Royal Caribean: Liberty of the Seas

If you can get over your fear of the Titanic or the Poseidon Adventure...These Cruise Ships look like a lot of fun!!

Chismillionaire wants to start hailing air taxis

Tired of security nonsense and no cell phones. Here's the solution.

It may sound like something out of The Jetsons, but the era of affordable personal air travel appears to have arrived.

At least that’s the assertion of writer James Fallows, who reports in this month’s Atlantic Monthly that a company called dayjet is looking to change the way people look at air travel. How? By using a fleet of tiny Eclipse 500 Jets to inexpensively shuttle passengers back and forth to wherever it is they need to go, whenever it is that they need to get there. Anyone who has spent two hours sitting on a runway while sandwiched into the middle seat of a 25-year old MD-80 can see the appeal of this idea.

People are calling dayjet an air taxi service, and that’s essentially what it is. Let’s say I need to go from Melbourne, Florida to Mobile, Alabama. I log into the dayjet website to book my trip, entering the time that I need to get to Mobile, and when I’m available to leave. The site calculates the cost of my trip, giving me a discount if I have some flexibility in travel times.

I show up at my local rinky-dink airstrip (a big part of dayjet’s sell is that they use congestion free community airports) and a few minutes later I’m strapped into my seat and we're cleared for takeoff. There might be two other passengers on my flight, but no more than that. No security screening (I would have been fully vetted during the "membership process"), no waiting for my zone to be called. And when I’m ready to head home, my return flight is waiting for me.

dayjet doesn't always beat the commercial airlines on cost (I priced out a dayjet flight between Atlanta and Charlotte and it came to just over $1,200. The same flight on Delta: $512). But the company is betting that business travelers would rather pay the extra cash than spend three hours at the Cinnabon in some big airport because their connecting flight is late.

It’s the advent of the very light jet (VLJ) that makes an operation like dayjet feasible. The Eclipse 500 weighs 3,500 lbs (5,520 fully loaded), and travels at a maximum cruising speed of 425 mph. And with a list price of $1.5 million, it's far less expensive than the typical private jet.

But what about the likely environmental impact when scores of VLJs take to the skies? After all, a plane carrying three passengers uses more fuel than one carrying 150 (unless you’re American Airlines, and you like to fly your widebody jets nearly empty). The airline’s Bruce Holmes says that dayjet's short-haul routes target customers who would otherwise be driving, and that the the Eclipse jets match or beat automobiles in fuel consumption and carbon output per passenger mile. But Eclipse Aviation says its 500 jet gets 10 miles per gallon. That's way better than any other passenger plane out there, but not necessarily something to be bragging about when looking at the larger environmental picture.

In any case, dayjet has big plans: by the end of the year it wants to be flying to 100 cities in six states.

Wired Wiki- How to store your comics

Store Your Comics Properly

From Wired How-To Wiki

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Photo by Troy Brownfield/Wired

All right, admit it: you're smart enough to know that your comic collection probably won't make you a millionaire. On the other hand, you enjoy the form and you want to keep your books as nice as possible. What can you do to keep your four-color wonders safe and secure?

Here's our guide. Got additional advice? Log in and add it.

Contents [hide] 1 Bags and Boards 2 Common Sense Handling 3 Temperate Zones 4 Filing 5 Organization

Bags and Boards

Photo by Troy Brownfield/Wired

Bagging and boarding is essential for long-term maintenance. A few companies produce items for this purpose; Kevin Brydon of the Comic Carnival chain in Indianapolis recommends the BCW family of products. "We especially like the boards, which are guaranteed to be acid-free," he said.

Bags and boards serve a few general purposes. The bags keep your books free of dust and offer a general layer of environmental protection. A bagged book might not completely survive a coffee spill or burst pipe, but you've given it a chance. A book bagged with a board will "store straight", keeping it sharp and preventing excess wear on the binding.

Additionally a bag will slow the chemical reactions that occur due to moisture and oxygen. If you cut down the flow of oxygen or water to acidic paper then the chemical degradation will consequently by decreased. This is especially important since so many comic books were printed using acidic/wood pulp paper.

