I Smell a Rat

Popsci: For years, studies have shown that ethanol is no better—or even worse—for the environment than gasoline. Some studies even claimed that it takes more energy to make a gallon of ethanol than you get from burning it.

But a new federal government-sponsored study released this week says the opposite. The report, entitled Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn-Ethanol, claims that a gallon of ethanol produces nearly twice as much energy as it consumes, and that switching from gasoline to ethanol cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 54 percent.

Why such different results? Better data, say the study’s authors—researchers from midwestern universities including the University of Nebraska, Iowa State, Michigan State, and the University of Wisconsin.

Minds are Tricky Things

Witnesses still hold sway in the courtroom, even as the reliability of human memory is called more and more into question. According to the Innocence Project, a legal group devoted to exonerating the wrongly incarcerated, mistaken eyewitnesses account for three quarters of convictions later overturned by DNA evidence. Now two new reports in the journal Psychological Science suggest that eyewitness reports may be even more prone to inaccuracy than previously thought, even when memories are fresh in one's mind, and especially when someone confesses.


Unfortunately, eye-witness testimony is probably both the least reliable, and most influential, type of evidence.

It's All In How You Look At It

A cool demonstration of the perplexing power of paradigms over at the Herald Sun.

Amazing!

An interesting discussion of the current state of genomics...

...can be found here.

The conclusion? Stay healthy for 20 years. If you can stay healthy for 20 years, you'll see 150, maybe 300.

Another Exlusion in Your Insurance Policy?

P&C insurers may soon exclude damages caused by nanotech.


It seems the future is closer than we thought.