Global Research and development almost $1.2 trillion in 2011

2011 Global R&D Funding Forecast - Battelle, 36 pages

Total global spending on R and D in 2011 is anticipated to increase 3.6%, to almost $1.2 trillion. With Asia’s stake continuing to increase, the geographic distribution of this investment will continue a shift begun more than five years ago. The U.S., however, still dominates absolute spending at a level well above its share of global GDP.

The Battelle/R and D Magazine team forecasts that U.S. R and D will grow by only 2.4% (equal to the global median rate) over the final 2010 estimate, reaching $405.3 billion in 2011. With 2011 inflation forecasted to remain a low 1.5%, this growth in R&D still leads to 0.86% ($3.4 billion) growth in real terms.

No segment has a stronger connection to public R and D investment than aerospace, defense, and national security. The U.S. and many foreign governments invest massive amounts on defense and security-related R and D every year. As an illustration of the scale, the U.S. government will spend more on defense R and D in 2011 (about $80 billion) than our estimates of total R and D (government, corporate and academic) for every country in our global analysis except the top three.

$139 billion is spent on Electronics and computer hardware research and development.

$138 billion is spent on Life Science research and development.
Perceived leading topic areas (although not necessarily leading by research funding) of life science research are
1. Tissue Engineering
2. Stem Cell Development
3. Proteomics
4. Pharma Development
5. Personlized Medicine
6. Medical Implants
7. Drug Delivery
8. Automated Healthcare

Real Life Progress to Minority Report Precrime is advanced crime modeling because active criminals live somewhere

In the movie Minority report there people who are able to predict the future and prevent crime.

Precrime is a system which punishes people with imprisonment for murders they would have committed, had they not been prevented.

Singularity Hub - In July, 2011 the Santa Cruz Police Department began experimenting with an interesting bit of software developed by scientists at Santa Clara University. The researchers behind the software are a team of specialists: two mathematicians, an anthropologist and a criminologist.

They have developed more advanced crime modeling and prediction.

Artificial intelligence augments human intuition. Predictive policing software avoids human bias.

Geographic profiling is the problem of estimating the residence (or place of work) of a criminal offender given the locations of crimes committed by the offender. We have developed an agent-based, Bayesian method for geographic profiling that calculates a prior distribution of residences using housing/population density and a prior distribution of foraging parameters using historic crime data. The method attempts to take into account how criminals interact with their heterogeneous environment.

After 9 years Gene Therapy for Bubble Boy Disease Cured 14 out of 16 children

Nine years after getting gene therapy for a rare, inherited immune system disorder often called "bubble boy disease," 14 out of 16 children are doing well. The children were born with severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID). They got an experimental gene therapy in the U.K. A new report shows that nine years later, 14 of the 16 children had working immune systems and were leading normal lives.

Children with SCID carry genetic defects that prevent their immune systems from working. Without treatment, most die from infection in their first two years of life.

United States GDP at $15 trillion mid 2011 and China adjusted GDP

The United States Bureau of Economic Statistics estimates the current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the nation's output of goods and services -- increased 3.5 percent, or $129.0 billion, in the second quarter to a level of $14,996.8 billion. In the first quarter, current-dollar GDP increased 3.1 percent, or $112.8 billion.

China raised its economic growth estimate for 2010 to 10.4 percent from 10.3 percent. Nominal GDP was revised to 40.1 trillion yuan ($6.27 trillion) from 39.8 trillion yuan, the (China) National Bureau of Statistics said.

Various projections are for China's economy to grow by about 9% in 2011 and 8.0-8.5% in 2012

China's gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 9.5 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2011, tapering off slightly from the 9.7-percent growth posted in the first quarter and 9.8 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

Car-to-Car Communication trial will test thousands of cars

A Car-to-Car Communication System will get a trial involving thousands of cars. This could pave the way for technology aimed at cutting accidents and traffic jams. Many high-end cars already come with sensors capable of spotting a vehicle in a driver's blind spot, or warning that the car is drifting out of lane. However, these technologies, which use radar, laser, or video sensors, have a limited view. Car-to-car communications could provide even more sophisticated earlier warnings—for example, when a car several vehicles ahead brakes suddenly.

The DOT (Department of Transportation) estimates that 80 percent of serious crashes could be addressed by this technology. "This is the next major safety advancement, one that's comparable to seat belts, air bags, and electronic stability control," said Scott Belcher, president and CEO of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, a nonprofit founded to promote advanced car technologies.

Successful trials and full deployment in the United States could save 20,000 lives per year and global deployment could help to save 600,000 to 800,000 lives per yaer.

Natcore Technologies makes progress to 30% efficient quantum dot solar cells

A research team working under Natcore Technology Inc. co-founder Prof. Andrew Barron has fabricated two families of multilayer quantum dot films, one with silicon quantum dots and the other with germanium quantum dots, both of which have demonstrated the ability to produce a photo-generated current. Natcore's scientists have discovered that its LPD (Liquid Phase Deposition) process could allow, for the first time, mass manufacturing of super-efficient (30%+) tandem solar cells. For comparison purposes, these cells could achieve twice the power output of today's most efficient solar cells. Until now, these tandem cells have been producible only by using very special, expensive semiconductor materials, and at very high costs. Natcore's process has the potential to allow tandem cell mass production at a lower cost/watt than anything available today.

The photo-generated current measurements are the first of their kind for this sort of structure and showed unequivocally that both film types (i.e., with Si quantum dots or Ge quantum dots) were photoactive in different spectral regions. The larger Ge quantum dots were responsive to an infrared-rich light source and the Si quantum dots were responsive to a UV-rich light source, consistent with expectations. Smaller quantum dots (the Si quantum dot diameters were between 1 nm and 2 nm) will respond more readily to shorter wavelengths of light, while larger quantum dots (the Ge quantum dot diameters were between 5 nm and 6 nm) will respond more readily to longer light wavelengths, precisely as observed.

Neurosurgeons Use Adult Stem Cells to Grow Neck Vertebrae

Neurosurgery researchers at UC Davis Health System have used a new, leading-edge stem cell therapy to promote the growth of bone tissue following the removal of cervical discs -- the cushions between the bones in the neck -- to relieve chronic, debilitating pain. The stem cell procedure at UC Davis took place early in August. The patient was a 53-year-old male from the Sacramento region with degenerative disc disease.

Removal of the cervical disc relieves pain by eliminating friction between the vertebrae and/or nerve compression. Spinal fusion is used following surgery for degenerative disc disease, where the cusioning cartilage has worn away, leaving bone to rub agains bone and herniated discs, where the discs pinch or compress nerves.