Common Sense Handling

I'm not going to go so far as to suggest the use of white gloves when handling your comics. Still, washing and thoroughly drying your hands first to prevent oily smears remains a must. Careful page-turning rather than whipping right through an issue also goes a long way toward keeping the book in good shape.

There's an extra element here. Older books tend to have been made on cheaper grades of paper. Those books tend to be more brittle and require greater care. Of course, older books are also typically worth more. If you have limited storage or care space, you might want to take care of older (or more valuable) books first. Simple date-checking or research in something like the annual Overstreet Price Guide might help you determine where to direct your limited resources.

Temperate Zones

Photo by Troy Brownfield/Wired

Conventional wisdom dictates that you store your comics in a cool, dry place. Hot and steamy might be good for the Jacuzzi, but not Jack Kirby. Slightly below room temperature (72* F) is typically a good guideline. It's also not a bad idea for your storage space to use soft light when possible.

Humidity can be a danger. That's why some prefer to tape their bags shut in the hopes of closing out excess moisture. Climate-controlled storage would be ideal, but a well-ventilated, cool, dry closet area would still work.

Filing

Photo by Troy Brownfield/Wired

A bagged and boarded book can be stored standing or stacked. Most fans prefer some filing method, as it allows the titles to be browsed easily. The traditional "long box" or a legal filing cabinet work well, but we like the new DrawerBoxes, which bring a lot of design sense to the old cardboard box. The 9" x 26" long version can hold 235 bagged and boarded comics; its encased design actually turns a cardboard long-box into a stackable filing cabinet.

Organization

Actually, that's up to you. Plastic dividers are also available, ready to be labeled alphabetically, by company, or broken down into team affiliation by universe. Not that we know anyone who does that.

Longer Lasting Lithium Ion Batteries

Powerful particles: New lithium-ion battery electrode materials, shown here under an electron microscope, can store more energy, and so do more safely, than conventional lithium-ion batteries in laptops and cell phones. Credit: Courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory

Conventional lithium-ion batteries in laptops and cell phones quickly lose their ability to store energy and can catch fire if they're overcharged or damaged. Now researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, IL, have developed composite battery materials that can make such batteries both safer and longer lived, while increasing their capacity to store energy by 30 percent.

Last month, the researchers took a significant step toward commercializing the technology by licensing it to a major materials supply company, Toda Kogyo, based in Japan. The company has the capacity to make the materials for about 30 million laptop batteries a year, says Gary Henriksen, who manages electrochemical storage research at Argonne.

The new materials are one example of a new generation of lithium-ion electrode chemistries that address the shortcomings of conventional lithium-ion batteries. Each has its own trade-offs. For example, another material called lithium iron phosphate has better safety and durability than Argonne's materials, but it stores somewhat less energy than conventional lithium-ion batteries. Argonne's materials improve on the safety and reliability of today's laptop batteries, while also storing more energy.

The Argonne researchers have improved the performance of the positive electrodes by increasing the chemical and structural stability of the materials already used in laptop batteries. In conventional lithium-ion batteries, which have cobalt oxide electrodes, a small amount of overheating, caused by overcharging the material or by electrical shorts inside a battery, can lead to rapidly increasing temperatures inside the cell and, in some cases, combustion. That's because, as the material overheats, the cobalt oxide readily gives up oxygen, which reacts with the solvent in the battery's electrolyte and generates more heat, feeding the reactions. The Argonne researchers addressed this problem by replacing some of the cobalt oxide with manganese oxide, which is chemically more stable.

The researchers' next step was to replace some of the active metal oxide materials in the electrode with a related but electrochemically inactive material, forming a composite. This material does not store energy, because it does not release and take up lithium ions as the battery is charged and discharged. (Lithium-ion batteries create electrical current as lithium ions shuttle between positive and negative electrodes.) The inactive material makes the composite more stable than conventional electrode materials, which means it can last longer. One version of the material can last for 1,500 charges and discharges without losing much capacity, he says. That's more than double the life of conventional laptop batteries.

Inside Intel's Atom processor

Array of Atoms: This image shows the processor wafer on which Atom chips are manufactured. Each chip on the wafer contains 47 million transistors. Credit: Intel

The mobile Internet has been the next big thing for a decade. And while companies such as Nokia and Apple have made great strides with the N-series devices and the iPhone, these gadgets still don't perform as well as computers. For instance, popular sites such as MySpace and YouTube can take tens of seconds to completely load on these devices, and when they do, they sometimes don't work correctly or look right.

