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Power

Submission + - Natural Gas 'Cleaning' Makes Valuable Waste Carbon (technologyreview.com)

Submitted by
Al
Al writes: "There's been a lot of focus on "clean coal" lately, but a Canadian start-up called Atlantic Hydrogen is developing a way to make natural gas more environmentally friendly. The process involves using a plasma reactor to separate hydrogen and methane in the gas. The procedure also turns carbon emissions into high-purity carbon black, a substance that is used to make inks, plastics and reinforced rubber products. Utility companies could potentially sell the carbon black, making the process more financially attractive."
Businesses

Submission + - MS Xbox Exec Flies Coop to Apple

Submitted by
nandemoari
nandemoari writes: "One of Microsoft's senior executives has fled his post as director of the company's European Xbox operations. Richard Teversham is headed for Apple's business on that continent, ending a decade-and-a-half of service at Microsoft. It's not yet confirmed what Teversham will be doing with Apple across the pond, but given the iPhone and iPod Touch's continuing involvement in gaming — and the promise these games have to eventually challenge the likes of Sony's PSP and even Nintendo's DS — it's a fairly safe bet that he'll play a significant role in improving interactive entertainment on the company's handheld devices."
Microsoft

Submission + - Office 2007SP2 ODF interoperability measured: zero (robweir.com)

Submitted by
David Gerard
David Gerard writes: "Microsoft Office 2007 SP2 claims support for ODF 1.1. With hard work and careful thinking, they have successfully achieved technical compliance but zero interoperability! MSO 2007sp2 won't read ODF 1.1 from any other existing application, and its ODF is only readable by the CleverAge plugin. The post goes into detail as to how it manages this so thoroughly."
Biotech

Submission + - Nuclear Testing helps Identify Fake Vintage Whisky

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Industry experts claim the market for vintage whisky has been flooded with fakes that purport to be several hundred years old but instead contain worthless spirit made just a few years ago. Now researchers at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit have developed a method that can pinpoint the date a whisky was made by detecting traces of radioactive particles created by nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s. "It is easy to tell if whisky is fake as if it has been produced since the middle of the twentieth century, it has a very distinctive signature," says Dr Tom Higham, deputy director of the facility. Nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s saw levels of carbon 14 in the atmosphere rise around the world so the amount of isotope absorbed by living organisms since this time has been artificially elevated. Whisky extracted from antique bottles is sent to the laboratory where scientists burn the liquid and bombard the resulting gas with electrically charged particles so they can measure the carbon 14 in the sample. In one recent case, a bottle of 1856 Macallan Rare Reserve was withdrawn from auction at Christies, where it was expected to sell for up to £20,000, after the scientists found it had actually been produced in 1950. "So far there have probably been more fakes among the samples we've tested than real examples of old whisky," says Higham."

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