Earthquake in the UK?

Radio just said there was an earthquake in the UK and there has been some damage.

Update at 6:22pm EST: It was a Magnitude 4.3, which is pretty minor usually, but Sky News reports that at least 50 homes are now uninhabitable.

The bits damage I can see in the photos are all brickwork, which is not very earthquake resistant.

As of now there is only one injury reported.

More here, here and here.

Update2: Allan Harvey is OK.

Military Bio-Sensor May Have Found Bee Killer

Hat Tip: Rand Simberg:

The recent collapse of honeybee colonies has been the cause for much justifiable alarm and all sorts of speculation ranging from pesticides to (of all things) cellphones.

Now it appears that the actual culprits may have been found.....

Using a new technology called the Integrated Virus Detection System (IVDS), which was designed for military use to rapidly screen samples for pathogens, ECBC scientists last week isolated the presence of viral and parasitic pathogens that may be contributing to the honeybee loss.

Confirmation testing was conducted over the weekend by scientists at the University of California San Francisco. ECBC scientists presented the results of their studies yesterday to a United States Department of Agriculture working group, hastily convened to determine next steps.

The article says a parasite and a virus...this would make sense. If the two recently developed a symbiotic relationship or are just hitting the bees at the same time they could have overwhelmed the bees immune systems. More in this article, which identifies the parasite as Nosema ceranae.

While the situation is still dire, if this is in fact the culprit it is a bit of good news. Some treatment may be able to be devised, at least for domestic beehives.

Even if this is not the culprit, the fact that the Integrated Virus Detection System detected these pathogens indicates that the Pentagons biowarfare sensor methods are at least on the right track.

And that is quite good news.

Wow...Aren't Those Compact flourescent Bulbs Great?

One of the Brickmuppets Crack Team of Science Babes is surprised to learn that the compact flourescent bulbs being so enthusiastically pushed by the greens contain a bit of mercury....here is what happened to one family when they broke one.

2000 dollars in cleanup and a room sealed off.

I worked in hazmat cleanup for 10 years mercury is not something you mess around with.

Far, far more than global warming, mercury poisoning concerns us here at Brickmuppet Blog. Nursing Mothers, and pregnant women are already warned about mercury poisoning in fish.

The pollution of the oceans by mercury is one of the most terrible issues facing humanity. Mercury causes NERVE DAMAGE, in children it reduces IQ.

One of the worst cases, admittedly involving far higher concentrations than most current fish, was the dreadful Minamata disaster (about which more here and here) .

The main sources for marine mercury are burning lignite and bitumous coal and industrial runoff, though in some areas there is a natural source. Now one of the biggest coal burners besides the US (which uses a high percentage of relatively clean anthracite coal) is China....which you will remember, got a pass via the Kyoto treaty, which the US is pilloried for not signing.

In fact regards CO2 emissions alone, one of Chinas coal fires puts more CO2 than all the USA's automobiles combined! Lord knows how much mercury they are releasing.

Like Kyoto, these much ballyhooed bulbs seem to be more about feeling good than doing something productive. Yes they dramatically reduce energy consumption, but if a broken bulb will produce at best 2000 dollars of cleanup, and at worst expose your child to mercury the cost benefit analysis is whacked.

It was explained in this post. (which has had all of its pictures vanish) why we are less concerned (though NOT unconcerned) about global warming. These bulbs don't seem to be ready for prime time, yet they are being pushed as the "safe green alternative". If this article is correct, then they are neither safe nor green.

Note, mercury is present in minute amounts in regular fluorescent bulbs...it is chemically bonded and in a form that is relatively safe, but even these are required to be disposed of as hazmats.




Science Babe is, of course, Emma Skye from the Phoenix Wright Game.

Stinky Refineries, Air Cars, and The Farm of Tomorrow

One of the Brickmuppet's Crack team of Science Babes rejoices at her as yet unexplained lack of nostrils as she emerges from the lab to report on the latest hurdles faced by the biofuel industry...namely that refineries STINK!

It seems that Changing World Technologies new thermal depolymeryzation plant in Carthage has had an odor problem. As it is located on the grounds of a turkey processing plant their denials may carry a bit more weight than they normally would, however, it should be noted that their process is quite odoriferous especially as in this case it deals with rotting flesh.
One of the things this test plant was to test was stink reduction tech. They were shut down in 2005 due to smell complaints, but reopened when it was discovered that most of the stink was not theirs and they installed more scrubbers. Anyone who remembers the crab factory in Hampton or has been to Smithfield when the wind is blowing from the pork packing plants, will be amazed that they are able to function reasonably well in an urban area.

Just a few miles out and with better scrubbers and the stench problem would actually seem lickable. Discovery Magazine had an update on their earlier article a year ago.


According to the ccompanies website they produced 600,00 barrels of bio-diesel in April of last year.

Brickmuppet blog has been following this for a while. Note that with turkey guts the system fuels itself and produces a surplus, it is unlikely that that holds true for other types of waste, but given the presence of an external non-polluting source, like nuclear power. The process promises to revolutionize both waste disposal and fuel production. This is one of the few biomass ideas that seems to be panning out. Here is the potential as described in the original Discover article .
IN
100 POUNDS OF:

PLASTIC BOTTLES: Clear (polyethylene terephthalate) and translucent (high-density polyethylene)
MUNICIPAL LIQUID WASTE: 75% sewage sludge, 25% grease-trap refuse
HEAVY OIL: Refinery residues, heavy crudes, and tar sands
TIRES: all kinds, including standard rubber and steel-belted radials
MEDICAL. WASTE: Transfusion bags, needles and razor blades, and wet human waste

Yields an output for the respective garbage type...

PLASTIC BOTTLES: 70 pounds oil, 16 pounds gas, 6 pounds carbon solids, 8 pounds water
MUNICIPAL LIQUID WASTE: 26 pounds oil, 9 pounds gas, 8 pounds carbon and mineral solids, 57 pounds water.
HEAVY OIL: 74 pounds oil, 17 pounds gas, 9 pounds carbon solids.
TIRES: 44 pounds oil, 10 pounds gas, 12 pounds carbon and metal solids, 4 pounds water
MEDICAL WASTE: 65 pounds oil, 10 pounds gas, 5 pounds carbon and metal solids, 20 pounds water.

Even if most of these don't reach break even energy wise, with nuclear or other nonpolluting external energy sources the process has the potential to solve a great deal of our waste and fuel problems.

From smelly gunk we go to a car that runs on clean pure air....(Well, it would run on stinky air too I'm sure). Jim Fraiser reports on a new Franco-Indian project to produce a car that runs on compressed air...not to exciting until you see the alleged stats:

• Are light weight vehicle that can reach speeds up to 220 kmph.
• MDI's vehicle's have fiberglass bodies which makes them light, silent urban car.
• The vehicles do not have normal speed gages. Instead, they will have a small computer screen
• Both ends of the seat belt are anchored to the vehicles floor for greater safety.
• The vehicle's uses a patented electric system that makes the car 20 kilos lighter and considerably quieter.
• There are no keys - just an access card that can be read by the car from your pocket.
• In the single energy mode MDI cars consume around US$1.00 (Rs 45) every 60 miles (100 km).
• There is no pollution from the car.
• The vehicle's driving range is close to twice that of the most advanced electric cars (from 200 to 180 miles (300 km) or 8 hours of operation).
• The recharging of the car will be done at gas stations in 2 to 3 minutes at a price of Rs 90, once the market is developed.
• The car also has a small compressor that can be connected to an electrical network (220V or 380V) and will recharged the tanks completely in 3 or 4 hours.
• The car's oil (a liter of vegetable) only needs to be changed every 50,000 km.
• The temperature of the exhaust is between 0 and 15 degrees below zero and can be used for air conditioning of the car.

I'm impressed, but skeptical...the math seems....wrong. 180 miles on compressed air....when a propane car which actually has energy other than decompression generally has comparable range.

IF it works as advertised (and that is a big "if") then this, is a very exiting development indeed....especially with the 4 minute recharge time! More here.

Tangentially related to energy tech is this astoundingly cool piece in NY Magazine on an agricultural project....in New York City!

