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Wendelstein 7-X...

Image Source: Science Mag


Topics: Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power


The sooner we get away from fossil fuels, the sooner we get away from energy needs demanding a toll on the globe in terms of wars for those resources, and climate impact that will eventually be paid by us all. No amount of money will ever be worth that.

“Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Cree Indian Prophecy, GoodReads

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) produced the first helium plasma in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator last December. Since then, they have cleaned the plasma vessel with many more helium discharges. On 3 February they produced a hydrogen plasma in the world's biggest and most advanced stellarator-type nuclear fusion device for the first time. Thomas Klinger, Director at the IPP, talks about the special features of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator and its structure, and the prospects for the construction of a fusion power plant.

Professor Klinger, will Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel launch the world's first fusion power plant on Wednesday?

No, the Wendelstein 7-X will not supply any energy yet. What we are aiming to demonstrate is that a stellarator is just as suitable a device for a power plant as a tokamak, and that it can bring its two advantages into play here: first, its plasma is fundamentally more stable and, second, it can operate in continuous mode without further intervention. In contrast, a tokamak requires pulsed operation, which is a considerable disadvantage for a power plant.

If the stellarator has such advantages to offer, why is the ITER, the world's biggest fusion device, being built as a tokamak?

A crash course in plasma physics is needed to understand this: for the plasma in a fusion device to reach the temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius required for nuclear fusion, it must make as little contact as possible with the walls of the plasma vessel. For this reason, its charged particles are captured in a ring-shaped magnetic field. And this magnetic field must be twisted into a spiral.

Phys.org: Plasma physicist discusses the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, Peter Hergersberg

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Only hints: She is a Drow Courtesan, her favorite adornments are gold & rubies (gold dust on ears).
Get to writing and fave fun! 'Courtesan' *2016 WillowRaven

At MidSouthCon 34, I was confronted with the fact that I don't do enough personal work. Not only did my son make mention of the fact that he thinks my personal works are better somehow, so did other guest artists I was sharing panels with. 

So I started to pay attention a little closer and did notice a slightly larger ratio of visitors to the art room and in the panels stop and look at my personal work a touch longer than my commissioned work. Happily, both sell, so it's not like I'm slacking on my clients, but people can still somehow tell when an image is 'all me'. I can't explain the phenomenon, but apparently it's fairly common.

Yes, everybody must work and my clients and publishers will have to come first. but I'm determined to make it a point to do art just for me, not a commissioned piece, at least once a week. I'm going to be giving myself only one to two days to finish any personal artwork, and if it's not finished by the beginning of the week, it will have to wait until the following weekend.

Related text from my website:

~
Call for submissions ...


I'm creating a yearbook, of sorts, featuring my personal visions. Plans are to have enough work by November to compile them into a book to offer it here on the website, as well as, at the MidSouthCon, which I attend each year.

I thought it would also be fun to include short stories inspired by each piece. I've had a few 'visual writing prompts' cycling on twitter for the past couple years and many of my author contacts on social media seem to enjoy participating. I post their stories on my blog with links back to their profiles and pages, but this would be a chance for a few of those stories to be actually published in the going-to-be-annual yearbook.

With each new personal vision, I'll post it here to the welcome page and on my blog, alerting my followers that there is a new challenge up. Submissions can be turned in anytime between the time of posting and November 1st. Along with each new posting, there will be a twitter poll where people can vote on their favorite story submissions for each piece. Any visions or editing needed will be approved of by the authors before printing.

The winner for each will be selected according to the poll. The authors will get credited for their stories in the yearbook and given a short bio including links to their other works.





Onto wrapping up the next book :-D

Until next time ...

Aidana WillowRaven




This post edited by Grammarly* ~ NOW FREE FOR CHROME USERS!


*Blurbs and quotes provided are not edited by WillowRaven but posted as provided by author/publisher. 
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Postage Stamp Gravimeter...

Image Source: Link Below


Topics: Electrical Engineering, Geophysics, Gravitational Waves, Gravity, MEMS


UK researchers have built a small device that measures tiny fluctuations in gravity, and could be used to monitor volcanoes or search for oil.

Such gravimeters already exist but compared to this postage stamp-sized gadget, they are bulky and pricey.

