust, water, carbon monoxide, and molecular hydrogen, reaching temperatures as high as 1,340°F (1000 K). In the absence of cooling, the cloud could not collapse.
However, with a newly crafted theoretically plausible cooling law, the researchers found that after 100,000 years the pre-solar cloud was 1,000 times denser than before, and that heat from the shock front was rapidly lost, resulting in only a thin layer with temperatures close to 1,340 degrees F (1000 K). After 160,000 years, the cloud center had collapsed to become a million times denser, forming the protosun. The researchers found that isotopes from the shock front were mixed into the protosun in a manner consistent with their origin in a supernova.
Other studies have suggested that our sun may have been born in a very crowded environment, near massive stars, but has since drifted to its relatively lonely position in space."This is the first time a detailed model for a supernova triggering the formation of our solar system has been shown to work," said Boss. "We started with a Little Bang 9 billion years after the Big Bang."
The results are detailed in the Oct. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Boss has previously shown that all this violent activity might have contributed to the makeup of our planetary system, too.

Installing the Largest Bi-Directional Solar Trackers in U.S.

Premier Power Installs Largest Bi-Directional Solar Trackers In US
The state-of-the-art, dual-axis solar trackers permit increasing photovoltaic solar energy production by more than 35% when compared to fixed installations.by Staff WritersEl Dorado Hills CA (SPX) Oct 03, 2008Premier Power has completed installation of its phase of the nation's largest "Bi-Directional Solar Trackers". The solar installation designed, engineered and integrated by Premier Power uses over 50 solar planes on a single solar array.
Each solar array spans approximately 45 feet, with 915 square feet of solar panels and sits on one tracker that is continually following the sun. Premier's latest tracker installations are indicative of the fact that solar tracker solutions are evolving on a utility scale.
The state-of-the-art, dual-axis solar trackers permit increasing photovoltaic solar energy production by more than 35% when compared to fixed installations.
"We have seen adoption of solar trackers increasing exponentially in more mature markets like Europe, and we are bringing best-in-class solar tracking technology to the U.S. which will enable us to offer customers increased efficiency for their solar projects and increased ROI," commented Miguel de Anquin.
The Delano Irrigation district project announced on September 25th was the first two installations in a series of large scale trackers being engineered and integrated by Premier Power by year end.
Premier Power's approach to solar engineering and integration is focused on leaving a minimal environmental footprint, while remaining focused on providing custom solutions to meet customer demands in terms of maximizing energy production while maintaining aesthetic appeal.
Most large scale ground mount solar installations typically need deep holes augured to support the solar structure. Large scale trackers can also require tons of concrete injected into the earth that could remain for 100s of years.
/Solar Daily

The quickest way to double your Money !

Strangers on a Train !

A scientist gets on a train to go to New York.

His cabin also has a poor farmer in it.

To pass the time the scientist decides to play a game with the guy : "I will ask you a question and if you get it wrong, you have to pay me one dollar.

Then you ask me a question, and if I get it wrong, you get ten dollars , You ask me a question first."

The farmer thinks for a while :"I know. What has three legs, takes ten hours to climb up a palm tree, and ten seconds to get back down ?"

The scientist is confused and thinks long and hard about the question.

Finally, the train ride is coming to an end.

As it pulls into the station, the scientist takes out ten dollars and gives it to the farmer : "I don''t know. What has three legs, takes ten hours to get up a palm tree and ten seconds to get back down ?"

The farmer takes the ten dollars and puts it into his pocket. He then takes out one dollar and hands it to the scientist and says : "I don''t know."

7 Anti-Aging Super Foods

Michelle Edelbaum/Eating Well Magazine

A few weeks ago I was using my flat iron and when I looked in the mirror to admire my ’do, I discovered my first gray hair (gasp!). It was the first time I was visibly confronted with the reality that, surprise, I will age, and I’m not 18 anymore no matter how good I feel.
I already have the exercise part down, so on my quest for a fountain of youth I’m paying more attention to research on how to eat to age healthfully. The best information I’ve found? 7 anti-aging super foods and recipes to enjoy them in, from Peter Jaret’s James Beard Foundation award-winning article in EatingWell Magazine, “The Search for the Anti-Aging Diet.”
Read on to find out more about the 7 foods to keep you young:

Chocolate :

