Kites Tap Megawatts of Wind Energy

In this brief talk, Saul Griffith unveils the invention his new company Makani Power has been working on: giant kite turbines that create surprising amounts of clean, renewable energy. Griffith looks for elegant ways to make real things, from low-cost eyeglasses to a "smart" rope that senses its load. His latest projects include open-source inventions and elegant new ways to generate power.
Saul Griffith: Inventor http://www.ted.com/speakers/saul_griffith.html
Video originally from http://cli.gs/GYZUqH

Twitter, US Department of State Throw Life Vest to Iranians

Now This is Top of The Curve!

When BayNewser heard that someone from the State Department had called Twitter to ask them to delay maintenance to allow Iranians to continue tweeting, we pictured some fusty old guy at Foggy Bottom in a rumpled Brooks Brothers suit and wayward spectacles.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we learned that, instead, it was a 27-year-old whiz kid whose job is to advise the State Department on how to use social media to promote U.S. interests the Middle East.

And imagine our further surprise when we learned this young gentleman wasn't one of Barack Obama's social media geniuses, but instead was a Condi Rice pick hired specifically to advise the State Department on young people in the Middle East and how to "counter-radicalize" them.

According to the New York Times, it was Jared Cohen, a member of the Policy Planning Staff, who placed the call to Twitter on Monday, inquiring about their plan to perform maintenance in what would be the middle of the day, Iran time. Following that call, Twitter decided to postpone their maintenance so that it would take place in the middle of the night Iran-time, even though that meant it would be the middle of the day U.S. time.

The Times noted that the move marked "the recognition by the United States government that an Internet blogging service that did not exist four years ago has the potential to change history in an ancient Islamic country."

So, who was this young guy with this remarkable insight?

Cohen was only 24 when he was hired into the Policy Planning Staff. By then, he'd received an undergraduate degree from Stanford and a master's degree from Oxford, where he'd been on a Rhodes Scholarship. Oh, and by then, he'd also talked his way into a visa for Iran (according to a December 2007 New Yorker profile), where he met young people his own age who threw underground house parties and made alcohol in bathtubs.

The Times describes Cohen's job today as "working with Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other services to harness their reach for diplomatic initiatives in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere."

In May, Cohen, whom CNN chose as one of its "Young People Who Rock," organized a trip to Iraq for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and other new media executives "to discuss how to rebuild the country's information network and to sell the virtues of Twitter," as the Times put it.

According to Federal News Radio, Dorsey has now been working with mobile companies in the Middle East "to establish a short code so that Iraqis can get on Twitter without actually having to have access to the internet."

Given Cohen's background, it's not surprising that he was the one to make the call on (and to) Twitter. It's also an interesting indication about how these crazy young kids, with their crazy social media-blogging-texting-online video whackiness, might actually understand a thing or two about how the world works and how to get it to move in the direction you want it to go.

Originally by E.B. Boyd from http://www.mediabistro.com/baynewser/twitter/profile_the_kid_at_the_state_department_who_figured_out_the_iranians_should_be_allowed_to_keep_tweeting_119136.asp

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www.colbertnation.com
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Is Betelgeuse Shrinking?

by Ker Than for National Geographic News June 10, 2009

Betelgeuse (pronounced almost like "beetle juice") is a red supergiant star 600 light-years away in the constellation Orion. From Earth the star is clearly visible with the naked eye as the reddish dot that marks Orion's left shoulder.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, first measured the star in 1993 with an infrared instrument on top of Southern California's Mount Wilson. They estimated the star to be as big around as Jupiter's orbit around the sun.

But measurements made since then using the same instrument show that Betelgeuse is now only about as wide as the orbit of Venus—a size reduction of about 15 percent in 15 years.

The cause of the star's rapid contraction is a mystery. But the team noted that they had observed an unusual big red spot on the star three years ago.

"Maybe there's some kind of instability going on there," said study team member Charles Townes, a Nobel Prize-winning astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.

"This red spot may be connected with the fact that [Betelgeuse is] gradually shrinking in size."

Collapse or Bounce Back?

