By accurately modeling Earth’s last major global warming — and answering pressing questions about its causes — scientists led by a University of Wisconsin-Madison climatologist are unraveling the intricacies of the kind of abrupt climate shifts that may occur in the future.

“We want to know what will happen in the future, especially if the climate will change abruptly,” says Zhengyu Liu, a UW-Madison professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences and director of the Center for Climatic Research in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. “The problem is, you don’t know if your model is right for this kind of change. The important thing is validating your model.”

To do so, Liu and his colleagues run their mode back in time and match the results of the climate simulation with the physical evidence of past climate.

Starting with the last glacial maximum about 21,000 years ago, Liu’s team simulated atmospheric and oceanic conditions through what scientists call the Bølling-Allerød warming, the Earth’s last major temperature hike, which occurred about 14,500 years ago. The simulation fell in close agreement with conditions — temperatures, sea levels and glacial coverage — collected from fossil and geologic records.

“It’s our most serious attempt to simulate this last major global warming event, and it’s a validation of the model itself, as well,” Liu says.

The results of the new climate modeling experiments are presented July 17 in the journal Science.

The group’s simulations were executed on “Phoenix” and “Jaguar,” a pair of Cray supercomputers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and helped pin down the contributions of three environmental factors as drivers of the Bølling-Allerød warming: an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, the jump-start of stalled heat-moving ocean currents and a large buildup of subsurface heat in the ocean while those currents were dormant.

The climate dominoes began to fall during that period after glaciers reached their maximum coverage, blanketing most of North America, Liu explains. As glaciers melted, massive quantities of water poured into the North Atlantic, lowering the ocean salinity that helps power a major convection current that acts like a conveyor belt to carry warm tropical surface water north and cooler, heavier subsurface water south.

As a result, according to the model, ocean circulation stopped. Without warm tropical water streaming north, the North Atlantic cooled and heat backed up in southern waters. Subsequently, glacial melt slowed or stopped as well, and eventually restarted the overturning current — which had a much larger reserve of heat to haul north.

“All that stored heat is released like a volcano, and poured out over decades,” Liu explains. “That warmed up Greenland and melted (arctic) sea ice.”

The model showed a 15-degree Celsius increase in average temperatures in Greenland and a 5-meter increase in sea level over just a few centuries, findings that squared neatly with the climate of the period as represented in the physical record.

“Being able to successfully simulate thousands of years of past climate for the first time with a comprehensive climate model is a major scientific achievement,” notes Bette Otto-Bliesner, an atmospheric scientist and climate modeler at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and co-author of the Science report. “This is an important step toward better understanding how the world’s climate could change abruptly over the coming centuries with increasing melting of the ice caps.”

The rate of ice melt during the Bølling-Allerød warming is still at issue, but its consequences are not, Liu says. The modelers simulated both a slow decrease in melt and a sudden end to melt run-off. In both cases, the result was a 15-degree warming.

“That happened in the past,” Liu says. “The question is, in the future, if you have a global warming and Greenland melts, will it happen again?”

Time — both actual and computing — will tell. In 2008, the group simulated about one-third of the last 21,000 years. With another 4 million processor hours to go, the simulations being conducted by the Wisconsin group will eventually run up to the present and 200 years into the future.

Traditional climate modeling approaches were limited by computer time and capabilities, Lieu explains.

“They did slides, like snapshots,” Liu says. “You simulate 100 years, and then you run another 100 years, but those centuries may be 2,000 years apart (in the model). To look at abrupt change, there is no shortcut.”

Using the interactions between land, water, atmosphere and ice in the Community Climate System Model developed at NCAR, the researchers have been able to create a much more detailed and closely spaced book of snapshots, “giving us more of a motion picture of the climate” over millennia, Liu said.

He stressed the importance of drawing together specialists in computing, oceanography, atmospheric science and glaciers — including John Kutzbach, a UW-Madison climate modeler, and UW-Madison doctoral student Feng He, responsible for modeling the glacial melt. All were key to attaining the detail necessary in recreating historical climate conditions, Liu says.

“All this data, it’s from chemical proxies and bugs in the sediment,” Liu said. “You really need a very interdisciplinary team: people on deep ocean, people on geology, people who know those bugs. It is a huge — and very successful — collaboration.”

The new study was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, with additional support from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Fifteen of Australia’s top climate experts explain how we know humans are altering the atmosphere and why we must act now.

Around the world, thousands of scientists have devoted their professional lives to studying the climate. Not centrally organised, they sometimes build temporary affiliations but they remain scientists throughout – that is, they are independent, constantly challenge each other and are committed to searching for truth through objective, independently verifiable evidence.

Overwhelmingly, this evidence has led to four conclusions. The first is that the world is warming. The global average temperature has increased by about 0.8 degrees since 1850, with most of the increase occurring since 1950. The warming varies among decades because of natural fluctuations but the overall trend has been inexorably upward.

Warming is evident in other indicators, such as rising sea levels and reduced sea-ice and snow cover. Of these, the most important measure is the extra heat in the oceans, which is steadily rising. Claims that climate change has reversed since 1998 are misrepresentations of the full data.

