Can man can see into the future?

Shaun Saunders sends me a story abut Professor Dick Bierman, who suggests that ordinary people really do have a sixth sense that can help them 'see' the future. At present he is doing paranormal experiments using of all things a hospital brain scanner. His results - if verified - might help explain the predictive powers of mediums and a range of other psychic phenomena such Extra Sensory Perception, deja vu and clairvoyance. On a more mundane level, it may account for 'gut feelings' and instinct.

This is an odd article, but certainly worth reading. Click the title to read more

3D object printer becoming a very real possibility!

Do you folks remember Cory Doctorow's story Print Crime that I ran a few weeks ago? Look it up and have a listen and then read this story....too damn close!!!!

Thanks Nelson for the heads up on this one!

In a few years, it will be possible to make these items yourself. You will be able to download three-dimensional plans online, then push Print. Hours later, a solid object will be ready to remove from your printer. Three-dimensional printers have been seen in industrial design shops for about a decade. They are used to test part designs for cars, airplanes and other products before they are sent to manufacturing. Once well over $100,000 each, such machines can now be had for $15,000. In the next two years, prices are expected to fall further, putting the printers in reach of small offices and even corner copy stores. The next frontier will be the home. One company that wants to be the first to deliver a 3-D printer for consumers is Desktop Factory, started by IdeaLab, a technology incubator here. The company will start selling its first printer for $4,995 this year. Three-dimensional printers, often called rapid prototypers, assemble objects out of an array of specks of material, just as traditional printers create images out of dots of ink or toner. They build models in a stack of very thin layers, each created by a liquid or powdered plastic that can be hardened in small spots by precisely applied heat, light or chemicals.

Navy Heats Up Cold Fusion Hopes

Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream. Cold fusion has gotten the cold shoulder from serious nuclear physicists since 1989, when Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann were unable to substantiate their sensational claims that deuterium nuclei could be forced to fuse and release excess energy at room temperature. Spawar researchers apparently kept the faith, however, and continued to refine the procedure by experimenting with new fusionable materials. However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego reports that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community. Szpak and Boss now claim to have succeeded at last by coating a thin wire with palladium and deuterium, then subjected it to magnetic and electric fields. The Spawar method shows promise, particularly in terms of being easily reproduced and verified by other institutions. Such verification is essential to widespread acceptance of the apparent breakthrough.

Submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Nasa testing methane buring rocket engine

While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is testing a methane engine. The technology is still in an early stage of development and isn't ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.

For a short movie of the engine test - click on the article title and follow the instructions for viewing the short video. Its very impressive, just from the sound of the engine running!

submitted by Shaun Saunders

Electric fields could give subs 'fish-like' sense

Robotic and uncrewed submersibles could operate more effectively by mimicking the way some fish probe their surroundings with electric fields. Many marine and freshwater fish can sense electric fields, but some also generate their own weak fields over short ranges to help navigate, identify objects, and even communicate with other fish. Studying the biomechanics of these "weakly electric fish", researchers have now come up with an artificial electric-field sensing system. They say it could ultimately give robot submersibles the same additional sensory capabilities. The electro-location system consists of two field-emitting electrodes and two voltage-sensing electrodes. If the electric field is not disturbed by anything in the water, the two pairs of sensor electrodes should provide identical readings. But if something is placed within a few centimetres of the sensors, the field is disturbed and causes a variance in the sensor readings.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders