Belgium experiments with mystical “full moon” beer

Full moons are often associated with tides, insanity and creatures like werewolves, but it turns out they’re also good for brewing beer.

In Peruwelz, a small, sleepy town in southern Belgium, a family-owned brewery has produced its first batch of specialist beer brewed by the light of a full autumnal moon. It isn’t so much a nod to mythology as a recognition of nature’s impact on the science of brewing.

“We made several tests and noticed that the fermentation was more vigorous, more active,” explained Roger Caulier, the owner of Brewery Caulier, which began in the 1930s when his grandfather started selling homemade beer from a handcart.

“The end product was completely different, stronger, with a taste lasting longer in the mouth,” he said. The full moon speeds up the fermentation process, shortening it to five days from seven, which adds extra punch to the beer without making it harsh, according to connoisseurs. The finely balanced, gold-colored beer is 10 percent alcohol by volume, extremely strong by most European or U.S. standards but not uncommon in Belgium, where traditional monk-brewed beers frequently hit 10 or 12 percent.

“It goes down very well, no problem at all,” said Joseph Francois, a journalist and beer expert who has tasted the brew. The idea came to Caulier after he visited a friend in Alsace, a winemaking region of eastern France, who told him about how he planned his entire production schedule according to the lunar calendar.

Caulier began experimenting and eventually came up with a nine-step process that includes using two types of hops and involves a two-week secondary fermentation process inside the bottle, not unlike the technique used to produce Champagne.

“It gives the product greater fame, a bit like for great vintage wines,” he said. “It could lead to collectors checking the differences between one vintage and another because there could very well be differences between every batch.” Being from a three-generation brewing family, Caulier is fascinated by the science behind the process. But he doesn’t discount the mythical aspects of full moon beer either.

“Many farmers are convinced that the moon influences the quality of some of their products,” he said. “You can feel agitated on full moons, you have births, you get many myths around the full moon and I think there is some truth behind them.” – Full Article Source

Aura story – science unlocking secrets of your energy field

A Russian scientist is trying to convince people they can change the world simply by using their own energy. He claims that thinking in a certain way can have a positive or negative effect on the surrounding environment.

To bridge our understanding of the unseen world of energy, scientific experiments are being carried out using a technique called bioelectrophotography. The assumption is that we are constantly emitting energy.

Bioelectrophotography aims to capture these energy fields seen as a light around the body – or what some people would call your aura. It was discovered in the 1930s by Russian inventor Semyon Kirlian, who realized that by stimulating a subject with a short electrical impulse, you get a burst of light or photons and electrons around the subject.

The device itself photographs each finger individually with different fingers responsible for different parts of the body, and feeds the information into a computer to interpret. One supposed benefit of this technique is early diagnosis of serious illnesses like heart disease and cancer.

But some who work in the mainstream medical profession remain unconvinced. “From the point of view of today’s medicine, I don’t think this can be used as medical evidence,” said former Russian health minister Aleksandr Tsaregorodtsev.

“And I would even go further and say that it’s rather harmful than harmless, as it diverts people from the true causes of their illness and from truly effective treatment.” And some of the claims in energy-field research are even more far reaching.

“With our intentions, with our emotions, we can directly influence our environment. Of course this idea is new, that’s why it still has a lot of criticism,” Korotkov said. “It has a very important message for all of us because we have demonstrated that positive emotions have a very strong influence for us and the same with negative emotions.

In one case energy goes up, in another case it goes down, so it means if we are developing in ourself the ability to create love, to create positive emotion – we change the space around ourself.”

The idea that our personal energy can change the structure of the world around us is viewed by many with deep skepticism, but in the sphere of bioelectrophotogrpahy, work continues to find scientific proof for the theory. – Full Article Source

Masaru Emoto, Yokohama, Japan is an author known for his controversial claim that if human thoughts are directed at water before it is frozen, images of the resulting water crystals will be beautiful or ugly depending upon whether the thoughts were positive or negative. Emoto claims this can be achieved through prayer, music or by attaching written words to a container of water. – Full Article Source

Check out the Mexistim Polarity Cycler

A Second Life for Old Vehicle Batteries

Major automakers are looking for new ways to drive down the cost of batteries for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. GM and Nissan, which will both start selling electric and hybrid vehicles at the end of the year, have announced partnerships that they hope will find new applications for the batteries after they’ve outlived their usefulness for powering vehicles.

The battery in an electric vehicle or a plug-in hybrid can cost about as much as a small car–$10,000 to $15,000. This fact, combined with the high cost of developing these vehicles, will make them unprofitable for several years, says Michael Omotoso, manager of the power train forecasting group at J.D. Power and Associates.

