It's Friday, which can mean only one thing: We're contributing to the more than 50 million pounds (US$106 million) businesses are losing each year due to employees leaving work early on Friday.

This according to a survey published today by personnel software company Employersafe.

The top excuses for starting the weekend early are a long lunch, a doctor's appointment and an out-of-office meeting near to home. A growing number of staff are treating the last day of the working week as an unofficial holiday, BBC News reported the company as claiming.

"Our evidence suggests that more and more workers are seeing Friday afternoon as an unofficial holiday," Pam Rogerson, head of personnel at UK's Employersafe, told Reuters UK.

"We have estimated that this is costing British business just over 50 million pounds a year, which all goes to form part of the overall 13 billion pound cost of workplace absenteeism."

The company added that the "Friday Feeling" trend has been reinforced by motoring organizations, which report that the Friday rush hour now starts around noon.

German Power
"It rains year round in Germany and clouds cover the skies for about two-thirds of each day," according to Reuters — yet "the country has managed to become the world's leading solar power generator."

Fifty-five percent of the world's photovoltaic (PV) power is generated on solar panels set up between the Baltic Sea and the Black Forest, making up just 3 percent of Germany's electricity. Germany's PV systems generate about 3,000 megawatts of power — 1,000 times more than in 1990 — due in no small part to a "feed-in tariff" that gives anyone who generates power from solar PV, wind or hydro a guaranteed payment from the local power company.

The power firms are obliged to buy solar electricity for 49 cents per kilowatt hour or nearly four times market rates. "This can work out at a better return than putting money in the bank," Reuters reports, "so despite the cloudy weather, the investment pays for itself within 10 years."

The government wants to raise the share of renewables to 27 percent of all energy by 2020 from 13 percent.

In related news...

Renewable Energy is Junk Science
In an article published in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Rockefeller University's Jesse Ausubel condemns renewable energy as "wrecking" the environment.

Aside from land misuse, other undesirable renewables consequences recently raised by "long-time Green" Ausubel:

Wind power produces low-frequency noise and thumps, blights landscapes, interferes with TV reception, and chops birds and bats; dams kill rivers; and solar power would require that large areas of land be essentially "painted black" with photovoltaic cells.

In terms of resource use, the infrastructure of a wind farm takes five to 10 times the steel and concrete used in a 1970-vintage nuclear power plant.

Fox News reports for you to decide.

Combative Robots in Korea
Here two robots tussle on a platform during a fighting robot competition in Seoul this week.

Here a robot beats down another during the Seoul robot competition.

The contest was aimed to sort out the most combative robot in the country, according to China's Xinhua.

Seems Seoul is getting closer to building its combat robot army.

Workplace Princesses
A survey earlier this year from Rachelle Canter, author of the executive career handbook Make the Right Career Move (Wiley, 2007), found that almost half of American workers say there is a "workplace princess" at their job site.

A "workplace princess" here is defined as "a co-worker who had a special sense of entitlement or privilege."

According to the survey of 506 employed adults 18 years and older, 48 percent of "workplace princesses" expect special favors from employers; 47 percent believe they are being treated unfairly; and 35 percent make other people do their work for them. The survey has a margin of error of 5 percent.

And 16 percent said that the "workplace princess" was a man.

"You see Workplace Princesses in the C-Suite and on the factory floor," said Canter, a San Francisco-based executive and career coach, in the Ithaca Journal this week.

The survey, though somewhat silly, is telling on American work life. Canter said in the release that the narcissistic undertone it shows is worrying. Not only do such "princesses" drive other people crazy, she said, but they also tend to ruin or derail their own careers without ever knowing why.

Canter offers some warning signs that you may be a "workplace princess" (via Deseret Morning News). Ask yourself:

• Do you start most of your sentences with "I want" or "I need"?
• When was the last time you listened for 30 minutes to a friend or colleague with a problem?
• When was the last time you called a colleague to see how they were doing?
• When things go wrong, do you blame the situation or other workers?

