Human urine can help grow bumper tomato crops that can be eaten safely, says a new study.
Surendra Pradhan, an environmental biology researcher at the University of Kuopio, Finland, and colleagues gave potted tomato plants one of three treatments: mineral fertilizer, urine and wood ash, or urine only. Yields for plants fertilized with urine, rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, quadrupled and matched those of mineral-fertilized plants. The urine-fertilized tomatoes also contained more protein and were safe for human consumption.
"This is a very simple technology. Urine can be collected in a urine-diverting toilet or it can be collected in a separate jerry can [from] an ordinary, pre-existing toilet," said Pradhan.
"If wood ash is available, this can be use as a supplement of phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients," Pradhan added.
He says that the method is a free alternative to expensive mineral fertilizer, which is not easily available in remote or hilly areas.
A pilot programme based on the research will be launched in Nepal in November, says Pradhan, who is of Nepalese origin.
But Hn. J on, eco-agriculture and sanitation system technology expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden says, "the amount [of urine] that can be collected from a person or a family is fairly small".
"[The technique] is of great value to a subsistence farmer but does not suffice for even a medium-scale cash-crop farm," said J?on.
He adds that to fertilize larger areas, many urine-diverting toilets would have to be linked up to a good transportation system.
Their research was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
Showing posts with label Science and technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science and technology. Show all posts
Monday, September 14, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Flexible high-resolution home theatre displays come closer to reality
You may soon get to enjoy facilities like flexible high-resolution home theatre displays, wearable health monitors, and biomedical imaging devices because scientists are working on a novel process for creating new classes of lighting and display systems.
John Rogers, the Flory-Founder Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, has revealed that the new process is all about creating and assembling ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into large arrays offers new classes of lighting and display systems with interesting properties, such as see-through construction and mechanical flexibility.
He said that such properties would be impossible to achieve with existing technologies.
"Our goal is to marry some of the advantages of inorganic LED technology with the scalability, ease of processing and resolution of organic LEDs," said Rogers.
Compared to their organic counterparts, inorganic LEDs are brighter, more robust and longer-lived.
Organic LEDs, however, are attractive because they can be formed on flexible substrates, in dense, interconnected arrays.
Rogers and his colleagues-including collaborators from Northwestern University, the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore, and Tsinghua University in Beijing-say that the new technology combines features of both.
"By printing large arrays of ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic LEDs and interconnecting them using thin-film processing, we can create general lighting and high-resolution display systems that otherwise could not be built with the conventional ways that inorganic LEDs are made, manipulated and assembled," Rogers said.
To overcome requirements on device size and thickness associated with conventional wafer dicing, packaging and wire bonding methods, the researchers have developed epitaxial growth techniques for creating LEDs with sizes up to 100 times smaller than usual.
They have also developed printing processes for assembling these devices into arrays on stiff, flexible, and stretchable substrates.
To create an array, a rubber stamp contacts the wafer surface at selected points, lifts off the LEDs at those points, and transfers them to the desired substrate.
"The stamping process provides a much faster alternative to the standard robotic 'pick and place' process that manipulates inorganic LEDs one at a time. The new approach can lift large numbers of small, thin LEDs from the wafer in one step, and then print them onto a substrate in another step," Rogers said.
The researcher says that shifting position and repeating the stamping process can transfer LEDs to other locations on the same substrate, and, in this fashion, large light panels and displays can be crafted from small LEDs made in dense arrays on a single, comparatively small wafer.
Given that the LEDs can be placed far apart and still provide sufficient light output, Rogers says that the panels and displays can be nearly transparent.
He even envisions the creation of flexible and even stretchable sheets of printed LEDs, which can have potential use in the health-care industry.
"Wrapping a stretchable sheet of tiny LEDs around the human body offers interesting opportunities in biomedicine and biotechnology, including applications in health monitoring, diagnostics and imaging," Rogers said.
A research article describing the researchers' work has been published in the journal Science. (ANI)
John Rogers, the Flory-Founder Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, has revealed that the new process is all about creating and assembling ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into large arrays offers new classes of lighting and display systems with interesting properties, such as see-through construction and mechanical flexibility.
He said that such properties would be impossible to achieve with existing technologies.
"Our goal is to marry some of the advantages of inorganic LED technology with the scalability, ease of processing and resolution of organic LEDs," said Rogers.
Compared to their organic counterparts, inorganic LEDs are brighter, more robust and longer-lived.
Organic LEDs, however, are attractive because they can be formed on flexible substrates, in dense, interconnected arrays.
Rogers and his colleagues-including collaborators from Northwestern University, the Institute of High Performance Computing in Singapore, and Tsinghua University in Beijing-say that the new technology combines features of both.
"By printing large arrays of ultrathin, ultrasmall inorganic LEDs and interconnecting them using thin-film processing, we can create general lighting and high-resolution display systems that otherwise could not be built with the conventional ways that inorganic LEDs are made, manipulated and assembled," Rogers said.
To overcome requirements on device size and thickness associated with conventional wafer dicing, packaging and wire bonding methods, the researchers have developed epitaxial growth techniques for creating LEDs with sizes up to 100 times smaller than usual.
They have also developed printing processes for assembling these devices into arrays on stiff, flexible, and stretchable substrates.
To create an array, a rubber stamp contacts the wafer surface at selected points, lifts off the LEDs at those points, and transfers them to the desired substrate.