The second conclusion is that the dominant cause of the warming since about 1950 is the increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases released by human activities, of which carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important.

This critical conclusion is based on several independent lines of evidence, including basic physics, studies of climate changes in both in the geological past and in the industrial era, and finally – but far from solely – from the predictions of climate models. Together, these provide an overwhelming case that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations cause warming, and that CO2 is the largest contributor to the current warming trend.

Other contributors include changes in the sun’s output associated with sunspots and solar flares, and volcanic dust. However, if these were solely responsible for temperature changes since 1850, the world should have cooled over the past half-century rather than warming at an increasing rate.

The third conclusion is that warming will increase in future, if emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases maintain their present paths. “Business as usual” scenarios for future emissions lead to likely global temperature increases of up to six degrees above present temperatures by 2100.

These are dramatic temperature increases, which would be accompanied by major disruptions to food supplies, river flows and water availability, significant and ongoing rises in sea level (of up to about a metre by 2100 and potentially metres over longer times), disease threats, disruptions to ecosystems including the extinction of many species, and social and geopolitical destabilisation.

The fourth conclusion is that climate change cannot be reversed for many centuries, because of the massive heat stores in the world’s oceans. Even if CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised today at their present levels, a further warming of at least 0.6 degrees would inevitably follow (on top of the 0.8 degrees observed since 1850) and sea-level rise would continue for centuries to millenniums.

These four conclusions have been known and agreed among thousands of independent climate scientists for more than a decade. However, new findings suggest that the situation is, if anything, more serious than the assessment of just a few years ago.

The heightened concern among climate scientists arises from a growing realisation that climate change can be accelerated beyond current predictions by reinforcing “climate feedbacks”, which contribute to climate change and are accelerated as it occurs, thus causing climate change to feed on itself. When these feedbacks are sufficiently strong they become “climate tipping points” which can flip the climate into a new state with essentially no way to recover.

Several feedbacks are of immediate concern. Interactions between climate and the earth’s carbon cycle (the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, the land and the oceans) will act to accelerate climate change if sinks do not keep pace with emissions (as is already happening) and/or if previously stable carbon stores are released to the atmosphere under climate change, for example by the thawing of carbon-rich frozen soils.

Accelerated polar warming will cause loss of ice and a consequent darkening of the surface, leading to more heat absorption and faster warming. Atmospheric concentrations of aerosols (tiny particulates) are likely to decrease in future as nations improve air quality, leading to accelerated warming as the cooling effect of aerosols is reduced.

Oceans are becoming more acidic as a consequence of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. When CO2 concentrations exceed levels to be reached by 2035 under business-as-usual emissions scenarios, there will be severe disruptions to marine ecosystems (including the Great Barrier Reef and ocean food chains), which will endanger fisheries and weaken the uptake of CO2 by oceans.

Temperature rises of two to three degrees (or higher) carry a high risk of irreversible decay of the Greenland ice sheet from surface warming alone, leading to a sea level rise of up to about seven metres. Destabilisation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would cause a further few metres of sea-level rise.

A climate conference in Copenhagen in March concluded that societies were highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above two degrees will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century.

All of these concerns are firmly grounded in science. They have led the great majority of climate scientists to conclude (paraphrasing the summary of the Copenhagen conference) that rapid, sustained and effective emissions reductions are required to avoid ‘‘dangerous climate change’’, regardless of how it is defined.

Higher future emissions increase the risk of crossing climate tipping points and they increase the likelihood that the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation will be higher.

This article was written by Michael Raupach and John Church, CSIRO; David Griggs, Amanda Lynch and Neville Nicholls, Monash University; Nathan Bindoff, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre; Matthew England and Andy Pitman, University of NSW; Ann Henderson-Sellers and Lesley Hughes, Macquarie University; Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, University of Queensland; Roger Jones, Victoria University; David Karoly, University of Melbourne; and Tony McMichael and Will Steffen, Australian National University.

]*?)href\s*=\s*['"](.*?)['"]([^>]*)>(.*?) Ending uga_filter:

Fifteen of Australia’s top climate experts explain how we know humans are altering the atmosphere and why we must act now.

Around the world, thousands of scientists have devoted their professional lives to studying the climate. Not centrally organised, they sometimes build temporary affiliations but they remain scientists throughout – that is, they are independent, constantly challenge each other and are committed to searching for truth through objective, independently verifiable evidence.

Overwhelmingly, this evidence has led to four conclusions. The first is that the world is warming. The global average temperature has increased by about 0.8 degrees since 1850, with most of the increase occurring since 1950. The warming varies among decades because of natural fluctuations but the overall trend has been inexorably upward.

Warming is evident in other indicators, such as rising sea levels and reduced sea-ice and snow cover. Of these, the most important measure is the extra heat in the oceans, which is steadily rising. Claims that climate change has reversed since 1998 are misrepresentations of the full data.

The second conclusion is that the dominant cause of the warming since about 1950 is the increase in the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases released by human activities, of which carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important.

This critical conclusion is based on several independent lines of evidence, including basic physics, studies of climate changes in both in the geological past and in the industrial era, and finally – but far from solely – from the predictions of climate models. Together, these provide an overwhelming case that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations cause warming, and that CO2 is the largest contributor to the current warming trend.