A class of stars known as Mira variables are known to swell and contract by as much as 25 percent every two years—at their lowest points Mira stars can completely disappear from view.

Astronomers know how and why Mira stars pulsate, and they know that the pulses are linked to changes in the stars' brightness.

Betelgeuse is a type of variable star, with slight dips in its brightness every few years. (Find out why Betelgeuse is also called the Valentine's Day star.)

But its pulses are nowhere near as dramatic as those of Mira stars, the UC Berkeley researchers say. And on average the star is no fainter now than it was 15 years ago.

"Something unusual is happening with this star. The question is, What's going to happen next?" Townes said.

Betelgeuse is about 8.5 million years old, and astronomers predict it could explode as a supernova at any time. When it detonates, the blast should be clearly visible from Earth.

(Related: "Supernova 'Shock Breakout' Seen From Red Giant—A First.")

"Is it going to keep on shrinking and maybe collapse, or will it oscillate back and forth?" Townes mused. "We don't know."

Findings presented June 9 at the 214th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.

Originally from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090610-betelgeuse-star-shrinking.html

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5 Dimensional Compression Makes DVDs hold 2000 Movies! Awesome!

Scientists unveiled new DVD technology on Wednesday that stores data in five dimensions, making it possible to pack more than 2,000 movies onto a single disc -- and you don't need a new player. 

While many people think that Blu-ray will replace DVDs in the near future, a new study shows that DVDs may still have a lot to offer. Researchers have designed a five-dimensional DVD that can store 1.6 terabytes of data on a standard-size DVD, which is the equivalent of about 30 Blu-ray discs. The 5D DVDs could also be compatible with current DVD disc-drive technology.

The researchers, led by microphotonics researcher James Chon from the Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Australia, have presented the new DVD high-density data storage technique in a recent issue of Nature. While scientists have been considering 3D optical data storage for a while, this is the first time data has been recorded and read in five dimensions: three dimensions of stacked layers, and two new dimensions of wavelength (color) and polarization.

The new disc is made of three thin glass films stacked on top of each other, each coated with a solution containing gold nanorods of three different sizes. To record on the disc, the researchers focused a laser on the films, heating the nanorods so that they melted into spheres (marking the switch from 0 to 1). However, the rod-to-sphere transition depends on the wavelength and polarization of light. Nanotubes of the three different sizes absorb different wavelengths, and must be aligned with the direction of the light's polarization to turn into spheres.

These multiple variables mean that the same volume of space can hold multiple bits in multiple ways, the researchers explain. For instance, a space that responds to three different colors and two different polarizations can hold six bits. To read the bits, the researchers scanned the surface of the disc with a laser of lower energy but the same wavelength and polarization used during writing, identifying which areas had been previously melted with that light and which hadn't.

The researchers demonstrated the write and read technique on a small area of the disc, but predict that the disc could store 140 gigabytes of information per cubic centimeter. Since the volume of a typical DVD-sized disc was about 12 cm^3, the total data capacity would be 1.6 terabytes. Adding an extra dimension, say by using another polarization, could increase the storage capacity to 7.2 terabytes - about 140 times the capacity of a Blu-ray, which can store around 50 gigabytes.

The researchers are currently working with Samsung on the technology, and hope that it could be commercially available in the next 5 to 10 years. However, commercializing the technology will be challenging. For instance, it might be difficult to read the disk quickly because the information is packed so densely. Also, the large, expensive titanium-sapphire femtosecond laser used in the study is not practical, although the researchers say that a cheaper laser diode could also work.

More information: Peter Zijlstra, James W. M. Chon, and Min Gu. "Five-dimensional optical recording mediated by surface plasmons in gold nanorods." Nature 459, 410-413 (21 May 2009), doi:10.1038/nature08053

Originally from PhysOrg.com © 2009 http://www.physorg.com/news162138048.html

And more details at http://www.physorg.com/news162044616.html

Mind-Controlled Robots! Mind-Controlled Robots!

We're not just moving toward the day when robots can do everything for us. We're apparently moving toward the day when we can just think about what we want done, and get it (almost) presto.