"We hope that this investigational procedure eventually will help those who undergo spinal fusion in the back as well as in the neck," said Kim, who also is chief of spinal neurosurgery at UC Davis. "And the knowledge gained about stem cells also will be applied in the near future to treat without surgery those suffering from back pain."

Millions of Americans are affected by spine diseases, with approximately 40 percent of all spinal fusion surgery performed for cervical spinal fusion. Some 230,000 patients are candidates for spinal fusion, with the numbers of potential patients increasing by 2 to 3 percent each year as the nation's population ages.

E-Medicine and Smart Phones Manage Chronic Illness

1. Smartphone apps that connect to medical monitors have been shown to improve the health of people with diabetes and hypertension—and could ease the burden on the health-care system.

Joseph Cafazzo, a biomedical engineer at the University Health Network, in Toronto, and collaborators have developed apps that do much more. Their apps interface wirelessly with medical devices—including a blood-pressure monitor and a blood-sugar monitor—and offer suggestions based on the readings. They found that people using the programs lowered their blood pressure and were more vigilant about monitoring and testing their blood sugar.

One of the most interesting findings was that doctors seemed to play no role in the change. "It was solely patients becoming responsible for their own care," says Cafazzo, who heads the university's Centre for Global eHealth Innovation.

In a yearlong clinical trial of the system involving 110 patients with diabetic hypertension, Cafazzo and colleagues had some people use the app and a home blood-pressure monitor, while others used only a monitor. Those who used the app had a drop in systolic blood pressure of 10 millimeters of mercury, on average, which would reduce the risk of cardiac events by about 25 percent. Those who used just the conventional pressure monitor saw no reduction in blood pressure.

SkyNET: a 3G-enabled mobile attack drone and stealth botmaster

SkyNET: a 3G-enabled mobile attack drone and stealth botmaster (9 pages)

SkyNET is a stealth network that connects hosts to a botmaster through a mobile drone. The network is comprised of machines on home Wi-Fi networks in a proximal urban area, and one or more autonomous attack drones. The SkyNET is used by a botmaster to command their botnet(s) without using the Internet. The drones are programmed to scour an urban area and compromise wireless networks. Once compromised, the drone attacks the local hosts. When a host is compromised it joins both the Internet-facing botnet, and the sun-facing SkyNET. Subsequent drone flights are used to issue command and control without ever linking the botmaster to the botnet via the Internet. Reverse engineering the botnet, or enumerating the bots, does not reveal the identity of the botmaster. An analyst is forced to observe the autonomous attack drone to bridge the command and control gap. In this paper we present a working example, SkyNET complete with a prototype attack drone, discuss the reality of using such a command and control method, and provide insight on how to prevent against such attacks.

Diagrams showing the PAAE procedure used by the SkyNET drone. Black dots represent targets. In b the targets are networks. In c the targets are both networks and hosts.

“Magnonics” using nanoscale magnetic waves could replace microwaves for many applications

A group of scientists from the University of Gothenburg and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) have become the first group in the world to demonstrate that theories about nanoscale spin waves agree with observations. This opens the way to replacing microwave technology in many applications, such as mobile phones and wireless networks, by components that are much smaller, cheaper, and that require less resources.

The research group has used one of the three advanced spin wave microscopes in the world, at the university in the Italian town of Perugia, to visualise the motion. The microscope makes it possible to see the dynamic properties of components with a resolution of approximately 250 nanometre.

Nature Nanotechnology - Direct observation of a propagating spin wave induced by spin-transfer torque

Schematic sample layout.

Cheap drugs could save thousands of lives - in Sweden alone

A major new international study involving researchers from the Sahlgrenska Academy and Sahlgrenska University Hospital has revealed that aspirin, statins, beta blockers and ACE inhibitors are prescribed far too infrequently. They are cheap, preventive medicines that could prevent a huge number of deaths from heart attacks and strokes.

Micronutrient powders reduce anemia and iron deficiency in infants in low-income countries

Adding a powder that contains several vitamins and minerals, including iron, zinc and vitamin A, to the semi-solid foods taken by infants and children between six months and two years of age, can reduce their risk of anaemia and iron deficiency. This is the conclusion of a new Cochrane Systematic Review.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies, particularly those of iron, vitamin A and zinc, affect more than two billion people worldwide. Infants and young children are highly vulnerable because they grow rapidly and often have diets low in these nutrients. Micronutrient powders are single-dose packets containing multiple vitamins and minerals in powder form that can be sprinkled onto any semi-solid food immediately before eating at home or at any other place. Thus, this intervention is known as home or point of use fortification.

The coming age of robotics

The field of robotics is about to enter an exponential growth phase. Robots from corporations such as Qinetic, irobot, and Vecna Robotics are already used extensively by the military and industry, and new robotics corporations, such as Seegrid and Heartland robotics, have formed. A combination of factors, including Moore's law, the increasing cost of human labor, and improved actuators/sensors, mean that robots are beginning to appear in ever greater numbers and increasingly diverse locations. In an interview with Sander Olson, Seegrid CEO Dr. Scott Friedman discusses the burgeoning importance of warehouse robots, why voice-activated industrial robots won't appear, and the coming era of "twilight" factories and warehouses dominated by robots.

Dr. Scott Friedman

Question: Seegrid's warehouse robots have vision systems. How does the vision system work?

The vision system works by creating a 3-D grid, actually an Occupancy Grid, which is a machine vision technique invented by Seegrid’s co-founder, Hans Moravec. That is why our company is named Seegrid. It is a pun on "see the grid".

Innovative Superconductor Fibers Carry 40 Times More than Copper

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found a way to make an old idea new with the next generation of superconductors.

Dr. Boaz Almog and Mishael Azoulay working in the group of Prof. Guy Deutscher at TAU's Raymond and Beverly Sackler School of Physics and Astronomy have developed superconducting wires using fibers made of single crystals of sapphire to be used in high powered cables. Factoring in temperature requirements, each tiny wire can carry approximately 40 times more electricity than a copper wire of the same size. They have the potential to revolutionize energy transfer, says Dr. Almog.

There was a high temperature superconducting patent application 20100298150 by Guy Deutscher (Herzliya, IL) Mishael Azoulay (Kfar-Saba, IL) Boaz Almog (Rehovot, IL) made November 2010

A sapphire substrate carrying a superconductive layer of a compound of the formula YBa2Cu3O7-x (YBCO), the layer having surface area of at least 10 cm2, and critical current of at least 100 A/cm width at a temperature of 77K or higher. In one exemplary embodiment, the thickness of the superconductive layer is between 10 nm and 50 nm. In another exemplary embodiment, the thickness of the superconductive layer is more than 600 nm. In preferred embodiment, an YSZ layer and a non-superconductive YBCO layer separate between the superconductive layer and the substrate.

