Daffodil Lane

March 26, 2008

Some People Just Have Too Much Time On Their Hands

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March 12, 2008

Want to Rescue a Couple of Stranded Whales? Let the Dolphin do it!

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A dolphin swam up to two distressed whales that appeared headed for death in a beach stranding in New Zealand and guided them to safety, witnesses said Wednesday.

The actions of the bottlenose dolphin -- named Moko by residents who said it spends much of its time swimming playfully with humans at the beach -- amazed would-be rescuers and an expert who said they were evidence of the species' friendly nature.

The two pygmy sperm whales, a mother and her calf, were found stranded on Mahia Beach, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of the capital of Wellington, on Monday morning, said Conservation Department worker Malcolm Smith.

Rescuers worked for more than one hour to get the whales back into the water, only to see them strand themselves four times on a sandbar slightly out to sea. It looked likely the whales would have to be euthanized to prevent them suffering a prolonged death, Smith said.

"They kept getting disorientated and stranding again," said Smith, who was among the rescuers. "They obviously couldn't find their way back past (the sandbar) to the sea."

Along came Moko, who approached the whales and led them 200 meters (yards) along the beach and through a channel out to the open sea

"Moko just came flying through the water and pushed in between us and the whales," Juanita Symes, another rescuer, told The Associated Press. "She got them to head toward the hill, where the channel is. It was an amazing experience. The best day of my life."

Anton van Helden, a marine mammals expert at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, said the reports of Moko's rescue were "fantastic" but believable because the dolphins have "a great capacity for altruistic activities."

Dolphins are amazing creatures. This type of action doesn't surprise me at all. What an amazing story!

Found via CNN.

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March 9, 2008

Scientists spot white killer whale off Alaska

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The white killer whale spotted in Alaska's Aleutian Islands sent researchers and the ship's crew scrambling for their cameras.

The nearly mythic creature was real after all.

"I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it."

The whale was spotted last month while scientists aboard the Oscar Dyson, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship, were conducting an acoustic survey of pollock near Steller sea lion haulout sites.

It had been spotted once in the Aleutians years ago but had eluded researchers since, even though they had seen many of the more classic black and white whales over the years.

Fearnbach said the white whale stood out.

"When you first looked at it, it was very white," she said Thursday.

Further observation showed that while the whale's saddle area was white, other parts of its body had a subtle yellowish or brownish color.

It likely is not a true albino given the coloration, said John Durban, a research biologist at NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. That's probably a good thing -- true albinos usually don't live long and can have health problems.

A very rare, yet interesting find. I wish there were some better photos of this whale, but it's fascinating none the less!

Found via CNN.

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December 13, 2007

Northern Lights Energy Source Discovered

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- Scientists think they have discovered the energy source of auroras borealis, the spectacular color displays seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.

New data from NASA's Themis mission, a quintet of satellites launched this winter, found the energy comes from a stream of charged particles from the sun flowing like a current through twisted bundles of magnetic fields connecting Earth's upper atmosphere to the sun.

The energy is then abruptly released in the form of a shimmering display of lights, said principal investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California at Los Angeles.

Results were presented Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union meeting.

In March, the satellites detected a burst of Northern Lights over Alaska and Canada. During the two-hour light show, the satellites measured particle flow and magnetic fields from space.

To scientists' surprise, the geomagnetic storm powering the auroras raced 400 miles in a minute across the sky. Angelopoulos estimated the storm's power was equal to the energy released by a magnitude 5.5 earthquake.

Wow! I really want to see this phenomena first hand one day. This is an interesting study to say the least! Ain't science grand? ;o)

Found via CNN.

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A Novel Concept To Deal With Carbon

Today, a company called Skyonic announced a novel new system, Skymine, which uses the carbon dioxide emitted from smokestacks to make baking soda. According to Skyonic CEO Joe David Jones, the system will be powered by waste heat from factories, and will produce food-grade baking soda.

Last year, the utility company Luminant installed a pilot version of the system at its Big Brown Steam Electric Station in Fairfield, Texas.

There's still quite a bit of work to be done to make the current system viable on a large scale, but the baking soda idea offers solutions to some of the economic problems posed by other carbon sequestration methods.

Now that's a neat process! I love it when people put their minds to work to come up with a solution that not only makes a useful by product that can be sold for profit so that the process isn't expensive, which is why most companies drag their feet in terms of being green (even though it's been proven time and time again that being green actually cuts costs, but that's a rant for another time), but also cuts down on carbon in the atmosphere!

Found via CNN.

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May 19, 2007

Small Parks Could Cool Big Cities

A little bit of greenery in urban areas can cool off the hotter and stickier summers that city residents face as a result of global warming, new research show.

An additional 10 percent more green space could reduce surface temperatures by 7 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a team of British scientists. Extra parks and green roofs could counteract the predicted rise in temperature until 2080 when summers are expected to be hotter and drier and winters wetter.

The notion of planting trees in England is a good idea to offset the heat bubble that forms around major metropolitan areas. But I found their concerns about their inability to deal with the larger amounts of water in the winters a bit, I don't know, overblown.

Although Ennos' models suggest green space will decrease temperatures, it will not be able to absorb the rainfall from the more frequent and 50 percent larger winter storms predicted to hit Manchester by 2080, he said. Left unabsorbed, the rainwater is expected to flow to city drains and travel to streams and rivers, ending up in the ocean.

"Unfortunately, increasing the amount of green space only has a limited effect in reducing run-off, and so flash flooding will become an increasing problem in our cities," Ennos said.

Floods could be prevented with more rainwater storage, he said, which might keep the city's green space irrigated during the droughts expected in summer months.

It seems like the logical solution is to start using permeable paving techniques in their cities to help with the absorption of water. I swear I've talked about this before, but I can find no record of it on the blog, I must have used another title or I wrote it up and never published it. Anyway, basically using this technique your able to create city surfaces that allow water to pass through them into the ground like they normally would on a natural surface. Then the cities could absorb massively increased amounts of water that they would get. Not only that, it would allow that water to make it's way into the ground water per the normal natural cycle. Anyway, you can make all sorts of different version of this, even make large parking lots with it. Most versions don't hold up to massive weights of semi's for example, but it works fine for regular cars and foot traffic. This also allows you to save money on construction because the water run off is a lot easier to manage because it's mostly being absorbed. By combining these two technology, I think they can mitigate all their problems at once. It's definitely the future.

Read more over at Live Science.

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Posted by: Royal at May 26, 2007 9:01 AM

May 18, 2007

Power Nap Device In Development

Do you have trouble getting a good night's sleep? University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are working on a gadget that can help you.

Dr. Giulio Tononi, professor of psychiatry at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health is working on a device that uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to stimulate the slow brain waves characteristic of deep sleep.

