<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>HUMACON &#187; Uncategorized</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.humacon.org/category/uncategorized/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.humacon.org</link>
	<description>Conservation of the Human Being</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2011 12:48:08 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en</language>
	<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
	<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1</generator>
		<item>
		<title>NASA Refines Asteroid Apophis&#8217; Path Toward Earth</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/10/11/nasa-refines-asteroid-apophis-path-toward-earth/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/10/11/nasa-refines-asteroid-apophis-path-toward-earth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:23:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=452</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036. The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/10/11/nasa-refines-asteroid-apophis-path-toward-earth/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Promising Photonic Devices: A Tiny, Tunable Well Of Light</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/10/01/promising-photonic-devices-a-tiny-tunable-well-of-light/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/10/01/promising-photonic-devices-a-tiny-tunable-well-of-light/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[light]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=347</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Photonics, the science of using photons to carry information, promises to continue improving a wide variety of technologies, from computing to high-speed communication. Now an international team of researchers from the UK, Taiwan, and Spain have discovered a compact way to produce infrared light, by firing electrons through a miniscule tunnel in a stack of [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/10/01/promising-photonic-devices-a-tiny-tunable-well-of-light/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>By 2040 you will be able to upload your brain&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/28/by-2040-you-will-be-able-to-upload-your-brain/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/28/by-2040-you-will-be-able-to-upload-your-brain/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:45:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=323</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8230;or at least that&#8217;s what Ray Kurzweil thinks. He has spent his life inventing machines that help people, from the blind to dyslexics. Now, he believes we&#8217;re on the brink of a new age the &#8216;singularity&#8217; when mind-boggling technology will allow us to email each other toast, run as fast as Usain Bolt (for 15 [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/28/by-2040-you-will-be-able-to-upload-your-brain/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Drug That Could Give You Perfect Visual Memory</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/a-drug-that-could-give-you-perfect-visual-memory/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/a-drug-that-could-give-you-perfect-visual-memory/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:03:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=304</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see. A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/a-drug-that-could-give-you-perfect-visual-memory/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Solar Cells Now Cheaper Than Coal!</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:18:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=300</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nanosolar has created a thin film solar battery, much more efficient than anything existing on the market nowadays. Its thin film technology transfers the sun light in a very efficient way. The Nanosolar power plant will begin producing energy in 2008 and will cover 430 megawatts/year. Thats more than all the capacity of the currently [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Harnessing Bacteria To Make Fuel Cells More Efficient</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/harnessing-bacteria-to-make-fuel-cells-more-efficient/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/harnessing-bacteria-to-make-fuel-cells-more-efficient/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:03:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=282</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Bacteria that generate significant amounts of electricity could be used in microbial fuel cells to provide power in remote environments or to convert waste to electricity. Professor Derek Lovley, from the University of Massachusetts, isolated bacteria with large numbers of tiny projections called pili which were more efficient at transferring electrons to generate power in [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/harnessing-bacteria-to-make-fuel-cells-more-efficient/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bacteria Used To Make Radioactive Metals Inert</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/bacteria-used-to-make-radioactive-metals-inert/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/bacteria-used-to-make-radioactive-metals-inert/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:56:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=279</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Lost Orphan Mine below the Grand Canyon hasn&#8217;t produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but Judy Wall, a biochemistry professor at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is researching [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/10/bacteria-used-to-make-radioactive-metals-inert/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Researchers have developed a robot capable of learning and interacting with the world using a biological brain.</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/04/researchers-have-developed-a-robot-capable-of-learning-and-interacting-with-the-world-using-a-biological-brain/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/04/researchers-have-developed-a-robot-capable-of-learning-and-interacting-with-the-world-using-a-biological-brain/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:28:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=270</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Kevin Warwicks new robot behaves like a child. Sometimes it does what you want it to, and sometimes it doesnt, he says. And while it may seem strange for a professor of cybernetics to be concerning himself with such an unreliable machine, Warwicks creation has something that even todays most sophisticated robots lack: a living [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/09/04/researchers-have-developed-a-robot-capable-of-learning-and-interacting-with-the-world-using-a-biological-brain/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Taxi of tomorrow: The space-age pods with no driver, no fumes&#8230; just a &#8216;start&#8217; button</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/08/27/taxi-of-tomorrow-the-space-age-pods-with-no-driver-no-fumes-just-a-start-button/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/08/27/taxi-of-tomorrow-the-space-age-pods-with-no-driver-no-fumes-just-a-start-button/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:31:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=187</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A driverless taxi has been unveiled which could make traffic jams, petrol fumes and crowded buses a thing of the past. The futuristic pod has no driver, and no opinionated chatter to accompany your journey, but instead a button set in the wall with the word &#8216;start&#8217; written beside it. The British-designed personal rapid transport [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/08/27/taxi-of-tomorrow-the-space-age-pods-with-no-driver-no-fumes-just-a-start-button/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Computing another cause of climate change?</title>
		<link>http://www.humacon.org/2009/08/26/computing-another-cause-of-climate-change/#utm_source=feed&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=feed</link>
		<comments>http://www.humacon.org/2009/08/26/computing-another-cause-of-climate-change/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>admin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.humacon.org/?p=143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How much carbon dioxide do computers emit? AVIATION has long been blamed for its share of anthropogenic global warming. Indeed, some travellers now ask themselves whether their flight is strictly necessary and, if they decide it is, salve their consciences by paying for the planting of trees. These, so they hope, will absorb the equivalent [...]]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://www.humacon.org/2009/08/26/computing-another-cause-of-climate-change/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- 
Ultimate Google Analytics initialization
Start uga_get_option: check_updates
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: check_updates (1)
Start uga_get_option: version_sent
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: version_sent (1.6.0)
Start uga_get_option: enable_tracker
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: enable_tracker (1)
Start uga_get_option: filter_content
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: filter_content (1)
Adding the_content and the_excerpt filters
Start uga_get_option: enable_tracker
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: enable_tracker (1)
Start uga_get_option: filter_comments
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: filter_comments (1)
Adding comment_text filter
Start uga_get_option: enable_tracker
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: enable_tracker (1)
Start uga_get_option: filter_comment_authors
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: filter_comment_authors (1)
Adding get_comment_author_link filter
Start uga_get_option: enable_tracker
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: enable_tracker (1)
Adding wp_head and wp_footer action hooks for tracker
Start uga_get_option: track_adm_pages
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: track_adm_pages ()
Adding init action hook
Adding shutdown action hook for debugging and notice if wp_footer is hooked
Start uga_init
Ending uga_init
Start uga_filter: <p><strong>Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036.</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong></p>
<p></strong></p>
<p>The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA&#8217;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They will present their updated findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society&#8217;s Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico on Oct. 8.</p>
<p>&#8220;Apophis has been one of those celestial bodies that has captured the public&#8217;s interest since it was discovered in 2004,&#8221; said Chesley. &#8220;Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million.&#8221;</p>
<p>A majority of the data that enabled the updated orbit of Apophis came from observations Dave Tholen and collaborators at the University of Hawaii&#8217;s Institute for Astronomy in Manoa made. Tholen pored over hundreds of previously unreleased images of the night sky made with the University of Hawaii&#8217;s 2.2-meter (88-inch) telescope, located near the summit of Mauna Kea.</p>
<p>Tholen made improved measurements of the asteroid&#8217;s position in the images, enabling him to provide Chesley and Chodas with new data sets more precise than previous measures for Apophis. Measurements from the Steward Observatory&#8217;s 2.3 meter (90-inch) Bok telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona and the Arecibo Observatory on the island of Puerto Rico also were used in Chesley&#8217;s calculations.</p>
<p>The information provided a more accurate glimpse of Apophis&#8217; orbit well into the latter part of this century. Among the findings is another close encounter by the asteroid with Earth in 2068 with chance of impact currently at approximately three-in-a-million. As with earlier orbital estimates where Earth impacts in 2029 and 2036 could not initially be ruled out due to the need for additional data, it is expected that the 2068 encounter will diminish in probability as more information about Apophis is acquired.</p>
<p>Initially, Apophis was thought to have a 2.7 percent chance of impacting Earth in 2029. Additional observations of the asteriod ruled out any possibility of an impact in 2029. However, the asteroid is expected to make a record-setting &#8212; but harmless &#8212; close approach to Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, when it comes no closer than 29,450 kilometers (18,300 miles) above Earth&#8217;s surface.</p>
<p>&#8220;The refined orbital determination further reinforces that Apophis is an asteroid we can look to as an opportunity for exciting science and not something that should be feared,&#8221; said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. &#8220;The public can follow along as we continue to study Apophis and other near-Earth objects by visiting us on our AsteroidWatch Web site and by following us on the @AsteroidWatch Twitter feed.&#8221;</p>
