Electric rice, massively-multiplayer slot-machines, nuclear college student, reasons *not* to build a space elevator…

• 1 – Rice as a source of electricity
  “Rice yields an abundance of biowaste [...] Only a small fraction of this is utilized, for instance, to fire distillery furnaces. Researchers at Hanoi University of Technology now also want to use rice husks to generate electricity.”
  (tags: husks rice green ecology environment power generation energy electricity biomass)
• 2 – How To Write Great Headlines
  “…writing a great headline is a must if you want to capture your reader’s interest. Faced with an ever increasing wave of blogs, RSS subscriptions, and links, the headline is more important now than it ever has been.” Hmmmm.
  (tags: copywriting headlines tips title blogging articles advice writing)
• 3 – Full Page Illuminator for Late-Night Page Turners
  “What you furtively read under the covers at night is your business, and you can keep it that way with this Full Page Illuminator with a flat lens that reflects a battery-powered LED, evenly lighting the page.” Holiday gift for bookheads.
  (tags: gadget LED illumination page full light night reading books)
• 4 – Acceding expectations
  “On January 1, Romania will join the European Union. Matthew Tempest went to Sibiu in the Carpathian mountains to see if the former communist state is ready to join Brussels – and whether the EU is ready for Romania.” Teh Grauniad, via Bruce Sterling.
  (tags: discussion markets labour poverty culture economy Romania expansion Europe EU)
• 5 – WoW of Fortune
  “…while sleeping on it hasn’t yielded any additional insight, there’s something intriguing about the idea of mashing up casino slot gambling with – of all things – an MMORPG.”
  (tags: futurism mash-up entertainment linking multiplayer MMO machines slot gambling gaming)
• 6 – How to: Crack a Windows Password
  “Why should you use strong passwords? This video shows how to crack windows passwords. It is only intended for educational purposes, to show you why it is important to use stronger passwords.”
  (tags: video strong education security passwords Windows cracking hacking DIY howto)
• 7 – Can’t Let People Learn If They Don’t Pay Up First
  “…if these book publishers really think that they can’t provide significant enough value to make someone pay, they shouldn’t be in the publishing business at all — which, perhaps, is what the market is trying to tell them.”
  (tags: markets economics scarcity competition industry publishing education scholarship academic textbooks books)
• 8 – ‘Smart’ homes to eat their rubbish
  “A new generation of ’smart’ buildings, which can consume their own rubbish and power themselves, is needed to help Britain withstand the shock of global warming…” UK Gov’t chief scientist speaks.
  (tags: generation energy recycling buildings smart change climate culture disposable waste environment UK)
• 9 – Why Planets Will Never Be Defined
  “Before the dust even settled after the Great Pluto War at the IAU’s General Assembly in Prague, one thing became clear: There will never be an accepted scientific definition for the term ‘planet.’” This is just going to roll and roll.
  (tags: teacup storm terminology schism debate definition planet Pluto astronomy IAU)
• 10 – Morphing Materials Take On New Shapes
  “Researchers have developed advanced shape-memory polymers that could find uses as expandable stents and fasteners that close themselves.” It’s all about the materials, these days.
  (tags: shape morph polymer plastic memory development science materials medicine technology)
• 11 – Ten Reasons For Not Building A Space Elevator
  “Since the Space Elevator definately falls into this category, here are ten reasons why a space elevator should not be built to benefit humanity.” Tongue firmly in cheek, here. Cheers, Brian Dunbar.
  (tags: build not reasons list humour scepticism exploration elevator space)
• 12 – Beat officers to use head cameras
  “The tiny £1,800 cameras … will be fitted onto the side of the officers’ headgear. Police say the clearly visible cameras will act as a deterrent, as well as an evidence gathering tool.” Hmmm. There’s a story or two in there.
  (tags: prevention crime surveillance patrol head-mounted camera police London UK panopticon participatory)
• 13 – Robert Bussard’s electrostatic fusion system
  “Robert Bussard the designer of the Bussard ramjet has an electrostatic fusion device that is 100,000 times better.” My lack of high-energy physics knowledge means I’m taking this as presented – Brian Wang rarely reports wrongly.
  (tags: design electrostatic Bussard project reactor experimental generation energy science physics fusion nuclear)
• 14 – TEEN GOES NUCLEAR
  “…Thiago is exhausting his love of physics on a project that has taken him more than two years and 1,000 hours to research and build — a large, intricate machine that , on a small scale, creates nuclear fusion.”
  (tags: research DIY basement student college project reactor generation energy science physics fusion nuclear)
• 15 – ITER fusion reactor gets final approval
  “Fusion researchers can breathe a sigh of relief now that the ink has dried on an international agreement to build the ITER fusion reactor at Cadarache in southern France.”
  (tags: project France reactor tokamak experimental ITER generation energy science physics fusion nuclear)