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I am too lazy to find hard references, but Xing Xu, the researcher who found
this fossil was once involed in the discovery of another "dinosaur bird" which
was shown as a fraud. To his credit, he was also involved in the team that discovered
the fraud (isn't it strange?)

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/19 50967.htm

FTFA : In 2001 he was embroiled in controversy over the discovery of a fossil believed to be the 'missing link between dinosaurs and birds, which tests revealed to be a clever fraud.

Followup:

http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/whyisitso/

""The hope I have here is simply summed up: To stir your imagination, awaken your interest, arouse your curiosity, enliven your spirit - all with the purpose of bringing you to ask, as young Maxwell put it, "What's the go of it?" - or, as Kepler had it, "why things are as they are and not otherwise". Or, more simply in my own phrase, why is it so?""

Unfortunately, the video supposedly available doesn't seem to work.

I know Sumner from this program.

It's always sad when the world loses a great teacher but I've never heard of him here in Australia. Judging from the posts in this thread, it's sounds like his methods were similar to the late great Prof. Sumner Miller who entertained, educated and influenced many people from my generation.

Trivia question: Is he the "Mr Wizard" in the song walking on the sun?

Because like you, we grew up with this guy instead. Watch it, watch it now!

\\//_

About 200 Australians were trapped in Aytaroun as the village was pummelled by Israeli bombs and nearby Hezbollah fighters lobbed rockets onto Israeli towns.

"It's just beyond fear, beyond fear," recalls Sydneysider Michael Ibrahim. Etched into his memory is a dead child, aged two or three, burnt beyond recognition. He helped bury some of the 12 people who were killed in one family when an Israeli jet dropped a bomb in the centre of the village.

Thirty-eight civilians died in Aytaroun. They were among more than 1000 Lebanese people who died in 34 days of war between Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah meanwhile fired nearly 4000 rockets into Israel, killing 43 civilians.

Wow. You totally drank the kool-ade. That's the most credulous yes-man line of BS I've ever heard, and that goes a ways.

Hmm... Let's take 'em one by one.

Spying on Everybody: How this works is, the NSA sets up filters at choke points in the network (where the majority of packets will pass through on their way somewhere else). They configure their gear to automatically start recording and analysing whenever certain phrases are detected. These phrases can be anything from "Bush sucks" to "bomb" to "protest march". The fact that it's targeted means they can tell the public anything they want about who they're supposedly after, while making it look like they aren't filtering all packets. Look up Echelon sometime. And that's the OLD system everybody knows about.

This is how the "Big Brother" concept works, by the way. It stifles conversations because you know they're listening, and you never know whether they'll take an interest in this particular phone call. This is why the constitution is supposed to ban this sort of thing, by the way.

And why would they do that? BECAUSE THEY CAN. Because it gives them more power than they had before. Because it enables them to crush dissent and remove opponents. Duh.

Next up... The FISA court oversees only what Bush et al allow it to oversee. They're supposed to ASK FISA for permission to do wiretaps. So far they've been IGNORING IT and doing whatever they want, so don't talk to me about FISA.

Next... Who have they tortured to death? Are you serious? THEY ADMITTED THAT THEY'VE DONE THIS. There are photos circulating around the web of bodies of people who've died in interrogation in Afghanistan and Iraq. There have been coroners reports stating matter of factly that people have been tortured to death. Don't you read the news? Ok, fine, here's an article. It's from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and has a nice interview for you: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1576271.h tm. Ok, here's one more, from Amnesty International: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR5106120 06.

Ok, next up... The paragraph about the justification for Iraq was just dumb, man. All of that has been debunked long ago, and if I gave you a list of articles this post would be a mile long. The fact is, Bush lied about Iraq to trick everybody into the war, and he keeps lying about it. I don't even respect your claim enough to discuss it further. Let's move along.

Next: Scooter's going to jail; that's good enough for me. Of course, Bush will try to pardon him -- no justice for friends of the president, don'cha know! Cronyism at its best. Totally unAmerican. And you know damn well the order to out poor Ms. Plame came down from on high, don't be ridiculous. Her husband outed Bush on the phony yellow cake claims, and the administration wanted to punish him for it. It's telling that they picked on his WIFE, it shows you what juvenile scum they are. These people don't deserve to run a world power.

