Archive for 2011

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Flame Management with Electricity





We have known this for 200 yearsand it looks like a first pass is producing useful knowledge and ideas.  One wonders what took so long.

Yet this should be thrown open tohigh school science fairs in which everyone attempts to find novel ways tomanage an open flame.  It really needs tobe played with to get a sense of possibility established.

The relationship with soot isintriguing and suggestive.

And yes, we suddenly have a wayto directly shape and manage combustion fronts in places like engines.  That may be optimistic, but it is a newavenue for research.

Fires could be extinguished using beams of electricity

By BenCoxworth
13:43 March 28, 2011


http://www.gizmag.com/electricity-used-to-fight-fires/18246/

Scientists have developed a device that uses beams of electricity toextinguish flames
(Photo: Sylvain Pedneault)


It's certainly an established fact that electricity can cause fires,but today a group of Harvard scientists presented their research on the use ofelectricity for fighting fires. In a presentation at the 241stNational Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Dr.Ludovico Cademartiri told of how they used a unique device to shoot beams ofelectricity at an open flame over one foot tall. Almost immediately, he said,the flame was extinguished. On a larger scale, such a system would minimize theamount of water that needed to be sprayed into burning buildings, both saving waterand limiting water damage to those buildings.

Apparently, it has been known for over 200 years that electricityaffects fire – it can cause flames to change in character, or even stop burningaltogether. According to Cademartiri, a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. George M. Whitesidesat Harvard University, what hasn't been looked into much is the sciencebehind the relationship. It turns out that soot particles within flames caneasily become charged, and therefore can cause flames to lose stability whenthe local electrical fields are altered.

The Harvard device consists of a 600-watt amplifier hooked up to awand-like probe, which is what delivers the electrical beams. The researchersbelieve that a much lower-powered amplifier should deliver similar results,which could allow the system to worn as a backpack, by firefighters. It couldalso be mounted on ceilings, like current sprinkler systems, or beremotely-controlled.

Cademartiri believes the technology would work best for fires inconfined spaces, such as aboard submarines, but not so much for wide-open areaslike forests. As it was additionally found that electrical waves can affect theheat and distribution of flames, he also thinks their discovery could be usedto boost the efficiency of devices that involve controlled combustion, such asengines, power plants, and cutting and welding torches.

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Oldest Atlantean - European Writing




This item is important for acouple of reasons.  Firstly itestablishes the Mycenaean period in Greece as 1600 BC through 1100 BCas the presently accepted period of influence. As I have posted extensively, this coincides with the emergence of theAtlantean sea trade imperium that operated through ‘palace’ factoriesthroughout the Mediterranean.

This ‘empire’ had its capitalnear Gibraltar in order to control traffic into the Mediterranean.  It drew metals from the Americas overat least five hundred years and likely over a full one thousand years.  Thus the high pointof the palace culture coincides with the era of maximum activity in the Americas andmost evidence will be datable to that era.

As posted earlier, such a cultureneeded a written trade script.  Thisobviously is it.

Trade also drove the creation ofa Celtic script known as Ogam which is suitable for writing on bark and woodboards. 

The important take home is that:

1          Evidencekeeps drifting in support of the conjecture and is actually widening thegeographical scope.

2          TheAtlantean high point ran from 1600 BC through1159 BC and Mycenae and Athensand most other ancient foundations in the Eastern Mediterranean became part of the Atlantean palace culture operatedprimarily by European Celts.

It is actually startling just howfar-flung and well established this ‘empire’ was and it compares well to theBritish Empire and was certainly on the same track when it collapsed in 1159with the Hekla blast and tsunami.



Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe

Found at a site tied to myth, Greek tablet survived only by accident,experts say.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek/

Main Content

Names and numbers fill the back (pictured) of the tablet fragment,found last summer in Greece.

Photograph courtesy Christian Mundigler
Ker Than

for NationalGeographic News

Published March 30, 2011

Marks on a clay tablet fragment found in Greece arethe oldest known decipherable text in Europe,a new study says.

Considered "magical or mysterious" in its time, the writingsurvives only because a trash heap caught fire some 3,500 years ago, accordingto researchers.

Found in an olive grove in what's now the village of Iklaina (map), the tablet was created by a Greek-speaking Mycenaean scribe between 1450 and 1350 B.C., archaeologists say.
The Mycenaeans—made legendary in part by Homer's Iliad, whichfictionalizes their war with Troy—dominated much of Greece from about 1600 B.C.to 1100 B.C. (See "Is Troy True?The Evidence Behind Movie Myth.")

So far, excavations at Iklaina have yielded evidence of an earlyMycenaean palace, giant terrace walls, murals, and a surprisingly advanceddrainage system, according to dig director MichaelCosmopoulos.

But the tablet, found last summer, is the biggest surprise of themultiyear project, Cosmopoulos said.