The Kuna people of the San Blas islands, off the coast of Panama, have a rate of heart disease that is nine times less than that of mainland Panamanians. The reason? The Kuna drink plenty of a beverage made with generous proportions of cocoa, which is unusually rich in flavanols that help preserve the healthy function of blood vessels. Maintaining youthful blood vessels lowers risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease and dementia.
Get sweet satisfaction in seconds with delicious chocolate recipes, such as Chocolate & Nut Butter Bites (which include two of the 7 anti-aging super foods!):
Chocolate & Nut Butter Bites
8 1/4-ounce squares of bittersweet chocolate4 teaspoons almond, cashew or pistachio butter
Top each chocolate square with 1/2 teaspoon nut butter of your choice (almond, cashew, pistachio). Two sandwiches make one serving.
Per serving: 79 calories; 6 g fat (2 g sat, 1 g mono); 0 mg cholesterol; 9 g carbohydrate; 1 g protein; 1 g fiber; 12 mg sodium; 20 mg potassium. What you get: Magnesium, copper, chromium. 1/2 Carbohydrate Serving. Exchanges: 1/2 other carbohydrate, 1 fat.

Blueberries :

In a landmark study published in 1999, researchers at Tufts University’s Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging fed rats blueberry extract for a period of time that in “rat lives” is equivalent to 10 human years. These rats outperformed rats fed regular chow on tests of balance and coordination when they reached old age. Compounds in blueberries (and other berries) mitigate inflammation and oxidative damage, which are associated with age-related deficits in memory and motor function. Eat more blueberries with healthy blueberry recipes.

Fish :

Thirty years ago, researchers began to study why the native Inuits of Alaska were remarkably free of heart disease. The reason, scientists now think, is the extraordinary amount of fish they consume. Fish is an abundant source of omega-3 fats, which help prevent cholesterol buildup in arteries and protect against abnormal heart rhythms. Eat some tonight with a healthy fish recipe.

Nuts :

Studies of Seventh-Day Adventists (a religious denomination that emphasizes healthy living and a vegetarian diet) show that those who eat nuts gain, on average, an extra two and a half years. Nuts are rich sources of unsaturated fats, so they offer benefits similar to those associated with olive oil. They’re also concentrated sources of vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals, including antioxidants.

Wine :

Drinking alcohol in moderation protects against heart disease, diabetes and age-related memory loss. Any kind of alcoholic beverage seems to provide such benefits, but red wine has been the focus of much of the research. Red wine contains resveratrol, a compound that likely contributes to its benefits-and, according to animal studies, may activate genes that slow cellular aging.

Olive Oil :

Four decades ago, researchers from the Seven Countries Study concluded that the monounsaturated fats in olive oil were largely responsible for the low rates of heart disease and cancer on the Greek island of Crete. Now we know that olive oil also contains polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that may help prevent age-related diseases.

Yogurt :

In the 1970s, Soviet Georgia was rumored to have more centenarians per capita than any other country. Reports at the time claimed that the secret of their long lives was yogurt, a food ubiquitous in their diets. While the age-defying powers of yogurt never have been proved directly, yogurt is rich in calcium, which helps stave off osteoporosis and contains “good bacteria” that help maintain gut health and diminish the incidence of age-related intestinal illness.

LIGHT BEER !

THESE ARE JUST PENCILS !

The New Beautiful and Modern Safety Helmet

"Full padding , eye and ear protection ,and Radio Communication"

The helmet maker, Michael Oosthuizen says that his concept “features an adaptive inner padding structure, impact protection, eye protection, hearing protection, and radio communication with compact design providing minimal opportunity of catching on external objects.”

Designer : Michael Oosthuizen

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A BALD MONKEY ?!

From Sugar to Gasoline

The physical properties of Virent's Biogasoline product spontaneously separate from water. This requires very little energy for processing compared with the energy-intensive process of distillation required for ethanol purification.

Two research teams are announcing this month that they have successfully converted sugar-potentially derived from agricultural waste and non-food plants-into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and a range of other valuable chemicals.
Chemical engineer Randy Cortright and his colleagues at Virent Energy Systems of Madison, Wisc., a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research awardee, and researchers led by NSF-supported chemical engineer James Dumesic of the University of Wisconsin at Madison are now announcing that sugars and carbohydrates can be processed like petroleum into the full suite of products that drive the fuel, pharmaceutical and chemical industries.
"NSF and other federal funding agencies are advocating the new paradigm of next generation hydrocarbon biofuels," said John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at NSF and chair of an interagency working group on biomass conversion.
"Even when solar and wind, in addition to clean coal and nuclear, become highly developed, and cars become electric or plug-in hybrid, we will still need high energy-density gasoline, diesel and jet fuel for planes, trains, trucks, and boats.

