Scientists have created ultra-light and ultra-heavy forms of the element hydrogen, and have investigated their chemical properties.

Donald Fleming, a chemist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and his colleagues generated two artificial analogues of hydrogen: one with a mass a little over one-tenth that of ordinary hydrogen, and one four times heavier than hydrogen. These pseudo-hydrogens both contain short-lived subatomic particles called muons -- super-heavy versions of the electron.

The researchers tested the behaviour of these new atoms in a chemical reaction called a hydrogen exchange, in which a lone hydrogen atom plucks another from a two-atom hydrogen molecule -- just about the simplest chemical reaction conceivable. In a paper in Science, they report that both the weedy and the bloated hydrogen atoms behave just as quantum theory predicts they should -- which is itself surprising.

The experiment is a "tour de force", says Paul Percival, a muonium chemist at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada.

"I would never attempt such a difficult task myself," he says, "and when I first saw the proposal I was very doubtful that anything of value could be gained from the Herculean effort. Don Fleming proved me wrong. I doubt if anyone else could have achieved these results."

A normal hydrogen atom contains a single negatively charged electron orbiting a nucleus made of a single positively charged proton. About 0.015% of natural hydrogen consists of the heavy isotope deuterium, in which the nucleus contains a proton and an electrically neutral neutron, and which has a mass twice that of normal hydrogen. And there is a third isotope with a proton and two neutrons: tritium, three times as massive as hydrogen, which is produced in trace quantities by cosmic rays interacting with the atmosphere, but is too dangerously radioactive for use in such experiments.

The chemical behaviour of atoms depends on the number of electrons they have rather than their masses, so the three hydrogen isotopes are chemically almost identical. But the greater mass of the heavy isotopes means that they vibrate at different frequencies, and quantum theory suggests that this will produce a small difference in the rates of their chemical reactions.

To rigorously test that theory, isotopes of hydrogen are needed with greater differences between their masses. Fleming and his colleagues created some, using muons produced by collisions in the TRIUMF particle accelerator in Vancouver.

Muons have many properties similar to electrons, but are more massive. "A muon is an overgrown electron -- an electron on steroids -- with a mass about 200 times that of an electron," says Richard Zare, a physical chemist at Stanford University in California. "But unlike the free electron, the free muon falls apart, with a mean lifetime of about 2.2 microseconds." This meant that the researchers had to work fast to study their pseudo-hydrogen.

To make the ultra-light isotope, they swapped the proton with a positively charged muon, which has just 11% of the mass of a proton. And to make ultra-heavy hydrogen, they replaced one of the electrons in a helium atom with a negative muon.

Helium has two electrons, two protons and two neutrons. But because it is more massive than an electron, the negative muon orbits the nucleus much more closely, masking the positive charge of one of the protons. In effect, the atom becomes a hydrogen-like composite: a 'nucleus' made of the existing two-proton, two-neutron nucleus and the muon, orbited by the remaining electron. It has a mass of a little over four times that of hydrogen.

Fleming and colleagues found that the reaction rates for hydrogen exchange involving these analogues that were calculated from quantum theory were close to those measured experimentally. "This gives confidence in similar theoretical methods applied to more complex systems," says Fleming.

The close match between experiment and theory wasn't necessarily to be expected, because quantum calculations use a simplification called the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, which assumes that the electrons adapt their trajectories instantly to any movement of the nuclei. This is generally true for electrons, which are nearly 2,000 times lighter than protons. But it wasn't obvious that it would hold for muons, which have a tenth of the proton's mass.

"It surprises me at first blush that the theoretical treatments hold up so well," says Zare. "The Born-Oppenheimer approximation is based on the small ratio of the mass of the electron to the mass of the nucleus. Yet suddenly the mass of the electron is increased two-hundred-fold and all seems to be well."

Because the muon has such a short lifetime, extending such studies to more chemically complex systems is very challenging. But Fleming and his colleagues propose now to look at the 'hydrogen' exchange reaction between the super-heavy 'hydrogen' and methane (CH4).

Source: ScientificAmerican

Source: wlcentral.org

A strain of bacteria found in soil is being studied for its ability to convert waste from a promising alternative fuel into several useful materials, including another alternative fuel.

A graduate student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville is developing biological tools to make products from crude glycerol -- a waste material from the production of biodiesel. The research is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

Disposing of glycerol has been a problem for the biodiesel industry, according to Keerthi Venkataramanan, a student in UAHuntsville's biotechnology Ph.D. program. "Many companies have had problems disposing of it. The glycerol you get as a byproduct isn't pure, so it can't be used in cosmetics or animal feeds. And purifying it costs three times as much as the glycerol is worth."

The volume of glycerol produced is also daunting: About 100,000 gallons of glycerol is produced with every million gallons of biodiesel manufactured from animal fats or vegetable oils. (In 2009 more than 500 million gallons of biodiesel were produced in the U.S. while more than 2.75 billion gallons were produced in Europe.)

Two major American companies "were made to close biodiesel plants in Europe because they couldn't dispose of their crude glycerol," Venkataramanan said. He is working with the Clostidium pasteurianum bacteria, which "eats" glycerol and produces several potentially useful byproducts.

"This strain is found deep in the soil," he said. "It was originally studied for its ability to 'fix' nitrogen from the air."

The bacteria uses glycerol as a carbohydrate source. From that they produce three alcohol byproducts -- butanol, propanediol and ethanol -- plus acetic acid and butyric acid. Butanol is a particularly interesting byproduct.

"Butanol is a big alcohol molecule, twice as big as ethanol," Venkataramanan said. "You can use it as an industrial solvent and it can be used in cars, replacing gasoline with no modifications. It doesn't have some of the problems you have with ethanol, such as rapid evaporation. And ethanol is a two-carbon molecule, but butanol is a four-carbon molecule so its energy value is much higher. In fact, there are plans to use it for jet fuel.

"You can also get butanol from crude oil, but this biological process is less polluting."

In their present form, the bacteria convert about 30 to 35 percent of their gylcerol meals into butanol and another 25 to 30 percent into a chemical used to make plastics.

Venkataramanan is looking at different strategies to improve that yield. He is also studying the bacteria's genes to see if a more productive strain can be bioengineered.

Other groups in the U.S. and abroad are studying a variety of fungi, bacteria and algae for glycerol conversion, but Venkataramanan says his strain has several advantages. Some of the bacteria being studied are dangerous pathogens, while Clostidium pasteurianum "is a completely non-pathogenic strain," he said. "An accidental release is not a big deal. You get it from the soil, so if you spill any you're putting it back in the soil."

Source: ScienceDaily

Agave, currently known for its use in the production of alcoholic beverages and fibers, thrives in semi-arid regions where it is less likely to conflict with food and feed production. Agave is a unique feedstock because of its high water use efficiency and ability to survive without water between rainfalls. An article in the current issue of Global Change Biology Bioenergy evaluates the potential of Agave as a sustainable biofuel feedstock.

Scientists found that in 14 independent studies, the yields of two Agave species greatly exceeded the yields of other biofuel feedstocks, such as corn, soybean, sorghum, and wheat. Additionally, even more productive Agave species that have not yet been evaluated exist.

According to bioenergy analyst, Sarah Davis, "We need bioenergy crops that have a low risk of unintended land use change. Biomass from Agave can be harvested as a co-product of tequila production without additional land demands. Also, abandoned Agave plantations in Mexico and Africa that previously supported the natural fiber market could be reclaimed as bioenergy cropland. More research on Agave species is warranted to determine the tolerance ranges of the highest yielding varieties that would be most viable for bioenergy production in semi-arid regions of the world."

Agave is not only an exciting new bioenergy crop, but its economically and environmentally sustainable production could prove to successfully stimulate economies in Africa, Australia, and Mexico, if political and legislative challenges are overcome.

