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Scientists claim to have created a form of aluminum that's nearly transparent to extreme ultraviolet radiation and which is a new state of matter. It's an idea straight out of science fiction, featured in the movie "Star Trek IV." Fusion is a dream of scientists who would create cheap and plentiful power by fusing atoms together, as opposed to nuclear fission that generates electricity today.

Though it looks like a tiny purple blowtorch, a pencil-sized plume of plasma on the tip of a small probe remains at room temperature as it swiftly dismantles tough bacterial colonies deep inside a human tooth. It’s not another futuristic product of George Lucas’ imagination—it’s the exciting work of USC School of Dentistry and USC Viterbi School of Engineering researchers looking for new ways to safely fight tenacious biofilm infections in patients. Two of the study’s authors are Chunqi Jiang, a research assistant professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering-Electrophysics, and Parish Sedghizadeh, assistant professor of clinical dentistry...

SECAUCUS, NJ -- 05/07/09 -- Panasonic, a leader in High Definition technology, announced today that the critically-acclaimed, 103-inch Plasma Full High Definition 1080p Display -- the world's largest Plasma commercially available -- will now be priced at $50,000. When it debuted in December 2006, the made-to-order HD Display was priced at $69,999.95. With widespread acclaim for its size and picture quality, Panasonic's 103-inch Plasma has become the industry's leading high-impact, large-format display for a wide range of commercial and home theater applications -- from digital signage and entertainment, to high-end home theater, command and control and higher education. Since its...

THE plasma TV isn't dead yet -- but it looks like it's not long for this world. Like the Betamax videotape format and laser disc DVD before it, the plasma TV set -- the favorite of techies -- is losing out to the more popularly priced LCD TV. Pioneer and VIZIO -- the nation's No. 2 set maker -- say they're abandoning the plasma business. With a 22 percent sales drop in the first quarter of 2009 compared to last year -- when the sale of flat-screen TVs overall is sky rocketing -- "the writing is kind of on the...

In their continuing quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, state regulators have uncovered a new villain in the war on global warming : your big screen TV Couch potatoes, beware. The California Energy Commission is considering a proposal that would ban California retailers from selling all but the most energy-efficient televisions. Critics say the news standards could take 25 percent of televisions off the market — most of them 40 inches or larger. (snip) Affordable big screen TVs will still be available under the new standards, spokesman Adam Gottlieb said. In fact, he said the regulations will save you money....

In preparation for Sunday's Super Bowl showdown between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, many football fans this weekend will buy or rent the biggest-screen TV they can get their paws on. Most of them, however, will be focusing on the picture quality rather than the impact on their electric bills of having an energy-guzzling mega-screen in their living rooms. But they might have no choice come this time next year: The California Energy Commission this summer is expected to adopt rules that would require retailers by 2011 to sell only TVs that meet federal Energy Star program standards, according...

Does Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket sound like science fiction to you?

Short on cash, some put a price on themselves Lean times spurs interest in payment for sperm, eggs, plasma — even hair By JoNel Aleccia Fri., Dec. 5, 2008 Before this fall, it might not have occurred to Michael Aylesworth to swap his sperm for money. But faced with rising bills, a dwindling budget and a fractured economy, the 30-year-old Seattle man took stock of some very personal assets — and decided to sell. “I did it because I’m a student and I’m always broke,” said Aylesworth, who spent several delicate minutes in a small room at the Seattle Sperm...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed the microplasma transistor by integrating a conventional microcavity plasma device with an electron emitter. Kuo-Feng (Kevin) Chen and Professor J. Gary Eden, Director of the Laboratory for Optical Physics and Engineering, published their study in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters. As Eden explained, a plasma transistor could one day have certain advantages compared with conventional transistors. "As you might imagine, this first plasma transistor has not yet been engineered to the degree necessary for a commercial product," Eden told PhysOrg.com. "Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that a microplasma transistor...

Professor Gary Friedman (left) and Alex Fridman, director of the Drexel Plasma Institute, demonstrate a plasma generator being tested for use in medicine. A few years ago, a researcher at Drexel University accidentally cut his finger and exposed it to plasma, a fourth state of matter created by ionizing gas. To everyone’s surprise, the blood from the cut coagulated. “We said, ‘OK, this is very interesting, maybe we can help somebody with this,’” said Gary Friedman, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of surgery at Drexel, who was working with the researcher at the time....