The properties of copper wires are listed here

High temperature superconducting wire usually carries 4-10 times the power of copper SuperPower state-of-the-art second-generation high temperature superconductor (2G HTS) wire can carry up to one hundred times as much current as conventional copper wire.

The state of the art for superconducting wire electrical performance and cost performance is described in a 30 page presentation by Superpower Inc (a leading superconducting wire company)

Innovation is step toward digital graphene transistors

Purdue University researchers are making progress in creating digital transistors using a material called graphene, potentially sidestepping an obstacle thought to dramatically limit the material's use in computers and consumer electronics.

Purdue doctoral student Hong-Yan Chen has led a team of researchers in creating a new type of graphene inverter, a critical building block of digital transistors. Other researchers have created graphene inverters, but they had to be operated at 77 degrees Kelvin, which is minus 196 Celsius (minus 320 Fahrenheit).

"If graphene could be used in digital applications, that would be really important," said Chen, who is working with Joerg Appenzeller, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and scientific director of nanoelectronics at Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center.

The Purdue researchers are the first to create graphene inverters that work at room temperature and have a gain larger than one, a basic requirement for digital electronics that enables transistors to amplify signals and control its switching from 0 to 1.

Researchers are making progress in creating digital transistors using a material called graphene, potentially sidestepping an obstacle thought to dramatically limit the material's use in computers and consumer electronics. This composite image shows the circuit schematics of a new type of graphene inverter, a critical building block of digital transistors, left, and scanning electron microscope images of the fabricated device. (Hong-Yan Chen, Purdue University Birck Nanotechnology Center)

Innovative nanoparticle purification system uses magnetic fields

Penn State - Innovative nanoparticle purification system uses magnetic fields

A team of Penn State scientists has invented a new system that uses magnetism to purify hybrid nanoparticles -- structures that are composed of two or more kinds of materials in an extremely small particle that is visible only with an electron microscope. Team leaders Mary Beth Williams, an associate professor of chemistry, and Raymond Schaak, a professor of chemistry, explained that the never-before-tried method will help scientists to remove impurities from such particles. The method also will help researchers to distinguish between hybrid nanoparticles that appear to be identical when viewed under an electron microscope, but that have different magnetism -- a great challenge in recent nanoparticle research. The system holds the promise of helping to improve drug-delivery systems, drug-targeting technologies, medical-imaging technologies and electronic information-storage devices. The paper will be published in the journal Agewandte Chemie and is available on the journal's early-online website.

"Nano-olives" are made up of an iron oxide "olive" with an iron and platinum "pimento." Together the components make a highly magnetic particle structure, which may one day be useful for data storage in computers. Penn State Department of Public Information

Self-directed microspider could repair blood vessels

New Scientist - Ayusman Sen of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues have created the self-propelling microspiders using spheres less than a micrometre wide. Each sphere is made up of two halves – one hemisphere is gold, the other silica – and looks like a gold-and-silver Christmas bauble.

Sen hopes to develop versions of these tiny aquatic spiders that run on chemicals readily available in the body, such as glucose. In the future, more sophisticated microspiders attached to nanobots that detect chemicals secreted by damaged tissue could swim through the bloodstream, weaving a medical glue to help heal tears in vessel walls. Decorated with other micromachines and enzymes, they could swim through the circulatory system scouting out tumours, scouring plaque from vessel walls and helping the immune system battle infections .

The microspider represents a "new model of micromachines based on chemistry", says Joseph Wang, a nanoengineer at the University of California, San Diego, in La Jolla. "It's the first example of a micromotor that works on polymerisation. The concept is preliminary, but when it is improved it could be very powerful.

Angewandte Chemie International Edition - A Polymerization-Powered Motor

Polymer-powered! A polymerization reaction is used to power the first micromotor outside biological systems. The motor employs a form of Grubbs’ catalyst asymmetrically bound to gold–silica Janus microspheres (see picture). These motors show increased diffusion of up to 70 % when placed in solutions of the monomer. The motors also exhibit chemotaxis when placed in a monomer gradient.

Controlling the phase of a light beam with a single molecule

Arxiv - Controlling the phase of a light beam with a single molecule (10 pages)

We employ heterodyne interferometry to investigate the effect of a single organic molecule on the phase of a propagating laser beam. We report on the first phase-contrast images of individual molecules and demonstrate a single-molecule electro-optical phase switch by applying a voltage to the microelectrodes embedded in the sample. Our results may find applications in single-molecule holography, fast optical coherent signal processing, and single-emitter quantum operations.

1. a) The experimental setup. BS: beam splitter; BP: bandpass filter; LP: low-pass filter; S: sample; SIL: solid-immersion lens; AOM: acousto-optical modulator; PD: photodetector. The inset exemplifies raw data of the beating signal recorded in a start-stop configuration using the signals of PD1 and PD4, respectively. Green solid and dashed lines indicate the two detuned laser beams after the AOM. The red solid line signifies the fluorescence signal from the sample. b) Laser beam attenuation of 18% by a single molecule recorded on PD2 in reflection.

Holographic Control of Motive Shape in Plasmonic Nanogap Arrays

Nanoletters - Holographic Control of Motive Shape in Plasmonic Nanogap Arrays

Here we demonstrate that 4-beam holographic lithography can be utilized to create plasmonic nanogaps that are 70 times smaller than the laser wavelength (488 nm). This was achieved by controlling phase, polarization, and laser beam intensity in order to tune the relative spacing of the two sublattices in the interference pattern of a compound-lattice in combination with the nonlinear resist response. Exemplarily, twin and triplet motive features were designed and patterned into polymer in a single exposure step and then transferred into gold nanogap arrays resulting in an average gap size of 22 nm and smallest features down to 7 nm. These results extend the utility of high-throughput, wafer-scale holographic lithography into the realm of nanoplasmonics.

Culturomics 2.0: Forecasting Large-Scale Human Behavior Using Global News Media Tone in Time and Space

paper published yesterday in the peer-reviewed journal First Monday combines advanced supercomputing with a quarter-century of worldwide news to forecast and visualize human behavior, from civil unrest to the movement of individuals.

