Sub-counterculture in the Tunnels of Las Vegas

Subculture
noun
a cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.

Subcultures and Countercultures have always fascinated me. These weird off shoots of society allow taboos and creativity thrive. Without the bounds of society holding people down amazing things are created. Recently I read an article about the tunnels of Las Vegas. I had previously had never heard of any tunnels underneath Las Vegas, so of course I was very interested. What amazed me the most, although I found the extensive network of tunnels interesting, is that a whole counterculture exists within these tunnels. Many things exist with in the tunnels, for example:

This is one of the underground art galleries that I discovered down in the storm drains. Basically, you walk in about a half-mile in pitch dark, and you have artwork going down the walls that goes down for about a half-mile.

Along with the underground art galleries exist camps of people. It's such a stark contrast from the world above. With all the tourists looking up at the lights, no one would ever look down towards the storm drain. Tunnels and the world of the underground have always fascinated me and when I have had the opportunity to go underground I have taken that chance. I remember when I was young, I used to take off the storm drain cover near my house and I would climb in to explore. Although I could not get very far it still was an adventure.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97800190&ft=1&f=1012

Soviet Space Shuttle

Out of all the illusive, weird topics in history the Soviet space shuttle, the Buran, has always been something that has caught my attention, but I have never had the time to research it to any extent. At first glance the Buran looks like the American space shuttle, but closer inspection reveals the words 'CCCP' and the distinct hammer and sickle flag. The russians developed the Buran in the late '80's as a direct response to the american orbiter because they perceived it as a significant military threat. The russians borrowed heavily from the american design in shaper and even the three stage booster design. In 1988 the Soviets conducted the one and only unmanned flight test. Three hours after launch and two orbits later the Buran glided back to Earth just a few miles from were its journey started.

Years after the program was canceled, mainly due to the collapse of the soviet union, the shuttle was left abandoned in a hanger in Kazakhstan. The hanger was left unmaintained for decades, which caused its collapsed, crushing the Buran and the remanding parts of its booster assembly. I find it said that the crowing achievement of the soviet space program has been lost.

Fungus That Makes Diesel Fuel...?

A recently discovered fungus has demonstrated the ability to convert cellulose directly in to diesel fuel. This fungus was discovered growing on the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian Rainforest, which is located in southern Argentina. The scientific name for this fungus is Clonostachys rosea. Here is a quote from on of the scientists that discovered this amazing

“Gliocladium roseum lives inside the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest. We were trying to discover totally novel fungi in this tree by exposing its tissues to the volatile antibiotics of the fungus Muscodor albus. Quite unexpectedly, G. roseum grew in the presence of these gases when almost all other fungi were killed. It was also making volatile antibiotics. Then when we examined the gas composition of G. roseum, we were totally surprised to learn that it was making a plethora of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon derivatives. The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end!

”

The next step is to find out how this fungus can be genetically engineered to produce more hydrocarbons and how the process of capturing can be made more efficient so that this process will be economically feasible. But if you think of the implications of this kind of process its mind boggling to imagine that agricultural waste could one day all be converted into diesle fuel.

Personally I find this very interesting. If there is an organism that defends its self by producing hydrocarbons, what other creatures or plants have yet to be discovered that can do other amazing things. However, this organism was discovered in the rain forest while this is not a bad thing, it shows us that amazing things exist in the rain forest and they need to be protected. It is unknown how many other organisms that have equally amazing talents have yet to be discovered or have already been lost.

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/11/06/fungus-discovered-that-makes-diesel-from-cellulose/

Dooms Day Device... is broken.