Other contributors include changes in the sun’s output associated with sunspots and solar flares, and volcanic dust. However, if these were solely responsible for temperature changes since 1850, the world should have cooled over the past half-century rather than warming at an increasing rate.

The third conclusion is that warming will increase in future, if emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases maintain their present paths. “Business as usual” scenarios for future emissions lead to likely global temperature increases of up to six degrees above present temperatures by 2100.

These are dramatic temperature increases, which would be accompanied by major disruptions to food supplies, river flows and water availability, significant and ongoing rises in sea level (of up to about a metre by 2100 and potentially metres over longer times), disease threats, disruptions to ecosystems including the extinction of many species, and social and geopolitical destabilisation.

The fourth conclusion is that climate change cannot be reversed for many centuries, because of the massive heat stores in the world’s oceans. Even if CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations were stabilised today at their present levels, a further warming of at least 0.6 degrees would inevitably follow (on top of the 0.8 degrees observed since 1850) and sea-level rise would continue for centuries to millenniums.

These four conclusions have been known and agreed among thousands of independent climate scientists for more than a decade. However, new findings suggest that the situation is, if anything, more serious than the assessment of just a few years ago.

The heightened concern among climate scientists arises from a growing realisation that climate change can be accelerated beyond current predictions by reinforcing “climate feedbacks”, which contribute to climate change and are accelerated as it occurs, thus causing climate change to feed on itself. When these feedbacks are sufficiently strong they become “climate tipping points” which can flip the climate into a new state with essentially no way to recover.

Several feedbacks are of immediate concern. Interactions between climate and the earth’s carbon cycle (the exchange of carbon between the atmosphere, the land and the oceans) will act to accelerate climate change if sinks do not keep pace with emissions (as is already happening) and/or if previously stable carbon stores are released to the atmosphere under climate change, for example by the thawing of carbon-rich frozen soils.

Accelerated polar warming will cause loss of ice and a consequent darkening of the surface, leading to more heat absorption and faster warming. Atmospheric concentrations of aerosols (tiny particulates) are likely to decrease in future as nations improve air quality, leading to accelerated warming as the cooling effect of aerosols is reduced.

Oceans are becoming more acidic as a consequence of increased CO2 in the atmosphere. When CO2 concentrations exceed levels to be reached by 2035 under business-as-usual emissions scenarios, there will be severe disruptions to marine ecosystems (including the Great Barrier Reef and ocean food chains), which will endanger fisheries and weaken the uptake of CO2 by oceans.

Temperature rises of two to three degrees (or higher) carry a high risk of irreversible decay of the Greenland ice sheet from surface warming alone, leading to a sea level rise of up to about seven metres. Destabilisation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would cause a further few metres of sea-level rise.

A climate conference in Copenhagen in March concluded that societies were highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk. Temperature rises above two degrees will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century.

All of these concerns are firmly grounded in science. They have led the great majority of climate scientists to conclude (paraphrasing the summary of the Copenhagen conference) that rapid, sustained and effective emissions reductions are required to avoid ‘‘dangerous climate change’’, regardless of how it is defined.

Higher future emissions increase the risk of crossing climate tipping points and they increase the likelihood that the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation will be higher.

This article was written by Michael Raupach and John Church, CSIRO; David Griggs, Amanda Lynch and Neville Nicholls, Monash University; Nathan Bindoff, Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Co-operative Research Centre; Matthew England and Andy Pitman, University of NSW; Ann Henderson-Sellers and Lesley Hughes, Macquarie University; Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, University of Queensland; Roger Jones, Victoria University; David Karoly, University of Melbourne; and Tony McMichael and Will Steffen, Australian National University.

Start uga_filter:

The city of the future is currently being constructed on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. Masdar City shall be supplied exclusively with renewable energy and produce neither carbon dioxide nor waste.

On June 21, 2009, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, representing the Masdar City Project, signed a cooperative agreement for a strategic partnership. Over the long term the goal is to establish a close cooperation in the field of sustainable urban development and building planning. Participating in the cooperation are the Fraunhofer Institutes for Industrial Engineering IAO and for Building Physics IBP as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LZT2_m1Fh4
Masdar City is to be constructed on an area of approximately 6 square kilometres, located about 30 kilometres east of the capital Abu Dhabi. It is designed to support a population of about 50,000. The planned carbon-neutral city is to be supplied entirely by renewable energy, using systematic recycling techniques it is to be nearly waste-free and will have significantly reduced water consumption. Thanks to an underground transportation system, it is to have car-free streets.

As a first step, each of the participating Institutes sends one representative to form a project group in Masdar City with the goals of project acquisition and making preparations for the founding a Center. Further, the possibilities of creating a joint institute for sustainable urban development shall be examined. It is striven to establish a close cooperation with the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, which is currently being constructed.

Existing contacts and on-going projects, especially with the ISE were the basis for starting the strategic cooperation. “To initiate rapid change from our present energy supply system to one based on renewable energies, we need ambitious examples. The construction of a world-wide exemplary concept for sustainable urban planning within this initiative will have global impact, and we are looking forward to make a substantial contribution to this project”, says Prof. Eicke R. Weber, Institute Director of ISE, who, as the representative for the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, signed the Memorandum of Understanding.

Presently Fraunhofer ISE is working on first projects with Masdar in the field of solar climatisation as well as solar-thermal process heating. Three spin-off companies of ISE, Mirroxx, Concentrix Solar and Solar Spring, have already established contacts in Masdar.

Solar energy with its wide variety of application fields is a central focus of the cooperation. Similar importance will be placed on sustainable technologies such as energy efficient buildings, sustainable natural resources, desalination technologies, intelligent electricity supply concepts, electro-mobility, simulations of architecture and engineering and sustainable behaviour. Also, design projects based on virtual reality concepts are in planning. In such processes planners, users and visitors can collectively plan and experience the zero-carbon city already during the design phase using the Virtual Reality Software developed by IAO. This software provides efficient support for the complex planning processes and allows the customers and visitors to experience the city by means of impressive real-time computer graphics. In parallel, researchers from IBP, who hold experience in building in extreme climates, will demonstrate the possibilities for increasing both the comfort and the energy efficiency in the planned buildings.

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The city of the future is currently being constructed on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi. Masdar City shall be supplied exclusively with renewable energy and produce neither carbon dioxide nor waste.

On June 21, 2009, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft and the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, representing the Masdar City Project, signed a cooperative agreement for a strategic partnership. Over the long term the goal is to establish a close cooperation in the field of sustainable urban development and building planning. Participating in the cooperation are the Fraunhofer Institutes for Industrial Engineering IAO and for Building Physics IBP as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LZT2_m1Fh4
Masdar City is to be constructed on an area of approximately 6 square kilometres, located about 30 kilometres east of the capital Abu Dhabi. It is designed to support a population of about 50,000. The planned carbon-neutral city is to be supplied entirely by renewable energy, using systematic recycling techniques it is to be nearly waste-free and will have significantly reduced water consumption. Thanks to an underground transportation system, it is to have car-free streets.

As a first step, each of the participating Institutes sends one representative to form a project group in Masdar City with the goals of project acquisition and making preparations for the founding a Center. Further, the possibilities of creating a joint institute for sustainable urban development shall be examined. It is striven to establish a close cooperation with the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, which is currently being constructed.

Existing contacts and on-going projects, especially with the ISE were the basis for starting the strategic cooperation. “To initiate rapid change from our present energy supply system to one based on renewable energies, we need ambitious examples. The construction of a world-wide exemplary concept for sustainable urban planning within this initiative will have global impact, and we are looking forward to make a substantial contribution to this project”, says Prof. Eicke R. Weber, Institute Director of ISE, who, as the representative for the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, signed the Memorandum of Understanding.

Presently Fraunhofer ISE is working on first projects with Masdar in the field of solar climatisation as well as solar-thermal process heating. Three spin-off companies of ISE, Mirroxx, Concentrix Solar and Solar Spring, have already established contacts in Masdar.

Solar energy with its wide variety of application fields is a central focus of the cooperation. Similar importance will be placed on sustainable technologies such as energy efficient buildings, sustainable natural resources, desalination technologies, intelligent electricity supply concepts, electro-mobility, simulations of architecture and engineering and sustainable behaviour. Also, design projects based on virtual reality concepts are in planning. In such processes planners, users and visitors can collectively plan and experience the zero-carbon city already during the design phase using the Virtual Reality Software developed by IAO. This software provides efficient support for the complex planning processes and allows the customers and visitors to experience the city by means of impressive real-time computer graphics. In parallel, researchers from IBP, who hold experience in building in extreme climates, will demonstrate the possibilities for increasing both the comfort and the energy efficiency in the planned buildings.

Start uga_filter:

The first complete map of global ammonia emissions has recently been achieved using to satellite data. It reveals an underestimation of some of the ammonia concentrations detected by current inventories, and identifies new hotspots.

Distribution of ammonia in 2008, measured using the IASI instrument on board the /MetOp satellite, superimposed on an image of Europe obtained on August 30, 2008 by MODIS. Yellow to red colors indicate regions with high ammonia concentrations. The white structures are clouds. (Credit: Copyright Image MODIS Copyright L. Gonzalez/C. Deroo LOA; Image IASI Copyright ULB & INSU-CNRS)

Ammonia (NH3) contributes significantly to the formation of the particles that give rise to pollution episodes. It mainly emanates from the use of agricultural fertilizers and increasingly intensified livestock breeding practices. Ammonia is the least well-understood pollutant regulated by European Directives on air quality. Mapping of its emissions are imprecise and systematic global monitoring of this compound is difficult. Once emitted, ammonia only remains in the atmosphere for a short period but triggers a cascade of environmental effects. At a local level, high ammonia concentrations affect fauna, flora and air quality.

Although the IASI instrument (part of the MetOp meteorological satellite) was not initially intended to detect ammonia in the Earth’s atmosphere, researchers developed a methodology that could isolate the signature of ammonia from its background signal. By filtering the data and accumulating them continuously over a one-year observation period (more than a million measurements per day, with two passes over each part of the globe), the scientists were able to generate maps of its concentrations and to compare them with recent atmospheric models.

