Carnivorous Plants

As some of you know, I have a fun little hobby and I thought I'd finally share some pictures of my plants, I put this picture together to practice my photo editing, I hope you enjoy it.

JB

Something Different. . .

So today I'm sitting in school waiting for my classes to start and I thought I'd send out a note about how we're doing. I'm very pleased to announce that Carina has started her final year of college. By the end of April she'll be a true blue Civil Engineer. I however have a lot more time to go until I graduate, oh well.
I'm considering posting a few pictures of our life and our hobbies, hopefully we'll be able to make this blog a more prevalent voice in letting everyone know how well we're doing.

JB

News Story 2: Google’s Got Your Number

OREM, UT -- Google may become the premier phone and Internet Company of the 21st-century, as it tackles existing giants such as AT&T Corp., Apple Inc. and Google's current mobile partner, Verizon.

Google, the search engine turned computer industry behemoth, recently launched Google Voice which allows anyone with a Google account to have his or her own universal phone number.

Voice enables users to create their own phone number, with perks. This phone number allows you to do one stop shopping. Voice will forward any call made to the universal number to any number of devices including cell phones, landlines and Skype. The system even works with text messages. Most importantly, Google Voice is free.

When asked about Google Voice, Brandon, a 22-year-old student at Utah Valley University said “I have way too many numbers and some people know my cell number and others know my home phone, I can get the call even when they don’t know my cell.”

Voice, however has met some opposition from another industry giant, Apple. Upon releasing the Google Voice application for the iPhone, the app was denied by Apple. Apple claimed that Google Voice subverted several built-in apps on the iPhone. These apps make it possible to make phone calls over AT&T’s voice network and send text messages. Not that this affected the iPhone’s sales for the quarter as Apple’s stock continued to climb.

Google takes Apple's actions in stride as Voice may be the start of something bigger since Google recently acquired Gizmo5 for $30 million in cash. Gizmo5 offered audio and video calls, chat and free voice mail for pennies a minute. Many economists believe that Google may be making a break into the phone industry.

Should Google do this with a Gizmo5 based web platform instead of cellular frequencies, telephone costs across the board may begin a downward spiral. With cheaper service for smart phones, namely those loaded with Google’s mobile operating system – Android, Google could turn from underdog to top dog by offering the best and cheapest mobile network.

Hannah, 19, another UVU student, is not as optimistic, she thinks that Google is “too big, they do some good things but they are everywhere. That’s not good.”

___

On the Net:

Google Voice: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

Google Voice Blog: http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-welcomes-gizmo5.html

Josh Wolf: Patriot or Terrorist?

After watching a clip from Frontline about the imprisonment of Josh Wolf, an independent reporter/blogger who was jailed for not giving the FBI his videotape of a protest that happened in July 2005. I have decided that the government does have the right get the information from a journalist as long as it it is relevant to the case at hand.

Josh Wolf recorded the video in a completely different location than the 'burned SFPD car' he was not linked with the incident in any way, except that he was at the same protest. He also wanted to keep the confidences of his contacts within the anarchist association that put on the protest. It is possible that he may have been lying, but the truth often is the best way to get out of a sticky situation. It didn't work for Josh, but it taught us a lesson that the government should investigate further into whether the content is genuine before wrongly imprisoning someone on the basis that they are lying.

iPhone Jailbreakers

There has been a lot of hype surrounding the iPhone over the past two years, especially in the underground community. How many people have languished over their 2-year iPhone contract and said “is it really worth $2500 dollars for me to own this phone?”

When AT&T got its greasy hands all over the iPhone, everything went downhill from there. AT&T iPhone users must pay for the 3G-network coverage $30 a month for two years. They also must pay nearly $60 a month for texting and calling not to mention a $300 to $500 iPhone. What a joke! However we have saviors, however illegal they are, like 20-year-old George Hotz, who spent nearly 500 hours cracking the first iPhone in the summer of 2007.

Hotz became an instant web icon. One person even traded his Nissan 350 Z to Hotz for an unlocked iPhone. Hotz has since then been the ‘go to guy’ for hacking secure devices. Recently he released Blackra1n, which allows a person to hack an iPhone in about 2 minutes without physically modifying the iPhone – something that is completely legal, as there are no laws protecting which software must be run on a machine. However it will void the warranty of the iPhone and your access to customer support. Some believe it’s a small price to pay for freedom.