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Flying saucers may soon be more fact than mere science fiction. University of Florida mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Roy has submitted a patent application for a circular, spinning aircraft design reminiscent of the spaceships seen in countless Hollywood films. Roy, however, calls his design a “wingless electromagnetic air vehicle,” or WEAV. The proposed prototype is small – the aircraft will measure less than six inches across – and will be efficient enough to be powered by on-board batteries. Roy said the design can be scaled up and theoretically should work in a much larger...

A Sacramento city councilwoman visited a Japanese energy plant last week to watch plasma torches vaporize garbage at temperatures hotter than the sun's surface. She returned more confident that the technology could help her hometown solve its garbage dilemma. "It's clearer than the Campbell's Soup plant," said Lauren Hammond, comparing the puff of white steam coming out of the Ushanti plasma gasification plant with that of the landmark factory on Franklin Boulevard. The Sacramento City Council will vote Tuesday on whether to continue negotiating with a Sacramento firm that wants to make California's capital the first American city to use...

May 19, 2008 There’s at least one reason to look forward to the InfoComm 2008 conference in Las Vegas this June with next-generation large-screen display manufacturer Shinoda Plasma announcing plans to exhibit a flexible, 1-millimeter thick, 125-inch film-type prototype display that can be used as a curved or wrap-around screen. At a low-key unveiling on May 15, Shinoda Plasma announced plans to exhibit the 3 x 1 meter, (9 feet 10-inches x 3 feet 3-inches) plasma tube array (PTA) display, which consists of 3 seamlessly integrated 1 x 1 meter square sub-modules and offers a resolution of 960 x 360...

Million-Degree Plasma Found in Orion 01/19/2008 The Orion nebula, an object of beauty to stargazers (picture, Hubble view) is pervaded by plasma heated to two million degrees Kelvin, reported astronomers in Science.1 Two funnel-shaped regions of x-ray emitting plasma in the extended nebula were observed by astronomers using the X-Ray Multi-Mirror (XMM)-Newton satellite. “The energy requirement to heat the large-scale x-ray emitting plasma is severe,” they said. What could heat up gas to emit 55 billion trillion trillion ergs per second? Not the molecular flows of gas in the nebula. Not the microjets from numerous young stars. Their suggestion: “The...

A woman who was angry because her husband wanted her to turn up the heat pulled out a gun and shot their flat-screen TV while he cowered behind a pillow, Macomb County authorities say. The 65-year-old man called 911 Sunday night from the basement of their Washington Township home, about 25 miles north of Detroit. "My wife's got a gun. She's shooting at me," ... He told the operator that Cheryl Grucz, 61, was angry because he wanted the heat turned up. She fired a round while he hid his head in a pillow, striking the plasma TV, then went...

I'm in the market to buy a big screen H.D.T.V. I don't know squat about them. What's the difference in plasma and LCDs? Which is best? What is the best brand for the money? I'm looking for at least a 42 inch set. Do I need to buy a convertor box to get the signal from my cable company? Do I have to pay extra to my cable company for the service? Thanks

All current plasma TVs and many LCDs could be removed from sale by 2011. (File photo) (Reuters/Las Vegas Sun: Steve Marcus) A report commissioned by the Federal Government says there is a growing demand for plasma and LCD televisions, which use more power than traditional TV sets. It says energy rating labels are needed to tell consumers about the performance of the TVs. But under a proposed six-star rating system, most current plasma TVs do not meet the requirements and could be removed from sale. The report also suggests "minimum energy performance standards" be introduced which would eliminate the worst...

THE Conservatives will propose banning plasma screens and other energy-guzzling electrical goods in a report to be unveiled next week. The proposals target white goods like fridges and freezers, as well as TVs, personal computers and DVD players that use too much energy or operate on stand-by. The ideas come from a Conservative group set up by David Cameron to develop policies to protect the environment and although the measures to make household electrical appliances more energy efficient are not binding on Mr Cameron, they are thought likely to be warmly received by the Tory leader. The group will also...

Calling Blood Type AB Donors We have received an urgent request from the United States Department of Defense for type AB plasma. We will be shipping them 100 units a week thru mid-August. We ask for your help at this time. As a blood type AB donor, the plasma in your body is universal – it can go to anyone of any blood type. Who uses plasma? Burn patients, trauma patients, even our troops wounded in battle. Type AB is also rare. Only 4% of the population is type AB, so you can imagine how in-demand your plasma must be....

physicist says multiple factors affect picture quality. If you own a high-definition TV, don't read Edward Kelley's new tipsheet for folks in the market for plasma, LCD and other high-end displays. He doesn't want to ruin your day. Kelley is a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Flat Screen Display Laboratory in Boulder. He wrote most of what one in the industry called "a bible" for the industrial testing and certification of flat-panel screens. Kelley's tipsheet opens sternly, with an all-caps warning. "SOME PEOPLE HAVE FOUND THAT THE FOLLOWING MATERIAL HAS REDUCED THEIR ABILITY TO ENJOY THEIR...

