Uranium from Seawater on a large Scale Update

Dr Masao Tamada, of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, has developed a fabric made primarily of irradiated polyethylene that is able to soak up the minute amounts of uranium – around 3.3 parts per billion – in the seawater.

Dr Tamada hopes to secure funding to construct an underwater uranium farm covering nearly 400 square miles that would meet one-sixth of Japan's annual uranium requirements.

"Other countries are conducting similar research but none are as advanced as we are," he said. "We need to conduct more development research and be able to produce the adsorbent material on a large scale, but we could achieve this within five years."

JAEA and CRIEPI Report on Technology for Collecting Uranium from
Seawater

At a regular meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on June 2, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and the Central Research Institute of the Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) reported on technology for collecting uranium from seawater. According to the two organizations, the total amount of uranium contained in seawater – as one of the 77 elements dissolved therein – measures some 4.5 billion tons, about one thousand times more than is known to exist in uranium mines. Even if Japan could collect just 0.2% of the 520,000 tons of uranium transported every year by the Japan (Kuroshio) Current that flows in the Pacific Ocean, it could easily meet its annual need of 8,000 tons.

36001618
Current status of adsorbent development for recovery of uranium from seawater (in Japanese)
Tamada, Masao
Genshiryoku eye 54(11), p.13-16(2008) ; (JAEA-J 04907)

Uranium recovery from seawater has been emerging issue since in June, 2007, uranium cost rose suddenly to $136 which was ten times as much as past cost. Though the uranium concentration in seawater is 3.3 ppb, total amount of uranium in seawater is 4.5 billion tons. This amount is 1000 times of mine uranium. An adsorbent which has high affinity to uranium is inevitable to collect the uranium in seawater. Radiation-induced graft polymerization can synthesize such adsorbent having enough strength in seawater, also. Up to now, it was proven that 1kg uranium was collected from seawater by the adsorbent synthesized by grating. Moreover, a braid type adsorbent has been developed for a practicable recovery system. The possibility of 25,000 yen/kg-U in uranium cost is shown in the annual collection scale of 1200 tons uranium by using this adsorbent. Further R&D is expected for the improvement of adsorbent durability and the simultaneous collection of vanadium with uranium.

Previous examination of large scale mining of the oceans

Another New State of Matter

Journal Science: Realization of an Excited, Strongly Correlated Quantum Gas Phase

Ultracold atomic physics offers myriad possibilities to study strongly correlated many-body systems in lower dimensions. Typically, only ground-state phases are accessible. Using a tunable quantum gas of bosonic cesium atoms, we realized and controlled in one-dimensional geometry a highly excited quantum phase that is stabilized in the presence of attractive interactions by maintaining and strengthening quantum correlations across a confinement-induced resonance. We diagnosed the crossover from repulsive to attractive interactions in terms of the stiffness and energy of the system. Our results open up the experimental study of metastable, excited, many-body phases with strong correlations and their dynamical properties.

Nanowerk has coverage

The researchers produced a quantum gas made up of bosonic caesium atoms in a vacuum chamber. Then, they generated an optical lattice using two laser beams; the lattice confined the atoms to vertical, one-dimensional structures with up to 15 atoms aligned in each 'tube'. The laser beams prevented the atoms from shifting out of line or changing places. Once this was achieved, the scientists used a magnetic field to tune the interaction among the atoms.

'By increasing the interaction energy between the atoms (attraction interaction), the atoms start coming together and the structure quickly decays,' explained Dr Naegerl. This is called the 'Bosenova effect'. When the interaction energy is minimised, the atoms are able to repel instead of attract each other; this allows them to align vertically and regularly along a one-dimensional structure. The resulting system is stable.

The researchers observed a surprising effect when the interactions were switched from strongly repulsive to strongly attractive. They achieved 'an exotic, gas-like phase, where the atoms are excited and correlated but do not come together and the 'Bosenova effect' is absent', said Dr Naegerl.

According to co-investigator Elmar Haller of the University of Innsbruck, the phase was predicted four years ago. 'We have now been able to realise it experimentally for the first time,' he stated.

The experimental setup will be used in future studies to investigate the properties of quantum wires, which have until now been extremely difficult to observe. Further research on low-dimensional structures may also shed light on the functioning of high-temperature superconductors.

4 pages of supplemental material

Lattice loading.
We produce a BEC of Cs atoms in the lowest hyperfine sublevel with hyperfine quantum
numbers F = 3 and mF = 3 in a crossed beam dipole trap with trap frequencies !x;y;z =
2  (15; 20; 13) Hz, where z denotes the vertical direction. The BEC is adiabatically transferred from the dipole trap to the array of tubes by exponentially ramping up the power in the lattice laser beams with waists  350 m within 500 ms. The repulsive interaction causes the atoms to move radially outwards during the initial phase of the lattice loading in response to the strong local compression. We use this effect to vary the total number of tubes loaded and hence the atom number per tube by setting a3D for the loading process to values between 40 a0 and 350 a0. For the data set in the repulsive regime (Fig.3A, circles), we exponentially ramp down the crossed beam dipole trap during the loading process and reach longitudinal and transversal trap frequencies of !D = 2  15:4(1) Hz and !? = 2  13:1(1) kHz with a transversal confinement length a? = 1440(6) a0. Here, depending on the regime of interaction to be studied, the number of atoms in the central tube is set to values between 8 and 25. For the data set in the sTG regime (Fig.3A, squares) we increase !D to 2  115:6(3) Hz to reduce the vertical extent of the sample and hence the variation of the magnetic field across the atom cloud. For this, we keep the depth of the crossed beam dipole trap constant during the loading process and then ramp up the power in one of the beams within 100 ms. The number of atoms in the central tube is set to values between 8 and 11.

Array of 1D tubes....

SENS4 antiaging conference Update

Nextbigfuture coverage of all of the SENS4 coverage.

Previous SENS4 session details.

All sessions have been presented by the end of Sunday, Sept 6, 2009.

Ouroboros provides coverage of session 12- Novel anti-cancer approaches.

Paul Hallenbeck of Neotropix spoke about a promising new treatment for neuroendocrine cancers. Initial trials of the “Seneca Valley Virus” were conducted on patients with carcinoid cancer or small cell lung cancer (SCLC) that had failed to respond to standard therapies. Results were very good; they plan to start a phase 2b trial in a couple of months.

Adela Ben-Yakar talked about using lasers for the precise surgical removal of tumours. They are developing a femtosecond laser system that can both image and target individual cancer cells – a nice overview of this work has been published in Technology Review.

Cassian Yee spoke about treating cancer with adoptive T cell therapy. Briefly, it’s a personalized approach to cancer research that attacks tumours using the patient’s own T cells. T cells are extracted, modified in a number of different ways to improve their function, grown into a much larger population, and then finally re-infused back into the patient.

Japan Steel Work Increases Forecast of China Nuclear Plant Construction

Bloomberg reports Japan Steel Works Ltd., which makes reactor parts for Areva SA, Toshiba Corp. and rivals, more than doubled its forecast for China’s nuclear plant construction because of stimulus spending and environmental pressures. The country may build about 22 reactors in the five years ending 2010 and 132 units thereafter, compared with a company estimate last year for a total 60 reactors, President Ikuo Sato said in an interview. The Bloomberg article incorrectly states that Japan Steel is the only maker of the large forgings for reactor pressure vessels.

World Nuclear news has coverage of the Japan Steel boosted estimate and it relates to the prior target of 40 GW by 2020 by China which is now likely to be up to 86 GW or more. There is a new energy plan coming from China by the end of 2009 and will likely increase renewable and nuclear energy targets.

Heavy Manufacturing of Nuclear power plants by the World Nuclear Association indicates that China, Russia and South Korea can make large forgings now.



World Nuclear Association 2100 Nuclear



The World Nuclear Association has its Nuclear century Outlook plan that indicates the feasibility of using nuclear power to help meet the global need for clean energy.



The projection seems to be based on a combination of estimated energy demand and an estimate of country by country build capacity. About 25% of the capacity and demand is in China and India and 12% in the United States. The estimates are adjusted as plans and developments are occuring in each country. For example, the estimate for China in 2030 has been increasing as China continues

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita: Learning the Methods for Making Accurate Predictions

Nextbigfuture previously looked at Bruce Bueno de Mesquita's predictions on Iran and his method of prediction. Bruce is a famous math professor who uses a computerized game theory model to make accurate political predictions.

More Predictions

The COP-15 (copenhagen Dec 2009) climate talks in Copenhagen will fail.

"The New Nostradamus article by Good Magazine

Though controversial in the academic world, Bueno de Mesquita and his model have proven quite popular in the private sector. In addition to his teaching responsibilities and consulting for the government, he also runs a successful private business, Mesquita & Roundell, with offices in Rockefeller Center. Advising some of the top companies in the country, he earns a tidy sum: Mesquita & Roundell’s minimum fee is $50,000 for a project that includes two issues. Most projects involve multiple issues. “I’m not selling my wisdom,” he says. “I’m selling a tool that can help them get better results. That tool is the model.”

