News 18 September 2014

It is time to talk about important things in the news. One of the most important announcements for some people had to do with someone who is not real. I wonder how many people out there can guess who I am talking about. Its Wolverine of course. Marvel made the announcement they were going to kill off the character who is one of the most popular in the Marvel world of comics. You may wonder why they would do this. The answer is simple, killing off Superman years ago brought in many more millions of dollars in comic book sales and when they brought him back they made a fortune. It is hard for a company to resist this type of profit.
The Ukraine MPs have granted self-rule in parts of Eastern Ukraine along with amnesty to the pro Russian rebels there. It seems Russia has accomplished their goal of saving their naval base and creating a foothold in the Ukraine. Some of the Ukrainian government officials feel they were sold out with this deal. In another strange move in that country, it has been announced that 1,000,000 civil servants will be investigated for corruption. It there some unknown connection between the two events? Perhaps some are suspected of being Russian supporters.

It is amazing what we have been able to do with printers lately. One of those things is the first automobile created on a printer. It doesn’t look like much and reminds me of a modern version of an antique car without a top, but it is a start and we shouldn’t forget that. This forerunner of printed cars might be the key to doing away with the traditional assembly lines and substituting hundreds of printers instead. It is probably only a matter of time before printers can be created which will work in conjunction with robotic machine to assemble any parts which need assembly making car manufacture a much simpler matter.

Speaking about cars, there is a new one on the road. It doesn’t use petrol, hydrogen, electric batteries or any of the traditional fuels and has just been approved for use on the roads in Europe. The car is the QUANT e-Sportlimousine. What makes this car so special is the fact it runs on salt water. The water is used as fuel which is turned into electricity. It has a cap on its horsepower and limits what could be 908 horsepower to 644. The car is a super car so most of us will never be able to afford it, but it is a foot in the door for a new type of fuel, which you can get for free and it will be easy if you live by the ocean.

Both sides on the vote for independence for Scotland are feverishly going after the undecided votes. It is hard to tell who is ahead, but it seems the no votes have a slight edge today. This does not mean it is over yet. There are still two days to go and the world is watching as a yes vote could further weaken Great Britain. They could not only lose Scotland but the oil from the North Sea.

Scientists at Princeton University state they have created a new type of light. They have been able to turn light into a solid, a crystal. This is something never seen in the world before. One of the researchers said, “This is a new behavior for light.” An artificial atom was created from 100 billion atoms and the light passed through it gaining some of the attributes of that atom. This was predicted by the rules of quantum entanglement.

A small boat sunk which had three men on it, they were fishing. They all had life jackets on. One got separated from the other two and after many hours was getting despondent until a porpoise came up to him and rubbed against him. He put his arms around it and rubbed it. When he was finally found after about 37 hours in the water, he attributed the help of the porpoise as bolstering his will to live. Porpoises have shown an affinity toward humans and have been credited with saving many of them.

It was only a matter of time before it happened. The Air Force has been experimenting with lasers for years and it took a very large plane full of devices to power the thing. This may no longer be the case since Lockheed is now testing a turret with a laser on it which could fit on a small plane. This will certainly change air combat in the future, assuming it works properly. The company accomplished this by making tremendous strides in miniaturization. If this works out, look for lasers to be installed on planes as small as fighters and maybe even helicopters in the future.

People are beginning to think the newly discovered tomb in Greece might contain the remains of Alexander the Great. His body had been transferred by Ptolemy to Alexandria and sometime later disappeared. It was said this was done so no other man would find it. If the tomb in Greece turns out to be that of Alexander, in the eyes of many it will mark the greatest archaeological find of the century.

North Korea is one of the most secretive nations on earth, it is also very poor, being cut off from the rest of the world by choice. It may soon have another huge problem to contend with. There is a volcano located mostly in that country which is responsible for the worst eruption in history and it seems to be coming alive again. If it does, there is no knowing how much damage it could cause.

Japan has decided it has to do something to power its country and after the disaster at Fukushima with its nuclear plant it has decided to go solar. It is a shame it took an event like this to move a country toward a much more environmentally friendly form of energy generation. The plan is to build huge solar power plants which float. This is not a pipe dream, ground will be broke as they say this month.