TMS sends a harmless magnetic pulse through your skull to alter brain activity. In experiments, sleeping volunteers immediately began reproducing the slow, deep waves seen in Stage Three and Stage Four sleep.

I can't decide if this is just the coolest thing I've seen in a while, or if it's the scariest thing on Earth! There are few more sensitive areas of the human body than the brain, so randomly sending a magnetic pulse into it is sort of unnerving, but the effects are extremely impressive. I personally have spent weeks never getting past stage two sleep especially when I'm under a lot of stress. So the idea that I could force my brain into deeper more restful sleep is extremely interesting and with research showing that memory is dramatically effected by sleep it definitely would be something worth looking into.

Of course my first thought on reading is if you can switch the brain into different brain wave states with this technology, what's to keep you from setting up an Alpha wave state? I know people like me find it next to impossible to meditate, but if you could shock our brains into the right state, maybe we would be able to get back there at some future date. And don't say try Tai Chi, I still have post traumatic stress from trying to learn Tai Chi. My poor teachers were stunned, they'd never seen anyone made worse off by taking Tai Chi before. Unfortunately it appeared that it caused some sort of stress feedback loop for me. Amusingly the positions have never left my brain for some reason, I've shown them to Alexis and she seems to have a much greater grasp of the notion than I do, go figure, but she has the advantage of not yet being aware of the entire world.

Anyway, I think this technology could be really cool, it would be nice to push the mind into the proper state for whatever situation you needed it to be in.

Read more over at Live Science.

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Biomimicry designed windmill blades

A seemingly simple alteration a wind turbine blade's traditional shape could result in huge improvements in efficiency.

WhalePower Corporation out of Toronto, Canada has designed a turbine blade with rounded, teeth-like bumps along the leading edge. The company's name is a nod to the humpback whale, whose flipper was the inspiration for the design.

The agility of the humpback whale is astonishing, given that they can be over 50 feet long, weigh nearly 80,000 pounds, yet move quickly and tightly in the water. One of the animal's advantages, according to scientists, is the unique row of bumps or "tubercles" along the leading edge of their flippers that dramatically increase the whale's aerodynamic efficiency. Specifically, researchers found a 32 percent lower drag and 8 percent improvement in lift from a flipper with a serrated edge compared to a smooth one.

I'm baffled time and again by the power that exists in nature to solve so many of our issues that our technology seems to saddle us with. For all of our years of wind tunnel testing and computer aided design, the solution to our problems are sitting out in the ocean on the flipper of a humpback whale. Really makes you stop and think...What if we'd let them be hunted to extinction? Where would we be with this technology then? This technology works on any fin like structure, so it improves our hydro-electric dams, prop driven air planes, the freaking ceiling fans in your living room, the list goes on and on. Biomimicry gives us a starting point for our engineering that will allow us to revolutionize the way we build things. Nature has provided us a road map for how we should build things and if we have the good sense to follow it we all stand to benefit massively from the very biodiversity that we are destroying.

Read more over at Green Options.

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May 16, 2007

More Bee news because I'm in the mood

The honeybee's alarm signal may not only bring help, but also attract the small hive beetle. Now, an international team of researchers has found that small hive beetles can detect some alarm pheromones at levels below that detected by honeybees.

The beetles associate the alarm chemicals with a good food source and head for the hive. In Africa, where the small hive beetle is a minor honeybee pest, bees quickly isolate an invading beetle, but domesticated European honeybees are not as diligent in cleaning their hives. The beetles are also aided in their invasion by a yeast that naturally occurs on pollen and produces, as a fermentation product, the alarm chemical that draws the beetles.

"It is possible that bees are being habituated to a low level of alarm hormone," says James H. Tumlinson, the Ralph O. Mumma Professor of Entomology and director of the Penn State Center for Chemical Ecology.

While small hive beetles are common in Africa and pose little threat to African honeybee hives, it appears that domesticated European honeybees have a much harder time containing the beetles in their hives. European honeybees were bred to be docile and easy to work with, while African honeybees are noted for aggression and a propensity to sting. The beetles were first seen infesting U.S. beehives in Florida in the late 1990s.

The researchers don't think this is related to the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but it's an interesting view into how changes we made in the industrialization of the bee process is negatively effecting their ability to defend themselves.

It's a pretty crazy idea, a yeast that actually triggers an alarm reaction in the bees continuously. It would make your hives very aggressive and that would make them very unproductive. If you didn't know what you were doing you might think your hive had fallen to killer bees, when the reality is that they are under attack by beetles. There are always dangers when you make something too docile, that it won't be able to defend itself on it's own. Sometimes you need to have a little mean in your life, just in case you need it some time down the road. Hopefully we have enough biodiversity left that we can breed back in the parts that we need and get around this problem as well as the CCD problem. A lot of food for thought.

Read more over at EurekAlert.

Posted by Jamison at 4:31 PM

Researchers to compile Earth's 'book of life'

It will be called the "Encyclopedia of Life." And it is, as they say in Boston, wicked cool.

Imagine a website where you can research, or just read about, every living thing on earth, from a microbe that lives next to an underwater volcano to a California redwood tree. A website where you can even add your knowledge of some life form or species.

Over the next 10 years, researchers vow to gather every scrap of information available about the planet's 1.8 million known species of animals, plants, and other organisms. And once the information is gathered, it will be available on the Internet entirely for free.

This project has been initiated by five top US universities and institutions of higher learning: Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.; The Field Museum in Chicago; the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Other scientific institutes, like The Natural History Museum and Royal Botanic Garden in England, will make their vast collections of historic records available through the encyclopedia.

Wicked cool is how I would phrase it! Access to this kind of information in one place in a well organized fashion is definitely a world changing affair. I went through some of the entries on the website, it's definitely going to extremely useful for students and unfortunately for people like me a never ending rabbit hole of following relationships between species and their environments.

Of course, the cynic in me is always snarky when someone says they are going to include "every" organism on the planet, because what just a bit ago, they discovered hundreds of new sea creatures in the Antarctic Sea. I'd like to see a wee bit more scientific restrain in the public statements, because by the time reporters get a hold of something like this it's going to be blow completely out of proportion in their rabid attempts to sensationalize it to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Actually it's probably best never to put out anything other than prepared statements and give no interviews at all.

Read more over at Christian Science Monitor and the Encyclopedia of Life.

