Scientific Discovery of the Week - Volume 5

[Agloco]

Hello all.

In this iteration we take a look at the possibilities of an old, but as yet unrealized power source: fusion.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/09/a-step-forward-for-fusion.html?ref=hp


Researchers at the Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will announce in a Physical Review Letters (PRL) paper accepted for publication that their process, known as magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF) and first proposed 2 years ago, has passed the first of three tests, putting it on track for an attempt at the coveted break-even. Tests of the remaining components of the process will continue next year, and the team expects to take its first shot at fusion before the end of 2013.

In a nutshell, fusion entails pressing two hydrogen isotopes (H2, H3) together until the coloumb barrier is breached. The nuclei then merge, resulting in the release of a large amount of energy (and neutrons....but that's another quandry altogether :lol). The central issue is, of course, the fact that one needs to input more energy than is yielded.

Various approaches have been proposed (usually involving pulsed lasers), but the group in this article utilizes magnetic confinement or so called inertial confinement fusion. A magnetic field is applied to a small cylinder with the resulting magnetic force (which, if one remembers back to high school, acts in a direction perpendicular to the field) to crush it. This compresses and heats the fuel inside.

The group sees a three step approach as being the most feasible and hopes to have a "break-even" experiment set up by 2013.

[MannyIsGod]

Those dudes down the street are smart. So are the dudes a bit north up on the super volcano at Los Alamos. Too bad neither place really has any studies on anything I am looking at.

Visited a symposium at Sandia a couple of months ago and it really seems like an incredible environment for someone who wants to explore new things. I can see why they cultivate brilliant minds so well there.

[DMC]

The JJ Pickle Research Center in Austin has/had a tokamak that was being used to research that line of science, using magnetic support on a plasma heated by pulsed lasers. Pretty neat device, they got some patents along that line but not at the level of Sandia obviously.

[mavs>spurs]

gonna go back to school and get a 2nd degree in physics so i can talk politics on ST imho

[mavs>spurs]

Those dudes down the street are smart. So are the dudes a bit north up on the super volcano at Los Alamos. Too bad neither place really has any studies on anything I am looking at.

Visited a symposium at Sandia a couple of months ago and it really seems like an incredible environment for someone who wants to explore new things. I can see why they cultivate brilliant minds so well there.

crofl you can always spot out the fake intellectuals

[Agloco]

crofl you can always spot out the fake intellectuals

You mean like cum-laude finance majors who haven't yet figured out how to open a Credit Union account?

[MannyIsGod]

:lmao BOOM.

[Wild Cobra]

I have always believed fusion can become our energy source. I'm disappointed we haven't seen actual results yet.

[mavs>spurs]

:lmao BOOM.

what's that slurping noise

[mouse]

I have always believed fusion can become our energy source. I'm disappointed we haven't seen actual results yet.

I'm sure the Cancer patients are feeling disappointed also.

[DarkReign]

I'm sure the Cancer patients are feeling disappointed also.

I always think of you as a person who has to concentrate really hard just to breathe.

[MannyIsGod]

I'm stealing that DR.

[Agloco]

Those dudes down the street are smart. So are the dudes a bit north up on the super volcano at Los Alamos. Too bad neither place really has any studies on anything I am looking at.

Visited a symposium at Sandia a couple of months ago and it really seems like an incredible environment for someone who wants to explore new things. I can see why they cultivate brilliant minds so well there.

:tu

I've found the research environment at Sandia to be top notch. I'm lucky to have collaborated on a few side projects with them in the past.

You sure you can't be lured to the dark side Manny? Nuclear science can always stand to have another objective mind in the mix.

[Agloco]

The JJ Pickle Research Center in Austin has/had a tokamak that was being used to research that line of science, using magnetic support on a plasma heated by pulsed lasers. Pretty neat device, they got some patents along that line but not at the level of Sandia obviously.

I've heard of this. Do you happen to know what became of it? Is it still considered a viable road forward or has it hit a dead end?

[Agloco]

I always think of you as a person who has to concentrate really hard just to breathe.

Harsh....but funny. :lol

[DMC]

I've heard of this. Do you happen to know what became of it? Is it still considered a viable road forward or has it hit a dead end?

I haven't heard anything of it since the mid 90's.

[Latarian Milton]

I have always believed fusion can become our energy source. I'm disappointed we haven't seen actual results yet.

in fact fusion has been the only source of all energy on the earth for billions of years, as the sun is just a huge fusion plant

[mouse]

in fact fusion has been the only source of all energy on the earth for billions of years, as the sun is just a huge fusion plant

What proof you have the earth is billions of years old?

[Wild Cobra]

What proof you have the earth is billions of years old?
What proof do you have that it isn't?

[Borat Sagyidev]

Those dudes down the street are smart. So are the dudes a bit north up on the super volcano at Los Alamos. Too bad neither place really has any studies on anything I am looking at.

Visited a symposium at Sandia a couple of months ago and it really seems like an incredible environment for someone who wants to explore new things. I can see why they cultivate brilliant minds so well there.


:tu

I've found the research environment at Sandia to be top notch. I'm lucky to have collaborated on a few side projects with them in the past.

You sure you can't be lured to the dark side Manny? Nuclear science can always stand to have another objective mind in the mix.

I disagree with these assessments.... worked at both places. Smart people work there, but management kills most ideas. Most things that get pushed to the front of the line are defense related. This experiment is an offshoot of a device meant to simulate weapon detonation. They call it "pulsed power", pretty funny.

[Agloco]

I disagree with these assessments.... worked at both places. Smart people work there, but management kills most ideas. Most things that get pushed to the front of the line are defense related. This experiment is an offshoot of a device meant to simulate weapon detonation. They call it "pulsed power", pretty funny.

Sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience with them. Do you believe that this research will find break even? Or is it possibly a cover for some other, darker purpose?

[Borat Sagyidev]

Sorry to hear that you've had a bad experience with them. Do you believe that this research will find break even? Or is it possibly a cover for some other, darker purpose?


If it does, it will be by coincidence. Although that is the nature of this kind of research anyway.

Now to the lottery tickets.

[Agloco]

If it does, it will be by coincidence. Although that is the nature of this kind of research anyway.

Now to the lottery tickets.