The paper, titled “Culturomics 2.0: Forecasting Large-Scale Human Behavior Using Global News Media Tone in Time and Space,” uses the tone and location of news coverage from across the world to forecast country stability (including retroactively predicting the recent Arab Spring), estimate Osama Bin Laden’s final location as a 200-kilometer radius around Abbottabad, and uncover the six world civilizations of the global news media. The research also demonstrates that the news is indeed becoming more negative and even visualizes global human societal conflict and cooperation over the last quarter century.

It seems like a real attempt at psychohistory from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels

Psychohistory is a fictional science in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe which combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire.

Rice has made a cable from double-walled carbon nanotubes and powered a light bulb

Cables made of carbon nanotubes are inching toward electrical conductivities seen in metal wires, and that may light up interest among a range of industries, according to Rice University researchers.

A Rice lab made such a cable from double-walled carbon nanotubes and powered a fluorescent light bulb at standard line voltage -- a true test of the novel material's ability to stake a claim in energy systems of the future.

Nature Scientific Reports - Iodine doped carbon nanotube cables exceeding specific electrical conductivity of metals

Rice breakthrough could double wireless capacity with no new towers

Rice's new "full-duplex" technology allows wireless devices like cell phones and electronic tablets to both "talk" and "listen" to wireless cell towers on the same frequency -- something that requires two frequencies today.

"Our solution requires minimal new hardware, both for mobile devices and for networks, which is why we've attracted the attention of just about every wireless company in the world," said Ashutosh Sabharwal, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice. "The bigger change will be developing new wireless standards for full-duplex. I expect people may start seeing this when carriers upgrade to 4.5G or 5G networks in just a few years."

Arxiv - Experiment-driven Characterization of Full-Duplex Wireless Systems

32 page pdf

Lawrenceville Plasma Physics completes Dense Plasma Focus Fusion upgrade reassembly

In early August, the LPP research team—Eric Lerner, Aaron Blake, Derek Shannon and Fred Van Roessel, ably reinforced by visiting Kansas State University graduate students Mohamed Ismail and Amgad Mohamed, completed the re-assembly of the FF-1 upgrade.

The upgrade, which involved reinforcing insulation on the device’s transmission plates and around its switches, prepared it for firing up to 45 kV. With the advice and design help of LPP contractor John Thompson in San Diego, the team came up with and implemented a half dozen ways to make the Mylar plastic sheets that insulate the current more effective. Re-assembly was completed only nine days after we received the last parts from machinists.

August 27, 2011 the team fired 11 shots with the upgraded system

Scientists announce human intestinal stem cell 'breakthrough' for regenerative medicine

Human colon stem cells have been identified and grown in a lab-plate for the first time. This achievement, made by researchers of the Colorectal Cancer Lab at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and published in Nature Medicine, is a crucial advance towards regenerative medicine.

Throughout life, stem cells of the colon regenerate the inner layer of our large intestine in a weekly basis. For decades scientists had evidences of the existence of these cells yet their identity remained elusive. Scientists led by the ICREA Professor and researcher at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) Eduard Batlle discovered the precise localization of the stem cells in the human colon and worked out a method that allows their isolation and in vitro expansion, that is their propagation in lab-plates. Growing cells outside the body generally requires providing the cells in a lab-plate with the right mix of nutrients, growth factors and hormones. But in the same way that each of the more than 200 types of cells in our body differs from the others so too do optimal growing conditions in the lab. Consequently, human adult stem cell culture in labs has been a truly impossible mission until now. Batlle's team has also established the conditions for maintain living human colon stem cells (CoSCs) outside of the human body: "This is the first time that it has been possible to grow single CoSCs in lab-plates and to derive human intestinal stem cell lines in defined conditions in a lab setting," explains the IRB Barcelona researcher Peter Jung, first author of the study together with Toshiro Sato, from the University Medical Center Utrecht in The Netherlands.

Nature Medicine - Isolation and in vitro expansion of human colonic stem cells

Room Temperature Superconductivity Claimed for Cuprates for high temperature islands parts of the total material

In recent years, some physicists have found some cuprates in which the transition to zero resistance occurs at a lower temperature than the Meisner effect. So at low temperatures, the cuprate acts like a normal superconductor. As the temperature rises, it goes through a first transition and loses its zero resistance while maintaining the Meisner effect. Then as the temperature rises further, it goes through a second transition in which the Meisner effect disappears and the material becomes an ordinary conductor. In underdoped yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO), the first transition occurs at 85K while the second at over 200K.

Vladimir Kresin at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Stuart Wolf at the University of Virginia put forward a theory. They think that these cuprates consist of two components with different transition temperatures: the component with the higher transition temperature forms islands in a matrix with a lower transition temperature.

That explains why the material has two transition temperatures, they say. Below 85K, both components are superconductors. But as the temperature rises above 85K, the matrix becomes a conventional conductor introducing finite resistance. However, the island component maintains its superconductivity. Their idea is that the high temperature islands form where atomic isotopes subtly change the material properties.

Kresin and Wolf say that one experiment has shown that the substitution of O-18 for O-16 in another cuprate dramatically increases the second transition temperature. That's potentially exciting. In effect, these guys say they've discovered a room temperature superconductor, albeit one that works inside a lower temperature superconductor. Whether this materials can be isolated so that the effect appears in a standalone bulk material will be an important question to investigate.

Arxiv - Inhomogeneous Superconducting State and intrinsic Tc : Near Room Temperature Superconductivity in the Cuprates.

NOTE - High temperature islands of room temperature superconductivity is what Joe Eck has been reporting for many months.

In 2006, Joe Eck at superconductors.org (a private experimenter) reported 150K superconductor (for islands of a material)
In 2007, Joe Eck reported 175K superconductor (for islands of a material)
In 2008, Joe reported 200K and then 212K superconductor
In 2009, Joe reported 233K, 242K and then 254K superconductor islands
In 2010, Joe reported 277K
In 2011, Joe reported islands of 18.5C (291.5 K)

Wolf Raynet protostar ejecting a powerful molecular jet

This video shows the evolution over time of Herbig-Haro object HH 47, a jet expelled from a newborn star in the southern constellation of Vela. The video was made by stitching together observations of HH 47 made in 1994, 1999 and 2008.

credit: NASA, ESA, P. Hartigan (Rice University), G. Bacon (STScI)

Given the vast distances in astronomy, even fast moving objects will not appear to change their appearance in a human lifetime. Typically. A recent spectacular exception to this, however, is the supersonic jet in the star forming Herbig Haro 47. HH 47 is so close -- and the jets are moving so fast -- that images from the Hubble Space Telescope from 1994 to 2008 have been combined into a time-lapse movie that actually shows a powerful jet expanding. Visible above, jets of plasma extending over 10,000 times the Earth-Sun distance shoot out from a forming star at speeds in excess of 150 kilometers per second. Studying how these jets evolve gives clues not only to how the star in HH 47 is forming, but how stars like our Sun formed billions of years ago. HH 47 is located about 1,500 light years away toward the constellation of Sails of a Ship (Vela)

H/T goatguy

Demonstration of a single-molecule electric motor

Tufts researchers have built the smallest electric motor ever—it consists of just one molecule. Tufts research team has developed the world’s first single-molecule electric motor—which is a mere 1 nanometer across. They reported the results in a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology on Sept. 4. This development—made possible with a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope at Tufts, one of only about 100 in the United States—may be the first step toward a new class of devices that could be used in applications ranging from medicine to engineering.

