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Scientist Gerald Watt, great grand nephew of James Watt (inventor of the steam engine) creates a fuel cell out of sugar and common weed killer that might someday power our gadgets, cars or even homes

The human body’s preferred energy source could someday power our gadgets, cars or homes.Researchers at the US-based Brigham Young University have developed the prototype for a cheap fuel cell that that runs on glucose and other carbohydrates sources, and uses a commonly available herbicide as a catalyst.

“Carbohydrates are very energy rich,” said BYU chemistry professor Gerald Watt. “What we needed was a catalyst that would extract the electrons from glucose and transfer them to an electrode.”

The surprising solution turned out to be a common weed killer known as Viologen, as reported by Watt and his colleagues in the October issue of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society. Watt shares his rather appropriate last name with his great-great-uncle James Watt, inventor of the steam engine.

The effectiveness of this cheap and abundant herbicide is a boon to carbohydrate-based fuel cells. While there are many different combinations that can be used to make a fuel cell, hydrogen fuel cells are considered superior and ‘green’ as their only emission is water vapour. However, hydrogen-based fuel cells, such as those developed by General Motors require platinum as a catalyst, which is prohibitively expensive.

The next step for the BYU team is to ramp up the power through design improvements.

The study reported experiments that yielded a 29 per cent conversion rate, or the transfer of 7 of the 24 available electrons per glucose molecule.

“We showed you can get a lot more out of glucose than other people have done before,” said Dean Wheeler, lead author of the paper. “Now we’re trying to get the power density higher so the technology will be more commercially attractive.”

Since they wrote the paper, the researchers claim to have achieved a doubling of performance. And they’re pursuing an even stronger sugar high.

NEW YORK: The wealthiest Americans are getting poorer, losing 300 billion dollars of their net worth over the past 12 months, according to an annual Forbes magazine ranking released on Wednesday.

The annual Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans found legendary investor Warren Buffett had lost the most cash -- 10 billion dollars -- as his holding company Berkshire Hathaway suffered severe losses.

Topping the list of richest Americans was Microsoft founder turned disease-battling philanthropist Bill Gates, whose net worth was estimated at 50 billion dollars, down seven billion from last year.

Buffett came in second, followed by Oracle Corp founder and CEO Lawrence Ellison, the only person on the top 10 list whose fortune remained unchanged -- at 27 billion.

The 400 wealthiest Americans had total net assets of 1.57 trillion dollars, down from 1.27 trillion. It was only the fifth time that the fortunes of members of the Forbes 400 had declined since its inception in 1982.

Forbes attributed the loss of wealth to "faltering capital markets and real estate prices, along with fraud and divorce."

The losses affected 314 returning members and forced 32 plutocrats to fall off the list, including disgraced and jailed financier Allen Stanford, former chief of troubled Citigroup Sanford Weill and former Google billionaire Omid Kordestani, who faced a costly divorce.

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey came in 141st after losses of 400 million dollars.

Only 28 members added to their wealth, among them banker Andrew Beal, who tripled his net worth to 4.5 billion dollars buying cheap loans and assets, coming in 52nd.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is seeking a third term in elections next November, lost 2.5 billion dollars to come in eighth place with 17.5 billion from the massive financial news and data business that bears his name.

The price of admission to the Forbes list fell to 950 million from 1.3 billion in 2008.

Among the newcomers to the list was a client of jailed Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff.

Jeffry Picower, number 371 on the Forbes list and a longtime investor with the former Nasdaq chairman, is alleged to have profited by billions of dollars from Madoff's fraud, according to a civil lawsuit.

That there are three actors (idiots?) in Raju Hirani’s December release 3 Idiots is known, they being Aamir Khan, Madhavan and Sharman Joshi.

There is also Kareena Kapoor, who is nobody’s fool, and that also everybody knows. But what is just coming out is that the film has three kisses as well that Hirani was not keen to publicise until the film’s launch date. All three kisses are between Aamir and Kareena, naturally.

Aamir, incidentally, famously kissed Kareena’s elder sister Karisma Kapoor in Dharmesh Darshan’s 1996 film Raja Hindustani - a kiss that still holds the record for being one of the most passionate in Bollywood history. And for which, Aamir and Karisma had reportedly done umpteen rehearsals.

The actor continues to be a perfectionist with exacting standards. For a scene in 3 Idiots where Kareena blows him a kiss, they apparently did 14 retakes. That was Kiss No. 1. Aamir improvised then and got Bebo to kiss him on the cheek next. And that was Kiss No. 2. But it’s Kiss No. 3 between the two superstars in the climax of the film over which the buzz has already begun. It’s said to be a proper lip-to-lip kiss.

Aamir and Kareena have a history of near misses. They were to do Mani Ratnam’s Lajjo, a film that had a strong physicality to it, which got shelved. Then Vishal Bharadwaj’s Mr Singh & Mrs Mehta, whose original heroine was Rani Mukerji, but Rani reportedly walked out when she heard there was a kiss involved because she had already got flak for kissing Kamal Haasan earlier in He Ram! That’s when Kareena stepped in... but again, Vishal’s film too didn’t take off. Finally, Aamir and Bebo have got together for 3 Idiots. Happily, the kiss has continued to follow them.

Rumour mills have been working overtime that after playing 12 different roles in "What's Your Rashee?", Priyanka Chopra has been signed on to essay seven roles in Vishal Bharadwaj's "Seven Husbands". But the actress denies any such development.

"No. I am not doing 'Seven Husbands' yet. Vishal sir and I have been talking over various scripts after 'Kaminey', but nothing has been finalised yet," Priyanka told IANS.

The actress scored her third consecutive hit with Bharadwaj's "Kaminey" after "Fashion" and "Dostana".

Amrita Rao’s sizzling hot turn in Shortkut: The Con is on left many wondering whether it really is the coy Vivaah girl.

And barely had her fans gotten over her new avatar, when the babe went ahead and proved that her sexy look is no flash in the pan. Securing herself a place among the bootilicious babes in Bollywood, with her item number in Life Partner, the actress has no plans of looking back. And basking in the compliments still flowing her way, Amrita’s not complaining.

"Getting compliments for your hotness is fun, though when it comes to work, I’d still like to get more compliments for my performance as an actress," she says. Talking about the kind of roles she now prefers, she added, "I’d still love to play characters like Poonam of Vivaah or Kamla in Welcome to Sajjanpur, but I have enjoyed doing those dance numbers so much that I think, they are fun too. So, am game for both." Well, Amrita and so are your fans!