"According to what we knew, that tablet should not have beenthere," the University of Missouri-St. Louisarchaeologist told National Geographic News.

First, Mycenaean tablets weren't thought to have been created so early,he said. Second, "until now tablets had been found only in a handful ofmajor palaces"—including the previous record holder, which was found amongpalace ruins in what was the city of Mycenae.

Although the Iklaina site boasted a palace during the early Mycenaeanperiod, by the time of the tablet, the settlement had been reduced to asatellite of the city of Pylos,seat of King Nestor, a key player in the Iliad.

"This is a rare case where archaeology meets ancient texts andGreek myths," Cosmopoulos said in a statement.

Tablet Preserved by Cooking

The markings on the tablet fragment—which is roughly 1 inch ( 2.5centimeters) tall by 1.5 inches (4 centimeters) wide—are early examples of awriting system known as Linear B.

Used for a very ancient form of Greek, Linear B consisted of about 87signs, each representing one syllable. (Related: "NewLayer of Ancient Greek Writings Detected in Medieval Book.")

The Mycenaeans appear to have used Linear B to record only economicmatters of interest to the ruling elite. Fittingly, the markings on the frontof the Iklaina tablet appear to form a verb that relates to manufacturing, theresearchers say. The back lists names alongside numbers—probably a propertylist.

Because these records tended to be saved for only a single fiscal year,the clay wasn't made to last, said Cosmopoulos, whose work was funded in partby the National Geographic Society's Committeefor Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

"Those tablets were not baked, only dried in the sun and [were],therefore, very brittle. ... Basically someone back then threw the tablet inthe pit and then burned their garbage," he said. "This fire hardenedand preserved the tablet."

Not the Oldest Writing

While the Iklaina tablet is an example of the earliest writing systemin Europe, other writing is much older, explained Classics professor Thomas Palaima,who wasn't involved in the study, which is to be published in the April issueof the journal Proceedings of the AthensArchaeological Society.

For example, writings found in China,Mesopotamia, and Egyptare thought to date as far back as 3,000 B.C.

Linear B itself is thought to have descended from an older, stillundeciphered writing system known as Linear A. And archeologists think Linear Ais related to the older hieroglyph system used by the ancient Egyptians.

(Also see "OldestHebrew Text Is Evidence for Bible Stories?")

Magical, Mysterious Writing

Still, the Iklaina tablet is an "extraordinary find," saidPalaima, an expert in Mycenaean tablets and administration at the University ofTexas-Austin.

In addition to its sheer age, the artifact could provide insights abouthow ancient Greek kingdoms were organized and administered, he added.

For example, archaeologists previously thought such tablets werecreated and kept exclusively at major state capitals, or "palatialcenters," such as Pylos and Mycenae.

Found in the ruins of a second-tier town, the Iklaina tablet couldindicate that literacy and bureaucracy during the late Mycenaean period wereless centralized than previously thought.

Palaima added that the ability to read and write was extremelyrestricted during the Mycenaean period and was regarded by most people as"magical or mysterious."

It would be some 400 to 600 years before the written word wasdemystified in Greece,as the ancient Greek alphabet overtook Linear B and eventually evolved into the26 letters used on this page.

From Wikipedia we have thefollowing:


Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, anearly form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet byseveral centuries (ca. 13th but perhaps as early as 17th century BC, see Kafkania pebble) andseems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaeancivilization.Most clay tablets inscribed in Linear B were found in Knossos, Cydonia,[1] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae.[2] Thesucceeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages,provides no evidence of the use of writing.

The script appears related to Linear A, an undecipheredearlier script used for writing the Minoan language, and the later Cypriot syllabary,which recorded Greek. Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and a largerepertory of semantographic signs. These ideograms or "signifying"signs stand for objects or commodities, but do not have phonetic value and arenever used as word signs in writing a sentence.

The application of Linear B seems to have been confined toadministrative contexts. In all the thousands of clay tablets, a relativelysmall number of different "hands" have been detected: 45 in Pylos (west coast ofthe Peloponnese, insouthern Greece) and 66in Knossos(Crete).[3] From thisfact it could be thought that the script was used only by some sort of guild ofprofessional scribes who served the central palaces. Once the palaces weredestroyed, the script disappeared.

Written by fatih al-farahat in


UK Commences Complete Review of Bayer's Pesticide




The bee story continues with the UK now doing acomplete review of the neonicotinoid situation. It is reminiscent of the foot-dragging that took place back in the earlysixties when thalidomide fiasco broke out. The evidence kept gathering while apologists kept singing and the publicswiftly became angrier.

The public is not involved yetbut it is not going to stay that way. The mere fact that it is effectively banned in Germany is telling as they weresurely first adopters.

The class action on this one maywell cost Bayer massively since we are looking at what has been a massivedestruction of the bee industry itself and that can be organized easily bylawyers.

