Low-Carbon Electricity is Needed To Power Plug-in Hybrids

ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2008) — Carnegie Mellon University's Constantine Samaras and Kyle Meisterling report that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions that fuel global warming, but the benefits are highly dependent on how the electricity system changes in the coming decades.

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NASA planning to set up shop on the moon in 2024

by Paul Miller, posted Dec 5th 2006 at 10:32AM

President Bush's plans for a return to the moon in 2020, with a trip to Mars to follow, were all well and good, but now NASA has finally fleshed out the details of the moon visits, and it seems a permanent international moon base is in the cards. NASA hopes to return to the moon starting in 2020 with short stays to get things prepared, and to have the base ready for extended stays by 2024. The lunar outpost will most likely be placed on the lunar south pole, which is lit by the sun three-quarters of the time, and has possible resources to mine nearby. Two vehicles will be employed, the Orion exploration vehicle, and an all-purpose "pickup truck" of a landing vehicle which attaches to the Orion and can bring cargo and/or crew to the lunar surface in a manned or unmanned manner. It'll cost a whoppin' $104 billion to get back to the moon for the first trip, and we're sure carting supplies up there won't be cheap, but in the long run NASA hopes to be able to harvest hydrogen, oxygen and other nifty moon resources for the operation of the outpost, tasks which could eventually become simple enough to turn over to a commercial supplier. In an effort to keep costs down and build good will, NASA is welcoming other countries to join the effort, though NASA will be doing the actual design work. "This is not your father's Apollo," says John Logsdon of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University. "This is not a flag-and-footprints. This is the idea of starting an outward movement that includes long stays on the moon."

DARPA turns Arthur C. Clarke's Stiletto into MAHEM

by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 1:12PM

Arthur C. Clarke's ideas have had a tendency of becoming a reality in the past, and it looks like that's now happening yet again, in this case with a little help from the folks at DARPA. As New Scientist reports, the prolific agency is currently working on a new weapon system that bears a striking resembles to the Stiletto weapon in Clarke's 1955 novel Earthlight. That science fiction version was described as "a solid bar of light" that can pierce a spacecraft "as an entomologist pierces a butterfly with a pin." Or, more specifically, "a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred kilometers per second by the most powerful electro-magnets ever built." DARPA's MAHEM weapon (or Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition), on the other hand, is described by New Scientist as using magnetic fields to "propel either a narrow jet of molten metal or a chunk of molten metal that morphs into an aerodynamic slug during flight." There is a slight difference, however, in that MAHEM's electromagnetic field will be generated by an explosion, and not a giant electro-magnet. It's also not clear if MAHEM will be used to defend a fortress on the moon, although that's not exactly as far fetched as it once seemed either.

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Nanotubes Grown Straight In Large Numbers

ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2008) — Duke University chemists have found a way to grow long, straight cylinders only a few atoms thick in very large numbers, removing a major roadblock in the pursuit of nano-scale electronics.

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Lauren Bush's FEED bags

by Patricia Mayville-Cox
Apr 24th 2008 @ 10:01AM

Filed under: Celebrities, Activism

Lauren Bush, model, activist and George W.'s niece, has partnered with Whole Foods to sell FEED bags at every Whole Foods store in the U.S., Canada and the UK. The FEED bag sales will benefit the U.N. World Food Program's Feeding operations and will go on sale May 1.

Each FEED bag sold will provide 100 school meals to hungry children in Rwanda. Whole Foods has already purchased 430,000 of these bags.

Lauren designed the FEED 1 bag, which is a reversible burlap and cotton bag and has been spotted all around toting one. One side says FEED and the other side says "1" signifying that buying just one bag feeds one child in school for one year.

You can also buy a FEED bag online at Amazon for $59.95.

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Beetles turning forests into carbon bombs

by Patrick Metzger
Apr 24th 2008 @ 9:02AM

Filed under: News, Climate Change

In one of those nasty climate change feedback loops that we've been hearing about, a deadly infestation of mountain pine beetles in British Columbia forests is releasing huge amounts of greenhouse gases.

Trees, of course, absorb carbon while alive, meaning they release it when they die. The plague of tiny beetles has already killed millions of trees, and scientists estimate that the devastation will add almost a billion tonnes of CO2 to our already well-carbonated atmosphere before the beetles eat everything in sight and move on.

One of the reasons the insects have been able to do such unprecedented damage is because warmer temperatures have allowed them to survive in parts of the forest that previously would have been too cold for them. Of course, as more trees die and more carbon is released, temperatures get warmer, and the beetles can move further north to continue their depredations, so more carbon is released and so on, and so on, and so on.

Stupid forests, it's all their fault.

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Video: Blaser tournament unwisely fits Japanese robots with lasers -- PEW PEW

by Thomas Ricker, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 1:23AM

Look Japan, we know you love your robots but is it really prudent to equip them with them frigging laser beams? Why not just hand them maps to our vital organs and special hoses to juice our babies? You're looking at an actual photo from the Blazer tournament held this week in Fukuoka City, Japan. The competition fitted Kondo's KHR-1HV with lasers and sensors and then let the teams battle it out in a mock-up city. We truly are the makers of our own doom.

