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Scientists are exploring the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD to treat a range of ailments from depression to cluster headaches and obsessive compulsive disorder. The first clinical trial using LSD since the 1970s began in Switzerland in June. It aims to use "psychedelic psychotherapy" to help patients with terminal illnesses come to terms with their imminent mortality and so improve their quality of life. Another psychedelic substance, psilocybin, has shown promising results in trials for treating symptoms of terminal cancer patients. In the Swiss trial eight subjects will receive a dose of 200 microgrammes of LSD. This is enough to induce a powerful psychedelic experience. A further four subjects will receive a dose of 20 microgrammes. Every participant will know they have received some LSD, but neither the subjects nor the researchers observing them will know for certain who received the full dose. During the course of therapy researchers will assess the patients' anxiety levels, quality of life and pain levels. Before hallucinogenic drugs became popular with the counter culture, they were at the forefront of brain science. They were used to help scientists understand the nature of consciousness and how the brain works and as treatments for a range of conditions. Dr Rick Doblin is president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in California, a nonprofit organisation which funds clinical studies into psychedelic drugs, including the Swiss LSD trial. "These drugs, these experiences are not for the mystic who wants to sit on the mountain top and meditate. They are not for the counter-culture rebel. They are for everybody," he said.
The Defense Intelligence Agency's newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is going to have an office authorized for the first time to carry out "strategic offensive counterintelligence operations," according to Mike Pick, who will direct the program. Such covert offensive operations are carried out at home and abroad against people known or suspected to be foreign intelligence officers or connected to foreign intelligence or international terrorist activities. The investigative branches of the three services -- the Army's Counterintelligence Corps, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service -- have done secret offensive counterintelligence operations for years, and now DIA has been given the authority. Two years ago, the DIA asked then-Undersecretary of Defense Stephen A. Cambone for authority to run offensive operations along with a newer Pentagon intelligence agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). Cambone agreed to a two-year trial. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently approved the merger of CIFA into the new DIA center. Senior Defense Department officials and the combat commanders overseas will now decide what to do with the DIA's new offensive operational authority.
Note: For penetrating reports on the realities of the "war on terror" from major media sources, click here.
Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The revelations came in response to a bipartisan inquiry of how more than 30 Internet companies might have gathered data to target customers. Some privacy advocates and lawmakers said the disclosures help build a case for an overarching online-privacy law. "Increasingly, there are no limits technologically as to what a company can do in terms of collecting information . . . and then selling it as a commodity to other providers," said committee member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.). "Our responsibility is to make sure that we create a law that, regardless of the technology, includes a set of legal guarantees that consumers have with respect to their information." Markey said he and his colleagues plan to introduce legislation next year, a sort of online-privacy Bill of Rights, that would require that consumers must opt in to the tracking of their online behavior and the collection and sharing of their personal data. Ari Schwartz, vice president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said lawmakers are beginning to understand the convergence across platforms. "People are starting to see: 'Oh, we have these different industries that are collecting the same types of information to profile individuals and the devices they use on the network," he said. "Internet. Cellphones. Cable. Any way you tap into the network, concerns are raised."
Note: For lots more on increasing threats to privacy from reliable sources, click here.
Sandra Levy wants to do everything she can to safeguard the health of her 11-year-old daughter -- and that, of course, includes cancer prevention. She has had her child inoculated with one shot of Gardasil, the human papilloma virus vaccine that may prevent cervical cancer. But now, she says, she has serious reservations about going ahead with the next two injections of the course. Though most medical organizations strongly advocate using the HPV vaccine, some doctors and parents, like Levy, are asking whether the vaccine's benefits really outweigh its costs. A report released in June stirred up more doubts. Although cause and effect were not proved, the report listed serious events -- such as seizures, spontaneous abortions and even deaths -- among teens, preteens and young women who had earlier had Gardasil shots. [The] analysis, released June 30 by the Washington, D.C.-based public interest group Judicial Watch, [has] raised [these] red flags. Judicial Watch obtained records from the FDA's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a voluntary system used by doctors, patients and drug companies to report side effects with vaccines to the federal agency. The report revealed that since the vaccine's 2006 approval, when girls began getting it, nearly 9,000 had bad health events after receiving Gardasil. The incidents included 10 miscarriages, 78 severe outbreaks of genital warts and six cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that can result in paralysis. There were also 18 reported deaths.
Note: For many key reports on the problems with vaccines from reliable sources, click here.