This work has demonstrated an underestimation of the ammonia emissions supplied by current inventories in agricultural valleys of the northern hemisphere, and particularly in the USA (the regions of San Joaquin in California and Snake River Valley in Idaho) and Europe (the Po and Ebre valleys). The most marked differences were found in Central Asia, with the identification of some sources not mentioned in current inventories.

1) Laboratoire atmosphères, milieux, observations spatiales (CNRS/UPMC/UVSQ), which forms part of Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace 2) The measurements available are local, occasional or even inexistent in some regions. 3) Interféromètre Atmosphérique de Sondage Infrarouge (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer), an instrument constructed by CNES and launched on board the MetOp satellite at the end of 2006 4) The MetOp program is a CNES/Eumetsat partnership that for 15 years will generate continuous observations of the atmosphere’s composition through the launch of three successive satellites.

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The first complete map of global ammonia emissions has recently been achieved using to satellite data. It reveals an underestimation of some of the ammonia concentrations detected by current inventories, and identifies new hotspots.

Distribution of ammonia in 2008, measured using the IASI instrument on board the /MetOp satellite, superimposed on an image of Europe obtained on August 30, 2008 by MODIS. Yellow to red colors indicate regions with high ammonia concentrations. The white structures are clouds. (Credit: Copyright Image MODIS Copyright L. Gonzalez/C. Deroo LOA; Image IASI Copyright ULB & INSU-CNRS)

Ammonia (NH3) contributes significantly to the formation of the particles that give rise to pollution episodes. It mainly emanates from the use of agricultural fertilizers and increasingly intensified livestock breeding practices. Ammonia is the least well-understood pollutant regulated by European Directives on air quality. Mapping of its emissions are imprecise and systematic global monitoring of this compound is difficult. Once emitted, ammonia only remains in the atmosphere for a short period but triggers a cascade of environmental effects. At a local level, high ammonia concentrations affect fauna, flora and air quality.

Although the IASI instrument (part of the MetOp meteorological satellite) was not initially intended to detect ammonia in the Earth’s atmosphere, researchers developed a methodology that could isolate the signature of ammonia from its background signal. By filtering the data and accumulating them continuously over a one-year observation period (more than a million measurements per day, with two passes over each part of the globe), the scientists were able to generate maps of its concentrations and to compare them with recent atmospheric models.

This work has demonstrated an underestimation of the ammonia emissions supplied by current inventories in agricultural valleys of the northern hemisphere, and particularly in the USA (the regions of San Joaquin in California and Snake River Valley in Idaho) and Europe (the Po and Ebre valleys). The most marked differences were found in Central Asia, with the identification of some sources not mentioned in current inventories.

1) Laboratoire atmosphères, milieux, observations spatiales (CNRS/UPMC/UVSQ), which forms part of Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace 2) The measurements available are local, occasional or even inexistent in some regions. 3) Interféromètre Atmosphérique de Sondage Infrarouge (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer), an instrument constructed by CNES and launched on board the MetOp satellite at the end of 2006 4) The MetOp program is a CNES/Eumetsat partnership that for 15 years will generate continuous observations of the atmosphere’s composition through the launch of three successive satellites.

Start uga_filter:

Electronic devices of the future could be smaller, faster, more powerful and consume less energy because of a discovery by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The key to the finding, published in Science, involves a method to measure intrinsic conducting properties of ferroelectric materials, which for decades have held tremendous promise but have eluded experimental proof. Now, however, ORNL Wigner Fellow Peter Maksymovych and co-authors Stephen Jesse, Art Baddorf and Sergei Kalinin at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences believe they may be on a path that will see barriers tumble.

“For years, the challenge has been to develop a nanoscale material that can act as a switch to store binary information,” Maksymovych said. “We are excited by our discovery and the prospect of finally being able to exploit the long-conjectured bi-stable electrical conductivity of ferroelectric materials.

“Harnessing this functionality will ultimately enable smart and ultra-dense memory technology.”

In the paper, the authors have demonstrated for the first time a giant intrinsic electroresistance in conventional ferroelectric films, where flipping of the spontaneous polarization increased conductance by up to 50,000 percent. Ferroelectric materials can retain their electrostatic polarization and are used for piezoactuators, memory devices and RFID (radio-frequency identification) cards.

“It is as if we open a tiny door in the polar surface for electrons to enter,” Maksymovych said. “The size of this door is less than one-millionth of an inch, and it is very likely taking only one-billionth of a second to open.”

As the paper illustrates, the key distinction of ferroelectric memory switches is that they can be tuned through thermodynamic properties of ferroelectrics.

“Among other benefits, we can use the tunability to minimize the power needed for recording and reading information and read-write voltages, a key requirement for any viable memory technology,” Kalinin said.

Numerous previous works have demonstrated defect-mediated memory, but defects cannot easily be predicted, controlled, analyzed or reduced in size, Maksymovych said. Ferroelectric switching, however, surpasses all of these limitations and will offer unprecedented functionality. The authors believe that using phase transitions such as ferroelectric switching to implement memory and computing is the real fundamental distinction of future information technologies.

