Nodiamonds effective at delivering chemotherapy drugs to cells without the negative effects

Researchers have shown that nanodiamonds -- much like the carbon structure as that of a sparkling 14 karat diamond but on a much smaller scale -- are very effective at delivering chemotherapy drugs to cells without the negative effects associated with current drug delivery agents.
Their study, published online by the journal Nano Letters, is the first to demonstrate the use of nanodiamonds, a new class of nanomaterials, in biomedicine. In addition to delivering cancer drugs, the model could be used for other applications, such as fighting tuberculosis or viral infections, say the researchers.

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Nanodiamonds promise to play a significant role in improving cancer treatment by limiting uncontrolled exposure of toxic drugs to the body. The research team reports that aggregated clusters of nanodiamonds were shown to be ideal for carrying a chemotherapy drug and shielding it from normal cells so as not to kill them, releasing the drug slowly only after it reached its cellular target.

Another advantage of the material, confirmed by a series of genetic studies also reported in the paper, is that nanodiamonds do not cause cell inflammation once the drug has been released and only bare diamonds are left. Materials currently used for drug delivery can cause inflammation, a serious complication that can predispose a patient to cancer, block the activity of cancer drugs and even promote tumor growth.

"There are a lot of materials that can deliver drugs well, but we need to look at what happens after drug delivery," said Dean Ho, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, who led the research. "How do cells react to an artificial material left in the body? Nanodiamonds are highly ordered structures, which cells like. If they didn't, cells would become inflamed. From a patient's perspective, this is very important. And that's why clinicians are interested in our work."

"Novel drug delivery systems, such as the one being developed by Dean and his team, hold great promise in cancer therapeutics," said Steven Rosen, M.D., director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and Genevieve E. Teuton Professor of Medicine at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. "We anticipate they will allow for more sophisticated means of targeting cancer cells while sparing healthy cells from a drug's toxicity."

To make the material effective, Ho and his colleagues manipulated single nanodiamonds, each only two nanometers in diameter, to form aggregated clusters of nanodiamonds, ranging from 50 to 100 nanometers in diameter. The drug, loaded onto the surface of the individual diamonds, is not active when the nanodiamonds are aggregated; it only becomes active when the cluster reaches its target, breaks apart and slowly releases the drug. (With a diameter of two to eight nanometers, hundreds of thousands of diamonds could fit onto the head of a pin.)

"The nanodiamond cluster provides a powerful release in a localized place -- an effective but less toxic delivery method," said co-author Eric Pierstorff, a molecular biologist and post-doctoral fellow in Ho's research group. Because of the large amount of available surface area, the clusters can carry a large amount of drug, nearly five times the amount of drug carried by conventional materials.

Liposomes and polymersomes, both spherical nanoparticles, currently are used for drug delivery. While effective, they are essentially hollow spheres loaded with an active drug ready to kill any cells, even healthy cells that are encountered as they travel to their target. Liposomes and polymersomes also are very large, about 100 times the size of nanodiamonds -- SUVs compared to the nimble nanodiamond clusters that can circulate throughout the body and penetrate cell membranes more easily.

Unlike many of the emerging nanoparticles, nanodiamonds are soluble in water, making them clinically important. "Five years ago while working in Japan, I first encountered nanodiamonds and saw it was a very soluble material," said materials scientist Houjin Huang, lead author of the paper and also a post-doctoral fellow in Ho's group. "I thought nanodiamonds might be useful in electronics, but I didn't find any applications. Then I moved to Northwestern to join Dean and his team because they are capable of engineering a broad range of devices and materials that interface well with biological tissue. Here I've focused on using nanodiamonds for biomedical applications, where we've found success.

"Nanodiamonds are very special," said Huang. "They are extremely stable, and you can do a lot of chemistry on the surface, to further functionalize them for targeting purposes. In addition to functionality, they also offer safety -- the first priority to consider for clinical purposes. It's very rare to have a nanomaterial that offers both."

"It's about optimizing the advantages of a material," said Ho, a member of the Lurie Cancer Center. "Our team was the first to forge this area -- applying nanodiamonds to drug delivery. We've talked to a lot of clinicians and described nanodiamonds and what they can do. I ask, 'Is that useful to you?' They reply, 'Yes, by all means.'"

For their study, Ho and his team used living murine macrophage cells, human colorectal carcinoma cells and doxorubicin hydrochloride, a widely used chemotherapy drug. The drug was successfully loaded onto the nanodiamond clusters, which efficiently ferried the drug inside the cells. Once inside, the clusters broke up and slowly released the drug.

In the genetic studies, the researchers exposed cells to the bare nanodiamonds (no drug was present) and analyzed three genes associated with inflammation and one gene for apoptosis, or cell death, to see how the cells reacted to the foreign material. Looking into the circuitry of the cell, they found no toxicity or inflammation long term and a lack of cell death. In fact, the cells grew well in the presence of the nanodiamond material.

Technorati : Nodiamonds

Nobel Prize winner to chair new Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation

Nobel Laureate John Sulston FRS is to join The University of Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences and will chair a new research institute focusing on the ethical questions raised by science and technology in the 21st century.

The 2002 Nobel Prize winner and pioneer of genomic research will be joined in the cross-discipline Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation by Professor John Harris, a world-renowned authority on bioethics in Manchester's School of Law.

The new Institute's overriding aim will be to examine how the social and ethical consequences of science and technology can be managed in a way that protects people and makes their lives better. Among some of the ethical issues to be investigated are:

- Genetic selection of human embryos and the conflicts of interest between parents, the unborn child, social groups and society

- Genetic manipulation of humans and animals and the mixing of human and animal genes and cells to create hybrids

- The funding disparity in healthcare research between diseases of the developed and developing world

- The ethics surrounding different models of healthcare delivery, from a US system that rations by wealth to a UK-type model that aims to provide free access to care at the point of delivery

- Global trade, the free-market economy and 'fair trade' initiatives

- Climate change and the ethics of conflict between bioenegy and food supply in developing countries

"What is new and urgently required is serious work at the interface between science, ethics and innovation," said John Sulston.

"We need to examine the role of science and technology in society, both locally and globally, and consider the adequacy and justification for that role as well as the forms of regulation and control that are appropriate.

"Many of the topics that will fall under the remit of the Institute of Science, Ethics and Innovation offer great opportunities for us to produce high quality research in areas of major concern to society in the pursuit of progress towards a better future for humanity."

John Sulston has scholarly interests in common with Professor Joseph Stiglitz, also a Nobel Laureate, who was recruited by the University to chair the Brooks World Poverty Institute, a multidisciplinary centre of global excellence researching poverty, inequality and growth in the developed and developing world.