“In the private sector, we deal with three areas: litigation, mergers and acquisitions, and regulation,” he says. “On average in litigation, we produce a settlement that is 40 percent better than what the attorneys think is the best that can be achieved.

“We have a corporate policy that we will not, on a commercial basis, use the model in campaigns,” he says. “We don’t think it’s appropriate to manipulate the democratic process. We won’t take a client who wants to manipulate U.S. government policy, even if we agree with the manipulation. And we won’t take a foreign client whose objectives are contrary to the objectives of the United States government.”

World governments are set to meet this December in Copenhagen to commit to firm CO2-reduction levels—but when Bueno de Mesquita modeled the future of these targets, most countries renege on them. No democratic government will seriously limit CO2 if it will hurt its citizens economically.

Predictions on the Final Compromise and Coalition
The New York Times provides some more particulars of the model.

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has a spreadsheet included almost 90 players. Some were people, like the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei; others were groups, like the U.N. Security Council and Iran’s “religious radicals.” Next to each player, a number represented one variable in Bueno de Mesquita’s model: the extent to which a player wanted Iran to have the ability to make nuclear weapons. The scale went from 0 to 200, with 0 being “no nuclear capacity at all” and 200 representing a test of a nuclear missile.

Amid the thousands of rows on the spreadsheet, there’s one called Forecast. It consists of a single number that represents the most likely consensus of all the players. It begins at 160 — bomb-making territory — but by next year settles at 118, where it doesn’t move much. “That’s the outcome,” Bueno de Mesquita said confidently, tapping the screen.

What does 118 mean? It means that Iran won’t make a nuclear bomb. By early 2010, according to the forecast, Iran will be at the brink of developing one, but then it will stop and go no further. If this computer model is right, all the dire portents we’ve seen in recent months — the brutal crackdown on protesters, the dubious confessions, Khamenei’s accusations of American subterfuge — are masking a tectonic shift. The moderates are winning, even if we cannot see that yet.

He has published a large number of startlingly precise predictions that turned out to be accurate, many of them in peer-reviewed academic journals. For example, five years before Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989, Bueno de Mesquita predicted in the journal PS that Khomeini would be succeeded by Ali Khamenei (which he was), who himself would be succeeded by a then-less-well-known cleric named Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (which he may well be). Last year, he forecast when President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan would be forced out of office and was accurate to within a month. In “The Predictioneer’s Game,” a book coming out next month that was written for a popular audience, Bueno de Mesquita offers dozens more stories of his forecasts.

Bueno de Mesquita was enthralled by the idea of rendering the messy business of politics and history into precise, logical equations. He began his signature academic work on “the selectorate,” or the group of actors who run a country. In Bueno de Mesquita’s worldview, there is no such thing as a “national interest” (or “state”). There are just leaders trying desperately to stay in power by building coalitions within their selectorate — buying off cronies in the case of a dictatorship, for example, or producing enough good works to keep hoi polloi happy in a democracy.

To predict how leaders will behave in a conflict, Bueno de Mesquita starts with a specific prediction he wants to make, then interviews four or five experts who know the situation well. He identifies the stakeholders who will exert pressure on the outcome (typically 20 or 30 players) and gets the experts to assign values to the stakeholders in four categories: What outcome do the players want? How hard will they work to get it? How much clout can they exert on others? How firm is their resolve? Each value is expressed as a number on its own arbitrary scale, like 0 to 200. (Sometimes Bueno de Mesquita skips the experts, simply reads newspaper and journal articles and generates his own list of players and numbers.) For example, in the case of Iran’s bomb, Bueno de Mesquita set Ahmadinejad’s preferred outcome at 180 and, on a scale of 0 to 100, his desire to get it at 90, his power at 5 and his resolve at 90.

If you merely sort the players according to how badly they want a bomb and how much support they have among others, you will end up with a reasonably good prediction. But the other variables enable the computer model to perform much more complicated assessments. In essence, it looks for possible groupings of players who would be willing to shift their positions toward one another if they thought that doing so would be to their advantage. The model begins by working out the average position of all the players — the “middle ground” that exerts a gravitational force on the whole negotiation. Then it compares each player with every other player, estimating whether one will be able to persuade or coerce the others to move toward its position, based on the power, resolve and positioning of everyone else.

After estimating how much or how little each player might budge, the software recalculates the middle ground, which shifts as the players move. A “round” is over; the software repeats the process, round after round. The game ends when players no longer move very much from round to round — this indicates they have compromised as much as they ever will. At that point, assuming no player with veto power had refused to compromise, the final average middle-ground position of all the players is the result — the official prediction of how the issue will resolve itself.

Theory talk interview of Bruce Buene de Mesquita from June 2009

The accuracy of a model such as my forecasting model provides a tool for IR scholars to use that may help us understand, explain, and predict events. It also provides policy analysts and decision makers with assessments that have transparent logic so they can argue with its conclusions, generally based on their own data.

One of the most common errors made by anti-rational choice analysts is to engage in post hoc, ergo propter hoc false reasoning. Let’s take the two examples offered in the question. Did Saddam Hussein act against his self-interest? Well, it certainly turned out badly for him but could he have known that ex ante when he had to make choices? I contend that the answer is no and I explain why.

First, we know now that things turned out badly for Saddam Hussein but neither we nor he could have known that before the fact when he had to make choices. Indeed, based on what he could know (such as the prior history of the United States government in dealing with him) he chose actions that were rational; that is consistent with what appear to have been his interests in survival. In the first Gulf War (1991), despite his army having been completely routed (and Colin Powell arguing to the Congress before that war that the United States would suffer perhaps tens of thousands of casualties and deaths), the US did not march on Baghdad and overthrow him or his government. Indeed, the Bush 41 administration did not even compel an unconditional surrender. Based on that experience, Saddam would have had solid reason to doubt the US government’s resolve to remove him from power. Second, we know now that he did not have WMD, but many thought he did before the 2003 invasion. It is quite possible that he thought he had WMD, we do not know. What we do know, is that some arguments against the 2003 war (which I opposed for other reasons at the time – namely that I saw no clear and present danger that would justify a pre-emptive attack by the US government) revolved around concern that there would be massive American casualties because Hussein was likely to use his WMD capacity (he had, after all, used nerve gas against the Iraqi Kurdish population and in 2003 American soldiers were deployed with anti-chemical weapons gear, apparently indicating that this was seen as a credible threat). Thus, by interfering with international inspections he was able to increase the belief at the time that he had WMD (see my textbook, third edition, for an explanation of the Bayesian updating calculations) and this could have deterred an American invasion. Thus, his actions seem to have been his best hope of political survival given that exile was not a good option (Bush was against it and, as the Pinochet experience surely taught Saddam Hussein, just because one is promised a secure exile does not mean that the promise will be kept – such promises lack credible commitment or enforcement). Once he knew that Bush 43 was serious and not bluffing it was too late for Saddam Hussein to extricate himself or to alter his earlier policies which had, after all, worked well for him for nearly a quarter of a century.

His Own June 2009 Assessment of The Feb 2009 Iran Prediction

The model so far has done rather well. I predicted that the Iranian presidential race would be close but that Ahmadinejad would win. We don’t actually know how close it was – we do know that the reported results are inconsistent with polling and with a reasonable statistical projection from the previous election. The modeling results also predicted that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei’s power was going to enter a period of significant decline even though Khamenei would remain a major political force probably until he retires. Clearly the events since the election indicate that Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have faced an unprecedented political challenge. We have to go back to the 1979 revolution to see something comparable so I think the evidence supports the prediction that they are entering a period of declining political power (which should not be confused with saying they will be ousted any time soon). Having gone back into my output to look at other details, I was intrigued to see (as a non-expert on Iran) that the model predicted a sharp increase in the political power of students and dissidents starting now and continuing for several months, although with fits and starts (I can send the graph if you like – it is just an excel plot of results produced on November 1, 2008 as I prepared my TED talk).

On the nuclear front, I am predicting that by around 2010 or early 2011 (the model is not as precise as I would like about timing; it is better at sequencing) there will be an agreement that limits Iran to producing small, research-quantities of weapons-grade fuel. I have not modeled the inspection regime that would be required to support such an agreement. It is worth noting that President Obama has acknowledged publicly that Iran has the right (under the NPT) to produce civilian nuclear energy (and, implicitly, to enrich uranium for this purpose), something apparently denied by the Bush administration. So Obama has moved the discussion forward toward the outcome predicted in my TED talk so as I see it things are moving as predicted both on the political influence front and on the nuclear front.