<p>The science of predicting asteroid orbits is based on a physical model of the solar system which includes the gravitational influence of the sun, moon, other planets and the three largest asteroids.</p>
<p>NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called &#8220;Spaceguard,&#8221; discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.</p>
<p>JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA&#8217;s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., operates the Arecibo Observatory under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.</p>
<p>For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch" target="_blank">http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch</a></p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><strong>Using updated information, NASA scientists have recalculated the path of a large asteroid. The refined path indicates a significantly reduced likelihood of a hazardous encounter with Earth in 2036.</strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong></p>
<p></strong></p>
<p>The Apophis asteroid is approximately the size of two-and-a-half football fields. The new data were documented by near-Earth object scientists Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas at NASA&#8217;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They will present their updated findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society&#8217;s Division for Planetary Sciences in Puerto Rico on Oct. 8.</p>
<p>&#8220;Apophis has been one of those celestial bodies that has captured the public&#8217;s interest since it was discovered in 2004,&#8221; said Chesley. &#8220;Updated computational techniques and newly available data indicate the probability of an Earth encounter on April 13, 2036, for Apophis has dropped from one-in-45,000 to about four-in-a million.&#8221;</p>
<p>A majority of the data that enabled the updated orbit of Apophis came from observations Dave Tholen and collaborators at the University of Hawaii&#8217;s Institute for Astronomy in Manoa made. Tholen pored over hundreds of previously unreleased images of the night sky made with the University of Hawaii&#8217;s 2.2-meter (88-inch) telescope, located near the summit of Mauna Kea.</p>
<p>Tholen made improved measurements of the asteroid&#8217;s position in the images, enabling him to provide Chesley and Chodas with new data sets more precise than previous measures for Apophis. Measurements from the Steward Observatory&#8217;s 2.3 meter (90-inch) Bok telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona and the Arecibo Observatory on the island of Puerto Rico also were used in Chesley&#8217;s calculations.</p>
<p>The information provided a more accurate glimpse of Apophis&#8217; orbit well into the latter part of this century. Among the findings is another close encounter by the asteroid with Earth in 2068 with chance of impact currently at approximately three-in-a-million. As with earlier orbital estimates where Earth impacts in 2029 and 2036 could not initially be ruled out due to the need for additional data, it is expected that the 2068 encounter will diminish in probability as more information about Apophis is acquired.</p>
<p>Initially, Apophis was thought to have a 2.7 percent chance of impacting Earth in 2029. Additional observations of the asteriod ruled out any possibility of an impact in 2029. However, the asteroid is expected to make a record-setting &#8212; but harmless &#8212; close approach to Earth on Friday, April 13, 2029, when it comes no closer than 29,450 kilometers (18,300 miles) above Earth&#8217;s surface.</p>
<p>&#8220;The refined orbital determination further reinforces that Apophis is an asteroid we can look to as an opportunity for exciting science and not something that should be feared,&#8221; said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL. &#8220;The public can follow along as we continue to study Apophis and other near-Earth objects by visiting us on our AsteroidWatch Web site and by following us on the @AsteroidWatch Twitter feed.&#8221;</p>
<p>The science of predicting asteroid orbits is based on a physical model of the solar system which includes the gravitational influence of the sun, moon, other planets and the three largest asteroids.</p>
<p>NASA detects and tracks asteroids and comets passing close to Earth using both ground and space-based telescopes. The Near-Earth Object Observations Program, commonly called &#8220;Spaceguard,&#8221; discovers these objects, characterizes a subset of them and plots their orbits to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.</p>
<p>JPL manages the Near-Earth Object Program Office for NASA&#8217;s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., operates the Arecibo Observatory under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.</p>
<p>For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch" target="_blank">http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch</a></p>

Start uga_filter: <p><strong>Photonics, the science of using photons to carry information, promises to continue improving a wide variety of technologies, from computing to high-speed communication.</strong></p>
<p>Now an international team of researchers from the UK, Taiwan, and Spain have discovered a compact way to produce infrared light, by firing electrons through a miniscule tunnel in a stack of gold and silica layers.</p>
<p>The tiny, tunable light source could be the predecessor of a new component for light-based chips.</p>
<p>The device is outlined in <em>Physical Review Letters</em> and highlighted with a Synopsis in the September 21, 2009 issue of <em>Physics</em>.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-348" title="090921075511-large" src="http://www.humacon.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/090921075511-large-300x225.jpg" alt="090921075511-large" width="300" height="225" /></p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><strong>Photonics, the science of using photons to carry information, promises to continue improving a wide variety of technologies, from computing to high-speed communication.</strong></p>
<p>Now an international team of researchers from the UK, Taiwan, and Spain have discovered a compact way to produce infrared light, by firing electrons through a miniscule tunnel in a stack of gold and silica layers.</p>
<p>The tiny, tunable light source could be the predecessor of a new component for light-based chips.</p>
<p>The device is outlined in <em>Physical Review Letters</em> and highlighted with a Synopsis in the September 21, 2009 issue of <em>Physics</em>.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-348" title="090921075511-large" src="http://www.humacon.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/090921075511-large-300x225.jpg" alt="090921075511-large" width="300" height="225" /></p>

Start uga_filter: <p><strong>&#8230;or at least that&#8217;s what Ray Kurzweil thinks. He has spent his life inventing machines that help people, from the blind to dyslexics. Now, he believes we&#8217;re on the brink of a new age – the &#8216;singularity&#8217; – when mind-boggling technology will allow us to email each other toast, run as fast as Usain Bolt (for 15 minutes) – and even live forever. Is there sense to his science – or is the man who reasons that one day he&#8217;ll bring his dad back from the grave just a mad professor peddling a nightmare vision of the future?</strong></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" title="Ray Kurzweil" src="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00245/73250270_245241t.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="204" /></p>
<p>Should, by some terrible misfortune, Ray Kurzweil shuffle off his mortal coil tomorrow, the obituaries would record an inventor of rare and visionary talent. In 1976, he created the first machine capable of reading books to the blind, and less than a decade later he built the K250: the first music synthesizer to nigh-on perfectly duplicate the sound of a grand piano. His Kurzweil 3000 educational software, which helps students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, is likewise typical of an innovator who has made his name by combining restless imagination with technological ingenuity and a commendable sense of social responsibility.</p>
<p>However, these past accomplishments, as impressive as they are, would tell    only half the Kurzweil story. The rest of his biography – the essence of his    very existence, he would contend – belongs to the future.</p>
<p>Following the publication of his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near: When    Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil has become known, above all, as a    technology speculator whose predictions have polarised opinion – from    stone-cold scepticism and splenetic disagreement to dedicated hero worship    and admiration. It&#8217;s not just that he boldly envisions a tomorrow&#8217;s world    where, for example, tiny robots will reverse the effects of pollution,    artificial intelligence will far outstrip (and supplement) biological human    intelligence, and humankind &#8220;will be able to live indefinitely without    ageing&#8221;. No, the real reason Kurzweil has become such a magnet for    blogospheric debate, and a tech-celebrity, is that he&#8217;s convinced those    future predictions – and many more just as stunning – are imminent    occurrences. They will all, he steadfastly maintains, happen before the    middle of the 21st century.</p>
<p>Which means, regarding the earlier allusion to his mortal coil, that he    doesn&#8217;t plan to do any shuffling any time soon. Ray Kurzweil, 61, sincerely    believes that his own immortality is a realistic proposition&#8230; and just as    strongly contends that, using a combination of grave-site DNA and future    technologies, he will be able to reclaim his father, Fredric Kurzweil (the    victim of a fatal heart attack in 1970), from death.</p>
<p>Just when will this ultimate life-affirming feat be possible? In Kurzweil&#8217;s    estimation, we will be able to upload the human brain to a computer,    capturing &#8220;a person&#8217;s entire personality, memory, skills and history&#8221;,    by the end of the 2030s; humans and non-biological machines will then merge    so effectively that the differences between them will no longer matter; and,    after that, human intelligence, transformed for the better, will start to    expand outward into the universe, around about 2045. With this last    prediction, Kurzweil is referring not to any recognisable type of space    travel, but to a kind of space infusion. &#8220;Intelligence,&#8221; he    writes, &#8220;will begin to saturate the matter and energy in its midst    [and] spread out from its origin on Earth.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s as well to mention at this point that, in 2005, Mikhail Gorbachev    personally congratulated Kurzweil for foreseeing the pivotal role of    communications technology in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that    Microsoft chairman Bill Gates calls him &#8220;the best person I know at    predicting the future of artificial intelligence&#8221;. A man of lesser    accomplishments, touting the same head-spinning claims, would impress few    beyond an inner circle of sci-fi obsessives, but Kurzweil – honoured as an    inventor by US presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Bill Clinton – has rightfully    earned himself a stockpile of credibility.</p>
<p>In person, chewing pensively on a banana, the softly spoken, slightly built    Kurzweil looks chipper for his 61 years, and wears an elegantly tailored    suit. A father of two, he resides in the Boston suburbs with his    psychologist wife, Sonya, but has flown into Los Angeles for a private    screening of Transcendent Man, the upcoming documentary that examines his    life and theories over a suitably cosmic score by Philip Glass. &#8220;People    don&#8217;t really get their intellectual arms around the changes that are    happening,&#8221; he says, perched lightly on the edge of a large armchair,    his overall sheen of wellbeing perhaps a shade more encouraging than you&#8217;d    expect from a man of his age. &#8220;The issue is not just [that] something    amazing is going to happen in 2045,&#8221; he says. &#8220;There&#8217;s something    remarkable going on right now.&#8221;</p>
<p>To understand exactly what he means, and why he thinks that his predictions    bear up to hard scrutiny, it&#8217;s necessary to return to the title of the    above-mentioned book, and the grand idea on which it&#8217;s based: &#8220;the    singularity&#8221;.</p>
<p>Borrowed from black-hole physics, in which the singularity is taken to signify    what is unknowable, the term has been applied to technology to suggest that    we haven&#8217;t really got a clue what&#8217;s going to happen once machines are vastly    more &#8220;intelligent&#8221; than humans. The singularity, writes Kurzweil,    is &#8220;a future period during which the pace of technological change will    be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly    transformed&#8221;. He is not unique in his adoption of the idea – the    information theorist John von Neumann hinted at it in the 1950s; retired    maths professor and sci-fi author Vernor Vinge has been exploring it at    length since the early 1980s – but Kurzweil&#8217;s version is currently the most    popular &#8220;singularitarian&#8221; text.</p>
<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t come to these ideas because I had certain conclusions and    worked backwards,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;In fact, I didn&#8217;t start looking    for them at all. I was looking for a way to time my inventions and    technology projects as I realised timing was the critical factor to success.    And I made this discovery that if you measure certain underlying properties    of information technology, it follows exquisitely predictable trajectories.&#8221;</p>
<p>For Kurzweil, the crux of the singularity is that the pace of technology is    increasing at a super-fast, exponential rate. What&#8217;s more, there&#8217;s also &#8220;exponential    growth in the rate &#8216; of exponential growth&#8221;. It is this understanding    that gives him the confidence to believe that technology – through an    explosion of progress in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics – will soon    surpass the limits of his imagination.</p>
<p>It is also why, in addition to bananas and the odd beneficial glass of red    wine, he follows a regime of around 200 vitamin pills daily: not so much a    diet as an attempt to &#8220;aggressively re-programme&#8221; his    biochemistry. He claims that tests have shown he aged only two biological    years over the course of 16 actual vitamin-popping years. He also says that,    thanks to the regime, he has effectively cured himself of Type 2 diabetes.    Not even open-heart surgery, which he underwent last year, and from which he    made a rapid recovery (&#8220;a few hours later I was in the next room, and    sent an email&#8221;) could dent his convictions. On the contrary, he thinks    that the brevity of his convalescence is proof positive that the pills are    working. If he slows down the ageing process, he reckons, he&#8217;ll be around    long enough to witness the arrival of technology that will prolong his    life&#8230; forever.</p>
<p>Kurzweil was raised in Queens, New York, where two youthful obsessions –    electronics and music – would lead to a guest appearance on the 1960s TV    quiz show I&#8217;ve Got a Secret, on which (aged 17) he showcased his first major    invention: a home-made computer that could compose tunes. Five years later    came the death (in 1970, when Ray was 22) of his father, Fredric, a    struggling composer and conductor who, Kurzweil believes, never really got    his due. &#8220;I&#8217;m painfully aware of the limitations he had, which were not    his fault,&#8221; he says. &#8220;In that generation, information about health    was not very available, and we didn&#8217;t have [today's] resources for creating    music. Now, a kid in a dorm room can create a whole orchestral composition    on a synthesizer.&#8221;</p>
<p>The tragedy of that loss – and the fact that the means to repair a congenital    heart defect were available to him, but not his father – is clearly an    intense motivation for Kurzweil. Sometime soon, he believes, he will once    again be able to converse with his father, such is the potential of the    scientific advances he believes will ultimately pave the way to the    singularity. Not everyone, though, concurs with his appraisal of technological    progress, and his belief in the imminence of immortality.</p>
<p>Memorably, in the Transcendent Man documentary, Kevin Kelly, founding editor    of future-thinking magazine Wired, labels Kurzweil a &#8220;deluded dreamer&#8221;    who is &#8220;performing the services of a prophet&#8221;. In reacting to that    assessment, Kurzweil&#8217;s habitually mellow tone of voice takes on a hint –    albeit mild – of umbrage. &#8220;It&#8217;s interesting that [Kelly] says my    views are &#8216;hard-wired&#8217;, when I actually think his views are hard-wired,&#8221;    he says. &#8220;He&#8217;s a linear thinker, and linear thinking is hard-wired in    our brains: it worked very well 1,000 years ago. Some people really are    resistant to accepting this exponential perspective, and they&#8217;re very smart    people. You show them the data, and yes, they follow it, but they just    cannot get past it. Other people accept it readily.&#8221;</p>
<p>Whereas Kelly differs from Kurzweil on the grounds of interpretation and tone,    other voices of dispute are rooted in a deep-seated fear of technological    calamity. &#8220;The form of opposition from fundamentalist humanists, and    fundamentalist naturalists – that we should make no change to nature [or] to    human beings – is directly contrary to the nature of human beings, because    we are the species that goes beyond our limitations,&#8221; counters    Kurzweil. &#8220;And I think that&#8217;s quite a destructive school of thought –    you can show that hundreds of thousands of kids went blind in Africa due to    the opposition to [genetically engineered] golden rice. The opposition to    genetically modified organisms is just a blanket, reflexive opposition to    the idea of changing nature. Nature, and the natural human condition,    generates tremendous suffering. We have the means to overcome that, and we    should deploy it.&#8221;</p>
<p>To those opponents who detect a thick strain of techno-evangelism in    Kurzweil&#8217;s basically optimistic interpretation of the singularity, he reacts    with self-parody: there&#8217;s a tongue-in-cheek photo in The Singularity is Near    of the author wearing a sandwich board bearing the book&#8217;s title, and he    insists he was never &#8220;searching for an alternative to customary faith&#8221;.    At the same time, he says humankind&#8217;s inevitable move towards non-biological    intelligence is &#8220;an essentially spiritual undertaking&#8221;.</p>
<p>Whether or not he attracts a significant following of dedicated believers in    search of deliverance, ecstasy or any variation thereof (some commentators    have called the singularity &#8220;the rapture for geeks&#8221;), Kurzweil has    undoubtedly positioned himself at the heart of a growing singularity    industry. He is a director of the non-profit Singularity Institute for    Artificial Intelligence, &#8220;the only organisation that exists for the    expressed purpose of achieving the potential of smarter-than-human    intelligence safer and sooner&#8221;; there&#8217;s a second film awaiting release    (part fiction, part documentary, co-produced by Kurzweil), also based on The    Singularity is Near; and in addition to his theoretical books, he has    co-authored a series of health titles, including Transcend: Nine Steps to    Living Well Forever and Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever.    The secret of immortality, he wants you to know, is available in book form.</p>
<p>Those who have lent Kurzweil their support include space-travel pioneer Peter    Diamandis, chairman of the X-Prize Foundation; videogame designer (and    creator of Spore and SimCity) Will Wright; and Nobel Prize-winning    astrophysicist George Smoot. All three can be found on the faculty and    adviser list of the recently founded Singularity University (Silicon    Valley), of which Kurzweil is chancellor and trustee.</p>
<p>If the pace of technology continues to accelerate, as Kurzweil predicts, it    seems likely that discussion of the singularity will see an exponential    growth of its own. Few would dispute that it&#8217;s one of the 21st century&#8217;s    most compelling ideas, because it connects issues that intensely polarise    people (God, the energy crisis, genetic engineering) with sci-fi concepts    that stir the imagination (artificial intelligence, immersive virtual    reality, molecular engineering). Thanks largely to Kurzweil and the    singularity, scenarios once viewed as diverting entertainment are being    reappraised with a new seriousness. The line between fanciful thinker and    credible, scientific analyst is becoming blurred: what once would have been    relegated to the realms of sci-fi is now gaining factual currency.</p>
<p>&#8220;People can wax philosophically,&#8221; says Kurzweil. &#8220;It&#8217;s very    abstract – whether it&#8217;s a good thing to overcome death or not – but when it    comes to some new methodology that&#8217;s a better treatment for cancer, there&#8217;s    no controversy. Nobody&#8217;s picketing doctors who put computers inside people&#8217;s    brains for Parkinson&#8217;s: it&#8217;s not considered controversial.&#8221;</p>
<p>Might that change as more people become aware of the singularity and the pace    of technological change? &#8220;People can argue about it,&#8221; says    Kurzweil, relaxed as ever within his aura of certainty. &#8220;But when it    comes down to accepting each step along the way, it&#8217;s done really without    much debate.&#8221;</p>
<p><em>&#8216;Transcendent Man&#8217; (<a href="http://transcendentman.com/">transcendentman.com</a>)    screens at Sheffield Doc/Fest (0114 276 5141, sheffdocfest.com), running in    association with &#8216;The Independent&#8217;, from 4-8 November</em></p>
<p><strong>The greatest thing since sliced bread? </strong></p>
<p>Ray Kurzweil&#8217;s guide to incredible future technologies — and when he thinks    they&#8217;re likely to arrive<strong>&#8230;</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 Reconnaissance dust </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;These so-called &#8216;smart dust&#8217; – tiny devices that are almost invisible    but contain sensors, computers and communication capabilities – are already    being experimented with. Practical use of these devices is likely within 10    to 15 years&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>2 Nano assemblers </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;Basically, these are three-dimensional printers that can create a    physical object from an information file and inexpensive input materials. So    we could email a blouse or a toaster or even the toast. There is already an    industry of three-dimensional printers, and the resolution of the devices    that can be created is getting finer and finer. The nano assembler would    assemble devices from molecules and molecular fragments, and is about 20    years away&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>3 Respirocytes </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;A respirocyte is a nanobot (a blood cell-sized device) that is designed    to replace our biological red blood cells but is 1,000 times more capable.    If you replaced a portion of your biological red blood cells with these    robotic versions you could do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without    taking a breath, or sit at the bottom of a swimming pool for four hours.    These are about 20 years away&#8221; &#8216;</p>
<p><strong>4 Foglets </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;Foglets are a form of nanobots that can reassemble themselves into a    wide variety of objects in the real world, essentially bringing the rapid    morphing qualities of virtual reality to real reality. Nanobots that can    perform useful therapeutic functions in our bodies, essentially keeping us    healthy from inside, are only about 20 years away. Foglets are more advanced    and are probably 30 to 40 years away&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>5 Blue goo </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;The concern with full-scale nanotechnology and nanobots is that if they    had the capability to replicate in a natural environment (as bacteria and    other pathogens do), they could destroy humanity or even all of the biomass.    This is called the grey goo concern. When that becomes feasible we will need    a nanotechnology immune system. The nanobots that would be protecting us    from harmful self-replicating nanobots are called blue goo (blue as in    police). This scenario is 20 to 30 years away&#8221;</p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><strong>&#8230;or at least that&#8217;s what Ray Kurzweil thinks. He has spent his life inventing machines that help people, from the blind to dyslexics. Now, he believes we&#8217;re on the brink of a new age – the &#8216;singularity&#8217; – when mind-boggling technology will allow us to email each other toast, run as fast as Usain Bolt (for 15 minutes) – and even live forever. Is there sense to his science – or is the man who reasons that one day he&#8217;ll bring his dad back from the grave just a mad professor peddling a nightmare vision of the future?</strong></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" title="Ray Kurzweil" src="http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00245/73250270_245241t.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="204" /></p>
<p>Should, by some terrible misfortune, Ray Kurzweil shuffle off his mortal coil tomorrow, the obituaries would record an inventor of rare and visionary talent. In 1976, he created the first machine capable of reading books to the blind, and less than a decade later he built the K250: the first music synthesizer to nigh-on perfectly duplicate the sound of a grand piano. His Kurzweil 3000 educational software, which helps students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, is likewise typical of an innovator who has made his name by combining restless imagination with technological ingenuity and a commendable sense of social responsibility.</p>