"The stamping process provides a much faster alternative to the standard robotic 'pick and place' process that manipulates inorganic LEDs one at a time. The new approach can lift large numbers of small, thin LEDs from the wafer in one step, and then print them onto a substrate in another step," Rogers said.
The researcher says that shifting position and repeating the stamping process can transfer LEDs to other locations on the same substrate, and, in this fashion, large light panels and displays can be crafted from small LEDs made in dense arrays on a single, comparatively small wafer.
Given that the LEDs can be placed far apart and still provide sufficient light output, Rogers says that the panels and displays can be nearly transparent.
He even envisions the creation of flexible and even stretchable sheets of printed LEDs, which can have potential use in the health-care industry.
"Wrapping a stretchable sheet of tiny LEDs around the human body offers interesting opportunities in biomedicine and biotechnology, including applications in health monitoring, diagnostics and imaging," Rogers said.
A research article describing the researchers' work has been published in the journal Science. (ANI)
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Swiss astronaut and satellite scientist inspire Bangalore kids
They came, spoke, won hearts and inspired many to follow in their footsteps. Swiss astronaut Claude Nicollier and manager of Switzerland's satellite project SwissCube Muriel Noca jointly interacted with students here on various aspects of astronomy and space science.
Thursday's interactive session was organised by the Swiss embassy on the theme 'Science and Education of Switzerland in India'.
Around 250 students from Class 9 to 12 of 10 schools attended the meet at Cambridge Pre-university College here.
'I am happy to be here. Talented Indian astronauts like Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams have shown the world about large scale presence of Indians in world space science and research. I want you all to pursue a career as astronomers or space engineers,' Nicollier told students after he narrated his experience in space.
Nicollier has logged more than 1,000 hours in space including one space walk totalling eight hours and 10 minutes. He is a former Swiss air force pilot.
On similar enthusiastic note to encourage aspiring space scientists and astronauts amongst Bangalore's children, Noca greeted the young participants by asking them, 'hope to work with you all in near future'.
The vibrant young crowd responded with a loud 'yes'.
'The satellite SwissCube has been developed by around 200 students of Switzerland over a period of three years. If they can do it, so do you all,' said Noca.
The SwissCube satellite has been developed at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology in Lausanne and is scheduled to be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh by the end of 2009.
'The scientific objectives of the SwissCube are to observe oxygen emission in order to characterise the airglow intensity as a function of the observation angle (zenith or limb measurements), the altitude, the latitude and the local time,' said Noca.
Thursday's interactive session was organised by the Swiss embassy on the theme 'Science and Education of Switzerland in India'.
Around 250 students from Class 9 to 12 of 10 schools attended the meet at Cambridge Pre-university College here.
'I am happy to be here. Talented Indian astronauts like Rakesh Sharma, Kalpana Chawla and Sunita Williams have shown the world about large scale presence of Indians in world space science and research. I want you all to pursue a career as astronomers or space engineers,' Nicollier told students after he narrated his experience in space.
Nicollier has logged more than 1,000 hours in space including one space walk totalling eight hours and 10 minutes. He is a former Swiss air force pilot.
On similar enthusiastic note to encourage aspiring space scientists and astronauts amongst Bangalore's children, Noca greeted the young participants by asking them, 'hope to work with you all in near future'.
The vibrant young crowd responded with a loud 'yes'.
'The satellite SwissCube has been developed by around 200 students of Switzerland over a period of three years. If they can do it, so do you all,' said Noca.
The SwissCube satellite has been developed at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology in Lausanne and is scheduled to be launched from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh by the end of 2009.
'The scientific objectives of the SwissCube are to observe oxygen emission in order to characterise the airglow intensity as a function of the observation angle (zenith or limb measurements), the altitude, the latitude and the local time,' said Noca.
Friday, August 7, 2009
New process can remove 90 percent of salt from seawater
An international team of researchers from China and the US has determined that a process that cleans wastewater and generates electricity can also remove 90 percent of salt from brackish water or seawater.
Clean water for drinking, washing and industrial uses is a scarce resource in some parts of the world. Its availability in the future will be even more problematic.
Many locations already desalinate water using either a reverse osmosis process - one that pushes water under high pressure through membranes that allow water to pass but not salt - or an electrodialysis process that uses electricity to draw salt ions out of water through a membrane.
Both methods require large amounts of energy.
“Water desalination can be accomplished without electrical energy input or high water pressure by using a source of organic matter as the fuel to desalinate water,” according to the researchers.
“The big selling point is that it currently takes a lot of electricity to desalinate water and using the microbial desalination cells, we could actually desalinate water and produce electricity while removing organic material from wastewater,” said Bruce Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State.
The team modified a microbial fuel cell - a device that uses naturally occurring bacteria to convert wastewater into clean water producing electricity - so it could desalinate salty water.
“Our main intent was to show that using bacteria we can produce sufficient current to do this,” said Logan.
“However, it took 200 milliliters of an artificial wastewater - acetic acid in water - to desalinate 3 milliliters of salty water. This is not a practical system yet as it is not optimized, but it is proof of concept,” he added.
“When we try to use microbial fuel cells to generate electricity, the conductivity of the wastewater is very low,” said Logan.
“If we could add salt it would work better. Rather than just add in salt, however in places where brackish or salt water is already abundant, we could use the process to additionally desalinate salty water, clean the wastewater and dump it and the resulting salt back into the ocean,” he added.