Information found on:

CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/16/iphone.jailbreakers/index.html

Real Salt Lake To Play In MLS Cup

With the game tied at 0-0, Real Salt Lake bested the Chicago Fire in a shootout to determine who would go to the Major League Soccer Cup. The results of the shootout: RSL 5, Fire 4.

This marks the first time since 1998 that a Utah sport’s team has made it to the final matchup for the professional title. Their confidence couldn’t be any higher. The MLS Cup is the event for American Soccer. Since its inception only a few years ago RSL is rapidly becoming a new chance for Utah to make a name for itself in the soccer realm.

Last year, RSL made it to the semifinals, but was ousted before it could make the cup. This year the team had the drive and confidence, despite being the last seed for the cup. It is true that RSL is the underdog, especially when their opponent will be the L.A. Galaxy, winner of a past MLS Cup. Galaxy is known for spending over $250 Million to sign English soccer phenomenon David Beckham and you can be sure that they’ll pull out all of the stops to reclaim that title. RSL, however, isn’t keen to give away the match that easily. Be sure to catch the game on Sunday November 22.

Information found on:

DeseretNews.com
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705344734/Real-Salt-Lake-Surprised-by-Chicagos-Fire.html

ESPN.com
http://soccernet-assets.espn.go.com/scoreboard?league=all&date=20091114&cc=5901

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Salt_Lake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Galaxy

Water Found On The Moon

The results of NASA's Grand Slam in October have finally come in. There is water in significant quantities on the Moon. The announcement came yesterday as Anthony Colaprete, a project scientist, held up several plastic buckets.

When the LCROSS satellite crashed into the moon, a 6,000-foot debris column was created above the moon’s surface. A rocket then flew through the debris to collect data on water content of the soil and other information.

NASA said that about 250 pounds of water (about 32 gallons) was found by studying the spectrometer readings of the debris cloud. There are several possible ways that the water could have gotten to the moon including solar winds, comets, or possible internal activity of the moon. There also is a chance that some of it came from the Earth.

NASA hopes that it will be able to study the water deposits in the soil to try and get a better picture of the history of the solar system and in particular, the moon itself. More importantly, NASA also wants to see if there is any feasibility to getting water for future settlements and moon bases that would serve as a platform to get to the other planets in the solar system.

Information found on:

CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/11/13/water.moon.nasa/index.html

Deforestation Declining

The Brazilian Goverment announced that deforestation in the Amazon has dropped over 40 percent since last year, the biggest drop in 20 years.

When reading about the rain forest in the Amazon, one starts to feel adventurous, like something in a 1980's Indiana Jones movie. Online shopping also comes to mind, but that's a completely unrelated deal. The Amazon rain forest is the largest in the world and has notably decreased in size over the past century and a half. Settlers move in, with an insatiable lust for materials and space and shred the complex ecosystem and source of much of the world's oxygen.

The Brazilian Government decided to act in 1988 to slow the flow of wood out of the forest. Drops in deforestation have been modest until now. This year only 2,705 square miles of forest were cut down, the size of Austin, Texas. This is real progress, many people agree that the decrease will increase. One day we may see an Amazon that is no longer ravaged for its old growth trees as tree farms are established in previously deforested areas. The Brazilian goverment has also reported that 8.1 million cubic feet of illegally harvested wood has been confiscated between August 2008 and July 2009.

Information Found on:

USAToday.com:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-11-12-brazil-deforestation-drop_N.htm

Austin City Information:
http://www.jerryrusso.com/aus_info.html

Antimatter Occurs Naturally on Earth

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered the presence of positrons also known as antimatter in lightning announced Michael Briggs of the University of Alabama in Huntsville on Thursday.
When NASA launched Fermi to gather information about gamma-ray emissions in the universe, nobody expected it to find out that antimatter happens before, during, and after lightning streaks through the sky. Fermi did not actually detect the particles, but the specific type of gamma-ray emissions that the elusive form of matter leaves behind.
"It’s a surprise to have found the signature of positrons during a lightning storm," Briggs said.
It has been known since the 1990s that gamma-rays occur when lightning flashes, but not the presence of antimatter. Scientists around the world have yet to react to this announcement. But it sheds some light on antimatter and opens many inroads into the mysteries surrounding antimatter. We stand to gain a great deal more information by pointing specialized telescopes earthward in the hopes of some unknown knowledge coming to light.
Fermi has recorded at least 17 occurrences of antimatter since it was launched over 14 months ago. Researchers link the presence of antimatter to an unusual reversal of the electric field which generates lightning.

