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Friday, August 22, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Feel Shame No Longer!
From: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/08/11/tech-invisible.html
Scientists closer to developing invisibility cloak
Last Updated: Monday, August 11, 2008 | 9:21 AM ET
The Associated Press
Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.
U.S. researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only had been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.
The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.
The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.
People can see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Cloaking uses materials, known as metamaterials, to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.
Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fibre composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don't. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don't create reflections or shadows.
It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.
The Berkeley research was funded in part by the U.S. army's research office and the U.S. National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Ohio inmate says he's too fat for execution
Ohio inmate says he's too fat for execution
Lawyer claims his client's weight could make lethal injection 'excruciating'
The Associated Press
updated 7:58 p.m. ET, Mon., Aug. 4, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A death row inmate scheduled for execution says he's too fat to be put to death, claiming executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs.
Lawyers for Richard Cooey argue in a federal lawsuit that Cooey — 5-feet-7 and 267 pounds — had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and the problem has been worsened by weight gain.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, also says prison officials have had difficulty drawing blood from Cooey for medical procedures.
Cooey, 41, is sentenced to die for raping and murdering two young women in 1986. His execution is scheduled for Oct. 14.
His attorneys say a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could affect the execution process. The drug Topamax, a type of seizure medication, may have created a resistance to thiopental, the drug used to put inmates to sleep before two other lethal drugs are administered, Dr. Mark Heath, a physician hired by the Ohio Public Defender's Office, said in documents filed with the court.
Heath says Cooey's weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anesthetized.
"All of the experts agree if the first drug doesn't work, the execution is going to be excruciating," Cooey's public defender, Kelly Culshaw Schneider, said Monday.
Prison system spokeswoman Andrea Carson and Jim Gravelle, a spokesman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, both said Monday they hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment.
Last year, Carson cited the obesity of condemned inmate Christopher Newton as one of the reasons prison officials had difficulty accessing his veins before his execution. Newton was 6 feet tall and weighed 265 pounds.
Two years ago, convicted killer Jeffrey Lundgren was put to death after a federal appeals court rejected his claim that he was at greater risk of experiencing pain and suffering because he was overweight and diabetic.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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