Skyscraper farms! Go read the whole thing, breathe it in and look at the future farms as they might have been imagined at the '39 Worlds Fair.

Schweet!!


The farm of tomorrow....feeding millions in far less space.

Of course the implications for space colonies are cool too. :)

Waste Storage Breakthrough?

Over at the Energy Blog there is a post on a new Israeli method of waste disposal that safely deals with radioactive waste.

I'm skeptical, I think something may have been lost in translation. Like some of the commenters there I suspect this is only for very low level waste. It might still be useful in reducing landfill usage and possibly detoxifying some toxins.

Here is the description;

...EER's waste disposal reactor does not harm the environment and leaves no surface water, groundwater, or soil pollution in its wake. The EER reactor combines three processes into one solution: it takes plasma torches to break down the waste; carbon leftovers are gasified and inorganic components are converted to solid waste. The remaining vitrified material is inert and can be cast into molds to produce tiles, blocks or plates for the construction industry.

EER then purifies the gas and with it operates turbines to generate electricity. EER produces energy - 70% of which goes back to power the reactor with a 30% excess which can be sold...

Okay, sounds reasonable except for that part about radioactivity....no plasma torch is going to get rid of that.
...The cost for treating and burying low-radioactive nuclear waste currently stands at about $30,000 per ton. The EER process will cost $3,000 per ton and produce only a 1% per volume solid byproduct....

OK, it reduces the volume significantly, that is a good thing.

Anyway I found it interesting, your milage may vary.

More on Bussards Fusion Ideas

A while back I linked to the Google video speech given by Robert Bussard regards his research into an avenue started by the UK scientist Doctor Philo Farnsworth.


Here is a good article in Defense News that explains it in layman's terms. It also explains why the project was terminated. The DOE tokamack project employs thousands of scientists and generates huge ammounts of research funding, all under the DOE umbrella. DOE is sure they can get their system to work in 20-30 years or so...so the idea that they would approve 200 million to kill their meal ticket is unlikely.

grrrrr.....

Here is Bussard's new research group, where he's trying to raise money to complete the research.

This could be the story of the century if it pans out.

If it doesn't, 200 million will have told us what doesn't work...and it's only 10 Dirskins anyway.

UPDATE: Heh, It's said that great minds think alike.....but sometimes, for reasons unclear, they think like me...
Jerry Pournelle is also looking at this, he links to this page which includes several documents that might be of interest.

Cheap Solar Cells, Weird Space Food, Tricorders and Asteroid Missions

One of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes reports on a selection of science stories that is rather small, and which don't really go together all that well ,er, much like her outfit.

On the Solar Power front, Stephen Gordon over at THE SPECULIST reports that the cost of Solar Cells may be about to come way down. This is big especially for people who live in rural areas. With a backup generator and perhaps a windmill this could make off grid living quite practical (south of, say, Pennsylvania). The more people we have off the grid, the more we reduce stress on the existing power net, and the less fuel we consume. The more people we have living self sufficiently the more acceptable true self sufficiency will be and the better chance we have of getting back to the individualist ideals of the old republic...victory! :)

Over at NASA Watch there is a disturbing vision of Astronaut Food. Martha Stewart may yet save the day. (no really)

Science Daily has a story on some researchers who have developed an honest to goodness tricorder! An advanced portable and sensitive mass spectrometer, this has tremendous application in homeland security as well as industrial safety and search and rescue.

Finally, over at the New Scientist is yet more information on the recently mooted NASA plan to visit a near earth asteroid. Despite the greater distance this is in some ways easier than going to the moon because of the much lower gravity of asteroids. It has practical applications as well given the possible future need for asteroid mitigation missions.

Cruithne would seem to be a logical choice, especially if Congress balks at funding for something other than going to the moon....NASA can just go to 'the other one' and keep it legal. ;)

Domes!

I just wasted 20 minutes browsing through the website of the Monolithic Dome Institute.

But it was a cool waste of time. :)

Real Life Science Babe Under Attack !