U.S. Attorneys are NOT supposed to be fired for refusing to act as tools of a political agenda, pal! They're supposed to be civil servants guarding the interests of justice, not the republican party's attack dogs! So your suggestion, here, is crap.

Cozy with the commies in China = allowing China to hold all of our debt, not doing anything about trade imbalances with China, not taking any action to force China to improve its human rights record, not making any effort to force China to throttle back their amazing level of air pollution (which is contributing to global warming and air pollution throughout the region)... Come on, are you serious?

Extraordinary Rendition -- YES, which has been used against several TOTALLY INNOCENT PEOPLE who were torn from their families for a year for torture in a foreign country. Remember that poor Canuck who got yanked out of JFK in NY, s

• The cost of distributing contamination by flushing with the lid up. Charles Gerba from the University of Arizona is well known for comments on this; here's a popular media link to an article about this phenomenon: http://www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/s1143577. htm
• The resultant affect of contamination on public health, worker ailments, and absenteeism and reduced productivity.
• The risk of drowning by young children when the lid is up. http://www.drowning-prevention.org/pdf/CE348.pdf http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/child-safety/CC00 045
• The cost of household pets flushing the toilet repeatedly to watch the action. This can incur significant cost for the use of water. http://www.youtube.com/v/WofFb_eOxxA

Check out the documentary "Crude" here http://abc.net.au/science/crude/ it shows one possible link between CO2 and Climate change.

this does become dangerous as the heat basically cooks you from the inside (just like a microwave oven)

That doesn't happen. You're right about heat dissipation, though.

RF radiation is nothing like nuclear radiation

Except, you know...the nuclear radiation that is RF radiation...which is all of it.

the critical difference is that nuclear radiation is ionizing, that is to say that it can not only vibrate molecules a bit, but it has enough energy to alter them.

What about UV? That causes mutations too. Does that have as much energy as gamma (the answer: not if the amplitude is the same)? This is just crap. Any kind of radiation can have three effects on cells:
1) It gets absorbed and dissipated before coming into contact with living cells
2) It gets absorbed by cells and damages them
3) It gets abosrbed by cells and destroys them

The more energy, the more likely to get #3. However, there are agents in the skin to absorb most of the energy in most of the RF spectrum. Any part of the spectrum can cause mutations if you can get it to do step #2 and not step #3. There are other mutagens besides just the radiation in nuclear stuff though - there's the emission of particles that also do serious damage.

I worked at a company that built RF power amplifiers for cell towers (30-45W average power output), and many of my coworkers had been working with microwave RF amps since the very first cell system Motorola deployed.

Your story aside, that much power could easily burn someone to cinders if they happened to be sitting on the focal point of a microwave dish. They don't actually get 45W of microwave energy hitting them ever, so it's not a problem.

Cool! This information is bound to come in useful at a later date.
"I find your ideas fascinating and would like to subscribe to your newsletter".

BTW on the Satirical Show the Chaser they asked "How much have we really learnt?", dressed a guy up in a snake outfit, took a basket of apples and handed them out in front of churches, synagogues and mosques (yes, they're open too) over Easter. Everyone who took one was labeled "SINNER". An Orthodox Jew took the Apple and said "C'mon, what are you selling, really?" The snake replied "Why can't a snake hand out apples without being accused of doing something wrong?" The only person that refused the Apple was Sydney's Gay Archbishop George Pell (or is he Anti-Gay? I keep getting that mixed up!) I think the Easter Episode was #6: http://abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/vodcast/

how many terrorist attacks have there been in Australia ?

Prime Minister John Howard says people will not be prevented from using their mobile phones during this September's APEC summit in Sydney. While revealing plans to close three city-circle train stations, Mr Howard was asked to respond to reports that mobile calls would be blocked while US President George W Bush's motorcade drives through the CBD. The move was reportedly designed to prevent terrorists from using mobile signals to detonate bombs.
But Mr Howard says standard phone coverage will be available during the visit. "People are not prevented from using their mobile phones," he said. "I'm not going to get into the specifics of security matters. I think any suggestion that normal communication won't continue to apply would not be appropriate."

