March 4, 2008, 5:45 PM CT

Imports from Latin America may help US meet energy goals

Latin American nations could become important suppliers of ethanol for world markets in coming decades, as per an Oak Ridge National Laboratory study released recently.

The report, Biofuel Feedstock Assessment for Selected Countries, presents findings from research conducted in support of a larger study of Worldwide Potential to Produce Biofuels with a focus on U.S. Imports by the Department of Energy. The ORNL study highlights the importance of Brazils dynamic sugarcane industry in future world trade in fuel ethanol.

A team of ORNL scientists led by Keith Kline and Gbadebo Oladosu projected that Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and members of the Caribbean Basin Initiative could produce sufficient feedstock for more than 30 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2017, which would represent a six-fold increase over current production. Nearly 40 percent of the projected supply in 2017 is based on the potential to use new technology to produce advanced biofuels from cellulosic feedstock using crop residues and forestry byproducts.

Current feedstock production, based on traditional crops such as sugarcane, soybeans and palm oil, has the potential to double or triple by 2017 in some cases, said Oladosu, the lead economist for the study. Supply growth is derived from increasing the area cultivated, supplemented by improving yields and farming practices......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

February 12, 2008, 10:05 PM CT

Young voters influenced by negative political ads

In the recent issue of the Journal of Consumer Research, an important field study of registered voters aged 18-23 reveals that negative attack ads provoke more voter migration than positive ads. Scientists from Notre Dame and the University of Texas at Dallas used real advertisements from the 2004 presidential election to show that, eventhough negative political ads are explicitly disliked, they have a powerful impact on voters mindsets that positive ads do not and the potential to change preference and behavior in ways that benefit the advertiser.

About 77 percent of college-educated 18-24 year olds who were registered cast a vote in the 2004 presidential election, in comparison to 64 percent of registered voters as a whole. In this presidential election, young voters may have even more of an impact.

Focusing on this segment in the 2004 presidential election, Joan M. Phillips, Joel E. Urbany (both University of Notre Dame), and Thomas J. Reynolds (University of Texas at Dallas) asked participants 93 percent of whom said at the time that they would definitely vote in the 2004 presidential election to indicate their likelihood of support on a seven point scale: definitely Bush, most likely Bush, leaning toward Bush, undecided, leaning toward Kerry, most likely Kerry, definitely Kerry. The order of the candidates was random......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:40:22 GMT

Blogging world supports the RIAA?

The Washington post ran a story on Wednesday saying that the RIAA was suing a man for copying a CD he purchased onto his computer. The columnist Marc Fisher quoted a legal brief and alleged that the Record Association of America said that MP3 files that someone creates form their own CD's are "unauthorized copies."

Turns out that wasn't the case at all. The RIAA has retaliated and said that uploading a CD to your computer for personal use is completely ok. What's not ok however is then taking that uploaded MP3 and putting it on a file-sharing network where others can also access it.

"The Washington Post story is wrong," said Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman. "As numerous commentators have since discovered after taking the time to read our brief, the record companies did not allege that ripping a lawfully acquired CD to a computer or transferring a copy to an MP3 player is infringement. This case is about the illegal distribution of copyrighted songs on a peer-to-peer network, not making copies of legally acquired music for personal use."

Blogs in mass are for once actually jumping on the side of the RIAA saying they were unjustly accused of trying to limit personal use of music. The Washington Post however has still not posted a retraction to the story. You can check out the document in question for yourself here.

[via CNet] Read more of "Blogging world supports the RIAA?" Posted by: Emily Price      Read more     Source

February 11, 2008, 10:43 PM CT

Carbon Capture Strategy For Emission-Free Cars

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech scientists envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.

Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters - automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators).

The Georgia Tech team's goal is to create a sustainable transportation system that uses a liquid fuel and traps the carbon emission in the vehicle for later processing at a fueling station. The carbon would then be shuttled back to a processing plant where it could be transformed into liquid fuel. Currently, Georgia Tech scientists are in the process of developing a fuel processing device to separate the carbon and store it in the vehicle in liquid form.

The research was published in Energy Conversion and Management. The research was funded by NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense NDSEG Fellowship Program and Georgia Tech's CEO (Creating Energy Options) Program......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

February 8, 2008, 7:55 PM CT

Hillary May Be A Disaster In November

Electing Hillary Clinton in the primary may prove disastrous for the Democratic Party in the November Presidential Election. A new Time magazine poll shows McCain has a good chance of winning the presidential race if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Nominee for the President. In this situation Hillary Clinton ties with McCain with 46 percent of the votes.

On the other hand if Obama wins the nomination He has a good chance of beating McCain. In this situation Obama would beat McCain 48 percent to 41 percent.

