Feeling increasingly uncomfortable on this blog, as it seems to be becoming an outlet for the Anti-God Squad, I nevertheless want to share with my friends this interesting news item which I first spotted in the Times of India Health&Science Section, where it was headlined

Cabbage fuel reduces carbon release.
WASHINGTON: Jet fuel's grave carbon emissions can be reduced by about 84 per cent by refining it from the seeds of a lowly weed, which is a cousin to the cabbage, says a Michigan Technological University researcher.

D'you dig the Geek Off? Did you email your answers to geekoff@gmail.com? If not, too late sucka! That is, too late until Monday morning, when we play another round of the feud. Yep, every week there's a Geek Off and every week you can win a free Geeks' Guide to World Domination: Be Afraid, Beautiful People. Check the quiz Monday, email your answers 'til Friday at midnight EST, then check the answers and fight about corrections starting Saturday
morning.

Here are the answers to last week's geek off:
1. Geek Culture/Ephemera
Blackbeard: 4, C, d
Black Bart: 2, B, b
Mary Read: 4, D, a
Jean Lafitte: 1, A, c

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

Broadband and pay-TV will become the major sources of growth in the Romanian telecom market during the next five years, while bundling remains key for success as competition intensifies, according to the latest report from Pyramid Research (www.pyr.com), the telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications Network (www.lightreading.com).

PARIS, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The French environment agency ADEME is supporting Valeo research projects. Two projects for low-CO2 vehicles, which have received 6 million euros in funding from ADEME, were presented yesterday at the French Sustainable Development Ministry:

- Mild hybrid (MHYGALE project)

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

A report filed today with the U.S. Congress and prepared by a team of economists led by The Brattle Group finds that full-scale deployment of demand response programs can lower U.S. peak demand by 20 percent. The report was commissioned by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

A Science Of Human Language - Part #2




Quistic Grammar : A New Universal Grammar

In Part #1 of this series, I suggested that a grammar heavily based in syntax was not sufficiently scientific as a general theory of how language functions.  In developing the current theory I shall try to demonstrate that various observations about human language can be tied together into an inclusive theory of how language functions.  The first, and to my mind most important observation about human language is its redundancy, its apparent inefficiency in the use of the resources of sounds and symbols.

GREIFENSEE, Switzerland, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Enhanced Functionalities Offer Users Immediate Results, Easier Handling and More Opportunities to Speed up Their Weighing Processes

CORBY, England, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- Adam Fisher Loses Half his Body Weight and Becomes the Dad he has Always Wanted to be

- With Photo

- ATTN. Feature Editors

Adam Fisher (36) from Hertfordshire, lost 15 stones in ten months with the Cambridge Diet last year and has become the dad he has always wanted to be.

Adams weight crept up when he suffered a motor bike injury in 2000, leaving him inactive and forced into a career change. He went from an extremely active job in structural engineering to a 9-5 desk job.

BARCELONA, Spain, June 19 /PRNewswire/ --

The GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, today announced the winners of the EMEA leg of the 2010 Mobile Innovation Grand Prix competition. The winners were announced at the GSMA's Mobile Innovation EMEA Event, which was held as part of the inaugural HiT Barcelona World Innovation Summit that took place in Barcelona, Spain this week.

That DNA evidence that could exonerate you? You don't have a right to it, says the US Supreme Court.

Actually, not being a lawyer or constitutional scholar, I don't know what kinds of evidence you have a constitutional right to when you go on trial, so I'm not going to comment on the correctness of the decision. But legal scholarship aside, two things are obvious:

1) When we try someone for a crime, we want the best, most reliable evidence possible. It's probably reasonably safe to say that most people with at least some wisps of sanity would like our criminal justice system to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent.