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By developing a low-cost method for making high-performance transparent transistors, researchers at Northwestern University have taken an important step toward creating sharp, bright displays that could be laminated to windshields, computer monitors, and televisions but would blend into the background when not in use. For years, researchers have attempted to make flexible electronics based on electrically conducting plastics that can be manufactured inexpensively. There has been some success in making ones are nearly transparent. But these organic materials have produced transistors with disappointing performance, falling well short of the capabilities of transistors made with inorganic materials such as silicon. The...

Washington DC -- April 4, 2006: In an alarming wake-up call to voting rights activists accross the country, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand last week a decision by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The lower court ruled (Landes v Tartaglione, et al) that Philadelphia journalist and voting rights activist, Lynn Landes, had no standing to challenge the constitutionality of election laws which Landes claimed deny direct access to a tangible ballot and meaningful transparency to the election process.Specifically, Landes challenged the use of voting machines and absentee voting in elections for public office. The defendants in the...

If you’ve seen the movie “Minority Report” and marveled at the transparent computer screens used by Tom Cruise, you’ll appreciate what German researchers have concocted in their labs: entirely transparent OLED (organic light emitting diode) pixels. The researchers, located at the Technical University of Braunschweig, are claiming the development to be a world’s first. Their approach is to use transparent TFTs (thin-film transistors) made of a 100-nanometer-thick layer of zinc-tin-oxide, which transmits more than 90 percent of visible light. Such transistors are more often made of silicon, which is used for LCDs (liquid crystal displays) but is highly absorptive in...

Can someone please organize and take up a huge collection to coax a Border Patrol Agent to come out and speak the truth about the situation on the U.S. Mexico Border? On the likely chance that this person is fired; I presume this person would need about $150,000 to support his/her family for a few years. That's a start. Terrorist Warning.com has made mention to WMDs by way of suicide bombers in the U.S. Also mentioned is the vunerable border. Just read an article that called Ramzi Yosef (WTC Part 1) a genius. These terrorist are smart and relentless. I...

Engineers Create World's First Transparent TransistorCORVALLIS - Engineers at Oregon State University have created the world's first transparent transistor, a see-through electronics component that could open the door to many new products. The advance has been reported in a professional journal, Applied Physics Letters, and a patent has been applied for. The university is already consulting with major electronics companies about the findings and their potential applications. The discovery "is a significant development in the context of transparent electronics," the scientists said in their publication, but pointed out it's too early to tell what applications may evolve. "This is a...

Sarandon: I wish my kids could know the free love I've known by LESLEY O'TOOLE, Evening Standard Life is a struggle," sighs Susan Sarandon, closing her huge brown eyes and running her fingers through the fiery shoulder-length curls that frame a flawless, peaches-and-cream complexion. Coming from one of the most alluring women on the planet - remember, this is a 56-year-old mother of three - "struggle" is not the first word that comes to mind. But it's true, she insists, earnestly. Not only is she is attempting to steer her teenage daughter and pre-teen sons through the drink-and-drugs minefield...

<p>ST. LOUIS - The fourth-grade field trip to the state Capitol was going well: The kids gaped at the rotunda, peeked in the Senate chambers, listened politely to a lecture on how a bill becomes law.</p> <p>Then someone noticed that the parent chaperone with the luxuriant hair and restrained makeup was a dad.</p> <p>Most of the kids on the trip, apparently, either did not notice or did not care that a classmate's father was dressed as a woman, in jeans, a sweater and nice shoes. Most of the teachers, apparently, were equally untroubled.</p>

O'FALLON, Mo. - A father who chaperoned a fourth-grade field trip while dressed as a woman has told the school district he regrets creating a stir. "He went on the trip because his daughter asked him to go," said Superintendent Dan O'Donnell of the Francis Howell district, which includes Castlio Elementary School fourth-graders who took the Oct. 18 trip. "If he had known it would have caused this much of an uproar, he wouldn't have gone." The father's identity has not been revealed, and he has not spoken publicly. Parents complained to the school board after the man, during a...

In last month's installment of Good Morning America's "Read This!" book club series, the "Wine, Women, and Jeffrey" book club read The Secret Life of Bees. Now they've passed on the book club baton to the "Jazzy Page Turners" of Knoxville, Tenn.     This month's selection is Noelle Howey's Dress Codes: Of Three Girlhoods — My Mother's, My Father's, and Mine. The poignant and tender memoir explores the author's coming of age as a young woman, at the same time her father was "coming of age" as a transsexual, and her mother was finding her independence.     Read an excerpt from Dress...

Transparent Alumina - Three Times Stronger Than Steel A ceramic research lab in Dresden, Germany, has developed transparent Alumina by subjecting fine-grained (I'm guessing extremely fine-grained) aluminum to a whopping 1200 degrees Celsius ...the result of which is amazingly light but three times tougher than hardened steel of the same thickness, and it's see-through.  Needless to say, the Pentagon is quite interested.        For story (in German)  http://www.spiegel.de  According to a post at Slashdot (News for Nerds) this is not transparent aluminum but transparent Alumina, which is aluminum oxide - Al2-O3. Also found this link here, which...