That this article solidly refuses the claim? (of course, you have to believe another politician from the Coalition of the Killing).

Some people would do that

Most systems do end up making a profit after manufacturing costs go down and parts become more advailable. Its in the first run where they draw a loss on the cost of the machines. Its called the Razor and Blades model because it was developed by Gillette or something. Basiclly they start selling at a loss and as the R&D as well as the cost of the parts and manufacturing go down they start making a profit off of the system and can even make price cuts. I have no doubt that the PS2 is profitable for Sony and it may have even been profitable in the first year. But the first run probably was not going to see profit, as they would have still had to pay back R&D after the first run. Nintendo stood to make a profit off of theirs with the Wii. Also by in recent years its been ever since the Playstation that they have done that, but I believe with the playstation the cost of developing had even come to make a profit even before the first run was out.

I'm not a market expert but its pretty much how its been done my microsoft and a lesser extent Sony in the last few years. I'm not sure but I think even the gamecube was originally in the same boat.

look up loss leader on wikipedia
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/stories/s108486.htm
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060915-7752 .html

This is one link that I could find. Granted, it's from a popular science TV programme in Australia, and it's mostly about lane changing, but it has references at the bottom.

Because the degree of "response" in a battery is very simple and straightforward. There is no complexity. All we are, all our thoughts are, is a complex reaction cascade. Only the complexity separates us from the lower-order.

Seriously, though -- how can you claim that elementary brains or nerve nets have more complex thought processing than slime molds? Slime molds can solve mazes. They break apart and reform as the situatio reqiures, yet when they're together, they act collectively as a single organism (often called a "slug"), with cells even committing apoptosis, forming into differentiated "tissues", and the like. They even "walk" collectively -- not just in any direction, but specifically toward the most likely places to find food. Think daphnia are that capable? Many don't even swim toward their prey; their eyes are just for predator avoidance. And there are creatures simpler than daphnia out there. Look at the hydra, for example. All you get out of them are localized reflex reactions; they don't even take the direction of stimuli into account when reacting.

Neural nets are an excellent, very scalable way to process information. However, they're not the only one. They merely work through chemistry, just like a slime mold's processing of it's environment does. They "scale up" well, however, because they deliver their signals to a precise location. A system of hormonal triggers, like in a slime mold's "thinking", only works well on the small scale. Still, it's more impressive than what the simple brains of, say, hydra can pull off.

The SEGS plants at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert have been operating since the 1980's and are the largest solar plants in the world producing 354 MW.

Nevada Solar One is 64MW of solar thermal (3rd largest solar plant) and set to come online this year.

Stirling Energy Systems has a CPUC approved contract with SCE for a 500MW parabolic stirling solar thermal plant.

This document details a lot of the 100 year history of solar thermal attempts.

SHPEGS is our not-for-profit design project to adapt solar thermal to moderate climates by combining it with geothermal and heat pump technology. There is more information and links here.

If John Howard thought he could win the next election by having sex on the lawn of Parliament House with the war criminal Philip Ruddock, he would be out there in a second. Howard persues his agenda (John Howard being Prime Minister of Australia) so ruthlessly that he is willing to lie and divide Australia to get votes.

Last election he got votes by telling home-owners that interest rates wouldn't go up if he won and that they would go up if he lost. He won, and they went up, because Australia's interest rates are pretty much tied to rates in the US. The pathetic opposition didn't call him on this and a whole lot of people believed him.

And he (for reasons known only to himself) thinks the sun shines out of Dubya's posterior. During one particularly nauseating trip to the US, someone back home called him an arselicker. It would have been funny if it wasn't so true. Then we followed Dubya right into Iraq.

Please excuse the rant. Eleven years of Howard as Prime Minister will do that one.

Crap, should have previewed...

Article based on World Commission on Dams Study

Sorry...

I've stopped watching the news shows out here (a current affair, today tonight)

AAHAHAHAH. news. that's classic. I suggest you watch these:
http://abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/

The estimated average time before hate speech laws are used to punish those with non-conformist opinion is roughly five minutes. Three recent examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85ke_Green

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlaams_Belang

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1398319.htm

It is inevitable, that once the legal space exists to ban people who express non-conformist views, the powers that be will use them. After all, throughout history, repression of people who hold "faulty" opinions has been the norm, not the exception.