Source: ScienceDaily

The city of tomorrow takes to the skies in an incredible new concept from Beijing-based MAD Architects. Although its spires may look menacing, the aptly named Superstar is a completely self-sustaining city that is capable of producing all of its own power and food while recycling all of its waste. Conceived as a future-forward update to the contemporary Chinatown, the Superstar will travel the globe, supplying its host cities with energy, commerce, and cultural activities.

Looking suspiciously like a Cylon Base Star from Battlestar Galactica, the utopian Superstar is “a fusion of technology and nature, future and humanity”. MAD Architects conceived of the sparkling modern superstructure as an update to the faded facades and cluttered kitsch of Chinatowns around the globe:

“Superstar: A Mobile China Town is MAD’s response to the redundant and increasingly out-of-date nature of the contemporary Chinatown. Rather than a sloppy patchwork of poor construction and nostalgia, the superstar is a fully integrated, coherent, and above all modern upgrade of the 20th century Chinatown model.”

As a completely self-sustaining city, the Superstar will be capable of housing 15,000 people. It will grow its own food, recycle all of its waste, and produce its own power, even feeding some energy back into its host city’s grid.

The Superstar will also be capable of traveling around the globe, sharing Chinese culture with the cities in which it docks. Inside, one can experience fine Chinese cuisine, purchase quality Chinese goods, and participate in cultural events and celebrations. It will also offer health resorts, sports facilities, drinking-water lakes, and even a digital cemetery to remember those who have passed. According to MAD’s website, the first destination of the super star will be on the outskirts of Rome, where it will provide “an unexpected, ever-changing future imbedded in the Eternal Past”.

While it is questionable whether or not the full-scale Superstar will ever go on tour, visitors and residences in and around Venice are invited to visit a model at the 11th Annual Venice Bienalle.

Source: Inhabitat

Shanghai, the most populated city in China, is sinking at an average rate of 2-4 cm per year. Although that may not sound like much, the downward shift can cause the collapse of buildings and underground tunnels, endangering lives and costing money. Recently, the National Natural Science Foundation of China has granted funding to a Nottingham University researcher to develop a computer program to identify which buildings and other structures are moving the most and are at greatest risk of collapse.

Andrew Sowter, a mathematician and scientist at the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, (UNNC) is developing software that analyzes satellite images of Shanghai over the past several years, which shows how much the land has moved across the coastal city. The program can accurately measure the land’s movement down to the millimeter. Along with researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai, Sowter is also analyzing data from the ground to confirm the satellite data.

While Shanghai is being used as a case study, several other cities in China are also sinking and could benefit from the research. Many of the sinking cities are coastal cities, such as Ningbo, which is currently constructing an underground rail system. Like Shanghai, Ningbo has a rapidly growing population and is built on water-logged land. Rapid urban development has also required groundwater to be pumped into the cities, contributing to the sinking.

In 2003, subsidence was blamed for the collapse of an eight-storey building in Shanghai’s inner-city Bund region, which is known for its iconic commercial real estate.

The pumping of groundwater to cater for a massive, growing population has been a significant contributor to subsidence. The problem has been exacerbated by the country’s decades-long building boom amid rapid urbanisation, said Sowter.

Sowter is working in collaboration with Shanghai’s Tongji University, which is gathering ground information to confirm the results of data gathered from space.

’We are advancing and refining existing computer programs so that we can identify risks with greater confidence of the accuracy of the results. Rather than just measuring the problem, we are also improving the models to map and identify priority areas,’ he said.

Sowter said that the technology he is developing can be applied to other risks associated with land, such as earthquake zones, high-risk flood areas, land deformation from mining, and glacier movements. It can, for example, help authorities prevent landslides by detecting where land is starting to move at the stage when changes are slight.

Source: PhysOrg - TheEngineer

According to AFP an american federal judge ruled on Friday that Twitter must provide information about people in contact with WikiLeaks, as ordered by the Obama Administration.