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Trading on the mind market – buying and selling innovation

May 16, 2007 In many ways it's a dream come true – IdeaConnection is quite seriously offering a penny for your thoughts. The newly launched website is marketing itself as a trading ground for ideas; allowing users to post problems and handpick a team of thinkers varied in age, experience, location and field of expertise to work on the solution. Whether you're an armchair expert or battle hardened industry veteran, you can register to post a problem, propose your ideas, or place yourself in the site's directory, allowing future posters to call on you for assistance. With a price tag of at least US$1000 per problem, the service does not come cheaply – however, by concentrating such a large amount of intelligence and experience into a collaborative community, it is likely the benefits that emerge from the site will far outweigh the costs.

This is really a great idea and it honestly what has been missing from the Internet for quite a while. The free flow of ideas that the Internet allows is basically not being exploited to the level that it should be. It's brilliant to get people together and see what can occur.

Now the problem with it, IP. IP is intellectual property. It's the bane of my own personal existence. Basically companies apply ruthless IP agreements on their employees, which would kill this kind of process. My area of specialization is in computers, but anything I do with computers is technically subject to review and possible control of the company I work for (which is why I don't do any sort of thinking out of the box on that subject). What I'm afraid is going to happen to them is that they are going to have people violating those IP agreements working on projects on the side, trying to exploit some perceived gray area in their agreements and end up causing a catastrophe for the buyer of said ideas. If they do set it up properly to protect the buyer from the IP problem, then it's likely that they won't be able to put the industry experts on it. I don't know it just seems like a troubling issue that they don't exactly address up front. Otherwise, it's a great idea, I can't wait to see if it will work.

Read more over at Gizmag and IdeaConnection.

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Purdue professor on the "aluminum enabling hydrogen economy"

About a month ago, the Purdue Energy Center held a symposium on the challenges and technologies of the hydrogen economy. One of the presenters was Jerry Woodall, and his research continues to be mentioned this month because of the process he has developed that makes hydrogen "by adding water to an alloy of the metals aluminum and gallium," Purdue says. There is already a startup company (with the monstrosity of a name AlGalCo Inc.) operating at the Purdue Research Park to make generators that use Woodall's technology and it's possible that this technology could one day replace gasoline in vehicles.

There is a 26-minute online presentation of the gallium-aluminum technology available here.
Woodall says that the reaction of aluminum with water has the same energy content per unit weight of oil, about 20,000 BTUs or about 6 kWh per pound. And, since aluminum is safe and plentiful, it has high potential to create "aluminum enabling hydrogen economy".

All I can say is wow! The implications of this are quiet staggering. Two very abundant elements on the Earth and we can mix them together and get energy out equal to oil. I expect to read this kind of stuff on a conspiracy site, not from a major university. I've gone over the math, it's so simple that I can't see how it wouldn't work. The demonstration is particularly interesting. The time frames seemed a bit long, but it's pure science not an attempt at practical application. But the most amazing part of all, is that you can reverse the process and use the aluminum again. I've got to kick it around for a little bit to see if I can find some problem with it, that didn't come up in my first review of the technology. I'm not sure if it's the way to go with cars per say, but for generating electricity for your home it's definitely an interesting option. You could definitely get better energy storage with this method than we would normally have with a battery for example. Watch the presentation, it's extremely interesting, I hope the work continues to provide such exciting results.

Read more over at AutoBlogGreen.

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Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

I was actually surprised to read this headline. First because I assumed there was an organic movement in Bees since there is an organic movement for everything these days, I'd just never really come across it in any shape, form or fashion.

I guess I should back up with a bit of explanation, I got spoiled on desert honey as a child when I lived in Arizona, it's probably some the best honey on Earth. So when I moved back to the east coast, I haven't eaten much honey at all because, well no polite way to say it, it tastes funny. I don't the reasons why, I just know it's not as good as I remember from my childhood. Anyway, Dianne uses honey in a lot of her recipes, but her father is a bee keeper, so we get a pretty much unlimited supply of honey, so I don't have to buy it, so the details of it never cross my mind. There was a lot of information that you probably weren't interested in, that was required to support a single comment that is irrelevant to the topic at hand.

So the story at hand, for those of you that haven't been keeping up with bees over the last decade or so, there has been two major problems facing bee keepers. First being the killer bees taking over hives and turning them into dangerous tools. That problem was solved by closer monitoring of the hives and the placement of queen guards to keep the killer bees from being able to actually get into take over the hive. The second major problem has been the Varroa mites. Nasty little bugs that basically eat bees from the inside out. They infect the cells that the bee eggs are placed in and then swell up the bee's throat as they grow. A terrible way to die really.

Now if the organic bee keepers are saying they haven't been devastated by the CCD, which brings us to two different approaches to the previous problem. The Organic bee keepers evidently instead of depending on chemicals to bring the Varroa mites under control approached the problem by shrinking the size of the cells that hold the bee eggs. Now I know what you're thinking...How does that solve the problem? Well it appears that the size of bee is a function of the size of the cell that it's egg is placed in. So when you have a smaller bee, and therefore a smaller throat making the environment for them, Varroa mites are smaller making them less successful, and basically the problem disappears over time and attrition. Which is how bees have beat most of their competitors for years. It's an absolutely fascinating solution to the problem, if you want to read more about it I definitely recommend dropping by Bush Bees.

So it would appear that this deviation points to an interesting possibility that the commercial bee farmers may have taken a wrong turn with their chemical treatments for the bees and accidentally done serious damage to their bee population. I expect that the counter argument they will make is that there isn't a large enough cross section of organic bee farmers to get a comparable cross section of hive types, but that seems a bit suspect to me. This is definitely an avenue that needs to be explored. It may be that the commercial bee folks are going to have to stop some of their industrial bee keeping practices to help secure of food supply going forward. It appears that this is just another place where the quest for profits have gotten ahead of best practices for the nation as a whole.

Read more over at Celsias.

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May 15, 2007

Sake to Power Japanese Cars in the Future

Japanese motorists may one day pump their cars full of sake, if a pilot project to create sake fuel is a hit with locals in this mountain resort.

The government-funded project at Shinanomachi, 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of Tokyo, will produce cheap rice-origin ethanol brew with the help of local farmers who will donate farm waste such as rice hulls to be turned into ethanol.

"We want to present the next generation a preferable blue print -- a self-sustainable use of local fuels," said Yasuo Igarashi, a professor of applied microbiology at the University of Tokyo who heads the three year project.

If the project catches on with locals then it could pave the way for similar endeavours across Japan that will see Japanese cars running on Japanese-made biofuels in the future, he added.

On the surface nothing that is really news here. Using agricultural waste to make bio-fuels is a great idea. It gives framers a new use for their crops, while giving the rest of the country a chance to lower the production of green house gases. Your standard win-win scenario, so why am I talking about it? Well there is a comment lower down in the basics of the article.

But Japan has no flex-fuel vehicles even though Japanese car companies Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp. produce them for the market in Brazil. So the team imported a red Ford Focus from Britain for the project.

