Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Full 2 hr Movie

Here is a scary movie for Halloween. You do have to log in to watch it and I think there are some commercials.

True Spooky: Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA?

… Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation that fills the slot in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes , paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and “frisk” people at distance.

The way terahertz waves are absorbed and emitted can also be used to determine the chemical composition of a material. And even though they don’t travel far inside the body, there is great hope that the waves can be used to spot tumours near the surface of the skin.

With all that potential, it’s no wonder that research on terahertz waves has exploded in the last ten years or so.

But what of the health effects of terahertz waves? At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging. Terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionise atoms or molecules, the chief reasons why higher energy photons such as x-rays and UV rays are so bad for us. But could there be another mechanism at work?

The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. “Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none,” say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a few buddies. Now these guys think they know why.

Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they’ve found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That’s a jaw dropping conclusion.

And it also explains why the evidence has been so hard to garner. Ordinary resonant effects are not powerful enough to do do this kind of damage but nonlinear resonances can. These nonlinear instabilities are much less likely to form which explains why the character of THz genotoxic

effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic, say the team.

This should set the cat among the pigeons. Of course, terahertz waves are a natural part of environment, just like visible and infrared light. But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0910.5294: DNA Breathing Dynamics in the Presence of a Terahertz Field

via Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA.

True Spooky: Mercury is good for you.

Other than the skin rashes and dermatitis; mood swings; memory loss; mental disturbances; and muscle weakness, that is…

Are you getting what you signed up for from Comcast?

Yesterday I was given a low price of $34/mo for the 16MB Comcast “Blast Package” for 9 months, then $52/mo after that… by a rep at a Comcast  service center.  I wrote it down and confirmed what I was getting as I was standing at the counter. Today they hooked it up. I had 11 MB.

I called Comcast to figure out what was wrong, and my speed cut back as I was talking to the rep to 6 MB/sec.  The rep claimed not to have done anything, but for a good 10 minutes before I called I was getting 11 to 12 MB download speeds, after calling, I had only 5 MB. After I hung up, I was getting only 3 to 5 MB/sec.  I thought perhaps my cell phone was causing interference slowing down my internet connection…

Keep in mind that these tests vary over time depending on network traffic to the particular server you are testing against. But the change in speed happened to the same server.

Test your speed here:

• 
  http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1
  
• 
  http://www.speedtest.net/
  
• 
  http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
  
• 
  http://www.bandwidthplace.com/
  

The rep on the phone told me I  signed up for the 6 MB/sec package. Bull feathers. I have the paper right in front of me signed by “BBI” and it says 16MB. How was I getting 11 MB/sec with a 6MB/sec package?

The phone rep claims that I have to go in in person to get what I signed up for. Yes, I will. And if I don’t get what I was promised, I will cancel my service.

Now it is Friday at 5 PM and they are closed. Check your speed.
PS. Happy Halloween! No more posts till Sunday night or so.

PPS. After posting this, my speed went up to 8MB/sec.  What the heck? Are these tests accurate?

BP fined $87m for Texas explosion

BP has been fined a record $87m (£53m) for failing to correct safety hazards at its Texas City refinery in the US.

An explosion in 2005 at the Texas plant killed 15 people and injured 180 more.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited 270 violations at the oil refinery, a US Labor Department official said.

BP said it believed it was in “full compliance” with a 2005 settlement agreement with OSHA and would work with the agency to resolve the issue.

The $87m fine is the largest in OSHA’s history.

In 2005, BP paid a $21.3m fine to OSHA and entered into a four-year agreement to repair hazards at the Texas City refinery, which is the third largest in the US.

The latest fine follows a six-month inspection into whether BP had complied with that agreement. …

The safety violations found “could lead to another catastrophe”, US Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said.

“An $87m fine won’t restore those lives [lost in the 2005 explosion], but we can’t let this happen again. Workplace safety is more than a slogan. It’s the law,” Ms Solis said.

BP said in a statement: “While we strongly disagree with [OSHA's] conclusions, we will continue to work with the agency to resolve our differences.”

The firm will now have 15 days to either agree to pay the fine and take corrective action, or to contest the penalty through a hearing process.

BP was fined $50m by the Department of Justice in 2007 to settle criminal charges stemming from the Texas explosion.

Lawyers for the victims’ families said this was not enough.

The company has also paid more than $2bn to settle civil lawsuits and says it has invested more than $1 billion to repair safety problems at Texas City. …

via BBC NEWS | Business | BP fined $87m for Texas explosion.

3,000 images combine for Milky Way portrait

To combine these images, a simple cutting and pasting job would not suffice. Each photograph is a two-dimensional projection of the celestial sphere. As such, each one contains distortions, in much the same way that flat maps of the round Earth are distorted. In order for the images to fit together seamlessly, those distortions had to be accounted for. To do that, Mellinger used a mathematical model — and hundreds of hours in front of a computer.

Another problem he had to deal with was the differing background light in each photograph.

“Due to artificial light pollution, natural air glow, as well as sunlight scattered by dust in our solar system, it is virtually impossible to take a wide-field astronomical photograph that has a perfectly uniform background,” Mellinger said.