2007 Prediction of What North Korea Needed

Bueno de Mesquita’s model suggested: Kim agrees to dismantle his existing nuclear weapons but not his existing nuclear capability. “He puts it in mothballs with IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors on site 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And in exchange, we provide him with $1.2 billion a year, which we label ‘foreign aid,’ of course.” The “foreign-aid” figure published in the newspapers was $400 million, which concerns Bueno de Mesquita. “I read that and I said, I hope that’s not the deal because it’s not enough money. He needs $1.2 billion, approximately, to sustain the loyalty of his cronies in the military and so forth.

FURTHER READING
How to use game theory to buy a car

Research the car carefully on the internet and decide exactly what you want.

Determine the colour, the extras, everything. Then, call every dealer within, say, a 20-mile radius.

When they answer, tell them exactly the car that you want. Then inform them that you are calling all the dealers in the area and asking about the same car.

You are going to buy the car at 5pm from the dealership offering you the best deal. You will ring back soon and seek a price — the full price, with nothing at all left to be added on later.

The dealer may object that if he gives you a quote over the phone, the next dealer will just come in £50 lower. You simply tell him that, yes, this might indeed happen.

That is why, you explain, he has to give you the very lowest price he humanly can, so as to avoid anyone underbidding with a price the dealer would have been willing to accept.

When the witching hour arrives, you go to the dealer with the best offer, cheque in hand, and pick up your car. If there is any change in the terms, you go to the second-best showroom, although this shouldn’t be necessary.

What has happened here? You have forced the salesman to provide you, in the form of his lowest price, all the information he has about the real cost of the car. The advantage has moved from the dealer to you.

List of publications by bueno de mesquita

2009 Publications:

Bueno de Mesquita B, Smith A
Political Survival and Endogenous Institutional Change
COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES. 2009 FEB; 42 (2): 167-197 1 1 2 26

Bueno de Mesquita B, Smith A
A Political Economy of Aid
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION. 2009 SPR; 63 (2): 309-340

NanoPen: Low-Power, and Light-Actuated Patterning of Nanoparticles

Nanoletters Journal: NanoPen: Dynamic, Low-Power, and Light-Actuated Patterning of Nanoparticles (H/t Brett Coalson)

We introduce NanoPen, a novel technique for low optical power intensity, flexible, real-time reconfigurable, and large-scale light-actuated patterning of single or multiple nanoparticles, such as metallic spherical nanocrystals, and one-dimensional nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes. NanoPen is capable of dynamically patterning nanoparticles over an area of thousands of square micrometers with light intensities <10 W/cm2 (using a commercial projector) within seconds. Various arbitrary nanoparticle patterns and arrays (including a 10 × 10 array covering a 0.025 mm2 area) are demonstrated using this capability. One application of NanoPen is presented through the creation of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy hot-spots by patterning gold nanoparticles of 90 nm diameter with enhancement factors exceeding 10^7 and picomolar concentration sensitivities.

The NanoPen could provide a quick, convenient way of laying down patterns of nanoparticles — from wires to circuits — for making electronic devices, medical diagnostic tests, and other applications.

7 pages of supporting info on the nanopen.







Patterning of Multi-wall Carbon Nanotubes
The NanoPen patterning process of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) is seen below. It is important to note that during the patterning process, the CNTs are oriented vertically due to the torque experienced by 1-dimensional nanostructures in the electrical fields. However, after the patterning process is completed and the AC voltage is removed, the 1-dimensional structures fall on the surface with random orientations which increases the effective linewidth of the patterned structures. One potential way to achieve better orientation of these structures would be to use a lateral field optoelectronic tweezer (LOET) device.

Optical Quantum Computing and a Complete Methods Set for Scalable Ion Trap Quantum Information Processing

1. New Scientist reports that the codebreaking quantum computer algorithm (shors algorithm for factoring) has been run on a silicon chip.

Journal Science abstract: Shor’s Quantum Factoring Algorithm on a Photonic Chip

Shor’s quantum factoring algorithm finds the prime factors of a large number exponentially faster than any other known method, a task that lies at the heart of modern information security, particularly on the Internet. This algorithm requires a quantum computer, a device that harnesses the massive parellism afforded by quantum superposition and entanglement of quantum bits (or qubits). We report the demonstration of a compiled version of Shor’s algorithm on an integrated waveguide silica-on-silicon chip that guides four single-photon qubits through the computation to factor 15.

BBC News reports: The Bristol team's approach makes use of waveguides - channels etched into the chips that provide a path for the photons around the chips like the minuscule wires in conventional electronics.

The work, reported in Science, is rudimentary but could easily be scaled up to handle more complex computing.

While Professor O'Brien said he is confident that such waveguides are the logical choice for future optical quantum computers, he added that there is still a significant amount of work to do before they make it out of the laboratory.

"To get a useful computer it needs to be probably a million times more complex, so a full-scale useful factoring machine is still at least two decades away," he said.

"But this is one important step in that direction."

The device performs a compiled version of the quantum routine in Shor's algorithm.

A study demonstrates that complex quantum circuits can be built relatively easily out of silicon and silica – a significant milestone on the road to full-blown quantum computing.

Fifteen years ago, Peter Shor, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, predicted that quantum computers could beat even the most powerful supercomputers and crack the widely used RSA encryption algorithm.

The 26-millimetre-long chip was designed and built using standard fabrication processes by Jeremy O'Brien, Jonathan Matthews and Alberto Politi at the University of Bristol, UK. It can run Shor's algorithm in cut-down form – confirming that 3 and 5 multiply to form 15, which is the simplest possible demonstration.

Unlike the silicon chips inside conventional computers, the Bristol team's chip uses light rather than electricity. Light-transmitting silica on a silicon wafer guides photons with entangled quantum properties around, an approach first demonstrated by the same team last year.

White points out that the technology used to generate individual photons to feed into the chip, and to detect them as they emerge, is not efficient, fast or compact enough yet. Although the new chip is only 26 mm long, it has to be surrounded by a whole table top of that equipment.

2 pages of supplemental information on photonic quantum computing.

2. Abstract from Journal Science: Complete Methods Set for Scalable Ion Trap Quantum Information Processing

Large-scale quantum information processors must be able to transport and maintain quantum information and repeatedly perform logical operations. Here, we show a combination of all of the fundamental elements required to perform scalable quantum computing through the use of qubits stored in the internal states of trapped atomic ions. We quantified the repeatability of a multiple-qubit operation and observed no loss of performance despite qubit transport over macroscopic distances. Key to these results is the use of different pairs of 9Be+ hyperfine states for robust qubit storage, readout, and gates, and simultaneous trapping of 24Mg+ "re-cooling" ions along with the qubit ions.

The Supporting Online Materials provide further details about the sympathetic cooling, the use of state-dependent forces to implement a geometric phase gate using multiple motional modes, transfer between the gate and memory qubit manifolds, state detection and error analysis for quantum process tomography. [4 pages of Supplemental information]

German Researchers Make Steel Velcro Fastener

Hook and loop fasteners made of spring steel have now been developed at the Institute of Metal Forming and Casting of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen. These fasteners are resistant to chemicals and can withstand a tensile load of up to 35 tonnes per square meter at temperatures as high as 800°C.

It appears that there could be uses for steel velcro in rapid manufacturing.

“The unbeatable advantage of a hook and loop fastener is that it is easy to close and open again,” explains Josef Mair, a scientist from the Institute of Metal Forming and Casting (utg) at the TU Muenchen.

The researchers opted to use spring steel, which unites high ductility with high strength, as the material for their fastener. They created various three-dimensional models for the optimum interlocking of the fastener elements on the computer. They then built the most promising candidates as prototypes and subjected them to comprehensive tests. Around 40 variations of the geometry referred to as “Flamingo” alone were tested on the computer. The researchers studied its adhesive strength and reaction to extreme temperatures to establish the limits of its resilience.

Two of the tested models ultimately made the grade: a spring lock, the Flamingo, and a hook and loop system known as the “Entenknopf” (“duck’s head”). Both consist of 0.2-mm-thick hook tape and loop or perforated tape of the same thickness. The “duck’s head” model is based on the traditional synthetic hook and loop system. Numerous delicate steel hooks can attach at any angle to the loops in the perforated metal loop tape.

The second variant, the Flamingo, is even more stable. It consists of wider hook elements that snap into the openings in a perforated tape. They are bent in such a way that they deform elastically under light pressure and glide into the holes like the synthetic buckles on backpack straps. Once inserted, they return immediately to their original form and, thanks to their sprung splaying arms, they resist back pull like an expanding rivet.

In order for the hooks to be able to snap into place, they must first, however, be positioned at the correct angle, that is parallel or perpendicular to the perforated tape. Depending on the direction of the applied force, this fastener can withstand a load of 7 to 35 Newtons per square meter. Following an initial loss of around 20 percent during the first ten tests, the adhesive strength remained constant in the numerous repetitions.

“The animal names arose as a way of differentiating between the multifaceted models. The hook forms of the two systems are vaguely reminiscent of a duck’s head and a flamingo standing on one leg,” explains Mr. Mair. The scientists have also come up with a third alternative, the “hybrid” model which combines a steel hook tape with a synthetic loop tape and is suitable for the secure and reversible fastening of textiles.