<p>However, these past accomplishments, as impressive as they are, would tell    only half the Kurzweil story. The rest of his biography – the essence of his    very existence, he would contend – belongs to the future.</p>
<p>Following the publication of his 2005 book, The Singularity is Near: When    Humans Transcend Biology, Kurzweil has become known, above all, as a    technology speculator whose predictions have polarised opinion – from    stone-cold scepticism and splenetic disagreement to dedicated hero worship    and admiration. It&#8217;s not just that he boldly envisions a tomorrow&#8217;s world    where, for example, tiny robots will reverse the effects of pollution,    artificial intelligence will far outstrip (and supplement) biological human    intelligence, and humankind &#8220;will be able to live indefinitely without    ageing&#8221;. No, the real reason Kurzweil has become such a magnet for    blogospheric debate, and a tech-celebrity, is that he&#8217;s convinced those    future predictions – and many more just as stunning – are imminent    occurrences. They will all, he steadfastly maintains, happen before the    middle of the 21st century.</p>
<p>Which means, regarding the earlier allusion to his mortal coil, that he    doesn&#8217;t plan to do any shuffling any time soon. Ray Kurzweil, 61, sincerely    believes that his own immortality is a realistic proposition&#8230; and just as    strongly contends that, using a combination of grave-site DNA and future    technologies, he will be able to reclaim his father, Fredric Kurzweil (the    victim of a fatal heart attack in 1970), from death.</p>
<p>Just when will this ultimate life-affirming feat be possible? In Kurzweil&#8217;s    estimation, we will be able to upload the human brain to a computer,    capturing &#8220;a person&#8217;s entire personality, memory, skills and history&#8221;,    by the end of the 2030s; humans and non-biological machines will then merge    so effectively that the differences between them will no longer matter; and,    after that, human intelligence, transformed for the better, will start to    expand outward into the universe, around about 2045. With this last    prediction, Kurzweil is referring not to any recognisable type of space    travel, but to a kind of space infusion. &#8220;Intelligence,&#8221; he    writes, &#8220;will begin to saturate the matter and energy in its midst    [and] spread out from its origin on Earth.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s as well to mention at this point that, in 2005, Mikhail Gorbachev    personally congratulated Kurzweil for foreseeing the pivotal role of    communications technology in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that    Microsoft chairman Bill Gates calls him &#8220;the best person I know at    predicting the future of artificial intelligence&#8221;. A man of lesser    accomplishments, touting the same head-spinning claims, would impress few    beyond an inner circle of sci-fi obsessives, but Kurzweil – honoured as an    inventor by US presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Bill Clinton – has rightfully    earned himself a stockpile of credibility.</p>
<p>In person, chewing pensively on a banana, the softly spoken, slightly built    Kurzweil looks chipper for his 61 years, and wears an elegantly tailored    suit. A father of two, he resides in the Boston suburbs with his    psychologist wife, Sonya, but has flown into Los Angeles for a private    screening of Transcendent Man, the upcoming documentary that examines his    life and theories over a suitably cosmic score by Philip Glass. &#8220;People    don&#8217;t really get their intellectual arms around the changes that are    happening,&#8221; he says, perched lightly on the edge of a large armchair,    his overall sheen of wellbeing perhaps a shade more encouraging than you&#8217;d    expect from a man of his age. &#8220;The issue is not just [that] something    amazing is going to happen in 2045,&#8221; he says. &#8220;There&#8217;s something    remarkable going on right now.&#8221;</p>
<p>To understand exactly what he means, and why he thinks that his predictions    bear up to hard scrutiny, it&#8217;s necessary to return to the title of the    above-mentioned book, and the grand idea on which it&#8217;s based: &#8220;the    singularity&#8221;.</p>
<p>Borrowed from black-hole physics, in which the singularity is taken to signify    what is unknowable, the term has been applied to technology to suggest that    we haven&#8217;t really got a clue what&#8217;s going to happen once machines are vastly    more &#8220;intelligent&#8221; than humans. The singularity, writes Kurzweil,    is &#8220;a future period during which the pace of technological change will    be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly    transformed&#8221;. He is not unique in his adoption of the idea – the    information theorist John von Neumann hinted at it in the 1950s; retired    maths professor and sci-fi author Vernor Vinge has been exploring it at    length since the early 1980s – but Kurzweil&#8217;s version is currently the most    popular &#8220;singularitarian&#8221; text.</p>
<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t come to these ideas because I had certain conclusions and    worked backwards,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;In fact, I didn&#8217;t start looking    for them at all. I was looking for a way to time my inventions and    technology projects as I realised timing was the critical factor to success.    And I made this discovery that if you measure certain underlying properties    of information technology, it follows exquisitely predictable trajectories.&#8221;</p>
<p>For Kurzweil, the crux of the singularity is that the pace of technology is    increasing at a super-fast, exponential rate. What&#8217;s more, there&#8217;s also &#8220;exponential    growth in the rate &#8216; of exponential growth&#8221;. It is this understanding    that gives him the confidence to believe that technology – through an    explosion of progress in genetics, nanotechnology and robotics – will soon    surpass the limits of his imagination.</p>
<p>It is also why, in addition to bananas and the odd beneficial glass of red    wine, he follows a regime of around 200 vitamin pills daily: not so much a    diet as an attempt to &#8220;aggressively re-programme&#8221; his    biochemistry. He claims that tests have shown he aged only two biological    years over the course of 16 actual vitamin-popping years. He also says that,    thanks to the regime, he has effectively cured himself of Type 2 diabetes.    Not even open-heart surgery, which he underwent last year, and from which he    made a rapid recovery (&#8220;a few hours later I was in the next room, and    sent an email&#8221;) could dent his convictions. On the contrary, he thinks    that the brevity of his convalescence is proof positive that the pills are    working. If he slows down the ageing process, he reckons, he&#8217;ll be around    long enough to witness the arrival of technology that will prolong his    life&#8230; forever.</p>
<p>Kurzweil was raised in Queens, New York, where two youthful obsessions –    electronics and music – would lead to a guest appearance on the 1960s TV    quiz show I&#8217;ve Got a Secret, on which (aged 17) he showcased his first major    invention: a home-made computer that could compose tunes. Five years later    came the death (in 1970, when Ray was 22) of his father, Fredric, a    struggling composer and conductor who, Kurzweil believes, never really got    his due. &#8220;I&#8217;m painfully aware of the limitations he had, which were not    his fault,&#8221; he says. &#8220;In that generation, information about health    was not very available, and we didn&#8217;t have [today's] resources for creating    music. Now, a kid in a dorm room can create a whole orchestral composition    on a synthesizer.&#8221;</p>
<p>The tragedy of that loss – and the fact that the means to repair a congenital    heart defect were available to him, but not his father – is clearly an    intense motivation for Kurzweil. Sometime soon, he believes, he will once    again be able to converse with his father, such is the potential of the    scientific advances he believes will ultimately pave the way to the    singularity. Not everyone, though, concurs with his appraisal of technological    progress, and his belief in the imminence of immortality.</p>
<p>Memorably, in the Transcendent Man documentary, Kevin Kelly, founding editor    of future-thinking magazine Wired, labels Kurzweil a &#8220;deluded dreamer&#8221;    who is &#8220;performing the services of a prophet&#8221;. In reacting to that    assessment, Kurzweil&#8217;s habitually mellow tone of voice takes on a hint –    albeit mild – of umbrage. &#8220;It&#8217;s interesting that [Kelly] says my    views are &#8216;hard-wired&#8217;, when I actually think his views are hard-wired,&#8221;    he says. &#8220;He&#8217;s a linear thinker, and linear thinking is hard-wired in    our brains: it worked very well 1,000 years ago. Some people really are    resistant to accepting this exponential perspective, and they&#8217;re very smart    people. You show them the data, and yes, they follow it, but they just    cannot get past it. Other people accept it readily.&#8221;</p>
<p>Whereas Kelly differs from Kurzweil on the grounds of interpretation and tone,    other voices of dispute are rooted in a deep-seated fear of technological    calamity. &#8220;The form of opposition from fundamentalist humanists, and    fundamentalist naturalists – that we should make no change to nature [or] to    human beings – is directly contrary to the nature of human beings, because    we are the species that goes beyond our limitations,&#8221; counters    Kurzweil. &#8220;And I think that&#8217;s quite a destructive school of thought –    you can show that hundreds of thousands of kids went blind in Africa due to    the opposition to [genetically engineered] golden rice. The opposition to    genetically modified organisms is just a blanket, reflexive opposition to    the idea of changing nature. Nature, and the natural human condition,    generates tremendous suffering. We have the means to overcome that, and we    should deploy it.&#8221;</p>
<p>To those opponents who detect a thick strain of techno-evangelism in    Kurzweil&#8217;s basically optimistic interpretation of the singularity, he reacts    with self-parody: there&#8217;s a tongue-in-cheek photo in The Singularity is Near    of the author wearing a sandwich board bearing the book&#8217;s title, and he    insists he was never &#8220;searching for an alternative to customary faith&#8221;.    At the same time, he says humankind&#8217;s inevitable move towards non-biological    intelligence is &#8220;an essentially spiritual undertaking&#8221;.</p>
<p>Whether or not he attracts a significant following of dedicated believers in    search of deliverance, ecstasy or any variation thereof (some commentators    have called the singularity &#8220;the rapture for geeks&#8221;), Kurzweil has    undoubtedly positioned himself at the heart of a growing singularity    industry. He is a director of the non-profit Singularity Institute for    Artificial Intelligence, &#8220;the only organisation that exists for the    expressed purpose of achieving the potential of smarter-than-human    intelligence safer and sooner&#8221;; there&#8217;s a second film awaiting release    (part fiction, part documentary, co-produced by Kurzweil), also based on The    Singularity is Near; and in addition to his theoretical books, he has    co-authored a series of health titles, including Transcend: Nine Steps to    Living Well Forever and Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever.    The secret of immortality, he wants you to know, is available in book form.</p>
<p>Those who have lent Kurzweil their support include space-travel pioneer Peter    Diamandis, chairman of the X-Prize Foundation; videogame designer (and    creator of Spore and SimCity) Will Wright; and Nobel Prize-winning    astrophysicist George Smoot. All three can be found on the faculty and    adviser list of the recently founded Singularity University (Silicon    Valley), of which Kurzweil is chancellor and trustee.</p>
<p>If the pace of technology continues to accelerate, as Kurzweil predicts, it    seems likely that discussion of the singularity will see an exponential    growth of its own. Few would dispute that it&#8217;s one of the 21st century&#8217;s    most compelling ideas, because it connects issues that intensely polarise    people (God, the energy crisis, genetic engineering) with sci-fi concepts    that stir the imagination (artificial intelligence, immersive virtual    reality, molecular engineering). Thanks largely to Kurzweil and the    singularity, scenarios once viewed as diverting entertainment are being    reappraised with a new seriousness. The line between fanciful thinker and    credible, scientific analyst is becoming blurred: what once would have been    relegated to the realms of sci-fi is now gaining factual currency.</p>
<p>&#8220;People can wax philosophically,&#8221; says Kurzweil. &#8220;It&#8217;s very    abstract – whether it&#8217;s a good thing to overcome death or not – but when it    comes to some new methodology that&#8217;s a better treatment for cancer, there&#8217;s    no controversy. Nobody&#8217;s picketing doctors who put computers inside people&#8217;s    brains for Parkinson&#8217;s: it&#8217;s not considered controversial.&#8221;</p>
<p>Might that change as more people become aware of the singularity and the pace    of technological change? &#8220;People can argue about it,&#8221; says    Kurzweil, relaxed as ever within his aura of certainty. &#8220;But when it    comes down to accepting each step along the way, it&#8217;s done really without    much debate.&#8221;</p>
<p><em>&#8216;Transcendent Man&#8217; (<a href="http://transcendentman.com/">transcendentman.com</a>)    screens at Sheffield Doc/Fest (0114 276 5141, sheffdocfest.com), running in    association with &#8216;The Independent&#8217;, from 4-8 November</em></p>
<p><strong>The greatest thing since sliced bread? </strong></p>
<p>Ray Kurzweil&#8217;s guide to incredible future technologies — and when he thinks    they&#8217;re likely to arrive<strong>&#8230;</strong></p>
<p><strong>1 Reconnaissance dust </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;These so-called &#8216;smart dust&#8217; – tiny devices that are almost invisible    but contain sensors, computers and communication capabilities – are already    being experimented with. Practical use of these devices is likely within 10    to 15 years&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>2 Nano assemblers </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;Basically, these are three-dimensional printers that can create a    physical object from an information file and inexpensive input materials. So    we could email a blouse or a toaster or even the toast. There is already an    industry of three-dimensional printers, and the resolution of the devices    that can be created is getting finer and finer. The nano assembler would    assemble devices from molecules and molecular fragments, and is about 20    years away&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>3 Respirocytes </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;A respirocyte is a nanobot (a blood cell-sized device) that is designed    to replace our biological red blood cells but is 1,000 times more capable.    If you replaced a portion of your biological red blood cells with these    robotic versions you could do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without    taking a breath, or sit at the bottom of a swimming pool for four hours.    These are about 20 years away&#8221; &#8216;</p>
<p><strong>4 Foglets </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;Foglets are a form of nanobots that can reassemble themselves into a    wide variety of objects in the real world, essentially bringing the rapid    morphing qualities of virtual reality to real reality. Nanobots that can    perform useful therapeutic functions in our bodies, essentially keeping us    healthy from inside, are only about 20 years away. Foglets are more advanced    and are probably 30 to 40 years away&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>5 Blue goo </strong></p>
<p>&#8220;The concern with full-scale nanotechnology and nanobots is that if they    had the capability to replicate in a natural environment (as bacteria and    other pathogens do), they could destroy humanity or even all of the biomass.    This is called the grey goo concern. When that becomes feasible we will need    a nanotechnology immune system. The nanobots that would be protecting us    from harmful self-replicating nanobots are called blue goo (blue as in    police). This scenario is 20 to 30 years away&#8221;</p>

Start uga_filter: <p><img class="alignleft" title="a" src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/8/2009/07/340x_RGS14A_2jnu_big.jpg" alt="" width="77" height="76" /><strong>Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. </strong><strong>You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see. </strong></p>
<p>A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals&#8217; ability to remember objects they had seen.</p>
<p>Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.</p>
<p>The researchers concluded that this region of the visual cortex, known as layer six of region V2, is responsible for creating visual memories. When the region is removed, mice can no longer remember any object they see.</p>
<p>If this protein boosts visual memory in humans, the implications are staggering. In their paper, the researchers say that it could be used as a memory-enhancer – which seems like an understatement. What&#8217;s particularly intriguing is the fact that this protein works on visual memory only. So as I mentioned earlier, it would be perfect for mapping. It would also be useful for engineers and architects who need to hold a lot of visual images in their minds at once. And it would also be a great drug for detectives and spies.</p>
<p>Could it also be a way to gain photographic memory? For example, if I look at a page of text will I remember the words perfectly? Or will I simply remember how the page looked?</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t see much of a downside for this potential drug, unless the act of not forgetting what you see causes problems or trauma.</p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><img class="alignleft" title="a" src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/8/2009/07/340x_RGS14A_2jnu_big.jpg" alt="" width="77" height="76" /><strong>Imagine if you could look at something once and remember it forever. </strong><strong>You would never have to ask for directions again. Now a group of scientists has isolated a protein that mega-boosts your ability to remember what you see. </strong></p>
<p>A group of Spanish researchers reported today in Science that they may have stumbled upon a substance that could become the ultimate memory-enhancer. The group was studying a poorly-understood region of the visual cortex. They found that if they boosted production of a protein called RGS-14 (pictured) in that area of the visual cortex in mice, it dramatically affected the animals&#8217; ability to remember objects they had seen.</p>
<p>Mice with the RGS-14 boost could remember objects they had seen for up to two months. Ordinarily the same mice would only be able to remember these objects for about an hour.</p>
<p>The researchers concluded that this region of the visual cortex, known as layer six of region V2, is responsible for creating visual memories. When the region is removed, mice can no longer remember any object they see.</p>
<p>If this protein boosts visual memory in humans, the implications are staggering. In their paper, the researchers say that it could be used as a memory-enhancer – which seems like an understatement. What&#8217;s particularly intriguing is the fact that this protein works on visual memory only. So as I mentioned earlier, it would be perfect for mapping. It would also be useful for engineers and architects who need to hold a lot of visual images in their minds at once. And it would also be a great drug for detectives and spies.</p>
<p>Could it also be a way to gain photographic memory? For example, if I look at a page of text will I remember the words perfectly? Or will I simply remember how the page looked?</p>
<p>I can&#8217;t see much of a downside for this potential drug, unless the act of not forgetting what you see causes problems or trauma.</p>

Start uga_filter: <p><strong>Nanosolar has created a thin film solar battery, much more efficient than anything existing on the market nowadays.</strong></p>
<p><a rel="lightbox" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/nanosolar_120407.jpg"><img title="nanosolar_120407" src="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/nanosolar_120407-300x204.jpg" alt="nanosolar 120407 300x204 Solar Cells Now Cheaper Than Coal!" width="240" height="163" /></a>Its thin film <a id="KonaLink0" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/03/26/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#" target="undefined"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;,Arial,&quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">technology</span></span></a> transfers the sun light in a very efficient way. The Nanosolar power plant will begin producing energy in 2008 and will cover 430 megawatts/year. That’s more than all the capacity of the currently installed solar plants in the US. The normal production costs are 3$/watt. Nanosolar’s are 0.3$/watt! And that’s cheaper than coal. Combined with the fact that these solar panels are designed to last for a minimum of 25 years (that’s their guarantee), more and more energy industries will head towards this form of electricity. Their product belongs to the “third wave” of solar technology. Here’s an excerpt from their site about the three solar waves:</p>
<p>“Nanosolar is leading the “Third Wave” of <a title="solar power" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/category/solar-power/">solar power</a> technology:</p>
<ul style="font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 1.6em; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; margin-top: 6px; margin-left: 17px;" type="disc">
<li>The <em>First Wave</em> started with the introduction of silicon-wafer based solar cells over three decades ago. While ground-breaking, it is visible until today that this technology came out of a market environment with little concern for cost, capital efficiency, and the product cost / performance ratio. Despite continued incremental improvements, silicon-wafer cells have a built-in disadvantage of fundamentally high materials cost and poor capital efficiency. Because silicon does not absorb light very strongly, silicon wafer cells have to be very thick. And because wafers are fragile, their intricate handling complicates processing all the way up to the panel product.</li>
<li>The <em>Second Wave</em> came about a decade ago with the arrival of the first commercial “thin-film” solar cells. This established that new solar cells based on a stack of layers 100 times thinner than silicon wafers can make a solar cell that is just as good. However, the first thin-film approaches were handicapped by two issues:
<p style="margin-top: 5px;">1. The cell’s semiconductor was deposited using slow and expensive high-vacuum based processes because it was not known how to employ much simpler and higher-yield printing processes (and how to develop the required <a id="KonaLink1" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/03/26/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#" target="undefined"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">semiconductor</span></span></a> ink).</p>
<p style="margin-top: 5px;">2. The thin films were deposited directly onto glass as a substrate, eliminating the opportunity of</p>
<ul style="margin-top: 2px; margin-left: 17px;" type="disc">
<li> using a conductive substrate directly as electrode (and thus avoiding bottom-electrode deposition cost),</li>
<li> achieving a low-cost top electrode of <a id="KonaLink2" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/03/26/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#" target="undefined"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">high </span><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">performance</span></span></a>,</li>
<li> employing the yield and performance advantages of individual cell matching &amp; sorting,</li>
<li> employing high-yield continuous roll-to-roll processing, and</li>
<li> developing high-power high-current panels with lower balance-of-system cost.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <em>Third Wave</em> of solar power consists of companies addressing the above shortcomings and opportunities. Most every of the new companies address one or the other of the above aspects. One company — Nanosolar — brings together the entire conjunction of all seven areas of innovation, each break-through in their own right, to deliver a dramatic improvement in the cost-efficiency, yield, and throughput of the production of much thinner solar cells.”</li>
</ul>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4riNlqZHCTQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4riNlqZHCTQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Let’s just hope this will facilitate the production of solar panels for the new and existing hybrid and electric cars, and we will no longer be dependent of fossil fuel. There are so few solar plants today, that we cannot imagine how big the Sun’s power really is. Let’s hope that in the future, we’ll drive our cars powered by the sun just like the old sailors drove their boats powered by wind. Good work, guys!</p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><strong>Nanosolar has created a thin film solar battery, much more efficient than anything existing on the market nowadays.</strong></p>
<p><a rel="lightbox" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/nanosolar_120407.jpg"><img title="nanosolar_120407" src="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/nanosolar_120407-300x204.jpg" alt="nanosolar 120407 300x204 Solar Cells Now Cheaper Than Coal!" width="240" height="163" /></a>Its thin film <a id="KonaLink0" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/03/26/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#" target="undefined"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;,Arial,&quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;,Tahoma,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">technology</span></span></a> transfers the sun light in a very efficient way. The Nanosolar power plant will begin producing energy in 2008 and will cover 430 megawatts/year. That’s more than all the capacity of the currently installed solar plants in the US. The normal production costs are 3$/watt. Nanosolar’s are 0.3$/watt! And that’s cheaper than coal. Combined with the fact that these solar panels are designed to last for a minimum of 25 years (that’s their guarantee), more and more energy industries will head towards this form of electricity. Their product belongs to the “third wave” of solar technology. Here’s an excerpt from their site about the three solar waves:</p>
