Franken to be next Minnesota senator

Norm Coleman has lost yet another court battle. He won’t be a senator for Minnesota, but he’s continuing his tilting at windmillsto prevent Al Franken from being seated.

Not sure what he’s up to here, unless he’s following orders from the national party to keep one more Democratic senator out of the chambers for a little while longer. From what I’ve read Coleman has completely burned all his bridges in Minnesota, among the general population and with the state’s GOP. Governor Tim Pawlenty is probably seriously harming his reelection hopes as well by not certifying the election.

From the link:

A three-judge state panel Monday declared Al Franken, a Democrat, the victor in a Senate race here that has dragged Minnesota through prolonged litigation and recounts. The panel dismissed a challenge by Norm Coleman, the Republican who had held the seat, to a count that left the two men separated by 312 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.

“I would call on Senator Coleman to allow me to get to work as soon as possible,” Mr. Franken said after the ruling.

But that seems unlikely. Lawyers for Mr. Coleman immediately announced that they would appeal the decision to the state’s highest court.

The promise of additional litigation means that Minnesota could go without a second senator for weeks, and potentially months, before a victor is certified in the race.

Sully pegs the right

And sadly, he pretty much nails the sorry state of almost all things on the right-wing.

From the link:

And it suggests that the right is returning to its 1950s roots – kooks, cranks, disaffected and paranoid gun-nuts, born-again culture-warriors, Birchers, book-burners, and black helicpoter worriers.

The Stimulus Plan of 2009 and COBRA

Good news for the recently unemployed. I have heard actually collecting on this isn’t so easy so far.

From the link:

The world’s economy is in a global recession and many Americans are finding themselves out of work. For those who are out of work and were part of an employer-based health insurance plan, this means either losing health insurance coverage – not a good option in any circumstance – or participating in the government’s Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, also known as COBRA.

A problem with COBRA is although you can keep your health insurance for a limited time while out of work, you do end up paying the entire premium. A health insurance premium that your employer most likely contributed to as part of your compensation. Under these conditions COBRA is a less than ideal solution because not only are you out of work, but your health insurance premiums under COBRA most likely just went way up in cost each month.

The recent stimulus package passed by Congress, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) created a premium reduction and additional election opportunities under COBRA for the recently unemployed.

About this provision of ARRA, Alan D. Lebowitz, deputy assistant secretary of labor for the department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) says, “Our action today gives workers and their families useful information on their right to receive the COBRA subsidy and makes it easier for employers and plans to meet their notice obligations. Given the current economic situation facing dislocated workers and their families, it is very important that individuals do not lose their group health coverage.”

You can find out more about ARRA and COBRA at the Department of Labor’s website.

The following information is taken from the DOL’s news release on ARRA, COBRA and health insurance for the recently unemployed:

The department has developed four notice packages tailored to fit different types of plans and individuals:

1. A general notice to be given to qualified beneficiaries covered by plans subject to the federal COBRA at the initial COBRA election opportunity.
2. An abbreviated general notice, which may be furnished to individuals who elected and are still covered by COBRA.
3. An alternative notice to be sent by issuers of group health insurance coverage subject to state continuation coverage laws.
4. A notice of extended election periods for eligible individuals who declined or discontinued COBRA coverage.

Each package contains a summary of the premium reduction provisions, questions and answers, and forms to use in requesting the premium reduction (and COBRA coverage, if not already enrolled).

Under COBRA, most group health plans must give employees and their families the opportunity to temporarily continue their group health coverage when coverage would otherwise be lost for reasons such as termination of employment, divorce or death.

The four model notice packages are available for download from EBSA’s dedicated Web page at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/cobra.html. The Web page also contains additional frequently asked questions to help dislocated workers, their families and their employers understand the requirements.

Improving oil shale extraction

This new technology is big because the U.S. has three times Saudi petroleum reserves in oil shale. If we can economically tap this resource we become energy independent for the foreseeable future.

My original post from EnerMax:

Oil companies have a new tool for extracting oil-shale reserves that significantly lowers production costs. An advanced heater cable limits the need for expensive mining techniques, which excavate and heat formations to extract the oil.

The new technology is based around a ceramic-composite material that withstands both high temperatures and constant exposure to moisture. The material is used in extracting crude oil from shale by drilling deep boreholes, feeding cables of the material into the holes and heating the oil shale deep below the surface. This forces the oil into an extraction well where it is easily pumped to the surface.

A Colorado company, Composite Technology Development Inc. (CTD), has proven the material works for oil shale extraction. The Department of Energy supports the new technology and verified the positive test results of CTD’s cable.

Victor K. Der, the acting assistant U.S. energy secretary for fossil energy, says, “With DOE’s support over two phases of this project, CTD has demonstrated a way to tap into the western oil shale resources. With two-thirds of the world’s supply of oil shale in the United States, technologies such as this can go a long way toward bolstering the development of our domestic energy resources, creating jobs and supporting energy security.”

This technology is important to domestic energy production because oil shale deposits exceed Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves three times over and are comparable to Alberta’s oil sands. According to a 2008 report by the Utah Mining Association, the ability to efficiently extract crude from oil shale gives the U.S. the “potential to be completely energy self-sufficient, with no demands on external energy sources.”

Sources used in this post include Oil & Gas Journal, Technology Review and News Blaze.

PETA is pathetic

I’m not even going to begin to get into exactly how PETA is utter shit and deserves nothing but scorn for many reasons, but this perfectly exemplifies PETA at its pathetic best.

From the link:

Just because they named their new CD “Yes,” does not mean that British electro-pop duo, the Pet Shop Boys, will agree to just about anything.

The band has turned down a request from an animal rights group to rename itself the Rescue Shelter Boys.

The organization, the People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals (PETA), sent a letter to Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe acknowledging that its request, at first blush, might appear “bizarre.”

But, by changing its name, the band could raise awareness at every tour stop of the “cramped, filthy conditions” that breeders keep animals in before selling them to pet stores, PETA said in its letter.

(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)

NASA craft to reveal moon’s origin?

Maybe. Cool research at any rate.

The releaes hot from the inbox:

NASA Twin Spacecraft May Reveal Secret of Moon’s Origin

GREENBELT, Md., April 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Two identical NASA spacecraft are preparing to enter a point in the universe that may eventually answer the question of how our moon was born.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

The spacecraft duet, called Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, are nearing a zone known as the Lagrangian points. At these points, the gravity of the sun and Earth combine to form gravitational wells where asteroids and space dust tend to gather. The 18th-century mathematician Joseph-Louis Lagrange realized there were five such wells in the sun-Earth system. The twin probes are about to pass through two of them, named L4 and L5.

During their journey, the spacecraft will use a wide-field-of-view telescope to look for asteroids orbiting the region. Scientists will be able to identify if a dot of light is an asteroid because it will shift its position against stars in the background as it moves in its orbit.

“These points may hold small asteroids, which could be leftovers from a Mars-sized planet that formed billions of years ago,” said Michael Kaiser, STEREO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “According to Edward Belbruno and Richard Gott at Princeton University, about 4.5 billion years ago when the planets were still growing, a hypothetical world called Theia may have been nudged out of L4 or L5 by the increasing gravity of other developing planets like Venus, sending it on a collision course with Earth. The resulting impact blasted the outer layers of Theia and Earth into orbit, which eventually coalesced under their own gravity to form the moon.”

This concept is a modification of a scientific “giant impact” theory of the moon’s origin. The theory explains puzzling properties of the moon, such as its relatively small iron core. At the time of the giant impact, Theia and Earth would have been large enough to be molten, enabling heavier elements, like iron, to sink to the center to form their cores. An impact would have stripped away the outer layers of the two worlds, containing mostly lighter elements like silicon. The moon eventually formed from this material.

STEREO’S primary mission is to give three-dimensional views of space weather by observing the sun from the two points where the spacecraft are located. Images and other data are then combined for study and analysis. Space weather produces disturbances in electromagnetic fields on Earth that can induce extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines and causing wide-spread blackouts. It also can affect communications and navigation systems. Space weather has been recognized as causing problems with new technology since the invention of the telegraph in the 19th century.

  For more information about the STEREO mission, visit:

  http://www.nasa.gov/stereo

  For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

  http://www.nasa.gov/

Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO
AP Archive:  http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: NASA
   

Web Site:  http://www.nasa.gov/

Snoop Dogg on Ustream

Pretty cool, Snoop has gone live webshow at Ustream. No charge, just tune in.

Check it out here – http://www.ustream.tv/channel/snoop-dogg-live

Found this via boing boing.

From the link:

I’m still digesting what this means for the future of the internet and entertainment, but something about this feels like (a) the end of all media or (b) the beginning of all media to come. Snoop Dogg has a webshow on Ustream. As I blog, it’s live right now. The show consists entirely of him sitting in a chair in his house, smoking a shit-ton of weed, and playing really good old-school music. Sometimes, singing along for a bar or two, or talking back to the chat room intermittently in Snoop-isms. Then, walking away entirely, leaving the webcam fixed on a poster of Snoop on the wall for, like, a half hour at a time.

Dave Arneson, RIP

Arneson, 61, succumbed to cancer after failing a life-saving throw of the 20-sided die. Seriously, as the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons (along with Gary Gygax), Arneson brought me countless hours of fun and camaraderie in junior high and high school. He can be considered the father of all role playing games.

From the link:

Dave Arneson, one of the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy game and a pioneer of role-playing entertainment, died after a two-year battle with cancer, his family said Thursday. He was 61.

Arneson’s daughter, Malia Weinhagen of Maplewood, said her father died peacefully Tuesday in hospice care in St. Paul.

Arneson and Gary Gygax developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys. It eventually was turned into video games, books and movies. Gygax died in March 2008.

”The biggest thing about my dad’s world is he wanted people to have fun in life,” Weinhagen said. ”I think we get distracted by the everyday things you have to do in life and we forget to enjoy life and have fun.

”But my dad never did,” she said. ”He just wanted people to have fun.”

The GOP in Texas …

… shoring up the rear guard in teh stupid.

Oh, man.

From the link:

Here’s a really interesting moment in state-level politics: A GOP state Representative in Texas, Betty Brown, asked a representative from a Chinese-American group if they could just adopt new names that would be “easier for Americans to deal with.”

The right, culture war and white flags

Has the political right conceded the battle for culture? Ron Baily at Reason’s Hit & Run thinks so in a post referencing DC Examiner political editor Chris Stirewalt.

I agree in so much as I argued for cultural moderation at NewMajority and pointed out social conservatism is a losing political stance for the GOP.

But I have no illusions that the far-right rump of the GOP has surrendered any cultural ground. If anything they’ve retrenched into positions that further marginalize their impact on both culture and politics. Even if they are still fighting the battle, the war is over and cultural conservatives have lost. Among some of the less rabid there has been a few bleats of wistfulness, but nothing approaching concessi0n just yet.

From the link the in the first graf:

In April last year, I argued that the Fourth Great Awakening was over and that America was moving into a “New Age of Reason.” Historians recognize “Great Awakenings” as periods of rising religious enthusiasm that provoke spasms of political activity in the name of enforcing Christian morals. The fourth such spasm began in the 1970s and, as Stirewalt notes, is just about played out. In my article I cited evidence for the end of this most recent awakening including:

(1) Congress’ interviention in the tragic Terry Schiavo case polls showed Americans disapproved of Washington’s intervention by almost 2 to 1 in 2005;

(2) Animus towards gays is receding. The Supreme Court’s 2003 decision finding sodomy laws unconstitutional was supported by 74 percent Americans.  The same poll also found Americans opposed state laws regulating private, sexual relations between opposite-sex married couples (87 percent) and same-sex domestic partners (82 percent). In 1996 only 27 percent of Americans approved of same-sex marriages. By May 2007, 46 percent did, and 62 percent of those under age 35 favored them.