Metaklett is basically suitable for use in all areas that require easily opened but stable fasteners, for example air-conditioning and ventilation systems in building services engineering and automotive construction. As the Jury of the German Stahl-Innovationspreis (Steel Innovation Award) noted in its appraisal of the project: “Metaklett is suitable for a wide variety of applications, in which the combination of simple production and a high level of resilience in the fastener is crucial.” The metal hook and loop fastener succeeded in overcoming over 100 competing projects on June 30, 2009, to take third place in this award process, which only takes place every three years.

Mach Effect: Interview with Paul March and an Update on the Work of James Woodward

STAIf 2007- Mach-Lorentz Thruster (MLT)Applications presentation by Paul March.

1-G Space Drive


One-G constant acceleration and deceleration space drive would mean Earth-to-moon in 4 hours, Earth to Mars in 2-5 days, Earth to Saturn in 8-9 days.

If the Mach Effect is real [mass fluctations) and behaves as theorized (with some experimental confirmation) by James Woodward and the effect scales up as expected then we can create reactionless drive.

Over a century has passed since Ernst Mach conjectured that the cause of inertia should somehow be causally related to the presence of the vast bulk of the matter (his “fixed stars”) in the universe. Einstein translated this conjecture into “Mach’s principle” (his words) and attempted to incorporate a version of it into general relativity theory (GRT) by introducing the “cosmological constant” term into his field equations for gravity. Einstein ultimately abandoned his attempts to incorporate Mach’s principle into GRT. But in the early 1950s Dennis Sciama revived interest in the “origin of inertia”.

James Woodward 1990 Mach Effect Conjecture:
* Mach's principle and local Lorentz-invariance together yield the prediction of transient mass fluctuations in accelerated masses that concurrently change their internal energy states.”

* “The resulting mass fluctuations, in both principle and practice, can be quite large and, in principle at least, negative.”

* “The M-E derivation is relativistically invariant, so the conservation laws are automatically satisfied”

*“No New Physics is involved

Woodward demonstrated in 2002 that something like his negative wormhole term’s mass fluctuation exists, for his piezoelectric stack based device lost 1.2% of its apparent weight when excited by 400 watts of 66.6 kHz ac power while in a vacuum.

MLT Output Force Scaling Rules and Energy Conservation

Proportional to the applied vxB Magnetic-field
The CUBE of the applied Cap Voltage
The CUBE of the MLT Operating Frequency
The SQUARE of the Cap dielectric constant
The thickness of the Cap Dielectric
Proportional to the total active Dielectric Mass
But Inversely Proportional to the Cap Density

The MLT LOCAL input energy required to generate a specific thrust could be much less than a rocket’s equivalent jet-power of equal power or thrust.

Every non-local Joule produced by the MLT has to come from spacetime momenergy wave exchanges with the universe’s gravinertial (G/I) radiation field.

The source of this G/I radiation field is the mass-energy contained in the causally connected universe’s estimated 10^80 atoms and perhaps the “Dark Energy.”

Published results up to 2007
James F. Woodward ~1988-to-2007 with max thrust: up to 750 micro-Newton (mN) measured, with ~25 mN verified at ~53kHz with Faraday Shielded MLT in Vacuum – end of 2006
Hector Brito ~1993-to-2005 with max Self-Contained Slepian Thrust measured: up to ~50 mN at 39kHz
Tom Mahood 1997-to-2007 with max acoustically rectified thrust developed: ~0.03-to-15.0 mN at up to 50kHz / 100kHz, measured with the U-80 & torque pendulum force sensors
Paul March 2002-to-2007 with max MLT thrust developed: up to ~1k-to-5k mN in two different experiments at 2-to-4MHz
Nembo Buldrini 2005-to-2006 with max MLT C-O thrust measured: ~20mN at ~53kHz, but claimed unexpected results

See this site for more links and research

Projected Timeline from 2007 if there was some DARPA/NASA or other funding [Note: Obama Space commission is talking about reviving Nasa Advanced Ideas group]
Recycled Propellant Propulsion 2015
HFGW Radio 2020
G/I Power Generators 2025
G/I Thermal Radiators 2030
G-Field Generators 2035
Space Propulsion (1-G drive) 2040

This is not faster than light, but it would mean the solar system would be completely open. It also can solve the cost issue of getting into orbit.











A video of a test of a Mach Effect device in operation

The Paul March Interview

Paul March works at Johnson Space Center on the Project Orion electrical power system. He also designed the nuclear-DCX (a nuclear thermal rocket design) and he has written papers and presented on the Mach Effect.

Question "I saw the prediction of a 15-25 year development timeline."

At the rate we are going, 15-to-25 years may be optimistic now, for we have been able to generate zero outside support for this M-E effort at DARPA and NASA. The idea of extracting energy and momentum from the gravinertial field for power and propulsion is just too new, foreign & quackish to most folks who control the R&D coins. So until we can develop and demonstrate an M-E thruster with at least 10 milli-Newton thrust and preferably much higher, (A Newton would do nicely.), this sorry state of affairs will continue.




Question "What are the key technological and material developments that are needed to realize a 50 MHz MLT drive?"

Key technological issues for any working high thrust MLT center around developing a high-k / low mechanical fatigue dielectric (e-r> 1,000) that simultaneously provides a magnetic permeability greater than 10 and preferably 100. The latter requirement is driven by the need to maximize the crossed B-field in the dielectric that will in turn maximize the vxB Lorentz force generated during the mass fluctuation derived force rectification process.

Question "Is there some key scaled test (500KHz ?) that could unambiguously produce enough force to prove this to the doubters?"

That is where we are currently fighting our way up the M-E mountain. Jim W. performed a yearlong M-E proof of principle test series that ended last May that showed to those who are familiar with the issues of electrostriction in high-K ceramics that there IS a mass fluctuation signal generated when a time rate of change of energy flux in a capacitor is multiplied by a constant or time varying acceleration. However since the cap's high-k dielectric's electrostriction signal is in antiphase with the M-E delta mass signal for this test series, the data does take some educated interpretation instead of just a clean yes/no answer to the question of do mass fluctuations exist under the required conditions. I can pass along Jim's summary paper on this M-E proof of principle work if you would like.

This fall Jim indicated that he also wants to build a third generation M-E shuttler device based on Tom Mahood's 1998 second generation work using all the lessons learned to date to see if a convincing M-E thruster demonstrator can be built. Since Jim has a very sensitive torque pendulum that he & Tom Mahood built at Fullerton, (resolution to ~0.5 micro-Newton), his new test article doesn't need to produce more than say 100 micro-Newton to demonstrate a convincing test of the M-E, provided one is educated in the ways of these kinds of tests at least.

My current M-E experiment is the MLT-2009 that will run at 51 MHz and uses a low-k high-Q Teflon dielectric for the vxB cap. The test article is built, but I'm currently wading through RF drive problems for it before I can start testing. Predicted thrust levels are anywhere from zero to Newtons dependent on a number of variables I have little or no control over yet.


The 2009 3rd generation shuttler device that is to be tested through the end of 2009 by James Woodward

Question "The reaction to the unidirectional force proven with the work you did in 2007?"

Actually the Mach-2MHz work was reported in my and Andrew Palfreyman's STAIF-2006 paper and even though the unidirectional forces reported where above 1.0 milliNewton, in the eyes of the scientific community Woodward's and my work is still considered "spurious noise" and nothing more. Paradigm changing takes a lot of effort and data...

Question "What is a near term achievable work that could be done in 5 years?"

It depends on the health of Jim Woodward and the time and resources I can to bring bear on my M-E work. I'm working full time on the NASA Project Orion electrical power system at JSC and until I get a break from that, I don't have much time or energy to push the M-E wagon.

Question "What do you think of the EMdrive work?"

The proposed E&M/SRT conjecture IMO is garbage. The experimental results is tantalizing, but it has to be repeated in a vacuum chamber to get rid of possible spurious error sources for the thrust signatures observed. If it still moves in a 1x10-4 Torr vacuum, then we have to explain what is going on in view of Jim's work.

EMDrive site

Question "Comment on other Lorentz force propulsion work"

This is conventional electric induction motor effect that is well understood in the current electrical sciences. My concern is over the possible maximum level of magnitude of this effect with realistic power supplies that a satellite can provide. In other words its merits have yet to be proven, to me at least.

Question "What is useful background information to understand this work?"

Dr. Woodward's California State University web page which has an excellent write up on his M-E conjecture. See: http://physics.fullerton.edu/Woodward.html and first check out his "Gravitation" page and his "Origins of Inertia" essays.

"How much budget is needed for the third generation shuttler device ? Is that in hand ?"

Dr. Woodward has already fabricated the third gen parts, see attached picture, and he just needs a few weeks in his Fullerton lab to assemble them and then install the new test article in his ARC-Lite torque pendulum/vacuum chamber test rig before testing starts.