A little harder to qualifygeneral losses as this has also affected wild pollinators also but theirability to perform may be much more robust.

U.K. guv takes threat of bee-killing pesticidesseriously. Why doesn’t the U.S.?

BY TOM PHILPOTT
31 MAR 2011 1:45 PM


http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-03-31-uk-guv-threat-bee-killing-pesticides-bayer-neonicotinoids
Remember neonicotinoids? They're the widely used class of pesticidesthat an increasing body of evidence -- including from USDAresearchers -- implicates in the collapse of honeybee populations.Neonicotinoids are marketed by the agrichemical giant Bayer, which reels inabout $800 million in sales from them each year.

Germany (Bayer's home country), France, and Slovenia have either bannedtheir use outright or limited it severely. Meanwhile, the U.S. EPA has stood byits approval of them -- even though itsown scientists have discredited Bayer's research purporting to declareneonicotinoids safe for bees, and the USDA's chief bee scientist, Jeff Pettis,has reported doing research showing them to be highlyharmful to bees even in extremely low doses.

Good news: A government body is reconsidering the decision to approvethose chemicals, based partly on concerns raised by Pettis. Less-good news:That government body is not our own; it's in the United Kingdom. Our own EPA hasmaintained its approval for the pesticides -- and farmers throughout the nationwill soon plant tens of millions of acres of neonicotinoid-treated corn seeds,which will soon sprout into trillions of corn plants with neonicotinoid-infusedpollen.

From London-based TheIndependent:

Growing concern about the new generation of pesticides used on 2.5million acres of U.K. farmland has led one of the Government's most seniorscientific advisers to order a review of the evidence used to justify theirsafety.

That scientist, Robert Watson, is the chief scientific adviser at theDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the U.K. version ofthe EPA.

Watson's concern was triggered by two recent studies, TheIndependent reports. The first is Pettis' as yet unpublished study, whoseexistence was revealed by TheIndependent in January. The second, according to the newspaper, is newresearch from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, whichalso found bees highly vulnerable to neonicotinoids in small doses.

It appears that the pesticides compromise bees' immune systems, makingthem susceptible to a viral pathogen called nosema.

Now, it's important to note that both Pettis' work and that of theFrench National Institute for Agricultural Research took place in thelaboratory, not the field. That is, they established that neonicotinoidstheoretically pose a grave threat to honeybees. That's not the same as showingthat they harm them in real-world, corn-field conditions.

But given the decline of honeybee health, which roughly tracks with theexplosion of neonicotinoid use in the late '90s, these studies show clear causefor grave concern. The coauthor of the Pettis study, Penn State University entomologist Dennis VanEngelsdorp, has stated [PDF]that their research found severe harm from neonicotinoids at extremely lowlevels, "below the limit of detection." He added: "The onlyreason we knew the [dead] bees had exposure [to neonicotinoid pesticides] isbecause we exposed them."

What about field tests? The study presented by Bayer to show that thepesticides don't cause harm in real-world conditions has been thoroughlydiscredited. The EPA had accepted the study, after holding it without commentfor two years; but then, last year, its own scientists downgraded it on thegrounds that it was flawed, an internalEPA memo leaked in December showed.

Apparently, to professional entomologists not on the Bayer payroll, thestudy was plainly shoddy. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State,minced no words when I asked him about it in December. "When I looked atthe study," he told me in a phone interview, "I immediately thoughtit was invalid."

So we've got the theoretical possibility that neonicotinoids causeserious harm to bees even at extremely low levels; we've got one of the fewactual field studies exonerating the pesticide declared invalid; and we've gota catastrophic decline of a species critical to agriculture that coincides withthe rise of said pesticide. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to concludethat there's sufficient evidence to halt its use and subject it to rigorous,independent field study.

They're at least considering that course of action in the United Kingdom.And they're taking USDA scientist Pettis quite seriously. True, his researchremains unpublished two years after it was completed. He has told me in emailsthat his study is in the review process for publication, but has no releasedate yet. He emphasized that the "delays are on my end; not a conspiracyto keep my data from seeing the light of day."

Delayed or not, Pettis' research has inspired the U.K.'s version of EPA to publiclyreview its decision to green-light neonicotinoids. Furthermore, Pettis"sits on a panel of leading experts who will review a £10m [$16 million]research initiative into the decline of bees funded by Defra, two of Britain'sresearch councils, the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government," the Independent reports.He'll also address the House of Commons next month to "present hisfindings on neonicotinoids to MPs concerned about the possible link between thepesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects."  

Hmm. Surely there are members of our analogue to the House of Commons,the House of Representatives, who are concerned about the possible link betweenthe pesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects? Perhaps thoseformidable defenders of the environment, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and EdMarkey (D-Mass.)? Or Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y), who has been so heroicin the fight to prevent the meat industry from abusing antibiotics?

