China 'leads the world' in renewable energy
Friday August 1 2008

China is the world's leading producer of energy from renewable sources and is on the way to overtaking developed countries in creating clean technologies, according to a report by the Climate Group.

Published today, the group's report, China's Clean Revolution, shows that supportive government policies investing billions of dollars in energy efficiency and renewables are driving huge levels of innovation in China.
The Climate Group says that, despite its coal-dependent economy, China has become a world leader in the manufacture of solar photovoltaic technology - its six biggest solar companies have a combined value of over $15bn (£7.57bn). Around 820 megawatts of solar PV were produced in China in 2007, second only to Japan.

The country already leads the world in terms of installed renewable capacity at 152 gigawatts. In the next year, China will also become the world's leading exporter of wind turbines and it is also highly competitive in solar water heaters, energy efficient home appliances, and rechargeable batteries.
"For too long, many governments, businesses and individuals have been wary of committing to action on climate change because they perceive that China - the world's largest emitter - is doing little to address the issue," said Steve Howard, chief executive of the Climate Group.

"However, the reality is that China's government is beginning to unleash a low-carbon dragon which will power its future growth, development and energy security objectives."

The report says that investment in renewable energy in China (around $12bn in 2007) is almost level with world leader Germany as a percentage of GDP.
The Climate Group also highlights China's fuel efficiency standards for cars, which are 40% higher than those in the US. Biofuel production is also on the rise: by using marginal land that is half the size of the UK, China is the already world's third largest producer of ethanol.

The country also has a target to reduce energy intensity by 20% on 2005 levels by the end of this decade.
Chanhua Wu, Greater China director at the Climate Group, said that, despite the positive news from China, the litmus test for the country's move towards a low-carbon future would depend on whether it could reach two milestones required to avoid dangerous climate change. First, a peak in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and second, progress towards a global emissions goal of two tonnes of CO2 per capita by 2050.

In 2007, China emitted 5.1 tonnes of CO2 per capita compared with the EU's 8.6 tonnes and the 19.4 tonnes for the US.

"The jury is still out on whether China and the other countries can reach these challenging targets, but the evidence [in the report] shows that China has already stared on a trajectory to becoming an important global hub for low carbon investment, innovation and growth in the coming decades," said Wu.
"I believe China will no longer be a developing country following where others have led, but a pioneer leading the way."

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/01/renewableenergy.climatechange

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended
31 July 2008

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

With enticing results so far and the spacecraft in good shape, NASA also announced operational funding for the mission will extend through Sept. 30. The original prime mission of three months ends in late August. The mission extension adds five weeks to the 90 days of the prime mission.

"Phoenix is healthy and the projections for solar power look good, so we want to take full advantage of having this resource in one of the most interesting locations on Mars," said Michael Meyer, chief scientist for the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The soil sample came from a trench approximately 2 inches deep. When the robotic arm first reached that depth, it hit a hard layer of frozen soil. Two attempts to deliver samples of icy soil on days when fresh material was exposed were foiled when the samples became stuck inside the scoop. Most of the material in Wednesday's sample had been exposed to the air for two days, letting some of the water in the sample vaporize away and making the soil easier to handle.

"Mars is giving us some surprises," said Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona. "We're excited because surprises are where discoveries come from. One surprise is how the soil is behaving. The ice-rich layers stick to the scoop when poised in the sun above the deck, different from what we expected from all the Mars simulation testing we've done. That has presented challenges for delivering samples, but we're finding ways to work with it and we're gathering lots of information to help us understand this soil."

Since landing on May 25, Phoenix has been studying soil with a chemistry lab, TEGA, a microscope, a conductivity probe and cameras. Besides confirming the 2002 finding from orbit of water ice near the surface and deciphering the newly observed stickiness, the science team is trying to determine whether the water ice ever thaws enough to be available for biology and if carbon-containing chemicals and other raw materials for life are present.

The mission is examining the sky as well as the ground. A Canadian instrument is using a laser beam to study dust and clouds overhead.

"It's a 30-watt light bulb giving us a laser show on Mars," said Victoria Hipkin of the Canadian Space Agency.

A full-circle, color panorama of Phoenix's surroundings also has been completed by the spacecraft.

"The details and patterns we see in the ground show an ice-dominated terrain as far as the eye can see," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, lead scientist for Phoenix's Surface Stereo Imager camera. "They help us plan measurements we're making within reach of the robotic arm and interpret those measurements on a wider scale."

The Phoenix mission is led by Smith at the University of Arizona with project management at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and development partnership at Lockheed Martin in Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute.

For more about Phoenix, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix
Source: http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/jul/HQ_08_195_Phoenix_water.html

Solar Sailing in Space
Thursday, July 24, 2008

NASA prepares to test a satellite that can be propelled by light particles from the sun.
For the first time, NASA is preparing to send into orbit a small satellite that can be propelled by solar sails. When light particles from the sun strike the surface of the sail, the energy is transferred to it, providing a propulsive force that moves the satellite through space.

NASA's goal is to test the complex deployment mechanism of the 10-square-meter sails, says Dean Alhorn, an engineer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, AL, and the lead engineer on the project. "A successful flight will not only make for a unique historical event, but will show that we have a reliable mechanism to deploy a solar sail in space for future missions," says Alhorn.

The satellite, called NanoSail-D, is scheduled to launch from Omelek Island, in the Pacific Ocean, on July 29 onboard the Falcon 1 rocket developed by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), of Hawthorn, CA. The NanoSail-D satellite's main frame is only 30 centimeters long and weighs nine pounds. Its solar sail is made of a custom polymer that is thinner than a piece of paper and coated with aluminum to reflect the photons. "It looks like Saran Wrap with a metalized surface but is stronger and suited for the space environment," says Alhorn.

In theory, a solar sail could be used as propulsion for round-trip missions in the solar system. In friction-free space, the tiny propulsive force of photons could conceivably get a craft up to about 100 miles per hour in a day and nearly 100,000 miles per hour in three years. Changing the sail's angle can change the craft's trajectory. "There is a lot of potential for solar-sail propulsion once we show that this can be deployed in space," says Alhorn. "Already we are working on ways to maneuver the sails, and we can theorize better designs that are based on proven technology."

The concept of solar sailing was invented in the 1920s by two Russian scientists, and it has been the subject of a few projects over the years, says Louis Friedman, the executive director of the Planetary Society, a public space organization based in Pasadena, CA. The Russians deployed a large reflective sheet of material outside their Mir space station in 1992, and the Japanese did something similar in 2004, but neither was used for solar-sail propulsion.
The most recent effort was led by Friedman, whose team from the Planetary Society and from Cosmos Studios, a media company based in Ithaca, NY, actually built a solar-sail-powered spacecraft in Russia called Cosmos 1. It did not launch because of rocket failures. Now, Friedman is working on a satellite called Cosmos 2 that is similar to NASA's design but uses inexpensive Mylar, a basic plastic material. "Mylar is easy to get, is manufactured in large quantities, and is adequate for short flights," says Friedman. "If you want to do an interplanetary mission, which is part of NASA's future plans, you would need something longer lasting and more ultraviolet resistant, so you would use a more exotic material."

But the most complex part may be deploying sails after a spacecraft has been launched out of the earth's atmosphere. Once the NASA satellite is aloft, a computer will command a heater to burn a high-strength fishing line to open four spring-hinged panels, exposing the solar sail. Fifteen seconds later, another so-called burn-wire system will cause four booms to unfold. The booms will pull the solar sail off a center spindle, unrolling it in four different quadrants, says Alhorn. The satellite will remain in low earth orbit for between five days and two weeks, during which researchers will track and analyze the satellite.
The deployment mechanism is the most interesting part of the spacecraft, says Friedman. His craft will use an inflatable deployment system to expand the sail to a diameter of 30 meters. Unlike with NanoSail-D, his plan is to control the satellite with the sail.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/21122/page1/

In Windy West Texas, An Economic Boom
BEN BLOCK JULY 24, 2008 11:15 AM

Growing up in West Texas, Larry Martin became well accustomed to the challenges of living off the land. Raised on a cotton farm outside the small town of Sweetwater, he recalls defending his family's crops from sandstorms after a hard rain. More often, he hoped the region's brutal droughts would not burn the cotton to death.

Cotton farming in West Texas is a constant battle against the elements. "In college, I saw a lot of farms were going broke," Martin said. "A lot of people work all their life and didn't have much to show for it."

So instead, Martin joined TXU Energy, a regional utility company, and traveled across Sweetwater and greater Nolan County fixing power outages. After nearly 20 years on the job, he took notice when the county's first wind turbines were installed in 2001. By 2006, Texas surpassed California as the U.S. state with the most installed wind energy capacity - West Texas alone produces enough electricity to power 1 million homes. In a region suffering from economic decline, Martin realized the wind was beginning to blow in a new direction.

Martin left TXU and joined three friends to start an energy services company, Wind Energy Turbine Services (WETS), in 2006. Their staff has since grown to include 26 employees, nearly all of whom are Sweetwater locals. "In the future, as we expand, as we get more jobs, we'll need more manpower," Martin said.
In Sweetwater, Martin and seemingly every other business owner is benefiting from the wind energy boom. The population is growing. Unemployment is down. The tax base has swelled so much that Nolan County actually cut taxes last year.

As wind energy continues to expand across the U.S. heartland, rural America is likely to experience a revitalization not experienced since the homestead land grabs of the 19th century. Green jobs - high-quality employment for environmentally sustainable industries - and related spin-off opportunities are proliferating across West Texas. Local leaders predict that the economic growth has only just begun.

The West's Wind Workers

Billions of investment dollars are now being spent on wind energy development across rural America, and the areas with the most wind have yet to be developed. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that 300 gigawatts of wind energy capacity can be installed throughout the country by 2030. If investments continue to spread, and necessary infrastructure such as new transmission lines are built, wind energy alone could create thousands of jobs, while providing a clean source of electricity.

Nolan County, first populated with the arrival of railway lines in 1881, prospered until the Great Depression devastated the area's cotton economy in the 1930s. While the area was revived during World War II, farm consolidation during the 1950s led to steady population decline across the county and most of West Texas. Even the discovery of oil in 1939 did little to help the local economy - most petroleum industry employees came from other parts of the country, and they left when the oil dried up in the 1990s. In 2004, 20 percent of the population was living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

That same year, the rising unemployment rate reversed itself and began a steady decline. Attracted by a windy climate, high-capacity transmission lines, favorable rules for siting turbines, and a statewide renewable energy standard, wind energy companies, such as General Electric and AES, set up operations in Sweetwater.
Today, workers are pouring in from across Texas to manufacture, transport, maintain, and repair wind turbines. Of Nolan County's estimated 14,878 residents, an estimated 1,124 have jobs directly related to wind energy, according to a study released earlier this week by the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium.
Sweetwater's Economic Revival

The growth in wind energy jobs has been greater than expected, based on industry trends. According to traditional industry estimates, for every 10 or 12 wind turbines, one job is created. But in Nolan County, where 1,572 turbines are projected to be operational by 2009, 480 permanent workers will be required - a ratio of one permanent operations job for roughly every three turbines, or 0.13 jobs per megawatt, the consortium study said.
The wind industry boom has stimulated job growth across the entire local economy. Some 1,500 construction workers are engaged in Nolan County's five major wind energy projects. Building permit values shot up 192 percent in 2007 over 2001 values. Sales tax revenues increased 40 percent between 2002 and 2007. The county's total property tax base expanded from $500 million in 1999 to $2.4 billion this year.

The added revenues are being spent on new roads and several school renovations. One schoolhouse had been in operation since the arrival of the Texas & Pacific Railway in 1881. A new school replaced it in 2005, at a cost of $4.5 million.

To provide training for the growing wind energy industries, the first community college wind energy program in the state began last year. Texas State Technical College-West Texas had rarely attracted many students from beyond Sweetwater before. The 130 students who have enrolled since the program began - ranging from fresh high-school graduates to older transitional workers - come from as far as Corpus Christi, some 400 miles (644 kilometers) away, said Mike Reeser, the college president.

"Typically a program will struggle while word gets out that training is available. This kind of start is extraordinary," Reeser said. "There's a certain cache in West Texas to work in this field.... It is a noble industry."

The majority of U.S. wind projects are being established on privately owned farmland, which has yielded farmers annual compensations between $2,000 and $5,000 per megawatt of installed capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. In Nolan County, such royalties have amounted to an estimated $12.3 million into the pockets of private landowners, according to the consortium report.
"I've seen us in good times and not so good times," said Jacque McCoy, the Sweetwater Chamber of Commerce's executive director. "The wind energy has just revitalized Sweetwater, Texas, and really all of Nolan County."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org. For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.
EDITOR'S NOTE: While we are excited about the benefits that the winds have brought to West Texans, we recognize that Southeast Texans are dealing with a different, challenging wind situation from Hurricane Dolly (now a tropical storm). We mean no disrespect with our enthusiasm for wind projects. We hope for the best, and offer our condolences, to those whose lives have been disrupted by Dolly. To offer assistance to evacuees, please visit the American Red Cross website.

Source: http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008271.html

Protein science enters the realm of online gaming

May 9, 2008

Multiplayer online gaming brings to mind fabulously successful titles, such as “World of Warcraft” and “Ultima.” On May 8, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers at the University of Washington are bringing the arcane world of protein folding to the online gaming arena with the launch of “Foldit,” a free game in which players around the world compete to design proteins. The real world benefit: Scientists will test proteins designed by the game's players to see if they make viable candidate compounds for new drugs.

Users can access the game via the web at www.fold.it.

The development of the online game is a natural extension of HHMI investigator David Baker's quest to understand how proteins—the building blocks of cells—fold into unique 3-D shapes. Over the past decade, Baker and his colleagues have made steady progress in developing computer algorithms to predict how a linear string of amino acids will fold into a given protein's characteristic shape. A detailed understanding of a protein's structure can offer scientists a wealth of information—revealing intricacies about the protein's biological function and suggesting new ideas for drug design.

Predicting the shapes that natural proteins will take is one of the preeminent challenges in biology, and modeling even a small protein requires making trillions of calculations. Over the last three years, volunteers around the globe—now numbering about 200,000—have donated their computer down-time to performing those calculations in a distributed network called Rosetta@home. The computing logic behind the network is an algorithm called Rosetta that uses the Monte Carlo technique to find the best “fit” for all of the parts of a given protein.