Because the salt in the water helps the cell generate electricity, as the central chamber becomes less salty, the conductivity decreases and the desalination and electrical production decreases, which is why only 90 percent of the salt is removed.
However, a 90 percent decrease in salt in seawater would produce water with 3.5 grams of salt per liter, which is less than brackish water. Brackish water would contain only 0.5 grams of salt per liter.
Clean water for drinking, washing and industrial uses is a scarce resource in some parts of the world. Its availability in the future will be even more problematic.
Many locations already desalinate water using either a reverse osmosis process - one that pushes water under high pressure through membranes that allow water to pass but not salt - or an electrodialysis process that uses electricity to draw salt ions out of water through a membrane.
Both methods require large amounts of energy.
“Water desalination can be accomplished without electrical energy input or high water pressure by using a source of organic matter as the fuel to desalinate water,” according to the researchers.
“The big selling point is that it currently takes a lot of electricity to desalinate water and using the microbial desalination cells, we could actually desalinate water and produce electricity while removing organic material from wastewater,” said Bruce Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State.
The team modified a microbial fuel cell - a device that uses naturally occurring bacteria to convert wastewater into clean water producing electricity - so it could desalinate salty water.
“Our main intent was to show that using bacteria we can produce sufficient current to do this,” said Logan.
“However, it took 200 milliliters of an artificial wastewater - acetic acid in water - to desalinate 3 milliliters of salty water. This is not a practical system yet as it is not optimized, but it is proof of concept,” he added.
“When we try to use microbial fuel cells to generate electricity, the conductivity of the wastewater is very low,” said Logan.
“If we could add salt it would work better. Rather than just add in salt, however in places where brackish or salt water is already abundant, we could use the process to additionally desalinate salty water, clean the wastewater and dump it and the resulting salt back into the ocean,” he added.
Because the salt in the water helps the cell generate electricity, as the central chamber becomes less salty, the conductivity decreases and the desalination and electrical production decreases, which is why only 90 percent of the salt is removed.
However, a 90 percent decrease in salt in seawater would produce water with 3.5 grams of salt per liter, which is less than brackish water. Brackish water would contain only 0.5 grams of salt per liter.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
a bicycle that takes around 20 seconds to fold down
A British student has designed a bicycle that can be folded completely into the space of the wheel’s 26-inch circumference within 20 seconds.
According to a report by Sky News, Dominic Hargreaves’ bicycle, named ‘The Contortionist’, takes around 20 seconds to fold down, and has been shortlisted for this year’s James Dyson Award for innovation.
It may bag the young inventor 10,000 pounds.
The 24-year-old, from Battersea, London, said that he wanted to create a decent folding bike after the one he was using collapsed.
“I couldn’t find a folding bicycle I liked,” he said.
“I wanted something that could take a bit of punishment and that you could have fun with. So, I made one myself,” he added.
Hargreaves has been in contact with various manufacturers and hopes to get the bike into production soon.
According to competition founder James Dyson, “The clever bit is how the front wheel can be rotated and repositioned so that the whole of the bikes’ frame fits into its circumference.”
Scientists use computer science to crack Indus Valley script
A team of Indian and American researchers is using mathematics and computer science to try to piece together information about the still-unknown script of the Indus Valley civilisation, which dates back to 4,000 years.
The team, led by a University of Washington (UW) researcher, has used computers to extract patterns in ancient Indus symbols.
The study shows distinct patterns in the symbols'' placement in sequences and creates a statistical model for the unknown language.
"The statistical model provides insights into the underlying grammatical structure of the Indus script," said lead author Rajesh Rao, a UW associate professor of computer science.
"Such a model can be valuable for decipherment, because any meaning ascribed to a symbol must make sense in the context of other symbols that precede or follow it," he added.
Despite dozens of attempts, nobody has yet deciphered the Indus script.
The symbols are found on tiny seals, tablets and amulets, left by people inhabiting the Indus Valley from about 2600 to 1900 B.C.
Each artifact is inscribed with a sequence that is typically five to six symbols long.
Some people have questioned whether the symbols represent a language at all, or are merely pictograms of political or religious icons.
The new study looks for mathematical patterns in the sequence of symbols.
Calculations show that the order of symbols is meaningful; taking one symbol from a sequence found on an artifact and changing its position produces a new sequence that has a much lower probability of belonging to the hypothetical language.
According to the research team, the presence of such distinct rules for sequencing symbols provides further support for the group's previous findings that the unknown script might represent a language.
"These results give us confidence that there is a clear underlying logic in Indus writing," Vahia said.
Seals with sequences of Indus symbols have been found as far away as West Asia, in the region historically known as Mesopotamia and site of modern-day Iraq.
The statistical results showed that the West-Asian sequences are ordered differently from sequences on artifacts found in the Indus valley.
This supports earlier theories that the script may have been used by Indus traders in West Asia to represent different information compared to the Indus region.
"The finding that the Indus script may have been versatile enough to represent different subject matter in West Asia is provocative. This finding is hard to reconcile with the claim that the script merely represents religious or political symbols," Rao said.
The team, led by a University of Washington (UW) researcher, has used computers to extract patterns in ancient Indus symbols.
The study shows distinct patterns in the symbols'' placement in sequences and creates a statistical model for the unknown language.
