Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials dont. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they dont create reflections or shadows.

It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

The Associated Press: Scientists closer to developing invisibility cloak.

I want one SO badly….

The “mind like water myth” is that that productivity — or a productivity system — is the path, and that mind like water is the destination. Bruce lee once said that “all fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability” and that “the possession of anything begins in the mind.” I believe Bruce is right: possession of a “mind like water” begins in the mind. It’s not productivity first, mind like water second. It’s the other way around.

8 Great Anti-Hacks to Fundamentally Change Your Life | Zen Habits.

Really excellent. Really logical. Really right.

“The health care costs attributable to obesity and overweight are expected to more than double every decade. This would account for 15 to 17 percent of total health care costs spent,” Wang says. “Due to the assumptions we made and the limitations of the available data, these figures are likely an underestimation of the true financial impact.”

Study Suggests 86 Percent of Americans Could be Overweight or Obese by 2030.

Almost one trillion dollars dollars per year are projected for healthcare costs related to obesity alone by 2030… of course, trend projection of this kind is a bit simplistic, but still….

In a sustainable energy future, energy obtained from renewable resources such as solar, wind and wave will be stored as chemical potential energy in hydrogen and hydrogen-rich materials, and liberated by oxidation generating only water at the point of use as the principal by-product.7–11 In the same way as our carbon economy uses not only elemental carbon but also carbon compounds (particularly hydrocarbons), so a hydrogen economy will utilise not only elemental hydrogen, but also hydrogen-rich chemical compounds, such as ammonia, urea, formates and others.

Hydrogen nexus in a sustainable energy future (DOI: 10.1039/b810104n)

This article is from the new RSC journal Energy and Environmental Science. The first issue of this web-accessible journal was announced last Wednesday. Not only is the tech and science serious, it has pretty graphs and pictures.

Why is the South so heavy? The traditional Southern diet — high in fat and fried food — may be part of the answer, said Dr. William Dietz, who heads CDC’s nutrition, physical activity and obesity division. iReport.com: How can we fight obesity?

The South also has a large concentration of rural residents and black women — two groups that tend to have higher obesity rates, he said.

CDC survey: South leads nation in obesity - CNN.com.

And heaven forbid that we mention the links to poverty and neglected diseases, and lack of healthcare, poor education……

The phrase “Indian Country” does not need to be defined for most U.S. soldiers. The metaphor is so frequently used in military discourse that it has become seemingly transparent. Soldiers draw on their collective, national memory to remember that United States military forces have faced supposedly similar situations before, thus providing a “training ground” the military has already explored.

The terminology can serve to make the outcome of conflict in “Indian Country” predictable, and therefore more acceptable. The standard story is that Indians never won the war, and history has established a legacy of the Unites States Army as the victors.
Colonial Heritage Metaphors Used In U.S. Military Conflicts

The standard story has led to continued misunderstandings of the US military’s role in conflicts and the world. While one part of the story is “we always win”, the other part of the story is “We have a Manifest Destiny to take what we want.” Not surprising that this would cause issues…

A recent study shows a large wetland in arid northern Nigeria yielded an economic benefit in fish, firewood, cattle grazing lands and natural crop irrigation 30 times greater than the yield of water being diverted from the wetland into a costly irrigation project.

And, at US$15 000 per hectare per year, the economic value of flood mitigation and other services provided by wetlands is greater than any other ecosystem – seven times that of the next most valuable, tropical rainforests.

Rising energy, food prices major threats to wetlands as farmers eye new areas for crops.

This isn’t even looking at the release of carbon the continuing destruction of wetlands will unleash, or the millions of people who will be displaced by their continued drying.

Of the selected disease-specific areas targeted for funding by the NIAID in their published annual report, none specifically mentions a neglected infection of poverty [165]. A consequence of this lack of targeted funding for neglected diseases is that the development of critically needed new tools for these conditions has lagged behind those for biodefense. The Global Forum on Health Research has coined the term “the 10/90 gap” to describe how only 10% of resources are devoted to 90% of the global burden of disease, i.e., that represented by disease disproportionately occurring in developing countries [166]. The absence of development of new tools for neglected infections of poverty, such as those outlined above, highlights a unique American 10/90 gap for poor people and people of color in the US.

PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases: Neglected Infections of Poverty in the United States of America.

YOu probably haven’t heard of these diseases. They’re neglected. And they mostly affect poor people in specific areas. With climate change probably leading to more poverty-level population migrations, we can expect these diseases and parasites to affect increasing numbers of people…..

In the current issue of the journal Science, they describe a material with twice the efficiency of anything currently on the market.

The same technology could work in power generators and heat pumps, said project leader Joseph Heremans, Ohio Eminent Scholar in Nanotechnology at Ohio State University.

Material May Help Autos Turn Heat Into Electricity.

Hmm - could this be applied to the exterior of solar troughs, for recatpture? Or, say used on the inside of kilns?

Nine out of ten regular food items aimed specifically at children have a poor nutritional content – because of high levels of sugar, fat or sodium - according to a detailed study of 367 products published in the July issue of the UK-based journal Obesity Reviews.

Just under 70 per cent of the products studied - which specifically excluded confectionery, soft drinks and bakery items - derived a high proportion of calories from sugar. Approximately one in five (23 per cent) had high fat levels and 17 per cent had high sodium levels. Despite this, 62 per cent of the foods with poor nutritional quality (PNQ) made positive claims about their nutritional value on the front of the packet.

89 percent of children’s food products provide poor nutritional quality.

are we surprised? this is the nature of what we’re up against.