But as the Rosetta volunteers watched their computers blindly trying to work out a solution by methodically testing every possible combination and shape to find the best fit, they began to think that a little human intervention might speed things up. “People were writing in, saying, ‘Hey! The computer is doing silly things! It would be great if we could help guide it,’” remembers Baker, who is based at the Univ. of Washington (UW) where he developed the Rosetta algorithm and network.

Baker didn't know how he could make that happen until about 18 months ago, when he went hiking on Mt. Rainier with his neighbor David Salesin, a Univ. of Washington computer scientist who also runs a research laboratory at nearby Adobe Systems. Baker and Salesin began discussing ways to make Rosetta more interactive. With the inherent fun of competition, Salesin thought a multiplayer online game was the way to go. By the time they got back to the car, they had settled on that idea. Salesin provided Baker with the names of three colleagues, led by UW computer scientist Zoran Popovi?, who could help Baker create the game.

Over the next few months, doctoral student Seth Cooper and postdoctoral researcher Adrien Treuille, working with Popovi? and Baker, created the program, and team tested it in small venues. One match between teams from the Univ. of California and the Univ. of Illinois aroused unexpected fervor and cheering among spectators. “30 or 40 people participated,” says Baker. “The competition was very intense.”

“Foldit” takes players through a series of practice levels designed to teach the basics of protein folding, before turning them loose on real proteins from nature. “Our main goal was to make sure that anyone could do it, even if they didn't know what biochemistry or protein folding was,” says Popovi?. At the moment, the game only uses proteins whose 3-D structures have been solved by researchers. But, says Popovi?, “soon we'll be introducing puzzles for which we don't know the solution.”

Baker has high hopes that the game will speed up the sometimes tedious business of structure prediction. But the part of the game that excites him most is scheduled to debut this fall, when gamers will be able to design all-new proteins. Novel proteins could find use in any number of applications, from pharmaceuticals to industrial chemicals, to pollution clean up. With the ability for any person with a computer and an internet hookup to start building proteins, Baker thinks the pace of discovery could skyrocket. “My dream is that a 12-year-old in Indonesia will turn out to be a prodigy, and build a cure for HIV,” he says.

SOURCE: Howard Hughes Medical Institute

http://www.rdmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=014&ACCT=1400000100&ISSUE=0805&RELTYPE=SOFT&PRODCODE=0000000&PRODLETT=DP&CommonCount=0

Building the Zero-Emissions City - A city being built in Abu Dhabi will serve as a large-scale test for renewable energy

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Last week, in the harsh desert climate of Abu Dhabi, construction started on a city that will house 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses but use extremely little energy, and what it does use will come from renewable sources. The initial building is a new research institute that the founders hope will be the seed for the equivalent of a Silicon Valley of the Middle East, only one centered not on information technology but on renewable energy.

The city, which is expected to cost $22 billion, will implement an array of technologies, including thin-film solar panels that serve as the facades and roofing materials for buildings, ubiquitous sensors for monitoring energy use, and driverless vehicles powered by batteries that make cars unnecessary. Indeed, the city's founders hope that it will serve as a test bed for a myriad of new technologies being proposed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The new zero-emissions city, which is being built near the city of Abu Dhabi in the center of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is part of the Masdar Initiative, a $15 billion government-funded investment program designed in part to ensure that the UAE's prosperity won't be linked exclusively to its oil. Its leaders say that the project will give the country a leadership position in renewable energy. If it's successful, says Sultan al Jaber, Masdar's CEO, "we'll be sitting on top of the world."

Designing the city from the ground up will bring a number of advantages. About half of the cost of solar energy comes from installation materials and labor. In Masdar, thin-film solar cells can be incorporated directly into the facades of buildings in place of conventional construction materials, reducing the costs of the solar power. Energy needed for cooling will be reduced by controlling the orientation and design of the city's buildings, streets, and green spaces to find a balance between shade and sun, and to promote natural-air circulation. Air conditioners will use absorption chillers that run on heat from the sun in place of conventional compressors.

Energy for transportation will also be reduced. Efficient electric transports will provide door-to-door service: just type in your destination, and the transport will come to your door and take you automatically to your destination. The power will be generated by renewable energy and stored onboard in batteries. On Monday, Masdar received the first bids on the system, which will likely use battery-powered vehicles running on tracks or powered by magnetic levitation.

Water use will be kept to a minimum--which will reduce energy needed for desalination. And sensors throughout the city will also keep residents informed of their energy use--and when they're going to have to pay extra for using too much. All told, the city's designers predict that efficiency improvements will result in a 75 percent reduction in energy consumption compared with a conventional city of the same size. The energy that is used will come almost entirely from solar--with wind and power from technology that converts garbage into fuel contributing smaller amounts.

This, as least, is the theory. One of the main purposes of the city is to find out what works and what doesn't. This experiment will continue even after the city is completed in eight years; "innovation hubs" throughout the city will test new technologies, including some developed at the new Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. The school is being developed in partnership with MIT, which is selecting faculty and designing curricula.

Of the $22 billion in expected costs, the Abu Dhabi government will provide about $4 billion for infrastructure. The rest of the money will come from outside investors. Masdar's leaders hope that the city's environmental credentials and low energy costs--along with tax breaks--will lure buyers to the property. "We want it to be profitable, not a sunk cost," says Khaled Awad, who is directing the development of the city. "If it is not profitable as a real-estate development, it's not sustainable. Then it will never be replicable anywhere else."

In some ways, however, it won't be replicable. Al Jaber notes that the project could not have been done anywhere else--"It's a huge risk." The enormous wealth in Abu Dhabi, which Fortune ranked the world's richest city last year, makes a zero-emissions city a tenable proposition. What's more, the design is specific to Abu Dhabi, accounting for, for example, the position of the sun throughout the year (which is dependent on the city's latitude), the high temperatures (which are bad for most solar cells), and the nature of the wind (the city will use wind turbines much smaller than conventional ones because of low wind speeds). As a result, future developments outside the region will have to be redesigned. "Everywhere we go, we will have to custom-tailor our model for the specific environment," al Jaber says.

Nevertheless, Paul Dickerson, the chief operating officer for the United States' Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, believes that Masdar will prove a valuable model. "We will no longer have to guess what the city of the future looks like," he says. "In Abu Dhabi, we will be able to see it with our own eyes."

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/20740/page2/

Collaboration Calls for New U.N. Agency to Oversee Transport Emissions

May 7, 2008

A newly formed watchdog of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is proposing that the U.N. establish a new authority to regulate emissions from high-carbon international activities such as aviation and shipping.

The International Scientific and Business Congress on Protecting the Climate, a group of climate change policy negotiators, scientists, and business stakeholders, suggested that the UNFCCC establish a World Carbon Authority to oversee a global emissions cap-and-trade scheme that would apply initially to the transport sector. They made the proposal in an open letter sent to Rajenda Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Björn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development .

The authority would be in charge of regulating aviation and shipping emissions that occur beyond a member nation's borders. U.N. organizations are currently crafting policies to regulate international transport emissions, which were exempt from the Kyoto Protocol. But Terry Barker, chair of the Congress, said he doubts those organizations can effectively hold their respective industries accountable.

"A substantial portion of emissions from aviation and shipping are outside international jurisdictions: international water, international air space," said Barker, an author of the IPCC's 2007 assessment on climate change and the director of Cambridge University's Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research. "It's difficult to see how they will be controlled.... I'm not convinced (current U.N. efforts) will be sufficient. It seems voluntary."