The United States this year will have spent [at least] $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released [on August 12]. The report, by the Congressional Budget Office ... will say that one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies. The Pentagon’s reliance on outside contractors in Iraq is proportionately far larger than in any previous conflict, and it has fueled charges that this outsourcing has led to overbilling, fraud and shoddy and unsafe work that has endangered and even killed American troops. The role of armed security contractors has also raised new legal and political questions about whether the United States has become too dependent on private armed forces on the 21st-century battlefield. The budget office’s report found that from 2003 to 2007, the government awarded contracts in Iraq worth about $85 billion, and that the administration was now awarding contracts at a rate of $15 billion to $20 billion a year. At that pace, contracting costs will surge past the $100 billion mark before the end of the year. Through 2007, spending on outside contractors accounted for 20 percent of the total costs of the war, the budget office found. The dependence on private companies to support the war effort has led to questions about whether political favoritism has played a role in the awarding of multibillion-dollar contracts.
Note: For many disturbing reports on the realities of the Afghan and Iraq wars from major media sources, click here.
Scientists have stopped the ageing process in an entire organ for the first time, a study released today says. Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine ... also say the older organs function as well as they did when the host animal was younger. The researchers, led by Associate Professor Ana Maria Cuervo, blocked the ageing process in mice livers by stopping the build-up of harmful proteins inside the organ's cells. As people age their cells become less efficient at getting rid of damaged protein resulting in a build-up of toxic material that is especially pronounced in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative disorders. The researchers say the findings suggest that therapies for boosting protein clearance might help stave off some of the declines in function that accompanies old age. In experiments, livers in genetically modified mice 22 to 26 months old ... cleaned blood as efficiently as those in animals a quarter their age. The benefits of restoring the cleaning mechanisms found inside all cells could extend far beyond a single organ, says Cuervo. "Our findings are particularly relevant for neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's," she says. "Many of these diseases are due to 'misbehaving' or damaged proteins that accumulate in neurons. By preventing this decline in protein clearance, we may be able to keep these people free of symptoms for a longer time." If the body's ability to dispose of cell debris within the cell were enhanced across a wider range of tissues, she says, it could extend life as well.
Note: For many key reports on health issues from reliable, verifiable sources, click here.
Former President Gerald Ford secretly advised the FBI that two of his fellow members on the Warren Commission doubted the FBI's conclusion that John F. Kennedy was shot from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. The new details were included in 500 pages of the FBI's large file on Ford, released in part this past week in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act that The Associated Press and others made on the day Ford died in December 2006. That Ford served as the FBI's eyes and ears inside the commission has been known for years. Long ago, the government released a 1963 FBI memo that said Ford ... had volunteered to keep the FBI informed about the panel's private deliberations, but only if that relationship remained confidential. The bureau agreed. It was also well-known Ford was an outspoken proponent of the bureau's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy while acting alone. [Assistant FBI Director Cartha "Deke"] DeLoach wrote [a memorandum] on Dec. 17, 1963, to outline what Ford told him ... about the commission meeting the day before. "Two members of the commission brought up the fact that they still were not convinced that the President had been shot from the sixth floor window of the Texas Book Depository. ... These members failed to understand the trajectory of the slugs that killed the President. [Ford] stated he felt this point would be discussed further but, of course, would represent no problem." There was no explanation of what Ford meant by "no problem."
Note: For many revealing reports on major assassinations from major media sources, click here.
Anthony J. Russo, a Rand researcher in the late 1960s who encouraged Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers and stood trial with him in the Vietnam War-era case that triggered debates over freedom of the press and hastened the fall of a president, has died. In 1971, Russo helped Ellsberg copy a classified government history of the Vietnam War that Ellsberg later supplied to the New York Times, ... dubbed the Pentagon Papers. The secret study provided evidence of lying by government officials, including several presidents, about the scope and purposes of the war. "I explained [to Ellsberg] how the so-called enemy, the Viet Cong, and the North Vietnamese, were actually the legitimate parties and how the U.S. presence was illegal, immoral and unwise. I supplied him with reams of documentation," Russo later wrote. He was fired from Rand a short time later. Russo said that when he heard about the fabrication of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, he urged Ellsberg to "turn that over to the newspapers." Publication of the first installments in June [1971] sparked an FBI manhunt for Ellsberg. Russo was harassed by police and placed under surveillance. When he was subpoenaed by a grand jury, he refused to testify against Ellsberg and was jailed for 45 days. A few days before Christmas 1971, both men were indicted on charges of conspiracy, theft and espionage. "I will be eternally grateful to Tony for his courage and partnership," Ellsberg said. "He set an example of willingness to risk everything for his country and for the Vietnam that he loved that very few, unfortunately, have emulated."
Note: For background information on "false-flag operations" like the Gulf of Tonkin incident, click here.
Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001. But despite the seemingly powerful narrative that Ivins committed suicide because investigators were closing in, this is still far from a shut case. The FBI needs to explain why it zeroed in on Ivins, how he could have made the anthrax mailed to lawmakers and the media, and how he (or anyone else) could have pulled off the attacks, acting alone. The spores could not have been produced at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked, without many other people being aware of it. Furthermore, the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the institute. The product contained essentially pure spores. The particle size was 1.5 to 3 microns in diameter. There are several methods used to produce anthrax that small. But most of them require milling the spores to a size small enough that it can be inhaled into the lower reaches of the lungs. In this case, however, the anthrax spores were not milled. They were also tailored to make them potentially more dangerous. The spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. Each particle was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention in the lungs. In short, the potential lethality of anthrax in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program.
Health and life insurance companies have access to a powerful new tool for evaluating whether to cover individual consumers: a health "credit report" drawn from databases containing prescription drug records on more than 200 million Americans. Collecting and analyzing personal health information in commercial databases is a fledgling industry, but one poised to take off as the nation enters the age of electronic medical records. Some insurers have already begun testing systems that tap into not only prescription drug information, but also data about patients held by clinical and pathological laboratories. Privacy and consumer advocates fear [the trend] it is taking place largely outside the scrutiny of federal health regulators and lawmakers. The practice also illustrates how electronic data gathered for one purpose can be used and marketed for another -- often without consumers' knowledge, privacy advocates say. And they argue that although consumers sign consent forms, they effectively have to authorize the data release if they want insurance. "As health care moves into the digital age, there are more and more companies holding vast amounts of patients' health information," said Joy Pritts, research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute. "Most people don't even know these [companies] exist. Unfortunately the federal health privacy rule does not cover many of them." Tim Sparapani, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "We've got to stop these practices before the marketplace is fully developed and patients lose all control over their medical information."
Note: For lots more on increasing threats to privacy from reliable sources, click here.
For nearly seven years, scientist Bruce E. Ivins and a small circle of fellow anthrax specialists at Fort Detrick's Army medical lab lived in a curious limbo: They served as occasional consultants for the FBI in the investigation of the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, yet they were all potential suspects. Over lunch in the bacteriology division, nervous scientists would share stories about their latest unpleasant encounters with the FBI and ponder whether they should hire criminal defense lawyers. In tactics that the researchers considered heavy-handed and often threatening, they were interviewed and polygraphed as early as 2002, and reinterviewed numerous times. Their labs were searched, and their computers and equipment carted away. The FBI eventually focused on Ivins, whom federal prosecutors were planning to indict when he committed suicide last week. Colleagues and friends of the vaccine specialist remained convinced that Ivins was innocent: They contended that he had neither the motive nor the means to create the fine, lethal powder that was sent by mail to news outlets and congressional offices in the late summer and fall of 2001. Mindful of previous FBI mistakes in fingering others in the case, many are deeply skeptical that the bureau has gotten it right this time. "I really don't think he's the guy. I say to the FBI, 'Show me your evidence,' " said Jeffrey J. Adamovicz, former director of the bacteriology division at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID. "A lot of the tactics they used were designed to isolate him from his support. The FBI just continued to push his buttons."
Note: For revealing insights into the realities behind the war on terror, click here.
The Pentagon's $50 million Minerva Research Initiative, named after the Roman goddess of wisdom and warriors, will fund social science research deemed crucial to national security. Initial proposals were due July 25, and the first grants are expected to be awarded by year's end. But the Network of Concerned Anthropologists ... said dependence on Pentagon funding could make universities an "instrument rather than a critic of war-making." In a May 28 letter to federal officials, the American Anthropological Association said that ... its members are "deeply concerned that funding such research through the Pentagon may pose a potential conflict of interest." David Price, an anthropologist at St. Martin's University in Lacey, Wash., and the author of a book on anthropological intelligence in World War II, [said] the Pentagon effort is flawed. "It sets up sort of a Soviet system, or top-down system," Price said. "If you look at the big picture, this will not make us smarter -- this will make us much more narrow. It will only look at problems Defense wants us to in a narrow way." Recently, the Army's Human Terrain System has embedded social scientists in military units in Iraq and Afghanistan with the aim of helping commanders understand local culture and customs. The project has drawn criticism from many academics. Two scholars have been killed. The Network of Concerned Anthropologists, which describes itself as an advocate for ethical anthropology, said the research topics could "contribute to creating more national and human insecurity by trafficking in the construction of . . . a connection between Islam and violence."
Note: For many revealing reports on government corruption from reliable sources, click here.
