A Hubble Cosmic Couple

 

Here we see the spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 — more commonly known as WR 124 — and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it. Both objects, captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are found in the constellation of Sagittarius and lie 15,000 light-years away.

The star Hen 2-427 shines brightly at the very center of this explosive image and around the hot clumps of surrounding gas that are being ejected into space at over 93,210 miles (150,000 km) per hour.

Hen 2-427 is a Wolf–Rayet star, named after the astronomers Charles Wolf and Georges Rayet. Wolf–Rayet are super-hot stars characterized by a fierce ejection of mass.

The nebula M1-67 is estimated to be no more than 10,000 years old — just a baby in astronomical terms — but what a beautiful and magnificent sight it makes.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
Text credit: European Space Agency

Last Updated: Aug. 21, 2015

Editor: Ashley Morrow

Researchers developing next generation of high-power lasers

 

Fri, 08/21/2015 - 4:00pm University.of Strathclyde   Researchers at the Univ. of Strathclyde are developing groundbreaking plasma based light amplifiers that could replace traditional high-power laser amplifiers. The research group at the Glasgow-based university are leading efforts to take advantage of plasma, the ubiquitous medium that makes up most of the universe, to make the significant scientific breakthrough. The next generation of high-power lasers should be able to crack the vacuum to produce real particles from the sea of virtual particles. Example of these types of lasers can be found at the Extreme Light Infrastructure in Bucharest, Prague and Szeged, which are pushing the boundaries of what can be done with high intensity light. Prof. Dino Jaroszynski and Dr. Gregory Vieux from Strathclyde's Faculty of Science hope that the developments can produce a very compact and robust light amplifier. Prof. Jaroszynski said: "The lasers currently being used are huge and expensive devices, requiring optical elements that can be more than a meter in diameter. Large laser beams are required because traditional optical materials are easily damaged by high intensity laser beams. "Plasma is completely broken down atoms, which are separated into their constituent parts of positively charged ions and very light and mobile electrons, which have unique properties in that they respond easily to laser fields. "We are investigating the limitations of this method of amplifying short laser pulses in plasma and hope this will lead to a more compact and cost effective solution." The research was published in Scientific Reports. It suggests that electron trapping and wavebreaking are the main physical processes limiting energy transfer efficiency in plasma-based amplifiers. The authors have demonstrated that pump chirp (chirping similar to that of a Swanni or slide whistle) and finite plasma temperature reduce the amplification factor. Moreover, the electron thermal distribution (the way the particle velocities are distributed) leads to particle trapping (particles get stuck in troughs of the waves) and a nonlinear frequency shift (the color of the amplified lights changes), which further reduces amplification. The team also suggest methods for achieving higher efficiencies. Source: University.of Strathclyde

New record energy efficiency for artificial photosynthesis

 