The IPCC estimates that aviation contributes about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions , and emissions from the sector are predicted to grow between two- and six-fold from now until 2050. Also, because aviation emissions are released higher in the atmosphere, their contribution to global warming is two to four times the rate of emissions closer to Earth, according to a European Union report.

Maritime shipping releases twice as many greenhouse gases as aviation, or about 4.5 percent of the world's total, a U.N. report said . More-frequent shipping is likely to increase emissions 30 percent by 2020. However, shipping, which carries 80 percent of world trade, is currently more fuel-efficient than aviation.

The Congress, organized by the European Academy of Management, proposed a World Carbon Authority to consolidate climate change efforts now under way at two U.N. agencies: the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Both organizations are drafting independent plans to address greenhouse gas emissions. But Barker accused them of being "captured by industry."

Jeffrey Shane, former undersecretary for policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, said that although neither organization has passed a binding policy to reduce emissions, their members have indicated a new willingness to address climate change. "The industry is beginning to get it in a way we haven't seen in the past," he said. "The notion industry will do everything in its power to prevent a meaningful approach to carbon reduction is simply at odds with the facts."

The ICAO passed a resolution in September that said it would develop market-based measures to reduce emissions by the next major UNFCCC meeting, in Copenhagen in 2009. Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), says his industry is focused on improving fuel efficiency, finding more direct flight paths, and developing bio-based fuel alternatives. The aviation industry "is not opposed to emissions trading providing that it is fair, global and effective," he said in a speech delivered on April 22. "And the only place to achieve that is at ICAO."

IMO committees have also been debating strategies to reduce emissions, but no official policy has been proposed. The marine transport agency will hold a meeting in Oslo, Norway, in June to discuss market-based greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

Like the Congress, several environmental groups are skeptical that the ICAO or IMO will reach a binding agreement on their own. "With ICAO, it's not clear they're moving expeditiously on this," said Deron Lovaas, a transportation analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The proof is in the policy, and we just haven't seen any proposed policy that ICAO and the industry will take care of it. It's not reassuring."

So far, the only proposed mechanism to address the climate impacts of international transport has been offered by the European Union, but it has not been adopted by other nations. The policy requires E.U. airlines to join the region's Emission Trading Scheme by 2012. If other nations agreed to the policy, those nations' airlines would likewise have to buy carbon credits for flights to or from the European Union or they would face E.U. sanctions.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008015.html

Consumer confidence near record low
Tue May 13 , 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Confidence of American consumers continued to plummet as a result of weakening economic conditions and escalating gasoline prices, according to a weekly survey published on Tuesday.

The ABC News/Washington Post Consumer Comfort Index fell to -47 in the week ended May 11 from -46 the previous week, and is three points away from its all-time low of -50 hit in February 1992. The index ranges from -100 to +100.

The news outlets said 77 percent of Americans described the economy as getting worse, matching a 27-year high reached in October and November 1990.

"The cause seems clear," they said. "On top of the credit and housing crises and generally weakening economic conditions, retail gasoline prices climbed 11 cents in the past week to another record, $3.72 per gallon. The Energy Department increased its oil and gas price estimates for the year."

Two of the consumer confidence index's three components fell. Positive views of personal finances shed one percentage point to 46 percent and views on the national economy also fell one percentage point, to 13 percent.

Views on the buying climate were unchanged at 20 percent.

Confidence measures are generally viewed as a barometer of consumer spending, which accounts for two-thirds of the U.S. economy. However, economists note that consumers do not always act in accordance with their statements to surveys.

The ABC/Washington Post consumer confidence survey was based on a sample of about 1,000 interviews conducted in the four weeks to May 11 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Dan Grebler)

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1343095620080513

Returning to the Moon

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

New technologies on NASA's next lunar spacecraft will collect information to make human exploration safer.

NASA's next lunar orbiter will launch later this year, the first step in an ambitious plan to return humans to the Moon--and send them on to Mars. The spacecraft, called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), will use new technology to make precise maps of the Moon's surface, to search for resources such as ice, and to assess the threat that radiation in the environment could pose for humans.

LRO is the most advanced lunar satellite NASA has built, says Richard Vondrak, the project scientist for LRO, who adds that it will provide information that would have been impossible to collect a few decades ago. "We are surveying the Moon in more detail than any other celestial body for the benefit of all countries, including China, Japan, and India, who have said they have ambitions to put people on the Moon in the next 10 to 20 years," adds David Smith, a NASA scientist working on LRO.

LRO is part of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, a program intended to, among other things, answer fundamental questions of physics, search for extraterrestrial life, and seek new resources, such as power sources, for Earth. The program calls for humans to return to the Moon. But before that happens, says Vondrak, it's necessary to understand much more about the Moon's surface radiation and topography.

"During Apollo, there were a number of near-fatal mistakes," says Smith. "We did not land on a flat surface, and there were boulders everywhere, which could have damaged the vehicle and prevented a return to Earth. Safety standards today would not have allowed Apollo."

The Apollo manned-spacecraft program shut down in 1975, and it was not until the 1990s that the United States sent more satellites to orbit the Moon--Clementine and the Lunar Prospector, which spent months orbiting the Moon and sending back data. Clementine was a joint project between the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA that also tested new ballistic technologies; the U.S. has launched no other lunar probes since.

LRO will collect more data with greater precision so that scientists can find safe and resource-rich landing sites and design systems appropriate for the lunar environment, says Vondrak.

LRO will orbit the Moon for one year at an altitude of 50 kilometers. Previous U.S. satellites maintained an altitude of approximately 100 to 200 kilometers, as have those sent by other countries, like China's Chang'e 1 and Japan's Kaguya, both launched in 2007. Orbiting at a lower altitude allows the spacecraft to get a closer view of the Moon, enabling the craft to obtain higher-resolution images, very detailed maps, and more-accurate temperature measurements, says Vondrak.

The lunar orbiter is equipped with six novel instruments, two of which will be making their space debuts: a cosmic-ray telescope, which will measure the effects that lunar radiation would have on humans, and a laser altimeter, which will make maps of the surface of the Moon.

The cosmic-ray telescope, called Crater, is a new kind of sensor developed by MIT, Boston University, the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the Aerospace Corporation. It can measure the radiation environment, not just in space, but also as it would be experienced by astronauts on the surface on a day-to-day basis. "By characterizing the radiation, we can build better shielding on spacecraft so that astronauts can survive long trips to the Moon and Mars," says Justin Kasper, a staff astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the project scientist for Crater.

The human body responds to radiation in different ways, depending on the intensity, duration, and composition of the radioactive particles. The two things that scientists are most worried about are acute radiation poisoning from, for example, a solar flare, and long-term exposure to galactic cosmic rays, which can increase the risk of cancer. "In all cases, the danger is that ionizing radiation [high-energy, charged particles] can break the atomic bonds in DNA and damage cells and tissue," says Kasper.

The radiation detector consists of a series of silicon semiconductors, each about 35 millimeters in diameter and one millimeter tall. In between the pieces of silicon, the scientists have inserted large blocks of material called tissue-equivalent plastic. "The blocks are waxy and look like giant black crayons but have the same chemical composition as human tissue," says Kasper.

So while the silicon gauges the energy and composition of particles as they come flying through the detector (a proven technique for measuring radiation), the plastic is used to measure their biological effects. Previously, data from radiation detectors was sent back to Earth, where scientists attempted to calculate the effect that the measured radiation would have on humans. The plastic material provides a direct and more-accurate measurement of what radiation is like at different depths of human tissue, says Kasper.

