Clipmarks | Silkweaver's Comments

Sun + Water = Fuel

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:23:46 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Michael Grätzel, however, may have a clever way to turn Nocera's discovery to practical use. A professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, he was one of the first people Nocera told about his new catalyst. "He was so excited," Grätzel says. "He took me to a restaurant and bought a tremendously expensive bottle of wine."

In 1991, Grätzel invented a promising new type of solar cell. It uses a dye containing ruthenium, which acts much like the chlorophyll in a plant, absorbing light and releasing electrons. In Grätzel's solar cell, however, the electrons don't set off a water-splitting reaction. Instead, they're collected by a film of titanium dioxide and directed through an external circuit, generating electricity. Grätzel now thinks that he can integrate his solar cell and Nocera's catalyst into a single device that captures the energy from sunlight and uses it to split water.

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

With catalysts created by an MIT chemist, sunlight can turn water into hydrogen. If the process can scale up, it could make solar power a dominant source of energy.

"I'm going to show you something I haven't showed anybody yet," said Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, speaking this May to an auditorium filled with scientists and U.S. government energy officials. He asked the house manager to lower the lights. Then he started a video. "Can you see that?" he asked excitedly, pointing to the bubbles rising from a strip of material immersed in water. "Oxygen is pouring off of this electrode." Then he added, somewhat cryptically, "This is the future. We've got the leaf."

Storing energy from the sun by mimicking photosynthesis is something scientists have been trying to do since the early 1970s. In particular, they have tried to replicate the way green plants break down water.

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

Tags: energy, clean energy, photosynthesis, hydrogen

The Oil Giant In The Amazon

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:13:28 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Reporting from Coca, Ecuador -- Abel Garrido has just struck oil and he's not happy about it.

Using a tree branch, the weathered farmer probed the edge of a pond that his cattle use for drinking water and soon turned up the smelly black sludge that he says has killed much of his livestock and sickened his family.

"I've lost 30 cows," Garrido said. "I cut them open and their insides are black."

Paying the medical bills to treat his three children for skin cancer has cost him his meager savings.

The contamination at Garrido's farm and hundreds of others in a Rhode Island-sized area here in the Ecuadorean Amazon is the basis of a controversial, long-running civil lawsuit in which a verdict is expected early next year.

"Texaco used the pristine Amazon rain forest as a garbage can," said Steven Donziger, a New York-based environmental attorney who represents the Ecuadoreans.

Forget Corn: Mushrooms May Hold Key to Energy

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:06:49 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.bloomberg.com

A solution to the world's energy problems may lie in a Chinese mushroom growing in Novozymes A/S laboratories.

The Danish company's scientists in China, Brazil, Denmark and the U.S. are testing mushrooms and lichen to find one that will turn corn cobs and sugarcane stalks into biofuel. An affordable alternative to gasoline made from plant waste would end concerns that global hunger for energy is driving up food prices worldwide.

Novozymes said it will find the answer by 2010, getting to the market before its closest rival,

Fungi like mushrooms and lichen make enzymes to eat rotting logs and decaying leaves. Biofuel producers use the proteins to break down the complex carbohydrates in plant cells into a soup- like mixture of simple sugars that yeast can eat.

In a process much like making beer, yeast ferments the mixture, producing ethanol.

``In 2010, we will have enzymes commercially available and a process that will allow our customers to produce at around $2.50 per gallon,''

Tags: energy, biofuels, renewable energy, biotechnology

IAD, Internet Addiction Disorder

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:31:27 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "US academics have found that more than one in eight Americans showed at least one possible sign of problematic internet use, with some web surfers already starting to seek medical help."
"The Chinese manual would be the first of its kind in the world, adding to the controversy over whether compulsive internet use should be officially viewed as a mental disorder."

I think that eventually we will have to recognize it as an added capability of the human, the netting/wired sense or a sort. certainly not a disorder.

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

"Feeling tense and angry because you cannot get online?" asks the state-run China Daily. Powerless to stop scouring eBay for second-hand bargains you don't really need? Unable to tear yourself away from stalking would-be love interests on Facebook?

It could be a sign of "internet addiction", according to psychologists in China, which could become the first nation to classify the problem as a clinical disorder.

So what constitutes an official diagnosis? "I fall asleep with a laptop on my bed on top of 2 books is that bad?" asks one Lifehacker reader.

A manual expected to be approved by the Chinese Ministry of Health says staying online for more than six hours a day, instead of working or studying, and having adverse reactions from not being able to get online, are two major symptoms of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD).

A tendency to overindulge in activities such as online gaming, watching pornography, using social networking sites and internet shopping afflicts sufferers.

Tags: internet, mental health

Can a 13-year-old refuse treatment?

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 10:06:57 GMT

clipped by: balthazarus
clipper's remarks: "How old is old enough to decide whether to live or die? Priscilla Alderson, professor of childhood studies at the Institute of Education, says her research had found that even very young children could give or withhold informed consent to medical treatment. Decisions about treatment, or even about whether to live or die, cannot be based on age, she argues.

