Space Elevator

Race on to build world's first space elevator


By Andrew Ramadge and Kate Schneider November 17, 2008 11:45am

Space race ... artist's impression of the transport (left) and the Earth
dock (right) in a working space elevator / Supplied


(See attached file: ScreenShot001.gif)


AUSTRALIA could play a key role in the 21st century space race, with
competition heating up between Japan and the US to build the world's first
"space elevator".


As the technology required to create a physical link between Earth and
outer space becomes closer to a reality, discussions of next-generation
space exploration have been given new life.


Japan announced recently that it was researching plans to build a space
elevator – a link to space that could transport cargo and even tourists –
for as little as 1 trillion yen ($11 billion).


"Just like travelling abroad, anyone will be able to ride the elevator into
space," chairman of the Japan Space Elevator Association, Shuichi Ono, told
The Times.


The news is believed to have shaken up scientists at NASA, who have
traditionally focused on rockets to reach space but could now be
considering following Japan's suit.


Australia too may play a part in the creation of a space elevator, with a
region off the west coast identified as ideal for an Earth dock – the
structure that would anchor the link.


Unlike some science-fiction depictions of a giant tower or elevator
reaching into the stars, modern plans for a space elevator rely on a cable
being stretched between a satellite and a platform on Earth along which
vehicles could travel.


One location being considered by NASA for such a platform is off the coast
of Perth, according to the West Australian co-author of the book Leaving
The Earth By Space Elevator, Philip Ragan.


Mr Ragan, who wrote the book with former NASA scientist and space elevator
expert Dr Bradley C. Edwards, said there were 12 criteria that had to be
met when choosing a possible location for the Earth port including
consideration of storms and lightning.


"We identified that the Indian Ocean, about 500km off of Perth, was a prime
location to site the Earth end of the cable," Mr Ragan said.


"A second preferred location is about 2000 miles (3218km) south of
Hawaii... (which would be) closer for Americans in air time but
logistically more remote for servicing by shipping."


An Australian Senate report released last week backed up Mr Ragan's claims
and said the West Australian oil industry's expertise in building offshore
platforms could prove useful if the plans went ahead.


"The Indian Ocean off Western Australia has been identified as an ideal
location for a space elevator – a thin carbon nanotube connecting a barge
to a space station, along which supplies could be carried up," said the
report.


Professor Lachlan Thompson, from RMIT's School of Aerospace, Mechanical and
Manufacturing Engineering, said Australia would also be an ideal partner
for space agencies because its land mass was not divided into different
nations.


"Australia is an ideal place for suborbital and orbital tourism due to it
being a large land mass not divided by countries," he said.


Technical challenges


Professor Thompson, who co-chaired the Space Elevator Technology Session at
the 59th International Astronautical Congress in Scotland last month, said
the creation of a space elevator, while not yet possible, was supported by
theoretical evidence.


“Elevators to space can be made to work... eight papers presented (at the
congress) supported strongly the idea is sound," he said.


If a space elevator was built, it would provide a method of transportation
to a space platform floating about 36,000km or more above the Earth. But
where to from there?


Many of the costs associated with space exploration stem from trying to get
off Earth itself – by overcoming the planet's gravitational pull using
extremely expensive rocket blasts.


Missions launched from a platform already outside of the Earth's atmosphere
would be cheaper and more efficient, allowing for more exploration
projects.


However plans for a space elevator rely on finding a material strong enough
to form the cable, or "ribbon", stretched between Earth and space.
Scientists say the ribbon would need to be 150 times stronger than steel to
be stable.


"The stresses in the cable due to its own weight are partially relieved by
the mass in space at the end of the cable, so that's not a problem,"
Professor Thompson said.


"But the loads are enormous and get dangerously high once the elevator
starts oscillating as it moves along the cable.


"The first challenge is to develop fibres that have sufficient
strength-to-weight ratio so that they will take the load without being so
ridiculously large in diameter that it could never be deployed.


"The next is to work out how to make the cable, which is why everyone is
looking at nanofibre technology."


Mr Ragan said it was likely that carbon nanofibre cables strong enough to
sustain a space elevator would be produced within the next five years, and
could be tested in space within a decade.


"If anyone can do it, the Japanese certainly can as they are currently the
world's largest producer and user of carbon nanofibre at lower strengths,"
Mr Ragan said.


Mr Ragan said competition between space agencies would heat up in coming
years as the technology to build a space elevator became available and the
cost efficiency of launching missions from outside the Earth's
gravitational pull became clear.


"When the appropriate strength carbon nanofibre is definitely in
production, interest will intensify," he said.


"The first country to deploy a space elevator will have a 95 per cent cost
advantage and could potentially control all space activities."

New super lubricant - BAM

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16102-material-slicker-than-teflon-discovered-by-accident.html

A superhard substance that is more slippery than Teflon could protect mechanical parts from wear and tear, and boost energy efficiency by reducing friction.

The "ceramic alloy" is created by combining a metal alloy of boron, aluminium and magnesium (AlMgB14) with titanium boride (TiB2). It is the hardest material after diamond and cubic boron nitride.

BAM, as the material is called, was discovered at the US Department of Energy Ames Laboratory in Iowa in 199, during attempts to develop a substance to generate electricity when heated.

Eternal lubricant

BAM didn't do that, but was found to have other desirable characteristics. "Its hardness was discovered by accident. We had a terrible time cutting it, grinding it, or polishing it," says Alan Russell, a materials scientist at Iowa State University in Ames.

Those chance findings have now developed into a $3-million programme at the Ames Lab to develop the BAM into a kind of eternal lubricant, a coating for moving parts to boost energy efficiency and longevity by reducing friction.

BAM is much slipperier than Teflon, with a coefficient of friction of .02 compared to .05. Lubricated steel has a friction coefficient of 0.16.

One way to exploit this slipperiness is to coat the rotor blades in everyday pumps used in everything from heating systems to aircraft, says Russel. A slick BAM coating of just 2 microns (see image, top right) could reduce friction between the blades and their housing, meaning less power is needed to produce the same pumping power.

Mystery material

Bruce Cook, lead investigator on the Ames Lab project, estimates that merely coating rotors with the material could save US industry alone 330 trillion kilojoules (9 billion kilowatt hours) every year by 2030 - about $179 million a year.

BAM is also potentially attractive as a hard coating for drill bits and other cutting tools. Diamond is commonly used for this, and is harder, but it reacts chemically with steel and so degrades relatively quickly when used to cut the metal.

By contrast, BAM is cheaper and does not degrade when used with steel.

The exact reason for the new material's characteristics is still unclear, Russell told New Scientist. Most superhard materials, such as diamond, have a simple, regular and symmetrical crystalline structure. But BAM is complex, unsymmetrical, and its lattice contains gaps, none of which would be expected in a hard material.

Its slipperiness is also not entirely understood. Although Russell says the best theory is that the boron interacts with oxygen to make tiny amounts of boron oxide on its surface. They would attract water molecules from the air, to make a slippery coating.

"It's almost as if it's a self-lubricating surface. You don't need to add oil or other lubricants. It's inherently slippery," he says.

Magnetic bubble to protect Mars explorers

Radiation in space is one of the greatest challenges facing a mission to the red planet (NASA)

Scientists believe they have found a way of protecting astronauts from a dangerous source of space radiation, clearing one of the hurdles towards sending humans to Mars.

The device has been developed by British and Portuguese scientists and appears in the journal Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion.

Radiation is one of the greatest challenges facing a mission to the red planet, planned by the United States and Europe in the first half of this century.

The shortest round trip would take at least 18 months, and during this time, the crew would be exposed to sub-atomic particles that whizz through space. These particles are capable of slicing through DNA and boosting the risk of cancer and other disorders.

The peril has been known for nearly half a century, but has seemed difficult to solve because costs and technological difficulty.

Some experts have toyed with the idea of shielding the crew with lead or massive tanks of water, but the price of lifting this load into orbit from earth is high.

Another idea would be to swathe the spaceship with a replica of earth's own magnetic field, deflecting incoming cosmic rays.

According to previous calculations, the spacecraft would have to generate a magnetic field hundreds of kilometres across.

But such equipment would be huge and drain the ship's energy supply and its powerful field could well harm the crew.

Bubble protection

British and Portuguese scientists have taken a fresh look at this old concept and say the magnetic field does not, in fact, have to be huge - just a 'bubble' a few hundred metres across would suffice.

"The idea is really like in Star Trek, when Scottie turns on a shield to protect the starship Enterprise from proton beams - it's almost identical really," says Bob Bingham of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK.

Their research uses numerical simulations also used by experts in nuclear fusion, in which hot plasma is kept in place by a powerful magnetic field.

This technology provides an accurate picture of how individual particles behave when they collide with a two-pole magnetic field.

As a result, the researchers have been able to devise a smarter, miniaturised model of magnetic protection.

Scaled test

Using a plasma lab at the Superior Technical Institute in Lisbon, the team tested a scaled down version of the device in a simulation of a solar storm of atomic particles.

Scaled up for a trip to Mars, the device would weigh around "several hundred kilos" and use only about a kilowatt of energy, or around one half to one third of the typical power consumption of today's communications satellites, says Bingham.

The force of the magnetic field would replicate the earth's, but to minimise any risk to crew close to its source, could be carried in spacecraft flying either side of the crewed ship.

Bingham says the "mini magnetosphere" is being pitched both to the European Space Agency and NASA.

It would scatter almost all particles dispatched in "solar storms" - protons belched out by the sun, he says.

It would not work against a somewhat less dangerous problem, of high-energy cosmic rays that fly across interstellar distances, but the ship could be swathed with material, like a Kevlar bulletproof waistcoat, to protect against that threat.

"It certainly will be the answer if we go to Mars, because going to Mars will take about 18 months and we need to protect the astronauts against these storms," says Bingham.

In 2001, a NASA study found that at least 39 former astronauts suffered cataracts after flying in space, 36 of whom had taken part in missions beyond earth's orbit.

The agency has tentatively estimated that a trip to Mars and back would give a 40-year-old non-smoking person a 40% chance of developing fatal cancer after they returned to earth, or twice the terrestrial risk.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/11/05/2411072.htm

Electronic paper

http://www.pcworld.com/article/152850/article.html?tk=nl_dnxnws


NEC will later this week unveil new electronic paper displays that are said
to offer higher visibility than newspapers.


The screens were developed by its NEC LCD Technologies subsidiary and are
the equivalent size to A3 (297 millimeters by 420mm) and A4 (210mm by
297mm) sheets of paper, NEC said Monday. They'll be unveiled at the FPD
International exhibition that gets underway in Japan on Wednesday.


Based on the microcapsule electrophoresis system developed by U.S.-company
E-Ink, the screens include an NEC-developed TFT (thin-film transistor)
active matrix that allows for a 16-step grey scale rather than just
monochrome.


Electronic paper is often lauded for its high contrast that makes it appear
close to that of real paper. It also boasts low power consumption because
electricity is only required when the screen is refreshed and the image
changed. At other times the image remains without power being required.


Under development for many years, the technology is now being used in
commercially available displays such as those in Amazon.com's Kindle e-book
reader, Motorola's F3 cell phone and numerous in-store advertising
displays. Most recently the technology gained attention when it was
integrated into the cover of an issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine in the U.S.


FPD International will be held from Wednesday to Friday at the Pacifico
Yokohama exhibition center in Yokohama, Japan.

Pod Cars - private public transport

Sci-Tech Article - http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11100BKTRO7R

With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new national transportation bill for 2010, Jacob Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, thinks the future is now for podcars -- electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on a network separate from traffic.

The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.

To Jacob Roberts, podcars -- or PRTs, for personal rapid transit -- represent an important component in the here-and-now of transportation.

"It's time we design cities for the human, not for the automobile," said Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, activists and students committed to making this upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States.

"In the podcar ... it creates the perfect blend between the privacy and autonomy of the automobile with the public transportation aspect and, of course, it uses clean energy ," Roberts said.

With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and federal lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new national transportation bill for 2010, Roberts and his colleagues think the future is now for podcars -- electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on their own network separate from other traffic.

Unlike mass transit, podcars carry two to 10 passengers, giving travelers the freedom and privacy of their own car while reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing traffic congestion and freeing up space now monopolized by parking.

At stations located every block or every half-mile, depending on the need, a rider enters a destination on a computerized pad, and a car would take the person nonstop to the location. Stations would have slanted pull-in bays so that some cars could stop for passengers, while others could continue unimpeded on the main course.

"It works almost like an elevator, but horizontally," said Roberts, adding podcar travel would be safer than automobile travel.

The podcar is not entirely new. A limited version with larger cars carrying up to 15 passengers was built in 1975 in Morgantown, W.Va., and still transports West Virginia University students.

Next year, Heathrow Airport outside London will unveil a pilot podcar system to ferry air travelers on the ground. Companies in Sweden, Poland and Korea are already operating full-scale test tracks to demonstrate the feasibility. Designers are planning a podcar network for Masdar City, outside Abu Dhabi, which is being built as the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste city.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen cities in Sweden are planning podcar systems as part of the country's commitment to be fossil-fuel-free by 2020, said Hans Lindqvist, a councilman from Varmdo, Sweden, and chairman of Kompass, an association of groups and municipalities behind the Swedish initiative...

New ideas for wind power - The Wind Belt

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=10000AFIPDA4&page=1

As an MIT engineering undergraduate visiting the rural fishing village of
Petite Anse, Haiti, in 2004, Shawn Frayne hoped to devise a way to convert
abundant agricultural waste into cheap fuel. But the budding engineer soon
found that the community's mainly poor residents faced an altogether more
immediate need. Unconnected to the local power (Embedded image moved to
file: pic18038.jpg)grid, they relied heavily on dirty kerosene lamps, which
are not only costly to operate but also unhealthy and dangerous. He decided
to devise an alternative -- a small, safe, and renewable power generator
that could be used to power LED lights and small household electronics,
such as radios.

The result is the Windbelt, a miniaturized wind-harvesting power generator
that has absolutely nothing in common with the traditional, towering wind
turbines that dot the fields and shorelines of developed countries. The
simple device was awarded $10,000 in late September as a finalist for the
Curry Stone Design Award, a charitable prize that aims to boost design and
innovation projects for developing countries. Frayne, now 27, also won a
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award last fall, earning him a coveted spot
on that magazine's annual list of up-and-coming scientists and engineers.
Now Frayne and his five-man startup, Humdinger Wind Energy in Honolulu,
Hawaii, are working on turning a promising prototype into reality.


Exploiting Vibrations


"Wind power has pretty much looked the same for the past 80 years," says
Frayne over the crackle of a Skype phone call from Xela, Guatemala, where
Humdinger is working in rural locations to develop production-ready
versions of the Windbelt. After his initial prototypes proved too expensive
or inefficient [or both], Frayne took a different tack, eschewing a
propeller-type design for an entirely different idea. About the size of a
cell phone, the final Windbelt prototype employs a taut membrane that, when
air passes over it, vibrates between metal coils to generate electricity.
Frayne claims it is the first wind device of any size not to employ
turbines.


Indeed, the roots of his innovation are unexpected: Frayne says he was
inspired by studying the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State, which
dramatically collapsed in 1940 due to powerful vibrations caused by the
wind. The Windbelt harnesses those same dynamics to generate power.


Adaptable to Developed Economies


Frayne's device joins a growing array (Embedded image moved to file:
pic04360.jpg)of simple, inexpensive technologies created for developing
countries that have also garnered considerable attention in the U.S. and
Europe. "Innovations arising from problems in developing economies should
meet the challenges of developed economies, too," says Frayne emphatically.
With that in mind, Humdinger is taking "a market-oriented approach," he
says. That means pitching Windbelt technology as a green way to power
air-quality sensors or WiFi transmitters in new buildings in the developed
world, for instance. "People are realizing that smartly designed
micro-installations can have a big impact," says James Brew, a principal
architect with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a green think tank in Aspen,
Colo. The Windbelt's small size and negligible cost, adds Brew, make it
potentially applicable in developed settings -- such as new skyscrapers --
as well as the more rugged conditions of the world's rural villages.


Though he won't reveal how much funding the group has received to date,
Frayne says it would cost upwards of $30 million in venture capital to
expand the company so it could manufacture Windbelts itself. More likely,
Humdinger will end up licensing the technology to other manufacturers,
which would assume development costs.


Undeterred by the obvious challenges of marketing an entirely new type of
wind power generator, and even though wide distribution is still some years
off, Humdinger is forging ahead. In the past year, the group has
established pilot programs in Guatemala and Haiti as well as
rapid-prototyping facilities in Hong Kong. They are also working on larger
versions that could generate significantly more power. The Windbelt may
have started with personal curiosity, but Frayne's mission has changed
dramatically. "We're really trying to develop the new building blocks of
wind energy (Embedded image moved to file: pic05471.jpg)," he says.

3 wheel trike / car / bike - Peugot HYmotion3

Riding in the Rain: Peugeot HYmotion3 Compressor Concept

Peugeot looks toward a future of fuel-efficient, all-weather scooters replacing cars for short, urban jaunts.

By Mike Spinelli Posted 10.09.2008 at 11:30 am 0 Comments

Peugeot Hymotion3 Compressor Concept: The Peugeot Hymotion3 Compressor Concept combines hybrid technology, advanced scooter suspension developments and protection from the elements. It's also three-wheel drive? Peugeot

Quick, name a car with three-wheel drive. Okay, trick question; this isn't quite a car, but Peugeot's idea of a fuel-efficient all-weather runabout. The HYmotion3 Compressor Concept foresees a hybrid vehicle in more ways than one: part gasoline-, part electric-powered; part car, part scooter. The French automaker says it offers the stability of a trike with the protection of a safety cell similar to that which supports occupants of a Smart car.

Like a Toyota Prius, it can run in electric-only mode at low speeds, by way of front-mounted, in-wheel hub motors, each producing up to four horsepower. The main power source is a supercharged 125cc engine producing 20 horsepower. In total, the powerplants could provide the performance equivalent of a 400cc motorcycle. Traditional hybrid-drive accoutrements include regenerative braking, a stop-start engine function, and a mileage boost, in this case a projected maximum of 118 mpg. But will Peugeot, one of the largest scooter makers in Europe, build it for mass consumption? Ask someone from the future.

India Uses New Brain Scanner To Convict

The new technology is, to its critics, Orwellian. Others view it as a silver bullet against terrorism that could render waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods obsolete. Some scientists predict the end of lying as we know it.

Now, well before any consensus on the technology's readiness, India has become the first country to convict someone of a crime relying on evidence from this controversial machine: a brain scanner that produces images of the human mind in action and is said to reveal signs that a suspect remembers details of the crime in question.

For years, scientists have peered into the brain and sought to identify deception. They have shot infrared beams through liars' heads, placed them in giant magnetic resonance imaging machines and used scanners to track their eyeballs. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has plowed money into brain- based lie detection in the hope of producing more fruitful counterterrorism investigations.

The various technologies, generally regarded as promising but unproved, have yet to be widely accepted as evidence -- except in India, where in recent years judges have begun to admit brain scans. But it was only in June, in a murder case in Pune, in Maharashtra State, that a judge explicitly cited a scan as proof that the suspect's brain held "experiential knowledge" about the crime that only the killer could possess, sentencing her to life in prison.

Psychologists and neuroscientists in the United States, which has been at the forefront of brain-based lie detection, variously called the Indian application of the technology to legal cases "fascinating," "ridiculous," "chilling" and "unconscionable." (While attempts have been made in the United States to introduce findings of similar tests into court cases, these generally have been by defense lawyers trying to demonstrate the mental impairment of the accused, not by prosecutors trying to convict.)

"I find this both interesting and disturbing," Henry Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford Law School, said of the Indian verdict. "We keep looking for a magic technological solution to lie detection," he added. "Maybe we'll have it someday, but we need to demand the highest standards of proof before we ruin people's lives based on its application."

Whatever American scientists think, law enforcement officials from several countries, including Israel and Singapore, have shown interest in the brain-scanning technology, visiting government labs that employ it in interrogations, Indian officials said.

Methods of eliciting truth have long proved problematic: Truth drugs tend to make suspects babble as much falsehood as truth. Polygraph tests measure anxiety more than deception, and good liars may not feel anxious. In 1998, the United States Supreme Court said there is "simply no consensus that polygraph evidence is reliable."

This latest Indian attempt at getting past criminals' natural defenses begins with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, in which electrodes are placed on the head to measure electrical waves. The suspect sits in silence, eyes shut. An investigator reads aloud details of the crime -- as prosecutors see it -- and the resulting brain images are processed using software made in Bangalore.

The software tries to detect whether, when the crime's details are recited, the brain lights up in specific regions -- the areas that, according to the technology's inventors, show measurable changes when experiences are relived, their smells and sounds summoned back to consciousness. The technology claims to be able to distinguish between memories of a deed merely witnessed and a deed actually done.

The Brain Electrical Oscillations Signature test, or BEOS, was developed by Champadi Raman Mukundan, an Indian neuroscientist who formerly ran the clinical psychology department of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences in Bangalore. His system builds on methods developed at American universities by other scientists, including Emanuel Donchin, Lawrence Farwell and J. Peter Rosenfeld.

Despite the promise of the technology -- some believe it could transform investigations as much as DNA evidence has -- experts in psychology and neuroscience were almost uniformly troubled that it had been used to win a criminal conviction before being validated by any independent study and reported in a respected scientific journal.

Publication of data from testing of the scans would allow other scientists to judge its merits -- and the validity of the studies -- during what are known as peer reviews.

"Technologies which are neither seriously peer-reviewed nor independently replicated are not, in my opinion, credible," said Rosenfeld, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Northwestern University and one of the early developers of electroencephalogram-based lie detection. "The fact that an advanced and sophisticated democratic society such as India would actually convict persons based on an unproven technology is even more incredible."

After passing an 18-page promotional dossier about the BEOS test to a few of his colleagues, Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist and director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said: "Well, the experts all agree. This work is shaky at best."

None of these experts has met the Indian inventors and implementers. One British forensic psychologist who has met them said he found the presentation highly convincing.

"According to the cases that have been presented to me, BEOS has clearly demonstrated its utility in providing admissible evidence that has been used to assist in the conviction of defendants in court," Keith Ashcroft, a frequent expert witness in the British courts, said in an e-mail message.

Two states in India, Maharashtra and Gujarat, have set up labs using BEOS for their prosecutors.

Sunny Joseph, a state forensic investigator in Maharashtra who was formerly a researcher working with Mukundan on BEOS in Bangalore, said that the test's results were highly reliable. He said Mukundan had conducted extensive testing, as did the state, which used its workers in some trials.

Here in Maharashtra, about 75 crime suspects and witnesses have undergone the test since late 2006. But the technique received its strongest official endorsement, forensic investigators here say, on June 12, when a judge convicted a woman of murder based on evidence that included polygraph and BEOS tests.

The woman, Aditi Sharma, 24, was accused of killing her former fiancé, Udit Bharati. They were living in Pune when Sharma met another man and eloped with him to Delhi. Months later, Sharma returned to Pune and, according to prosecutors, asked Bharati to meet her at a McDonald's. She was accused of poisoning him with arsenic-laced food.

Sharma agreed to take a BEOS test in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra. (Suspects may only be tested with their consent, but forensic investigators say many agree to the test assuming this will spare them an aggressive police interrogation.)

After placing 32 electrodes on Sharma's head, investigators said, they read aloud their version of events, making such first-person statements as "I bought arsenic" and "I met Udit at McDonald's," along with neutral statements like "The sky is blue," which help the software distinguish actual remembrance from normal cognition.

For an hour, Sharma said nothing. But the relevant nooks of her brain where memories are thought to be stored buzzed when the crime was recounted, according to Joseph, the state investigator. The judge endorsed Joseph's assertion that the scans were proof of "experiential knowledge" of having committed the murder, rather than just having heard about it. In the only other significant judicial statement on BEOS, a judge in 2006 in Gujarat denied the test the status of "concluded proof," but wrote that it corroborated already solid evidence from other sources.

In writing his opinion on the case, Judge S.S. Phansalkar-Joshi included a nine-page defense of BEOS.

Sharma insists that she is innocent.

Even as the debate continues over using scans to trip up obfuscators, researchers are developing new uses for the technology. No Lie MRI, a company in California, promises on its Web site to use the scans to help with developing interpersonal trust and military intelligence, among other tasks. In August, a committee of the National Research Council in Washington predicted that, with greater research, brain scans could eventually aid "the acquisition of intelligence from captured unlawful combatants" and "the screening of terrorism suspects at checkpoints."

Such applications may make governments both less and more threatening. The scans could render such practices as torture "obsolete" as investigators find gentler ways into the mind, argued Sean Kevin Thompson, then a law student, in a 2005 Cornell Law Review article.

But he also said truth machines were "one of the few technologies to which the now clichéd moniker of 'Orwellian' legitimately applies."

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=0210026UX526

Wireless Power

Alanson Sample, an Intel Research Seattle intern, shows off the apparatus for a Massachusetts Institute of Technology concept, 'Wireless Resonant Energy Link' (WREL), that can transmit power with no wires and without so much of the loss of energy that afflicts other wireless power-transmission technologies, such as induction.

The technology was used to transmit 60W of power to illuminate a light bulb; it has 75 percent efficiency.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/emergingtech/0,1000000183,39464527-2,00.htm

Weapons-Grade Lasers by the End of '08?

wired.com article
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/weapons-grade-l.html

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman is promising the Pentagon that it'll have weapons-grade electric lasers by the end of 2008. Which means honest-to-goodness energy weapons might actually become a military reality, after decades of fruitless searching.

For the longest time, the military concentrated on developing chemical-powered lasers. They produced massively powerful laser blasts. But the noxious stuff needed to produce all that power makes the weapons all-but-impractical in a war zone. So the Defense Department shifted gears, and poured money into solid-state, electric lasers instead. Under its Joint High-Powered Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) project, these beams -- once considered too weak to do soldiers much good -- have made steady progress. Now Northrop is promising to hit what's widely considered to be the threshold for military-strength beams: 100 kilowatts. With that much energy, lasers should be able to knock mortars and rockets out of the sky.

Northrop's system combines a bunch of smaller lasers into a bigger one -- Death Star-style, sorta. In March, the company announced that it had completed the first of these eight "laser chains." Yesterday, the company said it had joined two of the chains together. What's more, the beam combo ran at peak power -- 30 kW -- "for more than five minutes continuously and more than 40 minutes total; and achieved electrical-to-optical efficiency of greater than 19 percent."

"We are completely confident we will meet the 100 kW of power level and associated beam quality and runtime requirements of the JHPSSL Phase 3 program by the end of December, 2008," Bob Bishop, a Northrop Grumman spokesman, tells Defense Daily.

And it's not the only energy weapon project that's making progress. The Army just gave Boeing a $36 million contract to develop a laser-firing truck. The company recently test-fired the real-life ray gun on its Advanced Tactical Laser -- a gunship equipped with a chemical-powered blaster. Raytheon has worked up a prototype of its Phalanx mortar-shooter that uses fiber lasers, instead of traditional ammo, to knock down targets. Even the eternally delayed, chemically powered Airborne Laser -- a modified 747, designed to zap ballistic missiles -- may finally get a long-awaited flight test.

[Photo: Northrop Grumman]

Amazing Ultralight Solar Plane Flies For Days

By Bill Christensen
posted: 26 August 2008 10:01 am ET

The Zephyr solar plane has sailed to what may be a record for sun-powered unmanned flight. The 66-pound craft was aloft for 83 hours and 7 minutes. The plane makes use of ultra-lightweight carbon-fiber to save on weight. It flies on solar power generated by paper-thin silicon solar arrays on its wings.

The Zephyr solar-powered plane is able to fly autonomously, using GPS to keep on track. Launched by hand, Zephyr charges its batteries during the day for night flying. Initially, the plane was flown remotely to an altitude of 60,000 feet; the plane was able to fly by itself for the remaining time.

[The flight is unlikely to be an official record, however, because the company did not meet criteria laid down by the world's air sports federation.]

Other solar-powered surveillance planes are under development, like the Helios craft that has already flown a number of successful test flights. The Zephyr is considered a possible predecessor to the planned DARPA Vulture Five Year Flying Wing. The "five years" part refers to the length of proposed continuous flight time.

Zephyr itself is the result of a collaboration betweent the UK-based company QinetiQ Group PLC and the U.S. military's DARPA.

Livescience article http://www.livescience.com/technology/080826-solar-zephyr.html

Solar Storage Revolution - Mimicking Plants

Solar Revolution

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today's announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

'Giant leap' for clean energy

Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

'Just the beginning'

Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates.

More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality.

"This is just the beginning," said Nocera, principal investigator for the Solar Revolution Project funded by the Chesonis Family Foundation and co-director of the Eni-MIT Solar Frontiers Center. "The scientific community is really going to run with this."

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, homeowners will be able to power their homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power their own household fuel cell. Electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.

The project is part of the MIT Energy Initiative, a program designed to help transform the global energy system to meet the needs of the future and to help build a bridge to that future by improving today's energy systems. MITEI Director Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, noted that "this discovery in the Nocera lab demonstrates that moving up the transformation of our energy supply system to one based on renewables will depend heavily on frontier basic science."

The success of the Nocera lab shows the impact of a mixture of funding sources - governments, philanthropy, and industry. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the Chesonis Family Foundation, which gave MIT $10 million this spring to launch the Solar Revolution Project, with a goal to make the large scale deployment of solar energy within 10 years.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

ReWalk - exoskeleton for paraplegics

How good ! A man who has been wheelchair bound for 20 years can walk again thanks to this amazing technology !

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Articles^l2202&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Health&

Say the word "exoskeleton" and most people think of actress Sigourney Weaver in the movie Alien. As Ellen Ripley, she brandishes cargo-loading pistons for arms and legs to duke it out with the mother alien. After that, just walking may seem a mundane use for exoskeletons, but the action is more powerful than any science fiction story when paraplegics can use these motorized armatures to conduct daily life as their mobile counterparts do.


ReWalk is an Israeli-developed quasi-robotic ambulation system developed by ARGO Medical Technologies that provides a viable, upright day-to-day alternative to wheelchair users. The wearable upright mobility system was specially designed for individuals with lower-limb disabilities. By restoring upright mobility, the developers say, ReWalk delivers benefits on the health, economic, and societal levels.

"What we want to do is have the person wake up in the morning, put on clothes, put on the ReWalk, go to work and go throughout the day, wearing it," Dr. Amit Goffer PhD, founder and director of Argo, and ReWalk's developer, tells ISRAEL21c.

Regaining dignity

Uri Attir, CEO of Argo, adds that users "regain their dignity" by being able to stand eye-to-eye with colleagues. "It may seem trivial, but it's not," says Goffer emphatically.

Goffer should know. Formerly an electrical engineer at RAFAEL and Elscint, he left in 1994 to found Odin Medical Technologies, the developer of a revolutionary inter-operative, real-time MRI.

Odin was acquired by Medtronic for $30 million in 2006 but by then, Goffer was out of the picture, the victim of an accident that left him a quadriplegic. Following intense rehabilitation, Goffer got to work, developing the ReWalk prototype in his home, funding it both privately and with a Tnufa - Startup Promotion Program grant.

The prototype was past the proof-of-concept stage when Goffer entered the Technion Incubator, TechnionSeed.

ReWalk comprises a light wearable brace support suit which integrates DC motors at the joint, rechargeable batteries, an array of sensors and a computer-based control system. It fits the body snugly to detect upper body movements, which are used to initiate and maintain the walking process. Wearers also use crutches for stability and safety. "The main issue was triggering and marinating gait. We tried it on three paraplegics the first time and the results gave me the confidence that it worked," recalls Goffer.

Argo spent two years under the auspices of TechnionSeed, and currently operates out of Haifa's MATAM high-tech industrial park. The original investors include two out of the three incubator owners, venture capital funds Vitalife and ProSeed, along with the Technion Research & Development Foundation (TRDF), TechnionSeed and the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor.

The company's current round of funding started in January 2008. So far, $1 million has been raised out of a targeted $5 million, an investment from the Marc Rich Foundation. "That money will cover our operating needs for the next one and a half years," says Attir. "By that time, [late 2009 or early 2010] we intend to be selling commercially".

The target market, according to Goffer and Attir, will be the Western world wheelchair-user community, of which 300,000 are spinal cord injury sufferers (125,000 in the US and 175,000 in ROW) who are physically able to use crutches as a stabilizing tool.

