Five patents have been approved that sport the signature of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. These aren’t computer-related patents, however, as apparently Bill Gates has used his mammoth wealth to gain god-like powers, a fact sure to push Steve Jobs to the edge of insanity.

From NOLA:

As many as 200 vessels could be placed strategically in the predicted path of a hurricane, and they could be designed to be reused or to sink in place and decompose underwater. The vessels could be moved into place by towing or by dropping from airplanes.

A second patent application describes how part or all of the cost of building and maintaining the hurricane-killer ships could be raised by selling insurance to coastal residents whose risk would be reduced by using the new system.

The hurricane-killing ideas, contained in a half-dozen related patent applications, were made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday, with Gates listed as one of the inventors on each. The applications were submitted by Searete LLC, a subsidiary of Intellectual Ventures of Bellevue, Wash., and created by former Microsoft executives to both buy up existing patents and develop patent applications for new ideas.

You may think we know all there is to know about lightning, but that’s far from the truth. Fact is, many aspects of lightning remain a mystery, if for no other reason than it’s an elusive event that is dangerous and unpredictable.  This lapse in our knowledge may be filled soon, thanks to the work of European scientists whom have announced positive results in their effort to summon lightning on command.
FromAbstract:

We investigated the possibility to trigger real-scale lightning using ionized filaments generated by ultrashort laser pulses in the atmosphere. Under conditions of high electric field during two thunderstorms, we observed a statistically significant number of electric events synchronized with the laser pulses, at the location of the filaments. This observation suggests that corona discharges may have been triggered by filaments.

The team feels that if they crank up the power on their lasers by a factor of ten, full-blown lightning will ensue, opening the doors to unrestrained research. Ben Franklin would be proud.