February 11, 2008, 10:43 PM CT

Carbon Capture Strategy For Emission-Free Cars

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere. Georgia Tech scientists envision a zero emission car, and a transportation system completely free of fossil fuels.

Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters - automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators).

The Georgia Tech team's goal is to create a sustainable transportation system that uses a liquid fuel and traps the carbon emission in the vehicle for later processing at a fueling station. The carbon would then be shuttled back to a processing plant where it could be transformed into liquid fuel. Currently, Georgia Tech scientists are in the process of developing a fuel processing device to separate the carbon and store it in the vehicle in liquid form.

The research was published in Energy Conversion and Management. The research was funded by NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense NDSEG Fellowship Program and Georgia Tech's CEO (Creating Energy Options) Program......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

February 6, 2008, 9:35 PM CT

Racing Ahead at the Speed of Light

Imagine trying to catch up to something moving close to the speed of light - the fastest anything can move - and sending ahead information in time to make mid-path flight corrections. Impossible? Not quite. Physicists at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, have achieved this tricky task - and the results may save the Lab money and time in their quest to understand the inner workings of the early universe.

The physicists have developed a way to measure subtle fluctuations in RHIC's particle beams as they speed around their 2.4-mile-circumference high-tech racetrack - and send that information ahead to specialized devices that smooth the fluctuations when the beam arrives.

"These corrections help to keep the beams focused and colliding, recreating thousands of times a second the conditions that existed just after the Big Bang," said Steven Vigdor, Brookhaven Lab's Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics, who manages the RHIC program.

Already, RHIC researchers have learned that mere microseconds after the Big Bang, the universe was more interesting than imagined - a nearly "perfect" liquid with virtually no viscosity and strong interactions among its constituents. With the ability to race ahead of RHIC's beams and keep them focused, the researchers will be able to create a number of more "mini-Bangs" for study. The increase in data will help them investigate and measure the detailed properties of this "perfect" liquid, and test certain predictions stimulated by an unanticipated link between RHIC findings and "string theory," an appealing approach to incorporate gravity into a unified theory that describes all of Nature's forces......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 6, 2008, 9:12 PM CT

Breakthrough in single-molecule sensing

In a study that could lay the foundation for mass-produced single-molecule sensors, physicists and engineers at Rice University have demonstrated a means of simultaneously making optical and electronic measurements of the same molecule.

The research, which is available online, is slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nano Letters. The experiments were performed on a nanoelectronic device consisting to two tiny electrodes separated by a molecule-sized gap. Using electric current, the scientists measured conduction through single molecules in the gap. In addition, light-focusing properties of the electrodes allowed the scientists to identify the molecule by a unique optical fingerprint.

"We can mass-produce these in known locations, and they have single-molecule sensitivity at room temperature in open air," said co-author of study Douglas Natelson, associate professor of physics and astronomy and co-director of Rice's Quantum Magnetism Laboratory (QML). "In principle, we think the design may allow us to observe chemical reactions at the single-molecule level".

While researchers have used electronic and optical instruments to measure single molecules before, Rice's system is the first that allows both simultaneously -- a process known as "multimodal" sensing -- on a single small molecule......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

February 4, 2008, 9:52 PM CT

Geotimes explores oil around the world

With oil hovering around $90 a barrel, Geotimes magazine examines emerging trends and issues in several obvious, and some not-so-obvious locations, in this months cover story Oil Around the World.

Land disputes, foreign sanctions, terrorism, war and economics play into the exploration and recovery of the worlds oil and natural gas reserves. Be it Libya, Iraq or Norway, the South China Sea or India, a number of of the issues are the same, leading to complications that often keep investors away from vast oil and natural gas reserves.

Land disputes rule the future of oil and gas exploration in a number of parts of the world. Uncertainty about the boundary between Norway and Russia in the Barents Sea is an obstacle to the development of vast oil and gas resources. Likewise, Asian countries continue to dispute areas of the South China Sea, locking away the possible oil and gas resources from the global economy. Yet, the economic possibilities are bringing countries together in cooperative seismic studies. Will this yield the potential for international agreement and investment?

Along with China, the growth in India has been fingered as one of the causes of the spike in oil prices. Though not historically a major oil producer, Indias heritage and geology may yield some future surprises......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

January 30, 2008, 9:10 PM CT

New Adhesive That Mimics Gecko Toe Hairs

A new anti-sliding adhesive developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, may be the closest man-made material yet to mimic the remarkable gecko toe hairs that allow the tiny lizard to scamper along vertical surfaces and ceilings.

The scientists say that such an adhesive could one day be used to outfit a small robot that could climb up walls.

Taking a cue from the millions of hairs covering a gecko's toes, scientists squeezed 42 million hard plastic microfibers onto each square centimeter of material and loaded it with various weights. They observed that on a smooth, clean, vertical surface, two square centimeters of the synthetic adhesive could hold 400 grams (0.88 pounds). At the same time, the adhesive easily lifts off with minimal force and no residue.

Researchers have long marveled at the gravity-defying feats of the gecko, and many research teams across the world are working on duplicating the lizard's adhesive forces. Ron Fearing, UC Berkeley professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences and head of the research team developing the new material, notes that prior research on gecko-like adhesives has focused on the strength of the adhesion. He said that the ease of attachment and detachment are equally important when developing a material that can practically be used for scaling vertical walls and ceilings......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 29, 2008, 10:00 PM CT

Touch Screen Voting a Hit

Electronic voting technology, particularly touch screen systems, easily pass the tests of voter confidence and satisfaction, but users still make too a number of mistakes and ask too often for help, says a major new study led by the University of Maryland and conducted with the University of Rochester and the University of Michigan.