:lol

[Fabbs]

http://cdn.bleacherreport.net/images_root/slides/photos/001/240/188/Isotopes_display_image.jpg?1314588016

[MannyIsGod]

I disagree with these assessments.... worked at both places. Smart people work there, but management kills most ideas. Most things that get pushed to the front of the line are defense related. This experiment is an offshoot of a device meant to simulate weapon detonation. They call it "pulsed power", pretty funny.

I'm not surprised on the defense front. When I was there almost every project I saw was a computer science project related to security of some sort although there were a couple of energy projects as well.

[MannyIsGod]

:tu

I've found the research environment at Sandia to be top notch. I'm lucky to have collaborated on a few side projects with them in the past.

You sure you can't be lured to the dark side Manny? Nuclear science can always stand to have another objective mind in the mix.


The chances of me heading into physics are non existent. I'm really enjoying the stuff I'm doing now and I have a lot of ideas I am hoping to pursue in the next few years in grad school. I'm excited.

[mavs>spurs]

The chances of me heading into physics are non existent.

we already knew that

[mouse]

What proof do you have that it isn't?

Ever since the "big bang" the moon has been drifting away from the earth at a rate of around 4 inches a year.

If you were to go back just "one" billion years the moon would be " 4 billion" inches closer to earth that could not be possible.

[Wild Cobra]

Ever since the "big bang" the moon has been drifting away from the earth at a rate of around 4 inches a year.

If you were to go back just "one" billion years the moon would be " 4 billion" inches closer to earth that could not be possible.
Please...

Don't tell me you expect celestial paths to be consistent.

Do you know what the Milankovitch Cycle is without looking it up?

[mouse]

Isn't he a math teacher that studied astromny and discovered climate change?

Maybe I'm thinking of someone else but the moon drifting away from the earth is "science" they know this after mirrors were placed on the moon by unmanned space craft and with lasers have measured the exact distance.

But forget that for now I have many more exzamples of the earth not being anywhere near a million years let alone "4 billion"

[Wild Cobra]

Isn't he a math teacher that studied astromny and discovered climate change?

Maybe I'm thinking of someone else but the moon drifting away from the earth is "science" they know this after mirrors were placed on the moon by unmanned space craft and with lasers have mesuref the exact distance.

But forget that for now I have many more exzamples of the earth not being anywhere near a million years let alone "4 billion"

I am fully aware of the moon's drifting. The earth's orbit is not consistent, why should the drift of the moon be consistent?

[mouse]

I am fully aware of the moon's drifting. The earth's orbit is not consistent, why should the drift of the moon be consistent?
Lets just say it's not consitant that it's one inch one year and three inches another year. The truth is due to the "big bang" the universe is always expanding. Things don't stop dead in thier tracts and start to move in the opposite direction.


The moon isn't getting closer it's always drifting away.

At what rate and how consitant should not be a factor.

[Wild Cobra]

Lets just say it's not consitant that it's one inch one year and three inches another year. The truth is due to the "big bang" the universe is always expanding. Things don't stop dead in thier tracts and start to move in the opposite direction.


The moon isn't getting closer it's always drifting away.

At what rate and how consitant should not be a factor.
What about thousands of years?

[mouse]

Another example of the earth being billions of years old as an impossibility is the salt in the seas. Scientist know the seas are getting saltier every decade. If the earth was even 10 million years old the seas would have a salt content so high nothing could survive let alone live in the ocean.

[Wild Cobra]

Another example of the earth being billions of years old as an impossibility is the salt in the seas. Scientist know the seas are getting saltier every decade. If the earth was even 10 million years old the seas would have a salt content so high nothing could survive let alone live in the ocean.
Mouse, life is dynamic. You cannot project the past or future with static thinking.

[mouse]

What about thousands of years?

1000s of years is not something scientists or text books want to say.

They will never say 100 thousand years ago Dinosuars roamed the earth.

They say "25 million" years ago. When in fact carbon 14 test done on bones found were said to be 40 thousand years old.

Naturally when they found out the bone sample was from a dinosaur they retracted their privious statement and test results.


Another example of the earth not being "4 billion" years old is the fact that the earth has not cooled properly as it would have if it was billions of years old.


For example scifntince claim the earth was so hot it took 2 billion years to cool down enough for life to form.

There are known extrem heat in the center of the earth from what we can see with vocanic activity. To multiply that heat by 2 billion years the earth would have been so hot it would be like another sun and would have burned the moon to ashes.

[Wild Cobra]

1000s of years is not something scientists or text books want to say.

They will never say 100 thousand years ago Dinosuars roamed the earth.

They say "25 million" years ago. When in fact carbon 14 test done on bones found were said to be 40 thousand years old.

Naturally when they found out the bone sample was from a dinosaur they retracted their privious statement and test results.


Another example of the earth not being "4 billion" years old is the fact that the earth has not cooled properly as it would have if it was billions of years old.


For example scifntince claim the earth was so hot it took 2 billion years to cool down enough for life to form.

There are known extrem heat in the center of the earth from what we can see with vocanic activity. To multiply that heat by 2 billion years the earth would have been so hot it would be like another sun and would have burned the moon to ashes.
I'm done with you tonight Mouse. I have better things to do that try to persuade you.

[mouse]

Mouse, life is dynamic. You cannot project the past or future with static thinking.

That may be true but we are talking about age of the planet not the life on the Planet.

You can't really argue the facts. Is the earth slowing down every year? Those type of facts are really not disputable.

If you stick with the facts the "4 Billion" year old earth fairytale starts to implode into a mass of bullshit.

I just help people to see that before they look foolish when they enter that world of make believe.

Don't take it personal.

[Latarian Milton]

lol pseudo scientists heating up the argument over the earth's age when i just mistyped one word "billion" by total accident :lol

[Latarian Milton]

That may be true but we are talking about age of the planet not the life on the Planet.

You can't really argue the facts. Is the earth slowing down every year? Those type of facts are really not disputable.

If you stick with the facts the "4 Billion" year old earth fairytale starts to implode into a mass of bullshit.

I just help people to see that before they look foolish when they enter that world of make believe.

Don't take it personal.
the earth really IS slowing down every year and you can google it to see if im kidding you or not. the earth rotates around its axis 24 hours a day but the speed of rotating has been decreasing, losing the energy to the south-to-north movements of the continents

[mouse]

That is why the clocks have to be reset to add that extra second or two I think its slowed down 21 seconds in 32 years.


