Clipmarks | BobbyDelray's 'energy' clips

Friendship: The Laws of Attraction

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:45:24 GMT

clipped by: Xeneri
clipper's remarks: Friendship: The Laws of Attraction
The conventional wisdom is that we choose friends because of who they are. But it turns out that we actually love them because of the way they support who we are.
By:Karen Karbo

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Built To Last: How To Stay Friends

From young adulthood onward, our notion of what makes a good friendship changes very little, but our capacity to maintain one does. It's a poignant reality; we know what it means to be and have friends, but after we graduate from college and go our separate ways—launching our careers, getting married, having children, getting divorced, caring for aging parents—we're often unable to muster the time and energy to maintain friendships we profess to value. Like anything else in life, if we want to remain friends with someone, it requires a little work. Simply put, we must show up.

According to Marquette University psychologist Debra Oswald, who has studied the nature and complexity of high school "best" friendships, there are four basic behaviors necessary to maintain the bond. And they hold true whether we're 17 or 70.

Communication facilitates the first two essential behaviors: self-disclosure and supportiveness, both necessary for intimacy. We must be willing to extend ourselves, to share our lives with our friends, to keep them abreast of what's going on with us. Likewise, we need to listen to them and offer support.

Interaction is the third essential in tending to a friendship. You've got to write, you've got to call, you've got to visit. Find the nearest Starbucks and take time to catch up. "The specific activity doesn't matter," says Oswald. "The important thing is to interact."

The last and most elusive behavior necessary for keeping friends is being positive. Social psychologists tout the necessity of self-disclosure, but that doesn't mean an unrestricted license to vent. At the end of the day, the intimacy that makes a friendship thrive must be an enjoyable one, for the more rewarding a friendship, the more we feel good about it, the more we're willing to expend the energy it takes to keep it alive.

Tags: friendship, friends, life, relationships, psychology, behavior, lifehacks, health, mind, advice

Small and Fabulous: Modular Living as It Should Be

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:48:51 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.wired.com

The world is getting hotter and more crowded every day, and modular, prefab housing is just what the doctor ordered. When you go small, it's not just about energy efficiency and carbon footprints -- it's also about being strange, cool and beautiful. We've chosen our favorite houses that meld style with globally conscious living. Enjoy. (Please include your own picks in the comments section.)

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 03:03:31 GMT

clipped by: Scattered_Fusion

Clip Source: www.newscientist.com

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.

Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020).

Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis.

Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the process by which abnormal cells self-destruct. When cells switch mitochondria off, they become “immortal”, outliving other cells in the tumour and so becoming dominant. Once reawakened by DCA, mitochondria reactivate apoptosis and order the abnormal cells to die.

Tags: science, health, cancer, drugs, safe

Solar Ark

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:04:49 GMT

clipped by: shunyax
clipper's remarks: Turning a mistake into advantage ......

Clip Source: www.inhabitat.com

SOLAR ARK: World’s Most Stunning Solar Building

Sanyo has built an ark for the solar century – an impressive 630 kW solar-collecting building that boasts over 5,000 solar panels and kicks off over 500,000 kWh of energy per year. Even more outstanding is the fact that most of the monocrystalline modules used on the Solar Ark were factory rejects headed to the scrap pile. Located next to Sanyo’s semiconductor factory in Gifu, Japan, the Solar Ark stands as one of the best examples of building integrated PV design to date.

The company decided to build its solar monument but opted to use the recalled technology. That is how the Solar Ark as we know it today came to be. On the Solar Ark website, Sanyo says “we have done this to show our sincere regret that this problem has occurred and to express our willingness and determination to both remember what happened and how important it is to maintain quality.”

Tags: solar energy

Madrid's 'Air Tree' Will “Climatically Transform” Urban Architecture

Sat, 17 May 2008 11:19:32 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

The city of Madrid soon plans to add a striking new structure -Air Tree pavilion- that will “climatically transform” its urban architecture. It also produces oxygen like a tree, hence the name. The Air Tree pavilion is to be built from recycled materials and will be 100% energy self-sufficient. Using photovoltaic cells, the Air Tree produces a substantial amount of energy, which is then sold back to the local electric companies, and, of course oxygen - hence the name Air Tree. It's a completely unique idea and one that, unlike most out-of-the-box ideas, is actually being made a reality.

The surrounding environment near the air tree will be naturally conditioned, reducing the heat island effect found in most city centers. The air trees will be implemented city wide in the coming years.

Tags: air tree, climate, design, nature, urban, architecture

15 tips to energize your life!