(3) Attempts to restrain biomedical progress in the name of religious values are receding too. By 2007 a Gallup poll found that 60 percent of Americans favor embryonic stem cell research.

(4) The Christian marketing Barna Group finds that only 60 percent of 16-to-29-year-olds identify themselves as Christians. By contrast, 77 percent of Americans over age 60 call themselves Christian. That is “a momentous shift,” the firm’s president told the Ventura County Star. “Each generation is becoming increasingly secular.”

Yet another Ponzi scheme

Wow, it seems Ponzi schemes have been alive and well across our land and it took a financial crisis to expose those critters to legal trouble.

From the link:

In the latest in a string of alleged Ponzi schemes, civil fraud charges have been filed against a Colorado investment manager who operated a $20 million operation that allegedly victimized dozens of investors in at least three states.

Shawn Merriman, 46, used some of his investors’ funds for personal expenses, including purchases of Rembrandt masterpieces worth millions of dollars and other artwork, according to a lawsuit announced Wednesday by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Operating through Market Street Advisors, an Aurora-based firm he owned, Merriman allegedly promised investors annual returns as high as 20% from stock trading. He lost about $400,000 through aggressive investments by the initial investment fund he launched in 1995, the SEC said.

More privacy concerns with Twitter

Not sure if this will have any effect on users of Twitter — or really if any beyond a tiny minority even hear about Salesforce.com integrating tweets into its CRM tool (and will actually understand what  that means in terms of real-world application.)

Twitter does have a vested interest in fighting any perception of privacy issues. Privacy is going to be an increasing valuable currency in the social networking world as more general users become privacy savvy.

You can find me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/davidkonline.

From the first link:

Salesforce.com Inc.’s announcement that it will integrate Twitter into its Service Cloud offering may be a great way to ascertain brand reputation, but experts warn of “Big Brother” fears among Twitter users.

The San Francisco-based company will release, this summer, its customer relationship management (CRM) tool for Twitter, which will allow companies to perform keyword searches in the social networking platform. The idea is that companies can assess sentiments regarding their products or services, pull that data into their CRM, and even perhaps identify the user who made the comments.

But there is the potential the community will raise privacy concerns, said Aphrodite Brinsmead, New York-based customer interaction technologies analyst with research firm Datamonitor. “If people using Twitter know that someone is pulling every single last word they say like a Big Brother scenario, people might be a bit more wary about what they’re posting,” said Brinsmead.

Blockbuster bankruptcy?

Looks like the brick-and-mortars are going regardless.

From the link:

Once Goliath to Netlflix’s David, Blockbuster appears on the defensive in an effort to stay relevant to movie fans and viable as a business. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Committee Monday, Blockbuster stated it may have to permanently close its retail stores. The company recently took out a US$250 million loan—on top of its $780.9 million debt—and does not know if it can meet the conditions of the loan.

Blockbuster said it has “substantial doubt” about continuing as a “going concern.” A going concern is business jargon for the ability to continue as a functioning business that is not forced to liquidate its assets. The company operates 7400 stores globally, which spells bad news for Blockbuster employees and brick-and-mortar movie rental mavens.

Tim Egan v. 2nd Amendment

This is one insipid op-ed piece at the New York Times. Raw emotional appeal, no argument and a whole lot of nanny state dreamin’.

From the (very weak) link:

We hear about these sketches of carnage between market updates and basketball scores — and shrug. We’re the frogs slow-boiling in the pot, taking it all in incrementally until we can’t feel a thing. We shrug because that’s the deal, right? That’s the pact we made, the price of Amendment number two to the Constitution, right after freedom of speech.

Quantum computing news

The final release dump post. As always I prefer providing you the entire release rather than rework it into something different. Any commentary or strong feelings on the release makes it into the intro, but usually it’s just news that I find interesting, cool or maybe just funny. Quantum computing news is always interesting and very, very cool.

The release:

Quantum computers will require complex software to manage errors

		IMAGE: While rudimentary is a fair description of this early computer, the National Bureau of Standards — SEAC, built in 1950 –prototype quantum computers have not even reached its level of… Click here for more information.

Highlighting another challenge to the development of quantum computers, theorists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shown* that a type of software operation, proposed as a solution to fundamental problems with the computers’ hardware, will not function as some designers had hoped.

Quantum computers—if they can ever be realized—will employ effects associated with atomic physics to solve otherwise intractable problems. But the NIST team has proved that the software in question, widely studied due to its simplicity and robustness to noise, is insufficient for performing arbitrary computations. This means that any software the computers use will have to employ far more complex and resource-intensive solutions to ensure the devices function effectively.

Unlike a conventional computer’s binary on-off switches, the building blocks of quantum computers, known as quantum bits, or “qubits,” have the mind-bending ability to exist in both “on” and “off” states simultaneously due to the so-called “superposition” principle of quantum physics. Once harnessed, the superposition principle should allow quantum computers to extract patterns from the possible outputs of a huge number of computations without actually performing all of them. This ability to extract overall patterns makes the devices potentially valuable for tasks such as codebreaking.

One issue, though, is that prototype quantum processors are prone to errors caused, for example, by noise from stray electric or magnetic fields. Conventional computers can guard against errors using techniques such as repetition, where the information in each bit is copied several times and the copies are checked against one another as the calculation proceeds. But this sort of redundancy is impossible in a quantum computer, where the laws of the quantum world forbid such information cloning.