Another example of the earth not being "billions" of years old is the evidence we see everyday. Take for example the oldest coal reef is around 5,500 years the oldest tree is around 20,000 years old. For someone to think the earth is even one million years old is mind boggling so you can imagine how I feel about misguided fools who think its "4 Billion" years old.

[admiralsnackbar]

That is why the clocks have to be reset to add that extra second or two I think its slowed down 21 seconds in 32 years.


Another example of the earth not being "billions" of years old is the evidence we see everyday. Take for example the oldest coal reef is around 5,500 years the oldest tree is around 20,000 years old. For someone to think the earth is even one million years old is mind boggling so you can imagine how I feel about misguided fools who think its "4 Billion" years old.

This proves your point how?

[mouse]

This proves your point how?

You have to read from the start. When someone claims the earth is "4 Billion" years old and I point out reasons it can't be its not my fault if someone comes around on page three and has no idea the point I just made.

Another point you may want to reconsider. Niagara falls erodes at about 4 ft a year due to the force of the water spilling over the edge.

If the earth was even 500,000 years old Niagara Falls would be on top of Canada somewhere.

[admiralsnackbar]

You have to read from the start. When someone claims the earth is "4 Billion" years old and I point out reasons it can't be its not my fault if someone comes around on page three and has no idea the point I just made.

Another point you may want to reconsider. Niagara falls erodes at about 4 ft a year due to the force of the water spilling over the edge.

If the earth was even 500,000 years old Niagara Falls would be on top of Canada somewhere.

This proves your point how?

[TeyshaBlue]

lol Niagra Falls and the assumption that the same volume of water, or any water, has flowed consistently for 4 billion years. Beyond ignorant.

[mouse]

This proves your point how?

Basic math.

[mouse]

lol Niagra Falls and the assumption that the same volume of water, or any water, has flowed consistently for 4 billion years. Beyond ignorant.

Then explain it away.

[mouse]

The oldest comet ever recorded by science was 5,000 to 15,000 years old.

How can you still have comets "4 Billion" years after the "big bang" when comets originated from?

[mouse]

These are topics Science debaters avoid everyday thus the topics dying.

[Wild Cobra]

The oldest comet ever recorded by science was 5,000 to 15,000 years old.

How can you still have comets "4 Billion" years after the "big bang" when comets originated from?

Could it be possible that stellar matter blows away from exploding stars, and new comets are made all the time?

I suppose you have some scientific fact/proof the excludes that possibility.

Am I right?

[mouse]

Could it be possible that stellar matter blows away from exploding stars, and new comets are made all the time?

I suppose you have some scientific fact/proof the excludes that possibility.

What I have will re-write every text book in north America and you know it.




Am I right?


If it helps you sleep at night "yes" your right.

[Agloco]

The chances of me heading into physics are non existent. I'm really enjoying the stuff I'm doing now and I have a lot of ideas I am hoping to pursue in the next few years in grad school. I'm excited.

Well, you have a contact if you change your mind. It's a marathon, keep slugging.

[Wild Cobra]

What I have will re-write every text book in north America and you know it.

Why?

They are hypothesis and theories.

What you think you know is not factually known.

I also find it ironic that you will say the way we use isotopic dating is wrong, but when scientists claim comet dates, you believe it when it fits your agenda?

These assumptions include the idea that all comets are part of our sun's formation, excluding the idea that there may be interstellar travelers in the universe captured by Sol.

[Agloco]

Ever since the "big bang" the moon has been drifting away from the earth at a rate of around 4 inches a year.

If you were to go back just "one" billion years the moon would be " 4 billion" inches closer to earth that could not be possible.

mouse, did you attend school past the 5th grade?

[TeyshaBlue]

Then explain it away.

Your "calculations" appear to be static. If Niagra falls had existed exactly like it is today for 4 billion years, you might have a point. But, you don't appear to understand or even acknowledge the very basics of variability.

I know. It's complicated. Much easier just to ignore the variables and produce a bogus statement.

[mouse]

Your "calculations" appear to be static. If Niagra falls had existed exactly like it is today for 4 billion years, you might have a point. But, you don't appear to understand or even acknowledge the very basics of variability.

I know. It's complicated. Much easier just to ignore the variables and produce a bogus statement.

So when was Niagara falls created and how old is it?

[TeyshaBlue]

So when was Niagara falls created and how old is it?

I dunno. Neither do you. That's what makes your asinine example fail.

[mouse]

I dunno. Neither do you. That's what makes your asinine example fail.

That's were you just proved yourself wrong. Scientist know from fossil record how old Niagara falls is thanks for showing us you don't research topics you reply to. Your to busy thinking of some outdated insult.

[Nbadan]

So the earth is 5000 years old?

[mouse]

So the earth is 5000 years old?

That is to young when you have a 20,000 year old tree. I only know it's not Millions of years old and I will bet all I have it's not "4Billion" years old that is insane with what we know today.

But your talking to low IQ people who think they evolved from Apes how can you educate them?

[mouse]

They are hypothesis and theories.


Then they don't belong in the "Science" text books. Put that shit in the Fiction section.

[mouse]

mouse, did you attend school past the 5th grade?

Only to eat your Mom's hot apple pie .......she was the only cafeteria worker I ever masturbated to back in the day...To this day I still can picture her upper lip mustache pressing against my bush. you really want to talk about the "the Big bang"! lets talk about your sister in the 4th grade!

nigra please. :lmao

[TeyshaBlue]

That's were you just proved yourself wrong. Scientist know from fossil record how old Niagara falls is thanks for showing us you don't research topics you reply to. Your to busy thinking of some outdated insult.

Fossils? lol

Ok...how old is it? And how does it support your asinine conclusion?

[mouse]

Fossils? lol

Ok...how old is it? And how does it support your asinine conclusion?

your 2007 MySpace page just text'd you.........come back when you updated your re-fried comebacks.

[mouse]

Fossils? lol

Ok...how old is it? And how does it support your asinine conclusion?

Niagara falls can only be dated back to the flood.

[TeyshaBlue]

Ok. So you can't support your conclusion. thx.

