The skin of an adult is about 2 meters square. Here are some of the facts from the site.

1) You’ve an enormous surface (~400 m2, with skin merely ~2 m2).

2) The surface area of adults is about 18,000 cm2 (men) or 16,000 cm2 (women).

3) “The surface area may be calculated by multiplying 0.007184 times the weight in kilograms raised to the 0.425 power and the height in centimeters raised to the 0.725 power.” [Assume a height of 5'8" (170 cm) and a mass of 150 lb (68 kg).]

4)”The skin is the largest organ in the body: 12-15% of body weight, with a surface area of 1-2 [square] meters.”

Here is the link to the site : http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/IgorFridman.shtml

Right straight to the point

Metal Detecting Hobby For Beginners - This is a Squidoo lens / website that gives one a quick heads up on this hobby.

And from the same resources there are links to other useful metal detecting resources that can come in useful. There is just one question that I am thinking is how to start this hobby and I learned that getting a useful metal detector is the first step. Well here is one resource I found during my search and learn more about best metal detector for beginners and you get to learned about three types of recommended beginners detectors. It will be good too if you read up the basic functions of metal detectors. This you can find in the same website.

Guess to have a video will be best in explaining this hobby.

WiiU Controller

This time round I felt that the tablet is a bit large and bulky to move unlike the good old Wiimote. It feels strange too to play games with a tablet especially where you need to swing and jape. Try doing these actions with an ipad and I guess you known what I am talking about.

Anyway the presented video of the WiiU released did show some interesting things you can do with the new controller. Best of all it can be a game machine by itself too. The other part is the augmented view with the large screen TV when playing some of the games like the one which is shown, a baseball game. The part I like is where you can place the controller down and hit the golf ball with a separate WiiMote. Or throwing some ninja’s weapons from the controller. I think theses parts cool.

Well I get my wiiu news and wiiu games from online and also setting up a google alert too.

Will I be a better worker after a vacation trip. This is debatable but one thing for sure is traveling expand the minds horizons. All in all it is good if given the chance to go for a vacation, to be exposed to others culture to be able discover your own self. Traveling experience makes a good experience where it can come in handy during a job interview. Well just maybe as it is not necessary useful experience related to the job but it is the experiences of life.

Anyway what I wanted to share here is that there is a website with a host of useful tips, videos, news and articles to be found about student travel. Feel free to check out the website anytime. Again, as a student the world is your oyster, take time to know it and you will know thyself.

On a separate issue there is a new game console in town recently released and by this time all would had known that I am talking about WiiU, the new game console from Nintendo. Due to be released in 2012 but was unveiled in the latest E3 recently. Thus will expecting new interactivity in the games designed and WiiU games and game play will definitely be one unique and highly anticipated experience.

The new WiiU controller is the star of the show. The new capabilities are impressive and it is touch screen control. More like the iPad but more interactivity.

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed what they believe is a 2,400-year-old pot of soup, state media report.

The liquid and bones were in a sealed bronze cooking vessel dug up near the ancient capital of Xian - home to the country’s famed terracotta warriors.

Tests are being carried out to identify the ingredients. An odourless liquid, believed to be wine, was also found.

The pots were discovered in a tomb being excavated to make way for an extension to the local airport.

“It’s the first discovery of bone soup in Chinese archaeological history,” the newspaper quoted Liu Daiyun of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology as saying.

“The discovery will play an important role in studying the eating habits and culture of the Warring States Period (475-221BC).”

The scientists said the tomb could have held the body of either a member of the land-owning class or a low-ranking military officer, the report said.

Xian served as China’s capital for more than 1,100 years.

In 1974, the terracotta army was found there at the burial site of Qin Shihuang, China’s first emperor.

He presided over the unification of China in 221BC and ruled until 210BC.

Link to the story : - 2400 year old Soup

On a separate note, if there is a need or power source for archeological excavation, a very suitable tool is the PB360D or Bosch PB360D Jobsite radio. Suitable to keep working archeologist entertained and up to date with the latest news. Definitely a good tool to bring along.

Lab results of using the new “ProDrugs” showed very promising results. Treating certain cancers with drugs is a better approach as some cancers grow in some places difficult to remove by surgery. Thus this new wonder drugs can deal with cancers in the lungs, brain, pancreas and stomach.

Below is the full news article about this wonderful discovery.

New Zealand scientists find anti-cancer drug

WELLINGTON: Two New Zealand scientists have discovered a new class of anti-cancer medicines that kill tumors without the side effects of traditional therapies, China’s Xinhua news agency said citing a local media report Saturday.

Medicinal chemist Jeffrey Smaill and cancer biologist Adam Patterson, from Auckland University, said their “prodrugs” inactive compounds triggered by the body’s own metabolic processes have already shown dramatic results in the lab.

Their discovery, announced at an international cancer drug conference in Boston this week, is being heralded as a major breakthrough in fighting hard-to-treat cancers, like those of the lungs, brain, pancreas and stomach, according to The Dominion Post newspaper.

Smaill, who has spent 10 years synthesising the compounds, said they worked by targeting the proteins in tumors that tell cells to multiply.

“The main problem with previous drugs developed to target these proteins was they also affected normal, healthy tissue in the skin and gut, causing serious side effects such as severe diarrhea, rashes, nausea and vomiting, which limited the dose a patient could tolerate,” he said.

The surface of a healthy gut is renewed every 48 hours, about the same rate as a tumor.

For half a century, scientists have known that two-thirds of tumors have patches containing low levels of oxygen, called hypoxic tumor cells, which are harder to treat with radiation and more likely to spread.

Dr Patterson said the prodrugs actually use this feature against the tumor, by zeroing in on hypoxic cells before they activate.