The new design is based on the little accelerometers found in smartphones.

To begin with, the team - from the University of Glasgow - tested it by measuring the Earth's tides over a period of several days.

Tidal forces, caused by the interacting pull of the Sun and Moon, not only drag the oceans up and down but slightly squash the Earth's diameter.

"It's not a very big squeeze, but it means that essentially Glasgow - or anywhere else on the Earth's crust - goes up and down by about 40cm over the course of 12-13 hours," said Richard Middlemiss, the PhD student who made the new instrument.

"That means that we get a change in gravitational acceleration - so that's what we've been able to measure."

Like most gravimeters, the heart of the new instrument is a weight hanging from a spring. Unlike all other gravimeters thus far, this one is a MEMS: a "microelectromechanical system".
 

The whole sensor is carved from a sheet of silicon 0.2mm thick; the "weight" is a small slab of that silicon and the "spring" consists of several thin shafts that hold it in place.

BBC Science and Environment: Small, cheap gravity gadget to peer underground
Jonathan Webb

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2116...



Figure 1. The space elevator, supported against gravity by centrifugal force, could forge a versatile link between the surface of Earth and the reaches of outer space. To realize the concept, we will need to manufacture new, strong materials, almost certainly designed with the help of computers. (Rendition by Pat Rawlings, courtesy of NASA.)

Citation: Phys. Today 69, 4, 32 (2016); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3137

Topics: Futurism, Materials Science, Physics, Science Fiction, Space Exploration


Arthur C. Clarke proposed the concept in "The Fountains of Paradise" when I was a senior in high school. He also gave us the geosynchronous orbit, also known by the name: Clarke Orbit. I titled this one hundred years into the future following the premise of "Fountains," though we may master the technology sooner. Either would be fine with me: one I might just get to see. The other humanity might survive themselves, and colonize first Mars to engineer habitats in a clearly hostile environment; the Asteroid Belt for building materials; several choice moons for water beneath their icy crusts, eventually to the stars, the "stuff" we're all made of, compelled by its call to return.

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” Carl Sagan, Cosmos

The fundamental questions of the future will be profound, sophisticated, and difficult to answer. And the great projects of the future will be grand indeed.

What will the next 100 years in physics bring? I don’t know, of course, but it is a mind-expanding question to contemplate. The considered guesses recorded here naturally reflect my own interests, knowledge, limitations, and prejudices. And to keep this article within acceptable size, I’ve had to be crazily selective in choosing what to include. Its conjectures will have served their purpose if they provoke you to think about the question yourself, even if in the end you answer it quite differently (see the announcement on page 36).

To gain perspective, let us look back before looking ahead.

A century ago physics was in turmoil. Albert Einstein had only just published his revolutionary new theory of gravity. Ernest Rutherford’s recently discovered atomic nuclei, at the heart of matter, were mysterious, almost bizarre objects—terribly small, terribly dense, and subject to a bewildering variety of causeless transformations. Quantum theory, which featured Niels Bohr’s atomic model, was a tissue of guesswork. Superconductivity was an empirical fact, but a theoretical enigma. The nature of the chemical bond and the energy source of stars—supremely important aspects of the natural world—embarrassed contemporary physics.

Fifty years ago the picture had become quite different. General relativity was an established subject with a vast literature and a handful of experimental applications. Together with Edwin Hubble’s discovery of the expanding universe, it had opened new possibilities for scientific cosmology. The recently discovered microwave background radiation, together with a successful semiquantitative theory of cosmic nucleogenesis, pointed clearly to the Big Bang. Quantum mechanics was a mathematically precise, consistent, and wildly successful theory, though it seemed strange and troubling to many. It had become, as it remains, the language through which we speak with nature.

Physics Today: Physics in 100 years, Frank Wilczek

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Hacking Living Cells...

Coding for life
Zoonar GmbH/Alamy Stock


Topics: Biology, Bioengineering, Computer Science


I'm only going to comment with one Caveat Emptor: anything that can be hacked, can be weaponized with the right (i.e. "wrong") motivation and twisted imagination.

Tinkering with life just got easier. A tool that lets you design DNA circuits using a simple symbolic language makes programming living cells as straightforward as writing code for computers.