Japan's Honda Research Institute and precision-equipment manufacturer Shimadzu on Tuesday demonstrated a rather mind-boggling technology that lets humans control a bot through thought alone--thus taking the pesky button pressing, voice commands, and remote controls out of the equation.

But don't start trying to telepath your Scooba into writing your doctoral thesis just yet. For now, researchers are focusing on getting the latest version of Honda's Asimo humanoid bot to perform simple actions like raising an arm or leg.

The system involves a helmet full of electroencephalography and near-infrared spectroscopy sensors that monitor electrical brainwaves and cerebral blood flow, signals that alter slightly during the human thought process. The robot controller thinks of one of a limited number of specific gestures it wants from Asimo, which has been fitted with a Brain Machine Interface.

The data is then analyzed on a real-time basis to distinguish what the user imagined and transmitted wirelessly to the bot, which makes corresponding movements.

Researchers in Tokyo showed a demonstration video of the system in which a user is shown a card with a picture of a right hand on it. After the user thinks about his right hand, the command from the user's brain is then transferred to Asimo, which acknowledges the request and raises its own robotic limb.

Unfortunately, the scientists did not demo the technology live due to what they said were space constraints and concerns about possible distractions to the person's concentration--presumably in the form of blinding flashbulbs and the stunned faces of onlookers.

Honda nonetheless says tests of the system have produced results with 90 percent accuracy.

Originally from http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10208469-1.html  Leslie Katz, senior editor of CNET's Crave, covers gadgets, games, and most other digital distractions. As a co-host of the CNET News Daily Podcast, she sometimes tries to channel Terry Gross. E-mail Leslie.

NASA Climate Scientist Says Its Time for Activism

James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa argues that corporate lobbying is undermining the democratic response to climate change.

 

Speaking on the eve of joining a protest against the headquarters of power firm E.ON in Coventry, Hansen said:

 "The first action that people should take is to use the democratic process. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.

"The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I'm not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we're running out of time."

Hansen said he was taking part in the Coventry demonstration tomorrow because he wants a worldwide moratorium on new coal power stations. E.ON wants to build such a station at Kingsnorth in Kent, UK.

Originally from:

http://www.apesphere.com/story/798/2009/03/19/NASA_climate_scientist_says_its_time_for_activism

Cetacean Successfully Sedated at Sea

A scientific first

Two drops of whale tranquilizer is enough to kill a person.

But last week, scientists used rifle-like guns and foot-long needles to shoot two cups’ worth of the stuff into an endangered whale off the coast of Georgia.

Scientists on Friday use poles and knives to try to untangle a whale off the coast of Georgia from fishing line.

And, for the first time, it worked.

Never before Friday had a wild whale been successfully tranquilized and freed from an entanglement that threatened its life, researchers told CNN. (See video of the dangerous encounter.) The whale — a rare, school-bus-sized whale named Bridle — was freed from hundreds of feet of fishing line that threatened the whale’s life, scientists said.

That’s big news in the whale world, said Jamison Smith, large whale disentanglement coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It means that researchers have a new tool to help whales in dangerous circumstances.

Previously, when scientists tried to sedate whales, nothing noticeable happened.

The scientists cautiously upped the dosage until they were successful. The fear of using too much tranquilizer on a whale is great, because it could cause a whale to stop swimming and drown, he said.

Bridle is a North Atlantic right whale, which is one of the most endangered large whales on earth. Only about 400 of the school-bus-sized creatures remain, and scientists are worried by the fact that they’ve seen more of the rare whales entangled in fishing lines and gear this year than ever before.

Some of the right whales are giving birth through the end of the month off the Atlantic coasts of Georgia and Florida. Record numbers of whales are being born — which is a great thing, since scientists say each one gives the species a slightly better chance for survival.

But five whales have been found entangled in fishing line in the last six weeks, Smith said. He called that news “alarming,” and said it’s unclear what’s causing the increase.

The lines wrap around their bodies and cause cuts and infections that often prove fatal.

Bridle, the whale that was sedated, was named because it had a rope strung through its mouth, like a bridled horse, said Katie Jackson, a marine mammal biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. (Read more about how Jackson and others free the whales.)

Friday was the fifth time scientists had tried to free Bridle. In other attempts, he didn’t respond to sedation and dove deep into the ocean and turned sharply to avoid tiny boats filled with rescuers, Jackson said.

Smith said the whale’s injuries are extensive. So, despite the fact that the whale was freed from hundreds of feet of rope, his chances for survival are still uncertain.

Jackson said Bridle’s recovery partly will depend on the whale’s will to survive.

“He’s a little bit emaciated and has been having to deal with this entanglement for months now — at least. So he’s not doing well overall,” she said. “He still may not be able to survive this ordeal. It’s just going to depend on him really — and his ability to bounce back from it.”

To learn more, check out these right-whale resources online:

– Watch video of scientists trying to disentangle Bridle

– See a CNN report on efforts to save these ‘ugly’ whales, which are slow swimmers and have funny warts on their heads

– Listen to a scientist tell the stories of individual right whales — from Stumpy to Van Halen

– And flip through a catalog of right whale sightings to learn more about their stories.

Posted by: John D. Sutter -- CNN.com writer/producer

Originally from http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/12/whale-sedated-at-sea-a-scientific-first/

Invention Eats Nuclear "Sludge"

The Super X Divertor sounds like some fantasy invention from a 1950s Popular Mechanics. But it's a real device that helps enable two eco-friendly processes: Generating zero carbon-footprint power, and eating up dangerous nuclear waste from older power stations.

Physicists at the University of Texas have invented the Compact Fusion Neutron Source (CFNS), which is a clever system that mixes of two types of nuclear power reactors. The older fission reactor we're all familiar with (which generate lots of dangerously radioactive waste) and a tokamak fusion reactor (where small atoms are fused together much more cleanly).

The CFNS will eat up so-called nuclear "sludge," which is a dangerous, highly toxic, long-lived radioactive by-product of existing nuclear power stations. The sludge is formed into a jacket around the core fusion reactor. The CFNS spits out neutrons and heat which "burn" the sludge, releasing more energy as heat--which is used to generate more electricity--and reducing the sludge into less dangerous material. And the Super X Divertor makes it possible for the compound reactor to produce lots of neutrons and heat without destroying itself.

It's as if a new type of hybrid engine was invented for your car that caught the exhaust from your gas-powered engine and turned it into extra power and cleaner by-products.

Pure fusion reactors have long been the ultimate goal, since they release vast amounts of energy from small amounts of "fuel" and have very few dangerous by-products. But the Super X Divertor could act as a solution until the diffcult problems of building a fusion reactor are solved.

Originally from http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/new-invention-eats-nuclear-waste-makes-more-power via http://www.physorg.com/news152284917.html

First in Nature: Fish Makes Image Using a Mirror

A Pacific fish uses mirrors to help it see in the murky ocean depths. "Diverticular" eyes are unique among all vertebrates.

The brownsnout spookfish has been known for 120 years, but no live specimen had ever been captured.

Last year, one was caught off Tonga, by scientists from Tuebingen University, Germany.

Tests confirmed the fish is the first vertebrate known to have developed mirrors to focus light into its eyes, the team reports in Current Biology.

"In nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, and many thousands of vertebrate species living and dead, this is the only one known to have solved the fundamental optical problem faced by all eyes - how to make an image - using a mirror," said Professor Julian Partridge, of Bristol University, who conducted the tests.

Spookfish is a name often given to Barreleyes - a group of small, odd-looking deep-sea fish species, found in tropical-to-temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

A rare live brownsnout spookfish, Dolichopteryx longipes, was caught last year between New Zealand and Samoa, by Professor Hans-Joachim Wagner, of Tuebingen University.

Deep see

While the animal appears to have four eyes, it technically has two, each of which is split into two connected parts.

The spookfish needs one half to point upwards, to capture faint glimmers of light from the sea surface 1,000m above.

The other half, which looks like a bump on the side of the fish's head, points downwards.

Seen from below, the mirrored eyes (red) focus light from the depths

These "diverticular" eyes are unique among all vertebrates in that they use a mirror to make the image.

