http://www.jrn.com/ktnv/on-air/segments/Coffee-smoking-becoming-popular-among-teens-252706901.html

Coffee smoking becoming popular among teens
Krista Hostetler
Mar. 27, 2014

Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- Teens are getting their caffeine fix in a way never thought of before. They're smoking it.

Coffee smoking is a dangerous new trend that's going viral among teens.

We've heard of people eating coffee beans, but smoking them is a whole other thing.

There are websites popping up online that will teach kids step-by-step on how to roll their own caffeine stick.

"We're about to legalize marijuana all over the United States. I think we can live with a few bean heads."

But the side effects can be dangerous. People have reported trouble breathing, dizziness, vomiting and even hallucinations.

http://news.yale.edu/2014/03/25/yale-researchers-reconstruct-facial-images-locked-viewer-s-mind

Yale researchers reconstruct facial images locked in a viewer’s mind
By Bill Hathaway
March 25, 2014



Using only data from an fMRI scan, researchers led by a Yale University undergraduate have accurately reconstructed images of human faces as viewed by other people.

“It is a form of mind reading,” said Marvin Chun, professor of psychology, cognitive science and neurobiology and an author of the paper in the journal Neuroimage.

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Working with funding from the Yale Provost’s office, Cowen and post doctoral researcher Brice Kuhl, now an assistant professor at New York University, showed six subjects 300 different “training” faces while undergoing fMRI scans. They used the data to create a sort of statistical library of how those brains responded to individual faces. They then showed the six subjects new sets of faces while they were undergoing scans. Taking that fMRI data alone, researchers used their statistical library to reconstruct the faces their subjects were viewing.

Cowen said the accuracy of these facial reconstructions will increase with time and he envisions they can be used as a research tool, for instance in studying how autistic children respond to faces.

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http://rceezwhatsup.blogspot.com/2014/03/43-irvine-ca-study-on-cancer-risks-near.html

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The National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS’) Committee tasked with planning the pilot study of Analysis of Cancer Risks in Populations near Nuclear Facilities is scheduled to hold a public meeting at 1:30-4:00 PM on Thursday, April 3, 2014 at the Beckman Center located in Irvine, California. A draft agenda for the public meeting is attached (all times are Pacific).

Members of the public who wish to attend the meeting or view the presentations via WebEx should register here: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1577902/CancerRiskAprilRegistration

Members of the press who wish to attend the meeting should contact Lauren Rugani, media officer, at 202 334 3593 or LRugani@nas.edu.

Study at a Glance

NAS will perform the pilot study of cancer risks in populations near seven U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S.NRC)-licensed nuclear facilities using two epidemiologic study designs: (i) an ecologic study of multiple cancer types of populations of all ages and (ii) a record-linkage-based case-control study of cancers in children. The pilot study will have two steps: Pilot Planning and Pilot Execution. NAS has started the Pilot Planning step which is estimated to take one year to complete.

The seven nuclear facilities that are part of the pilot study are:

Dresden Nuclear Power Station, Morris, Illinois
Millstone Power Station, Waterford, Connecticut
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Forked River
New Jersey Haddam Neck, Haddam Neck, Connecticut
Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant, Charlevoix, Michigan
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, San Clemente, California
Nuclear Fuel Services, Erwin, Tennessee

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http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2014/03/citigroup-says-age-of-renewables-has.html

Citigroup says the ‘Age of Renewables’ has begun
Posted by Big Gav in renewable energy
30 Mar

RNE has an article on a Citigroup report on renewable energy - Citigroup says the ‘Age of Renewables’ has begun.

Investment banking giant Citigroup has hailed the start of the “age of renewables” in the United States, the world’s biggest electricity market, saying that solar and wind energy are getting competitive with natural gas peaking and baseload plants – even in the US where gas prices are said to be low.

In a major new analysis released this week, Citi says the big decision makers within the US power industry are focused on securing low cost power, fuel diversity and stable cash flows, and this is drawing them increasingly to the “economics” of solar and wind, and how they compare with other technologies.