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:02:26 GMT

clipped by: frogtuxedo

Clip Source: www.jongordon.com

Stop drinking sodas and start drinking more water or sparkling water instead. Visit www.PentaWater.com for a personal Hydration Calculator. Visit www.Enzy.com to learn how to make your water a whole foods power house with greens.
When you feel stressed take 10 deep breaths. Focus on your breathing.
Exercise at least 30 minutes a day. It's as easy as a walk around the block.
Drink Green Tea instead of Coffee.
Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
Stay away from Hydrogenated Oils. Read the ingredients on the back of products you buy in the supermarket. See www.Drweil.com for more information on healthy eating.
Surround yourself with positive and supportive people.
Do one thing special for yourself every day.
Eat fruits with your breakfast and eat vegetables with your lunch and dinner.
Say a prayer or affirmation before you go to bed and when you wake up.
Read one inspirational book a month and/or my free weekly energy email tip newsletter. Sign up at www.JonGordon.com.
Listen to your favorite song whenever you need a pick-me-up.
Eat breakfast. It will increase your energy and productivity at work.
Don't be too busy for lunch. Researchers agree that performance scores plunge when people miss lunch.
Take short breaks throughout the day. Get up from your chair and take a little walk. Stop looking at the computer screen. Stretch. Go get a cold drink of water. Short breaks help you refocus and reenergize.

Tags: health, stress, nutrition

Top 10 Math Major Pick-up Lines

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:46:03 GMT

clipped by: ArghDangIt
clipper's remarks: I love nerdy humor... there are some more jokes at the website, but this one's my favorite.

Clip Source: www.stetson.edu

Top Ten Math Major Pick-Up Lines

10. You fascinate me more than the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus.
9. Since distance equals velocity times time, let's let velocity or time approach infinity, because I want to go all the way with you.
8. My love for you is like a concave up function because it is always increasing.
7. Let's convert our potential energy to kinetic energy.
6. Wanna come back to my room....and see my 733mhz Pentium?
5. You and I would add up better than a Riemann sum.
4. Your body has the nicest arc length I've ever seen.
3. I wish I was your derivative because then I would be tangent to your curves.
2. I hope you know set theory because I want to intersect you and union you.
1. Would you like to see my log?

Tags: math, pick-up lines, funny, humor

Physicist Claims First Real Demonstration of Cold Fusion

Tue, 27 May 2008 23:05:06 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: "Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy [heat] from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi told New Energy Times. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers [J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008]. This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

To many people, cold fusion sounds too good to be true. The idea is that, by creating nuclear fusion at room temperature, researchers can generate a nearly unlimited source of power that uses water as fuel and produces almost zero waste. Essentially, cold fusion would make oil obsolete.

However, many experts debate whether money should be spent on cold fusion research or applied to more realistic alternative energy solutions.

Now, esteemed Physics Professor Yoshiaki Arata of Osaka University in Japan claims to have made the first successful demonstration of cold fusion.

Last Thursday, May 22, Arata and his colleague Yue-Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University presented the cold fusion demonstration to 60 onlookers

Evidence for the occurrence of this fusion came from measuring the temperature inside the cell. When Arata first injected the deuterium gas, the temperature rose to about 70° C (158° F), which Arata explained was due to nuclear and chemical reactions.

Tags: energy, clean energy, cold fusion

Is Time disappearing from the universe?

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:11:15 GMT

clipped by: kkcapricorn
clipper's remarks: At an everyday level, the change would not be perceptible. However, it would be obvious from cosmic scale measurements tracking the course of the universe over billions of years. The change would be infinitesimally slow from a human perspective, but in terms of the vast perspective of cosmology, the study of ancient light from suns that shone billions of years ago, it could easily be measured

Difficult to fathom.

Clip Source: www.unexplained-mysteries.com

New evidence is suggesting that time is slowly disappearing from our universe, and will one day vanish completely.

Scientists previously have measured the light from distant exploding stars to show that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate

They assumed that these supernovae are spreading apart faster as the universe ages. Physicists also assumed that a kind of anti-gravitational force must be driving the galaxies apart, and started to call this unidentified force "dark energy"

Professor Jose Senovilla, and his colleagues at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain, have proposed a mind-bending alternative

that there is no such thing as dark energy

we have been fooled into thinking the expansion of the universe is accelerating, when in reality, time itself is slowing down

Prof Senovilla says, the appearance of acceleration is caused by time itself gradually slowing down, like a clock with a run-down battery.

Tags: time, universe

Say Goodbye to power cords and battery packs

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 20:38:07 GMT

clipped by: Caleythia
clipper's remarks: This sounds really interesting. It's not in the practical stages yet, but how convenient would it be to charge your cellphone, mp3 player or laptop without having to plug it in? I know in my house, free outlets are hard to come by, so this is something I can really get behind.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Wireless energy promise powers up

A clean-cut vision of a future freed from the rat's nest of cables needed to power today's electronic gadgets has come one step closer to reality.

US researchers have successfully tested an experimental system to deliver power to devices without the need for wires.

The setup, reported in the journal Science, made a 60W light bulb glow from a distance of 2m (7ft).

WiTricity, as it is called, exploits simple physics and could be adapted to charge other devices such as laptops.

With the power switched on at the transmitter, the bulb would light up despite there being no physical connection between the two.

Measurements showed that the setup could transfer energy with 40% efficiently across the gap.

