The FDA reports that the source of the contaminated serrano peppers was found to be a Mexican farm in Nuevo Leon and the source of the jalapeno pepper contamination was found to be a Mexican farm in Tamaulipas. The US tomato industry is now complaining to the House about the more than $300 mil that they lost:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080731/news_1n31salm.html
MIT reports that the key to storing solar energy efficiently lies in splitting water:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10002704-54.html
This new technique is supposed to enable solar power to be provided 24/7:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2JLKEZDUPJZA0QSNDLSCKHA?articleID=209900956
This drug can actually build significantly more high-efficiency muscle fibers in a short period of time:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-couchpill1-2008aug01,0,7519614.story?page=2
Drugs found to enable exercise endurance? This could be great for people who need to lose weight…but I bet the first people who will look at using it are athletes. They won’t be able to test for these performance-enhancing drugs at the Olympics (it is a good idea to announce that so that athletes know they can get away with it?), but they will need a test for it soon or a lot of athletes will be using this:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/cp-fpd072408.php
Interesting column about how China’s growth will be reduced because of their environmental problems and because of their aging population (a result of the reduced birthrate due to their one-child rules):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072502255.html?nav=slate
Interesting that some people who can afford to make their mortgage payments instead stop payments and make the bank foreclose on their property because of their negative equity in their home due to the drop in home values:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7529277.stm
It seems to me that Rep. Murtha’s plan for the Navy’s budget and shipbuilding surprised the House, Senate, Industry, and Navy…and it does make sense to me to reduce battleship construction and produce more of the other ships that may be more needed now:
http://informationdissemination.blogspot.com/2008/07/ddg-1000-debate-begins-day-early.html
Looks like the Air Force will have their own surge in Iraq when the ground troops pull out, similar to what the UK did when they pulled out ground troops in Iraq:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/world/middleeast/29military.html?_r=4&ref=world&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
The Air Force wants its airmen to play casual games like Jewel Quest:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/airmen-will-cli.html
Harris has a multi-band SDR that is supposed to enable federal, state, and local public safety agencies to communicate more effectively with a single radio:
http://www.harris.com/view_pressrelease.asp?act=lookup&pr_id=2495
New York City plans to skip muni-WiFi and get a low-cost fiber option for public housing residents. One important thing to note is that Northrop is setting up a very impressive wireless network for public safety throughout New York City (they spoke about it at the Vegas conference I spoke at):
Computerworld article
Dell released a new line of computers today that looks VERY different and significantly reduces electricity usage:
http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/technology-finance/e3i0e5e7151b1d77beb83306b9c1d1bdcfe
UK research firm estimates 2.1 billion wireless broadband customers generating $784 billion in revenue by 2015. HSPA and HSPA+ are predicted to be the dominant technologies, with LTE having a decent market share also and WiMAX marginalized:
Press release
Qualcomm announced that it completed the world’s first HSPA+ call–they got 20 Mbps in a 5 MHz channel. The next version of HSPA+ is supposed to get 28 Mbps downlink and 11 Mbps uplink:
Press release
In addition to the accidents due to texting while driving, there are apparently a lot of accidents due to people texting while walking, riding bikes, and even riding Segways:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25934644/
They have apparently found the genetic trigger for schizophrenia:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080730/full/news.2008.994.html
Japanese parents are playing matchmaker for their children, especially since 71.5% of men age 25-29 are unmarried, a huge jump from how 47.1% were unmarried in 1990. 32% of women age 30-34 are single now, where only 16% were single in 1990:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/25883957/
Man fell asleep on a Canadian bus and was apparently beheaded by a stranger for no particular reason:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080731.wmanbus0731/BNStory/National/home
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