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Biofuels Become More Efficient; Binge on Whiskey
by Allison Loudermilk | August 23, 2010
The world of biofuels is abuzz these days with new innovations. First up, an intrepid metabolic engineer from the University of Illinois has stepped up to the challenge of efficiently developing biofuels. And that’s great because while we keep coming up with ideas for feedstock — or things that we can turn into biofuel like corn or switchgrass or butter(!) — we’re having a hard time balancing the energy equation in terms of efficient production.
I was listening to NPR’s “Says You!” on my way home from HowStuffWorks.com HQ on Friday evening, like I do. If you haven’t heard it, “Says You!” is a game show in which contestants try to bluff their way through made-up definitions for real words, among other things. For the first time ever, the contestants were making up definitions for a word I’d actually heard before: filk. I had one of NPR’s famed driveway moments as I waited to hear whether they were talking about the filk I know or some other filk.
I was on the right track, but the show wasn’t exactly. Find out how and why after the jump.
Yeah, we know you’ve heard it all before — he’s strong to the finish because he eats his spinach. Yes, he’s Popeye the sailorman. For decades, palookas everywhere have quaked in fear at the mere mention of his name. Well, at least if there’s a can or two of the green stuff within his reach. But really, how likely are you to meet a self-proclaimed do-gooder gazookus with superhuman strength and forearms the size of your waist? And is it really all thanks to a lone leafy green vegetable?
When watching this video, it seems like one of those too-good-to-be-true schemes. A simple machine takes discarded plastic and easily turns it into usable oil:…
It looks a little like one of those scam videos that say, “power your HDTV with an orange” or “make a glow stick from Mountain Dew”.
But apparently it is real…
The title of the image is, “Note At A Buddhist Monastery”:
This same kind of notice could be issued to pigeons, rats, mice…
How to get rid of pigeons (including the most dramatic way I’ve ever seen)
The only problem…
When I woke up this weekend, there was a very odd story making its way across the Internet. Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, had been accused of rape in Sweden. And then, just a couple of hours later, the charges were dropped. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in web furore over Swedish rape claim The founder [...]
If you have a job, there seem to be three ways to look at today’s economy in the United States. One way is to ignore the millions of people who have become unemployed recently. Another way is to mock and belittle them all. The third is to learn about what is happening. Last week, for [...]
In this episode, Marshall explains the two technologies that are used to backlight LCD panels.
In this episode, Molly and Cristen discuss why breaking up with romantic partners is universally painful — and offer some consolation to sufferers — as they explore the brain chemistry of breakups.
It gets lonely at the top, and even larger-than-life monarchs like Catherine the Great needed a bit of romance now and then. Tune in and learn more about Catherine’s lovers — and if she ever found the true love she was looking for — in this podcast.
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