Sykes and his colleagues used the metal tip of the microscope to provide an electrical charge to a butyl methyl sulfide molecule that had been placed on a copper surface. The molecule had a sulfur atom at the center and carbon atoms radiating off to form two arms, so to speak: four carbons on one side, one on the other. In subsequent experiments, such arms could potentially act as interlocking cogs or gears, and as one molecule is powered, it could turn or rotate others in sequence.

Nature Nanotechnology - Experimental demonstration of a single-molecule electric motor

In this illustration, the orange represents the copper surface on which the molecular motor is resting. The yellow ball is the molecule’s sulfur base, and the two arms are composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms. The power source above the device is the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope, which uses electricity to direct the molecule to rotate in one direction or another. Illustration: Sykes Laboratory

New path to new materials and devices

A University of Arkansas physicist and his colleagues have found that ultra-thin films of superconductors and related materials don’t lose their fundamental properties when built under strain when built as atomically thin layers, an important step towards achieving artificially designed room temperature superconductivity. This ability will allow researchers to create new types of materials and properties and enable exotic electronic phases in ultra-thin films.

Dr Richard Nebel now at Tibbar Technologies

Dr. Richard Nebel used to be the lead researcher at EMC2 Fusion. EMC2 Fusion is funded by the Navy to develop inertial electrostatic fusion. The EMC2 fusion processed were developed by Dr Bussard (Bussard Ramjet and a lot of other work). Dr Nebel is now at Tibbar Technologies. (H/T Talk polywell

Electrostatic Mode Locking and Mode Suppression in RFPs and Tokamaks by Richard Nebel (x lead researcher at EMC2 Fusion)

In this paper we show that it is possible to lock and amplify m=1 modes from the boundary in an RFP by using electrostatic fields. Furthermore, it is possible to do this without any magnetic field lines penetrating the boundary (i.e. the normal component of the magnetic field vanishes at the boundary).

These can result in single-helicity states which have good flux surfaces everywhere. The key to forming these states is to drive one of the unstable RFP modes. For the unstable modes, perturbations from the boundary amplify into the interior (Resonant Field Amplification). This is consistent with the theory developed 20+ years ago that boundary perturbations can be described by the marginal ideal MHD equations.

Carnival of Space 213

The Carnival of Space 213 is up at Weird Warp

IMBots - Inorganic Macrocell Robots

Ben Goertzel at HPlus Magazine talks about his idea for robots made of quarter centimeter to one centimeters pieces that he calls Inorganic Macrocell Robots or IMBots

The idea seems very doable with the current millimeter scale claytronics which are themselves precursors to Micron based claytronics and precursors to utility fog. Utility fog needs early stage molecular nanotech to fully realize.

Ben talks about a muscle ball made up of IMBot sensors and cameras and actuators.

Carnival of Nuclear Energy 68

The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 68 is up at Deregulating the Atom

Stratosolar economic analysis

The StratoSolar PV solution represents an opportunity to make today’s PV technology cost effective without the massive subsidy needed to drive the technology to commercial viability in the 15 to 20 years historical trends would indicate will be necessary. It also makes PV an affordable alternative for locations like Germany and Japan where PV is unlikely to ever be viable without subsidy.

What the StratoSolar PV system does:
* Weather independent, photovoltaic solar power (PV)
* Locations up to latitude 60 produce market competitive electricity
* Electricity in utility scale systems from 10 MW to 1 GW in modular increments
* Cost competitive electricity without subsidy

Varying degrees of tracking are possible, and real systems will have results intermediate between flat plate and 2-axis tracking. At 20km sunlight can exceed 1.3kW/m2, which explains utilizations that exceed the theoretical 50% maximum achievable on the ground.

Stratosolar has a 23 page economic analysis of their system.

Nextbigfuture previously had an exclusive Sander Olson interview with Stratosolar president Edmund Kelly.

The OilDrum has an interview with Keith Henson (volunteer engineer with Stratosolar) about Stratosolar

A permanent high altitude platform could serve many additional purposes. Listed below are some examples of possible uses.
* Communications and observation platform
o Cell phone tower, data networks
o Radar for weather, commercial, military
o Science: astronomy, meteorology, earth science
o Laser communications network
o Tourism

Spacex mission could be delayed but Cautious Optimism that Russia can get a mission to keep Crew in Space Station

Space.com - If Russia doesn't return its rockets to flight by mid-November, the space station could be left unmanned for the first time since 2000. That's because the six astronauts currently residing on the orbiting lab are due to come home relatively soon. Three are slated to return next month, and the rest will likely depart by Nov. 19 at the latest, NASA officials announced Monday (Aug. 29).

Space Exploration Technologies — better known as SpaceX — is planning to launch its Dragon capsule toward the orbiting lab on Nov. 30, with a historic docking slated for nine days later. But as a result of the Aug. 24 crash of the unmanned Russian Progress 44 supply ship, there might not be any astronauts aboard the station to receive Dragon in early December.

If that's the case, Dragon's launch would have to be postponed.

An artist's interpretation of a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship docked at the International Space Station CREDIT: SpaceX/NASA

Blue Origin test rocket crashed and photos of the actual secret rocket

Jeff Bezos is CEO of Amazon and investor in Blue Origin Rocket and General Fusion. Blue Origin had a crash of a test rocket

Three months ago, we successfully flew our second test vehicle in a short hop mission, and then last week we lost the vehicle during a developmental test at Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 45,000 feet," Bezos wrote in a statement posted to the Blue Origin website Sept. 2. They shared pictures of the secret rocket. They are already working on our next development vehicle.