This difference is due to Independent voters among whom Obama is more popular. So should any one of the Democrats be opting for Hillary Clinton well knowing that this could lead to eight more years of the same. It is time to move over personal likings and opt for the person who would beat McCain in the coming November. We can not afford to lose in the November Election......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

February 4, 2008, 9:30 PM CT

The Importance of Being Early

In an election season characterized by the maneuvering for early primary dates among states, a new study conducted by political researchers examines how early caucuses and primaries have become crucial in the race for the White House. The study takes a look at how states use the two strategies known as "front-loading" and proposed regional primaries in an effort to boost influence in the presidential nomination process.

Travis N. Ridout (Washington State University) and Brandon Rottinghaus (University of Houston) explore these strategies in "The Importance of Being Early: Presidential Primary Front-Loading and the Impact of the Proposed Western Regional Primary," reported in the recent issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, a journal of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The full article is available online at www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PSJan08RidoutRottinghaus.pdf.

Front-loading is the phenomenon of states moving their primary or caucus dates forward in an effort to increase their influence in the nomination process. The authors examine the effect of front-loading on presidential candidates who are visiting and advertising in these states. They also examine the effect a regional primary could have on the amount of recognition a state receives from the candidates......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

January 31, 2008, 11:12 PM CT

Obama-Clinton Debate

I watched the Obama Clinton debate on CNN today. I think the choice is very clear. Do you want another 8 years of Bill Clinton Presidency or not. Hillary is seeking nomination based on Bill Clinton's records not here own. The support Hillary Clinton enjoys stems from Bill Clintons name recognition and records. Looks like Hillary would be depended on her husband to run the white house. Hillary might be wearing the mask of the president, but it would be Bill Clinton who would be pulling the string from behind. I think we should select someone who can stand by their own and not in the shadow of her husband as the president of the greatest country in the world. Any shadow of doubt that the president of the United states of America would be a surrogate of a previous president would be worth serious thought about our choice for the next person in the white house.

Hillary had no answers about her vote to authorize Bush to go to war and Wolf Blitzer's question about her naïve attitude that struck her nerve. Obama's answers about being right on the first day as the president was a real counter punch to the argument that Hillary was making that she would be ready on day one of her presidency.

I have problem with Hillary's Universal health care. I have lived in Canada and have good knowledge about health care system of Canada. Is Hillary planning to bring the long waiting line so familiar in Canada to the United States? Medications that are available for years in the United States are still not available in Canada. For example Avastin a cancer drug that was approved in US in February 2004 is not yet available in Canada as of February of 2007. Do we really need this backward travel?........ Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

January 28, 2008, 10:54 PM CT

CNN in high definition comes to Canada

CNN HD, a high-definition (HD) simulcast of the 24-hour news channel CNN is now available in Canada on Rogers cable in Ontario.

The American news channel was first launched on September 1, 2007 in the United States but has only recently been added to a number of cable and satellite line-ups around North America.

CNN HD's program line-up is the same as CNN's main channel, with high-definition versions of select programming.

The bulk of programming on CNN-HD is upconverted standard definition eventhough some shows based out of CNN's New York City studios such as American Morning, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Anderson Cooper 360 and In The Money are in HD......... Posted by: Gina      Read more         Source

January 28, 2008, 10:30 PM CT

Lessons from evolution applied to national security

Could lessons learned from Mother Nature help airport security screening checkpoints better protect us from terror threats? .

The authors of a new book, Natural Security: A Darwinian Approach to a Dangerous World, believe they can -- if governments are willing to think outside the box and pay heed to some of natures most successful evolutionary strategies for species adaptation and survival.

Biological organisms have figured out millions of ways, over three and a half billion years of evolution, to keep themselves safe from a vast array of threats, said Raphael Sagarin, a Duke University ecologist who co-edited the book with Terence Taylor, an international security expert.

Arms races among invertebrates, intelligence gathering by the immune system and alarm calls by marmots are just a few of natures successful security strategies that have been tested and modified over time in response to changing threats and situations, Sagarin said. In our book, we look at these strategies and ask how we could apply them to our own safety.

The book, published next month by the University of California Press, is the result of more than two years of investigation and debate by a multidisciplinary working group of researchers and security experts led by Sagarin and Taylor......... Posted by: Jaison      Read more         Source

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:09:11 GMT

MySpace Under New Malware Attack

MySpace is under attack again. According to Marshal's TRACE team, it involves spam that pretends to be a legitimate invitation to join MySpace. It contains a link that redirects to a fake MySpace page. Once there the user is prompted to update Adobe Flash player. If they accept the download, malware is downloaded to their computer, turning it into zombie and making it part of a botnet. The affected computer then starts sending phishing emails targeting major US banks. "We saw sites such as YouTube targeted in these kinds of malware distribution campaigns last year. It follows that social networking sites would be next on the spammers list of targets to exploit, although this newest campaign arrived a little sooner that expected. This attempt to exploit MySpace is simplistic but effective," said Bradley Anstis, Marshal's VP of Products. It is not yet clear if the botnet in question is controlled by the Storm Worm or a single hacker or gang. Posted by: Sue Walsh      Read more     Source