Like many people, Alan Dechert was outraged when the 2000 presidential election was thrown to the Supreme Court because nobody could figure out how Florida's voters had voted. An engineer who has designed and tested software for a living, he thinks the outcomes of elections should never be in doubt. So Dechert and a couple of colleagues founded the Open Voting Consortium, a nonprofit group dedicated to delivering "trustable and open voting systems." In addition to lobbying against proprietary voting machines, they have spent the last several years working with scientists and engineers around the world to design and build a voting machine of their own. On Tuesday their machine will be put to the test at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, where the 10,000 people who are expected to attend the conference will get to vote in a mock presidential election pitting Barack Obama against John McCain. "The voting system in the U.S. is still not sufficiently accurate to determine the winner in a very close election," said Dechert, who has worked at Borland International and Intel developing and testing software. "By the time we're done (with the mock election), nobody will have any doubt." The code that runs this voting machine is based on the work of a former [U.C.] Berkeley student, Ka-Ping Yee, who now works at Google. At a price of about $400, the new voting machine is a tenth of the cost of proprietary machines ... because it's simply designed and based on free software. Its workings are transparent, he said, unlike some of the electronic voting machines that California decertified for security problems.
Note: How could the U.S. government allow private companies to develop machines with secret codes the government can't access in the first place? For a summary of the many problems with proprietary electronic voting machines, click here.
Federal agents may take a traveler's laptop computer or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed. Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "The policies . . . are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government's border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin. DHS officials said the newly disclosed policies ... apply to anyone entering the country, including U.S. citizens. Civil liberties and business travel groups have pressed the government to disclose its procedures as an increasing number of international travelers have reported that their laptops, cellphones and other digital devices had been taken -- for months, in at least one case -- and their contents examined. The policies cover "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form," including hard drives, flash drives, cellphones, iPods, pagers, beepers, and video and audio tapes. They also cover "all papers and other written documentation," including books, pamphlets and "written materials commonly referred to as 'pocket trash' or 'pocket litter.' "
Note: For many reports from reliable, verifiable sources on threats to privacy, click here.
The Bush administration unveiled new operating guidelines for the nation's intelligence community yesterday in a move that boosted the authority of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) while triggering protests from lawmakers who complained that they weren't properly consulted. The changes affirmed the DNI's role as head of the 16 U.S. spy agencies and expanded its power to set priorities and coordinate the sharing of intelligence. The DNI also was given an expanded role in foreign intelligence collection and in the hiring and firing of senior intelligence officials. The changes were part of a long-awaited overhaul of Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era document that establishes the powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence services. Although the revamped order had been in the works for a year, its formal unveiling prompted a rare revolt from congressional Republicans, some of whom walked out on Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell during a morning briefing. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, led several GOP colleagues to the exit after complaining that the administration had made the changes secretly without consulting with congressional overseers -- part of a pattern dating to the beginning of the Bush presidency, Hoekstra said. "Given the impact that this order will have on America's intelligence community, and this committee's responsibility to oversee intelligence activities, this cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to undercut congressional oversight," Hoekstra said in a statement afterward.
Note: For lots more on threats to civil liberties, click here.
MIT professor Daniel G. Nocera has long been jealous of plants. He desperately wanted to do what they do--split water into hydrogen and oxygen and use the products to do work. That, he figures, is the only way we humans can solve our energy problems; enough energy pours down from the sun in one hour to power the planet's energy needs for a year. Nocera's discovery [is] a cheap and easy way to store energy that he thinks will be used to change solar power into a mainstream energy source. Plants catch light and turn it into an electric current, then use that energy to excite catalysts that split water into hydrogen and oxygen during what is called photosynthesis' light cycle. The energy is then used during the dark cycle to allow the plant to build sugars used for growth and energy storage. Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, focused on the water-splitting part of photosynthesis. They found cheap and simple catalysts that did a remarkably good job. They dissolved cobalt and phosphate in water and then zapped it with electricity through an electrode. The cobalt and phosphate form a thin-film catalyst around the electrode that then use electrons from the electrode to split the oxygen from water. The oxygen bubbles to the surface, leaving a proton behind. A few inches away, another catalyst, platinum, helps that bare proton become hydrogen. The hydrogen and oxygen, separated and on-hand, can be used to power a fuel cell whenever energy is needed.
Note: This amazing breakthrough resulted in a $4 million government grant for further development. For more, click here and here.
