July 30, 2010

NIST Arrays Are Step Toward Mass Production of Nanowires

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Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have cultivated many thousands of nanocrystals in what looks like a pinscreen or "pin art" on silicon, a step toward reliable mass production of semiconductor nanowires for millionths-of-a-meter-scale devices such as sensors and lasers.

NIST researchers grow nanowires made of semiconductors—gallium nitride alloys—by depositing atoms layer-by-layer on a silicon crystal under high vacuum. NIST has the unusual capability to produce these nanowires without using metal catalysts, thereby enhancing luminescence and reducing defects. NIST nanowires also have excellent mechanical quality factors


Oldest Man in Japan Dead for 30 years Like Norman Bates Mother

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BBC News reports that when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed. Mr Kato may have been dead for 30 years according to Japanese authorities. The family had received 9.5 million yen ($109,000: £70,000) in widower's pension payments via Mr Kato's bank account since his wife died six years ago, and some of the money had recently been withdrawn.

It is an interesting case of real life mimicking the Alfred Hitchcock directed movie Psycho, where Norman Bates had the skeletal remains of his mother and acted as if she was alive.

Carnival of Nuclear Energy 12

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The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 12 is up at Idaho Samizdat

This site provided two articles:
Stealth nuclear fusion company Tri-alpha Energy has raised another $50 million.

My predictions for Kazakhstan uranium production for 2010 to 2015. And the new 2010, 2011 Kazakhstan uranium production bets with Dittmar.

Covering Roads Cost Perspective

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There is a criticism of the idea to cover roads as being too costly at $3 million per acre.

I had indicated further into the article ways to reduce the cost of covering the roads by using street lamps and telephone polls and existing two story and taller buildings to support the EFTE covering awning. This would reduce the amount of labor for the raised supports so that just the roof portion would need to be built and afixed to the existing supports. I also suggested that higher volume production could reduce costs and that alternative lower costs materials may be investigated.

July 29, 2010

Domed Cities Can Make Cities Dwellers Healthier and Safer

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By Alvin Wang and Brian Wang
This is a follow up to a recent article about updating proposals for Domed cities. Previously the case was made for improved feasibility with existing covered areas and domes in the 30-40 acre ranges and with costs of $400 million to 1 billion. There is also new strong teflon material (EFTE) which is 100 times lighter than glass and which can lower costs by 4 times. It was also shown that Domed Cities can reduce heating and cooling costs and energy usage by over 90%.

Domed cities will enable every day to have moderate temperature and no rain or snow and no ice formation. Current trends show the elderly population will rise dramatically, obesity will rise unless there are changes and about 3 billion people will be added to city populations in existing or new cities over the next 30 years. Domed Cities will be made far more walkable than current cities and enable citizens to be more active which will reduce obesity and eliminate traffic deaths and accidents. Ice and rain are a factor in about half of all of the more severe falls. Falls on ice and snow are 5 times more likely to result in a fracture. Falls still occur indoors now so falls will still occur but increased risks factors from more slippery surfaces can be removed. Also, many new cities will be in places like China and a well designed domed city can be used to reduce air pollution, which kills 1 person out of every thousand in China.

Currently increased health risks and lower safety and more risk of property damage are handled by society with higher insurance costs and higher costs for fixing people and property after the damage has occurred. Actually building things that are safer and healthier by design is a cheaper way to go. Also, prevention actually saves the lives and prevents the injuries.

There are ways to achieve each individual benefit of domed cities through other means but as these first two articles are pointing out doming cities is a cost effective way to achieve many benefits.

Urban Design for Reduced Obesity

Obesity rates can be reduced by making the entire domed city very easy for walking and bicycling and only having light electric pods or Segway like vehicles. Good weather on all days means that there is no days on which weather would discourage activity.


Dome City Urban Planners Should Look to Designs Like Florence with Piazzas and old Roman styles that are Walking Friendly

The historic center of Florence was 11 square kilometers in size. This was a size that was very suited to walking and minimally assisted transportation.
Bejing Airport Terminal Three is 2900 meters long, is an example of a place where people move across larger areas now without cars. Masdar City has no cars. People can live comfortably in cities like Hong Kong and Manhattan without owning cars.


Graphene Under Strain Creates Pseudo-Magnetic Fields Equivalent to more than 300 Tesla

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In this scanning tunneling microscopy image of a graphene nanobubble, the hexagonal two-dimensional graphene crystal is seen distorted and stretched along three main axes. The strain creates pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than any magnetic field ever produced in the laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley, reports the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory – just by putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene.

Describing their experimental discovery, Crommie says, “We had the benefit of a remarkable stroke of serendipity.”


“We have shown experimentally that when graphene is stretched to form nanobubbles on a platinum substrate, electrons behave as if they were subject to magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla, even though no magnetic field has actually been applied,” says Crommie. “This is a completely new physical effect that has no counterpart in any other condensed matter system.”

Automotive XPrize Finalists that Advance to the Final Validation Phase

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Edison2 is the Mainstream unofficial winner
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE, a $10 million competition to inspire a new generation of super fuel efficient vehicles, announced today the Finalist teams who have survived all on-track testing at Michigan International Speedway (MIS), and who now move into a Validation stage before prize money will be awarded this September.

What began as a field of 136 vehicles from 111 teams has now been narrowed to an elite group of nine vehicles from just seven teams that have proven they can meet the strictest requirements of this competition, including the ability to achieve at least 90 MPGe on the way toward the ultimate 100 MPGe requirement and to survive grueling dynamic safety and range tests


The Alternative tandem class unofficial winner is the X-tracer Etracer

Edison2 is the Mainstream unofficial winner