Harnessing The Power Of Lightening

The astronauts have often been astonished at the amount of visible lightening bolts that hit the earth each day around the world. It is estimated to be over 11,000 bolts flash everyday. Can we capture that energy? Can it be done? It is truly an area of untapped potential for a huge energy source for the whole globe. Towers around the globe take many hits to survive and disperse the energy by cables to the ground. Many have thought we could harness it to generate hydrogen.

I have not been able to find any confirmation that anything is underway with this idea. Everyone is looking at trying to use one individual device to capture lightening bolts. We do it to some degree when we put lightening rods on tall buildings. We have used small capacitors to capture and store energy in automotive points and ignition systems in older cars, before electronic ignition systems. We have millions of miles of electric infrastructure in all countries around the world. What if we use these lightening rods throughout the system hooked with capacitors. The network could use other nearby capacitors in the network to share and dissipate, then store the lightening charges. The capacitors in collaboration with transformers already used in the electrical infrastructure could release the electricity in a useable state. By using this idea, countries could discover green energy savings over time. It just seems to me that the theory is right. Could this be an idea for a innovation hub to confirm and design. It would take a massive manufacturing effort to equip the systems with the appropriate equipment.

Check out lightening spotted from a night orbit from space!

Building Innovation Hubs In the USA

In the last decade, the United States has lost over 1/3 of its manufacturing jobs. In the Presidential address the President mentioned an initiative to create innovation hubs to work on bringing back those manufacturing jobs. The idea isn't new. Many other countries are trying the same thing. This same manufacturing, job creating engine was one provided by NASA and the Defense department research spending. As these budgets have become cut drastically, so has the engine to discover and create USA manufacturing ideas. Governmental funding will instead be spent to get private enterprises to push the envelope of profits for ideas. I think the trick to that success will be in the patent controls so the research and development expenses will be recovered on the backside. After all private enterprises survive on profit only. More information on how this might work can be found at this link: Brookings Institute calls for 25 us innovation.

Brain Scans to Determine Political Affiliation?

Will businesses request a brain scan to determine the political party affiliation of its employees? In the future, will the voting booth sense the differences in the brain and vote automatically? Could parents determine the political affiliation of the unborn baby and abort the fetus. Would pro-life Republicans justify abortion if they know the baby is a democrat? A current study if a science journal says that there was a connection between brain structure and the political leaning of the individual.

• ^{Study in the "Current Biology," Scientific Journal, vol. 2, Issue 8, 677-680, 07 April 2011} 
• ^{Political orientations are correlated with brain structure in young adults.}
• ^{Democrats were associated with the gray matter volume of the anterior cingulate cortex.}
• ^{Republicans were associated with increased right amygdala size.}
• ^{Read more at: Ryota Kanai Study}  

Australian Synchrotron Used in Latest Cell Discovery

This month scientists at theWalter and Eliza Hall Institute used the Australian Synchrotron located in Melbourne, Victoria to make a discovery of how a cell dies. The Australian Synchrotron is a complex structure built in 2006 and opened in 2007, that enables scientists to use high intensity light beams to discover the microscopic secrets of life. Link to the Synchrotron: Thunder down under making a lot of noise!

Why is this a big thing? In the science of curing cancer, scientists are getting close to finding out how to better kill selective , aggressive cancer cells. They have to understand how certain protein cells kill other cells. It is one thing to speculate how the death is taking place, it is another to see it. Link to February 2013 Cell Discovery, click: Science News 

1969 Electric Dune Buggies? Out of This World!

Electric vehicles are suppose to be a recent thing right? Not really. In 1972 the Apollo 16 moon rover traveled around the moon. Recently the NASA agency released some new video restored in  High Definition for the public to watch. Here is the link to the released You Tube video from NASA: Moon rover action!

Boeing and General Motors teamed up to make 4 of these Lunar rovers to be used on the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions. There was a great amount of tax dollars spent to research and construct these vehicles. How could this technology not have been used earlier for the consumers on earth? Link to Moon Buggy NASA Historical document