The Lumpen Proletarian

Michael Moore leaves the free market standing

After two hours locked in a VIP screening room at a Toronto
theatre to view Michael Moore's latest film,

 

US Green Building Council Wants Structures Labeled for Air Quality & Energy Efficiency : TreeHugger
Nutrition Labels as Universal Home Labels. Image credit:Jetson Green Measuring a building's environmental performance is sensible, assuming all stakeholders, including tenants and owners, can agree on metrics and measurement protocols. Among the many obstacles: there are multiple building types,

 

HealthyStuff Tests for Toxins : TreeHugger

Easy Info Source for Products You Buy for Your Kids, Your Pets and Yourself The Ecology Center, a nonprofit environmental research organization, has announced the results of product testing and the creation of a website HealthyStuff.org to help consumers

 

Patent Auctions Offer Protections to Inventors - NYTimes.com

Instead of spending millions in protracted legal battles, some inventors are turning to firms that will auction their rights to the highest bidders.

 

Tuna Town in Japan Sees Falloff of Its Fish - NYTimes.com

The dark red flesh of the Pacific bluefin tuna is called “black gold” by fishermen in Oma, Japan, but the catches are steadily dwindling.

 

Film - ‘The Informant!’ Is Another Soderbergh Puzzle! - NYTimes.com

Whether a caper flick or a two-part biopic, each of Steven Soderbergh’s films is a hypothesis being put to the test.

 

Scientists make paralyzed rats walk again after spinal-cord injury

UCLA researchers have discovered that a combination of drugs, electrical stimulation and regular exercise can enable paralyzed rats to walk and even run again while supporting their full weight on a treadmill.

 

Classroom behavior: Why it's hard to be good
Being seen as either well behaved or naughty at school is never entirely in the hands of the individual child, this study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council shows.

 

Researcher thinks 'inside the box' to create self-contained wastewater system for soldiers, small towns

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cheaper. Better. Faster. Most people will say you can't have all three. But don't tell that to Dr. Jianmin Wang, a professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

 

YouTube - Lemon Jelly - Nice weather for Ducks

Drugs are bad...

 

Gimme A Thermal Break: Get Rid of Radiator Fin Balconies : TreeHugger

Image via archtechnik Writing this morning about Studio Gang's Aqua Building, I was reminded of my discussion with Alexander Krenczik, who is trying to introduce thermal break systems that would eliminate the heat loss through balconies. He complained that

 

Technology Review: Laser-Triggered Chemical Reactions

Microcapsules in a mixture burst and release reactants on demand.

 

Two Monkeys Get the Gift of Color - NYTimes.com

Scientists introduced a missing red pigment into the cone cells of the retinas of two male squirrel monkeys.

 

'Rosetta Stone' of supervolcanoes discovered in Italian Alps
Scientists have found the 'Rosetta Stone' of supervolcanoes, those giant pockmarks in the Earth's surface produced by rare and massive explosive eruptions that rank among nature's most violent events. The eruptions produce devastation on a regional scale -- and possibly trigger climatic and environmental ...

 

Springs built from nanotubes could provide big power storage potential

(PhysOrg.com) -- New research by MIT scientists suggests that carbon nanotubes -- tube-shaped molecules of pure carbon -- could be formed into tiny springs capable of storing as much energy, pound for pound, as state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, and potentially more durably and reliably.

 

Hummer owners claim moral high ground to excuse overconsumption

Hummer drivers believe they are defending America's frontier lifestyle against anti-American critics, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

 

The story of the Gömböc

Plus Maths Magazine: Feature Article

 

BREAKING NEWS: BAT LOOSE IN CONGRESS | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Congress is deadlocked on the best way to get a bat out of their committee chamber.

 

Kitty Wigs! the wigs!

Satellites show ozone depletion levelling off
The depletion of the ozone layer has leveled off, and the amount of the UV-filtering gas has slightly increased over the last decade, European scientists say.

 

At the American Museum of Natural History, Gossamer Silk From Spiders - NYTimes.com

The first recorded example of a hand-woven brocaded textile made entirely from the silk of spiders will go on display for six months at the Museum of Natural History beginning on Thursday.

 

G.M. Is Calling Back 2,400 Factory Workers - NYTimes.com

Most of the recalled autoworkers will need to move from other states as the carmaker consolidates its plants.

 

Dutch help California's Bay Area plan for sea level rise

How to plan for sea level rise, a still-abstract concept for many Californians, drew serious consideration from engineers, designers and urban planners from Holland and the U.S. at a symposium held on Monday.

 

Robot Floor Tiles Move Beneath Your Feet

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a stroke of odd creativity, Japanese researchers have created robotic blocks that automatically detect where you're walking and position themselves in front of you before you take your next step. As a system, the blocks create an infinite walking surface, acting somewhat like moving ...

