Friday, October 23, 2009

An open letter to President Caldarón to not permit GM maize in Mexico

The letter in english and en espanole.

We are compelled to write this letter, given the latest element of a scientifically unjustifiable drive, embodied in the publication of amendments to the Law for the Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms (published by the Diario Oficial de la Federación on March 6, 2009), which disable the Special Protection Regime for Maize and other crops, for which Mexico is center of origin and diversification.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Sears coming to Ensenada

Seams like Ensenada has contracted yet another big chain store; I'd really like to find a good way to get tailored clothing. CNC sewing machine?
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Yea! Google wave invitation!

I finally got my invitation to goole wave!! While google wave sounds totally cool, I think its not going to really peak until it there are enough people signed up.. but really.. I haven't done anything more then send invites to a friend in spain. I think I'll also send one to some in Vancover, San Fran, a Toronto jazz artist, someone who likes sports and politics, and my brothers. I really like the combination. Astrophysicist, carpenter, economist, environmental engineer, drummer, waiter/legal-assistant, economist, and two scientist.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Science never sleeps

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Gizmag; Data in from a NASA mission to map emissions of neutral particles from the outer heliosphere. This is cool because it is defining better the image that people have of our place in the universe and will help to get rid of the idea that we're sitting in space around a fixed sun. It is more like we're in the nucleus of a ball
rocketing around a galaxy full of gas and fields.

Friday, October 16, 2009

cool bladless fan

Gizmag article about a bladeless fan; actually I think there is a fan in the base. Apparently it uses an air foil to amplify the output. Cool idea if it works..

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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Friday, October 09, 2009

Stirling Engine

A GreeTrust article on Stirling engines; they cover the main pages of information. But they always make stirling engines seem simple, while they are apparently very complicated to make and require a very good machine shop to make.

But I'm sure that many car modern plants could make these engines in an efficient affordable way.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

There, I fixed it..

So beautiful, a site dedicated to odd fixes.. I think here in Mexico many good examples could be added to this site.

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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Heliostat Links

Here is a series of links to sites with useful info on sun tracking and heliostats;

http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Secliptc.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_path
http://www.dur.ac.uk/john.lucey/users/solar_year.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_tracker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_time
http://www.usc.edu/dept/architecture/mbs/tools/vrsolar/Help/solar_concepts.html
http://www.redrok.com/main.htm
http://www.practicalsolar.com/technology.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/eclip.html
http://www.rossen.ch/solar/miniheliostatfaq.html
http://www.barli.org/solar-storage.html
http://www.heliotrack.com/Products.html
http://www.rossen.ch/solar/
http://www.solbot.at/
http://www.inspira.es/newsroom/981130.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecliptic
http://www.solardiy.info/?p=50
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Concentrating/concentrating.htm
http://www.aquaflector.com/technology.html
http://www.redrok.com/analemma.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_daylighting

Festival Eco Cultural la Raza

CEARTE, telar and various other groups in Ensenada are getting together to promote an ecofriendly festival. This is the same day as Day of climate action by the group 350.org (esp).

The festival is described as

La finalidad del festival es usar un espacio público para dar información, crear un ambiente de participación activa y multiplicar la visión de los grupos organizados en la ciudad en favor de una mejor calidad de vida.

Barrelponics- Aquaculture and Hydroponics

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A Green Trust post on barrelponics, similar but much better designed to something I was planning at the bakery. The idea is to combine a fish tank and hydroponics system; called aquaponics. The fish clean and make nutrient rich the water that then is used by the plants. The plants clean and airiate the water for the fish. Barrelponics is a small version of this idea. I really like it, and hopefully when we get some land, I'll try making one of these.

Migraines and dizzy spells

Several years ago I was working in a laser lab in Toronto. The laser consisted of several flash lamps that fired once every second. Like most optics labs, we worked with the room lights off and once a second the room lit up as the laser fired and the beam made its way through all the optics. This was a normal night and I was painstakingly aligning the mirrors when one laser flash seemed to be accompanied by the room shaking. Then with each heart beat the room shook again. I thought an earth quake was running through the lab, then I realized it was me... I went to the adjoining offices and was hit with the worse head ache I'd ever experienced. I couldn't move, but couldn't stop moving from the agonizing pain. I took several aspirins, drank water, but was left lying alone under my desk for four hours. I'm not sure how, but I went up to the library to ask for help and found Sunny (one of the other students) and she gave me advil, and this helped. Enough that I called my girl friend and went to her house to rest. That was the first time I had what I think is a migraine. That year I suffered from about one a month. The doctors had nothing they could do aside from me taking a strong drug every day as a prevention; not something I was willing to do for what seemed to be a not too frequent experience.
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Now, almost then ten years later I suffer once every several months. But in the past year I don't get the head aches, but just the nausea, and two days ago an extreme dizziness (vertigo).