Information Found on:

ScienceNews.org
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/49288/title/Signature_of_antimatter_detected_in_lightning

Hulu Considers Subscription Fee

In the near future, the Hulu Board will decide whether to charge users a subscription fee or keep the online television site free of charge.

Over the past few years, Hulu has become the place go if a person wanted to watch television for free online. Hulu operates on the concept that all of the major networks already have streaming video on their individual sites. This streaming video allows users to view content online for free, whether it be clips or entire T.V. shows. Hulu took that concept and centralized it, bringing all of these individual videos together onto one site.

There are three possible outcomes from the Hulu Board's decision. The first is that Hulu will remain free and users will continue to make it the thirty-sixth (or greater) most popular website on the web. Second, Hulu will charge a minimal subscription fee, about $1 to $10 monthly thus retaining many users, but still losing many more. Third, Hulu will charge a larger subscription fee, about $10 to $50 monthly, causing only die hard fans to stay with the site, while losing most of its 19+ Million users.

If Hulu gets commercialized, it will profit extremely or it will go bust. This all depends on how well it can compete with satellite and cable providers. We may even see shows that will come out exclusively on Hulu as the first major Internet Television Provider.

Information found on:

CNN.com
http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/23/hulu-to-charge-subscription-fee/

Quantcast.com
http://www.quantcast.com/top-sites-1

Panel Says NASA Should Not Return To Moon Yet

On Thursday, a US Panel told the White House that it should scrap plans to return to the Moon in favor of visiting asteroids or the moons of Mars.
The Panel says that the amount of fuel required to leave the Moon or Mars isn't worth the trip. Due to the gravity of these celestial bodies, spacecraft would have to carry extra fuel for the journey which would increase costs by requiring double the fuel normally needed to leave the Earth. The 155-page report also stated that starting in 2014 NASA would need an additional $3 Billion dollars if astronauts are to travel beyond the Earth's orbit. This budgetary problem would lead to a change in plans which President Obama will give the final word to either continues the Moon Program or elect the other less-costly options.
One news agency reported this information incorrectly in saying that the panel suggested sending Astronauts to Venus or Mars. Venus is not an option, its atmospheric pressure and temperature of 700+ degrees Fahrenheit has destroyed numerous probes that have landed on the surface. Mars was also not an option listed in the report, but rather the moons of Mars.

Information found on:
USAToday.com
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2009-10-22-nasa-panel-skip-moon_N.htm

Nasa Hits Grand Slam

At 7:30 a.m. Eastern Time, NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, crashed into a crater near the Moon's South Pole. The probe was hoping to measure the presence of water on and in the Lunar surface.
Weeks ago, LCROSS found evidence that there is more water in Lunar soil than previously thought. The crash today was meant to 'kick up' some of that dust in order to get a better estimate of how much water is contained in the soil.
Hundreds of telescopes including the powerful Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the presence of a plume after the impact. It is hoped that the combined power of these observations will provide useful data to the NASA researchers. "We have the data we need to actually address the questions we set out to address," said Anthony Colaprete a researcher on the LCROSS project.
Some people, however, are skeptical that the $79 Million price tag was far too high for the data recovered. This is an important step towards building a permanent outpost on the moon and exploring the solar system. We may be able to get some of the water needed from the moon and devote more payload to other crucial supplies.

Information taken from:

NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/index.html

CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/10/09/probe.moon.crash/index.html

Rio de Janeiro Scores 2016 Olympic Games

Rio de Janeiro has broken new ground as the first South American city to host the Olympic Summer Games in 2016.

One of the greatest human spectacles is going Brazilian. The ancient Olympic tradition revived over one hundred years ago and has since traveled the globe. This is where legends are born and peace dominates an ever-increasing playing field. The Olympics originally had track and decathlon events but now feature BMX and basketball.

This year the competition has been intense between Rio, Madrid, Tokyo, Chicago and Prague. Most notable is the competition between Rio and Madrid. Overall Rio offered more benefits and the largest budget ever for the games. Rio beat out Madrid 66 votes to 32.

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world in terms of geography and population. The country has embraced democracy and revels in its heritage and economic prowess as the tenth largest economy in the world.

Past host cities of the games include: Seoul, Sydney, Salt Lake and Stockholm. The United States has only hosted the Summer Games once, but has hosted the Winter Games four times, more than any other nation. One can only wonder what history will be made at the Rio Games in 2016.

Information from:

CNN.com
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/2009-10-02-rio-2016-olympics_N.htm

Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Olympic_Games

Global Bee Populations Declining

The future of flowering plants is at stake, not to mention the global food supply.