The bulb was even made to glow when obstructions such as wood metal, electronic devices were placed between the two coils.

"The goal now is to shrink the size of these things, go over larger distances and improve the efficiencies," said Professor Soljacic.

Tags: technology

It's official: Iraq's oil belongs to US corporations

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 16:42:07 GMT

clipped by: enbar
clipper's remarks: According to commentary from the Asia Times Online, the newly mandated "Federal oil council" of Iraq, which will control the country's energy resources, is going to consist largely of U.S. oil executives.

Clip Source: www.atimes.com

US's Iraq oil grab is a done deal

US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney might as well declare the Iraq war over and out. As far as they - and the humongous energy interests they defend - are concerned,

only now is the mission really accomplished. More than half a trillion dollars spent and perhaps half a million Iraqis killed have come down to this.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet in Baghdad approved the draft of the new Iraqi oil law. The government regards it as "a major national project". The key point of the law is that Iraq's immense oil wealth (115 billion barrels of proven reserves, third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) will be under the iron rule of a fuzzy "Federal Oil and Gas Council" boasting "a panel of oil experts from inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil executives.

Tags: oil, energy, iraq, middle_east, war, politics, bushies

Future of wind power - will be HUGE!

Tue, 13 May 2008 02:41:27 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: I think it's incredibly exciting to be living during a time of such change. We are talking about a massive change in global dynamics that has already begun. The next few decades should be amazing.

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Wind could provide 20% of nation's energy

The report, a collaboration between the Energy Department research labs and industry, concludes wind energy could generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity by 2030, about the same share now produced by nuclear reactors.

Such growth would envision more than 75,000 new wind turbines, many of them larger than those operating today. About 54,000 megawatts would be produced by turbines in offshore waters.

And it would require a major expansion of the electricity grid system to move power from high-wind areas to other parts of the country, the report said.

"This is the equivalent of taking 140 million cars off the road,"

Tags: wind power, alternative energy

Kites could provide electricity for 100,000 homes

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:53:25 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Several other scientists are investigating the use of kites to harness energy from the wind - which some researchers estimate provides more than 100 times the amount required to power the entire planet. In 2007, Google´s philanthropic arm invested about $10 million in a US kite company called Makani. An Italian company called Kitegen has a multi-kite scheme that could generate a gigawatt of power, as much as a standard coal plant.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

High-flying kites tethered to generators could supply as much as 100 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 100,000 homes, according to researchers from the Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

The scientists have recently demonstrated that flying a single 10-square-meter kite could produce 10 kilowatts of power, which could supply electricity for about 10 homes.

In their next experiment, the researchers plan to test a 50-kilowatt version, called Laddermill. Eventually, their goal is to build a multi-kite system that could generate a full 100 megawatts.

Electricity produced by kites in the wind could be inexpensive, too. The researchers predict prices to be comparable with generating electricity using coal power, and half that of using wind turbines.

kites generate power by pulling on their strings that are attached to generators on the ground. After reaching their maximum height, the kites are reeled back down to repeat the process.

Tags: energy, clean energy, wind, kites

20 Things you didn't know about nothing

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 05:43:15 GMT

clipped by: willhelm
clipper's remarks: 6 through 20 at source.

Clip Source: discovermagazine.com

1 There is vastly more nothing than something. Roughly 74 percent of the universe is “nothing,” or what physicists call dark energy;

2 And even something is mostly nothing. Atoms overwhelmingly consist of empty space. Matter’s solidity is an illusion caused by the electric fields created by subatomic particles.

3 There is more and more nothing every second. In 1998 astronomers measuring the expansion of the universe determined that dark energy is pushing apart the universe at an ever-accelerating speed. The discovery of nothing—and its ability to influence the fate of the cosmos—is considered the most important astronomical finding of the past decade.

4 But even nothing has a weight. The energy in dark matter is equivalent to a tiny mass; there is about one pound of dark energy in a cube of empty space 250,000 miles on each side.

5 In space, no one can hear you scream: Sound, a mechanical wave, cannot travel through a vacuum. Without matter to vibrate through, there is only silence.

Tags: nothing

Algae-in-a-vat may power the future

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:53:27 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

Genetically modified green algae could one day produce stored energy in the form of hydrogen gas, say Australian researchers, fuelling a hydrogen economy.

Associate Professor Ben Hankamer of the University of Queensland and colleagues report they have increased the sunlight-capturing efficiency of algae that can pump out hydrogen.

If successfully scaled up, the researchers say this could complement or be an alternative to our present carbon-based economy.

"We urgently need to develop and install new CO2-free energy production systems. Our systems offer one solution for this," the researchers say.

They report their findings in the latest issue of the Plant Biotechnology Journal.

A prototype bioreactor

The researchers have been studying single-celled photosynthetic algae (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii).

A major problem is the algae are inefficient at capturing sunlight,

they have now used RNA interference (RNAi) to engineer a strain of algae to make the process more efficient

Tags: algae, hydrogen, photosynthesis, energy, co2, rna, sunlight