The problem with these gadgets, says Vijay Krishnan, a director in Intel's ultramobile group, is their microprocessor. His company's solution is a brand new lineup of small, low-power chips that play well with websites and are also designed to run media, including high-definition content. The chip line, called Atom, which was first announced in March, was displayed last week at Intel's Developer Forum in Shanghai. Company executives showed off slick-looking gadgets, called mobile internet devices (MIDs), that are expected to hit the market by the middle of the year.

"The iPhone is a great example of delivering the Internet in your pocket," says Krishnan. Apple's phone uses a processor from ARM, the company that supplies many of the chips that run on cell phones worldwide. But, he says, there are a few areas that could be improved. For instance, an Atom chip is four to six times faster than ARM chips, which translates into faster downloads and smoother video-watching experiences. In addition, he says, the chip is compatible with many Web programming languages and applications--such as JavaScript and Flash--which makes Atom more compatible with all parts of the Internet. Using a device with an Atom chip, he says, gives access to "all of the Internet, without generating errors."

To build the new chips, Krishnan says, Intel focused on power consumption. The dual-core chips in today's laptops use up to 35 watts. The Atom line, which will offer roughly the same performance as a typical chip in a four-year-old laptop, uses three watts or less. Krishnan explains that one way this is achieved is by creating six separate power states for the chip. Depending on how the device is being used, the voltage the processor uses and clock speed of its components can be varied, while certain components , such as memory cache, can be turned off when not in use. "When we use all of these power states," he says, "we're able to keep the average power on chips to 160 to 220 milliwatts." These low power requirements can noticeably extend battery life, he says.

Directory of high performance driving schools

More Than 60 Ways To Improve Your Driving

By Dan Frio, Contributor Email

Date posted: 04-06-2008

So you bit the bullet and signed up for the new Vette. Now you want to uncork it at a local track day. Or maybe you saved your shekels for the Mustang V8 and it's time to get serious about those embarrassing 60-foot times. Maybe you just want to feel a stock car underfoot at 160 mph.

Whatever your motoring pleasure, this high-performance driving school buyer's guide has what you're looking for. We've found more than 60 high-performance driving schools in 180 locations — mostly in North America, some overseas including Australia, Germany and Mexico — to satisfy your adrenal glands.

From stock cars or open-wheelers to high-performance coupes, rally or sprint cars, we found places where pros will teach you to heel-toe downshift, keep a 700-horsepower motor on boil around a half-mile dirt track and drag race like John Force. Have you ever wanted to drive a Formula 1 car? AGS Formule1 in France is your place. Off-roading? You want the Land Rover Experience.

But like most drugs, adrenaline costs. Look around this list (alphabetical by state) and you'll find thrills starting at around $300, on up to $5,000 and $10,000 fixes. Generally if you can spend $500-$2,000, you'll be a happy speed junkie for a good, solid day, maybe two or three.

Stop waiting! Drop the pedal!

Chismillionaire's Monday deal of the week

Gateway GM5664 TV Desktop AMD Phenom™ quad-core 9600/3GB DDR2/ TB Serial ATA II hard drive (2 x 500GB)/Blu-ray High-definition hybrid DVD±RW/CD-RW /ATI Radeon HD 2400XT graphics /15-in-1 media reader/digital TV tuner/Vista Home Premium/Factory Recertified - Blu-ray / Phenom™ quad-core / 3G / 1TB 2X 500GB HD

List Price: See Details $1,999.99 You Save: $1,200.00 Our Price: $799.99 Shipping: FREE Buy.com Total Price: $799.99

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BMW’s VERY CREATIVE AND AMAZING BILLBOARD THAT IS 65,000 SQ FT!

