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DocWatch technical cleverness Twitterit? News stories about "technical cleverness," with punchlines: http://apocadocs.com/d.pl?technical+cleverness Related Scary Tags: sustainability  ~ efficiency increase  ~ alternative energy  ~ technological innovation  ~ renewable energy  ~ climate impacts  ~ global warming  ~ carbon sequestration  ~ GMOs  ~ contamination  ~ unintended consequences   Fri, Feb 20, 2015 from Fast Company: Portland's New Pipes Harvest Power From Drinking Water If you live in Portland, your lights may now be partly powered by your drinking water. An ingenious new system captures energy as water flows through the city's pipes, creating hydropower without the negative environmental effects of something like a dam. Small turbines in the pipes spin in the flowing water, and send that energy into a generator. ... Sometimes, you suddenly realize you're wearing the ruby slippers. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jan 8, 2015 from BBC: Antibiotics: US discovery labelled 'game-changer' for medicine The heyday of antibiotic discovery was in the 1950s and 1960s, but nothing found since 1987 has made it into doctor's hands. Since then microbes have become incredibly resistant. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis ignores nearly everything medicine can throw at it. Back to soil: The researchers, at the Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, turned to the source of nearly all antibiotics - soil. This is teeming with microbes, but only 1 percent can be grown in the laboratory. The team created a "subterranean hotel" for bacteria. One bacterium was placed in each "room" and the whole device was buried in soil. It allowed the unique chemistry of soil to permeate the room, but kept the bacteria in place for study.... The lead scientist, Prof Kim Lewis, said: "So far 25 new antibiotics have been discovered using this method and teixobactin is the latest and most promising one.... Tests on teixobactin showed it was toxic to bacteria, but not mammalian tissues, and could clear a deadly dose of MRSA in tests on mice. ... This would be so exciting if Big Ag wasn't trying to wipe out all soil bacteria everywhere, as a precondition for using the dead top-substrate as a medium to grow corn and soybeans. So much fewer weeds, right? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Aug 7, 2014 from Holland Sentinel: GVSU's MAREC incubator develops commercial-scale solar technology The company that developed a solar energy panel that addresses one of the major limitations of solar energy has developed a commercial-scale version at Grand Valley State University's Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center, according to an Aug. 6 news release. Solar24, introduced in October 2013 by MAREC incubator client Energy Partners, is a device that collects solar energy during daylight hours, storing it in a built-in, lithium-ion battery pack that allows it to discharge energy 24 hours a day, unlike traditional solar panels. ... I can fix my bedtime smoothie! ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Jul 25, 2014 from Global Oceans Commission, via DesdemonaDespair: Global fishing fleet capacity and productivity, 1975-2005 The main drivers leading to overfishing on the high seas are vessel overcapacity and mismanagement. However, measures to improve management alone will not succeed without solving the problem of overcapacity caused by subsidies, particularly fuel subsidies. Overcapacity is often described as "too many boats trying to catch too few fish". Indeed, the size of the world's fleet is currently two-and-a-half times what is necessary to sustainably catch global fish stocks. But it is not only the number of vessels that is of concern, it is also the type of vessel. Many argue that having fewer vessels, when they have larger engines and use more-destructive industrial fishing gear, is of equal weight to the number of vessels fishing as a driver of overcapacity. ... We call that "aspirational infrastructure." ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jul 17, 2014 from ScienceRecorder: Scientists to monitor Arctic summer melt at level not seen before An international team of researchers, headed by scientists from the University of Washington, aim to monitor the summer melt of the Arctic ice at a scale never seen before.... Lee described the project's ground breaking nature in a statement: "This has never been done at this level, over such a large area and for such a long period of time... We're really trying to resolve the physics over the course of an entire melt season." ... In this case, Nero is measuring while the world burns. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jun 15, 2014 from InsideClimate News: World's Most Fuel-Efficient Car Makes Its Debut The world's most fuel-efficient car has just arrived on dealer lots in Germany and Austria, but don't expect it to be sold in America anytime soon. The Volkswagen XL 1, a diesel-electric hybrid, gets about 260 miles per gallon--meaning, a New York-to-Washington run would guzzle just about a gallon of diesel...The XL 1's low carbon footprint is unrivaled among most car models--spewing 34 grams of carbon dioxide for each mile driven, compared to 10 times that from the typical U.S. car. ... And the airbag is filled with fresh air. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jun 12, 2014 from Mother Jones: Is It "Madness" to Rebuild a Flu Virus That Wiped Out 50 Million People? Remember the Spanish Flu of 1918? Of course you don't. That's the freakishly deadly influenza strain that swept the globe in 1918 and 1919, wiping out 30 million to 50 million people. It infected about one in four Americans and killed about 675,000. It didn't just kill little kids and the elderly, either, like most flu strains. This one was unusually devastating in young, healthy people--although why the "mother of all pandemics" behaved as it did is not fully understood.... "To assess the risk of emergence of a 1918-like virus and to delineate the amino acid changes that are needed for such a virus to become transmissible via respiratory droplets in mammals, we attempted to generate an influenza virus composed of avian influenza viral segments that encoded proteins with high homology to the 1918 viral proteins," he and his coauthors wrote. Needless to say, some of Kawaoka's scientific peers think he's insane to do such a thing. ... Well, we could stand to lose a little weight. Say, a billion or two. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, May 27, 2014 from kirotv 7: New bill hopes prize money will help find a solution to ocean acidification Rep. Derek Kilmer introduced the Ocean Acidification Innovation Act, a bill that would offer prize money to researchers who find a solution to carbon dioxide dissolving into the ocean. "The way we're addressing this is trying to get more research attention on monitoring and addressing the situation of ocean acidification," said Rep. Derek Kilmer D-6th District. Kilmer says ocean acidification is a huge threat to the state's $250 million shellfish industry. He wants federal money to be leveraged into more minds working on a solution to saving the dying shellfish. "What we found is you can provide a $5 million research grant for a researcher to go solve a problem or you can provide a prize. ... Is this the beginning of trying to buy our way out of our consumer-culture crisis? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 14, 2014 from Des Moines Register: Rare partnership in Fairfield delivers veggies to kids ...there, tucked behind a nondescript factory, is a new greenhouse, sprouting spinach, radishes, pea shoots, greens and lettuce on a cold April day, thanks to its industrial partner next door. In a unique experiment, Swinton is growing veggies by tapping unused heat from her neighbor, Schaus-Vorhies Kleaning, a company that uses heat up to 1,600 degrees to clean and sometimes strengthen metals. Swinton said the greenhouse is the first of its kind in Iowa, possibly the nation, and could become a demonstration project for others wanting to bring more locally grown fruits and vegetables to U.S. schoolchildren, especially in cold-weather locations like Iowa. "It's pioneering. The concept of taking unused industrial heat for greenhouse production has been talked about, but few have developed it," said Matt Russell, a state food policy project coordinator at Drake University's Agricultural Law Center. ... That house is green in more ways than one. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Mar 3, 2014 from Yale360: In a Host of Small Sources, Scientists See Energy Windfall Computers feasting on their own exhaust heat. Super-efficient solar panels snaring lost thermal energy and recycling it into electricity. Personal electronics powered by stray microwaves or vibration-capturing clothing. Cellphones charged with a user's footsteps. These and more innovations may be possible with free, green energy that is now going to waste. Ubiquitous sources like radio waves, vibration and pressure created by moving objects, heat radiating from machines and even our bodies -- all have the potential to produce usable electric power. Until recently, ambient energy was largely squandered because of a lack of ways to efficiently exploit it. Now, advances in materials and engineering are providing tools to harvest this abundant resource and transform it into cheap, clean electricity. "This power is simply available and it's not doing anything right now, so it's truly being wasted," said Steven Cummer, a Duke University electrical and computer engineering professor working on harvesting ambient electromagnetic radiation to power electronic devices. "And as people think of useful things to do with it, then you're doing those things with available power instead of requiring new power." ... It's like we're partnering with Sir Isaac Newton! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Feb 23, 2014 from American Live Wire: Google Joins Deforestation Fight By Launching Global Forest Watch Website The Global Forest Watch website produced by the search giant Google itself is about to change all that. It is an online forest monitoring system available to anyone with an Internet connection around the globe. World Resources Institute partnered with Google to create the site and system along with a team of more than 40 other partners. The website will make use of the technology that includes Google's own Earth Engine and the Maps Engine to track forests around the world with the help of satellite imagery. It will also detect changes taking place in forests in close to real-time. All the information will be made available for free to the general public through the World Wide Web. ... This'll help us find the sweetest spots to mow down! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 8, 2014 from Midwest Energy News: Midwest might be prime real estate for airborne wind power A weather phenomenon that's feared by conventional wind farm operators could make the Great Plains an ideal location to tether airborne wind turbines. Airborne wind turbines are a relatively new concept in which devices resembling blimps or gliders generate electricity as they are flown like kites in the lower atmosphere.... University of Delaware wind power researcher Cristina Archer ... recently mapped the presence of something called "wind speed maxima," strong currents of wind that resemble the jet stream but occur at much lower altitudes. "They are much more common than we thought before. We were so suprised," Archer said. Wind speed maxima exist above about a third of the planet, mostly in the tropics and largely over water. Archer's maps also show a large thumb extending over the Great Plains. ... Some call it the Sky-O-Matic Slicer Dicer. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Dec 12, 2013 from National Public Radio: Robots Could Help Farmers Rein In Fertilizer Pollution Lately, robots have been taking over all kinds of jobs that humans used to do on the farm -- from thinning lettuce to harvesting spinach. Three brothers in Minnesota are betting that robots could compete with machines on the farm, too: the huge, and often inefficient, fertilizer applicators made by John Deere and the like. The brothers' Rowbot, in comparison, is so small it can move between rows of crops and fertilize plants one at a time. "We joked about it being the Roomba of the cornfield," says one of the brothers, Kent Cavender-Bares, referring to the autonomous vacuum cleaner. The motivation for creating a fertilizer robot is simple: Many farmers overuse fertilizer, and that's costly and bad for the environment. But farmers don't have many tools to help them cut back. ... No shit! Or rather... less shit. ApocaDoc permalink Want more context? Try reading our book FREE online: Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! More fun than a barrel of jellyfish! Fri, Nov 29, 2013 from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: The Lingering Clouds: Why Pollution Results in Larger Storm Clouds, Colder Days, Warmer Nights A new study reveals how pollution causes thunderstorms to leave behind larger, deeper, longer lasting clouds. Appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 26, the results solve a long-standing debate and reveal how pollution plays into climate warming. The work can also provide a gauge for the accuracy of weather and climate models.... the team found that in clean skies, the heavier ice particles fall faster out of the anvil-shaped clouds, causing the clouds to dissipate. However, the ice crystals in polluted skies were smaller and too light to fall out of the clouds, leading to the larger, longer-lasting clouds. Lastly, the team estimated how much warming or cooling the storm clouds contributed. Overall, the polluted clouds cooled the day and warmed the night, decreasing the daily temperature range. ... I've looked at clouds from all sides now. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Oct 5, 2013 from University of Alberta: An important step toward cheap spray-on solar cells University of Alberta researchers have found that abundant materials in the Earth's crust can be used to make inexpensive and easily manufactured nanoparticle-based solar cells. The discovery, several years in the making, is an important step forward in making solar power more accessible to parts of the world that are off the traditional electricity grid or face high power costs, such as the Canadian North, said researcher Jillian Buriak, a chemistry professor and senior research officer of the National Institute for Nanotechnology based on the U of A campus. Buriak and her team have designed nanoparticles that absorb light and conduct electricity from two very common elements: phosphorus and zinc. Both materials are more plentiful than scarce materials such as cadmium and are free from manufacturing restrictions imposed on lead-based nanoparticles. ... Hey! You! Get off my status quo! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, May 13, 2013 from Christian Science Monitor: Google Earth Engine unveils how Earth has altered Google has launched Google Earth Engine, a global, zoomable timelapse map that allows you to witness how humans have altered the surface of the Earth since 1984. Google has launched Google Earth Engine, a global, zoomable timelapse map that allows you to witness how humans have altered the surface of the Earth since 1984. ... Lucky us. We get to watch the train wreck. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Apr 19, 2013 from Science Now: Could Wood Feed the World? The main ingredient of wood, cellulose, is one of the most abundant organic compounds on Earth and a dream source of renewable fuel. Now, bioengineers suggest that it could feed the hungry as well. In a new study, researchers have found a way to turn cellulose into starch, the most common carbohydrate in the human diet.... For instance, every ton of harvested cereals is often accompanied by 2 to 3 tons of cellulose-rich scrap, most of which goes to waste.... Though the process works, it's expensive. Zhang estimates that, given the current price tag of the enzymes that his team used, it would cost about $1 million to turn 200 kilograms of crude cellulose into 20 kilograms of starch, about enough to feed one person's carbohydrate needs for 80 days. Still, after 5 to 10 years of further research, Zhang says companies could do the same thing for just $0.50 per person per day. "We do not see big obstacles to the commercialization of this process." ... Let them eat pulp. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Apr 3, 2013 from MIT Technology Review: A Stealthy De-Extinction Startup ... Ark, he says, hopes to help revive some extinct species, including a Spanish mountain goat. But the company's real aim is to combine cutting-edge cell biology and genome engineering in order to breed livestock and maybe even create DNA-altered pets that live much longer than usual. "Imagine a dog that lives 20 years," he says.... Ark's key technology is going to be induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells. To make iPS cells, researchers take an ordinary skin cell and, by modifying it or adding certain chemicals, turn it into a potent stem cell that's able to grow into any other tissue of the body, including eggs and sperm.... What's more, with iPS cells, it's at least theoretically possible to make eggs from a man's skin cell, or sperm from a woman. In other words, the technology could one day let two men, or two women, have children that share both their genes. I'm pretty sure no one on Noah's Ark thought of that. ... Or, imagine a mastodon that can prosper on eucalyptus shoots. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 1, 2013 from Huffington Post: Biological Computer: Stanford Researchers Discover Genetic Transistors That Turn Cells Into Computers In a paper published in the journal Science on Friday, the team described their system of genetic transistors, which can be inserted into living cells and turned on and off if certain conditions are met. The researchers hope these transistors could eventually be built into microscopic living computers. Said computers would be able to accomplish tasks like telling if a certain toxin is present inside a cell, seeing how many times a cancerous cell has divided or determining precisely how an administered drug interacts with each individual cell. Once the transistor determines the conditions are met, it could then be used to make the cell, and many other cells around it, do a specific thing--like telling cancerous cells to destroy themselves. "We're going to be able to put computers into any living cell you want," lead researcher at the Stanford School of Engineering Drew Endy explained to the San Jose Mercury News. "We're not going to replace the silicon computers. We're not going to replace your phone or your laptop. But we're going to get computing working in places where silicon would never work." ... Something tells me that one of the first programs will be: IF ($hair_follicles_color="white") { &make_hair_follicles_color("original_haircolor"); } ELSE { $hair_follicles_color="best_original_color"; } ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jan 15, 2013 from Popular Mechanics: NASA's Climate Drones Research at 65,000 Feet Some NASA researchers believe the key to better climate science is sitting about 65,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. This month, they're going up there. The project, called ATTREX (Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment), will provide measurements of moisture and chemical composition, radiation levels, meteorological conditions, and trace gas levels in the high atmosphere. A slew of climate specialists hope to collect unprecedented amounts of data from the tropopause, the boundary between the troposhere (where most weather phenomenon take place) and the stratosphere. The ultimate goal, according to principal investigator Eric Jensen, is to improve the mathematical models scientists use to predict climate change. ... And the drones shall inherit the earth. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Oct 15, 2012 from Wall Street Journal: The Future of Agriculture May Be Up Want to see where your food might come from in the future? Look up. The seeds of an agricultural revolution are taking root in cities around the world -- a movement that boosters say will change the way that urbanites get their produce and solve some of the world's biggest environmental problems along the way. It's called vertical farming, and it's based on one simple principle: Instead of trucking food from farms into cities, grow it as close to home as possible -- in urban greenhouses that stretch upward instead of sprawling outward. ... Only problem is you have to lay down flat to eat. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 24, 2012 from Midwest Energy News: Minnesota scientists develop bacteria to clean up fracking water A new biotechnology developed by a team of University of Minnesota scientists could help clean up wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, preventing contamination of rivers, streams, lakes, and even drinking water with toxic chemicals from coal and shale beds. The new method employs chemical-eating bacteria encased in a silica gel. The contaminants from the fracking wastewater slip inside the gel, where they are destroyed by enzymes in the bacteria. The bacteria remain encapsulated and do not contaminate the wastewater themselves... ... Bacteria ... has our back! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Sep 4, 2012 from Discover: The Pheromone That Could Save Pine Forests From Oblivion ...Until recently there was virtually nothing landowners could do to protect even small parcels of forest from bark beetles. But after a half century of detective work, a small group of scientists has come up with a novel and surprisingly effective means of defense: hijacking the beetles' sense of smell. Like ants and honeybees, beetles communicate via scented chemicals called pheromones, one of which warns the insects to stay away from particular trees. Now researchers are dispersing this pheromone, called verbenone, placing a molecular shield over thousands of acres of hardy green pines in western ski resorts, nature reserves, and campgrounds... ... The beetles may consider this ... unfair. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Aug 22, 2012 from University of Missouri, via EurekAlert: Super-strong, high-tech material found to be toxic to aquatic animals Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are some of the strongest materials on Earth and are used to strengthen composite materials, such as those used in high-performance tennis rackets. CNTs have potential uses in everything from medicine to electronics to construction. However, CNTs are not without risks. A joint study by the University of Missouri and United States Geological Survey found that they can be toxic to aquatic animals.... "One of the greatest possibilities of contamination of the environment by CNTs comes during the manufacture of composite materials," said Hao Li, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at MU. "Good waste management and handling procedures can minimize this risk. Also, to control long-term risks, we need to understand what happens when these composite materials break down." ... You don't think I'm safe either? But I'm a land animal! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Aug 14, 2012 from Environmental Health News: No more butts: biodegradable filters a step to boot litter problem Cigarette filters made to degrade quickly may offer a unique solution to the persistent problem of cigarette butts that litter beaches, parks and waterways. The design relies on small tablets of food-grade chemicals inside the filters that burst when they get wet, releasing acid that spurs the filter to break down in months instead of years. The results are an important step toward solving a global problem that impacts people and wildlife. The researchers used principles of green chemistry including designing for degradation, minimizing waste and choosing safer chemicals to ensure that their research would improve the existing technology. ... Now... if only it would rain. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, May 1, 2012 from Reuters: App depicts impact of climate change on planet Whether it is melting glaciers, coastal erosion or drying lakes, a new app displays the impact of climate change on the planet by using before and after satellite images. Called Fragile Earth, the app for iPhone and iPad shows how our planet is impacted by global warming by featuring more than 70 sites such the receding Muir Glacier in Alaska, the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the draining of the Mesopotamia Marshes in Iraq. ... Appocalypse Now ApocaDoc permalink You're still reading! Good for you! You really should read our short, funny, frightening book FREE online (or buy a print copy): Humoring the Horror of the Converging Emergencies! We've been quipping this stuff for more than 30 months! Every day! Which might explain why we don't get invited to parties anymore. Fri, Apr 13, 2012 from ScienceDaily: Artificial Photosynthesis Breakthrough: Fast Molecular Catalyzer Researchers from the Department of Chemistry at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, have managed to construct a molecular catalyzer that can oxidize water to oxygen very rapidly. In fact, these KTH scientists are the first to reach speeds approximating those is nature's own photosynthesis. The research findings play a critical role for the future use of solar energy and other renewable energy sources.... The speed with which natural photosynthesis occurs is about 100 to 400 turnovers per seconds. The KTH have now reached over 300 turnovers per seconds with their artificial photosynthesis.... "I'm convinced that it will be possible in ten years to produce technology based on this type of research that is sufficiently cheap to compete with carbon-based fuels. This explains why Barack Obama is investing billions of dollars in this type of research," says Licheng Sun. ... Replacing Mother Nature is just around the corner. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 9, 2012 from EurekAlert: Rapid method of assembling new gene-editing tool could revolutionize genetic research The method developed by Joung and his colleagues - called the FLASH (fast ligation-based automatable solid-phase high-throughput) system - assembles DNA fragments encoding a TALEN on a magnetic bead held in place by an external magnet, allowing automated construction by a liquid-handling robot of DNA that encodes as many as 96 TALENs in a single day at a cost of around $75 per TALEN. Joung's team also developed a manual version of FLASH that would allow labs without access to robotic equipment to construct up to 24 TALEN sequences a day. In their test of the system in human cells, the investigators found that FLASH-assembled TALENs were able to successfully induce breaks in 84 of 96 targeted genes known to be involved in cancer or in epigenetic regulation. "Finding that 85 to 90 percent of FLASH-assembled TALENs have very high genome-editing activity in human cells means that we can essentially target any DNA sequence of interest, a capability that greatly exceeds what has been possible with other nucleases," says Jeffry D. Sander, PhD, co-senior author of the FLASH report and a fellow in Joung's laboratory. "The ability to make a TALEN for any DNA sequence with a high probability of success changes the way we think about gene-altering technology because now the question isn't whether you can target your gene of interest but rather which genes do you want to target and alter." ... OMGMO ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Nov 7, 2011 from Bloomberg Businessweek: The Greening of Death ...Cemeteries and funeral homes across the country have been offering eco-friendly death care, from biodegradable caskets to formaldehyde-free body preparation, for much of the past decade. But in recent years the green burial business has gotten bigger -- there are close to 300 funeral homes in 40 states offering green services in 2011, as opposed to roughly a dozen in 2008 -- and noticeably more eccentric. Just a few years ago a green funeral might have meant a pine or wicker coffin made without toxic materials. Today it could mean burying the dearly departed in an acorn-shaped urn made of recycled paper, erecting a tombstone with a solar-powered Serenity Panel that plays the deceased's favorite songs and videos, or casting out to sea a "reef ball" made of cement mixed with cremated ashes -- your loved one's and others'. ... The greenest burial ... is to not be born at all. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Nov 2, 2011 from Indiana University: IU biologists identify light-regulated mechanism in cyanobacteria as aid to optimizing photosynthesis Indiana University biologists have uncovered how a control system works in producing the important light-harvesting antennae that power photosynthesis in cyanobacteria, the microorganisms that are progenitors of all land plants and responsible for nearly half of the Earth's current oxygen production. Implications of fully comprehending the mechanism, called "light-regulated transcription attenuation," include the potential for increasing agricultural yields, making bio-solar energy production more feasible, and improving understanding of a globally important biological process that is vital for providing the energy needed to sustain virtually all life on Earth... ... Can it potty train my new puppy, too? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Nov 1, 2011 from New York Times: Concerns Are Raised About Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes These mosquitoes are genetically engineered to kill -- their own children. Researchers on Sunday reported initial signs of success from the first release into the environment of mosquitoes engineered to pass a lethal gene to their offspring, killing them before they reach adulthood. The results, and other work elsewhere, could herald an age in which genetically modified insects will be used to help control agricultural pests and insect-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria. ... Are we playing God ... or playing Devil? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Oct 20, 2011 from BBC: Global warming 'confirmed' by independent study The Earth's surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the "ClimateGate" affair has confirmed. The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa. The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.... The Berkeley group found about 40,000 weather stations around the world whose output has been recorded and stored in digital form. It developed a new way of analysing the data to plot the global temperature trend over land since 1800. What came out was a graph remarkably similar to those produced by the world's three most important and established groups, whose work had been decried as unreliable and shoddy in climate sceptic circles. ... This just proves that the warmists have corrupted everyone! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 26, 2011 from Northwestern University via ScienceDaily: Edible Carbon Dioxide Sponge: All-Natural Nanostructures Could Address Pressing Environmental Problem A year ago Northwestern University chemists published their recipe for a new class of nanostructures made of sugar, salt and alcohol. Now, the same team has discovered the edible compounds can efficiently detect, capture and store carbon dioxide. And the compounds themselves are carbon-neutral. The porous crystals -- known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) -- are made from all-natural ingredients and are simple to prepare, giving them a huge advantage over other MOFs. Conventional MOFs, which also are effective at adsorbing carbon dioxide, are usually prepared from materials derived from crude oil and often incorporate toxic heavy metals. ... We need mo' mofos like MOFs! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 12, 2011 from BBC: Supercomputer predicts revolution Feeding a supercomputer with news stories could help predict major world events, according to US research. A study, based on millions of articles, charted deteriorating national sentiment ahead of the recent revolutions in Libya and Egypt. While the analysis was carried out retrospectively, scientists say the same processes could be used to anticipate upcoming conflict. The system also picked up early clues about Osama Bin Laden's location. Kalev Leetaru, from the University of Illinois' Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts and Social Science, presented his findings in the journal First Monday. ... I wonder what it would predict with our news feed? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 5, 2011 from BBC: Endangered species set for stem cell rescue In a novel marriage of conservation and modern biology, scientists have created stem cells from two endangered species, which could help ensure their survival. The northern white rhino is one of the most endangered animals on Earth, while the drill - a west African monkey - is threatened by habitat loss and hunting. The scientists report in Nature Methods that their stem cells could be made to turn into different types of body cell. If they could turn into eggs and sperm, "test-tube babies" could be created.... "Only when numbers get so low that the genetic contribution of every last animal (including those represented only in frozen cell lines) contributes measurably to the total species diversity - maybe around 10 individuals - would we want to do everything possible to ensure that those genes are transmitted to future generations. "Tragically, northern white rhinos have undergone just such a decimation." ... I hear there's big money in test-tube rhino horns. Not so much the animal itself. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Sep 1, 2011 from London Guardian: Firing laser beams into the sky could make it rain, say scientists Ever since ancient farmers called on the gods to send rain to save their harvests, humans have longed to have the weather at their command. That dream has now received a boost after researchers used a powerful laser to produce water droplets in the air, a step that could ultimately help trigger rainfall. While nothing can produce a downpour from dry air, the technique, called laser-assisted water condensation, might allow some control over where and when rain falls if the atmosphere is sufficiently humid. ... Our twubbles are alllll over. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Aug 20, 2011 from EcoHearth: Millions of Abandoned, Leaking Oil Wells and Natural-Gas Wells Destined to Foul Our Future Other instances of leaking oil from just the past 30 odd years (millions of gallons noted in parentheses) have occurred in Kuwait during the Gulf War (240-336); Bay of Campeche, Mexico (140); Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies (88.3); Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan (87.7); Nowruz Oil Field, Persian Gulf (80); Angolan coast (80); Saldanha Bay, South Africa (78.5); off Brittany, France (68.7); off Nova Scotia, Canada (43); Genoa, Italy (42); Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska (11); and BP's Deepwater Horizon platform leak in the Gulf of Mexico (205). This in-depth EcoHearth report indicates these are but a prelude more numerous catastrophes to come.... Each day hundreds of thousands of abandoned leaking oil wells and natural-gas wells spew toxic pollutants into the environment--and tens of millions more will soon join them--thanks to fatally flawed gas and oil-well capping and lax or nonexistent industry and government oversight. A three-month EcoHearth.com investigation has revealed this developing environmental calamity that almost no one is paying attention to and that gravely threatens ecosystems worldwide. There are at minimum 2.5 million abandoned oil and gas wells--none permanently capped--littering the US, and an estimated 20-30 million globally. There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells. Many--likely hundreds of thousands--are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally altered. Aquifers are being destroyed. Some of these abandoned wells are explosive, capable of building-leveling, toxin-spreading detonations. And thanks to primitive capping technologies, virtually all are leaking now--or will be. ... I'm confident that the technology of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s is both dependable and safe, in perpetuity. How about you? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Aug 18, 2011 from Wired: Science Zapping bugs with microwaves could replace pesticides Researchers at the National Physical Laboratory are investigating whether microwaves can be used to kill insects and other pests, such as slugs and snails, instead of chemical pesticides. The right wave frequency can cause damage to the insect's structure, causing it to explode, or can simply interfere with its communication or reproductive system. Microwaves of up to 100 gigahertz are being tested to see whether they can be used as a more energy efficient and environmentally friendly way of exterminating certain pests. Whereas chemical pesticides don't discriminate between species, microwaves could be tailored to target insects of a certain size and structure. Finding the right resonant frequency to cause the damage to the bugs is a bit of trial and error. ... What could go wrong? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Aug 3, 2011 from EurekAlert: Crop breeding could 'slash CO2 levels' Writing in the journal Annals of Botany, Professor Douglas Kell argues that developing crops that produce roots more deeply in the ground could harvest more carbon from the air, and make crops more drought resistant, while dramatically reducing carbon levels. In principle, any crops could be treated in this way, giving more productive yields while also being better for the environment.... Breeding crop plants with deeper and bushy root ecosystems could simultaneously improve both the soil structure and its steady-state carbon, water and nutrient retention, as well as sustainable plant yields.... "In addition to the simple carbon sequestration that this breeding could imply - possibly double that of common annual grain crops - such plants seem to mobilise and retain nutrients and water very effectively over extended periods, thus providing resistance to drought, flooding and other challenges we shall face from climate change. "While there is a way to go before such crops might have, for example, the grain yields of present day cereals, their breeding and deployment seems a very promising avenue for sustainable agriculture." ... I'm rooting for this guy! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jul 5, 2011 from UEA, via ScienceDaily: Evaluation of Climate Policy Is Skyrocketing but in an 'Undeveloped and Unsystematic' Way, Says Study Published in the international journal Policy Sciences, a meta-analysis by a team of researchers from across Europe offers the very first systematic cataloging of the emerging patterns of policy evaluation undertaken in different parts of the European Union. In the last decade or so the politics surrounding the development of new policies has attracted unprecedented attention. Many new targets and policies have been adopted. But a lot less is known about what is being done to check that the resulting policies are actually delivering on their promises. The findings reveal that a culture of evaluation is emerging: the number of evaluations produced has grown spectacularly in recent years. Data collected for six EU states and for the EU as a whole reveal an eightfold increase in the number of reports produced between 2000 and 2005.... "The most striking finding of our analysis is just how undeveloped and unsystematic are most current evaluation practices. Great efforts have been made to inform and understand policy making procedures in Europe, but most policy evaluation remains piecemeal and non-consultative." As the political pressure on policy makers to describe and explain what is being done to tackle climate change increases, calls will grow for evaluation to be undertaken in a more open and transparent fashion. "At present, policy systems in Europe seem ill-prepared to rise to that challenge," said Prof Jordan. ... I just evaluated it systematically. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Apr 30, 2011 from Climatewire: Scientists Probe Genetic Component of Climate-Hardy Species Douglas firs have more than 38,000 genes, roughly twice the number in the human genome. So any gene that has helped those trees survive extreme drought, heat and disease has been passed down through generations of seedlings... Forest Service researchers are in the midst of teasing out which of those genes help Douglas firs and 39 other species of plants, animals and pathogens found in Western forests adapt to climate change. Armed with that information, managers could select more robust seeds to replant forests destroyed by fire or disease, or propagate those seeds to help conserve a species. ... What do you wanna bet mountain pine beetles and emerald ash borers have their researchers working on this, too. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Mar 22, 2011 from PhysOrg: Portable solar device creates potable water By harnessing the power of the sun, a Monash University graduate has designed a simple, sustainable and affordable water-purification device, which has the potential to help eradicate disease and save lives. The Solarball, developed as Mr Jonathan Liow's final year project during his Bachelor of Industrial Design, can produce up to three litres of clean water every day. The spherical unit absorbs sunlight and causes dirty water contained inside to evaporate. As evaporation occurs, contaminants are separated from the water, generating drinkable condensation. The condensation is collected and stored, ready for drinking. Liow's design was driven by a need to help the 900 million people around the world who lack access to safe drinking water. Over two million children die annually from preventable causes, triggered largely by contaminated water. It is an increasing problem in developing nations due to rapid urbanisation and population growth. Mr Liow's simple but effective design is user-friendly and durable, with a weather-resistant construction, making it well suited to people in hot, wet, tropical climates with limited access to resources. ... There's something a little fishy about a beautiful, clever, cheap device that improves people's lives. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Mar 18, 2011 from Huffington Post: Battle-proof Wind Farms Survive Japan's Trial by Fire As the world collectively holds its breath to see how the Fukushima crisis plays out (the quote of the day has got to be: "The worst-case scenario doesn't bear mentioning and the best-case scenario keeps getting worse...") there's a positive story which is not yet being reported. Despite assertions by its detractors that wind energy would not survive an earthquake or tsunami the Japanese wind industry is still functioning and helping to keep the lights on during the Fuksuhima crisis. Colleagues and I have been directly corresponding with Yoshinori Ueda leader of the International Committee of the Japan Wind Power Association & Japan Wind Energy Association, and according to Ueda there has been no wind facility damage reported by any association members, from either the earthquake or the tsunami. Even the Kamisu semi-offshore wind farm, located about 300km from the epicenter of the quake, survived. Its anti-earthquake "battle proof design" came through with flying colors. Mr. Ueda confirms that most Japanese wind turbines are fully operational. Indeed, he says that electric companies have asked wind farm owners to step up operations as much as possible in order to make up for shortages in the eastern part of the country. ... Yeah, but can wind power generate radiation? I don't think so. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Mar 10, 2011 from Telegraph.co.uk: Bottom-trawling makes for skinny cod Trawling the sea floor for bottom-dwelling fish is making cod skinnier, scientists have found. The study looked at the size of cod, lemon sole, megrim and haddock in the Celtic Sea south of Ireland. It found these fish tended to be smaller in heavily trawled areas and in worse general health.... Writing in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, they warned that the study "implies that bottom trawling can reduce habitat-carrying capacity". The practice "is likely to further diminish fisheries productivity and impair the recovery of threatened stocks and ecosystems." ... What kinda thing is "habitat carrying capacity"? It's too hard to say. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Mar 4, 2011 from Huffington Post: Natural Gas Industry Dumping More Wastewater Into Rivers Than A Year Ago Pennsylvania's natural gas drillers are still flushing vast quantities of contaminated wastewater into rivers that supply drinking water, despite major progress by the industry over the past year in curtailing the practice. Under pressure from environmentalists and state officials, energy companies that have been drilling thousands of gas wells in the state's countryside spent part of 2010 overhauling the way they handle the chemically tainted and sometimes radioactive water that gushes from the ground after a drilling technique known as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.... But drilling in the vast, gas-rich rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale is growing so explosively that some of those gains are being erased by operators that still send their waste to plants that discharge into rivers.... By comparison, some 3.6 million barrels were sent to those same plants during the 12-month period that ended on June 30. That means that even with the recycling effort ramping up tremendously, more tainted wastewater is being dumped into rivers now than was the case a year ago. A total of 1,386 new gas wells were drilled in the state last year, up from 768 a year earlier. Thousands more well permits have been approved. ... Is there any evidence that contaminants have been making us smarter? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Feb 26, 2011 from Scientific American: Can Geoengineering Save the World from Global Warming? As efforts to combat climate change falter despite ever-rising concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, some scientists and other experts have begun to consider the possibility of using so-called geoengineering to fix the problem. Such "deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment" as the Royal Society of London puts it, is fraught with peril, of course. For example, one of the first scientists to predict global warming as a result of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere--Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius--thought this might be a good way to ameliorate the winters of his native land and increase its growing season. Whereas that may come true for the human inhabitants of Scandinavia, polar plants and animals are suffering as sea ice dwindles and temperatures warm even faster than climatologists predicted. Scientific American corresponded with science historian James Fleming of Colby College in Maine, author of Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, about the history of geoengineering--ranging from filling the air with the artificial aftermath of a volcanic eruption to seeding the oceans with iron in order to promote plankton growth--and whether it might save humanity from the ill effects of climate change.... This idea of detonating bombs in near-space was proposed in 1957 by Nicholas Christofilos, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.... In short, I think it may be infinitely more dangerous than climate change, largely due to the suspicion and social disruption it would trigger by changing humanity's relationship to nature. ... Anything that makes climate change seem tame is a bit of all right with me, even if it's "infinitely more dangerous than climate change"! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Feb 13, 2011 from Huffington Post: One U.S. Corporation's Role in Egypt's Brutal Internet Crackdown The open Internet's role in popular uprising is now undisputed. Look no further than Egypt, where the Mubarak regime today reportedly shut down Internet and cell phone communications -- a troubling predictor of the fierce crackdown that has followed. What's even more troubling is news that one American company is aiding Egypt's harsh response through sales of technology that makes this repression possible.... Narus, now owned by Boeing, was founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts to create and sell mass surveillance systems for governments and large corporate clients. The company is best known for creating NarusInsight, a supercomputer system which is allegedly used by the National Security Agency and other entities to perform mass, real-time surveillance and monitoring of public and corporate Internet communications in real time. Narus provides Egypt Telecom with Deep Packet Inspection equipment (DPI), a content-filtering technology that allows network managers to inspect, track and target content from users of the Internet and mobile phones, as it passes through routers on the information superhighway. ... Total Information Awareness abhors a vacuum. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 3, 2011 from Yale360: Intel the Biggest Buyer Of Green Energy in the U.S., Report Says Intel Corporation remains the top purchaser of renewable energy in the U.S., nearly doubling the amount of green energy credits it will buy in 2011 to more than 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours -- the equivalent of powering 218,000 American homes -- according to a new ranking by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). With that increase, the California-based chipmaker -- which has also built nine solar plants at its facilities in the U.S. and Israel -- now gets about 88 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. The retail chain, Kohl's, which ranked second on the EPA's list of the top 50 green energy buyers, now gets 100 pecent of its electricity from green sources, purchasing more than 1.4 million kilowatt-hours annually. ... That computes. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jan 13, 2011 from Rice, via EurekAlert: Virus killer gets supercharged on the cheap A simple technique to make a common virus-killing material significantly more effective is a breakthrough from the Rice University labs of Andrew Barron and Qilin Li. Rather than trying to turn the process into profit, the researchers have put it into the public domain. They hope wide adoption will save time, money and perhaps even lives.... adding silicone to titanium dioxide, a common disinfectant, dramatically increases its ability to degrade aerosol- and water-borne viruses.... "We chose the Yangtze River as our baseline for testing, because it's considered the most polluted river in the world, with the highest viral content," he said. "Even at that level of viral contamination, we're getting complete destruction of the viruses in water that matches the level of pollution in the Yangtze." Using a smaller amount of treated P25 takes longer but works just as well, he said. "Either way, it's green and it's cheap." ... "Green and cheap" is no way to restart the economy. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 28, 2010 from University of Illinois, via PhysOrg: Scientists overcome major obstacles to cellulosic biofuel production A newly engineered yeast strain can simultaneously consume two types of sugar from plants to produce ethanol, researchers report. The sugars are glucose, a six-carbon sugar that is relatively easy to ferment; and xylose, a five-carbon sugar that has been much more difficult to utilize in ethanol production. The new strain, made by combining, optimizing and adding to earlier advances, reduces or eliminates several major inefficiencies associated with current biofuel production methods.... Most yeast strains that are engineered to metabolize xylose do so very slowly. "Xylose is a wood sugar, a five-carbon sugar that is very abundant in lignocellulosic biomass but not in our food," said Yong-Su Jin, a professor of food science and human nutrition at Illinois.... "Most yeast cannot ferment xylose."... The new yeast strain is at least 20 percent more efficient at converting xylose to ethanol than other strains, making it "the best xylose-fermenting strain" reported in any study, Jin said.... The cost benefits of this advance in co-fermentation are very significant, Jin said. "We don't have to do two separate fermentations," he said. "We can do it all in one pot. And the yield is even higher than the industry standard. We are pretty sure that this research can be commercialized very soon." ... "Co-fermentation" sounds like socialism to me. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 6, 2010 from FutureStreet: Wikileaks, the blueprint, and openness With every day, with every passing hour, the power of the state mobilizes against Wikileaks and Julian Assange, its titular leader. The inner processes of statecraft have never been so completely exposed as they have been in the last week. The nation state has been revealed as some sort of long-running and unintentionally comic soap opera. She doesn't like him; he doesn't like them; they don't like any of us!... Has Earth become a sort of amplified Facebook, where an in-crowd of Heathers, horrified, suddenly finds its bitchy secrets posted on a public forum? Is that what we've been reduced to? Or is that what we've been like all along?... A few months ago I wrote about how confused I was by Julian Assange's actions. Why would anyone taking on the state so directly become such a public figure? It made no sense to me. Now I see the plan. And it's awesome.... Assange gets to be the scapegoat, the pinup boy for a new kind of anarchism. But what he's done can not be undone; this tear in the body politic will never truly heal. Everything is different now. Everything feels more authentic. We can choose to embrace this authenticity, and use it to construct a new system of relations, one which does not rely on secrets and lies. A week ago that would have sounded utopian, now it's just facing facts. ... Are you implying that sunshine is the best disinfectant? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Nov 25, 2010 from London Daily Telegraph: Ice core on public display in new drive to educate public on climate change The Science Museum is the first institution in the world to put an "ice core" on display. The three foot high block of ice was drilled from beneath the Antarctic in 1989 by the British Antarctic Survey. The core was taken from almost 200ft beneath the top of the ice, where the snow was laid down in layers hundreds of years ago, trapping the air. It was brought back to England as part of efforts to try and understand the past climate and how greenhouse gases have affected temperatures...This suggests that carbon dioxide causes global warming, prompting concern that the unprecedented growth in carbon since the industrial revolution could cause catastrophic climate change. ... I've got a wood core teaching tool, myself. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Nov 23, 2010 from TreeHugger: $3k Website Connects Farms to Restaurants, Creating Virtual Coop From beekeepers using the internet to fight colony collapse disorder, through crop mob and other new agrarians organizing online, to wireless soil sensors optimizing farm resources, a return to sustainable farming does not mean a rejection of what technology has to offer. Inspired by the death of his granddaughter, one retired telecommunications analyst has set about using the power of the internet to promote social justice, reverse the decline in small farming, and create a vibrant food economy for his community.... Knowing that despite the high levels of poverty, some 6000 families owned between 5 and 20 acres of land in his community, and knowing that chefs in nearby Charlotte were itching to buy high-quality, sustainable local produce, Tim figured it was pretty much a case of connecting the dots. So Will created a $3000 website called Farmers Fresh Market where farmers could market produce direct to restaurants, and he created sustainable agriculture and computing courses to help farmers figure out what to grow and how to sell it. ... Hey! Stop that! Only the big guys get to use technology! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Nov 20, 2010 from USA Today: Kimberly-Clark rolls out tube-free Scott toilet paper On Monday, Kimberly-Clark, one of the world's biggest makers of household paper products, will begin testing Scott Naturals Tube-Free toilet paper at Walmart and Sam's Club stores throughout the Northeast. If sales take off, it may introduce the line nationally and globally -- and even consider adapting the technology into its paper towel brands. No, the holes in the rolls aren't perfectly round. But they do fit over TP spindles and come with this promise: Even the last piece of toilet paper will be usable -- without glue stuck on it.... The 17 billion toilet paper tubes produced annually in the USA account for 160 million pounds of trash, according to Kimberly-Clark estimates, and could stretch more than a million miles placed end-to-end. That's from here to the moon and back -- twice. Most consumers toss, rather than recycle, used tubes, says Doug Daniels, brand manager at Kimberly-Clark. "We found a way to bring innovation to a category as mature as bath tissue," he says. ... And if sales don't take off, maybe you can just do the right thing anyway? ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Nov 19, 2010 from Christian Science Monitor, via Yahoo: Son of Stuxnet? Variants of the cyberweapon likely, senators told Stuxnet, the first known weaponized software designed to destroy a specific industrial process, could soon be modified to target an array of industrial systems in the US and abroad, cyber experts told US senators Wednesday. The Stuxnet malware, discovered this summer, was apparently designed to strike one target - Iran's nuclear-fuel centrifuge facilities, researchers now say. But Stuxnet's "digital warhead," they caution, could be copied and altered by others to wreak havoc on a much grander scale. Variants of Stuxnet could target a host of critical infrastructure, from the power grid and water supplies to transportation systems, four cybersecurity experts told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.... "from automobile assembly lines to mixing baby formula to processing chemicals," said Mr. McGurk.... "... Stuxnet is an important harbinger of things that may come if we do not use this opportunity to learn about this threat and apply it." ... What I want to know is why they can't just spray the computers with antibiotics. Wouldn't that kill the virus? ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Oct 22, 2010 from Scientific American: Sequencing the "Exposome": Researchers Take a Cue from Genomics to Decipher Environmental Exposure's Links to Disease Anxious about BPA? Petrified of pesticides? Plenty of scientific literature shows that concerns about certain chemicals' potential to up the risk for chronic disease are justified. And although genetics can predispose a person to many ills, more than half of disease risk -- and possibly as much as 90 percent -- likely stem from environmental factors, according to recent epidemiological research. Hard data -- of the quality now gleaned from genetic studies -- however, has been lacking in the environmental field. And if there is to be any hope of untangling the complex web of risks behind chronic diseases, many scientists argue, researchers need to develop an "exposome," a highly detailed map of environmental exposures that might occur throughout a lifetime, which can be mapped onto the etiology (the study of causes) of major illnesses, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease. ... But I don't want to know! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Oct 20, 2010 from PhysOrg: Biodegradable foam plastic substitute made from milk protein and clay Amid ongoing concern about plastic waste accumulating in municipal landfills, and reliance on imported oil to make plastics, scientists are reporting development of a new ultra-light biodegradable foam plastic material made from two unlikely ingredients: The protein in milk and ordinary clay. The new substance could be used in furniture cushions, insulation, packaging, and other products, they report in the ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal. David Schiraldi and colleagues explain that 80 percent of the protein in cow milk is a substance called casein, which already finds uses in making adhesives and paper coatings. But casein is not very strong, and water can wash it away. To beef up casein, and boost its resistance to water, the scientists blended in a small amount of clay and a reactive molecule called glyceraldehyde, which links casein's protein molecules together. The scientists freeze-dried the resulting mixture, removing the water to produce a spongy aerogel, one of a family of substances so light and airy that they have been termed "solid smoke." To make the gossamer foam stronger, they cured it in an oven, then tested its sturdiness. They concluded that it is strong enough for commercial uses, and biodegradable, with almost a third of the material breaking down within 30 days. ... Consumers will probably complain about it being too noisy. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Sep 24, 2010 from New Scientist: Out-of-this-world proposal for solar wind power Forget wind power or conventional solar power, the world's energy needs could be met 100 billion times over using a satellite to harness the solar wind and beam the energy to Earth - though focussing the beam could be tricky. The concept for the so-called Dyson-Harrop satellite begins with a long metal wire loop pointed at the sun. This wire is charged to generate a cylindrical magnetic field that snags the electrons that make up half the solar wind. These electrons get funnelled into a metal spherical receiver to produce a current, which generates the wire's magnetic field - making the system self-sustaining. Any current not needed for the magnetic field powers an infrared laser trained on satellite dishes back on Earth, designed to collect the energy. Air is transparent to infrared so Earth's atmosphere won't suck up energy from the beam before it reaches the ground.... A relatively small Dyson-Harrop satellite using a 1-centimetre-wide copper wire 300 metres long, a receiver 2 metres wide and a sail 10 metres in diameter, sitting at roughly the same distance from the sun as the Earth, could generate 1.7 megawatts of power - enough for about 1000 family homes in the US.... [Unfortunately, to] beam power from a Dyson-Harrop satellite to Earth, one "would require stupendously huge optics, such as a virtually perfect lens between maybe 10 to 100 kilometres across," he says. ... Very cool, except for that impractical part. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Sep 17, 2010 from Low Tech Magazine: Low-Tech Magazine Low-tech Magazine refuses to assume that every problem has a high-tech solution. A simple, sensible, but nevertheless controversial message; high-tech has become the idol of our society.... The Museum of Old Techniques: For almost every electronic device or oil driven machine there used to be a low-tech alternative that was powered by human muscles, water or wind..... Wind powered factories: The Netherlands had 5 times more windmills in 1850 than it has wind turbines today. One of the most spectacular developments of industrial wind power technology occurred in the Zaan district, a region situated just above Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ... Isn't it more efficient to burn coal to make steam to turn turbines to power my electric scissors? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Sep 16, 2010 from CWRU, via EurekAlert: Case Western Reserve researcher discovers new 'anti-pathogenic' drugs to treat MRSA Menachem Shoham, PhD ... has identified new anti-pathogenic drugs that, without killing the bacteria, render Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) harmless by preventing the production of toxins that cause disease.... Dr. Shoham identified a bacterial protein, known as AgrA, as the key molecule responsible for the release of toxins. AgrA, however, needs to be activated to induce toxin production. His goal was to block the activation of AgrA with a drug, thus preventing the cascade of toxin release into the blood that can lead to serious infections throughout the body.... "It is possible to inhibit virulence of MRSA without killing the bacteria," continued Dr. Shoham. "Such anti-pathogenic drugs may be used for prophylaxis or therapy by themselves or in combination with an antibiotic." ... Excellent! So it's only Mostly Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus! ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Sep 3, 2010 from PhysOrg: Cheaper, better solar cell is full of holes A new low-cost etching technique developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory can put a trillion holes in a silicon wafer the size of a compact disc. As the tiny holes deepen, they make the silvery-gray silicon appear darker and darker until it becomes almost pure black and able to absorb nearly all colors of light the sun throws at it. At room temperature, the black silicon wafer can be made in about three minutes. At 100 degrees F, it can be made in less than a minute. The breakthrough by NREL scientists likely will lead to lower-cost solar cells that are nonetheless more efficient than the ones used on rooftops and in solar arrays today.... Could the same black-silicon etching result be achieved by substituting the inexpensive chloroauric acid for costly colloidal gold, and then mixing it as before with hydrogen peroxide and hydrofluoric acid? Yost and Branz wondered. Yes, it worked. "Chloroauric acid is much cheaper than colloidal gold," Branz said. "In essence, by skipping a few steps, they were able to make gold nanoparticles from the chloroauric acid at the same time as they were etching holes into the silicon with the gold they had made."... NREL estimates that the black silicon can reduce cell conversion costs by 4 to 8 percent, while using widely available industrial materials and equipment. "That's big," Goodrich added. "The people who are interested in this technology recognize that that difference is valuable real estate." ... That's an Au-ful big step! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Aug 25, 2010 from New Scientist: Pee is for power: Your electrifying excretions Urine might not pack the punch of rocket fuel, but what it lacks in energy density it makes up for in sheer quantity. It is one of the most abundant waste materials on Earth, with nearly 7 billion people producing roughly 10 billion litres of it every day. Add animals into the mix and this quantity is multiplied several times over. As things stand, this flood of waste poses a problem. Let it run into the water system and it would wipe out entire ecosystems; yet scrubbing it out of waste water costs money and energy. In the US, for instance, waste water treatment plants consume 1.5 per cent of all the electricity the country generates. So wouldn't it be nice if, instead of being a vast energy consumer, urine could be put to use. That thought occurred to Gerardine Botte, a chemical engineer at Ohio University in Athens, during a discussion in 2002 with colleagues about possible sources of hydrogen for use in fuel cells. ... The answer was at our fingertips all along! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Aug 21, 2010 from PhysOrg: Solar-powered toothbrush doesn't require toothpaste Researchers have designed a toothbrush that cleans teeth by creating a solar-powered chemical reaction in the mouth, doing away with the need for toothpaste. Dr. Kunio Komiyama, a dentistry professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan, designed the first model of the unconventional toothbrush 15 years ago. Today, Komiyama and his colleague Dr. Gerry Uswak are seeking recruits to test their newest model, the Soladey-J3X. The toothbrush, which is manufactured by the Shiken company of Japan, will soon be tested by 120 teenagers to see how it compares to a normal toothbrush. The Soladey-J3X has a solar panel at its base that transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire. The electrons react with acid in the mouth, creating a chemical reaction that breaks down plaque and kills bacteria. The toothbrush requires no toothpaste, and can operate with about the same amount of light as needed by a solar-powered calculator. The researchers have already tested the toothbrush in cultures of bacteria that cause periodontal disease, and demonstrated that the brush causes "complete destruction of bacterial cells," Komiyama said. Last month, the researchers presented their research at the FDI Annual World Dental Conference in Dubai, where their poster won first prize out of 170 entries. ... And this isn't even The Onion! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jul 1, 2010 from New Scientist: Zoo plans to bring rare animals back from the dead TAKE frozen cells from a dead animal, reprogram them to become sperm and eggs, then use these to bring endangered species back from the brink. That's the aim of a collaboration between the San Diego zoo and The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.... The team's long-term goal is to coax iPS cells into becoming sperm and eggs. They will be making iPS cells from tissue held by San Diego zoo's Frozen Zoo project - which has samples from some 8400 individuals representing more than 800 species. The sperm and eggs could be used in IVF treatments to add genetic diversity to captive breeding programmes. "You could actually breed from animals that are dead," says Loring. ... Great! Then we can recreate their habitats, too! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jun 15, 2010 from Scientific American: Terror in a Vial When it comes to countering the threat of biological weapons, most governments, including that of the U.S., are still mired in a decades-old nuclear-arms model geared toward preventing hostile nations from acquiring closely guarded weapons-making materials. It is an approach unsuited to the modern reality wherein nonstate actors are more likely than states to use biological warfare agents and the growth of biotechnology is only making those weapons easier to come by. Security experts have long warned that would-be terrorists no longer need to steal deadly pathogens when commonplace genetic engineering techniques could turn a benign microbe into a killer or synthetic biology tools might be used to build a virus from scratch.... Ken Coleman and Raymond A. Zilinskas point to a proliferation of international counterfeiters cashing in on the craze for the wrinkle-smoothing drug Botox, whose active ingredient botulinum neurotoxin is one of the deadliest poisons on earth. Many of the sales take place through Web sites, and most of the counterfeits contain real toxin, meaning that basement brewers may already be cultivating lethal toxin-making bacteria to satisfy avid consumer demand. The authors ask, What is to stop those criminals from simply selling pure toxin to terrorists instead? In fact, what is to stop terrorists themselves from getting into the bootleg Botox business, for profit and easy access to toxin? ... Hey, I've been ingesting BPA, pthalates, and heavy metals all my life. Think I'm afraid of a little Botox? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jun 10, 2010 from PhysOrg: Professor to present vision for zero-carbon future for UK Professor Seamus Garvey, of the University's Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, will speak on the potential of vast floating offshore 'energy farms' off the UK coastline, which could produce 'green' electricity at a fraction of the cost of its nearest competitors. Professor Garvey said: "Imagine for a moment that renewable energy was the cheapest way to source power and that this power could be dispatched on demand. Imagine further that the landscape did not have to be blighted by man-made structures to gather that power. "The impact on the world would be profound: secure low-cost energy supplies for most countries, reduction in the environmental assault that is most mining and oil/gas extraction and some hope of curtailing climate change not dependant on politics."... The technology is centred on a simple premise -- using giant wind turbines to compress and pump air into huge undersea Energy Bags™ anchored to the seabed -- or geological formations where deep water is not available. The high pressure air would be expanded in special turbo-generator sets to provide electricity as required -- not just when the wind is blowing. ... What a gasbag! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, May 29, 2010 from Chemical and Engineering News: Turning Plastic Trash Into Treasure? Plastic grocery bags are handy and durable, but after the bread and milk are put away, most of the bags wind up in landfills. Now Vilas Pol, a materials scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, has found a way to "upcycle" discarded plastics into carbon microspheres... For the new method, he places waste plastics, such as polyethylene bags and disposable polystyrene cups, into a closed, heatable reactor. Using mass spectrometry, Pol found that at 700 [degrees] C, the chemical bonds between the carbons and hydrogens break down. The products are solid carbon, as well as hydrogen and hydrocarbon gases. Pol says that the upcycling process could provide an environmentally friendly alternative to typical methods that produce solid carbon. He generates the same product but starts with discarded plastics instead of fossil fuels. ... Pol has soooo been smokin' pot! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, May 27, 2010 from Associated Press: Gulf spill surpasses Valdez; plug try going well An untested procedure to plug the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico seemed to be working, officials said Thursday, but new estimates showed the spill has already surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst in U.S. history. A team of scientists trying to determine how much oil has been flowing since the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later found the rate was more than twice and possibly up to five times as high as previously thought. The fallout from the spill has stretched all the way to Washington, where the head of the federal agency that oversees offshore drilling resigned Thursday and President Barack Obama insisted his administration, not BP, was calling the shots. ... Clean out of ideas, BP tries out the butt plug approach. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, May 20, 2010 from CNN: Giant solar-powered yacht to circle globe Intensive trials are under way as the world's largest solar-powered yacht prepares to circumnavigate the globe. As heavy as a whale and 30 meters long, the vessel is adorned with 536 square-meters of photovoltaic panels -- enough to cover over two tennis courts -- which its crew hope will enable it to complete the 50,000 kilometre journey fueled by nothing but energy from the sun. "This is not just an adventure story," skipper Raphael Domjan told CNN. "We want to show the world that we have the technology right now to change how we do things." Energy captured from the sun and stored in the world's largest lithium ion battery will power a noise-free, pollution-free electric motor during an estimated 160 day voyage. The boat, christened "Turanor" after a word meaning "power of the sun" in JRR Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, is Domjan's brainchild. ... And hey, on a cloudy day, if this yacht is anywhere near the Gulf it can just scoop up some stray oil. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, May 20, 2010 from IU News Room: IU physicists, in DZero Collaboration, announce evidence of matter-antimatter imbalance Physicists at Indiana University are joining fellow DZero Collaboration researchers from around the world in announcing evidence of a 1 percent deviation between the amounts of elementary matter and antimatter particles being produced from high-energy collisions at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. IU Department of Physics chair and DZero collaborator Rick Van Kooten, one of four professors and research scientists from IU Bloomington working on the experiment, called new evidence of a deviation of the Standard Model of particle physics "unexpected" and "a surprise." He described the 1 percent deviation as "huge, and definitely not seen in general particle collisions." "We are very excited about this discovery as it is truly unexpected," he said. "This observation that particles can not only quantum mechanically change into their own anti-particles and vice versa, but also that the two processes are not equally likely at this level, is a surprise." ... Can we marshall this quantum-change force to turn ourselves into a bizarro-world of environmental health, fairness, and freedom? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, May 10, 2010 from SciDev.net: Biofuels from algae plagued with problems, says review Hopes that algae could become a source of biodiesel that is friendly both to the environment and the poor may be premature, according to a review. When early sources of biofuels -- mostly derived from food crops -- incurred widespread criticism for being harmful to the environment, undermining food security, and being unlikely to reduce overall carbon emissions, algae emerged as a potential biofuel source that could sidestep these problems. But they have serious drawbacks that may mean they can never compete with other fuels, according to Gerhard Knothe, a research chemist with the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service.... Knothe found that "many, if not most" of the biodiesel fuels derived from algae have "significant problems" when it comes to their ability to flow well at lower temperatures ('cold flow') and they also degrade more easily than other biofuels.... Luiz Pereira Ramos, chemist at the Federal University of Parana, Brazil, said Knothe was "absolutely correct. Most of the algae-derived biodiesel investigated to date are not suitable for fuel use." ... Not to worry! There won't be any "cold flow" temperatures anyway! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Apr 27, 2010 from The Economist: A radial brew ...About a billion tyres are made every year--each one requiring about 26 litres (or seven American gallons) of oil. Now a way has been found to make greener tyres by using genetically modified bugs to produce isoprene biologically. The work is being carried out by Genencor, an industrial biotech company based in California, in collaboration with Goodyear, one of the world's biggest tyremakers...Genencor used a genetically modified form of E-coli, a favourite species of bacteria in microbial genetics, to produce BioIsoprene. By splicing in genes from other bugs, the company was able to engineer synthetic metabolic pathways--ones that do not exist in nature--that enable the bacteria to produce isoprene from the sugars found in plant materials such as sugar cane, corn cobs and switchgrass, a tall-growing variety native to North America. ... Just so we don't end up having to eat these tyres. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 19, 2010 from SciDev.net: Modified plant clears up deadly cyanobacteria water toxin A team at St George's Medical School, part of the UK-based University of London, has modified tobacco plants to secrete antibodies from the roots that then bind to microcystin-LR -- the most common cyanobacteria toxin in water -- rendering it harmless. "A toxin that is bound to antibodies should be easier to remove from the environment and also is likely to be less harmful," said Pascal Drake, a biotechnology researcher at St George's Centre for Infection. The antibodies could also be used in simple and cheap tests to see if toxins are present in water supplies, he said. Tobacco plants, grown hydroponically in the lab, were chosen for the first phase of this research, reported last month (March) in The FASEB Journal, because "they are easy to work with and genetically engineer", said Drake. The next step will be to try and modify aquatic plants, which will be more suitable for large-scale treatment of water. Drake anticipated that this "wouldn't be too problematic". ... Antibody beautiful. Or just Anti-Body, depending. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Apr 1, 2010 from via ScienceDaily: Microbial Answer to Plastic Pollution? Fragments of plastic in the ocean are not just unsightly but potentially lethal to marine life. Coastal microbes may offer a smart solution to clean up plastic contamination, according to Jesse Harrison presenting his research at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh.... The new study investigated the attachment of microbes to fragments of polyethylene -- a plastic commonly used for shopping bags. The scientists found that the plastic was rapidly colonised by multiple species of bacteria that congregated together to form a 'biofilm' on its surface. ... Go forth ... and colonize. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Mar 10, 2010 from Fast Company: Pandemic Architecture: Designers Tackle the Coming Apocalypse We live in terrifying times: Pandemics ranging from bird flu to swine flu regularly threaten to kill millions. Can architecture deal with those problems? Today, New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture is opening a new exhibition, "Landscapes of Quarantine," that explores that question -- It's a delicious exercise in paranoia, blending design and Outbreak-style sci-fi. The show, which runs through April 17, is comprised of 11 projects by artists, architects, and writers. Each was created during a two month studio course led by Geoff Manaugh, the editor of BLDGBLOG, and Nicole Twiley, editor of Edible Geography. One project in particular gives you an idea of the scope and ambition of the exhibition: Architect David Garcia create an illustrated "map" of quarantine possibilities that visitors can take with them. ... I'm not sure I want a case of "if you build it, they will come." ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 18, 2010 from PhysOrg.com: Australia's cane toads face death by cat food Australia is beset by millions of [cane toads] after they were introduced from Hawaii in 1935 to control scarab beetles. After years spent trying to batter, gas, run over and even freeze the toxic toads out of existence, scientists say just a dollop of Whiskas could stop the warty horde. The cat food attracts Australia's carnivorous meat ants, which swarm over and munch on baby toads killing 70 percent of them. "It's not exactly rocket science. We went out and put out a little bit of cat food right beside the area where the baby toads were coming out of the ponds," University of Sydney professor Rick Shine told public broadcaster ABC.... "The worker ants then leave trails back to the nest encouraging other ants to come out there and forage in that area, and within a very short period of time we got lots of ants in the same area as the toads are."... "Even the ones that don't die immediately, die within a day or so of being attacked," Shine said, adding that native frogs were able to dodge the hungry ants. ... What a purr-fect solution! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Feb 6, 2010 from New Scientist: Chikungunya foiled by copycat 'virus' A VACCINE that masquerades as chikungunya virus might finally defeat the mosquito-borne disease. In 2006 a single mutation in the virus allowed it to burst out of Africa via a new species of mosquito. Chikungunya now infects about 1 million people a year around the Indian Ocean and causes intense joint pain which can persist for years. It could invade temperate regions as the mosquitoes' range expands. Gary Nabel of the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues put genes that code for the virus's protein coat into cultured human cells. The proteins assembled themselves into virus-like particles (VLPs), which mimic the virus but aren't infectious. "We got structures that beautifully replicated the natural virus," Nabel says. ... Scientists rock. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Feb 1, 2010 from Chemical & Engineering News: Fluorochemicals Go Short Nearly all humans, and a large proportion of wildlife, are contaminated with environmentally persistent long-chain perfluoroalkyl compounds. That revelation, around for a decade now, has brought dramatic change to the fluorochemicals industry. Spurred on by academic researchers and concerns from environmental and consumer advocacy groups, chemical companies have worked with the Environmental Protection Agency to phase out perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and are in the process of phasing out perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The companies are replacing PFOS, PFOA, and their associated compounds with shorter perfluoroalkyl chain compounds that impart the same functional properties as the longer chain compounds. Although the alternatives are just as persistent, they aren't as bioaccumulative and appear to have a better toxicity profile -- which is still being confirmed by testing -- and are thus considered sound replacements. ... If there's no acronym, is this really an improvement? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jan 7, 2010 from SolveClimate: 7 Energy Efficient Gadgets that Could Be 2010 Game-Changers The green ghetto is great, but this year it seems energy efficiency is a major selling point for all the vendors, not just those with an ostensibly green product. Perhaps more telling, the tech journalists and taste-makers covering the event also seem to be most interested in the products that are smaller, thinner and more energy efficient than their predecessors. In general, what happens at CES sets the tech and gadget trends for the year, so it's encouraging to see a general trend toward energy efficiency, helped along in part by the banner year smart grid had in 2009, the federal stimulus funds flowing toward various energy efficient technologies and California's recent move to put a cap on the energy consumed by televisions. Here's a peek at seven energy efficient CES debuts that could be game-changers in the coming year... ... Clever gadgets could save the world. And without any sacrifices at all! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jan 4, 2010 from KRCG: Man recycles tires to create green energy BONNOTS MILL -- An Osage County man is turning old tires into green energy for the military, and he's doing it all from his farm in Bonnots Mill. You could say Harvey Buhr is part inventor, part entrepreneur and part mad scientist. "I've always had an interest in waste-to-energy," said Harvey Buhr, founder and CEO of Hitec... His waste-to-energy idea centers on old tires, which he sees as an opportunity that's gaining steam.... Buhr has machines in his backyard that can recycle a whole cart of tires at a time. Once they go in, Buhr uses heat to extract the oil and other energy sources inside of them. ... You could call him that but he might throw you into that machine of his. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jan 3, 2010 from The Economist: The seat of power ...Less and less waste, these days, is actually allowed to go to waste. Instead, it is used to generate biogas, a methane-rich mixture that can be employed for heating and for the generation of electricity. Moreover, in an age concerned with the efficient use of energy, technological improvements are squeezing human fecal matter to release every last drop of the stuff. Making biogas means doing artificially to faeces what would happen to them naturally if they were simply dumped into the environment or allowed to degrade in the open air at a traditional sewage farm—namely, arranging for them to be chewed up by bacteria. Capturing the resulting methane has a double benefit. As well as yielding energy, it also prevents what is a potent greenhouse gas from being released into the atmosphere. ... Our last hope: Shit. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Nov 8, 2009 from BBC (UK): Studies 'overstate species risks' They said models that analyse vast areas often failed to take into account local variations, such as topography and microclimates. Local-scale simulations, which did include these factors, often delivered a more optimistic outlook, they added. The findings have been published in the journal, Science.... However, they added that the overall picture for biodiversity loss was still bleak, especially once the rate of habitat loss and fragmentation was taken into account. "Predicting the fate of biodiversity in response to climate change combined with habitat fragmentation is a serious undertaking fraught with caveats and complexities," they observed. ... Soon to come: "biodiversity loss deniers." ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Nov 5, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: Al Gore 'profiting' from climate change agenda The former US vice president is in line to make a large profit from a firm producing smart meters which monitor household electricity use. He is a partner in a Silicon Valley venture capital firm which invested $45 million in Silver Spring Networks, a small California company which has been developing technology to monitor household power use to make the electricity grid more efficient. Last week the US Energy Department announced $2 billion in grants and a proportion of that, thought to be more than $305 million, will go to utility operators with which Silver Spring has contracts. The venture capitalists who invested, including Mr Gore, now look set to receive a handsome return. ... In some circles, this is called "foresight." ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Oct 20, 2009 from National Geographic: Leaves "Magnetized" by Air Pollution, Study Finds Tree leaves are "magnetized" by air pollution, and the phenomenon may offer a new and inexpensive technique for quickly identifying air-pollution hot spots, scientists say. The technique, they add, could help city officials plan healthier bike paths, walkways, and running paths. Vehicle exhaust and other sources of air pollution spew out metallic fragments that then adhere to nearby tree leaves, said study leader Bernie Housen, a geophysicist at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington...Housen's study revealed that leaves plucked from trees along regular bus routes were up to ten times more magnetic than those on quieter streets. ... If you live along a bus route you're plucked! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Oct 18, 2009 from San Francisco Chronicle: Tribe teams with Google to make stand in Amazon The chief of an endangered Amazon tribe will unveil today the product of an unusual partnership with Google Inc. that pairs high tech with indigenous knowledge in an effort to rescue ancient rain forests and a dying culture....The data-rich maps include layers of videos, pictures, text and historical markers gathered by tribe members. It promises to underscore the importance of the land and propel the Surui people's efforts to become self-sufficient.... "Forests are very important for the welfare of the indigenous people and for the world," [Chief Almir] said. "We want to show concretely, practically that you can have quality of life and economic development, with an intact forest." ... Have you caught my shadow puppet show about Bhopal? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Oct 14, 2009 from UPI: Climate change may be faster than expected A team of U.S. scientists has, for the first time, successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global climate change simulations.... "We've shown that if all of the global modeling groups were to include some kind of nutrient dynamics, the range of model predictions would shrink because of the constraining effects of the carbon nutrient limitations, even though it's a more complex model," Oak Ridge scientist Peter Thornton said. By taking the natural demand for nutrients into account, the authors demonstrated the stimulation of plant growth during the coming century might be two to three times smaller than previously predicted. Since less growth implies less carbon dioxide absorbed by vegetation, the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are expected to increase. ... We don't even know how much we don't even know. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Sep 30, 2009 from Indianapolis Star: Purdue researchers monitor cow emissions WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue University is leading a new study that seeks to answer the smelly question of how much greenhouse gases are produced by dairy cows. The study won't just look at the issue of cow flatulence -- it will also examine the amount of greenhouse gases that cow manure releases. A Purdue professor is leading colleagues at Purdue and four other schools in the study. They'll monitor carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide at five barn sites and two manure lagoons in Indiana, Wisconsin, California, Washington and New York. ... 'Cause we know just how vital the issue of cow flatulence can be! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Sep 28, 2009 from The Sydney Morning Herald: Google Earth climate change 3D map unveiled Google is using its Google Earth mapping tool to simulate on a 3D map of the world the predicted effects of climate change until the year 2100. Using data provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the search giant created new layers for Google Earth showing the range of expected temperature and precipitation changes under different global emissions scenarios that could occur throughout the century. The new tools were introduced in partnership with the Danish Government ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Convention in December....The company is hoping that allowing people to visualise the impacts of climate change on a 3D map of the world will compel more people to speak up about the issue. ... Not only will the Apocalypse be televised, it'll be in 3D! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Sep 5, 2009 from National Science Foundation via ScienceDaily: Early Warning Signals Of Change: 'Tipping Points' Identified Where Sudden Shifts To New Conditions Occur What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and Earth's climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, the global finance market and its system-wide crashes, and asthma attacks and epileptic seizures have in common? According to a paper published this week in the journal Nature, all share generic early-warning signals that indicate a critical threshold of change dead ahead... "It's increasingly clear that many complex systems have critical thresholds -- 'tipping points' -- at which these systems shift abruptly from one state to another," write the scientists in their paper. Especially relevant, they discovered, is that "catastrophic bifurcations," a diverging of the ways, propel a system toward a new state once a certain threshold is exceeded. ... I usually experience "catastrophic bifurcations" after a good meal. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Aug 31, 2009 from via ScienceDaily: International Greenland Ice Coring Effort Sets New Drilling Record In 2009 A new international research effort on the Greenland ice sheet with the University of Colorado at Boulder as the lead U.S. institution set a record for single-season deep ice-core drilling this summer, recovering more than a mile of ice core that is expected to help scientists better assess the risks of abrupt climate change in the future. The project, known as the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling, or NEEM, is being undertaken by 14 nations and is led by the University of Copenhagen. The goal is to retrieve ice from the last interglacial episode known as the Eemian Period that ended about 120,000 years ago. The period was warmer than today, with less ice in Greenland and 15-foot higher sea levels than present -- conditions similar to those Earth faces as it warms in the coming century and beyond... ... Long as the drilling doesn't add to the problem! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Aug 27, 2009 from SeekingAlpha, via DesdemonaDespair: Mexico's Super-giant Cantarell Oilfield Production Falling Off a Cliff The eighth largest oil field in the world will be dead by the end of next year. Shall I repeat that, or did you get it the first time?... The result is that Cantarell was pumped out effectively and hard, especially after the technique to re-pressurize the field was adopted. This allowed for a spike high of daily production to be captured for several years, late in its life when a field would otherwise go into gentle decline. The result? Quicker monetization of the oil for the benefit of the Mexican state. But then the price: a catastrophic, fast crash. ... You mean wells have bottoms? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jul 30, 2009 from American Chemical Society via ScienceDaily: 'Shrimp Shell Cocktail' To Fuel Cars And Trucks Call it a "shrimp cocktail" for your fuel tank. Scientists in China are reporting development of a catalyst made from shrimp shells that could transform production of biodiesel fuel into a faster, less expensive, and more environmentally friendly process. The researchers describe development of a new catalyst produced from shrimp shells. In laboratory tests, the shrimp shell catalysts converted canola oil to biodiesel (89 percent conversion in three hours) faster and more efficiently than some conventional catalysts. The new catalysts also can be reused and the process minimizes waste production and pollution, the scientists note. ... Were I a shrimp, I might find this environmentally UNfriendly! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jul 28, 2009 from SciDev.net: Fungal biopesticide saves crops from locusts Crops in East and Southern Africa have been saved from devastation by the first large-scale use of a biopesticide made of fungal spores. Locust swarms lay waste to crops, with just a small part of a swarm -- around a tonne of locusts -- eating the same amount of food in one day as around 2,500 people, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).... But spraying the biopesticide, Green Muscle, in Tanzania appears to have contained the outbreak. Green Muscle consists of spores of the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae suspended in mineral oils. The fungi grow in the locust, producing a toxin and weakening them, making them easy prey for birds and lizards. Most infected locusts die within 1-3 weeks, depending on the temperature and humidity. The pesticide has an 80 per cent mortality rate.... Green Muscle kills only locusts and grasshoppers, unlike chemical pesticides, which can harm a wide range of organisms. Even the birds and lizards that eat the treated locusts suffer no side effects, says Pantenius. ... Using a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer! Who'da thunk it? ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Jul 24, 2009 from via Guardian (UK): One (video) Minute to Save the World A short film competition on climate change, open to the world and for the world to watch. The story of climate change will be told by the people it is affecting -- you. We hope that your shared perspectives and creative responses will help us all understand, adapt and take action in response to a rapidly changing world. We want the world to see your 1 minute film.... We're asking you to use whatever means you have to film your short and use your minute to speak up and make the world listen. It's time to get personal and we need your help! We hope you will feel inspired to add your creative voice to this global climate campaign. ... Isn't this perilously close to mobilization? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jul 22, 2009 from EnergyBoom.com, via HuffPost: New Technology Produces Hydrogen from Urine Until now, producing, storing and transporting hydrogen has been a costly process. Urea, a major component of urine, contains four hydrogen atoms per molecule, which are bonded to two atoms of nitrogen. The new technology uses electrolysis to break down the molecule using 0.37 volts which is applied across the cell. In comparison, extracting hydrogen from water uses large amounts of electricity; specifically, 1.23V is needed to split H20 molecules. Botte's method uses less energy than it takes to extract hydrogen from water. Simply put: by placing the inexpensive electrode into urine and applying current, hydrogen is released. Tests were performed using both synthetic urine, made from dissolved urea, and human urine. The device is also small enough to be used in vehicles. Botte estimates a fuel cell urine-powered vehicle could potentially travel up to 90 miles per gallon. The current prototype, which measures about 3 x 3 x 1 inches, can produce up to 500 milliwatts of power. The team is working on creating larger scale versions of the electrolyzer. The report was published in the Royal Society of Chemistry Chemical Communications. ... I'd love to pee-power my Prius! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jul 15, 2009 from American Chemical Society, via EurekAlert: Capturing CO2 in a bowl The accidental discovery of a bowl-shaped molecule that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air suggests exciting new possibilities for dealing with global warming, including genetically engineering microbes to manufacture those CO2 "catchers," a scientist from Maryland reports in an article scheduled for the August 3 issue of ACS' Inorganic Chemistry, a bi-weekly journal. J. A. Tossell notes in the new study that another scientist discovered the molecule while doing research unrelated to global climate change. Carbon dioxide was collecting in the molecule, and the scientist realized that it was coming from air in the lab. Tossell recognized that these qualities might make it useful as an industrial absorbent for removing carbon dioxide. ... Cool! Can we figure out a "cup" to take carbonic acid out of the ocean? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jun 14, 2009 from Economist: Flying for ever ...Solar-powered aircraft have flown before. The pioneer was Paul MacCready, whose Gossamer Penguin made the first manned flight in 1980 in California, with his then 13-year-old son at the controls. A derivative, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel in 1981. But nothing like HB-SIA, as the Swiss aircraft is known, has ever taken to the air. If it works as expected, another version will be built and this will take off, climb to 10,000 metres and, by storing some of the electricity generated during the day, continue flying through the night. Its pilots, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, plan to cross the Atlantic in it and later to fly it around the world.... The wings of this aircraft are almost as big as those of an airliner, but they are covered in a film of solar cells that convert sunlight into electricity to drive its engines. ... Just so the cells aren't affixed with wax! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jun 14, 2009 from Washington Post: White Rooftops May Help Slow Warming Could climate change be staved off by making the United States look like a scene from "Mamma Mia!"? That was suggested in a recent talk by Energy Secretary Steven Chu -- although, because he was speaking to Nobel laureates, he did not mention the ABBA musical set in the Greek islands. He said that global warming could be slowed by a low-tech idea that has nothing to do with coal plants or solar panels: white roofs... Climate scientists say that the reflective properties of the color white, if applied on enough of the world's rooftops, might actually be a brake on global warming. ... Plus, I'll wear my jaunty white beret! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Jun 13, 2009 from Los Angeles Times: Cellphone shields and brain cancer ...Cellphones gave us new ways to stay connected. For some, they also provided a new reason for worry. Cellphones release microwave radiation when they're in use, a fact that inevitably led to fears of brain cancer. Just as inevitably, worries about brain cancer spawned a market for products that supposedly protect cellphone users. For $62, you can order a Delta Shield, a thin polyester patch that contains a microchip that allegedly renders cellphones harmless. Users are instructed to place the patch on their cellphone battery. The similar BIOPRO Cell Chip, sold online for $35, attaches to the outside of the phone. The penny-sized WaveShield 2000 Gold, selling for about $25, fits on the earpiece.... Experts are wary of devices' claims to neutralize microwave radiation. ... My carrier pigeons' crap can contain histoplasmosis and my shield is a hat! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jun 9, 2009 from London Daily Telegraph: Biomimicry: why the world is full of intelligent design We humans like to think we're pretty good at design and technology – but we often forget that Mother Nature had a head start of 3.6 million years. Now, the way that geckoes climb walls, or hummingbirds hover, is at the centre of a burgeoning industry: biomimicry, the science of "reverse-engineering" clever ideas from the natural world....biomimicry is becoming fashionable. "Imitating natural systems is about trying to mimic the amazing effectiveness of ecosystems, where the waste from one system or animal is used as the nutrients for another," says Michael Pawlyn, the director of a sustainable architecture firm and one of the designers of the Eden Project in Cornwall. "Often, by applying ideas from ecosystems you can turn problems into solutions that are better both environmentally and commercially." ... We're the eco-copycats! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jun 2, 2009 from CNET: Nobel laureate: Wind is not the future While the Obama administration has expressed increasing hopes that wind power will play a key role in America's future energy system, one of the world's leading scientists is ruling out the technology. Jack Steinberger, the 1968 Nobel Prize winner in physics and director of CERN's particle-physics laboratory, spoke at a conference of Nobel laureates at the 350-year-old Royal Society in London last week.... The reason? Wind power still requires backup power when the wind isn't blowing, and that decreases its contribution to emissions reductions.... On the other hand, solar thermal power--where collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors and lenses to produce electric power and heat--is already economical and can handle the storage problem, he said. The heat produced can be stored, enabling solar thermal plants to produce electricity during hours without sunlight. Steinberger now wants funding for a big pilot project. The idea is to link solar thermal power from Northern Africa to Europe via high-voltage undersea cables. The proposed 3- to 3.5-gigawatt power plant would cost an estimated $32 billion to build. ... $32 billion would buy a lot of small home wind generators. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, May 28, 2009 from Guardian (UK): Genetically modified monkeys give birth to designer babies Genetically modified monkeys that glow in ultraviolet light and pass the trait on to their young have been created by scientists in Japan in controversial research that "raises the stakes" over animals rights. The work paves the way for scientists to breed large populations of primates with genetic faults responsible for incurable human conditions, but could also spark an ethical backlash for introducing harmful genes into the primate population. Researchers hailed the feat as a major step towards understanding the development of inherited diseases, such as Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, from the cradle to the grave. But the work is likely to dismay animal rights groups as it could lead to a rise in the number of primates used in research labs. The work also raises the possibility of genetically modifying humans, although such work is outlawed in most countries, including Britain. ... I won't be impressed until they make GM humans who are immune to RoundUp™ ApocaDoc permalink Mon, May 18, 2009 from New Scientist: Ultrasound weapon wipes out toxic algal blooms Blooms of algae in lakes and seas, sometimes called red tides, can release neurotoxins into the food chain or suffocate the local ecology by sucking up too much oxygen. When one occurs, the safest option is usually just to wait for the bloom to clear of its own accord, but now scientists at the University of Hull, UK, think they have found a way to put a stop to these deadly algal explosions- by exposing them to blasts of ultrasound. The use of ultrasound has been explored before, but with mixed results. That may be because the mechanism was not well understood, say Michiel Postema and his colleagues, who successfully used ultrasound to kill off algae. Postema believes it affects buoyancy cells, known as heterocysts, which keep the algae afloat by enclosing a bubble of nitrogen gas. He reckons the ultrasound pressure wave causes the gas in the cells to resonate. At high intensity it bursts the cell, and the algae sink. "Without sunlight they will then die," he says.... The ultrasound could be targeted to specific species of algae, because the resonant frequency of heterocysts varies from species to species in accordance with their size. What's more, such a measure should not damage ordinary water-filled plant cells, which are relatively impervious to pressure waves. ... Tiny bubbles... in the green... tiny bubbles... bursting free ApocaDoc permalink Thu, May 7, 2009 from The Engineer (UK): Hot topic: Geoengineering There are two main methods of doing this. One is reversing the greenhouse effect by pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and locking it away in a planetary version of a carbon capture and storage (CCS) scheme. That may sound ambitious, but it is nothing compared to the other option: create a giant sunshade to prevent some of the sun's rays from hitting the atmosphere in the first place. As far fetched as these ideas seem, they are now beginning to gather attention and are the subject of serious research. To some, however, particularly in the environmental movement, they are seen as a distraction from the matter of reducing emissions and developing renewable technologies.... Some of the effects of global warming are only just becoming apparent and this drastic form of global cooling could easily have effects that are difficult to predict. 'One important consideration is: if it goes wrong, can you turn it off?' Vaughan added. ... Lifestyle change? Me? Heck, just let the scientists and engineers fix it. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, May 6, 2009 from BBC: 'Anaconda' harnesses wave power A new wave energy device known as "Anaconda" is the latest idea to harness the power of the seas. Its inventors claim the key to its success lies in its simplicity: Anaconda is little more than a length of rubber tubing filled with water. Waves in the water create bulges along the tubing that travel along its length gathering energy. At the end of the tube, the surge of energy drives a turbine and generates electricity.... [T]he problem holding back wave energy machines is that devices tend to deteriorate over time in the harsh marine environment. "Anaconda is non-mechanical. It is mainly rubber, a natural material with a natural resilience, and so has very few moving parts to maintain."... It is claimed that a group of 50 full-size Anacondas -- each 200m long -- could provide electricity for 50,000 homes. ... That's a thousand homes per Anaconda... Snakes on the Waves! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Apr 28, 2009 from Yale Environment 360: A Potential Breakthrough In Harnessing the Sun's Energy n the high desert of southern Spain, not far from Granada, the Mediterranean sun bounces off large arrays of precisely curved mirrors that cover an area as large as 70 soccer fields. These parabolic troughs follow the arc of the sun as it moves across the sky, concentrating the sun's rays onto pipes filled with a synthetic oil that can be heated to 750 degrees Fahrenheit. That super-heated oil is used to boil water to power steam turbines, or to pump excess heat into vats of salts, turning them a molten, lava-like consistency. The salts are just fertilizers -- a mix of sodium and potassium nitrate -- but they represent a significant advance in the decades-old technology of solar thermal power production, which has traditionally used mirrors to heat water or oil to generate electricity-producing steam. Now, engineers can use the molten salts to store the heat from solar radiation many hours after the sun goes down and then release it at will to drive turbines. That means solar thermal power can be used to generate electricity nearly round-the-clock. ... Little darling... I say it's all right! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Apr 25, 2009 from Chester Chronicle: Chester scientist believes the power of poo will save the planet A SCIENTIST is hoping to save the planet with poo. Research scientist Ruyi Hu, 24, from Chester, is at the cutting edge of experimental technologies with the potential to cut thousands of tons of carbon emissions and save millions of pounds. His work on Inverted Phase Fermentation might be a conversation killer at dinner parties but could enable the billions of litres of waste water generated in the North West every year to be treated in a much more environmentally friendly way. ... I always thought it would be tigger who saved the planet. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Apr 17, 2009 from Naples Daily News: Babcock Ranch to be United States' first solar powered city LEE COUNTY -- Planned mega-development Babcock Ranch will be the world's first entirely solar-powered city, developer Syd Kitson and an official from Florida Power & Light announced Thursday morning during a Washington D.C. press conference. The ambitious Charlotte County development will draw all of its electricity from a 75-megawatt photovoltaic solar power plant to be built by FPL. Construction on the facility could start by the end of this year.... The facility will be carbon-free, use no water and produce no waste. It will avoid the 61,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions a fossil fuel plant of equal size would release each year...Plans for Babcock Ranch include 19,500 homes in neighborhoods situated around a city center... Population at build-out is expected to reach 45,000. ... Sounds freakin' utopian! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 13, 2009 from University of Bath via ScienceDaily: Hemp Could Be Key To Zero-carbon Houses Hemp, a plant from the cannabis family, could be used to build carbon-neutral homes of the future to help combat climate change and boost the rural economy, say researchers at the University of Bath. A consortium, led by the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials based at the University, has embarked on a unique housing project to develop the use of hemp-lime construction materials in the UK. Hemp-lime is a lightweight composite building material made of fibres from the fast growing plant, bound together using a lime-based adhesive. The hemp plant stores carbon during its growth and this, combined with the low carbon footprint of lime and its very efficient insulating properties, gives the material a ‘better than zero carbon’ footprint. ... Dude, where's my house? ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 13, 2009 from Edinburgh Scotsman: Website 'to end supermarket waste' by selling food destined for the bin A SCOTTISH entrepreneur is hoping to cut down on the mountains of food waste that end up in landfill by launching a website that sells goods that are nearly out of date. Ray Conn has set up an online market place where retailers can advertise products that are soon to go out of date. The site, launched yesterday, sells products which would otherwise be thrown away at a discounted price...He said after talking to supermarket managers that he realised they were throwing away huge quantities of products that would soon go out of date. ... This will better than having to dumpster the food myself! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Apr 9, 2009 from London Guardian: Obama climate adviser open to geo-engineering to tackle global warming The global warming situation has become so dire that Barack Obama's chief scientific adviser has raised with the president the possibility of massive-scale technological fixes to alter the climate known as 'geo-engineering'. John Holdren, who is a member of the president's cabinet, said today the drastic measures should not be "off the table" in discussions on how best to tackle climate change.... The suite of mega-technological fixes includes everything from placing mirrors in space that reflect sunlight from the Earth, to fertilising the oceans with iron to encourage the growth of algae that can soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide. Another option is to seed clouds which bounce the sun's rays back into space so they do not warm the Earth's surface. Such global-scale technological solutions to climate change may seem fantastical, but increasing numbers of scientists argue that the technologies should at least be investigated. ... Let's not rule out asking the Justice League to help. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Apr 7, 2009 from Greenwire: Scientists try tapping 'ice that burns' Researchers may have found a way to extract large amounts of natural gas from methane hydrates -- ice-like structures that might contain more energy than all the world's coal, oil and conventional natural gas combined. Massive amounts of frozen natural gas are buried far below the ocean floor and Arctic permafrost, but the compounds are highly unstable when they experience changes in temperature or pressure. Until now, scientists have struggled to find how to economically extract usable fuel from them. But Columbia University researchers believe they may have discovered ideal conditions for separating gas from the ice, and they have developed an apparatus to help them do that. Methane hydrates, also known as "ice that burns," form when natural gas from microbial activity or organic decomposition gets trapped within water molecules at low temperature and high pressure. ... Couple the 'ice that burns' with 'fire that chills' and now we're really talking! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Apr 6, 2009 from New Scientist: Bug eats electricity, farts biogas ...An intriguing new idea involves "feeding" surplus power to the microorganisms instead, which combine it with carbon dioxide to create methane. That could then be stored and burned when needed. The method is sustainable too, as the carbon is taken from the atmosphere, not released from long-term storage in oil or coal... The new method relies on a microorganism studied by Bruce Logan's team at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. When living on the cathode of an electrolytic cell, the organism can take in electrons and use their energy to convert carbon dioxide into methane... If the CO2 used to make the methane was captured from the flue pipes of power stations or even -- using more complex methods -- from the open air, the methane would become a carbon-neutral fuel. ... These microorganisms are called "barking spiders." ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Apr 3, 2009 from Reuters UK: Slum cooker protects environment, helps poor Kenya's huge and squalid slums don't have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease. Now Kenyan designers have built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands. ... If it can also take my dog for a walk I'm gettin' one! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Mar 30, 2009 from US News and World Report: 6 Scientists on the Cutting Edge of Energy and Environmental Research Donald J. Hammerstrom envisions a day when every electrical appliance is wise to what's happening on the far side of the wall socket. The inexpensive device he and his Pacific Northwest National Laboratory colleagues in Richland, Wash., have developed, dubbed the Grid Friendly Appliance Controller, is designed to reduce reliance on backup generators and prevent power outages that can occur when the electrical grid suffers momentary capacity problems. The controller, which he says could be built into a water heater, clothes dryer, or other energy-hungry appliance for $5 or less, recognizes when telltale fluctuations in the current flowing through the socket indicate that the grid is straining to meet demand. The controller's response: briefly scale back the appliance's electricity use. That move, if multiplied by many appliances in thousands of homes and buildings, would be enough to relieve the strain on the grid, potentially averting a blackout. The grid would also need less 24-7 standby capacity (read, wastefully idling generators) to buffer the occasional unexpected fluctuation in electrical supply or demand. ... It better not know everything going on, on the far side of that wall socket! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Mar 29, 2009 from Yale Environment 360: Satellites and Google Earth ...In the past several years, one of the chief uses for satellite imagery has been to accurately quantify the loss of tropical forests from the Amazon, to the Congo, to Indonesia. In Brazil, scientists and state environmental protection officials can now monitor fires and forest clearing almost in real-time and take action to combat the deforestation. But perhaps the most revolutionary advance in using satellites to monitor the planet has been the ever-widening use of remote sensing technology by ordinary citizens. Google Earth has been instrumental in this development and represents a critical point in its evolution, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to attach data to a geographic representation of Earth. Citizens and environmental groups are now using Google Earth to tracks threats to pristine rivers from hydroelectric projects, catalogue endangered species, help indigenous people in the Amazon protect their land, and alert citizens and government officials that boats are illegally fishing off the Canary Islands. ... And the geek shall inherit the earth... what's left of it. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Mar 28, 2009 from AFP: Scientists in possible cold fusion breakthrough Researchers at a US Navy laboratory have unveiled what they say is "significant" evidence of cold fusion, a potential energy source that has many skeptics in the scientific community.... "To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from a LENR device," added the study's co-author in a statement... Paul Padley, a physicist at Rice University who reviewed Mosier-Boss's published work, said the study did not provide a plausible explanation of how cold fusion could take place in the conditions described.... "It fails to provide a theoretical rationale to explain how fusion could occur at room temperatures. And in its analysis, the research paper fails to exclude other sources for the production of neutrons," he told the Houston Chronicle. ... Dang. I hate it when hope's bubble is popped by science. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Mar 28, 2009 from CBC (Canada): Film sheds light on shadowy world of germ warfare One of the things that I found out was that this world of biological weapons research was really shrouded in secrecy, and there's all these skeletons in the closet that go back decades -- human experimentation, secret programs, illicit programs. And it's not just in the United States -- the U.K., Russia, my home continent of Africa -- Zimbabwe, South Africa.... [T]he United States government has budgeted more than $50 billion US on biodefence, and a lot of that money is now going to private companies, to private foundations, to university labs... One of the scary things about biological weapons is that even if you're working on biodefence, you still have to create the actual weapon to know how to defend against it so you have a very, very blurry line between what is biodefence and what is bio-offence. And we must remember that ... offensive biological weapons have been illegal under the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention that has been signed by more than 170 countries [in] 1972. They've been outlawed. ... Thank goodness it's all secret. That means that nothing bad could happen. ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Mar 25, 2009 from Times Online (UK): Mosquito laser gun offers new hope on malaria American scientists are making a ray gun to kill mosquitoes. Using technology developed under the Star Wars anti-missile programme, the zapper is being built in Seattle where astrophysicists have created a laser that locks onto airborne insects.... The laser -- dubbed a weapon of mosquito destruction (WMD) -- has been designed with the help of Lowell Wood, one of the astrophysicists who worked on the original Star Wars plan to shield America from nuclear attack.... The WMD laser works by detecting the audio frequency created by the beating of mosquito wings. A computer triggers the laser beam, the mosquito's wings are burnt off and its smoking carcass falls to the ground. The research is backed by Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire. ... Who needs bats when you have American technology? ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Mar 22, 2009 from Palm Beach Daily News: Rubber ducks dropped into Greenland's Jakobshavn Glacier to track ice flow To keep track of climate change, scientists around the world employ some of the most sophisticated devices and machines found in the 21st century. Advanced theoretical models run on huge number-crunching computers, while thousands of miles up in space complex satellites examine every nook and cranny of our atmosphere. Still, sometimes scientists just need a rubber ducky. At least, that's what Alberto Behar, a researcher from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, used recently to try to figure out what's going on inside the world's fastest-moving glacier. Behar dropped 90 rubber ducks inside the Jakobshavn Glacier, not far from Greenland, last September to try to determine why glaciers speed up in the summer months during their annual march to the sea. Behar says the Jakobshavn Glacier discharges around 7 percent of all the ice that comes off of Greenland each year. Thanks to global warming, scientists believe its melting ice sheet could help raise ocean levels in the coming years. ... This idea was hatched at the Ernie Institute. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Mar 15, 2009 from London Times: Artificial trees and brightened clouds may help to cool us down THE threat of devastating climate change is now so great that some scientists say it is time to investigate a Plan B - geo-engineering on a planetary scale. Such methods of altering the world’s climate may become necessary, they say, unless emissions of greenhouse gases fall within five years. Ideas that were once the realm of science fiction - such as creating artificial trees to absorb carbon dioxide, or reflecting sunlight away from the Earth - are coming under serious scrutiny as temperatures and CO2 emissions continue to rise. The issue has become so pressing that the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science, is preparing a report on the feasibility of geo-engineering.... One method under detailed analysis is to make clouds brighter – especially in the Pacific where the ocean temperature has great influence on world climate.... Professor Stephen Salter of Edinburgh University is investigating how ships could spray droplets of sea water into the atmosphere where they would evaporate, leaving tiny salt crystals to rise on air currents into the clouds. The crystals would act as “nuclei” around which water vapour could condense and thus increase the reflective power of the clouds, bouncing more of the sun’s energy back into space. ... I've looked at clouds from both sides now... ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Mar 14, 2009 from London Guardian: 'Biochar' goes industrial with giant microwaves to lock carbon in charcoal Giant microwave ovens that can "cook" wood into charcoal could become our best tool in the fight against global warming, according to a leading British climate scientist. Chris Turney, a professor of geography at the University of Exeter, said that by burying the charcoal produced from microwaved wood, the carbon dioxide absorbed by a tree as it grows can remain safely locked away for thousands of years. The technique could take out billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year. Fast-growing trees such as pine could be "farmed" to act specifically as carbon traps — microwaved, buried and replaced with a fresh crop to do the same thing again. Turney has built a 5m-long prototype of his microwave, which produces a tonne of CO2 for $65. He plans to launch his company, Carbonscape, in the UK this month to build the next generation of the machine, which he hopes will process more wood and cut costs further. ... If the pines are okay with this... I'm all for it! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Mar 14, 2009 from Living on Earth: CO2-Eating Rocks GELLERMAN: Carbon dioxide has the planet between a rock and a hard place - we get needed energy from fossil fuels, yet burning them produces a greenhouse gas that's causing climate change. But perhaps the answer lies in the problem: put the gas between a rock and a hard place. Not just any rock - but a type called ultramafic. Juerg Matter has investigated this ultra-interesting rock. He's an Associate Research Scientist at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory.... MATTER: Yeah, ultramafic rocks are mantle rocks which are usually 25 to 30 miles below surface, and they are rich in magnesium silicate minerals. And actually these magnesium silicate minerals can be used for carbon sequestration. The magnesium is used to carbonate the CO2 into magnesium carbonate minerals.... It changes, you know, the carbon dioxide, which is a gas, into a mineral, which is stable and environmentally benign. ... Rocks like this ROCK!!! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Mar 9, 2009 from Forbes: Small-scale, cheap solar BURLINGAME, CALIF.--Imagine a solar panel as affordable as a fancy new bicycle. A panel designed so simply that you can install one (or more) yourself, just outside your windows, in the course of an afternoon. That's the concept behind Oakland, Calif.-based Veranda Solar, a start-up founded last year by Capra J'neva and Emilie Fetscher, recent graduates of the product design program at Stanford University. J'neva and Fetscher dreamed up attractive, flower-shaped solar panels as part of their master's project at the design school. "We created a starter solar system that expands as your budget does," J'neva says. Their plan is to sell Veranda panels at roughly $600 each later this year, provided it raises more funding. The panels snap together, so people will be able to buy just one to start and add more later on if they like. The solar inverter, which converts the direct current (DC) electricity from the panels to alternating current (AC) electricity that can be used in the electric grid, plugs right into a wall socket. ... Every house a generator -- every human a king. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Mar 3, 2009 from Chicago Tribune: Going green: Entire Swedish city switches to biofuels to become environmentally friendly KALMAR, Sweden -- Though a fraction of Chicago's size, this industrial city in southeast Sweden has plenty of similarities with it, including a long, snowy winter and a football team the town's crazy about. One thing is dramatically different about Kalmar, however: It is on the verge of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, for good, and with minimal effect on its standard of living. The city of 60,000 -- and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people -- has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community "district heat," produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region's electricity.... Just as important, the switch from oil and gas is helping slash fuel bills and preserve jobs in a worldwide economic downturn. And despite dramatic drops in fossil fuel consumption, residents say nobody has been forced to give up the car or huddle around the dining table wearing three sweaters to stay warm. ... I'll bet they have great sex, too. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Feb 28, 2009 from University of Alberta, via ScienceDaily: Solar Energy Performance With Plastic Solar Cells Improved With New Method The University of Alberta and the National Research Council's National Institute (NINT) for Nanotechnology have engineered an approach that is leading to improved performance of plastic solar cells (hybrid organic solar cells). The development of inexpensive, mass-produced plastic solar panels is a goal of intense interest for many of the world's scientists and engineers because of the high cost and shortage of the ultra-high purity silicon and other materials normally required.... "[A metaphor might be] a clubhouse sandwich, with many different layers. One layer absorbs the light, another helps to generate the electricity, and others help to draw the electricity out of the device. Normally, the layers don't stick well, and so the electricity ends up stuck and never gets out, leading to inefficient devices. We are working on the mayonnaise, the mustard, the butter and other 'special sauces' that bring the sandwich together, and make each of the layers work together. That makes a better sandwich, and makes a better solar cell, in our case".... After two years of research, these U of A and NINT scientists have, by only working on one part of the sandwich, seen improvements of about 30 per cent in the efficiency of the working model.... The team estimates it will be five to seven years before plastic solar panels will be mass produced but Buriak adds that when it happens solar energy will be available to everyone. She says the next generation of solar technology belongs to plastic. "Plastic solar cell material will be made cheaply and quickly and in massive quantities by ink jet-like printers." ... For some reason this story is making me hungry for mass-produced plastic. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 26, 2009 from Edinburgh Scotsman: RIP -- rest in (freeze-dried) pieces BODIES could be freeze-dried and shattered into dust to save space and help the environment, under plans being considered by a Scottish local authority. East Lothian Council thinks the technique, invented in Sweden, could help ease cemetery congestion, while cutting emissions from cremations. The process would involve freezing the dead body to -18C before submerging it in liquid nitrogen. This would make the body so brittle it would disintegrate into dust when a vibration was passed through it... The process, known as promession, is considered more environmentally friendly than cremation, largely because it avoids the mercury pollution created by burning fillings in teeth and other metal objects in the body, such as replacement joints or surgical implants. ... RIS: Rest in Smithereens... ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Feb 25, 2009 from BusinessGreen: First Solar reaches 'dollar per watt milestone' The company said that during the fourth quarter of last year, the manufacturing cost for its solar modules stood at 98 cents per watt, taking it below the $1 per watt mark for the first time.... First Solar said it was confident that plans to more than double its production capacity through 2009 to more than one gigawatt would allow it to reduce costs further to a point where energy from solar panels can undercut that from natural gas and coal. According to the company, it has already reduced costs from more than $3 a watt in 2004 to less than $1 a watt now and there is every indication that the trend will continue as production capacity increases. ... Hey, governments? Pre-order a few dozen gigawatts to prime the pump. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Feb 24, 2009 from McGill University, via EurekAlert: Peptides-on-demand: McGill researcher's radical new green chemistry makes the impossible possible Fast and simple 'enabling technology' being offered to the world on open basis... McGill University chemistry professor Chao-Jun (C.J.) Li is known as one of the world leading pioneers in green chemistry, an entirely new approach to the science which eschews the use of toxic, petrochemical-based solvents in favour of basic substances like water and new ways of making molecules. The environmental benefits of the green approach are obvious and significant, but following the road less travelled is also paying off in purely scientific terms. With these alternative methods, Li and his colleagues have discovered an entirely new way of synthesizing peptides using simple reagents, a process that would be impossible in classical chemistry.... "This is really an enabling new technology," he added, "and since McGill has decided not to patent it, we're making our method available to everyone. We are paying the journal's open access fee, so anyone in the world can access the paper." ... A new kind of science... making the impossible possible... available to everyone... where's the money in that? ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Feb 17, 2009 from University of Texas, via EurekAlert: Scientists uncover secrets of potential bioterror virus GALVESTON, Texas —Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have discovered a key tactic that the Rift Valley fever virus uses to disarm the defenses of infected cells. The mosquito-borne African virus causes fever in humans, inflicting liver damage, blindness and even death on a small percentage of the people it infects. Rift Valley fever also afflicts cattle, goats and sheep, resulting in a nearly 100 percent abortion rate in these animals. Its outbreaks periodically cause economic devastation in parts of Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe, and bioterrorism experts warn that its introduction to the United States would cripple the North American beef industry. ... Agricultural bioterrorism? Who would have thought of that but an evil mind? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Feb 14, 2009 from Reuters: Sea sponge shows promise as superbug antidote CHICAGO (Reuters) -- A compound from a sea sponge was able to reverse antibiotic resistance in several strains of bacteria, making once-resistant strains succumb to readily available antibiotics, U.S. researchers said on Friday. "We can resensitize these pathogenic bacteria to standard, current-generation antibiotics," said Peter Moeller of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina. Drug-resistant bacteria are a growing problem in hospitals worldwide, marked by the rise of superbugs such as methicillin-resistant Staphyloccus aureus, or MRSA. Such infections kill about 19,000 people a year in the United States. Moeller, who is working with researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina and North Carolina State University, said the team noticed a sponge thriving in what was an otherwise dead coral reef. "It begged the question how is it surviving when everything else is dying?" Moeller told reporters at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago. "This opened up a whole new arena for us." The researchers began chopping the sponge into smaller and smaller bits to isolate the properties that helped the sponge thrive in hostile marine conditions. The team found that these bits of sponge were able to repel bacterial biofilms -- a slimy substance bacteria form to help stick to surfaces. ... Sponges able to repel...? Now that's deep! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Feb 11, 2009 from New Scientist: New antibiotics would silence bugs, not kill them In future, the most effective antibiotics might be those that don't kill any bacteria. Instead the drugs will simply prevent the bacteria from talking with one another. Drug-resistant bugs are winning the war against standard antibiotics as they evolve resistance to even the most lethal drugs. It happens because a dose of antibiotics strongly selects for resistance by killing the most susceptible bacteria first. If, however, researchers can identify antibiotics that neutralise dangerous bacteria without killing them, the pressure to evolve resistance can be reduced. One way to do that is to target the constant stream of chatter that passes between bacteria as molecular signals.... Individual bacteria monitor the concentration of signalling molecules, and when it reaches a certain level, change their behaviour. That concentration provides a rough indication of when the number of cells in a particular population has reached a certain critical mass - known as a quorum. When a quorum is reached, pathogenic bacteria shift from a benign state and begin attacking the host by secreting toxins. ... Say what???? ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Feb 6, 2009 from New Scientist: Why sustainable power is unsustainable Renewable energy needs to become a lot more renewable -- a theme that emerged at the Financial Times Energy Conference in London this week. Although scientists are agreed that we must cut carbon emissions from transport and electricity generation to prevent the globe's climate becoming hotter, and more unpredictable, the most advanced "renewable" technologies are too often based upon non-renewable resources, attendees heard. ... You mean we may have to confront Peak Renewables? ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 5, 2009 from University of Liverpool, via EurekAlert: Software could save organizations $19,000 each month Software designed by the University of Liverpool which automatically shuts down computer systems after usage, is saving large organisations up to £13,000 in electricity costs each month.... Using the University of Liverpool as a test model the team discovered that 1,600 library-based PC's alone were using 20,000 kW each week unnecessarily – equating to approximately £2,400 in current electricity prices. PowerDown has so far recovered 24 million hours of PC inactivity within the University. ... That's a lot of unplayed Solitaire! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Feb 5, 2009 from BBC: Parched Perth embarks on water rescue Turning the sea into drinking water is at the heart of Western Australia's multi-faceted approach to satisfying the thirst of a booming population that lives on the edge of a desert. "We had a history of taking gutsy decisions," said Jim Gill, former chief executive of the Water Corporation of Western Australia, a government-owned monopoly. "And that's what put us in a position of world leadership in terms of dealing with a drying climate." The corporation opened the southern hemisphere's first desalination plant, south of Perth, in November 2006. Powered by a wind farm, the move was prompted by the driest winter ever recorded in Western Australia (WA) - a region that was among the first to see the effects of a shifting climate. ... And as the ice melts there'll be all the more ocean to desalinate! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Jan 31, 2009 from New York Times: Praise the Lord and Green the Roof ...In setting out to construct an environmentally advanced building to replace the trio of connected brownstones that they now call home, the Episcopal sisters of the Community of the Holy Spirit were taking a giant step in their decade-long journey to weave ecological concerns into their daily ministry. While they have long tried to reduce their carbon footprint at 113th Street, the new convent, for which construction will begin in March, will help them be green from the ground up. Of the 14 firms that the sisters had invited to submit proposals, BKSK ultimately wooed them with a plan that features rooftop gardens, water heated by solar power, rainwater collection, natural light and ventilation and the use of environmentally sensitive materials throughout. ... Amen! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jan 29, 2009 from New Scientist: Cheap, super-efficient LED lights on the horizon Although the ultimate dominance of LED lights has long been predicted, the expense of the super-efficient technology has made the timescale uncertain. The researchers now say LED bulbs based on their new process could be commercially available within five years. Gallium nitride (GaN) LEDs have many advantages over compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) and incandescent bulbs. They switch on instantly, with no gradual warm-up, and can burn for an average of 100,000 hours before they need replacing -- 10 times as long as fluorescent lamps and some 130 times as long as an incandescent bulb. CFLs also contain small levels of mercury, which makes environmentally-friendly disposal of spent bulbs difficult. ... Let's get the LED out! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 28, 2009 from Guardian (UK): EU spending spree brings carbon capture closer to reality The European commission today proposed earmarking €1.25bn to kickstart carbon capture and storage (CCS) at 11 coal-fired plants across Europe, including four in Britain....CCS involves capturing CO2 at power stations and burying it in disused oil/gas fields or other undersea rock formations.... ... The best carbon to capture is the oil and coal we don't burn. ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Jan 23, 2009 from Reuters: Scotch Whisky Goes "Green" LONDON - Scotch drinkers who care for the climate will soon relish their tipple in the knowledge it is providing clean renewable power in the home of whisky. Scottish authorities have given planning permission for a consortium of distillers to build a biomass-fueled combined heat and power plant near the heart of the whisky industry in Speyside. Helius Energy Plc said on Wednesday it and the Combination of Rothes Distillers Ltd would build the plant, which would use distillery by-products and wood chips to generate 7.2 megawatts of electricity, enough for about 9,000 homes, and heat. "Not only will it generate renewable heat and power, but it secures additional markets for our distillery co-products," Frank Burns, general manager of the Combination of Rothes, said. ... I'll drink to that! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 21, 2009 from New Scientist: Biofuel from the oceans Now a group at the Korea Institute of Technology in South Korea has developed a way to use marine algae, or seaweed, to produce bioethanol and avoid taking up land altogether. The group says seaweed has a number of advantages over land-based biomass. It grows much faster, allowing up to six harvests per year; unlike trees and plants, it does not contain lignin and so requires no pre-treatment before it can be turned into fuel; and it absorbs up to seven times as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as wood. The group's patent suggests treating all sizes of algae -- from large kelp to single-celled spirulina -- with an enzyme to break them into simple sugars, which can then be fermented into ethanol. The resulting seaweed biofuel is cheaper and simpler to produce than crop or wood-based fuels, and will have no effect on the price of food, says the group. ... Can we use the algae blooming in our dead zones? Now that would be a win-win! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jan 20, 2009 from BBC: Sex smell lures 'vampire' to doom A synthetic "chemical sex smell" could help rid North America's Great Lakes of a devastating pest, scientists say. US researchers deployed a laboratory version of a male sea lamprey pheromone to trick ovulating females into swimming upstream into traps. The sea lamprey, sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", has parasitised native species of the Great Lakes since its accidental introduction in the 1800s.... This is thought to be the first time that pheromones have been shown to be the basis of a possible way of controlling animal pests other than insects. ... I fail to see what is so new about this. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Jan 13, 2009 from SciDev.net: Solar house promises greener heating for Tibetans Chinese engineers have designed a solar house for Tibetans that aims to reduce their dependency on cattle dung for warmth. A typical Tibetan family living in a remote mountainous village burns 300 sacks of dung -- around 2,000 kilograms -- each year, half of which it must purchase. But burning dung is inefficient and, in winter, temperatures plunge indoors.... Zeng Yan, chief architect of the Institute of Solar Building Technology, part of CNECHS, said that the experimental house, to be built in May, is supported by three core techniques: insulation, energy collection and energy storage. The 100 square-metre house has an embedded greenhouse that collects the sun's energy, which can be transferred to the surrounding bedrooms and living room by opening connecting windows and doors.... But Xie Yuan, head of the Department of Science and Technology of Qinghai Province said that the houses might be unaffordable for local Tibetans. The annual personal income in a typical village is less than 1,700 Chinese yuan (around US$249), but the new house costs nearly 40,000 yuan (around US$5,850). ... I suspect this is a price point that would allow overnight shipping to the US. ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jan 12, 2009 from New Scientist: Patent: Tree-hugging wind turbine Sridhar Condoor at Saint Louis University in Missouri has designed a hollow, cylindrical wind turbine that has no central hub. Its tube-like form means the device could be placed around a pre-existing feature such as a chimney stack, cellphone mast or even a tree trunk. The outside of the turbine is a cylinder that is incised with inlets to catch the wind from any direction and toothed on the inside to drive a gear that powers a generator. A cylindrical frame within allows the main cylinder to rotate freely and can be mounted around another object -- either vertically or horizontally. That makes it possible to install without needing clear space, and could even provide a way to hide ugly features, the patent says. ... Clever! And simple! It's like a wind condom! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jan 11, 2009 from Canadian Press: Scientists track climate change through whale teeth WINNIPEG -- Researchers are hoping the huge tusks of the walrus and choppers of the beluga whale will help track the increasing impact of global warming on Canadian Arctic mammals and the Inuit communities that depend on the creatures for food. Scientists with Fisheries and Oceans Canada in Winnipeg are preparing to study the teeth of mammals killed during Inuit hunts to look for any signs that greenhouse gases are taking a toll. Although scientists have studied the teeth — which have annular rings similar to those of a tree trunk — for many years, this is the first time they are being used to unlock the impact climate change is having in the North. Experts expect to find a growing number of contaminants like mercury and PCBs in the teeth, as well as evidence of a thinning diet — all attributable to the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. ... How charming that scientists are now using belugamancy -- divination via whale's teeth! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jan 11, 2009 from Guardian (UK): 20 big green ideas as Emma Howard Boyd, head of socially responsible investing at Jupiter Asset Management – sponsors of the Big Idea award, makes clear: "The urgency of what is required to combat issues such as climate change has not diminished as a result of the current financial crisis. We need big ideas -- and it is at times like these, when there is widespread disruption, that we see innovation and new thinking." Big ideas need not necessarily be a whistle-and-bells hi-tech response. At least one of our Big 20 can be described as an "ancient technique" on loan from the Aztecs. The modern genius lies in its rediscovery and deployment because, while it would be foolish to believe blindly in a silver bullet for all environmental problems, now is absolutely the time for faith in contemporary ingenuity. ... This story makes me feel like, y'know, Yes We Can. ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Jan 11, 2009 from Telegraph.co.uk: Two Google searches 'produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle' A typical search through the online giant's website is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide. Boiling a kettle produces about 15g. The emissions are caused both by the electricity required to power a user's computer and send their request to servers around the world. The discovery comes amid increasing warnings about the little-known environmental impact of computer and internet use. According to Gartner, an American research firm, IT now causes about two per cent of global CO2 emissions and its carbon footprint exceeded that of the world's aviation industry for the first time in 2007. ... Guess I'll have to slow down on the English Breakfast, wot? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Jan 10, 2009 from New Scientist: 'Climate fix' ship sets sail with plan to dump iron The ambitious geoengineering expedition has caused a stir among some campaigning groups, but has the scientific backing of the UK, German, and Indian governments, as well as the International Maritime Organisation. Within weeks, the ship's crew hope to dump 20 tonnes of ferrous sulphate into the Southern Ocean. Plankton need iron to grow, and the aim of the expedition is to trigger a plankton bloom and boost the amount of carbon that is sucked out of the air and locked up at the bottom of the ocean.... "Twenty tonnes of iron particles in the vast ocean is very much drop in the bucket and is unlikely to have a lasting effect," says Ken Caldeira of Stanford University. "The rational concern is that experiments will lead down some slippery slope -- that small experiments could be scaled up without any regulation." ... We have no doubts about humankind's ability to do such geoengineering. Nor about their eventual success in having unintended consequences. ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Jan 8, 2009 from Reuters: Monsanto seeks FDA approval for drought-tolerant corn KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Monsanto Co said Wednesday it filed for U.S. regulatory approval for what could be the world's first drought-tolerant corn, a product that agricultural companies around the globe are racing to roll out amid fears of global warming and the needs of a growing population. Monsanto said it submitted its product to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for regulatory clearance. It is working with German-based BASF on the project. The two companies are jointly contributing $1.5 billion to a venture aimed at developing higher-yielding crops and crops more tolerant to adverse environmental conditions, such as drought, which has eroded production in countries around the world in recent years. "It's been everybody's dream to have a drought-tolerant crop," said Iowa State University agronomist Roger Elmore, though he pointed out advantages would vary widely depending on geography. ... I know that's been my dream all along... ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Jan 7, 2009 from New Scientist: Rise of the garage genome hackers The competition is part of a do-it-yourself movement that hopes to spark a revolution in biotechnology. It is based on the emerging field of synthetic biology, which uses genes and other cell components as the building blocks for new organisms or devices. The movement is trying to open up this field to anyone with a passion for tweaking DNA in their spare time -- from biologists to software engineers to people who just like it as a hobby. The hope is that encouraging a wider mix of people to take part could lead to advances that would not happen otherwise, just as tinkering by the Homebrew Computer Club hackers of the 1970s spawned the first personal computers. "Biology is becoming less of a science and more of a technology," says Mackenzie Cowell, co-founder of the group DIYbio, which aims to be an "Institution for the Amateur", providing scientists with resources akin to those found in academia or industry. "There will be more opportunity for people who didn't spend up to seven years getting a PhD in the field," he says. ... Oh boy! Soon we'll all be able to engineer Roundup-ready crops! And, as a bonus, a more slow-cycling Ebola virus! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Jan 5, 2009 from London Daily Telegraph: Satellite will show how the earth 'breathes' The Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) has been created in Japan to monitor emissions from around the planet from space and it is hoped the data it provides will help in the fight against global warming. The orbiting satellite will track the emission of carbon dioxide and methane, gases that contribute heavily to the greenhouse effect. Dubbed Ibuki - Japanese for "breath" - the satellite will record greenhouse gas emissions in 56,000 locations across the globe while orbiting the planet once every three days at an altitude of 666km. While there are currently around 280 observations points around the world monitoring greenhouse gas emissions, the new satellite will offer scientists a non-terrestrial perspective of global emissions for the first time. ... We can play the blame game! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 30, 2008 from Discovery News: Sprayed Aerosols Could Ease Climate Woes It won't solve global warming, but a group of scientists are calling for a focused research program to investigate ways to seed the atmosphere with chemicals that would let the heat out -- literally... David Keith, with the University of Calgary's Energy and Environmental Systems Group ... and colleagues want to investigate putting aerosols, such as sulfur, into the atmosphere to chemically unlock the greenhouse effect and allow more of the sun's reflected heat to radiate back into space. "This brings up the question of who would make that decision," said Alan Robock of Rutgers University. And what temperature the world should be. "A ski slope operator and someone running a shipping company in the Arctic might have different opinions about what's the ideal temperature for the planet," NASA's administrator Michael Griffin told Discovery News in an interview last year. ... Where's the anti-christ when you need him -- or her. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 30, 2008 from Popular Science: This Machine Might* Save the World * that's a big, fat "might" ... The source of endless energy for all humankind resides just off Government Street in Burnaby, British Columbia, up the little spit of blacktop on Bonneville Place and across the parking lot from Shade-O-Matic blind manufacturers and wholesalers. The future is there, in that mostly empty office with the vomit-green walls -- and inside the brain of Michel Laberge, 47, bearded and French-Canadian... What Laberge has set out to build in this office park, using $2 million in private funding and a skeletal workforce, is a nuclear-fusion power plant... If (and this is a truly serious if) Laberge and his team succeed, the rewards could be astounding: nearly limitless, inexpensive energy, with no chemical combustion by-products, a minimal amount of extremely short-lived radioactive waste, and no risk of a catastrophic, Chernobyl-level meltdown. ... Sounds like this is the guy to put the "nu" and "fu" back into nuclear fusion! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 29, 2008 from Washington Post: Inventors Find Inspiration in Natural Phenomena For some, whale watching is a tourist activity. For Gunter Pauli, it is a source of technological inspiration. "I see a whale, I see a six-to-12-volt electric generator that is able to pump 1,000 liters per pulse through more than 108 miles of veins and arteries," he said. The intricate wiring of the whale's heart is being studied as a model for a device called a nanoscale atrioventricular bridge, which will undergo animal testing next year and could replace pacemakers for the millions of people whose diseased hearts need help to beat steadily. Pauli -- who directs the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI) Foundation in Geneva -- is an unabashed promoter of biomimicry, the science of making technological and commercial advances by copying natural processes. At a time when many are looking for a way to protect Earth's biodiversity and reduce the ecological impact of industrial products and processes, a growing number of business leaders and environmental activists alike are looking to biomimicry as a way to achieve both ends. ... And biota won't sue you for intellectual property theft! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Dec 27, 2008 from New York Times: No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in "Passive Houses" ...Even on the coldest nights in central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann's new "passive house" and others of this design get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer...The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants' bodies. And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses. ... And I used to think "passive" was a bad thing! ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Dec 27, 2008 from Discover: Super Trees Clean up Superfund Sites Argonne, Illinois -- A legacy of the Argonne National Laboratory�s early foray into atomic energy lies buried here on its campus, about 25 miles southwest of Chicago. Although solid wastes from all sorts of experiments have been sealed in a landfill, certain liquids, mostly chlorinated solvents, still taint the water that runs under the site. The ongoing attempt to remove these contaminants occupies an enormous experimental facility that covers four acres and looks like a forest. "I like to brag that I have the biggest lab at Argonne," says agronomist Cristina Negri, indicating an expanse of 900 poplars and willows growing in rows. The trees stand about 30 feet high. More important, their roots extend 30 feet down, where they tap the contaminated aquifer and literally pull pollutants out of the ground. ... This is a treeific solution! ApocaDoc permalink Fri, Dec 26, 2008 from Associated Press: Amateurs are trying genetic engineering at home The Apple computer was invented in a garage. Same with the Google search engine. Now, tinkerers are working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself. Using homemade lab equipment and the wealth of scientific knowledge available online, these hobbyists are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering -- a field long dominated by Ph.D.s toiling in university and corporate laboratories. ... In ye olde days we called that "sex." ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Dec 24, 2008 from The Michigan Messenger: Will water vortices provide the next renewable energy? U of M engineer says water currents can solve world's power problems: T. Boone Pickens may well have been right: Oil dependence is almost certainly "one emergency we can't drill our way out of." But if a University of Michigan engineer knows half of what he thinks he knows about water power, the solution to the world's energy needs doesn't have much to do with the billionaire oilman's much-advertised vision of an endless line of windmills stretching from Texas to Canada. The real answer may be a cylinder continuously moving up and down in an 8,000-gallon water tank in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Building on the University of Michigan's North Campus in Ann Arbor. As Professor Michael M. Bernitsas sees it, the cylinder-based device he invented is a short step away from a commercially viable version that might be the key to a cheap, inexhaustible supply of clean energy to power the entire world, even regions far removed from sources of water. The device is nicknamed VIVACE, short for Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy. It's pronounced "Vee-VAH-chay," after the term for music played in a lively, spirited manner. ... I wouldn't mind getting some of those vortex induced vibrations at my home! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Dec 24, 2008 from Annapolis Capital: Measure your nitrogen footprint Environmentalists often stress that each of the 17 million people living in the Chesapeake Bay watershed contributes to the bay's decline. Now they have a nifty tool to drive home their point: an online calculator that adds up how much nitrogen pollution each household generates. The project has been two years in the making for Dr. Beth McGee and the staff at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. It's posted at www.cbf.org/yourbayfootprint. ... Pretty soon we'll have to have methane calculators that assess how often and much we fart! ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 23, 2008 from Inderscience via ScienceDaily: Fix For Global Warming? Scientists Propose Covering Deserts With Reflective Sheeting A radical plan to curb global warming and so reverse the climate change caused by our rampant burning of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution would involve covering parts of the world's deserts with reflective sheeting, according to researchers writing in the International Journal of Global Environmental Issues... The team's calculations suggest that covering an area of a little more than 60,000 square kilometres with reflective sheet, at a cost of some $280 billion, would be adequate to offset the heat balance and lead to a net cooling without any need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. ... I have an even better idea. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 23, 2008 from University of British Columbia via ScienceDaily: Earth Not Center Of The Universe, Surrounded By 'Dark Energy' Earth's location in the Universe is utterly unremarkable, despite recent theories that propose toppling a foundation of modern cosmology, according to a team of University of British Columbia researchers....The team's calculations instead solidify the conventional view that an enigmatic dark energy fills the cosmos and is responsible for the acceleration of the Universe...."Since we can only observe the Universe from Earth, it's really hard to determine if we're in a 'special place,'" says [UBC post-doctoral fellow Jim] Zibin. "But we've now learned that our location is much more ordinary than the strange dark energy that fills the Universe." ... A little humility could go a long way. ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Dec 23, 2008 from TIME Magazine: A Japanese Town That Kicked the Oil Habit ...In resource-poor Japan, which imports 90 percent of its fuel, Kuzumaki is a marvel of energy self-sufficiency. Signs of the town's comprehensive focus on environmental sustainability are visible from its mountaintops to the pens of the dairy cows that once were the bedrock of local commerce. Atop Mt. Kamisodegawa, the 12 wind turbines, each 305 feet (93 m) tall, have the capacity to convert mountain gusts into 21,000 KW of electricity — more than enough to meet the needs of the town's residents. The excess is sold to neighboring communities. Of course, the wind doesn't always blow. At Kuzumaki Highland Farm, 200 dairy cows share the power load. Their manure is processed into fertilizer and methane gas, the latter used as fuel for an electrical generator at the town's biomass facility. Nearby, a three-year project sponsored by Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry's New Energy Development Organization (NEDO) uses wood chips from larch trees to create gas that powers the farm's milk and cheese operations. The bark of other trees is also made into pellets for heating stoves used throughout the community. A local winery, for instance, has two such stoves, and Kuzumaki pays residents up to 50,000 yen ($490) toward the cost of installing one. All told, clean energy generated 161 percent of Kuzumaki's electricity last year. ... One hundred and sixty-one percent!? That's enough to give us some! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 22, 2008 from Riverside Press-Enterprise: Inland researchers say storm runoff, once just a threat, is a resource to be managed Two Inland researchers think they have come up with a way to help replenish depleted aquifers and reduce ocean pollution using some unlikely partners: big-box stores. When it rains, much of parking-lot runoff flows across impervious surfaces into large detention basins, culverts or concrete waterways that carry the water to lakes and into the ocean. The researchers propose tapping big-box stores, shopping malls and warehouses -- properties that generate much of the runoff -- to help capture some of it before it flows into storm drains. They recommend building porous-pavement parking lots on the properties or channeling the storm water into infiltration trenches that allow the water to percolate into the ground. Not only would these devices help reduce the amount of polluted water or "urban sludge" that ends up in lakes and in the ocean, it also would help recharge depleted groundwater basins, the researchers say. ... Now that's thinking outside the big box! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Dec 18, 2008 from UCLA, via EurekAlert: No quick or easy technological fix for climate change, researchers say Global warming, some have argued, can be reversed with a large-scale "geoengineering" fix, such as having a giant blimp spray liquefied sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere or building tens of millions of chemical filter systems in the atmosphere to filter out carbon dioxide. But Richard Turco, a professor in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a member and founding director of UCLA's Institute of the Environment, sees no evidence that such technological alterations of the climate system would be as quick or easy as their proponents claim and says many of them wouldn't work at all.... "The size distribution of the particles is critical," Turco said. "If the particles are too large, that will actually create a warming effect, a greenhouse warming. Small particles are not useful because they don't reflect much radiation; you need something in between, and we have shown that is hard to achieve reliably." ... I do believe in Tech Fixes, I do believe in Tech Fixes, I do I do I do I do.... ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Dec 18, 2008 from USA Today: Cooperation helped Louisville clean up air LOUISVILLE — For years, Louisville has been known for fast horses, fine bourbon, a love of college basketball — and lousy air. People who lived near a complex of chemical plants, called Rubbertown, put up with odors, burning eyes and fears that their every breath might contribute to asthma, cancer or other illnesses. But that began to change about a decade ago, after a minister from the predominantly African-American neighborhoods around Rubbertown organized protests, demanding aggressive government action to clean up the toxic air and reduce the chemical emissions from factories. The campaign soon ranged beyond those neighborhoods, attracting the help of university scientists, industry representatives and government officials. It has led to an ambitious and successful anti-pollution effort that has gained national attention. ... Way to go, sluggers! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 8, 2008 from Cosmos: Seven wacky ways to battle global warming Some of the stranger schemes proposed to tackle global warming were knocked down by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change when it met in Thailand, last year... Due to slow political progress, though, and panic about the pace and scale of warming now being reported, some of these quick fixes may soon be back in favour... Here, we share seven bold and unconventional solutions put forward to solve the climate change conundrum. ... By golly, nothing's too wacky for us! ApocaDoc permalink Sun, Dec 7, 2008 from London Independent: Ancient skills 'could reverse global warming' Ancient techniques pioneered by pre-Columbian Amazonian Indians are about to be pressed into service in Britain and Central America in the most serious commercial attempt yet to reverse global warming. Trials are to be started in Sussex and Belize early in the new year, backed with venture capital from Silicon Valley, on techniques to take carbon from the atmosphere and bury it in the soil, where it should act as a powerful fertiliser....They aim to grow trees and plants to absorb CO2 and then trap the carbon by turning the resulting biomass into "biochar", a fine-grained form of charcoal that can be buried in the soil, keeping it safely locked up for thousands of years. ... And you make biochar with fires started with my handy, ancient fire-bow drill! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Dec 1, 2008 from Binghamton University, via EurekAlert: Foretelling a major meltdown By discovering the meaning of a rare mineral that can be used to track ancient climates, Binghamton University geologist Tim Lowenstein is helping climatologists and others better understand what we're probably in for over the next century or two as global warming begins to crank up the heat -- and, ultimately, to change life as we know it.... What Lowenstein and his colleague Robert Demicco at Binghamton University have discovered is that nahcolite, a rare, yellowish-green or brown carbonate mineral, only forms on earth under environmental conditions marked by very high atmospheric CO2 levels.... "If we assume that you and I are both in our 50s, the change in atmospheric CO2 in our lifetime is greater than the rate of any change in at least the last half million years," said Lowenstein, who is particularly concerned about unexpected changes... ... Science... is... a wonderful... thing... ApocaDoc permalink Tue, Nov 25, 2008 from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Fox River's dredging for PCBs starts soon Green Bay - The workhorse in the biggest and most expensive phase to clean up the Fox River is a massive building rising from the banks of the river. Operating like a factory, the 242,000-square-foot facility will extract chemical compounds from river sediments for an estimated seven years and send them away in scores of dump trucks every day. After years of jockeying and extensive planning, the actual processing of the contaminated sediments starts in May - making the Fox and the Hudson River in New York the largest remediation projects in the country. The Fox is the largest single source of polychlorinated biphenyls on Lake Michigan. ... Ideally it will be done in a fair and balanced way! ApocaDoc permalink Mon, Nov 24, 2008 from Environmental News Network: 'Fish technology' draws renewable energy from slow water currents Slow-moving ocean and river currents could be a new, reliable and affordable alternative energy source. A University of Michigan engineer has made a machine that works like a fish to turn potentially destructive vibrations in fluid flows into clean, renewable power.... Here's how VIVACE works: The very presence of the cylinder in the current causes alternating vortices to form above and below the cylinder. The vortices push and pull the passive cylinder up and down on its springs, creating mechanical energy. Then, the machine converts the mechanical energy into electricity. Just a few cylinders might be enough to power an anchored ship, or a lighthouse, Bernitsas says. These cylinders could be stacked in a short ladder. The professor estimates that array of VIVACE converters the size of a running track and about two stories high could power about 100,000 houses. Such an array could rest on a river bed or it could dangle, suspended in the water. But it would all be under the surface. ... I love that sound of that: VIVACE energy from vortices -- va va VOOM. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Nov 22, 2008 from New Scientist: Experts plan 'doomsday vault' for frog sperm The freezer could be the future for frogs and other amphibians. Efforts announced today are currently underway around the world to boost amphibian numbers with cryopreservation and assisted reproduction. Breeding frogs and their cousins to increase numbers could help vulnerable species survive looming extinctions. But getting amphibians to mate is not always straightforward, so researchers are developing other techniques to give them a helping hand. One proposal resembles the doomsday seed vault which opened this year in Norway. Only instead of plant seed, the amphibian vault would store sperm, guaranteeing amphibian genetic diversity for times of dwindling populations. ... Work is also underway to create special magazines for the frogs -- to aid in the process of collecting that sperm! ApocaDoc permalink Thu, Oct 30, 2008 from Scientific American: Geoengineering: How to Cool Earth--At a Price Three recent developments have brought [geoengineering] back into the mainstream. First, despite years of talk and international treaties, CO2 emissions are rising faster than the worst-case scenario envisioned as recently as 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "The trend is upward and toward an ever increasing reliance on coal," says Ken Caldeira, a climate modeler at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif. Second, ice is melting faster than ever at the poles, suggesting that climate might be closer to the brink -- or to a tipping point, in the current vernacular -- than anyone had thought. And third, Paul J. Crutzen wrote an essay. The 2006 paper in the journal Climatic Change by the eminent Dutch atmospheric chemist, in which with heavy heart he, too, urged serious consideration of geoengineering, "let the cat out of the bag," Keith says. Crutzen had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the destruction of atmospheric ozone in 1995; if he was taking geoengineering seriously, it seemed, everyone needed to. ... Sounds like it's time to let all the cats out of all the bags! ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Sep 10, 2008 from European Science Foundation, via EurekAlert: Cryopreservation techniques bring hopes for women cancer victims and endangered species Emerging cryopreservation techniques are increasing hope of restoring fertility for women after diseases such as ovarian cancer that lead to destruction of reproductive tissue. The same techniques can also be used to maintain stocks of farm animals, and protect against extinction of endangered animal species by maintaining banks of ovarian tissue or even nascent embryos that can used to produce offspring at some point in the future. ... Well, yeah, except most species need an ecosystem to live within. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, Jun 28, 2008 from Brown University, via EurekAlert: Brown Researchers Create Mercury-Absorbent Container Linings for Broken CFLs Each [compact fluorescent lamp (CFL)] contains a small amount (3 to 5 milligrams) of mercury, a neurotoxin that can be released as vapor when a bulb is broken. The gas can pose a minor risk to certain groups, such as infants, small children and pregnant women.... The team has created a prototype – a mercury-capturing lining attached to the inside of store-bought CFL packaging. The packaging can be placed over the area where a bulb has been broken to absorb the mercury vapor emanating from the spill, or it can capture the mercury of a bulb broken in the box. The researchers also have created a specially designed lining for plastic bags that soaks up the mercury left over from the CFL shards that are thrown away. ... We are beginning to see the light. ApocaDoc permalink Sat, May 31, 2008 from Toronto Star: The Frozen Ark: Toward Jurassic Park Since 2004, the little-known Frozen Ark project in Nottingham, England has been quietly gathering, storing and preserving genetic "backups" of species for whom conservation efforts have come too late – or not at all. Priority is being given to 40 animals that are extinct in the wild but still living in zoos. Next in line are 10,000 or so species whose populations have fallen as human numbers inexorably rose. The Frozen Ark is a "doomsday animal vault." Small tissue samples of endangered species are being frozen and preserved in liquid nitrogen. ... Let's see -- can we freeze the ecosystems needed to support the critters? ApocaDoc permalink Sat, May 31, 2008 from Telegraph.co.uk: New insect repellent last three times longer To identify the new repellents, the team conducted a rigorous search of a library of compounds known as N-acylpiperidines (related to the active ingredient in pepper), using a brain like computer, called an artificial neural network, to link chemical structure to repellent qualities. They used the neural net to find better versions of DEET, which is able to block the insects' sense of smell. Insects also find DEET unappealing to bite through, and at higher concentrations they tend to avoid contact with DEET. The researchers then tested the 34 best candidates in the laboratory on human volunteers. ... Given the tragic die-off of the bats, the folks in the northeast US will be very interested. Let's test the health effects of this stuff first, though, ok? ApocaDoc permalink Wed, Apr 9, 2008 from Purdue University: Interactive Map of Greenhouse Gases and Emissions "A new, high-resolution, interactive map of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels has found that the emissions aren't all where we thought. "For example, we've been attributing too many emissions to the northeastern United States, and it's looking like the southeastern U.S. is a much larger source than we had estimated previously," says Kevin Gurney, an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric science at Purdue University and leader of the project...."Ten years ago there might have been resistance to the notion of examining who is responsible for the CO2 emissions in such a visually detailed way," Gurney says. "However, what Vulcan makes utterly clear is that CO2 emissions cannot be exclusively affixed to SUV drivers, manufacturers or large power producers; everybody is responsible...." ... You mean... I can't just blame everybody else? ApocaDoc permalink Copyright 2009 The Apocadocs.com