Tragically, it's probably too late to stop the planting of neonicotinoid-lacedcrops during this spring's growing season. But the long-term health of ourpollinators -- and the health of the vast swaths of agriculture that rely onthem -- demands serious attention to the mounting concerns about this highlyprofitable and ubiquitous class of pesticides.

Written by fatih al-farahat in


SpaceX to Launch Heavy Lifter




I am afraid we will have to payattention to what is really happening in the rocket business.  The hard technical problems are long solvedand all that expensive engineering design is wonderfully computerized allowingrapid metal cutting and a collapsed time frame for delivery of a new bird.

We need the new birds. NASA hasexited the space shuttle business although we will now see craft able todeliver a couple of astronauts to the space station which is good enough whenyou also deliver by separate lifter a fifty ton payload.  I think this system is naturally a safer and obviouslycheaper way to sustain a low orbit development program.

The next five years promises tobe the golden age of space rocketry.  Notonly is private industry rolling up its sleeves, but a whole range of nationalprograms are also hitting their stride. They all can get into low earth orbit and stay a while.

SpaceX Unveils its New 'Falcon Heavy' Rocket, a 22-Story Heavy-LiftBehemoth

More than twice the payload of a Delta IV at one-third the cost
By Clay DillowPosted 04.05.2011 at 12:01 pm


http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/spacex-unveils-its-new-falcon-heavy-rocket-22-story-heavy-lift-behemoth





The Falcon Heavy Lifts Off via SpaceX

Private spaceflight concern SpaceX has been teasing the public for morethan a week with rumblings of a bigannouncement today. Indeed, that announcement is big: about 22 stories big.SpaceX founder Elon Musk today unveiled the company’s next big thing, theFalcon Heavy rocket, a massive launch vehicle with a cargo capacity of 117,000pounds.

SpaceX already has a deal inked with NASA to become the first privatespace agency to resupply the International Space Station using its smallerFalcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule. The 27-engine Falcon Heavy, however, isaimed at hurling large government and commercial payloads into Earth orbit, andto do it on the (relatively) cheap.

By large payloads, we mean very large. The 227-foot Falcon Heavybooster is currently under construction at SpaceX’s California HQ, and when complete it willdwarf anything rivals can throw at it. The closest U.S. analog from NASA’s heavy-liftheyday would be the Saturn V, the rocket that carried the Apollo program to themoon. The closest thing the private sector can offer by way of comparison isUnited Launch Alliance’sDelta IV, a 50,000-pound capacity booster which currently launches thePentagon’s heavy payloads for up to $275 million per launch.

The Falcon Heavy, SpaceX says, offers a clear-cut cost advantage. Forjust $80-125 million, customers can get more than twice the payload into orbitaboard a Falcon Heavy. That, according to Musk, is a new world record for costper pound to orbit.

Of course, it’s easier to name a competitive price point before yourrocket is completed than afterward when all the costs are tallied. Still, witha capacity like the Falcon Heavy’s SpaceX should have no problem selling cargospace assuming costs don’t spiral wildly out of control. That’s exciting, notonly because it bodes well for the private space industry and for companieslooking for a lower cost of entry into Earth orbit, but because for the firsttime in a long time we’re going to see something as awesomely powerful as themighty Saturn V take to the launchpad.

When will that be? SpaceX aims to launch their new heavy-lifter in ademo flight from California’sVandenberg AFB by end of next year.




With new rocket, SpaceX is poised to make a giant leap

Space Exploration Technologies, the company that is reshaping the spaceindustry, plans to announce the development of a massive 22-story rocket tolaunch military and commercial payloads into orbit.




An artist's rendering of the Falcon Heavy. Space ExplorationTechnologies hopes to hold a demonstration launch by the end of 2012. (SpaceExploration Technologies / April 4, 2011) By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-monster-rocket-20110402,0,6421394.story

April 5, 2011, 8:00 a.m.

Work is quietly underway in the South Bay on a massive 22-story rocketwhose power is rivaled in the U.S. only by the mighty Saturn V rocket, whichtook man to the moon, in a risky private venture that could herald a new era inspace flight.


Dubbed Falcon Heavy, the 27-engine booster is being assembled by rocket makerSpace Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, at its sprawling complex in Hawthorne where it hasabout 1,100 workers.


The rocket, which has twice the lifting capability of the next largest launcherbuilt by a U.S. company, isbeing announced Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington.


"We're embarking on something that's unprecedented in the spaceindustry," Elon Musk, the company's chief executive, told The Times."This is territory that has only belonged to the U.S. government — with its tens ofbillions of dollars."


Musk's company is building the 227-foot-tall Falcon Heavy even though there areno guarantees that the military orNASA will step forward to pay for the rocket to lift its payloads— or even astronauts — into space someday.


SpaceX hopes to launch it in a demonstration flight from Vandenberg Air ForceBase, northwest of Santa Barbara, at the end of next year.