Bitter irony there isn't it? Some of the largest automotive producers on the planet and the Japanese don't even have the vehicles they need at home to test out the bio-fuel technologies that will help them advance. Which brings me to my point...One of the quickest ways to move the bio-fuels technology forward in America is to get the Japanese to test them in their markets, which are infinitely more advanced and diverse than our own. We've all been waiting for our flex-fuel hybrids and this is the quickest way to get it work. So we definitely need to help them get into the bio-fuels mindset, so that way they can help us out as we move to bio-fuels ourselves.

Of course it would be nice if they adopted algae as their bio-fuel choice, but this kind of stuff is a natural out growth as they turn their attention towards bio-fuels going forward. It's exciting to see them putting the first foot forward. In a handful of years I expect they will be surpassing US automakers in this category as well and where the Japanese automakers go, the rest of the world follows. So they may get the chance to save us once again.

Read more over at Treehugger and Pure Green Cars.

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May 14, 2007

Rapid Prototyping moving more mainstream

The Desktop Factory 3D printer builds durable, functional models from the bottom up, one layer at a time. The Desktop Factory 3D printer has a build speed comparable to existing 3D printing technologies, and produces robust parts that are strong enough to be thrown across a conference room table!

Desktop Factory proprietary software imports STL files and other industry standard 3D printer formats, automatically slices and orients the part for optimal build performance and creates any required support structures.

The Desktop Factory 3D printer measures about 25 x 20 x 20 inches and weighs less than 90 lbs. The maximum build volume of the initial product will be 5 x 5 x 5 inches. The thickness of each layer is 0.010 inch.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you are probably are already cringing as I jump on one of my most favorite hobby horses. There are few things on the planet that will bring out the engineer in me faster than advancements in rapid prototyping.

The 101 description for completeness sake, rapid prototyping allows you to build any part you need on-site rather than waiting for it to come from a factory. This is critical technology for space travel (another one of my favorite hobby horses) and it promises a new industrial revolution as the production of goods moves away from mass production to local production cutting down transportation costs, all while maintaining the quality standards that comes from mass production. And most importantly it allows mad scientists like myself to build out ideas on the spot, without having to spend a lot of time on the idea to prototype phase of a project.

This unit amusingly referred to as the "Desktop Factory" allows you to create small 5x5x5 inch models of anything you want. Now some people are immediately dismissive of such small pieces, but the reality is that a majority of the things you need fit into those dimensions. The flag on my mailbox needs some tweaking, no problem, I just build another one. This also allows you to get around the problem of a newer version coming out and you're unable to get the older models for your replacement. In this future you can just keep rebuilding the parts you want for the rest of time.

This particular version of the technology works only in plastic, but if you have a kid you know what that could be used for? Building toys. Want a new Barbie or GI Joe? Push the build button and wait. I was thinking about the miniature store in the mall, no more excess inventory waiting to be sold. Nope, just pictures on the wall and when you ask for it, they push the build button and you get your figurine built for you. Want some toy rings? Gag ear rings for an outfit? Novelty glasses for show? All these things are possible with the technology that they are offering in the next few months.

The price tag is a bit steep from my perspective $7000 is a bit hefty, no matter how cool the technology is. The folks at FAB@Home offer a unit for $3000, which is really steep as well, but the critical piece for me is that they are using an open source model, which definitely peeks my interest! Competition will likely drive down prices quickly and allow these kinds of innovations to move quicker into the public sphere, then this technology can move back into the places it originally came from and actually move those areas forward at an even greater pace.

Of course the most interesting applications come from the use of the metals instead of plastics to make the prototypes, because the metal parts have the strength that we use in manufacturing most of our day to day items. With this technology you could build screws and nails on site. Metal replacement parts could be build as needed. Need a copy of the key to your front door? Rapid prototype it. Need a new hinge? Rapid prototype that too. Need a washer for a thirty year old plumbing fixture? Rapid prototype it. The notion of inventory completely disappears from the home improvement field.

I know what you're thinking, Jamison that's just crazy talk...There is no way that's going to work. Just the other day there was the introduction of micro metal powder injection molding (micro-MIM), which uses this exact same technique that allows you to create extremely small metal structures out of metals that are human body safe. Translation: With this technology a doctor could build the metal replacement parts for your body instead of forcing the one size fits all tools that they use today. The applications are dramatic and profound. Mind you it would require the use of lasers instead of the standard heat lamp that's being used in the "Desktop Factory", but the point is that it's a different way of looking at the world. And at some point it will migrate into the "Desktop Factory" and we'll all have one in our house to build the parts we need, when we need them. It will lead to very exciting times and when inventors can build whatever they want to the specifications they need, you will see an entirely new era of innovation, the likes of which can't even be imagined today. It's a great time to be alive folks, let's roll it all out.

[via Treehugger]

Read more over at Desktop Factory.

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Posted by: Jamison at May 15, 2007 3:24 PM

Capturing methane from dams for energy production

Scientists in Brazil have claimed that a major source of greenhouse gas emissions could be curbed by capturing and burning methane given off by large hydro-electric dams.

The team at the country's National Space Research Institute (INPE) is developing prototype equipment designed to stop the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere.

The technology will extract the methane from the water to supplement the energy produced by the dam turbines.

The scientists estimate that worldwide the technique could prevent emissions equivalent to more than the total annual burning of fossil fuels in the UK - and reduce the pressure to build new dams in sensitive areas such as the Amazon.

When people tell you they can remove an entire country's worth of CO2 emissions, you have to take notice. When they tell you that they can do it and increase the amount of green power you generate at the same time, it's just down right exciting!

For those of you that don't know, organic matter is swept down rivers as a natural course of things. When a dam is put up, that organic matter tends to settle in the water storage basin of the dam. The problem comes from the fact that organic matter decaying on the floor of a basin like that in the absence of oxygen forms methane, which gets released when the water rich with the methane is sent through the dam.

As we all recall Methane is an extremely bad green house gas, 23 times worse than CO2. So every methane source we kill is exponentially better for the environment, besides methane is usable as a fuel for power generation, so we really shouldn't be wasting it anyway, which is what this Brazilian project sets out to do. They want to take the methane off the floor of their riverbeds leading up to their dams and use it to generate extra electricity while decreasing green house gases.

I know what you're thinking...burning methane is going to make CO2, but it's CO2 that came from plants that breathed it in, so it closes the carbon loop. And actually the amount of time it takes for it to generate methane, it's probably CO2 from years ago, so it's even better. And when it offsets non-renewable energy as well, we all end up being winners.