The tool uses an existing language called Verilog, which is used by chip designers to design electronic circuits. The idea is to make programming cells more like programming a computer. “We take the same approach as for designing an electronic chip,” says Chris Voigt of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Every step in the process is the same – it’s just that instead of mapping the circuit to silicon, it’s mapped to DNA.”

Synthetic biology aims to make it possible to treat cells as machines that can be engineered and programmed. By altering a microbe’s native DNA, it can be made to perform a specific task, such as producing a drug or changing colour to detect a virus in blood. Off-the-shelf genetic parts that can be swapped in and out make this easier, but it is still a painstaking process.

That’s where Verilog comes in. Verilog is a symbolic language that lets you specify the function of an electronic circuit in shorthand – without having to worry about the underlying hardware – and then convert it into a detailed design automatically. Voigt’s team realised they could do the same with DNA circuits.

Their system, called Cello, takes a Verilog design and converts it into a DNA wiring diagram. This is fed to a machine that generates a strand of DNA that encodes the specified function. The DNA can then be inserted into a microbe.



New Scientist: Bio coding language makes it easier to hack living cells, Andy Coghlan

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April 1st...

Image Source: Vanderbuilt School of Leadership Development


Topics: Commentary, Education, Physics, Research, Science, STEM




I touched down last Saturday, 2 April 2011 @ JFK at 2:40 PM EST. That was the easy part...

My turtle was shipped as Priority Parcel Post; my 92 lb lab as part of my luggage. I payed as much for the turtle as I did for my luggage: $200 each.



I had to first go get my luggage to the rental car place via the Air Train, then go get my turtle and lab: two neurotic pets that did not like the plane ride or the monorail at all...trust, me: the turtle (as turtles go) wasn't herself; the dog got car sick -- probably an extension of the plane trip -- on the way upstate.

Map Quest or Google Maps cannot tell me it's 1.5 - 2 hours from JFK...given traffic, juggling luggage, pets and my own naivete, I got where I was going by 10:15 PM.



Thank God for the GPS on my phone -- brought to us all courtesy of "The Photoelectric Effect" and a bit of quantum mechanics (of course, I had to say that...). #P4TC: New York...

* * * * *

My dog Raven passed away, but Speedy the turtle is going strong. She's managed to outlive every pet I've had since 1990.


This day five years ago was officially my last day as a high school physics and math teacher at Manor High School. Despite being a floater - no assigned classroom - I was allowed to tutor math and physics; teach martial arts one day after school and do performance poetry at school talent functions, many things that in five years I've found I really miss. I have found on reflection, all that free expression wasn't random chaos: it was me, the layers peeled of my own onion.

"This better NOT be an 'April Fool's joke, you bastard!" That was one of my students, a petite Hispanic young woman. Many students let me know I was the stability in their lives; for many the one person they could count on in their day.

"It wasn't," I said trying to choke back a lump. "Mr. Goodwin won't be here Monday."

When I called back on Monday, there seemed to be a lot of students in the office upset. I'd like to think other than my departure, I had a positive effect on them. They would be adults now, moving through life; loving, living and earning their way. I hope at least one of them found their way to a STEM field.

I've been in New York five years. I reentered an industry I'd departed August 26, 2003, a date I can't and won't forget.

I've seen changes in the industry, some by its own limitations; some by the limitations of intertwined economies that makes one think of butterflies.

I've seen changes in our climate, our country and our culture, as some petition our lesser angels to express themselves and the darkness within.

Through all of this, my students have become adults, millennials still but adults: fully functional and capable of expressing their desire as the governed by voting.

This world will be inherited by the meek, or the winds of Entropy.

Teaching is like saving one soul at a time. Despite number or technology's used or subject, it boils down to one-on-one. There is a rush when you can see the light go on in eyes that realize they've "got it." I revisited that briefly teaching at the Membership Training Academy for Kappa Alpha Psi. One of my fraternity brothers, a community college teacher complimented me. Another frat thought I had a PhD already.

Part of me is still that teacher, as my father and my grandfather before me.