To improve the efficiency of error correction, researchers are designing quantum computing architectures so as to limit the spread of errors. One of the simplest and most effective ways of ensuring this is by creating software that never permits qubits to interact if their errors might compound one another. Quantum software operations with this property are called “transversal encoded quantum gates.” NIST information theorist Bryan Eastin describes these gates as a solution both simple to employ and resistant to the noise of error-prone quantum processors. But the NIST team has proved mathematically that transversal gates cannot be used exclusively, meaning that more complex solutions for error management and correction must be employed.

Eastin says their result does not represent a setback to quantum computer development because researchers, unable to figure out how to employ transversal gates universally, have already developed other techniques for dealing with errors. “The findings could actually help move designers on to greener pastures,” he says. “There are some avenues of exploration that are less tempting now.”

 

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* B. Eastin and E. Knill. Restrictions on transversal quantum gate sets. Physical Review Letters, 102, 110502, March 20, 2009.

Nanotech and wireless communication

Number two of the release dump. Nanotechnology improving wireless communication.

The release:

Nano changes rise to macro importance in a key electronics material

By combining the results of a number of powerful techniques for studying material structure at the nanoscale, a team of researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with colleagues in other federal labs and abroad, believe they have settled a long-standing debate over the source of the unique electronic properties of a material with potentially great importance for wireless communications.

The new study* of silver niobate not only opens the door to engineering improved electronic components for smaller, higher performance wireless devices, but also serves as an example of understanding how subtle nanoscale features of a material can give rise to major changes in its physical properties.

Silver niobate is a ceramic dielectric, a class of materials used to make capacitors, filters and other basic components of wireless communications equipment and other high-frequency electronic devices. A useful dielectric needs to have a large dielectric constant—roughly, a measure of the material’s ability to hold an electric charge—that is stable in the operating temperature range. The material also should have low dielectric losses—which means that it does not waste energy as heat and preserves much of its intended signal strength. In the important gigahertz range of the radio spectrum—used for a wide variety of wireless applications—silver niobate-based ceramics are the only materials known that combine a high, temperature-stable dielectric constant with sufficiently low dielectric losses.

It’s been known for some time that silver niobate’s unique dielectric properties are temperature dependent—the dielectric constant peaks in a broad range near room temperature in these ceramics, which makes them suitable for practical applications. Earlier studies were unable to identify the structural basis of the unusual dielectric response because no accompanying changes in the overall crystal structure could be observed. “The crystal symmetry doesn’t seem to change at those temperatures,” explains NIST materials scientist Igor Levin, “but that’s because people were using standard techniques that tell you the average structure. The important changes happen at the nanoscale and are lost in averages.”

Only in recent years, says Levin, have the specialized instruments and analytic techniques been available to probe nanoscale structural changes in crystals. Even so, he says, “these subtle deviations from the average are so small that any single measurement gives only partial information on the structure. You need to combine several complementary techniques that look at different angles of the problem.” Working at different facilities** the team combined results from several high-resolution probes using X-rays, neutrons and electrons—tools that are sensitive to both the local and average crystal structure— to understand silver niobate’s dielectric properties. The results revealed an intricate interplay between the oxygen atoms, arranged in an octahedral pattern that defines the compound’s crystal structure, and the niobium atoms at the centers of the octahedra.

At high temperatures, the niobium atoms are slightly displaced, but their average position remains in the center—so the shift isn’t seen in averaging measurements. As the compound cools, the oxygen atoms cooperate by moving a little, causing the octahedral structure to rotate slightly. This movement generates strain which “locks” the niobium atoms into off-centered positions—but not completely. The resulting partial disorder of the niobium atoms gives rise to the dielectric properties. The results, the researchers say, point to potential avenues for engineering similar properties in other compounds.

 

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The work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council.

* I. Levin, V. Krayzman, J.C. Woicik, J. Karapetrova, T. Proffen, M.G. Tucker and I.M. Reaney. Structural changes underlying the diffuse dielectric response in AgNbO3. Phys. Rev. B 79, 104113, posted online March 26, 2009.

** The study required measurements at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, the Lujan Neutron Center at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (United Kingdom). In addition to NIST, researchers from Argonne, Los Alamos, ISIS and the University of Sheffield contributed to the paper.

Diatoms and solar power

Interesting press release from today on the latest in solar power. In other news, get ready for something of a release dump in the next two posts.

The release:

Ancient diatoms lead to new technology for solar energy

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Engineers at Oregon State University have discovered a way to use an ancient life form to create one of the newest technologies for solar energy, in systems that may be surprisingly simple to build compared to existing silicon-based solar cells.

The secret: diatoms.

These tiny, single-celled marine life forms have existed for at least 100 million years and are the basis for much of the life in the oceans, but they also have rigid shells that can be used to create order in a natural way at the extraordinarily small level of nanotechnology.

By using biology instead of conventional semiconductor manufacturing approaches, researchers at OSU and Portland State University have created a new way to make “dye-sensitized” solar cells, in which photons bounce around like they were in a pinball machine, striking these dyes and producing electricity. This technology may be slightly more expensive than some existing approaches to make dye-sensitized solar cells, but can potentially triple the electrical output.

“Most existing solar cell technology is based on silicon and is nearing the limits of what we may be able to accomplish with that,” said Greg Rorrer, an OSU professor of chemical engineering. “There’s an enormous opportunity to develop different types of solar energy technology, and it’s likely that several forms will ultimately all find uses, depending on the situation.”

Dye-sensitized technology, for instance, uses environmentally benign materials and works well in lower light conditions. And the new findings offer advances in manufacturing simplicity and efficiency.

“Dye-sensitized solar cells already exist,” Rorrer said. “What’s different in our approach are the steps we take to make these devices, and the potential improvements they offer.”

