Silicon Nervous System

A Nobel Prize is probably in the works for a group of researchers who have developed a technique to grow living nerve cells on silicon and exchange information between the organic and the inorganic. So far they've used snails and rats for their experiments, but it is hoped that some day humans will have some use for the processing power of custom chips to run prosthetic limbs or eyes. The potential uses are endless. Apparently memory would even be available for perusal. We've known about stuff like this for a long time though, haven't we? I just want to know if an implant is going to help me remember my wife's birthday and our anniversary. If the technology can't do that why bother?

Mind Control Forum - Archives

The brain on a microchip: Calgary researcher finds cells can grow on silicon

Why doesn't somebody develop a shrub that you can plant and grow inside your head that turns out some nice green leaves while it photosynthesizes and stores energy for you, it's host? Now that's symbiosis! None of this can be too far off with gene manipulation.

Of course photovoltaics are the inanimate corollary to roots and twigs. In future we might be able to plug the old laptop in to ourselves to get a jolt out of the internet, along with the satisfying feeling of being energized by mocha lathe heaped with sugar as the power trickles in from the sun. Might give sunburn a whole new meaning.

For now we will have to settle on doing things the 'old' way with an electricity infrastructure to pipe the electrons all over the place.

Powering A Generation: Transmitting Electricity

Yeah, technology is here to stay. Any of our upcoming problems are going to be solved by replacement technologies as the path of technology would dictate. And, hey, we've got an entire world just dying to become first-time adopters too. It will remain to be seen whether the word progress will come to mean that you'll get a lot of cool features you'll never use and don't need, but that you pay for and can never get rid of.

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And -- ACTION...

Poseidon Rules

Ancient Greece invigorates the mind with images of heroism, triumph and tragedy. What other people have influenced the modern Western world (minus the slavery, of course) in such a profound way? Euclid proscribed a geometry none could compromise or add to for a millennium-and-a-half, and secret sects guarded the Greek fruits of mathematics as proof of their worth, perhaps even the worth of their proofs...

But what strange wonders did cease when the industrial middle ages caused these abstract acrobatics to be malformed into mechanisms of human movement? What did the adoption of the '0' do to us all, as it made the possible of immeasurable calculations? Unknown and unknowable vistas that redefined a Christian God and made a small word of life. Specialization worked at cross purposes to the whole man, and perhaps it can be argued the same became true of the environment man found himself creating by his removed self.

What criticisms Poseidon would make of the many rafts cast into his sea as he watched a launch from calm into a maelstrom of complexity. His tempest fracturing even the worthiest vessels behind the peaks and troughs of his sea borne riddles. Now we're riding high. Now we're riding low. Now I see you. Now I don't. And all the stomach of a tossing pot.

Now that we've gotten rid of DDT and the Bald Eagle is coming off the Endangered Species List we have annual growth greater than 9 per cent in China accompanied by a growing cloud of carbon dioxide/monoxide and particulate obscuring a lens more worried about military mass than consumption and rampant Western ideals.

Who is accounting for a 180 year schedule to allow these clouds to dissipate even if combustion for power stopped in less than 20 years? Poseidon keeps stirring with his trident and your stomach is churning. If everyone else is on the same ride who is left holding the bucket?

Song Of The Blog

Well, I've decided that blogging really is fun! But there is one huge problem with it. There is so much to read. Some people are so funny it makes my sides split. Some people are so funny they've gotten book deals. Now I can forgive them for not harping on about hydrogen in each one of their entries. I mean being a magnanimous sort of person I might even give them mention in this blog from time to time. Recently I discovered mimi smartypants who had me howling long past my self-imposed and quite flexible i-don't-have-to-do-it-if-I-don't-want-to deadline. That's what I like about editors like myself. Caring less hardly matters because you're not going to get paid anyway. A thought which paves the way to a seque about the nature of work and our observation about change.

It really comes down to who your boss is, doesn't it? Up the chain that is. Rapid adoption of anything really doesn't turn the crank of the boss who, after all, is upholding the status-quo, and who might even claim to be doing so for your own good. Having read mimi smartypants I know she still has to go to work every day to make ends meet (and to feed her steady diet of sushi and other culture-vulture consumables). She, at least, takes the train. Heck, I'm in the same boat. And I hardly want to rock it for fear that my status is going to quo all on it's own. So it must be true that we all observe change in a way that, if it has any whiff of potential to sink the boat, we ain't gonna support it.

Ummmm, does that remind you of anything? Personally, I suggest you go read mimi smartypants, then thank whatever deity you have hiding around in the bathroom that you aren't living in a world where your lungs are underdeveloped and your prognosis for a long life from the time of your birth is profoundly impacted.

Have a happy day.

Lessons In Hydrogen

The past week has been extremely busy in the world of The Hydrogen Economy.

The journal Science published a report by researchers in Minnesota that have developed a utility-sized reformer capable of converting ethanol into H2 usable in a fuel cell application. The article was published on Friday, February 13, 2004 just two days after the US Senate announced it's new Energy bill to double the use of corn-based ethanol by 2012.

Senate ethanol bill doubles US ethanol use by 2012 -- Yahoo

But wait... There's more. A Toronto-based company called Stuart Energy went IPO on the 12th of February. The company focuses on water-electrolysis, a method of using electricity to split available water into oxygen and hydrogen. The technology offered by this company could pave the way to a hydrogen economy using just an electrical connection and water service. Something you've discovered every gas station now has if you've ever had to use the bathroom on those long trips. Oh, and yes... Stuart offers a gas-pump type delivery system, stationary fuel cells for power generation and on site compression and storage equipment. What more could Governor Shwarzenegger ask for as he considers the bids to build his 200 H2 pumping station infrastructure.

Hydrogen Energy Station

Hydrogen Hackers

Hardware hacking is any kid's pastime. Remember taking apart your first radio or figuring our how the toaster works? Well, even if you didn't do any of those things you probably know a kid who does or really wants to (keep the tools up high is my advice).

Sharpen your flint tip with these primitive designs using cutting edge technology. Keep a close eye on the regenerative cell.

Regenerative Fuel Cell Car -- Editor's Pick

Fuel Cell Kit

Build Your Own Fuel Cells by Phillip Hurley

FuelCellStore.com -- Products to make H2

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