"The statistical model provides insights into the underlying grammatical structure of the Indus script," said lead author Rajesh Rao, a UW associate professor of computer science.
"Such a model can be valuable for decipherment, because any meaning ascribed to a symbol must make sense in the context of other symbols that precede or follow it," he added.
Despite dozens of attempts, nobody has yet deciphered the Indus script.
The symbols are found on tiny seals, tablets and amulets, left by people inhabiting the Indus Valley from about 2600 to 1900 B.C.
Each artifact is inscribed with a sequence that is typically five to six symbols long.
Some people have questioned whether the symbols represent a language at all, or are merely pictograms of political or religious icons.
The new study looks for mathematical patterns in the sequence of symbols.
Calculations show that the order of symbols is meaningful; taking one symbol from a sequence found on an artifact and changing its position produces a new sequence that has a much lower probability of belonging to the hypothetical language.
According to the research team, the presence of such distinct rules for sequencing symbols provides further support for the group's previous findings that the unknown script might represent a language.
"These results give us confidence that there is a clear underlying logic in Indus writing," Vahia said.
Seals with sequences of Indus symbols have been found as far away as West Asia, in the region historically known as Mesopotamia and site of modern-day Iraq.
The statistical results showed that the West-Asian sequences are ordered differently from sequences on artifacts found in the Indus valley.
This supports earlier theories that the script may have been used by Indus traders in West Asia to represent different information compared to the Indus region.
"The finding that the Indus script may have been versatile enough to represent different subject matter in West Asia is provocative. This finding is hard to reconcile with the claim that the script merely represents religious or political symbols," Rao said.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Aligarh schoolgirl leaves for US for NASA student programme
Aligarh schoolgirl leaves for US for NASA student programme
Palak Agrawal, one of the two schoolgirls selected from India to visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) agency for training in space shuttle
designing, left for the US on Friday late night. Palak Agarwal, who belongs to Uttar Pradesh’s Aligarh district, has been selected under a student programme under which few students across the globe get an opportunity to get trained at NASA. Palak, studying in X standard, values American astronaut of Indian origin Kalpana Chawla as her source of inspiration, as she studies in the same school in which Chawla used to study. “I am inspired by Kalpana Chawla. She dreamt that India should foster ahead in this (astronomy) field. I want to fulfill her dream," said Palak Agrawal. Meanwhile, Palak’s family expressed its happiness and said that they were all proud of her achievement. “Parents feel proud if their kid does well. She was determined from beginning to achieve something in a scientific field. Inspired by Kalpana Chawla, she did her research on Internet. We helped her in whatever manner we can. Wherever she had to give test or seek admission, we took her and will continue to do so,” said Palak’s father, Kanhiya Lal Agrawal.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
A device that 'translates a dog's barks into words'
Your dog will soon start talking to you, all thanks to Japanese inventors who have come up with a device that can detect a dog's emotion from its bark and translate it into human words.
The talking gadget called Bowlingual Voice is developed by Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy.
It detects six emotions in total- including sadness, joy and frustration - with a recorded repertoire of spoken phrases such as "play with me".
The revolutionary gadget comprises of a microphone placed around the dog's neck and a hand-held unit-operating device for pet owners to carry, reports The Telegraph.
When the dog barks, the microphone records the sound and transmits the data to the owner's hand-held device, which then "translates" it into what the dog is apparently suggesting.
A speech synthesizer audibly makes the owner aware of the dog's intentions, which also appears on the screen of the wireless hand-held unit.
An answering machine function can also record the dog's expressions of desire when owners are absent.
The technologically modified version of a basic model introduced seven years ago will be available for 129 pounds in Japan from next month.
The original Bowlingual translated emotions onto a screen without sound. (ANI)
The talking gadget called Bowlingual Voice is developed by Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy.
It detects six emotions in total- including sadness, joy and frustration - with a recorded repertoire of spoken phrases such as "play with me".
The revolutionary gadget comprises of a microphone placed around the dog's neck and a hand-held unit-operating device for pet owners to carry, reports The Telegraph.
When the dog barks, the microphone records the sound and transmits the data to the owner's hand-held device, which then "translates" it into what the dog is apparently suggesting.
A speech synthesizer audibly makes the owner aware of the dog's intentions, which also appears on the screen of the wireless hand-held unit.
An answering machine function can also record the dog's expressions of desire when owners are absent.
The technologically modified version of a basic model introduced seven years ago will be available for 129 pounds in Japan from next month.
The original Bowlingual translated emotions onto a screen without sound. (ANI)
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
400 Million-Year-Old Male Sex Member ID'd
cientists have confirmed the oldest penis-like structure in an ancient fish specimen.
The discovery of the 400 million-year-old reproductive organ is one of the earliest examples of internal fertilization in vertebrate animals. Understanding the anatomy of these ancient fish could reveal further details in the evolution of vertebrates -- including humans.
The research is published in today's advanced online ahead of print edition of Nature.
Earlier this year the team, led by Australian palaeontologist Dr John Long, predicted some ancient fish from the Devonian era, had an attachment to their pelvic bone, which were used by males to fertilize females.
Long, of Museum Victoria, said "when we announced we'd found some structures in the pelvic fin that suggested copulation, we hadn't found the business end of how they were doing it."
Now the team have identified a long clasper, made entirely of bone, on another fish specimen. Long said claspers were used by the ancient fish, an extinct class of armored fish called placoderms, to grip inside the female while they were mating.