It's a great innovation. It appears we will find ourselves once again looking overseas for technology to help us with our own green house gas problems in a few years. Too bad we couldn't be leading this kind of research.

[via Autobloggreen]

Read more over at BBC and TreeHugger.

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May 13, 2007

Lithium batteries ready for the 3rd Gen. Prius

Are you waiting for the third generation Toyota Prius? Well, the biggest issue regarding the third iteration of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive has been the lithium-ion batteries, and how soon those batteries could be available - not just for the third gen Prius, but for all of Toyota's hybrids.

Well, stop waiting.

Masatami Takimoto, executive vice president in charge of powertrain development, announced today that Toyota's lithium-ion battery, under development with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., was technically ready to be mounted on hybrid cars "any time".

This is some awesome news! For those of you that haven't been following along, Toyota has been dropping hints about what the 3rd Generation Prius is going to look for years now and one of the critical elements of it was the Lithium Ion batteries. These batteries have energy densities many times greater than the batteries in the current generation of Prius vehicles. This will allow them to boost the mileage possible from the mid 50's all the way up into the triple digits per gallon. The Lithium Ion batteries will make the Plug-in Hybrids a reality and basically allow Toyota to dominate the car market going forward.

I know what you're thinking...No way Jamison. Well taking into account the fact that Toyota's next generation Hybrid synergy drive has had its costs cut by more than half and now Toyota will be able to make them as profitably as they make their regular gasoline cars. Add in the recent discovery that Manganese nanocrystals could double capacity of LiIon batteries, you can start making projection out if Lithium Ion batteries almost triples the gas mileage of a hybrid, then doubling its capacity means six times the gas mileage? I'd be happy just get it up to 200 miles per gallon. Then of course you add in the new models of Hybrids that Toyota is planning to roll out over the next 3 years.

The Prius A will be Yaris-sized, the Prius B will be slightly larger than the current Prius, and the Prius C—said to be similar, yet roomier and taller than Toyota’s recent Hybrid X concept car (earlier post)—would be slightly smaller than the current Camry.

At the end of April, Toyota’s worldwide cumulative hybrid sales stood at 998,900. The company has set a sales goal of one million hybrids per year by 2010.

So we three varieties of unique hybrid cars on the market, all using the Lithium Ion batteries and cheap Hybrid Synergy Drives. Toyota decides that they are ready to move the mark again to a million Hybrids a year sold. I'm sure Detroit will be laying around talking about that they are going to be getting serious any day now about American energy independence. It's utterly disgraceful and what's worse is that Congress is passing legislation that encourages that kind of behavior as the rest of the world progresses quickly towards the energy independence goal without delay.

Read more over at Hybrid Car Blog and Green Car Congress.

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Posted by: katherine at May 13, 2007 9:55 PM

May 11, 2007

Greener Spaceflight?

When you see a title like this and you have to scratch your head. The space program has never been known for their eye toward green living. Then I read that it's about replacing Hydrogen with Methane. For those of you that don't know, Methane is a green house gas that's 23 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. So needless to say I was having trouble buying this argument on the surface. Then I looked at the critical thing you look at when dealing with rocket fuel, energy density. At 286 kJ/mol versus 802 kJ/mol, suddenly you have my attention. Add in the fact that methane is easier to store because it's boiling point is so much higher than hydrogen and this idea doesn't seem so crazy at all. 70.8 kg/m³ versus 464.54 kg/m³ tells you the storage story as well, liquid hydrogen just isn't good about being stored compactly. Then you look at -164 degrees Celsius versus -259 degrees Celsius and it really put it over the top. So let's compare, almost a hundred degrees warmer storage, 2.8 times the energy per mole of fuel, and nearly 6.6 times fuel storage per cubic meter. So why weren't we doing this from the beginning?

And that's where we get into a totally different set of discussions. Rocketry is about running a controlled explosion. It's actually a lot harder than it looks believe it or not. Hydrogen, for all it's issues, gives us quite a few advantages. First of all, we pump it through the nozzle of our rockets to keep them from melting down. Since it's so much colder, it can do stuff like that with few problems. The other big problem is the fact that isn't an auto igniting fuel, which is NASA's excuse, but the reality is that that only becomes an issue in space when you shut the engine off and try to turn it back on. It's good to think that way, because a standardized fuel would be great.

[via EcoGeek]

Read more over at NASA, Discovery, and XCOR.

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May 6, 2007

Survivors Recall Hindenburg 70 Years On

The German dirigible Hindenburg crashes to the ground, tail first, in flaming ruins after exploding on May 6, 1937, at the U.S. Naval Station in Lakehurst, N.J. Seventy years ago Sunday, May 6, 2007, the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg ignited while easing toward its mooring mast at the U.S. Navy base in Lakehurst. The blaze killed 35 people on board and one person in the ground crew; 62 passengers and crew members survived. (AP Photo/Murray Becker, file)

For most people this is their only impression of blimps or lighter than air ships. There are entire lists of reasons why the Hindenburg was doomed even before it started. Hydrogen had better lifting properties than the gas helium, add in an American restrictions on the sale of Helium to the Nazi's and you have recipe for disaster. There are many arguments over the source of the fire that consumed the Hindenburg, but the reality is that it really doesn't matter, this disaster was on film and shown around the world.

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May 4, 2007

2 KW Beer Battery Developed by Foster's

A couple of the breweries in my town do their best to use their waste. Beer brewing waste can make good compost, and I've been happy to see that going on right here in Missoula. But Australia's taking their commitment to green beer waste a bit more seriously. Foster's has teamed up with some scientists at the University of Queensland to convert it's brewery waste into electricity and clean water.

The beer battery works by feeding the waste sugar, starch and alcohol to microbes which, in turn, get excited and produce electricity. Are we getting the little guys drunk? Well, not exactly, but close enough. While the hundred thousand dollar, 2 kilowatt project isn't the most economically viable method of creating renewable energy. But project planners are quick to note that it's "primarily a waste water treatment that has the added benefit of creating electricity."

I've probably ranted about this a hundred times in other places, but this is a critical new way of thinking we need to start developing here in the US. We spend billions of dollars disposing of things that we could be using to generate some amount of electricity and yield us less negative by-products.The days of the energy monoculture of pretty much over. Everyone has to start doing their little part and start moving America toward energy independence.

Read more over at EcoGeek.

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Posted by: Royal at May 6, 2007 9:57 AM

Posted by: Jamison at May 7, 2007 7:37 AM

Lunar Resonant Streetlamp

The fourth annual Next Generation® event, sponsored by Herman Miller, Maharam, The Mohawk Group, and Sherwin Williams occurred last night at the San Francisco Herman Miller Showroom. Partygoers celebrated the winner of the 2007 Next Generation® Prize—design group Civil Twilight.