The second instrument making its first spaceflight is the lunar orbiter laser altimeter (LOLA), developed by engineers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. It uses laser light to measure the distance between the spacecraft and the surface of the Moon. "It is going to measure that distance very precisely, to about 10 centimeters, and it will make measurements 28 times per second," says NASA's Smith, who is also the principal investigator for LOLA. Unlike current instruments, which send out a single laser beam at low repetitions, the new altimeter sends out five focused beams of laser light that are reflected back and received by five separate detectors, for a total of 140 measurements per second.

This allows scientists to make a high-density, very precise map of the shape of the lunar surface. "We can determine the altitude and slope of different spots on the Moon as well as the roughness of the terrain," says Smith. "We can also learn about the properties of the surface--for example, the shape of craters and their depth and size." The end goal is to identify the best spot, preferably flat, for a large lander to touch down and for astronauts to make a base.

Crater and LOLA will be accompanied on the lunar orbiter by four other instruments that will be imaging and mapping the Moon, measuring surface temperatures to identify potential ice deposits, and searching for hydrogen in the lunar polar regions. All the data will be continuously sent back to Earth for analysis.

"LRO is the first of our exploration missions for a return to the Moon and will have a significant impact on future human spaceflight," says Vondrak.

Engineering by Scientists on Embryo Stirs Criticism

May 13, 2008

Researchers in New York have created what is believed to be the first genetically engineered human embryo, which critics immediately branded as a step toward “designer babies.”

But the researchers, at Cornell University, say they used an abnormal embryo that could never have turned into a baby.

“This particular piece of work was done on an embryo that was never going to be viable,” said Dr. Zev Rosenwaks, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital. He said the purpose of the work was stem cell research.

That did not stop some from criticizing the work, saying that the techniques being developed could be used by others to create babies with genes modified to make them smarter, taller, more athletic or better looking. They also said there should have been more public discussion.

“It’s an important ethical boundary that scientists have been observing,” said Marcy Darnovsky, associate director of the Center for Genetics and Society, a watchdog group in Oakland, Calif. “These scientists, on their own, decided to step over that boundary with no public discussion.”

The Cornell scientists put a gene for a fluorescent protein into the single-celled human embryo. The embryo had three sets of chromosomes instead of two.

After the embryo divided for three days, all the cells in the embryo glowed, Dr. Rosenwaks said. He said the goal of the work was to see if the fluorescent marker would carry into the daughter cells, allowing genetic changes to be traced as cells divided.

The research was presented last fall at a meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. But it received virtually no attention until last weekend, when The Sunday Times of London published an article after the work was mentioned in a British government review of related technology.

Dr. Rosenwaks said the research was approved by a review board at his medical center and was privately financed, so it did not violate federal restrictions on research involving human embryos.

Doctors already put foreign genes into people as part of gene therapy to treat diseases. But those genetic changes generally cannot be passed on to future generations because they are made to only certain types of cells in the body, like blood cells or muscle cells. Genetic changes made to an embryo would theoretically be heritable if the embryo became a baby.

A spokesman for the National Institutes of Health said the Cornell work would not be classified as gene therapy in need of federal review, because a test-tube embryo is not considered a person under the regulations.

Dr. Mark A. Kay, a gene therapy expert at Stanford University, said the Cornell work did not represent a huge technological advance because the scientists used a modified virus, a common gene therapy technique, to ferry the gene into the embryo.

Dr. Kay said genetic modification of embryos could be useful scientifically, as long as it was not used to make designer babies. “I personally don’t see anything wrong with using these embryos and gene transfer techniques to study important aspects of human development,” he said.

Scientists in Oregon reported in 2001 that they had produced a baby monkey containing a fluorescence gene from a jellyfish. They did it by genetically modifying a female’s egg before it was fertilized, rather than modifying an already fertilized embryo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/science/13embryo.html

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Unintended Consequences of Biofuels
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Biofuels, particluarly those derived from ethanol, have been heralded as an ideal way to wean us off of polluting and increasingly expensive fossil fuels. While we may have no choice but to rely on biofuels in the future, some futurists are sounding the alarm about the unintended consequences of biofuel reliance. In July, the futurist think tank Global Business Network noted that crop growth for biofuels could come at the expense of the world food supply. Others are citing the phenomenon of "agflation," or the increased price of all things agricultural, from produce to dairy products to real estate in rural areas. Indeed, manufacturers of all types are beginning to notice higher prices for animal by-products used in products such as soaps.

While market forces may eventually correct agflation-driven price increases, the time is now to understand that energy solutions such as biofuel are not "magic bullets" without impact in other areas, and to mitigate those impacts.

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Nanotechnology and visions of the future (part 1)
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Earlier this year I was asked to write an article explaining nanotechnology and the debates surrounding it for a non-scientific audience with interests in social and policy issues. This article was published in the Summer 2007 issue of the journal Soundings. Here is the unedited version, in installments. Regular readers of the blog will be familiar with most of the arguments already, but I hope they will find it interesting to see it all in one place.
Introduction
Few new technologies have been accompanied by such expansive promises of their potential to change the world as nanotechnology. For some, it will lead to a utopia, in which material want has been abolished and disease is a thing of the past, while others see apocalypse and even the extinction of the human race. Governments and multinationals round the world see nanotechnology as an engine of economic growth, while campaigning groups foresee environmental degradation and a widening of the gap between the rich and poor. But at the heart of these arguments lies a striking lack of consensus about what the technology is or will be, what it will make possible and what its dangers might be. Technologies don’t exist or develop in a vacuum, and nanotechnology is no exception; arguments about the likely, or indeed desirable, trajectory of the technology are as much about their protagonists’ broader aspirations for society as about nanotechnology itself.

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Building the Bionic Man
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Once the realm of science fiction, bionics is slowly but surely becoming a reality. Advances in medical prostheses and computer technology are making the dream of building a bionic human a reality.

Bionic Eye:



The Argus II bionic eye is currently undergoing trials in 50-75 patients in the US. The system uses a spectacle mounted camera that feeds visual information to 60 electrodes implanted in the retina.

Bionic Ear: Cochlear Implant



Cochlear implants are one of the oldest pieces of the bionic man, first developed in 1969 by William House and Jack Urban.

Although traditionally the devices have been implanted in just one ear, bilateral cochlear implants are currently being trialled as two implants help in localizing sounds.

Bionic Brain



An artificial hippocampus (part of the brain responsible for storing new memories) is being developed by scientists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Arrays of electrodes record electrical activity coming from the brain and further arrays send appropriate electical instruction back out.

The idea is that the implant will be able to bypass damaged areas of brain tissue by replicating it’s function electronically.

Bionic Tongue

Scientists at the Luebeck Medical University in Germany have conducted successful tests on pigs of the first bionic tongue.

The tongue is constructed from throat muscles linked to a device that transmits nerve signals in a similar way to a heart pacemaker.

Bionic Nose

We are still waiting for a bionic nose but in the meantime development continues on artifical electronic noses. Uses for such technology include laboratory noses for measuring aromas used in R&D for food, beverage, medical and enviromental applications. They are also being used in hospitals for smelling for ’superbugs’.

Bionic Heart



In July 2001, Robert Tools received the first completely self-contained artifical heart transplant.