The processes that these teams developed are superb examples of pathways that will enable the sustainable production of these fuels."
The process Virent discovered in early 2006, and announced at the Growing the Bioeconomy conference sponsored by Iowa State University on Sept. 9, 2008, is the subject of patent applications published last week.
That announcement was followed this month by the publication of a separate discovery of the same process in the Dumesic laboratory. Dumesic and his colleagues announce their findings in the Sept. 18, 2008 online ScienceExpress, to be followed in print in the Oct. 18, 2008, issue of Science.
The key to the breakthrough is a process developed by both Dumesic and Cortright called aqueous phase reforming.
In passing a watery slurry of plant-derived sugar and carbohydrates over a series of catalysts-materials that speed up reactions without sacrificing themselves in the process-carbon-rich organic molecules split apart into component elements that recombine to form many of the chemicals that are extracted from non-renewable petroleum.
According to Dumesic, a key feature of the approach is that between the sugar or starch starter materials and the hydrocarbon end products, the chemicals go through an intermediate stage as an organic liquid composed of functional compounds.
"The intermediate compounds retain 95 percent of the energy of the biomass but only about 40 percent of the mass, and can be upgraded into different types of transportation fuels, such as gasoline, jet and diesel fuels," said Dumesic.
"Importantly, the formation of this functional intermediate oil does not require the need for an external source of hydrogen," he added, since hydrogen comes from the slurry itself.
As part of a suite of second generation biofuel alternatives, green gasoline approaches like aqueous phase reforming are generating interest across the academic and industrial communities because they yield a product that is compatible with existing infrastructure, closer than many other alternatives in their net energy yield, and most importantly, can be crafted from plants grown in marginal soils, like switchgrass, or from agricultural waste.
While several years of further development will be needed to refine the process and scale it for production, the promise of gasoline and other petrochemicals from renewable plants has led to broad industrial interest.
Virent's process, called BioForming, is allowing the company to address one of the key goals of NSF's SBIR program, commercialization, and a broader NSF target, American competitiveness. A recent alliance with one of the world's largest energy companies aims to bring these alternative fuels to market, and investment from major automotive and agricultural companies from around the world are broadening the company's impact.
"The early support of NSF helped lay the groundwork for our technical, and subsequent industrial, successes," said Cortright, chief technology officer at Virent.
"Our scientists now have years of expertise with our BioForming process and are rapidly moving the technology to commercial scale. We are quickly working to put our renewable, green gasoline and other hydrocarbon biofuels in fuel tanks all over the world."
Added Rose Wesson, the NSF program officer who oversaw Virent's grant, "The technology developed by Virent is extremely promising, and has been refined over the last six years. The aqueous phase reforming process used by both research is an innovative approach that may yield an important, positive impact on the energy demands of the U.S. and worldwide."

/ENERGY TECH

Creating Art with Fruits And vegetables !