Responding to the competition’s theme of “energy”, the San Francisco-based firm Civil Twilight — Anton Willis, Kate Lydon, and Christina Seely—were awarded $10,000 for their project, Lunar Resonant Street Lamps. This re-engineered light has an ultra sensitive photo-cell that responds to the brightness of the night sky, turning on and dimming as needed, cutting down both on unnecessary light pollution and energy consumption. The trio installed a prototype in the Herman Miller showroom and people at last night’s event could dim and brighten the lamp by waving their hands over the sensor. Learn more about the winning team and their project in the May issue of Metropolis.

If there is one waste of electricity that annoys me more than most it's street lamps. Mostly because there is one across the street from me and we had to get light blocking shades and curtains so I could get some sleep. I'm baffled why people feel the urge to light up the countryside when for all practical purposes the vast majority of the population is asleep in their beds. It's like some sort of primordial fear of the dark thing, just because you've got a giant night light every two feet, the monsters that don't exist aren't being warded away. I've heard the "public safety" argument and it doesn't make sense. Cars have lights so they don't need street lights to see. As for people, we need light to see, but if you know you're going out in the dark grab a flashlight! You don't need to be wasting my tax dollars lighting the world up, because you might be curious about what's going on outside. Besides if you can see something with that night light, it can see you. So the reality is that it cuts both ways on that front. If criminals can see as clear as day, it makes it easier for them to steal from you. If they have to bungle along with a light source, well then you can see them and they can't see you. So the reality is that there really isn't any need for them. But given that we evidently are a nation full of babies that need our night lights, saving 95% on the electric bill for them seems like the best choice to me.

[via EcoGeek]

Read more over at New Scientist.

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Posted by: Royal at May 6, 2007 10:13 AM

Posted by: Jamison at May 7, 2007 8:01 AM

May 1, 2007

Cut the smog as you mow the lawn

It's time to clean up America's lawns – by cleaning up the lawn mowers. Americans spend 3 billion hours a year mowing lawns with machines that spew pollutants skyward, clouding summer skies with smog-causing exhaust.

But help is on the way. Thanks to a new rule unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency this week, homeowners will finally be able to buy mowers that give their lawn a truly clean cut.

Acting under the Clean Air Act, the EPA mandated on Tuesday that by 2011 most new mowers sold in the United States must filter out an additional 35 pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds and nitrous oxides – in addition to the 60 percent reduction mandated last year,

As a result, most new mowers will likely have miniature versions of the catalytic converters used on automobile exhaust systems.

That's good, because US lawn mowers emit far more pollution than cars do. A simple walk-behind mower pumps out as much pollution as 11 cars every hour – and as much as 34 vehicles for a riding mower.

This is great news! Isn't it hard to believe that one gasoline walk-behind mower equals 11 cars??? I mean we all knew that two-stroke engines were horrible, but that's ridiculous! Dianne and I have been using an electric mower for years now. I wonder if they make an electric riding mower exist yet? Once again it's just a few extra dollars for the filters, but it will move things along nicely. But I imagine it will take quite a few years before the results become apparent. Will it really take three years to implement it? Seems like it could happen in short order.

Read more over at Christian Science Monitor.

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Alabama Grant Furthers Cultivating Algae for Biofuel

Gov. Bob Riley has awarded a $10,000 grant to Auburn University to conduct a study to determine the economic and technical feasibility of cultivating pond algae commercially as a source for biofuel.

"Alternative fuels help us protect our environment, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and give an economic boost to our farmers," Riley said. "I am pleased to provide funds for this study which could be the first step in making Alabama's farmers leaders in producing and selling a new source for biodiesel."

Pond algae could be a viable alternative because it contains nearly identical vegetable oil (as corn and soy) and it thrives in shallow ponds on carbon dioxide, wastewater and solid agricultural and industrial waste. Also, algae can produce 4,000 gallons of vegetable oil per acre in properly designed ponds each year, compared to 43 gallons per acre for soy, researchers said.

This is the most baffling sort of behavior I think I've ever seen. Reading the last line tells you that you have the potential to produce about hundred times the fuel per acre and you can't scrounge up more than ten grand to look into it? A wee bit disappointing to say the least. But without national leadership towards energy independence I guess we are going to have to go with what we've got, no matter how meager it is.

Read more over at Renewable Energy Access.

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April 24, 2007

Cell Phone Buzz is Media Overhype

The Colony Collapse Disorder issue surrounding billions of bee deaths in the U.S. and around the world has reached epic proportions in the blogosphere. The most recent element of the unfolding drama has centred around a 'report' from Germany on the effects of cell phones on bee navigation.

I included this aspect in our recent Colony Collapse Disorder - a Moment for Reflection story, a post that has attracted a significant amount of attention. Given that the majority of blog readers also happen to be cell phone owners, people have tended to focus on this issue above all the other possibilities mentioned. Thus, a simple and inconclusive story from a few researchers in Germany has circumnavigated the globe in a blog-feeding frenzy that has blown the issue out of proportion compared to the more likely culprits: the lack of biological diversity inherent in modern human-managed environments, pesticide usage, and pollen and horizontal gene transfer from genetically modified crops.

The researchers themselves have been battling phone calls trying to put their study into context ever since the UK's Independent newspaper ran the story a few weeks ago

Muhahaha! Once again, my science brain defeats media hype! You will recall last week that I expressed a serious doubt about the notion that cell phones could be the cause of the CCD problem. This week the academics that did the original study jump in to say it was taken completely out of context. Critical thinking my friends is so important these days of instantaneous communications. Unfortunately it's become a lost art form in this country. Which given the Republican "reforms" to our education system shouldn't surprise anyone.

Read more over at Celsias.

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April 19, 2007

Pop-Up Hotdog Cooker

Operating much like a pop-up toaster, this unique kitchen appliance lets you easily prepare two hot dogs (complete with toasted buns) in minutes. To use, simply drop two wieners in the center basket and the buns in the two toasting baskets on either side. Its 660-watt electronic heating coil has four controllable heat settings so that you can cook the wieners and toast both buns to your taste preference. Crumb basket removes for cleaning. Plugs into household outlet. 8-1/2" H x 10-1/2" W x 5-1/4" D.

Dianne was watching the Food Network today and there was an advertisement for a show called "Gotta Get It" and this wild device was on the screen. I'm not sure how it works, but it struck me as something that there needed to be commentary on. What do you think folks? Have you been thinking I'd like a toaster to make my hot dogs? And who toasts their hot dog buns?

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April 18, 2007

Study: Ethanol May Cause More Smog, Deaths

WASHINGTON (AP) - Switching from gasoline to ethanol touted as a green alternative at the pump may create dirtier air, causing slightly more smog-related deaths, a new study says.