"Hate speech law" was first introduced in Europe as a means of fighting direct incitement to violence against various minority groups. This is, not surprisingly, the way hate speech law is currently being sold in the United States (usually as an extra penalty in cases of 'ordinary' crimes).

Over the years, however, the laws were gradually expanded to cover more and more ground, and now in many cases cover (forceful) expressions of mere disapproval of, say, homosexuality, or religion (usually Islam), even when these expressions are completely lacking in incitement to violence. The latest trend is to legislate against those who deny certain historical events, such as the Holocaust or the armenian genocide. Some countries (in the recent EU debates on the subject) now advocate criminalizing those who hold a revisionist position on Stalinist crimes. It will be interesting to see what other historical events that will be added to the "illegal to question" list as time goes on.

I should add that "conformist" here refers to conformism with elite opinion - hate speech law is usually applied aggressively when there is a significant, unorganized popular dissent from elite consensus. This is especially relevant on topics such as immigration, Islam and homosexuality, where elite and popular views are often greatly at odds. By acting aggressively and punishing those who speak out against elite consensus, the status quo can be maintained with less effort compared to a free speech scenario.

It should also be said that there is indeed no reciprocial reason to grant those who speak against democracy and freedom of speech the rights of free speech. In none of the cases linked to above, however, the defendants had advocated violence or the abolishion of democracy. On the contrary, it was the advocates of "tolerance" who moved to squash the democratic rights of their opponents.

It is exactly because of the large risk of abuse relating to speech restrictions (see above) that my personal opinion on the matter is that restricting debate and speech should be an emergency measure only. Usually, though, politicians advocating speech restriction don't bother with theory, reciprocity, etc. They prefer slogans - "we need to stop hate", "hate isn't a right", and so it goes...

"India is the fifth entry into the commercial satellite launch business after the US, Russia, China, Ukraine and the European Space Agency", says http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s19047 77.htm and many other reports.

Hey Cowboy Neal - how about a poll about how many of us have read him?

Well, I have.

But while we're here, I'll just point out that ABC(.au) has re-released a great interview of Kurt Vonnegut by Phillip Adams. I recommend it to anybody - a great man as well as a great writer.

>Personally, if I were a dairy farmer, I'd start up a brand with cloning as a gimmick.

Already being done with beef cattle.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s18988 13.htm
In this case it's not a gimmick but a way to retain the same high-quality tenderness and flavour genes in his herd.

Free thinking adults? The statement by Federal Attorney General Philip Ruddock in this news story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s18970 19.htm indicates that we might not be allowed to be free thinking any more.

Ruddock said:

"You ask yourself, how did they get themselves to that point?" he said.

"Is it something they woke up one morning and said, gee, this is something I've always wanted to do or is it something that was put into their minds by this sort of advocacy.

"Will Australia be a safer place if you stopped one person thinking of conducting themselves in that way? It would be a safer place."

So Mr Ruddock wants to make Australia safer by stopping people from thinking in certain ways. Does that seem a little bit troubling to you?

How long before, like the flaming mouse, one of these knocks a candle over or runs into a fireplace, and burns a house down?

In Australia, there are Australians (of anglo backgrounds) and there are the rest (including aboriginals, asians, south europeans and middle eastern people who are never referred to as 'Australian' even if they're second or third generation).. and there is a huge difference in the way the law is applied to the two..

About the censorship issue, here's an excerpt from Alan Jones (who has the largest radio audience in Australia) discussing "men of middle eastern appearance" with a caller ( from mediawatch )- AJ is Alan Jones and Y is the caller:

AJ: Yep, Well Australia is for all Australians. Isn't it?
Y: Well it is Alan.
AJ: And there is standard that has to apply and if you don't meet this standard you should be rounded up.
Y: And if we don't have enough police what's wrong with getting the army in?
AJ: Uh-ha.
Y: Get these blokes a bit of a rifle butt in the face and they'll, they'll back off, they're cowards!
AJ: Well if it gets to that we might have to do that, you follow what I'm saying?