The  Federal Judge in East Virginia, Theresa Carroll Buchanan refused to cancel the administration's order on Friday, which she endorsed in December, to provide information about the Twitter accounts of the Icelandic Parliament member, Birgitta Jonsdottir, of an American computer scientist, Jacob Appelbaum, and Rop Gonggrijp, a Dutch employee of WikiLeaks.

She does not consider founded their fear that "the administration develops a chart of contacts that violates the freedom of expression" guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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Potrivit AFP, un judecător federal american a decis vineri, că Twitter trebuie să furnizeze informatii despre persoanele aflate în contact cu Wikileaks, dupa cum a fost ordonat de către administratia Obama.

Judecătorul federal din Virginia de Est, Theresa Carroll Buchanan a refuzat vineri să anuleze ordinul administratiei, aprobata în luna decembrie, ca Twitter să furnizeze informaţii despre conturile unui membru al Parlamentului islandez, Birgitta Jonsdottir, ale unui om de stiintă american specialist in informatica, Jacob Appelbaum, si Rop Gonggrijp, un colaborator olandez al Wikileaks.

Ea nu consideră fondata frica lor că "administratia dezvoltă o diagramă de contacte care încalcă libertatea de exprimare", garantata de Primul Amendament la Constitutiei SUA.

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Ford Turani for Turismo Associati .it

InterHome, a model for a home developed by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire, incorporates modular custom design units and draws on standard home automation systems which have been adapted so that the house ‘learns’ and ‘adapts’ to its users’ lifestyles.

It will be unveiled at the finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup which will be held in Cairo from 3-7 July. The prototype of the home, which has been developed in a doll’s house, integrates embedded devices with the industry standard X10, so that it provides convenience and security to the home owner and also enables them to reduce energy and contribute to reducing greenhouse and carbon emissions.

InterHome incorporates an intuitive touch screen user control panel that also allows the house to be monitored and controlled using web browsers, windows mobile and any SMS-capable mobile phone.

“InterHome improves on its competitors by being modular, adaptable and able to ‘learn’ our routines,” said Johann Siau, Senior Lecturer at the University’s School of Electronic, Communication & Electrical Engineering. “The technology enables the system to learn rapidly when we need the lights on or whether we are at home or at work and how the house needs to be at certain times of the day. If we forget to lock the front door or turn off the lights, it can text us and our response can reprogramme the system.”

Through this approach, InterHome can eradicate wasted energy within UK homes and make a difference to CO2 emission statistics when installed in enough houses. The prototype is now ready to be adopted by industry and the team led by Johann Siau, has been approached by several industry companies and are in discussion with the Building Research Establishment. The other members of the team are Ellis Percival and Carol Chen.

This development in 'home-intelligence' will continue to update our systems in the future. Some day every home in the world could have a centralized computer that monitors and regulates all the data from in and around the house. By inputting the user's personal preferences and patterns, the software will be able to emerge & evolve. By doing this, the software will be able to learn from your needs and habits to reach peak efficiency for every individual. Hereby reducing energy waste, while maximizing comfort and efficiency.

Source: Herts

Please behold, another innovative design to join the team of promising Architecture. The Envision Green Hotel designed by Richard Moreta Architecture, with interiors by Miami-based MRA Design for Hospitality Design’s Radical Innovation.

Part wind tower, part urban eco-resort, and all egg, this “lobular” structure is touted as one of the most recognizable landmarks for the city in which it would ultimately be…laid.

The Envision Green Hotel combines wind technology and resort architecture for a one-of-a-kind eco-friendly design. Shaped like a giant egg, it is currently just a concept at the moment. Submitted for Hospitality Design’s Radical Innovation competition, you never know if it’ll become more though.

Designed by Richard Moreta Architecture, the Envision Green Hotel features interiors by Miami-based MRA Design. Powered by a photovoltaic exterior sheathing, the interior is rife with fresh gardens. On the whole, this building is like a living organism.