Nearly 200 more people would die yearly from respiratory problems if all vehicles in the United States ran on a mostly ethanol fuel blend by 2020, the research concludes. Of course, the study author acknowledges that such a quick and monumental shift to plant-based fuels is next to impossible.

Each year, about 4,700 people, according to the study's author, die from respiratory problems from ozone, the unseen component of smog along with small particles. Ethanol would raise ozone levels, particularly in certain regions of the country, including the Northeast and Los Angeles.

"It's not green in terms of air pollution," said study author Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor. "If you want to use ethanol, fine, but don't do it based on health grounds. It's no better than gasoline, apparently slightly worse."

One of our regular readers decided to poke me with this little gem. Of course my first reaction was to scream "We must abandon Ethanol, let's shovel more money into foreign oil providers to hold us hostage", but then good sense overtook me and I started to think. I took a couple of minutes and read over the entire study, which yielded a whole bunch of reasons to question the author's conclusions, but on the surface it makes perfect sense. Ethanol is an oxygenating additive to our fuel now, so since Ozone is made out of Oxygen, it would follow that it would create more of it in the combustion process, but a few things jump out at me immediately in his study.

First the vehicle test beds used in the study were all American except for a single Mercedes-Benz C which one could hardly classify as a "regular" foreign car model. Foreign car companies represent a lot more than 1/8 of the cars on the road, so saying Americans make crappy cars isn't exactly news, but to really know you'd have to see what the numbers were for the Japanese automakers cars with E85 (which I don't think any currently sell an American version of their E85 vehicles). The Japanese represent about 45% of the California car market and about 35% of the overall car market nationwide and yet not a single one of their models are represented in the study.

Secondly it appears that he assumes no rise in fuel economy of the cars on the road in 2020, which I don't think is a safe bet really and there is no acknowledgment of the effects of hybrids on the calculations. One would have to assume that hybrids would also be converted to run on E85 and that they will continue to rise in percentage of car sales going forward for at least the Japanese automakers. That improvement in fuel economy would mean less E85 being burned and less Ozone released and I'm not even going to go into the rise of PHEV's either.

Thirdly the entire compression ratio discussion I had last weekend on the blog. These are all cars in the study that are made to run on gasoline, so there is a lot of incomplete combustion going on when they are running E85. The logical answer will be to move to E100 with higher compression ratios, E85 is just the upper limit that can be supported by a motor built for running regular gasoline. He may be absolutely right that E85 would be a bad choice. Also the creation of VCR (variable compression ratio) engines like the one at SAE last week would likely change the formulas for the output of waste products.

The reality is that if we were trying to introduce gasoline to the world right now there is no way we could convince the public to do it because it's poisonous and dangerous. Everything that we have to replace it with will be slightly better on both fronts. There are always things to worry about with new technologies, but we've got to start making forward progress because we know the path we are on now leads to our doom. I think we can take a look at these numbers after we get some realistic ones and decide if we need to improve the catalytic converters or CAFE standards to off set the side effects of the move to Ethanol.

Read more over at WTOP.

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April 14, 2007

Ethanol and Compression ratios

If you listen to members of the radical right in this country, Ethanol is the greatest scam ever conceived of by ecologists. I often find this line of reasoning weaker than their standard mindless drivel. Their arguments are based on data from the late 70's to come to the conclusion that there are more BTU's going into the production of corn than we are getting out in BTU's of Ethanol. Once again it's what happens when you put your ideology before your science, you go off making erroneous statements like that one. The reality is that there is an issue that should be looked at which is the fact that per gallon we are packing a third less BTU's into Ethanol. So we'd have to make a third more fuel available to make Ethanol a replacement for gasoline, which could pose a challenge, but just because it represents a challenge doesn't mean it's time to pack up and bury our heads in the sands like our radical right wing friends would have us to believe.

This is where the topic of compression ratios comes up. Here's the text book sort of Compression ration definition.

It is the ratio between the volume of the combustion chamber, when the piston is at the bottom of its stroke, and the volume when the piston is at the top of its stroke.

In a gasoline engine the compression ratio has to be around 10 to 1. Any higher than that and the fuel being sprayed into the combustion chamber starts to explode prematurely and causes a knocking sound to start. Which brings us back to Ethanol...The optimal compression ratio for it is at 15 to 1, hence the problem. We are running Ethanol in a motor optimized for gasoline leading to unoptimized Ethanol energy output. In engines designed to run for Ethanol, the higher octane of Ethanol offsets the lower amount of BTU's and you end up with the same fuel economy per gallon. Plus all the advantages of the much greater environmental and energy returns from Ethanol, unfortunately an engine optimized to run on Ethanol, no longer will run on regular gasoline properly.

Now there are experiments running that will allow the creation of dynamic compression ratios for motors allowing them to switch to optimize whatever kind of fuel ratios that they have to deal with, so when you were running with Ethanol you get maximum performance or if you are running with gasoline it runs at a lower compression ratio to give it maximum performance. These kinds of motors are also referred to as VCR (variable compression ratio) engines. There is also a movement to use the high vaporization energy level of Ethanol to act as a coolant for regular gasoline engines to allow them to function at higher compression ratios during high performance maneuvers, which is interesting I guess, but I'm not sure why you just don't go all Ethanol in the first place. I'm thinking that's likely built on the assumption of a scarcity of Ethanol, which is only a current situation and not a longer term prospect.

Ultimately corn based Ethanol is merely a stepping stone on the way towards a cellulose Ethanol fuel system. People have been raising concerns about the fact that we just can't grow enough corn to supply our fuel, which is a true statement, but remember the same facilities that can make corn based Ethanol can make cellulose based Ethanol as well. What we are doing right now is building the infrastructure of Ethanol for ourselves. We are changing the American mindset and the easiest thing to do right now is to use corn until we perfect the cellulose technologies that will replace it in likely a few short years.

The problem is that we can't keep waiting for the change to happen. We've got to start taking the leap and quick. America is in the mess that we are in now, because we've been tricked by big oil and the automakers that fuel cells are going to be just around the corner for 30 years, so nothing at all should change. The short answer is that time is up and it's time for action instead of excuses. We can combine Ethanol and plug-in hybrid technologies together, and provide America with energy independence in next decade before we even will see the first affordable fuel cell car on the market and even better Ethanol is a great source of hydrogen so we can just covert it on board to run the fuel cells anyway. So the future is here now, it's time to act, it's time for both sides of the ecological debate to stop whining about the solution and start helping us build the fuel economy of the future.

