Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:36:32 GMT

Milk-based Biofuel a New Alternative at Kiwi Pumps

Forget the organic stuff, the living organisms and their metabolic byproducts for milk will now produce biofuel to power your cars.


Milk and biofuel sounds wierd, exactly but Gull Petroleum has become the first oil company in New Zealand to launch first commercial biofuel in the open market i.e. petrol blended with ethanol made from milk.

Small is no criteria for neglect being the smallest oil company in New Zealand, Gull boast of Force 10 biofuel, which will hit all Gull service stations across the country in a couple of months. The renewable fuel produces lower emissions, it is 90% gasoline and 10% ethanol produced by dairy cooperative Fonterra.

The Government had set biofuel targets as 3.4 per cent earlier this year off total fuel (petrol and diesel) by 2012. However, the country has already met the percentage by a significant amount, owing to it, the oil companies will start offering biofuel in the next financial year. The Prime Minister believes Kiwis have the potential to lead the world in renewable energy therefore, no excise taxes will be charged on ethanol, to keep it accessible.

Fonterra’s Edgecumbe diary factory has successfully tested 1.8-liter petrol mixed with 10% ethanol. Edgecumbe plant produces 30,000 litres of ethanol a day and over five million litres in a dairy season.

With the manufacturers in the country striving to provide cars that are compatible with the Force 10 biofuel, Gull has been responding well to the public demands for the fuel. The production of the sort of biofuel is indeed a notable development from New Zealand, this petrol with bio-ethanol mix, would not only minimize gas emissions to a great extent but will also provide users with more power and efficiency.

[Source: Stuff] Posted by: Bharat      Read more     Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:57:15 GMT

Under Pressure to End Rospuda River Valley Highway Work

Environmental groups led by Greenpeace strongly came out against and appealed the Government of Poland to rethink on its proposed plan to build a road through the Rospuda River valley, the home of many rare plant and animal species. The proposed road, part of the Via Baltica highway connecting Poland with Finland, has the potential to disturb a rare peat bog, a rare mating point for birds, protected under the EU habitat laws.

The right wing government led by Kaczynski brothers argues the construction of highway on the ground of speedy economic development. However, its construction, piercing through the Rospuda River valley, is set to bring Poland more discomfiture in the European circle. The green groups in Germany and France are already putting pressure on their governments to make the environmental clause a precondition for Polands entry into the EU.

The EU commission for environment at Brussels is also opposing the construction of the highway. The Commission is trying hard to convince Poland to go for any available alternative routes. EU is even contemplating of approaching the EU’s Court of Justice to force an injunction against beginning the construction of the highway. In such a scenario, the Polish dream to enter the EU may be jeopardized forever.

Though the highway will ensure road safety and swift traffic flow for the people of Augustow, the irreparable loss caused to the environment may cause them to pay more. Large-scale lumbering and industrial growth have destroyed almost sixty percent of the Polish environmental and forest wealth. Many rare species found 30 years ago are almost extinct now. Rospuda River valley is the last survived vestige of rare plants and animals in Poland. Any harm to it is natural to bring pan-European concern.

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Via: ENN Posted by: Amitmishra      Read more     Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:21:11 GMT

Human Encroachment, Poaching Killing Indian Leopards

To the dismay of green activists and wild life conservationists, the dwindling number of leopards in India is a cause of grave concern. There number has gone down almost 80 per cent in past 50 years, thanks to the extensive human settlement infringing the interior forest parts and the increasing number of poachers and smugglers involved in illegal wildlife trade.

In India, leopard was mostly found in the Tarai regions adjacent to Indo-Nepal border and the interior forest parts neighboring the on limits of the Deccan plateau. The Indian leopard mentioned in many ethnic folklores and worshipped by many in tribal areas, once were abundant in Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Maharshtra, West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Karnataka along with the Tarai. But, now it is almost extinct in the adjacent Himalayan region and greatly endangered in the above-mentioned states.

The WWF chapter of India, last year in a seminar organized on wildlife habitat in Hyderabad, specified leopard along with Royal Bengal Tiger as the most prominent victim of poaching in India. In India, the leopards are poached for skin, hides, bones and claws. In the international market, a leopard skin fetches more than $500. The poached leopard parts are smuggled from India to China, where it is in great demand for medicinal purposes. Unless and until, poaching mafias exemplified by Sansar Chand, currently lodged in Jodhpur jail for his role in Ranthambor poaching, are severely punished, the big cats will remain in danger.

