Everett Taylor: Taylor's Yarns

Armchair weather prophets often try to use logic in trying to figure out what upcoming weather conditions to expect, and that usually doesn't work much better than those modern computers.

For instance, a lot of people were speculating that since the summer of 2007 was relatively mild by Texas standards, there would be an early winter. Only a very few days saw temperatures hit the 100 degree mark this year.

Well, here it is well into December and there hasn't been a solid freeze yet in this part of East Texas and only a mild scattering of frost. And this weekend something close to record high temperatures for December were anticipated before another cooling.

Some trees have kept most of their leaves, and warm weather flowers are still blooming.

The way things are going, the season's first hard freeze might not arrive before the official start of winter on Dec. 22. In 2006, when the summer was filled with 100-degree-plus days, there were freezes in November as well as early December.

So much for applying logical thinking to weather forecasts.

Logically, or just about any other way, one forecast likely to be on the mark just about every year is that there will be no snow on Christmas in this part of the state for 2007. It could happen, of course. But since snowfall is relatively rare at any time of the year here, chances of it falling on a certain date are remote.

Winter weather, or lack of it, seems to have confounded the weather computers so far this season, too. Colder weather is just to the north, it just hasn't started moving this direction as some had indicated.

If it doesn't show up soon, those "It just doesn't seem like Christmas" observations will be more prevalent than usual this season.


HEATING POWER

It's not related directly to the weather, but physicists at the University of Utah have developed tiny devices that turn heat into sound and then into electricity. This comes from an item in Texas Innovator, published by the State Comptroller's Office.

The approach is said to hold promise as an alternative source of electricity, providing a way to harness solar energy and cool computers.

"It is a new source of renewable energy from waste heat," said Orest Symko, a physics professor leading the research, which is being funded by the U.S. Army. The Army hopes to produce electric energy that could be used on the battlefield to run electronic equipment.

Symko foresees using the devices to generate electricity heat from power plant cooling towers.

The potential for this approach would appear to be endless if a way can be found to utilize all of that excess heat from just one Texas summer.

Another new innovation getting attention in the report is a driverless car being developed by an Austin company with The University of Texas.

Austin Robot Technology is reported to be fine tuning its model.

Some people might be wondering what is the point of a driverless car. But they might do better than some of those spotted at times that apparently have drivers.

Actually, they are not being designed for running on streets and highways in traffic. The idea is to develop an autonomous ground vehicle to save lives on the battlefield. Not that the two don't have some things in common at times.

Congress has mandated that, by 2015, the military should have combat vehicles that are unmanned.

Innovation is rising in Texas, the report notes. When innovators in the state need a boost to take their products from design to putting actual products in the hands of potential customers, there is help available.

Texas' Emerging Technology Fund was established by the 79th Texas Legislature. The ETF awards grants with $100 million set aside for 2006 and 2007 to companies ready to take that next step.

Eligible fields of innovation include life science, defense, nanotechnology and others.

Mark Ellison, director of the ETF, said the market dictates where the research support money will go.

Everett Taylor
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