Professor John Harris, Research Director of the new Institute, said: "The transition process for new scientific and technological developments from discovery, through proof of principle to the clinic or marketplace, raises acute issues of social and global justice.

"These justice issues are also very much the concern of the Brooks World Poverty Institute and the intention is for these twin Manchester institutes, each chaired by a Nobel Laureate, to work closely together to create a centre of excellence in these complementary fields that is second to none in the world."

The University of Manchester aims to become one of the world's top 25 universities by 2015 and views iconic appointments, such as John Sulston's, as key to attracting the best scholars and students from around the globe.

Other recent key appointments have included Professor Robert Putnam, the global expert on social change, and author Martin Amis, who is the new Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester.

The University's President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Gilbert said: "I'm delighted that John Sulston has agreed to join the University.

"His appointment is the latest in a series of iconic appointments intended to reflect the University's commitment to become one of the top 25 research universities in the world, as set out in the University's ambitious strategic plan, the Manchester 2015 Agenda.

"We already have a reputation for research and policy engagement in the fields of development economics, development studies, sustainability, healthcare governance and ethics, sociology and politics, as well as a strong reputation in science.

"The role of this Institute will be to build on this through world-leading research on science, ethics and innovation."

Technorati : Ethics and Innovation

Nobel :Necessary for a looming, planet-scale problem to get attention. : The Discovery of Global Warming

saving the world from global warming.

It was only an academic symposium, and none of the scholars - including a Canadian Inuit woman in the running for a "green Nobel" - claimed to have a master plan to eradicate the threat of climate change. Still, there was a whiff of validation, if not victory, in the air.

"The scientific findings are clear: climate is changing, and it is a response to human activities," said Mario Molina, a chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1995 for being the first to posit that chlorofluorocarbons and similar chemicals could poke a hole in the ozone layer.

Molina was speaking during a week of Nobel announcements that the laureates at this meeting hoped would culminate today with the award of a "green" Peace Prize.

Among those rumoured as candidates are three climate-change evangelists: former U.S. vice president Al Gore; Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Canadian who has warned about the threat to Arctic wildlife; and Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian scientist who is chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses the risks of greenhouse gases for the United Nations.

Pachauri kicked things off with his panel's latest findings, which he said ought to settle the debate about whether humans are making the planet dangerously warmer.

"People do raise this issue of what's happening with the science, and whether the science is on board," said Pachauri.

"I think that argument really should be over.''

Even if the Nobel committee passes over all the candidates who have worked on issues related to climate change, there was a bracing sense here that public opinion had finally caught up to science on the topic.

No longer is the United States, which refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol and continues to go its own way in climate policy, viewed as an immovable barrier to a global replacement deal.

"If you look what's happened in the last year or so, it's been quite extraordinary," said Nicholas Stern, a British economist who wrote last year on the potential costs of not confronting climate change.

"It wasn't until January this year that President (George W.) Bush was at all clear there was a problem; now he's sounding as if he's a leader in the response to this problem," Stern said, stifling a chuckle.

This year's Nobel Peace Prize is being conferred for two starkly different ways of communicating about human-caused global warming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change speaks in the measured voice of peer-reviewed science and government-negotiations. In four reports issued since 1990, it has always focused on the most noncontroversial findings. In 2001, for instance, it concluded, "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."

The other awardee, former Vice President Al Gore, delivers brimstone-laden warnings of an unfolding "planetary emergency." He has not shied from emphasizing the most emotionally potent, though least certain, consequences of warming, such as its link to hurricane intensity and the likely pace of sea-level rise.

Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University and a lead author of some of the climate panel's reports in 2001 and this year, said he was thrilled to have climate elevated by the prize. But he said the focus on Mr. Gore as a personality and politician might distract from the strong consensus among researchers on the risks posed by unfettered greenhouse gas emissions.

"If the spectacular nature of his presentations and the personalities involved become the story instead of the science," he said, "then it becomes counterproductive."

But some scientists, historians and policy experts said yesterday that both messages - with all the imperfections attending each - seem necessary for a looming, planet-scale problem to get attention.

The Nobel "is honoring the science and the publicity, and they're necessarily different," said Spencer A. Weart, a science historian at the American Institute of Physics and author of The Discovery of Global Warming, a recent book charting climate research through the last century.

He added that both are essential because the science alone, laden with complexity and some unavoidable uncertainty, would never jog average citizens or most elected officials.

"The I.P.C.C. was set up to be the lowest common denominator, to weed out anything anyone could disagree with," Dr. Weart said. "It was deliberately created, largely under the influence of Reagan administration, because governments didn't want a bunch of self-appointed scientists from academies and so on out there. It's no accident that it's the Intergovernmental panel," he said. "Even the Saudi government has to agree. That means that when the I.P.C.C. says you're in trouble, you're really in trouble."

But if the profile of the climate issue had not been raised with the release of "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary on Mr. Gore's climate work, the panel's latest reports, released in three parts from February through April, would not have had nearly as much impact, some experts said.

Among those crediting Mr. Gore for elevating the climate issue - if differing from him dramatically on solutions - is the former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich is co-author of a new book, "A Contract With the Earth," accepting that human-caused warming poses unacceptable risks and pushing, among other things, for the United States to aggressively develop non-polluting energy technologies.

"In a way, Vice President Gore, by raising the intensity of the issue, by talking about it, raised the challenge for those of us who think there's an alternative to say, O.K., right emotions, wrong answer," Mr. Gingrich said in an interview this week before the Nobel announcement. "But then we have an obligation to provide an answer." He said he prefers incentives to boost energy research over Mr. Gore's preference for a mandatory limit on gases, both nationally and globally.

Some longtime critics were less willing to give Mr. Gore credit. "I am delighted that Al Gore got a Peace Prize - which is NOT to be confused with a Nobel Prize for science," S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric scientist and one of a small, vocal group of longtime skeptics of dangerous human-caused warming, said in an email.

Some scientists who have participated in the panel's reviews and published climate studies for many years said the award reflected that the global community had, after two decades of cyclical attention - and rising emissions - absorbed that humans are pushing on the planet's thermostat.

But several such experts said they remained concerned by a deep persistent split over what to do about it - between those, like Mr. Gingrich and President Bush, who prefer a focus on technological advances and those, like Mr. Gore, seeking a regulatory approach forcing cuts in emissions.

"It's been a long slog," said Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric scientist who has participated in the periodic climate assessments since the early days of the panel. "The award reminds us that expert advice can influence people and policy, that sometimes governments do listen to reason, and that the idea that reason can guide human action is very much alive, if not yet fully realized."

He added that it was now up to governments to act.

"Public attention is now engaged at the highest level it will probably ever be engaged," Dr. Oppenheimer said. "Now it's incumbent on governments to grab the opportunity and work with each other and at the national level to finally craft a solution."

