Kevin Hutson: Science News

Sun, 29 Sep 2002 16:33:42 GMT

China's First Server 'Dragon Chip' Made its Debut
"The semi-conductor market in China's mainland will see an annual growth rate of 35 percent and a requirement of 17 billion chips before 2005. By the year of 2010, China is going to be the second large semi-conductor market of the world...."

I am not sure how much of this is propaganda and how much is real fact, but it is very interesting point of view from China on the semiconductor sector and China's stance versus Intel and other "intellectual property right traps". I love that phrase :-)

The translation on this article is somewhat loose as well. We've used the word Engrish for poorly translated Japanese content before. I wonder what the Chinese equivalent word for that would be in this case?

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 02:51:50 GMT

What is a Free Culture?
Lawrence Lessig at the OSCON. It requires Flash 5.
It's cool topical info, but also just a cool use of technology.
Here's the Slashdot thread.
Don't want to listen to the whole thing? Cruise on over here to pick up a transcript or something.

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 02:46:20 GMT

Wow! Check out this concept car. It's from GM. It's called the Hy-Wire.
It's a fuel-cell vehicle. The coolest part is how it gets rid of the conventional methods of sterring, accelerating and braking.

Hey, where's the engine? :-)

Both articles are good. the first one gives you a good look at the inside.

http://www.carkeys.co.uk/features/FE000434.htm

http://www.jacksonville.com/getjaxwheels/autonews/stories/081902/08538525.shtml

Wed, 19 Jun 2002 02:08:52 GMT

Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

"Embarrassingly, in the 21st century, in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy. They lobby for creationist ideas such as "intelligent design" to be taught as alternatives to evolution in science classrooms. As this article goes to press, the Ohio Board of Education is debating whether to mandate such a change..."

Sun, 26 May 2002 04:15:27 GMT

Have you violated the DMCA today?
So far, by even talking about the Sony security debacle, you are breaking the law.
Wait. I haven't broke the law yet. So, you take this black felt marker and draw a circle on the back of your "secure" audio CD. Hmm.. Breaking the law. Feels good.

Here are some other criminals...err DMCA violators:
NewsForge, Yahoo, CNN.
And the ring leader in this crime spree? That's right Reuter's.
So, my cynical nature is to assume nothing will come of this. The powers that be will completely ignore this issue and not slap a big fine or jail sentence on anyone at Rueters. That would not be politically popular. No, it would be better to stiff people like 2600.com. <slapOnWrist>Bad Hackers!</slapOnWrist>
This is so stupid. If I buy a CD, I own that music. I can copy it wherever I want, whether or not some stupid ass corporation puts security on it. The DMCA cannot trump other rights. The right of fair use still exists. The DMCA did not revoke fair use.

Fri, 17 May 2002 04:05:23 GMT

Meanings of Meow
"Cornell Researcher Seeks to Prove How Cats Manipulate People"
People have too much time on their hands.

Fri, 17 May 2002 04:00:58 GMT

Alternative Fuel Vehicle Day Takes Place in Pennsylvania, USA; Ford shows off Fuel Cell Focus
It sounds like the Prius is getting more popular. And, the Civic hybrid has landed! Woohoo. This one looks more roomy than the Prius. It won't be long before you see a viable SUV hybrid (but why would you want such a tank?).

Wed, 08 May 2002 04:46:58 GMT

The only thing I ever liked about mainframes was that the compiler messages measured compile times for me in Julian dates. I always thought Julian dates to be superior. If PC's had been around before Pope Gregory XIII, we would still be using the "Star Date" just like Captain Kirk :-)
Here is a nice Julian Date Convertor
There is also such as thing known as the Modified Julian Date

Mon, 04 Mar 2002 05:00:15 GMT

Answer: Teddy Borg!
Question: What do you get when you cross a Teddy Bear and a networking switch?

I would like for all of my peripherals to look be merged with toys. How about a G.I. Joe that doubles as a microphone? Or a Barbie that acts an ethernet coupler. *LOL* Yea, that last one was kind of a dirty geek joke.

Sun, 17 Feb 2002 15:40:27 GMT

Bush and Koizumi Confront Economy, War and Climate
"Bush last year abandoned the treaty, which Japan strongly supports. His alternative unveiled last week is a voluntary plan that would use tax breaks and other incentives to slow the U.S. growth of global warming gases, but there are no mandatory reduction targets as in the Kyoto pact."
I am actually pleased that our president is visiting Japan while in a position of weakness. Yes, weakness. And diplomatically, this is indeed the case. The U.S. has nothing to offer Japan except acceptance of Kyoto. I doubt that would happen, but I keep my hopes alive. Nonetheless, I doubt Japan will be impressed by any gestures short of this. Recession or no, Japan will pull though, with or without the support of U.S. foreign policy. Bush really needs to watch his words this trip. I would start with no more "evil" announcements. It's not very diplomatic to go around bullying other countries.
Here are some really nice pictures of the protests going on in Japan: CO2 don't kill, and student protest turned back.