<p>“Nanosolar is leading the “Third Wave” of <a title="solar power" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/category/solar-power/">solar power</a> technology:</p>
<ul style="font-family: Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 100%; line-height: 1.6em; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; margin-top: 6px; margin-left: 17px;" type="disc">
<li>The <em>First Wave</em> started with the introduction of silicon-wafer based solar cells over three decades ago. While ground-breaking, it is visible until today that this technology came out of a market environment with little concern for cost, capital efficiency, and the product cost / performance ratio. Despite continued incremental improvements, silicon-wafer cells have a built-in disadvantage of fundamentally high materials cost and poor capital efficiency. Because silicon does not absorb light very strongly, silicon wafer cells have to be very thick. And because wafers are fragile, their intricate handling complicates processing all the way up to the panel product.</li>
<li>The <em>Second Wave</em> came about a decade ago with the arrival of the first commercial “thin-film” solar cells. This established that new solar cells based on a stack of layers 100 times thinner than silicon wafers can make a solar cell that is just as good. However, the first thin-film approaches were handicapped by two issues:
<p style="margin-top: 5px;">1. The cell’s semiconductor was deposited using slow and expensive high-vacuum based processes because it was not known how to employ much simpler and higher-yield printing processes (and how to develop the required <a id="KonaLink1" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/03/26/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#" target="undefined"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">semiconductor</span></span></a> ink).</p>
<p style="margin-top: 5px;">2. The thin films were deposited directly onto glass as a substrate, eliminating the opportunity of</p>
<ul style="margin-top: 2px; margin-left: 17px;" type="disc">
<li> using a conductive substrate directly as electrode (and thus avoiding bottom-electrode deposition cost),</li>
<li> achieving a low-cost top electrode of <a id="KonaLink2" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="http://www.greenoptimistic.com/2008/03/26/solar-cells-now-cheaper-than-coal/#" target="undefined"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;"><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">high </span><span style="color: #0000ff ! important; font-family: Arial; font-weight: 400; font-size: 14.0833px; position: static;">performance</span></span></a>,</li>
<li> employing the yield and performance advantages of individual cell matching &amp; sorting,</li>
<li> employing high-yield continuous roll-to-roll processing, and</li>
<li> developing high-power high-current panels with lower balance-of-system cost.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <em>Third Wave</em> of solar power consists of companies addressing the above shortcomings and opportunities. Most every of the new companies address one or the other of the above aspects. One company — Nanosolar — brings together the entire conjunction of all seven areas of innovation, each break-through in their own right, to deliver a dramatic improvement in the cost-efficiency, yield, and throughput of the production of much thinner solar cells.”</li>
</ul>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="344" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4riNlqZHCTQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4riNlqZHCTQ&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;color1=0x234900&amp;color2=0x4e9e00" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></p>
<p>Let’s just hope this will facilitate the production of solar panels for the new and existing hybrid and electric cars, and we will no longer be dependent of fossil fuel. There are so few solar plants today, that we cannot imagine how big the Sun’s power really is. Let’s hope that in the future, we’ll drive our cars powered by the sun just like the old sailors drove their boats powered by wind. Good work, guys!</p>

Start uga_filter: <p><strong>Bacteria that generate significant amounts of electricity could be used in microbial fuel cells to provide power in remote environments or to convert waste to electricity. Professor Derek Lovley, from the University of Massachusetts, isolated bacteria with large numbers of tiny projections called pili which were more efficient at transferring electrons to generate power in fuel cells than bacteria with a smooth surface.</strong></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" title="fuel cell" src="http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/generation/title-page-images/fuelcell.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="513" /></p>
<p>The team&#8217;s findings were reported at the Society for General Microbiology&#8217;s meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Sept. 7.</p>
<p>The researchers isolated a strain of <em>Geobacter sulfurreducens</em> which they called KN400 that grew prolifically on the graphite anodes of fuel cells. The bacteria formed a thick biofilm on the anode surface, which conducted electricity. The researchers found large quantities of pilin, a protein that makes the tiny fibres that conduct electricity through the sticky biofilm.</p>
<p>&#8220;The filaments form microscopic projections called pili that act as microbial nanowires,&#8221; said Professor Lovley, &#8220;using this bacterial strain in a fuel cell to generate electricity would greatly increase the cell&#8217;s power output.&#8221;</p>
<p>The pili on the bacteria&#8217;s surface seemed to be primarily for electrical conduction rather than to help them to attach to the anode; mutant forms without pili were still able to stay attached.</p>
<p>Microbial fuel cells can be used in monitoring devices in environments where it is difficult to replace batteries if they fail but to be successful they need to have an efficient and long-lasting source of power. Professor Lovley described how G. sulfurreducens strain KN400 might be used in sensors placed on the ocean floor to monitor migration of turtles.</p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><strong>Bacteria that generate significant amounts of electricity could be used in microbial fuel cells to provide power in remote environments or to convert waste to electricity. Professor Derek Lovley, from the University of Massachusetts, isolated bacteria with large numbers of tiny projections called pili which were more efficient at transferring electrons to generate power in fuel cells than bacteria with a smooth surface.</strong></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" title="fuel cell" src="http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/technical-articles/generation/title-page-images/fuelcell.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="513" /></p>
<p>The team&#8217;s findings were reported at the Society for General Microbiology&#8217;s meeting at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Sept. 7.</p>
<p>The researchers isolated a strain of <em>Geobacter sulfurreducens</em> which they called KN400 that grew prolifically on the graphite anodes of fuel cells. The bacteria formed a thick biofilm on the anode surface, which conducted electricity. The researchers found large quantities of pilin, a protein that makes the tiny fibres that conduct electricity through the sticky biofilm.</p>
<p>&#8220;The filaments form microscopic projections called pili that act as microbial nanowires,&#8221; said Professor Lovley, &#8220;using this bacterial strain in a fuel cell to generate electricity would greatly increase the cell&#8217;s power output.&#8221;</p>
<p>The pili on the bacteria&#8217;s surface seemed to be primarily for electrical conduction rather than to help them to attach to the anode; mutant forms without pili were still able to stay attached.</p>
<p>Microbial fuel cells can be used in monitoring devices in environments where it is difficult to replace batteries if they fail but to be successful they need to have an efficient and long-lasting source of power. Professor Lovley described how G. sulfurreducens strain KN400 might be used in sensors placed on the ocean floor to monitor migration of turtles.</p>

Start uga_filter: <p><strong>The Lost Orphan Mine below the Grand Canyon hasn&#8217;t produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but Judy Wall, a biochemistry professor at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is researching the use of sulfate-reducing bacteria to convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances, a much more economical solution.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter" title="woman" src="http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2009/09/090908193444.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="228" /></p>
<p>The bacteria Wall is studying are bio-corrosives and can change the solubility of heavy metals. They can take uranium and convert it to uraninite, a nearly insoluble substance that will sink to the bottom of a lake or stream. Wall is looking into the bacteria&#8217;s water cleansing ability and how long the changed material would remain inert.</p>
<p>Wall&#8217;s research could also be beneficial to heavy metal pollution from storage tanks and industrial waste. The bacteria are already present in more than 7,000 heavy metal contaminated sites, but they live in a specific range of oxygen and temperature, making them difficult to control.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our research must be done in the absence of air,&#8221; Wall said. &#8220;Obviously, none but the most committed – and stubborn – will work with them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even if an oxygen-tolerant strain were developed, there are still multiple factors that would make applying the bacteria challenging, and these microbes can contribute to massive iron corrosion.</p>
<p>&#8220;Knowledge of the way bacteria live in the environment, in microbial communities, is still in its infancy,&#8221; Wall said. &#8220;We just don&#8217;t know a lot about the communication systems among microbes.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wall and researchers from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California are investigating the bacterium&#8217;s basic genetics and hope to determine its growth limits and activity in natural settings, including how to make its interactions with metals sustainable. They have already identified a few genes that are critical to converting uranium.</p>
<p>Wall&#8217;s research has been published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Nucleic Acids Research and Environmental Microbiology.</p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <p><strong>The Lost Orphan Mine below the Grand Canyon hasn&#8217;t produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but Judy Wall, a biochemistry professor at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is researching the use of sulfate-reducing bacteria to convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances, a much more economical solution.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img class="aligncenter" title="woman" src="http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2009/09/090908193444.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="228" /></p>
<p>The bacteria Wall is studying are bio-corrosives and can change the solubility of heavy metals. They can take uranium and convert it to uraninite, a nearly insoluble substance that will sink to the bottom of a lake or stream. Wall is looking into the bacteria&#8217;s water cleansing ability and how long the changed material would remain inert.</p>
<p>Wall&#8217;s research could also be beneficial to heavy metal pollution from storage tanks and industrial waste. The bacteria are already present in more than 7,000 heavy metal contaminated sites, but they live in a specific range of oxygen and temperature, making them difficult to control.</p>
<p>&#8220;Our research must be done in the absence of air,&#8221; Wall said. &#8220;Obviously, none but the most committed – and stubborn – will work with them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even if an oxygen-tolerant strain were developed, there are still multiple factors that would make applying the bacteria challenging, and these microbes can contribute to massive iron corrosion.</p>
<p>&#8220;Knowledge of the way bacteria live in the environment, in microbial communities, is still in its infancy,&#8221; Wall said. &#8220;We just don&#8217;t know a lot about the communication systems among microbes.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wall and researchers from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California are investigating the bacterium&#8217;s basic genetics and hope to determine its growth limits and activity in natural settings, including how to make its interactions with metals sustainable. They have already identified a few genes that are critical to converting uranium.</p>