Posted by CARversation Published in Bmw

BMW has created a billboard that will go down in history. In Moscow, BMW put up real cars over a 65,000 sq ft. billboard promoting its ///M Series. I love marketing and I just find this very clever, I mean it sure worked(I'm writing about it). Check out the pictures below, this is way better then the Audi Super bowl ad, this is thinking outside the box.[Source BMW Blog]

Click Here to see this amazing ADVERT

Purdue's 156-Step Burger Maker Wins Rube Goldberg Contest

Pocketburgers.com might need to hire this guy... I think he is on to something

We've brought you Rube Goldberg-style clocks and toys, but none of them are a match for the 156-step device that's just won the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. This year's challenge was to assemble a burger with vegetables, condiments and two bun halves. The meat was pre-cooked... a sensible idea to avoid fires and explosions: you'll understand when you look at the great pics of the machines that MAKE took. Beneath the gallery you'll find a demo video of some of them in action. Sadly we don't have one of the complete 156-step run yet, so you'll just have to imagine its fantasticness.

---

The whole idea is to create a machine that combines creative thinking with complexity in design, and, most importantly, inefficiency— much in the vein of Goldberg's cartoons.

The winning team, the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers, have had plenty of practice at this— they've won two of the previous three contests. Their machine won them a regional prize earlier in the year, and for the Nationals they added another 55 steps. With somewhere around 5,000 man-hours of work in it, the victory seems well deserved, particularly when the rules stipulate that the task must be achieved in more than 20 steps.

Mix Tapes Go Online

Perhaps its because I'm a father now, but I find myself at times becoming nostalgic for the trappings of my youth - things of days gone by that I have come to realize my son will never experience. Like this weekend when I was watching my gorgeous new Sony Bravia LCD TV in all of its 1080 glory and I looked at my kid and realized "holy crap, he's going to think this is how TV ALWAYS looked!" (and lets not even get started on the fact that 200+ channels will, to him, be the norm)

Another, more despairing, revelation came a few weeks back when I had my 14 year old nephew over for a night. We went to see Cloverfield (great flick) but on the way I thought it'd be fun to regress to my youth and stop by the only arcade I know of in the Framingham area (Fun n Games). How sad. It was understocked with crap games, mostly second and third tier fighting games, and overall it just sucked. It was then that it really hit home that kids just don't head out to the arcade to play their video games anymore...

Along those lines, another of my favorite hobbies as a kid - making mix tapes - has made the jump into the 21st century. Sure, we've been able to mix and burn CD's and copy mp3's for each other for quite some time - but even that smacked of the late 20th century. Enter two players that look to put mixtapes on line, both offering slightly different methods and neither seeming, to me at least, to be completely legal - but that's never really been an issue for me, so lets take a look at both.

Muxtape: This was the first I discovered. Sign up for a free account and you can start uploading mp3's from your computer. You get to upload 12 and though it says you are limited to 10mb in size per song, in my limited testing that didn't seem to apply. Afterwards you are presented with a unique URL that you can then send out to friends. They can't download the songs, only stream them, and I'm thinking this is how they hope to stay "legal." There are also some written limitations on uploading multiple songs from the same artist or album and you have to agree not to upload any songs that you are "not allowed to" (whatever that means), but again, in limited testing, I blatantly ignored all of their rules. The interface is slick and simple and the main benefit here is you have access to your entire library - it would appear to me to be a great way to introduce people to music you like.

Mixwit: I haven't tried this one yet, but the features look to be about the same of Muxtape with the major exception of how you add music. Rather than uploading your own mp3's, Mixwit utilizes specific Google search strings, through web interfaces such as Skreemr and Seeqpod, to search open directories around the web for songs matching your search parameters. Pretty slick, though I'm guessing if your taste tends to the obscure or lesser known you won't have much luck.

So there you go. Mixtapes for the new millennium. Go, mix, and share. Got something good? I want to hear it, unless its another Beatles clone (Bernardo).

Mother Nature… Bringing Sexy Back

Ever since Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, we knew plants could get it on.

Many years later, Mother Nature is showing a definite urge to bring her sexy back.

Inevitably some people will always tend to take their love for Mother Nature’s sexy offspring too far.

Various people throughout time have had sexual fetishes that include the use of fruit and vegetables. Some choose to avoid having real relationships with people that involve eventual let down and pain, while others are just really into mother nature.

Loving nature can have some dangers though and some countries have even decided to put warning labels on certain fruits and vegetables to limit the number of hospital visits they are receiving.