I ponder the next five years. I have a graduate certificate in Microelectronics and Photonics. I am striving for more. I will let you know what shape that takes and soon.
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There is a common misconception about writer’s block. When you sit down and stare at that mockingly blank screen, it isn’t the lack of ideas that stops the keys from click - clacking, its the exact opposite. For me, what keeps the screen blank is the overabundance of ideas.

            If you’re like me, you have a constant flow of images, scenarios, and characters passing through your mind like the NASDAQ ticker. The challenge is to take the raw bits of data my brain is spitting out and turn them into cohesive, fully formed, emotionally satisfying ideas. Which, according to just about everyone I talk to about writing who doesn’t write on a regular basis, is a piece of cake. If only they were right. There have been more nights than I care to admit where I have shut down the computer in defeat, unable to get my ideas to behave and form a single file line. In case you were wondering, it’s not easy to get to sleep when your thoughts are behaving like a panicked crowd clogging an emergency exit to avoid a fire. It was one such fruitless writing attempt that caused me to get fed up and invent with the following technique to beat writer’s block and get those words flowing. And I owe it all to my first grade teacher, Mrs Miller. 

            It’s weird how some memories cement themselves into your mind. Within seconds of closing my eyes I can make out the small 30 seat classroom. The class mascot bunny rabbit sitting in it’s cage contemplating an escape attempt, the walls littered with multicolored construction paper, each sheet with a drawing and child's signature underneath, the chalk smeared blackboard, and Mrs Miller sitting at her desk in the back of the class. Her build was what one might call “sturdy”. Mrs Miller had what my Grandmother used to refer to as “child bearing hips”. She stood at 4’11’’ and was constantly moving her dirty blonde hair from her perpetually exhausted face. One day, the class had come back from recess and was particularly unruly. Even though recess had officially ended fifteen minutes earlier, everyone was still buzzing from being let loose on the playground.  Everyone that is, except for me. In the household I grew up in, excessive noise and activity from a child in the presence of an adult was simply not an option. My parents made it very clear that if a child is not in any life threatening danger, there is no reason for said child to not sit still and be quiet. Apparently the entire class hadn’t learned that lesson, but I could tell from Mrs Miller’s mounting frustration after every one of her gentle “shh's” was met with more noise, that the lesson was about to be learned. I saw her slam her the notepad down that she was previously writing in and leap up out of her chair with surprising speed. The class was still so wild that her actions went unnoticed. Her substantial legs stomped down, sending the raised bungalow that we were having class in to shake slightly as she bounded to the front the of the class. When she got there, she stood for a moment to take in the chaos before her. She then filled her lungs, leaned backward, lurched  forward, opened her mouth and let out the most primal, blood curdling scream I still to this day have ever heard. 

The words “SHUT UP!!!” bellowed from her mouth, and the entire class snapped to attention. Afterwards, she calmly strolled back to her desk and returned to work as if nothing happened. The real challenge for me to suppress a giggle after seeing the confused, saucer eyed expression on each of my class member’s faces. If that tactic seems a bit excessive, keep in mind that I went to elementary school in the early eighties, which means that teachers had a little more leeway as to how children in their classes should be disciplined. Now, Mrs Miller’s class would be flooded with complaints. Then, her outburst had its intended effects. The class shut the hell up, and Mrs Miller suffered no career consequences for her actions. 

What the hell does have to do with writing you ask? Well, think of your ideas as a classroom of uncooperative children. They are all excited about being heard. They all have something to say. However, all your ideas can’t speak at once or readers will begin to question your sanity. Instead, try to find your inner Mrs Miller. Actually visualize a classroom of wild children, then picture an old teacher, authority figure, or hey even yourself, walking to the front of the classroom of your mind, and telling those rambunctious ideas to SHUT UP. Have them take their seat and raise their hands one at a time. As each idea lifts it’s hand, that’s the one to work on. Work it till the end of your allotted writing time of the day, and continue the process until the present assignment is done. Sure this process may seem silly or juvenile,  and you may question whether or not it even works. Well you’re right in the fact that it is a silly exercise, but as to whether or not it works, you're reading this post aren’t you? 

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55 Cancri e...

Animation Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


Topics: Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, Planetary Science


Fascinating! However, it's not exactly a planet I'd want our descendants to travel to. I'd be more partial to the planets in the Goldilocks Zone of this particular solar system.

