All 21 of the Chinese dancers are complete deaf-mutes. Relying only on signals from trainers at the four corners of the stage, these extraordinary dancers deliver a 6 minute visual spectacle. Its first major international debut was in Athens at the closing ceremonies for the 2004 Paralympics.
The Most Hated Company In the PC Industry
Taiwan’s Asustek — better known as ASUS — is one of the most interesting, innovative and fastest-growing companies in technology.
At its core, Asustek makes motherboards — more than any other company. Asustek motherboards are the heart of Sony’s PlayStation 2 consoles, Apple MacBooks, Alienware PCs, and some HP computers.
But that’s not why they’re hated. The source of ire is a tiny laptop called the ASUS Eee PC. This open, flexible, relatively powerful, and very small laptop is notable for one feature above all: Its price. The Eee PC can be had for as little as $299. (Go here to read the reviews — they’re all positive.) Thanks to Randy Marks, who sent us this link from his EeePC.
Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2
Sandia researcher Rich Diver checks out the solar furnace which will be the initial source of concentrated solar heat for converting carbon dioxide to fuel. Eventually parabolic dishes will provide the thermal energy.
Photo: Randy Montoya / Sandia National Laboratories
Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have found a way of using sunlight to recycle carbon dioxide and produce fuels like methanol or gasoline.
The Sunlight to Petrol, or S2P, project essentially reverses the combustion process, recovering the building blocks of hydrocarbons. They can then be used to synthesize liquid fuels like methanol or gasoline. Researchers said the technology already works and could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, although large-scale implementation could be a decade or more away.
Insect Attack May Have Finished Off Dinosaurs
“There are serious problems with the sudden impact theories of dinosaur extinction, not the least of which is that dinosaurs declined and disappeared over a period of hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years,” said George Poinar Jr., a courtesy professor of zoology at Oregon State University. “That time frame is just not consistent with the effects of an asteroid impact. But competition with insects, emerging new diseases and the spread of flowering plants over very long periods of time is perfectly compatible with everything we know about dinosaur extinction.”
And the evidence for this emerging threat has been captured in almost lifelike-detail — many types of insects preserved in amber that date to the time when dinosaurs disappeared. Poinar said. “We found in the gut of one biting insect, preserved in amber from that era, the pathogen that causes leishmania — a serious disease still today, one that can infect both reptiles and humans. In another biting insect, we discovered organisms that cause malaria, a type that infects birds and lizards today.
Kim Jong Il ate my rabbits for his birthday – Times Online
The 68-year-old breeder had been due to travel to North Korea after Easter to provide advice on setting up a rabbit farm. A North Korean official rang him last week to say that the trip had been cancelled. Mr Szmolinsky said he suspected that his rabbits, which grow to the size of dogs and can weigh over 10kg (22lb), were eaten at a birthday banquet for Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, although he emphasised that he had no evidence of this.
“It’s an assumption, not an assertion,” Mr Szmolinsky said. “But I don’t think the animals are alive anymore, I think they’ve been eaten.”
He added: “North Korea won’t be getting any more rabbits from me, they don’t even need to bother asking. I was looking forward to going on such a trip while I’m still fit enough.” Continue reading “Monster Bunnies Eaten by “Great Leader”?”
Two-Buck Huck – Outposts – Op-Extra Columnist – Opinion – – New York Times Blog
Huckabee revels in the class war. He’s Two-Buck Huck, and darn proud of it. He likes nothing better than playing the Hick from Hope. He and his wife lived in a trailer for a while, he points out. His son killed a dog one summer, “a mangy dog” at that, as Huckabee explained to the befuddled national press corps. He said he used to eat squirrels, cooking them up in his popcorn popper. Ewwwwhhh!
And what’s up with that Chuck Norris shadow, following him everywhere like a late-night rerun? To the establishment, Norris is a B-lister with a bad hair dye and a ’70s-era karate shtick. They prefer Bruce Willis – bald Republican action hero.
Huckabee has been telling people in Iowa that Republican higher-ups would never let him become the nominee because he “has a hick last name.” Wow. I’d like to be in on that focus group.