"It's a pretty big find because placaderms were the dominant fish for 70 million years, but we knew nothing about their reproduction," said Long.
He said their work earlier this year suggests the reproductive structure in the dominant group of placoderms, called arthrodires, was similar to present-day sharks.
"Now we've actually found it, a specimen with an undoubted clasper with a knobbly end."
The discovery of the 400 million-year-old reproductive organ is one of the earliest examples of internal fertilization in vertebrate animals. Understanding the anatomy of these ancient fish could reveal further details in the evolution of vertebrates -- including humans.
The research is published in today's advanced online ahead of print edition of Nature.
Earlier this year the team, led by Australian palaeontologist Dr John Long, predicted some ancient fish from the Devonian era, had an attachment to their pelvic bone, which were used by males to fertilize females.
Long, of Museum Victoria, said "when we announced we'd found some structures in the pelvic fin that suggested copulation, we hadn't found the business end of how they were doing it."
Now the team have identified a long clasper, made entirely of bone, on another fish specimen. Long said claspers were used by the ancient fish, an extinct class of armored fish called placoderms, to grip inside the female while they were mating.
"It's a pretty big find because placaderms were the dominant fish for 70 million years, but we knew nothing about their reproduction," said Long.
He said their work earlier this year suggests the reproductive structure in the dominant group of placoderms, called arthrodires, was similar to present-day sharks.
"Now we've actually found it, a specimen with an undoubted clasper with a knobbly end."
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Asteroid probe set to "collide" with Earth in June 2010
Japanese scientists have announced that a 1,124-pound (510-kilogram) space probe will "collide" with our home planet in June 2010 to simulate an approaching asteroid.
According to a report in National Geographic News, the Hayabusa spacecraft is currently on its way back to Earth after a successful mission that landed on and hopefully collected samples from the asteroid Itokawa.
Potential samples will be aboard a heat-resistant capsule that will separate from Hayabusa shortly before re-entry into Earth's atmosphere so they can be recovered.
But, experts say the main body of the craft will most likely disintegrate during the trip through Earth's atmosphere.
Although the plan was not part of Hayabusa's original mission, scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently decided to make the most of the doomed probe's return.
"Even though Hayabusa is not actually an asteroid, it will be on a path that will cause it to collide with the Earth in the same way as an asteroid," said JAXA spokesperson Akinori Hashimoto.
"We will monitor its movements, and the data will enable us to accurately predict the future paths of asteroids that are on course to come close to the Earth," he added.
While other space agencies have programs for tracking asteroids that might hit Earth, JAXA doesn't yet have the ability to monitor these so-called near-Earth asteroids.
So, a team of researchers headed by Makoto Yoshikawa has developed a prototype system to calculate the trajectory, time, speed, and likelihood of an asteroid impact.
Hayabusa's return to Earth will be easy to track because they will have months of advance warning and plenty of information on the craft's exact size and flight path.
The event therefore provides the team with a chance to fine-tune their asteroid-tracking calculations.
"It is very important that we develop accurate ways to predict where asteroids are going to strike, because even small ones can cause a great deal of damage," Hashimoto said.
The Japanese agency will get international help tracking Hayabusa's re-entry, noted Donald K. Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program based in Pasadena, California.
"The entrance of the Hayabusa spacecraft into the Earth's atmosphere will be tracked before entry by ground-based optical telescopes in an effort to verify the software that has recently been developed by JAXA," he said.
In addition, ground-based telescopes around the world will watch for the sample-return capsule to help ensure its safe recovery.
According to a report in National Geographic News, the Hayabusa spacecraft is currently on its way back to Earth after a successful mission that landed on and hopefully collected samples from the asteroid Itokawa.
Potential samples will be aboard a heat-resistant capsule that will separate from Hayabusa shortly before re-entry into Earth's atmosphere so they can be recovered.
But, experts say the main body of the craft will most likely disintegrate during the trip through Earth's atmosphere.
Although the plan was not part of Hayabusa's original mission, scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently decided to make the most of the doomed probe's return.
"Even though Hayabusa is not actually an asteroid, it will be on a path that will cause it to collide with the Earth in the same way as an asteroid," said JAXA spokesperson Akinori Hashimoto.
"We will monitor its movements, and the data will enable us to accurately predict the future paths of asteroids that are on course to come close to the Earth," he added.
While other space agencies have programs for tracking asteroids that might hit Earth, JAXA doesn't yet have the ability to monitor these so-called near-Earth asteroids.
So, a team of researchers headed by Makoto Yoshikawa has developed a prototype system to calculate the trajectory, time, speed, and likelihood of an asteroid impact.
Hayabusa's return to Earth will be easy to track because they will have months of advance warning and plenty of information on the craft's exact size and flight path.
The event therefore provides the team with a chance to fine-tune their asteroid-tracking calculations.
"It is very important that we develop accurate ways to predict where asteroids are going to strike, because even small ones can cause a great deal of damage," Hashimoto said.
The Japanese agency will get international help tracking Hayabusa's re-entry, noted Donald K. Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program based in Pasadena, California.
"The entrance of the Hayabusa spacecraft into the Earth's atmosphere will be tracked before entry by ground-based optical telescopes in an effort to verify the software that has recently been developed by JAXA," he said.
In addition, ground-based telescopes around the world will watch for the sample-return capsule to help ensure its safe recovery.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
radio chip that mimics human ear
Indian Americans have engineered a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip mimicking the inner ear, or cochlea, one that could enable wireless devices to receive cell phone, Internet, radio and TV signals.
Rahul Sarpeshkar, MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and his graduate student, Soumyajit Mandal, designed the chip. The chip is faster than any human-designed radio-frequency (RF) spectrum analyzer and also operates at a lower power.
Mandal graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in June 2002. He completed his MSc in 2004 at MIT and is currently working on his PhD.
"The cochlea quickly gets the big picture of what's going on in the sound spectrum," said Sarpeshkar. "The more I started to look at the ear, the more I realized it's like a super-radio with 3,500 parallel channels."
They have also filed for a patent to incorporate the RF cochlea in a universal or software radio architecture that is designed to efficiently process a broad spectrum of signals including cellular phones, wireless Internet, FM, and other signals.
The RF cochlea mimics the structure and function of the biological cochlea, which uses fluid mechanics, piezo-electrics and neural signal processing to convert sound waves into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.
The RF or radio frequency cochlea can perceive a 100-fold range of frequencies -- in humans, from 100 to 10,000 Hz.
Sarpeshkar used the same design principles in his cochlea to create a device that can perceive signals at million-fold higher frequencies, which includes radio signals for most commercial wireless applications.
The device demonstrates what can happen when researchers take inspiration from fields outside their own, says Sarpeshkar, according to a MIT release.
Their research is slated for publication in the forthcoming edition of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
Rahul Sarpeshkar, MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and his graduate student, Soumyajit Mandal, designed the chip. The chip is faster than any human-designed radio-frequency (RF) spectrum analyzer and also operates at a lower power.
Mandal graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India in June 2002. He completed his MSc in 2004 at MIT and is currently working on his PhD.
"The cochlea quickly gets the big picture of what's going on in the sound spectrum," said Sarpeshkar. "The more I started to look at the ear, the more I realized it's like a super-radio with 3,500 parallel channels."
They have also filed for a patent to incorporate the RF cochlea in a universal or software radio architecture that is designed to efficiently process a broad spectrum of signals including cellular phones, wireless Internet, FM, and other signals.
The RF cochlea mimics the structure and function of the biological cochlea, which uses fluid mechanics, piezo-electrics and neural signal processing to convert sound waves into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.
The RF or radio frequency cochlea can perceive a 100-fold range of frequencies -- in humans, from 100 to 10,000 Hz.
Sarpeshkar used the same design principles in his cochlea to create a device that can perceive signals at million-fold higher frequencies, which includes radio signals for most commercial wireless applications.
The device demonstrates what can happen when researchers take inspiration from fields outside their own, says Sarpeshkar, according to a MIT release.
Their research is slated for publication in the forthcoming edition of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.
Device that can store a trillion bits of data for a billion years!
Scientists in America have created a new memory storage medium that can pack thousands of times more data into one square inch of space than conventional chips, and preserve this data for more than a billion years.
The breakthrough stems from the joint efforts of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.
“We’ve developed a new mechanism for digital memory storage that consists of a crystalline iron nanoparticle shuttle enclosed within the hollow of a multiwalled carbon nanotube,” said Alex Zettl, the physicist who led this research.
“Through this combination of nanomaterials and interactions, we’ve created a memory device that features both ultra-high density and ultra-long lifetimes, and that can be written to and read from using the conventional voltages already available in digital electronics,” the researcher added.
This advancement attains significance considering that the ever-growing demand for digital storage of videos, images, music and text calls for storage media that pack increasingly more data onto chips that keep shrinking in size.
“Furthermore, as the system is naturally hermetically sealed, it provides its own protection against environmental contamination,” Zettl said.
Her reckons that the low voltage electrical write/read capabilities of the memory element in this electromechanical device facilitates large-scale integration, and should make for easy incorporation into today’s silicon processing systems.
He believes that the technology could be on the market within the next two years, and its impact should be significant.
“Although truly archival storage is a global property of an entire memory system, the first requirement is that the underlying mechanism of information storage for individual bits must exhibit a persistence time much longer than the envisioned lifetime of the resulting device. A single bit lifetime in excess of a billion years demonstrates that our system has the potential to store information reliably for any practical desired archival time scale,” he said.
“We believe our nanoscale electromechanical memory system presents a new solution to the challenge of ultra-high density archival data storage,” he added.
A research article on this advancement has been published on-line by Nano Letters
The breakthrough stems from the joint efforts of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley.
“We’ve developed a new mechanism for digital memory storage that consists of a crystalline iron nanoparticle shuttle enclosed within the hollow of a multiwalled carbon nanotube,” said Alex Zettl, the physicist who led this research.
“Through this combination of nanomaterials and interactions, we’ve created a memory device that features both ultra-high density and ultra-long lifetimes, and that can be written to and read from using the conventional voltages already available in digital electronics,” the researcher added.
This advancement attains significance considering that the ever-growing demand for digital storage of videos, images, music and text calls for storage media that pack increasingly more data onto chips that keep shrinking in size.
“Furthermore, as the system is naturally hermetically sealed, it provides its own protection against environmental contamination,” Zettl said.
Her reckons that the low voltage electrical write/read capabilities of the memory element in this electromechanical device facilitates large-scale integration, and should make for easy incorporation into today’s silicon processing systems.