The Abiocor replacement heart is designed for patients with end-stage heart failure when all other treatment options have been exhausted.

Bionic Lung

Surgeon Robert Bartlett successfully replaced 100% of the lung function of sheep with an implantable artificial lung.

The design used tiny hollow fibers and the hearts own pumping power. Other designs for artificial lungs have used external mechanical pumps to push the blood through the oxygenating device.

Bionic Arm



Bionic arms work by detecting movements of chest muscle that have been connected to the remains of nerves that once went to the lost limb.

The impulses emitted from the transplanted nerves into the chest muscle are picked up by the harness and processed by a computer which then directs very precise movements of the artificial limb.

Bionic Kidney



Currently, patients with renal failure rely on external dialysis to replace the functions carried out by the human kidney. Work is ongoing on dialysis technology to decrease the size and complexity which will result in implantable bionic kidneys according to Dr. William Fissell, an internist at the University of Michigan School of Medicine:

The first step toward that goal, Fissell said, is improving the effectiveness of external artificial kidneys, or hemodialysis devices. Next would be to make an external device small enough for a patient to wear continuously. The final step would be a device that could be implanted, not unlike a pacemaker for the heart.

Bionic Liver

Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach from the University of Pittsburgh invented a bionic liver that consisted of a tiny pump, a chamber containing human liver cells, and a catheter connecting it all to the patient. This, and other similar projects such as ELAD (extracorporeal liver assist device), produced by Vitagen Incorporated of La Jolla, California, are intended to be a temporary solutions in the event of liver failure rather than a permanent, internal replacement to the human liver.

While work continues on integrating mechanical solutions to liver failure, scientists from Newcastle University in the UK have successfully grown a replacement mini-liver from umbilical cord stem cells. The cells were then placed in a “bioreactor” developed by NASA that mimics the effects of weightlessness and allows them to multiply rapidly. Using hormones and chemicals, the stem cells are then coaxed into turning into liver tissue.

Bionic Stomach



Martin Wickham from the Institute of Food Research has developed an artificial stomach to help decipher how the human gut reacts to various foods and conditions. This device is not intended to be a bionic stomach replacement though as the artificial stomach is not connected to humans and is not designed to replace stomach activitiy.

Bionic Legs

There are two interesting developments in bionic legs:



1. Replacement bionic legs for amputees. These bionic legs are attached following an amputation to help the patient regain lost limb function. An example of this type of bionic leg is the Victhom Power Knee



2. Augmented bionic legs for soldiers and other heavy lifting applications. Pictured above is the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, or Bleex, is part of a US defence project designed to be used mainly by infantry soldiers.

Bionic Anus



Aimed at combating severe feacal incontinence, the Acticon Neosphincter simulates normal sphincter function to give the patient control over defecation through a pressurized system.

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SPACE SIMULATIONS GALORE
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There are plenty of ways to become a virtual traveler in outer space. Second Life may be the simulation flavor of the week, and NASA may be carving out its own space there, but there’s a long history of virtual worlds that give you the feel of the final frontier.

In the wake of last week's story about NASA's involvement in virtual worlds, I received several messages offering a second opinion about Second Life, and a sampling is provided below. Some correspondents rightly pointed out that online space simulations go back to an era when games were played with stolen mainframe moments.

Virtual space adventures have come a long way since Lunar Lander. You can't go wrong with Orbiter, a free sim program that's based on the real physics of spaceflight.

Among the more recent entrants in the field is Space Station Sim, which helps you build and populate a virtual space station. One reviewer called it "a rocket-boosted title that won't break the exploration budget," while another said that trying to build an orbital outpost that passed muster resulted in "more frustration than fun." I have the program at home but haven't yet tried it out myself - so I guess it's time to start launching and find out if I have the Right Stuff.

Another recently released program, Lunar Explorer, uses actual NASA data to create a virtual moon. And if it's interplanetary travel you're interested in, the NASA World Wind project virtually offers you the solar system (as well as Earth).

For an encyclopedic rundown of space simulators, check out the compendium at Clark Lindsey's HobbySpace Log.

Here's a sampling of the messages I've received about Second Life:

Don Mitchell: "Virtual reality is a success today, but I don't think Second Life has been an especially dramatic or innovative step. Articles in The Register suggest that Second Life is greatly exaggerated (see: 'The phony economics of Second Life'). Personally I found it to be unattractive, and like most subscribers, I left after a couple hours and never returned.

"There have been many high-profile but unsuccessful approaches to Virtual
Reality: the VRML standard, head mounted displays, SIMNET, and a variety of failed 3-D social worlds before Second Life. The true pioneers of Virtual Reality have been the inventors of computer games.

"Text-based multiplayer games (MUDs) showed that large communities could be built online, and that immersion in virtual reality is mostly a function of the user's mind. Brilliant software developers like John Carmack ('Quake') and Tim Sweeney ('Unreal') developed efficient techniques for displaying complex 3-D worlds on the PC. And products like Everquest and World of Warcraft were among the first really successful and compelling examples of multiuser 3-D virtual reality.

"Computer games have driven the high-speed computing and graphics technology of the PC and game consoles. Along with motion-picture special effects, games are the most economically important application of 3D graphics thus far."

One correspondent dwelled on Second Life's dark side, which I admit I steered clear of during my SL sojourn as Boole Allen:

Tyrel (referring to Second Life and NASA): "Seeing those two phrases together bring tears to my eyes. Second Life is an abomination, explicitly showing all that is wrong with the Internet bundled into a package of pornography and sick fetishes. How the multitudes of reporters somehow don't see the sick sides of Second Life and see it worthy of any sort of reporting is beyond me. (If you want to be 'enlightened' to the true sickness of Second Life, visit somethingawful.com's Second Life Safari).

"What also makes me furious is that programs professionally written in lieu of space simulations barely get the gratification they deserve (such as this masterpiece of space flight simulation) ... while these poorly written, memory leak-ridden, crap programs with hardly enough physics actually programmed into the engine to make a ball bounce partially realistically get front-page articles on major Web sites. This shows that true journalistic research seems to be a thing of the past, or the highest bidder gets the front-page advertisement."

Another correspondent, however, saw a lot of things to praise in Second Life, and his reference to human modification reminded me of our series on the future of evolution:

Maelstrom Baphomet: "...You are so fascinated with what we do with our environments in the virtual world that you haven't seen the most significant frontier; what we do with our bodies. If the avatars on this game are any hint at what is coming when men master genetics, I don't think the world will belong to what we constitute as humanity in about 1000 years.
Instead, you will have a highly modified and modular intelligent life form. ...

"I'll show you places (PG) where dragons roam free and life cycles of their generations are determined by the sun. And we're not talking about human sized dragons.. we're talking about avatars 2-5 times the size of the default avatar in SL. They're built around primative objects that would normally be clothing for the body. Example, a hat is a head.

"Daryth Kennedy is the most dominant artist on the sims in question. She's a longtime friend. I came to her the first night I joined SL in 2005 and I wanted to bring one of my characters to life. I provided her a picture, she provided me a dragon. I gave her the rights to reproduce and sell the default dragon we created which became the Storm Dragon as long as she provided me free copies of any future iterations of it. The dragon in question is the storm dragon. It now exists in three formats. Hatchling, Wyrmling, and Adult officially. Players, such as myself, have modified them to humanoid variants. I actually find it quite relieving to be something other than human when the opportunity presents itself - as that's what I do every day, be human. There's also a lot of gizmos and trinkets that can be collected and assembled through out SL that can lend an air of magic to the dragons, making them all the more fantasy come to life.