A new world-record 22 percent conversion efficiency for solar-powered hydrogen production has been claimed by researchers from Australia's Monash University (Credit: Shutterstock) As the world moves towards developing new avenues of renewable energy, the efficiencies of producing fuels such as hydrogen must increase to the point that they rival or exceed those of conventional energy sources to make them a viable alternative. Now researchers at Monash University in Melbourne claim to have created a solar-powered device that produces hydrogen at a world-record 22 percent efficiency, which is a significant step towards making cheap, efficient hydrogen production a reality. Efficiency records for solar-powered hydrogen production have continued to rise over the years, and much more rapidly as the technology and techniques improve. Even as late as December last year Gizmag reported a solar-driven hydrogen record efficiency at the time of just 12.3 percent, so this new record shows a very healthy 10 percent improvement on that and beats out the previous record of 18 percent. Splitting water using electricity to produce hydrogen and oxygen has been an established scientific technique for many decades. However, the rate at which hydrogen has been produced in this way has not been commercially viable due to the relatively low conversion rates compared to the input energy costs. Ideally, solar-powered water-splitting would be one of the best ways to produce hydrogen as its energy input cost is effectively zero. On the downside, however, the low efficiencies of past solar devices have kept this technology largely in its infancy. The Monash researchers believe that may all soon change as increased efficiencies in the process and in the devices themselves improve. "Electrochemical splitting of water could provide a cheap, clean and renewable source of hydrogen as the ultimately sustainable fuel." said Professor Leone Spiccia from the School of Chemistry at Monash who led the research. "This latest breakthrough is significant in that it takes us one step further towards this becoming a reality." According to the researchers, the breakthrough is significantly attributable to the leading-edge capabilities of the group in which they work and a growing expertise in tuning the processes and materials used in water splitting. To help achieve the required solar-input efficiencies, the team utilized the very best commercial-grade multi-junction (indium gallium phosphide, gallium arsenide, and germanium) solar cells available to ensure the maximum sunlight to electricity conversion. However, an even greater contribution to efficiency was on the material side, where the use of expanded foam nickel electrodes increased the available electrolysis surface area with such efficiency that the electrolyte in which they were immersed was simply local river water with the addition of a standard pH buffer (generally a salt solution containing sodium phosphate and sodium chloride). In this combination of high-efficiency cells and high-yield electrodes, the team claims the 22 percent record for conventional solar-cell to electrochemical production of hydrogen. What the eventual limit of such technologies is a largely moot point at this stage and largely reliant on the increasing efficiency of solar-cell light conversion factors. Advances in such things as perovskite solar-cells may assist in this regard and, compared to some other methods of sunlight-powered water-splitting yet to fully prove their mettle, may achieve the necessary breakthrough point to tip the balance in favor of cheap, abundant hydrogen fuel. "Hydrogen can be used to generate electricity directly in fuel cells," said Professor Doug MacFarlane, ARC Laureate Fellow and leader of the Energy Program of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science at Monash. "Cars driven by fuel cell electric engines are becoming available from a number of car manufacturers. Hydrogen could even be used as an inexpensive energy storage technology at the household level to store energy from roof-top solar cells." The results of the research were recently published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science. Source: Monash University

Leveraxe turns against the grain

 

By harnessing leverage when its cutting edge strikes wood, the Leveraxe reportedly chops wood more easily and safely (Credit: Leveraxe) Image Gallery (5 images) The axe is one of the oldest tools known to mankind, and its basic design typically changes very little. The Leveraxe, however, strays from that blueprint. As a result, it's said to be more effective than a traditional axe, require less power, be safer and not get stuck in the wood. Designed by Heikki Kärnä, the Leveraxe is aimed at solving a number of problems that conventional axes present. The Finn found that axes could be both dangerous and hard to work with. By harnessing leverage when the cutting edge struck wood, Kärnä realized he could address both of these issues and more. Traditional axe heads are symmetrical wedges that are centered on the handle. These must carry enough momentum to penetrate and split any wood being chopped. By offsetting the head of the axe and making the cutting edge asymmetrical, the Leveraxe naturally rotates when making contact with wood, splitting the wood more easily and stopping the axe from getting stuck. As the design of the Leveraxe makes it naturally more effective than a conventional axe, less power is needed to penetrate and split wood. Users therefore need not be quite so strong, and the Leveraxe can be used with more accuracy and safety. As well as requiring less force for use, the Leveraxe is reportedly safer to use than a conventional axe due to its predilection for rotating on impact. By naturally turning and deflecting the downward force of the axe when the chopping edge hits the wood, it eliminates the possibility of the axe bouncing back at the user. After a swing, a hook at the rear of the axe head bites into the wood to reduce the chance of it following through and hitting the user in the legs. In addition, the handle has been made longer than those of conventional axes so that less force still is required, and so that the Leveraxe will hit the floor rather than the user's legs if it misses the wood being chopped There are two existing Leveraxe models, but a new one has been developed. It features an iron alloy head and a hollow compound handle that makes it lighter and easier to use. Each Leveraxe head has 10-year warranty. A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign is underway for the Leveraxe. At the time of writing, individuals who pledge from US$99 can receive a Leveraxe, assuming all goes to plan with the campaign and roll-out. Shipping is expected from November of this year.   http://www.gizmag.com/leveraxe-rotational-axe/39042/

Paying for Solar Power

 

SolarCity’s massive new manufacturing plant in Buffalo, New York, reflects a booming demand for solar power. Is it sustainable? The rail cars that once carried iron ore around Republic Steel’s sprawling plant at the edge of downtown Buffalo, New York, were plowed under when the steel company abandoned the location in 1984. They were recently discovered when excavation began for the so-called gigafactory to be operated by SolarCity, the country’s leading supplier of solar panels. Now the rusted cars and a scattering of other relics from the days of Republic Steel greet visitors to the construction site, a reminder of the city’s past manufacturing might and a testament to the dream that North America’s largest solar-panel manufacturing facility can help revive it. Buffalo is attempting an economic comeback fueled by the state’s Buffalo Billion initiative, a multi-year redevelopment plan spearheaded by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Included in the funding is support for a new genomic research center and an information technology center, but at the heart of the city’s ambitions is the solar factory, which New York is spending $750 million to build and equip. SolarCity, based in Silicon Valley, will lease it, essentially for free, and has committed to spending $5 billion on its Buffalo operations over the next decade. For Buffalo, it’s an attempt to reimagine its future around solar manufacturing. For SolarCity, it will solidify its position as one of the country’s most aggressive and fastest-growing solar companies. The plan to build the massive manufacturing facility comes at a time when demand for solar power is booming in the United States. In 2008, the nation had about 1.1 gigawatts of photovoltaic power, the dominant type of solar energy; by the end of 2014 it had 18.3 gigawatts. Last year, homeowners, businesses, and energy companies added about 6.2 gigawatts, and they are expected to install another eight gigawatts this year. Much of that is in California, but solar power is taking hold in other states, boosted by a mix of federal tax credits and state and local incentives. Roughly a third of the electricity generation capacity added last year in the United States was solar, second only to natural-gas plants. (Even so, solar power still provides less than 1 percent of the country’s electricity.) SolarCity has played a large part in the rapid expansion. By offering innovative financing schemes, it has spurred strong demand for rooftop panels on homes, the fastest-growing sector of the solar market. Instead of buying the expensive solar panels and paying for their installation, homeowners participating in one of SolarCity’s offerings can lease the system for 20 years, paying a monthly fee. Because it owns the panels, SolarCity benefits from the generous 30 percent federal investment tax credit for solar power; the homeowner is credited at retail electricity rates for any surplus power fed back to the grid. SolarCity is still unprofitable, but its revenue doubled from 2012 to 2014 as its leasing program proved attractive for homeowners—especially in locations with high electricity rates and lots of sunshine, such as California. The company expects to install enough panels this year to produce a gigawatt of power. SolarCity’s factory in Buffalo, seen here and above in May, is due to be completed next year. Not coincidentally, a gigawatt will be the capacity of the Buffalo factory when it is fully up and running, which is scheduled for the beginning of 2017. Until now, the company’s business has been built around marketing, financing, and installing solar systems. Instead of producing solar panels, it buys them, mostly from Chinese manufacturers. The Buffalo factory changes all that. “Our aspiration is to build many more of these factories over time,” says Peter Rive, the chief technology officer, who founded SolarCity with his brother nine years ago (their cousin Elon Musk is the company’s chairman). And though Rive says the company doesn’t want to “take its eye off the ball” in getting the Buffalo plant built and operating, he adds that shortly after that’s accomplished, “we want to create the largest solar facility in the world, never mind the Western Hemisphere.” Indeed, SolarCity stated earlier that its plan is to add “one or more significantly larger plants” with annual production capacity an order of magnitude greater than that of the Buffalo facility. The company will make a new type of photovoltaic technology in Buffalo. The solar cells use crystalline silicon—the material used in conventional cells—with a thin film of another form of silicon and a layer of a semiconductor oxide. The hybrid solar-cell design, which SolarCity got when it bought a small company called Silevo in 2014, is designed to be more efficient than standard silicon cells in converting sunlight to electricity, as well as relatively cheap to make. But while SolarCity operates a 32-megawatt plant in Hangzhou, China, that Silevo built to make the solar cells, quickly scaling up those operations to the far larger plant in Buffalo will be an engineering feat. Even if all goes well, the gigafactory could be facing a dramatically different solar-power market. At the end of 2016, the federal tax credit for solar power is due to drop from 30 percent to 10 percent for businesses and to disappear altogether for consumers who buy their own solar panels. By making residential solar power less affordable, the change could be devastating to the industry. And it will come just as the Buffalo factory is ramping up its manufacturing capacity. True costs Fears about what will happen when the tax breaks decrease are fueled