Thu, 14 Feb 2002 01:27:18 GMT

FutureEnergies.com : US: Bush pushes tax credits for hybrid vehicles
This is good stuff. I've been thinking that my next car will be a hybrid whenever that happens.A tax break really makes that look attractive! I like what I've read about the Toyota Prius. But, I heard today on NPR that Honda will be releasing a hybrid Civic? That could be cool. Wow. Honda's web page sucks. What's taking it so damned long. I was gonna link it, but screw that. I wouldn't wish that sort of slowness on anyone.

Sat, 09 Feb 2002 04:14:59 GMT

A good friend of mine sent me some robotics links. They were too cool to not pass along.
Solar robot kits.
This may necessiatate a trip to Frye's. I've always wanted to play with solar cells. I did a little tinkering in my youth, but it's been years.
Man eating Robot.
This one is too funny to pass up.
Modular robots or polybots.
Very cool, hight tech stuff from the Xerox Parc people.

Thu, 31 Jan 2002 03:19:52 GMT

From Lawrence's Notebook : BBC Science News - "Germany boosts wind power.
Germany, the world's leading wind power producer, increases its capacity by almost 50%." I saw today in the USA Today one of those little fancy bar charts. It was a breakdown of energy production in the US. Coal was number one (yuk). Wind power was like last or next to last at 0.3%. That's pitiful. Just think how easy it would be to get that up to a staggering 1%! Wow. That would be triple the number today. If George wants to save the economy, he needs to invest in useful technology, not coal or army building.

Thu, 31 Jan 2002 02:35:10 GMT

chemistry.about.com - What the heck is in catnip that makes cats go crazy?
It's primarily the scent of a chemical compound called Nepetalactone. Cats detect the smell through their vomeronasal organ located in the roof of their mouth.

Sat, 19 Jan 2002 21:53:05 GMT

Cosmiverse: New Theories Dispute the Existence of Black Holes - Black holes may just be "gravastars". "Gravastars would be just as much fun for sci-fi buffs -- in fact, they'd be even more ruthless. Imagine a black hole of a million solar masses...As soon as you hit the shell you'd explode into pure gravitational energy."

Thu, 17 Jan 2002 04:29:10 GMT

Timothy McSweeny's Unreserverd Embrace: On the implausibility of the Death Star's trash compactor

Tue, 14 Aug 2001 03:52:27 GMT

NASA Wing Unofficially Breaks Record - Not too bad. Pretty soon we could have completely autonomous flying machines to do surveillance and geological analysis and so on.

Sun, 29 Jul 2001 17:18:05 GMT

Slashdot: Viking Soil Data Points to Life on Mars?

Sun, 24 Jun 2001 18:31:38 GMT

Solar Windsurfing: The Fastest-Ever Propulsion - "A technology that uses a magnetic balloon to sail ionized particles shed by the Sun could speed humans to the Jovian moons in less than two years and push a probe past Voyager 1 to become the first spacecraft beyond our Solar System." Traveling at 10 times the speed of the space shuttle or some 50KM/sec, this type of craft, could reach Europa in 1.5 years, versus 5 years for convention chemical propulsion. This is very promising. Let's test it for real!

Sun, 10 Jun 2001 03:19:15 GMT

Bush to act on global warming - Yea. I'll believe it when I see it. But, he really doesn't have much of a choice. He is way outnumbered on this issue domestically and for sure internationally.

Wed, 09 May 2001 04:53:30 GMT

BBC: World wildlife warning

A report by two international scientific groups says global wildlife faces the greatest extinction risk since the dinosaurs disappeared.
It says conservation strategies are failing, with nearly half the world's major nature reserves being heavily used for agriculture.

<sarcasm>awww. screw that. Gimme some good ole' Alaskan nature reserve oil!</sarcasm>

Wed, 09 May 2001 04:21:30 GMT

More interesting petrol news

Stop Global Warming - Boycott Esso. For all the Yanks, Esso is a subsidiary of ExxonMobil in the states. The UK is taking this boycott pretty seriously. Should be interesting to watch if it will do anything.
Petrol price rise blamed on America
Motorists' anger at BP's £2.9bn profit
Multinational Boycott: In Italian anyone? No? You can get a little gleam from Babelfish.