"What people fail to understand is that SL is not virtual reality. It is reality existing in a different state. It's still there, it's just comprised of electrons on a spinning disk, versus atoms on a spinning globe such as humanity is. The characters have souls, it's the souls of the players, giving the creatures on that world life and taking upon themselves a form reflective of their creativity. I am a Christian, and interestingly enough I find this a demonstration of a verse from Genesis where God creates man in his own image. But what is the image of God? God is all powerful, he can make himself whatever he pleases to be ... and true to the script, in this Second Life ... man makes himself in his own image, the manipulable one given by God."

For more about Second Life's religious angle, you'll want to check out today's story in USA Today about the virtual holy season. And if you want to weigh in with your own comments - about space simulations, or about good and evil in virtual worlds - feel free.

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Superconductors inspire quantum test for dark energy
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10:05 03 April 2007
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
Zeeya Merali, London

Dark energy is so befuddling that it's causing some physicists to do their science backwards.

"Usually you propose your theory and then work out an experiment to test it," says Christian Beck of Queen Mary, University of London. A few years ago, however, he and his colleague Michael Mackey of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, proposed a table-top experiment to detect the elusive form of energy, without quite knowing why it might work. Now the pair have come up with the theory behind the experiment. "It is certainly an upside-down way of doing things," Beck admits.

Dark energy is the mysterious force that many physicists think is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. In 2004, Beck and Mackey claimed that the quantum fluctuations of empty space could be the source of dark energy and suggested a test for this idea. This involved measuring the varying current induced by quantum fluctuations in a device called a Josephson junction – a very thin insulator sandwiched between two superconducting layers.

Beck reasoned that if quantum fluctuations and dark energy are related, the current in the Josephson junction would die off beyond a certain frequency (see A table-top test for dark energy?). But they hadn't worked out what exactly caused the cut-off.

Now the duo say they know, and last week Beck presented the theory at a conference on unsolved problems for the standard model of cosmology held at Imperial College London.

Frequency cut-off

Quantum mechanics says that the vacuum of space is seething with virtual photons that are popping in and out of existence. Beck and Mackey suggest that when these virtual photons have a frequency below a certain threshold, they are able to interact gravitationally, contributing to dark energy.

Their theory is inspired by superconducting materials. "Below a critical temperature, electrons in the material act in a fundamentally different way, and it starts superconducting," says Beck. "So why shouldn't virtual photons also change character below a certain frequency?"

If so, virtual photons should behave differently below a frequency of around 2 terahertz, causing any currents in the Josephson junction to taper off above this frequency. Physicist Paul Warburton at University College London is building such a dark energy detector and could have results next year.

Some evidence that dark energy works like this may already have been found. In 2006, Martin Tajmar at the Austrian Research Centers facility in Seibersdorf and his colleagues noticed bizarre behaviour in a spinning niobium ring. At room temperature, niobium does not superconduct, and accelerometers around the ring measured that it was spinning at a constant rate. But once the temperature fell, the niobium started to superconduct, and the accelerometers suddenly picked up a signal (Gravity's secret).

Odd acceleration

"We measured an acceleration even though the ring's motion hadn't changed at all," says Clovis de Matos, who works at the European Space Agency in Paris and established the theory behind the experiment. He thinks the results could be explained if gravity got a boost inside the superconductor. "Beck and Mackey's gravitationally activated photon would have that effect," he says.

The controversial experiment seemed to fall foul of Einstein's equivalence principle, which states that all objects should accelerate under gravity at the same rate. It implied that "if you have two elevators, one made of normal matter and one made of superconducting matter, and accelerate them by the same amount, objects inside will feel different accelerations", de Matos says. Astronomers may have seen a similar violation of the principle (see "Two-speed gravity", below).

The odd acceleration detected in the niobium ring also suggests that energy isn't conserved in the superconductor – another major violation of known physics. Dark energy could solve that problem, however. "We did the sums and found out that energy wasn't conserved, but perhaps that was just because we were missing dark energy," de Matos says.

Paul Frampton, a cosmologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, thinks Beck and Mackey's reasoning is flawed. "I don't think for a second they'll measure dark energy, but they should certainly try."

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Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Self-Assembling Batteries
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Researchers at MIT have designed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that assembles itself out of microscopic materials. This could lead to ultrasmall power sources for sensors and micromachines the size of the head of a pin. It could also make it possible to pack battery materials in unused space inside electronic devices.

Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT, and his colleagues selected electrode and electrolyte materials that, when combined, organize themselves into the structure of a working battery. The researchers had been looking for ways to exploit short-range forces between micro- and nanoscale particles. After measuring such forces between materials using ultraprecise atomic-force microscope probes, they were able to select materials with just the right combination of attractive and repulsive forces. As a result, similar materials clustered together to form opposite electrodes, while a gap necessary for the battery to function was maintained between the electrodes. The work is the cover story in the current issue of Advanced Functional Materials.

Self-assembly is attractive because it could potentially reduce manufacturing costs and allow molecular-level control of the structure of the batteries, leading to materials and devices not easy to make using conventional manufacturing methods. Self-assembly has already been used to create a number of materials and a handful of simple devices, including half a battery. (See "Powerful Batteries That Assemble Themselves.") "Ultimately, the goal is just to chuck a bunch of stuff into a bucket and have it self-assemble into a battery," says Jeff Dahn, professor of chemistry and physics at Dalhousie University, in Canada. Chiang's work creating a prototype self-assembling battery is "really nice science," Dahn says. "Just the fact that you can do it is pretty cool."

The researchers faced a number of challenges in designing the self-assembling batteries. They are limited to materials with the electrochemical properties necessary for battery electrodes. And within each electrode, the particles need to pack together tightly, which can be accomplished if they are attracted to each other. The particles must also be attracted to materials that conduct electrons to and from the electrodes. Most important, the battery's two electrodes need to be kept separate--a challenge because they are oppositely charged and therefore tend to attract each other.

By relying on their new understanding of short-range forces, Chiang and his colleagues were able to select two electrode materials that, at very short distances on the order of a couple dozen nanometers, had surface repulsive forces greater than their attractive forces. As a result, there is always a space left between the electrodes.

The researchers used lithium cobalt oxide and microbeads of graphite for the electrodes--materials commonly used in lithium-ion batteries--pairing them with a carefully selected liquid electrolyte. The electrolyte serves as an insulator, allowing ions to shuttle between the electrodes but forcing electrons to move through an external circuit, where they can be used to power a device.

In the researchers' prototype battery, the graphite microbeads pack together to form one electrode and connect to a platinum current collector, all the while staying clear of the lithium cobalt oxide that forms the other electrode. The researchers tested the battery and showed that it could be both discharged and recharged multiple times.

The extent to which such batteries will find commercial applications is unclear. Dahn points out that in manufacturing today's batteries, the electrode materials are compressed under enormous pressures to ensure as great as possible energy storage. Such forces could not be applied to a self-assembled battery, so Dahn says it will be "very tough" to compete with conventional batteries in terms of energy capacity and maybe even in terms of cost. Dahn also notes that challenges still remain before such batteries can be commercialized. For example, it is still necessary to find a way to package the self-assembled materials to protect them once they have formed a battery.

