Buy silver! Scientists in Australia and Amsterdam think they have found way to make solar cells more efficient using silver. When struck by sunlight, electrons in a silver atom vibrate, radiating small amounts of light. If the atom is on a piece of silicon, the result is a "surface plasmon," an electromagnetic wave that runs parallel to the surface of the material propagating it. Duh. Who didn't know that?Okay, actually we have no clue what any of that means. But the upshot is solar power might soon become more affordable.
AP reports that a Texas death row inmate pulled out at ate his only good eye. Andre Thomas, 25, was arrested for a triple murder in March 2004 and plucked out his right eye while in jail, awaiting trial. Just a few weeks ago, a death-row officer in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice found Thomas in his cell with blood on his face and took him to the infirmary.
"Thomas said he pulled out his eye and subsequently ingested it," agency spokesman Jason Clark said Friday.
Crazy old Nobel Prize® winner Paul Krugman has a new coinage, the "output gap." Given sufficient demand, he says, America would produce more than $30 trillion worth of goods and services over the next two years. But a "huge gap" is opening between what the American economy can produce and what it’s able to sell. Krugman's solution, big shock, is federal spending -- far more than Obama is proposing. Krugman says Obama's stimulus plan, "is nowhere near big enough," and thinks the US government should make up the difference.
Funny, for a couple of centuries now, the nation has been through economic ups and downs, panics and booms. But now we won't survive unless the government borrows from the future to smooth everything out? Forget individual institutions like AIG, or whole industries like car companies and National Home Builders Association, the Nobel Prize® winner now Krugman thinks we should simply bail out the entire country.
David Brooks takes a much more nuanced look at what Obama has proposed, including; tax cuts, state aid, road repair, broadband projects and a new power grid. Brooks says it will "be the most complex piece of legislation in American history." As if the policy wasn’t complicated enough, he says, Obama promised to pass it through a legislative process that will "transform politics," with no earmarks or pork.
Brooks calls the plan "daring and impressive," but fears the task will be hard, as Obama is asking Congress to "submit in a way it never has." By this time next year, Brooks says, Obama will "either be a great president or a broken one."
Let's all hope for "great."