Another causative factor leading to extinction of Indian leopard is the decreasing limits of their forest habitat. In Mumbai, the economic capital of India, leopards often attack people living adjacent to Sanjay Gandhi National Park in search of prey. This can be taken as an example where man-animal conflict due to increasing human settlement on forestland. The burgeoning population and rapid industrialization in the need for land have no option but to decimate forests to establish new settlements. Man is building houses, factories, and settlements in the forests by destroying the woods, cutting trees mercilessly. This is direct encroachment on the habitats of the wild creatures and thereby welcoming danger in the form of ferocious animals straying into human settlements. This brings the villagers into direct conflict with wildlife animals like leopards and tigers. In last six months, there have been at least four to five incidents, where people killed leopards straying into human settlements.

The Indian Government is yet to evolve a comprehensive policy to resurrect the dwindling number of leopards as is done in case of tigers and lions. That day is not too far, when we can only see leopard in the pictures and animations and writers will never get chance to pen down classic epics based on these big cats like Maneaters of Malgudi or the Corbet folklores.

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Via: Image2 Posted by: Amitmishra      Read more     Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 06:17:40 GMT

How Do You Get a Lovelife if You Work from Home?

I've come across this funny and yet partly-true article about someone who work at home missing office romance - Work at Home: The Ugly Truth by Andy Borowitz, a comedian and NYTimes writer.

Gone are the liquor-fueled holiday parties and the team-building retreats that have traditionally served as the tinderboxes for employee-on-employee passion. Gone, too, are the monthly budget meetings, where passed notes and stolen glances often lead to more -- so much more. Lonely and isolated, the home-based employee will start looking for love in all the wrong places. And therein lies the ugly truth of working at home: when you're your own boss, you have no one to sexually harass but yourself.

Consider my story a cautionary tale. When I got the opportunity to start working at home a couple of years ago, I jumped at the chance, envisioning the huge spike in productivity that would naturally result from not having to shave or put on pants. In those early, innocent days, I was putting in robust eight-hour workdays, interrupted only by lunch and semi-hourly visits to YouTube. But then, after three days of this happy routine, everything changed in an instant. After using the bathroom one morning, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and, almost without thinking, I uttered these two fateful words: "Looking good."

When I got back to my desk, I was rattled. Perhaps my comment to myself in the bathroom had merely been friendly, but a part of me felt that it was inappropriate. And that come-hither expression on my face was unmistakable: I had seen it many times before, most notably on my Match.com profile. No, there could be little doubt: I was my own boss, and I was hitting on myself.

Seriously, I believe a lot of single people who are working from home are also suffering from such situation. If you're too busy taking calls and checking emails and there's no office mate to wink at or no office parties to get a chance to meet hot secretaries or hunky department supervisors, how do you find yourself a date? As shallow as this may sound, personally, I think it's still important to be also successful with your lovelife. It can be one major source of inspiration to work harder.

So for those interested, here are some tips that can be viable solutions to this question - how do you manage to have a lovelife, a successful lovelife if you're busy with your home based business?

- Opt to co-work every now and then

- Join organization or clubs with people with same interests as yours say badminton associations, writer clubs, virtual assistant organization, blogger eyeballs, etc.

- Consider online dating, if you know how to keep yourself safe that is

- Avoid missing family gatherings or friend party invites

- Get a gym membership and go there, of course

Apparently, it's not so different from the socialization methods employed by a non-home-based-worker.

Have other tips to keep the love ball rolling while taking care of a home based business? Posted by: noel      Read more     Source

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 05:12:13 GMT

Fund of Endangered Children: Listen to Teddy

Fund of Endangered Children, a non-profit making organization had launched this thought provoking direct campaign in the Czech Republic with a view to raise funds. The campaign was launched with a view to address the largest companies in the country and persuade them to contribute generously for a noble cause. The second aim of the campaign was to engage the general public as well to initiate a general discussion about the issue of tortured children.

