Better video compilations | Preschoolers Videos

Preschoolers Home

Search Box

Preschoolers

Places for ultrasound technologist education and training

Visit here to buy domain name for your website

Wired Top Stories
Updated :

Indie Musician's Tumblelog Packs Music, Photos
Singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur uses his tumblelog, "Bag Is Hot," to build his next two EPs and a full-length CD, due for release in 2008. Sample the goods on the photo and music journal posted by the indie musician discovered and signed by Peter Gabriel.
Publ.Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT
Source: Wired.com

China to Make Its Own Jumbo Jets
State media reports Sunday that the Chinese central government and the Shanghai government are major shareholders in a homegrown company that will make passenger jumbo jets. The idea is that China Commercial Aircraft will make the country less dependent on Boeing and Airbus.
Publ.Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 04:00:00 GMT
Source: Wired.com

May 12, 1941: Fog of War Shrouds Computer Advance
1941: German engineer Konrad Zuse unveils the Z3, now generally recognized as the first fully functional, programmable computer. Because Zuse designed and built his computer inside Nazi Germany, which was already at war, his achievement went unnoticed outside Germany until after the Third Reich's collapse. In the meantime, the Harvard Mark 1, a computer produced by an American team, appeared in 1944 and is still occasionally cited as the first of its kind. Complicating Zuse's claim of priority, an air raid destroyed his computer, as well as all accompanying photographs and documentation. Zuse rebuilt the Z3 15 years after the war ended, to demonstrate its capabilities and to establish his claim to the patents associated with the machine. The Z3, Zuse's third computer in a series of four, used the simple binary system for performing complicated mathematical computations -- its outstanding feature. Zuse is also remembered for devising Plankalkül (calculation plan), an early programming language designed, although never implemented, for engineering purposes. Additionally, he's credited with founding the world's first computer startup company, Zuse-Ingenieurbüro Hopferau, or Zuse Engineering Office of Hopferau (Bavaria), in 1946. Zuse's achievement, according to his son, was even more remarkable considering he worked independently, even in isolation, and remained unaware of contemporary developments in computer science. And unlike computer pioneers in the Allied countries, Zuse received precious little support from his government. The Nazis saw little military value in his computers and provided only very minimal funding. Years later, Zuse was generously funded by Siemens and some other German companies when he rebuilt his Z1 computer as part of a retro computing project. A replica of the Z3 (and the Z4) is on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. (Source: Various)
Publ.Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 01:00:00 GMT
Source: Wired.com

News Corp. Pulls Bid for Newsday
Despite Rupert Murdoch's boast lthat he was about to close a deal for the Long Island newspaper, a News Corp. rep says the company has withdrawn its $580 million bid to purchase Newsday. News Corp. already owns two New York papers, WSJ and New York Post.
Publ.Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 20:00:00 GMT
Source: Wired.com

Meet the Pulverizers: New Munitions Tear Up Rock and Concrete Quick
New munitions called Pam, Barnie and Bam Bam tear apart rock and concrete easily -- and that's hard to do with traditional explosives. The new blasters use a two-step process: A "shaped charge" drills a hole, then explosives are fired into the hole, and -- ka-boom.
Publ.Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT
Source: Wired.com

Craft Brewers Reformulate Beer to Cope With Hop Shortage
OAKLAND, California -- At Pacific Coast Brewing here, brewer Donald Gortemiller is reworking his recipes and altering his brewing styles like never before. Gortemiller isn't acting on a spurt of creativity. He's coping with a worldwide shortage of hops -- the spice of beer. The dry cones of a particular flowering vine, hops are what give your favorite brew its flavor and aroma. Prices of the commodity are skyrocketing as hop supplies have plummeted, forcing smaller brewmasters around the United States to begin quietly tweaking their recipes, in ways that are easily discerned by serious imbibers. The shortage -- caused by a dwindling number of hop growers worldwide, and exacerbated by a Yakima, Washington, warehouse fire -- has forced Gortemiller to use fewer and different hops than before, changing the flavor of his beer. He's also resorted to beer hacks, like "dry hopping," in which the hops are added late to the mix, consuming fewer hops and yielding a more consistent flavor. "When hops were $2 a pound, compared to $20 or $30 a pound now, it didn't matter. We'd throw them into the boil at various times," Gortemiller says. "That was an inaccurate way of doing things. We're modifying recipes and using about 20 percent less hops."

