In my last blog post, I questioned the financial rationale for a process that extracts oil from waste plastic.

There's another process that sure seems to be the equivalent of "using every part of the pig except the squeal."

A Purdue University discovery and scientific explanation of super-sized apples is fascinating (at least to this former food chemist). Some Gala apple trees produce apples that are about 38% heavier than regular Galas, with all the extra size and weight being in the meat, not the core. The reason? The apple's cells aren't splitting, so the number of cells are the same as regular apples -- only larger. Decent science here. Read all about it:

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2010/100630HirstGala.html

But now onto the subject matter of this post's title.

Standard Western practices treating the body of the deceased are hardly "green," as cremation consumes a lot of energy and often releases mercury from dental fillings, and standard burial consumes metal and concrete (not to mention taking up space).

Does getting a group of fourth graders more excited about the condition of a local creek, rather than their local playground, sound like Mission Impossible?

As a matter of fact, the GreenKids program, developed by the Audubon Nationalist Society and funded in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute does just that. More than 20,000 students in Maryland and Virginia, many from low-income families, have participated in the GreenKids environmental science projects since 2005.

When a teenie tissue-size wet wipe simply won't do: http://www.manufacturing.net/article.aspx?id=250472

Actually, I can see this for campers, gymnasts or others finding themselves without a shower. Here's the manufacturer's site:

http://www.klenztowel.com/web/index.php?siteid=241

Pricing is reasonable. You can purchase one, a 12-pack or case of 48. You can even purchase a pack to send to a soldier. How cool is that?

Want a chance on an iPod? Here's the deal.

Drug Discovery News is looking to expand their subscriber base - and so are we.

They are having a drawing for iPods based on instructions that are copied below. If my e-mail

(jogucwa@techmanage.com)

is drawn, we'll hold a drawing of our subscriber/members (it's free) on August 15 and we'll send the lucky person the iPod we won.

IN ADDITION, we'll hold a second drawing of all our subscriber members, also on August 15, for a copy of Paul Tedesco's excellent book "Common Sense in Project Management" just published by Thompson Course Technology.

Nervana has released Version 3.0 of the Nervana Discovery Solution, a natural language query system. The company says the new offering allows researchers and knowledge workers in life sciences and related markets to improve their speed, efficiency and insight in data query across a broad range of data sets and ontologies.

Read more at:
http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=15897

Someone once asked, "Why do we say 'common sense' when it is not at all common?

Paul Tedesco, one of the pioneers of AI (artificial intelligence) offers Common Sense project management lessons learned from his career's experience that includes Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, the City of Chicago, Kraft, International Minerals and Chemicals, the American Medical Association and others.

Biacore's systems generate unique data on the interactions between proteins and other molecules, including small molecules such as drug candidates. During research, development and manufacture, these data give insights into protein functionality, elucidate disease mechanisms and play a key role in the critical decisions needed for efficient development and production of therapeutics.

We can provide required data in a short period of time due to
availability of large patient population, at a lower cost and of high quality due to availability of large pool of qualified and experienced scientists, some of whom were trained and working in the US or Europe.