He believes that the technology could be on the market within the next two years, and its impact should be significant.
“Although truly archival storage is a global property of an entire memory system, the first requirement is that the underlying mechanism of information storage for individual bits must exhibit a persistence time much longer than the envisioned lifetime of the resulting device. A single bit lifetime in excess of a billion years demonstrates that our system has the potential to store information reliably for any practical desired archival time scale,” he said.
“We believe our nanoscale electromechanical memory system presents a new solution to the challenge of ultra-high density archival data storage,” he added.
A research article on this advancement has been published on-line by Nano Letters
Thursday, June 4, 2009
How Antarctica became the world’s biggest chunk of ice
Scientists have come up with the first detailed view of how the Antarctic ice sheet, the world’s biggest chunk of ice, was born. According to a report in New Scientist, radar images suggest that Antarctica “grew” its ice cap in three stages, carving out the rock below in distinct ways as glaciers expanded, retracted, and flowed downstream. The images were collected between 2004 and 2008 by researchers who drove huge trains of caterpillar tractors in tight lines over Dome A, a plateau of ice at the heart of Antarctica. The tractors carried radars that pinged down through the ice and sent back profiles of the frozen rock landscape below. Dome A, the highest point on the continent, is also one of the coldest places on Earth, with temperatures as low as -90 degrees Celsius. Far beneath its frozen surface lie the Gamburtsev mountains, where glaciologists believe the Antarctic ice sheet was born. Its distance to the ocean and high altitude would have made it the coolest spot on the continent 34 million years ago, when the ice began to grow. Because Dome A is so remote and so cold, and because kilometers of ice separate the surface from the mountain tops, we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about the Gamburtsev. Until recently, only a single radar flight some 30 years ago had probed the chain. In the past few years, glaciologists have used planes and tractors to map out the iced mountains more fully. Earlier this year, the British Antarctic Survey revealed images of the mountains’ profile. Now, a Chinese, Japanese and UK team has published results detailing the 900-square-kilometre area beneath Dome A. By studying the images, the researchers have determined how the ice cap formed. First, some 34 million years ago, small mountain-top glaciers developed. They froze and thawed with variations in Earth’s orbit, sometimes filling the range’s main valley and its tributaries, sometimes disappearing entirely. These variations would have created distinct, high-altitude cirques, hanging valleys and deepened the main valley. Isotope records from the deep ocean show that global temperatures dropped by up to 8 degrees C about 14 million years ago. This froze the ice to the rock, and it will have moved very little since then, preserving the landscape below. According to Martin Siegert of the University of Edinburgh, UK, “It would have looked much like Patagonia today, with quite lush forests and small valley glaciers cutting into the alpine topography.”
Monday, June 1, 2009
Alcohol can make cars more climate-friendly
Test results on a novel ethanol-assisted engine by the Ford Motor Company have indicated that alcohol can make automobiles
more climate-friendly. According to a report in New Scientist, the unit, called a direct-injection ethanol engine, runs primarily on petrol. When it needs to deliver maximum power, like climb a hill or overtake, the engine management computer adds a little ethanol to the fuel injected into the combustion chambers. This arrangement allows the engine to operate at a much higher compression ratio - a measure of the amount by which the fuel-air mixture is compressed before being ignited - than normal. “As a result, an average car engine can be “downsized” to one that should have around 23 percent better fuel efficiency,” officials at Ford said. Normally, the downside of a high compression ratio is that it encourages premature ignition or “knocking”, which drastically cuts down the power output. Adding ethanol to the fuel suppresses knocking. “We’re trying to get the best of both worlds,” said Paul Whitaker of AVL Powertrain Engineering of Plymouth, Michigan, which is developing the technology with Ford. “It’s like knock suppression on demand,” he added. Test results on a pickup truck fitted with the new engine were recently presented at the US Department of Energy’s annual vehicle technology review meeting in Arlington, Virginia. They showed a 23 percent improvement in fuel efficiency for the same performance levels. The ethanol from a 40-litre auxiliary tank would last about 30,000 kilometres, according to Ford. Whitaker said that the next step is to road test the engine in a variety of vehicles and to ensure that the engine does not become unusable if the ethanol tank runs dry. Ford said that its ethanol-assisted engine would cost 1100 to 1500 dollars more than a conventional engine. This is just one-third of the extra cost of a hybrid petrol-electric engine over a normal petrol engine. Hybrids typically deliver 25 to 35 per cent better fuel economy than a conventional engine.
more climate-friendly. According to a report in New Scientist, the unit, called a direct-injection ethanol engine, runs primarily on petrol. When it needs to deliver maximum power, like climb a hill or overtake, the engine management computer adds a little ethanol to the fuel injected into the combustion chambers. This arrangement allows the engine to operate at a much higher compression ratio - a measure of the amount by which the fuel-air mixture is compressed before being ignited - than normal. “As a result, an average car engine can be “downsized” to one that should have around 23 percent better fuel efficiency,” officials at Ford said. Normally, the downside of a high compression ratio is that it encourages premature ignition or “knocking”, which drastically cuts down the power output. Adding ethanol to the fuel suppresses knocking. “We’re trying to get the best of both worlds,” said Paul Whitaker of AVL Powertrain Engineering of Plymouth, Michigan, which is developing the technology with Ford. “It’s like knock suppression on demand,” he added. Test results on a pickup truck fitted with the new engine were recently presented at the US Department of Energy’s annual vehicle technology review meeting in Arlington, Virginia. They showed a 23 percent improvement in fuel efficiency for the same performance levels. The ethanol from a 40-litre auxiliary tank would last about 30,000 kilometres, according to Ford. Whitaker said that the next step is to road test the engine in a variety of vehicles and to ensure that the engine does not become unusable if the ethanol tank runs dry. Ford said that its ethanol-assisted engine would cost 1100 to 1500 dollars more than a conventional engine. This is just one-third of the extra cost of a hybrid petrol-electric engine over a normal petrol engine. Hybrids typically deliver 25 to 35 per cent better fuel economy than a conventional engine.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
World’s largest solar telescope
The world’s largest solar telescope, which can capture the Sun’s magnetic field better than other telescopes, is now operational. The new 1.6-meter clear aperture solar telescope, the largest of its kind in the world, is housed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey, US. “We are already seeing images offering a better understanding of the Sun,” said NJIT Distinguished Professor of Physics Philip R. Goode. “With this instrument, we should be able to have a better understanding of dynamic storms and space weather, which can have dramatic effects on Earth,” he added. Earlier this month, researchers achieved what is called first scientific light. This means the telescope is operational. To achieve its full powers, at least three more years of work will be needed to bring on-line ever-more sophisticated hardware for observing the Sun. Nevertheless, Goode and the BBSO (Big Bear Solar Observatory) research team were able to extract a few unique images and one is shown. The photos clearly illustrate the before-and-after capabilities of the old versus new telescope. “Our prized first image shows the Sun’s ever-present, turbulent granular field with its largest granules being about the size of Alaska,” Goode said. “The small, bright points in the dark lanes are less than 50 miles across and are the smallest-scale magnetic structures on the Sun,” he added. According to Goode, if one looks closely at the “after” photo, you will see a string of pearls. “Each pearl is a cross-section of an intense, single fiber of the Sun’s magnetic field – the basic building block of the solar magnetism,” he said. Goode added that the Sun is now in a state of prolonged magnetic inactivity, perhaps the longest such time in a century. “The new telescope is ideal for studying the Sun as it rises from this strange state of quietude,” he said. The new instrument has three times the aperture of the old telescope. It represents a significant advance in high-resolution observations of the Sun, since it has the largest aperture of any solar telescope in existence, said Goode. The new telescope will be used in joint observation campaigns with NASA satellites to optimize the scientific output of all observations of the Sun.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Space station recycling urine to water
At the international space station, it was one small sip for man and a giant gulp of recycled urine for mankind. Astronauts aboard the space station celebrated a space first yesterday by drinking water that had been recycled from their urine, sweat and water that condenses from exhaled air. They said "cheers," clicked drinking bags and toasted NASA workers on the ground who were sipping their own version of recycled drinking water. "The taste is great," American astronaut Michael Barratt said. Then as Russian Gennady Padalka tried to catch little bubbles of the clear water floating in front of him, Barratt called the taste "worth chasing." He said the water came with labels that said: "drink this when real water is over 200 miles away." The urine recycling system is needed for astronaut outposts on the moon and Mars. It also will save NASA money because it won't have to ship up as much water to the station by space shuttle or cargo rockets. It's also crucial as the space station is about to expand from three people living on board to six. The recycling system had been brought up to the space station last November by space shuttle Endeavour, but it couldn't be used until samples were tested back on Earth and a stuck valve was fixed on Monday. So when it came time to actually drink up, NASA made a big deal of it.
Scientists demand global action to preserve water
Scientists from major countries including India have come out with a declaration demanding a region-by-region response to increased water scarcity and heightened hazards. An international group of scientists from the US, India, China and Britain, in a declaration, have said that melting glaciers, weakening monsoon rains, less mountain snowpack and other effects of a warmer climate will lead to significant disruptions in the supply of water to highly populated regions of the world. The group convened by University of California San Diego and the University of Cambridge added that this will especially be the case near the Himalayas in Asia and the Sierra Nevada Mountains of the western United States. More than two dozen international water experts participated in the "Ice, Snow, and Water: Impacts of Climate Change on California and Himalayan Asia" workshop held at UC San Diego recently. Workshop experts represented the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), the UN World Climate Research Programme, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the British Antarctic Survey, and the California Department of Water Resources as well as several American universities. They noted heavy rains in Indian deserts, a recent drought in what is typically one of the wettest place on earth along the foot of the Himalayas, and other extreme weather events in recent decades. Major rivers in both regions, like China's Yellow River and the Colorado River in the southwestern United States, routinely fail to reach the ocean now. These extremes are signs of the climate and societally induced stresses that will be exacerbated in the future under continuing climate changes, threatening massive and progressive disruptions in the availability of drinking water to more than a billion people in the two regions. "Solutions to immense problems have small beginnings and we began here," said Sustainability Solutions Institute Senior Strategist Charles Kennel. "I continue to be impressed by what a small group of dedicated people can achieve." Workshop leaders plan to present the declaration at the 2009 Forum on Science and Technology in Society in Kyoto, Japan, taking place in October. Research conducted at Scripps and at other research centers around the world have indicated that global warming and particulate air pollution, especially in the form of black carbon, are already disrupting natural supplies of water by raising air temperatures and by increasing the light absorption of snow and ice as pollutants darken the frozen surfaces.
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