The new system is based on living diatoms, which are extremely small, single-celled algae, which already have shells with the nanostructure that is needed. They are allowed to settle on a transparent conductive glass surface, and then the living organic material is removed, leaving behind the tiny skeletons of the diatoms to form a template.

A biological agent is then used to precipitate soluble titanium into very tiny “nanoparticles” of titanium dioxide, creating a thin film that acts as the semiconductor for the dye-sensitized solar cell device. Steps that had been difficult to accomplish with conventional methods have been made easy through the use of these natural biological systems, using simple and inexpensive materials.

“Conventional thin-film, photo-synthesizing dyes also take photons from sunlight and transfer it to titanium dioxide, creating electricity,” Rorrer said. “But in this system the photons bounce around more inside the pores of the diatom shell, making it more efficient.”

The physics of this process, Rorrer said, are not fully understood – but it clearly works. More so than materials in a simple flat layer, the tiny holes in diatom shells appear to increase the interaction between photons and the dye to promote the conversion of light to electricity, and improve energy production in the process.

The insertion of nanoscale tinanium oxide layers into the diatom shell has been reported in ACS Nano, a publication of the American Chemical Society, and the Journal of Materials Research, a publication of the Materials Research Society. The integration of this material into a dye-sensitized solar cell device was also recently described at the fourth annual Greener Nanoscience Conference.

 

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The work is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Safer Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Initiative, a part of the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.

Diatoms are ancient, microscopic organisms that are found in the fossil record as far back as the time of the dinosaurs. They are a key part of the marine food chain and help cycle carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But in recent years their tiny, silica shells have attracted increasing attention as a way to create structure at the nano level. Nature is the engineer, not high tech tools. This is providing a more efficient, less costly way to produce some of the most advanced materials in the world.

Editor’s Note: The professional publication this story is based on can be found at this URL: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nn800470x

Nanogenerator/solar cell combo

This sounds like a very promising nanotechwith practical applications. I enjoy blogging on both nanotechnology and solar energy research, but it’s always more interesting when the breakthrough are somewhere close to actual real world application.

From the Technology Review link:

Nanoscale generators can turn ambient mechanical energy–vibrations, fluid flow, and even biological movement–into a power source. Now researchers have combined a nanogenerator with a solar cell to create an integrated mechanical- and solar-energy-harvesting device. This hybrid generator is the first of its kind and might be used, for instance, to power airplane sensors by capturing sunlight as well as engine vibrations.

Nanogenerators typically use piezoelectric nanowires–hairlike zinc oxide structures that generate an electrical potential when mechanically stressed–to produce small amounts of power. The first such devices were made by Zhong Lin Wang, a professor at Georgia Tech and director of the institute’s Center for Nanostructure Characterization. Wang hopes that nanogenerators will one day eliminate the need for batteries in implantable medical sensors, and will eventually generate enough power to charge up larger personal electronics.

Nano hybrid: A dye-sensitized solar cell (top) and a nanogenerator (bottom) sit on the same substrate in the new device. Credit: Xudong Wang

Palin, a liar? No!

Given Sarah Palin’s track record with the truth, I’m going with Levi here.

From the second link (the first goes to a Daily Dish search for Sullivan’s comprehensive listing of Palin’s various prevarications):

Levi Johnston said during an interview on CBS’s “Early Show” that he moved into the governor’s house a few weeks before Bristol Palin gave birth to their child.

Palin’s camp has denied the claim, but Johnston insisted the governor is not telling the truth. “They said I didn’t live there,” he said. “I was like, ‘OK, well, whatever you want to call it. I had my stuff there.’”

Asked if the Palin was lying about him, Johnston simply said: “Yes.”

Bush 43 truth commission

Talk of some type of truth commission looking into the Bush 43 administration’s use of torture is gaining currency. Particularly now that an international court has opened a probe into possible war crimes authorized by the Bush legal team.

Politico’s “The Arena” asked the question, “Legal commentator Stuart Taylor has proposed a Senate committee probe led by John McCain into Bush administration interrogation practices. Good idea? If not, what’s yours? On that subject, should the administration protest a Spanish investigation begun recently?”

The answers were varied and interesting.

Here’s a small sample from the second link.

Nothing surprising here:

Christine Pelosi, Attorney, author and Democratic activist:

We say the United States does not torture. Let’s prove it. A bipartisan, bicameral House-Senate effort by the key committees of jurisdiction to hold public hearings into the Bush practices and Obama proposals will suffice. They can operate independently as they currently do on the budget, the wars, and the TARP, or they could work together to consolidate witnesses and resources as the joint House-Senate Intelligence committees did after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Either way, they can start with a review of the alleged torture-authorizing memosauthored by Bush’s Office of Legal Counsel and other data at the heart of the matter that are currently being withheld by the Obama administration under secrecy and immunity claims. This oversight is Congress doing its job by and for the American people. We don’t need a special committee or a Spanish inquisition – just good old fashioned American accountability.

Pragmatic and reasonable:

Mickey Edwards, Princeton lecturer and former Republican congressman:

The issues involved — and they go far beyond interrogation and rendition — should be investigated in “the regular order

It’s not a matter of investigating the activities of “the Bush Administration,” a characterization that trivializes the question by turning it into a partisan issue, but of examining whether the United States government was guilty of misconduct and whether the executive branch violated the Constitution.
Viewing the issue in partisan or Administration-specific terms creates a predictably partisan choosing of sides.

The issues involved — and they go far beyond interrogation and rendition — should be investigated in “the regular order” either by appropriate legislative committees, performing their proper oversight duties, or by an ad hoc bipartisan legislative committee with co-chairs from the two political parties. In other words, the Congress should, at long last, do its job.

As for my fellow Republicans who oppose such an investigation, what can be said? Have we, who were the voice of limited government and the Constitution, now become the protectors of government, shielding it from the people and defending its abuses? Have we now become the very enemy we feared? Have we finally abandoned any pretense of being a party of principle? So it would appear.