Louise Riofrio, a cosmologist, has been asked to speak at the Imperial College in London on March 29th at the Outstanding Questions for the Standard Cosmological Model conference. She has some interesting and controversial theories. Her most controversial idea seems to be the GM=tc^3 equation which...well it's way beyond my paygrade...but seems to indicate that the speed of light is slowing. Physicists are unsure of what it means but she seems to be onto something. It is at least sparking some discussion and she is rated enough to get invited to the aforementioned conference. So far so good....but wait...there is a campaign to get her uninvited.
From Miss Riofrio's Blog:

From: Don Barry [mailto:don@isc.astro.cornell.edu]
Sent: 19 March 2007 00:51
To: De Nadai-Sowrey, Graziela C
Cc: Simeon Warner
Subject: A crackpot has slipped through your screens..

Dear organizers,

I notice that you have given a slot to Louise Riofrio in one of your
oral
sessions in your upcoming conference.. She's listed in your
"Participants"
section as affiliated with James Cook University, Queensland. A simple
search
will reveal that JCU/Queensland does not list her in any capacity.

She's been a frequent crackpot pest trying to post papers on the
Cornell
Arxiv
server. If you take a look at her blog,
http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/,
all should become clear. It's actually rather hilarious in spots.

In any event, you may get some comic relief as people become somewhat
glass-eyed on the last day of a conference.

Cheers,

Don Barry,
Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Spectrograph Team,
Cornell University

Oookay. I'm not a physicist, I'm an undergraduate oceanography major so for all I know, she might be a crackpot, but she has some interesting ideas and was invited to give her viewpoint. In the above E-mail Mr. Barry indicates that she is not affiliated a JCU Queensland at all, but according to her blog her records got hacked. She is listed as affiliated with James Cook U in this lecture program and here as well as in these two abstracts from the Harvard Website. It would seem that Mr. Barry is wrong.

Indeed, Mr. Barry, it seems is quite a piece of work, according to his astronomy dept bio...he is a Chomskyite Marxist Leninist
OTOH he does use a slide rule which is way cool.....but can't really compensate for his moonbattery.

I'm still wondering what his bio has to do with astronomy.
More on the mad on Louise Riofrio gives certain scientists here. She may well be wrong, science, especially very hard to observe things like these is a LEARNING and EXPLORING experiment but she seems to at least be asking the right questions, not trying to ignore or silence the questions of others.

*********************************************************
OK bear with me as I have a tangentially related political digression for a moment. Feel free to scroll past...

Given the observable, objective failures of large scale Leftism in bringing about prosperity since people really began experimenting with it during and after the French Revolution, why do many scientists, who are, in theory, all about observing cause and effect, still adhere to this.

In spite of all the evidence of history, the above mentioned moonbat scientist at Cornell is an adherent to a philosophy that killed a comparable number of people in the last 80 years to those that were killed by all the religious wars in Europe and the Levant in the last thousand. He extols an economic plan that has never worked absent US subsidies or huge infusions of cash from local resources (see Norway) , one that really doesn't work well at its best and is absolutely catastrophic at its worst.

He is not an aberration.
Whiskey tango foxtrot?

I dunno, I have 3 theories.
1: A university by necessity, is essentially a socialist, bureaucratic structure with a big implicitly Malthusian component (research monies). Thus to operate in that system one must understand and apreciate the system. Being totally in the system at all times doesn't help.

2:To get to the highest levels of academia often requires that one spends ones entire careerer in a university environment so there is, ironically for such learned people, a certain amount of provincialism that informs their viewpoint.

3:Peer pressure. The left is very good about punishing heretics, if one does not extol politically correct viewpoints one does not get invited to the cool parties. More importantly, one might not get tenure, so there may be an subtle but active weeding of more dynamic viewpoints.

I don't think that things are quite as bad as some suggest, but I think it it does influence scientific debate. Global warming is a case study...
Global warming is happening
There likely IS an anthropogenic component.
But given that the whole solar system is also warming should we go whole hog into Kyoto, despite the fact that it gives a pass to non western polluters (some of the worst in fact).
Kyoto is an egalitarian socialist dream, it punishes the evil west and in particular the hated USA, It uses bureaucratic machinations to put the sort of centralized planning in place that has pretty much been a bust previously, but now is presented as an emergency earth saving measure.