[Agloco]

I didn't believe this needed it's own thread. In related news:


Falling short of achieving its namesake milestone after two years, the National Ignition Facility will now have to share more of its beam time with other weapons science and fundamental research experiments. The $3.5 billion NIF, completed in 2009, was built to create ignition, in which the energy released by fusion exceeds the energy input. Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory were expected to have accomplished that by 30 September, the end of the fiscal year. But an external review team reported in July that the milestone almost certainly won’t be met even by the end of calendar year 2012.
http://scitation.aip.org/getpdf/servlet/GetPDFServlet?filetype=pdf&id=PHTOAD000065000010000028000001&idtype=cvips&doi=10.1063/PT.3.1747&prog=normal&bypassSSO=1

[mouse]

You really think people believe 1/2 the crap Science claims?

[RandomGuy]

You really think people believe 1/2 the crap Science claims?

LOL mouse's trolling crusade against science

[DMC]

lol people still argue physics and science with a troll

[Latarian Milton]

its fun to study science but its not when you make a living off it imho. you make up bullshit stuffs that you can't even persuade yourself to believe, but you have to do your best to make them look real in order to keep the scam alive.

[Winehole23]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/science/modern-day-alchemy-has-iron-working-like-platinum.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

[DMC]

its fun to study science but its not when you make a living off it imho. you make up bullshit stuffs that you can't even persuade yourself to believe, but you have to do your best to make them look real in order to keep the scam alive.

Chinks should leave science to the Japs. They have a better handle on it which is why their people live better and aren't hanging onto one another to keep from falling off the continent.

[mouse]

meanwhile Meningitis outbreak spreads to 15 states.


The number of infections tied to a fungal meningitis outbreak has risen to 214 cases in 15 states, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced Monday.

The CDC says the number of deaths stands at 15. On Sunday, the agency had announced 205 infections in 14 states.


http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57532674/meningitis-outbreak-spreads-to-15-states/

[Latarian Milton]

Chinks should leave science to the Japs. They have a better handle on it which is why their people live better and aren't hanging onto one another to keep from falling off the continent.
chinks never do no original shit in science by any means, they just steal science & technologies from US and benefit themselves with the stolen knowledge tbh

[Winehole23]

Bioengineers at Stanford University have created the first biological transistor made from genetic materials: DNA and RNA. Dubbed the “transcriptor,” this biological transistor is the final component required to build biological computers that operate inside living cells. We are now tantalizingly close to biological computers that can detect changes in a cell’s environment, store a record of that change in memory made of DNA, and then trigger some kind of response — say, commanding a cell to stop producing insulin, or to self-destruct if cancer is detected.


Stanford’s transcriptor is essentially the biological analog of the digital transistor. Where transistors control the flow of electricity, transcriptors control the flow of RNA polymerase as it travels along a strand of DNA. The transcriptors do this by using special combinations of enzymes (integrases) that control the RNA’s movement along the strand of DNA. “The choice of enzymes is important,” says Jerome Bonnet, who worked on the project. “We have been careful to select enzymes that function in bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, so that bio-computers can be engineered within a variety of organisms.”

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/152074-stanford-creates-biological-transistors-the-final-step-towards-computers-inside-living-cells

[LnGrrrR]

I love science. I can't wait to see how many accomplishments from Alpha Centauri we'll achieve over the next few decades.

[RandomGuy]

its fun to study science but its not when you make a living off it imho. you make up bullshit stuffs that you can't even persuade yourself to believe, but you have to do your best to make them look real in order to keep the scam alive.

Science doesn't do that.

But thanks for trolling.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/152074-stanford-creates-biological-transistors-the-final-step-towards-computers-inside-living-cells

Computer files stored accurately on DNA in new breakthrough

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9821895/Computer-files-stored-accurately-on-DNA-in-new-breakthrough.html


n a study published in the Nature journal, the researchers demonstrated they could avoid the problem by translating computer files, made up of ones and zeroes, into a form of DNA code which did not allow letters to repeat themselves.
First they converted an audio file of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech, a photograph of their laboratory, a PDF file of an academic paper and a text version of all Shakespeare's sonnets into the DNA code.
The code was sent to a US lab where experts converted it into synthetic strings of DNA which resembled a tiny grain of dust.
The researchers then sequenced the synthetic DNA to retrieve the code, before converting it back into the original computer files with 99.9 per cent accuracy.
Dr Goldman said: "Because it is expensive and one of its big advantages is longevity, the potential applications will initially be in really high value information which you are determined to keep safe but you do not expect to read very often, such as government records or the Doomsday Book.
"As the price starts to come down it will start to become available to people with smaller budgets, so in ten years' time it may be [cost efficient for] something you would look at on a 50 year timescale, such as a wedding video."

[Winehole23]

superconducting wires: http://everything-pr.com/epoch-wires-announces-energy-distribution-breakthrough/245996/#.UjxTvD-2-7R

[pgardn]

Highest temp for a superconducting wire -389 F

Still hugely expensive to cool it. The assumption is made that it will be made cheaper to cool through other technologies.
The fact that they have made long wire out of it is important, but the same old problem exists, the cost of cooling.

[Wild Cobra]

Highest temp for a superconducting wire -389 F

Still hugely expensive to cool it. The assumption is made that it will be made cheaper to cool through other technologies.
The fact that they have made long wire out of it is important, but the same old problem exists, the cost of cooling.

Wow...

39.26 K

That is hot for a superconductor!

[pgardn]

Wow...

39.26 K

That is hot for a superconductor!

Still to expensive to cool.

[mouse]

LOL mouse's trolling crusade against Bullshit

Edited.

[mouse]

I love science. I can't wait to see how many accomplishments from Alpha Centauri we'll achieve over the next few decades.

I'm sure the kids having chemotherapy agree.

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/siteassets/cancer_child_portrait.jpg

[mouse]

Agloco?

[LnGrrrR]

I'm sure the kids having chemotherapy agree.

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/siteassets/cancer_child_portrait.jpg

yes, it was much better when kids were just dying of cancer with no possible hope. Those were the days.

[boutons_deux]

going bald for a few weeks or month is the LEAST of chemo's horrible side effects. pediatric chemo is known to fuck up kids for decades. But chemo is a huge business so let the poison flow.

[The Reckoning]

thread had potential...

[Wild Cobra]

going bald for a few weeks or month is the LEAST of chemo's horrible side effects. pediatric chemo is known to fuck up kids for decades. But chemo is a huge business so let the poison flow.
Are you saying it isn't a life saving procedure?