A radio host who tells millions of listeners to bash dark skinned people at a beach is simply violating the broadcasting code and gets a slap on the wrist (see this) but a Muslim who says anything similar would be in for sedition (punishable with imprisonment for 7 years). Conincidentally, the new sedition law considers it an offence if:

(a) the person urges a group or groups (whether distinguished by race, religion, nationality or political opinion) to use force or violence against another group or other groups (as so distinguished); and
(b) the use of the force or violence would threaten the peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth.

Alan Jones is not explicitly mentioned in the law.. I've looked.

• I guess it's ok to incite hatred and violence, provided it's directed at Muslims
• I guess it's ok to call other Australians scum, as long as they are Muslim

Imagine a solid structure being put under pressure, as the pressure increased a tiny fraction of the material is turned into liquid, my immediate idea is that this would weaken the structure increasing the risk of a collapse.

I was wondering about this as well. For as long as the liquid is, well, liquid, surely it wouldn't have any structural strength, so this would effectively make a building more likely to fall apart under stress. Or if the liquid solidifies quickly, what happens when a gap gets filled under temporary expansion and is then suddenly compressed? I'd put money on rubble.

In my opinion, a much more sensible idea for housing in earthquake prone areas can be found here (warning: contains video). It's designed to stay up and not crush people while an earthquake is happening. After the earthquake it can be safely demolished and rebuilt for a fraction of the cost of automagichanical fluidic nanobeads or fancy electrological shock absorber doodads.

But then low tech and simple solutions that just work are never as cool as nano electronic opto whatsits. Certainly not as profitable.

This link has a 3D model:

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/189542 2.htm?space

You don't know who provoked the violence. The authorities have a great interest in discrediting any protest movement. Looks like you swallow up whatever they say. Whatever. Feel free to google. I'm sure you will find a better link to dismiss as propaganda. Maybe this is a tiny bit more to your liking. Only in America does arresting protesters and journalists seem to be legitimate. Everybody else is violating their rights. I'm sure there's no convincing you to vote for somebody else if Bush could run again. As I posted before, you are shown the warning label, yet you still drink out of the bottle of Drano without a care in the world about the consequences, to the point of disparaging those who dare show you the label.

I presume that what's actually going to happen is that ARIA are going to be on the Gnutella network, watching what gets downloaded by australian IPs.

but that doesn't excuse it. It was apparently about AUD50 (from the ABC.

Anyway, this is just another example of how legitimate protests are squashed by authorities. If Putin and Co continue to suppress the opposition, I wonder if Mr Berezovsky will carry out his threat to have a "Russian Revolution"?

Meh, and you wonder why some of the old people want the Soviet Union back.

Updated each week

If you live in Australia and haven't seen The Chaser it's one of the funniest shows that we've got (9pm on ABC 1). If you don't live here, you can download every episode, legally at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/vodcast/.

This video podcast is made available for use by persons located in Australia only. If you are not located in Australia, you are not authorised to use this podcast.

I'm not usually one to find 'disruptive' pranks funny, but this doesn't seem too far off the kind of things do they on the show [wikipedia.org] (which I've not seen)

I'm not usually one to find 'disruptive' pranks funny, but this doesn't seem too far off the kind of things do they on the show [wikipedia.org] (which I've not seen)

If you live in Australia and haven't seen The Chaser it's one of the funniest shows that we've got (9pm on ABC 1). If you don't live here, you can download every episode, legally at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/vodcast/.

Where's the news in a half finished project that doesn't deliver any benefits (so far) on existing technologies? Who was the fool that got suckered into producing an infomercial?

This is news: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1865651.ht m

Sliver cell solar technology. This was on Australian TV in March. Generating the same amount of power using a fraction of the silicon required today. Brilliant.

That story is far from the strangest Shockley story I've heard. Did you know that when he was small child, he got a splinter in his foot, extracted it, measured, labeled it, and filed it away? It turned up in his effects when he died, along with a lot of other stuff any sane person would have thrown away.

One biographer quoted a Shockley acquaintance (no friends, alas) as saying he had "Negative Charisma." Interesting interview here:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/inconversation/stories/20 06/1678241.htm

"We, in the USA, lock up our criminals, not our politically undesireable."