Among the list of unsavory produce on the Government’s hit list are courgettes, cucumbers, bananas, carrots and squashes, which will have to carry a Goverment Health warning that: ‘improper use is liable to corrupt and deprave, and may lead to surgical intervention’.

The banana and cucumber are so popular and enjoyed, that they even made those into vibrators.

Can’t decide between a fruit or a vegetable?

(link)

Hibernation Method Tested for Space Travel

Irene Klotz, Discovery News

April 4, 2008 -- No matter how much you like your crewmates, a three-year mission to Mars would test the even the best of relationships.

And that's not even the primary reason why future long-duration space travelers may spend part of the journey in suspended animation.

There's the tremendous expense of carrying food, oxygen and carbon dioxide scrubbers to keep astronauts alive, not to mention the hassle of processing their urine and feces.

"Wouldn't it be neat if you could just put them out?" said Warren Zapol, the head of anesthesiology at Harvard University's Massachusetts General Hospital.

One option would be to cool the crew cabin into a big chill. But body temperatures below 30 Celsius (86 degrees F) can disturb the heart's rhythm. Another possibility would be to have the astronauts breathe swamp gas.

Zapol and colleagues report in this month's Anesthesiology journal about how hydrogen sulfide -- the same stuff produced by rotten eggs and swamp gas -- slows mouse metabolism without cutting blood flow to the brain.

"The mice aren't asleep," Zapol told Discovery News. "If you pinch their tails, they respond.

"I don't know what it's like," he added, "probably some slow-motion world."

There are many questions and years of research before healthy people like astronauts would be put into hibernated states, but the procedure could find an earlier application in cases of traumatic injury when life itself is at risk.

"Sixty percent of people in war are dead right there on the field," Zapol said. "They are instantly hurt, and because there is no blood and no fluids in the field, by the time they get to a hospital they are cold and dead and there is nothing to fix.

"During this early period after trauma, if we could freeze you down or shut you down, we could restart you after we fix the aorta, or whatever has been damaged," Zapol said.

Emergency medical workers have tried cooling victims, but the amount of cold water needed to reach effective temperatures makes the technique impractical, particularly in battlefield situations.

"Corpsmen aren't walking around with 150 pounds of cold water," Zapol said. "But what if you could just fog them with hydrogen sulfide?"

During Zapol's experiment, metabolic measurements of the mice, such as their consumption of oxygen and production of carbon dioxide, dropped as early as 10 minutes after they began inhaling hydrogen sulfide.

They remained low as long as the gas was administered. The mice returned to normal within 30 minutes after normal air started to flow.

The animals' heart rate dropped nearly 50 percent while they were breathing the gas, with no significant change in blood pressure or the strength of the heart beat. Respiration rates decreased, but there were no changes in blood oxygen levels, suggesting that vital organs were not at risk of oxygen starvation, the researchers report.

Zapol plans additional experiments on larger mammals, probably sheep.

"Before you use it on astronauts, you want to make sure it's very, very safe," he said.

---

Related Links:

Irene Klotz's blog: Space Diary

Warren Zapol

NASA Vision for Space Exploration

How Stuff Works: Hibernation

Charlton Heston Passes away at the age of 84

Statement by the Family of Charlton Heston
Saturday April 5, 11:24 pm ET

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., April 5, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Legendary actor, civil rights leader and political activist Charlton Heston passed away today, at the age of 84. He died at his home with Lydia, his wife of 64 years, at his side. Mr. Heston was loved by his two children, Fraser Clarke Heston and Holly Heston Rochell, and his three grandchildren, Jack Alexander Heston, Ridley Rochell and Charlie Rochell.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080405/CLSA013 )

Source: Mercury Group
· Charlton Heston. · Click Here to Download Image

The Heston family issued the following statement:

"To his loving friends, colleagues and fans, we appreciate your heartfelt prayers and support. Charlton Heston was seen by the world as larger than life. He was known for his chiseled jaw, broad shoulders and resonating voice, and, of course, for the roles he played. Indeed, he committed himself to every role with passion, and pursued every cause with unmatched enthusiasm and integrity.