[boutons_deux]

Are you saying it isn't a life saving procedure?

doctor's don't seem to care much, but QoL should figure into each patient's and patient's family's treatment decision.

chemo fails to save lives more than it succeeds

[FuzzyLumpkins]

doctor's don't seem to care much, but QoL should figure into each patient's and patient's family's treatment decision.

chemo fails to save lives more than it succeeds

I have yet to meet an oncologist that doesn't factor QoL in the prognosis. We all die and 'saving lives' is misleading. Chemo almost always extends lives. If youre stage 2, that doesn't mean you should just quit because chemo won't 'save' you.

[Winehole23]

Most bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics such as penicillin, discovered decades ago. However, such drugs are useless against viral infections, including influenza, the common cold, and deadly hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.

Now, in a development that could transform how viral infections are treated, a team of researchers at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory has designed a drug that can identify cells that have been infected by any type of virus, then kill those cells to terminate the infection.http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2011/antiviral-0810

[Wild Cobra]

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2011/antiviral-0810

This could be great. I hope it's true.

[Winehole23]

can cause and effect be distinguished by a statistical test?

http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.3773

[Winehole23]

new antibiotic kills MRSA in mice:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-07/antibiotic-breakthrough-ends-25-year-discovery-drought.html

[RandomGuy]

new antibiotic kills MRSA in mice:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-07/antibiotic-breakthrough-ends-25-year-discovery-drought.html

Heard about that on NPR.

Lot of VERY exciting shit going on.

Artificial Intelligence:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30718558

There was a bit on sequencing cancer genomes, single layer graphene water filters, sulphur-lithium batteries, etc etc etc.

[Winehole23]

Wireless transmission of energy:


Researchers used microwaves to deliver 1.8 kilowatts of power—enough to run an electric kettle—through the air with pinpoint accuracy to a receiver 55 metres (170 feet) away.

While the distance was not huge, the technology could pave the way for mankind to eventually tap the vast amount of solar energy (http://phys.org/tags/solar+energy/) available in space and use it here on Earth, a spokesman for The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

"This was the first time anyone has managed to send a high output of nearly two kilowatts of electric power (http://phys.org/tags/electric+power/) via microwaves to a small target, using a delicate directivity control device," he said.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-japan-space-scientists-wireless-energy.html#jCp

[Winehole23]

3D printing of molecules:


Say you're a medical researcher interested in a rare chemical produced in the roots of a little-known Peruvian flower. It's called ratanhine, and it's valuable because it has some fascinating anti-fungal properties that might make for great medicines. Getting your hands on the rare plant is hard, and no chemical supplier is or has ever sold it. But maybe, thanks to the work of University of Illinois chemist Martin Burke, you could print it right in the lab.


In a new study published in the journal Science today (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6227/1221), Burke has announced the specs of a chemistry's own version of the 3D printer—a machine that can systematically synthesize thousands of different molecules (including the ratanhine molecular family) from a handful of starting chemicals. Such a machine could not only make ratanhine step-by-step, but also could custom-create a dozen other closely-related chemicals—some never even synthesized before by humans. That could allow scientists to test the medicinal properties of a whole molecular family.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/a14528/the-chemistry-3d-printer-can-craft-rare-medicinal-molecules-from-scratch/

[gambit1990]

there's gotta be life on enceladus.

[boutons_deux]

nanotech engineering. Fuck BigOil

Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment

A potentially game-changing breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of a system that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and even liquid fuels.

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that mimics the natural photosynthetic process by which plants use the energy in sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water. However, this new artificial photosynthetic system synthesizes the combination of carbon dioxide and water into acetate, the most common building block today for biosynthesis.

“We believe our system is a revolutionary leap forward in the field of artificial photosynthesis,” says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and one of the leaders of this study. “Our system has the potential to fundamentally change the chemical and oil industry in that we can produce chemicals and fuels in a totally renewable way, rather than extracting them from deep below the ground.”

Yang, who also holds appointments with UC Berkeley and the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute (Kavli-ENSI) at Berkeley, is one of three corresponding authors of a paper describing this research in the journal Nano Letters. The paper is titled “Nanowire-bacteria hybrids for unassisted solar carbon dioxide fixation to value-added chemicals (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01254).” The other corresponding authors and leaders of this research are chemists Christopher Chang and Michelle Chang. Both also hold joint appointments with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley. In addition, Chris Chang is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. (See below for a full list of the paper’s authors.)

The more carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere the warmer the atmosphere becomes. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years, primarily as a result of the burning of fossil fuels. Yet fossil fuels, especially coal, will remain a significant source of energy to meet human needs for the foreseeable future. Technologies for sequestering carbon before it escapes into the atmosphere are being pursued but all require the captured carbon to be stored, a requirement that comes with its own environmental challenges.

The artificial photosynthetic technique developed by the Berkeley researchers solves the storage problem by putting the captured carbon dioxide to good use.

“In natural photosynthesis, leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass,” says Chris Chang, an expert in catalysts for carbon-neutral energy conversions. “In our system, nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria, where carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products.”

By combining biocompatible light-capturing nanowire arrays with select bacterial populations, the new artificial photosynthesis system offers a win/win situation for the environment: solar-powered green chemistry using sequestered carbon dioxide.

“Our system represents an emerging alliance between the fields of materials sciences and biology, where opportunities to make new functional devices can mix and match components of each discipline,” says Michelle Chang, an expert in biosynthesis.

“For example, the morphology of the nanowire array protects the bacteria like Easter eggs buried in tall grass so that these usually-oxygen sensitive organisms can survive in environmental carbon-dioxide sources such as flue gases.”

The system starts with an “artificial forest” of nanowire heterostructures, consisting of silicon and titanium oxide nanowires, developed earlier by Yang and his research group.
“Our artificial forest is similar to the chloroplasts in green plants,” Yang says. “When sunlight is absorbed, photo-excited electron−hole pairs are generated in the silicon and titanium oxide nanowires, which absorb different regions of the solar spectrum. The photo-generated electrons in the silicon will be passed onto bacteria for the CO2 reduction while the photo-generated holes in the titanium oxide split water molecules to make oxygen.”