One potential application is in very small devices. "It should be relatively easy to make a very small footprint device, rice-grain-size and smaller--the size of the head of a pin," Chiang says. He adds that self-assembly could allow more-efficient use of space than conventional batteries can. That's in part because it's possible for the electrode particles to pack into irregular shapes within a device or follow its outside contours.

As the researchers move toward such applications, which could include use in distributed sensors for the military, their next step is to replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid polymer to make the battery more rugged. The better understanding of the relevant short-range forces could also be used to select different materials for applications in transistors or certain types of solar cells.

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Making the right robot for the right job
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Within a decade cars could start driving themselves on highways and in less than 25 years automakers may be producing vehicles "smart" enough to chauffeur passengers through city streets, Stanford computer scientist Sebastian Thrun predicted Saturday in San Francisco.

[Podcast: Web site for creating, sharing digital photo slide.]

Thrun, who led the winning team in a robotic car race sponsored by the Pentagon in 2005, was one of four experts who spoke about the current and future state of robotics at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The association today wraps up a five-day event that attracted researchers from 60 countries to explore many fields including robotics.

The term "robot" was coined in the 1920s when Czech playwright Karel Capek used the word "robota" -- relentless work or drudgery in his own tongue -- to describe a factory of mechanical creatures that eventually revolt. Deceased science fiction author Isaac Asimov popularized robots in the 1950s. The 1977 "Star Wars" movie made heroes of C-3PO and R2-D2.

As Saturday's talks revealed, the convergence of key technologies hint that, within decades, robots may be able to perform tasks that were hitherto only fiction. These advances include:

-- cheap, effective sensors that substitute for biological senses;

-- sophisticated software and computers that approximate nerves and brains; and

-- the ability to manufacture tiny mechanisms to mimic muscles.

Thrun's robotic car is a prime example of the first two trends. His vehicle is a Volkswagen that is essentially the same as any driver-operated car. His task is to marry sensing systems placed atop the vehicle -- they resemble the lights on a police car -- with software being written by his Stanford collaborator Mike Montemerlo.

The sensors include a bug-eyed camera that offers a 360-degree field of view and a novel device that uses light, instead of sound, to paint radar-like three-dimensional pictures of the roadway. The input from these and other sensors must be assembled and comprehended by software before the robo-car can act.

Here, Thrun said in a briefing before Saturday's talk, human parents have a huge advantage when teaching teens to drive: Kids can discern the difference between a garbage pail and a pedestrian, whereas artificial intelligence systems must be trained to recognize and understand the object before they react by stopping or swerving.

Thrun is currently working on a second-generation robo-car that will participate in another Pentagon-sponsored race in November -- this time trying to navigate city streets, possibly on a military base.

At least Thrun didn't have to re-invent the wheel. But panelist Robert Full, a UC Berkeley biology professor, showed conferees Saturday how his lab is re-engineering the leg to design robots that can walk over rubble or climb walls.

Full, who studies insects and animals as models for multi-legged machines, showed video of a vertical treadmill used to study how gecko lizards climb.

Such studies have revealed that they use millions of microscopic hairs that grow on the surfaces of their toes to grasp the molecules of the wall. "They look like the worst case of split ends you could imagine,'' Full quipped.

San Francisco State University professor David Calkins, looked the furthest ahead suggesting that robots would eventually become personal companions, answering questions, serving as butlers, even reading children bedtime stories.

Calkins said life-like robots could be used in elder care, performing routine medical functions like dispensing pills in hospitals, and serving as home care providers. He hinted that robot companionship could one day go, as teens once said, all the way, for "geek bachelors who can't get a girlfriend."

UC Berkeley engineering professor Ken Goldberg talked about using "smart" video cameras to search for proof that the ivory-billed woodpecker, a bird once thought extinct, may still exist in pockets of wooded swamplands in Arkansas. Using cameras to scan the skies, and software to sift through endless hours of video for flying birds that might be this sought-after creature, Goldberg said robotic vision systems might settle a debate that has divided birdwatchers.

But Goldberg said the same automated technologies could be used to scan crowds on city streets. "There are big privacy implications in this," he said.

In many ways today's robots remain as laughable as computers were 20 years ago. Full showed off a wall-crawling device called the StickyBot that had some trouble climbing the windows at the back of the meeting room.

Full made a reference to a future in which mechanical arms and legs give people the sort of powers envisioned in the 1970s television series, "The Six Million Dollar Man."

"People who were once thought to be disabled could have the possibility of being super beings," said Full, adding that while he isn't sure how society will deal with it, this issue is coming.

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The Future of Sustainability
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The World Conservation Union (IUCN) convened a meeting with a number of prominent writers and activists in Zurich earlier this year. Participants considered humanity’s progress towards sustainability and the global challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. The results of their conversation have been captured in a new thought provoking paper by Professor William Adams entitled The Future of Sustainability: Rethinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-First century

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Sunday, November 19, 2006
Driving a Wheelchair with Your Shirt
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via Tech Review

Adaptive, sensor-laden garments could provide a new way for quadriplegics to control their wheelchairs. The system, which is still in an early stage of development, identifies the ideal set of movements that can be employed as control commands for each individual user.

The garment is printed with 52 flexible, piezoresistive sensors developed at the University of Pisa. These sensors are made of electroactive polymers that change voltage depending on the angle at which they are stretched. The sensors can detect fine scale movements of the upper body and arms.

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Friday, October 13, 2006
More Small Comfort: Bacteria Powered Motor
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via PhysOrg

In a very interesting example "Small Comfort" as well as the fusion of the non-living with the living, scientists in Japan have invented the first motor to be powered by bacteria.


The micro-motor relies on bacteria gliding along a silicon track to spin a silicon dioxide rotor. Moving at speeds of up to 5 micrometers per second, the bacteria can power the 20 micrometer diameter rotors at rates of up to 2.6 rpm.

The work, led by Yuichi Hiratsuka, used bacteria of the species Mycoplasma mobile. However, they point out that many species of bacteria are mobile, moving towards light or to certain chemical attractants, creating a wide range of potential power sources for micro-pumps or micro-robots, or might be used in the construction of electrical generating systems which could convert abundant energy sources like glucose into electrical energy.

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Thursday, October 05, 2006
Small Comfort on Fringehog
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Wayne Pethrick, senior futurist with The Futures Lab, is featured in the latest podcast episode from FringeHog, talking about the trend of "Small Comfort".

In case you haven't already had the pleasure, FringeHog is a media project exploring how ideas about the future emerge, migrate and interact in society and business to catalyze change. They've got some cool things going on and it's well worth a look and a listen.

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Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Of Rice and Hen: Fashions from the Farm
Link

via PhysOrg

In the future, it might be perfectly normal to wear suits and dresses made of chicken feathers or rice straw. But don’t worry: These clothes won’t resemble fluffy plumage or hairy door mats. Scientists at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln plan to develop these agricultural waste products into conventional-looking fabrics as a way to reduce the use of petroleum-based synthetic fabrics.

With millions of tons of chicken feathers and rice straw available worldwide each year, these agricultural wastes represent an abundant, cheap and renewable alternative to petroleum-based synthetic fibers, Yang says. And unlike petroleum-based fibers, these agro-fibers are biodegradable.

Chicken feathers and rice straw also could become “green” fabrics used in carpets, automobiles, building materials and a host of other everyday applications — all at potentially less cost and with novel and sometimes superior properties than their synthetic counterparts.

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