Making this research possible is a one-of-a-kind instrument that can simultaneously measure conducting and polar properties of oxide materials with nanometer-scale spatial resolution under a controlled vacuum environment. The instrument was developed and built by Baddorf and colleagues at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. The materials used for this study were grown and provided by collaborators at the University of California at Berkeley.

What is FRAM

What is FRAM?
FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) is a non-volatile memory combining both ROM and RAM advantages in addition to non-volatility features. Its higher speed in write mode, its lower power consumption as well as its higher endurance, make FRAM superior to any other memory type. As a high-speed non-volatile memory, FRAM can be used in the wide range of offerings.

FRAM Benefits

• High speed
• High security
• Low power consumption
• Minimum 10 year data retention
• High endurance of minimum 10E10
• Random access
• Byte access
• Low cell internal voltage of 5G for 0.5um and 3.3V for 0.35um
• No need for booster circuit for voltage matching with CMOS

FRAM™ Advantages over EEPROM

		1. Transaction Time: - 30,000 times faster than EEROM - 1kByte R/W as a general use in transportation (contact-less cards)
		2. Energy Consumption: - 100,000 times higher endurance over EEPROM - Energy Consumption @64Byte Write Cycle
		3. Endurance: - 200 times lower power consumption compare to EEPROM - 1 FRAM Cycle: Read - 1 E2PROM Cycle: Erase/Write/Read

FRAM Comparison with other memory products

	FRAM	EEPROM	Flash
Nonvaolatile Principle	Ferroelectricity	Charge Storage	Charge Storage
Cell Access Mode	Random	Random	Random & Serial
Read Cycle	85 -110nsec	200nsec	90nsec
Internal Program Voltage	5V/3.3V	18V	12V
Write Cycle	85-110nsec	5msec	1sec
Program Block	Byte	Sector	Sector
Endurance	1010	105	105
Data Retention	10 years	10 years	10 years
Scalability	Good	Restricted	Restricted
CMOS Compatibility	Good	Restricted	Restricted

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Electronic devices of the future could be smaller, faster, more powerful and consume less energy because of a discovery by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The key to the finding, published in Science, involves a method to measure intrinsic conducting properties of ferroelectric materials, which for decades have held tremendous promise but have eluded experimental proof. Now, however, ORNL Wigner Fellow Peter Maksymovych and co-authors Stephen Jesse, Art Baddorf and Sergei Kalinin at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences believe they may be on a path that will see barriers tumble.

“For years, the challenge has been to develop a nanoscale material that can act as a switch to store binary information,” Maksymovych said. “We are excited by our discovery and the prospect of finally being able to exploit the long-conjectured bi-stable electrical conductivity of ferroelectric materials.

“Harnessing this functionality will ultimately enable smart and ultra-dense memory technology.”

In the paper, the authors have demonstrated for the first time a giant intrinsic electroresistance in conventional ferroelectric films, where flipping of the spontaneous polarization increased conductance by up to 50,000 percent. Ferroelectric materials can retain their electrostatic polarization and are used for piezoactuators, memory devices and RFID (radio-frequency identification) cards.

“It is as if we open a tiny door in the polar surface for electrons to enter,” Maksymovych said. “The size of this door is less than one-millionth of an inch, and it is very likely taking only one-billionth of a second to open.”

As the paper illustrates, the key distinction of ferroelectric memory switches is that they can be tuned through thermodynamic properties of ferroelectrics.

“Among other benefits, we can use the tunability to minimize the power needed for recording and reading information and read-write voltages, a key requirement for any viable memory technology,” Kalinin said.

Numerous previous works have demonstrated defect-mediated memory, but defects cannot easily be predicted, controlled, analyzed or reduced in size, Maksymovych said. Ferroelectric switching, however, surpasses all of these limitations and will offer unprecedented functionality. The authors believe that using phase transitions such as ferroelectric switching to implement memory and computing is the real fundamental distinction of future information technologies.

Making this research possible is a one-of-a-kind instrument that can simultaneously measure conducting and polar properties of oxide materials with nanometer-scale spatial resolution under a controlled vacuum environment. The instrument was developed and built by Baddorf and colleagues at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences. The materials used for this study were grown and provided by collaborators at the University of California at Berkeley.

What is FRAM

What is FRAM?
FRAM (Ferroelectric Random Access Memory) is a non-volatile memory combining both ROM and RAM advantages in addition to non-volatility features. Its higher speed in write mode, its lower power consumption as well as its higher endurance, make FRAM superior to any other memory type. As a high-speed non-volatile memory, FRAM can be used in the wide range of offerings.