And here’s a classic misdirection. What was that question again?

Bradley A. Blakeman, Republican strategist, consultant, entrepreneur:

On another note: Cuba visit just PR

I am sickened by the love fest that occurred between the Dictator Brothers, Raul and Fidel Castro and members of the Congressional Black Caucus who just returned from Cuba. They were taken in by these despots and sung their praises in Cuba and on their return to America. They are nothing but dupes, who were played like a fiddle by a regime who is brutal to their people. Their visit is nothing but a propaganda bonanza for Cuba’s internal and external uses. I assume they are planning their next tax payer paid junket to visit Chavez of Venezuela and Kin Jong il of North Korea.

It’s worth the time to go check out all the reactions, proposals, answers and non-answers from the various respondents.

NASA on solar storms

A release from this afternoon:

NASA Science Update to Discuss Anatomy of Solar Storms

NASA will hold a Science Update at 1 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, April 14, to present new findings and three-dimensional views revealing the inner workings of solar storms known as coronal mass ejections. The data will improve the ability to predict how and when these solar tsunamis impact Earth, affecting communication systems, power grids, and other technology. The briefing will take place in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at NASA Headquarters, 300 E St., S.W., and will be carried live on NASA Television.

  (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO)

  Briefing participants are:

– Michael Kaiser, project scientist, Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

– Angelos Vourlidas, project scientist, Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation, Naval Research Laboratory in Washington

– Antoinette Galvin, principal investigator, Plasma and Suprathermal Ion Composition instrument, University of New Hampshire in Durham

– Madhulika Guhathakurta, STEREO program scientist, NASA Headquarters

For information about NASA TV, streaming video, downlink and schedule information, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

  For more information about the STEREO mission, visit:
  http://www.nasa.gov/stereo

/PRNewswire-USNewswire — April 8/

Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO
Source: NASA
   
Web Site:  http://www.nasa.gov/

Twitter v. tyrants

Twitter is truly the killer app for immediate contact and response be it an earthquake, wildfires, terrorist attack or even rigged elections …

From the second link:

Young Moldovans have outwitted their Communist leaders with Twitter.

The social network came in handy after mobile phone networks went down and cable news television stations went off air on Tuesday as 10,000 people protested what they say were rigged elections. Some stormed Parliament and the offices of President Vladimir Voronin in violent riots that left more than 90 injured and led to 200 arrests.

Television stations around the world on Tuesday aired images of the violent protest, with the parliament and Voronin’s offices on fire.

But in Moldova, where press freedoms are weak, state television chose to broadcast a soap opera and another station showed images of dance routines.

So the pro-European protesters turned to Twitter and the Internet to keep in touch.

”We sent messages on Twitter but didn’t expect 15,000 people to join in. At the most we expected 1,000,” said Oleg Brega, who heads the non-governmental pro-democracy group Hyde Park. He added that the attack on Parliament and the adjacent presidential office was not planned.

You can find me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/davidkonline.

Twitter privacy failure?

Stories like this will do serious harm to the Twitter brand. Online privacy has been a long raging topic, but as more and more non-techies get into the web 2.0 world of social networking the issue will gain even more traction.

You can find me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/davidkonline.

From the link:

Not long after Twitter launched, Stephanie Robesky of Atomico, the venture fund established by the former founders of Skype, registered @Skype while still at the company. But, she says in a blog post yesterday, she forgot about the move, only to be reminded of it after she realised a Twitter employee had handed out her name, email address and contact details to someone at Skype who then contacted her. In an open letter to Twitter yesterday, she blogged:

“This is a violation of my privacy and, quite honestly, probably a big violation of your privacy policies. It is unprofessional of your team to hand out users information regardless of circumstances and this is something that we never would have done at Skype – even if Obama himself couldn’t log in to an account that he says wasn’t even his! I hope that you and your team take privacy more seriously in the future.”

She told me on email: “I registered the Skype Twitter name because I worked at Skype at the time so thought it might have been of use to us at some point. I’m sure I told someone in marketing who ignored me and had no clue at the time what Twitter was. Left Skype last year and forgot that I even had registered the name until yesterday… Glad they don’t have my credit card details.”

(Hat tip: Twitter_Tips)

Bankruptcy and GM, the countdown

Unless the public is being seriously misled bankruptcy is the only option for General Motors. And clearly the only option to stay in business in any fashion without being completely funded by taxpayers.

So far the bailout money received by GM? Used to just keep the lights burning. Nothing more.

From the link:

General Motors Corp is in “intense” and “earnest” preparations for a possible bankruptcy filing, a source familiar with the company’s plans told Reuters on Tuesday.

A plan to split the corporation into a “new” company made up of the most successful units, and an “old” one of its less-profitable units, is gaining momentum and is seen as the most sensible configuration, said another source familiar with the talks.

If the plan goes through, the new GM would be expected to assume some previous creditor debt from bankruptcy proceedings, such as secured debt, said the second source, adding that GM bondholders were likely to lose substantial value in bankruptcy.

Certain GM dealer and litigation claims would also be hurt if the new company structure is used as part of a company bankruptcy, said the second source.

The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

GM declined to comment.

US electric grid compromised

This is truly scary information. The next terrorist attack on U.S. soil isn’t necessarily coming from Islamacist extremists, and you can bet it’s not going to be commercial jets used as battering rams. And, no, it’s not going to be Obama’s “fault” any more than 9/11 was Bush’s fault.

From the link:

Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven’t sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.

“The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid,” said a senior intelligence official. “So have the Russians.”

The espionage appeared pervasive across the U.S. and doesn’t target a particular company or region, said a former Department of Homeland Security official. “There are intrusions, and they are growing,” the former official said, referring to electrical systems. “There were a lot last year.”