Now I don't want to continue the transcendentally stupid experiment of deffacating in the atmosphere with tons of pollution every year and see what new wretched things happen, but the sort of dynamic "boing boingy:)" solutions, that are more likely to generate long term solutions than a top down statist approach. In the near term, nuclear power, small scale solar where practical and biofuels to the extent they don't egregiously displace food crops perhaps assisted with gene modified crops are a good bet.

Of course the first and last of my near term items are double-plus-ungood to the left...and therein lies the rub.

The semi-religious nature of leftism is not in any way conducive to open debate and inquiry the attempt to shut up L. Rofinio is symptomatic of this. *

*********************************************************
Anyway, my own wingnuttery aside, Those of us at Brickmuppet Blog (and, of course, the Brickmuppet's Crack team of Science Babes) wish the Babe in the Universe a successful speech received in the spirit of open mindedness and intelligent discourse. In the unlikely event she is a crank utterly without merit then she will make an ass of herself as certain IDiots did and her theories can be put to rest. If upon careful analysis her theories do not quite pan out, then eliminating them or perhaps modifying them will narrow down our search for the truth in this area and thereby expand our body of knowledge. If she's right then she certainly deserves not to be silenced, not just for her career but the good of mankind.
There are no real arguments for not hearing such an august individual, save the jealous rantings and cybermischief of an angry passive aggressive quidnunc.

*I don't mean to suggest in any way that Leftism is a religion:
Religion is the belief in that which cannot be proven or disproven...Leftism is the belief in the demonstrably false.

In Defense of Catgirls

A message to Francis Fukyama....


When you oppose genetic research, chimeric investigations and human cloning you are trying to prevent catgirls from even being born.


Dude...you suck!

ahem....
Catgirls aside, this luddism is terribly counterproductive and antihumanistic...and I say this as someone who has reservations about utterly unfettered abortions. The reason those leave me uneasy is a concern for the life involved.....I have equal concern for those suffering from debilitating diseases, some of whom are friends of mine. Opposing this sort of research seriously stymies attempts to improve the quality and length of peoples lives. It is utterly incompatible with a concern for human rights and defining human life broadly and valuing it as much as possible. It is also not in keeping with a conservative interpretation of the Constitution, which is, in theory, is one of the 3 raison d'etres of the conservative movement...though many of the confused Johnny come latelies to our side of the aisle seem to be quite unclear on this point.

On a tangentially related note, this article in National Geographic reinforces the utter wrongness of Fukyama's argument, but something about it is bothering me. It postulates that interspecies trysts are more important to evolution than previously thought. I don't recommend actively testing this hypothesis though there are certainly furverts and Washingtonians who are trying...in vain I might add....as no amount of doing it with a horse is going to produce a centaur.

The article is interesting but I'm not sure about it's nomenclature...
If two "species" interbreed and produce a true breeding offspring (as opposed to a mule) then, as I understand it, they aren't actually separate species. For example, the Red Wolf is apparently a true breeding hybrid of the Grey Wolf and Coyote...but dogs are...DOGS and can pretty much interbreed with all dogs (mechanical difficulties between mastiffs and chihuahuas notwithstanding). The recent discovery of the Pizzly Bear is another case in point....though it's unclear if that animal was a mule or not.

This seems to be talking about combining genes from divergent points on the bell curve of a species genetic drift...or am I missing some secret thing that is kept from us lowly undergraduates?

Note:Here at Brickmuppet Blog we have nothing at all against miscegenation and indeed heartily endorse it.

Deceivingly cute .gif is from the ethically dubious UFO Princess Valkyrie which is seriously not my cup of tea...but which you can purchase here if you so desire.

Natural Gas Storage Breakthrough!

One of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes informs us of a rather large breakthrough in low pressure propane storage.

Specifically, 180 times their own volume and 1/7th the pressure of normal tanks!

This makes car storage much more viable. Note that a somewhat less energy dense natural gas (syn-gas)can be made unnaturally via biomass reactors so a good portion of garbage, especially organic waste could turn into energy rather than landfill fillings. Here , in fact is a proposal for turning hog farms into syn-gas factories!

The potential for sewage treatment plants is obvious in fact very simple syngas plants are now in operation in India for off the grid fuel production. With a solar array and windmill they could make fully off-grid housing considerably more practical I would think.