Technorati : Global Warming

Sofia Observatory Enters Aircraft Testing Phase

EDWARDS, Calif. - NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, known as SOFIA, began a series of flight tests Thursday of the highly modified Boeing 747SP aircraft. The tests are the first of several phases required to verify the aircraft is structurally sound for future science flights. This phase is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year.

After finishing flight testing and modifications, NASA plans to begin using the airborne observatory for "first light" infrared observations of the universe in 2009. The first light flights will enable the mission to begin obtaining results several years before the observatory reaches its full capability in 2014. SOFIA will collect science data using a variety of specialized instruments developed by NASA and its German partners.

"SOFIA is making tremendous progress toward the initiation of science observations in 2009, and this flight testing is another milestone along the path," said Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. "Early observations will have significant science community involvement to initiate broad use of this unique astronomical observatory."

When operational, SOFIA's 2.5-meter infrared telescope will conduct celestial observations while flying at altitudes up to 45,000 feet. This height will place the instrument above almost 99 percent of the Earth's atmospheric water vapor, greatly enhancing its ability to observe the cosmos. The flying observatory is designed to detect the formation of stars in our galaxy, determine the chemical composition of the interstellar medium, and peer through the dust that hides the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

During mission development, engineers installed a 17-metric-ton telescope in SOFIA's aft fuselage at L-3 Communications Integrated Systems facility in Waco, Texas. They also cut a 16-foot-high telescope door into the fuselage during the telescope installation process.

After arrival at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., the aircraft was outfitted with test instrumentation critical for these preliminary flight tests. The aircraft also has been equipped with a telescope cavity environmental control system designed to keep the telescope dry when the door is closed and as the aircraft flies to the altitude required for operation of the observatory.

NASA is conducting the first series of flight tests with the cavity door closed. These flights will study the aerodynamics, structural integrity, stability and control, and handling qualities of the modified aircraft. Future flights will concentrate on the in-flight rotational motion and control of the German-built telescope.

After closed-door flight testing is complete, the flying observatory will undergo installation and integration of the remaining elements of the observatory before door-open test flights, which are scheduled to begin in late 2008.

"The largest technical challenges remaining are in 2008, with the remainder of the mission sub-system installation that will give the aircraft the ability to fly with the cavity door open," said SOFIA aircraft project manager John Carter at Dryden.

The program is a partnership of NASA and the German Aerospace Center. Dryden manages SOFIA with science elements of the program managed by NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

For more information about SOFIA, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sofia

Technorati : Sofia

Large Hadron Colider :CERN boss quashes LHC delay rumours

Large Hadron Colider,

it is hoped that the collider will produce the elusive Higgs boson particle - often dubbed the God Particle - the observation of which could confirm the predictions and 'missing links' in the Standard Model of physics, and explain how other elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. The verification of the existence of the Higgs boson would be a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory which seeks to unify the four fundamental forces: Electromagnetism, Strong Force, Weak Force, and Gravity. The higgs boson may help to explain why gravity is comparatively weak when contrasted with the other three fundamental forces.
Robert Aymar, the director general of CERN, has dispelled rumours that a series of buckled electrical connectors at the Large Hadron Collider will delay the accelerator's official start-up date of May 2008. Writing in this week's CERN Bulletin, Aymar says that the problem concerns only a small percentage of the connectors and that it is "business as usual" for bringing the new accelerator online.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 27-km ring around which beams of protons are accelerated using hundreds of superconducting magnets, grouped into eight sectors and cooled with liquid helium. To prevent the intensity of the beam dropping, the beam has to induce a "mirror" current with little resistance in the walls, an ability that requires electrical continuity throughout. But because the sectors shrink by about 10 metres in total when cooled down to their 1.9 K operating temperature, the connections between components in the sectors must be provided by collections of sliding copper fingers or "plug in modules" (PIMs).

Inserting transmitterIn the first week of August, however, PIMs in "sector 7-8" of the LHC did not expand properly when the sector was warmed up from the operating temperature - a procedure occasionally necessary in the long-term running of the accelerator. This caused the PIMs to buckle into the space reserved for the beam.

To see the extent of the problem, CERN technicians quickly devised tiny radio transmitters housed in shells that could be sent down the vacuum pipes containing the PIMs. If these transmitters, which were slightly smaller than ping-pong balls, encountered an obstruction, then they would fail to pass a signal to one of the beam position monitors located every 50 m in the pipes.

The rumours - which spread largely on internet blogs - started after LHC project leader Lyn Evans gave a colloquium on 13 September to CERN staff in which he reviewed the PIM problem and proposed the technicians' solution to it. Various blogs claimed that the LHC could be substantially delayed and that the first data runs could be pushed into 2009.

But according to Aymar's statement, which appeared on Monday, the problem is just one of many to be expected in the run up to launch. "So far there have been no show stoppers," Aymar says. "We can all look forward to the LHC producing its first physics in 2008."

Speaking to physicsworld.com, Evans says that the obstruction detection technique showed that only six out of 450 PIMs in sector 7-8 were damaged, and they are currently being fixed. "If all the PIMs were affected it would have been a serious problem," he said. "Now that we know it's only a small number, we're all much more relaxed."

Evans also said that another rumour, which suggested the LHC was having problems sourcing enough helium-4 for cooling, was completely unfounded. He explained that the LHC has two contracted parties to supply the helium, but that it also has another two in reserve in case there are any problems.

Technorati : LHC delay rumours

Particle Detectives on the Trail of a Time Machine :In 2008 the biggest experiment in the world will start operations

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator and collider located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland (46°14′N, 6°03′E). Currently under construction, the LHC is scheduled to begin operation in May 2008.[1] The LHC is expected to become the world's largest and highest energy particle accelerator. The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries, universities and laboratories

In 2008 the biggest experiment in the world will start operations, creating conditions last seen only fractions of a second after the Big Bang. Called the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, this huge machine will act as a time machine allowing scientists to look back at the start of the Universe and answer many questions that remain in physics. To help teachers share the excitement and challenges of a project of this magnitude with their students, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has produced an on-line educational pack.

Gareth James, Schools Manager of the STFC said "Cutting-edge science offers a great opportunity to explain how science works and share with students the excitement of discovery. The Large Hadron Collider will change our understanding of the early Universe as it confirms some theories, rejects others and no doubt throws up new and unexpected phenomena. Particle Detectives allows students to share in the discovery process and meet the people, not so different from them, that are changing our view of the physical world."

Available at www.particledetectives.net , the materials are aimed at the 14-19 age groups. Resources include ready-made presentations for teachers and students to give, an online simulator of the LHC, a latest news section and study guides for older students. Users can access video clips of students asking, and scientists answering, questions about the LHC project. There is also information on how the materials relate to the curriculum in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The LHC will accelerate protons and collide them at high energies to explore the conditions of the early Universe. Scientists working on the LHC hope to learn about anti-matter, gravity, mass, extra dimensions and even discover new particles. Using the LHC simulator, students can explore the challenges of building of such a massive machine and the even bigger task of analysing the data that comes from it.

Caitriona McKnight, teacher at the Saffron Walden County High School in Essex said "I have tried it and love it. Particle detectives is a really exciting resource with a lot of high-quality materials that both teachers and students can use. The video clips of students asking scientists questions about the LHC 'humanise' this huge scientific endeavour, the curriculum map makes it easy for the busiest teacher to see where the particle detectives resources can be used across their science teaching and the LHC simulator captures the essence of the scientific process and the excitement of discovery".

The Science and Technology Facilities Council produces a range of materials to support science teaching, details of other projects can be found at http://www.scitech.ac.uk and clicking on 'Public and Schools'


Science and Technology Facilities Council
The Science and Technology Facilities Council ensures the UK retains its leading place on the world stage by delivering world-class science; accessing and hosting international facilities; developing innovative technologies; and increasing the socio-economic impact of its research through effective knowledge exchange partnerships.

The Council has a broad science portfolio including Astronomy, Particle Physics, Particle Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, Space Science, Synchrotron Radiation, Neutron Sources and High Power Lasers. In addition the Council manages and operates three internationally renowned laboratories:

-The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire
-The Daresbury Laboratory, Cheshire
-The UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh

The Council gives researchers access to world-class facilities and funds the UK membership of international bodies such as the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN), the Institute Laue Langevin (ILL), European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), the European organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) and the European Space Agency (ESA). It also contributes money for the UK telescopes overseas on La Palma, Hawaii, Australia and in Chile, and the MERLIN/VLBI National Facility, which includes the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory.

The Council distributes public money from the Government to support scientific research. Between 2007 and 2008 we will invest approximately £678 million.

Technorati : Large Hadron Collider, Time machine

Biofuels report warns of strain on water resources :MIT professor is co-author of National Research Council report

Denise Brehm, Civil and Environmental Engineering
October , 2007

Boosting ethanol production by growing more corn in the United States without considering the quality and availability of water by region could put a significant strain on water resources in some parts of the country, a committee of the National Research Council said in a report released this week.

The report's authors, who include Professor Dara Entekhabi of MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, recommend that conversion of U.S. agriculture to biofuel cultivation should only be undertaken in tandem with regional water assessments, the adoption of environmentally sound farming practices, and consideration of the full life cycle of biofuel production.

"Agricultural shifts to growing corn and expanding biofuel crops into regions with little agriculture, especially dry areas, could change current irrigation practices and greatly increase pressure on water resources in many parts of the United States," the committee said in its report, released Oct. 10. "The amount of rainfall and other hydroclimate conditions from region to region causes significant variations in the water requirement for the same crop."

The report also urged big agriculture to adopt new technologies that can increase crop yield while conserving water and reducing negative environmental impacts, such as soil erosion and runoff pollution.

"We must recognize that the current state of the U.S. agroecosystem is not sustainable," said Entekhabi, a hydrologist who studies land-atmosphere processes and is director of MIT's Parsons Laboratory for Environmental Science and Engineering. "The use of energy-intensive and industrially produced fertilizers and pesticides are finding their way into water and food supplies for humans and animals. Soil erosion and loss of soil fertility is continuing unabated. U.S. agriculture needs to shift to more ecologically sound and sustainable conditions."

Corn ethanol production in the U.S. is ramping up, in part due to President George W. Bush's call for a dramatic increase in the production of ethanol over the next decade. The National Research Council convened the committee to look at the effect energy crops would have on the nation's agriculture and water management, as well as the long-term sustainability of meeting the president's demand that by 2017, 15 percent of the nation's liquid fuel be biofuel.

Other recommendations of the committee include looking at the possibility that biofuel crops could be irrigated with wastewater that is biologically and chemically unsuitable for use with food crops; the development of water-efficient genetically modified crops for biofuels production; and the minimization of erosion by producing biofuels from perennial crops such as switchgrass, which hold soil and nutrients in place better than most row crops.

The McKnight Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Research Council Day Fund sponsored the study.

Technorati : MIT, strain on water resource

The Swedish Academy cited this year's physics prize :UCSB Nanotechnology Researcher said

"The Swedish Academy cited this year's physics prize as one of the first major applications of nanotechnology. This should remind people that everyday objects we use already incorporate sophisticated nanoscale devices."McCray UCSB Nanotechnology Researcher said.

Abstract:
This week's announcement of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics generated considerable interest for CNS researcher and UC Santa Barbara historian W. Patrick McCray. For the past two years, McCray and his colleagues Timothy Lenoir (Duke University) and Cyrus Mody (Rice University) have studied the history of nanoelectronics. The recent news from Stockholm helped demonstrate the relevance of their work for understanding the societal impact of nanotechnologies.

On October 8, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2007 Nobel to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg for their discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR). GMR is the process whereby a small magnetic field can trigger a large change in electrical resistance. This discovery is at the heart of modern hard drive technology, and it has stimulated the manufacture of a new generation of electronics. The Nobel citation also noted that Fert and Grünberg's work heralded the advent of new and potentially more powerful forms of memory storage using "spintronics" in which information is stored and processed by manipulating the spins of electrons.

For over two years, McCray and his colleagues have documented the emergence of spintronics research. Discovery of the GMR phenomena, according to McCray, marked the beginning of the spintronics field. "Just as it is impossible to imagine life today without the transistor," said McCray, "spintronics and many other fields in nanotechnology are hard to predict, but they may have a major impact on our society and economy. The GMR phenomenon helped enable a major change in how we interact with technology and the possibilities afforded by it."

Most of the electronics industry is based on manipulating the charges of electrons moving through circuits. But the spin of electrons might also be exploited to gain new control over data storage and processing. Spintronics, an area of physics research in which UCSB is especially strong, is the general name for this branch of electronics. One area of nano-research that appears most exciting to scientists, commercial firms, and government patrons is the development of nanoelectronics which replace or complement traditional transistor technologies, explained McCray. "The potential economic and social effects of this transformation may be profound, and now the connection of a Nobel Prize to it might really increase its visibility for the public," McCray said.

Science Background

Nanotechnology is the manipulation of materials on a very small scale. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter. By comparison, DNA is two nanometers wide, a red blood cell is 10,000 nanometers wide, and a single strand of hair is 100,000 nanometers thick. Nanotechnology holds great potential in virtually every sector of the economy, including electronics, medicine, and energy.