The study finds that these usability concerns cannot be addressed by adding paper trails to e-voting systems, and concludes that most critics have focused on the wrong issues.

"Recent history is clear: the election problem most likely to tilt a close race is not security, but the inability of voters to cast their ballots the way they intended," says Paul Herrnson, principal investigator and a University of Maryland political scientist who directs the school's Center for American Politics and Citizenship. "The hazards of poor ballot design didn't end with Florida's hanging, pregnant and dimpled chads in 2000. But tremendous improvement in voters' abilities to cast their votes accurately and without assistance can be accomplished simply by improving the way ballots are laid out on touch screen and paper-based systems".

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

Voter Errors: The report describes the findings as both reassuring and sobering. While voters expressed confidence in the systems, all proved vulnerable to various types of voter error, such as unintentionally failing to cast a vote in some races, or worse, actually voting for the wrong candidate......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 29, 2008, 9:31 PM CT

E.coli a future source of energy?

For most people, the name E. coli is synonymous with food poisoning and product recalls, but a professor in Texas A&M Universitys chemical engineering department envisions the bacteria as a future source of energy, helping to power our cars, homes and more.

By genetically modifying the bacteria, Thomas Wood, a professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, has tweaked a strain of E. coli so that it produces substantial amounts of hydrogen. Specifically, Woods strain produces 140 times more hydrogen than is created in a naturally occurring process, as per an article in Microbial Biotechnology, detailing his research.

Though Wood acknowledges that there is still much work to be done before his research translates into any kind of commercial application, his initial success could prove to be a significant stepping stone on the path to the hydrogen-based economy that a number of believe is in this countrys future.

Renewable, clean and efficient, hydrogen is the key ingredient in fuel-cell technology, which has the potential to power everything from portable electronics to automobiles and even entire power plants. Today, most of the hydrogen produced globally is created by a process known as cracking water through which hydrogen is separated from the oxygen. But the process is expensive and requires vast amounts of energy one of the chief reasons why the technology has yet to catch on......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:09:26 GMT

Researcher Cracks Yahoo's CAPTCHA Software

An anonymous programmer going by the name "John Wane" has claimed to have cracked Yahoo's CAPTCHA software. CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart) software is used by most major websites to prevent automated systems from creating thousands of accounts to send spam with. "John Wane" posted code for a decoder he claimed had an accuracy rate of 35%. "It's not necessary to achieve a high degree of accuracy when designing automated recognition software," he wrote. "An accuracy of 15 percent is enough when attacker is able to run 100,000 tries per day." Yahoo says it is aware of the issue and is working on improving their CAPTCHA system. Last year a virtual stripper named Melissa helped spammers get around CAPTCHA codes. Every time the user correctly entered the characters in the accompany CAPTCHA window, she would shed more and more of her clothes. Posted by: Sue Walsh      Read more     Source

January 10, 2008, 10:43 PM CT

Thermoelectric Breakthrough in Silicon Nanowires

Energy now lost as heat during the production of electricity could be harnessed through the use of silicon nanowires synthesized via a technique developed by scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) at Berkeley. The far-ranging potential applications of this technology include DOE's hydrogen fuel cell-powered "Freedom CAR," and personal power-jackets that could use heat from the human body to recharge cell-phones and other electronic devices.

"This is the first demonstration of high performance thermoelectric capability in silicon, an abundant semiconductor for which there already exists a multibillion dollar infrastructure for low-cost and high-yield processing and packaging," said Arun Majumdar, a mechanical engineer and materials scientist with joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, who was one of the principal researchers behind this research.

"We've shown that it's possible to achieve a large enhancement of thermoelectric energy efficiency at room temperature in rough silicon nanowires that have been processed by wafer-scale electrochemical synthesis," said chemist Peidong Yang, the other principal investigator behind this research, who also holds a joint Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley appointment......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

January 8, 2008, 9:25 PM CT

Efficient solar energy conversion

In the race to make solar cells cheaper and more efficient, a number of scientists and start-up companies are betting on new designs that exploit nanostructures--materials engineered on the scale of a billionth of a meter. Using nanotechnology, scientists can experiment with and control how a material generates, captures, transports, and stores free electrons--properties that are important for the conversion of sunlight into electricity.

Two nanotech methods for engineering solar cell materials have shown particular promise. One uses thin films of metal oxide nanoparticles, such as titanium dioxide, doped with other elements, such as nitrogen. Another strategy employs quantum dots--nanosize crystals--that strongly absorb visible light. These tiny semiconductors inject electrons into a metal oxide film, or "sensitize" it, to increase solar energy conversion. Both doping and quantum dot sensitization extend the visible light absorption of the metal oxide materials.

Combining these two approaches appears to yield better solar cell materials than either one alone does, as per Jin Zhang, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Zhang led a team of scientists from California, Mexico, and China that created a thin film doped with nitrogen and sensitized with quantum dots. When tested, the new nanocomposite material performed better than predicted--as if the functioning of the whole material was greater than the sum of its two individual components......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source