FRAM Benefits

• High speed
• High security
• Low power consumption
• Minimum 10 year data retention
• High endurance of minimum 10E10
• Random access
• Byte access
• Low cell internal voltage of 5G for 0.5um and 3.3V for 0.35um
• No need for booster circuit for voltage matching with CMOS

FRAM™ Advantages over EEPROM

		1. Transaction Time: - 30,000 times faster than EEROM - 1kByte R/W as a general use in transportation (contact-less cards)
		2. Energy Consumption: - 100,000 times higher endurance over EEPROM - Energy Consumption @64Byte Write Cycle
		3. Endurance: - 200 times lower power consumption compare to EEPROM - 1 FRAM Cycle: Read - 1 E2PROM Cycle: Erase/Write/Read

FRAM Comparison with other memory products

	FRAM	EEPROM	Flash
Nonvaolatile Principle	Ferroelectricity	Charge Storage	Charge Storage
Cell Access Mode	Random	Random	Random & Serial
Read Cycle	85 -110nsec	200nsec	90nsec
Internal Program Voltage	5V/3.3V	18V	12V
Write Cycle	85-110nsec	5msec	1sec
Program Block	Byte	Sector	Sector
Endurance	1010	105	105
Data Retention	10 years	10 years	10 years
Scalability	Good	Restricted	Restricted
CMOS Compatibility	Good	Restricted	Restricted

Start uga_filter:

PhDs have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem, and this 16-year-old finds the answer.

It’s not your average science fair when the 16-year-old winner manages to solve a global waste crisis. But such was the case at last month’s May’s Canadian Science Fair in Waterloo, Ontario, where Daniel Burd, a high school student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, presented his research on microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic.

NOTE: a bit of confusion… there are TWO high school students who discovered plastic-consuming microorganisms. The first was Daniel Burd (last year). The second was Tseng I-Ching (last month), a high school student in Taiwan.

Daniel had a thought it seems even the most esteemed PhDs hadn’t considered. Plastic, one of the most indestructible of manufactured materials, does in fact eventually decompose. It takes 1,000 years but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there to do the decomposing.

Could those microorganisms be bred to do the job faster?

That was Daniel’s question which he put to the test by a very simple and clever process of immersing ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth, and then isolating the most productive organisms.

The preliminary results were encouraging, so he kept at it, selecting out the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures Burd was achieved a 43 % degradation of plastic in six weeks, an almost inconceivable accomplishment.

With 500 billion plastic bags manufactured each year and a Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch that grows more expansive by the day, a low cost and nontoxic method for degrading plastic is the stuff of environmentalists’ dreams and, I would hazard a guess, a pretty good start-up company as well.

NOTE: to the comment below. Yes there are certainly methods for decomposing plastic, but most are chemical in nature not organic, requiring high temperatures and chemical additives to cause the plasticizers to vaporize, for instance this patent on PVC extraction. There have been several successful bacteria based solutions developed at the Dept. of Biotechnology in Tottori, Japan as well as the Dept. of Microbiology at the National University of Ireland, but both apply only to styrene compounds.

It goes without saying that these discoveries need to be tested to ensure, for instance, that the bi-products of organic decomposition are not carcinogenic (as in the case with mammalian metabolism of styrene and benzene). The processing of plastics by these methods would also have to be contained in highly controlled environments. So, no, we’re not talking about a magic panacea or a plastic-free paradise, but the innovative application of microorganisms to break down our most troublesome waste products is nevertheless a major scientific breakthrough.

ANOTHER NOTE: one of our readers pointed out a very interesting study in 2004 at the University of Wisconsin that isolated a fungus capable of biodegrading phenol-formaldehyde polymers previously thought to be non-biodegradable. Phenol polymers are produced at an annual rate of 2.2 million metric tons per year in the United States for many industrial and commercial applications including durable plastics.