We knew him as an adoring husband, a kind and devoted father, and a gentle grandfather, with an infectious sense of humor. He served these far greater roles with tremendous faith, courage and dignity. He loved deeply, and he was deeply loved.

No one could ask for a fuller life than his. No man could have given more to his family, to his profession, and to his country. In his own words, "I have lived such a wonderful life! I've lived enough for two people."

A private memorial service will be held. The family has requested that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Motion Picture and Television Fund:

    MPTF
  22212 Ventura Boulevard, Suite 300
  Woodland Hills, CA  91364

a great collection of photos of Charlton are here

I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome

From The Sunday Times

June 11, 2006

Steven Swinford

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.

Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.

“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”

For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”

Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”

Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.

Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.

“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.

“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”

Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.

“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”

He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.

Marksman 100% Accurate

Tank Chair - Five is Alive for the Handicapped

Tank Chair is an off-road wheelchair that can go almost anywhere. Tank Chair can go through streams, mud, snow, sand, and gravel, allowing you to get back into nature.

read more |

Top 5 Recreational Drug Experiments

By Aaron Rowe April 05, 2008 | 11:46:38 AM

Recreational drugs are a ridiculously fun topic for scientific research. They could also be the inspiration for powerful new medications. We are often amazed by the fascinating, and sometimes hilarious, stories that make their way into peer-reviewed journals. Here are some of our very favorites:

5. Harvard Scientists Build a Device to Smoke Weed During a Brain Scan
To better understand addiction, and how to treat it, scientists need to get a better look at the human brain as it is under the influence of weed. Unfortunately, smoking weed inside the narrow chamber of a functional MRI is not easy. To prevent smoke damage and allow their research subjects to puff without moving around too much, Blaise Frederick and his team at Harvard built what amounts to a giant bong.

4. Stanford Chemists make THC from Scratch
Since 1965, chemists have been trying to make the active ingredient of marijuana [pdf]from scratch. Back then, the researchers could only make tetrahydrocannabinol along with its enantiomers -- impurities that have the same chemical composition, but a different shape. Then, in 2006, a pair of chemists from Stanford University used a Molybdenum catalyst and other sophisticated techniques to produce the coveted molecule in its pure form. Despite their discovery, mother nature is still the best chemist and closets with high-intensity lamps will outperform the most sophisticated laboratories.

3. Researchers Learn How Salvia Works
Diviner's sage contains a powerful hallucinogen that may someday inspire a new class of depression, pain, and addiction medications. In at least one instance, a woman has used the substance to rid herself of depression. Tests on animals have shown that the Oxaccan plant, a relative of the culinary herb, can also control pain.

Last year, Catherine Willmore and her colleagues at Ohio Northern University ended a controversy about how the drug works. In the Sep. 2007 issue of Neruopharmacology, she explained that the active chemical, Salvinorin A, binds to signal-carrying proteins called kappa opioid receptors.

Willmore and her team trained rats to recognize the sensations caused by a well-understood drug that also targets kappa opioid receptors. It is impossible to know exactly how the rats felt during the test, but they could not tell the difference between the active chemical in sage and the one they had been trained to identify. Since the drugs feel the same, both of them must activate the same target.

2. British Army Tests LSD on Soldiers

1. Researchers Combine Chemicals from Sea Urchin Eggs and Weed to Make Powerful Painkillers
Scientists at organix, a small research and development firm, made hybrid molecules which resemble the euphoria-causing compounds THC and anandamide. In the Dec. 2007 issue of Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry they explained that both drugs have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Anandamide starts working faster than its marijuana-derived counterpart, but it is more quickly destroyed by the body. A fusion of the two chemicals may last longer while maintaining an equal or stronger effect.

Although the researchers at Organix did not comment on the recreational potential of their new chemicals, their data makes it very clear that the new drugs push the same pleasure buttons as THC and anandamide.

Image Credit: Blaise Frederick / Harvard

Learn How To Hijack A Drive Thru Frequency

How To Hijack A Drive Thru

Posted 3/20/2008
Runtime: 9:11

Dudes explain how you too can prank your local fast food joint's drive thru.

How Hallucinogens Play Their Mind-Bending Games

Researchers isolate cells affected by LSD & Mescaline, potentially leading to more treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

read more | digg story

Rich Boys Toys - Cobra Helicopter

If you have the money you too could own one of these..