Single-qubit gate error below one in ten thousand in a trapped ion

Arxiv - Single-qubit gate error below one in ten thousand in a trapped ion It is about one in twenty thousand and is about 40 times better than trapped ion before.

In theory, quantum computers can solve certain problems much more efficiently than classical computers. This has motivated experimental efforts to construct and verify devices that manipulate quantum bits (qubits) in a variety of physical systems. The power of quantum computers depends on the ability to accurately control sensitive superposition amplitudes by means of quantum gates, and errors in these gates are one of the chief obstacles to building quantum computers. Here we establish an error probability per randomized one-qubit gate of 2.0(2)x10^-5, well below the threshold estimate of one in ten thousand commonly considered sufficient for fault-tolerant quantum computing. The qubit is realized with two hyperfine ground states of a 9Be+ ion trapped above a microfabricated surface-electrode ion trap and manipulated with microwaves applied to a trap electrode. This demonstration of errors significantly below the fault-tolerant threshold is an essential step toward construction of a scalable quantum computer.

Manufacturing method paves way for commercially viable quantum dot-based LEDs

Researchers have created a high-performance hybrid LED (light emitting diode), comprised of both organic and QD-based (Quantum dot) layers. Until recently, however, engineers have been vexed by a manufacturing problem that hindered commercial development. An industrial process known as vacuum deposition is the common way to put the necessary organic molecules in place to carry electricity into the QDs. However, a different manufacturing process called spin-coating, is used to create a very thin layer of QDs. Having to use two separate processes slows down production and drives up manufacturing costs.

Nature Photonics - Stable and efficient quantum-dot light-emitting diodes based on solution-processed multilayer structures

Multilayer, colloidal quantum-dot based light-emitting diodes that exhibit high brightness, solution processability, colour tunability and narrow emission bandwidth are reported. These devices consist of a quantum-dot emissive layer sandwiched between an organic hole transport layer and an electron transport layer of ZnO nanoparticles, all of which are deposited using a solution process. The devices have maximum luminance and power efficiency values of 4,200 cd m^−2 and 0.17 lm W^−1 for blue emission, 68,000 cd m^−2 and 8.2 lm W^−1 for green, and 31,000 cd m^−2 and 3.8 lm W^−1 for orange-red. Moreover, with the incorporation of the ZnO nanoparticles, these devices exhibit high environmental stability, and the unencapsulated devices have operating lifetimes exceeding 250 h in low vacuum with an initial brightness of 600 cd m^−2.

BMW Turbosteamer and Thermoelectric Generator are close to commercialization

BMW (Car maker) has a Turbosteamer and Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) projects. They are focused on generating electric current from waste heat to improve overall engine efficiency, but each project follows a different approach and time frame. There is great potential for considerable fuel savings if the electrical energy required by all of the systems in an automobile can be produced using waste heat rather than relying solely on the vehicle's generator.

In 2005, BMW labs tested the turbosteamer on four-cylinder petrol engines and the dual system boosted the performance of these engines by 15 percent.

The turbosteamer today: smaller and simpler

Research project Turbosteamer: comparison of the heat exchanger generation 1 (top) and generation 2 (bottom).

In order to further develop the system for use in series production, attention was given to reducing the size of the components and making the system simpler to improve its dynamics and achieve an optimized cost-benefit ratio. Thus researchers focused on designing a component having only one high-temperature circuit.

“We have made great progress toward achieving our original goal, which was to develop a system ready for series production within about ten years. When completed, this system will weigh only 10 kg to 15 kg and will be capable of supplying all of the electrical energy required by an automobile while cruising along the motorway or on country roads,” says Ringler. Under these conditions the developers are sure that the average driver will be able to reduce fuel consumption by up to 10 percent on long-distance journeys.

Nanomaterials: Copying geckos’ toes

AStar - Simple templating technology allows researchers to stamp out materials that mimic the adhesive properties of gecko toes.

Isabel Rodríguez at the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering and co-workers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore have now made one of the closest mimics to gecko toes yet, and shown that it has the properties to match.

The geckos’ ability to cling to surfaces is not due to glue but to the millions of microscopic hairs that coat the surface of their toes. Each hair has a branched, hierarchical structure—toward its tip, each fiber breaks into multiple sub-fibers, which in turn break into hundreds of fibrils 100–200 nanometers in diameter. This structure ensures a high surface area, which helps the gecko to cling to the wall. In addition, the hairs become more flexible as they become thinner, which helps to maximize the number of fibrils in contact with the wall.

Artificial hairs just a few hundred nanometers in diameter mimic the adhesive surface of a gecko’s toe-pads

Nanoparticle infused film for moisture-resistant coating can enable cheap flexible plastic electronic devices

A nanoparticle-infused film brings innovative lighting and display technologies closer to reality. A moisture-resistant coating that extends the lifetime and reliability of plastic electronic devices, such as organic solar cells or flexible displays, has garnered the intense interest of developers of next-generation lighting materials. By cranking out large sheets of polymers bearing electronic circuitry using roll-to-roll technology, electronics manufacturers can substantially reduce their capital and processing costs. This increases the possibilities for low-cost flexible panel lighting.

Integrated Electrochromic Nanoplasmonic Optical Switch

Nanoletters - Integrated Electrochromic Nanoplasmonic Optical Switch

We demonstrate an electrochemically driven optical switch based on absorption modulation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) propagating in a metallic nanoslit waveguide containing nanocrystals of electrochromic Prussian Blue dye. Optical transmission modulation of 96% is achieved by electrochemically switching the dye between its oxidized and reduced states using voltages below 1 V. High spatial overlap and long interaction length between the SPP and the active material are achieved by preferential growth of PB nanocrystals on the nanoslit sidewalls. The resulting orthogonalization between the directions of light propagation and that of charge transport from the electrolyte to ultrathin active material inside the nanoslit waveguide offers significant promise for the realization of electrochromic devices with record switching speeds.

100 percent efficient energy transfer in artificial light harvesting

Journal of the American Chemical Society - Efficient Excited Energy Transfer Reaction in Clay/Porphyrin Complex toward an Artificial Light-Harvesting System

The quantitative excited energy transfer reaction between cationic porphyrins on an anionic clay surface was successfully achieved. The efficiency reached up to ca. 100% owing to the “Size-Matching Rule” as described in the text. It was revealed that the important factors for the efficient energy transfer reaction are (i) suppression of the self-quenching between adjacent dyes, and (ii) suppression of the segregated adsorption structure of two kinds of dyes on the clay surface. By examining many different kinds of porphyrins, we found that tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-3-yl) porphyrin (m-TMPyP) and tetrakis(1-methylpyridinium-4-yl) porphyrin (p-TMPyP) are the suitable porphyrins to accomplish a quantitative energy transfer reaction. These findings indicate that the clay/porphyrin complexes are promising and prospective candidates to be used for construction of an efficient artificial light-harvesting system.

