Inventions

It sounds too good to be true: A residential system that allows people to make fuel from old beer, leftover wine and other waste products and use it to run their vehicles. That's what inventors of the E-Fuel MicroFueler claim, and there's support for the idea in government, industry and pop culture. MicroFueler buyers are eligible for a $5,000 tax credit. Former L.A. Laker Shaquille O'Neal is an investor in the system's distributor. The $10,000 E-Fuel MicroFueler consists of a 250-gallon tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, and a still that converts it to pure ethanol, or E-Fuel.

When does a great idea become a patentable invention? That was a question easier to answer when Thomas Edison came up with the lightbulb and Whitcomb Judson devised the zipper -- Industrial Age innovations that clearly fit with old ideas of what it meant to invent something. But a recent case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit points up the difficulty of making such judgments in the age of the Internet. Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw of WeatherWise USA Inc.

If we have the Great Depression to thank for inventions such as the Twinkie, Monopoly and the photocopier, this recession may be remembered for inspiring a biodegradable shower mat, a tie that holds iPods and a gadget that breaks the vacuum seals of jars. That's because some self-starters among the ranks of the unemployed, sick of trudging off to job fairs and sending out resumes, are starting businesses to finally launch that invention they've been mulling over for years.

When New York Giants center Shaun O'Hara and New England Patriots noseguard Vince Wilfork launch their combined 628 pounds at each other in Sunday's Super Bowl, more than 90 million viewers will be able to almost feel the collision. And for that they can thank Jim Rodnunsky, a filmmaker from Granada Hills who while working to make his skiing simulator more realistic stumbled upon what experts say is the most significant innovation in sports television of the last 20 years: the Cablecam.

Eighteen inventors were picked this week for induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, including Paul C. Lauterbur, for the MRI; Robert M. Metcalfe, for high-speed networking known as Ethernet; and the late Peter C. Goldmark, for the long-playing record. The 2007 class of inductees includes seven living and 11 deceased inventors, bringing the number of inventors honored to 331. The hall of fame was founded in 1973 by the U.S.

University of Southern California officials say they have a new way of developing creative ideas that their students and faculty dream up. School officials announced Wednesday that USC is the first major research university with an institute that acts as a university-wide, centralized hub for nurturing inventions as well as inventors.

When doctors told John Kanzius he had nine months to live, he quietly thanked God for his blessings and prepared to die. Then 58, he had lived a good life, with a loving wife, two successful adult daughters and a gratifying career. Now he had leukemia and was ready to accept his fate, but the visits to the cancer ward shook him. Faces haunted him, the bald and bandaged heads, bodies slumped in wheelchairs, and children who could not play.

Harold Hay wants to help the world save itself, but he's running out of time. Forty years ago, Hay invented a simple, inexpensive way to heat and cool a home using the sun's rays, but without the panels and wiring that come with conventional solar energy systems. He's been pushing for its adoption ever since, trying to find footing in each of the solar industry's last three boom-and-bust cycles.

In a makeshift laboratory equipped with little more than a battered chair and a cheap kitchen scale, inventor Rene Nunez Suarez displays the contraption that has become his life's obsession. It's a stainless-steel cooker that uses about 95% less fuel than conventional wood stoves, with minimal pollution. It would seem to be a can't-miss technology in a country where millions still cook with wood and most forests have been destroyed.