Charles Manson Releases Record Under Creative Commons

Celebrity endorsements aren't always a good thing. Take, for example, Lawrence Lessing's opensource copyright organization, Creative Commons. Sure everyone was excited when Trent Reznor moved a trillion copies of the new Nine Inch Nails record using the license, but the same doesn't seem to apply to Charles Manson.

Perhaps it's the whole brainwashing/cult/murder thing that trips people up. But people seem to forget that before Chuck was carving swastikas into his forehead, he was keeping himself busy as an struggling songwriter--even managing at one point to land a composition on a Beach Boys album.

Thanks in part to an abundance of spare time, Manson has managed to record another record, this time out bearing the typically ominous title, One Mind. The album is licensed under Creative Commons, meaning that anyone can share and remix the thing for non-commercial purposes.

The full record is available for free download via Limewire for the morbidly curious.

52 Girls Removed From Secretive Ranch of Polygamist Leader

Nearly 200 Taken From Texas Compound

Nearly 200 Now Removed From Polygamist Compound Where Officials Sought 50-Year-Old, Teen Wife

By MICHELLE ROBERTS

The Associated Press

Officials escort two buses Friday April 4, 2008 from the retreat built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,...

Officials escort two buses Friday April 4, 2008 from the retreat built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, located near El Dorado, Texas. Child welfare officials and state troopers removed at least one busload of children from the secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs following a complaint to state authorities. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

(AP)

ELDORADO, Texas

Child welfare officials have now removed nearly 200 women and children from a secretive West Texas religious retreat built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, authorities said Saturday.

The investigation began after a 16-year-old living there complained of physical abuse. A search warrant authorized state troopers to enter the retreat run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and look for evidence of a marriage between the girl and a 50-year-old man.

The warrant said the girl had a baby eight months ago, when she was 15.

State Child Protective Services on Friday removed 52 girls from the compound. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that another 131 residents were removed overnight and that by Saturday afternoon 137 children and 46 women were being housed and interviewed.

"They seem to be doing fine," Meisner said. Four investigators remained inside the polygamist compound looking for additional children.

The whereabouts of the young mother who sparked the investigation are unknown, Meisner said.

State troopers who raided the religious retreat were looking for the girl, her baby girl and 50-year-old Dale Barlow. Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval.

Barlow had not been found by Friday night, officials said then. They declined to comment Saturday, saying a state judge had issued a gag order.

The search warrant instructed officers to look for marriage records or other evidence linking the girl to Barlow and the baby. The warrant authorized the seizure of computer drives, CDs, DVDs or photos.

Those inside the retreat did not respond to requests for comment.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

State law enforcers declined to comment Saturday, saying a judge had issued a gag order, and the local sheriff did not return calls.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints broke away from the Mormon church after the latter disavowed polygamy more than a century ago.

The compound sits down a narrow paved road and behind a hill that shields it almost entirely from view in town. Only the 80-foot-high gleaming white temple can be seen on the horizon. Authorities blocked access to the gate, keeping onlookers miles away.

The 1,700-acre property had been an exotic game ranch. It is surrounded by dusty, wind-swept land where sheep are raised and mohair produced.

Eldorado (pronounced el-dor-AY'-do) is a two-stoplight town of fewer than 2,000 people nearly 200 miles northwest of San Antonio. It consists of a cluster of government buildings, a couple of churches and a few blocks of houses.

State officials said they did not know how many people lived at the retreat, although local officials estimated about 150 two years ago.

The group, known by the acronym FLDS, has been led by Jeffs since his father died in 2002. In November, Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of five years to life in prison in Utah for being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old girl who wed her cousin in an arranged marriage in 2001.

In Arizona, Jeffs is charged as an accomplice with four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives. He is jailed in Kingman, Ariz., awaiting trial.

The San Angelo Standard-Times reported that children were being kept at a community center and a Baptist church in Eldorado.

The owner of the Sutton County Steak House in nearby Sonora fed the children dinner on Friday and breakfast on Saturday, owner Linda Love told The San Angelo Standard-Times.

"They're singing songs. So happy and sweet and precious. It's heart-breaking," Love said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures

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