The undertaking to be announced by Musk was hyped all last week on the Internetwith a video laden with fiery blast-offs proclaiming "Something new iscoming. 4.5.11." The 30-second clip highlighted SpaceX's recent launches,boasted that the work was done "at a fraction of the cost" and asked"What's next?"


The video and Tuesday's announcement underscored the unique role that SpaceXhopes to play in shaping the nation's future in space. Launches on the FalconHeavy would cost from $80 million to $125 million. The company is paying fordevelopment costs of the rocket, Musk said, in anticipation that if it buildsit, customers will come.


In December, SpaceX became the first private company to blast a spacecraft intoEarth's orbit and have it return intact.


The unmanned flight was intended to show NASA that SpaceX could handle the taskof carrying cargo into space.


With federal money in short supply, the U.S. government is expected to turnto private industry to play a bigger role in building rockets, carrying cargo,running space missions and possibly carrying astronauts to the InternationalSpace Station.


SpaceX's selling point is its low price per launch.


The approach has worked. NASA has already invested $298 million in seed moneyto help SpaceX develop and build its smaller nine-engine Falcon 9 rocket andits Dragon space capsule. The space agency has awarded the company a$1.6-billion contract to have SpaceX's Dragon transport cargo to the spacestation — with trips possibly starting later this year.


SpaceX has also signed lucrative deals with commercial satellite makers to lifttheir precious hardware into space. The company's backlog includes the largestcommercial deal of its kind: a $492-million contract with telecommunicationscompany Iridium Communications Inc. of McLean, Va.


"SpaceX has established credibility in the commercial market and withNASA," said Tim Farrar, president of consulting and research firm Telecom,Media & Finance Associates.

"The Falcon Heavy is going to open more markets."


SpaceX does not have a contract with the Air Force, which handlescommunications and spy satellites launches, or the National ReconnaissanceOffice, the secretive federal umbrella agency that operates spy satellites.


Musk said the Falcon Heavy will change that.


"The Air Force has expressed interest," he said. "I'm veryconfident that we will have a deal by the time of the Falcon Heavy demoflight."


The Pentagon currently has only has one launch provider, United LaunchAlliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. The company's Delta IV Heavy is thevehicle that lifts its $1-billion satellites into space. It is the nation'slargest unmanned rocket, capable of lifting a maximum payload of about 50,000pounds into low earth orbit. Each rocket costs up to $275 million, the Federal Aviation Administration estimated.

The Falcon Heavy will give the Pentagon another option, Musk said, bybeing able to lift 117,000 pounds to low Earth orbit and sell for a fraction ofthe price, Musk said.


"There's no point in matching the competition," he said. "Wewant to steamroll them. We're trying to make this a complete no-brainer."


SpaceX said it can keep its costs down because it manufacturers almost all ofits parts in-house, mostly in a complex in Hawthorne where fuselages for Boeing's 747jumbo jet were once assembled.


Much like the early days of NASA, the company has a cadre of young engineers —the average age is in the early 30s — who work for a fraction of the salarythey could make at larger aerospace companies. They work for SpaceX because itoperates more like a Silicon Valley start-upthan an entrenched rocket builder.


Visitors at SpaceX headquarters are more likely to see an engineer wearing ahoodie or a baseball cap than sporting horn-rimmed glasses and a crew cut.


That's by design. Musk, 39, came from the Silicon Valley.He started SpaceX after making a fortune when he sold online payment businessPayPal Inc. in 2002. Armed with his personal fortune and venture capitalistcontacts, he started SpaceX.


"The best and brightest want to work for them right out of school,"said Jay Gullish, a space and telecommunications analyst at Futron Corp., a Bethesda, Md.,firm. "They're doing things that in the private sector has never been donebefore."


Indeed. The last U.S.-built rocket more powerful than the Falcon Heavy was theSaturn V. At the time, rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun oversaw the developmentof NASA's Apollo missions. That rocket was 350 feet tall and had twice thelifting power of the Falcon Heavy.


Musk envisions a day when the Falcon Heavy not only launches satellites butalso carries robots and astronauts to Mars.


"Other than the Saturn V, this is the most capable launcher inhistory," Musk said. "When this thing goes off, it will be prettyepic."


william.hennigan@latimes.com

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Flame Management with Electricity





We have known this for 200 yearsand it looks like a first pass is producing useful knowledge and ideas.  One wonders what took so long.

Yet this should be thrown open tohigh school science fairs in which everyone attempts to find novel ways tomanage an open flame.  It really needs tobe played with to get a sense of possibility established.

The relationship with soot isintriguing and suggestive.

And yes, we suddenly have a wayto directly shape and manage combustion fronts in places like engines.  That may be optimistic, but it is a newavenue for research.