by an unfortunate reality: in most locations and under most conditions, unsubsidized solar power is still far too expensive to compete with other sources of electricity. And rooftop solar is especially expensive. Subsidies and other government incentives are the reason the solar market is booming. If technologies were chosen purely on the basis of what it costs to produce Without government incentives for clean energy like solar, he says, “natural gas wipes everything else away.”power, “there isn’t a market for residential solar,” says Severin Borenstein, a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and an expert on electricity economics. Take away the tax credit and residential solar power will remain far above grid parity in all states for years to come. Much has been made of the fact that solar power is nearing grid parity—the point at which it is just as cheap as electricity from natural gas or coal. Most recently, a reportby Deutsche Bank calculated that solar power is already at grid parity in 14 U.S. states and that nearly all the others will be there by next year. But that doesn’t mean it is just as cheap to produce solar power as it is to generate electricity with natural gas. The Deutsche Bank report compares today’s cost of solar power with the retail price of electricity, which includes various charges, including fees for upgrading and maintaining the grid. That’s a sensible comparison for consumers deciding whether to install solar power. But it isn’t a true comparison of the costs to actually produce electricity. And that is the comparison that matters in determining the most cost-effective way to introduce more clean power and lower our carbon emissions. The cost of the photovoltaic module—the chunk of silicon or other semiconductors that convert sunlight to electricity—has dropped impressively over the years. A silicon solar module sold for $4 per watt in 2008; in 2014 it was 65 cents per watt. But it has been more difficult to cut the other expenses—the so-called balance of system (BOS) costs, which include hardware like the inverters that are necessary to connect the panels to the grid and, most crucially, the labor to install the equipment. Installing heavy solar panels on the roofs of houses is particularly expensive. In such installations the BOS costs account for roughly 85 percent of the total expense of the system, according to a lengthy MIT report called “The Future of Solar Energy,” released in May. Or as Robert C. Armstrong, director of the MIT Energy Initiative and one of the authors of the report, puts it: “Even if you give away the [photovoltaic] materials for free, you still couldn’t produce electricity as cheaply as with coal or natural gas.” Economists favor a measurement called “levelized cost of energy” to compare different sources of electricity. The calculation estimates the expense of installing a system and the average cost of producing electricity over its lifetime. When expenses are computed this way, big solar farms that directly supply electricity to utilities are the most cost-effective kind of solar power. According to the MIT report, solar-power plants in Southern California and Massachusetts would have levelized costs of 10.5 cents and 15.8 cents per kilowatt-hour, respectively (California gets far more sun, producing greater output). Meanwhile, a new natural-gas power plant can generate power at 6.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. The comparison for residential solar is even more discouraging: a Massachusetts home generates solar power at 28.7 cents per kilowatt-hour, and one in Southern California produces it at 19.2 cents, says the MIT report. That is without government subsidies. With today’s incentives, including the tax credit, the numbers become far more favorable for solar power, even though it is still generally more expensive than producing power with gas-fired plants. Stefan Reichelstein, a professor at Stanford University’s business school and director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, and his colleagues have looked at how changing the tax credit in particular will affect solar economics. They found that even without the tax credit, large solar farms could be competitive with natural-gas plants by 2025 in states like California. But the story is very different for residential power. With a 30 percent credit, a residential solar installation produces power at less than the price of retail electricity in California (the state’s electricity rates are far higher than the national average). The same is true in other sunny states like Colorado and North Carolina, though not in a state like New Jersey. But drop the credit to 10 percent and no state is at grid parity. Take away the tax credit completely and—even assuming a continuing decrease in the cost of solar cells and installation—residential solar power remains far above grid parity in all states for many years to come. No snow days We will probably need vast amounts of solar power if we’re going to avoid the more dire effects of climate change. MIT’s Armstrong, for one, calculates that roughly 50 percent of the world’s electricity will need to come from solar power by 2050, requiring about 12.5 terawatts of photovoltaic capacity. We’ve barely begun the difficult and expensive transformation. Eventually, it will take vastly improved solar materials and better storage options such as batteries, as well as a realistic price on carbon emissions. But meanwhile, we need policies that are more effective in helping to make solar power a significant contributor to our electricity supply. As Armstrong says, “Money is not infinite. We need to get as much solar as we can for the money.” The