Nuclear still cost competitive in Japan even with Fukushima and World Uranium Projects move forward

1. The Institute of Energy Economic of Japan (IEEJ) says that for the past five years the cost of nuclear generation remained stable at around ¥7.00 ($0.09) per kilowatt-hour (kWh). However, even if compensation of up to ¥10 trillion ($130 billion) for loss or damage from a nuclear accident is taken into account, the cost of electricity generation with nuclear reactors increases to some ¥8.50 ($0.11) per kWh.

According to the IEEJ, the cost of generating electricity from fossil fuels over the past five years averaged ¥10.20 ($0.13) per kWh, while the costs from renewable energy sources (mostly geothermal) averaged ¥8.90 ($0.12). However, the study says that the cost of fossil fuel generation, unlike that for nuclear generation, varied widely over the period -from ¥9 to ¥12 ($0.12 to $0.16) - due to fluctuations in the costs of importing the fuel.

IEEJ based its calculations of financial reports published by 12 Japanese power utilities over the past five years, but prior to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Graphene Flash Memory

Technology Review - Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and one of the largest manufacturers of computer memory, Samsung, have created a new kind of flash memory that uses graphene—atom-thick sheets of pure carbon—along with silicon to store information. Incorporating graphene could help extend the viability of flash memory technology for years to come, and allow future portable electronics to store far more data.

"We're not totally replacing silicon but using graphene as the storage layer," says Augustin Hong, who worked on the devices at UCLA and is now a research staff member at IBM's Watson Research Center. "We're using graphene to help extend the capabilities of the conventional technology."

ACS Nano - Graphene Flash Memory

Yale Scientists Find Stem Cells That Tell Hair It’s Time to Grow

Yale researchers have discovered the source of signals that trigger hair growth, an insight that may lead to new treatments for baldness.

The researchers identified stem cells within the skin's fatty layer and showed that molecular signals from these cells were necessary to spur hair growth in mice, according to research published in the Sept. 2 issue of the journal Cell.

"If we can get these fat cells in the skin to talk to the dormant stem cells at the base of hair follicles, we might be able to get hair to grow again," said Valerie Horsley, assistant professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology and senior author of the paper.

Journal Cell - Adipocyte Lineage Cells Contribute to the Skin Stem Cell Niche to Drive Hair Cycling

Legal motivations for Superman to wear Pants and have costume changes

Previously we had covered DC comics changing the look of superman and giving him pants. DC is also rebooting their comic book universe.

Lawyer Jeff Trexler at Comicbeat explains how the the last few years at DC Comics changes to Superboy and Superman have been driven by the courtroom ebb and flow of lawsuits by the heirs of Siegel and Shuster to reclaim copyright to Superman.

In 2006, DC killed Superboy and the Earth-2 Superman and Lois Lane–the DCU versions of the Golden Age Siegel and Shuster originals. Not coincidentally, this story appeared as the Siegel heirs were prevailing in the first round of their effort to claim the Superboy copyright. After another judge vacated this ruling in 2007 and strongly suggested that the Siegels were not likely to become sole owners of the Superboy copyright, Superboy miraculously came back to life.

Cosmic book news reports on Variety coverage of the Superman copyright lawsuit.

The heirs of Superman creators Siegel and Shuster should have and/or will soon have "Successfully recaptured" rights to additional works, including the first two weeks of the daily Superman newspaper comic-strips, as well as portions of early Action Comics and Superman comic-books.

[The families] now control depictions of Superman's origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-El and Lora, Superman as the infant Kal-El, the launching of the infant Superman into space by his parents as Krypton explodes and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash.

According to Variety, the family also owns, due to a ruling in 2008 about Action Comics #1:

The Superman character, including his costume, his alter-ego as reporter Clark Kent, the feisty reporter Lois Lane, their jobs at the Daily Planet newspaper working for a gruff editor, and the love triangle among Clark/Superman and Lois.

So what is DC/Warner Bros left with?

Superman's ability to fly, the term kryptonite, the Lex Luthor and Jimmy Olsen characters, Superman's powers and expanded origins.

I have heard that DC/Warner Bros must change the costume by at least 20% to avoid the costume copyright. Therefore, Superman gets pants and another version with body armor.

Rossi Energy Catalyzer will be tested at NASA starting September 3, 2011

On the Facebook page- Cold Fusion "Andrea Rossi" Method comes a report that Rossi has agreed to carry out tests at the NASA laboratories, beginning tomorrow [Italy time], September 3.

This comes from an italian forum http://www.energeticambiente.it/ but I am unable to search it

Armando de Para posted on : http://www.energeticambiente.it/

“Rossi ha accettato di effettuare delle prove presso i laboratori NASA, cominciano dopodomani, il 3 settembre”.

UPDATE - Ecatnews also has coverage

Quantum Processor Hooks Up with Quantum Memory

Connecting a quantum processor with quantum memory could make it possible to perform complex calculations that are far beyond the power of conventional computers. Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have become the first to combine a quantum processor with memory that can be used to store instructions and data.

Qubits can be made in a variety of ways, such as suspending ions or atoms in magnetic fields. The UCSB group used more conventional electrical circuits, albeit ones that must be cooled almost to absolute zero to make them superconducting and activate their quantum behavior. They can be fabricated by chip-making techniques used for conventional computers. Mariantoni says that using superconducting circuits allowed the team to place the qubits and memory elements close together on a single chip, which made possible the new von Neumann-inspired design.

When chilled almost to absolute zero, this chip becomes a quantum computer that includes both a processor (the two black squares) and memory (the snaking lines on either side). Credit: Erik Lucero

Building chips with 10 nanometer features from collapsing nanopillars

By turning a common problem in chip manufacture into an advantage, MIT researchers produce structures only 30 atoms wide.

Researchers at MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics and Singapore’s Engineering Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have demonstrated a new technique that could produce chip features only 10 nanometers — or about 30 atoms — across. The researchers use existing methods to deposit narrow pillars of plastic on a chip’s surface; then they cause the pillars to collapse in predetermined directions, covering the chip with intricate patterns.

Journal Small - Controlled Collapse of High-Aspect-Ratio Nanostructures

Schematics of nanogap formation by collapsing curved linear HAR structures, where h is the height of structures, p is the separating distance between two adjacent structures, and d is the nanogap size after the collapse of structures.