“If we can target and kill these cells we should be able to dramatically improve the outcome for cancer patients,” he said.

Unlike other drugs that only stay in the tumor for a few hours, the prodrug sticks to the tumor for over 72 hours.

“It’s very common for tumors to start regrowing after you stop administering this type of cancer drug. But after we stopped doses of this prodrug, the tumors still hadn’t regrown 30 days later,” he said.

Source : TheStar.com.my

BioFuel from Algae

WASHINGTON - SOME call it pond scum, but algae is drawing increasing attention as a source of biofuel that can help replace petroleum or fuels made from crops like corn or soybeans.

The notion of using algae to produce fuel has been around for decades, but has garnered new interest and investment amid a search for energy sources that will limit carbon dioxide emissions blamed for climate change.

Algae has obvious advantages over fossil fuels and biofuels from food-based crops, but has an additional benefit in that it absorbs carbon dioxide, and thus can be used to ’scrub’ emissions from coal-burning power plants, for example.

In a sign of the new enthusiasm, ExxonMobil announced in mid-July it would invest up to US$600 million (S$864 million) in an alliance with biotech firm Synthetic Genomics to make a new biofuel from photosynthetic algae.

The biggest US energy firm said it was partnering with the firm headed by Craig Venter, a researcher who founded Human Genome Sciences and Celera Genomics and has worked on projects to sequence the genomes of humans, fruit flies and other organisms.

Dow Chemical announced plans in June to join Algenol Biofuels in a pilot-scale project to use algae and carbon dioxide to produce ethanol fuel.

These investments ‘were a great shot in arm for the industry, but you’ve seen other solid investments’, said Mary Rosenthal, executive director of the Algal Biomass Organization, which was formed in 2008 and has some 150 members including big firms such as Boeing and Raytheon.

Ms Rosenthal estimates over US$1 billion is being invested in algae biofuels, saying that ‘it shows a lot of promise.’ She said over 1,000 participants are expected at the organization’s October summit in California. — AFP

And below are further good news of biofuel from algae and algae themselves.

VIRTUES OF ALGAE

RODNEY Andrews, director of the Centre for Applied Energy Research at the University of Kentucky, said driving the push to algae is ‘an interest in getting away from fossil fuels to more renewable systems.’

Dr Andrews directs a research project that uses algae to capture carbon emissions from coal-burning plants to grow algae, getting a double benefit from the marine plant.

‘If you start doing the math on how much you can produce per acre of land, algae becomes very appealing because it offers much more per acre than other biomass materials,’ Dr Andrews said.

A move to algae could avoid the diversion of crops such as corn and soybeans for ethanol fuel, criticized for boosting world food prices.

Algae produces an oil that can be developed into a type of biodiesel for cars, and this can be refined into other products including jet fuel or gasoline.

Still, Dr Andrews said creating commercial algae fuels needs more research to determine its economic viability. The process can require large amounts of land and various technologies are still being tested.

‘Right now it’s more expensive’ than petroleum-based fuels, according to Dr Andrews, but the landscape is shifting.

He said the price may not take into account benefits of carbon capture or any future program that includes cap-and-trade systems for carbon emissions.

‘When you look at the the CO2 footprint, it’s not the number of tons you release but how much usable energy you get before the CO2 is released in the atmosphere,’ he said.

California-based alternative fuel company Sapphire Energy is already producing gasoline from algae that meets current standards and expects to produce by 2011 one million gallons (3.8 million litres) of biodiesel and jet fuel per year.

‘Fuel from algae is not just a laboratory experiment or something to speculate on for years to come,’ said Sapphire vice president Brian Goodall.

‘We’ve already successfully tested our fuel with two commercial airlines and within the next three years we’ll be producing enough to help meet the growing demands of industry and the military.’ Greener Dawn Research, a clean tech equity research firm, said algae is becoming competitive, needing far less land than corn or soybeans to provide an equivalent amount of fuel.

‘Due to increased productivity, algae based fuel has the potential to be a revolutionary breakthrough,’ said Greener Dawn research director George Santana. — AFP
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Gliese 581

Here is the full piece of news from NY times.

Astronomers Find Planet Closer to Size of Earth

European astronomers said Tuesday that they had discovered the smallest planet yet found orbiting another star. The planet could be as little as only 1.9 times as massive as the Earth and belongs to a dim red star known as Gliese 581, which lies about 20 light-years from Earth in the constellation Libra.

The star was already know to harbor at least three more massive planets. The new planet, known as Gliese 581e, is probably rocky like the Earth, but it lies in such a close orbit — only three million miles from its star — that it is surely blasted with too much radiation and heat to be livable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/science/22planet.html

The name of the box is named after the UN’s Kyoto Protocol. It is hoped that the use of this solar cooker will help to save trees from being cut down for fire woods. Cutting down trees for fire wood is wide spread and by saving trees this can help in the fight against global warming.

More details and news report about this eco-friendly oven at : -
Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven

… free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, architectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.

Here is some more information about this digital library.

About the World Digital Library Project

The World Digital Library will make available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from cultures around the world, including manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, photographs, archi­tectural drawings, and other significant cultural materials. The objectives of the World Digital Library are to promote international and inter-cultural understanding and awareness, provide resources to educators, expand non-English and non-Western content on the Internet, and to contribute to scholarly research.
The Planning Process

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington proposed the establishment of a World Digital Library (WDL) in a speech to the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO in June 2005. The Library of Congress is currently engaged in a planning process to determine how this vision can be realized. Participants in the planning process include national libraries and other libraries and cultural institutions from around the world that have expressed interest in joining the project, as well as UNESCO and IFLA. The planning process is being underwritten by a gift from Google, Inc.

Source :- http://www.worlddigitallibrary.org/project/english/