Robonaut 2 on Discovery’s last flight (rescheduled launch on 4th November)

November 2, 2010

Update!

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Wednesday greenlighted a launch of space shuttle Discovery on Thursday 4th November, to begin its 11-day mission to the International Space Station. The Prelaunch Mission Management Team (MMT) now is confident since a main engine controller problem on Discovery has been solved, said Mike Moses, chairman of the MMT. Therefore, the team gave a unanimous “go” for Discovery’s launch due to start at 3:29 p.m. EDT (1929 GMT) on Thursday.

Robonaut 2, a dexterous, humanoid astronaut helper, will fly to the International Space Station aboard space shuttle Discovery on the STS-133 mission. Although it will initially only participate in operational tests, upgrades could eventually allow the robot to realize its true purpose — helping spacewalking astronauts with tasks outside the space station.

 

Face-Off

Face-off with Robonaut 2: Image Credit: NASA/JSC Robert Markowitz

 

Associated Press:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA celebrated 10 years of continuous human presence at the International Space Station on Tuesday while readying shuttle Discovery for one last trip into orbit. Lift off is set for Wednesday afternoon.

Discovery is bound for the space station, currently home to six U.S. astronauts and Russian cosmonauts who fielded calls of congratulations on this special anniversary.

Breaking !

On Tuesday an electrical problem cropped up again aboard space shuttle Discovery and could jeopardize Wednesday’s launch. The trouble appears to be with a backup controller for one of the shuttle’s three main engines. NASA ordered last-minute reviews and hurriedly scheduled a mid-afternoon meeting of top managers.

A NASA spokeswoman said it’s too soon to know whether Wednesday afternoon’s planned launch will remain on track. Discovery’s final launch originally was scheduled for Monday, but was delayed by shuttle gas leaks.

The controller was sluggish early Tuesday morning. But after turning a circuit breaker and switch on and off several times, everything seemed to be fine. Later, voltage irregularities were noted.

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Posted in Engineering, Science, Space | 1 Comment »

Underwater robot will dive down to 6,000m

November 2, 2010

The Fraunhofer Institute issued a press release today regarding their new underwater robot POSEIDON which will be able to dive down to 6,000m.

Robots do not have to breathe. For this reason they can dive longer than any human. Equipped with the necessary sensor technology they inspect docks or venture down to the ocean fl oor to search for raw materials. At present, researchers are developing a model which will carry out routine tasks independently, without help from humans.

 

The torpedo-shaped underwater robot will be able to dive down to 6,000 meters. (© Fraunhofer AST)

 

Even when equipped with compressed-air bottles and diving regulators, humans reach their limits very quickly under water. In contrast, unmanned submarine vehicles that are connected by cable to the control center permit long and deep dives. Today remote-controlled diving robots are used for research, inspection and maintenance work. The possible applications of this technology are limited, however, by the length of the cable and the instinct of the navigator. No wonder that researchers are working on autonomous underwater robots which orient themselves under water and carry out jobs without any help from humans.

In the meantime, there are AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles) which collect data independently or take samples before they return to the starting points. “For the time being, the technology is too expensive to carry out routine work, such as inspections of bulkheads, dams or ships’ bellies,” explains Dr. Thomas Rauschenbach, Director of the Application Center System Technology AST Ilmenau, Germany at the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB. This may change soon. Together with the researchers at four Fraunhofer Institutes, Rauschenbach’s team is presently working on a generation of autonomous underwater robots which will be smaller, more robust and cheaper than the previous models. The AUVs shall be able to find their bearings in clear mountain reservoirs equally well as in turbid harbor water. They will be suitable for work on the floor of the deep sea as well as for inspections of shallow concrete bases that offshore wind power station have been mounted on.

The engineers from Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation in Karlsruhe, Germany are working on the “eyes” for underwater robots. Optical perception is based on a special exposure and analysis technology which even permits orientation in turbid water as well. First of all, it determines the distance to the object, and then the camera emits a laser impulse which is reflected by the object, such as a wall. Microseconds before the reflected light flash arrives, the camera opens the aperture and the sensors capture the incident light pulses. At the Ilmenau branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation, Rauschenbach‘s team is developing the “brain“ of the robot: a control program that keeps the AUV on course in currents such as at a certain distance to the wall that is to be examined. The Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering IBMT in St. Ingbert provides the silicone encapsulation for the pressure-tolerant construction of electronic circuits as well as the “ears” of the new robot: ultrasound sensors permit the inspection of objects. Contrary to the previously conventional sonar technology, researchers are now using high-frequency sound waves which are reflected by the obstacles and registered by the sensor. The powerful but lightweight lithium batteries of the Fraunhofer ISIT in Itzehoe that supply the AUV with energy are encapsulated by silicone. A special energy management system that researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT in Oberhausen, Germany have developed saves power and ensures that the data are saved in emergencies before the robot runs out of energy and has to surface.

A torpedo-shaped prototype two meters long that is equipped with eyes, ears, a brain, a motor and batteries will go on its maiden voyage this year in a new tank in Ilmenau. The tank is only three meters deep, but “that’s enough to test the decisive functions,“ affirms Dr. Rauschenbach. In autumn 2011, the autonomous diving robot will put to sea for the first time from the research vessel POSEIDON: Several dives up to a depth of 6,000 meters have been planned.

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Marc Hauser’s apologists are getting organised

November 2, 2010

Earlier posts have described a Harvard investigation led by the Dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith which found Marc Hauser responsible for eight counts of scientific misconduct. Hauser has been “sentenced” to “book leave” for the year.

Some academics – together with some luke warm support from the CHE and the New York Times – seem to be starting a campaign to ease his way back into the academic world. But they give me the impression of merely being apologists. Perhaps – they say – he just made innocent mistakes. Or that the difficult subject of cognition is prone to errors. Maybe he got a raw deal! Unfortunately it all seems like a PR exercise now. Damage control and the hell with the questionable ethics of a Professor who specialises in cognition and ethics.

But it seems to me to be conveniently forgotten that he has already been found guilty – on eight counts just at Harvard. The onus of proof has shifted. The assumption must now be of guilt  – not of innocence. His work dating at least back to 1995 is suspect.

At least the Harvard Crimson is not (at least not yet) joining the circle of protective wagons beginning to form around Hauser:

Professor Hauser is set to return to campus next year after his leave is over. However, we believe that the University should implement some sort of consequence when he returns—a penalty that is on par with the severity of his actions. Although it would be helpful if Harvard would release more information on the eight counts of misconduct that it uncovered, it is likely prohibited from doing so by the regulations surrounding ongoing legal proceedings.

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Posted in Behaviour, Science, scientific misconduct | 1 Comment »

Almonds help fight viruses – but don’t peel them!

November 2, 2010
Shelled (right) and unshelled (left) almonds

Shelled and unsheld almonds: Image via Wikipedia

I love almonds anyway but I note that this research is funded by the Almond Board of California. I cannot help wondering what negative effects of eating almonds have been observed but will never be reported.

The Telegraph:

Researchers found almond skins improved the ability of the white blood cells to detect viruses while also increasing the body’s ability to prevent viruses from replicating and so spreading inside the body. They discovered that even after the almonds had been digested in the gut, there was still an increase in the immune system’s defence against viruses.

The scientists, who are based at the Institute of Food Research in Norwich and the Policlinico Universitario in Messina, Italy, said their findings suggest that the nuts can increase the immune system’s ability to fight off a wide range of viruses, including those that cause flu and the common cold.

Dr Giuseppina Mandalari, from the Institute of Food Research, said: “Almond skins are able to stimulate the immune response and thus contribute to an antiviral immune defence.”

The researchers, whose work is published in the scientific journal Immunology Letters and was funded by the Almond Board of California, found that even after digestion in a laboratory simulation of a human gut, the almonds skins were still able to increase the immune response.

They tested the immune response to infection by the Herpes Simplex Virus 2, which can cause cold sores and is a notoriously difficult virus to treat due to its ability to evade the immune system by dampening down the body’s inflammatory response.

They found that almond skin extracts were effective against even this virus.

But they found that almond skins that had been removed through blanching in boiling water, which is common process to remove skins from almonds, had little effect on the immune system.

The researchers say they are still to identify exactly what it is in almond skins that cause the antiviral activity, but they believe it could be due to compounds known as polyphenols.

It is thought they increase the sensitivity of white blood cells known as helper T cells, which are involved in fighting off viruses. They said it was likely that other nuts may also have this sort of activity.

Dr Martin Wickham, who was also involved in the study at the Institute of Food Research, said: “It is an area of huge interest to find natural alternatives that will have an antiviral activity. Nutritional guidelines recommend eating around three ounces a day to benefit from the fibre and other nutritional components in almonds, but we have still to do the work to see whether this would be enough to have an antiviral affect. This was just an initial study to find out if almond skins have this antiviral activity. The herpes simplex virus is a very good model of viral infection because it is known to evade the immune system, so because the almonds had an impact on this virus, it is fair to assume that it will have an impact on other viruses.”

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Manufacturing in India and China powers ahead and driven by domestic consumption

November 2, 2010

Reuters reports on the latest PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) numbers:

 

image: whatsinbiz.wordpress.com

 

Manufacturing growth in India and China powered ahead last month and U.S. industry also picked up steam, according to data on Monday that suggested the global economic recovery may be on firmer footing.

China’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose to a six-month high in October of 54.7 from 53.8 in September, easily beating market forecasts of 52.9.

The strength of China’s official PMI was especially striking because the index normally heads down in October, said Yu Song and Helen Qiao, economists at Goldman Sachs. “The fact that the PMI went up despite this seasonal bias suggests real activity growth was likely to have been exceedingly strong in October,” they said in a note. The survey showed manufacturers continued to run down stocks last month to meet rising domestic orders. “These readings bode well for a recovery of output in coming months,” Ting Lu at Bank of America Merrill Lynch told clients. A companion PMI produced by Markit for HSBC painted a similar picture, rising to 54.8 from 52.9 — one of the largest month-on-month rises in the history of the survey.

Manufacturing in India — Asia’s other emerging powerhouse — put in a performance every bit as strong as China’s. India’s manufacturing was supported by strong domestic consumption. The HSBC Markit PMI for India, Asia’s third-largest economy, rose to 57.2 in October from 55.1 in September.

Mirroring a report from Japan last Friday, South Korean manufacturing shrank for the second month in a row as the HSBC/Markit PMI fell to 46.75 in October — the lowest since February 2009 — from 48.8 in September.

An unexpected rise in Britain’s manufacturing index to 54.9 will increase doubts that the Bank of England will soon embark on more quantitative easing. It followed official data last week that showed the UK economy grew at a surprisingly strong rate of 0.8 percent in the third quarter from the second.

Equivalent surveys from Europe are due on Tuesday, but Britain’s PMI showed manufacturing growth picked up pace last month for the first time since March.

Flash October figures for Germany, released last month, also gave a strong reading although much of Europe remains mired in debt and poised to cut public spending to deal with it — a move that will crimp economic growth going forward.

It seems that the Chinese and Indian motors are being fuelled primarily by domestic consumption which continues to grow strongly. Perhaps this is not so surprising considering that the growth of the consuming “middle-class” in India and China is probably the fastest it has ever been. In India this growth is probably twice the growth of the total population (and there is some belief that population growth rates drop sharply for people as they enter the “consuming middle-class”).

Japanese manufacturing is being hampered by the strong Yen and Korean manufacturing is yet to pick up. In Europe, the weak Euro is driving German exports and UK manufacturing is showing very strong. The low Dollar value may be beginning to help US exports as well.

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Iceland on watch for new volcano eruption

November 1, 2010

Reuters:

Meltwater is flooding from the Grimsvotn glacial lake in Iceland and could signal the volcano underneath is about to erupt, a spokeswoman at the Icelandic Civil Protection Department told Reuters on Monday.

Water now pouring from Iceland’s biggest glacier, Vatnajokull, which sits on top of a number of volcanic hotspots, could be a sign of fresh geological activity, Civil Protection Department spokeswoman Gudrun Johannesdottir told Reuters.

In April, clouds of ash from an eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier grounded flights across Europe for a week, causing billions of dollars in losses for airlines and other industries. Eyjafjallajokull is about 100 km southeast of Vatnajokull.

“We have to check if there will be an eruption,” Johannesdottir said. “Sometimes it initiates an eruption when a glacial outburst flood starts, but not every the time. So we are monitoring the situation closely.”

The latest eruption at Grimsvotn, in 2004, caused short-term disruptions to airline traffic into Iceland.

 

Smoke from a subglacial volcanic eruption rises above the Vatnajökull ice cap (file photo by Oddur Sigurdsson)

 

 

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Posted in Geosciences, Iceland, Volcanoes | 1 Comment »

A special gene for camouflage

November 1, 2010

C. Zhang, Y. Song, D. A. Thompson, M. A. Madonna, G. L. Millhauser, S. Toro, Z. Varga, M. Westerfield, J. Gamse, W. Chen, R. D. Cone. Inaugural Article: Pineal-specific agouti protein regulates teleost background adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014941107

Science Daily

 

Like other bony fish, the peacock flounder can change the color and pattern of its skin to blend into the sea floor. (Credit: Photo by Jimmie Mack)

 

Researchers led by Vanderbilt’s Dr. Roger Cone have discovered a new member of a gene family that has powerful influences on pigmentation and the regulation of body weight.

The gene is the third member of theagouti family. Two agouti genes have been identified previously in humans. One helps determine skin and hair color, and the other may play an important role in obesity and diabetes. The new gene, called agrp2, has been found exclusively in bony fish, including zebrafish, trout and salmon. The protein it encodes enables fish to change color dramatically to match their surroundings, the researchers report this week in the early edition of theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“When my graduate student, Youngsup Song, discovered a third agouti protein in the fish pineal gland, an organ that regulates daily rhythms in response to light, we initially thought we had found the pathway that regulates hunger diurnally,” said Cone, chair of the Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Obesity and Metabolism.

“That is the mechanism that makes you hungry during the day, but not at night,” he continued. “However, Chao Zhang, a graduate student who followed up the study, ultimately discovered that this agouti protein … is involved in the rapid pigment changes that allow fish to adapt to their environment.”

This phenomenon, called background adaptation, also has been observed in mammals. The coat of the arctic hare, for example, turns from brown in summer to white camouflage against the winter snow.

In contrast to mammals that have to grow a new coat to adapt to a changing environment, fish, amphibians and reptiles can change their skin color in a matter of minutes. The first agouti gene, which produces the striped “agouti” pattern in many mammals, was discovered in 1993. The same year, Cone and his colleagues at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland reported the discovery of the gene that encoded the melanocortin-1 receptor, a key player in the pigmentation story.

In the current paper, Cone’s group reports that the newly discovered protein, AgRP2, regulates expression of the prohormone genes pmch and pmchl, precursors to melanin-concentrating hormone, which has a pigment-lightening effect. “Together, the versatile agouti proteins and melanocortin receptors are responsible for regulation of body weight, the banded patterns of mammalian coats, and even red hair in most people,” Cone said. The current work shows that agouti proteins are also involved in the camouflage mechanisms used in thousands of fish species.

Read the article.

If only the gene could be activated in humans as well!!!

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Posted in Biology, Evolution, Medicine, Science, Wildlife | 1 Comment »

US wind power installations down by 72%

November 1, 2010

The New York Times

 

broken wind turbine: image thetechherald.com

 

In July, the American Wind Energy Association reported that it was having a lousy year. It appears the third quarter of 2010 wasn’t much better.

According to an analysis released on Friday, the trade group reports having its slowest quarter since 2007, adding just 395 megawatts of wind power capacity. For the year to date, new installations were down 72 percent.

Natural gas, the chief fossil-fuel competitor to renewable sources of electricity, is also dirt cheap these days, making wind power a tougher sell for cost-conscious utilities and state regulators. Despite lots of talk on Capitol Hill about the hazards of fossil fuels, their contribution to climate change and the need for broad, long-term supports for the renewables industry, legislators have failed to reach agreement on what that might look like.

But then the lobbying  gets going

“If federal policymakers do not act quickly to provide investment certainty through a Renewable Electricity Standard, and longer-term tax policy like our competitors enjoy,” Denise Bode, the chief executive of the wind association, said in a prepared statement, “the U.S. wind industry will continue to stall out.”

Elizabeth Salerno, director of industry data and analysis with the American Wind Energy Association, said in a phone call that state-level policies have helped. Roughly 30 states have mandatory targets for diversifying their energy portfolios with more renewable power. “They’ve been doing a great job leading the effort to get renewables installed over the past decade,” Ms. Salerno said.

The trade group reported some interesting developments — including Oregon’s emergence as the leader in new wind installations for the third quarter, eclipsing Texas, which has long held the top slot. The reason, the group suggests, is that Texas has hit a transmission wall and is trying to sort out how to get its west Texas wind resources to the load centers in the center of the state.

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Posted in Energy, Environment, US, Wind power | 3 Comments »

Nuclear renaissance: Vietnam gets nuclear reactors from Russia and Japan, Japan gets access to rare earths

November 1, 2010

Now Vietnam is going nuclear with its first 2 plants coming from Russia and the next 2 from Japan. Unexploited rare earth deposits in Vietnam are receiving a great deal of attention from countries hit by the Chinese monopoly on rare earth supplies.

Chosun Ilbo reports

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Minh Triet have called for increased trade and investment between their two countries. The two leaders met Sunday in Hanoi to seal a nuclear plant construction agreement and other bilateral deals. Under the $5 billion agreement, Russia will build Vietnam’s first nuclear power plant. Construction is expected to start in 2014.

Asahi Shimbun reports on a deal where Japan  gets access to the rare earth resources in Vietnam in exchange for two 1000 MW nuclear reactors worth 14.4 billion $ to the Japanese nuclear construction industry.

The nuclear reactor construction agreement, worth an estimated 1 trillion yen ($14.4 billion), gives the green light for Japanese companies to build nuclear facilities in an emerging nation’s fledgling nuclear industry for the first time.

The two reactors will be built in the southeastern province of Ninh Thuan and are scheduled to start operations in 2021. They will have a combined output of 2 gigawatts. Vietnam plans to build 14 nuclear reactors by 2030. Construction deals for four reactors in Ninh Thuan province have so far been agreed upon, including the two to be awarded to Japan. Russia won the rights to build two reactors in December last year.

Japan, which has been trying to use infrastructure exports as a springboard for its flagging economy, began bidding for the nuclear reactor project earlier this year. In August, a delegation of Japanese business leaders led by Japan’s industry minister visited Vietnam to lobby officials. They offered financial assistance and training for Vietnamese people.

Visiting Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Tan Dung also agreed on joint development of deposits in Vietnam of rare earth elements, part of a Japanese drive to reduce its reliance on China for supplies of the vital raw materials, which have been obstructed following a diplomatic dispute with Beijing.

A joint team of Japanese and Vietnamese businesses is currently applying for rare earth mining rights. The Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. discovered rare earth veins in the northern Lai Chau province about 10 years ago. Toyota Tsusho Corp., Sojitz Corp., and an arm of a Vietnamese public corporation have been preparing plans for joint development.

The underground reserves are believed to be capable of yielding 3,000 tons of rare earths a year, about 10 percent of Japan’s current annual requirement.

The Japanese government has offered to provide expertise and training in surveying, excavation, and processing the rare earth metals to Vietnam. Japan is also likely to dip into official development assistance to help the country build infrastructure such as roads and water supply near the mines. In a separate project, Sumitomo Corp. is looking into mining rare earths in Yen Bai province in the north of Vietnam.

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“What the Green Movement got wrong” – Channel 4

October 31, 2010

 

green = nuclear

 

Channel 4 in the UK is running a documentary this week called “What the Green Movement got wrong”.

A group of environmentalists are challenging the movement they helped to create. These life-long diehard greens advocate radical solutions to climate change, including GM crops and nuclear energy.

In this film, these life-long diehard greens advocate radical solutions to climate change, which include GM crops and nuclear energy. They argue that by clinging to an ideology formed more than 40 years ago, the traditional green lobby has failed in its aims and is ultimately harming its own environmental cause.

As author and environmentalist Mark Lynas says, ‘Being an environmentalist was part of my identity and most of my friends were environmentalists. We were involved in the whole movement together. It took me years to actually begin to question those core, cherished beliefs. It was so challenging it was almost like going over to the dark side. It was a like a horrible dark secret you couldn’t share with anyone.’

The Telegraph reports on the change of heart:

Mark Lynas, a campaigner who has been a member of action groups on GM foods and climate change, said the environmental lobby was losing the battle for public opinion on climate change because it had made too many apocalyptic prophecies and exaggerated claims.

He said: “We have got to find a more pragmatic and realistic way of engaging with people.”

Stewart Brand, an American activist and former editor of Whole Earth Catalog, said: “I would like to see an environmental movement that says it turns out our fears about genetically engineered food crops were exaggerated and we are glad about that. It is a humble and modest stance to take to the real world. Environmentalists did harm by being ignorant and ideological and unwilling to change their mind based on actual evidence. As a result we have done harm and I regret it.”

* What the Green Movement Got Wrong will be broadcast on Thursday 4 November at 9pm and will be followed by a live studio debate hosted by Channel 4 News presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy.

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Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Environment, UK | 1 Comment »

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