So finding applications for used vehicle batteries could provide automakers with valuable additional revenue. Automakers expect that most vehicle batteries ready for replacement will still be able to store between 50 percent and 80 percent of the energy that they could when they were brand-new.

That storage capacity could be valuable for a number of applications. The batteries could be used as backup power supplies for data centers or for communities that are prone to power outages.

They could also be used to help stabilize the grid, smoothing out fluctuations in supply and demand and potentially storing electricity generated by solar panels and wind farms for use during times of peak demand. – Full Article Source

Cool Gadget – $80 Time-Lapse PlantCam

Track plant growth and watch an entire growing cycle in seconds!
The PlantCam is a digital time-lapse camera that takes photos at user-selected time intervals and then weaves them together into a single time-lapse video. Choose to compress a week, month or a season of growing into a 30-second video.

Don’t have a green thumb? You can use the PlantCam to create time-lapse videos of construction projects, parties or changing weather patterns!

The Time-Lapse PlantCam is rugged, weatherproof and easy to use. Setup is a cinch—no tools, software or wiring required. Just select the time intervals, and the PlantCam quietly goes to work, snapping photos of your flora throughout the day.

The PlantCam even turns itself off at night and back on in the morning to conserve space and battery life. A 52-degree field of view—roughly comparable to a 46mm focal length in a film camera—captures expansive shots, while a 4.0 megapixel resolution produces crystal-clear images.

Includes mounting bracket, mounting strap, A/V Out Cable, Tape Measure, User Guide, 16MB of built-in memory and USB cord. Uses 4 AA batteries (included).

(This is the coolest experimental device I’ve seen in a long time and at such a great price! This would be great for experiments with drying minerals and solutions subjected to stellar or other radiations (chromatography).

It would also be very useful for testing bio-energetic effects on plants, seedlings, yeast and such. Noxious radiations would clearly show up against a control specimen which could reveal many hidden things. Even for watching paint dry or water boil, wow! (thats a joke son…)

And check out the cellscope cellphone microscope for capturing images anywhere. I want one or two of these time lapse cameras! – JWD) – Full Article Source

Troon plumber David’s invention is boiling hot

David Osborne developed the Jompy boiler in his spare time. And over the last year, it has made a massive difference to the lives of people in the developing world. The affordable device kills bacteria in water, making it safe enough to drink.

The Jompy works by taking in cold water through one pipe and swirling it around tightly coiled copper piping placed on a fire before sending the steaming hot water out of another pipe. And while the Jompy is working, the coiled piping can be used like an oven ring.

David, 36, explained: “The Jompy takes the cultural norm of heating water in a pan over a fire, and significantly speeds up the process. “By boiling water around four times quicker than traditional methods, it will enable households to use their fuel more efficiently, ultimately reducing household wood smoke and positively impacting on the environment.

“Plus the solar attachment is a way to introduce the concept of renewable energy to very traditional, conservative communities who may be resistant to abandoning the age-old tried and tested ways.”

For more information on David’s invention, log on to www.celsiussolar.com And to help him win the BBC World Challenge Award log on to www.worldchallenge.co.uk (In the video he shows the device producing water at 98.4 degree Celsius which is 209.12 degree Fahrenheit.) – Full Article Source

Cheap solar water heater simple DIY project

A short video showing the small solar water heater I designed a couple of days ago. It consists of 136 feet of 1/2″ black tubing. Internal diameter is actually 3/5″ (cost approx $10.00), 4 connector pieces (to connect the various pieces together and to connect it to the house (cost approx. $5.00)), and finally the ‘y connector’ so I could have the garden hose hooked up at the same time (cost approx $5.00).

All purchased from home depot. Total cost was approx. $20.00. all I did was coil 100 feet of the hose and attach it to a piece of plywood. After 30 minutes of sun the water temperature is about 130-133 degrees and after 60 to 90 minutes it can reach 150 degrees.

The tubing can hold about 2 gallons of water at a time. If you drain and refill several times throughout the day you could easily get 10-15 gallons of hot water a day. Of note: they call the tubing 1/2″ but the actual internal diameter of the tubing is 3/5″ (.6 inches).

100 feet of tubing holds 1.47 gallons and 136 feet of tubing holds approx. 2 gallons. home depot sells a 500 foot roll for about $35.00. That would hold 7.36 gallons of water. For extra pics and info. – Full Article Source

The Higher You Are, the Faster You Age

Physicists used extremely accurate atomic clocks to calculate how time flows more slowly the closer someone is to Earth. The researchers found that even a height difference of around 1 foot (33 centimeters) causes a measurable change in the passing of time.

For example, if one twin spent 79 years living at an altitude 1 foot higher than her sister, the first twin would end up approximately 90 billionths of a second older, the researchers found.