<p>Wall&#8217;s research has been published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Nucleic Acids Research and Environmental Microbiology.</p>

Start uga_filter: <div id="articleContent">
<p><strong>Kevin Warwick’s new robot behaves like a child. “Sometimes it does what you want it to, and sometimes it doesn’t,” he says. And while it may seem strange for a professor of cybernetics to be concerning himself with such an unreliable machine, Warwick’s creation has something that even today’s most sophisticated robots lack: a living brain.</strong></p>
<p>Life for Warwick’s robot began when his team at the University of Reading spread rat neurons onto an array of electrodes. After about 20 minutes, the neurons began to form connections with one another. “It’s an innate response of the neurons,” says Warwick, “they try to link up and start communicating.”</p>
<p>For the next week the team fed the developing brain a liquid containing nutrients and minerals. And once the neurons established a network sufficiently capable of responding to electrical inputs from the electrode array, they connected the newly formed brain to a simple robot body consisting of two wheels and a sonar sensor.</p>
<p><img src="http://seedmagazine.com/images/uploads/TheLivingRobot_HS.jpg" alt="" /><span>Credit: Kevin Warkwick</span></p>
<p>A relay of signals between the sensor, motors, and brain dictate the robot’s behavior. When it approaches an object, the number of electrical pulses sent from the sonar device to the brain increases. This heightened electrical stimulation causes certain neurons in the robot’s brain to fire. When the electrodes on which the firing neurons rest detect this activity, they signal the robot’s wheels to change direction. The end result is a robot that can avoid obstacles in its path.</p>
<p>At first, the young robot spent a lot of time crashing into things. But after a few weeks of practice, its performance began to improve as the connections between the active neurons in its brain strengthened. “This is a specific type of learning, called Hebbian learning,” says Warwick, “where, by doing something habitually, you get better at doing it.”</p>
<p>The robot now gets around well enough. “But it has a biological brain, and not a computer,” says Warwick, and so it must navigate based solely on the very limited amount of information it receives from a single sensory device. If the number of sensory devices connected to its brain increases, it will gain a better understanding of its surroundings. “I have another student now who has started to work on an audio input, so in some way we can start communicating with it,” he says.</p>
<p>But it would be a bit shortsighted to say that adding sensory input devices to the robot would make it more human, as theoretically there is no limit to how many sensory devices a robot equipped with a biological brain could have. “We are looking to increase the range of sensory input potentially with infrared and other signals,” says Warwick.</p>
<p>A robot that experiences its environment through devices like sonar detectors and infrared sensors would perceive the world quite differently from a person. Imagine having a Geiger counter plugged into your brain?—?or perhaps better yet, an X-ray detector. For future generations of Warwick’s robot, this isn’t just a thought experiment.</p>
<p>But Warwick isn’t interested only in building a robot with a wide range of sensory inputs. “It’s fun just looking at it as a robot life form, but I think it may also contribute to a better understanding of how our brain works,” he says. Studying the ways in which his robot learns and stores memories in its brain may provide new insights into neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.</p>
<p>Warwick’s robot is dependent upon biological cells, so it won’t live forever. After a few months, the neurons in its brain will grow sluggish and less responsive as learning becomes more difficult and the robot’s mortal coil begins to take hold. A sad thought perhaps?—?but such is life.</p></div>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <div id="articleContent">
<p><strong>Kevin Warwick’s new robot behaves like a child. “Sometimes it does what you want it to, and sometimes it doesn’t,” he says. And while it may seem strange for a professor of cybernetics to be concerning himself with such an unreliable machine, Warwick’s creation has something that even today’s most sophisticated robots lack: a living brain.</strong></p>
<p>Life for Warwick’s robot began when his team at the University of Reading spread rat neurons onto an array of electrodes. After about 20 minutes, the neurons began to form connections with one another. “It’s an innate response of the neurons,” says Warwick, “they try to link up and start communicating.”</p>
<p>For the next week the team fed the developing brain a liquid containing nutrients and minerals. And once the neurons established a network sufficiently capable of responding to electrical inputs from the electrode array, they connected the newly formed brain to a simple robot body consisting of two wheels and a sonar sensor.</p>
<p><img src="http://seedmagazine.com/images/uploads/TheLivingRobot_HS.jpg" alt="" /><span>Credit: Kevin Warkwick</span></p>
<p>A relay of signals between the sensor, motors, and brain dictate the robot’s behavior. When it approaches an object, the number of electrical pulses sent from the sonar device to the brain increases. This heightened electrical stimulation causes certain neurons in the robot’s brain to fire. When the electrodes on which the firing neurons rest detect this activity, they signal the robot’s wheels to change direction. The end result is a robot that can avoid obstacles in its path.</p>
<p>At first, the young robot spent a lot of time crashing into things. But after a few weeks of practice, its performance began to improve as the connections between the active neurons in its brain strengthened. “This is a specific type of learning, called Hebbian learning,” says Warwick, “where, by doing something habitually, you get better at doing it.”</p>
<p>The robot now gets around well enough. “But it has a biological brain, and not a computer,” says Warwick, and so it must navigate based solely on the very limited amount of information it receives from a single sensory device. If the number of sensory devices connected to its brain increases, it will gain a better understanding of its surroundings. “I have another student now who has started to work on an audio input, so in some way we can start communicating with it,” he says.</p>
<p>But it would be a bit shortsighted to say that adding sensory input devices to the robot would make it more human, as theoretically there is no limit to how many sensory devices a robot equipped with a biological brain could have. “We are looking to increase the range of sensory input potentially with infrared and other signals,” says Warwick.</p>
<p>A robot that experiences its environment through devices like sonar detectors and infrared sensors would perceive the world quite differently from a person. Imagine having a Geiger counter plugged into your brain?—?or perhaps better yet, an X-ray detector. For future generations of Warwick’s robot, this isn’t just a thought experiment.</p>
<p>But Warwick isn’t interested only in building a robot with a wide range of sensory inputs. “It’s fun just looking at it as a robot life form, but I think it may also contribute to a better understanding of how our brain works,” he says. Studying the ways in which his robot learns and stores memories in its brain may provide new insights into neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.</p>
<p>Warwick’s robot is dependent upon biological cells, so it won’t live forever. After a few months, the neurons in its brain will grow sluggish and less responsive as learning becomes more difficult and the robot’s mortal coil begins to take hold. A sad thought perhaps?—?but such is life.</p></div>

Start uga_filter: <h4><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">A driverless taxi has been unveiled which could make traffic jams, petrol fumes and crowded buses a thing of the past.</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The futuristic pod has no driver, and no opinionated chatter to accompany your journey, but instead a button set in the wall with the word &#8216;start&#8217; written beside it.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06096693000005DC-629_634x445.jpg" alt="Vehicle" width="634" height="445" /></p>
<p>The British-designed personal rapid transport (PRT) system is a four-passenger vehicle which is being rolled out next year at Heathrow Terminal 5</p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-0606889E000005DC-893_634x423.jpg" alt="A British-designed personal rapid transport (PRT) system, a four-passenger vehicle capable of speeds of up to 25mph, driverless car which is on display at the Science Museum, London." width="634" height="423" /></p>
<p>A visitor tries out the driverless pod at the Science Museum, where it is on display before becoming part of the Heathrow fleet next year</p>
<div><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06069949000005DC-538_306x477.jpg" alt="Professor Martin Lowson" width="306" height="477" />Professor Martin Lowson, the inventor, seated inside</div>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The four-seater cab was unveiled at the <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/facilities/science_museum" target="_blank">Science Museum</a> in <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/london" target="_blank">London</a> yesterday and will be in use from next year taking passengers between car parks and Terminal 5.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The man behind the mission, Professor Martin Lowson, who has a background in space travel and worked on the Saturn V Rocket, said: &#8216;They could have the same effect on transport this century as the rocket had on the 19th.&#8217;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">He added: &#8216;We believe that our PRT system can transform cities in the 21st century to provide the optimum form of environmentally friendly urban transport, relieving congestion and reducing emissions.&#8217;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The bubble-shaped taxis are battery-powered and passengers select their destination from a touch screen. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They can reach speeds of up to 25mph and would travel along their own narrow road system.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Once the destination has been chosen, the control system logs the request and sends a message to the vehicle, which then follows an electronic pathway.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">During the journey, a passenger can press a button to speak to the controller if necessary.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Prof Lowson has been working on the taxis with Bristol-based Advanced Transport Systems since 1995.<br />
</span></p>
<div>
<div><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-0609669C000005DC-707_306x457.jpg" alt="Controls" width="306" height="457" /></div>
<div><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-060965AB000005DC-823_308x458.jpg" alt="driverless taxi" width="308" height="458" /></div>
<p>Inside the taxi &#8211; the futuristic controls (left), and windows, which appear clear from the inside</p></div>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-060965CB000005DC-67_634x437.jpg" alt="pod" width="634" height="437" /></p>
<p>Easy rider: A passenger tries out the driverless cab</p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06096574000005DC-664_634x374.jpg" alt="pod" width="634" height="374" /></p>
<p>A test run of how the cabs could work takes place in Birmingham</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">At Heathrow, 18 vehicles have been bought to transport passengers and their luggage from the Terminal 5 Business Car Park to the terminal, which will take between three and four minutes.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">About 500,000 passengers are expected to use the Heathrow PRT system each year.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Bath and Daventry councils are considering ordering the cabs, and ATS has already received enquiries from <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/continents/america" target="_blank">America</a>, the <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/regions/middle_east" target="_blank">Middle East</a> and <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/countries/india" target="_blank">India</a>.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06099E98000005DC-204_634x434.jpg" alt="Logan's run" width="634" height="434" /></p>
<p>Drawing inspiration from science fiction? The Logan&#8217;s Run car was a driverless pod</p>
<div id="TixyyLink" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1205970/Taxi-future-Space-age-pods-drive-transport-21st-century.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0PPRfKUSA"></a></div>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <h4><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">A driverless taxi has been unveiled which could make traffic jams, petrol fumes and crowded buses a thing of the past.</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The futuristic pod has no driver, and no opinionated chatter to accompany your journey, but instead a button set in the wall with the word &#8216;start&#8217; written beside it.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06096693000005DC-629_634x445.jpg" alt="Vehicle" width="634" height="445" /></p>