Flying today can be stressful, inconvenient and downright difficult. But what if there was a way to make it all easier? What if you had one small device, say a bracelet, which carried all your flight information and other data to make things easier? This bracelet could even track you and your luggage. Former United States Air Marshal Jeffrey Denning describes the idea this way: "The bracelets would take the place of boarding tickets. [They] would also work as a GPS to track air travelers and their luggage." Denning says airline passengers might use this bracelet technology in place of a boarding pass but the government could use it for something else. "And here's the shocking part," Denning said. "No pun intended. If the passengers act up it (the bracelet) would shock and immobilize them for several minutes." That's right. If the flight crew decides that you're getting out of control or posing a threat, to them or the plane, they could simply engage a computer, press a button which would activate this bracelet, shocking and incapacitating you for as long as several minutes. "I guess the design was ... for any air passengers who would become a terrorist or be a terrorist," Denning told [CBS4-TV]. "The bracelet has a capacity to shock ... whoever is wearing it kind of like a police 'taser.'"
Note: What will they think of next? To watch this revealing CBS news broadcast, click here.
Exxon Mobil Corp. jumped into the political fray Thursday as its $11.7 billion record quarterly earnings — and $8 billion in share buybacks — raised hackles in Washington. "They tell us they want to do more domestic production," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "They tell us they need to drill offshore. They tell us that they can find oil on the mainland. And what do they do with their profits? They buy back stock, simply to increase their share price." Democrats argue that producers already hold 68 million acres of federal lands on which they are not producing oil or gas. Irving-based Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, was the fourth major oil giant to release quarterly results. Hours earlier, Royal Dutch Shell, based in the Netherlands, announced a 33 percent increase in profit. Houston-based ConocoPhillips last week announced a 13 percent increase in net income during a quarter in which oil prices rose from about $100 to $140 a barrel. London-based BP announced a 28 percent profit increase on Tuesday. Analysts ... focused less on Exxon Mobil's profits than on its 8 percent drop in production. The world's largest oil companies ... are benefiting from record-high oil prices. Exxon Mobil increased spending on capital and exploration projects by 38 percent in the quarter to $7 billion. It also spent $8 billion buying back its own shares and reported $39 billion in cash on hand. A Democratic analysis of the top five oil company's expenditures from 2004 through 2007 found that the majors plowed about $181 billion into stock buybacks, nearly three times as much as they spent on U.S. production activity.
What would you do if had an incurable disease and heard that something simple and common may help -- a chemical found at a pet store, or in an allergy drug, or a breakthrough injection a man in California developed? It's the sort of dilemma Alan Romantowski, a former airline pilot, faces with each news story about Alzheimer's disease treatments. "It is tempting; I'm taking ginseng, fish oil, ginkgo and all the over-the-counter things that the doctors say don't have any proof that it helps, but it doesn't hurt," said Romantowski, 55, who is suffering from the early stages of the disease. Whether scientifically sound or wacky, any news about potential Alzheimer's treatments can fill a doctor's voicemail with calls from desperate families. And a new potential treatment announced Tuesday may be no exception. Discussed at the annual Alzheimer's Association Meeting in Chicago, a drug called Rember sparked hope among researchers and within the Alzheimer community. Rember has completed a phase II trial, which means it's a long way off from meeting FDA approval as a legal therapy. But, thus far the data has shown promise -- double the improvement in cognition than a placebo gives for patients with moderate Alzheimer's disease. "There was an article about that in our paper this morning," said Josie Romantowski. "I actually even called my husband about it... as far as trying [a drug], what is there to lose really, at this point?"
Note: For many promising reports on health issues from reliable sources, click here.
MIT researchers say they have discovered a way to use solar energy cheaply even after the sun goes down, which could make it a mainstream source of power within the next decade. Solar energy has been expensive and inefficient to use after dark, said Daniel Nocera, 51, the Henry Dreyfus professor of energy and professor of chemistry at MIT. But in an article published in the July 31 issue of the journal Science, Nocera and other Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers say they have found a simple, inexpensive process for storing solar energy. "How the heck are you going to build an economy or a business only if the sun is shining?" said Nocera, the senior author. "What you really need to do is when the sun is shining, figure out how to store some of that energy so you can unleash it when the sun isn't shining." Nocera and the other researchers based their work on a compound made from cobalt and phosphate, both readily available. When the sun is out, electricity from solar panels can be fed to the compound in water, causing the water to split into hydrogen and oxygen. The elements create a chemical fuel that can be recombined to create energy later, when the sun is not shining. The discovery breaks "the connection between energy and fossil fuels because my energy is coming from water," said Nocera, "unleashing the solar energy, not in real time, but when you want to." The researchers said the findings open the door for large-scale use of solar energy around the clock - not right away but within 10 years.
Note: For a treasure trove of reports on new energy inventions with great potential, click here.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.