The scientists measured this by using super-sensitive clocks, each made of a single charged aluminum atom that vibrates between two energy levels over a million billion times per second. They placed one clock at a higher elevation in the lab than the other, and found, just as Einstein predicted, that the higher clock ran slightly faster than the lower clock.

“You need to have really high accuracy to be able to tell the difference that a small height change is going to make on the tick rate of your clocks,” said study leader James Chin-Wen Chou of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

“So I would say that although our clocks can clearly see it, people won’t feel any difference.” This so-called “time-dilation” effect is a consequence of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which posits that the gravity of a massive body – such as the Earth – warps the space-time around it, causing the flow of time to speed up or slow down depending on its distance from the mass.

(Time is theorized to slow down the closer one gets to the massive body.)

Another discovery of Einstein’s – so-called special relativity – revealed that time also appears to flow slower for a person standing still from the perspective of one who is moving. The researchers were able to verify this, too, by taking two identical atomic clocks and set one in motion so it moved in oscillations back and forth in the lab at a rate of several meters per second.

That clock ticked at a slightly slower rate than the second clock, as predicted by relativity. “We have to discard the concept of absolute time,” Chou said. – Full Article Source

Electric Car technology sabotaged in favor of Profits

American journalist Edwin Black reported in his book Internal Combustion, released some time ago. This work demonstrates how powerful transport and oil companies have teamed up to scan the planet using the electric car, paving the way for clean gasoline and diesel oil.

Reportedly, the electric car was already invented in the distant year of 1830. Around the year 1900, an unbelievable 90% of taxis that ran in New York City were electric, as electric trams were also used for public transportation. Back then what proliferated was not gas stations, but futuristic refilling stations. Here is how some large companies realized that gasoline cars could be sold for higher prices.

According to what the author said in an interview with Superinteressante magazine,

“the plan was to sell the combustion cars at a high price, only for the rich. Until a Detroit automaker decided to follow his own path. It was Henry Ford who planned to produce cheap combustion cars. Ford faced years of legal battles against cartels to win the right to produce his cars. But when he finally won the war in court, he realized that the U.S. was becoming “a dirty place with soot generated by petrol engines.”

The author, noting that in the U.S. as early as 1912, some magazines and newspapers warned of the environmental problems of gasoline cars, records that there was then a new turn: Ford joined the scientist Thomas Edison on a project to produce a cheap electric car that would be accessible to all. Asked what caused the failure of this project, the author gave a shocking answer:

“An apparent sabotage in the batteries. They were going out in good condition from the Edison plant in New Jersey, but did not work when they arrived at Ford in Detroit. In 1914, when he tried to make a fool proof battery free of manipulation, their labs were destroyed by a mysterious fire.”

About public transport the author reveals that in 1925, the electrical pathways carried 15 million passengers per year in the U.S.. That was until 1935, a conglomerate of powerful corporations created the NCL, or National City Lines. And behold, this NCL immediately began to buy the transport companies that used electric vehicles.

After buying them, the electric buses were burned, so that they could no longer be used, replaced by petrol models. According to the author’s complaint, this happened in 40 U.S. cities, until there was a conspiracy charge, recognized by the judiciary of that country – but by then it was already too late!

The rest of the story we know: millions of human beings killed by air pollution and endless wars for oil, which also sow so much pain and suffering around the world. In fact, the series of misfortunes has been so great that mankind has started rehearsing a return of over one hundred years in time, to the electric car. – Full Article Source

Age-defying drug discovered, claims Russian scientist

It appears that Skulachev has synthesized a mitochondrially targeted antioxidant. There’s no detailed information in the article, but based on the papers Skulachev’s group has published in the past, it looks like the compound in question is SkQ1, an antioxidant attached to a positively charged ion.

Experiments have shown that SkQ1 prolongs the lifespan of a variety of species, including mice (link, link). Clinical trials on humans are underway, and if everything goes smoothly, the drug will be out in a few years.

After successful results from animal studies using eye drops, Skulachev tried it on his own cataract. After six months, his cataract was gone.

So what’s the catch here? Well, looking at the lifespan data from mice, they’re not talking about an increase in maximum lifespan but in median lifespan.

The oldest mice receiving the drug did not live longer than the oldest mice in the control group, they just had a squared mortality curve. In other words, the mice that got SkQ1 made it to old age more often than the control mice. – Full Article Source

Dead motor? Think again

While hobby brush motors are pretty cheap now adays, there’s always that feeling of why replace when you can rebuild and reuse. As such [John Carr] presents how to change the brush position in motors to revive a dead motor.

So long as the motor dies from natural causes commutator wear, the idea is the brushes can be moved along the axes and fixed to a new portion of commutator that’s not worn at all.

[John] also goes through the details of some tricky reassembly, but we think to make this complete a guide on brush replacement and commutator replacement might be in order hint hint. – Full Article Source