About CNS-UCSB
The mission of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara is to serve as a national research and education center, a network hub among researchers and educators concerned with nanotechnologies' societal impacts, and a resource base for studying these impacts in the U.S. and abroad.

The CNS carries out innovative and interdisciplinary research in three key areas:

· the historical context of nanotechnologies;

· the institutional and industrial processes of technological innovation of nanotechnologies along with their global diffusion and comparative impacts; and

· the social risk perception and response to different applications of nanotechnologies.

The CNS is funded by an award from the National Science Foundation.

Contacts:
Valerie Walston
(805) 893-8850
W. Patrick McCray
(805) 893-2665

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If "giant magnetoresistance" is not the first word most people think of when they think about their cool new portable music players, perhaps they should. Without it, our wafer-thin iPods would be the size of Texas toast.

Giant magnetoresistance, or GMR for short, is the technology that has allowed laptops to shrink and storage bytes to boom. It enables computers to stuff more than a trillion bits of data on a storage cell the size of a fingernail-or, in terms of songs, all the music you've ever listened to in your life on a player no bigger than a keychain.

While GMR has been a driving technology behind our modern digital age, it has done so quietly. Until now, relatively few people outside of engineering circles had ever heard of it.

That may have ended today, however, when the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced it will award the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to Albert Fert of the Université Paris-Sud in France, and Peter Grünberg of Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany for their early GMR work. In awarding this particular achievement, the academy marks the beginning of a new epoch as this is the first Nobel prize for a true form of "nanotechnology," which promises to revolutionize many areas of science and modern life.

Technorati : nobel, physics

Malaysia's first astronaut is orbiting the Earth after months of training and a successful launch from Kazakhstan.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Malaysia's first astronaut, a U.S. astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off to rendezvous with the International Space Station on Wednesday.

Thousands of Malaysians watched the blast-off live on television as the TMA-11 rocket carrying Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopaedic surgeon and university lecturer from Kuala Lumpur, lifted off from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe.

Malaysia's first astronaut is orbiting the Earth after months of training and a successful launch from Kazakhstan. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor is accompanying American Astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian Cosmonaut Yury Malenchenko on a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. Chad Bouchard reports from Bangkok.

A Russian Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft carrying Southeast Asia's first space traveler lifted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur space center Wednesday night.

The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station on Friday.

Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor gives the thumbs-up sign during a training session in Star City outside Moscow, 18 Sep 2007

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a Malaysian orthopedic surgeon, is due to research the effects of micro-gravity and space radiation on cells, and conduct experiments on proteins in an effort to develop an HIV vaccine.

In an interview with VOA from Kazakhstan, Malaysia's Science, Technology and Innovations Minister, Jamaluddin Jarjis, says he hopes the mission will inspire a new generation of Malaysian scientists.

"Putting our man, our Malaysian man in space, is basically - we want to raise the bar for Malaysia in terms of acquiring knowledge for the future, especially the young ones, the five million kids in school," he said. "And also we are quite proud, because in conjunction with our 50th anniversary of the nation, that we are positioning ourselves as part the - connected to the world."

Muszaphar is a member of Malaysia's Malay ethnic group, and much advance study and debate went into deciding how he would honor his Muslim religious duties while in space.

The Muslim requirement to face in the direction of Mecca during daily prayers, for example, is a challenging prospect while orbiting hundreds of miles above the earth in a weightless environment. An imaginary line from Mecca into space was drawn, and it was decided that Muszaphar would face that line at the start of his prayers, and continue facing the same direction throughout the flight.

He also pledged to follow religious practice during the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which coincide with the beginning of the mission.

Malaysian clerics exempted Muszaphar from fasting while in space, but he says he will observe the fasts anyway.

The country's Ministry of Religion has written the world's first handbook for Muslim astronauts to sort out that and other religious issues.

Malaysia paid Russia $25 million to allow Muszaphar's participation, part of a $900 million package linked to Malaysia's purchase of 18 Russian fighter jets.

The 35-year-old surgeon is scheduled to return to Earth October 21, while his two companions remain behind in the space station.

Technorati : Malaysia's first astronaut

Research :Functional divergence of former alleles may explain an asexual organism's evolutionary success

Asexual organisms typically have gone extinct within one million years because a lack of genetic exchange doesn't allow for the removal of deleterious mutations or the sharing of advantageous ones. But a class of aquatic invertebrates called bdelloid rotifers have persisted for 35 to 40 million years, earning the term "ancient asexuals."

The divergence of alleles into separate genes with different but advantageous functions could explain the puzzling evolutionary success of certain asexual organisms, researchers report today in Science.

"This could point the way, in part, as to why bdelloids are so successful," David Mark Welch of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., told The Scientist.

Alan Tunnacliffe at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues examined genes associated with surviving dry spells, or desiccation tolerance, and found two copies for lea genes, which are known to preserve enzymes during desiccation in multiple organisms. Their sequences differed by about 13 percent, which is greater than allele differences in sexual animals. The researchers also localized the genes to different chromosomes, which would be expected of alleles from the same gene, and therefore also expected in former alleles.

Tunnacliffe and his colleagues found that the two genes provide different protective benefits to the animal during desiccation. One gene protects proteins from aggregating, while the other appears to associate with the cell membrane, perhaps preventing it from leaking. "Sequence divergence and subsequent functional divergence helped these organisms survive desiccation," Tunnacliffe told The Scientist.

The evidence supports the idea that these were former alleles that accumulated enough mutations to become separate genes, a process termed the "Meselson effect." Matthew Meselson at Harvard University and Mark Welch first described the process in bdelloids in 2000 in a paper that has been cited more than 140 times. The difference in Tunnacliffe's findings, said Mark Welch, is "he was able to come up with some functional assays," rather than just divergent sequences.

Such divergence gives asexual organisms an advantage, the authors argue -- the effect could not occur in sexually reproducing animals, because alleles become homogenized during recombination. The findings suggest asexual reproduction could actually be an "evolutionary mechanism for the generation of diversity," they write.

So far the Meselson effect has not been observed in other organisms, perhaps because the phenomenon is unique and linked to bdelloid's desiccation tolerance, said Mark Welch, who wrote an accompanying commentary in Science. Another reason is that very few asexual organisms do not undergo meiosis, which is part of the definition of the effect.

However, Roger Butlin at the University of Sheffield told The Scientist that additional genes are not necessarily a straightforward solution to asexuality. "Having more copies of genes doesn't get you out of the problem of [disadvantageous] mutation accumulation," he said. "I think we have to look elsewhere for how they've managed to remain asexual for so long." Butlin said bdelloids' large population size and ability to distribute widely might have contributed to their success.