"Our research has found that age isn't a helpful criterion - but experience is," she says. She has found that even at four years old, a child who has diabetes can understand the principle of insulin treatment - and it is vital they do understand or they risk interpreting the pain they as some kind of parental punishment."

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Hannah's choice

'I've been in hospital too much. I've had too much trauma associated with hospital," Hannah Jones said as she tried to explain why she turned down a heart transplant

Instead, she wanted to return home, where she is likely to die in the company of her parents, her younger brother and her two sisters

but Hannah Jones hit the headlines because she is only 13 years old

When Hannah met the child protection officer at her home near Hereford, she took just one hour to convince the officer to argue for the abandonment of the court action

allowing Hannah to remain at home

They have been keen to stress that the decision to refuse a heart transplant was Hannah's alone

When is a child old enough to understand and give consent to complex medical treatment?

What happens if medical opinion goes against a young patient's decision?

"I'm not a normal 13-year-old,"

"I'm a deep thinker. I've had to be, with my illness. It's hard at 13, to know I'm going to die, but I also know what's best for me."

Tags: ethics, children, choice

Man Versus Machine

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 03:03:25 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Very interesting read. Acutely draws current zeitgeist.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The recent economic meltdown has renewed the salience of the question of the relationship between human beings and computers.

A survey of various experts in the fields of economics, information science, and artificial intelligence (AI) reveals general agreement that substantial responsibility for the global crisis belongs to people not programs -- but beyond that, the consensus breaks down.

The effect of advances in information technology on the financial sector raises more questions than it answers: How can transactions understood by few -- if any -- experts be subject to effective government regulation?

Is the current crisis a symptom of human dependency on information-processing machines created by man but now beyond man's control?

The Huffington Post communicated (by email and in interviews) with nine specialists in computers, finance, economics, and artificial intelligence to get their take on these issues.

Tags: economy, computing, man and machine, futurism

Frozen embryos' health benefit

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:41:50 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

More evidence has emerged that babies born from frozen embryos are healthier than those that develop from fresh embryos, researchers say.

Three studies presented to a US fertility conference found frozen embryo babies were less likely to be premature and under weight.

Previous research has suggested this is down to only the strongest embryos surviving the freezing process.

Fertility experts said more work was needed on the issue.

A Finnish study, to be presented to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine meeting in San Francisco, found that babies born from fresh embryos were 35% more likely to be premature and 64% more likely to have low birthweight than those born from frozen.

A second study, from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, found that babies born from fresh embryos were 51% more likely to have low birthweight and were 15% more likely to die around the time of birth than those born from frozen embryos.

Tags: frozen embryos, health, benefit, fertility

Neuroimaging Of Brain Shows Who Spoke To A Person And What Was Said

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:22:36 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Scientists from Maastricht University have developed a method to look into the brain of a person and read out who has spoken to him or her and what was said.

With the help of neuroimaging and data mining techniques the researchers mapped the brain activity associated with the recognition of speech sounds and voices.

In their Science article "'Who' is Saying 'What'? Brain-Based Decoding of Human Voice and Speech," the four authors demonstrate that speech sounds and voices can be identified by means of a unique 'neural fingerprint' in the listener's brain. In the future this new knowledge could be used to improve computer systems for automatic speech and speaker recognition.

Just like real fingerprints, these neural patterns are both unique and specific: the neural fingerprint of a speech sound does not change if uttered by somebody else and a speaker's fingerprint remains the same, even if this person says something different.

Tags: neuroscience, speech, brain imaging

Do we get wiser with age?

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:49:11 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "Is age a prerequisite for wisdom, though? We all know a few elderly people who lack wisdom, while we may know few young people that have wisdom in spades. People certainly aren't always at peak brainpower in old age; after all, when wrinkles begin appearing on the face, it usually means that wrinkles have started disappearing on the brain. The brain shrinks slightly with age, and aging leads to a normal decline in cognitive function that may eventually bloom into dementias such as Alzheimer's disease".

Clip Source: health.howstuffworks.com

Do we really get wiser with age?

Do wrinkles on the face tell you anything about wrinkles on the brain? It's commonly believed that that grandpa has more knowledge than his young whippersnapper of a grandkid. Does the theory hold up?

Clip Source: health.howstuffworks.com

While philosophers and religious traditions have provided readings on the nature of wisdom for centuries, the concept didn't become a subject of scientific study until 1950. That's when psychoanalyst Erik Erikson created an eight-stage theory of the human life cycle. In each stage, a person faces an internal struggle that develops different aspects of personality.

For example, an infant's struggle is the battle between trust and mistrust; when infants feel they can trust those around them, they develop a sense of hope

last stage, old age, people grapple with the balance between their personal sense of integrity and defeat in the face of death and physical disintegration. If integrity wins out, then the result, according to Erikson, is wisdom.

Social Interactions Can Alter Gene Expression In Brain, And Vice Versa

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:33:04 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: A critical insight came in 1992, in a study of songbirds led by David Clayton. He and his colleagues found that expression of a specific gene increases in the forebrain of a zebra finch or canary just after it hears a new song from a male of the same species. This gene, egr1, codes for a protein that itself regulates the expression of other genes.