This doesn't even require new engines, in Europe, natural gas cars are not unheard of and propane is also used on forklifts here, natural gas is quite similar in its properties.

This is a little story, not getting much coverage, but it has the potential to be quite big.

Kewel!

Via Jerry Pournelle comes news of the Trireme Olympias! :)

Damn this is cool!

Regards the finding that Athenian rowers had to be better athletes than modern ones, I tend to think that either there are simply fewer rowers today (a runner might not be good at this and even sculling teams will use somewhat different muscles than these guys)...or they've missed some mechanical leverage device.

Cosmic Rays!??

One of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes rolls up her sleeves to get to work on assessing the merits of this politically incorrect story, (about which more here)that dovetails with this one and this one, this one and this one.


The whole solar system it seems, is getting warmer, and measurably so. While the BMCTOSBs work diligently and enthusiastically on alternate energy projects, it is not without an understanding that science is evolving and that the actual GW thing may be a bit overhyped.

In an earlier post I said this:
Which gets to another point I disagree with. The buggaboo of global warming. Oh it is measurable, it is happening, but given that it is happening on Mars and Jupiter as well, (no really) I think that there are larger forces at work than cow farts and industrial emissions. Kyoto like protocols only serve to inhibit first world economies and these economies are the engines of innovation. With thorium and pebble bed nuclear reactors built in a crash program powering both the grid and thermal depolymerization plants to produce biodiesel from waste and cash crops we could reduce our net emissions to near zero in 15 years...but the people who worry about emissions are largely (though not all of them) opposed to nukes on a visceral and religious level.

We have now facing humanity:
global mercury poisoning
dwindling/polluted drinking water supplies
ozone depletion
increasing vulnerability to pandemics
insect borne diseases (malaria alone kills millions)
famine
acid rain
the potential for nuclear terrorism
Apohis and other wayward space rocks


...and these people are getting the vapours over a longer growing season.

The appeal of Kyoto style agreements has nothing to do with reducing emissions...it is about putting a brake on capitalism and thus artificially making it less appealing than the train-wreck that is leftism. That is why the left supports it.

NONE of which is to say that we should NOT be investing in energy alternatives....many of those ACTUAL problems I list are caused by burning fossil fuels, especially coal. Mercury poisoning and acid rain are IMHO FAR worse problems than global warming.

We have finite sources of hydrocarbons and coal. Strategic reasons alone mean that to not be pursuing energy self sufficiency at this point would be irresponsible. But the whole Kyoto thing really bothers me as I think it is ultimately counterproductive. An agreement on sulfur dioxide and heavy metal emissions with tech transfer to those countries that need assistance in curbing them makes sense, but focusing on carbon is just silly right now.

Nookuler
Wind
Bio fuels powered by agricultural waste and perhaps even trash.
Solar in the tropical and subtropical latitudes it is practical.

These should all be pursued.
But if global warming is a transcendental threat (and I'm unconvinced that it is) we should focus on cooling things.....simple methods might be best.....until we can get more complex solutions online. :)

UPDATE: Upon re-reading it..the Times story,in the first link, actually implies that CO2 is not a factor at all.
This is bunk.
The greenhouse characteristics of CO2 are not in dispute. They have been proven by actual observations as opposed to computer models. Methane and water vapor as I understand it are more efficient greenhouse gasses, but CO2 is the biggest variable and has increased the most over the last 150 years as naturally sequestere carbon is injected into the atmosphere via coal and hydrocarbons.
Real Climate.Org ,which got some flack from some due to this sad piece trying to debunk the warming solar system (Mars has seasons! So ignore this! Don't talk to us about the other plantes!), IS nevertheless a very good source of info on this matter. Their take on this latest article is here and there is good discussion (as usual) in the comments.

I am actually sympathetic to the press release in this case as non-orthodox theories get rather shunned and buried (or so it seems) but the suggestion that Cosmic Rays are the only meaningful cause of GW....is silly.