Butlin said the next step will be to look at the evolutionary fates of other gene copies in bdelloids and Tunnacliffe said he will start to look for other functionally divergent genes. "I think this must be going on throughout the genome," Tunnacliffe said.

The authors assume these genes were former alleles, rather than gene duplication, but their assumption makes sense, Mark Welch noted. "If it was a gene duplication, and if we are right about the structure of the bdelloid genome, then there should be four copies," he said. But because Tunnacliffe found only two divergent genes, it appears they were former alleles. "I personally think they've got it right."

Tunnacliffe's functional assays were done in vitro. He said he would like to do more studies on the activities of the two genes' proteins. "What we'd really like to know is, do these proteins do the same job in a living animal?"

Technorati : Genetic benefits of asexuality

This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds.

MIT finds new hearing mechanism
Discovery could lead to improved hearing aids

MIT researchers have discovered a hearing mechanism that fundamentally changes the current understanding of inner ear function. This new mechanism could help explain the ear's remarkable ability to sense and discriminate sounds. Its discovery could eventually lead to improved systems for restoring hearing.

The research is described in the advance online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of October 8.

MIT Professor Dennis M. Freeman, working with graduate student Roozbeh Ghaffari and research scientist Alexander J. Aranyosi, found that the tectorial membrane, a gelatinous structure inside the cochlea of the ear, is much more important to hearing than previously thought. It can selectively pick up and transmit energy to different parts of the cochlea via a kind of wave that is different from that commonly associated with hearing.

Ghaffari, the lead author of the paper, is in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, as is Freeman. All three researchers are in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Freeman is also in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

It has been known for over half a century that inside the cochlea sound waves are translated into up-and-down waves that travel along a structure called the basilar membrane. But the team has now found that a different kind of wave, a traveling wave that moves from side to side, can also carry sound energy. This wave moves along the tectorial membrane, which is situated directly above the sensory hair cells that transmit sounds to the brain. This second wave mechanism is poised to play a crucial role in delivering sound signals to these hair cells.

In short, the ear can mechanically translate sounds into two different kinds of wave motion at once. These waves can interact to excite the hair cells and enhance their sensitivity, "which may help explain how we hear sounds as quiet as whispers," says Aranyosi. The interactions between these two wave mechanisms may be a key part of how we are able to hear with such fidelity - for example, knowing when a single instrument in an orchestra is out of tune.

"We know the ear is enormously sensitive" in its ability to discriminate between different kinds of sound, Freeman says. "We don't know the mechanism that lets it do that." The new work has revealed "a whole new mechanism that nobody had thought of. It's really a very different way of looking at things."

The tectorial membrane is difficult to study because it is small (the entire length could fit inside a one-inch piece of human hair), fragile (it is 97 percent water, with a consistency similar to that of a jellyfish), and nearly transparent. In addition, sound vibrations cause nanometer-scale displacements of cochlear structures at audio frequencies. "We had to develop an entirely new class of measurement tools for the nano-scale regime," Ghaffari says.

The team learned about the new wave mechanism by suspending an isolated piece of tectorial membrane between two supports, one fixed and one moveable. They launched waves at audio frequencies along the membrane and watched how it responded by using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in Freeman's lab. That system can measure nanometer-scale displacements at frequencies up to a million cycles per second.

The team's discovery has implications for how we model cochlear mechanisms. "In the long run, this could affect the design of hearing aids and cochlear implants," says Ghaffari. The research also has implications for inherited forms of hearing loss that affect the tectorial membrane. Previous measurements of cochlear function in mouse models of these diseases "are consistent with disruptions of this second wave," Aranyosi adds.

Because the tectorial membrane is so tiny and so fragile, people "tend to think of it as something that's wimpy and not important," Freeman says. "Well, it's not wimpy at all." The new discovery "that it can transport energy throughout the cochlea is very significant, and it's not something that's intuitive."

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health

Using a stroboscopic imaging system developed in MIT Professor Dennis Freeman's lab, Freeman's team obtained this video of wave motion along the ear's tectorial membrane (at top, the actual video showing nanometer-scale displacements, and at bottom, the same video, motion magnified (Liu et al., 2005) to make the motion more apparent).
View via MIT TechTV

Technorati : hearing mechanism

Nobel :German Scientist Wins Nobel Chemistry Prize

The Nobel Prize
Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize has been awarded for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1968, Sveriges Riksbank established The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize. Each prize consists of a medal, personal diploma, and a cash award

In the picture :Gerhard Ertl of Germany who won the Nobel Chemistry Prize poses for a photo at the Fritz-Haber-Institute in Berlin on his 71st birthday, 10 Oct. 2007

The 2007 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Gerhard Ertl of the Max Planck Society in Berlin. Kevin Billinghurst has the story from Stockholm.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honors Professor Ertl for his groundbreaking studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces.

He is credited with creating a methodology for demonstrating how different experimental procedures can be used to provide a complete picture of a surface reaction, observing how individual layers of atoms behave on the extremely pure surface of a metal.

Professor Gunnar von Heijne of the Academy of Sciences explains the importance of Ertl's work.

"From high school we tend to think of chemical processes as happening in water or perhaps in a gas, but in fact a whole lot of scientifically very interesting and practically important chemistry happens on solid surfaces," he noted. "Think of iron rust, think of catalytic converters on the exhaust pipes of our cars, think of technologies such as fuel cells. Gedrhard Ertl's scientific insights have laid a firm foundation for modern surface chemistry, and his careful methodological approach has become a model for both academic research and for industrial process development."

Nobel science prizes are given for contributions to basic understanding of nature, but Professor Ertl's work also has practical environmental applications. He has studied the process by which nitrogen can be extracted from air for inclusion in artificial fertilizers, a field of huge importance in agriculture. He has also explained oxidation of carbon monoxide on platinum, a reaction that takes place in catalytic converters to clean auto-exhaust emissions.

Professor Ertl was reached by telephone minutes after hearing he had been chosen, incidentally on his 71st birthday.

"I was really speechless," he said. "I am very surprised. This is the greatest honor you can think of in the life of a scientist."