To fix this, Mellinger used data from the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes. The data allowed him to distinguish star light from unwanted background light. He could then edit out the varying background light in each photograph and fit them together so that they wouldn’t look patchy.

via 3,000 images combine for Milky Way portrait – Space.com- msnbc.com.

Awesome… It would make a great space ship.

Inventor makes water out of air

Coolest thing I’ve seen all day.

A French inventor has come up with a windmill that turns thin air into water and says his creation could offer hope to millions of people around the world who do not have enough water.

Air-to-water windmill inventor Marc Parent.

via Inventor makes water out of air | Video | Reuters.com.

Living wallpaper that devices can relate to

Who says wallflowers don’t grab people’s attention? A new type of electronically enhanced wallpaper promises not only eye-pleasing designs, but also the ability to activate lamps and heaters – and even control music systems.

Interactive walls are nothing new, but most rely on expensive sensors and power-hungry projectors to make the wall come alive. Now the Living Wall project, led by Leah Buechley at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, offers an alternative by using magnetic and conductive paints to create circuitry in attractive designs.

When combined with cheap temperature, brightness and touch sensors, LEDs and Bluetooth, the wall becomes a control surface able to “talk” to nearby devices. You can touch a flower to turn on a lamp, for example, or set heaters to fire up when the room gets cold.

“Our goal is to make technologies that users can build on and change without needing a lot of technical skill,” says Buechley.

To create the wallpaper, the team started with steel foil sandwiched between layers of paper that are coated with magnetic paint – acrylic paint infused with iron particles. Over this base they paint motifs such as flowers and vines using conductive paint, which uses copper particles rather than iron. The designs form circuits to which sensors, lights and other elements can be attached.

“It really is just a sheet of paper, and could be produced with existing printing and construction methods,” Buechley says.

via Living wallpaper that devices can relate to – tech – 28 October 2009 – New Scientist.

I had an idea years ago for a wall paper entertainment system. Turn all of your walls and ceiling, possibly even your floor into HD screens and you could do some amazing things. Beginnings of a Holodeck.

‘Impossible’ Device Could Propel Flying Cars, Stealth Missiles

The Emdrive is an electromagnetic drive that would generate thrust from a closed system — “impossible” say some experts.

To critics, it’s flat-out junk science, not even worth thinking about. But its inventor, Roger Shawyer, has doggedly continued his work. As Danger Room reported last year, Chinese scientists claimed to validate his math and were building their own version.

Shawyer gave a presentation earlier this week on the Emdrive’s progress at the CEAS 2009 European Air & Space Conference. It answered few questions, but hinted at how the Emdrive might transform spaceflight — and warfare. If the technology works, that is.

The heart of the Emdrive is a resonant, tapered cavity filled with microwaves. According to Shawyer, a relativistic effect generates a net thrust, an effect confirmed by various Emdrives he has built as demonstrations. Critics say that any thrust from the drive must come from another source. Shawyer is adamant that the measured thrust is not caused by other factors.

While the argument over the drive’s impossibility continues, so does the engineering work. The problem is that nobody wants to talk about it. Even Shawyer gives little away.

Last year, professor Yang Juan of the College of Astronautics at Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xi’an was happy to confirm that they were building an Emdrive which would be tested by the end of the year. But following the publication of this news in Danger Room, the situation changed. I was informed that the publicity was very unwelcome, especially any suggestion that there might be a military application. (Yang had previous published a study on the use of plasma as a weapon against low-orbiting satellites. [.pdf]) No further information has been forthcoming, and no Chinese papers have been published on the Emdrive, though Yang has recently published work on (unrelated) microwave plasma thrusters (.pdf).

Shawyer asserts that work is also being carried out in France, Russia and in the United States by a major aerospace company. But he cannot provide details beyond vague promises of “significant progress [that] has been made in both theoretical and experimental work, within these groups.” He also asserts that the British National Space Centre is said to be reviewing the Emdrive. Again, no details.

via ‘Impossible’ Device Could Propel Flying Cars, Stealth Missiles | Danger Room | Wired.com.

‘Miracle’ fail? Communion wafer becomes “heart tissue”.

The Catholic Church in Poland is investigating claims of a miracle after a piece of communion wafer was reported to have been transformed into human heart tissue after falling into water during a mass. In an incident that has generated a storm of publicity in devout Poland, Professor Maria Sobaniec-Lotowaska, of the medical university in Bialystok, has dumbfounded sceptics by saying she considered the material found in the container as heart tissue. But her findings have already been dismissed by other scientists.

“The professor saw what she wanted to see. She is very religious,” said Prof Lech Chyczewski, a blood specialist. “In order to rule out any doubts, it would have been necessary to carry out molecular and genetic testing.”

Pawel Grzesiowskia, a leading biologist from the National Medical Institute, has attributed the miracle to nothing more than bacteria growing on the small piece of wafer, which fell into a water container during a mass in the eastern village of Sokolka. But this has failed to quell many believing that something miraculous took place. The Catholic Church said already ruled out the possibility of a hoax, and local police have said that there is no evidence of fraud.

via ‘Miracle’ as communion wafer becomes heart tissue – Telegraph.

Did a qualified scientist examine the sample under a microscope? Section it and look at the type of muscle cells? Who did the DNA tests?  Where are the pictures and test results?  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.