Question "How long will it take to test it ?"

Once debugged, the initial results should be evident within a week's worth of trial runs, but it's the debugging time that can vary all over the lot depending on whether the Lab gods are for you or against you that week. I'd guess that if Jim stays healthy he could have it done by Thanksgiving if not before.

Question "If that worked what would the next steps be for fourth or fifth generation device ?"

That's up to Jim, but you need to keep in mind that Dr. Woodward is retired and fighting lung cancer that was in remission the last time I asked him.

Question "Is it the high-k that is the more difficult characteristic or the / low mechanical fatigue dielectric (e-r> 1,000) or the magnetic permeability greater than 10 and preferably 100."

All of the above. The stored energy in a cap for a given applied voltage is proportional to the capacitance & therefore the relative dielectric constant of the dielectric so higher k is better. As to fatigue, we have found these high-k ceramic dielectric as exemplified by the Vishay/Cera-Mite Y5U, (e-r=~5,000), barium titanate ceramic blend's expression of the M-E mass fluctuation signal fades with constant usage, but returns to near normal after a rest period of days or when it is heated above its Curie temperature for a few hours. For a reliable thruster system we would have to find a least one way to extend this "fatigue" lifetime so it occurs over tens of thousands of hours instead of minutes of operating time. The large magnetic permeability is required to make the vxB toroidal magnetic circuit in the MLT much stronger so the rectified force output can be increased by the same desired permeability factor of 10 to 100 for a given mass fluctuation figure over the current dismal performance of the Y5U dielectric that has a magnetic permeability of 1.0. Lastly since the electrostrictive effect in the high-k caps subtracts from the M-E signal until the M-E signal simply neutralizes it, finding a high-k, but low electrostrictive constant material would be ideal. So the optimum dielectric for MLTs would therefore be a material with a dielectric constant of say ~10,000, a magnetic permeability of ~100, an electrostrictive constant at least two orders of magnitude down from the current electrostrictive constant of barium titanate, and a half thrust fatigue lifetime of say 100,000 hours. The only outfit that has ever played this game is I think MuRata and they were using it for EMI filters for printed circuits. DARPA and others R&D houses are primarily pushing high energy density caps, which simultaneously optimizes the k and voltage handling capabilities of the caps which is good thing for MLT caps, but they are not sufficient. When we can get some folks optimizing dielectric blends that can meet our above requirements is when useable 10,000+ Newton MLTs will start to become a reality.

UPDATE:

There is a need to control the magnitude of the piezoelectric effect coefficient in the optimum M-E dielectric. We are still debating whether a large or small piezoelectric constant is best for M-E based thruster because that is dependent on the type of M-E thruster that is built. And that call affects whether the piezoelectric induced cap motions help or hinder the bulk acceleration of the accelerated dielectric when being driven cyclically. In either case though, the manufactures of such M-E caps will have to control this parameter whereas they do not do so in standard energy storage caps that use barium titanate ceramic as their base material like the Cera-Mite Y5U ceramic. Its piezoelectric constant is all over the barn from part to part and can vary over an order of magnitude or more in lots of 50.

Question "Is there some other question that you would like to provide the answer to or highlight so that someone reading this would take away an important insight ?"

Not at the moment but you or any other interested parties in the M-E need to read everything at Jim W.'s web site and some of his Foundations of Physics and STAIF papers including his seminal 2004 Origins of Inertia paper that is attached. After you've waded through all that you might also check out Denis Sciama's 1953 Origins of inertia papers, which Jim W. bases his work on. Let me warn you though there is still several loose ends surrounding Woodward's & Sciama's work and they rest primarily around how is inertial reaction force's momentum and energy conveyed effectively instantaneously between the distant mass in the universe to the locally accelerated mass Jim's take on this question is that it has to be via radiation reaction forces conveyed by forward and backwards in time momenergy fluxes in the universe's ambient gravity field that gives rise to inertial effects in universes that salute Mach's principle. However there might also be another complimentary explanation and that is we actually do live in a hyperdimensional realm where gravitational momentum and energy AKA momenergy propagate thru higher dimensions as exemplified by String Theory's 11 dimensional Brane Multiverse.

That's all for now and have a great day.

RESEARCH ON LORENTZ FORCE PROPULSION AND ANOTHER PROPELLANTLESS ATTEMPT

Successful lorentz force propulsion experiment

Nextbigfuture proposal that lorentz force propulsion could accelerate fuel to a nuclear pulse propulsion space ship.

The Frontiers of Propulsion Science book has a chapter related to the Mach Effect work. There was also a study in the NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Projects.

Other US Legislation

Forbes has a list of other US Legislation [besides Healthcare, climate change and finance regulatory reform.

Appropriations: Aside from health care reform, this will be Congress' main task between now and December, as the Senate has only approved four of the 12 appropriations bills.

Defense spending: Perhaps the most contentious of the spending bills now in play. in July, the House of Representatives passed a $636 billion defense spending bill, cutting additional funding for some programs, like the F-22 fighter jet

Debt limit: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said it is "critically important that Congress act" to raise the government's $12.1 trillion statutory debt limit "as soon as possible."

Telecom: Many telecom issues have been pushed aside to make way for health care and other pending Democratic priorities, but some things are likely to pass.

Union membership: Since the beginning of the year, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to join unions, has been the lobbying focus for organized labor. They've met a formidable wall of opposition, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Upcoming in the SENS4 conference Schedule

Talks that are scheduled for Sunday, Sept 6, 2009 at the SENS4 conference.

Session 21 Tissue engineering (Chair: Leonid Gavrilov)
Augustinus Bader Leipzig, Germany
Currently Available Therapies with Autologous Stem Cells - From Basic Principles to Clinical Application

Gabor Forgacs Columbia, USA
Organ Engineering by Bioprinting

Biomaterials-based exogenous scaffolds, though promising, still face general as well as specific challenges. Scaffolds may elicit adverse host responses and interfere with direct cell-cell interaction, as well as assembly and alignment of cell-produced extracellular matrix. Thus, fabrication techniques for production of scaffold-free engineered tissue constructs have recently emerged. Here we describe a novel fully biological self-assembly approach, which we implement through a rapid prototyping bioprinting method. The approach utilizes bio-ink particles, convenient multicellular units, either spheroids or cylinders of controlled diameter (300 to 500 μm), that are deposited with specifically designed bio-printers. The cellular composition of the bio-ink and the deposition scheme are respectively consistent with the cellular composition and topology of the desired biological construct. We use the method for scaffold-free small diameter vascular reconstruction and nerve regeneration. Various vascular cell types, including smooth muscle cells and fibroblasts, are aggregated into the bio-ink units. These are printed layer-by-layer concomitant with agarose rods, used here as a molding template. The post-printing fusion of the discrete units results in single- and double-layered small diameter vascular tubes. A unique aspect of the method is the ability to engineer vessels of distinct shapes, complex internal geometry, in case of nerve grafts, and hierarchical trees that combine tubes of distinct diameters, in the case of vascular grafts. The technique is quick and easily scalable.

Sally Dickinson Bristol, UK
The first clinical transplantation of a tissue engineered airway


Session 22 The longer term (Chair: Augustinus Bader)

Philip Moriarty Nottingham, UK
Molecular Nanotechnology in the Real World: How Feasible is a Nanofactory?

I will critically assess MNT (molecular Nanotechnology) from the perspective of an experimental nanoscientist, focussing in particular on the aims and objectives of a recently-funded programme of work on computer-controlled assembly of diamond nanostructures, e.g. via mechanosynthesis

Leonid Gavrilov Chicago, USA
Demographic consequences of defeating aging

Even for very long 50-year projection horizon [with defeat of aging], with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 50), the total population increases by 35 percent only (from 9.1 to 13.3 billion).

http://longevity-science.blogspot.com/

Nickolas Mayer Satellite Beach, USA
The Lifenaut Project: a multifaceted experiment in data storage for future machine consciousness learning

The goal of the Lifenaut Project has been to create a diverse, large-scale database consisting of real people's personality archives such that future intelligent agents can learn rapidly by uploading archived data rather than experiencing events in real time. A learning protocol such as this would increase the rate of progress in the field of machine consciousness and may be more effectively tested than real time learning protocols, since in many cases a frame of reference will exists for comparison with the replicated consciousness.

A web-based personality archiving architecture (lifenaut.com) has been created and promoted to the general public as such. Through this web-based interface anyone worldwide with an internet connection can create a "mindfile" free of charge. The mindfile consists of: personality test results, personal profile data, uploaded biographical media, and an archive of the user's lines of conversation with a chatbot. Since its kickoff in 2006, Lifenaut has undergone 3 major iterations and each user's mindfile is tapped into the iCogno chatbot engine combined with an InterMediaLab photo-based avatar. At the time of this writing 8,702 from around the globe have created Lifenaut accounts. Agents resulting from long-term user interaction with the Lifenaut software will be tested with the ConsScale 2 consciousness taxonomy (Arrables-Moreno).