Attir estimates the initial market at $6 billion per year, worldwide. "That's a very conservative estimate, because it doesn't take into account other forms of wheelchair bound persons such as victims of stroke, multiple sclerosis, and certain forms of cerebral palsy [estimated at 2.8 million in the US]," he says. "I can't name an exact price but I can say that a very good motorized wheelchair costs between $15-25,000 and an iBot [a sophisticated wheelchair designed by Dean "Segway" Kamen] costs $35,000 and we'll be well below that."

Reducing expenses

ReWalk also reduces expenses for taxpayers, the company says. On average, a paraplegic costs HMOs in the US over $270,000 during the first year of hospitalization and almost $28,000 in each subsequent year, including re-hospitalization and treatment for conditions such as pressure sores, recurrent urinary tract and other urological infections, and others.

The standing position afforded by the ReWalk, says Attir, significantly reduces many of these and also serves as physiotherapy. "It would also render obsolete the need to periodically go to a rehab center and use the automated treadmills, which cost 300,000EUR each. It will replace the need to install stair climbers in the home as well," he says.

ReWalk is undergoing clinical trials in Israel at the Rehabilitation Hospital at Chaim Sheba Medical Center - Tel Hashomer, with pilots planned for rehab centers in Holland and Italy. A US trial is scheduled to begin in November at the Moss Rehabilitation Center in Philadelphia, after which Argo will apply for FDA regulatory approval.

Argo's demo video features team member Radi Kioff, a 40-year-old Druze Israeli citizen who was shot in the back while serving in the Israel Defense Forces during the first Lebanon War. Ironically, the man who devised the system that allows Kioff to walk cannot benefit from his own invention. A quadriplegic, Amit Goffer has only partial use of his hands, but not enough to operate the ReWalk.

"This isn't the first company I've founded," says Goffer with equanimity. "My incentive to develop it was a business opportunity. When I was injured the first thing I was offered was the only thing: a wheelchair. I do believe that in the future, in many cases, the ReWalk - or its competition - might be offered. I don't see any reason for the wheelchair to be the sole solution. There hasn't been a real change [in the technology] for centuries. So, we're taking a safe business approach, starting with paraplegics, and the time for a quadriplegic like me will come."

CEO Uri Attir himself has a hook prosthesis as the result of a war injury that took his hand when he was serving in the Israel Defense Forces. "Amit and I come into meetings with prosthetics manufacturers who are strategic partners, and people ask 'Are you buyers or sellers?'", he smiles. "And we answer: 'Although we seem like customers, we're here to sell you products'."

Wind Power Gets Wings in Texas

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2008/07/17/wind-power-gets-wings-in-texas/

Texas state officials gave the nod today to the largest wind-power project in the country.

The project, to cost at least $3 billion, will include significant new transmission lines to get power from windy areas, where the turbines will be, to urban areas. Texas electric customers will pay about $4 more per month on their electric bills to help cover the costs of investment.

State officials aren’t just blowing hot air.

According to MSNBC: Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and wind supporters say Thursday’s move by the Public Utility Commission will make the Lone Star State a leader in moving energy to the urban areas that need electricity.

“We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined,” said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. “I think that’s a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven’t gone far enough, some think we’ve pushed too far.”

Meantime, one town in Missouri is entirely powered by wind.

Not everyone is hot on wind. Some argue the giant turbines (not windmills anymore) are noisy and can kill birds. And one study suggested the drag o turbines could actually alter the climate.

Wind Power Gets Wings in Texas

http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2008/07/17/wind-power-gets-wings-in-texas/
Texas state officials gave the nod today to the largest wind-power project in the country.
The project, to cost at least $3 billion, will include significant new transmission lines to get power from windy areas, where the turbines will be, to urban areas. Texas electric customers will pay about $4 more per month on their electric bills to help cover the costs of investment.
State officials aren’t just blowing hot air.
According to MSNBC: Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and wind supporters say Thursday’s move by the Public Utility Commission will make the Lone Star State a leader in moving energy to the urban areas that need electricity.
“We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined,” said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. “I think that’s a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven’t gone far enough, some think we’ve pushed too far.”
Meantime, one town in Missouri is entirely powered by wind.
Not everyone is hot on wind. Some argue the giant turbines (not windmills anymore) are noisy and can kill birds. And one study suggested the drag o turbines could actually alter the climate.

Honda Rolls Out Zero-Emission Car for Southern California

http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Honda-Rolls-Out-Zero-Emission-Car/story.xhtml?story_id=11300BSBZZK8

Honda's new zero-emission, hydrogen fuel cell car rolled off a Japanese production line Monday and is headed to southern California, where eco-friendly Hollywood is already abuzz over the latest splash in green motoring.

The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says.

Japan's No. 3 automaker expects to lease out a "few dozen" units this year and about 200 units within three years. In California, a three-year lease will run US$600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage.

Among the first customers are actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, film producer Ron Yerxa, as well as businessmen Jon Spallino and Jim Salomon.

"It's so smooth," said Harris, who played villainess Marie Warner on the hit TV show 24. "It's like a future machine, but it's not."

Harris, Spallino and Yerxa were flown over to the ceremony, courtesy of Honda. Yerxa says he's excited to show off the garnet-colored, four-door sedan and believes there's "a lot of interest in the car."

The FCX Clarity is an improvement of its previous-generation fuel cell vehicle, the FCX, introduced in 2005.

A breakthrough in the design of the fuel cell stack, which is the unit that powers the car's motor, allowed engineers to lighten the body, expand the interior and increase efficiency, Honda said.

The fuel cell draws on energy synthesized through a chemical reaction between hydrogen gas and oxygen in the air, and a lithium-ion battery pack provides supplemental power . The FCX Clarity has a range of about 270-miles per tank with hydrogen consumption equivalent to 74 miles per gallon, according to the carmaker.

The 3,600-pound vehicle can reach speeds up to 100 miles per hour.

"This is indeed a historic day for both Honda and American Honda -- a new chapter in our nearly 50-year history in America," said John Mendel, executive vice president of America Honda Motor Co. at a morning ceremony here. "It's an especially significant day for American Honda as we plant firm footsteps toward the mainstreaming of fuel cell cars."

The biggest obstacles standing in the way of wider adoption of fuel cell vehicles are cost and the dearth of hydrogen fuel stations. For the Clarity's release in California, Honda said it received 50,000 applications through its Web site but could only consider those living near stations in Torrance, Santa Monica and Irvine

Initially, however, the Clarity will go only to a chosen few starting July and then launch in Japan this fall.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for a statewide network of hydrogen stations, but progress has been slow.