Powerful Nearby Supernova Caught By Web of Telescopes

Stellar Chemistry :
The Wild, Hidden Cousin of SN 1987A - Powerful nearby supernova caught by web of telescopes.. The Circinus galaxy is indeed a rather interesting object, with rings of gas being ejected from the galaxy. It is 13 million light-years away from the Milky Way. Detailed images at ESO.by Staff WritersParis, France (ESO) Oct 02, 2008Over a decade after it exploded, one of the nearest supernovae in the last 25 years has been identified. This result was made possible by combining data from the vast online archives from many of the world's premier telescopes.
The supernova, called SN 1996cr, was first singled out in 2001 by Franz Bauer. Bauer noticed a bright, variable source in the Circinus spiral galaxy, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Although the source displayed some exceptional properties Bauer and his Penn State colleagues could not identify its nature confidently at the time.
It was not until years later that Bauer and his team were able to confirm that this object was a supernova. Clues from a spectrum obtained by ESO's Very Large Telescope led the team to start the real detective work of searching through data from 18 different telescopes, both ground- and space-based, nearly all of which existed.
Because this object was found in an interesting nearby galaxy, the public archives of these telescopes contained abundant observations.
The data show that SN 1996cr is among the brightest supernovae ever seen in radio and X-rays. It also bears many striking similarities to the famous supernova SN 1987A, which occurred in a neighbouring galaxy only 160 000 light-years from Earth.
"This supernova appears to be a wild cousin of SN 1987A," says Bauer. "The two look alike in many ways, except this newer supernova is intrinsically a thousand times brighter in radio and X-rays."
Visible-light images from the archives of the Anglo-Australian Telescope in Australia show that SN 1996cr exploded sometime between 28 February 1995 and 15 March 1996, but it is the only one of the five nearest supernovae of the last 25 years that was not seen shortly after the explosion.
Other major X-ray observatories in orbit like ROSAT and ASCA did not detect SN 1996cr, but since it was first detected by Chandra in 2001 it has become steadily brighter. Previously, SN 1987A was the only known supernova with an X-ray output that increased over time.
"It's a bit of a coup to find SN 1996cr like this, and we could never have nailed it without the serendipitous data taken by all of these telescopes. We've truly entered a new era of 'internet astronomy'," said Bauer.
The combined data, in conjunction with theoretical work, have led the team to develop a model for the explosion. Before the parent star exploded, it cleared out a large cavity in the surrounding gas, either via a strong wind or from an outburst from the star late in its life.
So the blast wave from the explosion itself could expand relatively unimpeded into this cavity. Once the blast wave hit the dense material surrounding SN1996cr, the impact caused the system to glow brightly in X-ray and radio emission. The X-ray and radio emission from SN 1987A is probably fainter because the surrounding material is less compact.
Astronomers think that both SN 1987A and SN 1996cr show evidence for these pre-explosion clear-outs by a star doomed to explode. Having two nearby examples suggests that this type of activity could be relatively common during the death of massive stars.
"Not only does our work suggest that SN 1987A isn't as unusual as previously thought, but it also teaches us more about the tremendous upheavals that massive stars can undergo over their lifetimes," said co-author Vikram Dwarkadas of the University of Chicago.

/Space Daily

See Some More of Julian Beever's Street Art

Bill Gates Speech : "Eleven Rules"

Love him or hate him, he sure hits the nail on the head with this !

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school.

He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice

Spring Sunrise Over South Pole

Five things to Keep in Mind in Mortgage Financing

Getting the right mortgage is much more
than just getting a loan, because it has an
impact on wealth building, retirement
and other strategies in personal finance.
Here are five critical things prospective
homebuyers need to know about getting
a mortgage:
1. Make a down payment – More
favorable loan terms are available to
consumerswho can put at least 5%down.
2. Be smart when shopping for interest
rates – A higher interest rate may not
include fees, and a lower rate may
include fees that elevate the actual
financing cost.
3. Consider paying more for your house
– Instead of negotiating a reduction in the
sale price, ask the seller to pay for the
costs to “buy down” the interest rate on
the loan. This can substantially reduce the
monthly payment, saving cash flow in
the short run and increasing your
principal balance over the long haul.
4. Improve debt-to-income ratio – The
higher your total outstanding debt
compared to your total income, the less
likely you are to be approved for a loan.
For the best loan terms, work to keep
your debt low.
5. Improve credit scores – Check your
credit report and get errors corrected, get
rid of liens, and resolve any late payment
issues for a quick and positive impact on
your credit score.

Dishing The Dirt On Office Germs

The office is a hotbed of germs, a microbial monstrosity!
According to a University of Arizona study, a typical worker’s desk has hundreds of times more bacteria per square inch than a toilet seat!
What is the germiest item in an office? It’s the humble telephone!
Telephones are constantly close to people’s mouths, and are rarely disinfected.
Tables and desks rank next on the dirty “hot list.”
Computer keyboards and mice, shared pens, elevator or vending machine buttons, and handrails, which are in constant contact with human hands, are also natural nesting places for germs and viruses that can live on a surface for up to three days.
So, what can you do to make your office a cleaner place?
Simply put, sanitize it.
Among office workers who were instructed to clean their desks daily with disinfecting wipes, bacterial levels were cut by 99 percent, drastically reducing their chance of illness.
Be aware of the places germs concentrate, and washhands frequently to further guard against illness.
And if you have to eat your lunch off anything in the office, try the photocopier.
With just 69 germs per square inch, it’s almost as clean as the toilet seat!