Friday, August 10, 2007
By the time the President signed the landmark measure, Congress was
already scurrying out of town. It is after all, August in Washington. No
one is left but the wonks. If you have nothing better to do you can try
to figure out what the COMPETES acronym stands for. The bipartisan
measure authorizes funds for science research, education and teacher
training for the next few years. It's a good thing. Let's see why we need
more science:
School teacher Barbara Morgan, we're told, has been busy using the camera
on the robot arm to examine the shuttle skin for signs of damage from
three pieces of foam that broke off the fuel tank on launch. Not a word
though on how Streptococcus pneumoniae is doing. A vial of the pneumonia
bacteria was taken up on Endeavour to study how microbes adapt to
microgravity. Are they kidding? In the human space flight program this
is called "science." Of course, S. pneumoniae have been to space many
times before - they're in the upper respiratory tract of 40% of the
population. Why didn't they just swab the nasal passages of astronauts?
A WN reader sent me the URL of a YouTube video about a device that uses
water as fuel by splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen and then burning
the hydrogen. Back in the 1970's Sam Leach drove a car that ran on water
across the country. The oil barons bought him off. In his 2004 State-of-
the-Union address, President Bush announced that Freedom Car, which runs
on hydrogen, would give us energy independence. Uh, where is that car?
Bush didn't have a Water Splitter or the oil-barons bought him off.
barons must be trembling. The corn harvest is expected to be up 24
percent to meet ethanol goals. That takes lots of fertilizer. The summer
dead zone off Louisiana's coast, caused by farm runoff, is spreading down
the Texas coast; the price of corn is pushing up the price of beef; and
hunger grows in poor areas of Mexico where corn tortillas are a staple.
I'm told the defense spending bill earmarks $2 million for the Samueli
Institute for Information Biology. Its Director Wayne Jonas, is author of
Healing with Homeopathy. Jonas believes water remembers the stuff you
diluted away. My water comes from the Potomac River; I would prefer that
it not remember.
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