This week's news on Net neutrality.
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Jurassic Mountain wallpaper,Fireball Over Texas Caught by Police Car Video Camera, Electronics might be the new roses for Valentine’s Day
8 Febtangledwing
Fireball Over Texas Caught by Police Car Video Camera
“At approximately 756 p.m. CST, over Abilene, Texas, I saw an object falling from the sky much brighter and long-lasting than anything I’ve seen,” observer Daryn Morran told Spaceweather.com. “[The fireball] lasted close to 8 [seconds] before completely burning out. At first, it was bright white, and then started slowing down and getting brighter. Then it exploded like a firecracker artillery shell into several pieces, flickered a few more times and then slowly burned out … awesome!!!”
The video of the fireball was captured by a camera mounted on a police car dashboard belonging to the Little River-Academy Police Department in Little River-Academy, Texas, about 70 miles north of Austin.
National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Harris, based in Fort Worth, Texas, shared with Spaceweather.com the account of another eyewitness, who reported a “double boom heard at 8:00:30 CST. [The object appeared to be] 1/2 the size of the waxing moon, and broke into two major chucks with many smaller pieces. It had a ‘white plasma’ (sun-colored) look with a long golden tail.”
Fireball is just a name given to meteors that are especially small and bright. While they hit the earth somewhat frequently many happen during the day and are not visible or they happen over the ocean or remote areas where there are not many witnesses. The one in Texas was thought to be about the size of a car or bus.
Whale Shark Found Dead In Arabian Sea, Reeled Into Harbor In Karachi, Pakistan (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
Fishermen used several cranes to lift the whale shark to dry land, where a crowd of onlookers gathered to see the massive creature.
The whale shark carcass was later sold for 1.7 million rupees (nearly $19,000), ABC News reports.
After a 2005 assessment, the International Union for Conversation of Nature and Natural Resources declared the global whale shark population was vulnerable, MSNBC observes.
For many years, whale sharks have been highly sought after by harpoon fisheries in Southeast Asia, where people primarily used the fish for meat and oil. However, it is now illegal to hunt whale sharks in several countries, including India and the Philippines.
Habitat damage has proven to be another threat to the whale shark population, according to the Whale Shark Project, a conservation awareness group. Pollution and overfishing near reefs often leads to a reduced available food supply for the creatures.
Whale sharks grow up to 40 ft(12.2 meters) in length and while they are vegetarians it is best to stay out of their way. There was no information in this report about the cause of death. I found the photos sad. Such a beautiful majestic creature now on its way to being someone’s gourmet dinner.
Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner – The Way to a Woman’s Heart: Electronics
Guys, forget about roses and chocolates. If you really want to win the heart of the woman in your life you should think about buying her electronics instead of traditional gifts for Valentine’s Day, according to a new study from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).
The study found that women’s interest in technology has increased in the last five years, with eight in 10 women now expressing an interest in consumer electronics (CE) products. Nearly half of those (41 percent) said they were “very interested” in CE. This is an increase of 10 percentage points over the previous study in 2007.
Though men continue to outspend women on overall CE purchases, the gap between genders is shrinking, the study found. On average, men spent $728 on CE purchases in the past 12 months while women spent $667 during the same period, a difference of $61. In the previous study the CE spending gap was closer to $200.
New electronics are nice gifts, but a few dollars more would buy a nice flowering plant that everyone can enjoy all year. Some that come to mind include cyclamen ( can be planted out side after the first flowers fade), African violets are popular, anthurium have a semi-heart-shaped red spathe and a flowering cactus. This last might be best for someone who is really into cactus and exotic plants.
Phillips announces world’s best catalyst for producing hydrogen fuel from water
Phillips announces a hydrogen-from-water breakthrough that successfully uses carbon to split water to produce hydrogen, while retaining oxygen in the water. Hydrogen storage tanks are no longer needed because of this new low-cost, safe method for producing hydrogen fuel at high flow rates.
Hydrogen fuel storage tanks are no longer needed because of a new low-cost, safe method for producing hydrogen fuel at high flow rates using carbon, one of the world’s safest and lowest-cost industrial materials. The hydrogen-from-water breakthrough was a result of a catalytic chemistry development that successfully uses a special carbon catalyst to split water to produce hydrogen, while retaining oxygen in the water.
The unique thing about this new process is that it requires no power input after the hydrogen-producing reaction is started, making possible, for the first time, the scale-up to high rates of hydrogen on demand (HOD).
Experts agree that hydrogen will command a key role in future renewable energy when a relatively cheap, safe, efficient and non-polluting means of producing hydrogen can be developed, on demand, at very high rates which make hydrogen storage tanks unnecessary. That goal has been met, for the first time, using the new CC-HOD process developed by a pharmaceutical company.
Catalytic chemistry research resulted in the discovery that an inexpensive activation process can convert normal carbon into a carbon catalyst that can effectively generate hydrogen gas from water, using a small amount of aluminum. The process uses about 3 times more water than aluminum, and the aluminum does not have to be pure, making the fuel less expensive. The carbon catalyst does not require electrolytes or organic additives. It can operate in pH-neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water, the most abundant source of hydrogen on earth.
This is not the same Phillips as the big electronics company – this hydrogen producing company’s About page is here. They point to this page for where they got the chemical procedure they used for producing the hydrogen. That page is hosted by a small liberal arts college called Sweet Briar College.Having read the page at SBC I am a little skeptical – which means I could be wrong – about the claim to have hydrogen as a product in water with a net surplus in energy. The SBC page only seems to show the basic chemistry of producing hydrogen – either with a catalyst or as a by-product of plant metabolism. The SBC page even shows that so far no one has been able to get more energy out of a simulated plant reaction Glucose (C6H12O6) + Oxygen (O2) = Water (H20) + Carbon Dioxide (CO2) + ENERGY than one puts in. There have been some promising reports in that regard, though whether this Phillips company has found some genuinely breakthrough technique for hydrogen production is yet to be seen.