The first super-Earth planet to get its photo taken may be superweird and superhot, and perhaps have super-runny lava in spots on its surface, researchers said.

Astronomers investigated the alien planet 55 Cancri e, the innermost of five known planets orbiting the star 55 Cancri, located about 41 light-years from Earth. This exoplanet is a super-Earth, a rocky world nearly twice Earth's width and eight times its mass. It's the first super-Earth from which astronomers have detected light.

55 Cancri e circles its star about 25 times closer than Mercury does the sun. As a result, the planet whips fully around its star about every 18 hours, while Earth takes a year to complete an orbit.


Space.com: Weird, Oozing Super-Earth Planet Has Hot Nights, Even Hotter Days
Charles P. Choi

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The Force is here!!!!!!!

Urbangod Ink presents their third release, The Force #1. Created, written and colored by Corley Alieninc Manning. Art by Jimmy King, flats, letters and edits by NorViance Henry. This celebrates superheroes in all the ways you love. Purchase digital copy via PayPal for $3.99 urbangodink@gmail.com physical copy is $5.99 at urbangodink.indyplanet.com

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Rabbit Ears...

Schematic illustration of the new antenna in action. The lower-frequency modulation is illustrated as the gently varying level of white light along the antenna. The signal is illustrated as the much shorter pulse. (Courtesy: Andrea Alù)

Topics: Consumer Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Electromagnetism, Photovoltaics, Research

The last time I used the term, it was this post about television, posing in the right position with said rabbit ears for my parents; The Jetsons and flat screens. However, this is something old-to-new that never went away. Our WiFi, our remote controls to our televisions and in many cases, cars and key ignitions use this technology. Guglielmo Marconi was one of the giants that helped to spawn the modern age, others in their laboratories now the ages to come. Nanos Gigantium Humeris Incidentes...

A new simpler, cheaper and potentially more effective way to prevent radio antennas from picking up unwanted signals has been created by researchers in the US. With further development, the technique could also be used to help prevent thermophotovoltaic cells from re-emitting radiation they absorb – according to the team.

The laws of electromagnetism work exactly the same way if you run time in the opposite direction. One logical consequence of this is that an antenna designed to broadcast at a certain radio frequency will also be very good at absorbing radiation at that frequency. This is problematic for broadcast radio antennas, which will absorb radiation that has bounced back from surrounding objects – something that can have a negative impact on their operation. While there are ways of minimizing the effect of these echoes, they can be expensive and reduce the performance of the antenna.

Now, Andrea Alù and colleagues at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a new way of dealing with echoes. Their design is based on a traditional leaky-wave antenna, in which electromagnetic waves of certain frequencies couple to the space around the antenna and "leak out" as they travel along it. They added a series of variable capacitors called varactors to the antenna circuit. The capacitance of a varactor varies with the voltage applied to it, and this is used to adjust the operational frequency of the antenna. The researchers added a second, lower-frequency wave sent down the same antenna. This second wave does not couple to the space around the antenna and is therefore not radiated. However, the wave modulates the voltage on the varactors and therefore alters the operational frequency of the antenna while it is transmitting.



Physics World: New radio antenna avoids unwanted signals, Tim Wogan

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*Here's another background story on America's issue with nuclear waste from The Waste Lands Report.*

By The Times Editorial Board  Contact Reporter

November 30, 2015,  5:00 AM

No one really likes the idea of storing spent nuclear fuel rods at the edge of the mighty Pacific Ocean, even if they are sealed in stainless steel canisters, encased in concrete and partially buried. What would happen to the millions of people living within 50 miles, or the Pacific's marine life, if there were a leak or an accident? What would happen if California were hit with a tsunami like the one that caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan in 2011?

This is the sort of fearful speculation that has emerged since Southern California Edison revealed its plan to store spent fuel rods from the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on the power plant's grounds rather than at a federally approved nuclear waste disposal site. The reason: No such facility exists. You can thank the federal government, and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in particular, for that.