VC blogging

Here’s the entirety of a quick-hit post from Brad Feldat Technology Review on VC friends of his who’ve began blogging. I read VC blogs on occasion. They are interesting for a number of reasons, and they offer a lot of inside information for my privately-held clients looking for angel funds.

From the link:

My friends at Highway 12 Ventures have started a blog.  The gang at Highway 12 is based in Boise, ID and has built a very interesting portfolio throughout the Rocky Mountain region.  Plus they are great guys.

Fortunately they put Lijit on their blog for search so I didn’t have to badger them about into using it and it made it easy for me to add them to the brand spanking new Venture Capital Bloggers Network powered by Lijit.

Nanotubes making Plexi stronger

A nanotech breakthroughwith immediate applications. Carbon nanotubes make PMMA plastic, used in manufacturing shatterproof glass-substitutes, more strong.

From the link:

The plastic, known as PMMA, is most commonly used to make shatterproof glass-substitute materials, such as the brands Plexiglas and Lucite. The researchers reinforced PMMA fiberswith both single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes and found that, while both types were effective, the highest toughnesswas achieved with the multi-walled nanotubes, which resemble several single-walled nanotubes nested together.

Bulk materials reinforced with nanostructures are the future of compositematerials, beginning to replace composites made with micrometer-sized particles. Carbon nanotubes are a natural choice because they are exceptionally strong, and the multi-walled varieties are especially tough because of their more complex structures; they can contain up to 50 nested nanotubes.

A nanotube-enforced PMMA fiber being stretched, forming narrow “necks.” Image courtesty H. Daniel Wagner.

Cato University 2009

Getting the word out about the Cato Institute’s Cato University 2009. Should be an interesting event for anyone who can attend.

Here’s some details from the link:

Cato University, the Cato Institute’s premier educational event of the year, is right around the corner!

On June 26-31 in Rancho Bernardo, California, Cato University will bring together outstanding faculty and participants from across the country to discuss how the state has expanded during times of crises; the threats to liberty, privacy, and independence, as the rush for government-imposed solutions (and, hence, power) increases in pace; and, what can be done to restrain – or reverse – its growth.

This year’s topic: Economic Crisis, War, and the Rise of the State.

And even more details from the link in the blockquote:

THE PROGRAM – Economic Crisis, War, and the Rise of the State

Between economic chaos and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the powerful drive to solve problems through government intervention is creating a dangerous new status quo.  During a crisis – and now with the multiple challenges of global economic calamity roaring alongside two wars and international terrorism – government grows exponentially.  Massive overreaching by government was one of chief causes of these crises, so we are witnessing a disease posing as the cure.  And while government may recede after the immediate crisis recedes, it rarely returns to its original size – thus the cautionary adage there is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution, and nothing closer to immortality than a government program.

But – a crisis also presents opportunities to change the status quo, to reduce the size of government.  Cato University 2009 offers a one-of-a-kind opportunity to explore the past, present, and future of freedom: how the state has expanded during times of crises; the threats to liberty, privacy, and independence, as the rush for government-imposed solutions (and, hence, power) increases in pace; and, what can be done to restrain – or reverse – its growth.  This year, Cato University has again assembled a distinguished group of scholars and teachers:

• Professor Robert Higgs, Editor of The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy and the author of numerous acclaimed books, including Crisis and Leviathan:  Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government.
• Professor Robert McDonald, department of history, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.  He has published articles in a wide range of academic journals of history, and has a national reputation as a scholar of Thomas Jefferson and the American Founding period.
• Dan Mitchell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a top national expert on tax reform and supply-side tax policy. His latest book is Global Tax Revolution:  The Rise of Tax Competition and the Battle to Defend It.
• Professor Marcus Cole, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. His scholarly and research interests range from classical liberal political theory to natural law and the history of commercial law.
• Dr. Veronique de Rugy, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. A former policy analyst at the Cato Institute, she is coauthor of Action ou Taxation, published in Switzerland, and serves on the board of directors of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity.
• David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute; author of The Politics of Freedom:  Taking on the Left, the Right, and Threats to our Liberties; Libertarianism: A Primer; and editor of The Libertarians Reader and the Cato Handbook for Policymakers.
• Dr. Tom G. Palmer, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, director of Cato University,  and author of the forthcoming book  Realizing Freedom: Libertarian Theory, History and Practice.
• Prof. Tibor Machan, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and professor at the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University He is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Pacific Research Foundation. He is widely published and is the author of numerous books and articles on natural rights, political philosophy, business ethics, and libertarianism.
• Randal O’Toole, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, focusing on urban growth, public land, and transportation issues. His latest book is The Best-Laid Plans: How Government Planning Harms the Quality of Your Life, Your Pocketbook, and Your Future.

<!–The program’s daily schedule – including the complete faculty list (and bios), session topics, and special evening presentations – will be posted soon. This we guarantee: your intellectual passions and commitment to freedom and liberty will be energized and enhanced by the totally new perspectives and sessions we will be providing at Cato University 2009 – Economic Crisis, War, and the Rise of the State.

–><!–THE FACULTY

• Professor Marcus Cole of Stanford University Law School
• Professor Glen Whitman of California State University, Northridge
• Professor David Beito of the University of Alabama
• Dr. Tom G. Palmer, senior fellow of the Cato Institute and director of Cato University
• Professor Robert McDonald of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point
• Brian Doherty, senior editor at Reason magazine and author of Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement
• Dr. Ronald Krieger, Economist and Wall Street Veteran
• David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of Libertarianism: A Primer.

–><!–

Click here for Cato University Registration

–>

The latest in LEDs

It’s been far, far too long since I’ve had a reason to blog about LED lighting. I’ve been champing at the bit for this tech to become a viable option for home lighting. Right now the actual products just aren’t quite there, and they are very expensive for the most part.

