Why we never need to build another polluting power plant – “Suppose I paid you for every pound of pollution you generated and punished you for every pound you reduced. You would probably spend most of your time trying to figure out how to generate more pollution. And suppose that if you generated enough pollution, I had to pay you to build a new plant, no matter what the cost, and no matter how much cheaper it might be to not pollute in the first place. Well, that’s pretty much how we have run the U.S. electric grid for nearly a century…”

Warp Drive Engine Would Travel Faster Than Light – “It is possible to travel faster than light. You just wouldn’t travel faster than light…”

Clear Channel unveils online radio network with 900-plus stations – “Clear Channel Communications Inc. said Monday it will launch an online radio network that offers more than 900 stations, including independent online stations…”

10 Most and Least Expensive Cars to Insure – “If you want to cut your auto insurance premiums to the bone, stay away from small, fast cars…”

Secrets of Stonehenge unearthed – “New research suggests that Stonehenge was used as a cemetery for more than 500 years, much longer than previously thought. The new findings also show that people used the area as a burial site long before placement of its trademark stones (or sarsen stones) was complete…”

‘Good Bacteria’ May Help Ward Off Asthma In Kids – “A little bug that can cause stomach pains in adults may actually be beneficial in kids…”

Language evolution witnessed in lab experiments – “Simon Kirby and Hannah Cornish are watching evolution take place within the confines of their laboratory. But they are studying neither bodies nor genes; their interest lies in languages, and how they change over time…”

Scholar Finds New Archaeological Sites by Googling – “David Thomas, a Ph.D. student in La Trobe University’s archaeological program in Melbourne, has used Google Earth to safely uncover historic sites in a remote part of war-torn Afghanistan…”

Patent Office finds voice, calls for software patent sanity – “Perhaps shaken by the negative publicity generated from that case and others, the USPTO seems to have gotten religion on patent quality…”

Optimizing Science Education: What We Will Need For The University Of 2020 – “Now I am going to discuss what this new optimized university – our university of 2020 – will look like. While academics might wish for an ideal university with unlimited resources and no real constraints, it is more useful to ask what is possible in the real world…”

Spider vs. Bee… BBC vs. National Geographic – “And yet both clips were superbly photographed, both accurately explained some quite complex information, and both clearly provided good entertainment to their viewers. So why are they so different?”

Build a Web spider on Linux – “A spider is a program that crawls the Internet in a specific way for a specific purpose. The purpose could be to gather information or to understand the structure and validity of a Web site. Spiders are the basis for modern search engines, such as Google and AltaVista. These spiders automatically retrieve data from the Web and pass it on to other applications that index the contents of the Web site for the best set of search terms…”

Seven Common Dreams and What They Mean – “Dreams come to us in our most private moments: wrapped up in sheets, our public faces stored away for the night. The visions we see in sleep are supposed to be expressions of our individual psyches and imaginations, but most people’s dreams are based on themes that are very common…”

Teen & Adult Drug Use Statistics that will blow your mind – “Dozens of illicit substances are used daily around the nation. 5 of these substances have emerged as the most popular (and therefore most abused) over the years. Looking at these drugs based on their number of users gives a clear picture of the magnitude of national popularity, as well as a clear snapshot of the past four decades of use….”

Diamonds May Have Jump-started Life on Earth – “One of the greatest mysteries in science is how life began. Now one group of researchers says diamonds may have been life’s best friend….”

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