On December 10, the 111th anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, Professor Ertl and the other winners of the 2007 Nobel Prizes in science and literature will come to Sweden to receive their awards in a gala ceremony at Stockholm City Hall

Technorati : Chemistry Prize, Nobel

Google Buys Into Microblogging (Jaiku)

That was actually a test. If you actually know what Jaiku is, you have probably already heard about the acquisition on Twitter or on Jaiku itself. In other words, you are on the vanguard of trying to evolve a new sensory organ devoted to instantly perceiving what your friends are doing at any moment (and at the same time, how to profit from the latest technology trends).
Otherwise, you probably assumed Jaiku is some game played with dice that Google will put in its employee lounges. I'll bet this second group represents something that rounds easily to 100 percent of the adult population.
For all of those people: Jaiku, like Twitter, is what has become known as a microblogging service that lets people send short blasts of information about themselves to their friends and to the public. The company is based in Helsinki, and was founded by Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen. Not surprisingly both have been heavily involved in the mobile phone world. (Here are Google's blog post and Jaiku's FAQ on the deal.)
Despite the obsession of a small corner of Silicon Valley with Twitter, I suspect this is hardly a blip in the evolution of the Internet. The terms of the deal were not announced, but doubtless the company was sold for an amount in the millions or low tens of millions of dollars.
Google is not picking up a significant number of users in buying Jaiku. And I don't see any evidence that Jaiku has technology that is very hard to build. So we've got to assume Google is paying a lot of money to hire a small group of engineers it likes, as it tends to do.
This may also be a sign that Google has overstaffed its business development department and is doing deals just to keep them busy.
Still, Jaiku and Twitter, which recently raised money from Union Square Ventures, are onto something. AOL Instant Messenger showed that there is something very engaging about watching what other people we know are doing - logging on and off, putting simple information in their 'away' messages. Facebook found a way to amplify this with an easy to update "status" message, brilliantly aggregated into a personal newsfeed for each user. Twitter and Jaiku, of course, are the newsfeed without the rest of the service.
So the question here, of course, is whether status updates really will become a mass product on a standalone service, or whether they will be a feature of some other more complex offering.
You've got to bet that status, presence and so on constitute a feature. It's too easy to add these to other services that are more engaging. And I suspect that there are enough other sites wanting to expand their use for social communication that there will be many offers for Twitter whenever it decides it's time to sell.
Google, after all, has decided that it is simply too complex to create a new interface for each good idea and has been on a campaign to focus on developing "features not products." The best example of this is the integration of its instant message system into Gmail. Indeed, you can already see little orange icons showing which of your Gmail contacts are online at any given moment. And it is easy to imagine that this interface could easily add a stream of text or photo blasts too.
I'm sure some users would like that. What's not clear is why Google needed to buy a standalone company to offer it.
By the way, I asked Google for comment and haven't heard back yet. I'll update this post if they reply and add anything.

UPDATE: I just ran across this bit of fan mail to Jaiku from Tim O'Reilly. He is particularly enamored of how the service can integrate into the address book of a few high-end cellphones. As you start to dial a person, you can see their latest status update and where they are. As Google moves into the phone software business, it's possible that this sort of feature might be interesting. Google certainly has a fondness for services that relates to geographical location.
Source:

Google buys Finnish startup Jaiku.

Google announced on Tuesday it is buying Jaiku, a Finnish startup specializing in letting friends use mobile telephones to share what they are doing at any given moment.

Google is making a priority of following Internet users as they go mobile and is even reported to be crafting a "gphone" with an open-source software platform tailored to its online services.

Jaiku is a social networking and mini-messaging service that enables people to keep track of each others' activities while on the move using curt missives sent to mobile telephones.

The Helsinki-based firm founded early last year by Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen has been compared to the popular US-based service Twitter.

"Technology has made staying in touch with your friends and family both easier and harder," Google product manager Tony Hsieh wrote in a posting on the California firm's website.

"Living a fast-paced, on-the-go lifestyle is easier (and a lot of fun), but it's more difficult to keep track of everyone when they're running around at warp speed. That's why we're excited to announce that we've acquired Jaiku."

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Last month, Google's quest for devotees in the booming world of mobile online services led to its purchase of Zingku, a startup company that streamlines sharing pictures, messages and more via smart phones..

About Jaiku
Jaiku is now a part of Google. For more details about Jaiku and Google, see the Q&A about the acquisition.

Jaiku's main goal is to bring people closer together by enabling them to share their activity streams. An activity stream is a log of everyday things as they happen: your status messages, recommendations, events you're attending, photos you've taken - anything you post directly to Jaiku or add using Web feeds. We offer a way to connect with the people you care about by sharing your activities with them on the Web, IM, and SMS - as well as through a slew of cool third-party applications built by other developers using our API.

The most powerful instrument of social peripheral vision is your mobile phone. We've put in a special effort to create Jaiku Mobile, a live phonebook that displays the activity streams, availability, and location of your Jaiku contacts right in your phone contact list. We modestly believe it is the best solution out there for seeing what your friends are up to. Currently Jaiku Mobile is available for phones based on the Nokia S60 software platform (see the list of compatible devices).

Check out our Jaikido blog for updates about the service. We appreciate your feedback, so feel free to comment away on the blog - or join our feedback and ideas channel.

For an insider's view into things happening at Jaiku, follow the updates from Jaiku Team

Technorati : Google mobile, Jaiku

Internet users V virtual life

Here we collect from sources and from studies that internet is becoming the next revulation in economy ,life, personal and manythings .The online universe is brimming with dozens of virtual worlds vying to build sustainable life. From Gaia, a Japanese anime-inspired site, to vSide, a hip nightclub scene, they represent the latest way people are interacting through the Internet. Users create alter-ego avatars to navigate these online worlds, where they meet and hang out with other people, go shopping, watch movies, even start a business. And they're live: Day and night, they change as people join in. Though the idea is not new, the technology and the business to support these.

Cornell Professor Mixes Realities in Study of Virtual World 'Metanomics'
PR Newswire
ITHACA, N.Y., Sept. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The Johnson School at Cornell University has partnered with Metaversed.com, a clearinghouse for information on business and technology in virtual worlds, to launch a...

Virtual worlds can help users recover from health woes
Denver Post
Washington - After suffering a devastating stroke four years ago, Susan Brown was left in a wheelchair with little hope of walking again. Today, the 57-year-old Richmond, Va., woman has regained use of her legs...

Sony delays launch of virtual universe for PS3 -
Yahoo Daily News
20 minutes ago MAKUHARI, Japan (AFP) - Sony said Thursday it was delaying until next year the launch of an online virtual universe for the PlayStation 3 where users will be able to socialise, shop and even go...

Rome Reborn: an ancient virtual city
The Times
In the fourth century AD, Rome was a sprawling megacity feeling secure about its prominence as the undisputed capital of the world. The recently constructed Aurelian Walls enclosed the city in a fortified...

How local companies are doing business in Second Life
Newsday
When Greg Verdino of Melville gets up to go to work, he no longer makes a dash for the Long Island Rail Road to commute to Manhattan. No, as chief strategy officer of a new marketing company called crayon, on...

Economist explains move to virtual world
CNET
newsmaker The publisher of the teen-oriented virtual world Gaia Online announced Monday that it is bringing on celebrated economist Michael Boskin to lead its new Council of Economic Advisors. Boskin, a former...