 

Oude armen pesten de nieuwe armen | Flabber

De crisis brengt hele volksstammen nieuwe mensen zonder geld met zich mee. Dat is natuurlijk niet fijn als je al jaren arm bent en nu ineens je

 

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from FOD Team, Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, Thomas Lennon, Donald Faison, Linda Cardellini, Masi Oka, Ben Garant, Jordana Spiro, lauren, Drew, and chad_carter - Video
Hollywood speaks out to help insurance companies ... Watch videos about Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde, Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Masi Oka, Jordana Spiro, Linda Cardellini, Donald Faison, PSA, insurance, health care, obama, bill, coverage, executives, money, democrats, republicans, congress on FunnyOrDie.com

 

Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine

Get in-depth politics and legal news coverage including online privacy, Internet security, government regulations, censorship and free speech from Wired.com.

 

Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 P.M. | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

WASHINGTON—This horrible but inevitable day has been a long time coming, said one Anthropologist, before picking up a black marker and, seemingly without thought or intent, drawing a long, thick phallus on his chart.

 

Technology Review: GE Grabs Gearless Wind Turbines

New direct-drive turbines promise to lower the cost of offshore wind energy.

 

Technology Review: Intel's Plan to Replace Copper Wires

A new kind of optical cable will provide ultrafast connections between electronic devices. 

 

Smoke on the water -- and in the microphone?

(AP) -- What do you get if you combine a smoke machine, some tubing, a laser pointer, a fan and a piece of toilet paper? Answer: a microphone unlike any other.

 

Expert: Lift taboo on Earth engineering
(PhysOrg.com) -- The effects of climate change are so uncertain and potentially long-lasting that policymakers should begin examining options that include geoengineering, an area that has so far been off-limits, according to a former Harvard researcher who is now a professor at the University of Calgary, ...

 

Lotus Plant-Inspired Dust-Busting Shield to Protect Space Gear

(PhysOrg.com) -- A NASA team is developing a transparent coating that mimics the self-cleaning properties of the lotus plant to prevent dirt from sticking to the surfaces of spaceflight gear and bacteria from growing inside astronaut living quarters.

 

Reader Photo Gallery: Crazy Dust Storm Turns Sydney Red | Wired Science | Wired.com

Dust storms swept over Sydney Wednesday morning, turning the city sky so red, some residents thought they'd left the blue planet. It was like waking up

 

This Land - In Alabama, Stimulus Money Helps Battle Against a Weed - Series - NYTimes.com

In Alabama, stimulus funds are ammo in the battle against a pest on the scale of kudzu.

 

Sweden launches manhunt after helicopter heist | World news | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

Merkx+Girod Architects: Bookstore Selexyz Dominicanen in Netherlands - design top news

9 Environmental Boundaries We Don’t Want to Cross | Wired Science | Wired.com

Climate change threatens to turn the planet into a stormy, overheated mess: That much we know. But according to 28 leading scientists, greenhouse gas

 

The Danger of Livestock Waste - Video Library - The New York Times

As Idaho dairies have grown, so has the environmental problem of coping with all the fecal waste. Much of it is spread over fields, where it can seep into local aquifers that supply people's wells.

 

Full Frame: Worshipping Saint Death | GlobalPost

A photographer visits Mexico's most notorious barrios, where death is the only truth in life.

 

The people living in drains below Las Vegas | The Sun |Features

We meet the people living in dark, dirty drain tunnels below famous glitzy Las Vegas strip

 

Technology Review: Blogs: TR Editors' blog: Carbon Nanotubes Are Super Fertilizer

From MIT. Information on Emerging Technologies & impact on business & society

 

NASA Satellite Laser Images Reveal Extreme Polar Melting : TreeHugger
After analyzing 50 million laser measurements from a NASA satellite, British scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have painted a frightening picture for Greenland and Antarctica, with ice sheets melting at extreme rates. While the fact that polar

 

William Kamkwamba Moves on From DIY Windmills to DIY Water Well Drills : TreeHugger

William Kamkwamba has been a source of inspiration for us ever since he created his own working wind turbine from scratch in 2007. With zero money, zero new parts, and zero experience, he managed to devise a wind turbine

 

Mao’s Grandson Rises in Chinese Military - NYTimes.com

Mao Xinyu, Mao Zedong’s grandson and only surviving male heir, has become the youngest major-general in the People’s Liberation Army.

 

A world first: Vaccine helps prevent HIV infection

(AP) -- For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.

 

Brain Scans Reveal What You’ve Seen | Wired Science | Wired.com

Scientists are one step closer to knowing what you've seen by reading your mind. digg_url

 

Microchip in the Eye Seeks to Restore Vision | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

A chip inside the eye that can help blind people see again is moving closer to reality as researchers at MIT work on a retinal implant that can bypass damaged