Prof Partridge said: "Very little light penetrates beneath about 1,000m of water and like many other deep-sea fish, the spookfish is adapted to make the most of what little light there is.

"At these depths it is flashes of bioluminescent light from other animals that the spookfish are largely looking for.

"The diverticular eyes image these flashes, warning the spookfish of other animals that are active, and otherwise unseen, below its vulnerable belly."

The mirror uses tiny plates, probably of guanine crystals, arranged into a multi-layer stack.

Prof Partridge made up a computer simulation showing that the precise orientation of the plates within the mirror's curved surface is perfect for focusing reflected light on to the fish's retina.

He added: "The use of a single mirror has a distinct advantage over a lens in its potential to produce bright, high-contrast images.

"That must give the fish a great advantage in the deep sea, where the ability to spot even the dimmest and briefest of lights can mean the difference between eating and being eaten." Originally from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7815540.stm

RIAA Drops Lawsuit Tactic

By CNET's Greg Sandoval The music industry's highly controversial strategy of suing customers for file sharing has mostly ended. The Recording Industry Association of America said Friday that it no longer plans to wage a legal assault against people who it suspects of pirating digital music files. What the RIAA should have said, though, is that it won't go after most people who illegally file share. My music industry sources say that the RIAA will continue to file lawsuits against the most egregious offenders--the person who "downloads 5,000 or 6,000 songs a month is still going to get sued," a source at a major record company told me. The strategy of suing music fans has long been criticized by artists, consumers, and even some record-label executives. Critics have said it alienates music buyers and more importantly has been ineffectual. Now, the music industry has a new form of protection: Internet service providers. According to a story in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), which broke the news about the RIAA's new strategy, unidentified Internet service providers have agreed to "reduce the service," to chronic file-sharers. Exactly what a reduction of service may include isn't specified, but a source close to the situation said that none of the ISPs have agreed to limit a user's bandwidth, a practice known as throttling. The way the new enforcement system will work is that the RIAA will alert an ISP that a customer appears to be file sharing. The ISP will then notify the person that he or she appears to be file sharing. If the behavior by the customer doesn't change, then more e-mails will be sent. If the customer ignores these e-mails, then the ISP may choose to suspend the person's service. If all else fails, they can choose to discontinue service. Under the plan, which was brokered by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the music industry will not know the customer's identity. What this means is that ISPs have now gone into the enforcement business, and this has always been one of the greatest fears of those who have wanted ISPs to remain neutral. "This is very troubling," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that advocates for Internet rights. "Creating lists of people who can't get Internet access based on allegations of breaking a law that hasn't been evaluated in a court of law. It's good that that the (RIAA) wants to stop suing individuals but they should haven't done it in the first place. I'd be especially concerned if the music labels can get you kicked off one ISP and then arrange to get you kicked off others, or the creation of blacklists. That's certainly what our fears have been about private legal enforcement regimen." Was litigating against file sharers an effective deterrent? That depends on who you ask. To many music fans, the practice was a loathsome and heavy-handed approach that only served to inspire people to resist efforts to keep them from obtaining music. To those in the music industry, it helped alert the public following the Napster era--when many consumers believed there was nothing wrong with sharing music files--that pirating music harmed artists and record stores, and was also against the law. But according to most of the data, the lawsuits didn't prevent illegal file sharing from growing. At the same time, the strategy also alienated scores of potential music buyers. The truth is that the music industry no longer needs the RIAA to chase after large numbers of file sharers. Sure, music piracy still thrives but is less and less about the mainstream. The industry has learned that the answer to piracy isn't to intimidate people into obtaining music legally. The recording companies have made music available in ways that actually appeal to consumers. If people don't want to pay for music, they can go to MySpace Music, YouTube or iMeem and listen to all the ad-supported streaming songs they want. And a huge number of digital music fans are willing to pay for songs at iTunes. You can bet the ISP deal is going to be controversial one, but before going on to the next fight, I think music fans should celebrate the end of a dark period in the industry's history. Originally from http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10126914-93.html?tag=mncol;txt