Samsung Galaxy Note is the rumored 5.3 inch display smartphone

Samsung showed its new Galaxy Note smartphone today at IFA. It is the rumored 5.3" supersized smartphone.

It has a stylus and 1280×800 high-resolution Super AMOLED screen. It is a thin Android phone additional functionality by way of both sketching and note-taking. It is powered by a 1.4 Ghz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM and more. The Galaxy Note will also have an 8 MP camera with LED flash, a 2 MP front camera for video chat. Being ultra-portable even though we have a large display it will only be 9.65mm (0.37″) thin and weigh 178 grams while boosting the battery to a whopping 2500 mAh

China Energy plan through 2015, 100 GW of wind, 10 GW of solar, 40 GW of Nuclear

China has doubled its target for installed solar power capacity over the next five years to 10 GW by 2015 and 50 GW by 2020.

The world had 23 GW of solar power at the end of 2009 (wikipedia)

The US solar photovoltaic (PV) market will double in 2011 according to research from Solarbuzz. The US solar PV market is projected to grow to reach as high as 6.4 GW by 2015 depending on the scenario, a constant annual growth rate of 47%. Worldwide PV market installations reached a record high of 18.2 GW in 2010

Source: Solarbuzz Marketbuzz 2010

An 8 page report by the Climate Group on China's five year energy plan 2011-2015.

Progress on low-carbon energy will come from a four-fold growth in nuclear power to 40GW (gigawatts), 63GW of new hydroelectric capacity, a growth of 22GW in gas-fired generation18, 48GW19 of new wind capacity to more than double the current capacity and solar capacity expected to reach 5GW of by 2015. The country aims to have 100 gigawatts (GW) of on-grid wind farm generating capacity by the end of 2015 and to generate 190 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of wind energy annually, the China Securities Journal reported, citing a government plan. Of the planned 10 GW of solar power capacity in 2015, photovoltaic power installations will account for 9 GW and concentrated solar thermal power capacity will make up the rest, the report said.

Targets disclosed early 2011           Latest targets for 2015   
 Hydropower                250                              260   
 Wind                       90                              100   
 Solar                       5                               10   
 Bio-energy                 13                               13   
 Geothermal                N/A                                0.1   
 Tidal wave                N/A                           0.01-0.02   

Nuclear is targeted for 40 GW which is the equivalent of 200 GW of solar and 160 GW of wind. Higher capacity factor for nuclear.

Solyndra bankruptcy and solar power costs

A 2010 article looked Solyndras costs for solar panels against average solar panel costs. (ASP Average Sale price for the panels)

Costs for solar panels fell 42% from that time. Solar panel costs are down about 20% in 2011.

A key differentiating factor that Solyndra claimed was its lower BOS (Balance of System) costs given the lack of rooftop penetration and shorter installation times, which it claims can result in an installation cost of only 50 cents per watt. However, it is not clear how much difference this would make in the grand scheme of things: installation (as opposed to BOS component) costs for its main competitors, crystalline silicon PV and First Solar, are likely in the range of 75 cents to a dollar a watt, given their higher efficiencies (despite the company's claims of 11 to 14 percent module efficiencies, module datasheets reveal an efficiency of only 9.7 percent at present).

First Solar has continued to improve module efficiency and costs

ASP is average sale price for 2009. Average sale price is now 40-50% lower in August 2011

Will tablets be sold like video game consoles ? Bundled loss leaders ?

Forbes - After more than a decade of battles with Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft sits atop the console business, where its entertainment and devices unit squeezed out operating income of just $32 million on $1.5 billion in sales for the quarter ending June 30. And that’s a success story.

Now analysts are betting Amazon will take the same approach, predicting the online retailer will sell a tablet computer for hundreds less than Apple’s iPad, making money by stuffing the tablets full of links to its music, video, software, and electronic book stores.

HP announced on one of its blogs that it will be building another run of the profit-sucking machines and selling them for $99. Presumably HP’s has already paid for the parts, so it might as well clear them out?

Rossi 1 megawatt energy catalyzer tests will run for two months and Eight Krivit videos Interviewing Levi and Focardi

On Andrea Rossi’s blog he indicates that the 1 Megawatt eCat tests will be performed over a two month period.

August 30th, 2011 at 3:13 PM
I’m sorry, but the last sentence should read:
Will this test be run for a long enough time (e.g. 18 hours like the one earlier this year) under continuous surveillance by the scientists?
(How long will the scientists be visiting the test facilities?)
Thanks

Andrea Rossi
August 30th, 2011 at 4:07 PM
Dear Sebastian:
The tests will last 2 months, the scientists will have full access to all but the reactors.
Warm Regards,
A.R.

Power generating shoes for about 2014

Technology Review - University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have come up with a microfluidics technique that scavenges considerably more energy from human footfalls and converts it into electric power. Previous attempts to make energy-harvesting shoes have yielded less than a watt of power, but the new approach could lead to a shoe-mounted generator that produces up to 10 watts, says Tom Krupenkin, a mechanical engineering professor who led the work.

"A lot of energy is simply wasted as heat while we walk," says Krupenkin. "If one can convert this into electrical energy, numbers come out to be up to 10 watts per foot." Cell phones and smart phones need about 1 to 2 watts, while small laptops need 10 to 12 watts. Power-generating shoes could be an important breakthrough for soldiers, who currently carry heavy batteries to power their radios, GPS units, and night-vision goggles.

Instepnanopower is the company that has been formed to commercialize this technology

Prieto Battery also cames price breakthrough and extraordinary power density claims

Prieto battery has been claiming 3D battery construction utilizing Cu2Sb (Copper Antimonide) nanowires.

Prieto Battery was the first startup spun out of Colorado State University's "Clean Energy Supercluster," a program aimed at speeding research to the marketplace. Amy Prieto, 36-year-old assistant chemistry professor, has developed a nanotechnology approach to making a battery that may be 1,000 times more powerful and last 10 times longer than existing batteries.

I believe the 1000 times claim relates to a highly dense version of the nanowires which has not been made yet.

Prieto Battery Performance

* High power density
* Rapid charge
o 3 minutes vs. 20 minutes
* Long life
* Smaller package
o 1/2 to 2/3 the size for the same energy density

Battery Manufacturing Process

* Lower cost than traditional methods
o $250 per kWh vs. $600+ per kWh
* Environmentally friendly
o Water-based process
* Highly repeatable
o Electrodeposition is extensively used in the semiconductor industry
* Easily scalable