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CFL's and mercury

One area of concern for some environmentalists has been the amount of mercury in CFL's. If one of the light bulbs is improperly disposed of by a consumer we run the risk of putting a heavy metal like mercury into the environment. Today I was reading over the subject in one of Dianne's environmental magazines called Mother Earth News.

Most experts say not to worry about the health effects of exposure to the mercury in a compact fluorescent, even if the bulb breaks. As a frame of reference, one CFL contains 4 milligrams of mercury, just a fraction of the 500 milligrams found in old mercury thermometers, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In fact, using compact fluorescents actually reduces mercury pollution, because the main source of mercury pollution is coal-burning power plants — the most common source of electricity in the United States. According to the EPA, the power used during the life of an incandescent bulb breaks down to about 10 milligrams of mercury pollution, compared to only 2.4 milligrams to operate a CFL for the same length of time.

“Consumers should know that the mercury in CFLs is not going to be detrimental to them in their home,” Reed says. “But it’s important to responsibly dispose of them, as you would any product that contains mercury — batteries, old thermometers and thermostats.”

So the good news is that you're still better off on the mercury front if you use CFL's than if you don't. I know what you're thinking that one of the largest sources of mercury containments in our environment, (roughly 41% or so), comes from coal fired power plants that also represent more than half of the power in this country. Also the current administration is trying desperately to increase those contributions to the environment, so you have to take into account that unless some serious regulations are enacted this number could grow massively over the next couple of years.

Now the adverse effects of mercury are pretty well known at this point, the NRDC has a decent article on the subject.

Once in the human body, mercury acts as a neurotoxin, interfering with the brain and nervous system.

Exposure to mercury can be particularly hazardous for pregnant women and small children. During the first several years of life, a child's brain is still developing and rapidly absorbing nutrients. Prenatal and infant mercury exposure can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness. Even in low doses, mercury may affect a child's development, delaying walking and talking, shortening attention span and causing learning disabilities.

In adults, mercury poisoning can adversely affect fertility and blood pressure regulation and can cause memory loss, tremors, vision loss and numbness of the fingers and toes. A growing body of evidence suggests that exposure to mercury may also lead to heart disease.

Pretty scary stuff when you think of how much of it is being pumped into our atmosphere without concern or reservation by the power industry. So the key here is to make sure that you deal with the CFL's in the proper way. NEMA gives some instructions on how to clean up a broken CFL to make sure you don't contaminate your home. The NEMA folks also have a breakdown of mercury amounts in the average home. The reality being that an old style thermometer has 122 times the amount of mercury in them and how many people have dropped those on the floors in their homes without thinking about it. We had even more than that in our old thermostat that we replaced with the electronic one in our house according to the NEMA. Everyone recommends that you check out Earth911.org to find out the recycling programs in your area.

So what's the summation on this one. Get your light bulbs switched over now, because it's good for the country and good for your bottom line.

Read more over at 18seconds.org and Reduce your carbon.

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April 8, 2007

Futurama Farming in New York

The pictured above is a design by Gordon Graff. This wasn't the building pictured in the Treehugger article, but I found it a lot more interesting because of the scale.

OK, here's the basics for the topic...By 2050 some 80% of the worlds population will be living in cities. Given the growth of urban sprawl, probably not such an overly wild estimation. The worlds available farmland is already being stretched to fill all the needs we have and the transportation of our food over long distances will be making the costs too high to bear. So the solution becomes to build vertical farms in the cities to feed the masses. One of these buildings would allegedly be able to feed 35,000 locals while only taking up 3.3 acres of land in an city. What is wild is that you'd think the power and water requirements for something like this would sink the idea before it got out of the gate, but it turns out that cities solve the water problems themselves, because it turns out that the sewage treatment plants are dumping millions of gallons of treated gray water in to the rivers that could be used by these vertical farms to grow plants. The nutrients in that water while deadly in our rivers and streams due to nutrients in the water that are ever so yummy to the plants, but pollutants in the water system. So you end up cleaning up your rivers and growing the food you need locally at the same time.

The power generation aspect was the next concern for me. Even with a building this large, there isn't a way to get enough sunlight that you'd need for every plant on every floor given the area that you are covering, which means it would require artificial lighting to supplement. They attack that problem in two major ways. First skyscrapers have the advantage of getting access to different wind speeds at higher altitudes than your regular windmill would be able to reach. The second is actually an area that keeps coming up again and again in the solutions to our nation's energy problems, it's the use of bio-methane to generate electricity. The leftover plant materials are sent to a methane digester to be processed into bio-methane, which is then used to generate electricity. On the surface it doesn't seem like it would mean very much, but all the nutrients that are being turned into a plant with a fruit that we eat, the rest of the plant is usually just thrown away because composting is often not utilized. By using a methane digester we get a portion of that energy back to supplement the power used to generate it. Since the nutrients were essentially free to grow the plants in and some portion of their growth is coming from free solar and wind power, we end up with more energy out than what we had to artificially put in, which means that not only can these facilities provide food, but also power to the masses.

Also the inclusion of Tilapia and Chickens in these faculties help round out the diets of the city dwellers. Given the complexity of a system like this you can see why these kinds of structures haven't been built yet. There is nothing here we can't do, there is no technical barrier to making it work, it's just on a scale that we don't have the ability to comprehend as of yet. Throw in some geothermal temperature control and I think they could start this project tomorrow.

Ironically I guess, by the time that people realize that they would need this, it would be impossible to build them. The calculation of how many a place like New York City would need is 180 of these buildings to feed its population. It would be nice if they could just build one of them to work out all the kinks in the system first, and the boys from NASA could spend a little time working with them for their deep space travel projects. Actually some of the plants they are talking about growing come straight out of NASA Moon and Mars base plans.

It's definitely a project worth the effort just to see if it can be done. 23 million a year doesn't seem like much profit for a building in New York, but in a few years of climate instability they might actually pay for themselves in keeping New Yorkers alive during the hard times.

Read more over at Treehugger, Treehugger, Vertical Farming, Vertical Farming: Technical plans, Changing the World, Gristmill, Boing Boing and New York Magazine.

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April 3, 2007

Blood groups 'can be converted'

Scientists have developed a way of converting one blood group into another.

The technique potentially enables blood from groups A, B and AB to be converted into group O negative, which can be safely transplanted into any patient.

The method, which makes use of newly discovered enzymes, may help relieve shortages of blood for transfusions.

This is an absolutely amazing advancement! OK for those of you that don't know let's do a quick review of the rules of blood types for blood transferal purposes. O negative are universal donors, like me for example, my blood can be given to anyone. On the other end there is the AB positive are universal receivers, which can take any one's blood. In between there are all these rules.

Here's a table I snagged from Wikipedia:

Red blood cell compatibility table

Recipient blood type	Donor red blood cells must be: