Yes, ICantSeeYou

Hand vs. Liquid Nitrogen and the Leidenfrost Effect

I stick my hand (momentarily) directly into liquid nitrogen but don't suffer any injuries due to the Leidenfrost effect.

The Leidenfrost effect is the formation of a gas barrier between a hot surface and a boiling liquid if the temperature difference is great enough. This gas barrier greatly slows the heat transfer between the two and allows the liquid to last longer and consequently the hot surface to remain hot longer. This effect can be seen in a frying pan as it's being heated. At first the water quickly boils as it's dropped in but at a hot enough temperature the Leidenfrost effect takes over and makes the water skate around the surface lasting a very long time.

Liquid nitrogen vs. a room temperature object will also exhibit the effect preventing it from instantly freezing the object... such as my hand.

Cold Fusion - real science, real hope and, quite possibly, a real source of energy.

CBS TV's "60 Minutes" Turns Up the Heat
by Steven B. Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
April 16, 2009

[This article is Copyleft 2009 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

Low-energy nuclear reactions, historically known as "cold fusion," will get their 12 minutes of fame on CBS TV's "60 Minutes" Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in a program titled "Cold Fusion Is Hot Again."

This is the second TV program on “cold fusion” to run within the last few weeks. “Brink,” a show on Discovery’s Science Channel, ran an episode called “Cold Fusion Cracked?” that aired March 27.

According to “Brink” guest Dwight Williams - introduced as a senior science adviser with the U.S. Department of Energy - there might, in fact, be something real about all of this - that is, real science, real hope and, quite possibly, a real source of energy.

 

Jean Paul Biberian, a French researcher who has been working on LENR for 20 years, was quoted many years ago saying, "It's history in the making, what we are living through here."

The battle for credibility and redemption for the field has been long and hard-fought. German physicist Max Planck predicted the nature of such scientific revolutions.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light," Planck wrote, "but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Almost poetically, John Maddox, the editor of Nature magazine and prominent opinion leader in the academic battle to dismiss "cold fusion" outright, died Sunday. He was widely quoted for his comment, "Broadly speaking, it’s dead, and it'll remain dead for a long, long time," referring to "cold fusion."

 

Three weeks ago, researchers from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) Pacific made headlines with unambiguous evidence of nuclear particle emissions from their LENR experiments. The group has been working, mostly quietly, on LENR for 20 years.

 

Representatives from a "cold fusion" laboratory, Energetics Technologies LLC of Califon, N.J., tipped CBS off a year ago that "cold fusion" research was still alive. Rick Kramer told New Energy Times that he handles "media management" for Energetics.

CBS has kept a tight lid on the exact nature and angle of the story it will run, though it is expected to investigate the most controversial aspect of "cold fusion," excess heat.

The "cold fusion" discovery is attributed to electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, when they were at the University of Utah. They and university administrators Chase Peterson and Jim Brophy announced the discovery in a press conference March 23, 1989.

Fleischmann and Pons had noticed more heat being produced from their electrochemical cell than could be explained by any known chemical process. The amount of energy, in the form of heat, was in the range of nuclear energy, but none of the typical harmful side effects of conventional nuclear energy was apparent.

CBS approached three U.S. government agencies that are doing LENR research: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; the Naval Research Laboratory; and the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, in San Diego.

New Energy Times has learned that representatives from all three agencies spoke with CBS but turned down CBS' request to go on camera.

Frank Gordon, with SPAWAR, told New Energy Times that his groupprefers to maintain a lower profile and stick to the peer-reviewed journals and science conferences.

New Energy Times learned that SRI International permitted electrochemist Michael McKubre, director of the Energy Research Center at SRI International, in Menlo Park, Calif., to appear on camera.

McKubre and Energetics Technologies' founder Irving Dardik, inventor of a proprietary triggering waveform, completed a series of replications several years ago that enhances the LENR excess-heat effect.

Irving Dardik, chief visionary officer of Energetics Technologies LLC Photo: S.B. Krivit

Energetics has produced an excellent animation to depict much of what LENR researchers understand about the loading of deuterium into a palladium lattice. However, the animation's mention of fusion as the explanatory process and energy release of exactly 24 MeV is highly speculative.

Energetics Technologies Video Animation

Alternatively, researchers Allan Widom and Lewis Larsen speculate that a weak interaction process rather than a fusion process is responsible for the generation of excess heat, heavy element transmutation and the production of helium and neutrons seen in LENR research.

Energetics’ experiments, funded in part by DARPA, produced 10 percent to 300 percent more energy than they consumed in 12 of 23 experiments. Their work was published last year in the peer-reviewed American Chemical Society "Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook," by Oxford University Press.

CBS asked Robert Duncan, vice chancellor for research at the University of Missouri and an expert in low-temperature physics, to look into the LENR research. Duncan was referred to CBS by Allen Goldman, the head of the condensed matter physics group at the American Physical Society. Duncan comes with strong credentials: a fellow and life member of the American Physical Society, the chair of the Instrumentation and Measurement Topical Group for the American Physical Society in 2002, the Gordon and Betty Moore Distinguished Scholar at Caltech in 2004 and 2005 and more.

Caltech has earned a place in "cold fusion" history as the breeding ground of contempt for the discovery. Its theoretical physicist Steven E. Koonin was quick to denounce Fleischmann and Pons as incompetent and delusional. Koonin is the chief scientist for BP and recently was appointed the U.S. Department of Energy undersecretary for the Office of Science.

 

Duncan spent several weeks (on his own time) investigating LENR in October. CBS paid his travel expenses to meet with researchers at Energetics' laboratory in Omer, Israel, and observe a working LENR excess-heat experiment. Duncan emphasized to New Energy Times his objectivity of and independence from the research.

"‘60 Minutes’ asked the American Physical Society for a reference for someone like myself who’s done very careful measurements in related fields but not specifically in LENR," Duncan said. "I've never been involved in any 'cold fusion' research in the past, nor am I involved in any now."

Duncan also met with researchers at NRL in Washington, D.C., and the SPAWAR researchers when they were in Salt Lake City at the American Chemical Society meeting in March.

He was skeptical of the LENR excess heat before his investigation. New Energy Times spoke with Duncan today.

"I had not studied ‘cold fusion’ before, so I had no idea that these excess-heat results were real," Duncan said. "I had heard the controversy back in 1989, and from that, I was suspect of the entire field.

"Sam Hornblower of CBS asked me to read some papers and talk to some of the scientists, and it quickly became clear to me that it was a very interesting result. After I saw some of the hardware, I had a chance to ask about the experimental configurations and dig in deeper, and now I am convinced that this excess-heat effect is real."

Duncan was particularly impressed with the SPAWAR research because of its clear evidence for nuclear reactions.

"I had a chance to see their results in detail in Salt Lake City during the American Chemical Society meeting, and I was very impressed," he said. "The CR-39 particle tracks look as though they show much of what is expected from nuclear reactions inside these materials, so I think this is a very exciting development."

Richard Garwin, a prominent U.S. physicist, was interviewed for the "60 Minutes" piece and was asked about his views on the LENR excess heat, though Garwin did not visit the Omer laboratory. He had visited the SRI laboratory many years ago and secretly reported to the Pentagon that SRI had correctly measured significant levels of LENR excess heat.

"The uncertainty in excess power measurement is about 50 milliwatts," Garwin wrote, "but the excess power appears to be on the order of 500 milliwatts or even 1 watt peak...we note that a chemical reaction involving the palladium at perhaps 1.5 eV per atom would correspond to about 3.5 kJ of heat; this is to be compared with the 3 Mj [One thousand times greater] of 'excess heat' observed, so such an excess could not possibly be of chemical origin."

Privately, however, Garwin has yet to recognize the validity of LENR excess heat.

Sources told New Energy Times that CBS went to Frascati, Italy, to get footage from the ENEA Frascati laboratory, the Italian Agency for New Energy. Of the 300 researchers at ENEA Frascati, two-thirds perform "hot" fusion research.

"Report 41" Italian "Cold Fusion" Documentary (Courtesy RAI-TV Italy) But some of the Frascati researchers work, or have worked, on LENR, too. Antonella De Ninno, a biophysicist who spoke at the 3rd International New Energy Technology Symposium at the ACS National Meeting March 22-27, 2009, was part of a team that performed seminal research on temporally correlated heat and helium-4 production from LENR experiments. De Ninno was also asked by ACS to speak about the research at the March 23, 2009, news conference. (Video Segment 1) (Video Segment 2) Although De Ninno is no longer funded to perform LENR research in the highly competitive field, another researcher, Vittorio Violante, who is a collaborator with SRI International and Energetics Technologies, has been able to continue LENR research at ENEA Frascati on limited funding. An Italian news story states that Violante has received funding form the U.S. Department of Energy, though New Energy Times does not have independent confirmation of this. Sources also told New Energy Times that CBS went to the United Kingdom to get footage of cold fusion co-discoverer Martin Fleischmann, as well. The other discoverer, B. Stanley Pons, has remained out of the spotlight. Many mysteries about LENR research remain. One mystery about the "60 Minutes" program - which may or may not be solved Sunday - is the effect on the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. How have they responded to this new area of research and potential technology? Another mystery is the future of the hot-fusion programs. In France, the world's largest magnetic doughnut will be built soon. Only the International Space Station has exceeded the cost of the hot-fusion doughnut as the world's most expensive science project, at least $20 billion spent so far with another $20 billion committed. In California, the National Ignition Facility recently announced progress with its inertial confinement fusion developments. Its experiment will use the world's most powerful array of lasers. NIF's primary mission is for nuclear weapons, but it's been sold to the American public as a possible future energy source. In 2006, a reporter asked Craig Smith, a senior scientist with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, about the progress of NIF as an energy source. Smith evaded the question. "My understanding is that, by the year 2010 or so," he said, "there will be some experimental applications that will give us important answers concerning the viability of inertial confinement fusion as an energy source." At the International Conference on Emerging Nuclear Energy Sciences in 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey, Edward Moses, associate director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, answered questions from scientists about the feasibility of NIF as an energy source. Craig Smith - Photo: Amy Tierney One member of the audience asked Moses how much energy NIF would create, but Moses initially evaded the question. He first explained how much energy the device would consume. When the questioner asked him directly to state how much net energy would be generated. Moses said that was not the point. "NIF should be looked at as an exploration to learn more about fusion, not as an energy-producing experiment," he said. Moses said that overall efficiency "from the wall plug" to release of energy from the laser reaction was expected to be only 20 percent of the input power, in the foreseeable future. On March 10, NIF broke a world record for a laser fusion facility as its array consumed 1.1 million joules of electricity, most likely generated by a coal-fired or a nuclear fission plant somewhere in the distance. "This is an incredible milestone on our journey to ignition," Moses said. "It was a great night that was the culmination of 15 years of incredible work by the entire NIF team. We are well on our way to achieving what we set out to do: controlled, sustained nuclear fusion and energy gain." Jim Bono, director of public affairs for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, confirmed to New Energy Times today that NIF gets its energy from the commercial power grid. Thermonuclear fusion: 58 years, $40 billion, 80 percent energy loss. Low-energy nuclear reactions: 20 years, a few million dollars, 10 percent to 300 percent energy gain, production of a few watts.

First Commercially Cloned Dog Delivered to Florida Family

BioArts International announced today that they have delivered the world’s first commercially cloned dog, a 10-week old Labrador named Lancey, to Florida residents Edgar and Nina Otto.

BioArts International announced today that they have delivered the world's first commercially cloned dog, a 10-week old Labrador named Lancey, to Florida residents Edgar and Nina Otto.

Lancey, the first commercially cloned dog, was delivered to his family on Monday.

"We can't believe this day is finally here," said Nina Otto, "We are so happy to have little Lancey in our family. His predecessor was a very special dog. We are thrilled beyond words!"

Lancey was hand delivered to the Ottos on Monday, January 26th by BioArts Chairman Lou Hawthorne. "This is a very special milestone for our company – and great fun for me too," said Hawthorne, who delivered Lancey personally.

We can't believe this day is finally here

We are so happy to have little Lancey in our family. His predecessor was a very special dog. We are thrilled beyond words!

This is a very special milestone for our company – and great fun for me too

Sir Lancelot was the most human of any dog we’ve ever had

He was a prince among dogs.

One minute with Lancey and you know he's special. He's both extremely aware and very sweet. The Ottos are the first of six current clients to receive their clone. The next 6 months will be very exciting both for our clients and our staff.

The Ottos were one of five families to bid and win an auction held by BioArts International in July for a chance to clone their family dog. Lancey's genetic donor, Sir Lancelot, died in January, 2008, and the Ottos had his DNA stored. By October, samples from the original dog were on their way to the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in Seoul, South Korea, which provides cloning services to BioArts.

Lancey was born on November 18, 2008, and brought to the U.S. on January 25, 2009 after being weaned from his surrogate mother.

The Ottos, longtime residents of Boca Raton, have had many beloved dogs over the years, but Lancey's genetic donor was unique. "Sir Lancelot was the most human of any dog we’ve ever had," said Otto. "He was a prince among dogs."

Said Hawthorne, "One minute with Lancey and you know he's special. He's both extremely aware and very sweet. The Ottos are the first of six current clients to receive their clone. The next 6 months will be very exciting both for our clients and our staff."

Additional information about the Best Friends Again program and dog cloning is available at www.bestfriendsagain.com. More information about BioArts is available at www.bioarts.com.

BioArts International is a biotech company focused on unique, untapped markets in the global companion animal, stem cell and human genomics industries. The Best Friends Again program is a collaboration between BioArts and the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, home to the best and most experienced dog cloning team in the world.

BioArts has been granted the sole, worldwide license for the cloning of dogs, cats and endangered species. The license was granted by Start Licensing, Inc. and applies to the somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) cloning patents developed at the Roslin Institute for the cloning of Dolly the sheep.

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

'Major discovery' from MIT primed to unleash solar revolution

Scientists mimic essence of plants' energy storage system

Anne Trafton, News Office
July 31, 2008

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Daniel Nocera describes new process for storing solar energy
View video post on MIT TechTV

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.

IMAGES

Photo / Donna Coveney

Daniel G. Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT, has developed a simple method to split water molecules and produce oxygen gas, a discovery that paves the way for large-scale use of solar power. Enlarge image

Photo / MIT News Office

MIT researchers have developed a new catalyst, consisting of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode. When the catalyst is placed in water and electricity runs through the electrode, oxygen gas is produced. When another catalyst is used to produce hydrogen gas, the oxygen and hydrogen can be combined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power a house or an electric car, day or night. Enlarge image

Graphic / Patrick Gillooly, MIT

With Daniel Nocera's and Matthew Kanan's new catalyst, homeowners could use their solar panels during the day to power their home, while also using the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for storage. At night, the stored hydrogen and oxygen could be recombined using a fuel cell to generate power while the solar panels are inactive. E

'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.

New Research Indicates Global Cooling to Begin This Year - Al Gore Investing in Jackets

New Research Indicates Climate Similar to the 1800s Within the Next 15 years: First Stage of Global Cooling Will Begin during 2008-2009

New research findings released in the peer reviewed book "Global Warming -- Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found," links seven different types of recurring gravitational cycles as the cause for all 2200 global warming events during the past half million years, including the earth's current warming cycle. It also links the cycles to a natural 50 percent increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the 10,000 year period leading up to the peak of all recurring 116,000 year mega global warming cycles. Meteorologist and climate researcher David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations http://www.globalweathercycles.com, says the gravitational cycles act like a magnet by pulling the atmosphere's high pressure systems northward or southward by as much as 3 or 4 degrees of latitude from their normal seasonal positions. As the current gravitational cycle declines, global temperatures will begin cooling during 2008-09 with dramatic global cooling by 2023.

Global Warming -- Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found

Ocala, FL (PRWEB) July 8, 2008 - New findings released in the peer reviewed book "Global Warming -- Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found", meteorologist and climate researcher David Dilley utilizes nearly a half million years of data linking long term gravitational cycles of the moon as the cause for the present global warming, rises in carbon dioxide levels, and for 2200 global warming cycles during the past half million years.

Mr. Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations has found seven different types of recurring gravitational cycles ranging from the very warm 460,000 year cycle down to a 230 year recurring global warming cycle. All of the gravitational cycles coincide nearly 100 percent with 2200 global warming events during the past half million years. This includes the earth's current warming cycle which began around the year 1900, and the first stage of global cooling that will begin during 2008 and 2009.

The gravitational cycles are called the Primary Forcing Mechanism for Climate (PFM), and act like a magnet by pulling the atmosphere's high pressure systems northward or southward by as much as 3 or 4 degrees of latitude from their normal seasonal positions, and thus causing long-term shifts in the location of atmospheric high pressure systems.

The shifts of nearly 3 degrees of latitude, or approximately 290 kilometers (180 miles) results in an overall change in the atmospheric circulation in such a manner to cause the climate to migrate northward during global warming cycles and allow some melting of high latitude snow and ice packs, and a rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through a very complex natural feedback system.

This natural feedback allows carbon dioxide which is being stored and trapped in high latitude vegetation, soils, tundra and colder oceans for up to several hundred thousand years, to be released naturally back into the atmosphere during global warming events.

The natural climate shifts and associated natural rises in carbon dioxide occur approximately every 230 years as a recurring PFM gravitational cycle reaches its peak. Stronger global warmings occur with more powerful gravitational cycles every 920 years and 5000 years, with the greatest increase in global temperatures and carbon dioxide levels occurring during mega PFM gravitational cycles every 116,000 and 460,000 years.

Every 116,000 years, all but one of the seven different types of PFM gravitational cycles peak at the same time, with these simultaneous peaks causing a major shift in the earth's climate. These 116,000 year mega global warmings cycles have occurred four times during the past 360,000 years, all of which experienced a major rise in temperatures. The temperature rises were then followed by a natural rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels of about 50 percent during the 10,000 year period leading up to the peak of the cycle. This same scenario is occurring during the current 116,000 year PFM global warming cycle which is now peaking and also experiencing a carbon dioxide increase near 50 percent.

Every 460,000 years all seven PFM gravitational cycles peak at the same time. This has happened only twice during the past half million years. The first occurrence was 460,000 years ago, with this event causing major long term global warming with portions of the Antarctic becoming nearly void of ice. The next cycle is now occurring 460,000 years later and is again associated with major melting of the ice packs in the Polar Regions.

Research by Mr. Dilley shows a near 100 percent correlation between the PFM gravitational cycles to the beginning and ending of global warming cycles. Global warming cycles began right on time with each PFM cycle during the past half million years, as did the current warming which began 100 years ago, and it will end right on time as the current gravitational cycle begins its cyclical decline.

Global temperatures have cooled during the past 12 months. During 2008 and 2009 the first stage of global cooling will cool the world's temperatures to those observed during the years from the 1940s through the 1970s. By the year 2023 global climate will become similar to the colder temperatures experienced during the 1800s.

The release of the book "Global Warming- Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found" culminates 19 years of research clearly linking gravitational cycles as the cause for fluctuations within the earth's climate. The book is available as an electronic e-Book on the website http://www.globalweathercycles.com . The author David Dilley is a meteorologist and climate researcher with Global Weather Oscillations Inc. (GWO), former meteorologist with the National Weather Service, and co-host of the radio program "the Politically Incorrect Weather Guys" airing weekly on RadioEarNetwork.com, an internet streaming radio program.

The BlackLight Power Patent Mystery - 50,000 Watts of Thermal Power on Demand?

« The Boston Hot Tea Party

The BlackLight Power Patent Mystery

The BlackLight Power Patent Mystery

by Steven B. Krivit
Published July 7, 2008, in New Energy Times Blog
Scheduled for publication July 10, 2008, in New Energy Times Magazine
[This article is Copyleft 2008 New Energy Times. Permission is granted to reproduce this article as long as the article, this notice and the publication information shown above are included in their entirety and no changes are made to this article.]

On May 28, Blacklight Power issued a press release: “The company has successfully developed a prototype power system generating 50,000 watts of thermal power on demand.” This got quite a few New Energy Times readers talking about BlackLight’s intellectual property.

BlackLight’s Business Page gives the impression that the company owns a significant global portfolio of potentially valuable intellectual property.

“BlackLight Power has built an extensive patent portfolio worldwide related to its power source, power systems, a new class of chemistry, new chemical processes, new light sources, and new laser media,” the BlackLight site states.

A mystery revolves around this alleged “extensive patent portfolio worldwide” of Blacklight Power, the brainchild of hydrogen-energy inventor Randell Mills.

Mills has two U.S. patents issued and assigned to BlackLight: 7,188,033 is for a computer software program, and 6,024,935, which issued on Feb. 15, 2000, is titled “Lower-Energy Hydrogen Methods and Structures.

On June 28, 2002, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to withdraw a pending BlackLight patent application. This matter caused quite a stir, but it is a subject for another time.

Many New Energy Times readers who have closely followed BlackLight for years referred New Energy Times to a Web site called Rex Research. They said this Web site shows that BlackLight has been granted many patents in many countries.

The Web site is operated by Robert A. Nelson, who provides a most peculiar “Curriculum Vitaemin Supplementum.” New Energy Times spoke with Nelson; he does not claim to have scientific credentials but has an interesting story to tell about the origin of Rex Research.

One day many years ago, he was walking up Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, Calif., and he got the idea that he could make a lot of money by manufacturing LSD. So he went to the biochemistry library at University of California, Berkeley, to learn how. He eventually learned but, more important, in the course of doing so, he developed skills in scientific information research.

Nelson has a page dedicated to Mills’ Hydrinos. He devotes the top part of the page to Mills’ U.S. patent #6,024,935. The “Other References” - to “cold fusion” - are fascinating. This is an interesting juxtaposition because news stories about Mills include references to “cold fusion” as if “cold fusion” were something entirely discredited and scientifically different from Mills’ so-called “hydrino” technology.

Things begin to get strange farther down the Rex Research page, under the heading “European Patent Office List of Blacklight Power Patents.” Nelson evidently has mistaken patent applications and Patent Cooperation Treaty/World Intellectual Property Organization applications for issued patents. They are not the same.

Why has BlackLight not corrected the significant mischaracterizations of its patent portfolio that appear on the Rex Research Web site? Specifically, many items are inaccurately labeled patents rather than patent applications. The listings of so-called patents on that Web site include dozens of such errors.

On March 14, Blacklight suffered a setback in the United Kingdom when one of its patent applications was rejected at the conclusion of an appeals process within the U.K. patent office.

Another U.K. patent rejection resulted in a hearing on April 17. Hearing Officer P. Marchant found BlackLight’s evidence for independent laboratory verification weak, and Marchant was not willing to rely, alternatively, on Mill’s theory for substantive evidence for the BlackLight claims.

Of 114 papers provided as references by BlackLight to Marchant, he identified 15 papers that met his initial criteria of “independent.” Marchant wrote that much in the remaining 15 papers, “while there is no reason to doubt the work or views represented, … cannot be considered entirely independent.”

The July 10 issue of New Energy Times will discuss the matter of Backlight’s independent validations in more detail.

As New Energy Times said in Special Report on Bubble Fusion/Sonofusion, the work of Purdue University professor Rusi Taleyarkhan, the matter of independence is a delicate yet crucial issue in science.

Low-energy nuclear reaction researcher Edmund Storms, formerly with Los Alamos National Laboratory and now working with Brian Scanlan of KivaLabs of Greenwich, CT, offered an explanation for the Blacklight rejection.

“After reading the decision of the patent examiner,” Storms wrote, “my impression is that the patent was rejected for good reason. The rejection argument is not that the theory is wrong but that Mills is trying to patent a theory and its application to calculating electron states.

“This would be like having a patent for using the Laws of Thermodynamics to calculate reaction energies. Imagine having to pay a fee to the patent holder each time a person attempted to use the patented methods. It is my understanding that a theory cannot be patented. Why do people keep trying? Patents are granted when a theory is reduced to practice in the form of a working device.”

Now about the “extensive patent portfolio worldwide” mentioned on the BlackLight site. The European Patent Office search engine lists 174 results for “mills and randell” as the applicant or inventor. Those which New Energy Times checked were not issued patents. They were merely Patent Cooperation Treaty/World Intellectual Property Organization patent applications - in other words, patents pending.

The distinction is crucial from a business and financial perspective. Patent applications have nowhere near the potential value, particularly for licensing purposes, of issued patents. Intellectual property licensees rarely provide significant funding or make royalty agreements with another company on the basis of patents that have not issued.

The BlackLight site also states, “The process, systems, and compositions of matter are covered by patents pending and issued in dozens of countries.”

The language in this statement is curious. A pending patent provides no protection of any intellectual property rights unless and until a patent is issued. It is the act of issuing a patent that confers value on it. Its granting and issuance by a government patent office creates the possibility of realizing financial value from it as proprietary intellectual property.

BlackLight’s “Business Overview” refers to “patents issued in U.S. and abroad.” Yet the BlackLight Web site does not show any of these claimed patents, leaving readers to wonder exactly what composes BlackLight’s worldwide portfolio of issued patents.

We went to the source.

But first we listened Mills’ statements on a May 6, 2006, radio interview.

In this interview, Mills explained that one of the biggest problems he and his company faced is the matter of disbelief. “Too good to be true” is the mental hurdle that Mills said he must often overcome with skeptics.

“To respond to that,” Mills said, “we’ve published over 65 journal articles, we’ve presented over 50 presentations at international scientific meetings, we’ve built prototypes, we have 50 independent validation reports [and] we have demonstration devices here running.”

At the end of the interview, Mills makes a warm and open invitation to the public to visit BlackLight.

“In terms of helping us, if you’re in business or you’re in science, either pass the word, come in - contact us - come in here, measure this, get involved with it, or pass it on to someone else who is in business or in science and tell them to take a look at our Web page and tell them to come on down and measure it for themselves.”

New Energy Times contacted BlackLight to arrange a visit.

We eventually heard back from Mills and his associate Michael Sabel. No, they were not interested in scheduling an on-site visit with New Energy Times. Sabel told New Energy Times on June 12 that they were interested in meeting with companies wanting to perform “due diligence,” implying that they were only interested in hosting visits to companies interested in investing in BlackLight or perhaps licensing some of its proprietary intellectual property.

New Energy Times learned that CNN/Money visited BlackLight about three weeks ago and wrote a story last week which includes a photo of Mills holding one of his demonstration devices.

In the CNN/Money interview, Mills complained to journalist Mina Klimes that people are “spreading disinformation on the Web.” This is ironic because, in the radio interview, Mills suggests that people wanting to know more about the technology should go to the BlackLight Web page and because one of the most popular fan sites of BlackLight is mischaracterizing BlackLight’s patent portfolio.

Back to the matter at hand: With all of these questions about issued versus pending patents, we decided to inquire at the source. We sent an e-mail to Sabel on July 2, and after not receiving any response the next day, we sent a second e-mail to Sable and Mills.

In the e-mails, we asked whether there are any other issued BlackLight patents besides 7,188,033 and 6,024,935. As of noon July 7, we received no response.

Also on July 7, New Energy Times called the BlackLight offices. We spoke with a staffperson in Mills’ office. Mills was unavailable for the remainder of the day, and Sabel wasn’t available until July 10.

Intellectual property matters aside, New Energy Times has reason to believe that some legitimate science and potential technology probably is behind Mill’s and Blacklight Power’s work; see our forthcoming article in issue #29 on July 10.

Bob Park, the inimitable former spokesman for the American Physical Society has been less charitable. In his July 4 “What’s New,” he raises similar questions about BlackLight’s so-called extensive worldwide intellectual property holdings and called them a “Hydrino Scam.”

Imagine a plane that has wings made out of glass. Thanks to a major breakthrough in understanding the nature of glass by scientists at the University of Bristol, this has just become a possibility.

A plane with wings of glass?

Colloidal particles, that mimic atoms, form a gel with the structure of glass.

Imagine a plane that has wings made out of glass. Thanks to a major breakthrough in understanding the nature of glass by scientists at the University of Bristol, this has just become a possibility.

Despite its solid appearance, glass is actually a 'jammed' state of matter that moves very slowly. Like cars in a traffic jam, atoms in a glass can't reach their destination because the route is blocked by their neighbours, so it never quite becomes a 'proper' solid.

For more than 50 years most scientists have tried to understand just what glass is. Work so far has concentrated on trying to understand the traffic jam, but now Dr Paddy Royall from the University of Bristol, with colleagues in Canberra and Tokyo, has shown that the problem really lies with the destination, not with the traffic jam.

Publishing today (22 June 2008) in Nature Materials, the team has revealed that glass 'fails' to be a solid due to the special atomic structures that form in a glass when it cools (ie, when the atoms arrive at their destination).

Royall explained: "Some materials crystallize as they cool, arranging their atoms into a highly regular pattern called a lattice. But although glass 'wants' to be a crystal, as it cools the atoms become jammed in a nearly random arrangement, preventing it from forming a regular lattice.

"Back in the 1950s, Sir Charles Frank in the Physics Department at Bristol University suggested that the arrangement of the 'jam' should form what is known as an icosahedron, but at the time he was unable to provide experimental proof. We set out to see if he was right."

The problem is you can't watch what happens to atoms as they cool because they are just too small. So using special particles called colloids that mimic atoms, but are just large enough to be visible using state-of-the-art microscopy, Royall cooled some down and watched what happened.

What he found was that the gel these particles formed also 'wants' to be a crystal, but it fails to become one due to the formation of icosahedra-like structures – exactly as Frank had predicted 50 years ago. It is the formation of these structures that underlie jammed materials and explains why a glass is a glass and not a liquid – or a solid.

Knowing the structure formed by atoms as a glass cools represents a major breakthrough in our understanding of meta-stable materials and will allow further development of new materials such as metallic glasses.

Metals normally crystallize when they cool, unfortunately stress builds up along the boundaries between crystals, which leads to metal failure. For example, the world's first jetliner, the British built De Havilland Comet, fell out of the sky due to metal failure. If a metal could be made to cool with the same internal structure as a glass and without crystal grain boundaries, it would be less likely to fail.

Solar dish may revolutionize energy production - it concentrates the sun into a beam that could melt steel

Solar dish may revolutionize energy production

Inventors: Dish is 'user-friendly, user-friendly, so anybody can build it'

	Inventor Doug Wood demonstrates the solar dish's power by using it to set fire to a board held at the focal point.  View related photos

A new type of solar energy collector concentrates the sun into a beam that could melt steel. Researchers say the device could revolutionize global energy production.

The prototype is a 12-foot-wide mirrored dish was made from a lightweight frame of thin, inexpensive aluminum tubing and strips of mirror. It concentrates sunlight by a factor of 1,000 to produce steam.

"This is actually the most efficient solar collector in existence," said Doug Wood, an inventor based in Washington state who patented key parts of the dish's design — the rights to which he has signed over to a team of students at MIT.

To test the prototype this week, MIT mechanical engineering Spencer Ahrens put a plank of wood in the beam and generated an almost instant puff of smoke.

The thing does more than burn wood, of course. At the end of a 12-foot aluminum tube rising from the center of the dish is a black-painted coil of tubing that has water running through it. When the dish is pointing directly at the sun, the water in the coil flashes immediately into steam.

Team leader Spencer Ahrens fastens mirrors in place using wire and plastic washers.

Ahrens and his teammates have started a company, RawSolar, to hopefully mass produce the dishes. They could be set up in huge arrays to provide steam for industrial processing, or for heating or cooling buildings, as well as to hook up to steam turbines and generate electricity, according to an MIT statement. Once in mass production, such arrays should pay for themselves within two years or so with the energy they produce, the students figure.

Wood, the inventor, said the students built the dish and improved on his design.

"They really have simplified this and made it user-friendly, so anybody can build it," he said.

Wood said small dishes work best because it requires much less support structure and costs less for a given amount of collection area.

"I've looked for years at a variety of solar approaches, and this is the cheapest I've seen," said MIT Sloan School of Management lecturer David Pelly, in whose class the project first took shape last fall. "And the key thing in scaling it globally is that all of the materials are inexpensive and accessible anywhere in the world."

Scientists measure reaction to porn by using a hand-crafted "penile plethysmograph" – an airtight tube you put your penis in.

You don't have to be a scientist to observe that pornographic images lead to erections in men. But you would have to be one to show those images to volunteers while meticulously measuring the volume of response in the brain and penis.

Harold Mouras, at University of Picardie Jules Verne in Amiens, France, and his colleagues wanted to understand the cerebral underpinnings of visually-induced erections.

They suspected there might be a role for mirror neurons, a special class of brain cell that fires both when people perform an action and when they observe it being performed.

The researchers invited eight young men into the lab and asked them to view three types of video clips. Along with late-night fishing documentaries and snippets of Mr Bean, the volunteers got to see erotic videos of men stroking naked women, enjoying fellatio and engaging in intercourse.

Erection command?

While the volunteers watched the movies, the researchers watched their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

They also kept tabs on the tumescence of the other target organ, using a hand-crafted "penile plethysmograph" – essentially an airtight tube in which the enlarging penis causes measurable pressure changes.

As expected, all the subjects got erections and many parts of the brain lit up.

Interestingly, the volume of the erections correlated with the strength of activation in a part of the brain called the pars opercularis, which is known to display mirror neuron activity. Even more intriguing, the brain activation, say the researchers, precedes the penile response.

"The mirror neurons are like the command," says Mouras. "The activation comes before the erection."

'Bold' study

The study, says Mouras, is the first to suggest that mirror neurons are involved not only in observed actions, but in the "automatic" responses to those observations – in this case, erection.

Vilayanur Ramachandran, at the University of California at San Diego, who also studies mirror neurons, calls it a "bold" study, and congratulates the group on defying the taboo on studying human sexual physiology.

While he thinks it is perfectly plausible that mirror neurons play a role in how porn turns us on, he says more needs to be done to understand what that role is. For a start, he says, a large number of the brain's structures seem to be involved, not just the pars opercularis, and the interaction between these regions in response to porn is unclear.

"It doesn't give you an experimental lever into the problem," he adds.

And while Ramachandran agrees that the timing of mirror neuron activation and erection is probably critical, fMRI isn't accurate enough to show clearly what is going on with these brain regions over such short time frames.

Inventor creates cloud making machine, allows you to make any shape you want (w/cool pics)

Cloud-making machine makes a peace sign

When one-time magician Francisco Guerra decided to float an idea he really pulled a rabbit out of the hat - a cloud-making machine.

The clouds, or 'Flogos', come in any shape you want, from Mickey Mouse to the Olympic rings.

They are made of soap and gases, such as helium, which allow them to fly off and retain their puffy texture.

Cloud-making machine makes a child figure

'They will fly for miles,' said Mr Guerra. 'They are durable so they last a while.'

Depending on the weather and the formula used, the Flogos can last from a few minutes to more than an hour.

They can fly up to 48km (30 miles) and go as high as 6km (four miles) but normally the little clouds level out at about 150m (500ft).

His machines can pump out your flying logo at a rate of one every 15 seconds.

The clouds can be made in 60cm (2ft) or 90cm (3ft) sizes but a 1.8m (6ft) generator is in the pipeline.

Current designs are only available in white but Mr Guerra plans to add colour options from next year.

Cloud-making machine makes the Olympics sign

Mr Guerra, whose US company Snowmakers creates weather effects for Hollywood movies, insisted Flogos are environmentally friendly because the soaps that make up the foamy shapes are plant-based.

'Eventually a Flogo just evaporates in the air. It does not pollute the skies,' he said.

'They're safer than mass balloon launches where the fragments pollute the environment and are dangerous to wildlife.'

The proto-clouds have also been cleared by the authorities of being a hazard to aeroplanes.

Sweat Analyzing Shirts Determine if You Need a Gatorade

The Biotex Sensor: Photo by BioTex

Gatorade goes to great lengths to determine if “It” is in you. Sweat patches slapped on Maria Sharapova and Tiger Woods provide before and after snapshots of electrolyte levels and sweat rate. But, what about during competition? Swiss company Biotex is developing a garment with wireless sensors embedded in the lower back to provide real-time values for similar metrics. Hydrophilic and hydrophobic material draws the sweat into flexible sensors just two millimeters thick and a few square centimeters. Data can be stored for future analysis or transmitted to wireless phones or PDAs so athletes know to hit the water fountain before it’s too late.

“It’s like driving a car around town, if you don’t watch your gas gauge it will be too late and you’ll be empty,” said Project Coordinator Jean Luprano. “You need to know whether to slow down or if you can go faster.”

Monitoring levels of sodium, potassium, sweat rates and sweat pH is all within reach. Understanding how to interpret and adjust per the data is still to be determined. Medical applications for diabetics and obese children are also being pursued.

New 'super-paper' is stronger than cast iron

Punching your way out of a paper bag could become a lot harder, thanks to the development of a new kind of paper that is stronger than cast iron.

The new paper could be used to reinforce conventional paper, produce extra-strong sticky tape or help create tough synthetic replacements for biological tissues, says Lars Berglund from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.

Despite its great strength, Berglund's "nanopaper" is produced from a biological material found in conventional paper: cellulose. This long sugar molecule is a principal component of plant cell walls and is the most common organic compound on Earth.

Wood is typically about half cellulose, mixed with other structural compounds.

Support network

In plant cell walls individual cellulose molecules bind together to produce fibres around 20 nanometres in diameter, 5000 times thinner than a human hair. These fibres form tough networks that provide the cell walls with structural support.

"Cellulose nanofibres are the main reinforcement in all plant structures and are characterised by nanoscale dimensions, high strength and toughness," Beglund told New Scientist.

Cellulose is extracted from wood to make paper, is the basis of cellophane, and has also recently been used by materials scientists developing novel plastic materials. But they have used it only as a cheap filler material, ignoring its mechanical properties.

However, the mechanical processes used to pulp wood and process it into paper damage the individual cellulose fibres, greatly reducing their strength. So Berglund and colleagues have developed a gentler process that preserves the fibres' strength.

Tough as iron

The new method involves breaking down wood pulp with enzymes and then fragmenting it using a mechanical beater. The shear forces produced cause the cellulose to gently disintegrate into its component fibres.

The end result is undamaged cellulose fibres suspended in water. When the water is drained away Berglund found that the fibres join together into networks held by hydrogen bonds, forming flat sheets of "nanopaper".

Mechanical testing shows it has a tensile strength of 214 megapascals, making it stronger than cast iron (130 MPa) and almost as strong as structural steel (250 MPa).

Normal paper has a tensile strength less than 1 MPa. The tests used strips 40 millimetres long by 5mm wide and about 50 micrometres thick.

Dissipating stress

The secret to the nanopaper's performance is not only the strength of the undamaged cellulose fibres, but also they way they are arranged into networks. Although strongly bound together, they are still able to slip and slide over each other to dissipate strains and stresses.

The individual cellulose fibres are also much smaller than in conventional paper. "A regular paper network has fibres 30 micrometres in diameter, here we are at a scale three orders of magnitude smaller," says Beglund. "The material [has] very small defects compared with a conventional paper network."

"This [work] shows quite clearly the potential for cellulose nanofibres to provide a basis for reinforcement," says Stephen Eichhorn, a polymer scientist at the University of Manchester, UK.

Artificial Houseplant doubles as super efficient solar cell

What do you do when your species unsettles the balance of nature? Create artificial nature to make up the difference, of course. Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Mitsubishi Corp. and Tokki Corp. have developed a prototype solar cell module that realistically takes on the look of a common houseplant. The organic thin-film solar cells are protected by a layer of plastic, allowing the technology to be used in the future for constructs including walls and windows, clothing materials, leisure goods, outdoor products and toys. Hopefully, if we run out of trees in 50 years, these technological wonders will offer reasonably comforting substitutes.

'Nanopaper' Made to Soak Up Oil Spills

 

A True Supersoaker

 

It looks like paper. It feels like paper. It's even made like paper. But this paper, made from metal nanowires, can sit in water for months and never get wet, while soaking up to 20 times its weight in oil.

"You can even print on it and cut it just like paper," said Jing Kong, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of a study on the paper appearing in this month's issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

The new nanopaper is designed to help clean oil spills, even difficult emulsions, and other environmental toxins.

The nanopaper is made from solid potassium manganese oxide nanowires instead of cellulose, the main ingredient of normal paper. Each nanowire is about 20 nanometers in diameter, and together they naturally clump together to form strands several centimeters long.

After being dissolved in water, the nanometers dry rapidly to create a sheet of nanopaper.

"The process of making the nanopaper is same one you would use to make [normal] paper," said Francesco Stellacci, a study co-author also at MIT.

By itself, the nanopaper sucks up water just like normal paper. But by coating the nanopaper with siloxane vapor, a common polymer, the researchers turned it from a super hydrophilic material into a super hydrophobic material, repelling water while attracting oil.