Other Sessions

Sept 4, 2009

Session 5 Eliminating recalcitrant intracellular molecules: the lysosome (Chair: Alex Whitworth)

Session 6 Eliminating recalcitrant intracellular molecules: other (Chair: Ana Maria Cuervo)

Session 7 Panel discussion and short talks (Chair: John Furber)

Session 8 Short talks (Chair: Alex Zhavoronkov)

Session 9 Rejuvenating extracellular material: amyloid (Chair: Kendall Houk)

Session 10 Rejuvenating extracellular material: other (Chair: Nik Nikitin)

Sept 5, 2009

Session 11 Telomeres and telomerase (Chair: Cassian Yee)

Maria Blasco Madrid, Spain
Role of Shelterin in Cancer and Aging

Vera Gorbunova Rochester, USA
Evolution of anticancer mechanisms in short- and long-lived species

David Keefe Tampa, USA
Telomeres and Reproductive Aging


Session 12 Novel anti-cancer approaches (Chair: Vera Gorbunova)

Paul Hallenbeck Malvern, USA
Phase I study of Seneca Valley Virus (SVV-001), a replication competent oncolytic virus, in patients with neuroendocrine (NE) cancers

Adela Ben-Yakar Austin, USA
Femtosecond laser nanosurgery from shedding light on nerve regeneration to aiding in cancer diagnosis and therapy

Cassian Yee Seattle, USA
Engineering Tumor Immunity: Adoptive T Cell Therapy of Cancer

Session 13 SENS Lecture and short talks (Chair: Silvia Gravina)
Moses Znaimer Toronto, Canada
SENS Lecture: Canada - Harbinger of the Zoomer Phenomenon (Chair: Aubrey de Grey)

Natalia Gavrilova Chicago, USA
Search for mechanisms of exceptional human longevity

Mike Berridge Wellington, New Zealand
Effects of mitochondrial gene deletion on tumorigenicity of metastatic melanoma: reassessing the Warburg effect

Ülo Kristjuhan Tallinn, Estonia
Postponed Aging in University Teachers

Session 14 Short talks (Chair: Mike Berridge)

Session 15 Rejuvenating the immune system (Chair: Lusine Danielyan)
Janko Nikolich-Zugich Beaverton, USA
Why T-cells go out of whack with aging and what to do about it

Anne de Groot Providence, USA
Re-establishing Immunological Balance and Re-engineering Tolerance with Tregitopes

Omar Ali Cambridge, USA
Infection-mimicking materials to program dendritic cells in situ

Justin Rebo
SENS Foundation Research Center Senescent T cell removal using magnetic antibodies

Session 16 Delivering genes, proteins and larger structures in vivo (Chair: Janko Nikolich-Zugich)

Dieter Willbold Düsseldorf, Germany
Oral treatment with an Aβ42 oligomer modulating D-amino acid peptide improves cognitive behavior of APP/ PS1 double transgenic mice

Lusine Danielyan Tübingen, Germany
Intranasal delivery of cells to the brain

Carlos Barbas La Jolla, USA
Synthesis of programmable integrases

Sunday 6th September

Session 17 Novel routes to the ES-like phenotype (Chair: Daniel Kraft)

Justin Ichida Cambridge, USA
Reprogramming Somatic Cells to Pluripotency Using Small Molecules

Ilham Abuljadayel London, UK
Retrodifferentiation and Aging: Harnessing Youth through Induction of Pluripotency in mature adult cells via Cell Surface Receptor Contact

Khachik Muradian Kiev, Ukraine
"ORION" - a glimpse of hope in life span extension?

Vadim Fraifeld Beer-Sheva, Israel
MicroRNA-regulated protein-protein interaction networks: how could they help in searching for pro-longevity targets?


Session 18 Recent advances in cell therapies (Chair: Ilham Abuljadayel)

Daniel Kraft Stanford, USA
Manipulation and Derivation of the Hematopoitic Stem Cell Niche

Gene Redmond Thousand Oaks,
USA Cellular repair in the non-human primate brain with human neural stem cells and multiple fetal cells grafts.

Hadi Aslan Jerusalem, Israel
Engineered Mesenchymal Stem Cells - The Road to Skeletal Tissue Regeneration

Session 19 Panel discussion and short talks (Chair: James Morré)
James Larrick Sunnyvale, USA
Panel Discussion: Applied Healthspan Engineering

Dazhong Yin Guangzhou, China
Preventive Treatment of Traditional Chinese Medication as Anti-stress and Anti-aging Strategy

Jwala Sinha Palamau, India
Strategies for adjustment of the aged

John Furber Gainesville, USA
Extracellular Aging: Issues for Therapy Design


Session 20 Short talks (Chair: James Larrick)
Gunther Kletetschka Greenbelt, USA
Crack avoidance during cryopreservation attempts

Sonya Vasto Palermo, Italy
Parental longevity impacts on the healthy ageing of their offspring: Effects on blood and clinical chemistry parameters in centenarians' offspring

Noel Patton New York, USA
Recent progress in pharmacological amelioration of telomere shortening

David Williams Cambridge, UK
Cataract development as a model of ageing - a comparative approach

Michael Colgan Salt Spring Island, Canada
Combined chemical and brain stimulation induction of neurogenesis in brain injury and brain degeneration of aging.

D. James Morré West Lafayette, USA
Aging related NADH oxidase (arNOX) response to dietary supplementation . The French Paradox revisited

Joshua Mitteldorf Philadelphia, USA
Accumulated Damage is not the Root Cause of Aging

SENS4 : Antiaging conference coverage

Ouroboros has coverage of the SENS4: Antiaging conference.

The SENS site has all of the conference abstracts

UPDATE: SENS4, Session 6: Eliminating recalcitrant intracellular molecules: other

Claude Wischik spoke about preventing aggregation of tau protein, which is implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Clinical trials of their aggregation-inhibiting drug Rember are promising.

Andrei Seluanov talked about naked mole rats, those odd-looking miracle rodents that live for 30 years and don’t seem to ever get cancer. Mole rat contact inhibition/cancer resistance was controlled by p53 and pRB, both known tumour suppressors.

Alex Whitworth spoke about the relationship between mitochondrial degradation and Parkinson’s disease genes [Parkin and PINK1 genes].

SENS4, Sessions 9 and 10: Rejuvenating extracellular material

Mark Pepys talked about treating amyloidosis by targeting serum amyloid P component (SAP), which is present in all amyloid deposits and plays a role in stabilizing them. Several years ago, Pepys discovered a compound (CPHPC) that quickly removes SAP from the bloodstream and from most amyloid plaques; however, clinical trials showed that CPHPC alone does not help people with advanced disease. Today, Pepys reported on some very promising results from combining CPHPC with an antibody, effectively targeting the antibody to amyloid: in mouse studies, plaques completely disappear. Clinical testing of this combination approach will begin in 2011.

Kendall Houk gave a very interesting talk on computationally designing enzymes from scratch. They plan to apply their recently published protocol to develop enzymes that can reverse the formation of Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs) – sugar-modified proteins that accumulate with age and are implicated in several age-related diseases.

END UPDATE


Session 5: Eliminating recalcitrant intracellular molecules: the lysosome

Jeffrey Grubb spoke about new methods for delivering missing enzymes to the lysozomes of patients suffering from lysosomal storage diseases. Several of these should be able to deliver any protein to the lysozome, including novel ones capable of degrading undesirable intracellular molecules that accumulate with age and that normal lysosomes can’t handle. Central goal of the LysoSENS project

Ana Maria Cuervo spoke about the relationship between autophagy and aging. Artifically maintaining autophagy shows improved liver function in mice.

John Schloendorn discussed ongoing work at the SENS Foundation Research Center to develop new enzymes that can degrade harmful intracellular junk that accumulates with age. So far, they have discovered enzymes that can degrade A2E and 7-ketocholesterol, which are implicated in macular degeneration and osteoporosis, respectively. Their next step will be to construct a drug delivery system to get these enzymes to lysozomes, possibly using methods similar to those of Jeffrey Grub.

SENS4, Session 4: Adult regenerative capacity

Brandon Reines presented a counterintuitive result on regeneration: sometimes old animals have a higher regenerative capacity than young animals. In particular, if you punch a hole in the ear of a young mouse, then it won’t heal; but in a middle-aged mouse it will heal completely. He argued that this happens because mouse ear connective tissues never fully differentiate, and suggested that other neural-crest-derived connective tissues might show similar properties.

Kaisa Selesniemi talked about possible methods for sustaining fertility in older women. They found that an infusion of bone marrow from younger females keeps older mice fertile longer. They hope that these treatments might not only prolong fertility, but also female health: mice with longer “ovarian lifespan” show reduced disease incidence.

Alexandra Stolzing presented a new method for generating induced pluripotent stem cells (i.e., for reprogramming adult somatic cells to become pluripotent) that doesn’t use viral compounds or plasmids. Viruses can cause abnormalities in the reprogrammed cells, so much recent work has focused on developing alternate methods for deriving iPS cells

.



