17 Jul 2006
Do-it-yourselfers turn diner grease into biodiesel fuel

Now this is an enterprising fellow - and he illustrates perfectly the correct way to approach biofuels. Not as a panacea, but as a component of a program to cut energy use and increase efficiency.

In his two-car garage, Kevin Newman is pouring used French fry oil from local restaurants into a pair of General Electric household water heaters - his version of the giant petroleum cracking towers found at an oil company refinery. He deftly moves hoses around, scrubs the impurities from the oil, performs chemical tests, and, voilą, a week later, he is filling-up his pickup truck with biodiesel. He figures his home refinery saves him and his business, which has six trucks, about $1.75 a gallon.

(link) [Christian Science Monitor ]

18:13 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Megachurches build a Republican base

Look! It's a church! Nope, it's a political party!

When these lines get blurred, democracy is in deep trouble. Just ask the Iraqis.

Reuters - It's not Sunday but Fairfield Christian Church is packed. Hundreds of kids are making their way to vacation Bible school, parents are dropping in at the day-care center and yellow-shirted volunteers are everywhere, directing traffic. In one wing of the sprawling church, a coffee barista whips up a mango smoothie while workers bustle around the cafeteria.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

11:30 /Politics | 2 comments | permanent link

USDA patents microbes to fight wheat fungus

Let me see if I get this: they discovered these living organisms. They didn't engineer them, they were selected from a range of related critters. And they didn't patent the fermentation process used to produce them - according to the article they patented the creatures themselves.

I've never heard of any court upholding a patent on a living creature discovered in nature: they've upheld GMO patents (which I still feel are wrong), but not a natural variety. These patents should be tossed at the first challenge.

Peoria, Ill. (ARS) - Four yeasts and three bacteria that live on flowering wheat heads, but cause no harm there, have been patented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as biological control agents in the fight against Fusarium head blight (FHB).

(link) [The Prairie Star]

11:28 /Copywrongs | 1 comment | permanent link

It's hot out... really, really hot

Well, Mom's doing lots better - we're still going in twice a day to insure she gets lunch and dinner, but she's managing to make her own breakfast, and she's moving about her apartment pretty well. This is a good thing.

Due to the medical emergency, I've not blogged alot about our other activities in the last week: but trust me, we've been busy!

I had made arrangements previously to watch and take care of the livestock at Crowded Byre Farm while the owners were on vacation. This started last Monday evening and ended this morning. It's seventeen miles one way from here to there, and we had to make two round trips a day. Tim raises Border Collies (15 of the little buggers) sheep (of course - that's how he trains his dogs) and ten head of Murray-Gray cattle. He's also got a couple of goats, a donkey, three horses, a llama and the usual barn cats, guard dogs (Great Pyrenees) and chickens/turkeys.

When we could leave the herding dogs out for the day, morning chores would take about an hour. Evening chores always took about two, due mostly to having to hustle the collies back into the kennels. But for the first three days (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of last week) morning chores took about two hours and evening chores about three. This was due to the monsoon...

I didn't know how close "Indiana" really was to "India" ! We got over eight inches of rain in the span of those three days. Which turned pastures into mud lots, and completely freaked the dogs out (thunderstorms do that sometimes). I actually sank into the cow pasture at Crowded Byre up to my knees on Wednesday evening. It was a mess.

Then it heated up. Friday broke 95°F about 4pm EST. By late Friday night (11pm EST) the air temp was 74°F and the dew point was 73°F - making the humidity 99%. Which is where it's stayed, day and night, ever since. We've broken the 100°F a few times, and it doesn't look like it's going to let up for another few days.

"Miserable" doesn't do it justice. It's like living inside a cloud - mist forms near dusk and doesn't leave until well after daybreak.

A further complication: Kris broke the small floating bones in her left foot while shearing sheep two weeks ago - and has been more or less hobbling around with an immobilizer boot ever since. She had to wrap it in a trash bag to keep it from getting muddy during the rains, which slowed her down even more.

The topper? This morning down at Crowded Byre, after we had just finished up the chores, a motorcyclist rides up the drive and asks if that's our bull down on road 1025W. I thought Tim had his bulls up in Jamestown, doing their manly thing for another herd, but we suspected it was possibly "Big Mama" who'd gone roaming. We went down to take a look, and sure enough, it was a bull, and a Murray-Gray to boot. It looked like it belonged to Tim's herd, so we called him on the road and confirmed. The little sucker had gotten out up at his home away from home last night and another neighbor had brought him back to Tim's late. He'd apparently escaped from the pasture the neighbor put him in sometime this morning. So, following Tim's instructions, we walked him down the road and put him in with the cows - he wanted April calves anyway, and he'll have some now! It's always fun moving an unfamiliar bull over unfamiliar territory into an unfamiliar pasture.

All in all, we've just wrapped up the week from Hel at Hammerstead. Maybe things'll get back to normal now, whatever that is around here!

Temperatures soared into the upper 90s and higher Sunday from coast to coast, bringing out heat warnings, wilting athletes and driving others into the shade.

(link) [CNN]

11:12 /Home | 2 comments | permanent link

Virtual reality puts telepathy to the test

Interesting experimental methodology, but why couldn't they just use objects in the real world, with the test subjects separated? I can't see where the "virtuality" of the setup contributes anything, really.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have created a virtual computer world designed to test telepathic ability.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

09:32 /Technology | 2 comments | permanent link

Clone 'would feel individuality'

This is in my Humor section for the "Duh!" factor ... they'd not only feel individuality, they'd be individuals! I can't believe that serious people actually took the time to "study" this, or that they prefaced their conclusions with "probably". My only solace is that it was British and Austrian tax monies that were wasted on this bit'o'stupidity.

A cloned human would probably consider themselves to be an individual, a study suggests.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

09:30 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link