Apiarists, or beekeepers, say that bees pollinate one out of every three bites of food. Bees carry out most of the pollination throughout the world. Flowering plants depend on bees in order to reproduce.

Recently, over a third of the domestic honeybee colonies in the United States has disappeared. Beekeepers call it Colony Collapse Disorder (CCS), it is slowly destroying honeybees worldwide. Many people say that pesticides are to blame for weakened bee immune systems, which could open a way for CCS to infect a colony.

If bees were to die out, one of two things would happen: We would lose most of the flowering plants throughout the world or we would have to pollinate trillions of flowers by hand in order for flowering plants to survive.

In China, honeybees have died out in one province, forcing the residents to pollinate thousands of pear trees by hand in order to maintain their struggling agrarian economy. Residents say that this process is very difficult and time-consuming, but it is the only way to keep their livelihood.

Despite all of these losses, beekeepers remain optimistic that honeybees will recover, citing that they have lost fewer colonies this years than last year. Maybe this positive trend will continue.

Information found at CNN.com and PBS.org

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/09/10/last.beekeeper.film/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/introduction/38/

Bill Gates Seeks to Control Hurricanes

This week, Bill Gates and several other scientists received criticism from submitted patents for hurricane suppression technologies by scientists around the world.

This plan is supposed to cool the ocean water immediately surrounding an approaching storm. For this to happen, Gates and his colleagues suggest having large tub like barges placed in front of storms to pump warm ocean water down to the depths while bringing cold water up at the same time. This would hopefully lessen the power of the storm by the time it makes landfall.

William Gray, a renowned scientist in the field of hurricanes, doubts that the project would work. Gray thinks that it is not possible to bring that much cold water up in such a short amount of time.

Gray thinks, however, that the program could only be feasible if the barges were set out before the hurricane season began, which might pose economic problems if no storms were to show up to the party in that year.

Cost is the biggest factor that keeps this from being successful. Many people thinks that the cost outweighs the potential benefit. However, a multibillion dollar project might prevent hundreds of billions of dollars in damage that come globally because of these storms each year.

Information found at CNN.com -

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/28/hurricanes.gates.gray/index.html

Swine Flu Information

One dose of swine flu vaccine is likely to provide enough protection from the H1N1 virus, an Australian based agency said Friday.

These results are promising as the amount used for each vaccination will go down. This makes it possible to distribute less vaccine to more people. As the swine flu is spreading, more people are taking precautions against the virus that has already killed many people across the globe, most apparently in Mexico.

Government officials are planning for a major pandemic this flu season. President Obama has already held a press conference related to the H1N1 virus in which he encouraged Americans to wash their hands more frequently and to practice better hygiene.

Colleges and Universities are playing their parts as well. Recent developments at Utah Valley University indicate that the school is purchasing hand sanitizer units to go throughout the halls and buildings on campus. UVU is also considering a conversion to fully automatic toilet systems to replace the manual systems currently in use in all buildings except the Sorensen Student Center a source in the custodial department said on Thursday.

Those who have the greatest risk with H1N1 are the elderly, children, and pregnant women. It is recommended that these people seek vaccination and treatment as soon as possible.

Information found at USAToday.com -

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-10-flu-vaccine_N.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-09-swine-flu-college_N.htm

Majority of Adults Can't Digest Milk

Know someone Lactose intolerant? A new study shows that sixty percent of adults around the world cannot digest milk. The International Society for Computational Biology recently published a paper in their monthly journal which brings to light the ability of stomachs to digest milk or not.

The digestion of milk is linked to the enzyme lactase, which is produced by the stomach in order to digest lactose -- the principle sugar in milk. Adults with European ancestry comprise the largest group of people to be able to digest milk due to a genetic variation not commonly found among other peoples of the world.

This genetic variation originated as recently as 10,000 years ago and is believed to have become widespread in Europe as early as 7,500 years ago when man first started dairying cows for their milk as a food source. The paper confirmed that lactase persistence among Europeans did not come as a nutritional need to supplement Vitamin D. The authors of this study included Yuval Itan, Adam Powell, Mark A. Beaumont, Joachim Burger and Mark G. Thomas.

This comes as a glimpse as to why the U.S. is the world's largest producer and consumer of dairy products, followed closely by the members of the European Union.

Information found at USAToday.com -

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-08-30-lactose-intolerance_N.htm

New Blog For COMM 1610

Look for this week's entry on Friday September 4th.