Mulled Marc

In what could be great for ratings, but will inevitably be very bad publicity CBS has announced that the next survivor will feature the following tribe designations: African-American, Asian-American, Caucasian, Hispanic. The four tribe will start the game separated by race then the normal game play and tribe shake-ups will occur. As quoted by Zap2It.com, Jeff Probst’s take on it is this:

“I think at first glance, when you just hear about it, it could sound like a stunt, especially with the way reality [TV] has gone,” “Survivor” host Jeff Probst told Smith. “But that’s not what we’re doing here. The idea for this actually came from the criticism that ‘Survivor’ is not ethnically diverse enough. … We said, ‘Let’s turn that criticism into creative for the show, and I think it fits in perfectly with what ‘Survivor’ does. It’s a social experiment, and this adds another layer to the experiment.”

Heard on The Rush Limbaugh Show
CBS’ Survivor page

After the amazingly successful X Prize kick-started the private space tourism industry, it was speculated that the foundation may try other prizes to further technological advances. One such prize, for automotive standards, was spoken about at the time and now has a pair of websites to follow the competition. According to Treehugger, the stated goal of the competition is to: design, build and sell super-efficient cars that people want to buy.

via Treehugger
X Prize Blog
Automotive X Prize
X Prize Foundation

OK…..it sounds crazy, I know, but how else could you word the Title? A Waterloo-based company, RenewABILITY Energy Inc, has a patent-pending invention to warm cold water by wrapping the cold water pipe around the warm drain water pipe to effeciently warm the cold water. He estimates that cold water temperature could be raised 10-25 degrees Celsius, which would require less hot water for showers, dishwashers, etc.

Read more at the University of Waterloo Alumni Site.

via Gizmodo

ScienCentralNews has an article about MIT’s efforts to create a next generation battery using nanotechnology capacitors. The nanotubes allow them to increase the surface area of the battery’s electrodes, which increases the storage capacity of the batteries.

The advantage of using capacitors rather than a chemical reaction is that these new batteries could be recharged in seconds without the degradation over time that plagues traditional rechargable batteries. The MIT group is working on a prototype and hopes they will be in the marketplace within five years.

via Gizmodo

The EarthShell Corporation makes a line of “food service disposables” (wraps, plates, take-out containers) that are made from renewable materials and are biodegradable.

Patented, innovative technology allows us to combine simple, abundant, renewable materials, such as limestone and starch, into a material that, like leaves and grass, is 100 percent biodegradable and recyclable through composting. The result is a line of high quality, new-to-the-world food service packaging that is environmentally preferable and price-competitive to paper and plastic alternatives.

EarthShell recently announced the opening of the first dedicated manufacturing facility to product EarthShell Packaging.

via TreeHugger

The device — about the size of a credit card — pumps vegetable oil and alcohol through tiny parallel channels, each smaller than a human hair, to convert the oil into biodiesel almost instantly.

By comparison, it takes more than a day to produce biodiesel with current technology.

So how long before someone builds a car that can do this on it’s own and we fill up at the local grocery store?

AP News Article
via Groovy Green