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A Little Good News - Today |
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Written by derek smith
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Tuesday, 10 November 2009 01:02 |
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Scientists have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem for years. So far they have only discovered chemical means to degrade certain types of plastic. Two high school students one in the USA, the other in China have discovered microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic. Plastic, one of the most indestructible of manufactured materials does in fact eventually decompose. It takes 1,000 years but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there to do the decomposing. In searching for a way to speed up the decomposition the US student found a process that by immersing ground plastic in a yeast solution encourages microbial growth. He then isolated the most productive organisms. This process could be a major breakthrough as 500 billion plastic bags alone are manufactured each year and the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch continues to grow. These discoveries need to be tested to ensure, for instance, that the bi-products of organic decomposition are not carcinogenic. There are also concerns that the microbes might escape so a controlled environment will be essential. 1966 and all that:The Trading Post paper was first printed and published in Melbourne in 1966. The last print edition went on sale last week. |
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Curry Compound Kills Cancer |
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Written by derek smith
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Monday, 02 November 2009 04:03 |
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My grandfather joined the Army in 1909 and was eventually posted to India where he spent the next thirty years. After leaving the Army he drove a train from Bombay. He lived well there and picked up a taste for the local cuisine. When he retired to England he passed on this taste to his sons and grandsons. I had my first mouthful of curry when I was only three years old. Thanks to him I may or may not get Cancer but not esophageal cancer. Researchers at the Cork Cancer Research Centre in Ireland treated esophageal cancer cells with curcumin -- a chemical found in the spice turmeric, which gives curries a distinctive yellow colour -- and found it started to kill esophageal cancer cells within 24 hours. |
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Written by derek smith
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Monday, 26 October 2009 23:08 |
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Amazon is about to launch its Kindle e-book reader in Oz after a 3 year delay. Kindle holds 1500 books and Amazon’s deal with the phone companies means you can wireless download free any book you buy (books are $10 each). The launch comes along with reports from the US that digital media do a poor job of balancing focal and peripheral attention. Readers move between two kinds of bad reading. They suffer tunnel vision, as when reading a single page without an organized sense of the whole. Or suffer marginal distraction, as when feeds or blog rolls in the margin let the whole blogosphere in. People read more slowly on screen, by as much as 20-30 percent. There is also a concern that new young readers who use only digital media will be even more prone to distraction. The current bottom line though is that people who learned to read from books still like books. The ease with which information is distributed on the Web and anyone can ‘write’ an ebook means many are rubbish. On the other hand, the addition of Hyperlinks in ebooks makes them much more useful than plain text. I don’t like reading on PC screens though Kindle is supposed to be easier than most. I am going to reserve judgement until I can see with my own eyes. You can read more (and all the science) about the problems of reading digital media here. http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books/ 1966 and all that: Janis Joplin makes her first appearance with ‘Big Brother and the Holding Company’. |
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Written by derek smith
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Thursday, 29 October 2009 01:32 |
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 A man walking down the street is distracted by a pretty girl and collides with a lamppost knocking himself out – urban myth? Well, I saw it happen back in the days when hot pants were the rage. The girl was young, blonde and dressed in a silver hot pants suit and matching boots. The man wasn’t the only one watching her walk but he was the one who met the post. He hit so hard the imprint of the pattern on the post indented his forehead. When he woke up the girl was cradling him in her arms so it wasn’t all bad. I remember fondly hot pants and the very first mini-skirts appearing they were a young man’s dream come true. The girl in the image is 60s singer Lulu. 1966 and all that: Star Trek begins on US TV and runs for only 3 seasons. |
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The House Where I Was Born VI |
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Written by Derek
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Thursday, 22 October 2009 00:16 |
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As a young man in pre-WW1 my grandfather worked as a stagehand in the Music Hall. When I knew it the Music Hall was long closed but the building still stood it was across the street from where I caught the bus home each day. My grandfather knew all the words to the popular songs of the period. He could not sing them, of course, after being gassed (twice) in the war. My grandparents had an old, wind up gramophone, which played big circular discs with a large, sharp steel needle. The old songs were played on this in the front parlour. My grandmother would some times sing along to her favourites. One of many which I never really understood then was: My old man said "Follow the van, And don't dilly dally on the way". Off went the van wiv me 'ome packed in it, I followed on wiv me old cock linnet. But I dillied and dallied, dallied and I dillied Lost me way and don't know where to roam. Well you can't trust a special like the old time coppers When you can't find your way 'ome The song is about a couple who have to do ‘a moonlight flit’ move to a new house because they cannot pay the rent. If you ‘dilly dally’ you linger and an ‘old cock linnet’ is a caged bird much prized for their singing, males especially. These birds were very popular in England and a trade grew catching the birds in the wild. A ‘special’ was a policeman not as well trained as the real ‘coppers’ they were used to bolster the regular police force. They could not be trusted like the regular police to know where your new house might be or keep quiet qbout your need to move in the dark. |
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Last Updated on Thursday, 22 October 2009 00:19 |
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