Much of the mainstream media – in the US and abroad – has been swallowing the fossil fuel Kool-Aid and hailing the arrival of cheap gas, through the fracking boom, as a new energy “revolution”, as if this would be a permanent state of affairs. But as we wrote last week, solar costs continue to fall even as gas prices double.

Citi’s report echoes that conclusion. Gas prices, it notes, are rising and becoming more volatile. This has made wind and solar and other renewable energy sources more attractive because they are not sensitive to fuel price volatility.

Citi says solar is already becoming more attractive than gas-fired peaking plants, both from a cost and fuel diversity perspective. And in baseload generation, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydro are becoming more economically attractive than baseload gas.

It notes that nuclear and coal are structurally disadvantaged because both technologies are viewed as uncompetitive on cost. Environmental regulations are making coal even pricier, and the ageing nuclear fleet in the US is facing plant shutdowns due to the challenging economics.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-robock/human-tipping-points-why-_b_4881984.html

Human Tipping Points: Why I'm Optimistic About Solutions to Global Warming and Nuclear Winter

Alan Robock
Distinguished Professor of Climatology, Rutgers University; director, Rutgers Undergraduate Meteorology Program

Posted: 03/03/2014

Many people worry about "tipping points" in the climate system. For example, could a small increase in Arctic temperatures cause a major methane release with accelerated global warming? Will a little warming cause rapidly accelerating collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, quickly flooding low-lying regions? Or could a small disturbance along the India-Pakistan border erupt into a nuclear war that could produce global famine, as I wrote about here recently and described in a TEDx talk last year? How close we are to these and other tipping points is the subject of intense scientific research and not the subject of this blog. Rather I want to point out that there are tipping points in human behavior that give me hope that we will be able to avoid these climate tipping points.

Ten years ago, who could have imagined a black President (elected twice), gay marriage or legalized pot in the U.S.? So, clearly human tipping points are possible, but it is not easy to produce them. After atomic bombs were invented, in a May 26, 1945, New York Times article, Albert Einstein said,

Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe...We need...a nation-wide campaign to let the people know that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.

So what does it take? As Bob Dylan says, "How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn't see?" As a meteorologist I know how hard it is to predict a system that actually obeys basic physical laws, such as conservation of energy. But for human behavior, there are no such laws. Individuals are very complicated, and groups of them are even more so. In my experience, there are various ways to achieve a changed way of thinking, including well-funded advertising campaigns, political movements from activist groups, judicial rulings and charismatic leaders. Sometimes, shocking events change people's perceptions, whether it be the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (not repeated in more than 68 years), or drought and severe hurricanes. Or, it takes shared experiences in one's cultural affiliation groups to jointly feel allowed to change long-held beliefs.

We have charismatic leaders (Pope Francis, Barack Obama, Bill McKibben), we have anti-nuclear and anti-Keystone XL activists, we have the Supreme Court ruling that CO2 is a pollutant, we have Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, we have droughts out West and cold, snowy winters and more of these will continue. Will we be able to read the signs, join with our fellow citizens of Earth, and do what we need to do to produce a "new type of thinking?" Based on the past, although the some of the same type of forces are working in opposition, I think so. This is my faith. I invite you to share it.

Follow Alan Robock on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AlanRobock

http://www.citizensinspace.org/2014/03/google-vs-facebook-a-new-space-race/

Google vs. Facebook: A New Space Race?

Rumors have been floating around for the past few weeks about a possible Google plan to launch a very large satellite constellation (1600 satellites) to provide global Internet connectivity. Now it looks like Facebook has similar plans.

According to information released last week, Facebook has been hiring employees from places NASA Ames Research Center, JPL, and the National Optical Astronomy Laboratory for its new Facebook Connectivity Lab. As described on the website Internet.org, the Facebook Connectivity Lab seeks to bring the Internet to the major portion of the world (70%) that currently lacks connectivity.