Canter said you can be rehabilitated if you first acknowledge that you are self-centered, and then try to break the cycle. For example, she suggests:

• Think first of what you can contribute to others.
• Volunteer to help a colleague with a project and ask for nothing in return.
• Notice others and thank them for their contributions.
• Practice random acts of kindness.

There may be many reasons for this feeling of entitlement, but, according to career management blogger Lori Grant, DO NOT BLAME MISTER ROGERS!

Sunfish Inspire AUV Engineers
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, "inspired by the efficient swimming motion of the bluegill sunfish," are building a mechanical fin that could one day propel robotic submarines.

A bluegill sunfish swims in an MIT laboratory tank near a prototype of a robotic fin designed with the fish's fin as a guide.
Credit: Donna Coveney

ScienceDaily reports:

The propeller-driven submarines, or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), currently perform a variety of functions, from mapping the ocean floor to surveying shipwrecks. But the MIT team hopes to create a more maneuverable, propeller-less underwater robot better suited for military tasks such as sweeping mines and inspecting harbors — and for that they are hoping to mimic the action of the bluegill sunfish.

According to an MIT news release (via ScienceDaily), the MIT researchers chose to copy the bluegill sunfish because of its distinctive swimming motion, which results in a constant forward thrust with no backward drag. In contrast, a human performing the breaststroke inevitably experiences drag during the recovery phase of the stroke.

Dumbo Octopus and Other Freakish Species Discoveries
Thanks to a diving robot that was exploring in the 8,200-foot-deep Sable "Gully" about 125 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, scientists recently collected images of unanticipated (and freakish-looking) sea life.

For example, they noticed a one-meter-long octopus with large fins attached to its head.

This rarely seen Dumbo octopus is named for its resemblance to the elephant.
Credit: ScienceDaily

Later the researchers spotted two young octopi, each of which was the size of a saucer with the full-grown fins of an adult, Canadian Press reports. Other unusual species included scallop-like animals with bright orange body cavities, exotically colored corrals and they may have found a previously unknown starfish species.

One of the most important discoveries was a type of xenophyophore, a single-cell animal the size of a grapefruit that had previously been found only in deepest mid-Atlantic.

Exploring never-before-seen patches of ocean floor off the East Coast, a team of about 20 Canadian researchers probed the waters off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with a remotely operated submersible to find out what's in the great depths so they can better understand the ecosystem. Much of the scientists' collected images, videos and live samples will be used to create a record to help measure the effects of climate change, fishing or oil and gas activity.

Meanwhile, because all-natural fin-headed octopi apparently aren't freakish enough…

Scientists Create 12-Headed Jellyfish
Scientists have created jellyfish with up to a dozen heads by carefully fiddling with a few genes.

Evolutionary biologist and invertebrate zoologist Bernd Schierwater told LiveScience:

By inhibiting one Cnox gene called Cnox-3, two heads often formed, where both were completely functional — regarding food intake, for instance. By deactivating another, Cnox-2, more than two heads usually sprouted — "up to a dozen"...

Cnox genes help control how the bodies of jellyfish are laid out as their embryos develop. These genes are closely related to Hox genes, which play a similar role in humans.

"The genetic experiments could shed light on how natural colonies of other multi-headed organisms first originated, including some that build coral reefs," according to LiveScience.

The findings are detailed in the Aug. 1 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

Sideways Bike
In February, Dublin, Ireland, software engineer Michael Killian demonstrated his sideways-traveling bicycle, on which a rider sits and pedals facing perpendicular to front and back, with each hand controlling a wheel, e.g., squeezing the right handlebar and pedaling moves the bike rightward.

Credit: SidewaysBike.com

Lots more pics and vids at SidewaysBike.com.

Also, this month is National Sandwich Month. Now you know. Enjoy your lunch.


Cheers.