Governments should tax plasma screen televisions because of the large amount of energy they consume, according to a leading expert on climate change. Professor Paul Ekins, who studies the economics of climate change, said taxing plasma screens would reflect their "greater climate change burden". This would encourage development and take-up of more energy efficient diode screens, Professor Ekins said. He said government could label energy hungry appliances as a first step. Plasma televisions, which are 50% bigger than their cathode-ray tube equivalents, consume about four times more energy, according to the government-funded Energy Saving Trust.

Imagine a car that accelerates from zero to sixty in 250 feet, and then rockets to 120 miles per hour in just one more inch. That's essentially what a collaboration of accelerator physicists has accomplished, using electrons for their racecars and plasma for the afterburners. Because electrons already travel at near light's speed in an accelerator, the physicists actually doubled the energy of the electrons, not their speed. The researchers—from the Department of Energy's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering—published their...

Best Buy Co. turned in disappointing third-quarter results on Tuesday as the battle to sell flat-panel TVs, MP3s and other hot electronic gadgets has slashed prices and cut into profit. the nation's largest home-electronics retailer said the "very competitive climate" -- plasma and LCD TV prices dropped 25% to 30% -- held its profit to $150 million, or 31 cents a share, up nearly 8% from last year's income of $138 million, or 28 cents a share, but short of Wall Street's expectations. That sent shares lower by 5% to $51.30. The total results were mixed compared with Wall Street's...

"The Central California Blood Center may stop accepting plasma donations from women next year, sharply reducing the number of donors in the central San Joaquin Valley."

There are many reasons to buy an HDTV now. 1) Your team could be good this year. 2) There’s more stuff on high-definition TV than ever. 3) Prices are dropping. If you’re looking, here are some things you should know: DLP •Millions of tiny mirrors reflect light to produce a picture. You can recognize DLP (digital light processing) sets in the store: They’re the big, boxy televisions. LCD •Electrically charged liquid crystals untwist just enough to let the correct shade of light pass through. PLASMA •Bits of gas are ignited to produce light. FAQs Which is better, LCD or plasma?...

BEIJING, July 24 (UPI) -- The first plasma discharge from China's experimental advanced superconducting research center -- the so-called "artificial sun" -- is set to occur next month. The discharge, expected about Aug. 15, will be conducted at Science Island in Hefei, in east China's Anhui Province, the Peoples Daily reported Monday. Scientists told the newspaper a successful test will mean the world's first nuclear fusion device of its kind will be ready to go into actual operation, the newspaper said. The plasma discharge will draw international attention since some scientists are concerned with risks involved in such a process....

Ball lightning – the mysterious slow-moving spheres of light occasionally seen during thunderstorms – has been created in the lab. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and the Humboldt University in Berlin have used underwater electrical discharges to generate luminous plasma clouds resembling ball lightning that last for nearly half a second and are up to 20 centimetres across. They hope that these artificial entities will help them understand the bizarre phenomenon and perhaps even provide insights into the hot plasmas needed for fusion power plants. You can watch a super-slow-motion video of the ball lightning here...

Sandia National Laboratories has developed a machine that produces plasmas that exceed temperatures of two billion degrees Kelvin -- hotter than the interiors of stars, the Labs' scientists say. The principle mission of the "Z machine" was to create a high radiation output environment through which to test computer codes responsible for maintaining a safe and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile. The results of the tests show the machine accomplishes just that. But, the hot outputs, the unexpected results of a non-nuclear reaction, might be able to explain how astrophysical entities like solar flares maintain their extreme temperatures. The energy also...

The night sky could soon be lit up with gigantic three-dimensional adverts, thanks to a Japanese laser display that creates glowing images in thin air. The system is being developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Tokyo, in collaboration with Burton Inc and Keio University. “We believe this technology may eventually be used in applications ranging from pyrotechnics to outdoor advertising,” says a spokesman for AIST. According to Burton Inc, the technology might also be used for emergency distress signals or even temporary road signs. The display utilises an ionisation effect which occurs when...