Fires could be extinguished using beams of electricity

By BenCoxworth
13:43 March 28, 2011


http://www.gizmag.com/electricity-used-to-fight-fires/18246/

Scientists have developed a device that uses beams of electricity toextinguish flames
(Photo: Sylvain Pedneault)


It's certainly an established fact that electricity can cause fires,but today a group of Harvard scientists presented their research on the use ofelectricity for fighting fires. In a presentation at the 241stNational Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Dr.Ludovico Cademartiri told of how they used a unique device to shoot beams ofelectricity at an open flame over one foot tall. Almost immediately, he said,the flame was extinguished. On a larger scale, such a system would minimize theamount of water that needed to be sprayed into burning buildings, both saving waterand limiting water damage to those buildings.

Apparently, it has been known for over 200 years that electricityaffects fire – it can cause flames to change in character, or even stop burningaltogether. According to Cademartiri, a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. George M. Whitesidesat Harvard University, what hasn't been looked into much is the sciencebehind the relationship. It turns out that soot particles within flames caneasily become charged, and therefore can cause flames to lose stability whenthe local electrical fields are altered.

The Harvard device consists of a 600-watt amplifier hooked up to awand-like probe, which is what delivers the electrical beams. The researchersbelieve that a much lower-powered amplifier should deliver similar results,which could allow the system to worn as a backpack, by firefighters. It couldalso be mounted on ceilings, like current sprinkler systems, or beremotely-controlled.

Cademartiri believes the technology would work best for fires inconfined spaces, such as aboard submarines, but not so much for wide-open areaslike forests. As it was additionally found that electrical waves can affect theheat and distribution of flames, he also thinks their discovery could be usedto boost the efficiency of devices that involve controlled combustion, such asengines, power plants, and cutting and welding torches.

Written by fatih al-farahat in


Oldest Atlantean - European Writing




This item is important for acouple of reasons.  Firstly itestablishes the Mycenaean period in Greece as 1600 BC through 1100 BCas the presently accepted period of influence. As I have posted extensively, this coincides with the emergence of theAtlantean sea trade imperium that operated through ‘palace’ factoriesthroughout the Mediterranean.

This ‘empire’ had its capitalnear Gibraltar in order to control traffic into the Mediterranean.  It drew metals from the Americas overat least five hundred years and likely over a full one thousand years.  Thus the high pointof the palace culture coincides with the era of maximum activity in the Americas andmost evidence will be datable to that era.

As posted earlier, such a cultureneeded a written trade script.  Thisobviously is it.

Trade also drove the creation ofa Celtic script known as Ogam which is suitable for writing on bark and woodboards. 

The important take home is that:

1          Evidencekeeps drifting in support of the conjecture and is actually widening thegeographical scope.

2          TheAtlantean high point ran from 1600 BC through1159 BC and Mycenae and Athensand most other ancient foundations in the Eastern Mediterranean became part of the Atlantean palace culture operatedprimarily by European Celts.

It is actually startling just howfar-flung and well established this ‘empire’ was and it compares well to theBritish Empire and was certainly on the same track when it collapsed in 1159with the Hekla blast and tsunami.



Ancient Tablet Found: Oldest Readable Writing in Europe

Found at a site tied to myth, Greek tablet survived only by accident,experts say.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110330-oldest-writing-europe-tablet-greece-science-mycenae-greek/

Main Content

Names and numbers fill the back (pictured) of the tablet fragment,found last summer in Greece.

Photograph courtesy Christian Mundigler
Ker Than

for NationalGeographic News

Published March 30, 2011

Marks on a clay tablet fragment found in Greece arethe oldest known decipherable text in Europe,a new study says.

Considered "magical or mysterious" in its time, the writingsurvives only because a trash heap caught fire some 3,500 years ago, accordingto researchers.

Found in an olive grove in what's now the village of Iklaina (map), the tablet was created by a Greek-speaking Mycenaean scribe between 1450 and 1350 B.C., archaeologists say.
The Mycenaeans—made legendary in part by Homer's Iliad, whichfictionalizes their war with Troy—dominated much of Greece from about 1600 B.C.to 1100 B.C. (See "Is Troy True?The Evidence Behind Movie Myth.")

So far, excavations at Iklaina have yielded evidence of an earlyMycenaean palace, giant terrace walls, murals, and a surprisingly advanceddrainage system, according to dig director MichaelCosmopoulos.

But the tablet, found last summer, is the biggest surprise of themultiyear project, Cosmopoulos said.

"According to what we knew, that tablet should not have beenthere," the University of Missouri-St. Louisarchaeologist told National Geographic News.

First, Mycenaean tablets weren't thought to have been created so early,he said. Second, "until now tablets had been found only in a handful ofmajor palaces"—including the previous record holder, which was found amongpalace ruins in what was the city of Mycenae.

Although the Iklaina site boasted a palace during the early Mycenaeanperiod, by the time of the tablet, the settlement had been reduced to asatellite of the city of Pylos,seat of King Nestor, a key player in the Iliad.

