Banking on Fuel-Sweating Flora

A start-up company has broken ground on a Texas pilot plant that is supposed to produce ethanol and diesel in a radical new way: with an organism that sweats fuel.

The company, Joule Unlimited of Cambridge, Mass., has developed several patented gene-altered organisms that absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide and combine these into hydrocarbons.

The organisms – basically single-celled plants – live in a panel that vaguely resembles a solar photovoltaic one. They lie under a glass sheet that is mounted on a frame to face the sun.

They live in brackish water and need small amounts of chemical nutrients, said William J. Sims, president and chief executive of Joule.

A move from the lab to the field will test their tolerance for temperature variations and other natural challenges, he said. They can survive cold, but the site, in Leander, about 30 miles north of Austin, was chosen because ice was unlikely, he said.

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Australia burka armed robbery sparks ban debate

An armed robbery allegedly carried out by a man wearing a burka has sparked a row in Australia on whether the full-face Islamic veil should be banned.

Opposition Liberal Sen Cory Bernardi said the robbery showed the burka was "emerging as the preferred disguise of bandits and ne'er-do-wells".

Both PM Kevin Rudd and Liberal leader Tony Abbott dismissed the comments and said they would not support a ban.

The row follows similar debates on the burka in European countries.

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Whatever Happened to the Hole in the Ozone Layer?

Article by Stuart Fox of Life Science talks about the Ozone Layer

Three British scientists shocked the world when they revealed on May 16th, 1985 — 25 years ago — that aerosol chemicals, among other factors, had torn a hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole. The ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging solar radiation, became an overnight sensation. And the hole in the ozone layer became the poster-child for mankind’s impact on the planet.

Today, the ozone hole — actually a region of thinned ozone, not actually a pure hole — doesn’t make headlines like it used to. The size of the hole has stabilized, thanks to decades of aerosol-banning legislation. But, scientists warn, some danger still remains.

First, the good news: Since the 1989 Montreal Protocol banned the use of ozone-depleting chemicals worldwide, the ozone hole has stopped growing. Additionally, the ozone layer is blocking more cancer-causing radiation than any time in a decade because its average thickness has increased, according to a 2006 United Nations report. Atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting chemicals have reached their lowest levels since peaking in the 1990s, and the hole has begun to shrink.

Now the bad news: The ozone layer has also thinned over the North Pole. This thinning is predicted to continue for the next 15 years due to weather-related phenomena that scientists still cannot fully explain, according to the same UN report . And, repairing the ozone hole over the South Pole will take longer than previously expected, and won’t finish until between 2060 and 2075. Scientists now understand that the size of the ozone hole varies dramatically from year to year, which complicates attempts to accurately predict the hole's future size.

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Briton jailed for kiss in Dubai condemns Emirate's 'hypocrisy'

Charlotte Adams, 26, who was deported on Friday after spending 23-days behind bars for "indecency", spoke of her horror when a local woman claimed she had publicly kissed and touched Ayman Najafi, a British friend, in a restaurant last November.

Miss Adams, from Mersea Island, Essex, who regularly visited Dubai on business, admitted "flirting" with Mr Najafi but said she had done nothing more than give him "a peck on the cheek".

In her first interview since her release, she said: "It is such a relief. I've thought of nothing else for the last few months.

"I love (Dubai) and it makes me sad that I'll never come back, although I think I'd struggle to ever feel free here again.

"The laws need to evolve to match the culture here. At the moment, it's all just hypocrisy."

America is Not a Christian Nation

Regardless what you hear from the Americans living below the bible belt, America was founded by people trying to escape the religious oppression of the "Old World". America's beloved Founding Father's vision for the New World was one that was totally secular, and where the freedom's pf its people were of the utmost importance.

Having faith in the divine is not the issue here. Whether you believe in Jesus, Mohammed and/or Moses doesn't bother me in the slightest. There are still people who believe that the power of the seance, or the Ouija Board, and these people don't bother me half as much as religious types.

Why?

Well, mystics and spiritual healers also don't try to impose these unprovable practices in a political arena.

You're not going to find someone who says that the answers to the big questions in life, or where to find a moral structure on how to live our lives can be found in their Ouija board, and that these methods should be taught in schools.

The extract below if from an interesting article for anyone who is interested American politics / historyby Phil Plait of Discover Magazine.

The problem tends to come in when some religious people try to impose their religion on others. If you go through my posts on religion, you’ll find that this is where I tend to step in. Want to teach creationism in the classroom? Uh uh. Want to oppress women? Sorry, fella. Think abstinence-only education works and you should get government grants to teach it? Keep it in your own pants, please.

The problem is amplified by the fact that pretty much every religion tends to think of itself as the One True Belief. And when they get some political clout, things get very itchy indeed. Or have we already forgotten what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyan?

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Top 10 Renewable Energy Ideas that Could Change the World

In recent years there has been a paradigm shift towards new, renewable energy resources and away from fossil fuels. Billions of dollars are being invested in hundreds of new ideas. These ideas range from conservative improvements on to current technologies, all the way to outlandish sci-fi like concepts. It is likely that there won’t be one magic bullet, but instead, a number of innovations will help free us from the bondage of our current energy situation. The following innovations are a selection of some of the more exotic and exciting new ideas in renewable energy, some of which may have the potential to change everything we know about how our world is powered.

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Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'

Many people alive today possess some Neanderthal ancestry, according to a landmark scientific study.

The finding has surprised many experts, as previous genetic evidence suggested the Neanderthals made little or no contribution to our inheritance.

The result comes from analysis of the Neanderthal genome - the "instruction manual" describing how these ancient humans were put together.

The genomes of 1% to 4% of people in Eurasia come from Neanderthals.

But the study confirms living humans overwhelmingly trace their ancestry to a small population of Africans who later spread out across the world.

The most widely-accepted theory of modern human origins - known as Out of Africa - holds that the ancestors of living humans (Homo sapiens) originated in Africa some 200,000 years ago.

A relatively small group of people then left the continent to populate the rest of the world between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.

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