The state has also recently relaxed a mandate for the number of zero-emission cars it aims to have on roads. By 2014, automakers must now sell 7,500 electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, a reduction of 70 percent.

Spallino, who currently drives Honda's older FCX, said he will use the Clarity to drive to and from work and for destinations within the Los Angeles area. The small number of hydrogen fuel stations is the "single limiting factor" for fuel cell vehicles, he said.

"It's more comfortable, and it handles well," said Spallino of Redondo Beach. "It's got everything. You're not sacrificing anything except range."

The world's major automakers have been making heavy investments in fuel cells and other alternative fuel vehicles amid climbing oil prices and concerns about climate change.

Although Honda Motor Co. was the first Japanese automaker to launch a gas-electric hybrid vehicle in the U.S. in 1999, it has been outpaced by the dominance of Toyota's popular Prius.

Toyota announced in May that it has sold more than 1 million Prius hybrids, while both the Honda Insight and the hybrid Accord have been discontinued due to poor sales.

The FCX Clarity is part of Honda's plan to compete keep pace with rivals in green technology. It also plans to launch a gas-electric hybrid-only model, as well as hybrid versions of the Civic, the sporty CR-Z and Fit subcompact.

Toyota has announced that it would launch a plug-in hybrid with next-generation lithium-ion batteries by 2010 and a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle later in Japan later this year.

U.S. carmaker General Motors Corp. plans to introduce a Chevrolet Volt plug-in electric vehicle in 2010. It also introduced a test-fleet of hydrogen fuel cell Equinox SUVs.

Honda, however, has no plans for a plug-in electric vehicle. President Takeo Fukui said he does not believe current battery technology is good enough to develop a feasible car.

As for the Clarity, the company has not revealed how much each car costs to make, and it is unclear when, or if, the car will be available for mass-market sales. Takeo has set a target for 2018, but meeting that goal will depend on whether Honda can significantly lower development and assembly costs as well as market reaction to fuel cells.

In the meantime, rival automakers are also using the power of celebrity to drum up enthusiasm.

Former Los Angeles Laker Magic Johnson and Ugly Betty actress America Ferrera are driving GM's fuel cell Equinox. German carmaker BMW has lent out its limited-production gas-hydrogen hybrid vehicle to the likes of Cameron Diaz, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt.

Stephen Ellis, manager of fuel cell marketing for Honda, said he welcomes the challengers. Fuel cells are in their infancy, and as such, any new advancements "are good for everyone," he said.

Water Powered car from Japan

Hmmm, this sounds too good to be true...
Can it be true ? Fingers crossed and watch this space...


We've seen plenty of promises about water-powered cars (among other things), but it looks like Japan's Genepax has now made some real progress on that front, with it recently taking the wraps off its Water Energy System fuel cell prototype. The key to that system, it seems, is its membrane electrode assembly (or MEA), which contains a material that's capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction. Not surprisingly, the company isn't getting much more specific than that, with it only saying that it's adopted a "well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA." Currently, that system costs on the order of ¥2,000,000 (or about $18,700 -- not including the car), but company says that if it can get it into mass production that could be cut to ¥500,000 or less (or just under $5,000). Head on past the break for a video of car in action courtesy of Reuters.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/13/genepax-shows-off-water-powered-fuel-cell-vehicle/

Billionaire oilman backs wind power

Finally the US are getting interested, now that the price of oil is getting to be an issue...

-pete.

(CNN) -- Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is sinking billions of dollars into a new wind farm in Texas. It is likely to become the biggest in the world, producing enough power for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes. CNN's Ali Velshi asked the oil legend why he thinks wind could be the answer to this country's energy problems:

T. Boone Pickens explains his investment in a 4,000-megawatt wind farm to CNN's Ali Velshi.

Ali Velshi: Tell me about the wind. Now, you are buying, for a start, more than 600 wind turbines from General Electric. You're going to put them on this big tract of land in Texas, and you're going to generate a lot of electricity.

What happens to that electricity? Tell me where you think you're going to make your money and how this is going to help the situation in America.

T. Boone Pickens: Well, that's the first step to a 4,000-megawatt wind farm. This is 1,000 megawatts.

We start receiving those turbines in mid 2010. We will have the total 4,000 megawatts finished by the end of 2015. That power will go into a transmission line that will tie into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas system in the state of Texas, and it will be transmitted downstate. Watch why Pickens is willing to spend billions on wind »

Velshi: What's your view of wind power? It's one of several things that we should be looking at in terms of powering our homes, electrical power? We get most of it from coal and natural gas, and some from nuclear. Are you thinking it's one of the formats of power we should be thinking about, or is this going to be bigger than we all thought?

Pickens: The Department of Energy came out with a study in April of '07 that said we could generate 20 percent of our electricity from wind. And the wind power is -- you know, it's clean, it's renewable. It's -- you know, it's everything you want. And it's a stable supply of energy.

It will be located in [the] central part of the United States, which will be the best from a safety standpoint to be located. You have a wind corridor that goes from Pampa, Texas, to the Canadian border. And it has -- the wind, it's unbelievable that we have not done more with wind. Look at Germany and Spain. They have developed their wind way beyond what we have, and they don't have as much wind as we do. It's not unlike the French have done with their nuclear. They're 80 percent power generated off of nuclear, we're 20 percent.

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Velshi: I'm fascinated by wind power. I love going by a field of these turbines. And I think they're fascinating.

You don't happen to think they're attractive, and you're not really putting them on your land. You're going to be using other people's land to put these things on.

Pickens: That's right. And it's very clear, these are my neighbors. And they want them. It generates income for them.

A turbine will generate somewhere around 20,000 [dollars] a year in royalty income. And on a 640-acre tract, you can put five to 10 of these on the tract. And you don't have to have them if you don't want them.

Velshi: And it's quite common that people who maybe have a piece of land, they might be farmers or something like that, this is extra income to them by making a deal with somebody like you who is going put these things up, if they don't mind having them on the land. Do they get the electricity from it or do they just get a royalty check?

Pickens: A royalty check. But look at Sweetwater, Texas. That town was 12,000 people, then went down below 10,000. The wind came in, it's above 12,000 in population now. The local economy is booming.

That can be repeated over and over and over again all the way to the Canadian border. Then you have a solar corridor that goes from Sweetwater, Texas, west to the West coast, and that solar corridor can also be developed.

But we are going to have to do something different in America. You can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil.

Swiss Man Takes Dream of Human Flight to New Heights

Some people go fishing on their day off. Yves Rossy likes to jump out of a small plane with a pair of jet-powered wings and perform figure eights above the Swiss Alps.