Here at Brickmuppet Blog, while we don't buy into some of the climate change hysteria, we are perpetually astonished at the continued existence of morons who think that climate change is not occurring. They crop up in the comments at Real Climate with unnerving frequency.
HINT: NIAGARA FALLS DOESN'T FREEZE SOLID ANYMORE!


It did as recently as 1911...pictures were taken.
Ahem....




The issue is what to do about it, not if it is happening.

We support nuclear power, alternative fuels, and annoying taxes on fossil fuels but are deeply skeptical of the sort of socialist pipe dreams like Kyoto (which the signatories are cheating on anyway).
Given the warming of the solar system, an the many eco-issues mentioned above, I and the BMCTOSB would like to see a less mono-maniacal environmental policy than that advocated by Gore and others.

I'll blog more on this later.....I'm off to class.

The Norwegian Seed Bunker

Mysterious Informant in Austin sends this article from the Beeb concerning Norway's first tentative steps to bring the Morrow Project to life.

It seems that the Norweigians are building a vault to house samples of all crop seeds so they can be preserved in the event of a global disaster, greatly facillitating recovery.

This is actually a good idea, the only fault I can find with it is the long commute from Virginia to Norway...either the Eisenhower interstate system is going to have to invest in some impressive bridges, or we need some of these on this side of the pond.

Varmint Hunting With Thermobarics....

Via Airborne Combat Engineer comes what is possibly the most cathartic invention in the history of mankind.




Website here.

More Energy News

One of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes beams enthusiastically over 2 recent energy news items...

The Energy Blog reports on an astonishing new biofuel device, the tactical biorefinery. Essentially it is a system that refines organic waste into fuel. It requires a bit of diesel oil to get the process started, but then begins using local trash and organic waste to produce electricity and fuel...it also produces enough fuel to keep itself running!

This remarkable device is about van sized and being looked at by the army not only as a power/fuel source to relieve logistics burdens, but as a good way of disposing of a units waste as well. If this works as advertized it will be a remarkable advance and have tremendous civilian applications, especially in remote locations! It almost sounds like the "Mr Fusion" from Back to the Future...of course this is chemical in nature and fusion is pretty much vapourware anyway right?


...Not according to the "Real Mr. Fusion", Dr. Robert Bussard, developer of the theoreticalBussard Ramjet. For the last several years he's been quietly working on a fusion project for the Navy. Recently the congress deauthorized naval alt-energy tech, in part because of budget issues, and in part because they weren't empowered by congress to do alt-energy research. The Navy felt they were close enough to a breakthrough that they gave Bussard permission to go public with the program, he's seeking investors claiming he needs 200 million or so to get a working device. This is the energy source of science fiction....
NO RADIATION...
COMPACT...
ABLE TO BE RETROFITTED INTO EXISTING FACILITIES...
IT WILL BURN UP EXISTING NUCLEAR WASTE!

The talk is 1 and a half hours long but it is really interesting, especially when he's describing how low their budget was...in part to avoid congressional wrath. They were doing some of their experiments with commercial microwave ovens!! It is also a very good overview of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy

Very small scale prototypes have worked, He's started a company to develop it and has tranfered some of the equipment to Jim Benson's Space Dev in partnership with SpaceDev. This could be the biggest news in decades!

And it's trancendentally good news if it pans out.

Frill Shark Video

First the giant squid, now this.

Japanese scientists recently caught a frill shark on video....then they up and caught it. Unfortunately it died in captivity. It is very rare to find the animal anywhere outside the deep deep ocean, they normally live over 1800 feet down. I wonder if the recent earthquake could have been involved in forcing it to the surface?

Frillsharks are neat, extremely primitive sharks, their bodies are eel-like and they are one of the very few species of sharks with six gill slits per side (the most well know being the cryptically named six gill shark), they are living fossils that may be nearly as old as the Coelocanth, though there is some doubt on that later point as referenced here.

Anyway, a big prehistoric creature from the deep ocean has been forced up off the coast of Japan.....so I guess this isn't really news....




Thanks to Stephen DenBeste for the links.

Brickmuppet Blogs Batteries, Biogas & Biodiesel,

After a long week of working on energy alternatives, one of the Brickmuppet's crack team of science babes relaxes with some tea and relays her findings...(and has a good laugh explaining the wacky lab accident that turned her hair lavender.)

