Mystery is unfolding at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Six tonnes of helium, not one as told before in the LHC news, were released accidentally into the tunnel. That is 40 percent of the helium inventory at the sector 3-4 as documented in an interim summary report* dated 15 October 2008.

Accident investigation is ongoing. Many magnets appear to be damaged: 5 quadrupoles and 24 dipoles, for now. Also, the detection system requires work. This is not the whole story. I will write more once I digest the interim summary report.

* CERN/AT/PhL Document EDMS 973073 dated 15 October 2008.

 

Don't worry, be happy. I mean you can have your own source of clean, natural resveratrol at home and drink it, too. Get the hint from the silkworm and grow mulberry trees all over the land. They already grow wild in North America.



Resveratrol is a polyphenolic phytoalexin (3,5,4'-trihydroxystilbene) found naturally in several plants. I am not going to sing its benefits other than mention that this compound might protect us against cancer and cardiovascular disease as an antioxidant, antimutagen, and anti-inflammatory.

Welcome. Can you stay for our Infinite Footprints Tour?



The beat is on. Do you remember your first thoughts of footprints?



I do. Animal tracks in deep winter snow. Not as intriguing as the Anasazi footprints on volcanic rocks.



Those ancient footmarks would not be regarded as the oldest in the world. Here is the oldest as known today:



"At approximately 570 million years old, this new fossil not only provides the earliest suggestion of animals walking on legs, but it also shows that complex animals were alive on Earth before the Cambrian."(1)

The United Nations (UN) to show their sisu* marked today, 16 October, as the "World Food Day" while yesterday, 15 October 2008, as the first-ever "International Day of Rural Women."



UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued a call for greater appreciation of rural women's role in providing food and incalculable support they give to their communities.(1) Some 428 million women (and 608 million men) work in the agricultural sector in the world. We must remember them in our 'green' future considerations.

No. A banker? No, but there are two former bank tellers in the 110th Congress. What are the occupations of the people who got elected to the House or the Senate?



Why ask a question like that? Because a "tornado of economic discontent is buffeting the nation." (1) We learned today: A record 90 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll say the country’s on the wrong track, 88 percent are worried about the economy’s direction and just 44 percent are confident they’ll have enough money on which to retire.(2)



Who are the people to fix the economy? In the 110th Congress, law is the common profession of Senators, followed by public service or politics; for Representatives, public service or politics is first, followed by business and law.(3)

Simple. Have you heard that a National Biofuels Action Plan (NBAP) was released on 7 October 2008 in the midst of comparisons being made of the presidential-candidate positions on energy?



The NBAP was developed by the Biomass Research and Development Board (the Board)—co-chaired by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)— to accelerate the development of a sustainable biofuels industry.*



The Board establishes that enhanced inter-agency collaboration is required among the senior decision makers from ten federal agencies and the White House. The NBAP identified key research challenges and critical inter-agency actions to make next-generation, cellulosic biofuels cost-effective.