reality that the boom in solar power has depended on government subsidies doesn’t mean such incentives should end. To the contrary, it makes it obvious just how important they are to achieving the goal that society cares about: an overall reduction of carbon dioxide emissions at the lowest possible cost. But they must be carefully designed to be as fair as possible. This means, says Borenstein, that subsidies should not favor inefficient versions of clean-energy technologies, such as rooftop solar over utility-scale plants. “We need to take our thumb off the scale,” he says. A broader danger is that incentives for solar power in general will increasingly be perceived as unfair or too costly. Take the practice of net metering, the policy in most states that effectively allows residents to sell solar power back to the grid at retail electricity prices. Nearly all homes with rooftop solar are connected to the grid, a necessity given the intermittent nature of solar power. These homeowners are essentially using the grid for power storage and backup, and they reap a small windfall from the high retail price of electricity in many states, including California and New York. Advocates for solar power argue that these installations add power to the grid, help offset demand during the day, and provide other benefits that stabilize the grid. Still, says Borenstein, net metering is clearly a subsidy that favors those with residential solar and adds costs to operating the grid—expenses paid for by other users. The result has been a contentious debate in many communities and states over setting limits on the amount of solar power that qualifies for net metering. A broader danger is that incentives for solar power in general will increasingly be perceived as unfair or too costly at a time when it is clearly not yet ready to compete without subsidies. Even those who criticize the hodgepodge of existing state and federal incentives for solar, such as Borenstein and Armstrong, aren’t eager to see the tax credit suddenly change next year. “Turning off the credit abruptly could damage the [solar] industry,” says Armstrong. “And that would be a shame.” Indeed, the change in tax policy will be a critical test of just how reliant the solar industry is on subsidies. SolarCity’s Rive believes it will cause the market to “stagnate for a couple of years.” He acknowledges that SolarCity will no longer be able to compete in several states that have low electricity rates. But he predicts his company will “be okay” given its relatively low-cost products. And he suggests that the Buffalo gigafactory could provide a strong competitive advantage. SolarCity expects the solar panels built at the factory to be able to convert 22 to 23 percent of the sunlight that hits them into electricity, compared with about 15 to 16 percent for conventional silicon technology. That means homeowners could install fewer panels to produce the same amount of power, or they could install the same number of panels and produce more power. Either way, it could help keep the company competitive. The new technology could be a very big deal for Buffalo, too. Overall, the gigafactory is expected to create 3,000 jobs in the city, half in the factory and another 1,500 with contractors and suppliers. SolarCity has also committed to employing 2,000 workers in the state over the next five years in sales and installation of its solar panels. It’s not exactly re-creating the jobs of the steel industry that once dominated the area, but it’s a start. (When Republic Steel closed in 1984, it had 2,500 workers, though Bethlehem Steel a few miles away in Lackawanna had far more.) As one of the cloudiest cities in the United States, Buffalo is not a particularly attractive area for solar power. Rather, SolarCity is making its manufacturing debut there because of the state’s generous incentives and the city’s industrial infrastructure and experience. Ironically, Buffalo offers another huge benefit: the electricity rate for manufacturers averages just 4.79 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is possible because of cheap hydroelectric power generated from Niagara Falls. If the company wants to make the transition from being essentially a solar-services company to a manufacturer playing an important role in the country’s economy, Buffalo is a good place to be. Earlier this summer, hundreds of people in the local business community packed a downtown hotel to hear SolarCity describe its plans and learn about opportunities to supply services to the gigafactory. It was the first formal meeting between executives from SolarCity, with their Silicon Valley enthusiasm and unbounded ambition, and many of the business leaders in a factory town that has suffered through decades of economic disappointments. SolarCity will produce 10,000 panels a day at the factory, one of its executive told the audience, and “bringing it down due to weather is not an option.” (No doubt the assertion made many remember that seven months earlier seven feet of snow had fallen over a few days, paralyzing the city.) Buffalo, once the eighth-largest city in the United States, prides itself on a recent economic renaissance. The downtown and a renovated waterfront are bustling with activity and dotted with construction projects. But this renewal is heavily supported by the state’s investments. And the success of SolarCity, itself a huge recipient of the state’s funding, could be critical in determining the city’s economic future. It will also be a defining test for the role government incentives will play in further driving the expansion of solar power. http://www.technologyreview.com/review/540226/paying-for-solar-power/

