Monday, October 22, 2007

10-22-07

DVRs for tonight:
8pm Chuck & How I Met Your Mother
830 Big Bang Theory
9pm Heroes & 2.5 Men

JK Rowling revealed that she always thought of Dumbledore as gay. It makes sense. I like the comment that it gives Christian groups one more reason to dislike her books (which she sees as an argument for tolerance). There are probably a billion articles around by now, but the ones I read were at CNN & January Magazine.

The Space Elevator Games started this past weekend. Teams from around the world competing for $1 million in prizes for creating a super-strong tether or a robot that could climb a suspended ribbon at a certain rate. Sounds like the technology is getting close to making a space elevator possible. This Nature article talks about the competition, and the competition blog has details and videos on the progress.

Even though the Genesis spacecraft crash landed 3 years ago, they are starting to get valuable data on solar winds from the wreckage.

2 teams of scientists have found ways that will change the course of hurricanes (and possibly slow them down). The US to warm from above and Israel to cool from below.

I see why we've been hearing more about hybrid & plug-in cars in the last few months. New regulations require that manufacturers increase their average mpg per product line from 25mpg to 35mpg by 2020. So they can either make trucks and SUVs more efficient or they can introduce more efficient cars to change their overall product line average. As much as I like seeing more efficient cars, I wish they would just work to make the stupid gas guzzlers more efficient.

The Hollywood WGA voted 90% in favor of authorizing a strike. Although the studios dropped their ridiculous request for no residuals until a profit is shown (which never happens in Hollywood), these sides are still miles apart with less than 2 weeks until the deadline. For those of us who hate "reality" shows, there isn't going to be much to watch soon.

2 recent science breakthroughs from North Carolina State University: Biofuels and Positron beams. They have developed a way to make jet fuel from any vegetable or animal fat (no petroleum products involved and it burns clean - a true green fuel), and they have produced the most powerful antimatter electron beam in the world.

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