Clip Source: www.sciencedaily.com

Our DNA determines a lot about who we are and how we play with others, but recent studies of social animals (birds and bees, among others) show that the interaction between genes and behavior is more of a two-way street than most of us realize.

Genes in the brain are malleable, turning on or off in response to internal and external cues. While genetic variation influences brain function and social behavior, the authors write, social information also alters gene expression in the brain to influence behavior.

Thanks to the newly sequenced genomes of several social animals, including honey bees and zebra finches, and new technologies such as microarrays (which allow researchers to glimpse the activity of thousands of genes at a time) neuroscientists are gradually coming to understand that "there is a dynamic relationship between genes and behavior,"

"Behavior is not etched in the DNA."

Tags: behavior, neuroscience, genetics, culture

Japanese clone mouse from frozen cell, aim for mammoths

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:44:47 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: This is an amazing achievement. It also increases the credibility of cryonics proponents.

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Japanese scientists said Tuesday they had created a mouse from a dead cell frozen for 16 years, taking a step in the long impossible dream of bringing back extinct animals such as mammoths.

Scientists at the government-backed research institute Riken used the dead cell of a mouse that had been preserved at minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a temperature similar to frozen ground.

The scientists hope that the first-of-a-kind research will pave the way to restore extinct animals such as the mammoth.

The scientists extracted a cell nucleus from an organ of the dead mouse and planted it into an egg of another mouse which was alive, leading to the birth of the cloned mouse, the researchers said.

Cells from dead bodies have previously been useless as they are ruined in the freezing process. But Wakayama's team discovered a way to extract a nucleus intact from a frozen cell

The cloned mouse was able to reproduce with a female mouse, it added.

Tags: cloning, genetics, extinct animals, cryonics

Jacking into the Brain--Is the Brain the Ultimate Computer Interface?

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:20:27 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

How far can science advance brain-machine interface technology? Will we one day pipe the latest blog entry or NASCAR highlights directly into the human brain as if the organ were an outsize flash drive?

Key Concepts

Futurists and science-fiction writers speculate about a time when brain activity will merge with computers.

Technology now exists that uses brain signals to control a cursor or prosthetic arm. How much further development of brain-machine interfaces might progress is still an imponderable.

It is at least possible to conceive of inputting text and other high-level information into an area of the brain that helps to form new memories. But the technical hurdles to achieving this task probably require fundamental advances in understanding the way the brain functions.

Will Human Become Machine?

Tags: brain, man machine interface, futurism

Gender Freedom Day in Digital Worlds

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:41:44 GMT

clipped by: syncopath
clipper's remarks: it already happened on October 25, but it seems 2me it has much 2do with Human's futures to come .......

Clip Source: transumanar.com

First Cosmic Engineers Sunday meeting in Second Life, preparation for the Gender Freedom Day

About 30 avatars and perhaps also their primaries attended the first open Cosmic Engineers Sunday meeting in Second Life on Sunday 28 Sep.

Remember - this is an open regular meeting, if you missed it come next Sunday and feel free to bring friends.

Our good friend Sophrosyne Stenvaag came to present and discuss her initiative Gender Freedom Day in Digital Worlds, planned for October 25 in Second Life:

a full day of speakers, multimedia and other creative efforts, and host a fundraising party in Extropia for organizations promoting freedom of expression of gender identity and sexual preference in digital worlds.

I have always admired and respected transgendered persons and other gender explorers and hackers

They are the real transhumanists who have refused to meekly accept the decisions of stepmother nature

and decided to walk the walk instead of only talking the talk

like we

armchair transhumanists

do.

Tags: transhumanism, extropia, gender freedom

Does Nature Break the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:27:08 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Interesting Read.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Waste is unavoidable—a sad fact of life quantified by the famous second law of thermodynamics. But if the world is steadily becoming more disordered, how do you explain the self-organization that often occurs in nature? At root, the trouble is that classical thermodynamics assumes systems are in equilibrium, a placid condition seldom truly achieved in the real world.

A new approach closes this loophole and finds that the second law holds far from equilibrium. But the evolution from order to disorder can be unsteady, allowing for pockets of self-organization.

Thermodynamics is one of the most widely misunderstood branches of physics.

The Achilles’ heel of thermodynamics is that, strictly speaking, it applies only when the system under study is in a quiescent state called equilibrium. In this state the system’s parameters, such as mass, energy and shape, have ceased to change.

Tags: physics, thermodynamics, chaos, order

Tech giants in human rights deal

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:54:08 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have signed a global code of conduct promising to offer better protection for online free speech and against official intrusion.

The Global Network Initiative follows criticism that companies were assisting governments in countries like China to censor the Internet.

The guidelines seek to limit what data should be shared with authorities, in cases where free speech is an issue.

He told the BBC "What this is is a recognition by all these tech companies, the human rights groups and social investors that there has to be a collective response to this growing problem.

"Companies need to step up to the plate and be more aggressive in challenging unwarranted government interference," he said.

The initiative states that privacy is "a human right and guarantor of human dignity," and the agreement commits the companies to try to resist overly broad demands for restrictions on freedom of speech and the privacy of users.

Tags: tech giants, human rights