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/outgoing/news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/354044 Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/news.therecord.com/News/CanadaWorld/article/354044 Ending uga_preg_callback: Canadian Science Fair in Waterloo Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism Start uga_is_url_internal: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get tracker for external URL Start uga_track_external_url: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism Start uga_get_option: track_ext_links 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_ext_links (1) Tracking external links enabled Start uga_get_option: prefix_ext_links 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: prefix_ext_links (/outgoing/) Ending uga_track_external_url: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism Ending uga_track_full_url: /outgoing/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism Ending uga_preg_callback: microorganisms Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/high-school-girl-discovers-styrofoam-eating-bacterium Start uga_is_url_internal: www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/high-school-girl-discovers-styrofoam-eating-bacterium Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get tracker for external URL Start uga_track_external_url: www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/high-school-girl-discovers-styrofoam-eating-bacterium Start uga_get_option: track_ext_links 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_ext_links (1) Tracking external links enabled Start uga_get_option: prefix_ext_links 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: prefix_ext_links (/outgoing/) Ending uga_track_external_url: www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/high-school-girl-discovers-styrofoam-eating-bacterium Ending uga_track_full_url: /outgoing/www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/high-school-girl-discovers-styrofoam-eating-bacterium Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/www.mnn.com/technology/research-innovations/blogs/high-school-girl-discovers-styrofoam-eating-bacterium Ending uga_preg_callback: Tseng I-Ching Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch Start uga_is_url_internal: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get tracker for external URL Start uga_track_external_url: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch Start uga_get_option: track_ext_links 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_ext_links (1) Tracking external links enabled Start uga_get_option: prefix_ext_links 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: prefix_ext_links (/outgoing/) Ending uga_track_external_url: www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch Ending uga_track_full_url: /outgoing/www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch Ending uga_preg_callback: Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: www.patentstorm.us/patents/6172275.html Start uga_is_url_internal: www.patentstorm.us/patents/6172275.html Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get tracker for external URL Start uga_track_external_url: www.patentstorm.us/patents/6172275.html Start uga_get_option: track_ext_links 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_ext_links (1) Tracking external links enabled Start uga_get_option: prefix_ext_links 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: prefix_ext_links (/outgoing/) Ending uga_track_external_url: www.patentstorm.us/patents/6172275.html Ending uga_track_full_url: /outgoing/www.patentstorm.us/patents/6172275.html Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/www.patentstorm.us/patents/6172275.html Ending uga_preg_callback: this patent Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VSD-49GYVJV-J&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab5ed04f5a745111ec41101b43ddbf94 Start uga_is_url_internal: www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VSD-49GYVJV-J&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab5ed04f5a745111ec41101b43ddbf94 Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get tracker for external URL Start uga_track_external_url: www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VSD-49GYVJV-J&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab5ed04f5a745111ec41101b43ddbf94 Start uga_get_option: track_ext_links 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_ext_links (1) Tracking external links enabled Start uga_get_option: prefix_ext_links 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: prefix_ext_links (/outgoing/) Ending uga_track_external_url: www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VSD-49GYVJV-J&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab5ed04f5a745111ec41101b43ddbf94 Ending uga_track_full_url: /outgoing/www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VSD-49GYVJV-J&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab5ed04f5a745111ec41101b43ddbf94 Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VSD-49GYVJV-J&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab5ed04f5a745111ec41101b43ddbf94 Ending uga_preg_callback: Dept. of Biotechnology in Tottori Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/973 Start uga_is_url_internal: mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/973 Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get tracker for external URL Start uga_track_external_url: mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/973 Start uga_get_option: track_ext_links 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_ext_links (1) Tracking external links enabled Start uga_get_option: prefix_ext_links 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: prefix_ext_links (/outgoing/) Ending uga_track_external_url: mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/973 Ending uga_track_full_url: /outgoing/mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/973 Adding onclick attribute for /outgoing/mic.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/full/147/4/973 Ending uga_preg_callback: National University of Ireland Start uga_preg_callback: Array Get tracker for full url Start uga_track_full_url: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste Start uga_is_url_internal: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste Start uga_get_option: internal_domains 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: internal_domains (www.humacon.org,humacon.org) Checking hostname www.humacon.org Checking hostname humacon.org Ending uga_is_url_internal: Get 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PhDs have been searching for a solution to the plastic waste problem, and this 16-year-old finds the answer.

It’s not your average science fair when the 16-year-old winner manages to solve a global waste crisis. But such was the case at last month’s May’s Canadian Science Fair in Waterloo, Ontario, where Daniel Burd, a high school student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, presented his research on microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic.

NOTE: a bit of confusion… there are TWO high school students who discovered plastic-consuming microorganisms. The first was Daniel Burd (last year). The second was Tseng I-Ching (last month), a high school student in Taiwan.

Daniel had a thought it seems even the most esteemed PhDs hadn’t considered. Plastic, one of the most indestructible of manufactured materials, does in fact eventually decompose. It takes 1,000 years but decompose it does, which means there must be microorganisms out there to do the decomposing.

Could those microorganisms be bred to do the job faster?

That was Daniel’s question which he put to the test by a very simple and clever process of immersing ground plastic in a yeast solution that encourages microbial growth, and then isolating the most productive organisms.

The preliminary results were encouraging, so he kept at it, selecting out the most effective strains and interbreeding them. After several weeks of tweaking and optimizing temperatures Burd was achieved a 43 % degradation of plastic in six weeks, an almost inconceivable accomplishment.

With 500 billion plastic bags manufactured each year and a Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch that grows more expansive by the day, a low cost and nontoxic method for degrading plastic is the stuff of environmentalists’ dreams and, I would hazard a guess, a pretty good start-up company as well.

NOTE: to the comment below. Yes there are certainly methods for decomposing plastic, but most are chemical in nature not organic, requiring high temperatures and chemical additives to cause the plasticizers to vaporize, for instance this patent on PVC extraction. There have been several successful bacteria based solutions developed at the Dept. of Biotechnology in Tottori, Japan as well as the Dept. of Microbiology at the National University of Ireland, but both apply only to styrene compounds.

It goes without saying that these discoveries need to be tested to ensure, for instance, that the bi-products of organic decomposition are not carcinogenic (as in the case with mammalian metabolism of styrene and benzene). The processing of plastics by these methods would also have to be contained in highly controlled environments. So, no, we’re not talking about a magic panacea or a plastic-free paradise, but the innovative application of microorganisms to break down our most troublesome waste products is nevertheless a major scientific breakthrough.

ANOTHER NOTE: one of our readers pointed out a very interesting study in 2004 at the University of Wisconsin that isolated a fungus capable of biodegrading phenol-formaldehyde polymers previously thought to be non-biodegradable. Phenol polymers are produced at an annual rate of 2.2 million metric tons per year in the United States for many industrial and commercial applications including durable plastics.

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'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: ignore_users (1) Start uga_get_option: max_user_level 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: max_user_level (8) Tracking user with level 0 Ending uga_track_user: 1 Footer hook was executed Start uga_get_option: footer_hooked 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: footer_hooked (1) 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) -->