<p>The British-designed personal rapid transport (PRT) system is a four-passenger vehicle which is being rolled out next year at Heathrow Terminal 5</p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-0606889E000005DC-893_634x423.jpg" alt="A British-designed personal rapid transport (PRT) system, a four-passenger vehicle capable of speeds of up to 25mph, driverless car which is on display at the Science Museum, London." width="634" height="423" /></p>
<p>A visitor tries out the driverless pod at the Science Museum, where it is on display before becoming part of the Heathrow fleet next year</p>
<div><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06069949000005DC-538_306x477.jpg" alt="Professor Martin Lowson" width="306" height="477" />Professor Martin Lowson, the inventor, seated inside</div>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The four-seater cab was unveiled at the <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/facilities/science_museum" target="_blank">Science Museum</a> in <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/london" target="_blank">London</a> yesterday and will be in use from next year taking passengers between car parks and Terminal 5.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The man behind the mission, Professor Martin Lowson, who has a background in space travel and worked on the Saturn V Rocket, said: &#8216;They could have the same effect on transport this century as the rocket had on the 19th.&#8217;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">He added: &#8216;We believe that our PRT system can transform cities in the 21st century to provide the optimum form of environmentally friendly urban transport, relieving congestion and reducing emissions.&#8217;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">The bubble-shaped taxis are battery-powered and passengers select their destination from a touch screen. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">They can reach speeds of up to 25mph and would travel along their own narrow road system.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Once the destination has been chosen, the control system logs the request and sends a message to the vehicle, which then follows an electronic pathway.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">During the journey, a passenger can press a button to speak to the controller if necessary.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Prof Lowson has been working on the taxis with Bristol-based Advanced Transport Systems since 1995.<br />
</span></p>
<div>
<div><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-0609669C000005DC-707_306x457.jpg" alt="Controls" width="306" height="457" /></div>
<div><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-060965AB000005DC-823_308x458.jpg" alt="driverless taxi" width="308" height="458" /></div>
<p>Inside the taxi &#8211; the futuristic controls (left), and windows, which appear clear from the inside</p></div>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-060965CB000005DC-67_634x437.jpg" alt="pod" width="634" height="437" /></p>
<p>Easy rider: A passenger tries out the driverless cab</p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06096574000005DC-664_634x374.jpg" alt="pod" width="634" height="374" /></p>
<p>A test run of how the cabs could work takes place in Birmingham</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">At Heathrow, 18 vehicles have been bought to transport passengers and their luggage from the Terminal 5 Business Car Park to the terminal, which will take between three and four minutes.<br />
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">About 500,000 passengers are expected to use the Heathrow PRT system each year.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 1.2em;">Bath and Daventry councils are considering ordering the cabs, and ATS has already received enquiries from <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/continents/america" target="_blank">America</a>, the <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/regions/middle_east" target="_blank">Middle East</a> and <a rel="tag" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/countries/india" target="_blank">India</a>.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/08/12/article-1205970-06099E98000005DC-204_634x434.jpg" alt="Logan's run" width="634" height="434" /></p>
<p>Drawing inspiration from science fiction? The Logan&#8217;s Run car was a driverless pod</p>
<div id="TixyyLink" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1205970/Taxi-future-Space-age-pods-drive-transport-21st-century.html?ITO=1490#ixzz0PPRfKUSA"></a></div>

Start uga_filter: <h3>How much carbon dioxide do computers emit?</h3>
<p>AVIATION has long been blamed for its share of anthropogenic global warming. Indeed, some travellers now ask themselves whether their flight is strictly necessary and, if they decide it is, salve their consciences by paying for the planting of trees. These, so they hope, will absorb the equivalent of their sinful emissions. But you, dear reader, are indulging right now in activity that is equally as polluting as air travel: using a computer.</p>
<p>According to a <a title=" (opens in a new window) " href="http://www.economist.com/world/international/%3C?xml%20version=%221.0%22%20encoding=%22UThttp://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/resources//publications/Smart2020Report.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> published by the Climate Group, a think-tank based in London, computers, printers, mobile phones and the widgets that accompany them account for the emission of 830m tonnes of carbon dioxide around the world in 2007. That is about 2% of the estimated total of emissions from human activity. And that is the same as the aviation industry’s contribution. According to the report, about a quarter of the emissions in question are generated by the manufacture of computers and so forth. The rest come from their use.</p>
<div style="width: 300px;"><span>EPA</span><img src="http://media.economist.com/images/columns/2009w35/server-farm.jpg" alt=" " width="300" height="201" /><span>Down on the server farm</span></div>
<p>The same report estimates that the spread of computers will increase these associated emissions by about 6% a year until 2020, when one person in three will own a personal computer, half will have a mobile phone and one household in 20 will have a broadband internet connection. Yet computing can also be used to tackle climate change. For example, domestic consumption could be cut by the large-scale employment of smart meters in houses and flats. Households are the biggest users of electricity after manufacturing and transport. In Britain, they accounted for 29% of consumption in 2004, according to a government <a title=" (opens in a new window) " href="http://www.economist.com/world/international/%3C?xml%20version=%221.0%22%20encoding=%22UTF-8%22?%3E%20%3Ccohttp://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file18558.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>.</p>
<p>Small and medium-sized businesses, meanwhile, could save electricity by switching to distributed computing, rather than running their own servers. The delivery of computer services over the internet, from vast warehouses of shared machines, enables firms to hand over the running of their e-mail, customer databases and accounting systems to someone else. Companies that do so use computers more efficiently and thus reduce not only their costs but also their carbon footprints.</p>
<p>Another way to improve the situation is virtualisation—the creation of “virtual” machines (ie, software emulations of separate computers) so that multiple operating systems and applications can run on the same piece of physical kit. Sun Microsystems, a maker of servers, reckons that 70% of the servers in most organisations have only one application running on them. Consolidating these applications onto fewer and fewer machines, courtesy of virtualisation, would be more efficient and thus greener.</p>
<p>Ironically, of course, environmental research itself relies heavily on computers. So, perhaps the best thing the home user can do is donate his inefficiencies to the cause by signing up to <a title=" (opens in a new window) " href="http://climateprediction.net/" target="_blank">climateprediction.net</a>, which uses the idle capacity of home computers to test the accuracy of various computer models of the climate.</p>

Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Ending uga_filter: <h3>How much carbon dioxide do computers emit?</h3>
<p>AVIATION has long been blamed for its share of anthropogenic global warming. Indeed, some travellers now ask themselves whether their flight is strictly necessary and, if they decide it is, salve their consciences by paying for the planting of trees. These, so they hope, will absorb the equivalent of their sinful emissions. But you, dear reader, are indulging right now in activity that is equally as polluting as air travel: using a computer.</p>
<p>According to a <a title=" (opens in a new window) " href="http://www.economist.com/world/international/%3C?xml%20version=%221.0%22%20encoding=%22UThttp://www.theclimategroup.org/assets/resources//publications/Smart2020Report.pdf" target="_blank">report</a> published by the Climate Group, a think-tank based in London, computers, printers, mobile phones and the widgets that accompany them account for the emission of 830m tonnes of carbon dioxide around the world in 2007. That is about 2% of the estimated total of emissions from human activity. And that is the same as the aviation industry’s contribution. According to the report, about a quarter of the emissions in question are generated by the manufacture of computers and so forth. The rest come from their use.</p>
<div style="width: 300px;"><span>EPA</span><img src="http://media.economist.com/images/columns/2009w35/server-farm.jpg" alt=" " width="300" height="201" /><span>Down on the server farm</span></div>
<p>The same report estimates that the spread of computers will increase these associated emissions by about 6% a year until 2020, when one person in three will own a personal computer, half will have a mobile phone and one household in 20 will have a broadband internet connection. Yet computing can also be used to tackle climate change. For example, domestic consumption could be cut by the large-scale employment of smart meters in houses and flats. Households are the biggest users of electricity after manufacturing and transport. In Britain, they accounted for 29% of consumption in 2004, according to a government <a title=" (opens in a new window) " href="http://www.economist.com/world/international/%3C?xml%20version=%221.0%22%20encoding=%22UTF-8%22?%3E%20%3Ccohttp://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file18558.pdf" target="_blank">report</a>.</p>
<p>Small and medium-sized businesses, meanwhile, could save electricity by switching to distributed computing, rather than running their own servers. The delivery of computer services over the internet, from vast warehouses of shared machines, enables firms to hand over the running of their e-mail, customer databases and accounting systems to someone else. Companies that do so use computers more efficiently and thus reduce not only their costs but also their carbon footprints.</p>
<p>Another way to improve the situation is virtualisation—the creation of “virtual” machines (ie, software emulations of separate computers) so that multiple operating systems and applications can run on the same piece of physical kit. Sun Microsystems, a maker of servers, reckons that 70% of the servers in most organisations have only one application running on them. Consolidating these applications onto fewer and fewer machines, courtesy of virtualisation, would be more efficient and thus greener.</p>
<p>Ironically, of course, environmental research itself relies heavily on computers. So, perhaps the best thing the home user can do is donate his inefficiencies to the cause by signing up to <a title=" (opens in a new window) " href="http://climateprediction.net/" target="_blank">climateprediction.net</a>, which uses the idle capacity of home computers to test the accuracy of various computer models of the climate.</p>

Start uga_shutdown
Start uga_in_feed
Ending uga_in_feed: 1
Building feed, not setting footer_hooked flag
Start uga_get_option: debug
uga_options: array (
  'internal_domains' => 'www.humacon.org,humacon.org',
  'account_id' => 'UA-10399907-2',
  'enable_tracker' => true,
  'track_adm_pages' => false,
  'ignore_users' => true,
  'max_user_level' => '8',
  'footer_hooked' => true,
  'filter_content' => true,
  'filter_comments' => true,
  'filter_comment_authors' => true,
  'track_ext_links' => true,
  'prefix_ext_links' => '/outgoing/',
  'track_files' => true,
  'prefix_file_links' => '/downloads/',
  'track_extensions' => 'gif,jpg,jpeg,bmp,png,pdf,mp3,wav,phps,zip,gz,tar,rar,jar,exe,pps,ppt,xls,doc',
  'track_mail_links' => true,
  'prefix_mail_links' => '/mailto/',
  'debug' => true,
  'check_updates' => true,
  'version_sent' => '1.6.0',
  'advanced_config' => true,
)
Ending uga_get_option: debug (1)
 -->