Brewer Chuey Munkanta at the 21st Amendment Brewery pulls the grain out of the wash tub.Photo Jim Merithew, Wired.com

The beer-brewing situation demonstrates how the global-commodity shortage is spilling over to affect diverse industries in unexpected ways. The hop shortage lives on the outer edges of a food crisis that's prompted riots across the planet, and last month led U.N. Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon to implore the world's governments to increase food production to stave off a 40 percent jump in the cost of staples. While nobody in the craft-beer industry is going hungry, they are being forced to adapt. There's no replacement for hops in beer -- they give the brew its flavor. But other key ingredients are in short supply, as well. Malt, which comes from sprouted barley, produces the alcohol and body of beer -- its prices have doubled along with hops. The price of rice, used by industrial brewers, has charted a similar course. The larger commercial brewers are better off. Most have long-term contracts for hops, barley and rice, and are doing whatever is necessary not to tinker with their brand names. "Coors Banquet has been tweaked very little since it was introduced in the 1800s," says Molson Coors spokeswoman Jenny Volanakis. "We don't play around with our beers." But even the big brewers aren't immune from the shortage, says industry analyst Jack Russo of Edward Jones in St. Louis. "Most everybody has raised prices in the 2-to-3-percent range," says Russo. The small, craft brewers are taking the brunt of the beer crisis, though. "When I called my hop supplier," Gortemiller says, "they told me you're 250th on the list." At the 21st Amendment Brewery in San Francisco, brewer Shaun O'Sullivan says he just increased the price of a pint 25 cents, to $5.50. Like Gortemiller, he's reducing the amount of hops used in some recipes. "We've backed off," O'Sullivan says. "We had to get smart. We could have easily limped along." O'Sullivan is lucky. One of his most popular beers is Watermelon Wheat, which "has virtually no hops in it," he says.

Jesse Houck is head brewer at the 21st Amendment Brewery. Photo Jim Merithew, Wired.com

Ken Grossman, the head brewer at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico, California, says he's not tinkering with his brand-name recipes, such as his Pale Ale. He has long-term contracts in place to purchase his hops of choice. He's paying more for barley, though -- the price has jumped because of a drought in Australia, flooding in Europe and a trend that has farmers worldwide switching to corn to produce biofuels. "A lot of brewers got caught short on hops," says Grossman. Still, that hasn't stopped him from brewing a new, hop-laden beer called Torpedo Ale, produced with New Zealand hops. "We have been in a fortunate position," Grossman says. But not everybody in the business is as beer savvy as is Grossman, one of the first to commercialize microbrewing. Ian Ward, president of Brewers Supply Group in Shakopee, Minnesota -- the nation's largest craft brew supplier -- says things are only going to get worse. "That's the crisis that brewers are finding themselves in," Ward says. "They're having to review their recipes. The crisis really hasn't hit hard yet." The hop shortage became noticeable around July, when a market glut and hop reserves stored in extract began dwindling. The bulk of U.S.-grown hops are produced in the Yakima, Washington, area. Farmers weren't getting a profitable return and got out of the market, switched crops or went bankrupt. The same was happening in Germany, the world's No. 1 hop-growing country. In the United States alone, there were an estimated 515 hop growers in 1950; 75 in 2000 and just 45 today, Ward says. In 2006, about 2 million pounds of hops were destroyed in an S.S. Steiner warehouse in Yakima, equaling about 4 percent of the U.S. hop crop. All the while, beer sales are increasing worldwide by about 1 to 2 percent annually. The craft brewing industry is growing yearly by 12 percent. That economic reality is pushing hop growers back into the fields.

21st Amendment's Jesse Houck adds hops to the brew.Photo Jim Merithew, Wired.com

About 8,500 acres of hops were just planted in Yakima alone, and about 2,500 thousand acres in Germany, Ward says. "The cure for high prices is high prices," he says. But that isn't sitting well with Omar Ansari, the owner and brewer of Surly Brewing in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, who just signed a long-term hop deal "My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price," Ansari says. And next year, he'll have to reformulate his brown ale Bender beer, a blend he described as a "flagship" flavor requiring the "Willamette" hop from the Pacific Northwest. "We were informed by our supplier that next year we can't get that hop. It's just gone," Ansari said. "We're going to have to make changes." "Everybody," he says, "is crossing their fingers there is going to be good hop crop."
Publ.Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 17:00:00 GMT
Source: Wired.com