Virtual, real lives intersect in OU class
Detroit news
It used to be called daydreaming. But next semester, a few Michigan college students will be able to forgo the classically flat, one-dimensional world of term papers and dead-tree literature, and troll a...

Game industry looks for answers Trailing real cheaters in virtual worlds
The News Tribune
Some players give themselves the ability to magically see and shoot through walls. Others find a way to fly, making them nearly impossible to defeat. Cheating like this in video games has a long and even...

Subdued virtual world for Japan
Buffalo News
Orderly, pornography-free and safe for children, "meet-me," an online interactive virtual Tokyo, is Japan's answer to "Second Life." Or so its creators hope. Kunimasa Hamaoka, who oversees "meet-me" at digital...

Japanese, Scared by 'Second Life,' Get Own Virtual World
Fox News
TOKYO - Orderly, pornography-free and safe for children, "Meet-Me," an online interactive virtual Tokyo, is Japan's answer to "Second Life." Or so its creators hope. Kunimasa Hamaoka, who oversees "Meet-Me" at...

Technorati : Internet users V virtual life

Cutting Carbon:Airborne Emissions: New Tech Traps,

This unusual device reduces airborne emissions by trapping and storing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

Global warming effects already shows the ill future if no control ,In a finding that could shrink the massive carbon footprint of cars worldwide, a New York scientist has proposed an industrial technology that captures CO₂ directly from the atmosphere.

Current Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies focus on large, stationary sources like power plants. But even if the capture sites were at full deployment and efficiency, "more than 50 percent of global emissions would remain unabated," writes the author.

The remaining emissions, often from dispersed and mobile sources, require other mitigation techniques. According to the author, "atmospheric CO₂ emissions may double this century." These CO₂ forecasts lend urgency to the search for a more comprehensive carbon capture system.

Frank Zeman addresses the ambient emissions with a new 'Air Capture' system that absorbs CO₂ straight from the atmosphere. While it provides a very different approach to carbon capture, the CO₂ storage technologies would be the same used in conventional CCS.

The leading challenge of air capture technology arises from the low concentration of ambient CO₂ -- 4,697 cubic feet of ambient air must be processed to capture about 2 ounces of carbon dioxide! Zeman proposes a number of solutions, including a design that uses natural drafts to absorb vast amounts of air at little to no energy cost. The comprehensive devices could be installed anywhere, writes the author, and would trap and store carbon as efficiently as current capture technologies.

The study "Energy and Material balance of CO₂ Capture from Ambient Air" is scheduled to appear in the Nov. 1 issue of ACS' Environmental Science & Technology

Technorati : cutting carbon

Explore arrival of fiber-optic technology

What is fiber-optic technology? Is it faster than dial-up, cable and DSL?

How can it improve your home? Your business? St. Albans' economic future?
Following the launch of a recent survey, the City of St. Albans and St. Albans for the Future (SAFF) will present a fiber-optic technology forum Tuesday, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at city hall.
City officials and members of St. Albans Digital, a SAFF subcommittee, will join technology consultants Larry Lackey and Sam Osborne in giving a primer in fiber-optic technology, and how St. Albans could reap benefits from it.
The phone survey, which ran from the middle to end of September, was St. Albans Digital's first step in a feasibility study that is funded through a $23,500 grant from the Vermont Community Development Program.
Lackey, of Stowe, and Osborne, of Osborne Associates in Burlington, were hired to assist with the survey. They recommended the phone survey.
The state grant also will help conduct a market-share analysis for a fiber-optic network, which, if it becomes reality, could reach every city home and business and foster economic development.
The grant will also help explore a potential partnership with Burlington Telecom, the City of Burlington's telecommunications network, which provides the only fiber-optic infrastructure in Vermont that connects directly to homes - also known as "the last mile."
St. Albans Digital has formed a negotiating team to deal with Burlington Telecom, and the city's mayors have exchanged letters of interest in exploring a partnership.
Presently, city residents have five Internet service options: dial-up, DSL (through phone wires), cable modems, wireless and satellite (which are fast but require pricy subscriptions).
Fiber optic service carries information over glass fibers instead of copper wire, thus eliminating the drag or lag time in real-time events that is sometimes found with a direct service or cable link.
More information can travel over fiber optics than copper, and at a much faster rate. Also, fiber optics is cheaper, because sand - the raw material in glass - costs far less than copper.
St. Albans Digital formed in spring 2006 from a class project and subsequent creative economy efforts that began under the auspices of the Franklin-Grand Isle L.E.A.D. Program.
L.E.A.D. is a United Way project in partnership with others in the two-county area that helps groom civic leaders for the future.
The forum on Tuesday is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

Technorati : fiber-optic technology

Explore arrival of fiber-optic technology

What is fiber-optic technology? Is it faster than dial-up, cable and DSL?

How can it improve your home? Your business? St. Albans' economic future?
Following the launch of a recent survey, the City of St. Albans and St. Albans for the Future (SAFF) will present a fiber-optic technology forum Tuesday, from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at city hall.
City officials and members of St. Albans Digital, a SAFF subcommittee, will join technology consultants Larry Lackey and Sam Osborne in giving a primer in fiber-optic technology, and how St. Albans could reap benefits from it.
The phone survey, which ran from the middle to end of September, was St. Albans Digital's first step in a feasibility study that is funded through a $23,500 grant from the Vermont Community Development Program.
Lackey, of Stowe, and Osborne, of Osborne Associates in Burlington, were hired to assist with the survey. They recommended the phone survey.
The state grant also will help conduct a market-share analysis for a fiber-optic network, which, if it becomes reality, could reach every city home and business and foster economic development.
The grant will also help explore a potential partnership with Burlington Telecom, the City of Burlington's telecommunications network, which provides the only fiber-optic infrastructure in Vermont that connects directly to homes - also known as "the last mile."
St. Albans Digital has formed a negotiating team to deal with Burlington Telecom, and the city's mayors have exchanged letters of interest in exploring a partnership.
Presently, city residents have five Internet service options: dial-up, DSL (through phone wires), cable modems, wireless and satellite (which are fast but require pricy subscriptions).
Fiber optic service carries information over glass fibers instead of copper wire, thus eliminating the drag or lag time in real-time events that is sometimes found with a direct service or cable link.
More information can travel over fiber optics than copper, and at a much faster rate. Also, fiber optics is cheaper, because sand - the raw material in glass - costs far less than copper.
St. Albans Digital formed in spring 2006 from a class project and subsequent creative economy efforts that began under the auspices of the Franklin-Grand Isle L.E.A.D. Program.
L.E.A.D. is a United Way project in partnership with others in the two-county area that helps groom civic leaders for the future.
The forum on Tuesday is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.

Technorati : fiber-optic technology