A series of great posts at Energy Blog, Jim Fraser has an informative post on how the President has just signed an executive order mandating flexfuel and hybrid vehicles for government agencies with more than 20 cars! Read the whole thing. According to Mr. Fraser...

I find the increased use of non-petroleum-based fuel is extremely aggressive, as it could require the purchase of flex-fueled vehicles before the current vehicles would normally be replaced.

This will help with the chicken/egg problem that manufacturers face.They will be able to sell vehicles to government fleets while the infrastructure to support them is brought online.

Energy Blog also posts on a new and quite promising geothermal study from MIT that greatly increases the number of areas that geothermal power could be viable in.

And there is this very neat article in Technology Review . This concerns the recent claims of a Texas firm to have a revolutionary new battery design (actually closer to an ultracapacitor) that is non-toxic and will about quintuple the range of electric cars. This has been greeted with much skepticism but they are moving forward with plans to power the new ZENN car which should be available later this year....so we'll certainly see!

Anonymous PHD sends this story in Research News concerning continued progress in making fuel cells economically viable.They still use platinum, but the amount has been drastically reduced via a nickel/platinum alloy...and a lifespan shortening issue regarding erosion due to hydroxide reactions is now greatly reduced as well.

Over at Green Car Congress they are following the activation of the first LNG refinery to run off of landfill gas...now THAT'S cool :)

GCG also reports on a new fertilizer/fuel plant that actually produces all of its own power from its biogas! This is big, carbon neutral fertilizer on an industrial scale seems to me to be a big thing. Though their main product is fertilizer, they are producing as a byproduct, 5 gallons of liquid fuel per bushel of soybeans. A 2 fer!
The proprietary liquid fuel is not actual biodiesel, but it may still have applications. Here's how it stacks up.

Left to right: USSEC Biodiesel ULSD #2
Approximate Heating Value
(BTU/gallon) 125,000 117,000 128,000
Pour point (°F) -90 30 0
Cloud point (°F) -70 35 15
Flash point (°F) 90-95 266 125
Viscosity 0.8-1.1 1.9-6.0 1.9-4.1

Not sure what 'cloud point' is but it looks pretty good otherwise. Check out the viscosity though ... If I read this right, the stuff is relatively thick, but it still looks like it could have applications...especially since it's the BYPRODUCT.

On to splitting atoms, over at Energy from Thorium, Kirk Sorensen posts on the considerable advantages of Thorium reactors over the regular light water reactors in the waste dept from the mining phase to the disposal phase. While nuclear waste issues are exaggerated, they are very real and greatly exacerbated by our not using breeders to get more energy out of the fuel. Thorium is not only more common, its fuel cycle generates less waste. These reactors have gotten some attention recently but what seems to be missed often is that this technology is far more mature than many people think. We built several of these reactors in the 50's and 60's and designed a very compact 200 MW power-plant for a nuclear powered airplane.......an utterly batshit concept that thankfully never got off the ground.
On the ground however, this type of reactor worked fine. Its more compact safer and uses cheaper, more abundant fuel.

India uses thorium reactors with some success though these particular ones operate on different principles from what Mr. Sorensen proposes.

Well, that's it for energy today. The science babes are going to focus on space travel next.

Cancer Cure!?

Quick to he phones! One of the Brickmuppets crack team of science babes breathlessly reports on the cure for cancer!

No really!

According to the New Scientist an off the shelf unpatented drug shows remarkable progress in cancer fighting!

Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.

This could be really big, and given that the drug is already tested safe it could get cleared much quicker than normal.

Yay! :)

Viking May Have Missed Martian Life

According to one Dr. Schulze-Makuch the Viking probes sent to Mars in the 1970's may well have missed martian life because their instruments were looking for lifeforms very unlikely to have evolved on Mars. I fact the tests were likely absolutely lethal to any Martian bacteria that might exist.

This interesting and promising hypothesis is, of course, given the worst possible spin by CNN.

Scientist: NASA found life on Mars - and killed it

Preemption interplanetary...

I for one am shedding no tears over the fact that earth children will never have to cower in fear of fierce Martian tripods.