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All Friday Reports are posted at www.vardaman.com/friday.phpVardaman Virtual Forestry CompanyFRIDAY REPORT OF 04/07/06The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy“THINGS HAVE NEVER BEEN BETTER”Our title and quotes are from the “Buttonwood Column” in THE ECONOMIST of 04/04/06: “And to the shame of the skeptics, for the past quarter-century, the bulls have regularly won out, most recently in the just concluded first quarter of the year. Just to put this in perspective, it is useful to set out just how good things are: the American (and world) economy is growing. The indices tracking stockmarkets are either up, or up and up. The unemployment rate is low. ‘Core’ inflation (meaning without fuel and food) is negligible. The ‘misery index,’ a simple sum of inflation and employment rates popularised in the dreary 1970s is lower than it was in all but the best years of the Clinton administration, when the economy was pumped up by the tech-stock euphoria. In short, times are good. Really good…” THE ECONOMIST urges you to read more Buttonwood columns at http://www.economist.com/buttonwood “HERE BE DRAGONS”Our title and quotes are from THE ECONOMIST of 03/30/06: “Paolo Fril, chairman and chief scientific officer of GeneDupe, based in San Melito, California, is a man with a dream. That dream is a dragon in every home. “GeneDupe’s business is biotech pets. Not for Dr Fril, though, the mundane cloning of dead moggies and pooches. He plans a range of entirely new animals – or, rather, of really quite old animals, with the twist that even when they did exist, it was only in the imagination. Making a mythical creature real is not easy. But GeneDupe’s team of biologists and computer scientists reckon they are equal to the task. Their secret is a new field, which they call ‘virtual cell biology.’… “Armed with their virtual cell, GeneDupe’s scientists can customize the result so that it belongs to a particular species, by loading it with a virtual copy of that animal’s genome. Then, if the cell is also loaded with the right virtual molecules, it will behave like a fertilized egg, and start dividing and developing – first into an embryo, and ultimately into an adult. “Because this ‘growth’ is going on in a computer, it happens fast. Passing from egg to adult in one of GeneDupe’s enormous Mythmaker computers takes less than a minute. And it is here that Charles Darwin gets a look in. With such a short generation time, GeneDupe’s scientists can add a little evolution to their products. “Each computer starts with a search image (dragon, unicorn, gryphon, etc.), and the genome of the real animal most closely resembling it (a lizard for the dragon, a horse for the unicorn and, most taxingly, the spliced genomes of a lion and an eagle for the gryphon). The virtual genomes of these real animals are then tweaked by random electronic mutations. When they have matured, the virtual adults most closely resembling the targets are picked and crossbred, while the others are culled. “Using this rapid evolutionary process, GeneDupe’s scientists have arrived at genomes for a range of mythological creatures – in a computer, at least. The next stage, on which they are just embarking, is to do it for real. “This involves synthesizing, with actual DNA, the genetic material that the computer models predict will produce the mythical creatures. The synthetic DNA is then inserted into a cell that has had its natural nucleus removed. The result, Dr Fril and his commercial backers hope, will be a real live dragon, unicorn or what have you…” To read the complete article and see a typical dragon, click on http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=6740040 “INSECTS PROVIDE BILLIONS IN FREE SERVICES”Our title and quotes are from a posting on SCIENTIC AMERICAN.COM: “Of the five species of North American Bombus bumble bees, two are facing steep population declines and one may be extinct. These bigger, gentler cousins of the imported honey-bee play a crucial role in pollinating flowering plants and their disappearance could prove disastrous to ecosystems. It could also provoke an economic disaster: New research shows that bumble bees and other insects provide $57 billion in pollination services as well as other free labor in the U.S. alone. “‘Most insects tirelessly perform functions that improve our environment and lives in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand,’ explains entomologist John Losey of Cornell University. ‘Don’t let the insects’ small stature fool you, these minute marvels provide valuable services…’ “For example, without insects as a food source, North American fisheries would collapse because most freshwater species subsist on flies and other insects. This means that the nearly $28-billion fishing relies on insects as its base. Dung beetles, too, contribute to the economy: without them, bovine dung festers on rangeland, increasing the number of pests and reducing the average forage for cattle…” To read the entire article, click on http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=0001042F-9D1C-142D-9D1C83414B7F0000 “MAGNETIC TRAINS, CHEAP POWER BROUGHT TO YOU BY SUPERWIRES?”Our title and quotes below are from a 04/03/06 posting on NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS: “Hailed as the breakthrough replacement for copper wiring, superconductors can transport electrical current with near-perfect efficiency… “Now researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have found a way to stop the intrusion of magnetic fields – placing a unique configuration of nanoscale dots inside the wires… “This latest advance means that superconducting wires can perform well enough for use in many large-scale applications. “Nanodots “Scientists have already found one possible way to overcome the main hurdle of bringing superconductors to market: keeping the wires cool… “Scientists are therefore pinning their hopes on high-temperature superconductors (HTS), and ceramics seem to be today’s best candidates… “In the fall of 2005 an experimental magnetic-levitated train, developed by Central Japan Railway, ran down a track in Japan at more than 310 miles an hour (500 kilometers an hour). “American Superconductor’s HTS wires were used in one of the superconductive electromagnets that provided the lift necessary to make the entire train hover four inches (ten centimeters) above the concrete guideway…” To read the entire article, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0403_060403_maglev_trains.html USED BOOK SALESWe offer for sale all used books listed at http://www.vardaman.com/booksale.php. OUR SYSTEM FOR BUYING OR SELLING LAND OR TIMBERFor details, click on http://www.vardaman.com and then on the red horizontal bar “Buy/Sell Land/Timber.” You can offer to buy or sell timber or land. You must post the general area of your interest; be sure to include the state. You must also post your E-MAIL ADDRESS and the URL of your Internet site. Our tracking report will not report the number of visitors UNLESS you enter your URL. If you are selling, you should post the name of the tract. When you have entered all details, click on “Submit,” and what you just entered will appear on our Internet site at the bottom of the page under the red horizontal bar “Buy/Sell Land/Timber.” Be sure to check for and correct errors. For each tract posted and whose owner posted his URL, we charge $0.50 for each visit his ad receives. On each Friday at 0900 Central Time, we will e-mail him a bill for $0.50 for each visit his ad received during the week just ended. You can pay us by e-mailing the money to “Vardaman Virtual Forestry Company” at PayPal or mailing it to P.O. Box 12293, Jackson, MS 39236. We will delete your ad when your payments cease. SELL LAND
For tract in AL, send e-mail to landsale@larsonmcgowin.com BUY LAND
For tracts in SC, send e-mail to loblolly@surfbvi.com BUY TIMBER
For tracts in AR, send e-mail to dyork@digitalpassage.com Visit our partner Wiley.com to save 15% on How to Make Money Growing Trees and their entire selection of Forestry and Agricultural titles. Your discount will be applied automatically upon checkout. If you do you not see the discount being applied, please enter code aff15 in the Promotion Code field and click the Apply Discount button. |