The oil is soaked up and stored in the microscopic nooks and crannies between the individual nanowires, known as capillaries.

It's the combination of the nanowires and that coating that creates oil-absorbing nanopaper.

"We tried the polymer coating on different materials," said Kong. "But it doesn't have as much of a dramatic effect as it does on the nanowires."

After an oil spill, workers would lay the paper in the contaminated area. In areas of heavy contamination, the nanopaper would be saturated with oil in about five minutes.

The nanopaper would then be collected and boiled. The oil would be re-captured and the nanopaper re-used.

It's a common maxim that oil and water don't mix, but they do form emulsions, where the oil breaks up into tiny particles mixed in with the water, that are difficult to clean up.

"There is a huge environmental challenge there," said Joerg Lahann, a researcher at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the MIT work.

"They are able to separate oil from water even in an emulsion, which is very hard," said Lahann.

The MIT team has patented their nanopaper and plans to commercialize it. Kong estimates that it will be available in a year and a half and will cost about $4 per kilogram.

Cold fusion? It's more likely than you think

Arata-Zhang LENR Demonstration
By Steven B. Krivit
New Energy Times
May 22, 2008

OSAKA, JAPAN -- Against a monumental backdrop of bad publicity for cold fusion since 1989, researchers in Japan on May 22 demonstrated the production of excess heat and helium-4, the results of an historic low-energy nuclear reaction experiment.

Yoshiaki Arata receiving Preparata Award in 2007 Photo: S.B. Krivit

The mastermind behind the demonstration is Yoshiaki Arata, a highly respected physicist in Japan who has been the recipent of Japan's highest award, the Order of Cultural Merit, and is the first person to have performed a thermonuclear fusion experiment showing large amounts of d-d reactions in Japan. A lecture by Arata preceded the demonstration before a live audience in Arata Hall (named in his honor) at the Joining and Welding Research Institute at Osaka University. The demonstration took place in the Osaka University Advanced Science & Innovation Center with the help of Arata’s associate, professor Yue Chang Zhang of Shianghai Jiotong University. Professor Akito Takahashi of Osaka University was an eyewitness to the demonstration.

"Arata and Zhang demonstrated very successfully the generation of continuous excess energy (heat) from ZrO2-nano-Pd sample powders under D2 gas charging and generation of helium-4," Takahashi wrote. "The demonstrated live data looked just like data they reported in their published papers (J. High Temp. Soc. Jpn, Feb. and March issues, 2008). This demonstration showed that the method is highly reproducible."

Takahashi wrote that 60 people from universities and companies in Japan and a few people from other countries attended, as well as representatives from six major newspapers (Asahi, Nikkei, Mainichi, NHK, et al.) and two television stations.

In an earlier conversation with New Energy Times, Arata offered his perspective on "cold fusion" research, which he calls solid nuclear fusion.

"Some people say we have reached the end of science, that there are no more great discoveries that remain. In my view, nature always has more secrets to reveal," Arata wrote. "I always stay on guard not to be too possessed by my own current knowledge. History has shown us repeatedly, for example, the foolishness of denying 'heliocentricism,' which resulted from individuals adhering too strongly to their own knowledge or to what was common sense in the past."

New Energy Times will have a more complete report in the next issue on July 10.

Arata-Zhang Demo Announcement

A new technique that mimics healing processes found in nature could enable damaged aircraft to mend themselves automatically, even during a flight.

No hollow achievement: hollow glass fibres embedded in carbon fibre reinforced plastic could be the key to safer flying.

Flying colours: fractured fibre-reinforced polymer under UV illumination showing how the ‘healing agent’ bleeds into the damage.

A new technique that mimics healing processes found in nature could enable damaged aircraft to mend themselves automatically, even during a flight.

As well as the obvious safety benefits, this breakthrough could make it possible to design lighter aeroplanes in future (see below). This would lead to fuel savings, cutting costs for airlines and passengers and reducing carbon emissions too. 

The technique works like this. If a tiny hole/crack appears in the aircraft (e.g. due to wear and tear, fatigue, a stone striking the plane etc), epoxy resin would 'bleed' from embedded vessels near the hole/crack and quickly seal it up, restoring structural integrity. By mixing dye into the resin, any 'self-mends' could be made to show as coloured patches that could easily be pinpointed during subsequent ground inspections, and a full repair carried out if necessary.

This simple but ingenious technique, similar to the bruising and bleeding/healing processes we see after we cut ourselves, has been developed by aerospace engineers at Bristol University, with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). It has potential to be applied wherever fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are used. These lightweight, high-performance materials are proving increasingly popular not only in aircraft but also in car, wind turbine and even spacecraft manufacture. The new self-repair system could therefore have an impact in all these fields.

The technique's innovative aspect involves filling the hollow glass fibres contained in FRP composites with resin and hardener. If the fibres break, the resin and hardener ooze out, enabling the composite to recover up to 80-90% of its original strength - comfortably allowing a plane to function at its normal operational load.

"This approach can deal with small-scale damage that's not obvious to the naked eye but which might lead to serious failures in structural integrity if it escapes attention," says Dr Ian Bond, who has led the project. "It's intended to complement rather than replace conventional inspection and maintenance routines, which can readily pick up larger-scale damage, caused by a bird strike, for example."

By further improving the already excellent safety characteristics of FRP composites, the self-healing system could encourage even more rapid uptake of these materials in the aerospace sector. A key benefit would be that aircraft designs including more FRP composites would be significantly lighter than the primarily aluminium-based models currently in service. Even a small reduction in weight equates to substantial fuel savings over an aircraft’s lifetime.

"This project represents just the first step", says Ian Bond. "We're also developing systems where the healing agent isn't contained in individual glass fibres but actually moves around as part of a fully integrated vascular network, just like the circulatory systems found in animals and plants. Such a system could have its healing agent refilled or replaced and could repeatedly heal a structure throughout its lifetime. Furthermore, it offers potential for developing other biological-type functions in man-made structures, such as controlling temperature or distributing energy sources."

The new self-repair technique developed by the current EPSRC-funded project could be available for commercial use within around four years. 

More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming,"

More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate.

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

The petition project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.

But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project.

"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," said project spokesman and founder Art Robinson.

WND submitted a request to Gore's office for comment but did not get a response.

Robinson said the dire warnings about "global warming" have gone far beyond semantics or scientific discussion now to the point they are actually endangering people.

"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he said.

In just the past few weeks, there have been various allegations that both shark attacks and typhoons have been sparked by "global warming."

The late Professor Frederick Seitz, the past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and winner of the National Medal of Science, wrote in a letter promoting the petition, "The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds."

"This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful," he wrote.

Accompanying the letter sent to scientists was a 12-page summary and review of research on "global warming," officials said.

"The proposed agreement would have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world, especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries," Seitz wrote.