People usually are aware of this sensitive issue but until they are personally involved, they remain passive. The campaign is based on the fact that tortured children generally do not tell to anyone about their abuse except their trusted one such as teddy bear. The advertisers decided to send a DM pack to the CEOs of large companies including a real teddy bear with a recorded message of a tortured girl.

According to the claims, the organization experienced 1000 percent return on investment. The campaign was awarded bronze at Cannes Lions this year. The campaign was created by Proximity Prague.

Via Cannes Lions Live Posted by: Balendu      Read more     Source

July 30, 2007, 8:11 PM CT

The unexpected consensus among voting methods

Historically, the theoretical social choice literature on voting procedures in economics and political science routinely highlights worst case scenarios, emphasizing the inexistence of a universally best voting method. Indeed, the Impossibility Theorem of Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow proved that no voting method can ever satisfy all of his requirements simultaneously.

But as the U.S. Presidential election of 2000 reminds us, voting methods continue to court controversy, and there are a number of efforts under way to reform the electoral system at all levels of government. Unfortunately, the popular debate and the scientific debate about voting methods have long been preoccupied with theoretical claims that are often supported only with simple hypothetical thought experiments. Likewise, the theoretical social choice literature on voting procedures in economics and political science primarily highlights worst case scenarios and the mathematical impossibility of a single universally best election method.

New research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, tested whether methods of voting, including instant runoff, achieved more similar results than previously thought.

Michel Regenwetter, a professor of psychology and political science at the University of Illinois, along with his colleagues analyzed four presidential elections of the American Psychological Association (APA) using state-of-the art decision modeling and statistical methods. APA elections are especially useful for such analyses because, in contrast to a common two-person runoff election, the APA ballots provide individual voter preference rankings and the APA elections involve multiple candidates (five)......... Posted by: Ethen      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 7:25 PM CT

Blacks Who Kill Whites Are Most Likely To Be Executed

Blacks convicted of killing whites are not only more likely than other killers to receive a death sentence - they are also more likely to actually be executed, a new study suggests.

But the findings showed that African Americans on death row for killing nonwhites are less likely to be executed than other condemned prisoners.

"Examining who survives on death row is important because less than 10 percent of those given the death sentence ever get executed," said David Jacobs, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at Ohio State University.

"The disparity in execution rates based on the race of victims suggests our justice system places greater value on white lives, even after sentences are handed down."

This apparently is the first study to examine whether the race of murder victims affects the probability that a convicted killer gets the ultimate punishment, Jacobs said.

He conducted the study with Zhenchao Qian, professor of sociology at Ohio State, Jason Carmichael of McGill University and Stephanie Kent of Cleveland State University. Their results appear in the August 2007 issue of the American Sociological Review.

The study examined outcomes of 1,560 people sentenced to death in 16 states from 1973 to 2002. These 16 states were chosen because they had the complete data that the scientists needed for the study......... Posted by: Ethen      Read more         Source

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:31:41 GMT

Reigncom Dicple D5 Electronic Dictionary

AVING writes: “Reigncom announced the launch of its ultra slim electronic dictionary ‘Dicple D5′ in Korea market, which supports video player function. Featuring 95.5 x 70 x 5mm dimensions and 130g weight, the D5 has the content of 39 different kinds of dictionary including English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean dictionaries.” Posted by: Greg      Read more     Source

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:17:13 GMT

New Moon Landing Footage Digitally Re-Mastered

Via City News - Quoted - That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Those words became some of the most memorable in history and defined an era. Thirty-eight years later, people around the world still look to the stars and imagine what it would be like to walk on the moon.And now, thanks to new technology, the original footage taken by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin in 1969 has been turned into a high definition video, complete with sound. Posted by: Zinzi      Read more     Source

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:14:26 GMT

A comprehensive media sharing experience

Espoo, Finland - Nokia and Twango today announced that Nokia has acquired substantially all assets of Twango (www.Twango.com). Twango provides a comprehensive media sharing solution for organizing and sharing photos, videos and other personal media. By acquiring Twango, Nokia will be able to offer people an easy way to share multimedia content through their desktop and mobile devices. In addition to key assets, through this transaction Nokia is bringing on a seasoned team with strong social media and Web services expertise. Posted by: Greg      Read more     Source