Once the forest of nanowire arrays is established, it is populated with microbial populations that produce enzymes known to selectively catalyze the reduction of carbon dioxide. For this study, the Berkeley team used Sporomusa ovata, an anaerobic bacterium that readily accepts electrons directly from the surrounding environment and uses them to reduce carbon dioxide.

“S. ovata is a great carbon dioxide catalyst as it makes acetate, a versatile chemical intermediate that can be used to manufacture a diverse array of useful chemicals,” says Michelle Chang. “We were able to uniformly populate our nanowire array with S. ovata using buffered brackish water with trace vitamins as the only organic component.”

Once the carbon dioxide has been reduced by S. ovata to acetate (or some other biosynthetic intermediate), genetically engineered E.coli are used to synthesize targeted chemical products. To improve the yields of targeted chemical products, the S. ovata and E.coli were kept separate for this study. In the future, these two activities – catalyzing and synthesizing – could be combined into a single step process.

A key to the success of their artificial photosynthesis system is the separation of the demanding requirements for light-capture efficiency and catalytic activity that is made possible by the nanowire/bacteria hybrid technology. With this approach, the Berkeley team achieved a solar energy conversion efficiency of up to 0.38-percent for about 200 hours under simulated sunlight, which is about the same as that of a leaf.

The yields of target chemical molecules produced from the acetate were also encouraging – as high as 26-percent for butanol, a fuel comparable to gasoline, 25-percent for amorphadiene, a precursor to the antimaleria drug artemisinin, and 52-percent for the renewable and biodegradable plastic PHB. Improved performances are anticipated with further refinements of the technology.

“We are currently working on our second generation system which has a solar-to-chemical conversion efficiency of three-percent,” Yang says. “Once we can reach a conversion efficiency of 10-percent in a cost effective manner, the technology should be commercially viable.”

In addition to the corresponding authors, other co-authors of the Nano Letters paper describing this research were Chong Liu, Joseph Gallagher, Kelsey Sakimoto and Eva Nichols.

This research was primarily funded by the DOE Office of Science.

http://scienceblog.com/77856/major-advance-in-artificial-photosynthesis-poses-winwin-for-the-environment/#Vk6c2JeXS2hAzty8.99

[Winehole23]

fuel from seawater:


Navy researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Materials Science and Technology Division, demonstrate proof-of-concept of novel NRL technologies (http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2012/fueling-the-fleet-navy-looks-to-the-seas) developed for the recovery of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen (H2) from seawater and conversion to a liquid hydrocarbon fuel.

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/PressReleases/2014/26-14r_co2-h2_fuel_test_372x314.jpg (http://www.nrl.navy.mil/PressReleases/2014/26-14r_co2-h2_fuel_test_630x531.jpg)

Flying a radio-controlled replica of the historic WWII P-51 Mustang red-tail aircraft—of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen—NRL researchers (l to r) Dr. Jeffrey Baldwin, Dr. Dennis Hardy, Dr. Heather Willauer, and Dr. David Drab (crouched), successfully demonstrate a novel liquid hydrocarbon fuel to power the aircraft's unmodified two-stroke internal combustion engine. The test provides proof-of-concept for an NRL developed process to extract carbon dioxide (CO2) and produce hydrogen gas (H2) from seawater, subsequently catalytically converting the CO2 and H2 into fuel by a gas-to-liquids process.

Using an innovative and proprietary NRL electrolytic cation exchange module (E-CEM), both dissolved and bound CO2 are removed from seawater at 92 percent efficiency by re-equilibrating carbonate and bicarbonate to CO2 and simultaneously producing H2. The gases are then converted to liquid hydrocarbons by a metal catalyst in a reactor system.

"In close collaboration with the Office of Naval Research P38 Naval Reserve program, NRL has developed a game changing technology for extracting, simultaneously, CO2 and H2 from seawater," said Dr. Heather Willauer, NRL research chemist. "This is the first time technology of this nature has been demonstrated with the potential for transition, from the laboratory, to full-scale commercial implementation."
- See more at: http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2014/scale-model-wwii-craft-takes-flight-with-fuel-from-the-sea-concept#sthash.ecdiJcgU.dpuf

[Winehole23]

quantum computing breakthrough?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151005121023.htm

[Winehole23]

frontline cure for malaria:


Update: Tu Youyou has been awarded a share of the 2015 Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology for her discovery of artemisinin. She shared the prize with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura, whose work led to the development of ivermectin, an important treatment for roundworm parasite diseases.



FORTY years ago a secret military project in communist China yielded one of the greatest drug discoveries in modern medicine. Artemisinin remains the most effective treatment for malaria today and has saved millions of lives. Until recently, though, the drug’s origins were a mystery.


“I was at a meeting in Shanghai in 2005 with all of the Chinese malariologists and I asked who discovered artemisinin,” says Louis Miller, a malaria researcher at the US National Institutes of Health in Rockville, Maryland. “I was shocked that no one knew.”


Miller and his NIH colleage Xinzhuan Su began digging into the drug’s history. After reviewing letters, researchers’ original notebooks and transcripts from once-secret meetings, they concluded the major credit should go to pharmacologist Tu Youyou. Two months ago Tu received America’s top medical accolade, the Lasker award (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2011.08.024).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228382-000-the-modest-woman-who-beat-malaria-for-china/

[boutons_deux]

frontline cure for malaria:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228382-000-the-modest-woman-who-beat-malaria-for-china/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=artemisinin+cancer

[boutons_deux]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=artemisinin+cancer

and

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_7?url=search-alias%3Dhpc&field-keywords=arteminisinin&sprefix=artemin%2Caps%2C166

see the reviews for cancer stabilizations and cures.

Fuck BigPharma and its investors

[boutons_deux]

Not a discovery, but ...

