Friday, September 14, 2007
All week long I've been getting URLs, for which I'm grateful, about some
guy in Erie, PA who discovered a way to burn salt water. It's an AP
story, but the warning signs are all there: Described as a "cancer
researcher," the protagonist built an RF generator with the idea of
killing cancers by heating metallic nanoparticles injected into the
cancer. I guarantee that it's possible to kill cancers with RF, along
with the host. Anyway, he's not exactly a cancer researcher, he's a
retired TV station engineer who discovered that retirement sucks - but
that's been discovered before. He then decided to see if his RF generator
would desalinate water, but when he tried the water caught on fire. He
needed a scientist. Instead, he found Rustum Roy, an emeritus chemistry
professor at Penn State, who called it "the most remarkable discovery in
water science in 100 years." That would include "polywater," which Roy
fell for 40 years ago. Roy said that RF weakens chemical bonds, releasing
hydrogen which burns. It's the Bush "hydrogen initiative" fallacy again
(WN 31 Jan 03) . Must I now lecture a
chemistry professor on thermodynamics? More energy is needed to free
hydrogen than you get by burning it. The story was shunned by major news
outlets, except, of course, Fox News, which did point out that Rustum Roy
is also "a specialist in holistic medicine and Christian sexuality."
Bjorn Lomborg's "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global
Warming" is out. Well, yes it is getting warmer he finds, but aside from
polar bears, it just means more beach weather. We've got bigger problems,
he says. Instead of spending all that money trying to prevent warming,
let's focus on making everyone rich so they can all buy air conditioners.
A National Research Council Report released yesterday, says that's the big
unanswered question. The report laments that, "The loss of existing and
planned satellite sensors is perhaps the greatest single threat" to
climate research.
The $10M Ansari X Prize was so successful in bringing a few minutes of
space sickness to the rich and bored that "The X Prize Foundation" decided
to shoot for the Moon. A $25M million prize, paid for by internet giant
Google, would be for an unmanned Moon landing of a rover capable of
traveling 550 yards.
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