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Scientists say they have created an experimental new high-tech window coating that works similarly to polarized lenses on sunglasses by allowing all of the visible light through while also reflecting unwanted heat. If added to existing buildings and car windows, the new coating could reduce internal temperatures in hotter climates without sacrificing any of the visible light while also reducing energy usage for indoor air conditioning by as much as 30%. The new coating was developed by researchers from Notre Dame University who were looking for a cheap yet viable way to reduce the use of air conditioning in cars...

A newly devised type of silica bead could help save melting glaciers from the onslaught of climate change, scientists say. The innovative new approach, developed by a company called Ice911, employs minuscule beads of 'glass' which are spread across the surface layer of glaciers. There they help to reflect light beating down on them and slow what has become a tremendous pace of melt throughout the last several years. 'I just asked myself a very simple question: Is there a safe material that could help replace that lost reflectivity?' Found of Ice911, Leslie Field, told Mother Jones. What they landed...

Not many people realize this but the biggest slab of raw glass from the ancient world was discovered in northern Israel in "Beit She'arim", in the Galilee, in 1956. The rectangular glass slab is 11?.5?.5 feet, weighing 9 tons. Beit She'arim is a cemetery where the editor of the Mishna (the first "layer" of the Talmud), Rabbi Judah the Prince/Yehudah haNasi (135 to 217 CE) is buried. Most people visiting this cemetery are not aware that the chunk of glass is there, looking somewhat opaque on the floor of the cave that serves as the visitors' center... Again, no one...

Before man can cross the vast distances of space, the designs of spacecraft’s sails will be key – striking a delicate balance between mass, strength in addition to reflectivity. Working with NASA, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) scientists have created the fresh material out of silicon in addition to its oxide, silica. The team has figured out that will super-thin structures made of This specific composite can transform infrared light waves into a momentum that will would likely accelerate a probe to 134,000,000 mph. Speeds like This specific can carry a little probe to our closest stellar neighbours, a huddle...

In a finding that suggests "considerable water activity" on Mars, NASA says its Curiosity rover has found very high concentrations of silica on the red planet. The agency says it also found "a mineral named tridymite, rare on Earth and never seen before on Mars." The discoveries took place on Mount Sharp, where Curiosity drilled into a rock called "Buckskin" to find the tridymite, and where it used its "ChemCam" laser to measure high silica levels. The odd findings led researchers to take the rare step of ordering Curiosity to retrace its path to learn more. Explanations for the high...

Baghdad leaders reveal that coup plot duped MI6 Julie Flint explains how rumours of Saddam's overthrow caused British intelligence to miss vital information about Iraq's weapons programme British intelligence took its eyes off Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes because it had been duped into believing a military coup would leave Sunni Muslims in power in Iraq. Sources in the country say what they missed was a push to convert chemical and biological organisms into dry agents that could be hidden until pressure on the regime was lifted. 'From the second half of 2000, the focus of the British was not on...

Making your own Desiccant Packs for Long-term Firearm Storage By Burt Gummer “I feel I have been denied critical, need-to-know information!” (Tremors II) With the political climate such as it is today, those of us who had enough for-sight to acquire firearms for the eventual need of preservation and survival have realized that long term storage will become a necessity. It will become a necessity because those in power would like the populous as dependant and passive as possible. This of course includes the right to keep and bear arms which the morons on the left & in the White...

Broken wheel reveals water on Mars By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent Last Updated: 1:59am BST 23/05/2007 A broken wheel on a space vehicle has helped uncover strong evidence that water did flow on Mars, which could prove that there was life on the planet. Tyre tracks left by the Spirit rover have revealed the presence of silica in the Martian soil Analysis of soil uncovered when a wheel jammed on Spirit, one of Nasa's two Rover buggies, has revealed that it contains 90 per cent silica - a concentration only likely to have formed when water is present. Experts said...

PASADENA, Calif. - The Mars rover Spirit has uncovered the strongest evidence yet that ancient Mars was wetter than previously thought, scientists reported Monday. The robot analyzed a patch of soil in Gusev Crater and found it was unusually rich in silica. Scientists said the presence of water was necessary to produce such a large silica deposit. "This is a remarkable discovery," principal investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University said in a statement. "It makes you wonder what else is still out there." Spirit previously found clues of ancient water in the crater through the presence of sulfur-rich soil, water-altered...