The bizarre reactor that might save nuclear fusion

http://news.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/thumb_article_l/public/StellaratorLead1280x720.jpg?itok=_SjdaejG

http://news.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/StellaratorConstruction672.jpg

http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2015/10/feature-bizarre-reactor-might-save-nuclear-fusion

[Winehole23]

nano-reactor for hydrogen biofuel?

http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2016/01/hydrogen-nano-reactor.shtml

[boutons_deux]

nano-reactor for hydrogen biofuel?

http://news.indiana.edu/releases/iu/2016/01/hydrogen-nano-reactor.shtml

Researchers continue work on producing hydrogen, and car mfrs haven't given up on FCVs

[RandomGuy]

Tiny Machine Paddles Water, Eats Pollution, Spits Out Electricity
http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/CCfOOC.img?h=497&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f&x=950&y=199



Inside these tiny machines is a colony of hungry bacteria, yearning to eat. The row-bot, as this charming little device is named, paddles about on the surface of water, funneling waste and pollution into its bacteria-rich stomach and receiving electrical power in return. It’s a self-sufficient cleaner on a tiny scale, made to bob in the sea and eat tiny bites of waste until there’s nothing left.

Presented last month at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in Hamburg, Germany, the paper “Row-bot: An Energetically Autonomous Artificial Water Boatman” by a team of academic researchers in Bristol, details the design and development of the tiny garbage-eating machines. The initial goal was to create a machine that could forage, like a wild animal, so it wasn’t dependent on humans to constantly recharge and reenergize itself. Inspired also by the water boatman insect, the robot they created is a tiny, hungry, buoyant surface skimmer.

For flotation, the machine has four little stabilizers. To move, there are two paddles in the middle of its body, which have flexible flipper joints to make sure they move efficiently and minimize drag. Powering the row-bot is a bacteria-filled fuel cell. In the cell, bacteria digest organic waste, and produce carbon dioxide as a by-product, as well as the protons and electrons needed to get the electrical circuit in the cell flowing. In this design, the row-bot generated more energy than it needed to keep refueling itself. That’s huge, and it means in the future, the answer to waste in the water might be sprinkling robots into the stream, and waiting until they eat all the garbage.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/tiny-machine-paddles-water-eats-pollution-spits-out-electricity/ar-CCfGDy?li=BBieTUX&ocid=HPCDHP

[Winehole23]

low cost, non-corrosive flow batteries?


Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new flow battery that stores energy in organic molecules dissolved in neutral pH water. This new chemistry allows for a non-toxic, non-corrosive battery with an exceptionally long lifetime and offers the potential to significantly decrease the costs of production.




The research, published in ACS Energy Letters, was led by Michael Aziz, the Gene and Tracy Sykes Professor of Materials and Energy Technologies and Roy Gordon, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Materials Science.


Flow batteries store energy in liquid solutions in external tanks—the bigger the tanks, the more energy they store. Flow batteries are a promising storage solution for renewable, intermittent energy like wind and solar but today's flow batteries often suffer degraded energy storage capacity after many charge-discharge cycles, requiring periodic maintenance of the electrolyte to restore the capacity.


By modifying the structures of molecules used in the positive and negative electrolyte solutions, and making them water soluble, the Harvard team was able to engineer a battery that loses only one percent of its capacity per 1000 cycles.

https://techxplore.com/news/2017-02-long-lasting-battery-decade-minimum-upkeep.html

[Winehole23]

Not really a discovery, more of an improvement


StimDust is the smallest deep-tissue stimulator that we are aware of that's capable of stimulating almost all of the major therapeutic targets in the peripheral nervous system,https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180410161038.htm

[Winehole23]

water out of "thin air":


It started out modestly enough: David Hertz, having learned that under the right conditions you really can make your own water out of thin air, put a little contraption on the roof of his office and began cranking out free bottles of H2O for anyone who wanted one.

Soon he and his wife, Laura Doss-Hertz, were thinking bigger—so much so that this week the couple won the $1.5 million XPrize For Water Abundance. They prevailed by developing a system that uses shipping containers, wood chips and other detritus to produce as much as 528 gallons (2,000 liters) of water a day at a cost of no more than 2 cents a quart (1 liter).
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-10-thin-air-california-couple-device.html

[Winehole23]

New catalyst efficiently produces hydrogen from seawater
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New catalyst efficiently produces hydrogen from seawater
November 11, 2019 by Jeannie Kever, University of Houston
New catalyst efficiently produces hydrogen from seawater
Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH and M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of physics, said the new catalyst allows researchers to avoid many of the obstacles that have stymied the widespread use of seawater to produce hydrogen. Credit: University of Houston
Seawater is one of the most abundant resources on earth, offering promise both as a source of hydrogen—desirable as a source of clean energy—and of drinking water in arid climates. But even as water-splitting technologies capable of producing hydrogen from freshwater have become more effective, seawater has remained a challenge.


Researchers from the University of Houston have reported a significant breakthrough with a new oxygen evolution reaction catalyst that, combined with a hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst, achieved current densities capable of supporting industrial demands while requiring relatively low voltage to start seawater electrolysis.

Researchers say the device, composed of inexpensive non-noble metal nitrides, manages to avoid many of the obstacles that have limited earlier attempts to inexpensively produce hydrogen or safe drinking water from seawater. The work is described in Nature Communicationshttps://m.phys.org/news/2019-11-catalyst-efficiently-hydrogen-seawater.html

[Winehole23]

boson sampling for quantum computing


A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China has built and tested a photonic quantum computer that demonstrates quantum supremacy. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their computer, which they call Jiuzhang, and how well it performed while conducting Gaussian boson sampling.

Quantum computers have been in the news lately as scientists try to determine if they can meet expectations. Quantum computers could vastly outperform conventional machines on certain tasks. The goal is to achieve what has come to be known as" quantum supremacy"—where a quantum computer (https://phys.org/tags/computer/) can outperform conventional computers on at least one type of task. Until now, only one computer has ever achieved this feat—Google's Sycamore device. And because the field is still so new, researchers around the world are working on vastly different designs. Sycamore was based on qubits represented by superconducting materials. In this new effort, the team in China has developed a photon (https://phys.org/tags/photon/)-based quantum computer capable of carrying out a single specific type of calculation—boson sampling.

Boson sampling is a means for calculating the output of a straight-line optical circuit that has multiple inputs and outputs. It is carried out by constructing a machine in which photons are sent into a circuit in parallel, and once inside, are split by beam splitters. The split photons continue through the circuit, encountering mirrors and other beam splitters. Notably, if two photons happen to encounter the same splitter simultaneously, both unsplit photons will follow one of the paths away from the splitter. The process is repeated, resulting in a distribution of numbers that represent the network output. Conventional computers become bogged down very quickly when trying to calculate distributions of such a system. Jiuzhang was built to handle 100 inputs and 100 outputs using 300 beam splitters and 75 mirrors.

