We Are Awake

Hemp is making a major comeback around the world. In the US,   five states have legalized the recreational use of cannabis, and  hemp -based building materials are now gaining in popularity. The first house built in America with hemcrete was constructed in Asheville, North Carolina, and the 3,400 square foot   Push House   boasts a number of eco-friendly features. To create a solid – yet breathable – wall system, hemp hurds were mixed with lime and water on-site an poured in-between the exterior supporting studs in lift. As   USA Today notes , Hempcrete is actually less like concrete and more like infill straw bale, as it is non-structural. The insulating quality is r-2.5 per inch, and it has the unique ability to capture airborne pollutants over time – absorbing carbon when it is grown and in place. The interior walls of this gorgeous, eco-friendly house are made from   Purepanel , a unique product made from recycled paper. It...

London, August 18, 2015: A new study revelaed that owls are armed with advanced stealth technology enabling them to swoop on their prey undetected. The study analyzes the secret behind the nocturnal creature’s silent flight. Scientists and researchers have been intrigued for a long time by the owl’s ability to flap its wings forcefully enough to rise in the air without making noise while pouncing silently on fast moving rodents. The researchers dubbed the owl the king of acoustic stealth after observing that its wings took in the energy of flight vibrations and turned it into heat in a much more efficient manner than other birds they scrutinized. Producing enough thrust to be up in flight requires a large quantity of force and moves a lot of air. Many owl species can do it at frequencies under 2 kilohertz, quite beyond their prey’s range of hearing. Researchers utilized the feathers of a pigeon, a golden eagle, and a long-eared owl. Simulating wing-beats they calculated...

Stocks, currencies and commodities fall sharply across region as investors fear a stalling China economy and possible currency war despite Beijing’s assurances China   stunned the world’s financial markets on Wednesday by devaluing the yuan for the second consecutive day, triggering fears the world’s second largest economy is in worse shape than investors believed. The move sent fresh shockwaves through global markets, pushing shares sharply lower and sending commodity prices further into reverse as traders feared the move could ignite a currency war that would destabilise the world economy. There were widespread losses in Asia, and in Europe stock markets suffered falls of about 1%, with the FTSE 100 tumbling almost 2% at one stage. The Chinese currency hit a four-year low on Wednesday after the People’s Bank of China set the yuan’s daily midpoint even weaker than in   Tuesday’s devaluation . With the bank having said that Tuesday’s move was a “one-off deprec...

Did you know that Planned Parenthood gets   more than half a billion dollars  from the federal government every single year?  Did you know that the Obama administration gives an additional 35 million dollars each year to the United Nations Population Fund to promote abortion and sterilization around the globe?  And did you know that the radical new sustainable development agenda that is being launched by the United Nations   in September   includes a goal of providing access to abortion services to every single woman on the entire planet by the year 2030?  The things that you are going to read about in this article are very disturbing.   The demonic population control agenda of the New World Order is greatly advancing, and Barack Obama and   the U.S. government   are at the tip of the spear. No matter which political party has been in power, the U.S. government has been giving hundreds of millions of dollars to Planne...

Venezuela is running out of food, running out of beer, and running out of dollars. In other words, it's not going bankrupt gradually anymore. It's going bankrupt much more suddenly. And the government is to blame. Now, more than anywhere else, socialism should have worked in Venezuela. After all, it has the world's largest oil reserves, so it should have had more than enough petrodollars to finance a generous safety net. But rather than creating a Norwegian-style state, Venezuela has opted for a more Soviet one. It started when the late Hugo Chavez turned the country's state-owned oil company from being largely autonomous to being little more than his personal piggy bank. Profits came out, but new investment   didn't go in , and, as a result, oil production   fell 25 percent   between 1999 and 2o13. Oil exports plunged twice as much, because so much of the country's crude stays home at the   extremely   subsidized price of   1.5 U...

Will we one day be able to disable the ageing process? It sounds like an impossible goal, but scientists from Northwestern University in the US have found a way to turn off the 'genetic switch' that causes us to get older - in worms at least. While it won't give us the keys to immortality just yet, the discovery could lead to new ways of making us more productive and active in the latter years of our lives. According to the study, this genetic switch is automatically flipped when a worm reaches reproductive maturity. Stress responses that originally protect its cells by keeping vital proteins folded and functional are switched off at this point, and the ageing process begins in earnest - with the switch disabled, the cells kept up their earlier level of resistance, making the worm better able to handle the wear and tear of growing older. It's a big jump from worms to human beings of course, but the two researchers behind these experiments say there are enough ...

In a move that once again proves   its commitment to renewable energy , China has begun construction on its first large-scale commercial solar plant out in the sun-dreched expanse of the Gobi Desert. Called Delingha, the colossal facility will spread out across 25 km² (6,300 acres) of vacant land in the country's Qinghai province, and will feature six huge solar towers hooked up to an array of solar mirrors. When complete, the plant will have a capacity of 200 megawatts, which means it will be able to supply electricity to 1 million households in Qinghai year-round. "Its designed heat storage is 15 hours, thus, it can guarantee stable, continual power generation," Qinghai Solar-Thermal Power Group board chair, Wu Longyi,   told the press . The facility is the first solar plant to be run as a commercial entity, and   according to Svati Kirsten Narula at Quartz , it’s being jointly developed by BrightSource Energy, based in Oakland, California, and the Shanghai El...

CHENNAI:   Many may find it a crowning glory, but Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) scientists think it's just an acknowledgement long due. The US, which imposed sanctions on India, will take India's help to launch one of its satellites soon.   Isro has a track record of launching satellites for 19 countries including space-faring nations, but this is the first time the US would be using an Indian vehicle, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, to put one of its satellite in orbit.   "US will be the 20th country to sign up for a commercial launch by India," said Isro chairman A S Kiran Kumar, on the sidelines of the 5th convocation of AMET University. "It's the cost-effective technology we have."   India has so far launched 45 satellites for 19 nations. Kiran Kumar said another 28 foreign satellites will be launched in the next two years. "The need of the hour is to increase our capacity," he said.   ISRO, at present, is gea...

                  Azure Power is just one of the companies developing solar power in India This is Likely Just the Beginning of a Solar Energy Boom in   India . There are about 300 clear and sunny days in India each year. And with its location very close to the equator, the country is one of the top countries in the world with the capacity to produce among the largest solar power generation. However, with the country relying mostly on coal-generated power, hundreds of villages still do not have access to electricity and many major cities are still experiencing rotating blackouts. But all of these are about to change under the government’s latest push to produce more solar parks across all states of the country. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created a 15-year plan with the country’s target solar power energy production of 100 gigawatts by the year 2020. Currently, the plan includes the creation of an electri...