I know that many of you are converting to solar, or in an area where wind-generated power is becoming a major factor. These are still developing technologies and here is some good news about that.
Credit: iStock
Solar panels and wind turbines are already providing tons of clean, renewable energy for people worldwide and helping to reduce reliance on dirty fuel for power — but the technology around both is still evolving.
Scientists at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea developed a device that combines wind and solar to harvest clean energy more efficiently.
The device, a wind-powered electrodynamic screen, allowed the scientists to create a self-cleaning solar panel.
A self-cleaning solar panel is a big deal. Because solar panels work by absorbing sunlight, they must be kept free of dust and dirt or else the light will be blocked from getting in. That requires regular cleaning, which can be expensive, difficult, and depending on where the panels are installed, even dangerous. Few solar panels are installed in places where they can be easily reached and wiped down (with some exceptions).
College debt people know because they experience it, or know someone who does. But few seem to realize how the universities and the pharmaceutical industries are linked in greed. This is a part of the American Illness Profit System that few Americans seem to know about. This is also an aspect of the transition of universities in this country from education centers to profit operations.
Credit: Rick Bowmer / Jae C. Hong / AP
Research universities, many of them public, have joined forces with pharmaceutical companies and Wall Street firms to fight new government efforts to curtail out-of-control drug prices, saying the regulations could stifle innovation.
But these universities are also likely concerned that drug-price reforms would hamper their profits. Case in point: the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has quietly reaped more than a billion dollars in payouts from Xtandi, a lifesaving cancer drug that it developed with the help of government funding and now costs U.S. patients $200,000 a year.
The university is among those working to block the government from lowering the cost of prescription drugs like Xtandi that have been developed with taxpayer money.
Since this first-of-its-kind prostate cancer drug was approved for use in 2012, UCLA has received $1.6 billion in royalty fees, patent income, and reimbursement payments thanks to its development of Xtandi, according to information obtained through the California Public Records Act by The Lever.
America’s horrible illness profit system that passes for healthcare in this country is the worst and most expensive in the developed world. And, as this article describes, it has been made even worse in states where Republicans are in control, relegating pregnant women in those states to second-class status. Now the matter has gone to the Supreme Court. What do you think the Republican christofascist majority will decide? I don’t know how a woman likely to get pregnant lives in states like Idaho and Texas. It is potentially very dangerous.
A sign reading “My body, my choice” taped to a streetlight in front of the Idaho Capitol on May 3, 2022. Credit: Sarah A. Miller / Idaho Statesman / AP
In the early 1980s, doctors at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital faced an alarming trend: Thousands of patients from across the city were being transferred to the county facility, including patients whose conditions were unstable, making the transfers medically risky. Many patients ended up in the intensive care unit; others died.
Several years later, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study confirming that transfers had skyrocketed from roughly 1,300 in 1980 to nearly 7,000 in 1983. The study supported what doctors had observed, according to the Chicago Tribune: “that private hospitals in the area are shirking their duty to provide care to the needy.” Reviewing some 500 transfers from private medical facilities to the Cook County hospital over a one-month period, the study found that the vast majority of […]
I have been telling my readers for years about the Matrix of Consciousness, and that all living beings have a measure of consciousness (See SR Archive and search on “Science slowly Accepts the Matrix of Consciousness.) I used to have fellow scientists, including parapsychologists tell me I was nuts; I was just anthropomorphizing. Well, times have changed.
A cleaner Wrasse fish. Credit: cdascher / Getty / iStockphoto
All three of these discoveries came in the last five years — indications that the more scientists test animals, the more they find that many species may have inner lives and be sentient. A surprising range of creatures have shown evidence of conscious thought or experience, including insects, fish and some crustaceans.
That has prompted a group of top researchers on animal cognition to publish a new pronouncement that they hope will transform how scientists and society view — and care — for animals.
On my Seaview expedition, at sea diving every day in the Caribbean, I developed a relationship with an octopus, one might even call it a friendship. I have never forgotten our interactions, and it was one of the things that made me recognize the reality of the Matrix of Consciousness. Once humanity accepts the Matrix it is going to require a very profound revision in how we view, and interact, with the other beings in the Matrix. This is why I am so focused and place such emphasis on fostering wellbeing of every part of earth’s ecosystem.
Dr Norman says the sea creature should not be underestimated. Credit: ABC News / RTV
Octopus Paul may very well have psychic powers and an ability to predict the future.
Museum Victoria’s head of science, Dr Mark Norman, has been studying octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses – otherwise known as the cephalopods – for more than two decades.
While Dr Nornam admits to being an Octopus Paul sceptic, he says the sea creature should not be underestimated.
“They’re clever animals with big brains and they do amazing things,” he said.
“It’s very impressive what Paul has done and I don’t know if it’s psychic or not, but they’re animals that are capable of amazing things, so who can tell.
“I’m not going to burst other people’s bubbles because I don’t believe in it personally.”
Octopus Paul has become a World Cup sensation by correctly forecasting the results of Germany’s seven games in South Africa and finishing the tournament in style by predicting a Spanish victory in the final.
The eight-limbed mediterranean octopus would make his prediction by choosing between two containers of […]