I received two 40 watt equivalent LED spots from an enthusiast friend at the holidays. They aren’t ideal, but I’m damned excited to have them burning daily. Cool to the touch, even with 24 hour a day use, and throwing off a bluish, broad spectrum of light. Someday soon these things will be ready for prime time.

Here’s the latest in LED research news:

Cheap and efficient white light LEDs new design described in AIP’s Journal of Applied Physics

		IMAGE: Light produced by a new type of light emitting diode (LED) made from inexpensive, plastic-like organic materials. Click here for more information.

COLLEGE PARK, MD, April 7, 2009 — Roughly 20 percent of the electricity consumed worldwide is used to light homes, businesses, and other private and public spaces. Though this consumption represents a large drain on resources, it also presents a tremendous opportunity for savings. Improving the efficiency of commercially available light bulbs — even a little — could translate into dramatically lower energy usage if implemented widely.

In the latest issue of Journal of Applied Physics, published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), a group of scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is reporting an important step towards that goal with their development of a new type of light emitting diode (LED) made from inexpensive, plastic like organic materials. Designed with a simplified “tandem” structure, it can produce twice as much light as a normal LED — including the white light desired for home and office lighting.

“This work is important because it is the realization of rather high efficiency white emission by a tandem structure,” says Dongge Ma , who led the research with his colleagues at the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Found in everything from brake lights to computer displays, LEDs are more environmentally friendly and much more efficient than other types of light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs produce light by sending electricity through a thin metal filament that glows red hot. Only about five percent of the energy is turned into light, however. The rest is wasted as heat. Compact fluorescent bulbs, which send electricity through a gas inside a tube, tend to do much better. They typically turn 20 percent or more of the electricity pumped through them into light. But compact fluorescents also contain small amounts of mercury vapor, an environmental toxin.

LEDs on the other hand, are made from thin wafers of material flanked by electrodes. When an electric current is sent through the wafers, it liberates electrons from the atoms therein, leaving behind vacancies or “holes.” When some of the wandering electrons and holes recombine, they create a parcel of light, or photon. These photons emerge from the side of the wafer as visible light. This turns 20 to 50 percent, or even more, of the input energy into light. LEDs also concentrate a lot of light in a small space.

Producing LEDs that can compete with traditional light bulbs for cost and efficiency is one thing. Making LEDs that consumers want to use to light their homes is quite another. One of the main barriers to the widespread use of LED lights is the light itself. LEDs can easily be manufactured to produce light of a single color — like red — with applications such as traffic lights and auto brake lights. Indoor lighting though, requires “natural” white light. This quality is measured by the color-rendering index (CRI), which assigns a value based on the light source’s ability to reproduce the true color of the object being lit. For reading light, a CRI value of 70 or more is optimal. LEDs can produce white light by combining a mixture of blue, green, and red light, or by sending colored light through a filter or a thin layer of phosphors — chemicals that glow with several colors when excited. However, these solutions increase costs. To reach a larger market, scientists would like to make inexpensive LEDs that can produce white light on their own.

The authors of this paper report important advances towards this goal. First, they built LEDs from organic, carbon-based materials, like plastic, rather than from more expensive semiconducting materials such as gallium, which also require more complicated manufacturing processes. Second, they demonstrated, for the first time, an organic white-light LED operating within only a single active layer, rather than several sophisticated layers. Moreover, by putting two of these single-layer LEDs together in a tandem unit, even higher efficiency is achieved. The authors report that their LED was able to achieve a CRI rating of nearly 70 — almost good enough to read by. Progress in this area promises further reduction in the price of organic LEDs.

 

###

 

The work of Dongge Ma and colleagues was funded by the Hundreds Talents program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China, the Foundation of Jilin Research Council, Foundation of Changchun Research Council, Science Fund for Creative Research Groups of NSFC, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.

The article “A high-performance tandem white organic LED combining highly effective white units and their interconnection layer” by Qi Wang et al. was published online on April 6, 2009 [J. Appl. Phys. 105, 076101 (2009)]. The article is available at http://link.aip.org/link/?JAPIAU/105/076101/1.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Journal of Applied Physics, published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP), is an archival journal presenting significant new results in applied physics. The journal publishes original and review articles that emphasize understanding of the physics underlying modern technology. See: http://jap.aip.org/.

ABOUT AIP

The American Institute of Physics (AIP) is a not-for-profit membership corporation chartered in 1931 for the purpose of advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics and its application to human welfare. An umbrella organization for 10 Member Societies, AIP represents over 134,000 scientists, engineers and educators and is one of the world’s largest publishers of physics journals. A total-solution provider of publishing services, AIP also publishes 12 journals of its own (many of which have the highest impact factors in their category), two magazines, and the AIP Conference Proceedings series. Its online publishing platform Scitation (registered trademark) hosts more than 1,000,000 articles from more than 175 scholarly journals, as well as conference proceedings, and other publications of 25 learned society publishers. See: http://www.aip.org.

Texas education standards v. science

A new front beyond the ID/creationist bullshit has broken out it seems. Now the age of the universe is under attack by theocratic fools. An embarrassment to this great state, and sadly affects kids across the U.S. since the Texas education system is so large most publishers cater to the Lone Star State with everyone else left using the same textbooks.

Sad and embarrassing and not without a big of danger in potentially producing uninformed young adults. That’s best left to the home-schoolers.

From the PhysOrg link:

Until now, matters of space have been very little addressed in terms of religion. After all, couldn’t God have created the universe well before putting humans on Earth? But it appears that by working from Earth outward, some are becoming concerned. If God created humans on Earth just a few millennia ago, then Earth can’t be 4.5 billion years old. And if Earth isn’t as old as all that, surely the universe isn’t, either. It’s an interesting train of logic. And one that could result in all we know about space science being brought under attack.