NASA has signed an agreement with Houston-based Ad Astra Rocket Co. that paves the way for commercialization of a promising advanced plasma rocket system that has evolved over the past 25 years. The Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) is a type of propulsion system that produces a plasma exhaust at temperatures similar to those in the interior of the sun. The system may generate rocket thrust with performance hundreds of times higher than that of present chemical rockets. The increased performance could mean dramatic reductions in fuel requirements. While conventional rocket nozzles would melt under the extreme temperatures, VASIMR...

The wraps came off high-definition DVD players at this year's annual Consumer Electronics Show, offering the final component to replicate the movie theater experience at home. And while a fierce DVD format war likely will delay the mass adoption of such devices, digital video is here to stay - the Consumer Electronics Association trade group estimates 25 million U.S. homes will have a high-def TV set by year's end. But big, expensive flat-panel sets aside, this year's gadget show offered plenty of smaller screens for video... Yahoo Inc., DirecTV, Starz Entertainment Group and Sony were also among the companies getting...

PowerPage.org posts an unusual report claiming that Apple would be releasing 42inch and 50inch Plasma Displays at Macworld San Francisco. That possibility alone would be quite unusual for Apple, but the report describes that the new plasma displays will be powered by Intel's recently announced Viiv multimedia platform running Mac OS X 10.4.4 for x86 (Intel). Prices for the displays/computers are reportedly $2599 and $3299. The report is unusual in that it is written as a story, presumably to hide the source of the information. Of note, ThinkSecret has recently suggested that Apple will be releasing a larger than 30"...

Gizmos land among CES 'mega-trends' as U.S. sales rocket It's all about portable music players and flat-panel TVs. One look around the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center confirms that, with much of the space devoted to companies pitching all manner of MP3 devices and big- screen televisions. And no wonder - U.S. shipping revenues of portable MP3 players in the first 11 months of last year were up 224 percent over 2004. And sales of flat-panels - LCD and plasma sets - are expected to go from $6 million in 2005 to $10 million this year, helped by...

The 'double layer thruster' is a new kind of ion drive which could give much more power than existing versions. It works by accelerating charged particles between two layers of argon plasma, gas where the atoms have been stripped of electrons. Esa says it has 'proven the principle', and will proceed with simulations and perhaps bigger prototypes. Esa already uses an ion drive on its Smart 1 Moon probe, and the US space agency Nasa deployed one on Deep Space 1, which flew out to Comet Borrelly in 2001.

Please offer your expertise and research into the "State of the High Definition TV". Is plasma or LCD the way to go? I heard that most of the makers bring out new models in the April-May period next year. Will prices for 2005 models plunge then after New Year's? What manufacturers offer superior quality? Should one wait a year or two due to rapid change in technology? When will the technology advancement in HD TV slow? Best Buy has a 42 inch plasma from Panasonic for about $2900. What types of prices are you seeing out there for various size...

HURRY! Selections are limited!.........

Credit: NASA/JPL--Caltech/UMD The power of the paradigm tells you what you see. The prevailing comet theories see this image of Tempel 1 as an insubstantial "dirty snowball" or "fluffy dustball", and the Electric Universe theory sees this image as a substantial, cratered rock.Today we feature excerpts from four newspaper articles that are reporting what they are told by their scientist interviewees.A Sept.07, 2005 article in the Guardian reports "Deep Impact space collision reveals comets to be fluffy balls of powder". This is the latest adjustment of a theory of comets that has seen them first as "dirty snowballs", then as...

<p>Hundreds of survivors of Hurricane Katrina lined up Thursday outside the Reliant Center in Houston in hopes of getting $2,000 government debit cards, but there's confusion about who can get the cards and when.</p>

On the Michael Medved show I heard an excerpt of an interview with Harry Connick Jr. and his comments about the looters and was stunned he sympathized about the looters intent on aquiring plasma tv's illegally. Anyone know the source of this interview? Nothing turning up here on Free Republic.I saw on Harry Connick Jr's website he has now since retracted his statement, but no excerpt of his original statement

THUNDERBOLTS PICTURE OF THE DAYExploring the electric universe From ancient mythology to cosmic plasma discharge Credit: NASA/JPL. Image manipulation: Carl SmithThis is a sequence of images from the hi-res Deep Impact flyby camera. They show jets emanating from two centers. The color substitution images on the right show more clearly the relative brilliance distribution in the grey-scale images. They show the presence of two bright centers. The presence of more than one crater was predicted by the electrical model of comets. homethe book quotes picture of the day picture archive subject index the film(video clips) products Contact usElectric Universe:...

A team of engineers and scientists led by NASA have begun investigating the physics and performance of magnetic nozzles -- innovative devices that could support development of plasma-based propulsion systems.

If you’ve been following our Picture of the Day, you’ve seen the electric arc on the upper left more than once on these pages. It comes to us from the website, “Sparks and Arcs,” sponsored by John Dyer-- http://www.johndyer.com/sparxarcs.html We also include above a photograph of the comet Hale-Bopp, enhanced to emphasize the rich filamentation of the comet tail. Electric Universe theorists identify comets as plasma discharge phenomena—negatively charged objects moving rapidly through the electric field of the Sun. Some advocates of the Electric Universe have devoted decades to investigating the human past, concluding that Earth’s environment was once bursting...

Scientists have reacted angrily to the revelation that the US military is funding development of a weapon intended to deliver an "excrutiating bout of pain" from over a mile away. The "Pulsed Energy Projectile" (PEP) device "fires a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid", the New Scientist explains. If you happen to be that something solid, then you get temporarily incapacitated without suffering permanent injury. That's the theory, but pain reasearchers fear that the proposed riot control weapon could be used for torture, and further doubt a solid ethical basis for the...

Nice TV, shame about the picture10:00 30 January 2005 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition Barry Fox If you are planning to buy one of the new ultra-wide flat-screen TVs, beware. On show in the shops, they bowl customers over with the sheer size of the images they display. But in many cases, once buyers get them home they quickly realise that the picture quality leaves a lot to be desired. This is because many flat-screen sets simply stretch pictures designed for smaller screens. Doing this makes the pictures' coarse line structure and low pixel count all too obvious. High-definition...

Troy Hurtubise has done the seemingly impossible with his newest invention and defied all known rules of physics, he says. The Angel Light—Hurtubise claims the concept came to him in a recurring dream—can reportedly see through walls, as if there was no barrier at all. That’s not all, though. http://www.baytoday.ca/content/news/details.asp?c=6657

SAN DIEGO -- If you're light, it's fairly easy to travel at your own speed -- that is to say 186,282 miles per second or 299,800 kilometers per second. But if you are matter, then it's another matter altogether.Nothing we know of zips along more quickly than light. Einstein, nearly 100 years ago, said it's not possible. For us, the speed limit makes strange sense: Go faster than light, and you could return before you've left, become your own grandpa, or perform other leaps of cosmic logic.Fast forward a century. Astronomers are now measuring stuff -- material, matter, things --...

Various companies are currently trying to perfect the technology behind a new type of flat-panel display that will rely on diamonds or carbon nanotubes--two forms of pure carbon--to produce images. Theoretically, these "field effect displays," or FEDs, will consume less energy than plasma or liquid crystal display (LCD) TVs, deliver a better picture and even cost less. The development of FEDs underscores the rapid changes taking place in what had been a relatively staid TV market.

SEATTLE – Sitting in the cramped coach section of a transcontinental airliner for five or six hours can be trying enough. But consider NASA's "reference mission" to Mars. Astronauts will be cooped up in their craft for up to six months each way as they travel to and from the Red Planet. Robert Winglee and his colleagues would like to give these future explorers a break. Inspired by the sun's influence on Earth, the team is developing a unique approach to space propulsion. The craft it envisions hurtles through space on sails made of magnetic fields. The sails billow under...

hile hanging a television on the living- room wall may have captured the imagination of American consumers, it has yet to empty many pocketbooks.That may soon change as a glut of liquid crystal display flat-panel televisions, called L.C.D.'s, enter the market, a result of a boom in new factories. According to several manufacturers and analysts, the prices for L.C.D. flat-panel TV's will drop in the new year, falling by as much as 30 percent by the end of 2005. The prices of plasma flat-panel TV's are also expected to fall significantly. That is not a message that the electronics retailers...

Rapid evolution for flat panel TVs 10:30 21 November 04 NewScientist.com news service Anyone planning to ditch their conventional cathode-ray tube TV in favour of a much wider flat panel TV will be spoilt for choice. With the rewards so great for companies who can dominate this market, competition between manufacturers is intense. The result is that flat panel TVs are being enhanced so rapidly that any performance comparisons quickly go out of date. Take a simple measure like screen size. At Japan’s leading consumer electronics show, CEATEC, held in Makuhari on Tokyo bay in September, hundreds of would-be...