This nation approved and built nuclear plants without ever providing a safe place for their waste to be stored, knowing all along that it would remain lethally radioactive for thousands of years. Congress settled on a site for a national nuclear waste repository — Yucca Mountain, deep in the wilderness of Nevada — but the project stalled in 2009 after the Obamaadministration formally opposed it. That fulfilled a promise candidate Barack Obama had made to Reid and voters in Nevada, a key swing state.

Some members of Congress are pushing to get funding as early as next year to test out privately-run temporary storage facilities for spent fuel rods. But even if lawmakers fund the projects now, it would take a decade or longer to get the sites approved and built.

This leaves no real option for San Onofre other than nuclear beach bunkers. The California Coastal Commission came to the same conclusion last month when it approved Edison's plan to store 75 canisters on site until an off-site waste station is built. San Onofre has been storing its spent fuel rods on site without issue for decades.

Residents of Orange and San Diego counties have long had an uneasy relationship with the beachfront nuclear plant, which is perched near a coastal fault line. So community activists and environmentalists celebrated when San Onofre was officially decommissioned in 2013 after equipment troubles shut down its last two reactors.

Now that the reactors are turned off, however, the public health threat is dramatically reduced because there's no opportunity for a catastrophic meltdown. The waste storage containers are built to withstand tsunamis and earthquakes. Still, a handful of activists aren't satisfied and have sued to reverse the Coastal Commission's approval. They would prefer that the spent fuel rods be packed up and shipped via truck to the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Tonopah, Ariz., in which Edison has a minority stake.

But Palo Verde's license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows the plant to store only its own spent rods, not those from other plants. Also, the Palo Verde plant is on the outskirts of Phoenix, whose residents would hardly welcome the idea. And then there's the peril of sending trucks loaded with nuclear waste through one of the nation's most congested freeway systems.

If a judge puts Edison's plans on hold, it could leave the coast more vulnerable by delaying construction of the steel canisters and concrete bunkers. Right now, the spent fuel rods are being kept in cooling pools, which were intended for only temporary storage. Dry-cask storage provides more long-term protection against such risks as rising oceans and terrorism. It's safer to pack them into canisters than to let them linger in the pools while the litigation plays out.

If San Onofre opponents want to hasten the departure of the fuel rods, they should instead lobby federal lawmakers to open Yucca Mountain. They could also throw their support behind legislation by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other senators that would lay out a comprehensive plan for storing waste from the country's decommissioned nuclear energy plants. The bill's prospects are unclear, as it has yet to be heard in the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

In Congress, the safe disposal of nuclear waste apparently doesn't rank as a priority. That won't change until enough concerned Americans demand better solutions to the problems posed by reactors' highly radioactive trash.

Copyright © 2016, Los Angeles Times

*MY TAKE: What's wrong with this idea? The better question may be is there anything right with it. Mankind believed in times past that its technology and architecture would withstand nature's various forms of fury. Fukushima and the Titanic pose as good examples. I'll have a follow-up report later this week. What do you think?
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Cyber-Humans...

Image Source: See Link Below


Topics: Biology, Electrical Engineering, Internet of Things, Futurism, Robotics, Science Fiction


I consider this a dichotomy: equally exciting and terrifying. We are already becoming more "connected" through our mobile devices such that millennials have no memory of life before thousands of cable channels; million player online domains and ever-available search engines. It's up to philosophers and science fiction writers to ponder and model exactly "what are we becoming" and who (or what corporate entity) ultimately owns the enhanced, integrated biological-cybernetic intellectual property? Along with the aforementioned Internet of Things, a new dimension to hacking may be opening up. These issues, along with privacy matters and civil liberties concerns could make things dicey.

Dr Woodrow (Woody) Barfield has published over 350 articles and publications in the areas of computer science, engineering and law. He was head of the Sensory Engineering Laboratory as an Industrial and Systems Engineering Professor at the University of Washington, and he holds both JD and LLM degrees in intellectual property law and policy. His research revolves around the design and use of wearable computers and augmented reality systems.

Dr. Barfield latest book is Cyber-Humans: Our Future With Machines, published by Copernicus. I interviewed him via email on the topics of that his book addressed.

What time-line do you see cyborgs happening in the future? At what point will humans be more “cyber” than “human”?