Little tractor for big jobs

 

Harman is a compact mini-tractor designed for use in small fields, big gardens or vineyards. The design brings a new perspective to small tractors that despite their small size, are able to handle great works. To do this, the vehicle was designed with 2 tracks that lead to 1 exit on the body instead of wheels, which made the vehicle fast and small. These tracks absorb impact with a specialized damper system, enabling the driver to work with the utmost comfort. The track structure also makes it possible for the vehicle can be controlled with a joystick instead of a wheel.

The working part of the vehicle exists primarily at the back of the body. The chasis’ front is heavier then the back to balance the weight. The vehicle’s total weight is 60% on the front without its additions and 50% when its loaded or with additions.

Designer: Sinan Anayurt

 

IBM and Linux Advancing the Open Source Revolution

 

By Ross Mauri, General Manager, IBM z Systems on August 20, 2015 | Provided by IBM “I’ve felt strongly that the advantage of Linux is that it doesn’t have a niche or any special market, but that different individuals and companies end up pushing it in the direction they want…” Linus Torvalds The wisdom of Linus Torvalds and the magic of the Linux experience he created more than 20 years ago is rooted in a visionary commitment to openness and collaboration that has pushed the boundaries of innovation and transformed whole industries. For two decades now, Linux has played a major role in a transformation in information technology that has taken us to the brink of a new era, driven by three major disruptors – big data, cloud and analytics. Perhaps the greatest impact Linux has had on my company and the information technology industry over the past two decades is the way it has spurred so much innovation through building strong, open ecosystems. Linux and the growing open source community are demonstrating the value of the collaborative business model. It is clear that no one company alone can spark the magnitude or diversity of the type of innovation we are going to need to keep pace with the rapid changes occurring in the digital/mobile era. The partnership of IBM and Linux is a great example. Through its commitment to open source technology and an expansive ecosystem of partners, Linux has become the fastest growing operating system in the world, an engine of community innovation and a key part of the enterprise IT infrastructure. As a result, the market for Linux servers, applications, software and operating systems surpassed $57 billion in 2014, almost doubling in the past five years, according to IDC. For more than 50 years the mainframe has served as the backbone of the global economy. More than half of the world’s transactions run on the mainframe due to its reliability and ultra-secure environment. It now powers 92 of the top 100 banks and 23 of the top 25 airlines around the world. Since being introduced to the mainframe 15 years ago, demand for Linux on the mainframe has grown dramatically, with more than one third of all mainframe clients now using Linux. But the world is shifting. The mobile world and new app economy are changing the game for businesses, industries and society at large, creating new requirements and expectations that must be addressed. And also creating new opportunities to innovate and differentiate. In a world where consumer expectations continue to grow, clients demand: • Delivery at speed with lightning-fast response times, all the time • Access anytime, anywhere, and from any device, no matter how many users or transactions • Security for trusted engagement, with personalization through analytics • And new levels of IT efficiency and agility through cloud for responsiveness It is clear, we need to take Linux to the next level where it can fully support the future of high-volume, business-critical applications. That is the goal of IBM LinuxONE, a new family of enterprise-grade Linux systems and solutions that combines the flexibility and agility of the open source revolution with the most advanced high-performance engine that underpins enterprise