This from a publication called UU World

 News item: UUs participate in global warming conference, rally

"..........Organizers called the March 2 blockage the largest mass action ever held in the U.S. against global warming. Protestors had to brave a snowstorm, frigid temperatures, and bitter winds for the march........."

Here is an interesting item from the U. of Missouri. Mizzou was suing one of its own professors over royalties from a patent invented in University labs. What is not said in the item or the comments is that Universities asserting rights to royalties from patents by their employees is a good way to ensure there won't be any patents coming out of University labs.

http://chronicle.com/news/article/6471/judge-dismisses-u-of-missouris-lawsuit-against-a-professor-in-dispute-over-inventions?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Here is what a hair-raising situation sounds like. The FAA has released tapes of the conversations between air traffic controllers and the private pilot who successfully landed a twin-engine King Air in Florida recently after the pilot died at the controls. This tape covers the first 14 minutes of radio calls.  Here it is:

http://ms2.naplesnews.com/npdn/content/static/pilot.mp3

Readers of Machine Design might recall one of our recent articles in which we described a new way of automating the process of getting oil out of algae for use in biofuels. OriginOil, the folks who came up with this process, have put out a new video that actually shows the algae oil separating from the biomass. You can watch it here:

http://www.originoil.com/

For readers who didn't read our original article, what you see in the video is a result of OriginOil's microwave-based separation process. In a nutshell, they put the oil-bearing algae in what amounts to a special microwave oven to crack it open and release the oil. Separating the oil this way is much more energy efficient than doing so mechanically with presses and so forth. You can find more details in our original article:

http://machinedesign.com/article/algae-automation-0303

Here is a short but interesting interview with Sherry Turkle, professor of social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has a new book out in which  she tracks difficulties that can arise from computer simulations. Here is one of the more interesting quotes:

"There’s a generation that is growing up with the computer as an appliance, and they truly have no understanding of how it works. In my book, I tell the story of a girl who was a power player of the game Sim City. She talked to me about her “David Letterman Top Ten Rules of Sim City,” and rule number 6 was “raising taxes leads to riots” because when she did that, that happened in the game. She didn’t understand that if I had programmed that computer, raising taxes would’ve led to more social services and greater social harmony. She was drawing a set of conclusions about how the world worked based on the simulation. The trouble with that was not that she was using the simulation, but that the simulation wasn’t transparent to her."

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3659/simulations-may-be-causing-real-trouble?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Toilet paper seems to be the latest environmental guilt trip, judging by this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/article/?id=1239&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

The funniest part of this comes from one of the comments posted in response:

"Seriously, the toilet paper problem would be solved if we used just one square of toilet paper, the way that my brother learned from the Marines. Impossible? No, simply take one square, fold it in half twice to make a smaller square, tear off the folded corner, open up the larger piece that now has a hole in it, insert your finger, clean yourself, flush the square, and then unfold the small piece you tore off. Use it to clean your fingernail."

 Guess I won't be shaking hands with any Marines anytime soon.

My idea: Quit being a whiner. Who needs toilet paper? Use corn cobs.

China might look a lot better than the U.S. right now for those affected by the drastic economic slow-down. After all, the Chinese government is stimulating the economy there in a way that will produce real jobs quickly, in contrast to the ineffective stimulus measures we are seeing here. But don't apply for your Chinese visa just yet. Listen to the words of Kerri Houston Toloczko, a Senor Analyst for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM):  

“Despite its meteoric rise to global economic dominance, China has build a high rise economy on a foundation of mud,” states Toloczko.  

“As manufacturing facilities popped up rapidly over the last decade, China filled jobs by encouraging massive migration from outlying Chinese villages into burgeoning factory centers.  But in their plan they forgot the needs of the workers themselves.”

In the last year, over 20 million Chinese migrant workers lost their jobs as over 125,000 factories closed.  The government heavily subsidized the manufacturing build-up, which has now led to a phenomenon known as “runaway bosses.”   As factory owners have no personal investment in their businesses, they are leaving town to disappear into China’s one million villages and among its 1.3B people without first paying wages to their now unemployed workers.

China has no social safety nets  that cover unemployment, medical, or retirement benefits, people are desperate and angry, Toloczko says.  “China is currently experiencing at least 1,000 demonstrations each day - some of them violent - in factory centers and in rural areas when laid off Chinese migrant workers return home and find no jobs there either.”

The AAM has been championing the idea that the U.S. gets a raw deal when trading with China, and Toloczko sees an opening on that score.

 “Although the Chinese government is trying to cure its recession with a $586B stimulus plan, it is distracted by massive social unrest that we don’t have here in the U.S.,” Toloczko concludes.  “China is paying the price for shallow growth, manufacturing substandard consumer products and ignoring its social problems.  But America’s economy is wide and deep, and built on solid footing.  As China pays the price for its economic aggression, this may be our chance to reinvigorate our production capacity and finally level the playing field for our manufacturers.”

The Washington Post has an online section devoted to correcting misstatements of President Obama. Two of the more recent entries about the auto industry are interesting and funny:

9:41 p.m.
"As for our auto industry, everyone recognizes that years of bad decision-making and a global recession have pushed our automakers to the brink. We should not, and will not, protect them from their own bad practices."

This is part of the story. The other part is trade barriers set up by foreign nations to limit the import of U.S. vehicles. South Korea, for instance, has until recently been a market largely closed to Detroit automakers, thanks to high tariffs, while Americans bought Hyundais and Kias by the thousands. --Frank Ahrens

"And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."

It's doubtful that President Obama is referring here to Germany, home of Karl Friedrich Benz, inventor of the first true, four-wheel, gasoline-powered, internal-combustion-engine auto, or his contemporary, Gottlieb Wilhelm Daimler, who did same. America -- Henry Ford -- invented mass production of the auto. --Frank Ahrens

Here is the link to the column:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/02/24/live_fact_check.html