Robinson said the project targets scientists because, "It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice."

He said the "global warming agreement," written in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and other plans "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."

"Yet," he said, "the United Nations and other vocal political interests say the U.S. must enact new laws that will sharply reduce domestic energy production and raise energy prices even higher.

"The inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness include the right of access to life-giving and life-enhancing technology. This is especially true of access to the most basic of all technologies: energy. These human rights have been extensively and wrongly abridged," he continued. "During the past two generations in the U.S., a system of high taxation, extensive regulation, and ubiquitous litigation has arisen that prevents the accumulation of sufficient capital and the exercise of sufficient freedom to build and preserve needed modern technology.

"These unfavorable political trends have severely damaged our energy production, where lack of industrial progress has left our country dependent upon foreign sources for 30 percent of the energy required to maintain our current level of prosperity," he said. "Moreover, the transfer of other U.S. industries abroad as a result of these same trends has left U.S. citizens with too few goods and services to trade for the energy that they do not produce. A huge and unsustainable trade deficit and rapidly rising energy prices have been the result.

"The necessary hydrocarbon and nuclear energy production technologies have been available to U.S. engineers for many decades. We can develop these resources without harm to people or the environment. There is absolutely no technical, resource, or environmental reason for the U.S. to be a net importer of energy. The U.S. should, in fact, be a net exporter of energy," he said.

He told WND he believes the issue has nothing to do with energy itself, but everything to do with power, control and money, which the United Nations is seeking. He accused the U.N. of violating human rights in its campaign to ban much energy research, exploration and development.

"In order to alleviate the current energy emergency and prevent future emergencies, we need to remove the governmental restrictions that have caused this problem. Fundamental human rights require that U.S. citizens and their industries be free to produce and use the low cost, abundant energy that they need. As the 31,000 signatories of this petition emphasize, environmental science supports this freedom," he said.

The petition project website today said there are 31,072 scientists who have signed up, and Robinson said more names continue to come in.

In terms of Ph.D. scientists alone, it already has 15 times more scientists than are seriously involved in the U.N.'s campaign to "vilify hydrocarbons," officials told WND.

"The very large number of petition signers demonstrates that, if there is a consensus among American scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming hypothesis rather than in favor of it," the organization noted.

The project was set up by a team of scientists who do research at several American institutions and collects signatures when donations provide the resources to mail out more letters.

"In a group of more than 30,000 people, there are many individuals with names similar or identical to other signatories, or to non-signatories – real or fictional. Opponents of the petition project sometimes use this statistical fact in efforts to discredit the project. For examples, Perry Mason and Michael Fox are scientists who have signed the petition – who happen also to have names identical to fictional or real non-scientists," the website said.

The petition is needed, supporters said, simply because Gore and others "have claimed that the 'science is settled' – that an overwhelming 'consensus' of scientists agrees with the hypothesis of human-caused global warming, with only a handful of skeptical scientists in disagreement."

The list of scientists includes 9,021 Ph.D.s, 6,961 at the master's level, 2,240 medical doctors and 12,850 carrying a bachelor of science or equivalent academic degree.

The Petition Project's website includes both a list of scientists by name as well as a list of scientists by state.

Frogs predicted the China Earthquake but were ignored by authorities (w/pic of an amazing amount of frogs)

On May 5th, many Chinese locals noticed thousands of frogs on the move. They were seen traveling without fear of traffic as they crossed streets in mass floods.

Many Chinese sensed the migration as a bad omen of a coming natural disaster, but the Chinese government told them that it was just a natural migration for the purpose of propagation. This calmed the people and no one took the omen very seriously.

On Monday, 12th of May, at about 2:45pm, central China region recorded a 7.8-magnitude quake which occured near Wenchuan County, Sichuan province, that killed nearly 10,000 people.

Many civilian houses and roads were collapsed and damaged. In one Dujiangyan city middle school, 900 students and teachers were buried in the collapsed building, at least 50 were killed.

The quake was the largest the region has seen for over a generation. It was so strong, even countries like Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong felt the shake.

Many people are now calling the Chinese Earthquake Test Centers “useless”, as they were unable to even detect the earthquake before it happened. When they finally announced the earthquake had occured, it was 12 minutes after the disaster, and 2 minutes after the US had announced a large earthquake in China.

As for the Frogs and their omen, Chinese scientists stated animals have much better sense than human on detecting the natural disasters like this.

So much for “migration for propagation”.

Harvard researchers: Violent video games OK for kids

Two Harvard researchers have concluded that there's no data to support the notion that violent video games cause the kids who play them to act out violence in real life, contrary to the vast majority of media outlets that would have the public thinking otherwise. The $1.5 million study, which began in 2004, closely examined 1,200 children after bouts with violent games like Grand Theft Auto and not-so-violent titles like The Sims.

Psychologists Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson found that for most kids, playing these games was nothing more than a stress reliever. Sure, some children displayed a playful aggressiveness after hours spent with a violent game, but this was no different than what children experience after seeing a martial arts action movie.

Some researchers, including the Harvard psychologists, even suggest that video games have a positive effect on the brain. Steven Johnson explores this concept in his book Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.

Kutner and Olson have documented their findings in Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games, where they stress the importance of parental education and awareness. In a society where children who don't play games are considered to be socially inept, it is important for parents to understand what their kids are playing. In addition, they need to be able to block out the seemingly endless attacks on the video game industry and use the scientific evidence available to make judgments for themselves and their family.

A £1 million grant has been awarded to British scientists to find out if a robot can safely stir soup in a kitchen. Sarah Connor laughs and goes into retirement.

Please humanoid, I want some more

A £1 million grant has been awarded to British scientists to find out if a robot can safely stir soup in a kitchen, it emerged today.

If the experiment funded by the European Commission is successful researchers believe it could pave the way for the introducion of 'thinking' service robots in society.

A spokeswoman for Bristol Robotics Lab, where the tests will be carried out, said today: "It will specifically look at the problems of a human and a robot working together in the same space, for example in a kitchen where the service robot is performing a task such as stirring soup, while you add cream."

Lab director Professor Chris Melhuish explained: "When we interact with other humans we are interpreting facial expression, body position, gestures, tone of voice as well as sharing a goal and understanding and following verbal instructions.

"For example in the soup situation, not only does the robot need to know what the goal is but he also needs to know how hard to stir the soup, what it means when you hold up your hand to say enough, to interpret the look of pain on your face if you accidentally get splashed with hot soup, and to stop stirring when told.

"This project aims to develop the rules we need to introduce this level of sophistication into service robots who are working closely with people."

Professor Melhuish said robots working in manufacturing are kept behind barriers for safety reasons - a measure that is not practical in the kitchen.

He said: "If we can provide the 'thinking' necessary for safe robot human co-operation in the same physical space then this will enable significant advancement in this area, and we will be a step closer to having service robots in society."

The Co-operative Human Robot Interaction Systems project is a collaboration between robotic engineers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists from West of England and Bristol universities.