THREE POINTS, Arizona — Financial advisor Jaron Ness stands in the cool desert air waiting for the clouds to clear and the moon to rise. As the conditions come into alignment, he steps into the path of a cool blaze of blue-white light bounced off a wall of highly polished parabolic mirrors five stories high. ‘It feels magnetic,’ he says, turning his hands slowly in the reflected glow of the light from the almost full moon. The young professional from Colorado is among a growing number of curious people beating a path to this patch of scrub-strewn land out in the Arizona desert to bask in light from the world’s first moonbeam collector. A Tucson-based inventor and businessman Richard Chapin and his wife Monica are behind the giant device, which gathers up and focuses the light of the moon. The effect of the moon’s gravitational pull on the Earth’s tides and other natural phenomena has been studied for millennia. Less attention has focused on the sunlight reflected from its surface. The Chapins built the large, one-of-a-kind contraption that stands in the desert some 15 miles west of Tucson, Arizona, in the belief that moonlight […]
WASHINGTON — After weeks of intense deal-making, the House of Representatives on Thursday approved a landmark energy bill boosting subsidized biofuel production and raising vehicle fuel economy standards by 40%. Now only two things that stand to prevent it from becoming law: the Senate and President Bush. The House’s energy bill, passed by a vote of 235-181, is an extremely ambitious effort to boost clean energy production and reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. That ambition may be its downfall. ‘Unfortunately, the bill contains several highly objectionable provisions that would impose higher costs on American taxpayers, electricity consumers and businesses,’ the White House said in a statement threatening a veto. ‘Specifically, the bill raises taxes in a way that will increase energy costs facing consumers.’ The House measure has four main components. First, it increases vehicle fuel efficiency to a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from the current level of 25 mpg. Second, it dramatically boosts production of ethanol and other biofuels, which the president has encouraged. Third, it requires utilities to obtain at least 15% of their electricity from renewable resources, such as wind and solar power. Finally, it includes […]
When most people think of domestic violence, they think of men abusing women. While that stereotype is often true, many women are also guilty of violence against their partners. It happened just last week when Mary Delgado, a former NFL cheerleader and contestant on the reality TV show ‘The Bachelor,’ was arrested in Seminole, Florida, for attacking her fiance Byron Velvick. The couple got into an argument, and Delgado became violent, striking Velvick in the chest and face, splitting his lip. Though Velvick reportedly did not want to press charges, police arrived and arrested Delgado. In January 2006, the wife of Indianapolis Colts cornerback Nick Harper stabbed her husband with a knife during an argument. According to police, Daniell Harper got a knife from a kitchen drawer and began waving it over her husband as he lay in bed at their Indianapolis home. In April 2002, actress Tawny Kitaen, wife of Cleveland Indians pitcher Chuck Finley, was charged with domestic violence for beating her husband. Finley did not call the police, but a third party did after seeing the blood and bruises on Finley from his wife’s attack. Of course, this is just a small sample […]
CHICAGO — Using a new type of stem cells made from ordinary skin cells, U.S. researchers said on Thursday they treated mice with sickle cell anemia, proving in principle that such cells could be used as a therapy. U.S. and Japanese researchers last month reported they had reprogrammed human skin cells into behaving like embryonic stem cells, the body’s master cells. They call the cells induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells for short. The Japanese team had previously done the reprogramming work in mouse skin cells. A team at the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has now used the new cells to treat mice engineered to have sickle cell anemia, a disease of the blood caused by a defect in a single gene. ‘This is the first evaluation of these cells for therapy,’ said Dr. Jacob Hanna, who worked on the study. ‘The field has been working for years on strategies to generate customized stem cells,’ he added in a telephone interview. Creating stem cell therapies from a person’s own cells would make them genetically identical, eliminating the need for immune suppression or donor matching, Hanna said. ‘Now, with the […]
WASHINGTON — Programs that focus exclusively on abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior, although they are eligible for tens of mil lions of dollars in federal grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to reduce teen pregnancies. ‘At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners’ among teenagers, the study concluded. The report, which was based on a review of research into teenager sexual behavior, was being released Wednesday by the nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The study found that while abstinence-only efforts appear to have little positive impact, more comprehensive sex education programs were having ‘positive outcomes’ including teenagers ‘delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use.’ ‘Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect,’ said the report. A spending bill before Congress for the Department of Health and […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