SENS4, Session 3: Optimising metabolism against aging

Stephen Spindler described his (ongoing) project to screen a large number of potential lifespan-affecting compounds in mice – so far, several candidates look promising. Interestingly, he also argued that the majority of previous studies measuring the effects of various compounds on rodent life expectancy suffer from serious flaws. In particular, he argued that many of them were confounded by a possible calorie restriction effect.

Manuel Serrano talked about his recent experiments with sirtuins in mice. Overexpression of sirtuins in yeast, worms, and flies delays aging, but their role in mammalian aging is still highly controversial. He found that mice overexpressing Sirt1 had improved health, according to several metrics – but no difference in lifespan.

David Melzer talked about his analyses of human genetic association studies. A large number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been associated with age-related diseases in humans; Melzer showed that many of these are near genes that play a role in pathways relevant to aging, and also identified three genes associated with two or more age-related diseases: p16/p15, MYC, and TERT.

SENS4, Session 1: Combating oxidation

Vladimir Skulachev spoke about his extensive work with SkQ1, an antioxidant targeted to mitochondria. He reported that SkQ1 supplementation extends median lifespan in several species (including mammals), and slows the development of multiple age-related diseases and conditions.

Holly Brown-Borg talked about the connections between stress resistance and longevity in Ames dwarf mice, which live around 50% longer than normal mice and show elevated levels of some antioxidants.

Cathy Clarke tested an original and interesting approach to avoiding free radical damage to poly-unsaturated fatty acids, or PUFAs: isotope reinforcement. The basic idea here, explained in an earlier paper, is very simple: heavier isotopes make stronger bonds, so isotope-reinforced PUFAs will be more resistant to free radical attack. Will these results transfer to higher organisms? Is there any chance that the deuterium could get incorporated into other molecules, stabilizing proteins that we want to degrade? The authors plan to follow up this study in worms and mice.

WSJ: Ian Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini: don't expect a Near Term 'USA-China Strategic Alliance' but Expect Sharing of Nuclear Energy Tech

From the Wall Street Journal: American and Chinese officials said all the right things during this summer's inaugural round of their Strategic and Economic Dialogue. President Barack Obama pledged to "forge a path to the future that we seek for our children." Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo wondered aloud whether America and China can "build better relations despite very different social systems, cultures and histories." He answered his own question, in English, with a "Yes we can."

They can, but they probably won't. Yes, Mr. Obama will visit China in November. But when it comes to international burden-sharing, Washington is focused on geopolitical headaches while China confines its heavy-lifting to geoeconomic challenges. The two sides have good reason to cooperate, but there's a growing gap between what Washington expects from Beijing and what the Chinese can deliver.

UPDATE: Bloomberg reports that there are talks between the USA and china on sharing Nuclear Energy Technology

Companies like General Electric Co., Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse Electric Co. unit and France’s Areva SA are jockeying for more than $1 trillion worth of contracts for reactors worldwide in the coming decade.

China is buying and building hundreds of nuclear reactors from now to 2030. In the range of 35-50% of all nuclear reactors that are expected in the world. The US wants to get a piece of that multi-hundred billion dollar action. Plus China will be moving up the learning curve on nuclear energy technology and the flow of technical expertise will be flowing back to the USA more and more.
ENd UPDATE

Obstacles to Strategic partnership.

First, both governments remain largely focused on formidable domestic challenges
Second, there's the bureaucratic problem
Third Beijing has little appetite for a larger geopolitical role



China is not free riding. China is funding the US debt and providing a global economic growth engine.

RELATED

Hyperion Power Generation Update

Dan Yurman has an updated interview of the CEO of Hyperion Power Generation.

John (Grizz) Deal is an expressive driver of an entrepreneurial start-up that has spun out unique nuclear reactor technology from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). It’s not a conventional reactor with fuel rods and cooling systems. Instead, it is a 25 MW “battery” that is expected to be compact and light enough to be delivered on the back of a truck. The vision is a user will pop it into a hole in the ground and have to replace the fuel just once every five years. Hyperion Power Generation claims 122 potential users have signed options to buy one and a quarter of them are in the U.S. The primary output of Hyperion’s “battery” is heat. A customer that wants to buy one to make electricity has to get their own turbines and power distribution network. Deal claims he can deliver his pocket reactor for $1,000/Kw, or $25 million, and that the balance of plant for one will come in at another $1,000/Kw for a market maker price of $2,000/Kw.

Deal says he will deliver Hyperion's reactor for commercial sale in 2013. To get here, he has daunting challenges to overcome including raising $65 million to complete the design, get it licensed by the NRC, develop a supply chain, and, most importantly, build a factory to make it.

For a location he’s looking at Idaho Falls, ID, a “nuclear city” which last year went all out to successfully get French nuclear giant Areva to commit to build a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant 18 mile west of town.

Ethics of Human Enhancement Report

A study on the ethics of human enhancement has been completed.

Entitled “Ethics of Human Enhancement: 25 Questions & Answers,” the 50-page report serves as a convenient and accessible starting point for both public and classroom discussions, such as in bioethics seminars.

The 50 page pdf is here and is available for free download.

Some comments: Society will come up with multiple answers (or default lack of answers) and there will be different situations and rules by state, region and country.

From the introduction:

Forget about Pocket PCs, mobile phones, GPS devices, and other portable gadgets; we might soon be able to communicate and access those capabilities without having to carry any external device, thus raising our productivity, efficiency, response time, and other desirable measures—in short, enabling us to even better survive our world.

I disagree with that aspect. How convenient, powerful and easy the wearable, portable or just usable/commandable machines, services and technology that is at someones disposal does matter as does the context of technological society at the time. If there non-harmful to health of the user steroids that were ten times more effective, would not make that big a difference for 99% of the jobs in the developed world. Labor-related work has already been mostly replaced with people driving and using machines.
- Physically enhanced lumberjack versus tree clearing machines
- exoskeletons versus physical enhancement
- Physically enhanced supersoldier versus rapid fire recoilless rifle firing grenade rounds, wide area taser devices, tanks, planes, UAVs etc...

The more powerful technology and the one which will have a larger impact on society and control are early adopter/developers of molecular nanotechnology and nuclear fusion [or breakthrough energy technology that is over 20 times cheaper - both also provide access and control of space based resources] and the best supercomputers and AI. It will be similar to position of the earlier explorers and colonist of North America, except there is the potential for far greater advantages to those with advanced technology. Control of space has massive military and security implications as asteroid bombardment is more powerful than nuclear weapons.

There is world and solar system shaping technology. An early situation of this is the ability for a billionaire or large company to develop and deploy climate engineering technology. This already has been happening for decades via those who operate coal plants. Particulates and air pollution (smog) and CO2 effect the health of millions around coal plants. The weather is effected. Soon those who would deploy technology to create articificial volcano cooling effects will be performing reverse climate alteration.

However, the questions and answers in the report are still interesting within the scope of what they are addressing.

These are the 25 questions addressed in the report:

Definition & Distinctions
1. What is human enhancement?
2. Is the natural/artificial distinction morally significant in this debate?
3. Is the internal/external distinction morally significant in this debate?
4. Is the therapy/enhancement distinction morally significant in this debate?

Contexts & Scenarios
5. Why would contexts matter in the ethics of human enhancement?
6. What are some examples of enhancement for cognitive performance?
7. What are some examples of enhancement for physical performance?
8. Should a non-therapeutic procedure that provides no net benefit be called an “enhancement”?

Freedom & Autonomy
9. Could we justify human enhancement technologies by appealing to our right to be free?
10. Could we justify enhancing humans if it harms no one other than perhaps the individual?

Fairness & Equity
11. Does human enhancement raise issues of fairness, access, and equity?
12. Will it matter if there is an “enhancement divide”?

Societal Disruptions
13. What kind of societal disruptions might arise from human enhancement?
14. Are societal disruptions reason enough to restrict human enhancement?
15. If individuals are enhanced differently, will communication be more difficult or impossible?



Human Dignity & The Good Life
16. Does the notion of human dignity suffer with human enhancements?
17. Will we need to rethink the notion of a “good life”?

Rights & Obligations
18. Is there a right to be enhanced?
19. Could human enhancement give us greater or fewer rights?
20. Is there an obligation in some circumstance to be enhanced?
21. Should children be enhanced?

Policy & Law
22. What are the policy implications of human enhancement?
23. Should there be limits on enhancements allowed, e.g., for military purposes?
24. Might enhanced humans count as someone’s intellectual property?
25. Will we need to rethink ethics itself?