I've been looking for information on this for years, and while there seems to be many people suffering from this, I've found very little.

There is a site called Dizziness-and-balance.com and they have a great post on Migraine Associoted Vertigo (MAV) which gives good numbers and comment that agrees with my experience.

As well, I've found an excellent forum of people discussing their problems. From what I can tell, I think, for me at least, that this problem comes from my neck. I've had stiff necks for years, and working in laser labs is about the worst thing for it, and when combined with excessive computer writing and bad eyes, it is no wonder I have a stiff neck more often then not.

But, I have no solution, nor cure yet. I'm considering going back to swimming as that relived a sore back in weeks last year; I'm just waiting for last months scholarship check to come in.

As a final note, these attacks seem to come 12 hrs before a major change in weather. I've been checking the local weather station, and they are not associated directly with pressure nor temperature, but there is a slight relation to changes in pressure. It could be that it is a type of arthritis pinching a nerve. The arthritis set off by weather changes, and made worse by bad habits in posture.

Comment if you have similar problems and have information on solutions.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Converted buses

I never thought that people buy used buses and convert them to motor homes, but they do. Here are a couple of well done conversions.

A diesel flat fronted school bus; Jake's School Bus conversion - I really like the idea of a bunk room! And The Alice Project made from a public transit bus.

Freewheel energy storage in buses

Gizmag has a good post on bolt-on flywheel system for city buses claiming to reduce energy consumption by 30%. I've recently read about flywheel systems for electrical energy storage and have also been talking to some local scientists about similar systems that were installed in Mexico's UNAM university as a electrical backup system back in the 70-80's. These systems seem like a good idea, tying to increase efficiency which is usually less expensive then energy generation, and in the case of flywheels, in a compact case.
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Return to old; Al:silicate cement more environmentally friendly

From gizmag, a post about research in what they are calling a new type of cement; a great example of reading the comments giving the really important info!#displayname#

This technology isn't as "new" as some people think. Cement used in the Roman Empire had a similar Aluminium-Silicate base as Geo-polymer cement (which is probably why so many of their structures are still standing after around 2000 years). Also, buildings in the former Soviet Union also used Aluminium-Silicate based cements over those using Calcium Oxide (Portland Cement).

Sort of makes you wonder what hold the makers of Portland Cement have over Governments & the Building Industry, that their obviously INFERIOR product has been a staple of construction-in the West-for the last couple of centuries.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Too cool not to repost; Carl Sagen and S. Hawkin remix'



Other stuff by the same author here and the Carl Sagan Appreciation Society.

New discovery of human ancestor; 3.2 million yrs old

A discovery of what is considered to be a human ancestor dating back 3.2 million years has been released; a good article at National Geagraphic. While this is news, and I haven't seen the data myself, I'm always curious how they know it is a human ancestor and not a cousin. But the discovery is important as it is more of a missing link than the previous find of Lucy since it is much older and shares more traits with tree apes, but is less similar to chimps than was previously thought.#displayname#

An evolutional map is also shown in NG site fits the new finding into our evolutional history.

Correlation vs. Causation

Picture 1.jpgAt a meeting/workshop that I was recently at for Baja State's plan of action for climate change (PEAC BC) there was a good and needed comment to one of the presentations. Someone had shown a correlation to heat and lack of water to increase in disease (mainly diarrhea), to which his language seemed to say "droughts and heat spells cause increase in disease." This is not valid, a correlation shows just that, that two things happen at the same time, but not that one is the cause of the other.

For example, on sunny days I like to have a BBQ, and when I cook with charcoal I tend to inhale smoke and that makes me cough. You would see a correlation to sunny days and me coughing. Incorrectly you would conclude that sunny days makes me cough, but the causal relation is that BBQ, and the way I make them, cause smoke inhalation, and that is the cause of coughing.

Correlations are useful in guiding research, but are not causal! Below is a good video outlining this. I'm still skeptical about the final statement about the flu and the H1N1 shot, but that is intuition and I have no real evidence on it. I probably wont get the shots, but that is because I don't know where to here in Mexcio.