Richard Sears: Planning for the end of oil

As the world's attention focuses on the perils of oil exploration, we present Richard Sears' talk from early February 2010. Sears, an expert in developing new energy resources, talks about our inevitable and necessary move away from oil. Toward ... what?



Richard Sears thinks hard about the post-oil world. He's a visiting scientist at MIT, after a long career as a VP at Shell.

Retina Created From Stem Cell

In another world first in the fight against degenerative eye disorders, scientists from the Universtiy of California, Irvine, have created an eight-layer early-stage retina from human embryonic stem cells. Not only is this the world's first three-dimensional complex tissue structure to be made from stem cells, but it also marks the first step toward the development of transplant-ready retinas to treat eye disorders affecting millions.

The retina is the part of the eye that records images and sends them from the eye to the brain via the optic nerve. Building on a process designed in a previous study, researchers created multiple cell types using microscopic gradients for solutions in which to bathe the stem cells and initiate specific differentiation paths.

"Creating this complex tissue is a first for the stem cell field," said Hans Keirstead, study leader of the Reeve-Irvine Research Center and the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UCI. "Dr. Gabriel Nistor in our group addressed a really interesting scientific problem with an engineering solution, showing that gradients of solutions can create complex stem cell-based tissues. We made a complex structure consisting of many cell types. This is a major advance in our quest to treat retinal disease. What’s so exciting with our discovery is that creating transplantable retinas from stem cells could help millions of people, and we are well on the way.”

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Tina Anderson, 15, Punished by Baptists for Being Raped

Another sad story about Religious officials abusing their power for their desires to take advantage of an innocent child and their attempts to cover it up.

Tina Anderson was raped and impregnated at the age of 15 by a member of her church. After reporting the crime to her pastor, however, it was Anderson who was punished.

Here are some of the culprits of this story:

The Catholic Church's HR
Until the Church gets with it and starts proper screening for PEDOPHILES, rather than gay men, we're simply gonna have to hold it's hiring practices responsible for creating such ginormous loop holes.

Richard Rushton
That's when authorities raided Rushton's home and discovered that, as Lance had suspected, Rushton wasn't filming sermons, but was videotaping up the skirts of girls and women in attendance.

Jeff and Jeremiah Owens
Owens recently made headlines when a YouTube video of one his sermons surfaced in which he says, "we need to stop burning flags and start burning fags. We need a hunt-a-homo week. We need to take 'em all out and shoot 'em with a scatter shotgun."

Harley Michael Keough
Last week, six different women took the stand and testified that upon arriving at the church's food bank, they were greeted by an overly friendly Keough who would lead them into the food bank's storage room, and then promptly molest them.

Trinity Baptist Church
Speaking of religious leaders who turn a blind eye to rape -- we now bring you to the tale of the Trinity Baptist Church in Concord, New Hampshire.


What a very very sorry state of affairs. For anyone wishing to gain a greater understanding of our place in the universe and to feel a part of something special. Please don't go to church. Go to a community center or join a local sports team.

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IPad and a Dolphin

Back in March, in the pages of The Onion, Beepo the Dolphin wondered whether the iPad and other tablet devices owned up to the hype. Now a May 23, 2010 press release from Jack Kassewitz at SpeakDolphin describes a non-fictional dolphin, Merlin, using — really using — the iPad.

“The use of the iPad is part of our continuing search to find a suitable touch screen technology which the dolphins can activate with the tip of their rostrums or beaks. After extensive searching and product review, it looks like our choice is between the Panasonic Toughbook and the Apple iPad,” Kassewitz explained. “We think that once the dolphins get the hang of the touch screen, we can let them choose from a wide assortment of symbols to represent objects, actions and even emotions.”

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