19% of oil refinery capacity in the Gulf of Mexico was shutdown by hurricane Ike An analysis from the peal oil site the Oil drum is that the oil refineries will be out for about 2 weeks. The analysis is that it would take an outage of 3 weeks or more for gasoline prices to …
Carnival of Space week 70 is up at Orbital Hub New experiments for modular space craft that would control relative position via magnetic fields. This site contributed the article on the advance in separating carbon nanotubes which seems likely to be a significant step towards space elevators. A graduate student at Cornell University set up …
1. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved uprates to seven nuclear reactors over the last year, adding a further 249 MWe (2 billion kwh) to overall US nuclear capacity. 2. Researchers have genetically engineered a thermophilic bacterium, meaning it’s able to grow at high temperatures, and this new microorganism makes ethanol as the …
Natural Gas production is going up by a lot in the United States. This was noted at Peak Oil Debunked about a month ago. The peak oil people such as Mike Ruppert and Matt Simmons were saying in 2003 and since then that natural gas production was heading for a sharp decline. Now even some …
An excellent idea featured at Melanie Swan’s blog: there are 1,000 trillion bacteria that are part of each human (10x the number of human cells) could be an ideal augmentation substrate. There are at least three ways for achieving human-electronic interfaces; physical implants, wearables and a third as yet unconsidered possibility, exploiting the human bacterial …
Continental Resources first well flowed at an average rate of 693 barrels of crude oil equivalent per day in its initial week of production in May. The second well, Mathistad 1-35H, began production on July 4 and flowed at an average rate of 1,095 barrels of crude oil equivalent per day, with 90 percent of …
Stanford University School of Medicine researchers has developed a new type of imaging system that can illuminate tumors in living subjects—getting pictures with a precision of nearly on nanometer (one-trillionth of a meter). This technique, called Raman spectroscopy, expands the available toolbox for the field of molecular imaging, said team leader Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, MD, …
A way to carry out genetic surgery [more precise gene therapy] has been devised by a British Nobel prizewinner that is already under test on diabetic patients and being readied for use to treat Aids, blocked blood vessels and chronic pain. Safety and precision problems and concerns have been holding back wider use of gene …
Here is another update to my March 2006 technology predictions. Prediction: Real-time biomarker tracking and monitoring 2008-2012 Progress: Cheap less than $100 USB gene testerOld mockup of the cheap gene tester. The device is now much smaller than size of a shoe-box (USB stick size) with the optics and supporting electronics filling the space around …
Carnival of space 31 is up at outofthecradle.net My contribution is my article on combining the newly announced nuclear “battery” with Vasimr plasma propulsion engine technology. there is discussion about the Chinese space program which currently has a probe orbiting the moon There is discussion about the economic develop of the moon Out of the …