Facebook plans to rely heavily heavily on drones (unmanned air vehicles or UAVs) operating at an altitude around 65,000 feet — high enough to avoid weather and traffic conflicts, but low enough to maximize signal strength. At that altitude, a single drone could cover a medium-sized city. Drones would be powered by solar panels during the day and batteries at night. Facebook is already building the first prototype. The effort will be staffed by key employees from Ascenta, a UK-based drone developer recently acquired by Facebook.

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Facebook is considering both geosynchronous (GEO) and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) communications satellites.

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Instead of ordinary radio links, Facebook plans to used infrared laser-based communications, called FSO (free space optical) technology.

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Elon Musk
Published on Dec 31, 2013

Thoughts on transitioning to 100% renewable energy

Is solar really part of the solution? Are batteries really sustainable?

http://www.go100percent.org/cms/

http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/brin20140328

Is World War IV taking shape?
David Brin
Posted: Mar 28, 2014

World economics seer Louis-Vincent Gave, of the Gavekal Partnership, has explained the pivotal meaning of the Crimea Incident in a larger context which he calls a looming "World War IV" —the conflict between the Shia and Sunni branches of Islam, in which Sunnis control larger reserves of oil, but Shia populations are restive in the very places where that oil is pumped. If a rising axis of Russia, Iran, Syria and Iraq takes hold - (the latter three Shia-ruled, currently) - then fear will tighten across the Sunni belt.

(* Clearly, in its decades of tension and expense and geopolitical importance, the Cold War was a tepid-simmering "World War III.&quot

Tensions will drive arms sales and raise oil prices, which is the only condition under which Russia prospers. U.S. efforts to sap the strength of that alliance make a major reason for the Obama Administration's peace efforts with Iran… which Vladimir Putin will try to wreck.

It is also a good reason to ponder whether Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan -- himself politically embattled -- might do the one thing that would settle matters in Syria… sending in the Turkish Army. Even with the excuse of humanitarian reasons, it would be risky. (The threat to Russia's Tartus naval base would raise tensions to stratospheric levels, though.)

The real locus of what-if pondering must zero in on Saudi Arabia. Are they sufficiently unnerved by the Russia-Iran-Iraq-Syria axis… and simmering problems with their own restive Shia populations… to decide upon a change in policy? To back off from their blatant efforts to manipulate and poison American political processes, for example, and to instead meddle in more constructive ways?

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http://rceezwhatsup.blogspot.com/2014/03/43-irvine-ca-study-on-cancer-risks-near.html

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The National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS’) Committee tasked with planning the pilot study of Analysis of Cancer Risks in Populations near Nuclear Facilities is scheduled to hold a public meeting at 1:30-4:00 PM on Thursday, April 3, 2014 at the Beckman Center located in Irvine, California. A draft agenda for the public meeting is attached (all times are Pacific).

Members of the public who wish to attend the meeting or view the presentations via WebEx should register here: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1577902/CancerRiskAprilRegistration

Members of the press who wish to attend the meeting should contact Lauren Rugani, media officer, at 202 334 3593 or LRugani@nas.edu.

Study at a Glance

NAS will perform the pilot study of cancer risks in populations near seven U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S.NRC)-licensed nuclear facilities using two epidemiologic study designs: (i) an ecologic study of multiple cancer types of populations of all ages and (ii) a record-linkage-based case-control study of cancers in children. The pilot study will have two steps: Pilot Planning and Pilot Execution. NAS has started the Pilot Planning step which is estimated to take one year to complete.

The seven nuclear facilities that are part of the pilot study are:

Dresden Nuclear Power Station, Morris, Illinois
Millstone Power Station, Waterford, Connecticut
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, Forked River
New Jersey Haddam Neck, Haddam Neck, Connecticut
Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant, Charlevoix, Michigan
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, San Clemente, California
Nuclear Fuel Services, Erwin, Tennessee

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