During a power test of the Large Hadron Collider sprung a leak of liquid helium. The leak was in one of the power bus that transfers the massive amounts of electricity needed to power the LHC. To use this power more efficiently it is transferred through superconducting niobium–titanium cables, which need to be cooled to 1.9 Kelvin or -271.3°C. This is where the liquid helium leaked from. When the helium leaked the cables could not withstand the load of almost 8,000 amps. The current began to arch and subsequently destroyed near by parts of the machine. Some nearby magnets where destroyed and the vacuum chamber was punctured. The current was so powerful that the wire was vaporized. Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, are confident that an accident like this will not happen again. Measures will be taken to ensure that electrical fluctuations in the bus will be monitored more closely. This is important because the LHC cannot be simply switched off, it takes nearly a minute for heating coils and bypass circuits to discharge the power stored inside the magnets.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081029/full/news.2008.1194.html?s=news_rss

Bees Can Count

Scientists in Sydney at the University of Queensland have discovered that Honey Bees can count, but only to a maximum of four. The Honey bees where placed in a tube with 3 white stripes food was placed on one of these stripes. When you remove the food the bees still fly to the same stripe.

"We find that if you train them to the third stripe, they will look subsequently in the third stripe," researcher Mandyam Srinivasan said.

The same technique works with the other stripes up to a maximum of four. It seems that bees cannot count past four. This is not surprising due to the extreme small size for their brain -- it is about the size of a sesame seed. However I find this truly amazing that something so small has the ability to count. I wonder what other animals have other yet undiscovered abilities.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE49P04V20081026

OPEC

The price of oil continues to fall from over a high of $140 per barrel this summer to a low price of $64 per barrel. OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, had an emergency meeting on friday to try and protect their profits. So what they decided to do was to cut Oil production to try and artificially keep the demand for Oil higher then the supply. Before this cut OPEC countries were over producing by 600,000 barrels per day. This new cut would decrease the production level by 1.2 million barrels per day. OPEC in my opinion is essentially a cartel. They are trying to control the market and keep there revenues high by cutting the supply so the demand goes up. It is essential that the United States move towards alternative energies so organisations like this cannot continue to exist.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/24/international/i031722D17.DTL

India In Space!

India has launched its first moon mission. They are now a competitor in the newly developing asian space race. The space craft, Chandrayaan-1, is designed to study and map the moon. As of no we really do not have a complete picture of the moon and there are many things that we still do not know. One of the things that Chandrayaan-1 is going to do is to map the moon in three dimensions and take high quality pictures of the surface. It is important that we have a good map of the moon if we are ever to continue maned missions to the moon, or maybe even colonise the moon someday.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/080428-pslv-cartosat-launch.html

Pirates!

Even today pirates exist on the high seas. While most of the world seas are safe from the threat of piracy, there are still dangerous places. The coast of Africa seems to be the modern hot spot for piracy. With more ships being borded and then robbed or held for ranson then any other place in the world. The cost of Somalia seems to be especially bad. Even as recent as today was a ship held for ransom. A Japanese tanker was released today after a ransom of £930,000 was payed to the Somalian gang who was holding it hostage. In response to this increase in piracy NATO has sent in war ships to try and stop this increase in piracy. NATO will now be escorting all World Food Project ships in an effort to increase aid getting to Somalia. More then 40% of the population is dependant on the food that these ships bring.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7650415.stm

Bailout

In the last few weeks the economy of the United States has almost completely collapsed. Major financial institutions have asked congress to bail them out with taxpayer money. 700,000,000,000,000, thats 700 billion dollars, to be exact. However this figure will likely go higher, some economists estimate figures of over a trillion dollars. This is not right. The american tax payer should not have to pay for the bad practices and investments of wall street. Our economy is a free market and when it has problems it should not be the responsibility nor the duty of the fed to regulate something that is supposed to free. There is another name for when you regulate the free market, its called socialism. While I do not totally disagree with socialism, I do think that a truly free market is far better then any market a government could regulate. Our government simply does not work fast enough to adequately adapt to changes and trends in the market.

Ike

Hurricane Ike is about to bear down on the coast of Texas. Residents have been warned that they will have certain death if they do not evacuate. More then a million people have been told to evacuate across the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Over 70 people have been killed in the Caribbean already and the damages to Cuba have been estimated at 3 to 4 billion dollars. The cost to the US might be higher because the predicted path of Ike takes it through Galveston and then to Houston. Its unknown how this hurricane will effect the country. If I remember correctly the hurricane that stuck during the Republican Nation Convention was used by the republicans for political gain. In this important Election season it will be interesting to see how the candidates respond to this hurricane.