Anthrax: some new findings Clarice Feldman Dr. Laurie Mylroie has given me permission to share with American Thinker readers her important analysis of a recent article on the source of the U.S. anthrax attacks by the Shoham/Jacobsen and the extensive comment on the piece by Richard Spertzel, a highly regarded, highly qualified Biological Warfare expert. She writes: Last week, TNR's Marty Peretz drew attention to an article on the 2001 anthrax letters by Dr. Dany Shoham and Dr. Stuart Jacobsen: The article underscores the very sophisticated nature of the anthrax in the letters sent to the two US senators and...

Bioengineers at Tufts University have created a new fusion protein that for the first time combines the toughness of spider silk with the intricate structure of silica. The resulting nanocomposite could be used in medical and industrial applications, such as growing bone tissue.“This is a novel genetic engineering strategy to design and develop new ‘chimeric’ materials by combining two of nature’s most remarkable materials -- spider silk and diatom glassy skeletons – that normally are not found together,” said David L. Kaplan, professor and chair of biomedical engineering and director of Tufts’ Bioengineering and Biotechnology Center. Kaplan, along with his...

......the lawyers signed up tens of thousands of "victims" for class-action lawsuits — picking up along the way some plaintiffs who had also filed claims as victims of asbestos. U.S. Silica, the country's largest sand maker, was flooded by more than 20,000 lawsuits in a short period that began in November 2002...But some judges, notaly Clinton appointee Janis Jack of the Federal District Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, aren't letting the trial lawyers run freely with silicosis as they did with asbestosis. Lawsuits on behalf of people diagnosed with asbestosis (which isn't always the same thing as actually having it)...

Congratulations to... Republicans Joe Barton and Ed Whitfield, who... opened a probe into the nation's asbestos and silicosis claims. Their decision to investigate the people responsible for recruiting and falsely diagnosing tens of thousands of plaintiffs is a major step toward exposing this fraud. Credit for alerting the Congressmen to this issue goes to Texas federal Judge Janis Graham Jack, who earlier this summer surprised the tort bar by publicly excoriating 10,000 silicosis claims in front of her court. Messrs. Barton and Whitfield have now followed up with letters to the doctors and screening companies that helped gin up these...

A federal judge said Thursday she was stunned to hear that an X-ray machine owned by a real estate agent and operated in a trailer in a chain restaurant parking lot was used to diagnose thousands of plaintiffs with a work-related lung ailment. U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack has called doctors to back up some 10,000 silicosis diagnoses obtained by lawyers via screening companies such as Occupational Diagnostics of Ocean Springs, Miss. Dr. H. Todd Coulter, the fourth physician to testify, explained how he worked out of a "physician´s suite" in a trailer equipped with an X-ray machine. He...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill to establish a $140 billion asbestos compensation fund was undergoing a rewrite on Wednesday after warnings that a provision affecting claims for silica, another lung-scarring mineral, could derail the legislation. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he thought he could solve the problem and save his plan to set up a trust fund to replace asbestos litigation. But other Republicans expressed exasperation with the process, charging Democrats were moving the goalposts each time bipartisan agreement on the fund seemed close. ``Right now I don't think it (Specter's proposal) has much support on the part...

Companies battling lawsuits brought by people claiming injuries caused by exposure to asbestos or silica have long contended that they are the victims of fraud. The companies finally have evidence that their concerns may be real. Thousands of people who have said they were injured by one potentially lethal material are apparently double-dipping - now asserting separately that they were injured by the other. More than half the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit in Texas seeking compensation for exposure to silica - used in making glass, paint, ceramics and other materials - previously filed claims against a trust set up...

America's two-year investigation of deadly anthrax attacks has come up empty-handed. If the chief suspect didn't do it, who did? Marian Wilkinson investigates. When the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) first embarked on a secret project to train a team that could lead the hunt for deadly biological and chemical weapons in enemy territory, it turned to a little-known private company with excellent connections to the Pentagon. That company, Science Applications International Corporation, offered up one of its best experts to fill the contract, Steven J. Hatfill, an ingenious doctor with impressive credentials in the field of bio-terrorism. As the...