"This is a rare case where archaeology meets ancient texts andGreek myths," Cosmopoulos said in a statement.

Tablet Preserved by Cooking

The markings on the tablet fragment—which is roughly 1 inch ( 2.5centimeters) tall by 1.5 inches (4 centimeters) wide—are early examples of awriting system known as Linear B.

Used for a very ancient form of Greek, Linear B consisted of about 87signs, each representing one syllable. (Related: "NewLayer of Ancient Greek Writings Detected in Medieval Book.")

The Mycenaeans appear to have used Linear B to record only economicmatters of interest to the ruling elite. Fittingly, the markings on the frontof the Iklaina tablet appear to form a verb that relates to manufacturing, theresearchers say. The back lists names alongside numbers—probably a propertylist.

Because these records tended to be saved for only a single fiscal year,the clay wasn't made to last, said Cosmopoulos, whose work was funded in partby the National Geographic Society's Committeefor Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

"Those tablets were not baked, only dried in the sun and [were],therefore, very brittle. ... Basically someone back then threw the tablet inthe pit and then burned their garbage," he said. "This fire hardenedand preserved the tablet."

Not the Oldest Writing

While the Iklaina tablet is an example of the earliest writing systemin Europe, other writing is much older, explained Classics professor Thomas Palaima,who wasn't involved in the study, which is to be published in the April issueof the journal Proceedings of the AthensArchaeological Society.

For example, writings found in China,Mesopotamia, and Egyptare thought to date as far back as 3,000 B.C.

Linear B itself is thought to have descended from an older, stillundeciphered writing system known as Linear A. And archeologists think Linear Ais related to the older hieroglyph system used by the ancient Egyptians.

(Also see "OldestHebrew Text Is Evidence for Bible Stories?")

Magical, Mysterious Writing

Still, the Iklaina tablet is an "extraordinary find," saidPalaima, an expert in Mycenaean tablets and administration at the University ofTexas-Austin.

In addition to its sheer age, the artifact could provide insights abouthow ancient Greek kingdoms were organized and administered, he added.

For example, archaeologists previously thought such tablets werecreated and kept exclusively at major state capitals, or "palatialcenters," such as Pylos and Mycenae.

Found in the ruins of a second-tier town, the Iklaina tablet couldindicate that literacy and bureaucracy during the late Mycenaean period wereless centralized than previously thought.

Palaima added that the ability to read and write was extremelyrestricted during the Mycenaean period and was regarded by most people as"magical or mysterious."

It would be some 400 to 600 years before the written word wasdemystified in Greece,as the ancient Greek alphabet overtook Linear B and eventually evolved into the26 letters used on this page.

From Wikipedia we have thefollowing:


Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, anearly form of Greek. It pre-dated the Greek alphabet byseveral centuries (ca. 13th but perhaps as early as 17th century BC, see Kafkania pebble) andseems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaeancivilization.Most clay tablets inscribed in Linear B were found in Knossos, Cydonia,[1] Pylos, Thebes and Mycenae.[2] Thesucceeding period, known as the Greek Dark Ages,provides no evidence of the use of writing.

The script appears related to Linear A, an undecipheredearlier script used for writing the Minoan language, and the later Cypriot syllabary,which recorded Greek. Linear B consists of around 87 syllabic signs and a largerepertory of semantographic signs. These ideograms or "signifying"signs stand for objects or commodities, but do not have phonetic value and arenever used as word signs in writing a sentence.

The application of Linear B seems to have been confined toadministrative contexts. In all the thousands of clay tablets, a relativelysmall number of different "hands" have been detected: 45 in Pylos (west coast ofthe Peloponnese, insouthern Greece) and 66in Knossos(Crete).[3] From thisfact it could be thought that the script was used only by some sort of guild ofprofessional scribes who served the central palaces. Once the palaces weredestroyed, the script disappeared.

Written by fatih al-farahat in


UK Commences Complete Review of Bayer's Pesticide




The bee story continues with the UK now doing acomplete review of the neonicotinoid situation. It is reminiscent of the foot-dragging that took place back in the earlysixties when thalidomide fiasco broke out. The evidence kept gathering while apologists kept singing and the publicswiftly became angrier.

The public is not involved yetbut it is not going to stay that way. The mere fact that it is effectively banned in Germany is telling as they weresurely first adopters.

The class action on this one maywell cost Bayer massively since we are looking at what has been a massivedestruction of the bee industry itself and that can be organized easily bylawyers.

A little harder to qualifygeneral losses as this has also affected wild pollinators also but theirability to perform may be much more robust.

U.K. guv takes threat of bee-killing pesticidesseriously. Why doesn’t the U.S.?

