NEW YORK – Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape. It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.
Archive for October, 2008
Otto the octopus wrecks havoc
Otto the octopus wrecks havoc – Telegraph
A octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by shortcircuiting a lamp.
Fructose In The Brain?
Fructose In The Brain?. In the Pipeline:
You can observe this sort of thing in lab rats – if you infuse extra glucose into their brains, they stop eating, even under conditions when they otherwise would keep going. A few years ago, an odd result was found when this experiment was tried with fructose: instead of lowering food intake, infusing fructose into the central nervous system made the animals actually eat more. That’s not what you’d expect, since in the end, fructose ends up metabolized to the same thing as glucose does (pyruvate), and used to make ATP. So why the difference in feeding signals?
A paper in PNAS (open access PDF) from a team at Johns Hopkins and Ibaraki University in Japan now has a possible explanation. Glucose metabolism is very tightly regulated, as you’d expect for the main fuel source of virtually every living cell. But fructose is a different matter. It bypasses the rate-limiting step of the glucose pathway, and is metabolized much more quickly than glucose is. It appears that this fast (and comparatively unregulated) process actually uses up ATP in the hypothalamus – you’re basically revving up the enzyme machinery early in the pathway (ketohexokinase in particular) so much that you’re burning off the local ATP supply to run it.
There are a couple of weak points in the studies that are pointed out later in the article but there is definately points that should be looked into more thoroughly. I do try to avoid fructose in my diet and the easiest thing to avoid is beverages with lots of high-fructose corn syrup(almost all pop).
Ballotpedia The Encyclopedia of Citizen-Powered Democracy
Good source for election information.
Link to all the ohio ballot measures. LINK
NHL Team Valuations
NHL Team Valuations sorted by Rank – Forbes.com
28 Columbus Blue Jackets 157 4 29 71 -7.1
28 out 30, time to start winning guys.
Tivo, Netflix partner on Web streaming (Reuters)
Tivo, Netflix partner on Web streaming (Reuters) by Reuters: Yahoo! Tech
Netflix Inc said on Wednesday it reached a deal with TiVo Inc to further deliver on its goal of offering Netflix’s Web streaming service directly to televisions through many devices.
It’s about time. Should have happened years ago!!
Copper door handles and taps kill 95% of superbugs in hospitals
Copper door handles and taps kill 95% of superbugs in hospitals | Mail Online
During the ten-week trial on a medical ward, a set of taps, a lavatory seat and a push plate on an entrance door were replaced with copper versions. They were swabbed twice a day for bugs and the results compared with a traditional tap, lavatory seat and push plate elsewhere in the ward.
The copper items had up to 95 per cent fewer bugs on their surface whenever they were tested, a U.S. conference on antibiotics heard yesterday.
Looks like the price of copper is going to go up.
Make sure you pay attention when you vote
WVA Vote Flipping Caught on Tape
A Rise in Kidney Stones Is Seen in U.S. Children
A Rise in Kidney Stones Is Seen in U.S. Children – NYTimes.com
“The older doctors would say in the ’70s and ’80s, they’d see a kid with a stone once every few months,” said Dr. Caleb P. Nelson, a urology instructor at Harvard Medical School who is co-director of the new kidney stone center at Children’s Hospital Boston. “Now we see kids once a week or less.”
Scientists develop artificial heart that beats like the real thing
This is absolutely amazing!
An artificial heart that beats almost exactly like the real thing is to be
implanted in patients within three years in a trial that may offer hope to
heart disease sufferers unable to receive a transplant.
German police seek speeding British Muppet
Nothing To Do With Arbroath: German police seek speeding British Muppet
German traffic police have been left looking like proper muppets by a British prankster. An Audi TT with British registration plates has been repeatedly caught speeding on roads in the Bavarian city of Bayreuth. But because continental speed cameras are set up for left-hand drive vehicles, the cameras keep missing the driver’s face.
So funny!
Attacked by a McCain Supporter!
Attacked by a McCain Supporter!
19 Ways to Slash Your Utility Bill – Popular Mechanics
19 Ways to Slash Your Utility Bill – Popular Mechanics
Unplug the beer fridge
That old clunker of a refrigerator in the basement could be costing the
equivalent of 10 cases of Bud in wasted energy each year. A
refrigerator built in 1993 gobbles twice as much energy as new models.
Need more cold brew for a party? Plug in the fridge the night before.Cost: $0 | Monthly Savings: $12.50 | Payback: Immediate
I need to make sure I turn off my beer fridge, duh.
The Stink in Farts Controls Blood Pressure
The Stink in Farts Controls Blood Pressure | LiveScience
A smelly rotten-egg gas in farts controls blood pressure in mice, a new study finds.
Tape measure: X-rays detected from Scotch tape
The British National Archives has opened its UFO files to the public.
United Kingdom: UFO files reveal attempt to shoot down UFO – Nachrichten English-News – WELT ONLINE
looks like the ufo crowd gets some good stuff to read..
Jason Jones in Wasilla
Motorcyclist jailed for YouTube speeding stunt
I guess showing off to your friends wasn’t enough.
LONDON (Reuters) -
A British motorcyclist who posted footage of himself performing dangerous stunts and speeding at up to 130 mph (209 kph) on YouTube was given a 12-week jail term on Monday.
Sandor Ferenci, 28, performed wheelies, skids and raced on the opposite
side of the road around Banbury, Oxfordshire, in June this year and
then put the footage on the video-sharing website.
Just stop paying your mortgage
Just stop paying your mortgage | The San Diego Union-Tribune
I think this advice is BS. Lets help destroy the economy some more by not paying your mortgage that you can pay and waste all your money on a big TV, vacation, etc to prove you don’t have the money to pay it. This is the type of BS that needs to stop. Same with the companies that paid themselves millions then go cry to congress they need bailed out. Is this the kind of welfare crap that people complain about so lets join the club and take advantage of the crisis and make it worse.
People/companies/government living well beyond their means, being greedy, and not being financially responsible created this BULLSHIT.
Optimize Your Web Connection
Optimize Your Web Connection – Wired How-To Wiki
# 1 Use a Router
# 2 OpenDNS
# 3 Turn Media Off* 3.1 Add-Ons and Plug-Ins
# 4 Basic HTML Will Always be Faster
# 5 Turn Off Virus Protection and Firewalls
nice basic suggestions for you home network.
Group: Wal-Mart, Giant bottled water shows more contamination
Group: Wal-Mart, Giant bottled water shows more contamination – USATODAY.com
Lab tests detected 38 chemicals in 10 brands, with an average of eight contaminants found in each kind of bottled water. Tests showed coliform bacteria, caffeine, the pain reliever acetaminophen, fertilizer, solvents, plastic-making chemicals and the radioactive element strontium.
Researchers tested one batch for each of 10 brands. Eight of those did not have troubling levels of contaminants. But two brands did, so more tests were done and those revealed chlorine byproducts above California’s standard. The researchers identified those two brands as Sam’s Choice sold by Wal-Mart and Acadia of Giant Food supermarkets.
The other eight, which researchers didn’t identify, carried legal levels of many contaminants. Some of those chemicals, like arsenic and the solvent toluene, have been tied to health risks. Some of the contaminants apparently came from pollutants often found in tap water, and others probably leached from plastic bottles, the researchers said.
There needs to be some sort of standard on bottled water or at least tell us where they get it and if it is filtered or not. Conclusion: Filter your own and stop wasting your money on this crap.
