The lies behind this transatlantic trade deal | George Monbiot Panic spreads through the European commission like ferrets in a rabbit warren. Its plans to create a single market incorporating Europe and the United States, progressing so nicely when hardly anyone knew, have been blown wide open. All over Europe people are asking why this is happening; why we were not consulted; for whom it is being done. They have good reason to ask. This mechanism could threaten almost any means by which governments might seek to defend their citizens or protect the natural world. No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it. Quite right too.
Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived Additional notes from the author: If you want to learn more about Tesla, I highly recommend reading Tesla: Man Out of Time Also, this Badass of the week by Ben Thompson is what originally inspired me to write a comic about Tesla. Ben's also got a book out which is packed full of awesome. There's an old movie from the 80s on Netflix Instant Queue right now about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla. It's corny and full of bad acting, but it paints a fairly accurate depiction of his life. The drunk history of Tesla is quite awesome, too. History.com has a great article about Edison and how his douchebaggery had a chokehold on American cinema.
Susan George: poteri occulti, la Terra è sotto scacco Se avete a cuore il vostro cibo, la vostra salute e la stessa sicurezza finanziaria, la vostra e quella della vostra famiglia, così come le tasse che pagate, lo stato del pianeta e della stessa democrazia, ci sono pessime notizie: un gruppo di golpisti ha preso il potere e ormai domina il pianeta. Legalmente: perché le nuove leggi che imbrigliano i popoli, i governi e gli Stati se le sono fatte loro, per servire i loro smisurati interessi, piegando le democrazie con l’aiuto di “maggiordomi” travestiti da politici. La grande novità si chiama: “ascesa di autorità illegittima”. Parola di Susan George, notissima sociologa franco-statunitense, già impegnata nel movimento no-global e al vertice di associazioni mondiali come Greenpeace. I nuovi oligarchi, spiega la George nell’intervento pronunciato al Festival Internazionale di Ferrara, ottobre 2013, possono agire attraverso le lobby o oscuri “comitati di esperti”, attraverso organismi ad hoc che ottengono riconoscimenti ufficiali.
Nikola Tesla: The Genius Who Lit the World This is the documentary film about Nikola Tesla, the scientist and inventor, one of the greatest men in history. Nikola Tesla was born on July 10,1856 in Smiljan, Lika in what later became Yugoslavia. His father, Milutin Tesla was a Serbian orthodox priest and his mother Djuka Mandic was an inventor in her own right of household appliances. Before going to America, Tesla joined Continental Edison Company in Paris where he designed dynamos. Young Nikola Tesla came to the United States in 1884. Direct current flows continuously in one direction; alternating current changes direction 50 or 60 times per second, and can be stepped up to very high voltage levels, minimizing power loss across great distances. Tesla's A-C induction motor is widely used throughout the world in industry and household appliances. Watch the full documentary now
This book appears very interesting! "You are Not... - Daniele Mancinelli War of Currents In the War of Currents era (sometimes, War of the Currents or Battle of Currents) in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC). Thomas Edison, American inventor and businessman, known as "The Wizard of Menlo Park", pushed for the development of a DC power network. George Westinghouse, American entrepreneur and engineer, financially backed the development of a practical AC power network. Edison's direct-current system generated and distributed electric power at the same voltage as used by the customer's lamps and motors. This meant that the current in transmission was relatively large, and so heavy conductors were required and transmission distances were limited, to about a mile (kilometre); otherwise transmission losses would make the system uneconomical. At the time, no method was practical for changing voltages of DC power. DC[edit] AC[edit]
A billion-year storage medium that could outlive the human race A QR code etched in tungsten and embedded in graphene oxide on an optical disc Credit: University of Twente) Researcher Dr. Jeroen de Vries from the University of Twente MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology suggests we could store data for one million to one billion years, using a new storage medium based on tungsten and graphene oxide. He imagines two possible scenarios: Disaster has devastated the earth and society must rebuild the worldWe need to create a legacy for future intelligent life that evolves on Earth or comes from other worlds. Optical-disc information carrier de Vries has developed a novel optical-disc information carrier that he says can store such information for extremely long periods of time, using etching techniques. Left: scanning electron micrograph of the cross-section of the encapsulated lines in the disc test sample; right: scanning electron micrograph of the sample after 1 hour at 200 degrees Celsius (credit: Jeroen de Vries et al. The ultimate aging test References:
Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla (Serbian Cyrillic: Никола Тесла; 10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was a Serbian-American[3][4] inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.[5] Born and raised in the Austrian Empire, Tesla received an advanced education in engineering and physics in the 1870s and gained practical experience in the early 1880s working in telephony and at Continental Edison in the new electric power industry. He emigrated to the United States in 1884, where he would become a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the Edison Machine Works in New York City before he struck out on his own. Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. Early years Tesla's baptismal record, 28 June 1856 Tesla coil
CWRU engineering researchers report nanoscale energy-efficient switching devices at IEDM 2013 By relentlessly miniaturizing a pre-World War II computer technology, and combining this with a new and durable material, researchers at Case Western Reserve University have built nanoscale switches and logic gates that operate more energy-efficiently than those now used by the billions in computers, tablets and smart phones. Electromechanical switches were the building blocks of electronics before the solid-state transistor was developed during the war. A version made from silicon carbide, at the tiniest of scales, snaps on and off like a light switch, and with none of the energy-wasting current leakage that plagues the smallest electronics today. The scientists report their findings today at the International Electron Devices Meeting in Washington D.C. The tiny switch's moving part is only about one cubic micron in volume, more than a thousand times smaller than devices made in today's mainstream microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). Tina He, Prof.
BioPen: A handheld 3D printer for surgeons A handheld ‘bio pen’ developed in the labs of the University of Wollongong (UOW) will allow surgeons to design customised implants on-site and at the time of surgery. The BioPen, developed by researchers from the UOW-headquartered Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), will give surgeons greater control over where the materials are deposited while also reducing the time the patient is in surgery by delivering live cells and growth factors directly to the site of injury, accelerating the regeneration of functional bone and cartilage. The BioPen works similar to 3D printing methods by delivering cell material inside a biopolymer such as alginate, a seaweed extract, protected by a second, outer layer of gel material. The device can also be seeded with growth factors or other drugs to assist regrowth and recovery, while the hand-held design allows for precision in theatre and ease of transportation.
Vast Freshwater Reserves Found Beneath the Oceans A new study, published December 5 in the international scientific journal Nature, reveals that an estimated half a million cubic kilometres of low-salinity water are buried beneath the seabed on continental shelves around the world. The water, which could perhaps be used to eke out supplies to the world's burgeoning coastal cities, has been located off Australia, China, North America and South Africa. "The volume of this water resource is a hundred times greater than the amount we've extracted from the Earth's sub-surface in the past century since 1900," says lead author Dr Vincent Post (pictured) of the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) and the School of the Environment at Flinders University. "Knowing about these reserves is great news because this volume of water could sustain some regions for decades." Dr Post says that groundwater scientists knew of freshwater under the seafloor, but thought it only occurred under rare and special conditions.