There are several ways to think about the question. A few people have predicted that by the end of the century the majority (all?) of our biological parts could be artificial and perform better than the original. But actually, many of us are cyborgs now which I think raises many ethical, legal, and social issues. Generally, the definition of a cyborg is a person whose physiological and mental functioning is aided by or dependent upon a mechanical or electronic device. So if you have a heart pacer or cochlear implant, you are a cyborg. I would like to add to the above definition in the following way: given that prosthetics and other cyborg technologies are becoming part of the human body and can be modeled with control theory, I extend the definition of a cyborg to include the concept of: (1) closed-loop feedback, and (2) that the technology being integrated into the human body has computational ability.

Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies:
“Cyber-Humans: Our Future with Machines” – Interview with Prof. Woodrow Barfield
Hank Pellissier

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Clean Tech and Small Business...



One of the small businesses with whom Argonne will collaborate is Transient Plasma Systems (TPS) of Torrance, Calif. TPS has developed a new type of ignition system that allows engines to run leaner or tolerate higher levels of recirculated exhaust gas, thereby increasing efficiency. Pictured is Argonne researcher Michael Pamminger working on a test engine that will be used as part of the TPS-Argonne collaboration.

Topics: Economy, Green Energy, Green Tech, Jobs, Mechanical Engineering, STEM


THIS is the type of innovation that could have global reach, yet keep jobs in the US as long as we're prepared to fill them. For our youth, it's a matter of the education infrastructure preparing them for jobs of the future; for slightly older workers, it could be a few semesters of retraining at a community college.

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory will be joining forces with three small businesses to advance innovative, clean transportation technologies as part of a larger program to help emerging firms access the resources of national laboratories.

DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) issued 33 vouchers with a total value of $6.7 million in the first round of the Small Business Vouchers (SBV) Pilot, which matches small businesses with national laboratories to provide technical assistance to help bring next-generation clean energy technologies to market. Applications are currently being accepted for the second round, with a third round to follow.

The three companies selected by DOE to work with Argonne — Transient Plasma Systems (TPS), Connected Signals and Big Delta Systems (BDS) — each received vouchers to pursue vehicle-related research ranging from a new type of engine ignition system to new battery materials to innovative ways to empower motorists to drive more efficiently.

Argonne National Laboratory:
Three clean tech small businesses matched with Argonne in DOE program
Greg Cunningham

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Snapology...

Image Source: Harvard, John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science


Topics: 3D Objects, Architectural Engineering, Materials Science, Metamaterials


"A house that could fit in a backpack or a wall that could become a window with the flick of a switch" are just two fantastical objects that could be made from a new self-folding metamaterial – according to its inventors at Harvard University in the US. Inspired by origami, the material will pop up and fold down on command, and can change both its shape and stiffness. Other possible applications for the new material include retractable roofs and medical implants.

The metamaterial was developed by a team led by Katia Bertoldi, James Weaver and Chuck Hoberman. It was inspired by "snapology", which is a type of origami that uses modular units of folded paper to create larger objects. In the new approach, each unit cell is an extruded rhombus that has inflatable air pockets along three of its edges (see video). When an air pocket is pressurized, it causes an edge of the unit cell to try to fold flat. By pressurizing different combinations of pockets, the shape of the unit cell itself can be changed.

Physics World: Origami-inspired metamaterial changes shape and stiffness on command
Hamish Johnston

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Throttling Back Moore's Law...

Image Source: SemiWiki.com

Topics: Consumer Electronics, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Semiconductor Technology

It was bound to happen. The smaller feature sizes gets, the more powerful that computer in your pocket you occasionally use to call someone and talk becomes, as you can pack literally more on the surface of Silicon substrates in billions of bits (so we can share cat videos, apparently). It also becomes increasingly difficult to manufacture such things, i.e. more expensive for the manufacturer in design, materials, processes and manpower. The old expression "somethings got to give" applies here. We're all hoping for something beyond Silicon, like carbon nanotubes.

Intel Puts the Brakes on Moore’s Law

Intel will slow the pace at which it rolls out new chip-making technology, and is still searching for a successor to silicon transistors.

Chip maker Intel has signaled a slowing of Moore’s Law, a technological phenomenon that has played a role in just about every major advance in engineering and technology for decades.