Update: Video added after the break, pew pew... pew-pew, pew.

[Thanks, HolyMary]

Electric Think City car sets sights on North American launch

by Darren Murph, posted Apr 24th 2008 at 8:39AM

You totally thought that "Think" operation you heard about last summer was nothing more than yet another electric car dream that would never see reality, didn't you? Turns out, the endeavor could be more successful than anyone originally imagined, and if all goes to plan, the Think City should hit US shores later this year. Beyond that, the company is assuming that it "could be selling as many as 50,000 units in two or three years," and with pump prices soaring and a sticker of around $25,000, we don't have much reason to doubt that. The 110MPG vehicle, which touts a top speed of 65 miles-per-hour and reportedly meets all US / European safety standards, would likely be assembled in Southern California (at least, one's sold over here), but we've no idea if swarms of Think dealerships will start popping up after all this goes down.

[Via International Herald Tribune]

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Transgenic Papaya Genome Draft Yields Many Fruits

ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2008) — A broad collaboration of research institutions in the U.S. and China has produced a first draft of the papaya genome. This draft, which spells out more than 90 percent of the plant's gene coding sequence, sheds new light on the evolution of flowering plants. And because it involves a genetically modified plant, the newly sequenced papaya genome offers the most detailed picture yet of the genetic changes that make the plant resistant to the papaya ringspot virus.

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Watch Digital TV And Films Without Disruptions Thanks To Mathematical Model

ScienceDaily (Apr. 24, 2008) — Dutch researcher Alina Weffers-Albu has developed a method to calculate how a device can provide maximum functionality with a minimum quantity of processor and memory capacity. TVs, DVD players and mobile phones can malfunction when the inbuilt chips and software cease to cope with the increasingly large flow of data.

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Scotts Lawn Care gets busted by the EPA

by Josh Loposer
Apr 23rd 2008 @ 5:40PM

Filed under: Health, Home, News

As far as I'm concerned, a lot of eco-sins are committed in the name of keeping lawns green and 'healthy.' Suburban lawn farming accounts for tons of dirty lawnmower emissions, unnecessary water usage, and of course pouring chemical fertilizers and pesticides into the local watershed -- you never know what's really in all that stuff. Just today, the EPA ordered Scotts Miracle-Gro and Scotts Lawn Care to stop selling certain brands of its pesticides because they hadn't bothered to have them properly registered with the EPA.

The untested pesticides are labeled with the invalid EPA registration #'s 62355-4 or 538-304. If you own any of the pesticides, the EPA says to keep them in a cool dry place, don't flush them into the water supply, and don't throw them into the landfill -- just sit tight until they figure out if the products are harmful. Here's a list of the items being recalled:

• Garden Weed Preventer + Plant Food
• Miracle Gro Shake 'n' Feed All Purpose Plant Food Plus Weed Preventer
• Scotts Lawn Service Fertilizer with .28% Halts
• Scotts Lawn Service Fertilizer 0-0-7 Plus .28% Halts Pro
• Scotts Lawn Service Fertilizer 14-2-5 Plus .28% Halts Pro
• Scotts Lawn Service Fertilizer 22-0-8 Plus .28% Halts Pro

I have to assume the stuff isn't too terrible, since Scotts lawn care products are usually not designed to decimate the natural world -- but you never know. Companies that sell household pesticides haven't traditionally been all that active in the eco-yard movement. Why did Scotts forget that they have to register their pesticides, it's not like they're new to the pesticides business?

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Video: VW's Park Assist Vision helps bridge and tunnelers park in the big scary city

by Thomas Ricker, posted Apr 23rd 2008 at 7:30AM

Volkswagen is showing off its new Park Assist Vision technology at the Hanover Fair in Germany. Unlike VW's previous attempts, this version of Park Assist is fully automatic. As such, the driver-turned-spectator can stand outside the car while the Passat maneuvers its way into cramped spots with the help of external cameras and proximity sensors. The driver selects his space on the monitor of the navigation system and ten sets the vehicle into "P" mode. It's just a trial for now so you'll still have to get by with the ol' bump-smile-n-flirt approach that's gotten you and your Aquanet hair into the city up until now. Video demonstration after the break.

[Via Gizmag]

Chocolate Bar Shown To Lower Cholesterol

ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2008) — The results of a University of Illinois study have demonstrated an effective way to lower cholesterol levels -- by eating chocolate bars.

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Brain controlled computer games

The technology behind interpreting brainwaves and using this information to interact with computers is getting better. There are all type of applications, but games is where it will probably start - then the interface can be adapted to all type of computer and medical applications. Below is a video discussing and demonstrating Emotiv's new brain interface.



Here is an article in Scientific American on this device.