| Design team taps WKU student
A college senior from Western Kentucky has been selected to work on a global design project to create a wind-powered water purifier to benefit impoverished areas that lack electricity. Zach Pearl, who is studying mechanical engineering at Western Kentucky University, is part of the five-member team contributing to the project from around the world. "Something like this could possibly be used where there isn't a safe source of drinking water," Pearl said. "This could save lives." The research is still in early stages, he said, but the group is using computer-generated conceptual drawings to examine the possibility of harnessing wind power. It's not Pearl's first attempt to design a water purification system. Last year he was part of a team that created a water purification system powered by pedals on a bicycle.
Erosion-control holdouts being sought for project
In the Lake Tahoe Basin, the letters "BMP" can bring about various reactions.
Short for "best management practices," BMPs are methods prescribed by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency to help developed properties function more like natural, undisturbed forest and meadowland. The TRPA believes that water conveyed to a lake by an undisturbed watershed usually is quite pure, because the watershed's soils and plants act as a natural water-purification system.
BMPs prescribed for residential properties usually fall into the following categories: vegetating and mulching bare, disturbed soils; infiltrating stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces; paving dirt driveways and roads; and stabilizing or retaining steep slopes and loose soils.
But for some of the 38,000 property owners in the basin who have not retrofitted their land for BMPs, the requirements can be harsh and expensive.
Frustrated indies seek web distrib'n
Of the 100-some features questing for a distributor at January's Sundance Film Festival, only a handful found the holy grail: worldwide theatrical distribution with an advance minimum guarantee and back-end participation. With an unforgiving and glutted marketplace for indie films, where the cost of prints and ads to keep a movie in theaters is punitive for everyone, there's no appetite for risk-taking. The key question is, when will an alternative distribution outlet for indie films emerge -- an outlet that can interest enough viewers to bring in meaningful returns? The film industry is rife with eager alternative distributors pitching their wares -- but making money isn't usually part of the equation. "The long-range outlook for specialty film is to move more to home markets.
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