BY TOM PHILPOTT
31 MAR 2011 1:45 PM


http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-03-31-uk-guv-threat-bee-killing-pesticides-bayer-neonicotinoids
Remember neonicotinoids? They're the widely used class of pesticidesthat an increasing body of evidence -- including from USDAresearchers -- implicates in the collapse of honeybee populations.Neonicotinoids are marketed by the agrichemical giant Bayer, which reels inabout $800 million in sales from them each year.

Germany (Bayer's home country), France, and Slovenia have either bannedtheir use outright or limited it severely. Meanwhile, the U.S. EPA has stood byits approval of them -- even though itsown scientists have discredited Bayer's research purporting to declareneonicotinoids safe for bees, and the USDA's chief bee scientist, Jeff Pettis,has reported doing research showing them to be highlyharmful to bees even in extremely low doses.

Good news: A government body is reconsidering the decision to approvethose chemicals, based partly on concerns raised by Pettis. Less-good news:That government body is not our own; it's in the United Kingdom. Our own EPA hasmaintained its approval for the pesticides -- and farmers throughout the nationwill soon plant tens of millions of acres of neonicotinoid-treated corn seeds,which will soon sprout into trillions of corn plants with neonicotinoid-infusedpollen.

From London-based TheIndependent:

Growing concern about the new generation of pesticides used on 2.5million acres of U.K. farmland has led one of the Government's most seniorscientific advisers to order a review of the evidence used to justify theirsafety.

That scientist, Robert Watson, is the chief scientific adviser at theDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the U.K. version ofthe EPA.

Watson's concern was triggered by two recent studies, TheIndependent reports. The first is Pettis' as yet unpublished study, whoseexistence was revealed by TheIndependent in January. The second, according to the newspaper, is newresearch from the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, whichalso found bees highly vulnerable to neonicotinoids in small doses.

It appears that the pesticides compromise bees' immune systems, makingthem susceptible to a viral pathogen called nosema.

Now, it's important to note that both Pettis' work and that of theFrench National Institute for Agricultural Research took place in thelaboratory, not the field. That is, they established that neonicotinoidstheoretically pose a grave threat to honeybees. That's not the same as showingthat they harm them in real-world, corn-field conditions.

But given the decline of honeybee health, which roughly tracks with theexplosion of neonicotinoid use in the late '90s, these studies show clear causefor grave concern. The coauthor of the Pettis study, Penn State University entomologist Dennis VanEngelsdorp, has stated [PDF]that their research found severe harm from neonicotinoids at extremely lowlevels, "below the limit of detection." He added: "The onlyreason we knew the [dead] bees had exposure [to neonicotinoid pesticides] isbecause we exposed them."

What about field tests? The study presented by Bayer to show that thepesticides don't cause harm in real-world conditions has been thoroughlydiscredited. The EPA had accepted the study, after holding it without commentfor two years; but then, last year, its own scientists downgraded it on thegrounds that it was flawed, an internalEPA memo leaked in December showed.

Apparently, to professional entomologists not on the Bayer payroll, thestudy was plainly shoddy. James Frazier, professor of entomology at Penn State,minced no words when I asked him about it in December. "When I looked atthe study," he told me in a phone interview, "I immediately thoughtit was invalid."

So we've got the theoretical possibility that neonicotinoids causeserious harm to bees even at extremely low levels; we've got one of the fewactual field studies exonerating the pesticide declared invalid; and we've gota catastrophic decline of a species critical to agriculture that coincides withthe rise of said pesticide. You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to concludethat there's sufficient evidence to halt its use and subject it to rigorous,independent field study.

They're at least considering that course of action in the United Kingdom.And they're taking USDA scientist Pettis quite seriously. True, his researchremains unpublished two years after it was completed. He has told me in emailsthat his study is in the review process for publication, but has no releasedate yet. He emphasized that the "delays are on my end; not a conspiracyto keep my data from seeing the light of day."

Delayed or not, Pettis' research has inspired the U.K.'s version of EPA to publiclyreview its decision to green-light neonicotinoids. Furthermore, Pettis"sits on a panel of leading experts who will review a £10m [$16 million]research initiative into the decline of bees funded by Defra, two of Britain'sresearch councils, the Wellcome Trust and the Scottish Government," the Independent reports.He'll also address the House of Commons next month to "present hisfindings on neonicotinoids to MPs concerned about the possible link between thepesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects."  

Hmm. Surely there are members of our analogue to the House of Commons,the House of Representatives, who are concerned about the possible link betweenthe pesticides and the demise of bees and pollinating insects? Perhaps thoseformidable defenders of the environment, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and EdMarkey (D-Mass.)? Or Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y), who has been so heroicin the fight to prevent the meat industry from abusing antibiotics?

Tragically, it's probably too late to stop the planting of neonicotinoid-lacedcrops during this spring's growing season. But the long-term health of ourpollinators -- and the health of the vast swaths of agriculture that rely onthem -- demands serious attention to the mounting concerns about this highlyprofitable and ubiquitous class of pesticides.