… Ethanol’s Downside, Fixing the Internet, Vintage Car Race and your last chance to vote on the New 7 Wonders of the World!

Your Last Day to Vote
The New Seven Wonders of the World, a proposed revision of the Seven Wonders of the World in which members of the public nominated and voted for hundreds of locations around the world, was launched in 2000.

In January 2006, the New7Wonder Panel of Experts, chaired by former head of UNESCO Prof. Dr. Federico Mayor, short-listed those nominations with the most votes received by the end of 2005. The top 77 choices were narrowed down to just 21 finalists, which have been the focus for the final year of voting. The final round of the competition narrowed the field to 20 candidates, and people from every country in the world voted by Internet or phone.

The winners will be announced tomorrow in Lisbon, Portugal. As the 8 p.m. EDT Friday voting deadline approaches, the rankings can still change.

Currently in the top 10: The Great Wall of China; the Colosseum in Rome; Peru’s Machu Picchu; the Acropolis in Greece; Chichen Itza pyramid in Mexico; Eiffel Tower in Paris; Easter Island; Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Taj Mahal in India; and Jordan’s ancient city of Petra.

VOTE HERE.

The Downside of Ethanol
First, it was blamed for higher milk, ice cream and pizza prices. Now Ethanol is being blamed for higher beer prices.

**gasp**

Compared to this time last year, beer prices are up about 3 percent across the nation, according to the Labor Department.

Some brewers claim that one big reason for the largest jump in more than two years is the rising cost of barley. A high demand for corn-based ethanol has many farmers devoting more fields to their corn crop and less to barley.

Someone needs to do something about this. Perhaps the government? If it’s not too busy with…

A National Air Conditioner Policy
The next major White House policy initiative:

The National Air Conditioner Initiative is expected to be the largest public works project in the nation’s history. Because technology capable of creating an air conditioner that can fulfill the cooling needs of a continental land mass does not presently exist, the President estimates that research and development alone will require at least $100 trillion in both federal and private sector funds.

“The challenge of building an air conditioner for all Americans will be the greatest we have ever faced,” Bush said. “But we must face it. We must act now to ensure that our children and our children’s children can live in a world where they don’t get sweaty and have to change their shirts all the time.

“We have a responsibility to future generations.”

While Bush’s speech left many questions unanswered — such as whether the one-touch cooling settings would be under federal or state jurisdiction — reaction from congressional Democrats and Republicans has been largely favorable.

From The Onion, of course. (via ShopFloor.org)

Mustard Belt Stays in U.S. after 6 Years in Japan
The 92nd annual Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest was held on Wednesday, and, to the surprise and delight of many, American competitive eater Joey Chestnut defeated six-time champion Takeru “Tsunami” Kobayashi, a 28 year old from Japan who went into the Coney Island competition with a jaw injury.

The event, which was televised live on ESPN, saw Chestnut win the “Mustard Belt” prize by eating a record-breaking 66 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes.

Despite the jaw injury, Kobayashi managed to down 63 hot dogs. The third-place eater trailed way behind with 49.

Yes, the ESPN announcer describes it as possibly “The Greatest Moment in American Sport.”

“It just feels awesome,” Chestnut told Reuters. “For a long time the belt has been going away to Japan but this year it’s staying here.”

Coming in fifth place this year, top-ranked Korean-born American competitive eater Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas set a female record with 39 hot dogs.

Lawsuit: Perfume Violates Americans with Disabilities Act
A planning department employee has sued the city of Detroit because she claims a coworker’s strong fragrance prohibits her from working, reports The Associated Press.

The lawsuit states the coworker wore a strong scent and plugged in a scented room deodorizer that caused the woman to go home sick. The suit says the fragrant work environment violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The woman who brought the lawsuit is asking for a ban on such scents at work and unspecified damages.

Speaking of perfume scents…

Rosy Tomatoes
Israeli researchers say they have genetically engineered tomatoes to give hints of lemon and rose aromas that have done well in testing on volunteers, according to Discovery News, which goes on to report:

The transgenic tomato includes a gene from a variety of lemon basil, Ocimum basilicum, that produces an aroma-making enzyme called geraniol synthase, Efraim Lewinsohn of Newe Ya’ar Research Center and colleagues report.

A panel of 82 people tested the experimental fruit against unmodified counterparts. Nearly all of them were able to detect novel aromas, which the testers variously described as “perfume,” “rose,” “geranium” and “lemongrass.”

Robo-ballers
Robot aficionados and soccer fans in Japan have been battling it out at the ROBO-One Soccer Cup with their creations: foot-high humanoid robots playing each other in three-on-three matches.

Some 16 teams, involving almost 50 robots, won preliminary rounds throughout Japan and made it to the final on Sunday.

“Like real players,” Reuters reports, “many of the robots suffered injuries on the field — glitches that needed prompt attention.” And like four- and five-year-old players on teams at the local YMCA, some of the bots ran in the opposite direction to the ball. (Photo credit: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon)

Racing Vintage Cars
Thirty-nine cars, every one of them 100+ years old, took to the road this week to replay the world’s first internationally recognized automobile race in 1895, which involved 20 cars (only nine of which crossed the finish line) and saw the triumph of petrol-powered engines over steam-powered cars, reports AFP.

The Bordeaux to Paris vintage car race is the brainchild of Robert Panhard, great grandson of the founder of the eponymous French automobile firm. The cars, which will follow the original itinerary as closely as possible, are due at Paris’ Place de la Concorde this Sunday after a gruelingly slow five-day rally over a mere 600 kilometers (375 miles).

Of the 39 cars signed up for the 2007 race, the newest dates back to 1904.

If It Ain’t Broke, Fix It, Anyway
Whether we broke it or not, either way the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wants to reinvent the Internet, issuing a call for “revolutionary ideas” to rework the current Internet and build a better one, reports The Register.

From the looks of it, DARPA thinks there’s plenty of room for improvement. Last week DARPA issued a request, stating the goal of the program as nothing less than to “improve transfer speeds, network routing efficiency, reliability, simplify network configuration, and reduce cost,” adding that it’s also interested in new addressing schemes to supplement the current IP scheme. Those interested in taking a shot at it can hit up the link below for all the necessary information.

Mysterious Night-Shining Clouds
These “night-shining clouds” were photographed in the sky over Budapest, Hungary, last month. The clouds — “among the first such noctilucent clouds pictured this year” — form in the upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere in summer, according to National Geographic.

Scientists don’t know much about how the clouds form, or why they have been appearing more often at lower latitudes and glowing brighter.

Because these clouds are still shrouded in mystery, NASA has employed a satellite called AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in Mesosphere) to observe two cloud seasons over both of Earth’s Poles.

Credit: National Geographic

On June 11, AIM captured its first images of night-shining clouds. In this image of the Arctic regions of Europe and North America, white and light blue represent noctilucent cloud structures. Black indicates areas where no data is available.

Credit: Cloud Imaging Team, U. of Colorado/NASA

Cheers.