Electroshocking plants brings chemical rewards

Amazing how many scientists don’t do prior art research. The use of electricity with plants for growth enhancement and controlling vermin/insects has been going on since at least the early 1900s.

“The roots of garden pea plants were exposed to low-level electric current and subsequently produced 13 times more pisatin, an antifungal chemical, than plants that were not exposed to electricity. To shock the plants, Cuello applied a 30 to 100 milliamp current to the growth-medium of plants grown hydroponically, or, in the case of barrel medic, to the solution surrounding the cell cultures. Other compounds that have been tested to stress plant cells include heavy metals, chemicals such as methyl jasmonate and sodium acetate, and the cell walls of microorganisms. But these methods have drawbacks: introduced metals and chemical compounds can taint desired plant chemicals and microbe preparation and introduction can be costly and time consuming. “I thought about electricity because you can optimise the magnitude and exposure time of the current,” says Cuello, adding that the current he and colleagues used wouldn’t be enough to electrocute a human and doesn’t burn the plant’s cells. “You just introduce two electrodes and you can turn it on and off, it’s that convenient,” he says.” - Source

Future Days may have 25 hours due to Earth’s decelerating rotation

So far, these kinds of things are way in the future, but what if they happen sooner?

“Days are gradually growing longer. To the layman this means that in the northern hemisphere days are longer in summer than they are in winter. But geoscientists interpret this phrase as follows: they found that days grow longer not only in spring time. The reason for that is the Moon, first and foremost. Its gravity creates permanent waves in oceans and in Earth’s depths. Thus our planet seems to waver, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote. Earth resembles a rotating figure skater. To slow rotations down, a figure skater stretches his or her arms out. That is why in the far future there will be 25 hours in a day. A British astronomer managed to prove that Earth’s rotation has been slowing down since 700 B.C. When prehistoric proto-animals inhabited Earth 530 million years ago, there were 21 hours in a day. For dinosaurs who lived 100 million years ago days alternated each other every 23 hours. About 530 million years ago Earth rotated on its axis faster than it does today, but it rotated about the sun at a steady speed. At that time the year had the same amount of hours as it has today, but there were 420 days in it. / (A Martian day is almost 25 hours long (24 hours plus 39.5 minutes) and after all, that’s where we came from… So will this change gravitation and the ‘flow’ of time on Earth? - JWD)” - Source

The Bum Bot

What a great idea to repel unwanted people or animals! In an issue of Scientific American around 1880 or so, Thomas Edison suggested high pressure streams of electrified water shot from water cannons to repel marauding Indians from forts in the wild west.

“Hollywood might have had RoboCop, but the real world now has a robot more attuned to the prosaic realities of the street. The Bum Bot. That is what Rufus Terrill calls the rolling, remote-controlled invention he uses to flush out the prostitutes and pushers who gather near his Atlanta bar, which is two blocks from the city’s largest and most controversial homeless shelter. The Bum Bot, like the homeless people it polices, is a creature of hand-me-downs. The wheels are from one of those scooters for the elderly; the PA system is a walkie-talkie wired to a home-alarm speaker. The rotating turret is an old Cajun meat smoker. The cylindrical smoker gives the Bum Bot its R2D2-ish profile. But its black armor - made of exercise mats - and the stenciled letters spelling out SECURITY lend it a menacing air. Using a twin-joystick remote, Terrill usually sends his robot up the street to the parking lot of a day care center, where a sketchy, drug-dealing crowd congregates after dark. The police sometimes round them up, Terrill says, but soon, it seems, they are back on the street. So Terrill speaks to them through the Bum Bot, transmitting his voice via walkie-talkie: Move along, he tells the loiterers, or get wet. Sometimes he tells them he is capturing them on video - the Bum Bot’s camera feeds into a big-screen television back at his pub, giving patrons a hyperlocal dose of reality TV. The street people tend to run away. “It scares the bejesus out of ‘em,” Terrill said, smiling.” - Source

Hackers Assault Epilepsy Patients via Computer

And this was INTENTIONAL!!!

“Internet griefers descended on an epilepsy support message board last weekend and used JavaScript code and flashing computer animation to trigger migraine headaches and seizures in some users. The nonprofit Epilepsy Foundation, which runs the forum, briefly closed the site Sunday to purge the offending messages and to boost security. “We are seeing people affected,” says Ken Lowenberg, senior director of web and print publishing at the Epilepsy Foundation. “It’s fortunately only a handful. It’s possible that people are just not reporting yet — people affected by it may not be coming back to the forum so fast.” The incident, possibly the first computer attack to inflict physical harm on the victims, began Saturday, March 22, when attackers used a script to post hundreds of messages embedded with flashing animated gifs.” - Source

Moon offered as final resting place

I think cremation is much better than this vanity offering that would clog up yet more space.

“THE moon could become a final resting place for some people, thanks to a commercial service that hopes to send human ashes to the lunar surface on robotic landers. Celestis inc, a company that pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets, said it would start a service to the surface of the moon that could begin as early as next year. The cost starts at $US10,000 ($10,100) for a small quantity of ashes from one person. “For many people, it would be a romantic notion to look up into the sky and see the moon and know that your mom or dad or loved one is up there memorialized.” In the past 11 years, Celestis Inc, a unit of Houston-based Space Services Incorporated, has sent the ashes of hundreds of people from 14 nations into space, including US astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan, who played chief engineer Scotty in the popular TV series.” - Source

Lloyd’s cool water-saving invention runs hot

Wow, what if every house and business used these things to each save nearly 4300 gallons of wasted water a year?

“A DARLING Downs resident has invented a valve that stops the average household losing 16,000 litres (4,227 gallons) of water down the drain. Lloyd Linson-Smith’s Enviro Save device diverts and saves cold water that flows from domestic taps before hot water arrives. The $198 valve can be fitted to plumbing systems in new homes or retro fitted to older style houses for $475. Inventor Linson-Smith says, “I came up with the idea of a brass valve that is installed in the hot water pipeline just before the kitchen sink.” “The cold water ahead of the arrival of the hot water is identified by a thermal element and bypasses the sink. “The tap handle is the trigger for a process where potable cold water is returned to tanks.” Retro fitting was more expensive because it also required a tank and a pressure-reducing valve to save the cold water, which was fed back into the distribution system. But Mr Linson-Smith said: “When a three-person house can save 40 litres a day or 16,000 litres a year it does not take long to get the investment back. / Check out the Enviro Save website where you can buy your own.” - Source