Hampton Roads Publishing Company Blog

Mars Nears for Best Viewing in Years
By Joe Rao,
Posted: 2007-09-30 15:08:16
Filed Under: Science News
Space.com

Mars is shown in an incredibly sharp 2001 photo made from the Hubble Space Telescope. On Wednesday, the planet will appear with a yellow-orange tint seven degrees above and to the right of the moon.

(Sept. 28) - Mars is coming!

You’ve probably heard that line before – no doubt fairly recently, thanks to a bogus e-mail that unfortunately received wide circulation on the Internet this summer with promises of Mars being as big as the full moon.

But this fact is absolutely true: Mars, the only planet whose surface we can see in any detail from the Earth, is now moving toward the best viewing position it will provide to us until the year 2014. Planet watchers have already begun readying their telescopes.

If you haven’t seen it, it will be well worth looking for the red planet next week, even though you’ll have to wait until after midnight to see it well.

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From http://www.minyanville.com/articles/bernanke-ron+paul-testimony-wall-street-america-dollar/In+today%26rsquo%3Bs+testimony+before+the+house%2C+Fed+Chairman+Bernanke+was+questioned+by+Representative+/index/a/14185

via the recommendation of a friend.

Bernanke Stumped by Representative Ron Paul
Scott Reamer Sep 20, 2007 3:57 pm

In today’s testimony before the house, Fed Chairman Bernanke was questioned by Representative Ron Paul in what was a remarkable exchange.

In today’s testimony before the house, Fed Chairman Bernanke was questioned by Representative Ron Paul in what was a remarkable exchange. Remarkable for how straightforward, lucid, and anti-statist the question was. In his questioning, Ron Paul stated:

“I want to follow up on the discussion about moral hazard. I think we have a very narrow understanding about what moral hazard really is. Because I think moral hazard begins at the very moment that we create artificially low interest rates which we constantly do. And this is the reason people make mistakes. It isn’t because human nature causes us to make all these mistakes, but there is a normal reaction when interest rates are low that there will be overinvestment and malinvestment, excessive debt, and then there are consequences from this. My question is going to be around the subject of how can it ever be morally justifiable to deliberately depreciate the value of our currency?”

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From Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070515152520.htm

NASA’s QuikScat satellite detected extensive areas of snowmelt, shown in yellow and red, in west Antarctica in January 2005. (Credit: NASA)

Vast Regions Of West Antarctica Melted In Recent Past, NASA Finds

Science Daily — A team of NASA and university scientists has found clear evidence that extensive areas of snow melted in west Antarctica in January 2005 in response to warm temperatures. This was the first widespread Antarctic melting ever detected with NASA’s QuikScat satellite and the most significant melt observed using satellites during the past three decades. The affected regions encompass a combined area as big as California.

Son Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Konrad Steffen, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, led the team. Using data from QuikScat, they measured snowfall accumulation and melt in Antarctica and Greenland from July 1999 through July 2005.

The melting occurred in multiple distinct regions, including far inland, at high latitudes and at high elevations, where melt had been considered unlikely. Evidence of melting was found up to 560 miles inland from the open ocean, farther than 85 degrees south (about 310 miles from the South Pole) and higher than 6,600 feet above sea level. Maximum air temperatures at the time of the melting were unusually high, reaching more than 41 F in one of the affected areas. They remained above melting for approximately a week.

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An Electronic Concentration Camp: Big Brother in the Sky
September 26, 2007
By John W. Whitehead

Short of hiding out in a cave, far removed from any trace of modern technology, it would seem that there is no longer any escaping the electronic concentration camp in which we live.

Whether we’re crossing the street, queuing up at the ATM or picnicking in the park, we’re under constant scrutiny—our movements monitored by cameras, tracked by satellites and catalogued by a host of increasingly attentive government agencies. No longer does the idea of an omnipresent, omniscient government seem all that far-fetched. And as technology becomes ever more sophisticated, the idea of a total surveillance society moves further from the realm of George Orwell’s science fiction fantasy into an accepted way of life.

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From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6994957.stm

Computer enthusiasts in the developed world will soon be able to get their hands on the so-called “$100 laptop”

‘$100 laptop’ to sell to public

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

he organisation behind the project has launched the “give one, get one” scheme that will allow US residents to purchase two laptops for $399 (£198).

One laptop will be sent to the buyer whilst a child in the developing world will receive the second machine

The G1G1 scheme, as it is known, will offer the laptops for just two weeks, starting on the 12 November.

The offer to the general public comes after the project’s founder admitted that concrete orders from the governments of developing nations had not always followed verbal agreements

Nicholas Negroponte told the New York Times: “I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written.

“And yes, it has been a disappointment.”

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From Industry Week http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=14932 via a friend

New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
Colorado’s State Univ.’s panels will cost less than $1 per watt.

Compiled By Adrienne Selko

Sept. 10, 2007 — Colorado State University’s method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.

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Seems to me you had better take a look at this site that I stumbled across by way of a friend:

http://www.mindfully.org/About-Mindfully_org.htm

Fasten Your Seat Belts

Sept. 14, 2007: “Fasten your seat belts,” says Alan Stern, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “One of NASA’s most amazing programs is about to get even better.”

He’s talking about Discovery–the adventurous NASA program that gave us the first rover on another planet (Mars Pathfinder), the first landing on an asteroid (NEAR’s touchdown on 433 Eros), the first sample return from a comet (Stardust), the first sample return from the Sun (Genesis) and the possible discovery of water at the Moon’s poles (Lunar Prospector).

Mars Pathfinder’s Sojourner rover.

“The Discovery program has been a spectacular success, more than anyone bargained for,” he says. “Now we’re looking to expand it. In the coming year, we’re going to start planning dramatic improvements in the kind of missions we can undertake.”

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From the schwartzreport, a story that at first blush seems lifted from the supermarket tabloids.

Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water

The Associated Press

ERIE, Pa.– An Erie cancer researcher has found a way to burn salt water, a novel invention that is being touted by one chemist as the “most remarkable” water science discovery in a century.

John Kanzius happened upon the discovery accidentally when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.

The discovery has scientists excited by the prospect of using salt water, the most abundant resource on earth, as a fuel.

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It’s a Constitutional Republic, But Can We Keep It?
September 12, 2007
By John W. Whitehead

Throughout the month of September, the National Archives will be commemorating the 220th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution with a series of panel discussions, appearances by actors dressed up as the Founders and a birthday cake. Federal law also mandates that on Constitution Day, September 17, all high schools, colleges and universities across the country that receive federal funds host educational events about the Constitution.

However, the Constitution is so much more than an aging relic. Formally adopted on September 17, 1787, it has long served as the bulwark of American freedom and as an example for struggling nations worldwide. Yet since 9/11, the rights enshrined in the Constitution, particularly those in the Bill of Rights, have come under constant attack.

Indeed, the protections and limitations on government power that were once so greatly prized by America’s Founders seem to be rapidly disappearing. Governmental tentacles now invade every facet of our lives, with agents of the government listening in on our telephone calls and reading our emails. The president continues to expand his powers by centralizing power in his own office, claiming the right to torture terrorist suspects and deciding who will have the right to a lawyer and receive a hearing before a judge. And technology, which has developed at a rapid pace, offers those in power more invasive and awesome tools than ever before.

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