Posted by
Jill Cowan on Sunday, March 30, 2008 12:17 pm
You know how everyone’s always thought that Thomas Edison–famous inventor the lightbulb, the phonograph, the immortal soul, etc.–was the first person to record sound? Well, it turns out that’s just a pack of dirty lies perpetuated by the victors of history–maybe.
While it’s true that Edison did, in fact, invent the phonograph, the first machine to both record sound and reproduce it as sound, it was a rightfully spiteful Parisian typesetter by the name of Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville who was the first guy to record sound at all, if only as a visual representation in lines and squiggles. Finally, after searching for years for the original gift of sound and vision, an American audio historian, David Giovannoni, recently got a hold of a “pristine” one of these phonautograms, apparently the audio equivalent of the “holy grail.” read more »
First there was the BP deal. Now the U.S. government is throwing money at UC Berkeley for its biofuels research.
The Department of Energy announced Tuesday that the Lawrence Berkeley Lab will host a new energy consortium in the Bay Area. Two other research centers will include the Oak Ridge Lab in Tennessee and a lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
How much is DoE pledging to give Cal? How about $125 million over the next five years? Add to that the $500 million the university got from BP, and you know that the university can afford some bling now.
Joining the university in these efforts will be UC Davis, the Livermore Lab, Stanfurd and Sandia National Laboratories.
And no matter how much people hate the BP deal, or may hate this new deal, you’ve got to admit–$625 million just for bioscience research is huge. If the university can find some sensible alternative to fossil fuels, then maybe we’ll see student fees drop. Right. That’s as likely as Stanfurd giving Cal more tickets for the Big Game, meaning not very likely.
Biofuels Group Secures U.S. Grant [Daily Cal]
New project puts UC Berkeley at forefront of biofuels research [SF Gate]
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