Since the 1970s, Intel has released chips that fit twice as many transistors into the same space roughly every two years, aiming to follow an exponential curve named after Gordon Moore, one of the company’s cofounders. That continual shrinking has helped make computers more powerful, compact, and energy-efficient. It has helped bring us smartphones, powerful Internet services, and breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence and genetics. And Moore’s Law has become shorthand for the idea that anything involving computing gets more capable over time.

But Intel disclosed in a regulatory filing last month that it is slowing the pace with which it launches new chip-making technology. The gap between successive generations of chips with new, smaller transistors will widen. With the transistors in Intel’s latest chips already as small as 14 nanometers, it is becoming more difficult to shrink them further in a way that's cost-effective for production.

MIT Technology Review: Intel Puts The Brakes on Moore's Law, Tom Simonite

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Metamorphosis...

Image credit: rexboggs5 via flickr | http://bit.ly/1SECwxD
Rights information: http://bit.ly/1haBUhX


Topics: Engineering, Materials Science, Metamaterials, Research, Robotics


(Inside Science) -- By using fluids similar to Silly Putty that can behave as both liquids and solids, researchers say they have created fluid robots that might one day perform tasks that conventional machines cannot.

Conventional robots are made of rigid parts that are vulnerable to bumps, scrapes, twists and falls. In contrast, researchers worldwide are increasingly developing robots made from soft, elastic plastic and rubber that are inspired by worms, starfish and octopuses. These soft robots can resist many of the kinds of damage, and can squirm past many of the obstacles, that can impede hard robots.

However, even soft robots and the living organisms they are inspired by are limited by their solidity — for example, they remain vulnerable to cutting. Instead, researcher Ido Bachelet of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and his colleagues have now created what they call fluid robots that they say could operate better than solid robots in chaotic, hostile environments. They detailed their findings online Jan. 22 in the journal Artificial Life.

Inside Science: Researchers Are Developing Shape-Shifting Fluid Robots
Charles Q. Choi

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Thermometer...

A coal-fired power plant in Germany in 2014.


Topics: Climate Change, Global Warming, Greenhouse Gases


The correct term is Anthropgenic Climate Disruption, meaning that you don't experience what you're used to getting weather-wise.

Some practical symptoms I'm sure some of us are experiencing at this warmer-than-normal winter: I just finished a second round of antibiotics after a high temperature of 102.4, BP a very concerning 160/90; a third for my wife since her second antibiotic - Levaquin - she had an allergic reaction to, landing her in the emergency room at Vassar Hospital. I was suddenly on night shift again Friday morning...

Last winter was brutally cold, but that cold likely killed a lot of aerosols that normally wouldn't be in the atmosphere in New York. So, though minus 12 wasn't desirable, it was at least for the northeast, "normal."

Carbon is pouring into the atmosphere faster than at any time in the past 66 million years—since the dinosaurs went extinct—according to a new analysis of the geologic record. The study underscores just how profoundly humans are changing Earth’s history.

The carbon emissions rate is ten times greater today than during the prehistoric hot period that is the closest precedent for today's greenhouse warming.

That period, known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), was marked by a massive release of the Earth's natural carbon stores into the atmosphere. (It’s not clear what caused the PETM, but volcanic eruptions and methane gas release are suspects.) The excess carbon triggered a 5°C (9°F) temperature increase, along with drought, floods, insect plagues, and extinctions. (Read more about this period of “Hothouse Earth.”)

National Geographic: Earth Hasn’t Heated Up This Fast Since the Dinosaurs’ End
Marianne Lavelle

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Comic Book / Graphic Novel Reviews

After getting several requests via Facebook to do reviews, and finally breaking down and doing one, I thought I'd offer the opportunity to anyone up here to get reviewed as well. You can check out my blog at World News Center to get an idea of what I'm about.

The rules are simple, if I, or any of my affiliates, don't like your work we'll tell you but not post a negative review. Otherwise, as long as people can buy it, even if it's just a PayPal link on your personal site, we'll give it some pub.

As to content we have no limits. Adult oriented stuff flops off my fingertips every day.

Please feel free to post any comments or questions below.

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