Self-clean technology to remove the mud, sweat and tears of wash day for ever
Muddy sports kit, the bane of parents with active children, may be heading for the laundry basket of history. Scientists have produced a coating that could make filthy rugby shirts and grubby football shorts a thing of the past.

No Christmas for You
Foamy the Squirrel riffs against folks who object to institutional Christmas celebrations. Explicit language, so watch out for the kiddies.

Ghosts in the Machine
A recent report looks like a kind of proof that ghosts are no more than biological quirks. But what’s fascinating is that it can also look like proof that ghosts are real entities, to those inclined to believe as much. And so the findings also present a case study in two very different perspectives.

Britain Will Be First Country to Monitor Every Car Journey
If you have heartburn with red light cameras, this will give you a heart attack.

The end of the West as we know it?
As the recent British official commission chaired by Sir Nicholas Stern correctly stated, climate change 'is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen.'

JET-MAN.COM
Yves Rossy has finally achieved Leonardo Da Vinci's greatest fantasy -- to fly through the air.

sustainableautoculture
Perpetuator of free-range drag racing journalism tradition, forest spirituality, urban agriculture (no, not THAT kind..) and sound magick. Advocate of affordable agrarian and automotive culture-and access for all in that tired old 20th century economic democracy way.

Valeo signs up 'several global automakers' for camless engine
Valeo SA has several development contracts with automakers for its camless engine, industry sources say. The technology is expected to be available in less than five years. Engine developers have long been interested in camless technology's promise of as much as 20 percent better fuel economy over a conventional engine.

Joseph Barbera, Half of Cartoon Duo, Dies at 95
Joseph Barbera, an innovator of animation who teamed with William Hanna to give generations of young television viewers a pantheon of beloved characters, including Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and the Flintstones, died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95.

Teaching the Notion of Nanotechnology
Scientist Robert P.H. Chang of Northwestern University had no trouble persuading education officials in Mexico to introduce the burgeoning field of nanotechnology to schools there, but it's been a tougher sell in the United States.

UFO ‘secrets’ could land UK hacker in Gitmo
A UK hacker who broke into dozens of US military computers to find secret evidence of alien life and technology faces up to 70 years in a US prison.

What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?
It was not until, in preparing this article, the author calculated how much America’s Top 10 percent of income earners actually make that he fully understood how easy it would be for the world’s rich to eliminate, or virtually eliminate, global poverty.

A car stereo that can kill you?
This article told me more about db Drag Racing than I've heard anywhere else. Doesn't make the 'sport' any less strange...

Disk Drive Pioneer Al Shugart Dies
The colorful founder of the computer floppy disk logs off for the last time.

StumbleUpon Offers Auto Discovery of Online Videos
StumbleUpon, which helps Web users discover sites based on the ratings of users with similar tastes, on Wednesday said it was offering a way to create personalized channels for viewing online video.

Google's New Patent Search Is ... Different
While you may think Google's new patent search is another oddball one-off from the company-that-knows-no-focus, I would submit several great reasons for Google to launch it.

Vista: Why Bother?
If what you have works for you, then you really don't need to upgrade to Vista, or for that matter, anything else. There's a lot to be said for sticking with what already works best for you, and don't let any vendor tell you otherwise.

A Gag on Free Speech
The Bush administration is trampling on the First Amendment and well-established criminal law by trying to use a subpoena to force the American Civil Liberties Union to hand over a classified document in its possession. If the subpoena is enforced, the administration will have gained a powerful new tool for rolling back free-speech rights — one that could be used to deprive Americans of information they need to make informed judgments about their elected leaders’ policies and actions.

Who Americans Are and What They Do
Americans drank more than 23 gallons of bottled water per person in 2004 — about 10 times as much as in 1980. We consumed more than twice as much high fructose corn syrup per person as in 1980 and remained the fattest inhabitants of the planet, although Mexicans, Australians, Greeks, New Zealanders and Britons are not too far behind.

Ocean pumps 'could cut carbon dioxide'
An inventor has claimed he can solve some of the world's most serious environmental problems using plankton and lengths of plastic tubing, it was reported today.

Welcome to Critical Thinking (a working title). We are going to highlight some of the news items and events you might have missed. We'll report on new inventions, new realizations from history, and generally, fresh ideas from science and the world's other disciplines. Hope you find these things as interesting as I do. bp