Operating like a living organism, the Envision literally breathes through its wind and atmospheric conversion systems, which allow natural air into the interior of the building without mechanical intervention. Photovoltaic exterior sheathing provides the building’s energy, while indoor gardens at various levels of the structure act as upward extensions of the earth, creating mini-microclimates that filter the air and act as added insulation. Recycled pools of water around the structure serve as catch basins, water reservoirs, fire barriers, and indispensable decorative aquatic features. Power from the wind turbine heats the boiler and creates steam for the chiller water plant beneath the structure to cool and heat the hotel.

Within the hotel, rooms would be designed on a 4 foot multiple to conform to standard-sized materials and reduce construction waste. A high-efficiency LED system would illuminate the interiors, and non-toxic, non-off-gassing finishes would be employed. Besides the typical water-efficient fixtures, this eco resort would use recovered rainwater for flushing and irrigation. The rooms would also include a mood pad control unit that would allow each guest to control the lighting and choose groovy digital images that would reflect behind glass walls and ceilings.

To help this giant eco-egg blend even more subtly into the surrounding urban context, exterior LED curtain walls would change color throughout the night to indicate the progression of time, making the Envision glow in the night like a giant, moody Fabergé egg.

Source: Inhabitat

"Cornell Dots" -- brightly glowing nanoparticles -- may soon be used to light up cancer cells to aid in diagnosing and treating cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first clinical trial in humans of the new technology. It is the first time the FDA has approved using an inorganic material in the same fashion as a drug in humans.

"The FDA approval finally puts a federal approval stamp on all the assumptions we have been working under for years. This is really, really nice," said Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, who has devoted eight years of research to developing the nanoparticles. "Cancer is a terrible disease, and my family has a long history of it. I, thus, have a particular personal motivation to work in this area."

The trial with five melanoma patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City will seek to verify that the dots, also known as C dots, are safe and effective in humans, and to provide data to guide future applications. "This is the first product of its kind. We want to make sure it does what we expect it to do," said Michelle Bradbury, M.D., radiologist at MSKCC and assistant professor of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical College.

C dots are silica spheres less than 8 nanometers in diameter that enclose several dye molecules. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, about the length of three atoms in a row.) The silica shell, essentially glass, is chemically inert and small enough to pass through the body and out in the urine. For clinical applications, the dots are coated with polyethylene glycol so the body will not recognize them as foreign substances.

To make the dots stick to tumor cells, organic molecules that bind to tumor surfaces or even specific locations within tumors can be attached to the shell. When exposed to near-infrared light, the dots fluoresce much brighter than unencapsulated dye to serve as a beacon to identify the target cells. The technology, the researchers say, can show the extent of a tumor's blood vessels, cell death, treatment response and invasive or metastatic spread to lymph nodes and distant organs. The safety and ability to be cleared from the body by the kidneys has been confirmed by studies in mice at MSKCC, reported in the January 2009 issue of the journal Nano Letters (Vol. 9 No. 1).
For the human trials, the dots will be labeled with radioactive iodine, which makes them visible in PET scans to show how many dots are taken up by tumors and where else in the body they go and for how long.

"We do expect it to go to other organs," Bradbury said. "We get numbers, and from that curve derive how much dose each organ gets. And we need to find out how fast it passes through. Are they cleared from the kidney at the same rate as in mice?

One of many advantages of C dots, Bradbury noted, is that they remain in the body long enough for surgery to be completed. "Surgeons love optical," she said. "They don't need the radioactivity, but [our study] confirms what the optical signal is. As you learn that, eventually you no longer need the radioactivity."

On the other hand, she added, the dots also may serve as a carrier to deliver radioactivity or drugs to tumors. "This is step one to jump-start a process we think will do multiple things with one platform," she said.

First-generation Cornell dots were developed in 2005 by Hooisweng Ow, then a graduate student working with Wiesner. Wiesner, Ow and Kenneth Wang '77 have co-founded the company Hybrid Silica Technologies to commercialize the invention. The dots, Wiesner said, also have possible applications in displays, optical computing, sensors and such microarrays as DNA chips.

Source: Nanowerk News