Tom Baker Returns in Audio Production of Dr. Who

Wired reports that Tom Baker [the fourth of 11 actors who have played Dr. Who] stars in Doctor Who: Hornet’s Nest, a five-part adventure series for BBC audio dramas. The first episode (”The Stuff of Nightmares”) will be released Thursday in the United Kingdom, with subsequent episodes arriving Oct. 8 (”The Dead Shoes”) and Nov. 5 (”The Circus of Doom”). The final two parts (”A Sting in the Tale” and “Hive of Horror”) arrive Dec. 3.

“Tom Baker and The Doctor was the single best marriage of an actor to a role in TV history,” Russell Davies [21st-century Doctor Who producer] said.

The fourth doctor at tardis wikia.

"You may be a doctor but I'm the Doctor, the definite article you might say."
―The Fourth Doctor to Harry Sullivan

Ranking of Dr. Who doctors
1. Tom Baker (fourth)
2. David Tennant (tenth)
3. Jon Pertwee (third)
4. ninth
5. Fifth
6. Second
7-10. Irrelevant: Too large a drop in quality to care

Doctor Who Companion at wikipedia

Ranking of Companions
1. Sarah Jane Smith
2. Rose
3. Romana
4. Martha Jones
5. Captain Jack Harkness
6. K-9's
7-9. Adric/Leela/Donna Noble
10+. Irrelevant: Too large a drop in quality to care

Brigadier not officially a companion but I would put him 6th ahead of K9's.



Nicholas Courtney played the Brigadier and was to record but had to be replaced for health reasons. If there are more audio recordings he could record them.

Technology and Economic Growth Enter Into the Heart of Scarcity

Africa Has Had About 6% Annual GDP Growth and 3% per Capita GDP Growth Since 2001




In 2009, the economic crisis has hurt growth but much of Africa is heading back to 4-5% growth in 2010 and probably back to 6% growth in 2011 onwards.

Economic Growth Has Had a Positive Impact on Poverty Reduction and Other UN Millenium Goals



The UN millenium goals report for 2009, shows solid progress. 2009 saw slowing of progress and some backsliding because of the financial crisis.

A mid2009 UN report shows that GDP growth in the 2-5.5% is expected in Africa in 2010.

The IMF raised its GDP growth expectations in July 2009.

The African and middle east economies have performed relatively well in this crisis.

Africa                            1.8  4.1  
Emerging and developing economies 1.5  4.7   

Wikipedia list of countries by future nominal GDP per capita (from the IMF) shows solid growth for most of the poorest nations.

Africa's total population is about 1 billion. The ten largest countries have about two thirds of the population.

Country        2009   2010  2011  2012  2013  2014   Population 
Nigeria      1,108 1,200 1,264 1,334 1,405 1,480    155 million
Ethiopia       427   442   459   475   500   538     85 million
Egypt        2,456 2,610 2,860 3,130 3,337 3,634     81 million
Congo          173   182   194   205   220   246     66 million
South Africa  4,943 5,014 5,207 5,456 5,744 6,031     49 million
Tanzania        538   568   600   643   690   740     44 million
Sudan         1,334 1,511 1,690 1,847 2,026 2,160     42 million
Kenya           829   993 1,148 1,256 1,356 1,474     40 million
Algeria       3,640 4,064 4,357 4,630 4,893 5,073     35 million
Morocco       2,655 2,802 2,991 3,211 3,449 3,689     32 million

List of African countries by population


Africa is Getting Some Technology and the Tech is Improving Lives
Foreign Policy: Thing Again Africa's Crisis Africa, the continent is in far better shape than most experts think.

Some countries in the region are as poor as England under William the Conqueror, but that doesn't mean Africa's on the verge of doomsday. How many serfs had a cellphone? More than 63 million Nigerians do. Millions travel on buses and trucks across the continent each year, even if the average African road is still fairly bumpy. The list of modern technologies now ubiquitous in the region also includes cement, corrugated iron, steel wire, piping, plastic sheeting and containers, synthetic and cheap cotton clothing, rubber-soled shoes, bicycles, butane, paraffin candles, pens, paper, books, radios, televisions, vaccines, antibiotics, and bed nets.

The spread of these technologies has helped expand economies, improve quality of life, and extend health. About 10 percent of infants die in their first year of life in Africa -- still shockingly high, but considerably lower than the European average less than 100 years ago, let alone 800 years past. And about two thirds of Africans are literate -- a level achieved in Spain only in the 1920s.

Thanks to the spread of technologies and new ideas, African economies are expanding fast and population growth has been accompanied by better health. The continent of Africa has seen output expand 6½ times between 1950 and 2001. Of course, the population has grown nearly fourfold, so GDP per capita has only increased 67 percent

Some widespread health conditions in the region -- notably HIV/AIDS -- are still expensive to treat. But the most effective interventions for promoting health in Africa are remarkably cheap. Breast-feeding, hand-washing, sugar-salt solutions, vaccines, antibiotics, and bed nets together save millions -- and could save millions more -- and none need cost more than $5 a pop. Rollout of a vaccination program, for example, has slashed annual measles deaths in the region from 396,000 to 36,000 in just six years. And though Chad isn't going to see universal college enrollment anytime soon, some very poor countries have already achieved near-universal primary education based in large part on free schooling.

A lot of aid to Africa is wasted, and some goes to support silly ideas or countries that can't use it well. But aid has also supported some programs that have made a real difference in quality of life -- things like supporting the measles vaccination program, helping to eradicate smallpox, fighting river blindness, funding educational radio programs, building sewage networks, and providing scholarships so that poor children can afford to stay in school

Cellphones Can be Cheaper than Clean Water and Sanitation

There is clearly a need for clean water and sanitation.

In 2003, 1.6 million deaths were estimated to be attributable to unsafe water and sanitation, including lack of hygiene; 90% of this burden is concentrated on children under five, mostly in developing countries. In spite of the considerable investment in the provision of water supply and sanitation in the 1980s and 1990s, in 2000 a significant proportion of the world’s population remained without access: an estimated 1.1 billion people were without access to improved water sources and 2.4 billion people lacked access to improved sanitation. Expanding this access is essential to reduce the burden of water-related diseases and to improve the well-being of a large part of the world's population.

Clear dirty water is a serious problem but it usually does not kill people right away. It makes people sick and causes a percentage of deaths of children and the elderly. But clean water and sanitation projects tend to be large infrastructure spending efforts. The overall problem would need $25 billion/year for improved water and sanitation for all who currently need it and then about $150 billion/year for real infrastructure fix. Those numbers are for thousands of mostly million dollar and multi-million dollar projects across a hundred countries and dozens of projects in each country.

Cellphones are bought by individuals and can help connect people to finance and banking and helps with irrigation and farming with weather reports and connection to information. There is immediate financial gain by better access to markets, savings in time (do not need to travel someplace -you can just call) and allows for business opportunities. The rollout of cellphone networks by providers is far cheaper than the rollout of water/sanitation infrastructure and the economics for the providers is far better.

Africa: Cellphones Tipped to Drive Growth in Poor Nations

The mobility, ease of use, flexible deployment, and relatively low and declining roll-out costs of wireless technologies enable them to reach rural populations with low levels of income and literacy.

The report says the next billion mobile subscribers will consist mainly of the rural poor.

An important use of mobile phones in rural areas is to access market information.

TradeNet, a Ghana-based trading platform, allows users to sign up for SMS alerts about commodities and markets while receiving instant alerts for offers to buy or sell when anyone else on the network has submitted an offer.

Read more on the transformative benefits of cellphones in Africa:
Cellphones lower cost of irrigation

Cellphones support access to clean water

Africa: Cell Phones Transform Continent's Development

Cellphones enable a financial revolution in Africa

Getting cellphones to rural Africa is a challenge and there are ingenius solutions.

Millenium village projects to solve poverty and other problems in Africa and other poor regions.

Conclusions

1. Africa is growing fairly fast now and has been for a decade. This could be the beginning of a multi-decade journey like the one in Asia to prosperity for the region.

2. Technology like cellphones or new technology that is emerging that costs less than $50-100/year per person and can be rolled out in smaller overall project sizes and with faster project return on investment will have a faster distribution than clean water and sanitation projects.

3. There are still plenty of super-cheap per person assistance to be done by the people themselves or with international aid that can save many millions of lives and improve quality of life.

4. Technology is a major force in ending extreme poverty.

2008 GDP statistics
East Asia & Pacific 5,186,610
Europe & Central Asia 3,860,600
Latin America & Caribbean 4,247,077

Middle East & North Africa 1,117,198
About 400 million people in Middle East and North Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa 987,120
Sub-saharan Africa has 800 million people The population is projected to grow to 1.5-2 billion in 2050.

India has 1.2 billion people and a GDP of 1.2 trillion. So collectively Africa is ahead of India. Sub-saharan Africa is economically similar to the most of India.

Sub-saharan Africa could follow fairly closely behind India's development of 6-8% annual GDP growth, but per-capita GDP it will be about 20-50% slower to improve because of higher population growth rates.

South Asia 1,531,499
High income 43,189,942
Euro area 13,565,479

Some recommendations on policy that will encourage a faster recovery in Africa

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