The researchers found that it took Jiuzhang approximately 200 seconds to provide an answer. They noted that it would have taken the world's fastest supercomputer approximately 2.5 billion years to carry out the same calculations—a clear example of quantum supremacy.
https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chinese-photonic-quantum-supremacy.html

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/12/02/science.abe8770

[Winehole23]

RNA tweak increases crop yields and and drought resistance:

https://phys.org/news/2021-07-rna-breakthrough-crops-potatoes-rice.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9

[Winehole23]

CO2 into starch



scientists at the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology (TIB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) designed a chemoenzymatic system as well as an artificial starch anabolic route consisting of only 11 core reactions to convert CO2 into starch.

This route was established by a "building block" strategy, in which the researchers integrated chemical and biological catalytic modules to utilize high-density energy and high-concentration CO2 in a biotechnologically innovative way.

The researchers systematically optimized this hybrid system using spatial and temporal segregation by addressing issues such as substrate competition, product inhibition, and thermodynamical adaptation.

The artificial route (https://phys.org/tags/route/) can produce starch from CO2 with an efficiency 8.5-fold higher than starch biosynthesis in maize, suggesting a big step towards going beyond nature. It provides a new scientific basis for creating biological systems with unprecedented functions.

"According to the current technical parameters, the annual production of starch in a one-cubic-meter bioreactor theoretically equates with the starch annual yield from growing 1/3 hectare of maize without considering the energy input," said Cai Tao, lead author of the study.
This work would open a window for industrial manufacturing of starch from CO2.https://phys.org/news/2021-09-chinese-scientists-starch-synthesis-carbon.html

[Winehole23]

Not a discovery, but a reported breakthrough


Chinese scientists are claiming to have built the world’s fastest programmable quantum computers, which appear to crack problems that are currently not possible for ”classical” non-quantum computers.


The researchers, led by Pan Jianwei from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), say the Zuchongzhi 2.1, which takes its name from a historical 5th century Chinese mathematician-cum-astronomer and engineer, is a 66-qubit programmable superconducting quantum computer.

It is reportedly 10 million times faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer.

Moreover, it can even handle calculations that are 100 times more complex than what Google’s Sycamore can handle.

On the other hand, Jiuzhang 2.0 is a photonic quantum computer prototype.

With 113 detected photons, it outperforms the original Jiuzhang supercomputer that had just 76.

This upgrade reportedly helps it perform Gaussian Boson Sampling a septillion times faster than the current fastest supercomputer.

This marks the first time any country has achieved this advantage in two different routes.


I like that the article lists its sources, I wish more journalists would do that:


The quantum study was published online in the journal Physical Review Letters and Science Bulletin.
Sources: The Independent, AA.com, Fossbytes.com, Varindia.com, People’s Daily Online, Chinese Academy of Sciences, DesignTaxi.com, APS Physics, Global Times
https://asiatimes.com/2021/10/ustc-researchers-claim-quantum-breakthrough/

[Winehole23]

more of a tech breakthrough

powdered iron as a fuel source


By the end of June, a large 1-megawatt plant (https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/08-09-2022-new-venture-iron-to-build-first-fully-commercial-plant-ever-on-iron-power) that burns iron fuel will fire up, producing the heat needed to brew beer at the Swinkels brewery (https://swinkelsfamilybrewers.com/en/age-check.html?RD=https://swinkelsfamilybrewers.com/) near Eindhoven, Netherlands, in a test lasting for several months. The plant, named IRON+, is a joint venture between three companies and built on technology first demonstrated (https://spectrum.ieee.org/iron-powder-passes-first-industrial-test-as-renewable-co2free-fuel) as a 100-kilowatt system in 2020 by the Metal Power Consortium, which includes the Eindhoven University of Technology (https://www.tue.nl/en/) and startup Metalot (https://www.metalot.nl/en/), which was spun out of the university.


The high melting points of metals make them useful components for machinery, electronics, and furnaces. But even metals can burn if you grind them into fine powders. What’s more, metals can burn without emitting toxic or planet-warming emissions, making them a potentially attractive fuel for producing clean power—one that can be easily stored and transported.



RIFT (https://www.ironfueltechnology.com/company/) (Renewable Iron Fuel Technology), another spinoff out of Eindhoven, recently demonstrated (https://www.tue.nl/en/news-and-events/news-overview/11-05-2023-first-major-test-of-tue-spin-off-rift-successful-500-houses-in-helmond-co2-neutrally-heated) that it could heat five homes using its iron fuel technology. In Canada, meanwhile, startup Altiro Energy (https://www.altiroenergy.com/), launched by McGill University (https://www.mcgill.ca/) researchers, has run a prototype 10-kW iron fuel plant that they now plan to scale up.



https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-photograph-of-a-large-cyan-cylinder-in-a-stark-white-room.png?id=34143026&width=866&quality=80
Demonstration plants like this one are showing the possibility of iron as a fuel. EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY

Iron powder is an ideal alternative to carbon fuels, says Jeff Bergthorson, a mechanical engineering professor at McGill and the chief scientific advisor for Altiro. Bergthorson and colleagues at the European Space Agency (https://www.esa.int/) and the Canadian Space Agency (https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/) developed the metal fuel concept (https://spectrum.ieee.org/metal-powder-a-zerocarbon-fuel-with-promising-properties) and published their report in the journal Applied Energy (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306261915011071) in 2015.


Iron is one of the most abundant metals on Earth, and the most produced. It has an energy density of about 11.3 kilowatt-hours per liter—better than gasoline. Burning iron powder produces heat that can be used directly or converted into electricity by a steam turbine, leaving behind iron oxide, or rust. This can later be reduced—that is, the oxygen can be stripped away—back into iron powder. “You can think of iron fuel as a clean, recyclable coal,” says Bergthorson.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/iron-fuel

[Winehole23]

Physical Review Letters retracts room temperature superconductivity articles by Ranga Dias.


For David Muller, a physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the circumstances surrounding Dias’s retractions and thesis reminds him of a series of retractions made two decades ago, after researcher Jan Hendrik Schön at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, was discovered to have falsified data (https://www.nature.com/articles/news020923-9). In Schön’s case, and in his own experience, Muller says, “people who fake data tend not to do it just once”.https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02401-2