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Waste Coffee Grounds Offer New Source of Biodiesel 276

Posted by timothy from the as-if-you-needed-another-reason dept.
Julie188 writes "Researchers in Nevada are reporting that waste coffee grounds can provide a cheap, abundant, and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel fuel for powering cars and trucks. Their study has been published online in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Growers produce more than 16 billion pounds of coffee around the world each year. Scientists estimate that spent coffee grounds can potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply."
Space

New Theory Explains Periodic Mass Extinctions 383

Posted by Zonk from the we're-not-due-for-a-little-while-yet dept.
i_like_spam writes "The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid impact, the K-T extinction, is well known and supported by fossil and geological evidence. Asteroid impact theory does not apply to the other fluctuations in biodiversity, however, which follow an approximate 62 million-year cycle. As reported in Science, a new theory seems to explain periodic mass extinctions. The new theory found that oscillations in the Sun relative to the plane of the Milky Way correlate with changes in biodiversity on Earth. The researchers suggest that an increase in the exposure of Earth to extragalactic cosmic rays causes mass extinctions. The original paper describing the findings is available online."
Star Wars Prequels

Submission + - Star Wars Takes Over Harvard Commencement (theforce.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Harvard University celebrated its 356th Commencement on Thursday. One tradition at Harvard is to have an undergraduate deliver a Latin Salutatory address, and this year's speaker, Charles Joseph McNamara, delivered an address all about Star Wars in Latin! TheForce.net has a write-up of the event, and apparently the speaker was really hilarious. I just watched the video and he does a Yoda voice and makes light-saber motions...in front of over 30,000 people! The speaker apparently doesn't like Star Wars that much, but it's still awesome. You can watch the speech here under "Morning Exercises." The Latin Oration begins at about 1:09:30.

Robocabs Coming to Europe 176

Posted by Zonk from the automated-mass-transit dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Almost all of us can recall both good and poor memories of taxi rides when we arrived in a city we didn't know. This is why a short article from Spiegel Online, 'Bringing Robot Transportation to Europe,' caught my eye this morning. It briefly describes the European 'CityMobil' project which involves 28 partners in 10 countries at a cost of €40 million. This project plans to eliminate city drivers and three trial sites have already been selected. For example, in 2008, Terminal 5 in London's Heathrow airport will be connected to the car park by driverless electric cars along a 4-kilometer track. Read more for additional pictures and references about this project to make the roads in Europe's cities more efficient."

Neuroscientist Halts Research to Stop Extremists 1047

Posted by Zonk from the everybody-loses dept.
FleaPlus writes "UCLA neuroscience professor Dario Ringach, known for his contributions to our understanding of how the visual system processes information, has been forced to give up his experiments by the actions of animal-rights extremists. Although he and his family had endured harassment and vandalization by animal-rights activists for years, Ringach reconsidered after extremists tried to firebomb a colleague's home and accidentally left their Molotov cocktail on an elderly neighbor's doorstep. Ringach sent an email to animal activist groups saying, 'You win... please don't bother my family anymore.'"

Catching Photons Coming from the Moon 146

Posted by Zonk from the need-better-than-a-jar dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'Shooting the moon,' the San Diego Union-Tribune describes how and why physicists from UCSD are using lasers to send light pulses in direction of an array of reflectors installed on our moon in 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. One of the goals of these experiments is to check the validity of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Another one is to measure the distance between the Earth and moon with a precision of one millimeter by catching photons after their round trip to the moon. But it is amazing to realize how difficult it is to capture photons after such a trip. I also have up a summary, which contains additional details and pictures, if you just want to learn how difficult it is to capture photons back from the moon."

Swimsuit Design Uses Supercomputing 253

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the go-with-the-flow dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "These days, most competitive swimmers wear some type of body suit to reduce high skin-friction drag from water. And makers of swimwear are already busy working on new models for the Olympics 2008. According to Textile & Apparel, Speedo is even using a supercomputer to refine its designs. Its engineers run Fluent Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program on an SGI Altix system."

Mixing brain cells and nanodots 73

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the smarter-than-some-people-i-know dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's not the first time that animal brain cells have been used in conjunction with nanoparticles. But now, a team of Israeli researchers have grown self-organizing networks of rat brain cells by binding them to carbon nanotubes. In a short article, New Scientist reports that these neural networks are remarkably stable, surviving for almost three months in the lab. These hybrid networks could be used in future biological sensors. For example, they could identify a poison by measuring its effect on such a network of brain cells."

Another Robotic Vehicle to Help Soldiers 154

Posted by Zonk from the johnny-five-is-alive dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "There are many teams of U.S. scientists working on robots able to find improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq before they can kill American soldiers. Today, let's look at an effort going on at Florida State University (FSU) to build unmanned ground vehicles that could save soldiers' lives. The researchers are creating complex algorithms to control these robots who will have to integrate many different factors such as the type of ground surface or obstacles that might block the vehicle's path. Some of these robots, which also could be used for civilian missions, are currently being tested at FSU. Read more for additional references and pictures of these robots which will have to navigate among dense obstacles."

New Star Wars TV Series Confirmed 489

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the i-hope-you-like-sandscapes dept.
merauder writes to tell us BBC News is reporting that the new Star Wars TV series is set to run at least 100 episodes. From the article: "The series will be set between episodes three and four of the film saga. It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers. McCallum said there would be 'a whole bunch of new characters' and the series would be 'much more dramatic and darker.'"

Google's New Calendar CL2 250

Posted by CowboyNeal from the ajax-in-action dept.
pvt_medic writes "Google is apparently working on its own calendar (CL2) program to integrate with Gmail. The closed beta is ongoing with about 200 participants - people involved are not allowed to invite outsiders to see the calendar and are under strict rules not to share any details with outsiders. Here are some leaked photos of the CL2."

Swarms of Microrobots Over Europe? 161

Posted by Zonk from the robots-in-disguise dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'Mini robots to undertake major tasks?,' IST Results describes a EU-funded project which allowed to build several kinds of microrobots in the last three years. These robots are very small (about 1.5 cm by 3 cm), have limited on-board intelligence and are wirelessly controlled by a central robot control system. A follow-on project has already started, with an even more ambitious goal: deploy 'real' swarms of up to 1,000 robot clients. Such robot swarms are expected to perform 'a variety of applications, including micro assembly, biological, medical or cleaning tasks.' Read more for additional details, pictures and references about this follow-on project not described by the article mentioned above."

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