Photo by Zoe:

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The UK is about to run out of its own natural resources and become dependent on supplies from abroad, a report says.

A study by the New Economics Foundation (Nef) and the Open University says 16 April is the day when the nation goes into “ecological debt” this year. It warns if annual global consumption levels matched the UK’s, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand. In 1961, the symbolic “ecological debt day” was 9 July; in 1981, it had shifted forward two months to 14 May.

The UK’s food self-sufficiency has been falling steadily for more than a decade, and indigenous food production is now said to be at its lowest level for half a century. In 2004, the UK lost its energy independent status when it became a net importer of gas following lower returns from the North Sea fields…

This just makes me smile. Xeni Jardin with a strategically-placed Yuri Gagarin temp tattoo. Xeni is the only superhuman currently operating on the west coast of America.

Dear Cultural Lazyweb:

I am still looking for an mp3 of “Special Delivery” by Peter Blegvad, and a very specific version. He did a version in 1985 that was released as a single on Virgin — I believe the same version was included on the 1985 album KNIGHTS LIKE THIS, but can’t swear to it.

This is NOT the version on JUST WOKE UP or any other. This is the 1985 version recorded on Virgin: a much bigger, multi-instrumental, backing-vocalsy kinda thing.

(And yes I’ve looked in Soulseek and Kazaa and every other bloody place.)

Please email said mp3 if you have it to warrene @ aol.com and surely store up great rewards in Valhalla etc etc.

A new optical telescope designed solely to detect light signals from alien civilisations has opened for work at an observatory in Harvard, US.

It will conduct a year-round survey, scanning all of the Milky Way galaxy visible in the Northern Hemisphere.

Seti is an exploratory science to scour the cosmos for signatures of technology built by alien beings.

Some experts believe alien societies are at least as likely to use light for communicating as radio transmissions. Visible light can form tight beams, be incredibly intense, and its high frequencies allow it to carry enormous amounts of information. Using only present-day terrestrial technology, a bright, tightly focused light beam, such as a laser, can be 10,000 times as bright as its parent star for a brief instant. Such a beam could be easily observed from enormous distances.

The new telescope, which has a 1.8m (72-inch) primary mirror, is the first dedicated optical Seti (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) telescope in the world.

“Sending laser signals across the cosmos would be a very logical way for ET to reach out; but until now, we have been ill-equipped to receive any such signal…”

The world is likely to suffer a temperature rise of more than 3C, the government’s chief scientist warned.

That would put up to 400 million people worldwide at risk of hunger, said Professor Sir David King in a report based on computer predictions.

He told the BBC the world had to act now to tackle global warming expected to happen over the next 100 years. He said even if international agreement could be reached on limiting emissions, climate change was inevitable.

The UK Government and the EU want to stabilise the climate at an increase of no more than 2C, but the US refuses to cut emissions and those of India and China are rising quickly.

The government report says a 3C rise would cause a drop worldwide of between 20 and 400 million tonnes in cereal crops and about 400 million more people would be put at risk of hunger.

So far, the US, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has been unwilling to debate a CO2 threshold.

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A binturong drawn by Steve Rolston beats your poxy cat. Therefore I win the Inertnets. Again.

• Skulls Unlimited International
  sells skulls and bones of all description
  (tags: xmas)
• bengal
  (tags: comics)
• Horror of India’s child sacrifice
  Those who tortured and killed Akash Singh did so in a depraved belief – that the boy’s death would offer them a better life.
  (tags: crime)
• Scientists create a tractor beam
  scientists are using a beam of light to trap protein molecules and make them dance in space: “photoelectrophoretic localization and transport”
  (tags: sci)
• Key 23 | Learning To Evoke Without (Being Bored To) Tears
  a highly effective method for evocation that does not require you to wade through the English of a bygone era or memorize lengthy prayers, invocations, or ritual procedures
  (tags: magic)

Create your own Music List @ HotFreeLayouts!

Scientists studying organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) have made a critical leap from single-color displays to a highly efficient and long-lived natural light source.

The invention, described in the April 13 issue of Nature, is the latest fruit of a 13-year OLED research program led by Mark Thompson, professor of chemistry in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Stephen Forrest, formerly of Princeton University and now vice president for research at the University of Michigan.

“This process will enable us to get 100 percent efficiency out of a single, broad spectrum light source,” Thompson said.

If the device can be mass-manufactured cheaply – a realistic expectation, according to Thompson – interior lighting could look vastly different in the future. Almost any surface in a home, whether flat or curved, could become a light source: walls, curtains, ceilings, cabinets or tables.

Since OLEDs are transparent when turned off, the devices could even be installed as windows or skylights to mimic the feel of natural light after dark – or to serve as the ultimate inconspicuous flat-panel television…

Researchers have developed a new technique for powering nanometer-scale devices without the need for bulky energy sources such as batteries.

By converting mechanical energy from body movement, muscle stretching or water flow into electricity, these “nanogenerators” could make possible a new class of self-powered implantable medical devices, sensors and portable electronics…

(This has been due for a while. I’ve used similar notions in a few stories.)

All details here

Look here.

Pirate Cat Radio: Weds 6pm-8pm pacific standard time/Karla LaVey and Dr. Topala Rahmarbohr

• blotcomics
  the comics of Andrei Molotiu
  (tags: webcomics)
• US team explains near death experiences | The Register
  down to “REM intrusion” where “the same parts of the brain are activated when people dream as in near death experiences”
  (tags: med)
• Random Culture: Cool Hunting Video
  nice video compilation of some outdoor and guerrilla marketing work from around the world
  (tags: video)
• Shocknife: knife/taser
  “the only training knife in the world capable of inducing FEAR!”: Why design the knife capable of sparking and growling? This was done to induce “Acute Stress”
  (tags: weapons nlw)