Wed, 09 May 2001 03:56:13 GMT

Austin just switched to a reformulated gasoline that's got half of the sulfur content of most US gasolines in an effort to reduce emissions further. Mayor Kirk Watson was seen at a local Chevron pumping gas for Austinites in an effort to promote the new formula.

The cool thing about Mayor Watson is that he practices what he preaches. He's a mayor and he drives a hybrid vehicle. I wonder how many big city mayors can say that? Too many probably drive SUV's or big tank sedans.

Wed, 09 May 2001 03:55:51 GMT

International Calls to Boycott Texaco & Esso. It will be interesting to see if this gets more than a blip on the US News radar screen. I'm all for the idea though. There's a Shell nearby my house. Boycotting Texaco, Esso and Chevron would not be terribly inconvenient. Add Exxon in there too for good measure for countless oil spills and well..that's most of the petrol that's available.

Wed, 25 Apr 2001 04:57:46 GMT

Astronomy Pic of the Day - Io: Moon Over Jupiter. How big is Io? The real question is 'how big is Jupiter'.

Sat, 07 Apr 2001 22:36:44 GMT

The Mars Odyssey launch was successful! Check out these cool launch pics. It's been a while since I've seen rocket-mounted cameras. They certainly don't do that with the shuttle. It was launched on a Delta II rocket.

Sat, 07 Apr 2001 22:30:11 GMT

Here's a look at Expedition One's logs written by Shepherd. Though they've redacted parts of it, there is certainly some interesting material here. It sucks that these guys have to spend so much time fixing things. But, they are building a foundation so that future residents will more time to do the research that is needed.

Sat, 07 Apr 2001 22:15:47 GMT

Houston, Windows Has Problems. Astronauts on the International Space Station are having difficulty with its Windows and Unix software. Deploying solar panels and synchronizing space walks is easy, but e-mail is hard. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News]

Sat, 07 Apr 2001 02:59:40 GMT

European Southern Observatory : 11 New Extra-Solar Planets Announced - "At this moment, there are 63 know exoplanet candidates with minimum masses below 10 Jupiter masses, and 67 known objects with minimum masses below 17 Jupiter masses. The present team of astronomers has detected about half of these."

Sat, 07 Apr 2001 02:41:06 GMT

Dear Yahoo!: What is Silly Putty made of?

Mon, 02 Apr 2001 05:13:16 GMT

Open Letter Urges Bush to Act on Greenhouse Gases - "Ten prominent figures ranging from ex-Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev to actor Harrison Ford have written an open letter to U.S. President Bush urging him to develop a plan to cut greenhouse gas production, Time magazine said on Sunday...
In a Time-CNN survey in the same edition, Time said 75 percent of Americans considered global warming a serious problem, and 67 percent believed Bush should have a plan to deal with it."

Mon, 02 Apr 2001 05:00:23 GMT

20/20: Sleep Debt - New studies show that sleep deprivation can hurt the performance of the brain and that's just the beginning.

Mon, 02 Apr 2001 04:39:16 GMT

Yahoo Environmental News: University Team Creates Soy/Fuel Oil Mix

Sun, 01 Apr 2001 04:45:50 GMT

Ever wanted to see a spiral galaxy from the side and not the top like is typical of space images? Here's another beauty that Hubble snapped recently.

Sun, 01 Apr 2001 04:43:18 GMT

NASA Goddard News Release: The Colors of Life This is a 3 page article containing images and animations of Earth's Carbon Cycle. Page 3 has good images of the global impact of some wild fires recently.

Don't believe we are pumping vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Then you'd better have a better look at page 2 of this article.

Fri, 30 Mar 2001 04:33:58 GMT

German concern over US climate policy. BBC Mar 29 2001 2:45PM ET The UK described Mr Bush's decision as exceptionally serious. "There is no serious possibility of negotiating an acceptable alternative," said British Environment Minister Michael Meacher.

Fri, 30 Mar 2001 04:25:18 GMT

Europe furious as Bush abandons global warming treaty. Guardian Unlimited Mar 29 2001 4:42PM ET

Thu, 22 Mar 2001 03:07:46 GMT

Hawking: An Infinite Fascination. Judging from the overflow crowd Tuesday at USC, Stephen Hawking is a true superstar. He continues to capture the attention of anyone interested in discovering the secrets of the universe. Andy Patrizio reports from Los Angeles. [Wired News]

Truly a voice for our time. Hawking goes on to discuss how a law of physics can only be a law if it holds true all the time, not just when Creationists dictate.