“For my family, summer was never a verb,” he says. Take that, Mitt Romney and your perfect family, costumed in Ralph Lauren casual wear down by the shore. And this: “Wall Street types are afraid to death of a guy like me.” You mean, a guy who lost 110 pounds and cooks squirrels in his popcorn popper? Thanks for Caroline Collier pointing this out.
Robert J. Samuelson – Food vs. Fuel – washingtonpost.com
Since 1961, world population has increased 112 percent; meanwhile, global production is up 164 percent for grains and almost 700 percent for meats. We owe this mainly to better seed varieties, more fertilizer, more mechanization and better farm practices. Food in most developed countries is so plentiful and inexpensive that obesity — partly caused by overeating — is a major social problem.
Biofuels became politically fashionable because they combined benefits for farmers with popular causes: increasing energy “security”; curbing global warming. Unfortunately, the marriage is contrived. Not only are fuel savings meager, so are the environmental benefits. Substituting corn-based ethanol for gasoline results in little reduction in greenhouse gases. Indeed, the demand for biofuels encourages deforestation in developing countries; the New York Times recently reported the clearing of Indonesian forests to increase palm oil production for biofuel. Forests absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
This is not a case of unintended consequences. A new generation of “cellulosic” fuels (made from grasses, crop residue or wood chips) might deliver benefits, but the adverse effects of corn-based ethanol were widely anticipated. Government subsidies reflect the careless and cynical manipulation of worthy public goals for selfish ends. That the new farm bill may expand the ethanol mandates confirms an old lesson: Having embraced a giveaway, politicians cannot stop it, no matter how dubious.
Monsanto: Winning the Ground War
While a vocal band of opponents is still protesting biotech crops, a growing multitude of farmers around the world is planting them. The reason is no mystery: Monsanto seeds contain genes that kill bugs and tolerate weed-killing pesticides. So they are much easier and cheaper to grow than traditional seeds. More than half the crops grown in the U.S., including nearly all the soybeans and 70% of the corn, are genetically modified. Just five years ago, China, India, and Brazil planted virtually no genetically engineered crops. Now Brazil can barely build roads fast enough to get all of its biotech soybeans from the fertile interior Mato Grosso state out to ports. Farmers in China and India, meanwhile, planted more than 17 million acres of biotech crops last year.
The battle over genetically modified food is being won not in scientific journals but on the ground. Global demand for food and fuel have made farmers ever eager to squeeze more yield from an acre of dirt. And the undeniable fact is that during the 12 years since the first biotech seeds were planted, the most dire predictions of Monsanto’s opponents have so far failed to come true.
The greatest media story of 2007 was the one you never read : The year was a strategic catastrophe for Islamist terrorists – and possibly a historic turning point in the struggle against al Qaeda and its affiliates.
That fundamental change in outlook, especially among Sunni Arabs, may well mark last year as Islamist terrorism’s high-water mark, the point at which fellow Muslims by the tens of millions publicly rejected the message and methods of self-styled holy warriors who revel in the slaughter of the innocent.
But 2007 may have been to the struggle against Islamofascism what 1943 was to the Second World War: the year in which it became clear that, no matter how long the war lasted, civilization’s enemies couldn’t win.
The lack of attention paid to the disaster that befell the terrorist cause – essentially acknowledged by Osama bin Laden’s “holiday” audio tape – is as if, in 1943, the Allied media hadn’t reported any Axis defeats.
Juliet Eilperin – Pouring In – washingtonpost.com
The small-plates trend in restaurants has created an atmosphere more conducive to wine bars. Cyril Frechier, Northwest U.S. sales representative for the D.C.-based wine importer Robert Kacher Selections, said restaurant patrons increasingly are seeking out drinks that complement tapas and other small portions.
A number of factors account for wine bars’ growing popularity. Wine consumption has risen steadily in the United States over the past 15 years as wine production has expanded beyond Europe to Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and other countries, increasing the range of wine offerings while lowering the price. Americans drank an average of nearly 2.4 gallons of wine in 2006 compared with 1.85 gallons in 1991, according to the Wine Institute, a California-based trade association. Every state in the country now boasts at least one wine producer, providing American consumers more domestic choices as well. And while it’s hard to calculate the impact of the Oscar-winning 2004 movie “Sideways,” the indie film clearly encouraged American wine drinkers to think beyond chardonnay and merlot.