IT. The line of systems provides the capabilities companies need to quickly react to market demands and customer requirements even as volumes increase. It provides unmatched availability to ensure critical systems continue running under any situation. And it provides the most secure Linux system, giving consumers the protection they expect for their data and transactions. We’ve also dramatically expanded the set of open source software and tools that run on IBM z Systems, providing developers with more flexibility and enabling the development of IT applications with new levels of speed, scale and security. And, because we know that open collaboration across academic, government and corporate partners is key to the advancement of technology, we’re contributing the single largest amount of mainframe code to the open source community and taking additional steps to bolster our already strong commitment to open source innovation. Taken together, all of this represents a quantum leap in open source innovation and a game-changer for the industry. The growing successes of Linux and the introduction of the LinuxONE portfolio prove the marriage of business-model innovation with technology innovation results in unparalleled choice, freedom and superior performance demanded by businesses and individuals around the world. It is clear, the future belongs to open, flexible, customized, cloud-capable and big data-ready IT systems. Strong, open ecosystems will take us there.

A One Stop Shop to Identify Blood Clots

 

Thu, 08/20/2015 - 2:30pm Greg Watry, Digital Reporter   The whole body of a rat can be imaged for blood clots with one PET scan (which is overlaid here on an MRI image) using the FBP8 probe. Arrow points to a blood clot. Image: Peter Caravan, PhDEach year, 795,000 Americans experience a stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Nearly 185,000 of those people have had a previous stroke. It’s estimated strokes cost the U.S. $34 billion in health care services, medications and missed days of work. According to Peter Caravan, of Massachusetts General Hospital, strokes are caused when a blood clot somewhere in the body breaks off and travels to the brain. “Blood clots are associated with the leading causes of death and morbidity,” he said at the 250th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. Heart attack, stroke, pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis all occur because of blood clots in the coronary arteries, brain, lungs or legs. “There’s an urgent need to find these clots when they occur,” he said.   Physicians employ multiple methods to detect blood clots, including ultrasounds on carotid arteries or legs, magnetic resonance imaging to scan the heart and computed tomography for the lungs. But Caravan and his team have developed a new method to detect blood clots with a single scan. “In my lab, we’ve invented a new molecular probe that, upon injection into a vein, will go travel through the body and find blood clots wherever they’re occurring,” Caravan said. Called positron emission tomography, the method utilizes a fibrin binding probe, containing copper-64, to search the body for the clot. Caravan called it a “convenient” but “expensive” test, simply involving a puncture of a vein to deliver the probe. “It can replace multiple tests and that’s where we believe there is real value,” said Caravan. “The cost of the test is appropriate to the clinical decision that is occurring,” he said. With a half-life of 12.7 hrs, copper-64 clears through the kidneys and whatever remains decays in the body, according to Caravan. A human dosage would be 100 micrograms. After identifying a clot, different strategies can be employed for clearance, including a thrombectomy, breakdown via a tissue plasminogen activator or prescribing and antithrombotic. Currently, “we’re compiling the regulatory documents that will allow us to use this probe in (human) patients,” said Caravan. Clinical trials are slated to begin by the end of 2015 or early 2016. Tested on rodents, the new method yielded results of 97% accuracy.   http://www.rdmag.com/articles/2015/08/one-stop-shop-identify-blood-clots

Turning Atmospheric CO2 into Strong, Lightweight Carbon Fibers

 

A novel electrochemical process sequesters carbon in the form of a versatile building material. By Mike Orcutt on August 19, 2015 Why It Matters Avoiding dangerous climate change may require removing carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. The fibers in this microscope image are made of carbon, produced via a new method that also removes carbon dioxide from the air. A new method for taking carbon dioxide directly from the air and converting it to oxygen and nanoscale fibers made of carbon could lead to an inexpensive way to make a valuable building material—and may even serve as a weapon against climate change. Carbon fibers are increasingly being used as a structural material by industries like aerospace and automotive, which value its strength and light weight. The useful attributes of carbon fibers, which also include electrical conductivity, are enhanced at the nanoscale, says Stuart Licht, a professor of chemistry at George Washington University. The problem is that it’s very expensive to make carbon fibers, much less nanofibers. Licht says his group’s newly demonstratedtechnology, which both captures the carbon dioxide from the air and employs an electrochemical process to convert it to carbon nanofibers and oxygen, is more efficient and potentially a lot cheaper than existing methods. But it’s more than just a simpler, less expensive way of making a high value product. It’s also a “means of storing and sequestering carbon dioxide in a useful manner, a stable manner, and in a compact manner,” says Licht. He points out that if the process is powered by renewable energy, the result is a net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In a recent demonstration, his group used a unique concentrated solar power system, which makes use of infrared sunlight as well as visible light to generate the large amount of heat needed to run the desired reaction. The process requires molten lithium carbonate, with another compound, lithium oxide, dissolved in it. The lithium oxide combines with carbon dioxide in the air, forming more lithium carbonate. When voltage is applied across two electrodes immersed in the molten carbonate, the resulting reaction produces oxygen, carbon—which deposits on one of the electrodes—and lithium oxide, which can be used to capture more carbon dioxide and start the process again. The researchers demonstrated the ability to make a variety of different nanofiber shapes and diameters by adjusting specific growth conditions, such as the amount of current applied at specific points of time, and the composition of the various ingredients used in the process. They also showed they could make very uniform fibers. Licht says the mechanisms underlying the formation of the fibers still need to be better understood, and says he’s confident the group can keep developing a greater degree of control over the nature of the fibers it makes. As for the technology’s emissions-cutting potential, the researchers are optimistic. They calculate that given an area less than 10 percent of the size of the Sahara Desert, the method could remove enough carbon dioxide to make global atmospheric levels return to preindustrial levels within 10 years, even if we keep emitting the greenhouse gas at a high rate during that period. Of course this would require a huge increase in demand for carbon nanofibers. Licht believes the material’s properties, especially the fact that it is so lightweight and also very strong, will spur greater and greater use as the cost comes down, and he thinks his new process can help with that. Imagine that carbon fiber composites eventually replace steel, aluminum, and even concrete as a building material, he says. “At that point, there could be sufficient use of this that it’s actually acting as a significant repository of carbon.”   http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540706/turning-atmospheric-co2-into-strong-lightweight-carbon-fibers/

One with the Speaker!

 

Nora Hipsher’s concept for an alternative portable audio system transforms your everyday bicycle into audio on wheels! The speaker works with vibration technology… unlike the regular structure of a speaker, there is no diaphragm. Instead, the voice coil of the speaker attaches to a movable plate that transfers the vibrations and energy to a surface on the bicycle and by that turns the bicycle into the speaker itself. The speaker connects to the bike frame and turns the frame into a big speaker. Therefore one can hear the music simply by plugging in to the bike!

Designer: Nofar Hipsher