Rossy, 48, made his first public flight with his self-made flying contraption in front of the world press Wednesday, after five years of training and many more years of dreaming.

"This flight was absolutely excellent," the former fighter pilot and extreme sports enthusiast said after touching down on an airfield near the eastern shore of Lake Geneva.

Half an hour earlier Rossy had stepped out of the Swiss-built Pilatus Porter aircraft at 7,500 feet (2,300 meters), unfolded the rigid 8-foot (2.5-meter) wings strapped to his back and dropped.

Passing from free fall to a gentle glide, Rossy then triggered four jet turbines and accelerated to 300 kilometers (186 miles) an hour as a crowd on the mountaintop below gasped -- then cheered.

His mother, who was among the spectators, told journalists she felt no fear. "He knows what he's doing," Paule Rossy said of her son, who now flies commercial planes for Swiss airlines.

Steering only with his body, Rossy dived, turned and soared again, flying what appeared to be effortless loops from one side of the Rhone valley to the other. At times he rose 2,600 feet (800 meters) before descending again with a trail of special-effects smoke in his wake.

"It's like a second skin," he later told reporters. "If I turn to the left, I fly left. If I nudge to the right, I go right."

Rossy then performed a stunt he had never before tried.

After one last wave to the crowd the rocket man tipped his wings, flipped onto his back and leveled out again, executing a perfect 360-degree roll that even a bird would find impossible.

"That was to impress the girls," he later admitted.

Wednesday's five-minute flight nearly never happened. Rossy said his engineers worked until the last minute to fix one of the four kerosene-fueled engines that power his flight.

He said he is ready now for a bigger challenge: crossing the English Channel later this year.

The stunt, which will be shown on live television, will test his flying machine to the limit. Rossy said he plans to practice the 35-kilometer (22-mile) trip by flying between two hot-air balloons.

"I still haven't used the full potential," he said.

Rossy told The Associated Press that one day he also hopes to fly through the Grand Canyon.

To do this, he will have to fit his wings with bigger, more powerful jets to allow for greater maneuvering. The German-built model aircraft engines he currently uses already provide 200 pounds (91 kilograms) of thrust -- enough to allow Rossy and his 120-pound (54-kilogram) flying suit to climb through the air.

"Physically, it's absolutely no stress," Rossy said. "It's like being on a motorbike."

But on this ride, even the slightest movement can cause problems. Rossy said he has to focus hard on relaxing in the air, because "if you put tension on your body, you start to swing around."

Should things go wrong -- and Rossy says they have done more times than not -- there's always a yellow handle to jettison the wings and unfold the parachute.

"I've had many 'whoops' moments," he said. "My safety is altitude."

Rossy -- whose sponsors have dubbed him "Fusion Man" -- says his form of human flight will remain the reserve of very few for now. The price and effort involved are simply too enormous, he says.

So far Rossy and sponsors have poured more than 300,000 Swiss francs (US$285,000; EU185,000) and countless hours of labor into building the device. He would not estimate how much his device would cost should it ever be brought to market.

But, he believes similar jet-powered wings will one day be more widely available to experienced parachutists ready for the ultimate flying experience.

That is, if they don't mind missing out on the breathtaking panorama above the Swiss Alps.

"I am so concentrated, I don't really enjoy the view," Rossy said.

'God Particle' Likely To Be Found Soon

Scientist: 'God Particle' Likely To Be Found Soon

By Alexander G. Higgins, Associated Press Writer

LiveScience article - posted: 07 April 2008 ET

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Eds. Note: The subatomic particle that is the focus of this story is sometimes referred to as the "God particle," after the title of Nobel laureate Leon Lederman's lighthearted 1993 popular particle physics book "The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?"

GENEVA (AP) -- The “father” of an elusive subatomic particle said Monday he is almost sure it will be discovered in the next year in a race between powerful research equipment in the United States and Europe.

British physicist Peter Higgs, who more than 40 years ago postulated the existence of the particle in the makeup of the atom, said his visit to a new accelerator in Geneva over the weekend encouraged him that the so-called Higgs boson will soon be seen.

The euro1.3 billion (US$2 billion) Large Hadron Collider, under construction since 2003, is expected to start operating by June at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, which is known as CERN.

It likely will take several months before the hundreds of scientists from all over the world at the laboratory are ready to start smashing together protons to study their composition.

But Higgs said the particle may already have been created at the rival Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, where the Tevatron is currently the world's most powerful particle accelerator.

“The Tevatron has plenty of energy to do it,” said Higgs. “It's just the difficulty of analyzing the data which prevents you from knowing quickly what's hiding in the data.”

The massive new CERN collider, which has been installed in a 27-kilometer (17-mile) circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border, will be more powerful still and will be better able to show what particles are created in the collisions of beams of protons traveling at the speed of light.

The new Geneva collider will recreate the rapidly changing conditions in the universe a split second after the Big Bang. It will be the closest that scientists have yet come to the event that they theorize was the beginning of the universe. They hope the new equipment will enable them to study particles and forces yet unobserved.

But Fermilab still has time to be first if it can show that it has discovered the Higgs boson.

“It's a possibility,” Higgs said. “The race is a very close thing. Fermilab are obviously trying very hard. It could be already in their data and just not found in the analysis yet. That's what they're certainly hoping -- that they will at least get the first indication before LHC gets going.”

Higgs told reporters that he is hoping to receive confirmation of his theory by the time he turns 80 at the end of May next year.

If not, he added “I'll just have to ask my GP to keep me alive a bit longer.”

Higgs predicted the existence of the boson while working at the University of Edinburgh to explain how atoms -- and the objects they make up -- have weight.

Without the particle, the basic physics theory -- the “standard model” -- lacks a crucial element, because it fails to explain how other subatomic particles -- such as quarks and electrons -- have mass.

The Higgs theory is that the bosons create a field through which the other particles pass.

The particles that encounter difficulty going through the field as though they are passing through molasses pick up more inertia, and mass. Those that pass through more easily are lighter.

Higgs said he would be “very, very puzzled” if the particle is never found because he cannot image what else could explain how particles get mass.

Higgs said initial reaction to his ideas in the early 1960s was skeptical.

“My colleagues thought I was a bit of an idiot,” he said, noting that his initial paper explaining how his theory worked was rejected by an editor at CERN.

He said a colleague spent the summer at CERN right after he did his work on the theory.

“He came back and said, 'At CERN they didn't see that what you were talking about had much to do with particle physics.'

“I then added on some additional paragraphs and sent it off across the Atlantic to Physical Review Letters, who accepted it. The mention of what became known as the Higgs boson was part of the extra which was added on.”

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080407-ap-higgs-boson.html