Every society defines its own crime. The "political undesirable" were criminals, in Soviet Russia. What is wrong with American society that we have so many criminals? Are there more criminals, or more *crimes* -- behaviors that in the past did not result in imprisonment, but now do?

Are things really getting worse on the street, or are three-strikes laws and 0-tolerance drug policies for non-violent offenders locking up people who are otherwise productive members of society?

This CS Monitor article says that we now lead the world in incarceration: "More than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there, according to a new report by the Justice Department released Sunday. That's 1 in 37 adults living in the United States, the highest incarceration level in the world."

" We don't send entire families to gulags. We don't execute or exile our Jews, gays, and minorities. Were exiles (internal) counted in your prison figures? I bet not."

You know what? You might be right. We might not actually have worse incarceration rates than Soviet Russia. But I'm sick of not being the worst. I believe that America is the greatest country on Earth. I think we should have the lowest incarceration rate in the world, right now, not just lower than Soviet Russia.

This ABC article says that "The United States has incarcerated 726 people per 100,000 of its population, seven to 10 times as many as most other democracies. The rate for England is 142 per 100,000, for France 91 and for Japan 58. " Why are we getting beaten by Japan, France, and England? Why aren't we on top?

Brian Egan. And here is the transscript.

Somebody will mention the word "clean" at some point - it is not a word that really makes sense in the context of burning stuff in air (nitrous oxides are produced), and the clown that always mentions nuclear whenever energy is mentioned should also remember that mining and processing is not "clean" either.

Ugh. Come on, dude. Google is your friend when it comes to this kind of thing. It is not horribly difficult to find the incident that the GP was referring to. Even if the sources are biased, it serves as a launchpad to discover the truth. As for your "one isolated incident" rhetoric, that also happens to be one of the great things about the internet. You can find out things that some people don't necessarily want you to know. As for what to make of it all, you have to judge the evidence and draw your own conclusions.

Moving your arm produces CO2 (ever heard about Life Cycle Analysis???)
So sure, fissioning an atom do not directly imply CO2 release, but building 5m wide concrete walls & bringing uranium from Australia do. Same thing for producing wind turbines, building dams or solar cells.

( http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categor yId=9008658&contentId=7016688
=>No CO2 is released from the production of electricity but processes of uranium mining, enrichment and transport do cause CO2 emissions.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/expert/realexpert/nu clearpower/03.htm
=>

Grams of CO2/kWh

Coal
970-1245 grams

Gas
450-660 grams

Solar
100-280 grams

Wind
6-29 grams

Nuclear
9-21 grams

Hydro
3-11 grams
)

With your argument, this kind of crap:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/ 28/2228251
would be the global warming solution.

Once again, I love technology and I'd love to see it helps us going happily through this century, but IPCC is pretty sure that won't do if we don't change our way of life. And you'd better trust 2000 scientists telling you something, or you'll never trust anyone else!

Just wait until the first air disaster, with numbers like "six hundred dead...".

You are getting flamed for it but I think you have a point. Each aircraft has two people flying it regardless of whether it is carrying 100 or 600 people. Pilots do occasionally fuck up and when there are so many lives at stake it makes sense to dedicate more people to the job of flying the plane.

Should the flight deck be required to have three or four positions? ATC controllers often operate with a planner and a controller in parallel. Maybe there is a role for strategic and tactical control on the flight deck of the A380.

An Australian company has developed an interesting new air powered engine:
http://www.engineair.com.au/

I've seen it in operation on a science tech program:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1072065 .htm

It has some immediate potential:
http://www.engineair.com.au/development.htm
and:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/25/10932 46620391.html

Of course there are difficulties associated with deploying a new technology:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s118353 1.htm

An Australian company has developed an interesting new air powered engine:
http://www.engineair.com.au/

I've seen it in operation on a science tech program:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s1072065 .htm

It has some immediate potential:
http://www.engineair.com.au/development.htm
and:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/08/25/10932 46620391.html

Of course there are difficulties associated with deploying a new technology:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s118353 1.htm

Genetic Engineering than produce less water or need less water or to allow farmers to use brackish water too salty for the irrigation of unimproved crops. Allowing crops to be grown in desert land where convential agriculture would be impractical. http://abc.net.au/news/scitech/2002/11/item2002112 6114642_1.htm