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Science

Submission + - The World's Cheapest Hydrogen Production Process (gizmag.com)

Submitted by ElectricSteve
ElectricSteve writes: FUKAI Environmental Research Institute has announced a new technology for obtaining hydrogen that it claims is less expensive and more efficient than anything that's been tried so far. FUKAI's process involves adding aluminum or magnesium to boiling "oefunctional water," a proprietary substance that can be produced simply by running regular tap water through a natural mineral-containing "functional water generation unit." The bonds that join hydrogen and oxygen molecules in regular water, which ordinarily require some energy to break, are weakened in functional water. The liquid yields 2 liters (122 cubic inches) of hydrogen gas per gram of aluminum, or 3.3 liters (201 cubic inches) per gram of magnesium. FUKAI claims that the cost of producing enough hydrogen to generate 1kWh of electricity is about 18 cents US. That cost could be lowered through the use of recycled aluminum.
Image

Publishing Company Puts Warning Label on Constitution 676

Posted by samzenpus from the inappropriate-founding-fathers dept.
Wilder Publication is under fire for putting warning labels on copies of historical US documents, including the Constitution. The label warns "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." From the article: "The disclaimer goes on to tell parents that they 'might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.'"
Cellphones

Motorola Planning 2GHz Android Phone For Later This Year 183

Posted by Soulskill from the soon-we-can-expand-crysis-jokes-to-phones dept.
rocket97 writes "On Wednesday, at the Executives Club of Chicago, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha reportedly decided to chat about the relatively near future of the mobile landscape as he sees it — which, in part, includes the ultimate demise of mobile computers in favor of highly-capable smartphones. This being his vision, Jha discussed Motorola's plans for a smartphone with a 2GHz processor — by the end of this year. While Jha did not want to divulge any further information, Conceivably Tech cites another anonymous Motorola executive who was a little more chatty, talking up a device intended to 'incorporate everything that is technologically possible in a smartphone today.'"
Operating Systems

Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds 396

Posted by Soulskill from the you-paid-for-what-we-say-you-paid-for dept.
Stoobalou writes "Sony says that it has no intention of reimbursing retailers if they offer users partial refunds for fat PS3s. Last week, the first PS3 user successfully secured a partial refund from Amazon UK as compensation for the removal of the ability to run Linux on the console. The user quoted European law in order to persuade the online retailer that the goods he had bought in good faith were no longer fit for his purposes because of the enforcement of firmware update 3.21, which meant that users who chose to keep the Other OS functionality would lose the ability to play the latest games or connect to the PlayStation Network."
Image

Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project 687

Posted by samzenpus from the duck-and-cover dept.
garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"
Math

Man Uses Drake Equation To Explain Girlfriend Woes 538

Posted by samzenpus from the less-math-more-social-science dept.
artemis67 writes "A man studying in London has taken a mathematical equation that predicts the possibility of alien life in the universe to explain why he can't find a girlfriend. Peter Backus, a native of Seattle and PhD candidate and Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, near London, in his paper, 'Why I don't have a girlfriend: An application of the Drake Equation to love in the UK,' used math to estimate the number of potential girlfriends in the UK. In describing the paper on the university Web site he wrote 'the results are not encouraging. The probability of finding love in the UK is only about 100 times better than the probability of finding intelligent life in our galaxy.'"
Graphics

Nvidia Fakes Fermi Boards At GPU Tech Conference 212

Posted by Soulskill from the red-handed dept.
fragMasterFlash writes with this excerpt from SemiAccurate: 'In a really pathetic display, Nvidia actually faked the introduction of its latest video card, because it simply doesn't have boards to show. Why? Because it didn't get enough parts to properly bring them up, much less make demo boards. ... Notice that the three screws that hold the end plate on are, well, generic wood screws. Large flat -head Phillips screws. Home Depot-grade screws that don't even sit flush. If a card is real, you hold it on with the bolts on either side of the DVI connector. Go look at any GPU you have; do you see wood screws that don't mount flush or DVI flanking bolts? ... If you look at the back of the fake Fermi, [from this PC Watch picture], you can see that the expected DVI connector wires are not there, just solder-filled holes. No stubs, no tool marks from where they would be cut out. Basically, the DVI port isn't connected to anything with solder, so they had to use screws on the plate."

Comment Opinion of a Soldier (Score 5, Informative) 294

by slpalmer (#29267005) Attached to: Military Helmet Design Contributes To Brain Damage

I think a lot of this stems from the way the current helmet is fitted to the soldiers head. (Yes, I am a soldier, 18th Airborne Corp, Ft Bragg, NC)

  1 - The older Kevlar helmet was fitted to your head with a "sweat band" strapped to the inside of the helmet, which could be adjusted to fit your head exactly.

  2 - The newer ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet) is fitted with velcro backed pads which attach inside the helmet.

Let me say now that it is *very* common for CIF (where you get issued your equipment) to be out of your size and give you the next size up. With the older Kevlar (case 1 above) you could still fit the sweat band to fit your head, securing the helmet. With the ACH (case 2 above) if the helmet is too big, the pads will be loose on your head, and the helmet will rattle around on your head when concussions occur nearby.

Comment Re:Yes - it IS flawed (Score 1) 294

by slpalmer (#29266993) Attached to: Military Helmet Design Contributes To Brain Damage

I think a lot of this stems from the way the current helmet is fitted to the soldiers head. (Yes, I am a soldier, 18th Airborne Corp, Ft Bragg, NC)

  1 - The older Kevlar helmet was fitted to your head with a "sweat band" strapped to the inside of the helmet, which could be adjusted to fit your head exactly.
  2 - The newer ACH (Advanced Combat Helmet) is fitted with velcro backed pads which attach inside the helmet.

Let me say now that it is *very* common for CIF (where you get issued your equipment) to be out of your size and give you the next size up. With the older Kevlar (case 1 above) you could still fit the sweat band to fit your head, securing the helmet. With the ACH (case 2 above) if the helmet is too big, the pads will be loose on your head, and the helmet will rattle around on your head when concussions occur nearby.
Space

Galactic Origin For 62M-Year Extinction Cycle? 221

Posted by kdawson from the turn-us-over-we're-done-on-this-side dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Cosmologist Adrian Mellott has an article in Seed Magazine discussing his search for the mechanism behind the mass extinctions in earth's history that seem to occur with a period of about 62 million years. Scientists have identified nearly 20 mass extinctions throughout the fossil record, including the end-Permian event about 250 million years ago that killed off about 95 percent of life on Earth. Mellott notes that as our solar system orbits the Milky Way's center, it oscillates through the galactic plane with a period of around 65 million years. 'The space between galaxies is not empty. It's actually full of rarefied hot gas,' says Mellott. 'As our galaxy falls into the Local Supercluster, it should disturb this gas and create a shock wave, like the bow shock of a jet plane,' generating cascades of high-energy subatomic particles and radiation called 'cosmic rays.' These effects could cause enhanced cloud formation and depletion of the ozone layer, killing off many small organisms at the base of the food chain and potentially leading to a population crash. So where is the earth now in the 62-million year extinction cycle? '[W]e are on the downside of biodiversity, a few million years from hitting bottom,' writes Mellott."

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